Archive for February, 2010
Liev Schreiber is ready to fight. He’s got his eye on a biopic of Chuck “The Bayonne Bleeder” Wepner, a heavyweight boxer from New Jersey who has been said to be the inspiration behind Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky. (Let’s not have any grumbling that a Philly icon like Rocky may be based on a guy from Jersey.) The actor calls Wepner’s story hilarious and remarkable, and would like to make it his next picture.
MTV spoke with Schreiber, who says he’s already got a director set up: Jeff Feuerzeig, who directed the doc The Devil and Daniel Johnston. (Much of Feuerzeig’s film work to date has been in music-based docs, with subjects that include Johnston, Jon Hendricks and the band Half Japanese.) Neat choice, that.
Wepner’s story is certainly notable thanks to a bout with Muhammad Ali. The champ wanted an easy fight, and Wepner signed on for the biggest payday of his career and a change to go toe to toe with one of the greats. Amazingly, he stayed on his feet through 15 rounds, only being taken down in a TKO seconds before the end of the fight. Ali said of Wepner, “There’s not another human being in the world that can go 15 rounds like that.” (Time has a great write-up on the fight, published in April of ‘75.)
That fight is reportedly what inspired Sylvester Stallone to write Rocky, and you can see why a direct cinematic version of the bout would make for great cinema. There’s already one notable boxing movie coming soon — The Fighter, directed by David O. Russell, based on the life of “Irish” Mickey Ward — but this sounds like it could be a completely different beast. But ‘hilarious’, as Schreiber said? Interesting. I wouldn’t want to see Wepner’s life parodied, so hopefully he’s got something else in mind.
Out and about to promote She’s Out of My League, Jay Baruchel has been commenting on the various other projects he has coming down the pike. Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse is still in the works, it sounds, though there’s no new news; the hockey drama Goon, which Baruchel has co-written with Evan Goldberg might just start shooting this August in Montreal.
An entirely new prospect though, at least to me, is a horror screenplay called Pig that Baruchel is writing, doesn’t want a lead role in but is keen to direct.
Coming Soon quote Baruchel as describing the film like this:
Without giving too much away, it’s a 21st century reimagining of the slasher film with a lot of socio-racial commentary, that’s all I’ll say.
And it’s called Pig? Bear with me while I stretch way, way over here to the very edge… could this be at all influenced or inspired by the misdemeanours of Charles Manson and his devotees? Okay, maybe not.
Baruchel is not the alum of Judd Apatow productions to be working on a slasher picture screenplay. We’ve previously reported on the prospective slasher picture that Bill Hader has been writing. Here’s a couple of quotes from Hader:
[It's] partially Straw Dogs meets Halloween meets Home Alone meets Monster Squad. It is definitely about guys nowadays, that idea that you watch fucked up shit on TV, how violence in our culture - this sounds really hoity toity - you watch fucked up reality shows, I love true crime shows. The idea of that thing coming to your house, and what do you do? I would shit my pants. That’s basically what the movie is about.
With Scream 4 shooting this spring and a new Leslie Vernon movie in the works, we seem set for a new wave of slasher subversions. I’ll be particularly curious to see what the comedy stalwarts bring to the genre.
First off, let me just say that Neil Simon is one of my comedy Gods. I’ve devoured all of his plays, used them as a study guide. There was a period in the 80s and 90s that his new plays and musicals would open first here in Los Angeles before going on to Broadway (we were New Haven with palm trees). I would see them three or four times, watching to see how he revised and polished them… and often times marveling at the craft and ingenuity of the fixes. (And amazingly, he did it without the invaluable help of network notes.)He has two autobiographies. I strongly recommend them both; especially the first one. The process of turning around THE ODD COUPLE is classic.
For awhile, several years ago, Neil used to workout at my gym. He was approachable and very gracious. Like I said, one of my comedy titans.
But I rewrote him.
Here’s the story. Probably close to ten years ago my daughter Annie was trying to get into the drama club at her high school. She was expected to deliver a comedy monologue. The one she chose was a long speech from a character in Neil Simon’s PLAZA SUITE. It might have been the mother trying to coax her daughter out of the bathroom on her wedding day; I don’t recall exactly.
The audition could be no longer than 3 minutes. Annie rehearsed it with me and I timed it. She was long by about 40 seconds. Speeding up the pace wouldn’t have helped. So I took a deep breath, said “give me the script”, and thinned out the monologue.
Even as I was doing it I was thinking, “Oh, I am surely going to hell for this!” You don’t take Moses’ tablets and say, “I think there’s a better way to phrase commandment six.” But I did. I found trims. I found some repetitions. I did not spontaneously combust.
Annie rehearsed the revised monologue and bingo! It was right on time. She used it for her audition, was accepted into the club, and no one knew the speech had been doctored with.
Why am I telling you this? Do I like looking over my shoulder for fear of being struck dead by lightening. No. I’m telling you this to make a point.
There are ALWAYS trims in big speeches. Whenever my partner and I finish a draft we always go back, re-examine any long speech and invariably find some cuts.
Long speeches are a bitch to write. You’re often including multiple thoughts. Usually the best way to attack them is let it flow. Just get it all on paper. Don’t go on to sentence two only after sentence one is absolutely perfect. Once you’ve said everything you want to say, even if you’ve said it five times, then go back and trim and eliminate and shape. At some point you will be satisfied that the speech is just where you want it and every word is absolutely necessary.
Then go back in a few days and take out another 10%.
I bet if he doesn’t sue me, Neil Simon would agree.
It’s a crazy, mixed up world and we are thankful for movies that offer proof. Slashfilm’s Weekend Weirdness examines such flicks, whether in the form of a new trailer for a provocative indie, a mini review or an interview.
Man, how about the Birdemic craze that rollicked across the internet last week and continues to tremor in comedy-nerd circles? If VICE magazine had not interviewed the film’s “auteur” at length recently—a mysterious Silicon Valley grunt named James Nguyen—I would have called bullshit on the movie as a viral attempt to recreate the organic magic of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. If any of our readers in L.A. attended the Cinefamily showing last night that was hosted by hardcore Wiseau converts, Tim and Eric, let us know how it went in the comments.
A lot of sites have been hell-bent on spinning the film as a best-worst classic on par with Troll 2 only on the basis of the above trailer and a riotous press release. Having actually seen the film—recently picked up by Severin Films and being marketed by the youth-culture-centric Cornerstone—I still can’t shake a calculated feeling about the badness of the acting, the Room-like music and romantic subplot, the consistently choppy editing, and especially the [adult swim]-like aesthetic of the film’s computer-rendered explosions and murderous eagles. Either way, once the film’s birds invade in the second half and are fended off one-by-one with a machine gun in live-action scenes that evoke a VHS game made for the long-dead Action Max console, skepticism may be beside the point. Tonight is coincidentally the Season Cinco premiere of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and Birdemic goes a long way to support the show’s current influence in pop culture. It’s increasingly difficult to tell what is faux-bad, what is ironically bad, and what is genuinely brain dead.
Links: Official Website / VICE interview / Birdemic/Nguyen’s Twitter / Cinefamily Showing / Action Max
After interviewing him in Ireland last year, I wasn’t sure what to think of actor James Franco. He likes to let everyone know he’s a voracious, beanied reader of philosophy tomes. He seems interested in continuing to blend his Pineapple Express stoner into his media persona. His sexuality is prone to much drunken speculation by movie-watching city dwellers—roles in Milk and the upcoming Howl keep ‘em guessing. And if thousands of bloggers failed to tattoo the FYI: on your skull, Franco previously joined the cast of a soap opera to complete a college project, which some critics felt “blurred the lines between vacant modern celeb and subversive artist.” If you say so. But today, NYC-based writer Drew Grant shared a kinda fucked, kinda hilarious rumor about the actor’s life-as-”performance” art that’s circulating at NYU and takes it up a notch.
Link: Dogs Are Adorable Tumblr
If you like cereal milk, Irish whiskey, girls over 99 pounds, and L.A. cracker-rap that’s fond of references to Paulie Shore’s filmography and Pulp Fiction samples—hello again, 1998!—I recommend you pay attention to the Burger Boyz. Their first concept album about fast food-as-sexual innuendo, Where’s the Beef?, is now available for streaming online.
Links: Where’s the Beef? Album / Burger Boyz on Twitter
The number of VHS appreciators amongst cool kids and cooler dorks is growing by the day. I’m sure a writer from the New York Times or Youth Intelligence will eventually compare the trend to the rise of vinyl enthusiasts, leaving Blu-ray-philes and Jeff Katzenberg to argue VHS is for dying luddites and aging hipsters. But there’s a real case for the format when it comes to preserving a shit-ton of weirdness that didn’t cross over to DVD, or to cult torrent hang-outs like Cinemageddon.
I’m a supporter of the notion that the horror genre is generally better suited to VCR consumption. Nine out of ten things that go bump in the night prefer their acne and bodily fluids not be so goddamn crystal clear. One of the more visible and agreeable VHS-head pundits of late is Tommy Swenson (no, not the bassist from The Replacements), who belongs to the Scarecrow Video posse in Seattle, Washington and has a clip project called Viva VHS that might be inspired by TV Carnage. I pretty much agree with all of his contrarian gospel in this article called “Why DVDs Can Suck It” at AV Club.
Links: AV Club Article / Scarecrow Video / Viva VHS on YouTube
With so much snow in New York of late, I’ve managed to binge on box sets and finally reach the current season of Big Love. The last episode really illustrates how much plot the show’s writers are stuffing into each of the nine eps this year compared to those from previous, longer seasons; the Mexico subplot and its goofy tone reminded me of recent, iffy detours taken by Weeds. On the bright side, Lois avoided a T.J. dirtnap and made like Voorhees.
Link: Is Lois a style icon?
In the first installment of Weekend Weirdness, we drooled over the trailer for an upcoming release from Sage Stallone’s Grindhouse Releasing entitled Gone With the Pope. Made in 1975 but left unfinished after the death of its well-quaffed director/star Duke Mitchell in ‘81, Pope was miraculously completed by GHR’s Bob Murawski, a film editor whose credits include The Hurt Locker and Drag Me to Hell.
We recently received an email from these dudes and a new press release promoting the film’s world premiere on March 12 at Hollywood’s Egyptian Theatre. The poster above was included and so was this quote from Murawski…
Of all the films I have been involved with, the one that I am most proud of is GONE WITH THE POPE,” Murawski said. “Duke Mitchell didn’t live to see this masterpiece finished. I am honored to be the person to finish it for him. Completing this movie was a 15-year labor of love. No expense or effort was spared in rescuing this classic from cinematic oblivion and finishing it with the utmost quality. Our beautiful new 35mm print stands as a testament to Duke Mitchell’s unique and explosively entertaining vision.
Links: Grindhouse Releasing / Gone With the Pope Trailer / Egyptian Theatre
For previous installments of Weekend Weirdness, here.
Briefly: Actress Milla Jovovich revealed on Twitter that the teaser trailer for Resident Evil 4 will be attached to A Nightmare on Elm Street, which hits theaters on April 30th.
In devising the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Edgar Wright has chosen specific bands and artists to sub for the fictional musicians of the comic strip. Pilgrim’s band Sex Bob-omb have had their tunes supplied by Beck, Broken Social Scene will be providing the noise of Crash and the Boys and Metric were tapped to bring The Clash at Demonhead to life, at least in terms of the music they make.
Today, Metric have made their first Scott Pilgrim track available via their Facebook Fan Page. It’s simple enough - you become a fan and the streaming player is activated. The song is called Black Sheep and while it was not written specifically for the film, it seems that this recording was done specifically for the soundtrack.
One such fan has already commented on the song featuring guitar whereas the band in the strip don’t have the instrument in their live line-up. Hardly a deal-breaker is it? Indeed, I’m relieved that Wright is fiddling with the fine details and hope he’s not held back at all in his adaptation. There’s not much I find more disappointing than a slavish big screen translation of a comic or novel that just wasn’t going to work unaltered in cinema.
Via Edgar Wright
