Quentin Tarantino is one of America’s most celebrated living filmmakers and his latest film – currently due out Christmas day – is highly anticipated. But even a critically acclaimed filmmaker can have a dud, even if some fans might disagree. Tarantino himself weighed in on what he considers his least accomplished work. ” Death Proof has got to be the worst movie I ever [made],” Tarantino told THR. “And for a left-handed movie, that wasn’t so bad, all right? So if that’s the worst I ever get, I’m good. But I do think one of those out-of-touch, old, limp, flaccid-dick movies costs you three good movies as far as your rating is concerned.” Death Proof was part of Grindhouse , a double feature along with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror . The duo didn’t exactly score at the box office either. It took in just over $25 million domestically on a budget that reportedly reached $67 million. Not all turned out dismal though, it did receive a 65 percent on Rotten Tomatoes among critics – not horrendous though certainly not gangbusters. Tarantino recently hinted to Playboy that his latest film Django Unchained may signal the sunset of his filmmaking career, saying that he wants to “stop at a certain point.” “Directors don’t get better as they get older. Usually the worst films in their filmography are those last four at the end. I am all about my filmography, and one bad film fucks up three good ones … When directors get out-of-date, it’s not pretty.” [ Sources: Huffington Post , THR , Box Office Mojo ]
James Cameron will return to Pandora next year. The Avatar director, who attended the premiere of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in Wellington, New Zealand on Wednesday, told the West Australian (via Total Film ) that he hoped to have the scripts to Avatar 2 and 3 completed by February, and to begin shooting by the end of 2013. Cameron, who owns a farm in New Zealand, said he was working on the scripts there, but complained that the beauty of his surroundings was “too damn distracting.” Nonetheless, the filmmaker said, “I want to get these scripts nailed down, I don’t want to be writing the movie in post-production.” He added: “We kind of did that on the first picture, I ended up cutting out a lot of scenes and so on and I don’t want to do that again.” The blockbuster director behind Titanic, Terminator and Aliens has said that he’s writing Avatar 2 and 3 together and plans to shoot them back-to-back to complete one long story arc. (He’s also suggested that an Avatar 4 could happen and the sequels could conceivably be populated with Chinese Na’vi . Cameron also predicted that Jackson’s decision to shoot The Hobbit at 48 frames per second — 24 is the standard — would do for high-definition filmmaking what Avatar did for 3D movies. “We charged out ahead on 3D with Avatar , now Peter’s doing it with The Hobbit . It takes that kind of bold move to make change.” [ West Australian , Total Film ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Sitting through the interminable credits of a special-effects laden comic-book superhero movie is not my idea of fun, but after reading Drew McWeeny’s HitFix post on Joseph Gordon-Levitt donning the Batsuit, I’m starting my glute exercises early in preparation for Warner Bros. and DC Comics June 2013 release of Man of Steel . The blogger explores persistent rumors that, as The Dark Knight Rises hinted, Gordon-Levitt will inherit the cowl from Christian Bale and that Warner may introduce him in Zack Snyder’s reboot of the Superman franchise, Man of Steel , as a way of teasing JG-L’s eventual appearance in the Justice League movie, set for 2015. The idea makes plenty of sense, especially since TDKR mastermind Christopher Nolan is credited as a producer and a writer on Man of Steel . McWeeny even envisions a smart scene in which the two caped crusaders could be introduced: “How crazy do you think fans would go if Superman were to take to the skies at the end of Man Of Steel , finally ready to fully accept his role as mankind’s most powerful protector, only to have the closing credits interrupted when something catches his attention and he swoops down out of that sky, landing on a rooftop where Jim Gordon stands next to the Bat-Signal, interrupting just as the new Batman arrives for a chat about Gotham’s latest problem?” Or maybe Supes and Bats could just grab some shawarma. [ HitFix ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Elizabeth Olsen looks modestly dressed in her Victorian-era full-length dresses and hats for her role in the erotic thriller Therese Raquin , which she is currently filming in Budapest, Hungary. Olsen plays the title character Therese Raquin in this project, directed by Charlie Stratton and also starring Harry Potter ‘s Tom Felton and Jessica Lange. Her character is apparently forced into a loveless marriage with her sickly cousin Camille, played by Fenton. Young, beautiful and sexually repressed, Therese casts off innocence for a sizzling affair with her husband’s best friend Laurent, played by Drive actor Oscar Isaac. Needless to say, her dress gets ripped off on numerous occasions, according to The Daily Mail , which featured a number of photos of Olsen on set. Lange plays Therese’s controlling aunt, Madame Raquin, and the story crescendos as Therese’s dalliances with Laurent produces disastrous outcomes. “Some of the film’s themes will include the subjects of imprisonment and punishment, temperament and the human animal,” noted The Daily Mail. Olsen, 23, won praise last year for her starring role in Sundance indie Martha Marcy May Marlene and she will be seen this week in the Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener starrer Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding , which opens Friday. [via Daily Mail ] [Photo credit: WENN.com]
It’s not quite Willy Wonka’s suit , and it should probably belong to the young actor who wore it onscreen, but it’s a good cause, so hey: “Focus Features is donating an original costume from its acclaimed new movie Moonrise Kingdom , directed by Wes Anderson, to Variety the Children’s Charity of New York for Variety New York’s online auction.” Read on for more from Focus’s announcement and the auction site CharityBuzz. First came the specifics from the studio [via press release]: The costume is the Khaki Scouts of North America uniform worn by 12-year-old Sam Shakusky (played by Jared Gilman) in Moonrise Kingdom . After consulting with the director, costume designer Kasia Walicka Maimone and her department created every single element of the uniform, including activity buttons and hand-sewn insignia patches. The gift from Mr. Anderson and the worldwide film company will help Variety New York raise funds to support its work in the tri-state area transforming the lives of children through the arts. And here’s exactly what you’d be bidding on, via CharityBuzz : This includes the Green Scout Shorts with Yellow Piping; Green Scout Shirt w/ Patches, Button, and Yellow Piping, and a Yellow Neckerchief. Terms : In condition as donated. Bidding commenced today and will continue through noon ET on June 13; the current high bidder has opted in at $125. A steal! For now. Good luck! [ CharityBuzz ]
It’s not quite Willy Wonka’s suit , and it should probably belong to the young actor who wore it onscreen, but it’s a good cause, so hey: “Focus Features is donating an original costume from its acclaimed new movie Moonrise Kingdom , directed by Wes Anderson, to Variety the Children’s Charity of New York for Variety New York’s online auction.” Read on for more from Focus’s announcement and the auction site CharityBuzz. First came the specifics from the studio [via press release]: The costume is the Khaki Scouts of North America uniform worn by 12-year-old Sam Shakusky (played by Jared Gilman) in Moonrise Kingdom . After consulting with the director, costume designer Kasia Walicka Maimone and her department created every single element of the uniform, including activity buttons and hand-sewn insignia patches. The gift from Mr. Anderson and the worldwide film company will help Variety New York raise funds to support its work in the tri-state area transforming the lives of children through the arts. And here’s exactly what you’d be bidding on, via CharityBuzz : This includes the Green Scout Shorts with Yellow Piping; Green Scout Shirt w/ Patches, Button, and Yellow Piping, and a Yellow Neckerchief. Terms : In condition as donated. Bidding commenced today and will continue through noon ET on June 13; the current high bidder has opted in at $125. A steal! For now. Good luck! [ CharityBuzz ]
High School has such a winning premise that you want to send everyone involved in making it back to the drawing board for a do-over — just take it from the top, folks, and this time everyone actually have a good time. Directed by John Stalberg, who wrote the film with Erik Linthorst and Stephen Susco, this debut feature follows uptight overachiever Henry Burke (Matt Bush) as, on the eve of finals, he dabbles in pot for the first time with his childhood friend-turned-burnout king Travis Breaux (Sean Marquette) — only to be told the next day that principal Leslie Gordon (an almost unrecognizable Michael Chiklis) is instating a student body-wide zero tolerance drug test. The plan the pair come up with to salvage Travis’s years of hard work and scholarship to MIT? They’re going to get the entire school high to throw off the results. This is, as far as stoner movies go, kind of ingenious, but High School rushes through the parts it should savor and then pads out its runtime with filler elsewhere — and, less forgivably, it doesn’t make getting high look like fun. The stoner comedy as a genre has few requirements other than summoning up a THC haze and being generally good-natured, but High School leaves you feeling like the sober person at a party, wincing at how everyone’s acting and wondering if that’s how you look when under the influence. This may be because that’s how Henry feels all the time — he’s a tightly wound scold who belongs to that wan breed of recent high school protagonists (see It’s Kind of a Funny Story and The Art of Getting By ) who seem on the verge of implosion thanks to some vague, self-imposed psychological distress. The hollow-eyed Henry reunites with Travis, who is leading a seemingly parentless life on a perpetual high, after nearly running into him in the parking lot and instead hitting the principal’s car and earning a detention. “You come to see how the other half lives?” sneers Travis, who’s stuck there too. It rings strange — the division between the pair isn’t due to any class difference but to a lifestyle one, and Travis hasn’t exactly been forced to smoke pot constantly. But the two feel enough nostalgia for their younger days to end up hanging out afterward, where Travis coaxes Henry in smoking his way to an unpleasant first-time high that leaves him paranoid, dazed and with a black eye from falling out of a tree house. Because this is a stoner comedy, the fact that the setup is creaky and doesn’t quite make sense shouldn’t be a problem — except that none of the ways in which the film exaggerates are all that funny. Take Chiklis’s pompous Principal Gordon, with his flop of greasy hair and secret pervert vibe. He’s in the style of an ’80s movie authority figure like Mr. Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , one whose sole motivation is ego and spite — except that High School isn’t stylized in the same way. It’s grounded enough to realize that parents would instantly protest the gross invasion of privacy represented by mandatory drug testing, but not enough to explain why an administrator would be eager to expel the graduating class’ likely valedictorian. Its sense of rebellion is completely phony — that of a kid who, like Henry, got high one time and still talks about it. The film’s major asset, one that’s also wasted (in both senses), is Adrien Brody hamming it up as twitchy drug dealer Psycho Ed, a tattooed law school grad (he has “BOOK WORM” across his knuckles) who lost it after smoking a laced joint and has chosen instead to apply his smarts to growing high-octane weed. Sporting cornrows, his bug eyes rolling, Brody should be funny, though Ed’s a better idea than he is in practice — you’re aggressively aware that he’s just an actor showing off the way he’s playing against type rather than a character who’s amusing in his own right. There are other side figures who don’t click: Sebastian (Adhir Kalyan), Henry’s mustache-twirlingly evil rival for the top academic slot; stoner spelling bee champ Charlyne Phuc (Julia Ling), whose last name gets used for a lame joke; well-meaning assistant principal Brandon Ellis (Colin Hanks); a loopy former Deadhead teacher (Yeardley Smith). The movie’s big event — the spiking of bake sale brownies with THC crystals — takes place early on rather than toward the end, so it doesn’t result in the kind of delirious chaotic payoff you’d expect or want from the film. Students and teachers look dazed, lose focus and say some inexplicable things, and by the time the goofiness comes along, it’s too late. It is, horror of horrors, a portrayal of a mildly realistic high, which in the context of what should be an over-the-top film is really the last thing you want. What’s the use of a stoner film if it can’t convince you that there’s at least some fun to be had in the warm embrace of cannabis? Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
High School has such a winning premise that you want to send everyone involved in making it back to the drawing board for a do-over — just take it from the top, folks, and this time everyone actually have a good time. Directed by John Stalberg, who wrote the film with Erik Linthorst and Stephen Susco, this debut feature follows uptight overachiever Henry Burke (Matt Bush) as, on the eve of finals, he dabbles in pot for the first time with his childhood friend-turned-burnout king Travis Breaux (Sean Marquette) — only to be told the next day that principal Leslie Gordon (an almost unrecognizable Michael Chiklis) is instating a student body-wide zero tolerance drug test. The plan the pair come up with to salvage Travis’s years of hard work and scholarship to MIT? They’re going to get the entire school high to throw off the results. This is, as far as stoner movies go, kind of ingenious, but High School rushes through the parts it should savor and then pads out its runtime with filler elsewhere — and, less forgivably, it doesn’t make getting high look like fun. The stoner comedy as a genre has few requirements other than summoning up a THC haze and being generally good-natured, but High School leaves you feeling like the sober person at a party, wincing at how everyone’s acting and wondering if that’s how you look when under the influence. This may be because that’s how Henry feels all the time — he’s a tightly wound scold who belongs to that wan breed of recent high school protagonists (see It’s Kind of a Funny Story and The Art of Getting By ) who seem on the verge of implosion thanks to some vague, self-imposed psychological distress. The hollow-eyed Henry reunites with Travis, who is leading a seemingly parentless life on a perpetual high, after nearly running into him in the parking lot and instead hitting the principal’s car and earning a detention. “You come to see how the other half lives?” sneers Travis, who’s stuck there too. It rings strange — the division between the pair isn’t due to any class difference but to a lifestyle one, and Travis hasn’t exactly been forced to smoke pot constantly. But the two feel enough nostalgia for their younger days to end up hanging out afterward, where Travis coaxes Henry in smoking his way to an unpleasant first-time high that leaves him paranoid, dazed and with a black eye from falling out of a tree house. Because this is a stoner comedy, the fact that the setup is creaky and doesn’t quite make sense shouldn’t be a problem — except that none of the ways in which the film exaggerates are all that funny. Take Chiklis’s pompous Principal Gordon, with his flop of greasy hair and secret pervert vibe. He’s in the style of an ’80s movie authority figure like Mr. Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , one whose sole motivation is ego and spite — except that High School isn’t stylized in the same way. It’s grounded enough to realize that parents would instantly protest the gross invasion of privacy represented by mandatory drug testing, but not enough to explain why an administrator would be eager to expel the graduating class’ likely valedictorian. Its sense of rebellion is completely phony — that of a kid who, like Henry, got high one time and still talks about it. The film’s major asset, one that’s also wasted (in both senses), is Adrien Brody hamming it up as twitchy drug dealer Psycho Ed, a tattooed law school grad (he has “BOOK WORM” across his knuckles) who lost it after smoking a laced joint and has chosen instead to apply his smarts to growing high-octane weed. Sporting cornrows, his bug eyes rolling, Brody should be funny, though Ed’s a better idea than he is in practice — you’re aggressively aware that he’s just an actor showing off the way he’s playing against type rather than a character who’s amusing in his own right. There are other side figures who don’t click: Sebastian (Adhir Kalyan), Henry’s mustache-twirlingly evil rival for the top academic slot; stoner spelling bee champ Charlyne Phuc (Julia Ling), whose last name gets used for a lame joke; well-meaning assistant principal Brandon Ellis (Colin Hanks); a loopy former Deadhead teacher (Yeardley Smith). The movie’s big event — the spiking of bake sale brownies with THC crystals — takes place early on rather than toward the end, so it doesn’t result in the kind of delirious chaotic payoff you’d expect or want from the film. Students and teachers look dazed, lose focus and say some inexplicable things, and by the time the goofiness comes along, it’s too late. It is, horror of horrors, a portrayal of a mildly realistic high, which in the context of what should be an over-the-top film is really the last thing you want. What’s the use of a stoner film if it can’t convince you that there’s at least some fun to be had in the warm embrace of cannabis? Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
High School has such a winning premise that you want to send everyone involved in making it back to the drawing board for a do-over — just take it from the top, folks, and this time everyone actually have a good time. Directed by John Stalberg, who wrote the film with Erik Linthorst and Stephen Susco, this debut feature follows uptight overachiever Henry Burke (Matt Bush) as, on the eve of finals, he dabbles in pot for the first time with his childhood friend-turned-burnout king Travis Breaux (Sean Marquette) — only to be told the next day that principal Leslie Gordon (an almost unrecognizable Michael Chiklis) is instating a student body-wide zero tolerance drug test. The plan the pair come up with to salvage Travis’s years of hard work and scholarship to MIT? They’re going to get the entire school high to throw off the results. This is, as far as stoner movies go, kind of ingenious, but High School rushes through the parts it should savor and then pads out its runtime with filler elsewhere — and, less forgivably, it doesn’t make getting high look like fun. The stoner comedy as a genre has few requirements other than summoning up a THC haze and being generally good-natured, but High School leaves you feeling like the sober person at a party, wincing at how everyone’s acting and wondering if that’s how you look when under the influence. This may be because that’s how Henry feels all the time — he’s a tightly wound scold who belongs to that wan breed of recent high school protagonists (see It’s Kind of a Funny Story and The Art of Getting By ) who seem on the verge of implosion thanks to some vague, self-imposed psychological distress. The hollow-eyed Henry reunites with Travis, who is leading a seemingly parentless life on a perpetual high, after nearly running into him in the parking lot and instead hitting the principal’s car and earning a detention. “You come to see how the other half lives?” sneers Travis, who’s stuck there too. It rings strange — the division between the pair isn’t due to any class difference but to a lifestyle one, and Travis hasn’t exactly been forced to smoke pot constantly. But the two feel enough nostalgia for their younger days to end up hanging out afterward, where Travis coaxes Henry in smoking his way to an unpleasant first-time high that leaves him paranoid, dazed and with a black eye from falling out of a tree house. Because this is a stoner comedy, the fact that the setup is creaky and doesn’t quite make sense shouldn’t be a problem — except that none of the ways in which the film exaggerates are all that funny. Take Chiklis’s pompous Principal Gordon, with his flop of greasy hair and secret pervert vibe. He’s in the style of an ’80s movie authority figure like Mr. Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , one whose sole motivation is ego and spite — except that High School isn’t stylized in the same way. It’s grounded enough to realize that parents would instantly protest the gross invasion of privacy represented by mandatory drug testing, but not enough to explain why an administrator would be eager to expel the graduating class’ likely valedictorian. Its sense of rebellion is completely phony — that of a kid who, like Henry, got high one time and still talks about it. The film’s major asset, one that’s also wasted (in both senses), is Adrien Brody hamming it up as twitchy drug dealer Psycho Ed, a tattooed law school grad (he has “BOOK WORM” across his knuckles) who lost it after smoking a laced joint and has chosen instead to apply his smarts to growing high-octane weed. Sporting cornrows, his bug eyes rolling, Brody should be funny, though Ed’s a better idea than he is in practice — you’re aggressively aware that he’s just an actor showing off the way he’s playing against type rather than a character who’s amusing in his own right. There are other side figures who don’t click: Sebastian (Adhir Kalyan), Henry’s mustache-twirlingly evil rival for the top academic slot; stoner spelling bee champ Charlyne Phuc (Julia Ling), whose last name gets used for a lame joke; well-meaning assistant principal Brandon Ellis (Colin Hanks); a loopy former Deadhead teacher (Yeardley Smith). The movie’s big event — the spiking of bake sale brownies with THC crystals — takes place early on rather than toward the end, so it doesn’t result in the kind of delirious chaotic payoff you’d expect or want from the film. Students and teachers look dazed, lose focus and say some inexplicable things, and by the time the goofiness comes along, it’s too late. It is, horror of horrors, a portrayal of a mildly realistic high, which in the context of what should be an over-the-top film is really the last thing you want. What’s the use of a stoner film if it can’t convince you that there’s at least some fun to be had in the warm embrace of cannabis? Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Casting news continues to trickle out for the film based on the wild life and times of CBGB, none of which is quite as eye-opening as word that the story of one of New York City’s most legendary, lamented live-music venues will be filmed largely in… Savannah, Georgia. So it goes! We get some stuntbozo driving a sportscar into a Sbarro for Jerry Bruckheimer, and Savannah gets Malin Åkerman as Debbie Harry , Rupert Grint as Cheetah Chrome, Joel David Moore as Joey Ramone, and Alan Rickman in the aforementioned role of club proprietor Hilly Kristal, all reviving the dawn of punk and new wave in the edgy metropolis where the Girl Scouts were founded Hollywood honchos go to self-immolate . Rock on, bitches : All of the movie’s interior shots will be done at Meddin Studios, which will be transformed to look like the iconic New York club, said director Randall Miller. “We’re going to build the interior of the club on the stages here,” Miller said. “Then the plan is we’ll do some shooting on the streets of downtown Savannah — and finally a few days in New York. “We’re using both Georgia and New York for New York,” he joked. “Savannah has a kind of downtown area that could really work for so many cities,” Miller said. “That translates pretty well in what we’re doing.” Fine, do what you’ve gotta do. By which I mean cast James Franco as Richard Hell already . [ The Strut , Savannah Morning News via EV Grieve ]
