Posted
12:55am, Monday, July 26, 2004
Zombies!
Just returned
from my annual sojourn to San Diego
for the Comic Con International. Once
again, I geeked out on movies and comic
book art. The estimate was 80,000 attendies
this year, up 10,000 from 2003.
Pretty
uneventful on the comic art front,
though I did score two pieces from
Eric Powell. Eric is the creator of
Dark Horse Comics The
Goon. I predict huge things
for Eric and his property. Some Hollywood
studio's gonna snap this one up for
sure.
I
did have the highlight of my convention
going experiences at this year's
show. I ran into Frank Darabont at
an art booth. Darabont wrote and
directed The Shawshank Redemption,
The Green Mile and The Majestic.
He
was kind, gracious and totally without
Hollywood pretense. While I didn't
really mean to bother him, he actually
engaged me in conversation. I ended
up having a 15 minute conversation
with him about his projects, past
and present.
I told
him how much I've enjoyed all his movies
(true). We talked a bit about his aborted
script for Indiana Jones 4, which according
to internet lore, was loved by Spielberg
and Ford but rejected by Lucas. Darabont
went into surprisng detail about the
whole situation, but I won't betray
his confidence by writng about it here.
We talked
about his current work on the Mission
Impossible 3 screenplay. Apparently,
he's living above Tom Cruise's garage,
sharing changes on a daily basis.
I asked
him about the hunt for a new director
(Joe Carnahan dropped out last week)
with six weeks to go before the cameras
roll. Surprisingly, he expressed interest
in helming it himself. The setback
was actually the reason why he was
able to attend the show. Cruise was
out director hunting.
Later
that night, Ain't It Cool News posted
a story about Brett Ratner taking the
helm. This might be true, but Darabont
hadn't know about it. Judging by what
he told me about Indy 4, I doubt he
was keeping things a secret.
Finally,
he offered me a little career advice.
I'm working on a couple of screenplays
and he gave me a few suggestions on
how to find a good agent. Again, he
was totally cool and surprisingly,
not in the least bit of hurry to get
away from an eager fan.
Fucking
fantastic.
The
Hollywood contingent was out in force
again. At least they spread out the
panels over the four days this year.
I
intentionally skipped the Star Wars
panel where they announced the third
movie's title, Revenge of the Sith.
I
missed the Sin City panel with Robert
Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, Rosario
Dawson, Jaime King and Frank Miller.
The line to get in the hall was ridiculous;
over 6000 people filled the room.
I
did catch the tail end of the Sky
Captain event, which had director
Kerry Conran and producer Jude Law
in attendance.
Also
caught the Warner Brothers presentation,
which sucked balls. I'm not a huge
fan of the Hellblazer comic, but
the film looked okay. Keanu Reeves
was there promoting it. They've renamed
the adaptation Constantine to avoid
confusion with the Hellraiser series.
The
Batman Returns panel, which featured
writer David Goyer and actor Cillian
Murphy, didn't reveal much. Kinda
lame, considering what the Marvel
panel had going for it.
Sony's
panel for the Sam Raimi produced
The Grudge was standard. This is
the American remake of the Japanese
hit series of films. Sarah Michelle
Gellar was promoting as the first
American remake of a Japanese film
to be directed by the original director...
as if that counted for something.
Saturday's
20th Century Fox presentation featured
Aliens vs. Predator and the Fantastic
Four.
Fox
opened with a surprise peek at next
year's Elektra movie with Jennifer
Garner. Lots of martial arts action...
looked okay.
I
don't hold much hope for AVP considering
it's director, Paul W.S. Anderson,
not to be confused with P.T. Anderson.
This Paul Anderson directed Mortal
Kombat, Event Horizon, Soldier and
Resident Evil... total dreck. The
fanboys ate up the clip of the Alien/Predator
battle though.
Tim
Story's take on the Fantastic Four
looks promising. Good cast featuring
Ioan Grufford, Jessica Alba and Michael
Chiklis. They sound like they have
their hearts in the right place at
least.
I'll
leave you with some pics of the costumed
freaks who patrol the halls of the
convention center.
::Permalink::
Posted
1:15pm, Sunday, July 18, 2004
Historical
in nature
Yesterday's Washington
Post has a preview of this week's
9/11 commission's findings. The first
of what I'm sure will be several
startling revelations is the content
of the PDB dated August 6th, 2001.
During
her televised testimony, Condoleeza
Rice stonewalled the commission of
the content of that daily briefing
document, saying it was "historical
in nature" and it contained "no
new threeat information" and did
not "warn of any coming attacks
inside the United States."
The commission
forced the release of the entire briefing
and will reveal in their report that
the memo "contained warnings that
the FBI had information that the terrorists
might be preparing to hijack an aircraft
and might be targeting a building in
Lower Manhattan."
Well,
the Bush administration has made history
all right. Through their inaction,
they may be indirectly responsible
for the deaths of over 2000 Americans.
Another
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in the making?
Apparently,
Sony has received the master tapes
for Fiona Apple's upcoming album.
They're perplexed on how to market
it and have been sitting on it for
months. Produced by Jon Brion, they
sound a lot like the fim scores he's
done for Paul Thomas Anderson and
Michel Gondry.
So
far, two tracks have been leaked, "Extraordinary
Machine" and "A Better
Version of Me." Both are spectacular
tracks. Do a search on LimeWire or
search through some MP3 blogs, its
been posted around the web.
Hopefully,
Sony gets their shit together and
puts this out soon. As spacey as
Apple appears, she does make some
pretty fucking fantastic music.
I'm
hitting the San Diego Comic Con this
week, so I hope to come back with
some goofy photos and at least a
few tidbits and pics about upcoming
movies.
I'll
be bringing my laptop and trying
out my new Airport Express gadget
in the hotel room for some wireless
action.
For the
next few months until the election,
I'll post some great, past quotes from
the campaign trail for readers to use
as ammo against their GOP friends (enemies?).
Enjoy...
******
From the
AP wire:
"The
president looks forward to meeting
with the commission and answering any
questions," White House spokesman
Scott McClellan told reporters.
He will
not testify under oath.
******
"I
am angry that so many of the sons of
the powerful and well-placed managed
to wangle slots in the Army Reserve
and National Guard units... Of the
many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw
class discrimination strikes me as
the most damaging to the ideal that
all Americans are created equal and
owe equal allegiance to their country."
- Colin Powell, "My American Journey"
******
"We
recently found two mobile biological
weapons facilities which were capable
of producing biological agents."
Source: President Talks to Troops in
Qatar, White House (6/5/2003).
******
"The
last thing our nation needs is a sign
on the desk in the Oval Office in the
White House that says, "The buck
doesn't stop here anymore."
-Ted Kennedy
******
"And
I also mentioned the fact that there
is a connection between al Qaeda and
Saddam Hussein."
Source: President Condems Attack in
Bali, White House (10/14/2002).
******
"It
must be getting lonely for George Bush.
It seems he's the last person left
in America who actually believes his
failed policies will ever work."
- John Kerry
::Permalink::
Posted
10:00pm, Monday, July 12, 2004
Keyboard
Kommandos
From
my In-Box:
From: Paul Carek
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 06:29:28 -0700
To: Ron Lim
Subject: Is this weird, or what?
Ron,
I think this image speaks for itself,
though I'm not entirely sure what
it's saying.
Paul
That's
Ann Coulter at Joe McCarthy's grave.
Spooky... Oh, and the tombstone is
weird too.
Also
had to post this e-mail I got from
an editor I work with on a regular
basis...
From: connort@(removed).net
Subject: Dumb As Dog Shit
Date: July 11, 2004 11:56:43 AM PDT
Last week my Dad, a
35 year veteran of the Los Angeles
District Attorney's Office was having
lunch with John Daly, an attorney
in the Los Angeles City Attorney's
office, and some other old cronies.
John told a story about his late
friend Joyce Valdez back in 1978.
Joyce was a very talented and respected
Republican fundraiser in California
at the time. Joyce told John that
she got a call from George Bush Junior
(as George W. was known then). John
said, "I didn't know George
Bush had a son." This was about
the time that George Senior was the
director of the CIA. Well, George
Junior was exploring a run for office
and wanted to have lunch with Joyce
and talk about fundraising.
A couple of weeks later
John ran into Joyce and asked her
how her lunch with George Junior
went. Joyce said, "I'm not going
near that kid. He is as dumb as dog
shit."
- Connor
Keep
in mind that this is not some sort
of bullshit viral rumor started anonymously.
Connor told me this story at lunch
last week and I asked him to write
it out in an e-mail so I wouldn't
screw up any of the details.
Isobel
Sanford, the Jeffersons' Weezie has
passed away Friday. I could not resist
reposting the headline from Defamer:
WEEZIE
MOVIN' ON UP TO THE DELUXE APARTMENT
IN THE SKY.
Salon
has a story about
the upcoming documentary on the Fox
New network, Outfoxed.
(Available for under $10 at the link).
In the
story, they point out an interesting
fact I didn't know. Fox's way around
actually lying about a story is a simple
phrase designed to protect them legally:
"Take the network's 'some people
say' mantra. I had watched plenty
of Fox News without ever noticing
this -- it's a way of introducing
commentary, and specifically the
reflexive right-wing views of the
presumptive Fox core audience, into
what is supposed to be news coverage,
while appearing to not quite endorse
it. "Some people say that criticizing
the war at a time like this is letting
down our men and women in uniform," or "Some
people say Richard Clarke is a political
operative who's trying to sell books." (Or,
yes, "Some people are saying
that John Kerry looks French!" --
uttered with a peculiar mixture of
consternation and delight. Gosh,
what a weird idea! But now that you
mention it ...!)"
So the
right-wing asshole I usually argue
with on my political group made a post
about Farenheit 9/11's supposed diminishing
box office returns. Below is his post
and my reply, which I took great glee
in writing....
grandval@(removed).com
wrote:
6/28 Initial weekend
23.9Mill 868 theatres
7/6 Gross down 7.9% theatre count
more than doubled to 1725
7/11 Gross down 32.4% while Theatres
showing it increased by 286 for a
total of 2011
Seems to be sinking
fast even as more and more theatres
are added to bouy it up. In two weeks
he's more than doubled his coverage
while losing over 1/2 of his initial
revenue. Another 2-3 weeks and it
will rotate into the $1 theatres....
- RGL (Gary)
My reply:
From: "Ron Lim"
Date: Sun Jul 11, 2004 9:15
pm
Subject: Re: Tracking F9-11
Anyone
who knows ANYTHING about box office
numbers knows this is perfectly normal
behavior. For God's sake, Spider-man
2 is down 47% from its first weekend.
Are you calling that a bomb as well?
Typical, acceptable drop is around
40% for the second weekend. F911
fell well under that benchmark.
F911
cost $6 million to produce, $10 million
to market. That's $16 million. It
has grossed $80 million in 3 weeks.
In it's third week, it had a higher
per theater average than King Arthur
which just opened Friday.
On it's
opening day, it's per screen average
was $41,961. By comparison, Spider-man
2's opening day per screen average
was $9,741. NOT A TYPO.
It's
grossed more than each of the latest
films by Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks, Nicole
Kidman and Will Ferrell. Not bad
for a fat documentarian from Flint,
Michigan.
By ANY
measure, F911 is a blockbuster. It's
already made 13 times its budget.
This is before home video, television
rights and foreign sales. I don't
know anyone who would turn down that
sort of return (except for Michael
Eisner who should be raked over the
coals by Disney stockholders for
his boneheaded play).
The
distributor Lion's Gate has been
written up in many industry pubs
as an up and coming studio to look
out for. They are now the de facto
hip studio of choice for indie filmmakers
looking to make their mark.
F911
will probably rotate into the budget
theaters around the end of August,
which is totally to be expected,
considering that Moore has not exactly
made it a secret that he wants F911
on DVD in September BEFORE the election.
Theaters booking F911 know this going
in. They've signed up to make their
dollars now.
Gary,
this is perhaps the dumbest post
in a line of dumb posts you've ever
made in pursuit of a bullshit conclusion.
This makes you look petty and idiotic.
Truly.
-RL
::Permalink::
Posted
1:00pm, Sunday, July 4, 2004
