School principal Judd Nelson sees his bratty charges as he wants to see them… in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. Because they’re all cliches in the Breakfast Club genre-spoof Bad Kids Go to Hell , an indie film adaptation of Matthew Spradlin’s comic book/graphic novel. Watch the trailer for the horror comedy, which debuts at Comic-Con, after the jump, and decide if this kind of fast-talking self-awareness still seems fresh in a post- Detention world. That’s the biggest obstacle facing Bad Kids Go To Hell , if you ask me: Joseph Kahn has already traversed this ground, and with an unapologetically hopped-up, take no prisoners visual style and razor wit, in spring’s indie horror satire Detention . Like that film (which starred The Hunger Games ‘ Josh Hutcherson ), Bad Kids Go To Hell seems to take ’80s teen movies like The Breakfast Club and spins its tropes around in various post-modern ways, dropping pop culture references galore. Unlike Detention , however, Bad Kids seems pedestrian in comparison – but then almost any iteration of a teen movie spoof would seem that way, juxtaposed with Kahn’s ADD speed freak-out of a genre romp. Behold, the Bad Kids synopsis: Six private school high school kids find themselves stuck in detention on a frightfully dark and stormy Saturday afternoon. During their 8 hour incarceration, each of the six kids falls victim to a horrible “accident” until only one of them remains. And as each of these spoiled rich kids bites the dust, the story takes on a series of humorous and frantic twists and turns. Is one of the kids secretly evening the school’s social playing field? Or have the ghosts of prestigious Crestview Academy finally come to punish the school’s worst (and seemingly untouchable) brats? One thing is for sure…Daddy’s money can’t save them now. Bad Kids Go To Hell will have its North American premiere at Comic-Con this Friday, July 13th.
A star of Broadway, movies and television, Andy Griffith died Tuesday at his home on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. The once aspiring preacher, trombone player and music teacher, he landed his first movie role in A Face in the Crowd in 1957. But it was his role as the affable and folksy-wise Sheriff Andy Taylor in the 1960s sitcom The Andy Griffith Show that won him legions of fans. Griffith had already had some experience in the limelight by the time the hit television show hit the air, according to The New York Times, which reported Griffith’s passing, which received confirmation by the Dare County sheriff Doug Doughtie today. He starred in the Broadway play No Time for Sergeants followed by Face (one of six movies during his career) to good reviews. He later starred in the 1980s and ’90s courtroom television show Matlock . Still, the fictional town of Mayberry will forever be etched in fans’ memories when it comes to Griffith. His lovable mess-up deputy Barney Fife (Don Knotts), Gomer Pyle, young son Opie (Ron Howard) and Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) debuted at number four in the ratings and never dipped below the top 10. It even hit number one its last season in 1968 and it continues in syndication. Griffith’s career slid after the show though he had signed a five-year deal with Universal Pictures, though he never received offers that appealed to him. He told The Virginia Pilot in 2008: “I thought I was hot stuff and go right into the movies. It didn’t work out that way.” After some false starts on follow up shows in the ’70s, he made some made-for-TV movies, but more success followed with his role as a lawyer in the series Matlock which debuted in 1986, which ran until 1992, for NBC, followed by another three years on ABC, longer than The Andy Griffith Show . While official awards mostly alluded him (he never won an Emmy for his role of Sheriff Andy Taylor, while Don Knotts picked up a slew of the trophies throughout the ’60s) Griffith did receive an Emmy nomination for the 1981 TV movie Murder in Texas . He received recognition in 1987 with a People’s Choice Award for Favorite Male Performer in a New TV Program and in 2004 TV Land gave the The Andy Griffith Show its Legend Award. And perhaps ultimately fitting, his character was placed at number 8 in TV Guide’s top “50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time” in 2004. [Source: The New York Times ]
For the past few years I’ve had the honor of joining the annual Masters of the Web panel at Comic-Con, a confab of journalists and bloggers from the online film community sharing our experiences in web journalism, troll-taming, geek-baiting, etc. This year I’ll be returning to the panel, joined by a gaggle of fine web masters and mistresses… along with a special guest moderator: Karl Urban , star of Dredd 3-D . (Hit the jump for a chance to snag tickets to a special just-announced Comic-Con Dredd 3-D screening.) The panel has hosted a number of celebrity moderators before; inviting filmmakers like Edgar Wright and Bob Orci to turn the tables on the journalists who’d covered their films — and in some cases, panned them outright — made for interesting conversation, and wasn’t quite as awkward as you’d imagine. Urban, in town to present footage from Dredd 3-D , will get his turn to grill us at the podium this year. (Maybe he’ll wear his Dredd helmet! Can we ask him to do the whole thing in Bones-speak? Oh, the possibilities…) Dredd 3-D , meanwhile, will be unveiled in a special sneak screening on Wednesday at Comic-Con — and Movieline has five pairs of tickets to give away. Am I bribing you with advance tickets so that you’ll come to my panel, even though you’re only beholden to the honor system since the panel happens the day after the screening? Yes. Yes, I am. Don’t make me regret it. The first five people who comment below, promise to come to the Masters of the Web panel on Thursday at Comic-Con, and lay claim to a pair of VIP tickets, will get them. (Make sure to sign in with your email address and full name.) Screening info (more at www.JudgementIsComing.com ): Lionsgate is kicking off San Diego Comic Con 2012 with an Advance Screening of Dredd 3D Presented by Masters of the Web Wednesday, July 11th, 10:00pm Reading Cinemas Gaslamp. 701 5th Ave., San Diego But back to the Masters of the Web. The reason I love being a part of this panel every year, aside from the fact that I know each and every one of the folks joining me up there — friends, peers, competitors, karaoke buddies — is that it gives us the rare chance to take the pulse of the online space, from a behind-the-scenes perspective, as representatives of a relatively young community of writers and editors. The online blogging world has evolved so fast in the past decade alone, not only technically speaking but in terms of audience, engagement, ethics, and the significance of online reporting alongside traditional media, that this once-a-year gathering at the geekiest pop culture event of the year has the potential to touch on vital and interesting conversations, for web “masters” and readers alike. To whom are we most accountable? What tools are most useful to us? How do we acknowledge the looming presence and expectations of studios who give us access to their films (or, you know, arrange for special guest moderators and sneak screenings at special events)? Ahem. Perhaps we’ll touch on issues like those in the panel. Or maybe we’ll hound Urban for Lord of the Rings stories. Who knows? IT COULD GET CRAZY! Plus, attendees at the panel will receive free movie passes courtesy of panel sponsor AMC. See, guys? You get to peek into our lives and get free movies. Win-win! So: Mark your calendars. Thursday. Comic-Con. 4:30-5:30pm. Room 24ABC. Be there. 4:30-5:30 Masters of the Web— The annual gathering of some of the most prominent and influential film pundits on the web discuss the film industry, writing for film online, film fandom, and a whole lot more. Moderated by star of the new Lionsgate film Dredd, Karl Urban (Star Trek, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King), with special surprise cast members from the film. Panelists include Mike Sampson (ScreenCrush.com), Jen Yamato (MovieLine.com), Mali Elfman (ScreenCrave.com), Erik Davis (Movies.com), Steve “Frosty” Weintraub (Collider.com), Grae Drake (Fandango.com), Jenna Busch (Cocktails with Stan Lee), and Edward Douglas (ComingSoon.net), and hosted by John Campea (AMC Theatres). AMC is generously providing free movies passes to all attendees of the panel this year! Room 24ABC Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
When Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson presented some of the first footage from their epic mo-cap collaboration The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn to this summer’s Comic-Con audience, they also shared the film’s “first motion-capture test” — a cute video in which Jackson nervously auditions for the role of Captain Haddock with a bottle of Jack Daniels in hand. Now, the audition video is available for everyone to see via a new Tintin featurette.
Movieline’s Louis Virtel returns to the YouTube frontier this week with his second installment of Verbal Vogueing , the Web series that combines close cultural reads with all the hashtag hilarity one can reasonably stand. In this episode, join Louis on an expedition through the dizzying effluvia of Glee , Jersey Shore , and a must-watch lightning round of #OscarWinningDragQueens. It is what it sounds like — which is to say, ready for your own submissions in the comments and very, very NSFW.
Over the weekend at Comic-Con , Tom Hardy described his villainous role as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises thusly: “You deal with something Dark Knight — or Mad Max , or Superman or Spider-Man , whatever — it’s like going to work in an airport and going, ‘Hi I’m over here!’ and then everybody goes ‘Oh here’s that, that’s the villain of the piece.’ Then it’s a thousand people going to Duty-Free. Like, [shouting] ‘I AM THE VILLAIN !’ and make a lot of noise.” But wait, there’s more!
David Robert Mitchell’s Myth of the American Sleepover is the anti-teen movie teen movie. It’s American Graffiti by way of mumblecore; it’s Kids by way of Norman Rockwell. The film follows a group of moderately well-behaved teens on the last night of summer, and features enough awkward inter-sex interactions to fill up a battalion of big studio teen comedies. The one difference? The cast is filled with many new performers and — at the time of filming in 2008 — actually teenagers. Like Claire Sloma.
Well! That was fast: Comic-Con 2011 came and went with the quickness, but not such quickness that Team Movieline couldn’t keep up with all the panels, appearances, news developments and cosplayer awesomeness accompanying the annual San Diego powwow. And no worries if you happened to miss it: Find herewith a digest featuring everything you need to know from the ‘Con. (Hint: Those panel live-blogs? Must-reads .)
The Comic-Con crowd has always been good to Jon Favreau — recall the splash he made here in 2007 with Iron Man , a geek director finding his people — and charmingly (or cunningly, but mostly charmingly) Favreau knows it. So even without a panel to present at Comic-Con this year, he brought his latest film, the sci-fi Western Cowboys & Aliens , to San Diego in a big way: By hosting an enormous premiere filled with cast, crew, hundreds of fans, and a rousing, touching speech that seemed to genuinely come from the heart.
It’s fitting that on the weekend of Comic-Con, a comic book character took the top spot at the box office. In what could be considered a bit of an upset — though not really a huge upset — Captain America: First Avenger easily defeated Harry Potter to win the weekend crown. It wasn’t all bad news for the Boy Who Lived: The Deathly Hallows Part 2 grabbed runner-up honors, and continued to plow forward on its way to becoming the biggest hit of 2011. And, hey: Friends with Benefits didn’t do too bad either! Your weekend receipts have arrived.
