An Evening With Kevin Smith 2 Due In August
If there’s one strength that Kevin Smith has as a filmmaker it is his sense of humour and the ability to tell stories. You can see evidence of this in an even more pure form whenever he does spoken word engagements, and as captured on the original An Evening With Kevin Smith DVD. Being a bit of an outsider within the Hollywood system has given him some great stories about the egos and oddities in the movie world. I almost wish he would just quit directing movies and host his own talk show instead. Anyways, some may know that over the past couple years he also did a few more spoken word engagements at the Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto and the Criterion Theatre in London. Highlights from these shows will finally be released in August as An Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder. I have to admit I did find the DVD artwork somewhat amusing, and as long as they cut out all the embarassing fanboy questions there are probably some pretty amusing stories captured on this 2-disc set as well. The DVD is supposed to hit stores on August 15th, which was originally a couple days before the theatrical release of Clerks 2. However, with Clerks 2 getting bumped up to a July 21st release, it is possible that this may follow suit in order to maximize its cross-marketing potential. In the meantime you can watch a Quicktime trailer for the first disc, or check out a larger version of the artwork at the link below.
There’s been rumours about another Die Hard movie for some time now, and although nothing official was ever said, deep down we all knew it was simply inevitable. Right? Now, here’s the first real news tidbit I’ve heard that pretty much confirms the wheels are in motion: Fox has signed a deal Len Wiseman, director of the Underworld films, to helm what they are calling Die Hard 4.0. John McTiernan, the original Die Hard director, will produce, and of course Bruce Willis will star. It turns out there’s a clever reason why the movie is being called Die Hard 4.0. It seems the bad guys in this flick are actually “internet terrorists”… that’s right, I said internet terrorists. What the hell are they thinking? This pretty much confirms that the movie will end up being a steaming pile of crap. The internet and computers NEVER work well in action movies. (Well, except maybe in that one little movie called The Matrix.) If they were so hard up for terrorists why couldn’t they pit McClane against Al-Qaeda? I’d pay to see that. Either way I’m sure we’re in for a slew of more detailed announcements to follow this in the coming months. Die Hard 4.0? Jeez.
Yet another interesting documentary has recently surfaced in the festival circuit. “Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple” follows the rocky relationship between rapper Jim Jones and Andy Warhol as they try and one up eachother on the road…er, not quite. This is, of course, the story of cult leader Jim Jones and the infamous mass suicide he orchestrated in 1978. We all know about the tainted kool-aid, but filmmaker Stanley Nelson digs deeper into Jones’ past and brings some new information to the table. I’ve always had an interest in this story and am pretty excited about this film. “Jonestown” was recently screened at the Tribeca film festival and for those in the Washington, DC area, tickets are now available 
Da Ali G Show is easily one of the most hilarious TV shows to come out in recent years, and as many people will tell you, his Kazakhstani alter ego Borat might actually be even funnier than Ali G himself. While there has already been an Ali G feature film (not as good as the show), there has never been a Borat movie — until now, that is. Creator and star Sacha Baron Cohen has been quietly working on a Borat movie over the past year or two, and it sounds like it’s almost ready to be unleashed on the public. The movie screened at the Cannes Festival this week, and reactions were apparently quite positive. Of course, Cohen also couldn’t resist the urge to stage some sort of publicity stunt as well, and so Borat took to the beaches in rather unflattering swimming attire. Hilarious! If your eyes can handle the pain, more pics of his antics found 
This week’s DVD releases are again dominated mainly by TV box sets, but there’s also the parody flick Date Movie, the critically panned Freedomland, and a new 20th Anniversary Edition of Oliver Stone’s Platoon which looks quite extensive (although there was already a Special Edition DVD released back in 2001). The highlight of the week however is the release of Alf: The Animated Series on DVD! Woohoo!
Here on Film Junk we’ve discussed at length the fact that there are far too many comic book movies coming out now, and that the trend (I hope) will probably not continue on for much longer. And yet, as much as I’m getting sick of seeing every single Marvel and D.C. character adapted for the big screen, there are certain comics that I will gladly make an exception for. In particular, it is the non-superhero comics that I am most interested in, primarily from D.C.’s Vertigo imprint which seems to consistently deliver the most unique and challenging stories in comics today. So naturally when I read this juicy little rumour my cold, robotic heartrate just may have increased ever so slightly. It seems that the feature film based on Garth Ennis’ Preacher is pretty much dead. James Marsden was attached to star for the longest time, but alas nothing ever came of it. However, now there is talk that Preacher is seriously being considered for a TV series — on HBO, no less. The producers from The Sopranos reportedly contacted Garth Ennis to discuss the possibilities, although little is known regarding the outcome of said conversations. I would be pretty pumped if this actually lead to something. Put some of the same people behind it who worked on Carnivale and you’d be well on your way to a kick ass show!
There’s been a lot of talk over the past week about the reception of some of the year’s more anticipated movies at the Cannes Film Festival in France. Clerks 2 got a standing ovation, while on the other hand viewers turned up their noses at Southland Tales and The Da Vinci Code, for example. It was a handful of quieter, lesser known films, however, that came away with awards from the festival. This year’s jury, lead by Wong Kar Wai (2046), selected Ken Loach’s film The Wind That Shakes The Barley for the 2006 Palme D’Or, the prize for Best Film. The movie stars Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later, Red Eye) as a young man in Ireland in the early 1900’s who abandons his career as a doctor to join the freedom fighters that would eventually become known as the IRA. Although the film’s title sounds rather dull, I think this looks like an interesting film that covers the dramatic events that unfolded as Ireland struggled for its independence from Britain. Cinemas Online has a trailer for the film in Quicktime at the link below. The Wind That Shakes The Barley will be released in the U.K. on June 23rd, with a North American release still TBA.
Blade Runner, Ridley Scott’s 1982 adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, is widely considered to be one of those movies that was way ahead of its time. It performed poorly at the box office, but developed a cult following over the years and influenced many sci-fi movies to come. Now, the thing about this movie is that there have been a number of different cuts, none of which Ridley Scott has been completely happy with (he seems to re-edit his movies almost as much as George Lucas… just look at all the recent Extended Editions and Director’s Cuts of all his other films). There had been rumours for years about him putting together one last definitive version of the movie, that would be released as a special edition DVD. However, Warner Brothers then found that their rights to the movie were about to lapse, which held things up considerably. Now, finally, it looks like things are on track for Blade Runner: The Final Cut, which is expected to be released in theatres and on DVD sometime in early 2007. But first there will be a remastered version of his 1992 Director’s Cut released as a 2-disc DVD in September. Then next year will be Blade Runner’s 25th Anniversary, and after a short theatrical run, the new Final Cut of the movie will be released along with all 3 of the previous cuts of the movie in one ultimate DVD package. Phew. Needless to say, this is what Blade Runner fans have been waiting to hear about for years, and even though I’m not a huge fan of Blade Runner I wouldn’t mind having the opportunity to see it in theatres. Stay tuned for more details on this as they become available.
Well it looks like the boom in fantasy movies that I was expecting to follow the Lord of the Rings trilogy may finally be upon us. I guess enough time has passed that now you can make a fantasy movie without people saying it’s a rip off of Lord of the Rings (I suppose Narnia proved that, even though it was vastly inferior if you ask me). It was announced this week that Canadian production company Copperheart Entertainment is going ahead with production on a movie based on Anne McCaffrey’s series of books about the Dragonriders of Pern. I vaguely remember reading some of these books when I was younger; the story involves a lethal substance known as the Thread that rains down on the planet Pern every few hundred years and specially trained protectors must ride dragons to burn the Thread out of the sky. Apparently there are 19 books in the series (!) so if the first movie is successful you can be sure there will be a few sequels. No word yet on cast or crew for the project, so it’s pretty hard to judge what kind of quality the film will be. Interesting to note however: the series was originally supposed to be developed into a TV show by Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica) but the project eventually got dropped when Moore refused to compromise certain elements of the story. Now someone please tell me a Dragonlance movie is finally going to get greenlit any day now!
Sean is back from his honeymoon and this week we tackle one of the major summer blockbusters, X-Men: The Last Stand. We also discuss the Star Wars original trilogy DVDs not being anamorphic widescreen, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner: Final Cut, the Cannes Festival, and The Wizard coming to DVD. All this plus another visit to Trailer Trash country. Download this week’s podcast below and bring home the bacon.
