Movie Make-out

I know it’s a phrase we often say around here, but I’ll say it yet again: remaking Private Benjamin is a bad idea.

In a Hollywood Reporter exclusive on their Risky Business blog, Borys Kit and Jay A. Fernandez reported yesterday that comic actress Anna Faris (Observe and Report, The House Bunny) was being sought after to star in New Line Cinema’s remake of Private Benjamin with Amy Talkington (The Night of the White Pants) “in discussions” to write the screenplay for proposed producer Mark Gordon (“Army Wives,” Saving Private Ryan).

The original Benjamin from 1980 earned Goldie Hawn an Academy Award nomination as Judy Benjamin, a spoiled brat who joins the Army on a lark after her rich husband dies in bed on their wedding night. The new Benjamin is still being drafted as a comedy, but a certain paragraph from the article is giving me reasons to pause:

The new take will set the story in contemporary times with modern wars as the backdrop. Insiders say the studio doesn’t want to poke fun at the men and women in the service or take political potshots, but rather focus on the empowerment elements and build on the fish-out-of-water comedy.

I honestly don’t think you can make a comedy out of what’s going on or has gone on during our modern wars because there is too much gray area between who the white knights are and who the black hats are. I think the most recent screwball military comedy I can think of is Down Periscope from 1996 and while it only gets a 13% on the Tomatometer, it is one of the few original comedies from that era I liked because it looks inwards for the conflict rather than outwards.

Everyone favorites city smasher is returning to the big screen to prove the Mayans right in 2012.

According to Variety, Legendary pictures has obtained the rights to Godzilla from the Toho Co. of Japan. Toho, which has overseen more than 25 of the monster’s films, will release the movie in Japan. Legendary, per a co-production/co-financing deal with Warner Bros, will release it through that studio.

Though a director has not been announced, producers on the film include Dan Lin (Sherlock Holmes), Brian Rogers (Dir. Lord of the Flies), and Roy Lee (The Departed), as well as executive producers Yoshimitsu Banno (Dir. Godzilla vs Hedora), Doug Davison (The Departed), and  Kenji Okuhira.

Overall, Legendary seems quite excited about it, and hopefully we’ll avoid a repeat of the 1998 debacle.

From Thomas Tull, Chairman and CEO of Legendary pictures:

Godzilla is one of the world’s most powerful pop culture icons, and we at Legendary are thrilled to be able to create a modern epic based on this long-loved Toho franchise. Our plans are to produce the Godzilla that we, as fans, would want to see. We intend to do justice to those essential elements that have allowed this character to remain as pop-culturally relevant for as long as it has.

The Hollywood job I am most often entranced by and curious about is that of the producer. He or she is the one who gets to go up on stage and accept the Academy Award for Best Picture, and it very often doesn’t seem like he or she did any actual work on the production.

However, if there’s one thing I do know, he or she is a master at getting people to put up the money for a film to be made; if that’s the most important job, then Laurie MacDonald and Walter Parkes are the best producers in the world.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the producing duo, who have helped put together such productions as How to Make an American Quilt and the upcoming Dinner for Schmucks, together with Image Nation Abu Dhabi has bought an untitled screenplay, this time from writers Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow.

Here’s the wind-up, and the pitch:

The original idea sprang from research Trevorrow had done into the practice of police departments recruiting improv actors to help with low-level stings. With a Tropic Thunder feel, Trevorrow and Connolly’s storyline involves three actors who are brought in to help bust a DVD-bootlegging operation. When it turns out to be a front for much more nefarious activities, the comedy trio ends up on the run from crooks and cops alike with only their ad-lib skills as weapons.

I came to appreciate Tropic Thunder pretty late, but I have to admit that it’s one of my favorite comedies now (you gotta love a movie where the geeky guy is the voice of reason). Another movie in that vein wouldn’t be amiss, and I can definitely see why IAD would have agreed to shell out money for a project like this.

Other productions in IAD’s pocket include Peter Weir’s The Way Back, Doug Liman’s Fair Game and Jodie Foster’s The Beaver, each with an unknown release date.

Who Do You Love

Directed by Jerry Zaks
Starring Alessandro Nivola, Jon Abrahams, Chi McBride

Growing up in suburban southern California, I can’t say that I had the most grounded musical education. My dad loved the Beatles, but my untutored ear preferred the red greatest hits album to the blue one, and I didn’t start listening to non-top 40 stuff until it was considered cool and “edgy” to listen to Dr. Drew and the Poorman late at night on KROQ.

Much later, I was fortunate enough to meet three different guys who while romancing me, showed me that here was more to music than what gets played on the radio; now, I’m quite proud to say that I carry a pretty eclectic mix of songs on my iPod.

This is my way of saying that while I know that rock and roll was born from the blues, I don’t really know it the same way a true music aficionado does—which is why I’m glad to have seen a little part of how the rock and roll craze all started. Read more

At long last, a trailer for the big-screen adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series is here. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was directed by Edgar Wright and stars Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and a bunch of other people you think are cool or will on August 13, 2010.

Related Posts: Scott Pilgrim vs. Superman and the Human Torch, sorta; Exclusive: Scott Pilgrim’s Life isn’t Precious — or Little, either (updated again – 3/31)