The Warriors – Roger Ebert Review
The Warriors was released on the 9th February 1979, here is Roger Ebert’s review from the time. It’s an interesting read and I think he makes a lot of good points about Hill’s approach but he’s wrong to give it 2 stars… it’s a 5 Star movie.
“The Warriors” is a real peculiarity, a movie about street gang warfare, written and directed as an exercise in mannerism. There’s hardly a moment when we believe that the movie’s gangs are real or that their members are real people or that they inhabit a real city.
That’s where the peculiarity comes in: I don’t think we’re supposed to. No matter what impression the ads give, this isn’t even remotely intended as an action film. It’s a set piece. It’s a ballet of stylized male violence.
Walter Hill, the director and co-writer, specializes in fables like this. His first two films were “Hard Times” and “The Driver,” and they were both at arm’s length from realism. Hill likes characters that take on a legendary, mythic stature, and then he likes to run them through situations that look like urban tableaux.
“Hard times,” a good and interesting film, starred Charles Bronson as a professional street fist-fighter who went up against opponents with all the dimension of a James Bond villain. “The Driver” didn’t even have names for its characters; they were described by their functions, and they behaved toward each other in strangely formal, rehearsed, unspontaneous ways.
“The Warriors” takes that style to such an extreme that almost all life and juice are drained from it; there’s great vitality and energy (and choreography and stunt coordination) in the many violent scenes of gang fights and run-ins with the cops. But when the characters talk, they seem to be inhabiting a tale rehearsed many times before.
One example: Three members of a street gang are lined up in a row. The camera regards the first one. He speaks. The camera pans to the second, and he speaks. The camera pans to the third. He speaks. Because the movement of the camera dictates the order and timing of the speeches, there can be no illusion that the characters are talking as their words occur to them.
This same kind of stiff stylization dominates the film. The street gangs take stances toward each other as if they were figures in a medieval print. The deployment of the police and gang forces is plainly impossible on any realistic level; people move into their symbolic places with such perfectly timed choreography that they must be telepathic. And the chase scenes are plainly impossible, as in one extended shot showing the Warriors outrunning a rival gang’s school bus.
All of this is no doubt Walter Hill’s intention. I suppose he has, an artistic vision he’s working toward in this film, and in his work. He chooses to meticulously ban human spontaneity from his films; he allows only a handful of shallow women characters into his stories; he reduces male conduct to ritualized violence. And in “The Warriors” he chooses, with a few exceptions, to cast against type: Only three or four of the movie’s characters look and sound like plausible street-gang members. The rest look and sound like male models for the currently fashionable advertising photography combining high fashion and rough trade.
All very well, I suppose, except that Paramount chooses to advertise the movie as a violent action picture — and action audiences, I suspect, will find it either incomprehensible or laughable. Walter Hill has a considerable visual skill, and he knows what he’s doing in “The Warriors” and does it well. But is this style suited to this material? And does Hill have other notes to play? All three of his films have shown a certain skittishness in the face of human juices and the unrehearsed flow of life. And so his street gangs, and his movies, walk lockstep through sterile streets.
Housebound – Remake Already!?!
Whilst not a surprise, just another wtf? moment. It seems that the New Zealand horror/thriller Housebound has already been targeted for a remake.
The film didn’t get the distribution it deserved, even with Peter Jackson’s name attached as an endorsement. Now apparently Jackson has helped bring the film to the attention of New Line, which has picked up the Housebound remake rights.
This all begs the question of why New Line didn’t just buy the distribution rights for the original film and promote it. It’s got a great blend of horror and scares, the sort of thing Peter Jackson did so well in his early (better) films, and capturing that blend again, in a remake, won’t be easy and will more than likely result in a weaker version.
The Hollywood Reporter article also says that original writer/director Gerard Johnstone will act as producer for the remake, but that another director will actually call the shots on the remake. The studio is looking for a writer to tackle a new script.
Hansel & Gretel by Neil Gaiman
J.R.R. Tolkien memorably asserted that there is no such thing as writing “for children” and Maurice Sendak similarly scoffed that we shouldn’t shield young minds from the dark. It’s a sentiment that Neil Gaiman — one of the most enchanting and prolific writers of our time, a champion of the creative life, underappreciated artist, disciplined writer, and sage of literature — not only shares, in contemplating but also enacts beautifully in his work. More than a decade after his bewitching and widely beloved Coraline, Gaiman returns with another terrific embodiment of this ethos — his adaptation of the Brothers Grimm classic Hansel & Gretel (public library), illustrated by Italian graphic artist Lorenzo Mattotti, the talent behind Lou Reed’s adaptation of The Raven.
The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm have attracted a wealth of reimaginings over their long history, including interpretations as wide-ranging as those by David Hockney in 1970, Edward Gorey in 1973, and Philip Pullman in 2012. But Gaiman’s is decidedly singular — a mesmerizing rolling cadence of language propelling a story that speaks to the part of the soul that revels in darkness but is immutably drawn to the light, that listens for the peculiar crescendo where the song of the dream becomes indistinguishable from the scream of the nightmare
With stark subtlety, Mattotti’s haunting visual interpretation amplifies the atmosphere that Gaiman so elegantly evokes. Gaiman says of the work:
“I think if you are protected from dark things then you have no protection of, knowledge of, or understanding of dark things when they show up. I think it is really important to show dark things to kids — and, in the showing, to also show that dark things can be beaten, that you have power. Tell them you can fight back, tell them you can win. Because you can — but you have to know that.
And for me, the thing that is so big and so important about the darkness is [that] it’s like in an inoculation… You are giving somebody darkness in a form that is not overwhelming — it’s understandable, they can envelop it, they can take it into themselves, they can cope with it.
And, it’s okay, it’s safe to tell you that story — as long as you tell them that you can be smart, and you can be brave, and you can be tricky, and you can be plucky, and you can keep going.”
Hollywood Disaster Maps
At the movies a city-destroying disaster is just the expected conclusion of any big action movie. Politicians and the media can argue all day long about whether Hollywood is destroying America in the spiritual sense, but filmmakers definitely love wrecking the country as part of a blockbuster narrative.
Check out this Hollywood disaster map that illustrates just how and where the movies like to hit. Not surprisingly, New York and Los Angeles lead the rest of the country in terms of general destruction. The infographic was put together by Reuben Fischer-Baum and Samer Kalaf. Their map covers 189 cinematic attacks (it doesn’t count post-apocalyptic adventures or small-scale attacks), which means it’s by no means a comprehensive list. For “fictional or undefined locations” like Gotham City, they assigned an approximate real-world analogue. Thanks to /Film for the link.
Wolf Creek 2 knifed by intellectual snobbery
That shameful refusal by Australia’s top Film Reviewers to not review Wolf Creek 2 on their popular At The Movies show just won’t go away… check out this excellent article by Jessica Balanzategui in The Age.
In the late 1980’s, Mick ”Crocodile” Dundee playfully encouraged audiences to question what really constitutes a knife when you’re in the untamed wilds of outback Australia. More recently, Mick Taylor of Wolf Creek similarly compelled potential visitors to the outback to think deeply and painfully about when a knife is really a knife.
He implores some German tourists to consider ”what the bloody hell are you buggers doing here?” And rightly so, considering what lies ahead for them.
The Wolf Creek films revel in the nightmarish underside to the myths of rural idyll, mateship and charming ockerism that have become so central to our ideas of national identity.
Horror films have long crept alongside the comedies, dramas and art films that make up the bulk of our cinematic output: before Babe, the adorable little pig who dared to dream big, there was Razorback, the giant wild boar that gleefully ripped its victims to pieces. In fact, some classic Australian films that we proudly hold as pinnacles of the craft, Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, 1971), Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975), are basically horror films masquerading as lofty art pieces.
Wolf Creek 2 follows in the footsteps of these films, and in fact references Wake in Fright directly a number of times. Yet Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, the deserved royalty of Australian film criticism, refused to review Wolf Creek 2 on their influential television program, At the Movies, despite the fact the film is currently the top earner at the Australian box office.
For decades Pomeranz and Stratton have been vital cogs in the rather badly oiled machine that is the Australian film industry. Australian releases face a David and Goliath battle from the outset, being forced to compete with the flood of heavily marketed blockbuster Hollywood films.
Throughout their careers Pomeranz and Stratton have made it their mission to champion Australian films – even the ones they don’t particularly like – by raising awareness of Australian releases through their insightful reviews and interviews. Yet it seems that films classified as ”horror” are not extended this support.
This genre bias did not start with Pomeranz and Stratton: it has been an entrenched component of the Australian film industry since its revival in the 1970s. In the 2008 documentary Not Quite Hollywood, Phillip Adams, who helped to establish Australia’s government film funding system, admits that in setting up the guidelines for funding ”many of us were very snobby about genre films, there’s no question about it. We didn’t approve of them.”
Wolf Creek director Greg McLean and producer Matt Hearn are all too aware of this issue. Hearn mortgaged his house to finance Wolf Creek; their follow-up, Rogue, was financed by American studio executives the Weinsteins; and Wolf Creek 2 was delayed for years due to funding shortfalls.
Snobbery towards horror films does nothing to help strengthen the Australian film industry. Just because a film is packaged as ”horror” does not automatically mean it is devoid of artistic and intellectual value: it just makes it easier to sell. Even Stratton, in his caustic review of Wolf Creek 2 in The Australian, reluctantly admits that the film’s cinematography, courtesy of Toby Oliver, is ”pristine”.
Wolf Creek 2 is indeed violent and confronting, particularly because of the disconcerting mash-up of Mick Taylor’s true blue Aussie humour and his sadistic, murderous intent. However, so was Wake in Fright, which Pomeranz described as ”menacing and sinister” with a ”disgustingly seedy” antagonist, yet which Stratton went on to describe as ”a great milestone in Australian cinema history”.
So, too, was the recent Snowtown (Justin Kurzel, 2011), a thoroughly disturbing film about the infamous ”bodies in the barrel” murderer John Bunting. Yet Pomeranz lauded this film – classified as an ”art film” due to its minimalist style – for it ”does not pull back from exposing the audience to … grotesque brutality”. Stratton also complimented the film on its ”dark power”.
Yet Wolf Creek 2, which employs similar tactics wrapped up in a commercially viable horror film package, is by contrast ”ugly and manipulative”.
I deeply respect Stratton and Pomeranz and have idolised them for as long as I can remember. But their refusal to review Wolf Creek 2 – even just to declare their hatred for it – points to a long-standing problem within the Australian film industry.
The confected division between ”lofty” art pieces and ”low brow” horror is outmoded and unhelpful. Horror has some powerful and revealing things to say about our society, just as art films do.
Jessica Balanzategui is undertaking a film studies PhD at Melbourne University. Her research explores the cultural power of horror films. Read more and comment at The Age HERE
A Christmas Tale – By Chuck Palahniuk
Here’s a link to a Christmas story that Chuck Palahniuk just wrote for BlackBook Magazine. Click HERE
The Joker (Mime Version) – Hot Toys Collectable
Sideshow Collectibles is proud to introduce The Joker 1989 Mime Version DX Sixth Scale figure from Hot Toys. Revisiting Tim Burton’s classic Batman film, Jack Nicholson comes to life with an elegant costume, specially designed figure stage with backdrop, and Hot Toys’ patented Parallel Eyeball Rolling System (PERS). The collectable and others in the DC and Marvel range can be purchased HERE
The The Joker (1989 Mime Version) Sixth Scale Figure features:
- Authentic and detailed fully realized likeness of Jack Nicholson as The Joker in the Batman (1989) movie
- Approximately 30 cm tall
- TrueType body with over 30 points of articulation
- Detailed hair sculpture
- Parallel Eyeball Rolling System (PERS) patented by Hot Toys Limited
- Highly detailed make-up, gesture and wrinkles
- Six (6) pieces of interchangeable gloved palms including:
- One (1) pair of open palms
- One (1) pair of relaxed palms
- One (1) right finger pointing palm
- One (1) right palm for holding feather
- Each piece of head sculpt is specially hand-painted
- One (1) black tall hat
- One (1) black tailcoat with white flower
- One (1) white shirt
- One (1) white vest with black polka dot pattern
- One (1) black tie with white polka dot pattern
- One (1) pair of black and white checker pants with suspenders
- One (1) pair of black and white spats and shoes
- Three (3) feathers
- Figure stage with The Joker nameplate, movie logo, DX series title and backdrop
Pacific Rim – Press Conference
Courtesy of TWITCH Film: Director Guillermo del Toro and part of the cast of Pacific Rim visited Mexico City on July 1 for a press conference and the world premiere of the film. For unknown reasons Idris Elba didn’t make the trip, but everything else went as planned. Del Toro, Kikuchi Rinko, Charlie Day and Ron Perlman gave a fun 1-hour conference, with del Toro being questioned much more than the rest, hence stealing the show. Actually, the actors barely spoke: Perlman, for example, didn’t say anything during the first half-hour but “I can’t remember the question.”
Del Toro’s showmanship in his home country was terrific. He discussed such varying subjects as Japanese pop culture, childhood memories and Pacific Rim stories dealing with James Cameron and David Cronenberg. Visibly happy, he constantly joked with the Mexican press and even made fun of Kikuchi (“doesn’t she looks like Princess Comet?”). Here’s an excerpt of the conference with del Toro on the 3D version of Pacific Rim:
“For action, adventure and genre cinema, I’m now a converted fan of 3D. I asked the studio (Legendary Pictures) for the complete control of the 3D. I asked them for 40 weeks or so to get the 3D conversion, it usually takes just 8 to 12 weeks, and they agreed. As I’m a complete control freak, we achieved a 3D conversion that I think people will be very happy with it. It’s now my favorite format for the vision of this movie, but I don’t think 3D is for every film. If you can watch Pacific Rim in 3D, make sure to watch it that way.”
During the world premiere of the film, celebrated at a Mexico City Cinemark, del Toro and his cast were incredibly kind to the fans, giving many autographs and taking pictures with them.
Pacific Rim opens in the US, Mexico and many other countries on Friday, July 12. Meanwhile, look below for a gallery of photos with the most memorable quotes from the conference in Mexico City. There’s plenty from del Toro!
Charlie Day (Dr. Newton Geiszler):
“For me I think it was just a matter of always asking Guillermo (del Toro) whether he wanted me to be funnier or more serious, and often times we sort-of landed somewhere in the middle. He was pushing me to be serious yet everyone says I’m so funny in the movie so I guess I couldn’t be serious no matter if I tried.”
“I don’t think Guillermo makes movies to sleep with super models and buy expensive cars. He truly cares about making as beautiful as interesting as artistic as special a movie as he can make.”
Seeing a preview screening of Pacific Rim tonight… report before release date in 2 days time.
Colour Me Good Arrggghhhh!!
UK retail giant Tesco has withdrawn from sale on its website a colouring book that depicts gory scenes from horror films. Colour Me Good Arrggghhhh!! features images from Psycho and Hellraiser, among other films, and was marketed online at children aged five to eight.
Tesco said the book had been placed in the wrong category when listed on its website by a third-party seller. Publisher I Love Mel said the book, which had been offered for sale by one of its stockists, was aimed at adults.
The 16-page colouring book features on its cover an image of actress Janet Leigh screaming as she is stabbed to death in Psycho’s infamous shower scene. There are pictures inside from The Silence of the Lambs, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Jaws, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Fatal Attraction.
East Sussex-based author Mel Elliott said: “My products are pop culture-inspired and aimed at playful grown-ups. They are not aimed at kids. “They are usually sold to grown-ups in fashion shops and book stores.” The Royal College of Art graduate said she had been unaware that the stockist of the book had placed it on sale through Tesco’s website.
Pacific Rim – Designing the Jaegers
“We’re been talking about the idea for it and working on a pitch,” said Guillermo del Toro today about a Pacific Rim sequel. “And there will be a Mexican Jaeger,” he joked about the giant robots that fight the giant Kaiju monsters in the movie, out July 12. This isn’t the first time del Toro has floated a sequel to the upcoming monster adventure movie, but the director was more confident about where it would fit in the Legendary Pictures property’s trajectory. “Having had two to three years pass from the first Pacific Rim to the second movie, we can also prepare a good video game, continue the graphic novel and continue the mythology,” the director added. Del Toro wrote the script for the first Pacific Rim with Travis Beacham, who is writing the prequel graphic novel, images below…
Vampires are Back!
It’s impossible to escape vampires these days. The Twilight movies are as insanely popular as ever; the HBO series “True Blood” has a large and dedicated fanbase; and Justin Cronin’s best-selling, post-apocalyptic vampire trilogy (the first two installments, The Passage and The Twelve, are currently in bookstores) looks poised to become the next blockbuster vampire franchise (the books have already been optioned for a planned series of film adaptations by Ridley Scott). The last piece of vampire pop culture to sink its teeth into movie audiences’ necks was the fifth and final Twilight installment, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 2. Hopefully that’s the end of ‘tween vamps…
The release of Byzantium and Only Lovers Left Alive, bodes well for what has been a bloodless few years. Here’s a selection of a few lesser known vampire films that put unique spins on vampire mythology. These are all creative, fascinating movies that definitely do not suck.
Black Sabbath (1963)
directed by Mario Bava
This creepy, eclectic anthology is an early work from Italian horror maestro Mario Bava, who has built up a sizable cult following over the years due to his Gothic, gorgeously photographed fright films, which have inspired the likes of Dario Argento and Tim Burton. Black Sabbath contains three atmospheric stories, the second of which remains one of the most chilling vampire tales ever filmed. Entitled “The Wurdalak,” the segment is based on a story by Aleksei Tolstoy and stars Boris Karloff in one of his last, most sinister performances. Unlike typical vampires, who feast on random human beings, those transformed into “wurdalaks” only prey on those they love most—essentially, their own families. With its haunting yet beautiful visuals, “The Wurdalak” is a masterful family tragedy that shouldn’t be missed.
Martin (1977)
directed by George A. Romero
One of the most underrated horror films of all time (writer-director Romero has said himself it’s his personal favorite of his work), Martin is a modern vampire tale set in a deteriorating Pennsylvania town. The title character (played by John Amplas) is a troubled, disaffected 17-year-old who believes, based on a family legend, that he’s an 84-year-old vampire. Yet Martin doesn’t behave like a typical vampire: He’s immune to garlic and sunlight, and instead of fangs, uses razor blades to drink his victims’ blood. After going to live with his elderly uncle, who strongly believes in the family vampire myth, Martin attempts to live a normal life, but his craving for blood continues to haunt him. Martin is a disturbing, utterly original take on the vampire mythos. Although there are a few creepy, violent scenes to keep horror fans satisfied, the movie is most compelling when we gain insight into the main character. Romero seems to be saying that the suave, seductive vampires we’ve seen in movies, as played by Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, are of a past generation. This modern vampire works on a much more realistic, practical, horrifying level.
Near Dark (1987)
directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Before she became the first woman in Oscar history to win the Best Director trophy (for The Hurt Locker), Kathryn Bigelow helmed this unusual film, which fuses together the Western, biker and vampire genres. The film stars Adrian Pasdar as an aimless young man in a rural Midwestern town who becomes involved with a family of dangerous nomadic vampires (among them Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen and Jenny Wright). These aren’t your typical blood-suckers—they’re a group of dirty, unhinged drifters who roam the highways in stolen vehicles (during the day, incidentally), moving from town to town to satisfy their insatiable bloodlust. In fact, the destructive, amoral vampires of Near Dark seems to share more in common with the modern serial killer than the classic Dracula archetype. This gritty, genre-bending film put Bigelow on the map, and, 25 years later, it still has the power to dazzle and disturb.
Cronos (1993)
directed by Guillermo del Toro
This remarkably innovative Mexican film marked the feature debut of writer-director del Toro. The movie revolves around an elderly antique dealer (Federico Luppi) who comes upon the deadly yet enticing object of the title—an ancient mechanism that promises eternal life to its owner. When opened, the device painfully inserts a needle into the owner’s skin, yet the wound also brings about a sudden burst of youthful vitality, as well as a desperate craving for blood. Though the word “vampire” is never spoken in Cronos, del Toro’s bold vision provides a unique spin on the age-old vampire mythology. Especially unnerving is the sequence in which the infected old man discovers a puddle of blood (resulting from another man’s nosebleed) in a public bathroom. In what is surely one of the ickiest moments in vampire movie history, he lies down on the floor and proceeds to lick it up, much like a cat would spilled milk. From its fable-like beginning to its surprisingly tragic end, Cronos is full of disturbing yet unforgettable images.
Doctor Who – Vivid Sydney
BBC Worldwide Australia & New Zealand and Vivid Sydney invite you to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who for one night only!
The grand façade of the Customs House at Circular Quay will feature a visual feast of 3D-mapped projections of the Doctor and some of his greatest enemies, NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Trade and Investment, Andrew Stoner, announced today.
The spectacular celebration of Doctor Who will be staged for fans as part of Vivid Sydney, on Saturday, 1 June. The soundscape with the projections will feature music from the TV show including I am the Doctor and the iconic theme tune.
Developed, owned and managed by the NSW Government’s tourism and major events agency Destination NSW, Vivid Sydney is an 18-day festival of light, music and ideas. It is the biggest festival of its kind in the southern hemisphere and will take place in Sydney from 24 May to 10 June.
Destination NSW has collaborated with BBC Worldwide Australia and New Zealand to ensure local fans of Doctor Who can celebrate this major Anniversary through an evening of entertainment, featuring amazing light projections and a special cinema screening of two episodes from the series.
“This collaboration sees Australian creative innovators, The Spinifex Group, working with the Doctor Who team to create projections that will deliver a worldwide unique birthday celebration for the shows legion of fans, and our own Vivid Sydney is the perfect environment for this experience,” Mr Stoner said.
Vivid Sydney
Customs House, 31 Alfred Street Sydney
Times: 6.50pm; 8.50pm, 10.50pm & 11.50pm
Zombied – Cool Zombie Gear
Check out these cool beer mugs and ice cream bowls from Zombied. These guys managed to get kickstarter funded a couple of days ago., check out their facebook page HERE
Scorsese: An Art Show Tribute
Spoke Art has taken over New York’s Bold Hype Gallery for Scorsese: An Art Show Tribute, featuring work based on films such as Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The Departed, Gangs of New York, Casino and many more. Artists such as Scott Campbell, Joshua Budich, Dave Perillo, Fernando Reza, Jayson Weidel, Jessica Deahl, Jon Smith, New Flesh, Paul Shipper, Rhys Cooper, Rich Pellegrino and Sam Smith have all contributed to the show, which is open Friday April 19 through Sunday April 21.
Scorsese: An Art Show Tribute takes place April 19-21 at the Bold Hype Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, 5th floor, New York, NY. The hours are 6 p.m.-close April 19 and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. April 20-21. Check out some of the prints here and on the official facebook page HERE
Welcome to the Machine – Short Film Pitch
Check out this pitch from Enzo Tedeshi, director of The Tunnel. Over 200 years into the future, Australia has once again become a prison. The world’s hardened criminals are sent to work at a facility kept in line by death squads. Adamson, a warden, is forced to follow questionable orders and is forced to make a life or death choice – but as just another part of the machine, does she really have a choice at all?
Welcome To The Machine – Short Film Pitch from Enzo Tedeschi on Vimeo.
Gangs of New York – The Television Series
This is how it should have been done originally, Deadwood style… Gangs of New York is being developed for the small screen.
Scorsese is now working with his Gangs of New York distributor Miramax (or the current version of Miramax, at least) to develop a TV series based on the 2002 film.
The idea is not just to explore the area of early New York covered in the film, but to look at gangs in cities such as Chicago. And while the show would no doubt lack the commanding presence of the film’s top-level cast, this seems like a much better idea than a Goodfellas show, which was originally planned a few years back. By expanding the scope, the creators would have ample opportunity to break away from what we saw in the film. And while Goodfellas is a look at a single iconic character in the sweep of American crime history, Gangs offers the potential to craft an on-going story that would not affect or diminish the better aspects of the film. After his success with the superlative Boardwalk Empire, this looks promising.
In short, Gangs of New York is great material, but while the film has incredible aspects, it was not exactly an exceptional exploration of the story. There’s a lot more to play with.
Via Variety, Scorsese said in a release,
This time and era of America’s history and heritage is rich with characters and stories that we could not fully explore in a two hour film. A television series allows us the time and creative freedom to bring this colorful world, and all the implications it had and still does on our society, to life.
Current Miramax head Richard Nanula said,
No one better exemplifies what the new Miramax is and will be better than Martin Scorsese. His dedication to quality and the art of storytelling continues to excite everyone that works with him and watches his films and television programs. We could not think of a better partner for this project than the creator of the wonderful film on which it is based.
Zombieland – Amazon TV Pilot
Check out this press release from Sony Pictures TV, marking the first Amazon original project from a major studio:
SEATTLE—March 25, 2013—Amazon Studios, the original movie and series production arm of Amazon.com, today announced it will add cult classic Zombieland to the line-up of pilots already in production for Prime Instant Video. Zombieland, which is the seventh comedy pilot added to Amazon’s pilot line-up, will be made available (along with the other six comedy pilots and six children’s pilots) for free on Amazon Instant Video and LOVEFiLM UK. Customers are invited to view the pilots and then review them on the site; customer feedback will help determine which of the 13 pilots Amazon Studios will make into full-season productions, to air on Prime Instant Video.
“Zombieland is a fan favorite and we can’t wait to see where this story line goes in a serialized format,” said Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios. “We’ve been announcing a lot of exciting exclusive content for Prime Instant Video, like Downton Abbey, Under the Dome, and Justified, and we think adding original shows to that lineup is going to make Prime even more enticing for customers.”
Zombieland is based on the hit Columbia Pictures movie of the same name, and finds four survivors outwitting zombies and searching for a place to call home. The Zombieland pilot comes from the feature film’s original creative team, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (G.I. Joe: Retaliation, The Joe Schmo Show), and producer Gavin Polone (Gilmore Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm). Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) is directing the pilot.
The part of Tallahassee will be played by Kirk Ward (The Island), Maiara Walsh (Desperate Housewives, Switched at Birth,) is cast as Wichita, Tyler Ross (Milkshake) will play Columbus, and Izabela Vidovic has the role of Little Rock.
“Zombieland will strive to break the rules—action, adventure, thrills, chills and laughs and all packed into a half hour format, said creator Paul Wernick. “This is not your average show but Amazon is not your average network.”
Comprehensive cast and crew information, including bios and filmographies, is available on Amazon’s IMDb, the world’s most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content.
Within the Woods – Sam Raimi’s Horror Debut
Prior to making The Evil Dead, Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and their friend and producing partner Robert Tapert, who also serves as a producer on the new Dead, were enterprising college students who had been making slapstick comedy shorts on Super 8 with a group of their close friends – including fellow filmmakers Scott Spiegel and Josh Becker – and looking forward to the day when they could become big shot Hollywood filmmakers. But they quickly discovered that in order to make their names known in the industry they would have to abandon their comfort zone of goofball hilarity and make an independently-financed feature in a more marketable genre. Based on the healthy box office profits made by movies like Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween Raimi and company chose to make their motion picture debut a dark and violent horror film.
The only thing was, Raimi didn’t really care for horror movies, and neither did most of his friends and collaborators. But one of their big Super 8 comedy shorts, a mystery spoof titled It’s Murder, though it failed to find an audience on the college circuit, did have one sequence that made those who bothered to actually see it leap out of their seats: a scare scene where a person is attacked by a killer hiding in the back seat of their car. Inspired by this, Raimi hashed out a script by his university class fascinations with author H.P. Lovecraft and the Egyptian Book of the Dead, gathered up his usual gang of movie-making miscreants (many of whom would go on to work on the original Evil Dead), and on a particularly warm Spring in 1979 they all travelled out to a farm owned by Tapert’s family in Marshall, Michigan armed with a budget of $1,600 and the best filmmaking equipment their meager budget would allow to make the short feature that would ultimately lead to the launching of serious prosperous careers in cinema and television: Within the Woods.
Campbell was the natural choice to play the lead, a curious guy named Bruce whose wanton desecration of an Indian burial ground unleashes the dark forces of evil that turn him into a murderous ghoul. Ellen Sandweiss, a friend of the boys who had also appeared in many of their Super 8 shorts, played his girlfriend and the besieged heroine of Within the Woods, with Spiegel and Mary Valenti, a Tapert family friend, cast in supporting roles.
The plot of Within was roughly what the story for The Evil Dead would be, with a few differences. Within the Woods would also give Raimi the chance to evolve his filmmaking style into what it would become by the time he made his feature directorial debut, utilizing handheld camera techniques to evoke the feeling of the unseen evil lurking in the woods advancing on its victims at top speed.
Michael McWilliams, a film critic for the Detroit News, wrote a positive review of the short in which he stated that “it will probably never be advertised alongside the glossy, big-budget horror movies of our time, but you won’t easily forget a locally produced little film called Within the Woods”. McWilliams also wrote that Raimi’s microbudgeted little film easily contained more chills and thrills than more extravagant Hollywood fare like The Amityville Horror. Boosted by the enthusiastic response Raimi, Campbell, and Tapert set out to find investors willing to fund their first full-length movie, originally titled Book of the Dead, using Within the Woods as a visual aid in their presentations. In a matter of months they had amassed enough money to commence production, and they were off to a lonely cabin in the Tennessee woods with a cast and crew in tow. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Within the Woods has never been made commercially available on any of the myriad of Evil Dead DVD and Blu-ray releases most likely because of unspoken legal complications due to it’s use of pre-existing soundtracks from Hollywood movies and the degradation in print quality, though a re-scored and remastered copy was almost included as a bonus feature on a 2002 “Book of the Dead” edition of Dead distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment. However, it is widely available for viewing online in a variety of picture and sound qualities so you can watch the birth of a legacy of cinematic horror and witness several future filmmaking careers begin to take shape. Check it out…
Zombie Research Explains Why We Love ‘Walking Dead’
Good news, zombie fans! It turns out our macabre fascination with the undead has some actual science behind it! And I guess by “good news,” I really mean “bad news,” because according to a professor who’s been studying the popularity of shows like The Walking Dead, we turn to zombies when we’re feeling high levels of cultural dissatisfaction and economic upheaval.
So the next time someone criticizes you for being obsessed with a gory TV show, you can loftily point out that you’re not just watching people get eaten alive in high-def — you’re exercising your right as a citizen to process your feelings of political disempowerment. In other words, you love zombies because you hate THE MAN.
Or something like that, anyway. Sarah Lauro, an English professor at Clemson University who studied zombies while working on her doctoral degree, theorizes that zombies have become popular because we are dissatisfied with the government or society. Lauro is a self-described horror “chicken” who researched movies, television shows, video games, and zombie walks in order to explore the nature of zombies in society. She says,
(People dress like zombies) to make visible their dissatisfaction with a government they feel isn’t listening to them or an economic system that makes them brain-dead consumers; some do it as a kind of exercise of community, just to show how the collective can be organized and made to participate in an event without any ties to commercialism; many have no idea why they do it, but some play dead, one supposes, just to feel alive.
She points out that the notion of a dehumanized individual not in control of their actions can be used to explore the dangers of science, of emerging technology, the fear of rapid change, and other societal harms. Of zombie mobs, which originated in 2003 and escalated in popularity along with the public’s dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, Lauro says,
It was a way that the population was getting to exercise the fact that they felt like they hadn’t been listened to by the Bush administration. Nobody really wanted that war, and yet we were going to war anyway.
She adds,
We are more interested in the zombie at times when as a culture we feel disempowered. And the facts are there that, when we are experiencing economic crises, the vast population is feeling disempowered. … Either playing dead themselves … or watching a show like ‘Walking Dead’ provides a great variety of outlets for people.
Who knew there were so many serious, complicated feelings behind our fervent desire to see Andrea gnawed by a hungry zombie? Courtesy of CafeMom.
socialpsychol 