The Screengrab : transformers

Screengrab Death Watch: Day One

Andrew Osborne — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:49:00 GMT

And now, the end is near, and so we face the final curtain...

Yes, it’s true...as it turns out, the shitty economy, global warming, the death of print media and the looming Swine Flu pandemic are only the tips of the iceberg of sadness we’ll all have to deal with this year.

We learned yesterday that Nerve.com will be shuttering some of its culture blogs including...(sniff, sniff)...this one: sad to say, the Screengrab is not long for this dirty old world.

So enjoy our beloved, non-commercially viable coverage of the cinematic universe while you can...and stay tuned for plenty of clip-show nostalgia, maudlin eulogizing, a heart-tugging farewell song from Bette Midler and, in a last-ditch attempt to boost hits, 100% more gratuitous Tits & Ass...like, uh...that chick from The Hills showing her butt!

Screengrab Predicts: The Top 5 Bombs of Summer 2009 (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:00:00 GMT

And now, the bombs...though, to be honest, with no Love Guru or Speed Racer in the running, this category (with one consensus exception) is a lot more of an open race for Summer 2009, with ties in the 4th and 5th place spots pretty much decided by coin-toss...well, it was a little more scientific than that, but not by much...

5. YEAR ONE (June 19)

Nick:
Barring The Flintstones suddenly becoming fashionable again, Harold Ramis’ caveman comedy starring Jack Black and Michael Cera will sink like a stone.

Scott:
Maybe this has one good weekend in it, but I’m not seeing a lot of staying power here. If you check your list of successful cavemen comedies, I think you’ll find it’s a bit shorter than you remember.

Andrew:
Oh, I dunno...I remember at least one really good gag in Ringo Starr’s Caveman, and I expect Year One to at least double that batting average...which might be just enough to get me into an air-conditioned theater on some muggy June afternoon. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, true...

4. IMAGINE THAT (June 12)

Scott:
Imagine what? Another toothless “family-friendly” Eddie Murphy comedy larded with sugary sweet life lessons? All too easy to imagine.

Paul:
Dear Eddie Murphy,

It’s been a decade since Bowfinger. Ever since then you’ve made lousy action comedies, lousy family comedies, and computer-animated comedies in which you provide the voice of a talking donkey. Pleasepleaseplease be funny again, both for your own sake and the sake of those who remember when you could still make people laugh. Thank you.

Sincerely,
The Screengrab

Andrew:
Okay, you guys convinced me...I kinda wish I’d put this on my own list of “bombs” now...but I put Transformers in its place on my list instead out of sheer malice.

3. X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (May 1)

Nick:
Each X-Men film has made more than its predecessor, and this prequel cost more to make than any prior series entry. The Internet leak won’t affect its business, but Star Trek – opening one week after it – will, causing Wolverine to make less than X-Men: The Last Stand and thus be viewed as a modest failure.

Andrew:
For what it’s worth, I’ve seen and dug all the other X-Men flicks, and for some reason I could give a wet fart about this one, which looks to me like the bad Halle Berry Catwoman of the series. Now maybe if there were some musical numbers...

2. THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 (June 12)

Nick:
With little action-thriller opposition around its June 12th release date, Tony Scott’s remake may open reasonably well. Yet given how blah it looks and how little buzz it’s attracting, it should quickly disappear from the nation’s overcrowded multiplexes.

Scott:
Speaking of ruining the ’70s (see below)...a gritty, grimy little New Yawk thriller with Walter Matthau at his hangdog finest is given the Tony Scott treatment. It looks as though puffy John Travolta and his wacky facial hair have already chewed some of the scenery, but expect him to devour the rest of it when this one hits theaters in June.

1. LAND OF THE LOST (June 5)

Scott:
I have an idea. Let’s completely ruin the ’70s for those of us who spent our childhoods there! Oh wait, we’ve already done that, haven’t we? Then what the hell, we might as well turn a quirky, beloved Saturday morning staple into another crappy Will Ferrell comedy with plenty of dopey sight gags and gobs of CGI effects.

Nick:
Will Ferrell and Danny McBride are inspired comedians, but Brad Silberling’s update of the 1970s TV show seems like the latest action-comedy hybrid destined to be neither exciting nor amusing. Expect a big-time bomb.

Paul:
Who is this movie for, exactly? Will Ferrell isn’t the box-office juggernaut he once was, and the ticket buyers who yearn for him to deliver Ron Burgundy-style laughs probably won’t go for the second-rate Jurassic Park-style dinosaur storyline. Meanwhile, the kids will probably be too busy watching Up and Night at the Museum 2 to care about this one. Does the original series have that many fans clamoring for a big-budget version of the story? I highly doubt it.

Andrew:
I have to say I actually feel bad about Land of the Lost winding up as our runaway number one consensus pick for top bomb of the summer, since I’m a fan of the original TV series and I have every intention of going to see the Will Ferrell version...and yet, my colleagues all make excellent points, plus the promotional stuff has a distinctly low-rent, Brendan Fraseresque feel to it...on the other hand, I wouldn’t be completely surprised if this one bites us on the ass, prediction-wise, and turns into a surprise hit...oh, wait, the budget was $100 million? Uh...never mind.

Click Here For The Hits (Parts One & Two), The Toss-Ups (Part Four) and The Honorable Mentions (Parts Five & Six)

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager, Scott Von Doviak, Paul Clark

Morning Deal Report: Megan Fox Goes Deep

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Transformers star Megan Fox is taking additional steps to shore up her fan base with comic book nerds. Not only is she in negotiations to co-star with Josh Brolin in Jonah Hex, but according to The Hollywood Reporter she is also set to star in the comic book adaptation Fathom. The story “follows a young woman named Aspen who learns she is a member of a race of aquatic humanoids who possess the ability to control water.” Aquaman, eat your heart out.

Kevin Smith has two stars and a new title for his project formerly known as A Couple of Dicks. The newly titled A Couple of Cops will star Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in Smith’s major studio debut for Warner Bros., “centered on a pair of cops who track down a stolen baseball card, rescue a Mexican beauty and must deal with gangsters and laundered drug money,” per Variety.

Christopher Nolan’s latest has a title – Inception – and a star – Leonardo DiCaprio. “Script has been kept under wraps but the studio calls it a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind.” I’ll show you the architecture of the mind!

Related:
Beyond Spike and Clint: More Filmmaker Feuds
When Good Directors Go Bad?: Insomnia (Christopher Nolan)

Screengrab 2009 Preview: Paul Clark's Picks

Paul Clark — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:00:00 GMT

It’s a little risky looking forward at an entire upcoming year’s worth of releases and cherry-picking the promising-looking ones. It’s not just that many of the movies that are currently slated to come out within the next 12 months might get pushed back or shuttered altogether. It’s also the fact that as good as some movies might look on paper with their high-profile casts and extravagant budgets, they could very well end up awful. Just ask the makers of Town and Country.

That said, here (using the ever-popular “3 Up, 3 Down” format) are a handful of my most anticipated movies of 2009, along with three I’m dreading, and one wild card:

3 Up:

The Tree of Life

Marking the filmmaker’s quickest turnaround to date, Terrence Malick latest film comes a scant four years after his 2005 masterpiece The New World. That Malick has apparently decided to keep making movies is worth celebrating by itself, but that he’s finally getting around to his supposed “dream project” (which he’s allegedly been tinkering with for three decades now) is the stuff of Malick-fanboy fantasies.

Inglourious Basterds

Speaking of fanboy fantasies, it looks like Quentin Tarantino’s long-discussed World War II actioner is for real. Word from those who’ve read the script is that Basterds (Tarantino’s spelling) is all kinds of wanky, but don’t forget that people said the same about Kill Bill and Thunder Bolt Death Proof, and those turned out just fine. Not even Eli Roth’s acting could scare me away from this.

Avatar

I toyed with several choices in this spot- including Pixar’s Up and Von Trier’s Antichrist- but in the end, I kept coming back to Jim Cameron’s state-of-the-arts space opera. It’s been twelve years since Cameron made his last fiction feature (nothing you’d have heard of), and I’m plenty curious to see the project that convinced him to come back. Say what you will about his movies- there’s no denying Cameron’s technical mastery and knack for cinematic grandeur, and I’m eager to see how he pushes the envelope again this time around.

3 Down:

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Two summers ago, I hated Michael Bay’s Transformers, the movie that disproved my seemingly ironclad hypothesis that no movie that contains giant robot fights could ever be boring. After that movie’s massive box-office success, Hollywood has responded with a wave of big-screen toy/cartoon adaptations pitched to adults who really ought to know better (coming in 2012: The Jonas Brothers are Voltron!). Is there any chance this will actually be good? Don’t bet on it.

G-Force

You folks already know how I feel about this one. The only way this could’ve possibly been good would be if Robert Smigel or Trey Parker and Matt Stone were behind it, making it as bizarre as possible, but that’s not going to happen. Sorry, G-Force, but my flesh’n’fur cavies could take you all on without breaking a squeak, sassy celebrity voices or no.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Yet another sub-Sandler product from the Happy Madison crap factory. Normally, I wouldn’t bother, except that the title character’s name is too close to mine to ignore. I’m hoping this falls out of the public consciousness quickly so that I don’t have to worry about "Mall Cop" jokes for the next few years. Why couldn’t the character be “Paul Blart: Nuclear Physicist” or “Paul Blart: Vascular Surgeon?” How about “Paul Blart: World’s Greatest Film Critic?” Okay, maybe that’s pure fantasy, but I can dream, right?

Wild Card:

Sherlock Holmes

I was a fan of the Holmes series in my youth, so part of me is excited for this, not only for the cast (Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are inspired choices to play the newfangled Holmes and Watson), but also because the filmmakers are using the classic A Scandal in Bohemia story as their inspiration. So why isn’t this one of my most anticipated movies of 2009? Two words, folks- Guy Ritchie. Maybe he’ll be able to keep his tendencies toward visual noise and narrative incoherence in check this time, but if Ritchie screws the pooch on this seemingly foolproof project, I’m going to be seriously pissed.

Trailer Review: Terminator: Salvation (Trailer #2)

Paul Clark — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Could someone please cast Christian Bale in a cheerful role? Bale has always been a fine actor, but most of the roles he plays tend to accentuate his brooding intensity, especially since he donned the Bat-cowl. And Terminator: Salvation continues the trend, placing Bale in a future as downbeat as his persona. But then, I’m not really looking forward to the movie itself either, since I think they’ve already gone to the Terminator well one too many times even without this upcoming installment (haven’t seen the series yet). Honestly, what’s left for the Terminator franchise? Wholesale man-vs.-giant machine warfare a la Transformers? The sight of Connor sending one of his men back in time to shtup his mom? I’m not sure there’s much of a movie here, and the presence of McG in the director’s chair doesn’t give me much hope.

So Much For That "Never-Ending Story" Sequel, or, Guber Goes To College

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:30:00 GMT

You know, you spend the best years of your life arguing against the conservative notion that academia is full of navel-gazing, pointy-headed nudniks so out of touch with the real world that they suck up millions to pursue theses that anyone with an ounce of common sense could disprove in thirty seconds, and then something like this comes along.

In a story that smacks equally of grant-chasing and pure desperation, the Massachussets Institute of Technology -- providing dynamic proof of what happens when people trained in science attempt to apply objective standards to subjective fields of study -- has collaborated with a number of Hollywood big-shots to create something called the Center for Future Storytelling. The premise behind this colossal boondoggle is pure crankery: the movies, they say, are running out of stories. Despite record profits at the box office, we're apparently running dry of narrative (an argument their spokespeople bolster with such fist-shaking geezer logic as blaming text messaging, <i>Guitar Hero</I> and cell phones). It's basically an updated version of the argument advanced in the 1970s that thanks to the proliferation of rock 'n' roll music, we were rapidly running out of melody, and within thirty years there would be no such thing as a new song.

The whole thing is patently absurd. Narrative is a rhetorical device, not a natural resource; it can't be depleted like a coal mine. We'll no more run out of stories than we'll run out of metaphors. Even the act of defining different types of stories in order to prove that we're running out of them is a form of narrative. Do we see an increasing number of shitty movies based on old TV shows? Sure we do. But it's not because there aren't any original stories; it's because Hollywood keeps financing hackwork. And why does Hollywood keep financing hackwork? Because people pay to see it. Blaming some kind of imaginary depletion of the Narrative Zone on scriptwriters' inability to write decent endings ignores the fact that the whole thing is largely a business transaction, not a creative endeavor. And even if the ridiculous claim were true -- which it isn't -- it ignores the fact that there are other ways to tell innovative stories on film than narrative, and Hollywood has shown precious little interest in them, either.

What's especially ridiculous about the article, though, isn't just its moronic premise, or the fact that a bunch of college professors with nothing better to do are going to spend the next ten years dicking around with it. It's the involvement of Hollywood big-shots, and their shockingly hypocritical statements about the whole affair. One of the Center for Future Storytelling's primary backers is Peter Guber, who teaches a class devoted to traditional narrative and shakes his wise old head, lamenting, "How do you compete with Transformers?" This, of course, is the same Peter Guber who brought us Flashdance, D.C. Cab and Tango & Cash. Also involved in the project is Bobby Farrelly, who blames low-brow audiences for the dearth of sophisticated writing and mourns the disappearance of masterful films like The Graduate. Mr. Farrelly, you may remember, brought you highbrow fare such as Dumb and Dumber, and is currently working on a movie about those masters of complex narrative, the Three Stooges.

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DVD Digest for September 2, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week’s DVD Digest is highlighted by a bumper crop of new TV-on-DVD releases in conjunction with the upcoming fall season. In addition, a large number of Blu-Ray only releases and a crush of new indie films on DVD helps to smooth over the lack of a first-rate “DVD of the Week”-worthy release.

This week’s high-profile new releases on DVD include Ira Sachs’ acclaimed fifties-set drama Married Life (Sony, also Blu-Ray), the Norwegian import Reprise (Buena Vista) (click here for Bryan Whitefield’s interview with the filmmaker), and the animated direct-to-DVD Marvel feature Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray). Also, in a strange coincidence, this week also brings the release of four films I caught at Columbus’ Out@Wex series of GLBT films this past spring: Jacques Nolot’s Before I Forget (Strand), the coming-of-age drama Water Lilies (Koch), the gender politics comedy Itty Bitty Titty Committee (Wolfe Video), and Lagerfeld Confidential (Koch), a documentary about the fashion designer.

This week’s slate of classics coming to DVD is highlighted by three new Fox Noir releases: Elia Kazan’s Boomerang, Jean Gabin in Moontide, and Road House (no, not that one), which includes a commentary track from Screengrab favorite Kim Morgan. Somewhat less notable is MGM’s 20th Anniversary Edition of the unholy union of Michael J. Fox and Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City.

In the TV-on-DVD department, this week brings Desperate Housewives Season 4 (Disney), Eli Stone Season 1 (Disney), Ghost Whisperer Season 3 (Paramount), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 3 (Fox), Life Season 1 (Universal) starring the ever-underrated Damian Lewis, Supernatural Season 2 (Warner), and The Office Season 4 (Universal).

Finally, this week’s action-heavy Blu-Ray only releases include: Jet Li in Black Mask (Lionsgate), Arnold Schwarzenegger in Eraser (Warner), the Clint Eastwood double feature Every Which Way But Loose (Warner) and The Gauntlet (Warner), Marvel’s animated The Invincible Iron Man (Lionsgate), the killer-virus thriller Outbreak (Warner), Michael Bay’s Transformers (Paramount), and Steven Seagal ridin’ the rails in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (Warner).

Universal Studios Fire Destroys Back To The Future Set; MTV Movie Awards Tragically Unaffected

Andrew Osborne — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

I was living in Los Angeles in 1990 when a disgruntled security guard set fire to Universal Studios, causing $25 million dollars in damage and choking much of the San Fernando Valley in smoke.

History repeated itself on Sunday with another disastrous blaze on the famous back lot, only this time the destruction included a Gen-X touchstone: the Hill Valley clock tower set from the Back to the Future trilogy, where Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) tried to catch lightning in a flux capacitor in the first movie and raced around on a futuristic hover-skateboard in the sequel. The supercool animatronic King Kong that “attacked” passengers during the Universal tram ride was also destroyed.

Aside from Kong, nobody was injured in the conflagration, the cause of which is still under investigation.

The MTV Movie Awards were broadcast live from the adjacent Gibson (formerly Universal) Amphitheater less than 24 hours after the fire broke out (sometime around 4:30 A.M. Sunday morning). Fire footage and the full list of fake awards show winners are included after the jump:

2008 MTV MOVIE AWARDS

Best Movie

Transformers

Best Male Performance

Will Smith - I Am Legend

Best Female Performance

Ellen Page - Juno

Breakthrough Performance

Zac Efron - Hairspray

Best Comedic Performance

Johnny Depp - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Best Kiss

Briana Evigan & Robert Hoffman - Step Up 2 the Streets

Best Villain

Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Fight

Sean Faris vs. Cam Gigandet - Never Back Down

Best Summer Movie So Far

Iron Man

MTV Movie Awards Continue to Exist

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

The ’90s live forever at MTV – in between all the dating and celebreality shows, anyway – so it probably should come as no surprise that the MTV Movie Awards are still in existence, and will be hosted this year by Mike Myers. It sounds like a very 1996 idea to me, but after checking the date on the press release, it appears to be true. Now the nominations have been announced and it’s time for the speculation to begin. Will Shia LaBeouf and Sarah Roemer win Best Kiss for Disturbia, or will those upstarts Briana Evigan and Robert Hoffman from Step Up 2 The Streets pull off an upset? Will McLovin Mania sweep Superbad’s Christopher Mintz-Plasse to the Best Newcomer Prize? And what future classic of cinema will leave with the prestigious Golden Popcorn prize for Best Movie?

In fairness, I dimly recall a time when the MTV Movie Awards were a fun, irreverent alternative to the usual award show pomp. This is a show, after all, that presented both Godzilla and Clint Howard with Lifetime Achievement Awards. A distinguished ceremony during which Will Ferrell once wet his pants. A red carpet extravaganza with a somewhat flexible dress code:

It doesn’t take long for “fun and irreverent” to congeal into “lame and desperate,” however. Last year MTV brought in Survivor producer Mark Burnett to liven things up, but sadly, the nominees were not forced to eat gross food items or vote each other out (which might be a fun twist). Instead, my sources tell me (I was out playing Bingo), the night was basically a repository of cheap rehab jokes about Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and mind-numbing moments like the awarding of Best Summer Movie You Haven’t Seen Yet to Transformers.

Still, this is a blog for film news, so here is the news. The MTV Movie Awards nominees have been announced. You can find them here if you’re interested. Heck, you can even vote for them if you really care!

DVD Digest for April 22, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week, a cinematic master gets the Eclipse treatment, and a viral-marketing-phenom makes its DVD debut.

DVD of the Week: In the past few years, a number of Yasujiro Ozu films have made their way to DVD, but he was so prolific that there are still many films missing, especially from his earlier work. For this reason alone, the arrival Eclipse Series 10: Silent Ozu- Three Family Comedies is cause for celebration. Comprised of three films made between 1931 and 1933, the Silent Ozu box has no extras to speak of (Eclipse doesn't really do extras), but each film features a brand-new score by silent-film composer Donald Sosin, as well as the high-quality transfers we've come to expect from the Criterion family. To date, I've only seen the box's centerpiece film, I Was Born, But..., but that film and the other Ozus I've seen have been so delightful that I have no reservations about recommending the other films- 1933's Passing Fancy and 1931's Tokyo Chorus- as well. Here's hoping that Eclipse continues to do right by Ozu in the years to come. He's certainly worth it.

Releasing today from Criterion itself is Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio Bardem's seminal, long-overlooked melodrama Death of a Cyclist. The class-oriented of a respected professor whose life goes into freefall when after a hit-and-run accident, the film is at times heavyhanded but always striking and beautifully shot. In addition, the film should provide a fitting introduction for many moviegoers to the charms of leading lady Lucia Bosé. An Italian stunner with screen presence to burn, Bosé was a mainstay of the early films of Michelangelo Antonioni, as well as appearing in work by Buñuel, Fellini, and Marguerite Duras. The DVD also includes a featurette on the life and work of Bardem, but the real story is the film which, like its female lead, is ripe for rediscovery.

Also of note on the classics front is the release of four comedies from Universal's Cinema Classics series. The four films are: the Mae West/Cary Grant vehicle She Done Him Wrong; Billy Wilder's early film The Major and the Minor starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland; and two films from director Mitchell Leisen, 1939's Midnight starring Claudette Colbert, and 1937's Easy Living with Jean Arthur. Each film is a gem, but of particular note is Easy Living, perhaps the greatest film written by Preston Sturges before he reigned over Hollywood comedy in the 1940s. And if it's sexy action you want, check out Image's new DVD of the Shaw Brothers cult classic Intimate Confessions of a chinese Courtesan, a movie I'm pretty sure I dreamed one night.

Compared to this week's selection of classics, the new titles can't help but look a little paltry. The big-ticket DVD this week is of course Cloverfield (Paramount), the Matthew Reeves/JJ Abrams rampaging-monster movie. For me, the film was never so much fun as when I first saw the trailer before Transformers, but the DVD should give people a chance to approach the film separated from all the hype. This week also brings a Philip Seymour Hoffman double feature, with Hoffman hitting DVD shelves with Tamara Jenkins' The Savages (Fox)- in which he appears opposite Laura Linney- and his caustic, Oscar-nominated performance in Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War (Universal), which also features mediocre turns by Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, and a pretty hot scene in which Emily Blunt slinks down the stairs wearing only a man's dress shirt.

In addition, there's a trifecta of indie releases hitting the market today: Andrew Wagner's Starting Out in the Evening (Lionsgate), which garnered awards buzz for the ever-dependable Frank Langella; Paul Schrader's The Walker (ThinkFilm), featuring Woody Harrelson as a too-helpful escort for society women; and Joe Swanberg's Hannah Takes the Stairs (Genius Productions), starring "mumblecore" darling Greta Gerwig. Also worth mentioning are the second season of Friday Night Lights (Universal), J.A. Bayona's supernatural chiller The Orphanage (New Line, also Blu-Ray), and the mostly-ignored Hollywood remake of One Missed Call (Warner, also Blu-Ray). Mind you, the latter is only worth mentioning for the sake of completism, but there you go.

Finally, David Huddleston would like the announce that there are no HD-DVDs hitting the market today. Frankly, he couldn't be happier.

Michael Bay Tells Us to Ignore Him, He Just Wants Attention

John Constantine — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:04:00 GMT

My hero, Michael Bay? He don’t take no guff. You might think that when someone crosses into the Bay from international waters that they’d get exploded by an army of helicopters or giant robots with guns that shoot helicopters. But the Bay is all class. After being called a “fucking retard” by Uwe Boll on Youtube, one of the Bay’s acolytes went to the official Michael Bay message board and asked how he felt about it. The man’s response? “I find people who rant like that - calling shit about both me, and George Clooney - comes from someone screaming because he is not being heard. He is obviously a sad being. When you ask ‘do I care’? Not in the slightest. –M”

Sticks and stones do not break Michael Bay’s bones, Screengrabbers. Nothing breaks Michael Bay’s bones!

Kotaku? We love them for bringing us this news.

Shia LaBeouf... Why?

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:45:00 GMT

Shia LaBeouf (whose surname, according to Babel Fish, is Spanish for “the Beouf”) has recently been spotted by millions of people in the coming attractions trailer for the awkwardly titled but hotly anticipated Indiana Jones fourquel, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, another sure-fire blockbuster hot on the heels of LaBeouf’s recent gazillion-dollar smash hit, Transformers.

Yes, by any yardstick, Shia the Beouf is clearly a certified, gold-plated movie star.

And yet, except for his comical, hard-to-spell name, he is otherwise completely uninteresting.

Sure, he seems like a nice enough fellah...I mean, hell even I managed more scandalous behavior in my early twenties than drunken Walgreen’s loitering, and I was a complete wuss.

But nice isn’t enough, not in Hollywood. Look at C. Thomas Howell. He, too, was a personable, blandly attractive star in his day, but nobody felt the need to plug him into any surefire, critic-proof blockbusters, and now the poor bastard is stuck headlining straight-to-video classics like Mutant Vampire Zombies from the ‘Hood!

So what is the Beouf’s secret? He’s not particularly funny or sexy or intense or iconic, and yet he keeps showing up in role after role, Entertainment Tonight profile after Entertainment Tonight profile. He’s been heralded as a Star In The Making and Hollywood’s Next Big Thing since at least Holes, but his success to date seems largely based on his inexplicable ability to keep getting himself cast in high concept, high profile movies where he doesn’t need to do much but slouch about looking vaguely troubled.

Does this man have an actual fan base...that is, a fan base that caused him to actually become famous in the first place?

Or did he perhaps get to appear in a bunch of movies as the result of some game show or sweepstakes, a la Survivor sweetheart Colleen Haskell’s co-starring role in The Animal?

Sadly, the riddle of LeBeouf’s continuing fame may never be solved, as each new box office success further validates his A-List stature in a self-reflexive loop of cause and effect with all the existential clarity of a Zen koan: he is a movie star because he is a movie star.

Michael Bay is Michael Bay as Michael Bay in…

John Constantine — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:15:00 GMT

Transformers may suck, and Pearl Harbor might be an offensive piece of trash, but let it never be said that Michael Benjamin Bay doesn’t have a sense of humor about himself. Check out this genius commercial for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, in which Bay parodies himself, to perfect effect. What’s funnier than a Mad Max-style army of animatronic koalas? Michael Bay sheepishly whispering to a room full of bank executives, “I used seven helicopters.”

Selling the "Cloverfield" Monster

Phil Nugent — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:00:00 GMT

In anticipation of the arrival on Friday of Cloverfield, S. James Snyder reviews the marketing of the movie, which started last summer with a trailer strategically attached to the release of Transformers. (If you're going to try to coax people out to see a new movie in the misbegotten month of January, you can't start too early.) "By the end of the weekend, that cryptic preview — which purported to show the home video of a New York house party at the moment it erupts into chaos, as something gigantic, but never seen, attacks the city with huge explosives — had spawned its own universe of online traffic. Initially, people simply tried to find the title of the film, but as word spread that this was, in fact, the new unlabeled disaster film by producer J.J. Abrams, fans of Mr. Abrams's secret-filled TV serial "Lost" quickly scoured the trailer for clues. It didn't take long for Mr. Abrams himself to add fuel to the fire, identifying www.1-18-08.com as one of the film's Web sites, but ensuring fans there were others out there, waiting to be found."

The simulated-home-movie technique of the Cloverfield footage immediately calls up memories of The Blair Witch Project, as does the whole idea of selling a movie through hints and teases located on-line. But part of the brilliance of the Blair Witch campaign was the way the website and other paraphernalia attached the movie, such as a fake "documentary" that aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, created an instant urban myth; some viewers enjoyed being able to pretend that the movie was "real", while some other, less canny viewers actually thought that it was based on something real and felt outraged about being hoaxed when they saw the stars on TV next to Jay Leno. That option isn't really open here; there can't be too many people who've seen the TV commercials showing a mysterious, bellowing something decapitating the Statue of Liberty and generally wreaking havoc on Manhattan who thought that it was really happening, though if there are any such people, they're probably planning to vote for Mitt Romney. Another point of comparison is Snakes on a Plane, the viral-marketed B-movie whose title and catch phrase were all but decreed by Internet feedback. That movie whipped up a firestorm of on-line interest that didn't carry over to the box office; the lesson that the makers of Cloverfield may have taken from it is that if you give the geeks too much control of the pre-release party, then everyone may have started fishing for their car keys by the time the picture opens. (Incidentally, "Cloverfield" was originally supposed to be a temporary code name for the movie, taken from a street address of the Bad Robot company offices, but it's become so identified with the project that now they're stuck with it.)

The Cloverfield marketing team has risen to the challenge of this brave new marketing world with an intricate set of interlocking come-ons, including one surprising tie-in: "In a recent episode of the NBC series Heroes, fans took note of the name and logo of a soft drink that also appeared on the T-shirt of a character in the trailer for Cloverfield — 'Slusho' — which led them to the Web site (www.slusho.jp) and a bizarre online commercial (viewable at YouTube.com) that seemed to have nothing to do with the New York disaster in the Cloverfield trailer. But that was until a new series of fake news reports was released online, all detailing the destruction of a drilling platform out in the middle of the ocean, supposedly owned by Tagruato, the fictional Japanese company that owns the fictional Slusho." In an effort to mix up all this Internet activity with a little real-world buzz, Paramount has also invited a couple hundred of the movie's close, personal "MySpace friends" to " 'Rob's surprise party' — the fictional party interrupted by rumbling explosions in the trailers — on January 17, the night before the film opens." Ultimately, though, an online marketer named Adam Paul insists that, "The key is that the movie has to actually live up to what you've promised in the hype," which sounds very old-school. We don't know any more about what's actually going to be on those screens come January 18 than you do, but we do know this: if audiences get their first clear look at the Cloverfield monster, whatever it is, and respond with laughter or snores, this surprise party is going to wrap itself up very quickly.

Bottom Five of 2007

John Constantine — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:25:00 GMT

With The Screengrab’s overall Top Ten of 2007 going up today, it is high time we let you, the reader, know which movies we thought sucked the most in good ‘ol ’07. Here are five movies that run the gamut from so-bad-you-have-to-see-it down to my-life-is-emptier-after-that-shit. It should be noted that one of these movies actually caused the writer to scream in public for about twenty minutes about how bad it was, embarrassing editor Peter Smith while he tried to order a slice of pizza. Try to guess which one. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

#5: HITMAN (Xavier Gens, dir.)

Big and dumb are words often used to extol an action movie’s virtues. Not so with Hitman, a video game adaptation that, as far as I can tell, isn’t even about anything. It’s shocking that a movie with both a nude Olga Kurylenko and Timothy Olyphant could be this bad.

#4: TRANSFORMERS (Michael Bay, dir.)

Bravo, Michael Bay. Only you could make a movie based on a cartoon - itself little more than a half hour toy commercial - that is actually shallower than its source material. Bravo.

#3: DAN IN REAL LIFE (Peter Hedges, dir.)

Am I really supposed to feel sorry for this asshole? He lies to his motherless children, acts like a petulant child, and makes out with his brother’s girlfriend when he barely knows her. Look not to Evan Almighty for the worst Steve Carell movie of the year. It is before you.

#2: HALLOWEEN (Rob Zombie, dir.)

I checked my watch approximately sixteen times while watching Zombie’s remake of Halloween, desperate for it to be over. Whenever I pass by one of the numerous posters throughout New York City advertising the recently released Halloween: Unrated DVD, I puke a little in my mouth.

#1: SOUTHLAND TALES (Richard Kelly, dir.)

Wow. Just, wow, man. Jesus.

Top Ten of 2007: Leonard Pierce

Leonard Pierce — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Unlike many of my fellow bloggers here at the Screengrab, who live in urbane, sophisticated metropoli, I make my home in San Antonio, Texas. We have a ratio of approximately one movie theatre for every million people here, and "art house" is just what the locals call a museum. I hear if we play our cards right, we might be getting a one-week screening next year of that movie The Graduate all the cool kids are talking about, but until then, it's pretty much Transformers on nineteen of the twenty-four screens down at Huebner Oaks. So you'll forgive me if my list leans pretty heavily on stuff that's already available on Netflix; at least half the movies on my list were ones that I had to drive an hour up to Austin to even have a chance of seeing before their DVD release, and there's more than a few movies that likely would have a chance of appearing here (I think specifically of There Will Be Blood and Syndromes and a Century) that there was simply no way for me to see before the year was up. Still, I'll be happy to go along with the prevailing wisdom that 2007 was an especially rich year for film; there was plenty to see, even if you had to go out of your way to see it.

#10: THE LIVES OF OTHERS (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, dir.)

Although it was released in 2006, this masterful film from Germany didn't receive an American audience outside of the Telluride Film Festival until February. It was well worth the wait. Far too many movies that pick up Best Foreign Film Oscars are the international doppelgangers of Best Picture winners -- overblown, overpraised, middlebrow 'prestige' pictures lacking in resonance, depth and any particular qualities that will result in their being remembered far down the line. But The Lives of Others -- best thought of as a brilliant reworking of The Conversation against the dreadful backdrop of Soviet East Germany -- deserved every bit of praise heaped on it by critics both here and abroad. It's a stunning, terrifying film, brilliantly illustrating Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil' in the person of the astonishing Ulrich Mühe.

#9: SWEENEY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (Tim Burton, dir.)

One of the few of a year-end spate of high-profile films that I actually got a chance to see, Sweeney Todd is Tim Burton's adaptation of the notoriously blood-soaked and difficult Stephen Sondheim musical. I've never been especially fond of Tim Burton as a director, but the qualities of his filmmaking that usually work against him -- the broad emotional strokes, the barely-held-together plots, the characters as caricatures, and the meticulous set design at the expense of believability -- are turned into such strengths that it's hard to believe no one ever had the idea of having him do a musical before this. The result is certainly the best film he's ever done and likely the best film he'll ever do, an absolutely gorgeous thing to look at, and with some surprisingly fine performances. One of the best musicals I've ever seen.

#8: EASTERN PROMISES (David Cronenberg, dir.)

Conversely, I've long been a staunch defender of David Cronenberg's, even with films like Crash and Spider, which met with widespread revulsion from a lot of my fellow critics. Unfortunately, I found his most celebrated film -- 2005's A History of Violence -- sadly lacking, a formulaic and uninspiring drama that bore so little of his unique imprint as a filmmaker that it could have been directed by almost anyone. If the Russian mob drama Eastern Promises isn't strong enough to stand alongside his greatest works, though, it's at least a return to form and a revisiting of some of the themes -- muddled self-identity, the grace and brutality of violence, and a simultaneous revulsion at and fascination with the human body -- that have made him one of the signature talents of the day. Plus, naked Viggo Mortensen, ladies!

#7: BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD (Sidney Lumet, dir.)

If you'd have told me last year -- hell, if you'd told me twenty years ago -- that one of the best film of 2007 would be by ancient journeyman Sidney Lumet, I'd likely have scoffed. But damned if the old trooper doesn't turn in a remarkably swift and sure-handed job behind the helm here, presenting a neo-noir thriller about a simple caper gone disastrously wrong that wouldn't be entirely out of place in the early 1960s and yet never loses a fresh sense of modernity. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead isn't a groundbreaking piece of cinema art; it's simply an assured, highly professional piece of moviemaking of the sort we rarely see anymore, and which Lumet is eminently qualified to give us. It's further bolstered by a dynamite performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman, who has simply owned 2007 on screen.

#6: LUST, CAUTION (Ang Lee, dir.)

Ang Lee continues to be the most versatile moviemaker in the business with his best work since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; if he is absolute master of no genre, he at least never ceases to amaze with his ability to dive confidently into all genres. Bouyed by astonishing performances so tightly controlled and confidently directed that they seem drawn from lost Wong Kar-Wei footage, Lust, Caution maintains a killing pace throughout and doesn't fail to deliver on its near-constant sense of tension and frustration. The much-discussed sex scenes are indeed intense and scarily erotic, but they also accomplish something that's so rarely done that it's become an industry joke: they're not arbitrary, but essential, not only to the plot, but also to the slow but inexorable revelation of the nature of the characters.

#5: THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (Julian Schnabel, dir.)

I was never fond of Julian Schnabel, the visual artist, and while I thought that his debut film, Basquiat, showed promise, I tended to agree with the New York art critic Robert Hughes, who called it a movie about the worst painter of the 1980s made by the second worst. I'm not sure what Hughes has to say about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, but I think it's an amazing film by a director who's finally come into full posession of the tools of his craft. Schnabel has said that he still considers himself an artist first and a director second, but this visually rewarding, complex and beautiful movie is better than anything he ever put to canvas, and even without the tremendous lead performance by Mathieu Amalric, it would be a film worth watching for its mastery of internal landscapes far richer than Schabel's art ever suggested.

#4: MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES (Jennifer Baichwal, dir.)

In what is widely regarded as a banner year for documentaries, the finest one I saw had nothing to do with the war in Iraq, the peccadilloes of the president, or the politics of personality. Instead, it was a little-seen film about a little-known photographer named Edward Burtynsky. His photographs -- and the like-minded film by Jennifer Baichwal -- document the vastness and power of man-made constructs, and convey the awe and the terror one feels at observing objects, from China's Three Gorges Dam to American junkyards, that are made by the hand of humans but can dwarf or even overwhelm the natural surroundings in which they appear. A slow-paced, deliberate, and provocative film made as a collaboration between two artists who understand each other in an perfectly asynchronous way.

#3: ZODIAC (David Fincher, dir.)

Much has been made of the fact that David Fincher, best known for his visual pyrotechnics, allegedly made his most successful film without them. That's not entirely true; among other scenes, the opening drive-by tracking shot, the first murders, and the construction montage of the San Francisco skyline can stand next to some of the most stylish set-pieces in his other films. But it's undeniable that his best film to date, and one of the best films of the year, is at its best when he simply stands back and lets the audience become spellbound with the absorbing interplay of his characters. A fascinating treatment of the nature of obsession and a subtle treatise on the way we become ensnared in the grotesque and the perverse, Zodiac is revelatory in the way it defies expectations of what a serial-killer drama should be.

#2: BRAND UPON THE BRAIN! (Guy Maddin, dir.)

Guy Maddin has been quietly establishing himself as one of the finest, most idiosyncratic directors in the world for several years now, and Brand Upon the Brain! is both his most autobiographical film to date (the lead character in the film is, well, Guy Maddin, ably and amusingly played by young Sullivan Brown) and his best. There was some fear amongst critics who had a chance to see it in its 'touring edition' -- a live extravaganza featuring on-site music, celebrity voice-overs and sound effects composed right there in the theater -- that the film wouldn't hold up without all the show-stopping theatrical gimmicks, but they needn't have worried: this is the purest distilliation of Maddin's unique sensibilities as a filmmaker: sexual obsession, throwback surrealism, fantastic dreamscapes, and madness as part of the everyday.

#1: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Joel & Ethan Coen, dirs.)

There are plenty of filmmakers who would trade their favorite limb for a track record like Joel and Ethan Coen -- from 1984 to 2001, they didn't make a bad film, and the 9 features they put in the can over those 17 years add up to the most robust corpus by any living American filmmaker you can name. Things started to go awry with Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers; many placed the blame on the fact that, for the first time, the Coens were filming material they didn't write. That's not a problem with No Country for Old Men, a triumphant masterpiece of genre filmmaking based on a minor Cormac McCarthy novel that once again places the brothers (credited, for the first time ever, as co-directors) where they belong: at the very pinnacle of American moviemaking. An astonishing comeback that will be discussed for decades.

Movies We Missed: Transformers (2007)

Peter Smith — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 20:00:00 GMT

Wait a second, you say, what the hell do you mean a movie "we" missed? With box office tallies swelling to over $700M worldwide (pre-DVD!) it's pretty obvious that this one didn't exactly fly under the radar. But admittedly being somewhat of a film snob and guessing that many Screengrab readers and writers may fit in the same category, I thought this might just fit the bill. Who knows, without a thirteen-hour flight to sit through, I may never have discovered this effects heavy, pleasant surprise of a mega-blockbuster myself.

Why we missed it:
Director Michael Bay's last attempt, The Island, was a waste of film, not to mention millions of dollars, and would probably make many people's Top 10 "I Want My Time and Money Back" lists.

As a child of the '80s, (and a proud fan of Clash of the Titans) these all-CGI-all-the-time movies can be more nuisance and nonsense than popcorn classics.

Why we should have known:
As a child of the '80s, I should have remembered one simple fact. Transformers = AWESOME!

Why we ended up kicking ourselves:
A well-cast group of actors, led by the likable Shia LaBeouf, who carries the movie with his manic chattering and off-track humor. For men, there's the jailbait vision of Megan Fox and the fresh face of Rachael Taylor. For women there are ebony-and-ivory hunks Tyrese and Josh Duhamel. And for fans of Kangaroo Jack, there's Anthony Anderson.

The big-budget effects work much better in a story about alien robots than they do for those centered around superheroes or snakes. The Transformers themselves actually manage to integrate well with actors and real settings making for some very satisfying action sequences.

The movie rests on a simple but effective formula that seems unearthed from an '80s blueprint itself. Think Back to the Future and/or any of the countless other movies where the social nobody/nice-guy fuck-up turns out to be a lovable hero who saves the world and gets the girl, by using nerd knowledge and inner strength that nobody knew he had in him. It still works because there are more Shia LaBeoufs than Will Smiths in the world.

Why we may have been better off without it:
Believe it or not, indie stalwart John Turturro is the film's weak link as an overzealous cop.

There is probably an age cap on this one. If you were an adult when kids were playing with the toys, you probably didn't get it then, and it's unlikely you'll feel much different now. But to the film's credit, it's able to bring a young generation of fans up to date with the franchise much better than the many other movie attempts at reviving old TV favorites. (Dukes of Hazzard anyone?)

— Bryan Whitefield

Bay to Microsoft: I Do Not Approve of the Way You Transform and Roll Out

Peter Smith — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:00:00 GMT

Who doesn't love a good format war? Well, everyone. From the heated battle between phonograph cylinders and gramophone records, to VHS's head-to-head match with Betamax, it's never anything less than obnoxious and inconvenient for the average consumer. The current fracas between Toshiba's Microsoft-backed HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-ray high-definition movie formats is particularly noisome, given the ubiquity of standard DVD players and the low install base of HD televisions. Worse still are the exclusivity agreements between format holders and movie studios. Got an HD-DVD player but want a Disney movie? Too bad. We lowly movie watchers at home aren't the only ones getting annoyed. The esteemed purveyor of big-budget trash, Michael Bay, whose Transformers is only available on HD-DVD thanks to Paramount's exclusivity contract, is not only calling out the studio on his official forums but claiming that the format war itself is a sham. Bay posted, "What you don't understand is corporate politics. Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads. That is the dirty secret no one is talking about. That is why Microsoft is handing out $100-million-dollar checks to studios just embrace the HD-DVD and not the leading, and superior Blu-Ray. They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads. Time will tell and you will see the truth." What say you about the format war, Screengrabbers? Thanks to Joystiq for the spot. — John Constantine

Trailer Roundup: Cloverfield, Definitely Maybe, The Other Boleyn Girl

Peter Smith — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:00:00 GMT

Cloverfield

While the 1.18.08 teaser that played before Transformers this past summer appeared to simply be a brilliant piece of viral marketing, it now appears that the project, now titled Cloverfield, will actually be shot largely by characters wielding personal camcorders and camera phones, instead of in a conventional style. Frankly, I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I think it's a good idea in theory to make a kind of Godzilla for the YouTube generation. But a movie like this is tricky to pull off. The Blair Witch Project worked because you always got a sense that there were really three people lost in the forest and beset by forces they couldn't explain, but it'll be much harder to get that same vibe with a project this large-scale and effects-intensive. I'm not sure the director of the 1996 David Schwimmer vehicle The Pallbearer is the man for the job. Regardless, I'm curious to find out.

Definitely, Maybe

About the best thing I can say about this trailer is that Ryan Reynolds doesn't look to be as insufferable as he usually is. Plus his three romantic partners — Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz, and Isla Fisher — are all pretty smokin'. But otherwise, gag me. Much of the blame can be placed on little Abigail Breslin, who has taken over the mantle of Hollywood's go-to moppet from Dakota Fanning. Or maybe it's just that the character feels less like a precocious kid than a screenwriter's conception of same, a little girl who gives voice to all the clever, self-aware ideas on the scribe's oh-so-clever mind. How else to explain lines like "what's the male word for slut?" This is the kind of crappy Valentine's Day release that makes me glad to be single. And who signed off on that title?

The Other Boleyn Girl

Okay, who cast this thing? When your least problematic lead is Aussie Eric Bana (Henry the Eighth he ain't, he ain't), you know there's trouble. I'm not sure who's more ill-fitting in this story, emo pixie Natalie Portman as the defiant Anne Boleyn, or princess of pout Scarlett Johansson as her sister Mary. Based on her ignominious work in previous period films, I'm inclined to lean toward Johansson here, but it's a tough call. Either way, couldn't they find two English actresses who (a) suited their roles, and (b) were more convincing as sisters? With Elizabeth: The Golden Age and now this, Hollywood might want to consider laying off the British history for a while, lest our friends across the pond think we've got it in for them.

— Paul Clark

Morning Deal Report: There is Power in a Union

Peter Smith — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:00:00 GMT

Looks like this Writers' Guild strike could actually happen. Now, the top-grossing films so far this year are Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Harry Potter 5, Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, and Transformers. Who needs writers?

While Peter Jackson waits on his next big-budget sci-fi action flick (Halo), he's planning a more personal project: a big-budget sci-fi action flick called District 9.

Speaking of departures, David Fincher will adapt a graphic novel about a detective chasing a killer.

— Peter Smith

And Now For Something Relatively Lowbrow

Peter Smith — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:00:00 GMT

Sick of reading about '80s toy franchises being adapted into two hour long Mountain Dew commercials here on the 'Grab? Too bad! Unlike the flood of '80s remakes announced made in the wake of Transformers, this just-leaked animated pitch for a new He-Man and the Masters of the Universe movie from 2004 is definitely not getting made. This flick might have been good, trashy fun, considering John Woo was attached to direct. From the looks of it, it would’ve been 300 but with more science-fiction and people riding giant cats while fighting skeleton men. (Read: Totally awesome.) — John Constantine

Morning Deal Report: Scorsese and DiCaprio, Sitting in a Tree

Peter Smith — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:00:00 GMT

Martin Scorsese has announced his next project: the Dennis Lehane adaptation Shutter Island. (Dennis Lehane — so hot right now.) Once again, Scorsese will team up with his new De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio. . .

Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody (now there's a handle) will direct much-discussed Transformers thespian Megan Fox in Jennifer's Body, a comedy about a cheerleader who kills boys due to demonic possession.

Great World of Sound director Craig Zobel has a new project: Turkey in the Straw, about a small-town political standoff in which a candidate shoots his competitor. I am very curious what this'll be like.

Julia Stiles falls in love with her stalker Paddy Considine in Cry of the Owl.

Steve Buscemi will take a major role in John Rabe, a sort of Chinese Schindler's List about a German businessman who saved hundreds of thousands of Chinese lives in the Nanjing massacre. (Buscemi plays American doctor Robert Wilson, not Rabe.) With no disrespect to Rabe's real heroism and humanity, it's interesting how many films use massive historical crimes to elevate the filmic heroism and humanity of their (usually white) heroes. Call it the Mississippi Burning syndrome. I hope Buscemi's good judgment is in effect here.

— Peter Smith

Mockbusters

Peter Smith — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:00:00 GMT

Asylum is a small Hollywood production company with a niche. Its recent titles include The Da Vinci Treasure, Snakes on a Train, and Transmorphers. As Rolf Potts explains, that last one might be mistaken, ideally by someone on a late-night raid at Blockbusters, for Transformers, except that the Asylum product "has no recognizable actors, no merchandising tie-ins and a garbled sound mix. Also unlike Transformers, it has cheap special effects and a subplot involving lesbians." Potts calls films like these, which are designed to be viewed by people with another, better-known movie on their minds, as "mockbusters." David Michael Latt, the company's co-founder, calls them "tie-ins", though that term has traditionally been used by people who were actually working together on a mass-marketed product and not by people who were, in effect, letting the big studios unknowingly do their marketing for them. Latt explains that Anchor, which has been around since 1997, just kind of tripped into this; they had made their own cheapo adaptation of H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds, starring C. Thomas Howell, and they noticed that, when Steven Spielberg's own big-time movie of that same name and provenance hit DVD racks, it didn't hurt their sales. Soon, Asylum was making King of the Lost World, starring Bruce Boxleitner and Steve Railsback and featuring a DVD cover with a picture of a big-ass gorilla, which was timed to appear at the same time as Peter Jackson's King Kong. "I’m not trying to dupe anybody," Latt tells Potts. "I’m just trying to get my films watched." And the only way he can do that is by duping people. But at least he's keeping Steve Railsback off the streets. — Phil Nugent