I’ll leave the jokes about how Monsters, Inc 3D has a new eye-popping look to Billy Crystal and, instead, ask if you remember where your head was at in November 2001 when this Pixar classic was released. If you lived in New York City and had a young child (as I did), you were probably extremely grateful for Monsters, Inc. because, even if your kid was too young to grasp what had happened at Ground Zero, you were not. Sitting in the cool dark of a movie theater with my four-year-old and watching this funny film was a brief, welcome respite from the daily barrage of news reports about terrorists at our border, toxins in the air and the heavy layer of grief that blanketed the city. Monsters, Inc. made my kid laugh, and that made me laugh. And exhale. Monsters, Inc. 3D will be re-released on December 19. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The premise sounds like an Ingmar Bergman film,. starring Liv Ullmann . On Oct. 1, the surviving member of the venerated on- and off-screen couple is slated to be in Manhattan on Oct. 1 to watch herself onscreen: at the U.S. premiere of writer and director Dheeraj Akolkar’s Liv and Ingmar at the 50th anniversary of the New York Film Festival . Told entirely from Ullmann’s point of view and shot at the house Bergman built for the Norwegian actress on the spot in Fårø, Sweden where he declared his love for her, Liv and Ingmar is billed as a “affectionate but truthful” account of the filmmaking couple’s 42-year relationship that spanned 12 movies and a five-year affair. The Swedish filmmaker was 47 when he met and fell for the 25-year-old Ullmann on the set of his landmark Persona in 1965. The auteur and the actress, who were both married at the time, ended up living together for five years, during which Ullmann gave birth to their daughter, Linn Ullmann in 1966. Their friendship and their working relationship continued until Bergman’s death in 2007. “Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman are two legends and like any other film fan I have been in awe of their work for a long time,” Akolkar said in a statement. “But what propels me to make this film is what lies beneath their greatness — this universal and very real story of a man and a woman…[who were] lovers-friends-companions.” The director added: “This film is for everyone who has loved and lost and continued loving.” Liv and Ingmar also utilizes clips and behind-the-scenes footage from the films they made, still photographs, passages from Ullmann’s book Changing and Bergman’s personal letters to his muse. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
America loves a good ol’ fashioned bachelor party. It’s a time honored tradition that’s been committed to film again and again, including in this week’s gender-reversal romp, Bachelorette , where the ladies get to behave badly . In honor of that film Movieline takes a look at the holy grail of bachelor party movies, and a bad movie we love: Bachelor Party , starring future Oscar-winner Tom Hanks . Bachelor Party imagines a world where Tom Hanks and Tawny Kitaen are engaged, just a couple of crazy kids living on a dream. If you’ve only ever known Kitaen from her car acrobatics in the “Here I Go Again” video now’s your chance to experience her acting skills as Debbie, a fun-loving gal who’s crazy in love with Hanks’ Ricky Gassko, despite her snobby parents’ disapproval. But before we get to know them, we’ve got to meet Rick and pals, our protagonists on this crazy journey through drugs, hookers and donkeys. Rick is a school bus driver by day who moonlights as some sort of avant-garde sculptor by night. ’80s filmmakers never met a welding helmet they didn’t like. He rounds up his motley crew of buds from their random jobs — baby photographer, mechanic, ticket scalper, and waiter — in order to break the news that he’s going pro; that’s right, he’s getting married. Next week! Of course the guys loudly protest until they realize that they can throw the biggest, baddest bachelor party in history. “WOMEN!!” bellows Rudy, for the first of about a thousand times in the flick. The promise of hookers is what snares the guys, and alarms the ladies. The night gets off to a zany start when Rick’s love rival, Cole (you know he’s a bad guy because he has the quintessential ’80s evil preppy haircut), intercepts their hookers and sends them to Debbie’s wedding shower instead! Zoinks! After enjoying a lesbian sex show, the ladies decide to go out and enjoy a night at the Chippendales, where a bunch of hunks in pastel bikinis do the grapevine and Debbie’s mom gets a foot-long surprise from a young gentleman named Nick the Dick, orchestrated by prankster Rick, who’s been tipped off by his buddy the bartender. For some reason, the ladies decide to get revenge on the guys by putting on their “Best Little Whorehouse In Texas” finest (bloomers are involved) and heading to the hotel. Bachelor Party is one of those movies where coincidence drives the entire engine of the plot. In one room we’ve got the bachelor party, which looks like a middle school pajama party only with more boobs; throughout the hotel, we’ve got our bride and her entourage as fake hookers waylaid by some Japanese businessmen, Cole in army fatigues with a crossbow, Debbie’s dad speaking at the beer convention downstairs, and a flamboyant lady about to, ahem, perform with an unsuspecting donkey. All the while, Tom Hanks is showing off his best dance moves, pulling pranks and officiating slumber party games. If anything, the movie is a great reminder of just how hot Tom Hanks was circa 1984. He’s adorable as the slacker with the heart of gold. And whatever happened to Adrian Zmed as his buddy O’Neill and the brains behind the operation? Very attractive, especially outfitted in the de rigeur bachelor party uniform: blazer, no shirt, necktie around head. And despite his meatheadishness and screaming physical comedy (the man literally buries his face into a giant bowl of popcorn during a fit of glee), I wouldn’t kick Barry Diamond out of bed for eating crackers. Bachelor Party is basically the blueprint for every wild party night movie. You may see shades of Can’t Hardly Wait , of Superbad or any movie where the wildest party ever is thrown, hijinks ensue, the cops show up and everyone runs, etc. But what qualifies Bachelor Party as a Bad Movie We Love is the high dose of WTF that it brings to the table. Oh, the 80s! It also manages to be incredibly raunchy without going for the gross-out factor, save for a few hairy butts and one proctology joke involving super-supporting character Dr. Tina Gassko, Rick’s sister-in-law. You will have to just accept that this was made in a pre-PC world and try to laugh at the sexism and homophobia and mild racism throughout. After the inevitable run from the cops montage, Cole throws Debbie over his shoulder and kidnaps her to a multiplex, naturally, where he and Rick have a beatdown in front of the screen playing a 3-D sci-fi movie, where the audience applauds realistic effects, like getting punched in the face. Smash cut to: Our happy wedding! Where we find out that Rick’s middle name is Ernesto (?!?) and he threatens to do something strange to Debbie with an egg beater now that they’re married. Ahhh, young love. They ride off into the sunset in the school bus driven by suicidal druggie friend Bradford, adorned with a sign “Just Having Sex.” So romantic. So if the coke-fueled lady antics of Bachelorette seem edgy to you, remember that everyone’s pal Tom Hanks did it first — with a donkey — just 28 years ago. Katie Walsh is a writer in Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter at @katiewalshstx . Get more Bad Movies We Love !
Also in Tuesday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, AMC Entertainment’s acquisition is now complete. After Dark Films eyes a horror. The Dark Knight Rises passes another box office milestone. And Jim Carrey is confirmed for a Kick-Ass role. Harmony Korine’s Venice/Toronto Film Spring Breakers Headed to U.S. Theaters U.S. rights to the film have been picked up by Annapurna Pictures. Starring James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, Heather Morris, and Gucci Mane, Spring Breakers is a college pop-culture and music-fueled story following the adventure of four young girls gone wild on spring break. As part of the main competition, the film will receive its worldwide premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, September 5th followed by a North American premiere set for Friday, September 7th at the Toronto International Film Festival. Wanda Group Completes AMC Entertainment Acquisition Chinese company Dalian Wanda Group said it has completed its acquisition of AMC Entertainment Holdings, creating the world’s largest cinema owner. The transaction is valued at about $2.6 billion. “We now look forward to working with AMC’s CEO Gerry Lopez and his team to invest in and build on the company’s widely-recognized brand and the incomparable entertainment experience AMC offers to its millions of customers,” said Wanda president Wang Jianlin. After Dark Eyes Horror Script Beatus After Dark Films is looking to pick up the script to Beatus , by writing-duo, Kristen Ruhlin and Tony Repinski. The story revolves around a girl who expereinces symptoms of the Stigmata and discovers that true evil maybe within the walls of the church. Repinski and Ruhlin worked together previously on the horror, DarkHighway . Around the ‘net… Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson to Take On Frank Fassbender and Gleeson will star in Lenny Abrahamson’s next project Frank . Film4 will co-finance with the Irish Film Board. It is described as a comedy about a young wannabe musician, played by Gleeson, who discovers he’s taken on more than he can handle when joining an eccentric pop band lead by Frank (Fassbender). THR reports . The Dark Knight Rises Is 2nd Film to Pass $100M on IMAX Avatar was the first to pass the milestone. The numbers include domestic and overseas grosses, Deadline reports . Jim Carrey Takes Colonel Role in Kick-Ass 2 Carrey will play the role of the Colonel in the Jeff Wadlow-directed sequel. Carrey will star with Chloe Moretz, Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Nicolas Cage, Deadline reports .
How do you get in touch with Jeffrey Dean Morgan , who lives with his family far outside the confines of Hollywood “in the woods,” to ask him to be in your film? If you’re like The Possession director Ole Bornedal, you go old school. “The script was sent to me with a really nice letter that Ole had written asking me to be a part of it,” Morgan told Movieline. “It sat on my desk for a couple of days, but I kept reading this letter.” Eventually Morgan read the script and, enticed by the familial relationships at the center of the demonic possession tale, got over his reluctance to take on the “overdone” horror genre to play a father desperately trying to reconnect with his daughter — and, in the process, save her from an evil spirit. In this weekend’s The Possession Morgan plays Clyde Brenek, a career-focused college basketball coach whose pending divorce is taking a heavy toll on his two young daughters, one of whom — Em (Natasha Calis) — has formed a strange attachment to an antique Jewish box found at a yard sale. (The film is inspired by the real life account of the Dybbuk Box, a Hebrew wine cabinet allegedly haunted by an evil spirit which reigned down terror and ill fortune on multiple owners.) Movieline caught up with Morgan last month at Comic-Con , where the Watchmen veteran planned on walking the floor to find geek treasure for his son (“Sometimes it gets a little unruly for me down there, but I dig this world”), marveled at the maturity of his young co-stars (“I’ve worked with kids that are just horrendous, and it’s mostly because of their parents”) and discussed Karyn Kusama’s The Rut , in which he’d play dad to Chloe Moretz’s teenage huntress. What made you want to jump into a story like this? Because it was an actual story . I certainly wasn’t looking to do a horror movie — I think they’ve been kind of screwed up lately, all the found footage, it’s just been kind of overdone. The script was sent to me with a really nice letter that Ole [Bornedal] had written, asking me to be a part of it. I didn’t read the script; I was like, ‘Oh God, it’s a horror movie — it’s just not what I’m looking to do.’ It sat on my desk for a couple of days, and I kept reading this letter. What did it say? It was just very sweet and complimentary about my previous work, and it was really well-written. Do you get a lot of those letters? Sometimes! I guess I do, because I’m never around. I live in the woods, so really the only way you can get to me is if you send a letter. You’re like Bill Murray ! [Laughs] I love Bill Murray, but I’m not quite Bill Murray. I wish! So you got a letter from Ole. So, I got this letter — and I read the script and I was like, “Crap, this is a really good script.” The story’s there, it’s really character-driven, it’s not a typical horror movie. Demonic possession is its own storied subgenre within horror. What set it apart, beside the dybbuk aspect? I guess it’s a little Jewish. But I think it was the dynamic of these characters that sets it apart. The only way this movie works, the only way any movie works, is if somehow the audience can get invested in these characters. And again, I don’t know if this genre has capitalized on getting to know characters very well. I think this movie had that aspect to it. Then I watched a couple of Ole’s films and thought, this guy has a singular look that I haven’t seen. Him and his DP are so good at setting a mood and knowing where to put a camera — and you’d think all directors know this stuff but they really don’t, it’s a crap shoot. I felt like you really knew what he was doing behind the camera. I had a couple of conversations with him on the phone. He was like, “Don’t think of this as a horror movie,” and what he saw and what I saw were really meshing. You’ve played a lot of fathers, but here so much rides on finding the right young co-star. That was the other key for me — how are you going to find this little girl? You’re asking a lot of any actor, much less a young actor, to make this believable. Her performance is what makes this movie work or not work. He sent me a DVD of an audition/work session that he’d done with her, and only after I saw that did I agree to do the movie. I saw that audition and was like, holy God, this girl is something. And she really is something. The stuff she pulled… was amazing, and I don’t know how she did it and what kind of life experience she has to be able to draw from. It was terrifying to act opposite of. I guess that helps? Yes, but I was really worried for Natasha, going into some really dark places. For one, I didn’t know where she was going and getting this darkness. How old was she at the time? She was 11. Eleven! So it kind of blew my mind. Did you draw on your own life experience, being a father yourself, to tap into your character? Yeah. I love kids, which helps. And the opportunity to be the dad to Natasha [Calis] and Madison [Davenport] in this film, they were such great little girls and had such great senses of humor. They didn’t take themselves too seriously and they were actually little girls. Instead of miniature grown-ups? Yeah! I can hear her talk now and she’s grown up a lot since I last saw her, but she was just a kid! An eleven-year-old kid who was just a kid. She wasn’t some actor-y [child performer]. And Ole gave us an opportunity to not just stick to the page, so I was able to infuse some humor and other stuff that maybe wasn’t there, that kind of shows the father-daughter relationship, especially going through the divorce that my character is going through. So there are just some really real moments in this movie that were my favorite things to film. Natasha was so great at falling into that, I think I learned from her somehow. I thought I was going to have to be babysitting a kid, but she was probably more babysitting me. I’m just truly blown away by what she did and I give a lot of credit to her parents for raising her – I’ve worked with kids that are just horrendous, and it’s mostly because of their parents. [Laughs] Off- and on-camera. But off, yeah. They’re little beasts! Little holy terrors. And you always worry about that, you know? There’s that rule, don’t work with kids and animals. There’s a reason for that! But it was great, it was truly great. I think the relationship we formed between takes and off-camera really shows on screen. How would you describe Sam Raimi ’s influence as a producer on The Possession ? He’s sort of the innovator. I don’t know how much, but Sam would get the dailies after the first week and the notes stopped. I know that Sam was prepping his Oz movie at that time and he was watching the dailies, but all the feedback we were getting from Sam was really positive. He just sort of oversaw from afar. You have so many upcoming projects! Do you foresee any of them bringing you back to the genre fold again, the Comic-Con fold? None of them, really –— which means I need to find another one so I can come back! Maybe they’ll do something with the Watchmen stuff, the prequel stuff. Maybe we’ll get to do something there. You’re attached to a Karyn Kusama project called The Rut , which would be one of multiple projects with Chloe Moretz. I’m very excited about that. That’s one of those countless movies that you’re just waiting for all the pieces to come together, finances and all that, but I’m so thrilled to be working with her and Chloe, who I’ve done a couple of things with already. Chloe has established her reputation as the preeminent young lady ass-kicker. That’s exactly right! She’s doing Carrie now. She’s amazing, Karyn is amazing, and I think they got Ray Liotta to be the heavy in this. It’s a really cool script. It’s Winter’s Bone meets… Hanna , maybe? A little bit of Hanna ! I loved that movie, by the way. Good one. But I’m very excited about this movie. We need a winter location in the woods somewhere. Well, you do live in the woods. I know, and don’t think I haven’t said it! Because I do actually know where we could shoot this movie… The Possession is in theaters today. Read Movieline’s review here . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Clint Eastwood made Twitter’s Day — or at least its night. The veteran actor and filmmaker’s bizarre, aimless speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Thursday night — to a chair that purportedly contained an invisible President Obama — brought out plenty of celebrity tweeters on the social media site. As of Friday morning “Eastwood” was still trending intermittently on the Twitter, and a number of actors and filmmakers’ comments were among the reactions to the Unforgiven actor’s speech. Among them was Magic Mike actress Olivia Munn who tweeted: “Clint Eastwood was talking to an empty chair at the RNC…No, that’s not the set-up to a joke. Its not even a joke.” This Is 40 filmmaker Judd Apatow had fun with the subject on a more oblique level. “Clint used to be Every Which ‘But’Loose . Tonight he got loose,” Apatow tweeted. The truncated film title was a reference to Eastwood’s 1978 buddy picture with an orangutan, Every Which Way But Loose, which seemed to mystify Apatow: “How does that title refer to a relationship with orangutans?” He wrote. “Really. How?” Shaun of the Dead filmmaker Simon Pegg weighed in from the UK, tweeting: “Woken up to excited chatter in the US. Apparently Clint Eastwood had an argument with an empty chair regarding its political standpoint.” Star Trek actor George Takei also weighed in tweeting: Clint Eastwood’s RNC speech was to imaginary Obama in an empty chair. I’m drafting a DNC speech to imaginary Romney in an empty factory.” Nice. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Now that John Hillcoat ‘s brutal Prohibition tale Lawless has hit screens ( read Movieline’s review here ) you can more vividly imagine the testosterone-and-moonshine fueled atmosphere that might have permeated the set, where, as Lawless legend has it, co-stars Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy had an unscripted scuffle. Nevertheless, while making the press rounds Hillcoat and LaBeouf both tried to squash rumors of the brotherly beef. Just a little innocent horseplay gone wrong? LaBeouf and Hardy play Jack and Forrest Bondurant, two of a trio of bootlegging brothers who come to blows with the law (and, sometimes, each other) as they run a moonshine empire out of their hill country home base. A third brother, Howard (played by Jason Clarke) rounds out the sibling dynamic, but it’s the strained relationship between the cardigan-clad family head Forrest and young, headstrong Jack that provides the bulk of the dramatic push and pull. As the story goes, one day on set LaBeouf knocked out Hardy and Hardy “never did that roughhouse stuff with me again.” The tangle first came to light in LaBeouf’s fantastically unfiltered Details interview , though that was, understandably, overshadowed by his revelation about hooking up with Transformers co-star Megan Fox and other assorted truth bombs. Then, while promoting his MMA pic Warrior , Hardy dropped a few cheeky quotes about the incident. “I got knocked out by Shia LaBeouf, actually,” Hardy said to journalists, as recounted by Den of Geek . “In Wettest County , apparently .” Apparently! So now comes Hillcoat to set the record straight. “There was this kind of, like, this challenging brotherly thing that starts going on with him,” Hillcoat admitted in an interview with Yahoo . “But yeah, there was a tussle, but it wasn’t quite the thing that was described.” LaBeouf, who’s yet again spilled so many juicier, more distracting quotes of late — from his acid-dropping Method acting to his embracing of real sex in Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac to his maybe-joke that he got the job by sending in a sex tape — tells MTV that the fistfight was borne out of love. “That was straight love,” he said. “There was a lot of love on that set in general. There was a lot of aggression in me and a lot of aggression on [Hardy’s] side. We were playing brothers. There was a constant finger-in-the-ear [teasing] thing going on for a while.” [ Yahoo , MTV ]
Teletubbies marketing visionary Kenn Viselman was banking on his latest kiddie venture, the C-list cameo-packed “interactive” adventure The Oogieloves In The Big Balloon Adventure , capturing the hearts and minds of 3-5 year-olds and their parents this Labor Day weekend. But while it looks like Viselman will make a historical splash in the film game, it’s so, so, so the wrong kind: Averaging just $47 per screen after opening in 2,160 theaters on Wednesday, Oogieloves could go down with one of the worst openings of all time. Box Office Mojo reports the dismal figures from Oogieloves ‘ opening day as a $102,564 take in over 2,000 theaters, or an average of $47.48 per screen, which Christopher Rosen of Huffington Post points out could grant Oogieloves the title of worst wide-release ever if business doesn’t pick up. Like, a lot . But hey, there’s always the chance that parents were waiting for the weekend to take the kids to go dance and talk back to the three giant, terrifying noseless puppet heroes of Oogieloves . Kids love J. Edgar jokes and Christopher Lloyd with maracas! Fingers crossed you make back that $20 million budget, fellas! Meanwhile, stay tuned for further developments on the Oogieloves front. We’re keeping a close watch on this one. Previously: So WTF Is An Oogieloves , Anyway? [ Box Office Mojo , HuffPo ]
The Telluride Film Festival offers a bright spotlight, showcasing a small selection of films over Labor Day weekend just as summer movies give way to a more serious season of cinema. Later this year, moviegoers will be talking about Bill Murray as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Marion Cotillard as a woman who loses her legs to a killer whale and even a small town story starring Zac Efron as an aspiring NASCAR racer and Dennis Quaid as his father, an Iowa farmer. Those three films – Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson , Jacques Audiard ‘s Rust and Bone and Ramin Bahrani’s At Any Price – lead a roster of acclaimed and anticipated new movies that will screen at this weekend’s tony Telluride Film Festival. Telluride’s annual lineup is famously revealed just as attendees arrive in the Colorado mountain town for the four-day event. Even so Gary Meyer, one of the heads of the festival, privately previewed the lineup for a few journalists earlier this week and then swore them to secrecy. Telluride attendees consider movies sacred. Spoilers are frowned upon. “So, what do you think?” Meyer asked as he detailed the lineup for the 39th annual festival. “It was pretty much down to the wire,” he added about this year’s roster. He also teased that he and festival directors Tom Luddy and Julie Huntsinger have a surprise screening up their sleeves. It will screen in a still to be named slot some time between tomorrow and Labor Day. So now it can be revealed that even as it screens in the Venice Fest this weekend the anticipated American indie At Any Price will be unveiled in Telluride before heading to the Toronto International Film Festival next week. Filmmaker Ramin Bahrani has created a family drama that also explores globalization and Big Agriculture. In addition to Quaid and Efron, the film stars Heather Graham and Kim Dickens. Bahrani is expected to fly in from Venice in time for this weekend’s showings of the film here in Colorado. Also making the trek from Italy to Telluride will be French filmmaker Xavier Giannoli. His latest is described by the Telluride festival as a Kafkaesque tale. In Gianoli’s latest, Superstar , top name French actor Kad Merad plays the everyman. One day he wakes and heads to work only to discover that he’s famous. He has no idea why people are asking for his autograph and snapping his photo with their mobile phones while he rides to work on the Paris Metro. The comedy also stars Cecile de France who gained domestic attention for her turn in last year’s Dardenne Brothers drama, The Kid With A Bike . Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson was a safe bet for Telluride lineup prognosticators. It stars local Laura Linney, a festival fixture. In the film she stars alongside Bill Murray, appearing as FDR’s younger, distant cousin, Margaret Suckley. Linney’s character guides guests – in this case the King and Queen of England in 1939 – at Roosevelt’s residence in rural New York State and also falls for FDR. The new film will next head to the Toronto Film Festival. Sally Potter’s Ginger and Rosa will make the same journey. It stars Elle Fanning and Alice Englert as best friends in the 60s growing up and experiencing the anxieties and excitement of the era. The cast is rounded out by Timothy Spall, Oliver Platt, Annette Bening, Alessandro Nivola and Christina Hendricks. Also on tap are Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha starring Greta Gerwig and Michael Winterbottom’s Everyday with Shirley Henderson. Both will also go from Telluride to the Toronto fest next week. Telluride will pay tribute to a pair of European actors this weekend. Marion Cotillard will be honored and appear here alongside her latest, Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone from this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Also acclaimed at the French fest this year was Mads Mikkelsen. He turned heads for his starring role in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt and has also been on the fest circuit in Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair . Both films will screen in Telluride this weekend as festival salutes the Danish leading man. About three dozen new feature films will screen at the Telluride Film Festival this weekend, complemented by classic and retrospective entries, as well as short films, film oddities and even some Looney Tunes cartoons in honor of the 100th anniversary of director Chuck Jones’ birth. The 39th Telluride Film Festival Premieres Lineup : The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, Denmark, 2012) Amour (Michael Haneke, Austria, 2012) At Any Price (Ramin Bahrani, US, 2012) The Attack (Ziad Doueiri, Lebanon/France, 2012) Barbara (Christian Petzold, Germany, 2012) Breaking the Frame (Marielle Nitoslawska, Canada, 2012) Carriere 250 Meters (Juan Carlos Rulfo, Mexico, 2012) Celluloid Man: A Film on P.K. Nair (Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, India, 2012) Cinema Jenin (Marcus Vetter, Germany/Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2012) Doueiri , Lebanon/France, 2012) The Central Park Five (Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon, US, 2012) Everyday (Michael Winterbottom, UK, 2012) Frances Ha (Baumbach, US, 2012) Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen (Gyorgy Palfi, Hungary, 2012) The Gatekeepers (Dror Moreh, Israel, 2012) Ginger and Rosa (d. Sally Potter, England., 2012) The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg, Denmark, 2012) Hyde Park on Hudson (Roger Mitchell, US, 2012) In Search of Emak Bakia (Oskar Alegria, Spain, 2012) Jonathan Miller (David Thompson, UK, 2012) Journal de France (Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret, France, 2012) The Iceman (Ariel Vroman, US, 2012) Love, Marilyn (Liz Garbus, US, 2012) Me and Me Dad (Katrine Boorman, UK, 2012) Midnight’s Children (Deepa Mehta, Canada/Sri-Lanka, 2012) Mikis Theodorakis, Composer (Klaus Salge and Asteris Kutulas, Germany, 2012) No (Pablo Larrain, Chile, 2012) On Borrowed Time (David Bradbury, Australia, 2012) Paradise: Love (Ulrich Seidl, Austria, 2012) Piazza Fontana (Marco Tullio Giordana, Italy, 2012) Pilgrim Hill (Gerard Barrett, Ireland, 2012) A Royal Affair (Nikolaj Arcel, Denmark, 2012) Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard, France, 2012) The Sapphires (Wayne Blair, Australia, 2012) Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, Canada, 2012) Superstar (Xavier Giannoli, France, 2012) Wadjda (Haifaa Al Mansour, Saudi Arabia, 2012) What is this Film Called Love? (Mark Cousins, Ireland/Mexico, 2012) The Telluride Film Festival takes place August 31-September 3. Follow Eugene Hernandez on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
This August has brought us not one but two ghost possession horror flicks, in the form of The Apparition and The Possession , a double dose of the spooky scary ghoulish torment of nice, innocent people. Why do ghosts always come back to earth to do horrible, icky things? Why wouldn’t they come back to do totally RADICAL things, like make out with hot chicks, race hot rods, and enact some vengeance on bad dudes, all in the form of Charlie Sheen in his prime? I would totally do that if I were a ghost. GUITAR SHRED!! That’s right, get ready for the awesomeness that is the 1986 cult classic The Wraith . The Wraith , from ski movie auteur Mike Marvin, is a sort of unholy mashup of Lost Boys , Near Dark , and 2 Fast 2 Furious: Tuscon Drift . Tall drink of water Nick Cassavetes (son of John and Gena, and the man responsible for bringing you The Notebook ) plays Packard Walsh, the leader of a pack of slightly rapey Road Warrior reject tweakers on a mission to terrorize every dude with a sweet ride into a drag race for their titles. They’re accumulating cars left and right, but Packard can’t have the one thing he wants: the love of stone cold hottie Keri Johnson, as portrayed by living goddess Sherilyn Fenn, seen here before her iconic role as Audrey Horne on Twin Peaks . Our spirit car (Ghost Car, as it shall be named) arrives by comet one desert evening, right around the time Packard and his cronies strongarm some wheels off the local Barbie and Ken. The next morning, Charlie Sheen rides a dirt bike into town sporting a denim tuxedo with no shirt. He comes across Keri waiting on the sidewalk outside her house, which is literally the only thing she does in this movie: she gets picked up and dropped off at her house constantly. This movie exists in the weird, no parents, no school world of the ’80s where everyone appears to be of high school age but has jobs and no authority figures, so who knows? Maybe they’re all 23. The lovely Fenn is unrecognizable, her alabaster skin liberally spray-tanned a deep tawny, sporting a pair of white, stacked heel cowboy boots that I will dream about until I own. She jumps on the back of shirtless stranger Jake’s dirt bike to head for the river (completely ignoring the “never go with Charlie Sheen to a second location” life rule), but stalker Packard just happens to be lurking in his Camaro and insists she ride with him. Packard’s sunbathing wear includes spotless white jeans, motorcycle boots and a leather vest, accessorized with puka shell necklaces and turquoise rings. (Guys, I am deeply obsessed with the fashions of this movie). His activities include creepily staring at Keri, Jake, and his new friend Billy, the little brother of Keri’s old boyfriend Jamie, whose brutal murder has never been solved but definitely, DEFINITELY couldn’t be totally is the gang leader creepily obsessed with Keri. Sherilyn Fenn sort of famously got naked a lot in her early career, but that’s no surprise because, damn girl, that body is bangin’. Of course, said bod is gratuitously exposed throughout the movie during various flashbacks to Jamie’s murder, which happened as the two were getting it on in some remote cabin. Turns out mysterious Jake’s got some scars on his back that look just like the ones Jamie received during his whipping. I’m still not really sure why Ghost Jamie takes the form of Charlie Sheen, even though they explain this away at the end of the movie when he simply says, “This is the closest I could get to who I was.” OK. THAT MAKES NO SENSE. Keri and Billy work at a burger joint called Big Kay’s, which features scantily-clad waitresses dancing on roller skates to “Addicted to Love,” and HOLD UP — is that “Dancing With the Stars” co-host Brooke Burke-Charvet?!? The gang shows up to torment Billy, but they get distracted by the futuristic black on black hot rod (Ghost Car!) that leads them off to their favorite drag racing spot, the empty back roads of the Arizona desert. The gang members, a bunch of hydraulic fluid-guzzling numbnuts with a flair for creative eye makeup, are way, way better than they have to be. Clint Howard himself plays nerd auto-tech Rughead, and the rest of the gang, Oggie, Gutter Boy, and Skank display some real affection and genuinely committed performances. After an exciting, viscerally shot car chase set to a direct rip off of “Danger Zone,” Ghost Car pulls a fast one, causing Oggie to go crashing into him and then off a cliff in a fiery blaze. Then Ghost Car magically reassembles itself through the powers of animation! When highway patrol shows up it’s too little too late for Oggie, who’s had his eyes burned out from the Ghost Car Crash. We are introduced to to Randy Quaid, who chews the scenery while doing his best Dirty Harry as Lt. Loomis. Actual line: “Clam it, wise guy.” All of his quips are PERFECTION. From there, Packard continues to be a creepy stalker to Keri (he calls them “blood lovers” while licking his own blood off his hand), Ghost Car/Ghost Driver continues picking off the gang by murdering them in drag races, or by shooting up all the cars in the warehouse/autoshop where they hang out and listen to Billy Idol. Charlie Sheen disappears for the entire middle portion of the movie, leaving the heavy lifting to his stunt driver and helmeted/suited stunt man. I’m pretty sure he shot maybe three days on this movie, but he does show up for a dirtbike/car chase scene where they manage to hit every cardboard box within a 5 mile radius. Gutter Boy and Skank are amazing in that they give legitimately good performances imbued with some real heart while sporting shimmery pink eyeshadow and snorting WD-40. There is also an intense river make out scene where this exchange happens: Keri: “I dreamed that the man in the moon was laughing at me.” Jake: “He does laugh all the time, you ever notice that?” They both sound like they’re on Quaaludes though, so I’m sure it made sense at the time. Packard finally gets his race with Ghost Driver, which ends up involving both the highway patrol and some 18 wheeler trailers loaded with cars. It’s a veritable Michael Bay wet dream! And who woulda thunk it, the race ends in a huge, fiery explosion with Packard splayed out nude in the wreckage, because of course the explosion blew all his clothes off. Ghost Driver reveals himself as Jake, and then tells Keri he’s Jamie (she’s surprisingly cool/not at all surprised or weirded out that her dead boyfriend has reappeared to her in the form of Charlie Sheen), before he heads to Big Kay’s to leave the TURBO INTERCEPTOR to li’l bro Billy, who, when he realizes it’s his brother, repeatedly shouts “JAKE! JAMIE!” in the parking lot like he’s auditioning for the little boy role in Shane . Keri hops on the dirtbike, Lt. Loomis shrugs his shoulders and she and Jamie/Jake ride off into the moonset. Off to where? California? Space? So, if you’re in the mood for something a little different than your average ghost/demon possession movie, I cannot recommend The Wraith enough. It’s got everything you might need: heart-pounding action, Clint Howard, and Sherilyn Fenn’s boobs. Forget The Possession , The Wraith is where it’s at for the most RADICAL ghost movie this side of 1986. Get more Bad Movies We Love . Follow Katie Walsh on Twitter . 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