Posted Nov 26th 2009 10:32AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Warner Brothers, Fandom, Newsstand, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Images, Western
At last, some comic book news that isn't centered around Batman or Spider-Man!
Omelete got their hands on some official images from two of Warner Bros' upcoming comic flicks,
Jonah Hex and
The Losers.
We've seen paparazzi glimpses from the
Hex set of Megan Fox and Josh Brolin, but there's nothing like a well-lit and spooky shot, especially when your actor looks good enough to have walked off the page. If you're a fan of the haunted gunslinger and are unconvinced, you might be comforted by the sight of his Confederate gray and mangled lip. I can't say how excited I am for this film. Jonah Hex is a character who has more in common with
High Plains Drifter than the capes and superpower crowd, and I think that will surprise and delight a lot of "newbies" who still equate DC Comics with Batman.
Next up, we have our first official look at
The Losers! Aren't they a handsome bunch? This is based not on the DC war squad from the 1970s, but on the Vertigo spinoff by Andy Diggle. The Losers are a Special Forces team abandoned and left to die by their mysterious commander, Max. They regroup, vow revenge, and let the bullets fly. I have hopes that this one will be a solid action flick, the kind we all long for from the 1980s. The cast is certainly a lovely one: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Columbus Short, Idris Elba, and Oscar Jaenada are our fine Losers, and Jason Patric will be the villainous Max. You can see the whole line-up of them here, along a very sexy shot of Saldana. Even I can appreciate a lovely lady when she's packing guns. Now, if they'll just release a photo of Morgan to match ...
The photos are below in our gallery. Spend your Turkey Day geeking out.
Posted Nov 24th 2009 8:02PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Western
After nominating
For a Few Dollars More and
The Good the Bad and the Ugly for Free Flick of the Day, I'm going to sound like a very old and tired drum by nominating
Hang 'Em High. But hey, you need something to watch today and it's just
sitting there, waiting for someone to notice it.
Hang 'Em High isn't a great film by any means, and it's not a very remarkable Western. It's full of missed opportunities, and the end hints that there may have been plans for a franchise centered around Marshall Jed Cooper. It's notable because it was the first film Clint Eastwood produced with his Malpaso shingle, which he would obviously go onto do great things with. (Would there be an
Unforgiven without
Hang 'Em High? Probably, but who knows!) It's also his first post-Sergio Leone Western, and one of the first attempts to bring Leone's style to America. It doesn't succeed in doing that very well, though a lot of the Man with No Name's trademarks remained. I think Eastwood sold himself a bit short by relying on that cigar so much, particularly since this is a character who is miles away from the cold bounty hunter of the Leone flicks. Jed Cooper is a man who is genuinely trying to do the right thing in life, and gets screwed over again and again.
However, this film entertaining enough, and is worth watching just for the whole hanging sequence. I've already mentioned this film as
the probable inspiration for Lt. Aldo Raine's hanging scar and while I'm still not sure if that's true or not, you can watch it and pretend Cooper is Raine's grandfather.
Watch Hang 'Em High for free on SlashControl
Posted Nov 7th 2009 12:50AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Drama, Independent, Romance, New Releases, RumorMonger, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels, Western
Good news,
Twilight fans. You have the first official news for the fourth
Twilight installment, courtesy of our own Jen Yamato,
FearNet and the
New Moon junket.* The magically-coiffed
Robert Pattinson has confirmed that
Breaking Dawn will begin filming in Fall 2010, and that it's penciled into his schedule for next year.
Of course,
Dawn remains unconfirmed by Summit. The most controversial installment of the
Twilight series, rumors swirl that the studio is hesitant to take it to the big screen. If it is made, it seems likely that it could be split into two films a'la
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Personally, I don't see Summit risking the money they'd make on #4, and they'll find a way to steer around the gorier aspects of the book. But now you know when to look for it, though you still have the madness of
Eclipse pre-production to get through.
Pattinson also dished on the movie I want to mark on
my calender (Sorry, I dig boots and spurs more than vampires), a Western called
Unbound Captives. The directorial debut of
Madeleine Stowe, it stars
Hugh Jackman,
Rachel Weisz, and Pattinson. The young heartthrob revealed that it's tenatively scheduled to begin shooting in early 2010, and he sounds enthusiastic for a role that'll be miles away from Edward Cullen. "I'm playing a kid who is kidnapped by Comanches when he was four years old, and he is brought up by them. His mother spends her entire life trying to find me and my sister. When she finds us, we can't remember who she is and can't remember anything about the Western culture she grew up in. I speak Comanche the whole movie. You can't really speak more differently from Edward."
[Special thanks also goes to
Collider who apparently pried the
Breaking Dawn date out of Mr. Pattinson]
Posted Nov 2nd 2009 2:18PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Classics, Quentin Tarantino, Home Entertainment, Western
I think the mania for
Sergio Leone is stronger than it's ever been. It's undoubtedly due to the championing of Quentin Tarantino, and films like
Sukiyaki Western Django and
The Good, the Bad and the Weird, which are driving fans to seek out where they borrowed their serapes and squints from. There also seems to simply be a hunger for good adventure stories and rugged antiheroes, and there's no better place to get sated than Leone's films. If you feel like spending two hours in the broiling sun with a man who'll shoot you as soon as look at you, then you'll love today's free flick:
For A Few Dollars More.
For A Few Dollars More might be my favorite of the
Dollars Trilogy. I love them all on their own merits, but this installment stands on its own (I hate saying it, but
Fistful is decidedly less cool after multiple viewings of
Yojimbo), and is less operatic than
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
More also tips the balance thanks to the way it adds a little to the Man with No Name. Here, he's dubbed Monco (Spanish / Italian for maimed) due to the way he keeps his right hand hidden, and he doesn't just ride quietly out of the dust. Now he has a trail in a score of bloody newspaper clippings which suggests he could afford more than one serape. Ennio Morricone fans will also appreciate the little flourish he gave to Monco's gun hand
Even if you hate Westerns, you should watch it. Leone called his films "fairy tales for adults," and that's really what they are. They feel like every genre rolled in one, and have been borrowed from 1965 onward. Fans of everything from Tarantino to
Pirates of the Caribbean will see
something they recognize here.
Watch For A Few Dollars More on SlashControl!
Posted Oct 26th 2009 6:40PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Classics, Drama, Casting, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels, Western
It's impossible to top an icon like John Wayne, but the Coen Bros'
True Grit is shaping up to have a better supporting cast than the original did. (Hey, Wayne supposedly didn't like Kim Darby either.)
Variety has just announced that
Matt Damon and
Josh Brolin are in talks to join
Jeff Bridges in
the Coens' remake.
Bridges will play Rooster Cogburn, while Damon is in talks to play La Boeuf, the Texas Ranger who pairs up with Cogburn and Mattie. I'll probably anger the Glen Campbell fans out there, but I think this is a vast improvement over the original casting. I can actually buy Damon as a Texas Ranger.
Brolin will be taking a walk on the nasty side, as he'll be playing Tom Chaney, the man who gunned Mattie's father down for the gold he had in his saddlebag. While Chaney wasn't the most pleasant fellow in the original, there's no doubt that Brolin will increase the menace and nastiness. I think we can all agree Brolin has done no wrong since his
No Country For Old Men comeback, and this is the kind of role that'll be delicious to watch him tear into. The film is set to go into production in March 2010, and the Coens won't waste any time in the editing room as it's slated to be released in late 2010.
Posted Oct 22nd 2009 11:18AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Foreign Language, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Western, Trailers and Clips
As you've probably noticed by now, I'm a sucker for Westerns. It took me awhile to warm up to the genre. I live on the high plains and have one gig giving Old West tours in petticoats to my credit, so they were hardly escapism. Of course, now that I finally like them, there's just not that many being made. Lately, there's stirs of a re-imagining going on. Filmmakers and audiences are realizing Westerns can be fun again and in a repeat of the 1960s, the charge is coming from overseas. Film fans already know about Asia's madcap forays into the genre with
The Good, the Bad, and the Weird,
Sukiyaki Western Django, and the upcoming
The Warrior's Way. But now France is getting in on the draw with
Lucky Luke, and
TwitchFilm has nabbed a trailer for it.
Lucky Luke is based on a French comic series, which (as per
Wikipedia) was equal parts satire and good old fashioned Western. He's your typical lone gunslinger, wandering the borders in search of injustice, a heavy burden weighing on his shoulders, a deep characterization that's a bit at odds with its simplistic art. (He looks a bit like Woody from
Toy Story.) How it spawned this crazy, stylish, bullet-ridden feature is a mystery, but it did, and I'm thankful. I'm desperate to see this,
and to be better acquainted with
Jean Dujardin. Ooh la la.
The trailer is embedded below the jump. Watch it, and join
Twitchfilm,
CHUD, and
Cinematical in demanding a stateside release. You know you want to spend more time in this vision of the Old West.
[via CHUD]
Continue reading Bring 'Lucky Luke' Stateside!
Posted Oct 19th 2009 4:45PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Quentin Tarantino, Western, Scenes We Love
Great villains are scattered throughout the Westerns, but some of the most memorably savage come from the films of Sergio Leone. While Henry Fonda in
Once Upon a Time in the West gets a lot of props for the way he mows down the McBain family (including its youngest and most adorable moppet), it was nothing that
Lee Van Cleef hadn't already done in
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Angel Eyes seems to be dismissed as something akin to Leone fan fiction, and it's his relation (or lack of) to Van Cleef's Col. Mortimer in
A Few Dollars More that people find to be more interesting than his villainy.
But he's a great villain, mostly because he's absent for much for so much of the film. Leone gives him a ruthless introduction (a scene Quentin Tarantino mirrored perfectly with Hans Landa in
Inglourious Basterds) and promptly yanks him out of the narrative. As Tuco and Blondie torture each other for an hour, Angel Eyes is doing his own thing and it's a wonderful shock when he shows up running a Civil War prison camp. In today's cinema, no one could resist giving Angel Eyes a prequel and a spin-off relating the trail of bodies that led to that alias and that prison camp. But Leone allowed a squint to speak for itself, and told you everything you needed to know by the way men like Blondie and Tuco squirm around him. Considering that no one in this film is exactly good, and they're all a little bit ugly, it takes a lot to convince us that a man is worse than all the others. Van Cleef and Leone did that, and few villains can match his nastiness even when they've got double the screen time.
Go below the jump -- they don't call him Angel Eyes in here!
Continue reading Villains We Love: Angel Eyes
Posted Sep 28th 2009 7:15PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Classics, Comedy, 20th Century Fox, Western, Trailers and Clips
You learn something new about your movie tastes when you're writing about them every single day. I'm realizing that most of my favorite montages don't come from the 1980s, but are historical recreations of one kind or another. (Even now, there's one hovering in my bookmarks because I can't decide whether it's a montage or a credits report. You'll see it eventually, I'm sure.) Today's montage is from
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and has to be one of the most unusual because it's done entirely through still sepia photographs. It's a wonderful sequence, and the photos of
Paul Newman,
Robert Redford, and
Katharine Ross would look at home in your western history museum. For a bunch of photos, it feels incredibly animated by the endless fun Butch and Sundance are having, clearly enjoying the fact that they're wanted men who can go unnoticed in a crowd as they party their way to Bolivia. Try looking at it through the lens of our celebrity drenched culture, because it really seems to hint at a future when Butch and Sundance would have been as obsessively photographed as Brangelina. The clothes might be outdated and the color might be sepia, but any one of these shots would look at home on Just Jared or Perez Hilton.
The best thing about this sequence is that it was created out of accident and necessity. Director
George Roy Hill assumed that when it came time to film the New York sequences, he'd be able to use the sets from
Hello, Dolly! as it was filming right next door. But 20th Century Fox denied them permission as they wanted to keep the sets a secret. So Hill just photographed the actors posing on set, and spliced them together with hundreds of historical photos. The result was much more interesting than just having them wander around a sound stage, don't you think?
Continue reading Our Favorite Montages: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Posted Sep 24th 2009 2:32PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Deals, Sony, RumorMonger, Scripts, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Western
Most of us didn't ask the Studio Powers That Be for a
Ghost Rider 2, but it doesn't matter, because we'll be getting one. Back in January, the whispers began at
Bloody-Disgusting that Columbia was gearing up another
Ghost Rider run, and today it has come true.
Variety reports that the studio is talking to none other than
David S. Goyer to pen a new installment.
Nicolas Cage is expected to return as Johnny Blaze, and former Marvel Studios' head Avi Arad will be producing.
Goyer was quick to say (via a spokesperson) that he wasn't officially signed, but that talks were underway to base
Ghost Rider 2 on a script he did many years ago. If you'd like to know a little something about that script, you can
read a review IGN did of it in 2000. Nothing ever dies thanks to the Internet and if nothing else, you can laugh at the rumors we once believed a decade ago. (Johnny Depp as Ghost Rider!)
At such early stages of fiery fuel injection, there's not much else to say. Since
Mark Steven Johnson penned and directed the last one, it's probably safe to assume that if they want new writers, they'll probably want a new director.
Variety hints that Columbia is keeping the property alive in order to retain its rights from Marvel, but it doesn't say whether or not they were up against a deadline. So, I'll quit talking and hand it over to the true Ghost Rider fans. Is there any hope for this one if Goyer gets involved? Anything you want to see from a particular Ghost Rider run? Speak up now, and maybe you can influence its pre-production.
Posted Sep 16th 2009 10:15PM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: New on DVD, Home Entertainment, Western
On the comprehensive movie list site,
They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?,
John Ford currently ranks #4 on the list of the all-time 100 greatest film directors (with Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and Federico Fellini ahead of him), though he has placed more films than anyone else, 18, on the list of the all-time top 1000. I think the reason he doesn't rank higher is that he was one of the few great film directors to be fully appreciated in his own time. He won the Best Director Oscar four times -- still a record -- and took home an additional two Oscars for his wartime documentaries.
Welles was once asked whose films he studied when he made
Citizen Kane in 1941, and he replied: "the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford and John Ford." Of course, even by the time he was an "old master," Ford would continue to make films like
They Were Expendable,
My Darling Clementine,
The Quiet Man,
The Searchers and
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. It's no fun, when making lists, to mention people who are already so well covered.
Continue reading Directors We Love: John Ford
Posted Sep 11th 2009 11:03AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Classics, Drama, Casting, Paramount, RumorMonger, Scripts, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels, Western
Rooster Cogburn will abide, if the
Coen Bros,
Jeff Bridges, and Paramount come to terms.
Variety reports that Bridges and the Coens are in talks for Bridges to play the iconic Rooster Cogburn in the Coen Bros'
remake of True Grit. It would be their first collaboration since
The Big Lebowski.
When the
True Grit remake was first announced,
the Coens were said to be making a more faithful adaptation of Charles Portis' novel, and it seemed like it might head into darker
No Country for Old Men territory. But the book features a lot of deadpan humor mixed with Old Testament lessons, and if they stick to it for the script, it'll play to their talents extremely well.
At first glance, Bridges seems a pretty offbeat choice for Rooster Cogburn. But having just rewatched the John Wayne original last week, I think it might just be casting heaven. Rooster is a killer, but he's also a fall down drunk, full of sarcastic quips, and surprisingly tender-hearted. He's far from the typical stoic John Wayne character, and it was a bigger departure for Wayne than I had remembered. Bridges would be a perfect choice for blending the rugged charm, the humor, and the "true grit" of Rooster, and he's talented enough to not just play it as an imitation, but make it iconic on its own. If this comes together, it's one remake that could actually equal or outdo the original.
Posted Sep 10th 2009 7:03PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, Fandom, Western, Trailers and Clips, Scenes We Love
There are many reasons to love
The Proposition. It's written and scored by the irreplaceable Nick Cave. It's perfectly directed by John Hillcoat. It's both thrilling and strenuous on the heart. And above all else -- it's wonderfully cast, from the monologue-delivering John Hurt to the sadistic charm of
Danny Huston's Arthur Burns.
While I appreciated Huston's work well before he headed for the dry grime of the Outback in the 1880s, his stint as the violent sociopath jettisoned him to a whole new level. What was so great about his performance is that while he maintained some of the exuberant charm he's known for, Huston used it as a way to balance the truly sadistic aspects of his character. Without a doubt, Arthur Burns is a dangerous man who does terrible things -- and Huston plays it perfectly -- but that little edge of charm gives the character more depth than is usually awarded to the character we're set up to hate.
Continue reading Scenes We Love: The Proposition
Posted Sep 1st 2009 10:02PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Deals, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Dreamworks, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Western
I really believe this is the best geek news we'll have all month. Not only is
Robert Downey Jr. officially on board
Cowboys & Aliens,
The Hollywood Reporter announced that he's bringing
Jon Favreau along for the ride. Considering the original screenplay was penned by
Iron Man screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, it's literally a dream team come true.
As if it wasn't touched by the movie gods enough,
Alex Kurtzman and
Roberto Orci, they-who-can-write-no-failures, are penning the script, and producer Damon Lindelof came aboard last fall. There's no way this can fail. Even if the movie was one big trick, and simply 2 hours of Robert Downey Jr. in a cowboy hat reading a phone book, it would succeed. We would just call it arthouse, and praise them all for subverting our expectations!
But there's no danger of arthouse here,
Cowboys & Aliens really does promise to be pure fun with this team. The story takes place in 1880s Arizona, where a war is raging between settlers and Native Americans. Their war is interrupted by the arrival of a UFO, which promptly unleashes hell onto the plains of Silver City. The Native Americans and settlers must unite to fight a larger threat, and are led to battle by Zeke Jackson (Downey), a gunslinger and former member of the Union Army. You can read the
entire graphic novel online, which should keep you satisfied until
Cowboys & Aliens hits theaters in the summer of 2011.
Posted Aug 27th 2009 7:02PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Horror, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Sony, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Images, Western
Scott Stewart's horror-western
Priest started shooting in Los Angeles this week (Stewart's
Twitter account promises it already earned its R rating), and given the excess of cameras in that city, it's really not surprising that the first photos of
Paul Bettany,
Cam Gigandet, and vampire henchmen have already cropped up on
JFX Online and
IESB.net. Normally, first photos are kind of boring
unless they give glimpses into awesome costumes and make-up, and the
Priest ones offer that in spades. Check out the cross on Bettany's forehead! Straight off the manga cover it is.
I really suspected they'd abandon the western part of the horror-western storyline, but these photos reassure me that Stewart really is going to the Wild West with it. The costume of Sheriff Cam Gigandet looks exactly as I hoped it would! How often does
that happen? (Isn't he more interesting in cowboy boots than as a sparkly vampire? I think so, but the opinion of Twilighters may differ.)
Unfortunately, the first days of shooting seem to lack the presence of Maggie Q and Karl Urban, who I am dying to see primarily becauseany character named Black Hat has to have an outfit worth seeing. But even more disappointing is the lack of one Stephen Moyer. But with paparazzi following his and Anna Paquin's every move, I'm sure we'll be seeing him in his gunbelt, boots, and spurs by next week.
Posted Aug 24th 2009 4:03PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Sony, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Western
I have been dutifully keeping track of the
Priest roster for a lot of reasons that range from
who was once attached to the project, to a weird fascination with
Paul Bettany's religious roles, and a longing for a horror western. But now the project has jumped from "I'm curious to see how it'll turn out" to "Ok, it can be horrible and I'll still see it!" thanks to the addition of one
Stephen Moyer.
According to
Variety, Moyer and
Lily Collins are the latest to make their
Priest vows. I know what you're thinking, because I thought it too: "Oh, Moyer playing another vampire. That's a bad move." (We all thought it when
Cam Gigandet climbed aboard.) But Moyer is playing a mortal this time around, and has been cast as Isaacs' brother, and the father to the kidnapped niece. (I'm guessing. Unless there's another Isaacs sibling with offspring?) I wonder if brotherly British actors will be able to keep their native accents, or if they'll be putting on Western drawls?
As
Priest starts shooting today in Los Angeles, you can probably guess that Lily Collins isn't playing a vampire or avenging huntress like Maggie Q, but has been cast in the very crucial role of Isaacs' niece, who he is out to rescue come hell and high water. (Probably literally!) But most importantly, she'll be playing Moyer's daughter which means our favorite Southern vampire should get lots of big screen time.
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