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InMovie News

Casablanca 2 keeps hesitating about getting on that plane…

November 5, 2012By

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

We’re all the sequel you need, kid!


Get on the plane so we don’t have a sequel, Casablanca 2! We’re counting on you to make the right decision and leave and never come back. But we know Hollywood won’t stand for that when there’s money to be made! The NY Post has an article up about how the wheels are moving again and details some of the prior sequel attempts (including TWO tv shows that were made – I only remembered one – and there was no mention of Overdrawn at the Memory Bank!)

Originally there was going to be a sequel right after Casablanca came out in 1942 called Brazzaville, named after the location of the Free French garrison mentioned in the film. In that film, it would be revealed that Rick and Captain Renault were Allied agents all along. Which instantly makes them boring stock characters and soon the treatment by Frederic Stephani was scrapped.

Casablanca would then show up on the small screen – first as part of a rotating segment on Warner Bros. Presents (along with another segment based on Kings Row!) in 1955, and later in 1982 for a Casablanca tv series that lasted a whole three episodes.

At that time Howard Koch (one of the three screenwriters who shared the Oscar) was writing his own treatment for a sequel, called Return to Casablanca, which included parts for still-living cast members (the scripts were rewritten when they died) centering around the son of Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund – who was conceived the night Ilsa cam to beg for the transit passes – and then raised in America by Ilsa and Laszlo. Rick Jr. then returns to Casablanca in the 1960s to try and find his father, who disappeared during the war. There he follows the trail of ruins to find the fate of his father, helped by an Arab freedom fighter named Jane.

There was also a book sequel called As Time Goes By by Michael Walsh that saw Rick and Renault being recruited by Laszlo and Ilsa to assassinate Nazi leader Reinhard Hydrich in Prague (an actual event.)

Cass Warner, granddaughter of Harry Warner and grand-niece of Jack L. Warner (the real Warner Bros.) found Howard Koch’s treatment and is attempting to get Warners to give her the go-ahead to make it. They passed a year and a half ago, but said they’d be interested if she got a bankable director behind the project. Which means this could happen at any time! Be afraid, be very afraid!

(Also LOL at the NY Post article url being “Saloonkeeper Thanksgiving Assassination” for some reason!)

Wreck-It Ralph
InGood, Movie Reviews

Wreck-It Ralph (Review)

November 5, 2012By

Wreck-It Ralph


2012
Written by Phil Johnston and Jennifer Lee
Additional Story Material by John C. Reilly
Directed by Rich Moore

Nostalgia is really hot right now. So are movies that have good stories. Disney combins the two to bring us Wreck-It Ralph, and the video game movie world will never be the same. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but Wreck-It Ralph is still a great flick. Beneath the Pac-Man ghosts, first person shooters, and sitdown racers is a tale of finding your place in the world, becoming a better person while still accepting yourself for who you are, and working for a better life.

There will be spoilers, so if you hate spoilers, get the heck out of this review!

Wreck-It Ralph is the first Disney animated film I’ve been excited about for years, except maybe Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue. It’s a video game world featuring characters you grew up with playing in minor roles. But they’re just flavoring for the real story. Before Wreck-It Ralph is an awesome short called Paperman, which is a cute love story and a neat meld of 2D influence in CG animation.

Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) – The villain of the Donkey Kong-styled arcade machine Fix-It Felix, Jr., a machine that has been active for 30 years at the local arcade. Ralph’s job is to destroy the building, when the player fixes using Fix-It Felix, Jr. Over the decades, Ralph has become increasingly depressed and angry at his lot in life. An anniversary and a confrontation with the other denizens of his game cause him to act out, in essence have a midlife crisis and go looking for respect. And for that he needs a medal like the one Fix-It Felix wins every day.
Fix-It Felix, Jr. (Jack McBrayer) – Titular hero of Fix-It Felix, Jr., possessing a magic hammer that fixes anything with a simple whack. But it can’t fix Ralph’s hurt feelings, and Felix is forced to go after the game-jumping Ralph to prevent his own game from being unplugged.
Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun (Jane Lynch) – Tough as nails squad leader from the FPS Hero’s Duty. Joins in the hunt for Ralph when he inadvertently brings a Cy-Bug from Hero’s Duty to the racing game Sugar Rush. Is programmed with the most tragic back story ever.
Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) – Racer in the sitdown racing game Sugar Rush. Is a pariah in the game because she’s a glitch, which means she often de-rezes or jumps around within the game. Glitches cannot leave the game, if it is shut off she will die. None of the other citizens of Sugar Rush are fond of her due to her glitch status.
King Candy (Alan Tudyk) – Ruler of Sugar Rush who controls the racing to determine which racers are available that day, and also enforces the anti-glitch mentality. Has a dark secret.

InMovie News

Ghost Storm rages on SyFy

November 3, 2012By


November 10 sees the premier of Ghost Storm, the true story of a storm that was full of ghosts that attacked the planet. Or some random small island so we can save on extra expenses. As the plot sez:

An action packed chase led by Hal and Ashley to save the people on this small island from a strange electrical storm which is led by angry souls from a mass suicide looking for revenge.

So they’re storm chasers? Ghost storm chasers. Was the mass suicide some dumb cult, and then everyone is mad that there was no alien spaceship to take them away so they become evil rainclouds? It’s sad when your religion is a bit off, but that’s no reason to go all crazy. Just suck it up and help water some farmer’s fields, you jerks! This is a SyFy channel original flick, so expect lots of ghosts and storms and CGI craziness and actors who were on popular shows a few years ago.
Crystal Allen, Carlos Bernard, and Aaron Douglas star. Ghost Storm is written and directed by Paul Ziller, of Sea Beast and Snakehead Terror fame.

Ghost Storm

The Surgeon General is going to put so many warnings on this film!

InMovie News

John Cusack is Rush Limbaugh in a big fat movie!

November 3, 2012By

When I first saw this headline, I though @JohnCusackNews was leaking into reality. But, nope, this is a real thing, John Cusack is developing a Rush Limbaugh biopic called Rush through his production company and will be starring as the radio host. No real word on if Limbaugh is involved in any way. Though I think Limbaugh’s life story of radio host turned unofficial position decider for conservative politicians while embarking on four marriages, drug abuse, sex tourism, and saying some of the most awful things imaginable could make an interesting story, his hard-core dittoheads will be attempting to torpedo any movie unless it starred Rush himself. And even then, they’d blame the liberal media when it didn’t make a gazillion dollars at the box office, despite that not being a real number. You might have guessed I’m not a fan of that big fat idiot. Now, this film on the other hand, if it looks interesting, I’ll go see it, even though I can’t really picture Cusack as Limbaugh. So we will see…

via MSN

Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot

InMovie News

Let's not get Linked Behind this time

November 2, 2012By

Chopper comic

Here is the news that happened when I was busy strutting or whatever it is I do when I’m not updating TarsTarkas.NET:

**The comic Chopper – which reimagines The Legend of Sleepy Hollow as a headless biker – got some webisodes that served as a prequel, and they’ve been used to springboard a movie adaptation. Actors Tyler Mane and Andrew Bryniarski from the webisodes are set to return, and comic writer Martin Shapiro will write the script. You can watch the First Episode here

If this sounds vaguely familiar, you might be thinking of the Kolchak: The Night Stalker episode about a headless biker, also called Chopper. Or maybe the episode of The Real Ghostbusters called The Headless Motorcyclist.

**Rick Yancey’s short story When First We Were Gods is getting filmed. Aron Eli Coleite will adapt the tale about wealthy immortals and a scheme for a rich man to kill his immortal wife and replace her with his mortal mistress (giving her the immortality.) Music video and commercial director Daniel Askill will direct.

**The 2000 A.D comic Stronghold comes closer to reality after three years on the backburner, with Stellan Skarsgard and Douglas Booth signed on as leads. Paul Finch created the Stronghold comic, about knights vs zombies, and he wrote the script. Jason Kingsley directs.

Ranulf and his team of heroic knights have just conquered the land of Wales. On their way back to the castle they call home, they happen upon an unforeseen enemy – one that never fixed on battling, the undead. Seems the Welsh have been conquered and killed, but the enemy has risen again as zombies!

**The cast for Monuments Men is awesome. Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, Jean Dujardin, John Goodman, Bob Balaban, and Hugh Bonneville are signed up so far for George Clooney’s latest flick, about a group of people who steal artworks from nazi Germany before Hitler can destroy them. It’s based on Robert M. Edsel’s book, and you can read about the real Monuments Men here.

**Nic Cage is in the business of making bad films again as he’s set to star in the Left Behind remake. Arclight Films is behind this latest franchise reboot. The original trilogy starred controversial banana enthusiast Kirk Cameron, as is based on the best selling series of books that are in now way incredibly awful. Vic Armstrong, a legendary stunt performer, is signed on to direct. This will be Vic Armstrong’s second feature direction after Dolph Lundgren’s Army of One.

**IMDB Top 250 in 2 1/2 Minutes
Let’s just ignore the politics of using the IMDB top 250 as a measure of anything and enjoy the editing.

**The giant monster comic Enormous will get moviefied as well, with monster-experienced director Andre Ovredal signed on to helm the project. He directed Troll Hunter, which was pretty darn good. The comic was created and written by Tim Daniel and drawn by Mehdi Cheggour, and just moved from Image comics to 21 Ink Publishing. The prior work focused on a woman who saved lost children in a world where ecological chaos unleashes giant beasts that destroy civilization. More about Enormous at this link.
Enormous

**Presented without comment:
Wizard of Oz Kill

**Speaking of The Wizard of Oz, if you love biting political mocking of the pundit-filled wasteland that is modern media and politics, you will love Frank Conniff’s The Wonderful Pundits of Oz! Fellow MST3K alum J. Elvis Weinstein is also a voice.

**Internet buddy Vargo/Martin Schneider demanded answers from Robert Zemeckis about Mars Needs Moms, prompting Zemeckis to heartily defend his awful film. scoring a mention in Entertainment Weekly.

**At Can’t Stop the Movies, Andrew gets Ruby Sparksed up!

**Nude for Satan is the Greatest Movie EVER! on the Greatest Movie EVER podcast!

**Xsmarkthespot talks about Cloud Atlas!

**FourDK’s jungle has a Three Supermen infestation! Someone get the can of Raid!

**Fist of B-List vs Black Samurai!

**Green People’s Soup knows the truth about Disney and Jesus!

**The Vault of Buncheness battles The Atomic Brain!

**Music video of the week:

InGood, Movie Reviews

You Pet

November 2, 2012By

You Pet

aka 너는 펫 aka Neo-neun Pet

2011
Directed by Kim Byeong-gon

It’s time once again to dip our toes into the water that is Korean romantic comedies. You Pet has a slight twist, in that it is a Korean film but is based on a Japanese manga (Yayoi Ogawa’s Kimi wa Petto, which was also the basis for the Japanese tv series of the same name.) The translation into a distinctly Korean film is handled pretty well, you definitely will know the country of origin. Playing the lead is TarsTarkas.NET favorite Kim Ha-neul, who somehow always manages to be in entertaining romantic comedies. It’s like she was created in a lab after decades of testing, sort of how Disney produces their child stars. Playing opposite is Jang Geun-seok, who is one of the biggest studmuffins in all of Asia. You’ve probably heard of him, and his whole Prince of Asia designation, so I won’t go into much detail. Their individual charisma and chemistry together help elevate You Pet into a great piece of film. And that’s the most important thing, because the concept behind You Pet requires the leads work well together to keep it from becoming very disturbing.

It is important to note that like all romantic comedies, You Pet and Korean romantic comedies in general exist in an idealized world, where relationships fall into more easily defined categories and people don’t carry baggage associated with just living a life. Very attractive people will be alone for years and years because of the tiniest of flaws making the repellant to everyone of the opposite sex, and unattractive people just don’t exist (except for the occasional wacky character). Heck, even the extras in You Pet are almost all young professionals who look straight out of a talent agency. Even Eun-I’s parents look younger than they are, and appear ever-fleeting, less they age up the film.

You Pet does buck a bit of the trends by taking the established order of things and bending it on its ear. Instead of presenting the traditional want of landing a rich man and living happily ever after, You Pet‘s master/pet relationship between Eun-I and In-ho subverts things, but in a family-friendly way. Now, Korea may be modern and filled with people rapidly keeping up with today’s fast movie world, but it is also a land full of traditions. And these start to collide with the modern thinking when it comes to two people of the opposite sex living together while not in a relationship. Just having a male-female relationship that isn’t lovers and isn’t best friends can muddy the waters, and things get very cloudy very quickly, but a good cloudy. And while a safe outside the box approach to old traditions vs. modern life isn’t the most risky thing in the world, it does help reflect times changing, and I applaud films that try to do interesting things as opposed to playing it safe and boring. While many of Korea’s romantic comedies are sugar-coated fluff, some of them do confront relationship expectations in their own friendly-faced way, you just won’t get things like Happy End.

Ji Eun-I (Kim Ha-neul) – Ji Eun-I is a fashion magazine editor who spends most of her free time working and the rest of it being unsatisfied with loser chumps, to the point where she’s given up on dealing with men who do nothing but disappoint. But as her work life gets more hectic, her home life gets more complicated when Kang In-ho ends up living with her, and she decides to use him as a pet to make up for what is missing in her life. Kim Ha-neul is also in Too Beautiful to Lie, Dead Friend, My Tutor Friend, and My Girlfriend Is an Agent.
Kang In-ho (Jang Geun-seok) – Free spirit ballet dancer who cannot dance with a partner anymore due to guilt over the partner he injured (hmm…subtext much??) He is perpetually without money and prepping to choreograph a big show. But needing a place to live turns out to be more than he thought when he ends up at Ji Eun-I’s apartment after her brother moves him in. He agrees to be a pet in exchange for being able to stay, but their relationship soon becomes more complicated than master and pet.
Cha Woo-seong (Yoo Tae-joon) – Representing the traditional good rich guy who swoops in and Prince Charmings the girls of Korea. Cha Woo-seong is Ji Eun-I’s former crush who reenters her life to try to make her his wife, despite not seeing her for years and not talking to her when they did know each other. Cha Woo-seong is so set on trying to be the classic good guy that he ends up being just weird. And that’s weird for a film where a guy is a pet.

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