"Nightmare" trailer

Myspace has the HD trailer for Platinum Dunes' "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake up, here's the embedd:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=63620005

I have three immediate strong reactions to this, which I'm inclined to imagine will be shared by a great deal of the web-surfing horror-fan contingent:

#1: The apparent fidelity to the original film(s) is genuinely shocking: Not only do a bevy of the first installments most iconic scenes seem to have been preserved; but the composition, color-palette and even the lighting looks the same. The shot of the pool-party looks like a direct screengrab from "Freddy's Revenge." Hell, is that the same factory, even? Color me intrigued, since PD's previous 80s-horror revamps were both top-to-bottom overhauls.

#2: No really good look at the Freddy makeup yet, maybe they'll try to save that for opening night, but we do get to hear what is probably Jackie Earl Haley's "official" Freddy Voice. THIS part is definately NOT aping the originals... the usual malevolent, self-satisfied cackle seems absent from Freddy's disposition here. If nothing else, it shows that Haley has been granted room to move around in this.

#3: The opening moments of the trailer would seem to confirm the early rumors that there was going to be an added "wrinkle" to the story this time involving the presence of significant doubt as to whether or not Freddy was actually GUILTY of the crimes he was killed for. This will be controversial to fans, but I can understand the angle: A big part of the story in the original film is solving the mystery of just who Freddy Krueger actually is/was. Since the audience this time around can no longer be surprised by those revelations, it makes sense to stage new ones.

I remain fully skeptical that Michael Bay and his Dunes friends are capable of EVER producing a good film, but color me a lot less skeptical than I was ten minutes ago.

Polanski, Part II

Well, this didn't exactly take long even on a Sunday...

Predictably, L'Affaire Polanski ceased to be about the particulars of extraditing an ex-pat American from Zurich on 30 year-old bail-jumping and sexual misconduct charges before the door was closed on his cell; and is now officially a political hot-potato encompassing the entertainment biz, gender, class, family-values, culutre-clash and other "pet issues" of the Chattering Class. Being the weekend, the opinions of Mssrs. O'Reilly, Beck and Grace have yet to be heard from, but all edges of the Web are already well spoken-for. Let's see who's taking a swing:

First up, "Big Hollywood," Andrew Breitbart's nominally-conservative-psuedo-celebrity wildlife preserve. You probably know Breitbart most-recently as the guy shepherding the two kids from the ACORN Video through the media cycle. BH is basically a multi-contributor editorial blog wherein right-leaning movie people vent about their left-leaning industry, making it something of a kind of one-stop-shopping-spot for people you forgot existed doing their best Michael Savage impression. First reporting on the Polanski story from there fell to the site's Editor in Chief, John Nolte; previously launched to Internet Celebrity as "Dirty Harry" from the now-defunct Liberty Film Festival Blog. The site is literally CRAWLING with nutcases, but Nolte is a straight-shooter who can be counted on to be as fair as one can be while still writing what are fundamentally opinion-pieces. He comes down solidly on the "no excuses, bring him back, lets have the trial" side, but with characteristic lack of hyperbole:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/09/27/polanski-may-finally-face-u-s-justice/

Pretty cut and dry, right? Okay, now just for fun, here's some samplings of the commentary that's been offered up in response by the site's readership:

"I predict that Obama will pardon him at the urging of Bill Clinton."

"Some days it really does seem that the counter revolution is finally happening."

"The degenerates of Hollywood finance the coalition of scum, slime, filth, vermin and manure that run the Democ-rat Party."

"Woody Allen, anyone?"

*Sigh.* This is the problem with people for whom political-leanings define their existance: Nothing is outside the realm of left-vs-right, everything MUST be made to benefit one end to the exclusion of another. The questions at hand are, from where I sit, transpolitical: Either he ought be punished or ought not be, either there are mitigating circumstances or there aren't. By cynically framing Polanski's supporters as automatic agents of "the left" and his probable conviction as a cause for "the right;" it cheapens the issue and serves only to score the minor "culture war" victory of forcing "the left" to defend him for fear of ALLOWING said victory.

From the other side (in multiple senses) in this piece of Huffington Post; still struggling to find a reason for it's own existance in a world without the Bush Administration. Interestingly, this particular defense comes from the co-founder of Women Overseas for Equality - a potential irony not lost on a slew of the responders:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-z-shore/polanskis-arrest-shame-on_b_301134.html

And these are just the "amateurs"...

Wanted, Desired, Caught

In case you were nervous that 2009 was going to close without a big "Hollywood Values vs. Reg'ler Amrrrrc'n Values" dustup in the media, worry not. Roman Polanski has been arrested:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/27/zurich.roman.polanski.arrested/index.html

Short version, for the younger readers: Polanski plead guilty to a statutory rape charge in the 1970s (the girl in question was 13, drugs and alcohol were involved). So goes the story, he'd worked out a plea-agreement with the judge and prosecutors by which he'd recieve a time-served sentence for 1 charge of unlawful intercourse. Polanski claims to have discovered that the judge - who's since passed away and was the subject of ethical complaints relating to this case for decades - was apparently planning to "surprise" the media-sensation trial by reneging and hitting him with a much more serious sentence. The director's response was to skip bail and flee America for France, who's extradition treaties with the U.S. do not cover the laws he's accused of breaking. That was more than 30 years ago. Polanski has continued to work steadily, recieving an Oscar for "The Pianist" recently, and has sought return to the U.S. on several occasions either by requesting a mistrial or a dismissal. He's been joined in those requests by his then-victim, who has said she wants the ordeal to be done with. However, the Los Angeles prosecutor's office has remained steadfast in saying that if he enters the U.S. they plan to arrest him and put him on trail again, this time for fleeing the original sentence.

Yesterday, Polanski entered Switzerland - which evidently DOES have the proper extradition treaties with the U.S. - to attend a retrospective of his work at the Zurich Film Festival. Swiss police were waiting at the airport, having recieved a request for arrest from U.S. authorities to assist them, and arrested him for the outstanding charges. He is now detained, awaiting the outcome of extradition deliberations. He is allowed to appeal the arrest in Switzerland, but a likely outcome as of this moment is him being sent back to the U.S. to face whatever is waiting. The third player in this, France, is already coming to his defense and chastising the Swiss government.

Unless the French manage to "roll" the Swiss on this one, this becomes a BIG deal. People have been waiting to "have this one out" for a long time; and the image of a guilty statutory-rapist living luxuriously abroad (in France no less!!!) whilst The Industry largely campaigns for his release and rewards him with Oscars has made this case a favorite whipping-boy for the media-critic arm of the "values voters" contingent. Set aside, for a moment, your personal feelings about the case and just think about that particular firestorm-in-waiting. You think this event isn't a GODSEND to them? They get to "fight" 'liberal' Hollywood AND 'godless' Europe. Nancy Grace is salivating like a rapid bassett hound as we speak...

Should be interesting.

Escape to the Movies: "Surrogates"

Waylon Smithers to shit solid-gold brick

According to Variety, Universal has made a deal with Mattel for a live-action "Barbie" movie:
http://weblogs.variety.com/bfdealmemo/2009/09/u-turns-barbie-into-movie-star.html

No matter what else comes of it, this will almost certainly be the film with the widest gulf between how interesting it's development is versus how interesting it could ever be to watch. They never really felt the need to give this franchise a "narrative" (that I know of... ladies? Am I correct as to this?) so the question of "WTF is a movie of this even about?" is more paramount than even for also-optioned stuff like "Battleship" or "Monopoly."

Seriously: Turn off the "this is stupid" instinct for a minute and consider what the people who have to hammer a MOVIE out of this are in for. Is this a movie about this "character" as an actual person? In which case, is it actually a movie about a 5'9, 36-18-33 blonde with seemingly unlimited wealth and about 500 full-time careers? In which case... wouldn't the ONLY way that'd work be to make it something akin to a spoof? Even if so, Mattel isn't likely to let that be the direction - they guard the Barbie brand about as jealously as you'd guard an ACTUAL woman with those measurements. On the other hand, if it WAS a spoof it'd be an eerily perfect vehicle for Anna Faris (if it was a parody) or Jessica Simpson (if it was a comedy and they feel like going straight-to-DVD.)

That is, of course, assuming they want a major star - they might go looking for an unknown. Dear God, can you IMAGINE an open casting-call for "Barbie?" I picture a MASSIVE line of statuesque blonde women in wonderbras and heels wrapped around six blocks in downtown LA. And y'know what? People will be PAID to conduct those auditions. PAID!

OUTTAKES #029

Because I know someone is gonna want to know, the stills with the nuns come courtesy of (I kid you not) Cleopatra Wong (1978). Oh, and before the complaints start rolling in, please just let me say… I LIKE NUNS! I APPRECIATE NUNS! I just sometimes loose patience with the select few who  belong to the “We’re gonna change the Church” crowd. After all, as a convert, I came to the Church because of its power to CHANGE ME, not the other way around. Grrrr.

SHORT FEATURE: DOWN IN DIXIE

Van Beuren Studios was a short lived cartoon house during the 30s who did their best to capture some of the gleeful insanity of  rival Fleischer Studios output. You can be the judge of whether or not they succeeded. What they did manage, unfortunately, was to propagate the broad stereotypical images of blacks that the was so prevalent in mainstream productions during Hollywood’s “golden age” of cinema. The pickaninny imagery alone is cringe inducing enough in these more racially sensitive times, but Van Beuren took things a bit further. Like other cartoons in Van Beuren Studio’s Aesop Fables series, Down In Dixie has become infamous for its bizarre take on the characters from the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. As Christopher P. Lehman explains in his book The Colored Cartoon, what makes these Van Beuren shorts so insidious is that they “significantly altered the abolitionist sentiment of the book to present the message that slaves accepted, even liked, the ‘peculiar institution’, just not their cruel owners.” Now Black History Month wasn’t promoted as much when I was a kid as it is these days, but even so, I’m willing to bet that’s not exactly how the slaves really felt. “Also” Lehman goes on to note, “the novel’s religious references, which had served to enhance the author’s abolitionist views, disappear on film.”

Which is kind of an odd statement really, because even today, you can still find the occasional critic who believes that Christianity has always approved or turned a blind eye to slavery. (Of course, such a stance only works if you ignore the facts of history and the dictates of common sense, but what the hey, that philosophy has paid off big time for Dan Brown, so why not go with a winning formula.) The problem seems to be, at least for the aforementioned critic, verses from the Bible like the one in Ephesians 6:5 where it states, “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ.” But as Mark Brumley points out, “while Paul told slaves to obey their masters, he made no general defense of slavery, anymore than he made a general defense of the pagan government of Rome, which Christians were also instructed to obey despite its injustices (cf. Rom. 13:1-7). He seems simply to have regarded slavery as an intractable part of the social order, an order that he may well have thought would pass away shortly (1 Cor. 7:29-31).”

Which is not to say that Paul, or any true Christian since, has believed that the systemic injustice of slavery is to be ignored. As Mark Brumley’s article from Catholic Culture and Rodney Stark’s from Christianity Today detail, the Church has had a long history of fighting slavery and has always taught, as the Catechism states, that “the seventh commandment forbids acts or enterprises that for any reason—selfish or ideological, commercial, or totalitarian—lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought, sold and exchanged like merchandise, in disregard for their personal dignity. It is a sin against the dignity of persons and their fundamental rights to reduce them by violence to their productive value or to a source of profit.” It’s simply that if such injustices are to be combated, then the best way to start is to convert the hearts of individuals so they will recognize them as objectively wrong. Christianity’s first order of business has always been, and must always be, the salvation of souls, and it will instruct individuals how to move towards that goal no matter what position they find themselves in, be it as master or slave.