The Hitlist Movies Blog

‘Grease’ Was the Word

Is it time for a grittier remake of the venerable musical?

By DannyMiller Aug 8, 2011 2:31PM

How is it possible that more than three decades have passed since John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John found true love at Rydell High? Can you believe that Danny and Sandy are now 57 and 63? Gulp.

Last week, Annette Charles, who played Travolta’s hot-as-a-firecracker dance partner, Cha Cha DiGregorio, in the film’s famous “Hand Jive” dance-off, died of cancer at the age of 63. And just a few months ago, Jeff Conaway, who played Travolta’s best friend Kenickie in “Grease,” died after a long history of drug abuse. He was 60. One of the fun gimmicks of the 1978 film was using actual stars from the 1950s to play the “adults” in this nostalgic look at 50s life. The film featured such legends as Sid Caesar, Eve Arden, Edd “Kookie” Byrnes, Joan Blondell, Alice Ghostley, and Dody Goodman. While most of their original work has faded from memory, the phenomenally successful movie lives on. It has grossed an astounding $386 million worldwide and now has new life as a sing-along event at venues such as the Hollywood Bowl.

Crowe signs on to the Allan Hughes-directed film

By Corwin Neuse Aug 8, 2011 1:52PM

While it may seem like Russell Crowe and Mark Wahlberg have spent their entire careers punching people in the face onscreen (and sometimes off), it may surprise and startle you to realize that they have never once punched each other. That may all change soon enough, with Deadline reporting that the feisty Crowe has agreed to co-star next to the equally combative Wahlburg in "Broken City," an indie noir directed by Allen Hughes ("The Book of Eli").

Crowe memorably began his career punching Denzel Washington in the face in "Virtuosity," and has since won considerable accolades for pummeling Guy Pearce in "L.A. Confidential," Joaquin Phoenix in "Gladiator," and the Great Depression in "Cinderella Man." Wahlberg has similarly distinguished himself by punching everyone from himself in 1995's "Fear,' to the capriciousness of nature in "The Perfect Storm" and "The Happening," and fellow Oscar-nominees Edward Norton and Matt Damon in "The Italian Job" and "The Departed." Most recently, Wahlberg was seen pounding nearly everybody in the face in his Golden Globe-nominated turn as boxer Micky Ward in last year's "The Fighter." Having him and Crowe together in the same film thus seems like face punch nirvana.

Sadly, given "Broken City's" political milieu it seems unlikely that the stars will ever come to blows. However, the plot is said to prominently involve corruption, adultery, and murder, so one can never give up hope. All signs look promising, and leave us awaiting the film in rapt anticipation.

Lionsgate Announces 'Catching Fire' Release Date

Thereby tempts fate, agitates already anxious fans

By Corwin Neuse Aug 8, 2011 1:04PM

Safely assuming the blockbuster success of its upcoming "The Amazing Spider-Man," Columbia Pictures recently announced a tentative May 2, 2014 release for its as-yet-untitled sequel. Now, other studios are following suit, staking out key dates for their own potential tent-poles. According to Deadline, Lionsgate has targeted November 22, 2013 for "Catching Fire," the first of three (or more) possible sequels to next March's highly-anticipated "The Hunger Games."

Remembering the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

By Corwin Neuse Aug 8, 2011 11:47AM

As a gloomy nation heads back to work for five more days of drudgery, petty indignity, and harassment, our thoughts turn inexorably to the dreary, existential, and apocalyptic. Which, perhaps, has never been more appropriate than today, as we commemorate the anniversaries of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (August 6th and 9th, respectively.) With quiet vigils and remembrances going on around the world, here are five films to make you feel appropriately reflective, enervated, and depressed:

We visit the set of the sci-fi/action extravaganza and talk to director Peter Berg and actors Taylor Kitsch & Alexander Skarsgård about turning a board game into a blockbuster

By Dave McCoy Aug 8, 2011 10:55AM

Laugh all you want in regards to "Battleship" the movie. Yes, it's based on that Hasbro game Battleship, as in "Hey, you sank my battleship!" (if you are younger than 30 years-old, ask your parents). I was laughing too when Universal asked me to travel to Hawaii for a two-day set visit in September 2010. Really, I thought, they're making movies from board games now? I mean, I guess I understand "Clue" but "Battleship"? That was before I saw the set.

An all-star cast tries to recommend an under-the-radar film

By Kate Erbland Aug 7, 2011 5:10PM

Sometimes even a cast packed with Oscar winners and nominees won't guarantee that a film gets the buzz it should surely seem poised to get, and such may be the case with John Doyle's "Main Street." An impressive ensemble cast seems to signal that the film should be getting much more notice than it has garnered, but the film's strange trailer may show why the film doesn't seem to be on anyone's mind.

The film stars Oscar winner Colin Firth, Orlando Bloom, Oscar nominee Patricia Clarkson, Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn, and Andrew McCarthy. Firth's character arrives in a Southern town, promising to turn around the local economy with his big business. But what Firth may deliver may not be what's best, even if economically it all makes sense. The rest of the cast play members of the community, who all seem to be entangled with each other, even if some of those connections seem tenuous at best. The trailer starts off with some dramatic touches, before switching to a more light-hearted tone, before zooming back to the heavy stuff. In between economic chatter, there seem to be a number of messy romantic situations that overwhelm the film's story. Firth and Bloom both bust out heavy Southern accents that are distracting at best. In short, it's an inscrutable bit of movie marketing that does not clarify the tone or the plot of the film.

Hopefully, the trailer is not a true interpretation of the film, especially considering how many talented actors and actresses populate it.

"Main Street" opens on September 9. Check out the film's trailer, thanks to Apple, after the break.

Is the box office winner worth the hype?

By Kate Erbland Aug 7, 2011 4:29PM

After the relatively unexpected box office massacre of Jon Favreau's "Cowboys & Aliens" last weekend at the hand of a bunch of little blue men, this weekend's returns seemed bound to cause chatter no matter which film prevailed. What an nice surprise that the winner ended up being a somewhat unexpected choice, Rupert Wyatt's "Rise of the Planet of the Apes."

MSN Movies' own Glenn Kenny gave the film a stellar, four-star review (check out his full review here). In his review, Kenny comments on the "diminished expectations" of the summer blockbuster movie-going public, and he's certainly correct to address the concerns connected to such a film, a sort of "premake" riff on the popular series from the '70s. But, for all the potential for disaster, Kenny's review gets to the heart of the film, as he weighs in that its his "pleasure to report that not only does "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" not suck, but is in fact very nearly close to completely awesome, and is the best sci-fi blockbuster of the summer, in a walk, even."

The film serves as an origin story (of sorts), telling an alternate story of just how the world's apes came to the higher intelligence that, ostensibly, led to their ultimate superiority in the not-so-distant future. If it's taken as a new spin on "Apes" canon, it erases the third, fourth, and fifth films in the franchise's original series, imagining Caesar the ape as a creation thanks to modified human medicine, not the child of two smart apes sent back to the past (a complicated conceit as is, one that puts Earth and all of its history and inhabitants in a never-ending and warped circle of time where cause and effect blend to the point of being unrecognizable).

In Wyatt's "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," James Franco's Will Rodman comes into possession of tiny baby Caesar, the child of an ape that Will's company was testing meds on that promise to repair broken neural pathways. But in the case of Caesar and his mother, having no broken pathways to mend only leads to the strengthening of old paths - and the creation of new ones. The results are unexpected to the film's human characters, despite being no-brainers to anyone who has ever seen a previous "Apes" film.

Early reports have “The Change-Up” suffering at the hands of marauding chimps

By DannyMiller Aug 6, 2011 5:49PM

Hollywood is one crazy place. In the old days, films were given time to develop an audience and for word-of-mouth to increase interest. Now a film’s “success” or “failure” is determined within a few hours of its release. Deadline reports that “The Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is exceeding expectations with a very healthy $19.7M box office take on Friday. The Twentieth Century Fox film is now being projected to take in at least $50M this weekend, way higher than last week’s much-anticipated “Cowboys & Aliens.” By contrast, yesterday's other big studio release, Universal’s “The Change-Up,” only took in $4.7M on Friday and weekend projections have been drastically lowered to $13.4M. Universal executives are wringing their hands. “It’s disappointing,” one exec told Deadline this morning. “We’re kind of confounded by it. The movie tested unbelievably well and played like the best R-rated comedies we have.”