Howard Chaykin Covers December "Star Wars Insider"

STAR WARS INSIDER ANNOUNCES EXCLUSIVE HOWARD CHAYKIN COVER AND POSTER

 

To mark the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, Titan’s December edition of Star Wars Insider magazine includes an exclusive limited edition collector's cover and large size pull-out poster drawn by original Star Wars comic book artist, Howard Chaykin.

 

Chaykin, who drew the first limited-edition Star Wars poster in 1976, has now created a special Empire Strikes Back image exclusively for Star Wars Insider, the official magazine of the Star Wars saga. This limited edition collector's cover of Insider is only available through comic stores and the large size pull-out poster comes free with the regular Insider newsstand edition.

This issue of Insider explores the making of the original Star Wars comic book by Chaykin and writer Roy Thomas and includes a never before published transcript of a meeting between George Lucas and Chaykin regarding the adaptation of Star Wars for a Marvel comic series.

Chaykin on the Star Wars characters: “I feel that kid who plays Luke is a little soft in the face so I'm going to harden him up a little bit. He's got a great cleft and that's fine, but he looks like he’s 16. It'll make him more heroic in the picture. Han Solo is perfect. He looks like I drew him. He looks my cliché mercenary hero. He looks like [classic comic book hero] Cody Starbuck. Chewbacca will be no problem. Same thing is true of Darth Vader…. He looks like a comic book character—Doctor Doom.“

The magazine also features interviews with the team behind The Clone Wars series, remarks from the Mark Hamill panel at Star Wars Celebration V and an Endor location guide. Plus, there’s much more must-have material for all Star Wars fans.

Retailers can order this special Star Wars Insider with exclusive Howard Chaykin cover and large size pull-out poster from October's Diamond Previews.  The Star Wars Insider is a “Featured Item” listing within the Books & Magazines section in Previews .

Star Wars Insider #122 - On-sale December 14, 2010

Readers can keep up to date with more news and announcements from Star Wars Insider at the official Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/StarWarsInsider

Review: "Panic Room" is a Sweet Thriller

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 25 (of 2002) by Leroy Douresseaux

Panic Room (2002)
Running time:  112 minutes (1 hour, 52 minutes)
MPAA - R for violence and language
DIRECTOR: David Fincher
WRITER: David Koepp
PRODUCERS: Ceán Chaffin, Judy Hofflund, David Koepp, and Gavin Polone
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Conrad W. Hall (D.o.P.) and Darius Khondji (D.o.P.)
EDITORS: James Haygood and Angus Wall
COMPOSER: Howard Shore

THRILLER

Starring: Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakum, Jared Leto, and Patrick Bauchau

Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) has left a messy divorce and is looking for a new home for her and her daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart). She finds a beautiful mansion style brownstone/townhouse with a panic room, a sort of safe room or medieval keep with cameras, monitors, and supplies in which one can hide from and hold up against intruders. When three men (Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, and Dwight Yoakum) break in her home, Meg and Sarah barely escape into the panic room only to learn that what the three men want is inside room with them.

Directed by David Fincher (Seven, The Fight Club), Panic Room is the kind of adult thriller of a quality that is truly scarce. It is the kind of movie that relies on the skill of a capable and talented director, which Fincher continually proves himself to be with each film. He begins to build levels of intensity, layer upon layer, from the film’s opening shots (with a beautiful and evocative opening credit reel over the New York City skyline) to the closing shots that only barely lets up as the film fades.

Fincher puts the actors through the paces, but they are up to whatever the task at hand. Jodie Foster in insanely intense and intensely dramatic. Of all the cast, she has to not only sell this movie, but a successful execution of the premise relies on her. From fear to bravery, from delirium to determination, Ms. Foster is the face of Fincher’s dramatic exercise. The rest of the cast is also quite good. Ms. Stewart plays Sarah as definitely being her mother’s daughter, mirroring a range of emotions similar to her mother’s. Although Leto’s Junior is the criminal mastermind of the operation, Whitaker’s Burnham and Yoakum’s Raoul carry the show, both quietly mixing a sense of dread and fear that makes their characters more desperate and more dangerous.

Fincher also puts his camera through the paces. It weaves, dodges, and chases, making surprising discovers in a mad dash to create intensity. However, the film itself isn’t a reckless, mad dash. It is evenly paced, and though Fincher uses some of his pictorial and stylistic quirks needlessly, he creates a drama with a sense of terror in the tradition of Rear Window. That, in an era of hyped up SFX films, in refreshing. The genre elements of a thriller: terror and suspense are but beautiful window dressing to the drama.

In Panic Room, every character has a story that makes them more than stock characters. This is a testament to veteran screenwriter David Koepp’s skill in making three-dimensional characters. Whatever fate a thriller has in store for its characters holds more thrill if the characters are more than paper cutouts. If we care for them, we don’t want them in danger. If the villains have real motivation, there are more dangerous.

Kudos to Fincher above all else. Panic Room is that proverbial edge of your seat thriller, but he doesn’t eschew the meat of the story to serve his style. He remains visionary because he can turn the story into powerful visual images. He’s patient and allows the camera, our eyes to survey the scene of the brilliant cat and mouse game. Instead of choppy and quick editing, Panic Room is deliberate, almost sexy in the suspense that it unveils before us. This is the kind of special film that you know you want to see.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2003 Black Reel Awards: 1 nomination: “Theatrical - Best Supporting Actor” (Forest Whitaker)

 

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IMDb Celebrates 20 Years with the Stars

Press release:

20 A-List Actors, Writers, Directors and Producers Count Down to 20 Years of IMDb

IMDb’s 20th Anniversary Celebration Features Kevin Spacey, Will Ferrell, Josh Brolin, Susan Sarandon, Tim Roth, Oliver Stone and many more

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--IMDb.com, Inc. (http://www.imdb.com/), the authoritative source of information on movies, TV and celebrities, and part of the Amazon.com, Inc. group of companies, today announced and launched IMDb20, the company’s 20-year anniversary campaign. Beginning today, IMDb will treat fans to an original video interview with a different A-list artist each day, culminating on Oct. 17, 2010, (the date of IMDb’s 20th anniversary). The goal of the online countdown and companion editorial section is to celebrate the films of the past 20 years.

"We are humbled by the fan and industry support we have received over the past 20 years," said Col Needham, IMDb’s founder and CEO. "With our first-ever foray into original video content, we’re celebrating our collective love of film and bringing fans even closer to their favorite artists."

"IMDb saved me an insane amount of time in my life," said director Kevin Smith. "I think of every fight I ever got in with somebody who just didn’t have a crucial piece of movie information at their fingertips. I said one thing. They said another. Loggerheads. Relationships destroyed. IMDb comes along and just immediately solves that. It’s an insanely useful tool. I hit it everyday. It’s my homepage. Because that’s my stock-in-trade. That’s my currency. What I speak is movies."

"I go to IMDb more than you should," said Danny DeVito. "I go at least a couple of times a day. Sometimes many more than that. It’s because of the things I talk about with folks. I’m always dealing with actors, movies and what not. And I want to find out things about people and projects. It’s my go-to place to find out all kinds of information."

Original Celebrity Content and Online Countdown
Participating celebrities sat down for an exclusive video interview with IMDb in which they discussed personal topics pertaining to film, including: Favorite films, performances and lines of movie dialogue; who makes them starstruck; roles they would have liked to play; and much more.

Each day, an exclusive celebrity interview will premiere on IMDb’s homepage and at www.imdb.com/20.

User-Generated List-Making Tool & Special Editorial Section
Fans can tune in each day at www.imdb.com/20 to watch the IMDb Star of the Day video interview. Users will be invited to create their own Top 20 film lists via IMDb’s just-launched list-making tool. Fans can also conveniently share lists and the original celebrity video interview of the day on a variety of social networks.

IMDb’s expert editorial team has created a year-by-year retrospective featuring the following for each year that IMDb has been in operation: Box Office Returns; The Year in Movies; Trivia; Trailers, Top 20 Lists, Photo Galleries; Editorial Lists; Notable and Influential Films; Award-Winners; The Year in IMDb History; and In Memoriam.

To discover and share exclusive IMDb20 content and watch today’s Star of the Day interview, go to: www.imdb.com/20


About IMDb.com
IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/) is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 57 million unique visitors each month. IMDb offers a searchable database of over 1.5 million movies, TV and entertainment programs and over 3.2 million cast and crew members, making it the Web's most comprehensive and authoritative source of information on movies, TV and celebrities. IMDb features include cast lists, photographs, quotes, trivia, reviews, box-office data, celebrity biographies, coverage of film festivals and major events, and the ability for users to watch trailers, clips and thousands of full-length TV episodes and movies for free. IMDb also offers IMDbPro (http://www.imdbpro.com/), a site designed specifically for entertainment industry professionals, and IMDb Resume (www.imdbresume.com), a service that enables actors and crew members to promote themselves directly to IMDb's audience of movie lovers and movie professionals. Subscribers to IMDbPro now also get all of the benefits of Resume as well. IMDb.com is operated by IMDb.com, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) (http://www.amazon.com/).

Fight Club: David Fincher's Best Movie? Brad Pitt's Best Performance?

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 86 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Fight Club (1999)
DIRECTOR: David Fincher
WRITER: Jim Uhls (based upon the novel of the same title by Chuck Palahniuk)
PRODUCERS: Ross Grayson Bell, Ceán Chaffin, and Art Linson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jeff Cronenweth
EDITOR: James Haygood
COMPOSERS: Dust Brothers (John King and Michael Simpson)
Academy Awards nominee

DRAMA/THRILLER with elements of action

Starring: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf, Zach Grenier, and Jared Leto

Some films fans believe that the glamour of old Hollywood, or of the so-called Golden Age, is gone. True or not, there are young actors today that the camera loves as much as it did Humphrey Bogart or Greta Garb, such as Keanu Reeves, Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Johnny Depp among others. Another star that the camera definitely loves is the talented and ambitious Brad Pitt.

In David Fincher’s (Se7en) Fight Club, Pitt plays the alluring stranger Tyler Durden who introduces a disillusioned spiritual brother Jack, who is also the film Narrator, (Edward Norton, American History X) to the living. Jack has a white color job, suffers from insomnia, and consumes expensive, brand name items to fill in the hole in himself and his life. Jack becomes Durden’s first convert to Fight Club, which rapidly grows into an underground cabal of restless, directionless GenX’ers and late Baby Boomers. The club meets in hidee-holes, and the members pummel each other to a bloody mess. Perhaps, it is because pain is life and life is pain. Perhaps, these young men, who never knew the Great Depression or life as a soldier/combatant in an international war, need to know pain and suffering. Maybe, through beating each other they get to be men with each other etc. blah, blah, blah.

During his career as a music video director, Fincher showed enormous promise as a filmmaker with his videos for Madonna: Express Yourself, Oh Father, and Vogue. The politics of studio filmmaking crushed his debut Alien3, but with Se7en and The Game, his potential to be one of the best visualists since Ridley Scott (Blade Runner) and David Lynch (Blue Velvet) was again show to audiences around the world.

This film by Fincher is as much visual and symbolic as it is literal. For all its notions of male empowerment and of cutting away the material trappings of a corrupted civilization, Fight Club really delineates spiritual conundrums and the struggles with identity. It is the visual equivalent of a novel, but the novel as art and literature. With all that camera weaving and dodging, Fincher is essentially writing a novel. What words do for a book, his camera makes images do for a film. The film digs deeper than just angry white boys. Why are they angry? When are they angry? How are they angry? What else is going on in the world of Fight Club? Fincher answers those questions and builds a complex structure of story and environment that becomes a film. While it is eye candy for the male in the vein of Pulp Fiction, Fight Club has visual layers and subtexts awaiting the ambitious viewer. Does it take music video directors and directors of commercial advertisements to realize that the story, the characters, and the setting are best conveyed visually in film because a movie is all about what’s on the screen?

Norton is very good; a talented actor he can play the gamut of human emotions, from extreme to subtle. Helena Bonham Carter (Wings of the Dove) is a very talented actress, but she’s often lost in supporting roles. Here, as love interest/sex partner, Marla Singer, her part is extraneous, but the camera loves her. Whatever should could have brought to enrich the story is lost. The true gift of this movie is Pitt as the puckish phantasm, Durden. Whenever he gets a good role, Pitt lights up the screen, and the movie surges with energy and vitality. Many filmmakers have wasted his good looks and great talent; Fincher takes full advantage of having him.

The film does have its flaws, notably Jack’s narration, (in addition to the short shrift of Marla), which is sometimes redundant when the visuals serve the same purpose. Some interesting characters end up as ciphers and aimlessly fill up screen time when they could have served a definite purpose. However, Fincher and screenwriter Jim Uhls have created a beautiful and surrealistic film that is, like successful artistic efforts in other mediums, a statement about the time in which it appears. And heck, Fight Club is just plain fun to experience.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2000 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing” (Ren Klyce and Richard Hymns)

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The November Adventures of Negromancer

Welcome to Negromancer, the rebirth of my former movie review website as a movie review and movie news blog. I’m Leroy Douresseaux, and I also blog at http://ireadsyou.blogspot.com/ and write for the Comic Book Bin (which has smart phones apps).

All images appearing on this blog are © copyright and/or trademark their respective owners.

Annette Bening, Robert Duvall to Be Honored at Hollywood Film Festival

Press release:

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE ANNETTE BENING AND OSCAR WINNER ROBERT DUVALL TO BE HONORED AT THE HOLLYWOOD AWARDS GALA

HOLLYWOOD, CA, September 29, 2010 -- The 14th Annual Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Awards, presented by Starz, are pleased to announce that Academy Award-nominated actress Annette Bening will be honored with the "Hollywood Actress Award" and Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall will receive the "Hollywood Actor Award" at the festival's Hollywood Awards Gala Ceremony.

"It is a privilege to honor and to celebrate Annette Bening's and Robert Duvall's extraordinary talent as well as remarkable work and to recognize their outstanding acting achievements," said Carlos de Abreu, Founder of the Hollywood Awards Gala.

The gala ceremony will take place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills on October 25, 2010.


ABOUT ANNETTE BENING
Annette Bening has received three Academy Award nominations for her roles in "Being Julia," "American Beauty, " and "The Grifters." She can be seen recently in Lisa Cholodenko's "The Kids Are All Right," which also stars Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, and Mia Wasikowska, and Rodrigo Garcia's "Mother and Child."

Bening's other film credits include: Rodrigo Garcia's "Mother and Child"; Diane English's "The Women"; Ryan Murphy's "Running with Scissors"; Kevin Costner's "Open Range"; Mike Nichols' "What Planet Are You From?"; Sam Mendes' "American Beauty"; Edward Zwick's "The Siege"; Warren Beatty's "Bulworth"; Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks!"; Rob Reiner's "The American President"; Richard Loncraine's "Richard III"; Glenn Gordon Caron's "Love Affair"; Neil Jordan's "In Dreams" Barry Levinson's "Bugsy"; Mike Nichols' "Regarding Henry"; Irwin Winkler's "Guilty," "Postcards from the Edge"; Milos Forman's "Valmont"; and Howard Deutch's "The Great Outdoors."

ABOUT ROBERT DUVALL
Robert Duvall can be seen recently in Aaron Schneider's "Get Low" starring Sissy Spacek, Bill Murray, and Lucas Black. A leading man since the 1960s, Robert Duvall has specialized in taciturn cowboys, fierce leaders and driven characters of all types.He is respected by his peers and adored by audiences worldwide, he has earned numerous Oscar® nominations for his performances in "The Godfather," "Apocalypse Now," "The Great Santini," "The Apostle" and "A Civil Action." Duvall won the Academy Award® as Best Actor for his role in "Tender Mercies," and later earned the Golden Globe for his performance in the title role of HBO's "Stalin." More recently, Duvall was honored with the Golden Globe and Emmy Award for his iconic portrayal of "Prentice Ritter" in AMC's "Broken Trail." Duvall made his big screen debut in 1962, as the creepy "Boo Radley" in "To Kill a Mockingbird." He has gone on to star in such classics as "Bullitt," "True Grit," "M*A*S*H," "The Conversation," "Network," "The Natural," "Colors," "Days of Thunder," "The Handmaid's Tale," "Rambling Rose," "Wrestling Ernest Hemingway," "Phenomenon," "A Civil Action," "Open Range," and "Thank You For Smoking," among many others.

As a director and producer, Duvall got behind the camera for his labor of love project "The Apostle" in which he also starred. The film went on to earn many accolades, including being named on over seventy-five film critics? Top 10 Films for 1997 lists, including the "New York Times" and "Los Angeles Times." He also wrote, produced and starred in "Assassination Tango." Duvall was most recently see as the Old Man in "The Road," which stars Viggo Mortensen and is based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy.

Previously announced honorees for this year's Hollywood Awards Gala include: Sean Penn for the "Humanitarian Award"; Helena Bonham Carter for the "Supporting Actress Award"; Sam Rockwell for the "Supporting Actor Award"; Andrew Garfield for the "Breakthrough Actor Award"; Mia Wasikowska for the "Breakthrough Actress Award"; Danny Boyle and Chris Colson for the "Producer Award"; Aaron Sorkin for the "Screenwriter Award"; Disney/Pixar's "Toy Story 3" and director Lee Unkrich for the "Animation Award"; Hans Zimmer for "Film Composer Award"; Wally Pfister for "Cinematographer Award"; Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall for the "Hollywood Editor Award"; Paramount Pictures' "Iron Man 2" and visual effects supervisors Ben Snow and Janek Sirrs for the "Visual Effects Award"; and Robert Stromberg for "Production Designer Award."

The festival and awards will mark their return on October 20 for a weeklong series of screenings, competitions and awards. The Hollywood Awards Gala Ceremony will take place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills on October 25, 2010.

The festival and awards presenter is Starz Entertainment, LLC, a premium movie and original programming entertainment service provider operating in the United States. The company offers 16 premium channels including the flagship Starz® and Encore® brands with approximately 17.3 million and 31.9 million subscribers respectively. Starz Entertainment airs in total more than 1,000 movies and original series every month across its pay TV channels. Starz Entertainment is recognized as a pay TV leader in providing HD, On Demand, HD On Demand and online advanced services for its Starz, Encore and

MoviePlex brands. Starz Entertainment (http://www.starz.com/) is an operating unit of Starz, LLC, which is a controlled subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation and is attributed to the Liberty Starz tracking stock group.

For more information:
Festival Contact: 1.310.288.1882
Hollywood Film Festival®
433 N. Camden Drive, Suite 600
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Alex Gibney Hits the Jackpot with "Casino Jack" Documentary

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 81 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux

Casino Jack and the United States of Money (2010)
Running time: 118 minutes (1 hour, 58 minutes)
MPAA – R for some language
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Alex Gibney
PRODUCER: Zena Barakat, Alison Ellwood, and Alex Gibney
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Maryse Alberti
EDITOR: Alison Ellwood

DOCUMENTARY – Politics

Starring: Tom DeLay, Thomas Frank, Adam Kidan, Bob Ney, Ron Platt, Sue Schmidt, Melanie Sloan, Neil Volz with Stanley Tucci and Paul Rudd

For almost 20 years, Jack Abramoff was an American lobbyist. He was also a businessman, film producer, and political figure. His ascendancy as an influential and powerful man, both as a lobbyist and within the Republican Party, began when the Republicans seized control of both houses of Congress in 1994. Over the next 12 years, Abramoff lobbied Congress for Indian casinos, sweatshop owners in Saipan, and even shadowy Russian interests. He eventually went to prison for defrauding his Native American clients and corruption of public officials.

Written and directed by Alex Gibney, Casino Jack and the United States of Money is a documentary film about Jack Abramoff, his career, his lobbying activities, and the people around him – including Congressmen, congressional staffers, fellow lobbyists, and assorted figures within conservative and right-wing Christian politics. Gibney won an Oscar for his 2007 documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side, but Gibney deftly plumbed the depths of economic and political scandal in the Oscar-nominated documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

However, Casino Jack and the United States of Money is not just about Abramoff. It is really about the buying and selling of the American government with lobbyists as the go-betweens for the buyers (powerful business interests) and the sellers (Congress). Gibney dazzles with stories of Indian tribal councils spending millions of dollars to keep their casinos and to keep other tribes from having casinos. There is the sex slave industry in Saipan and a murdered Greek casino tycoon. Cold War intrigue mixes with African revolutionaries. Congressmen take lavish, overseas golf trips – transportation by private, corporate jet. But the real story is about the looting of the American government, our broken system of government, and the perilous state of our democracy.

Jack Abramoff was in prison while Gibney was making Casino Jack and the United States of Money, and although he was able to interview Abramoff in prison, Gibney was unable to film the former lobbyist for inclusion in the film. Not having Abramoff is a glaring omission, but this film is really about Casino Jack Abramoff AND the United States of Money. For all that the film covers Abramoff, his career, activities, associates, and business partners, the underlying theme of this documentary is the legalized bribery and influence peddling that has basically turned the American government over to people who can afford to buy it.

Gibney’s gift is to take subjects like accounting, finance, government, and law and make them interesting. Like the Enron movie, this Jack Abramoff movie is about corruption, and Gibney fills the film with interviews of the people involved and the people who are reporting on the takeover. What could be a boring piece of journalism is instead a compelling narrative that will wake up the viewer to corruption about which he should and must care. Gibney convinces the viewer that the corruption matters to him because it affects him and perhaps it will make that viewer become engaged and maybe even outraged.

Gibney can even find the humor in the con game. His interview with former Republican House Majority Leader, Tom Delay, reveals a man in denial about his activities with Abramoff. It is funny to watch Delay deliver half-truths and spin with smooth-as-silk dishonesty, as if he did not unethical, let alone wrong. I don’t know if Casino Jack and the United States of Money will make people take to the streets and demand change (probably not), but it is an important documentary in the modern history of American politics. It exists as a warning, a signpost on the road to American ruin. Ignore it at your peril.

9 of 10
A+

Wednesday, September 29, 2010