Posts Tagged ‘20th century fox’

Bootleg City: Spoon, 11/8/07

Remember last week when I was duped into thinking I’d been sent that Air Supply bootleg by a guy named “R. Murdoch”? It never crossed my mind that “R.” might be short for Rupert, as in Rupert freakin’ Murdoch, the megazillionaire media mogul from down under who owns the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, 20th Century Fox, Fox News, the Fox network, and three-quarters of the world’s fox population, be they animal or female.

Rich guys like Mr. Murdoch don’t miss a beat: last weekend, as he was waiting for his credit-card purchase of Transformers star Megan Fox to go through on the ol’ laptop, he decided to google his name for fun, when up popped the insinuation that he’s a fan of Australian soft rockers Air Supply. “I’d rather have me wedding tackle chopped off than listen to those two drongos!” he said in an e-mail I received on Saturday afternoon.

Turns out he’s an Olivia Newton-John fan, but unfortunately I don’t have any bootlegs by the star of Two of a Kind. (I know, I know, nobody remembers the Travolta-and-ONJ movie that isn’t Grease, but Two of a Kind is a 20th Century Fox product, so I’m being forced to mention it.) However, Mr. Murdoch did threaten to cut out my heart with a dull spoon, which made me remember that I have a terrific bootleg by one of the best bands working today. That would be Spoon, performing in Tallahassee, Florida, at a club called the Moon. In June? Sadly, no — this particular concert took place on November 8, 2007. But it’s well worth a listen.

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DVD News: 20th Century Fox — Disaster in the Making

20th Century Fox used to be one of the most respected film studios in the business. Its catalog of films is virtually legendary: Miracle on 34th Street (the 1947 version, not the 1994 remake), The Day the Earth Stood Still (the 1951 classic, not the crappy remake from last year), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch, the original Planet of the Apes film series, Young Frankenstein, the Star Wars films, the Alien series, The Princess Bride, Wall Street, Home Alone, Die Hard, and dozens of others.

In 2008, however, it went from a respected studio to one big joke, thanks to the fact that starting at the end of ‘07 and continuing through all of ‘08, the majority of the films it released either barely broke even or were outright box-office flops (Space Chimps, Max Payne, Australia, Meet Dave, The Rocker, and City of Ember, among others). While other studios were turning out blockbusters that earned $100 million like clockwork, Fox was fumbling the ball over and over again. For instance, it released The X-Files: I Want to Believe in the second week of The Dark Knight’s phenomenal run last summer, not to mention about ten years after anyone — even hard-core Files fans — could bring themselves to care; it interfered with the production of the Vin Diesel vehicle Babylon A.D., which, admittedly, would have probably failed no matter what; and it spurred fanboy wrath by suing Warner Bros. for profits from Watchmen, profits that Fox arguably didn’t deserve.

Now it’s reached a new low by revealing that from now on all extras — commentaries, background features, deleted scenes, etc. — on DVDs of its films won’t be included on any discs designed for rental purposes. This means that if you rent your DVDs from Blockbuster or some other store or service (possibly Netflix — more on that in a second), you won’t have the option to decide if you like the extras enough to later buy the DVD — you’ll be forced to buy them from stores, sight unseen, and have to hope that the extras are special enough to warrant the purchase of the disc, regardless of how you feel about the film.

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Film Review: “The Day The Earth Stood Still”

Before we begin, allow me to state for the record that I hate remakes. With very rare exceptions, they tend to be lifeless, pale imitations of the classics which came before them.

The remake of the 1951 classic The Day The Earth Stood Still does nothing to change my perceptions of Hollywood’s latest runaway trend.

Set in New York instead of Washington D.C., the film focuses on the arrival of Klaatu (Keanu Reeves), an alien who comes to Earth with an ultimatum for mankind. Before he can even finish assembling his true form in front of an astonished gathered military force, a soldier shoots him, nearly killing him. He’s taken to a military academy for study, where one of the scientists allowed to observe him as he is operated upon and allowed to heal is astrobiologist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly). When Regina Jackson (Kathy Bates), the Secretary of Defense, arrives with agents in tow and declares that Klaatu is a prisoner of the government and is to be interrogated, Benson finds a measure of empathy for him and rather than dope him up, gives him a harmless saline injection which allows him to retain enough of his faculties to escape. Once he does–eventually reuniting with both Helen and her estranged stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith)–it’s up to Helen to keep him from being recaptured and, once Klaatu’s dire intentions are known to her, prove to him that humans deserve the chance to evolve, rather than be destroyed.

Aside from some minor character changes, so far it seems that The Day The Earth Stood Still follows closely in the footsteps of its predecessor (that original film inspired by the short story “Farewell to the Master” by Harry Bates…no relation to Kathy). As with all remakes, however, the proof is in the execution… and as executed by director Scott Derrickson (Love in the Ruins, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) and writer David Scarpa (only previous credit: The Last Castle), this retelling of the tale is slow-paced, bland, boring as hell, nonsensical in many parts, and is, in many ways, an outright insult to the original. (more…)