RIP Leslie Nielsen

By now, everyone has heard the news of the passing of one of cinema's greats, Leslie Nielsen. Generally, they are accompanied by quotes from so many of his movies; a reference to not calling him Shirley, and a sad smile, signifying a longing for the great cinematic personality.

Nielsen was born in Canada in February of 1926 and died November 28 from complications of Pneumonia. He is survived by his fourth wife Barbaree and two Thea and Maura.

He was best known for his comedy roles in movies like Airplane or the movies based on the TV show, Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad. He also did tons of other comedies, like one of my favorites, Spy Hard, and he's famous for delivering hilarious lines, and side-splitting prose with a deadpan straight face. It always amazed me Nielsen could say the things he said like his life depended on it.

It may surprise some that before Airplane, Nielsen did quite a bit of serious work, including some stage work and serious roles in movies like The Poseidon Adventure and Forbidden Planet. Before that, he was a radio announcer, and before that, served in the Royal Canadian Airforce. Nielsen was clearly a man of many talents, and it almost seems a shame we remember him for not wanting to be called Shirley.

For me, my favorite Nielsen moment comes from Airplane, where he gives Ted Stryker the "win one for the Zipper" speech, but it's so hard to narrow it down to one.

Yahoo! has some of the five most memorable moments of the stars life HERE for your viewing pleasure, but they don't do the star justice.

Rest in peace, Leslie Nielsen!

What's your favorite Leslie Nielsen moment?

Box Office Report - Harry Potter beats Tangled

It's the weekend of the family movies, or, rather, Harry Potter and the family movies. The seventh Potter movie dropped an average 60% to rake in $50.4 million, beating out the Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore voiced animated film Tangled, which did a respectable $49.1 million. Megamind is still doing strong in third place. Faster premiered in seventh, with a dismal $8.7 million.

What did you see this weekend?

BOX OFFICE TOP TEN
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part I - $50.4 million ($220.4 million total)
2. Tangled - $49.1 million ($69.0 million total)
3. Megamind - $12.9 million ($130.5 million total)
4. Burlesque - $11.8 million ($17.2 million total)
5. Unstoppable - $11.8 million ($60.7 million total)
6. Love and Other Drugs – $9.9 million (14.0 million total)
7. Faster - $8.7 million ($12.2 million)
8. Due Date - $7.3 million ($85.0 million total)
9. The Next Three Days - $4.8 million ($14.6 million total)
10. Morning Glory - $4.0 million ($26.5 million total)

Kevin Smith to retire?

Kevin Smith is one of the more known filmmakers in Hollywood. He's known for making some incredible, honest, funny movies, and his outgoing attitude towards his fans. He's currently working on a movie called Red State, and after a brutal battle with critics after his last movie, Cop Out, he's not all that happy with movie critics. He's got some truly interesting ideas for distribution on Red State, though.

Overall, I hope Smith doesn't retire. He's a breath of fresh air with his honesty. Whether you agree with his opinions or not, which I don't, you have to respect him coming right out, sans sugar. So, check out what he told to /Film regarding the whole thing.

This isn’t news. Y’know what is news? That RED STATE podcast – and we give it away every week FOR FREE. Y’know what else is news? That Richard Kelly podcast. That’s one INSANELY juicy and useful document if you’ve ever been interested in making a film, or even if you’ve just wondered about the vagaries of the movie biz.

But THIS “retirement” crap? Not news so much as another sad example of how fucking lazy movie pr ess has become: they cannibalize stories by other writers just to have something to post on their own blogs. Yours was the only website that bothered to go DIRECTLY to the source, Peter – other cats ran articles without even tossing a Tweet my way to check veracity. And I answer Tweets like I answer the dinner bell: often & much. While sweating. And already eating something else.

I’ve always said (since CLERKS, even) that I’ve got about ten films in me (that info might even be on my Wikipedia page). And COP OUT notwithstanding (solely because I didn’t write it), HIT SOMEBODY is the 10th film I’ve got in me. At this moment in time, I’ve got no other flicks I wanna make. The musing about a possible return visit to the View Askewniverse with a third CLERKS is something I’ve been doing since CLERKS II, but I’ve always opened said musings with the disclaimer “If I ever wanna make a flick about being in my 40′s, I’ll think of Da nte & Randal first.” There are no concrete plans for a CLERKS III.

The author of the Boston Phoenix piece did a really nice job of not hyping that throwaway factoid in the article and turning it into the exact piece of specious bullshit “news” the websites you mentioned are trying to create of it.

You want REAL Kevin Smith news? Listen to HOLLYWOOD BABBLE-ON tomorrow morning and I’ll tell you who the lead in HIT SOMEBODY is gonna be. Or download the RED STATE OF THE UNION podcast this Tuesday and find out what actors passed on the flick! THAT shit’s Kevin Smith news, son!

But if you can’t wait ’til then? If you’ve GOTTA have some Kevin Smith news to hold you over? Here’s something that’s not so much news as my stated intentions for RED STATE: if it gets into Sundance, my plan is to pick the RED STATE distributor right there – IN THE ROOM – auction style. Might even bring up a professional auctioneer to make it fun and unintelligible. And if you’re a multi-millionaire who can’t make it to the first screening of RED STATE, fear not: maybe we’ll set up an eBay page for the post-screening bid-calling as well.

See? With a little diligence on a newsie’s behalf, not only did he get to the bottom of his story, he got some exclusive shit nobody else has as well! And it’s not like Peter’s got a secret line to me. I’m WAY reachable. I’m so tired of doing lazy fucker’s jobs FOR them – especially when they’re the same lazy fuckers who’re screaming “YOUR MOVIE SUCKS!” a month later anyway. Some of your peers need to act a little less entitled and a little more Sciretta.

Harry Potter plays Daniel Radcliffe

In one of the funniest interviews I've ever seen, we see Daniel Radcliffe confess that he is actually Harry Potter, and that he only plays an actor named Dan. Apparently, Dan is a fun character to play. This is a hilarious video. Thanks Funny Or Die!

I Am Harry Potter from Daniel Radcliffe

Movie Review - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1

The series taken from the beloved children's books and adapted into the biggest movie franchise in history is coming to a close with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. As sides clash, characters embrace their destiny and studios rake in the dough, we get the feeling something special is ending. So, where does the seventh Harry Potter movie rank in the series?

The second movie picks up some time after the events of the previous film, with the gravity of the situation in full force as the Minister of Magic (Bill Nighy) tries to convince everyone, including himself that everything is ok. As a result, Harry's relatives pack up and leave; Hermoine leaves her parents, making them forget their daughter ever existed, and Ron is left contemplating whether his family will make it out alive as they gather for a wedding.

Once we get the intro, we are treated to one of the best action scenes in franchise history as Harry's friends try to transport their most valuable cargo to a safer location. Things go terribly wrong; brooms fly, and good and evil do battle in the skies as Harry tries to get away in Hagrid's side car. This was my favorite part of the movie with some great scenes, and gorgeous action shots. We get a quick lull in the action before another death eater attack leaves Hermoine, Ron and Harry on their own, and on the run.

As someone who has never read the books, I always feel like there are stories hinted at that are never fully realized in the movies, and this one is no exception. Dumbledore's mysterious past is referenced, but left in the background. There were hints to movies past, from mention of the Basilisk in Chamber of Secrets, to the Sword of Gryffindor, and the golden snitch from the first quiddich game.

The actors only get better with age as you get the feeling Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint are as comfortable in their characters shoes as they are in their own. Radcliffe especially flexes his acting chops with several scenes of intensity in a CGI heavy scene. Ralph Fiennes has a more commanding performance than the last movie, playing the dark lord himself, and Helena Bonham Carter shows her normal crazy side in a rather brutal scene involving Watson's Hermoine.

This movie shows it's no longer for kids with torture, death, and a pretty hot scene involving Harry and Hermoine. While there are several bright spots in the series, Goblet of Fire being my favorite, this has to be lower on the list for me. The grayness in the movie, meant to enforce the weight of the world left me depressed. There were some amazing, beautiful, dramatic scenes, but at 2 hours and 36 minutes, I started to notice the length at times, specifically in the middle.

With the action packed beginning and the dramatic end, littered with just a hint of humor, like scene with multiple Harry's, or any time they change shape, the middle, with all its scenery, and emotion packed dialogue dragged. It seemed they just teleported from one beautiful location to another without any point or purpose with tidbits of swords and the origins of magic spread throughout their travels, with the radio spreading news of death in the background the whole way.

Overall, any Harry Potter fan will be flocking to see this movie no matter what I say, and the movie will set box office record after box office record, but in the end, I don't think this will be my favorite. With the grim feeling, and depressing backdrop, this movie won't beg for the repeated viewings the others will. Either way, Harry is more than worth your time. It's beautiful, wonderfully dramatic, with a hint of humor and some nicely done action. See it; if for nothing else, to see the buildup to the ending we've all waited for since meeting that young boy all those years ago.

EDITORS NOTE: This also appeared on Creative Loafing's website HERE and SpoilerTV's website HERE. Check out the comments from these great communities.

Movie Review - Faster - Starring Dwayne Johnson

There was a scene in a movie called The Rundown, where famed action star turned governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wishes upcoming action star Dwayne Johnson good luck in passing, as a sort of passing of the torch to the next great action star. No longer The Rock, Johnson took the torch and did movies like the Tooth Fairy. Faster looks to be a return to form for the great action star, but will it be everything we wanted? Well, it's not what we expected.

Faster involves three characters, all having a bit of a connection with a bank heist turned double-cross, resulting in Johnson's brothers death. As the movie begins, we see Johnson get out of jail and making a B-line to those who killed his brother. We also meet a rich boy turned hitman, only looking for a challenge in life, and finding one in his latest hit; Johnson's character, and finally, Billy Bob Thornton's cop character, trying to hunt down the murderer of several men before more are killed.

First off, this is not what I expected from the action packed trailer. The movie was not nearly as much action as it is a suspense movie with guns, and lots and lots of shots of Dwayne Johnson looking stern. The movie seemed to be a series of scenes involving either Johnson driving to his next hit, or the quick, in and out hit itself, with really very little else. The action shots seemed really off, with director George Tillman Jr. (Men of Honor) going with a shaky cam style with lots and lots of quick cuts.

The idea on whether Johnson's character should kill the people involved with his brother's death is one the movie likes to play with. Instead of some movies showing the soon-to-be victims as total D-Bags in an effort to make the audience feel better about their impending doom, the movie shows them as family men; fathers and husbands. This makes every hit more tension filled and more ethically murky. Sure, we are reminded of the events that lead to Johnson's brother's death, but then we are shown a good, reformed, apologetic guy. This movie uses this to great effect in one scene involving Lost's Mr. Ecko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), where the murderer turned priest wants nothing but forgiveness, and the back and forth between the two is incredible, with the debate on whether he should be executed or not.

The character of the rich mogul turned hitman is terrible, and has nothing to do with the story. It involves a guy similar to Johnson's characters moral struggle on whether to pull the trigger, although with different reasons. Either way, the character does very little, and has a totally anti-climactic ending. Thornton's drug using cop is an interesting character, however, and his ties to the murder is interesting, as he plays a cop looking for retirement. He's partnered with Carla Gugino, and as such, makes a good, and very murky character in a movie filled with them.

If you were looking for a good action movie involving a great '71 Chavelle, a promising action star, some gorgeous women and Billy Bob Thornton, then you will be disappointed. If you go in with little expectations, you will get a movie with some great scenes chained together in a movie with sloppy action shots, a stern-looking Dwayne Johnson and a great scene with Mr. Ecko. Overall, it's more of a rent then a movie theater event.

Disney done with Fairy Tales? Please no

In a terrifying article from /Film, they quote Disney's head of animation as saying "Tangled will be the last fairy tale produced by Disney’s animation group for the foreseeable future." The article goes on to question whether fairy tale stories are still relevant, along with looking at some of the previous Disney films that haven't exactly rattled the box office cage. While all this is true, this can't happen.

First off, I am not sure if "Disney Animation" and "Pixar Studios" which Disney owns are considered the same thing, which could mean that all Fairy Tale creatures, both benevolent and and benign will be handled by Pixar, as apposed to Disney. However the possible astrix goes, this is a dark day indeed.

Some of the greatest cinematic memories I have from my childhood involve Disney. I mean, you had the classics like 101 Dalmatians, and Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast, and my personal favorite Lion King, and Aladdin, amongst so many others. It's a staple of youth, and to not add any new ones is silly. These movies are like the theme parks themselves, they take you to another world of magic, and wonder, and can make anyone, no matter the age feel like a kid, and while I'm not talking about the end of that per se, it sure feels like it.

Now, the article also has a Facebook exert saying that it's a bunch of bologna, but the quote, if you trust the L.A. Times, came from somewhere, which means the idea is being tossed around, and I don't like treasured cinematic movies like Disney fairy tales being toyed with. Do you?

WTF news of the week - Abraham Lincoln comes to the big screen

Sadly, I'm not talking about the adaptation of the book Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I'm instead talking about a rather bizarre project, helmed by Stephen Spielberg, doing a biopic on the 16th president. According to Yahoo, Spielberg had Liam Neeson cast as the $5 bill guy, but with Neeson dropping out after years of inactivity, it seems Daniel Day-Lewis is cast.

Am I the only person that doesn't see it? I mean, I guess he could look sort of like him, but I don't know if I care to see him as the president, let alone a biopic of the guy. While Lincoln's presidency is one of the more famous in history, I just don't know how they would make it interesting.

I'm not hating on the film before it's started, nor am I saying it will be boring, and with Spielberg helming the film, if it ever gets off the ground, it certainly has a good director at the helm, but from the little I've read, I'm left totally uninterested.

What about you, would you like to see an Abraham Lincoln biopic? And what about good old' Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln?

p.s. yes, I used Abraham Lincoln from Star Trek as the image. What of it?

Box Office Report - Harry Potter blows up the box office

There was a little-known movie that came out this week. Something about a guy named Harry Potter...

The movie blew away all other Harry Potter opening weekends with $125 million, easily beating out Goblet of Fire, which had about $102 million. Megamind came in a very distant second, but still good enough for second place with $16.2 million.

So, what did you see this weekend?

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part I - $125.1 million ($125.1 million total)
2. Megamind - $16.2 million ($109.5 million total)
3. Unstoppable - $13.1 million ($42.0 million total)
4. Due Date - $9.2 million ($72.7 million total)
5. The Next Three Days - $6.8 million ($6.8 million total)
6. Morning Glory - $5.2 million ($19.9 million total)
7. Skyline - $3.4 million ($17.7 million total)
8. Red - $2.5 million ($83.6 million total)
9. For Colored Girls - $2.4 million ($34.5 million total)
10. Fair Game - $1.5 million ($3.8 million total)

Doctor Who Christmas special - Trailer

I got into Doctor Who a year or so ago, and have since caught up with the new incarnation of Doctor Who, starting back in 2005. I know, as a sci-fi geek, I should go back further, because, well, most of that stuff is the father of modern science fiction, but it's not easy to tackle. With that said, the most recent season of Who is possibly the greatest season of TV I've ever seen. Matt Smith is incredible as the Doctor, and it's left me anxious for more.

So, check out the trailer for the Christmas episode. When he says "I'm the ghost of Christmas past" well, my inner geek does cart-wheels.

Red Riding Hood trailer - starring Amanda Seyfried

Check out the new trailer for the Catherine Hardwicke directed Red Riding Hood. According to the Yahoo! article Leonardo DiCaprio thought of the idea, as opposed to the Twilight director. I like the idea, and of course, Amanda Seyfriend is extremely hot, and it's got the staple of any good movie; Gary Oldman, but is this too sparkley for you? Let me know your thoughts.

100 things I like about Cinema

As I was browsing through some blogs today, I came across a really great post on a blog called thedroidyourelookingfor (seriously, the name alone is worth clicking on). The post, instead of talking about how bad the movie season was, or the most hated character in all cinema, or how he hated Harry Potter, he listed 100 things he loved about movies. It was refreshing to say the least, and it was really well done.

Now, I am in no way trying to copy his list, but, I would like to think I’m more inspired by the list to make my own. Now, it’s not done yet, not by a long shot. It turns out, coming up with 100 things in one sitting isn’t the easiest thing to do; not because there aren’t 100 things, just that my brain doesn’t have quite enough RAM for the job.

So, here’s what I’ve got so far. What would you add?

1) Quan-Su means like free beer or something
2) Calvin Klein is written all over his underwear
3) He’s a scruffy-looking Nerf Herder
4) He can’t see us if we don’t move
5) How cool it was when Max turned into a silver Nerf Ball
6) That McCrowski picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue
7) The two suns on Tattoine
8) I wasn’t even supposed to be here today
9) Here’s lookin at you kid
10) The scene where the guys are singing in the boat and the barrel pops up
11) How the sun is in your eyes before Mal moves and says “I aim to misbehave”
12) When the explosion in the fake town blows up the horse and the guy
13) Any Schwartz joke
14) When George Clooney says the words “Jedi Warrior” and Ewan McGregor looks puzzled
15) The Dude
16) When Gwenyth Paltrow realizes she left the lens cap on the whole time.
17) The Jungles of Pandora
18) The flying monkeys and that crazy music!
19) The train battle in Spiderman 2
20) The way Christopher Walken says “Ping-Pong”
21) The fact dogs can look up
22) When the beautiful Enterprise rises up through the red fog stuff
23) Every time Indy uses a whip
24) When Indy pulls out a gun and shoots the sword wielding fiend
25) When Simon Pegg drop-kicks that old lady in the name of the “greater good”
26) The car chase in Bad Boys 2, where they wreck a boat

Sometimes, paper can make you happy

I've said multiple times that whether a review or story of mine is in the paper or not, it's aways about what will get more exposure, and often times, being on the website is just as good, if not better. Having said that, there is something gratifying about seeing a review of yours in print...

Page 52 of this weeks Creative Loafing:

photo courtesy of Jasandra

Jon Favreau's Cowboys vs. Aliens teaser trailer

There has been talk about this movie for some time, and frankly, the title alone is worth checking out, until you see the cast that includes Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig and Olivia Wilde, among others, and you see it's directed by Hollywood's next big thing, Mr. Jon Favreau, then it's required viewing. And, finally, you see the trailer, and you wonder, is it everything you hoped for? The answer: Oh yeah!

Zombie outbreak? What would you do?

So, my girlfriend did a post on her blog, YouthinkitIspeakit.tumbler.com where she talked about what she would do in a zombie Apocalypse, and yesterday, I was on Gizmodo.com, where we talked about if an aircraft carrier was a good idea or not during a zombie apocalypse. So, with all this talk of zombies, I thought I should get my ideas down on paper.

Alright, so, ideas of being on an aircraft carrier are good, and so is a bunker, but I think those are only good for limited times. My idea comes from the original Swiss Family Robinson, where they defended their island from pirates by holding out on an acropolis on the top of a hill. It got me thinking that's not that bad of a strategy. You need something you can escape from easily, so, that seems to be a good shot. I really want some coconut bombs, though, just sayin'.

I think the other idea that could work comes from Jaws, in a floating island. Wrap some boats together, and you can move the island anywhere you need. I mean, I like the water, but the bad part is you can go anywhere in an emergency, can you?

Alright, so, just make sure you have weapons, and not guns, guns are only good for crazy humans, no, make sure you have some blades, explosives, and be sneaky, remember zombies are dumb, and you aren't!

What would you do?