1 -- Invoking the name of a major celebrity in a movie title is sure to make your indie project stand out.
Certainly worked for Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jones with “Being John Malkovich."
But “Avoiding Christian Bale” takes tenuous linkage to new heights.
The Welsh comedy trades on the “fact” that rhyming slang for “fail” is “Christian Bale.”
Perhaps in Wales, from whence the volatile thespian came, but anywhere else it’s a bit WTF.
So WTF is the film about, given that it’s not the chronicle of a lowly DOP hoping to avoid being chewed out by the glowering superstar?
It’s about two lads trying to not fail an essay.
2 -- On the eve of “G.I. Joe” dropping, this glorious fake trailer using action figures hit the net.
Everyone who saw it seemed to have the same reaction: “I’d rather watch that movie than the actual film.”
So, here’s hoping so entrepreneurial filmmakers out there are bringing together just such an action adventure.
3 -- Vale John Hughes.
As a kid of the 1980s, his movies, particularly “Sixteen Candles”, “The Breakfast Club” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” seemed to speak to me directly -- when just about no other adult could.
What’s nice is that on Facebook and Twitter, the tributes from Baby Boomer and Gen Y alike indicate that the comic truth of what Hughes had to say about being an outsider, about trying to be yourself and fit in, about falling in love and growing up, crosses generations.
To paraphrase Simple Minds: We Won’t Forget About You, Won’t Won’t Won’t Won’t.
4 -- And on that note, “Don’t You Forget About Me,” a documentary about four filmmakers going in search of John Hughes and interviewing many of his collaborators (Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Andrew McCarthy) and admirers (Roger Ebert, Jason Reitman, Kevin Smith), is clearly a film the world needs to see.
5 -- Errol Flynn must be rolling in his grave.
First it was announced that Aussies the Spierig Brothers are going to be remaking “Captain Blood” as a space opera.
Then yesterday it was revealed that Danish commercials director Nicolai Fuglsig will be doing be giving “Robin Hood” a similar hi-tech future-fantasy revamp.
Clearly, this can mean just one thing: “Cuban Rebel Girls” is also headed for the final frontier.
6 -- Last year we had Indiana Jones messing about with Mayan crystal skulls to prevent destruction.
