by Fred Topel
“It’s becoming almost survival of the kindest.”
– Tom Shadyac
Director Tom Shadyac is playing up the fact that the director of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective has made a philosophical documentary. It shouldn’t be such a shock to people. Anyone deserves a voice in matters of humanity, and someone who’s already in touch with how to inspire laughter and happiness doubly so.
by A.J. Focht
The movie industry thrives off of innovative and unique ideas. When those are nowhere to be found, they turn to milking their original storylines with sequels, prequels, and remakes. Now it looks like producers at the Warner Bros. distributed Alcon Entertainment (The Book of Eli) are seeking to disturb the sanctity of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic Blade Runner.
by Ryan Stewart
“I was absolutely out of my mind in this relentless pursuit of erection.”
-Robert Downey Jr.
What’s left to be said about Iron Man? It opens today and has a leisurely two weeks to prove its mettle before Disney’s Prince Caspian lands in theaters on May 16th and Indiana Jones muscles in a week later. Should the film do as well as Paramount and Marvel Studios secretly hope, there are, of course, plans afoot to turn this solo outing into a trilogy. Although at last week’s press junket for the film, the four writers on hand all offered different takes on where they’d like the potential franchise go next and director Jon Favreau insisted that he has not been signed for any further films, that could change on a moment’s notice. The film’s leads, Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, were both directly asked if they’d come back for a second and third helping and … well, what do you expect them to say? SuicideGirls was on hand for the roundtable discussions as Downey and Paltrow took questions from the peanut gallery.
by A.J. Focht
Omni Consumer Products is helping to ensure that the city of Detroit will always have a Robocop to watch over them. In lieu of an active cyborg patrolman, they are settling for erecting a statue of Robocop in Detroit. Omni Consumer Products is a real company, which takes its name from a company of the same name featured in the Robocop franchise. When Pete Hottelet, owner of OCP, discovered there was a fund-raising effort in the works to build the statue in Detroit, he matched the $25,000 already raised, bringing the grand total of funds to in excess of $50,000.
by Fred Topel
“I’m in an interracial marriage, which was illegal not that long ago.”
-Chris Gorham
At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, there were two films in which a religious fundamentalist threatened the lives of gay or gay sympathetic characters. Kevin Smith’s Red State got the most attention with a full on religious protest out side the screening. However, The Ledge also explored a similar idea.
In The Ledge, Gavin (Charlie Hunnam) crosses paths with his neighbor Joe (Patrick Wilson), a Christian who vocally fights against a gay lifestyle. Gavin is an atheist and lives with a gay roommate, so he gets in Joe’s face. Joe ends up forcing Gavin to climb onto a ledge and jump, providing the tension in writer/director Matthew Chapman’s film.
“It’s been made more like a work of art than it has a movie.”
-Simon Boswell
Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s bloody epic Santa Sangre, which was inspired by the story of Mexican serial killer Gregorio “Goyo” Cárdenas Hernández, has been praised as “a throwback to the golden age, to the days when filmmakers had bold individual visions,” and derided as “a massive clearance sale of leftover psychedelia.” It’s story and imagery has been dismissed as “a series of banal Freudianisms involving a circus family” and celebrated as “a wild kaleidoscope of images and outrages, a collision between Freud and Fellini.” But love it or hate it, you’ll never forget it, since with Santa Sangre, Jodorowsky firmly straddles the line where madness becomes genius.
“Can I just vent for a fucking moment?
I was not allowed to leave my recovery program until I was a “healthy” 120 lbs.
Tonight, the “Biggest Loser” was awarded $250,000 for being 117 lbs.
What the FUCK is wrong with this picture????”
(Anonymous blogger)
With the hypocritical and oppressive ‘beauty machine’ of America in full-swing, girls are getting “thinspiration” off food blogs and Pro-Ana sites; detouring off the deep end instead of finding their way into recovery. Even Portia de Rossi’s memoir Unbearable Lightness and the stick figures of Black Swan can serve as a “how to” for low self esteem. And this begs the question. Women – aren’t we just too dang valuable to level our self-worth by countable ribs?
