On August 28, 2003, a pizza delivery man named Brian Wells walked into the PNC Bank in Erie, Pennsylvania with a bomb strapped to his chest. It was placed there by a pair of criminals who told Welles that if he did not acquire $250,000 from the bank, the bomb would detonate. Forty minutes later, Welles was apprehended by police; he frantically explained his predicament and begged the officers on scene for help. Twenty minutes later, the device exploded, blowing a softball-sized hole into Welles’s chest that killed him.

Hilarious, eh?

The writers of 30 Minutes or Less (which hits theaters tomorrow) apparently thought so, since they took the broad strokes of Wells’s strange story and turned it, improbably enough, into an ‘80s-style chase-heavy buddy summer action comedy. Sure, the names have been changed, as have a few of the details—for example, though 30 Minutes protagonist Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) is an ignorant victim, a subsequent investigation in the real case revealed that Wells was involved in the planning of the scheme, though he thought the bomb would be a phony (family members maintain his innocence). And—spoiler alert—they obviously changed the ending, since a softball-sized hole in Jesse Eisenberg is not exactly the cheeriest capper for your summer laugh riot. But the similarities between 30 Minutes and the Wells case, particularly in the details of the motive for the crime, are extensive (Movieline’s Jen Yamato provides a comprehensive rundown); nonetheless, Sony reps insist that though the writers were “vaguely familiar with what had occurred,” (vaguely!) “neither the filmmakers nor the stars of 30 Minutes or Less were aware of this crime prior to their involvement in the film.” Riiiight. Ain’t coincidences crazy?

Whatever the outcome of the controversy, and however you feel about 30 Minutes trying to spin a dead pizza guy into comic gold, it certainly doesn’t mark the first time that Hollywood has taken certain, shall we say, creative liberties with real life. We could fill the entirety of Flavorwire with instances of historical inaccuracies in the cinema; in the interest of brevity, we’ve instead selected ten particularly noteworthy cases of films that egregiously blurred the line between fact and fiction.

Read More »

Andrew Ainsworth, the British prop designer who made the stormtroopers’ helmets for George Lucas’s Star Wars back in 1977, won a Supreme Court case in Britain today that gives him the right to sell replicas of the costumes (which go for around $2,500 a pop) without permission from the filmmaker or his studio — as long as he doesn’t ship them to the US.

According to ArtsBeat, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, and Steven Spielberg, all wrote letters hoping to help tip the odds in Lucas’s favor, but ultimately had no impact on the court’s final decision: the helmets were props, not works of art, and as such, are not subject to British copyright law. “I am proud to report that in the English legal system David can prevail against Goliath if his cause is right,” Ainsworth said in a statement. “If there is a force, then it has been with me these past five years.”

On this day in 1986, James Cameron’s sci-fi/action epic Aliens was released in American theaters. A sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1979 scare-fest Alien, Cameron’s picture was a smash with both audiences and critics, raking in $85 million at the box office and racking up seven Oscar nominations, including a Best Actress nod for star Sigourney Weaver. More importantly, it reinvented Weaver’s Ellen Ripley as the kind of strong, muscular, tough action hero role played almost exclusively by male stars like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The trouble is, Aliens came out 25 years ago, and a female action hero like Ripley is still the exception to the rule.

Sure, there are occasional heirs — Milla Jovovich has fronted four Resident Evil movies (with a fifth on the way), Uma Thurman did the Kill Bills, and Linda Hamilton kicked major ass in Cameron’s Aliensfollow-up, Terminator 2. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis co-starred in Thelma and Louise. And there’s Angelina Jolie, who raised heart rates in the Tomb Raider movies, Wanted, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, as well as last year’s Salt — an action lead, incidentally, originally intended for Tom Cruise. But that’s a pretty lean mixture of ladies for 25 years of moviemaking. Why is the female action hero still such a rarity?

Read More »

This week’s news that DirecTV is launching a new, premium video-on-demand service, in which films that have been in theaters for as few as 60 days would be offered for home viewing (with a comparatively hefty $30 price tag) was mostly met with a collective shrug around here — mainly because the first movie on the menu is the tepid Sandler/Aniston effort Just Go With It, and seriously, who the hell would pay $30 to watch that sludge? But the notion of this collapsed “window” (the norm is about four months, though it was six or more in the VHS era) has got some filmmakers and suits all in a huff, and on Thursday, 23 of them signed their names to “AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY ON PROTECTING THE MOVIE-GOING EXPERIENCE.” You can read it here. I’ve taken the liberty of drafting an open response (which I guess you can co-sign, in the comments, if you want?) after the jump.

Read More »

For a writer so beloved of the film industry’s core target market — i.e., teenagers with cash to burn — H.P. Lovecraft has remained curiously untouched by Hollywood. That was due to change this year, of course, with Guillermo del Toro realizing his long-cherished dream of a Lovecraft adaption. But with the $150 million project now having been put on hold indefinitely due to the studio’s budget worries, the door will have to remain closed. We can’t really think of anyone better placed to adapt Lovecraft than del Toro, but still — here’s a lighthearted look at how Lovecraft adaptations might haved turned out if they’d been helmed by various other prominent directors.

Read More »

At the time of this writing, Natalie Portman’s odds of winning the Academy Award for Best Actress — for her portrayal of a certifiable prima in Black Swan — are hovering somewhere between 1/11 and 1/12. In other words, Portman is so likely to win that to pry a dollar from a bookie on such an outcome, you’ll have to lay down twelve times that amount. If Annette Bening, the 13/2 favorite to upset Natalie Portman, wins Best Actress, the film will go on to double or triple its modest $20M earnings to date, and J. Todd Harris and Focus Features stand to make an unholy sum. Translation: When it comes to Oscar upsets, the stakes are incredibly high.

With that in mind, after the jump, our list of the greatest upsets of the past 20 years. Leave comment on which wins you feel were actually deserved.

Read More »

1. Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal, known for her roles in Hud, The Fountainhead, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, has died at 84. [via USA Today]
2. Literary recluse Don DeLillo has given a rare interview to help promote Point Omega. [via Guardian]
3. Saturday Night Live has asked Glee‘s Jane Lynch to host one of the first shows of its upcoming season. [via Movieline]
4. James Cameron claims that even though the government asked for his advice, they failed to take his plan for fixing the BP oil spill seriously. [via MTV]
5. This is kind of cool: A reunion of models who sat for Norman Rockwell when they were kids. [via NYT]

Bonus link: Wikipedia’s lamest edit wars

1. Lilith Fair has canceled ten more dates of the tour — which means no womyn rock for Salt Lake City, Montreal, Raleigh, Charlotte, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Birmingham, Austin, Houston, or Dallas. [via soldout.]
2. Can James Cameron really be working with the Black Eyed Peas on a 3D concert movie? [via MTV]
3. Facebook‘s “facial-recognition technology” shouldn’t scare you… at least not just yet. [via The Awl]
4. Speaking of Facebook, did you realize that Trent Reznor was scoring David Fincher‘s new film The Social Network? [via P4K]
5. Blind item: “An hour drama is contemplating making one of its male leads HIV positive.” [via EW]

Bonus link: Mad Men Yourself Is Back

1. What Steve Jobs had to say at yesterday’s D8 conference, including an update on Apple’s ongoing legal feud with Gizmodo over that “stolen” iPhone. [via Fast Company]
2. Lily Allen is rumored to be writing songs for a forthcoming stage adaptation of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, which will open in London’s West End next year. [via The Guardian]
3. Peaches Geldof is working on a children’s book that’s inspired by the work of Bret Easton Ellis. [via Telegraph]
4. Glee‘s Jane Lynch married girlfriend Lara Embry at a small ceremony in Massachusetts over the holiday weekend; no other celebrities were present. [via People]
5. Federal officials met with James Cameron yesterday, hoping that his expertise with underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies could help with ideas on how to stop the BP oil spill. [via AP]

Quote of the day: “I listen to zero pop music, which is really weird for someone who makes pop music. My 13-year-old self would have beaten up my 17-year-old self because she would be like, ‘You’re a sellout!’ But that’s not what it is… A lot of pop songs are super shallow, but this music isn’t.” – Miley Cyrus

Recently, James Cameron stated that he believes 3D will replace 2D in less than 25 years. Considering that every single film announced recently is set to be released in 3D, he may be right. But many people remained skeptical. One of the most outspoken critics is Roger Ebert, who has said he believes filmmaking should be about “story, not gimmicks.” Francis Ford Coppola has also stated that it’s just another way “to make you pay more money.” (Considering that many 3D films are converted retroactively rather than being shot in the actual format, this appears to be true.) However, there are alternatives. While 3D is simply the illusion of an interactive world, many filmmakers are trying to deliver the real thing.

Read More »