FilmRoar

Garth over at Dark Horizons has posted his list of The Worst Films of 2003 feeding my guilty pleasure at seeing bad flicks get blasted. On an interesting note the only two movies on the list that I saw (could not help it, I was stuck on a plane on both occasions) Biker Boyz (2003) and Kangaroo Jack (2003) were the first two reviews to earn a zero rating on GeekRoar.com (Kangaroo Jack was later upgraded to a ‘1′ based on Jerry O’Connell’s charisma).

1. “Gigli”
2. “The Medallion”
3. “Boat Trip”
4. “The Order”
5. “Darkness Falls”
6. “My Boss’ Daughter” & “Just Married”
7. “House of the Dead”
8. “Daddy Day Care” & “The Haunted Mansion”
9. “Malibu’s Most Wanted”
10. “Beyond Borders”

Other Notable Stinkers:
A Man Apart
Biker Boyz
Cat in the Hat
Cold Creek Manor
Dumb & Dumberer
Duplex
Head of State
Honey
How to Deal
It Runs in the Family
Jungle Book 2
Kangaroo Jack
National Security
Piglet’s Big Movie
Tears of the Sun
Timeline
View from the Top
What a Girl Wants

When I heard that the classic Alec Guinness dark comedy The Ladykillers (1955) was being remade I right about screamed in frustration and disgust. Now that I have seen the trailer for the new version starring Tom Hanks and Marlon Wayans I have warmed up to the idea. In retrospect I realize I should have been more open minded, after all Joel and Ethan Coen have both proven themselves as great filmmakers many times by now.

In The Waterdance (1992) Eric Stoltz plays a young man who’s life is suddenly changed when he breaks his neck in a hiking accident and is paralyzed. Both Stoltz and Helen Hunt, who plays his girlfriend, do a great job of portraying the struggle to deal with the tragedy of injury. Supported by William Forsythe as a racist biker and Wesley Snipes as an unhappy washed out ladies man, The Waterdance (1992) managed to portray struggle and redemption without becoming overly saccharin or depressing. Definitely not one of the feel good movies of the decade, but an interesting thought exercise in how we deal with adversity.

I just got my first glimpse at the upcoming movie Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow (2004) from the trailer and am rather taken by the distinctive look of the piece. The movie is set in 1939 with Sky Captain (played by Jude Law) saving America from giant robots created by a mad scientist bent on world domination. The film also stars Gwyneth Paltrow as the intrepid reporter, Angelina Jolie as Captain Franky Cook and Ling Bai as “The Mysterious Woman”. Sky Captain is the movie that made some waves around FX circles when it was announced as the first project that would exercise first time writer / director Kerry Conran’s unique CGI program that allows the movie be shot almost entirely against blue screen with sets added in post production. I don’t know if this movie will be any good but I do know that I like movies with a look and style of their own, so I will be keeping an eye on this one (plus it is about time we had more mad scientist made giant fighting robots).

Here are some screen captures from the trailer for you to enjoy:
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You might call it Taxi Driver (1976) meets Misery (1990). Or you may just call it plain old freaky. In The King of Comedy (1983) Robert De Niro plays Rupert Pupkin, an aspiring standup coming so infatuated with the Jerry Lewis like host of a late night variety show (played by Lewis himself) that he keeps assailing his idol, looking for a break and goes so far as to kidnap the host and hold him hostage until he is given a chance to perform his routine on national television. The movie made me squirm as Pupkin kept delving further down into fantasies of fame and fortune but really managed a pinnacle of discomfort when it gets to a scene where Pupkin’s partner in crime (played by Sandra Bernhard) prepares to rape the captive comedian while explaining how her therapist advices her to ‘not get too excited’. Not a movie I would recommend, and definitely an odd note in the filmography for director Martin Scorsese.

On December 9th I wrote an entry titled The missing DVDs in which I listed a number of movies not yet released on DVD and solicited feedback on how to ask a studio to feed the fans and release movies that are only available on VHS. I decided that it was time to take action and chose Delicatessen (1991) as a good first target for a new experiment. According to the IMDB the two companies responsible for US distribution are Miramax Home Entertainment for the Video release and Paramount Home Video for the laserdisc (which is reported to be a bad film transfer). Finding contact information for Paramount was easy enough, but Miramax was another story. Their web site Miramax resizes my browser and tries to place it in between my two monitors every time I hit the site annoying me to no end. I prevailed though and searched the site high and low to find… nothing. A Google search did not yield any better results (I tried a half dozen keyword searches) but did give me a clue. Through Google I found a website for fans of the movie The Crow: Salvation (2000) (the third and not well received adaptation of the James O’Barr comic) that encouraged people to contact Miramax and demand a theatrical release. The Crow page gave away Miramax’s home city as New York. One more search, this time on Verizon Yellow Pages for Miramax Films in New York gave me two addresses that matched the ones from the Crow page.

Not sure whom to address my query to or what other contact points may exist I went ahead and wrote this letter:

I am writing to inquire on plans for distribution of one of my favorite films, Delicatessen (1991), on DVD. I have been eagerly awaiting this French masterpiece’s DVD release for some years now and was encouraged by the 2002 German DVD release but have not seen any announcements nor found information for a Region 1 release. I am hoping you may have information you may be able to share on release plans, or if there are no plans yet, that this letter may encourage to consider it. The movie has a strong following, specially since the increased attention received for directors Marc Caro with City of Lost Children (1995) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet with Alien 4 (1997) and Amelie (2001). Based on discussions with the many fans of these two artists and their films I know I am not the only one wanting to own a copy of Delicatessen and that the movie will sell well once it is available in the US in DVD format.
I look forward to a reply from you. Thank you for your time.

and mailed it to:

Paramount Studios
5555 Melrose Avenue
Hollywood, CA 90038
323.956.5000

Miramax Films
11 Beach St
NY, NY 10013
(212) 941-4049

and

Miramax Films
375 Greenwich St.
New York, NY 10013
(212) 941-3800

Now lets see if any of them answer…

Good news for fans of the classic Isaac Asimov book I, Robot: The I Robot Now web site for the upcoming movie adaptation just opened and is looking beautiful.

Here are some desktop backgrounds from the site to give you some idea of the movie’s style:
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