Friday Free-For-All: The Nippled Knight Rises

This has already made its way around the net, but I think it's worth sharing.  Someone took the soundtrack of a trailer for The Dark Knight Rises and cut scenes from Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin to match it.  The results are... entertaining.

Friday Free-For-All: Kevin Spacey helps cultivate new directing talent

My friend Erin Cahill recently appeared in a short film called "The Ventriloquist" starring Kevin Spacey.  The film was produced as part of Jameson's First Shot competition to find new directing talent.



Spacey will appear in three shorts, and this one is directed by Benjamin Leavitt.  You can find a little more information here and here.

Friday Free-For-All: Spielberg watches the 1976 Oscar nominations

A friend of mine sent me this clip this week.  Supposedly, he thinks that Spielberg's mannerisms remind him of me.  I don't know if I totally see it, but I'll take it.

My parents totally used to have a chair just like the ones Steven is sitting in.



Rather interesting to see how confidant he must have been in order to invite the TV crews there.  I also have to salute his blunt candor.  If you've already shown the hubris of letting the crew film it, you might as well go all the way.  Today, I imagine most people would be more political in their reaction.  This might come as a shock, but I like people unafraid to tell it how it is.

Friday Free-For-All: Campus MovieFest's "The Strong One"

This week kind of turned into an unofficial salute to student films and short films, so this seems like the right time to plug a program I first heard about a while ago.  Campus MovieFest has been around for a little more than a decade offering college students a fantastic opportunity to brush up on their filmmaking skills.

CMF travels from college to college, providing participating students with Apple laptops and Panasonic HD camcorders.  Each group has one week to create their own short film.  At the conclusion of this, a red carpet finale is held to select the best films from each school, which then advance on to the finals at a gala event held in Hollywood.  CMF gets stars from TV and Film to present awards to the best shorts in several categories.

I had the honor of attending one of these as a guest a few years back, when it happened to be held on the Paramount lot.  It was quite a kick to see students all over the country getting a taste of the Hollywood experience and seeing their film shown in the state-of-the-art Paramount Theatre.  That year, the celebrities handing out awards included Oscar-winner James Cromwell and Don Johnson.  Living out in L.A., you can get kind of jaded to the whole Hollywood experience, but I know what a thrill it would have been for me to have my movie compete in the CMF Finals when I was in college, and I think it's pretty cool that Campus Movie Fest has been able to do this for more than a decade.

This short film was produced by students at North Carolina State University, and it popped up in my feed a while back as one that really impressed some of the folks at CMF.  I figure the least I can do is give these guys a few more eyes on their film.  It's called The Strong One.




The Strong One Cast & Crew :
Josh Bielick - Captain, Cinematographer
Nicholas Sailer- Director, Screenwriter
Matt Harris- Production Assistant
Timothy Reavis- Writer, Actor

Friday Free-For-All: Inside 'Dragon Tattoo's' Title Sequence

I've been meaning to post this for a few weeks now.  The Wrap ran a cool article a while back talking about the making of the title sequence for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.


Getting the distinctive look right required the latest in computer technology. The effects in the credit sequence were achieved electronically using 3D scans of the film’s stars Daniel Craig (Mikael Blomkvist) and Rooney Mara (Salander). These computer graphics were designed so that they could be viewed from multiple camera angles throughout the editing process.


The most challenging element, Miller said, was getting the black ooze that seeps throughout the title sequence to look realistic. To that end, Blur tapped fluid special effects specialists Spatial Harmonics and Fusion CIS to help execute the inky liquid.


In all, there are a total of 252 shots in the clip with each cut lasting for roughly 24 frames a second, giving the whole thing a hyper-adrenalized and spastic feeling that matches the troubled title character’s disturbed state of mind.

Friday Free-for-All: Vertigoed movies

You might have heard about Kim Novak's, um, issues with Oscar favorite The Artist reusing some of Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo score in it's climax.  The internet being what it is, it didn't take long for that to inspire an internet meme.  The blog "Press Play" kicked things off:


Press Play contributor and film editor Kevin Lee followed this Novak/Lucas line of thought to its logical -- or illogical -- end. Just for the hell of it, he matched the Vertigo cue used in The Artist with the last three minutes of the Death Star battle in Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope, uploaded it, and sent the link to several Press Play contributors to get their reactions. 

And it's here that things got interesting: rather than generate cheap laughs at the expense of Novak, Lucas, The Artist or Star Wars, the mash-up inspired delight. Simply put: Kevin's experiment confirmed that Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo score is so passionate and powerful that it can elevate an already good scene -- and a familiar one at that -- to a higher plane of expression. Score one for the master of film scoring! 

We encouraged Kevin to put the same piece of music under a bit from Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace and the training sequences from Rocky and Rocky IV. Same result: The scenes seemed deeper, subtler and more haunting, solely because of Herrmann's music. 

Check out their Star Wars/Vertigo mash-up below, and click here to see the full article with dozens of submissions.

Friday Free-for-All - The most ridiculous scene in One Tree Hill history

I meant to include this scene in yesterday's post, but fortunately I forgot because it's the perfect clip to cap off the week.  I don't know if any introduction can do this justice, so I'll just say that this was NOT a dream sequence, it wasn't a hoax or a prank.  This actually happened within the show's universe.




Take note how the dog's owner doesn't even seem to notice what's going on.

Friday Free-For-All: Happy Festivus!

It's December 23rd, which means it's Festivus, created by Frank Costanza.







Seinfeld writer Dan O'Keefe based the Costanza version of Festivus on a holiday his father invented.  As depicted in Seinfeld, the holiday begins with the display of an aluminum pole.  Then come the Feats of Strength, and most importantly, the Airing of Grievances.  During this ceremony, you are to gather your family around and tell them the ways in which they have disappointed you in the last year.

For more about Festivus, go here.

And please feel welcome to participate in the Airing of Grievances in the comment section.

Friday Free-For-All: Max Weinberg's Greatest Hits

This has long been one of my favorite Conan sketches and I recently found it on YouTube.

Friday Free-For-All: Michael J. Fox plays Johnny B. Goode

Back to the Future is one of my favorite movies, and surely one of the most iconic moments from that film has to be when Marty McFly plays Johnny B. Goode at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, exposing the teens of 1955 to rock and roll for the first time.  To this day, I can count on getting an appropriate reaction out of many of my friends just by starting off a Rock Band round with "Okay, this is a blues riff in B.  Watch me for the changes and try and keep up, okay?"

Last weekend, Michael J. Fox hosted a charity event for his foundation and the evening was capped off when he donned his guitar and recreated that performance onstage.  As you might expect given Fox's condition, it's not as physically effortless as it was for him 26 years earlier.  In the first half of the clip, you can feel every ounce of his effort, but seriously, how often can we see an actor recreate such a beloved moment?



And consider this: the Michael J. Fox of 2011 still looks amazingly younger than the Marty McFly of 2015, as seen in Back to the Future II.

Friday Free-For-All: 11-11-11 - Happy Nigel Tufnel Day!

These go to ll.




Happy Nigel Tufnel Day! (11-11-11)

Friday Free-For-All: Villains Laughing Maniacally

Friday Free-For-All: Yom Kippur at WME

Twitter is a funny thing.  Recently in one fell swoop I got to interact with childhood crush Danica McKellar AND make a frenemy-for-life of screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe ("Going the Distance").  This occured when I beat him to the correct answer of one of Danica's regular anagram tests, prompting him to say, "I can't wait to hit you in the mouth."

Bring it, Geoff.

Frankly, I'm not scared of him, but in the interests of detente, I'd like to feature his new short "Yom Kippur at WME," starring the incomparable J.B Smoove.

Friday Free-for-All: Sean Young begs for an audition... again

This has to be one of the more awkward things I've seen this week.  Back in 1991, Sean Young mounted a rather... enthusiastic campaign to play Catwoman in Batman Returns.  She'd been cast as Vicki Vale in the original Tim Burton Batman, but had to bow out after an injury.  So when the sequel came around a few years later, she decided she should let it be known that she was willing to play the part.

Unfortunately, this included going on The Joan Rivers Show in full Catwoman regalia, basically begging/demanding an audition.  As if that wasn't bad enough, she made her way onto the Warner Bros. lot and attempted to confront Tim Burton directly.

Now, when something like this becomes what you're known for in Hollywood, you'll find that doors aren't just closed in your face, but locked and deadbolted as well.  So Sean Young's actor career soon dwindled.  Two decades later, if you mention her name to someone in Hollywood, the Catwoman campaigning is probably one of the first things that springs to mind.

So Ms. Young decided the time had come to try to put to rest some of those old demons.  And what better way to do that than by going onto a talk show and begging for an audition?

Sigh... the more things change...

Friday Free-For-All: Deep Space Nine's "Plain and Simple Garak" on root beer and crying wolf

I've long been of the opinion that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was the best series of the franchise, and one of those reasons is the character of Garak, played by Andrew Robinson. From his first appearance in the second episode of the series, Garak announced himself to be just "plain and simple Garak." In fact, that was far from the truth.

Deep Space Nine was a space station abandoned by the Cardassians, a race in a state of truce with the Federation, after they were finally forced off of the planet Bajor by the revolt of the populace. Basically, think of the Cardassian Military as the SS and Bajor as WWII-era Poland. Thus, the Cardassians weren't too popular on Bajor or Deep Space Nine after the evacuation - making Garak's continued residency an oddity that immediately made one wonder about his history.

Beyond that, Garak was often a good source of the sorts of "outsider" observations and often dark lines that some of the other characters couldn't get away with. There's also the fact that he so often bent the truth that eventually everyone stopped taking anything he says at face value. In this clip from Season 3's "Improbable Cause," Dr. Bashir uses "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" as an analogy for why no one trusts Garak when he seems to be in danger. Garak - in one of my all-time favorite lines of dialogue - offers a different interpretation. (The teleplay is credited to Rene Echevarria.)



Another excellent Garak scene is this exchange between him and Quark in Season 4's "The Way of the Warrior." Here, root beer is used as a surprisingly deft metaphor for the Federation. This episode was written by Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe

Friday Free-For-All: Star Wars Lost Jabba scene

The Star Wars BluRays finally come out next Tuesday and I'm not sure if this special feature will be among the offerings. A very devoted fan went to a lot of trouble to reconstruct the original Jabba scene from the original Star Wars as it was shot. If you've seen the Special Editions, you know that Lucas placed a CG Jabba over the stand-in actor so that this film's Jabba would match the one eventually introduced in Return of the Jedi.

The scene below is reconstructed from the snippets and pieces that have leaked out over the years through various Star Wars specials, DVD features and behind-the-scenes CD-ROMs.



And in case you're curious, here's how the scene appeared on the 2004 DVD release:

Friday Free-For-All: Star Wars Blu Ray changes

With all the furor this week over the changes George Lucas has made to the Star Wars films yet AGAIN for the upcoming blu-ray release, it seems like a good time to dip into You Tube and remind ourselves that there's much more Lucas could tinker with if he was so inclined.

Take this re-edited scene from Empire Strikes Back for instance.



And I kind of like this re-edited credits scene with Hawaii Five-0 music.

Friday Free-for-All: Harry Potter and the Inappropriate Comment

It's the late fall of 2001 and I'm in the office of my academic adviser. I've just arrived to finalize my schedule for the next season and a fellow student is on his way out. As he departs, he and our professor discuss the upcoming movie slate. This prompts my classmate to mention that he's already purchased his tickets for the following week's midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

I expressed a small measure of surprise at that, for while this friend was a massive Superman fan and possibly an even bigger Star Wars fan, at first glance, you'd probably totally make him for the kind of fan who was into the oeuvre of Michael Bay. A kid's movie about magic didn't seem like his bag. I mentioned that I'd not yet read the books and he assured me that they're more mature than the standard kiddie fare.

"So you sound pretty excited about this," I said. "You think the movie will do the books justice?"

"Looks like it," he replied. "And that girl who plays Herminoe is probably going to be really hot when she grows up."

With that, he departed, leaving me and the professor to shake our heads with bemusement. We had to be bemused, you see... for if we took him literally, it would probably have been a much creepier exchange.

A few years later, I'm watching Saturday Night Live and this Harry Potter sketch starring Lindsay Lohan shows up.



I can't help but think of my former classmate every time I see this. And every time Emma Watson shows up for a premiere looking glamorous, in the back of my head I think, "You can call him 'creepy,' but you can't call him 'wrong.'"

Fair warning to all of my friends - you never know what inappropriate comment I will forever remember you for.

Friday Free-For-All: Final Destination 5

Some of you may remember that last year I interviewed screenwriter Eric Heisserer soon after his first film, the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, hit theatres. In the second part of that interview he offered a few teases about his next assignment, Final Destination 5:

There was so much cool suspense, character development, and sense of mystery in the first Final Destination. Then you look at the fourth movie and it’s almost a porn version of the first—just one death sequence after another. And you know, it was still fun, I can’t lie, but for me it lacked a lot of what made the first movie so good. What I’m trying to do with this fifth film is make it work on its own; make it a supernatural thriller first, and a Final Destination movie second. It will have all the trademark elements fans love from the series, but hopefully it will surprise them, too. At least, that’s my hope…

I rather liked the first Final Destination film. In all honesty I can't recall seeing the second - or even if I saw the second film. I'm pretty sure I liked the third film too, but I readily confess that might be my Mary Elizabeth Winstead crush talking.

With regards to the fourth film, I think Eric said all that needs to be said.

In any event, the few tidbits we got from Eric gave me the hope that he wrote the kind of Final Destination movie I want to see. Better still, the trailer has me intrigued.



If you're not following Eric on Twitter, you need to remedy that immediately. (I have never figured out if his Twitter name means "Writers Pry" or "Writer Spry" though.) He has regular Writing Challenges that a lot of aspiring scribes can learn from. On top of that, he's a cool guy and has been a great friend to the blog, so I genuinely hope the film does well when it hits theatres on August 12.

Friday Free-For-All: Bruce Campbell on how bad movies happen

Many thanks to The Auditors of the Amazon for posting a video clip yesterday that I've been looking for for quite some time now. I'd heard a while back on a Bruce Campbell speech he's often uses where he "tricks" his fans into greenlighting a bomb of a film.



Special bonus:

As I was composing this blog entry, Wil Wheaton posted this video to his Tumblr. Children of the 80s, I defy you not to watch this and laugh yourselves silly.