CELLULOID BURNING

Edge of Darkness is Taken meets The Big Sleep, but stars Mel Gibson.
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Streets of Fire = Grease + Chinatown but with big hair and 80’s music.

Streets of Fire is a movie that TheHappyKnife had been bugging me to watch for a good 6 months…maybe longer. I had never heard of the movie before and the concept sounded kinda hooky and weird: An 80’s rock musical about 50’s greasers set in an alternate noir-like universe. I gave in one day and picked up the DVD used for $5. The DVD then sat for another few months before I threw it on my iPhone the day before I was flying out of town. At the airport, my flight was delayed so I decided to turn on the movie, just so I could get TheHappyKnife off my back. When I hit play on the movie, I saw the scene below and knew I was watching something special.

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News stories are going up all over the ‘tubes. 20th Century Fox proclaimed today that Avatar has officially (kinda) become the highest grossing movie of all time, passing Cameron’s Titanic. This is a feat that most in the industry thought would never happen….but it did.

As of yesterday Avatar has grossed $1,859 billion in worldwide gross, and counting. Titanic topped off at $1.843 billion.

Now on to the kinda… Yes Avatar made a lot of money but a lot of that is due to higher IMAX prices (upwards of $18 in some cities) and none of this takes inflation into account. With inflation Avatar doesn’t even crack the Top 20.

Press releases like this are all about posturing and bragging rights between the studios. They hide the fact that admissions have been declining since the 60’s and little gimmicks like IMAX and 3D are needed remedies.

Our other Avatar stories:

Avatar crosses 1 Billion Worldwide

Avatar’s Pandora really located in China

Hilarious Avatar Spoiler!

Incredibly Crude, Not-Safe-For-Work Avatar Parody

How many of you out there watched the Tarantino/Rodriguez collaboration Grindhouse in theaters? I’m guessing not a lot of you. It was a horrible commercial flop, but a tremendously entertaining cinematic experience. The short films were solid and the fake trailers were top notch. The best trailer of them all, Machete, has been mentioned for years as the basis for a full-length feature. According to Danny Trejo, we should expect it in a few months!

Here’s a link to the original not-safe-for-work trailer if you need a refresher!

This week’s Top 10 is about as testosterone-packed as a gamete-filled twinkie. It will put rolling waves of Chuck Norris-like hair on your chest, regardless of whether you desire any or not. (continue reading…)

Derek Yee is one of the unsung heroes of the Hong Kong Cinema scene, along with Johnnie To, Benny Chan, Herman Yau, Dante Lam and Gordan Chan. Yee’s last film was the interesting mess that was Shinjuku Incident. The film was interesting, but I personally feel Jackie Chan was at fault with the reason this movie missed greatness….same goes for New Police Story directed by Benny Chan.

Derek Yee’s latest movie is Triple Tap and it stars Daniel Wu and Louis Koo as dueling marksmen. The trailer out today doesn’t delve too much into the plot but does give a glimpse of what is to come. Check it out.

Legion = Terminator + Night of the Living Dead + Dogma – any sort of political/social satire
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Cavite is Phone Booth meets City of God, but with the slimmest fraction of either budget.
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He had a dream…I’m not sure it was this. Today, DreamWorks announced that they hired screenwriter Ronald Harwood (Australia, Being Julia, The Pianist) to write their Martin Luther King Jr. biopic. It is the first such project to have been giving the permission and blessing of The King Estate.
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There have been a lot of rumors circulating (and I actually forgot to mention it in my review), but director Marc Webb of (500) Days of Summer fame has been selected as the man to reboot the Spider-Man franchise.

Now some of you may be asking who the is Marc Webb and why did he get choose to direct Spider-Man? To those people, think back a decade ago because that what people were asking about Sam Raimi, whose sole superhero credit was Darkman. I think this is an interesting choice and Webb is an interesting young director. Unlike Raimi at the time, who had cut his teeth on a dozen low and medium budget movies before moving on to Spidy, Webb can only be judged by his sole credit thus far. I loved (500) Days of Summer so I am hopeful he can pull this off.

Press Release is below:
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