News from Get The Big Picture

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29 August 2008 5:11 PM, PDT

Brett Ratner gets a lot of grief and he deserves a lot. It's really not even because of his movies; his personality is the biggest problem I have with him. Anyway, in the perfect situation, I think he could be a perfectly serviceable director. I don't want him taking over a Terry Gilliam film or remaking Kurosawa, say, but you can find a good project for a guy with well-honed hack skills.

Case in point, The Rat would hypothetically love to direct a Guitar Hero movie.

Sitting down with MTV, Ratner drooled over the prospect of another video game adaptation (he's linked to God of War, which is not an ideal pairing). "I would love to do a Guitar Hero movie, if Activision would ever let me," he said. "I’m trying to convince them, but why would you have a movie screw up such a huge franchise? Not that

Colin Boyd

29 August 2008 12:25 PM, PDT

There's more news out of Camp Voltron. You remember Voltron, right? Kind of lumped in there with Transformers in the 1980s, and for the sake of convenience, let's just say they're pretty much the same thing, as far as someone unfamiliar with it is concerned. (After all, Transformers did eventually absorb the Voltron brand...)

The movie, unfortunately, was being conceived years before Transformers, so it's going to take a back seat again since the Michael Bay movie franchise is going to get even bigger next summer. But Latino Review reports that we now have a director for Voltron, and at least on paper, it's an unexpected choice that could pan out.

The new guy's name is Max Makowski, and while you may have seen the episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy that he directed, chances are you have no idea who he is. But look at the stuff

Colin Boyd

29 August 2008 11:00 AM, PDT

Disaster Movie

Starring Matt Lanter, Vanessa Minnillo, and Crista Flanagan

Directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer

Rated PG-13

As a critic, sometimes you can treat a movie more harshly than it probably deserves. That's not possible with Disaster Movie. I may have a hard time describing how unmistakably and unrelentingly bad this motion picture is.

In a weird way, I've been waiting for Disaster Movie for years. I can say without hesitation that it is one of the very worst movies I've ever seen, and the worst example of the medium I've reviewed since Swept Away back in 2002. It's probably worse than that film, in fact, because while Swept Away had terrible acting, a script that went nowhere, and a very questionable morality, at least it seems to be unaware of how bad it really is.

Disaster Movie, on the other hand, comes across as almost proud of its

Colin Boyd

29 August 2008 10:42 AM, PDT

It's odd how you can say something one day and then a couple days later you see something online or in the newspaper (remember newspapers?) and think to yourself, "I was just talking about that..." It happens to me a lot. This week, it's happened twice. We discussed how the Mathieu Kassovitz/Babylon A.D. dust-up was rare because usually people in the industry wait a couple of years before trashing their movies. The next day, somebody came out and trashed Basic Instinct 2 and Sharon Stone.

And earlier this week, I compared the upcoming Che Guevara bio-pics to making a film about John Lennon. Steven Soderbergh (for the time being) has split his Guevara movie into two distinct chapters. I said, "It's like making a John Lennon movie and putting all the Beatles stuff and the New York City stuff together. You'd be better off with two distinct movies."

Hey, guess

Colin Boyd

29 August 2008 7:29 AM, PDT

What's gotten into Mark Wahlberg? The star of the upcoming Max Payne is calling out The Caped Crusader. In a recent chat with MTV, Wahlberg went all roid rage, claiming his character could so kick Batman's ass. "I’m not talking about financial box office," explains Wahlberg. "I’m talking about one-on-one with these (puts up fists).”

So in one corner we have the exquisitely trained Bruce Wayne and in the other corner the more barroom brawl tactics of the defiant cop, Max Payne. My money would be on Wayne, but Wahlberg is adamant.

"Take off the suit and if you want to go one-on-one, two-on-one, and put a couple of you guys together - they all like to put the comic book characters together - come at me," Wahlberg confidently swaggers. “I guarantee you there’s not a badder dude in a movie this year than Max Payne."

Calling

Colin Boyd

29 August 2008 2:44 AM, PDT

Hmm...I'm not falling in love with Body of Lies. Let's begin at the beginning: The first trailer for the Ridley Scott spy movie was as exciting as week old melba toast. Remember? It was one of the three trailers released with The Dark Knight, and of the three - Terminator and Watchmen being the others - it was the one you would've been perfectly Ok without?

The second trailer was a little better. I'm convinced that the re-recorded Russell Crowe's voice because something about his accent became much more believable in round two. It still wasn't great, and I didn't have the sort of reaction you'd expect when you see Crowe and Leo DiCaprio on screen together.

And now, thanks to Cinematical, there's a poster for Body of Lies and it's terribly perfunctory, just like everything else I've seen. The color scheme is something out of 1992 and the

Colin Boyd

29 August 2008 1:15 AM, PDT

College

Starring Drake Bell, Andrew Caldwell, and Kevin Covais

Directed by Deb Hagan

Rated R

There are two things that stand out about the new comedy College:

1) Most movies about the college experience have roughly the same sense of humor, although their execution varies wildly.

2) There are a lot more breasts than I expected.

Since the days of Animal House, the rules of college flicks really haven't changed all that much. There's debauchery, pranks, drunkenness (separate from the debauchery), skewered authority figures, arrogant frat boys who can neither spell nor adequately prepare for comeuppance, heroic geeky figures, and women.

There's never been a college comedy since Animal House to do it as well, but they still try. College's attempt is slightly different, but only in the smallest detail. You see, instead of college students experiencing the endless kegger, we have high school students on a college campus. It's

Colin Boyd

29 August 2008 12:47 AM, PDT

It's a big ol' round of musical chairs this fall movie season. It began, technically, months ago, when J.J. Abrams decided to move Star Trek out of the Christmas slot to May 2009. That was followed a couple of weeks ago by the biggest news: Harry Potter vacating the week before Thanksgiving and moving to the middle of July.

That move left an opening for an opportunistic Twilight on November 21st, and 007 took advantage of Potter's absence as well, moving from November 7th to November 14th, which was the same weekend Baz Luhrmann's ambitious Australia was hitting theaters. Until now.

Fox has announced it will move Australia back 12 days, pushing the epic to the day before Thanksgiving (November 26th). Fox domestic distribution president Bruce Snyder said that "recent shifts in the release dates of other pictures created an opportunity for us." More to the point, it created an opportunity away from Quantum of Solace.

Colin Boyd

29 August 2008 12:19 AM, PDT

Chris & Don: A Love Story

Featuring Christopher Isherwood, Don Bachardy, and Michael York

Directed by Guido Santi and Tina Mascara

Not Rated

Love comes in many forms, but a lifelong love like this is rare for a number of reasons. It does no good to talk about Chris & Don: A Love Story without acknowledging that when their relationship began, English writer Christopher Isherwood was in his late forties and Don Bachardy was 18. Or so.

Once you get over whatever feelings that causes, this new documentary unfolds fairly amiably. Isherwood’s writing made him a sort of celebrity in the Golden Age of Hollywood, which was also the Dark Ages of Hollywood Homosexuality. Very few important members of the entertainment industry were out of the closet then, and to prove he was, Isherwood would spend the next 40 years or so with a lover more than young enough to be his son.

Colin Boyd

29 August 2008 12:14 AM, PDT

Tell No One

Starring François Cluzet, Marie-Josée Croze, and Kristin Scott Thomas

Directed by Guillaume Canet

Rated R

Eight years earlier, Dr. Alexandre Beck (François Cluzet) was a suspect in the murder of his wife (Marie-Josée Croze from Munich and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). Her death was gruesome, though the doctor was eventually cleared when a serial killer whose modus operandi closely resembled that in the Beck case was arrested on other charges.

In the eight years since her death, Alex has not put the past behind him, which would be impossible for anyone to ask of him. He has found stability in his work and seems to be adjusting better everyday. But then he gets a strange e-mail that appears to be recent security camera footage of his late wife at a train station and his mind, understandably, goes to a different place.

Is his wife alive?

Colin Boyd

28 August 2008 6:21 PM, PDT

With $500 million and counting and Heath Ledger's revved up reconfiguring of the top villain in comic book history, I knew The Joker was going to be the number one Halloween costume of the year, and as the aptly but not-so-cleverly named Halloween Costumes 4 U proves, demand to live in The Joker's skin even for one night is a big draw for adults, plus-sized guys, and even kids.

Seriously, if you're a parent and you let your son go out dressed as the freaky, slash-faced master of chaos and bedlam, I don't want to live in your neighborhood. That Joker get-up is a gateway costume. By the time he's 12, your kid will be dressing up as Bob Guccione's Caligula for Halloween. Or worse, Nicolas Cage.

But there's one kid already dressing up as The Joker, and his name is Jack Kropinak. Little Jack is the star of a sweded

Colin Boyd

28 August 2008 3:33 PM, PDT

The new Don Cheadle movie Traitor officially opened yesterday. You can check out our review here. It was almost ten years ago that I watched the special features on the Out of Sight DVD and a quote has stuck with me ever since. George Clooney, who for the first time was really playing the role of a Hollywood ringleader, said in a making-of featurette, "If you can get Don Cheadle in your movie, get Don Cheadle in your movie." And that about says it all.

Although I've always had great admiration for Cheadle in movies, he's equally good on TV talk shows. Who could forget his guest-hosting gigs on The Late Late Show before they settled on Craig Ferguson as the permanet host, or singing "Endless Love" with Adam Sandler on Letterman last year? This one goes the extra mile, though. Spoofing his own new movie, Cheadle recreates a prisoner

Colin Boyd

28 August 2008 12:22 PM, PDT

Ok, here's the deal: It's Labor Day. Hollywood, for whatever reason, has this misconception that people won't go see movies over the last pre-Thanksgiving holiday weekend. And I can't believe that, in 2008, all those multi-billion dollar multinationals still hold on to this business model. Here's a little secret, you to me: Some of the movies that do best on Labor Day weekend are movies from earlier in the summer. Why? The movies that come out on Labor Day aren't Usda grade A beef.

Last year, there were actually a couple new releases that did pretty well (Halloween, Balls of Fury), but in 2006, the carryover Invincible beat all newcomers, and Little Miss Sunshine and Pirates 2 saw significant increases in their audiences. The year before, The 40-Year-Old Virgin also sold more tickets over Labor Day than it had in the previous weekend, ditto March of the Penguins. In 2004, Hero became the

Colin Boyd

28 August 2008 10:33 AM, PDT

There's nothing quite as ironic as irony. Drew Barrymore, who has had a penchant for latching on to any guy in the room, began dating Justin Long on the set of a new movie, even though they had known each other for years before that. The romance had been going very well, by all accounts, and then suddenly, Long (the Mac from the Mac/PC commercials) broke off the relationship.

The irony is that the movie set on which their love blossomed was He's Just Not That Into You, which now replaces 50 First Dates as the most autobiographical Drew Barrymore movie title. I'll tell you this, though: If she really wants to get back at Justin Long, she should give squatty, pasty comedian John Hodgman the lap dance of his life.

He's Just Not That Into You has a big cast, and even manages to find room for a couple

Colin Boyd

28 August 2008 9:38 AM, PDT

There's no question that Jason Reitman has fashioned a career for himself the right way. He's chosen smart, offbeat projects that have exceeded critical and commercial expectation with Thank You for Smoking and Juno. Smoking made back about four times its budget in the U.S. (nearly seven times what it cost worldwide), and snagged Aaron Eckhart a much-deserved Golden Globe nomination.

Juno, as we're well aware, is one of the biggest independent movies ever made. How many other $7.5 million flicks have produced over $200 million at the box office? I'm going to say not many. And it won a Best Screenplay Oscar while receiving nominations for Best Actress, Picture, and Director for Reitman.

For his next trick, Reitman will fly the less-than-friendly skies with an adaptation of the Walter Kirn novel Up in the Air. According to Variety, Reitman has been infatuated with the novel for some time, working on

Colin Boyd

28 August 2008 6:36 AM, PDT

So in a couple of weeks, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino will team up for the first time since Heat back in the mid-1990s, and for the second time ever. You can't really count their first film together, The Godfather: Part II. If you don't know why we can't count that, well, you should have seen that movie by now anyway.

But the difference between Righteous Kill and Heat is that while Heat tantalized us with the prospect of two legends still capable of flamethrowing performances, Michael Mann really cheated the audience and gave us a scene in a diner. This new movie, in which both icons play cops on the trail of a serial killer, appears to have them in the same room all the time.

The only drawback is that Righteous Kill comes maybe a decade or more after each man's best work. I'm not saying

Colin Boyd

28 August 2008 12:51 AM, PDT

Entertainment Weekly has named the best comedies of the past 25 years, so you know what that means: Your opinion doesn't count for squat, even to yourself.

No, seriously, shut the eff up - Entertainment Weekly has spoken. These are the top 25 comedies of the past quarter century. So it is written, so it shall be done.

All kidding aside, it's a pretty good list, with the exception of Beverly Hills Cop being rated so high. It's not funnier than Spinal Tap. Sorry. It's just not. Speaking of the Tap, Christopher Guest is the King of Comedy, with his co-starring role in that film joining two of his directorial efforts - Waiting For Guffman (#13) and Best In Show (#20) - on the countdown.

Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn both placed two films on the list, with There's Something About Mary hitting number seven. Curiously, Tropic Thunder made the top 20. I loved that movie,

Colin Boyd

28 August 2008 12:25 AM, PDT

I sure do like the upper end of Alex Proyas' imagination. After all, he gave us the film version of The Crow, which I humbly submit has a lot of influence on today's darker comic book fare. And he gave us Dark City, one of the best out-of-nowhere sci-fi movies of the past 20 years.

The big budget I, Robot is fine, I guess, and I don't think Knowing looks like it could stop you in your tracks, but when he's at his peak, Alex Proyas can be very good.

He's a perfect director for a vampire project, because of the stark point of view of his best work, which is so clearly influenced by German expressionism, so I'm holding out hope for Dracula: Year Zero. The title is awful, but Proyas told MTV recently that his movie, currently in pre-production will have "lots and lots of blood."

Describing

Colin Boyd

27 August 2008 10:52 PM, PDT

If you skipped it a few months ago, you really missed one of the better surprises of the summer in The Strangers. It's not a great film, but it's about 80% of a good horror flick, maybe 82%. That's significantly better than most blood curdling efforts these days.

Audiences responded, making The Strangers one of the year's most profitable releases ($52 million domestic vs. a $9 million budget). And now, somewhat predictably, we'll get a sequel.

Bloody Disgusting said it was probably going to happen in the weeks following the films instant success, and now it's been confirmed that Rogue Pictures wants writer-director Bryan Bertino to craft a new script, although whether or not he returns to direct is up in the air. "Several of the original villains" and Liv Tyler are expected to return. Hm...I'm not sure how that would work. Are we talking a prequel? Surely not. But would that mean it's a sequel?

Colin Boyd

27 August 2008 8:08 PM, PDT

For the second time in ten days, we're hearing that the door is wide open for Christopher Nolan to return to the Batman franchise - in fact, Warner Bros. and DC may well take the damn thing off its hinges for the man - and whether or not he chooses to direct the threequel is entirely up to him.

When last we updated this saga, Warner chief Alan Horn said, more or less, that the ball is in Nolan's court. Certainly the studio wants to keep the franchise going after the staggering success of The Dark Knight, and as a demonstration of their gratitude to Nolan and their faith in his vision, they're probably prepared to sign him to the most lucrative contract ever for a director. That's my belief, anyway.

Today, in a great Hollywood Reporter article that traces the growth of The Dark Knight back three years, producer

Colin Boyd

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