In this morning’s roundup of movie news ‘n’ notes from around the web, the Teamsters may be ready to walk away, but Johnny Depp has come back.
Hollywood dealt with a writers’ strike in 2007 and 2008, and with the recent threats of an actors’ strike and a directors’ strike. But now the studios are facing another big one: a Teamsters strike that could come if the giant union fails to sign a new contract before its current one expires on August 1. The transportation union, says Carl DiOrio and Jonathan Handel, has reached an impasse with the studios over the terms of a new two- or three-year deal; the union wants a three percent annual raise, while the studios are offering two percent. With most fall TV series back in production and others starting soon, the consensus is that television would be the hardest hit. (The Hollywood Reporter)
“Captain Jack is back,” says Jerry Bruckheimer. Actually, he says it in all capitals, on his Twitter account, accompanied by this photo of what appears to be Johnny Depp on the set of the fourth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie. While other people write about how he’s losing his touch, Bruckheimer is in Hawaii making a movie, taking pictures and tweeting. What, him worry? (Twitter)
Comic-Con without the crowds! Or, perhaps, Comic-Con with the crowds, but with those crowds at a safe distance. MTV says its movies managing editor, Josh Horowitz, will be live-streaming from the San Diego convention for three one-hour sessions, beginning Thursday at noon Pacific time. The MTV Movies Blog has more details on the streams, during which they promise that Horowitz will deliver Seth Rogen (“The Green Hornet”), Danny Trejo (“Machete”), Jeff Bridges and Garrett Hedlund (“Tron: Legacy”) and a bunch of people from “Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World.” No word on whether Stormtrooper Elvis will make an appearance, though it wouldn’t be Comic-Con without him. (MTV Movies Blog)
What, exactly, does the end of “Inception” mean? According to Mike Krumboltz, people really want to know. His discussion of What It All Means is designed strictly for those who’ve seen the movie, with spoilers galore starting in paragraph three. And the consensus seems to be that it’s either one thing, or it’s another. (What’s wrong with deliberate ambiguity, anyway?) For those who really want to delve into the film’s mysteries, both the ones Chris Nolan probably intended and the ones that likely never occurred to him, Krumboltz also links to exhaustive (and exhausting) discussions of the film at Screen Rant and Cinema Blend. (Yahoo! Movies)
Peter Martin uses the DVD release of “The Runaways” (a thin premise if I’ve ever heard one) to compile a list of what he calls “musical characters who rock,” which seems to mean characters he likes from movies that have something to do with music. Steve Coogan in “24 Hour Party People” is his number one, followed by Gary Busey in “The Buddy Holly Story”; William Finley in a movie he admits is “an unholy, chaotic mess,” “Phantom of the Paradise”; Samuel L. Jackson in the overheated “Black Snake Moan”; Lou Diamond Phillips in “La Bamba”; Jo Kennedy in the frothy Australian indie “Starstruck”; and, um, Jack Lemmon in “Some Like It Hot.” Jack played a musician, after all. (Cinematical)
