movies

[mikechamp]

Don't call it a comeback tour:

Spinal Tap: The world's loudest band return with a little help from their famous friends

Spinal Tap have never had much luck with drummers.

As fans of the parody British rock band will know, their original sticksman, John "Stumpy" Pepys, died in what was described in the original 1984 mockumentary as "a bizarre gardening accident". His replacement, Eric "Stumpy Joe" Childs, fared no better. He died having choked on (someone else's) vomit, while the next man behind the kit, Peter "James" Bond, also perished in mysterious circumstances. He exploded on stage, taking the rock 'n' roll death cliche to its natural comic conclusion.

Now, more than 40 years after the release of This Is Spinal Tap - the film that would go on to inspire many other deadpan, fake documentaries including The Office - the band are back together for a sequel which finds them in search of a new drummer, to help them fulfill a freshly triggered contractual obligation: one last gig in New Orleans.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy5039lqzgvo

[mikechamp]

This article walks back and forth between the novel and the movie:

'It's still so relevant': The power of Stephen King's first - and most disturbing - novel The Long Walk

Written by King in college in the 1960s, The Long Walk imagines young men competing in a deadly marathon for entertainment. A new film version is a reminder of how it anticipated our reality TV age.

One hundred teenage boys, selected by lottery from across the US, embark on a marathon with no finish line. Followed by armed soldiers in jeeps and watched by viewers all around the world, they must maintain a pace of 4mph (6.5km/h), and if they drop below the designated speed, they receive a warning. Three warnings and they are killed. The last boy walking gets to choose his own prize.

This is the grimly compelling concept of The Long Walk, a remarkably prescient novel that Stephen King wrote between 1966 and 1967, in his freshman year at college. Set in an alternate-history US that cowers under military rule, it was the first book that King penned, but was not published until 1979 – five years after Carrie had splashed onto bestseller lists like a bucket of blood dropped from the rafters. Now, 46 years on, as King turns 78, The Long Walk has finally been adapted into a film, released this weekend.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/202 ... the-future

[mikechamp]

A little backstory on "Seven":

The battle to save cinema's most brutal and shocking ending

Studio execs wanted David Fincher's bleak thriller Seven to switch up its horrifying finale. But Fincher and star Brad Pitt fought for the darkness to remain.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/art ... 58587.html

[heyzeus]

A little backstory on "Seven":

The battle to save cinema's most brutal and shocking ending

Studio execs wanted David Fincher's bleak thriller Seven to switch up its horrifying finale. But Fincher and star Brad Pitt fought for the darkness to remain.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/art ... 58587.html

I just listened to Bill Simmons' Rewatchables podcast on Se7en, and they talked extensively about the different versions of the ending, and how Pitt and Fincher fought to keep it. I mean, would we all be quoting "WHATS IN THE BOX" 25 years later if they hadn't prevailed?

Btw, I take issue with part of the article. Spoilered for the 3 humans who haven't seen the movie.

[SHOW]

"In fact, the intensity of the scene had people convinced they really did see Paltrow's bloodied visage. Fincher told The Guardian he "almost had a fist-fight" with a woman at a party who declared "there is no need to make a stand in of Gwyneth Paltrow's head to find in the box, you don't need to see that". Despite Fincher's assurance that they never made a stand-in because the head never appears on screen, the woman was not convinced."

Is this the Mandela Effect at work? Because although I haven't seen the movie in a long ass time, I'm pretty certain they show like a split second, still image of the head in the box. Kinda like the dong shots Fincher/Pitt splice into Fight Club

[mikechamp]

A new documentary on John Candy is forthcoming:

John Candy doc reveals why the late comedy star hated this classic ‘Stripes’ scene

It's one of the most famous moments in one of the most famous comedies of the 1980s. Midway through Stripes, Bill Murray's rapscallion Army enlistee John Winger and his boot camp buddies, including Harold Ramis as Russell Ziskey and a young Canadian actor named John Candy as Dewey "Ox" Oxberger, steal away from base and visit a mud-wrestling bar. During the wild bacchanal that follows, Ox ends up in the ring with a quartet of bikini-clad bruisers. And the 31-year-old Candy — who at that point was still finding his way in Hollywood after a successful stint on Canadian television — throws himself into the action, getting down and dirty with little hesitation.

Off-camera, though, the vibe was very different. That's one of the big revelations in John Candy: I Like Me, the new documentary from director Colin Hanks and producer Ryan Reynolds that made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival last month and arrives on Prime Video on Oct. 10. According to multiple people interviewed in the film, including Murray himself, Candy was profoundly uncomfortable with the mud-wrestling sequence, largely because of his body size — a topic that frequently came up in interviews at the time, much to his chagrin.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/mov ... 00360.html

[CardsofSTL]

not only is american democracy dying, this looks [expletive] awful

I am a big fan of Liam Neeson but this is not right.

This is streaming on Paramount+ now.

I watched it.

There were some typical Naked Gun absurdity jokes that made me chuckle but for the most part it was what you would expect. Not great.

[mikechamp]

Mum's the word, you heard?

Why Joe Pesci Refused to Be Interviewed for Apple TV’s ‘Mr. Scorsese’

For most people, it was an easy ask. After all, Martin Scorsese is a living legend, a director who has produced masterpiece after masterpiece in a career that has spanned decades. So collaborators like Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Leonardo DiCaprio and admirers like Spike Lee and Steven Spielberg were eager to be on camera talking about the cinematic genius for “Mr. Scorsese,” a five-part docuseries that recently debuted on Apple TV.

However, one interview eluded Rebecca Miller, the film’s director. “The only person who said ‘no’ was Joe Pesci,” Miller says. “He really didn’t want to be interviewed for this.”

Scorsese reveals that Pesci was able to convincingly portray hardened killers because he grew up in Newark, N.J., surrounded by the criminal underworld. “Marty explains it a little bit in the documentary,” Miller says. “He talks about how Joe just doesn’t want to talk about the experiences that made him so perfect for this kind of role.”

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/mov ... 00120.html

[ghostrunner]

One Battle After Another is great. Finally got to it on the last day at my favorite theater.

I was worried going in that I'd been overhyped for it, and expecting a masterpiece. Instead what happened is I was on the edge of my seat for two hours after things got going, and I forgot about any worries I had. Probably the most exhilarating movie I've seen since Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.

[heyzeus]

One Battle After Another is great. Finally got to it on the last day at my favorite theater.

I was worried going in that I'd been overhyped for it, and expecting a masterpiece. Instead what happened is I was on the edge of my seat for two hours after things got going, and I forgot about any worries I had. Probably the most exhilarating movie I've seen since Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.

I should sneak out of work to watch this in the theater. But I know I'll wait for it on streaming.

[mikechamp]

This is a pretty wild story (long read) of how passionate one person can be to make movies:

Why one of the world's most acclaimed directors had to make his latest in secret

Most American film-industry types know that Oscar campaigning is a dance. One must spend six months flying to Q&As and luncheons to schmooze and glad-hand and demur when anyone mentions the O-word. It is the quest that shall not be named, because, as everyone knows, the worst sin of all is to show how much you want it.

The first time I met dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi, though, he immediately broached the subject. “They just told me half an hour ago that 100 Iranian filmmakers and people of the cinema have gathered to write a statement and ask the government not to meddle with what film to send to the Oscars,” he tells me through his indefatigable interpreter, Sheida Dayani. “But it is very unlikely for it to happen.”

We’d seized the opportunity for a sit-down interview here, in a spare pop-up office at the Toronto International Film Festival — about a month before the acclaimed filmmaker’s 12th film, the Palme d’Or-winning “It Was Just an Accident,” would open in the United States — because no one was sure what borders the director would be able to cross, and when.

Panahi, 65, is one of Iran’s most famous former political prisoners — and also a captivating storyteller, with impeccable comedic timing that can belie his grim subject matter. Dressed in his trademark all-black uniform and dark tinted glasses, he was quick to flash a wry smile to telegraph his jokes even before Dayani jumped in to interpret. This is the first major press tour he has done in more than a decade, and I got the sense that he really wanted to be heard, even if it was one sentence at a time.

In 2010, the government arrested him on charges of creating “propaganda against the system,” held him in solitary confinement in Iran’s infamous Evin Prison and subjected him to near-constant interrogations. It was the third arrest for Panahi — who had already won Venice’s Golden Lion for his 2000 film, “The Circle” — and it was life-altering.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/mov ... 51333.html