Ivan Guerrero, aka whoiseyevan, is the gifted video editor who made that clever trailer for ”Ghost Busters” that you all emailed to each other a couple summers ago — you remember, the one that repurposed all the footage from the old movies so that Ghost Busters was a 1954 comedy starring Bob Hope, Fred MacMurray, and Martin and Lewis. He has turned out several more of these “premake” trailers in the interim; his latest “pre-magines” Up! as a 1960s Walt Disney live-action movie, in the style of The Love Bug or The Absent-Minded Professor.
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For the first time in 67 years there will be ten Best Picture nominees, rather than the typical five, at this year’s Oscars — which is not good news if you’re a betting man. So we’ve done some research to help your odds. Among what we discovered: In the past ten years only one book based on a true story has won Best Picture — A Beautiful Mind in 2002. So if history repeats itself The Blind Side, Up in the Air, An Education, and Precious won’t be bringing home top honors. And despite its marker as the highest grossing film in history, we can pull Avatar from the list, as well as District 9, as sci-fi flicks aren’t popular with the Academy. Comedies are rarely winners — even dark ones — which rules out A Serious Man. Plus, the Coen brothers already won in 2007 with No Country for Old Men. And let’s face it, as adorable as Up! was, there’s no way an animated film could ever win in this category.
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If you haven’t seen it yet, then throw Up in your rental queue or buy it On-Demand. Now, not when it wins an Oscar. You’ll feel silly for avoiding it just because it’s an animated movie — we promise. What’s more, it’s the one film in 2009 that made us cry in the theater. In fact, even talking about certain scenes (like the one where you find out that the little girl is really a dead old lady who once dreamed of going on adventures but never went anywhere but it’s OK because her one real adventure was spending her life with the old man) makes us mist up a little.
But it’s also a happy movie. And Alex Balk over at The Awl just pointed us to the video for “Upular” a dance track composed using chords, bass notes, and vocal samples from the film, and which, as he explains, is “extremely joy-inducing.”
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Movie critics have always been the gatekeepers of what to see and what to avoid at the box office, or at least that’s what they want you to think. Does that mean a bad review will dash hopes for blockbuster glory? We decided to take a look at the best and worst received films this decade and see if it had any bearing on their box office returns.
Only a few films in the worst reviewed category did well, and none of them cracked the $100 million landmark. Roberto Benigni’s live-action Pinocchio, was the most expensive production in Italian film history, was especially disappointing at the American box office.
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Today at Flavorpill, we were excited as new details emerged about Michael Moore’s upcoming flick, Capitalism: A Love Story. We examined the many faces of Arnold. We wondered what Wells Tower’s new representation means for his writing career. We found it interesting that even hip-hop’s “cash kings” are taking a 40% hit in this bad economy. We were excited for Napoleon Dynamite’s new Comedy Central series, which is being written by Will Ferrell. We found it funny that this Wall Street analyst had to apologize for being wrong about the box office potential of Pixar’s Up. And finally, we felt bad for Lita Ford, one bandmember who’s having nothing to do with the upcoming Runaways biopic; Joan Jett’s manager allegedly offered to buy the rights to her life story for $1,000.
Do we even have to say it? Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen made huge, heaping, robot-turned-dump-truck-loads of money this weekend and made Michael Bay a very happy man. Despite claims of racism, the movie raked in $112M, which, added to the $89.2M it made earlier in the week, gave it the second largest five day opening of all time — right behind The Dark Knight. And to top it off, assuming that the movie passes the $300m mark — and unless all of the copies of it spontaneously explode, it will — Shia LaBeouf will become the first star ever to appear in $300M films three summers in a row. Not bad for a guy who’s in love with his mother. Read More »
Our favorite rom-com star, Sandra Bullock, was back in her element this weekend, helping The Proposal take the top slot, knocking back stiff competition from The Hangover, UP and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. The other newbie of the week, Year One, premiered in a mediocre fourth place — looks like nobody is buying the prehistoric comedy trend. Even if it does involve Michael Cera in a loincloth. Read More »
Obviously good press makes all the difference, as last weekend’s top two films (The Hangover and UP) hung onto their top spots with little to no competition from newcomers The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and the dismally-performing Eddie Murphy kid’s flick Imagine That (why, Eddie?). Read More »
Today at Flavorpill, we made a list of better ways to spend a half million dollars than paying Heidi Montag pose in Playboy. We were intrigued by the Up subplot that didn’t make the cut. Maybe it wouldn’t have made us cry like the rest of that movie. We didn’t believe Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett. We thought Joss Whedon was crazy (but awesome) for turning down the Buffy remake. We listened to purple. We encountered the dark side of the LA porn industry. Spoiler alert: It involves STDs. We embraced the irreverent work of artist Eric Yahnker, a man who manages to reference Hannah Montana and Hamburger Helper in the same work. We watched this old David Allan Coe interview; we had no idea he loved the gays. We wondered how you don’t hear a meteorite coming at you. We watched every Zach Galifianakis clip ever from Tim and Eric. And finally, we shrieked with laughter because of this. And then we clutched our heart. At least we think we did. We’re not sure exactly where it is.
1. The Obamas’ New York City date night: Dinner at Blue Hill followed by the new August Wilson show. [via NYP]
2. Up kills at the weekend box office ($68.2m) and Star Trek becomes the first film of 2009 to surpass the $200m mark. [via DHD]
3. Pete Wentz’s bar is in trouble for serving underage drinkers. [via Gawker]
4. Philip Seymour Hoffman, co-artistic director of the LAByrinth Theater Company for more than a decade, is stepping down. [via NYT]
5. This image of Heidi Montag from NBC’s I’m A Celebrity makes you realize that all reality TV show cameras are not created equally. It’s no wonder she and Spencer are threatening to quit. [via Ryan Seacrest]
