Thursday, February 12, 2009

NEWS: HAPPY VALENTINES WEEKEND!!

So, it's Valentine's Weekend, and since I will be out for Friday and Saturday in Detroit and out at a musical for the Lanthorn (which can be read here...READ IT!), I decided that I will bring you a roundup of some smaller news reports that I felt didn't really call for a separate post, but still newsworthy. Here are the headlines...

- FIRST, let me give you all a link to a video that I think epitomizes Valentines Day...

Now, onto the news...

- Star of the new Joss Whedon television series, Dollhouse, Eliza Dushku was recently on Howard Stern, and had some interesting things to say about possibly playing The Black Widow in Iron Man 2...

“They’re doing Iron Man 2, and I’m so perfect for the Black Widow character, that they just need to get into it. They need to understand… I just learned Russian because I had to play a Russian girl in Dollhouse.”

Currently the role belongs to Devil Wears Prada co-star Emily Blunt, but due to possible schedule conflicts (Fox wants her as the romantic lead in their adaptation of Gulliver's Travels, and has the option to do so), she may have to give it up...

- 3 separate one-minute spots for Wolverine will be aired this Sunday (February 15) on “Family Guy,” the second on Monday (Feb. 16) on “House,” and the third on Tuesday (Feb. 17) on “American Idol.”

- With the start of his new series, Important Things, Demitri Martin has been on the road promoting it, and in doing so, finally shed some light on his role in Brokeback Mountain/Ice Storm/Hulk/Crouching Tiger director, Ang Lee's next film, Taking Woodstock. Thanks to /Film for the heads up...

The focus of their discussion was Martin’s lead role in Taking Woodstock, the upcoming Ang Lee movie about Elliot Tiber. Tiber unwittingly became a pivotal part in the chain of events that carried the Woodstock music festival from the realms of hippie pipe dreaming and into reality.


Martin’s account of his first meeting with Lee and screenwriter-producer James Schamus gives a good idea of how the film is being pitched:

“I went into the Ang Lee meeting and I had read the book and they’re like, ‘I don’t know how much you know, but we want to do this movie. We’re kind of interested in you as a character. We’re not going into as much of the like underground New York gay scene and that stuff. We’re focusing more on the family relationship and this guy’s personal journey, as a gay person who is in the closet in 1969 as that relates to making Woodstock happen and finding yourself as a generation is finding itself.”

As this is essentially a biopic of Tiber, Martin has apparently been required to appear in every single scene - easily trumping his previous, relatively meagre, cameo appearances in The Rocker and Analyse That. I hope he’s up to the job.

Only one scene is given a fully detailed description, but it’s a key one:

“There’s a scene where I kiss a guy – the only scene where I have a real kiss – and I’m on a dance floor and these girls pull me in to dance with them in my family’s bar in the motel, and they pull me onto the dance and a girl plants a kiss on me and then I push away from her. And then a guy grabs me and swings me around and kisses me, and at first I pull back, like who’s kissing me? And then I see him and I’m like, ‘Oh my god – it’s you!’ and then I go back in for the kiss and it’s more passionate and it’s real and there’s a catharsis and everybody cheers.”

This is where Tiber effectively comes at as gay in front of his Father (played, I believe, by Henry Goodman) and I’d imagine a lot of the drama to follow is ignited at this moment.

There’s an undeniable Oscarability to this picture, so I think we’ll be hearing a lot more about it as the year draws to an end and the ten-pins are re-framed for the next awards season.

As a footnote, I should alert you that this Sunday, the 15th of February, the new episode of Flight of the Conchords (a show on which Martin has appeared, and was co-created by sometime collaborator of his, James Bobin) has been directed by none other than Michel Gondry. Should be truly excellent, not least because we’ll be getting two new de facto Gondry music videos in the mix - so set your reminders now.


- Justin Marks is tapped to rewrite McG's adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Now, I'm not normally hip to writing about these things, but let me give a little bit of credence to Mr. Marks. He's a young, hotshot writer, who has turned in a couple big time scripts. First there was his Voltron script that really made everyone stand up and take notice, and then he did the screenplay for He-Man, and had critics who got a hold of it really excited. He has also turned in drafts of SuperMax (the Green Arrow film), and Street Fighter.

- Smells Like Teen Spirit music video director Samuel Bayer is getting the keys to the much talked about remake of Nightmare on Elm Street...

- Darren Bousman, director of Saw 2, 3, and 4, along with Repo: The Genetic Opera, will be helming a film about a heist set on a submarine, called Akula...

- The Wachowski Brothers (Matrix series, Bound, and Speed Racer), are in the hunt to reboot the Superman franchise...

- Finally, click here to play an 8 Bit Watchmen web game...it's kick ass...

Happy Meaningless Hallmark Holiday!

Go see something good!

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