3:10 to Yuma

Now I know this may sound hypocritical but I just saw 3:10 to Yuma and I also discovered that--yes this is another re-make. Now in my defense the original 3:10 to Yuma was made in 1957 based on the Elmore Leonard novel. It starred Glenn Ford as Ben Wade and Van Heflin as Dan Evans. Now I like to think of myself as a Western officianado but when I realized this was a re-make of a film I hadn't previously heard of, based on a novel by one of my favorite authors, I was a little surprised. Not to mention that the original film was well received by critics, but again, I had never heard of this movie. I do want to see the original now just to see the changes. I have to admit that I really loved the remake. It was a great cast and the director, James Mangold, seem to have fun shooting this one. It was a little bit High Noon with a mix of Unforgiven. It's a great morality tale, essential for any western.Dan Evans (Christian Bale) is a down-on-his-luck rancher who finds himself involved in the capture and escort of a dangerous criminal named Ben Wade (Russell Crowe). The mission--to get Ben Wade to the train station on time to catch, you guessed it, the 3:10 to Yuma. Where he will be tried, convicted and hung. The real meat of this story is the back and forth between Ben Wade and Dan Evans. The best westerns always seem to ride the fence on good and bad and individual morality. This film is almost a psychological thriller as Mangold seems to enjoy the Sergio Leone style shots and gritty dialogue. Russell Crowe's Ben Wade is affable and hard to read. One minute you think this guy might not be so bad and the next he's a stone cold killer. The action is intense and the character development is as good as Unforgiven or any other western in the last twenty years. I absolutely loved this film and I recommend that you go and check it out before it's gone. Forget Halloween catch the 3:10 to Yuma it's a wild and twisty ride.







Grade: 5 Buckets

Note to Hollywood: Leave John Carpenter's Movies alone!!!

I was checking the grosses for the weekend and of course I am not surprised. The Rob Zombie version of Halloween has topped the Box Office, breaking the record for the Labor Day weekend at 31 million. Will I ever see the new Halloween? Probably not. I've seen this movie already, the original, and it's a great one, a classic no less. I am not a big fan of horror films but I have always been a huge fan of the first film in the series. A classic by John Carpenter that tracks a homicidal maniac's killing spree on a Halloween night. That's it, Michael Myers was an especially creepy villain because there didn't seem to be any rational to why he was like this. Now almost 30 years later an aging heavy metal star turned horror director has decided that we the viewing public need to see Halloween from his eyes. Talk about ego.There are many reasons in Hollywood to do a re-make. The most typical is to re-make a film that was made so long ago that no one would notice, or more importantly, no one would care. Another would be to take a classic that is dated or has been forgotten by the world and re-tool it for today's audiences. Then there is the quick money scheme. Re-make a popular movie that is familiar to fans and hope and pray that they buy this new packaged film as a re-imagining that brings in the big green. There have been quite a few in this category lately. The Manchurian Candidate, Psycho, Hairspray, All The Kings Men, The Ladykillers, The Wicker Man etc. etc. The list goes on and on. I just found out that Hollywood is so desperate to re-make something they are now redoing the George Burns movie Oh God from 1977. George fucking Burns, are you kidding me? Not to mention they are re-making another Carpenter classic Escape From New York and they may be doing The Thing. I mean have they learned nothing from the Psycho debacle?
















You can't copy greatness no matter how hard you try to spin it. Is there no originality in Hollywood anymore? Have the lights gone out in Tinseltown? I mean what could Rob Zombie do to Halloween to make it even more enjoyable or scary then it was the first time I saw it? From what I hear he has decided to go back and explain why poor little Michael Myers is a psychopath. In my mind it makes him less scary. You end up revealing so much about the guy that he becomes less compelling than before and, even worse, not someone to be scared of but to be pitied. His mother is a stripper, his sister is a bitch, Michael Myers, like Jeffrey Dahmer, kills animals as a sign he's a psychopath. This is all pretty cliche and has been done before. Plus I'm sure it will be bloody and violent to an extreme level for added shock value. If you watch the original there is violence of course but ironically not a whole lot of blood. Some of the violence is off camera as well. As any true master of horror or suspense knows that it is more frightening imagining the horror in your mind then seeing it unfold in front of you. So I beg Hollywood and any and all filmmakers, make your own damn movies, and leave the classics alone.

CASTING CALL: Flash Gordon

This past Wednesday I had to leave work quickly and head home. My wife Tamar had been to the OBGYN that morning and they had told her that they were going to induce labor that evening. To make a long story short and without graphic detail my son was born Thursday morning! So I took some time off from work and I will try to assist my wife in taking care of our newborn son. This also means that I will not have time to see any movies for a while. Soooo here is a casting call for a movie that can and should be remade. Just recently I watched a few episodes of the Flash Gordon TV series on the Sci/Fi channel. It barely kept my interest. They made it kind of cheezy and Ming, well Ming does not look Merciless. He kind of looks like an older Apollo from the 70's Battlestar Galactica. Not to mention the guy has hair. What an outrage Ming isn't supposed to have hair. So I found myself watching the episodes waiting for Ming to loose his hair and grow a Fu Manchu mustache. So far it hasn't happened. I really love the Flash Gordon story and I think it can be done well but the first thing that needs to happen in Hollywood is to make it a little darker and really develop the characters. Basically go the opposite direction from the fun but really campy and silly Flash Gordon movie in the 80's.Flash Gordon

After looking for a while on IMDB I think I found a good Flash Gordon, Heath Ledger (pic below). We know from his resume that he can handle action well. From The Patriot to Knight's Tale to the Dark Knight coming out next year. I am confident that Ledger could pull off the heroics and daring-do of Flash Gordon. Normally they get a souped up jock to play Flash, they can handle the action but not the acting. Sam Jones from the 80's comes to mind as a dumb jock portraying the title character. Flash is a physical guy for sure but he isn't an idiot. I think that Heath could bring something interesting to the role and maybe bring it back to it's Sci-Fi roots rather than being just another silly action flick. I also have a long shot Flash that isn't as big a name but I really like him as an actor and I think he could be an interesting choice. Steven Pasquale from Rescue Me, true he plays the, not so bright, fireman Sean on the show, but I I think that he has a charisma that could play very well in a Flash Gordon movie.



















Dale Arden The love interest for Flash but also a smart and fiesty woman who has to match wits with Ming a few times. As much as I love Jessica Biel and I would still say that she is always in contention just because she is just so damn hot, I think we should expand outside just a bit. Which is why I think Rachel McAdams would be a great choice for Dale. She's spunky and smart and she's drop dead gorgeous.











Doctor Hans Zarkov

Doctor Zarkov was always kind of kooky so in the movies they always played him as such. The actor Topol made him nuts and annoying in the 80's version and in the new series they got a light weight actor who just makes him annoying. Zarkov is Flash's science guy. He is Egon to Flash's Venkman. So let's get a nice older gentleman who can work the science and work out the annoying features. If you wanted to go funny you choose Christopher Walken but I want to give this character some weight so I think I'll go with Ian McShane. He really impressed me with his Al Swerengen on Deadwood. He's smart, he's funny and he can be menancing. I always thought they implied that Zarkov was a little unstable, he was a good guy but he has issues. I think McShane could pull off the science and really give Zarkov a meatier role.

Princess Aura

She is hot, she is sexy she is the daughter of Ming the Merciless. You need a bad girl to play the spoiled and sexy alien chick that gives Flash a few sleepless nights. She has to be a little complex because you are never sure what she is up to. I really like Lena Heady for this role. She is complex and strong if you don't believe me check out out the 300 earlier this year.








Prince Barin

Prince Barin is the Prince and future King of Arboria, which is a region of the planet Mongo where the Evil Ming rules. Barin becomes Flash's best friend. He is also smitten with Princess Aura and tends to feel jealous when Aura messes with him by hitting on Flash. In the 80's film he was played well by Timothy Dalton. I actually liked that casting, but of course Dalton is too old so we have to find someone else. I think a possible albeit different choice would be Josh Holloway (Pic Below) from Lost. He has a roguish nature that fits perfectly for Prince Barin, plus I like him matching up with Lena Headey's Aura.















Ming The Merciless

The ultimate in evil and politcal incorrectness. Ming is cruel and wonderfully played by Max Von Sydow in the 80's. The guy playing him in the series sucks giant monkey balls. You need someone who can chew the evilness but be really creepy and well -- merciless. I want someone who can really make Flash sweat and a villain who will up the death and destruction. That is why I think Ciaran Hinds (Pic below) could make a great Ming. He was perfect as Guyus Caeser on the HBO show Rome. He can be a villain but he can give Ming some depth.

















Director

I think there is only one director who could merge the Sci/Fi elements and action into a dark re-telling of this classic tale is David Fincher. Fincher has tackled action and Sci/Fi with Aliens 3 and dark and disturbing with Seven and Fight Club. It doesn't have to be a hard R or anything but I think that he could really do something interesting with the planet Mongo and create a fun and interesting story that fans could love for generations.

CASTING CALL: The Green Lantern

We here at the Bucket love movies based on comic books! So we thought we would tackle the casting of a movie that is not being filmed only speculated about: The Green Lantern. As a kid I dug superheroes especially; Superman, Spider-Man and the Green Lantern. Green Lantern was my father's favorite, and when you are a kid who idolizes his father that hero becomes your favorite too. That particular Green Lantern was Hal Jordan. This guy is a pilot in the army, kind of a Chuck Yeager type always flying by the seat of his pants, a hot dog who doesn't know fear. He receives this powerful weapon in the power ring but he always leaves it at home while flying a million dollar death trap thousands of feet off the ground. Man without Fear indeed.I heard a rumor a while back that Warner Brothers was developing a film with Jack Black. To my horror I discovered they were developing this film about the Green Lantern. As much as I enjoy Jack Black I think casting him as the Green Lantern would be incredibly ignorant and a mis-casting of biblical proportions. So let's see if we can help Warner Brothers out and get them a cast for a kick ass sci-fi Green Lantern film.


Hal Jordan/aka. Green Lantern
There are five prominent Green Lantern's that you could do a film on. Alan Scott, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardener and of course Hal Jordan. They are great characters and definitely stand on their own, but none of them hold a candle to Jordan. He's the signature Green Lantern and for the reasons I said above he we will be the primary for today. My first choice would be Nathan Fillion from Buffy, Firefly and most recently Driven. He's a solid actor, with a good sense of humor, he can kick ass and this guy is completely fearless. Another choice could be Jason Patric, although he is a little older I think he could be an interesting choice. Billy Crudup has the chisled jaw and the acting chops to take on the duality of Hal and his alter ego Parallax if they so choose to go in that direction. Dennis Quaid would have been the best choice for Hal Jordan, unfortunately age is an issue. Maybe he could play Hal's dad.




Sinestro










An alien from the planet Korugar. Sinestro is a weird looking dude, he's magenta in color and he has a giant noggin with a David Niven mustache. Very hard to make this fella look cool so you would need an interesting actor to play this guy. Sinestro was apart of the Green Lantern Corp until Hal Jordan had him booted cause he used his powers to become a dictator over his world. I think Jeffrey Combs (as pictured) would be a great choice he's played weird and evil aliens before, like in Star Trek and Babylon 5 so the makeup wouldn't be a problem for him. He's a great character actor and could really build on the role. Another possibility would be Adrien Brody, he's got the weird part down and given his roles in The Jacket and The Village he can certainly play psychotic.




Carol Ferris aka. Star Sapphire
Carol is Hal Jordan's hot girlfriend. She also runs Ferris Aircraft where Hal gets his planes. Now in the comics Carol later becomes Star Sapphire a big boobed villainess that is obsessed with defeating GL. I think Scarlett Johanson would be great as either just Carol or, if they wanted to, she would look gorgeous if they put her in the Star Sapphire outfit.












Kilowog
Kilowog is a member of the Green Lantern Corps. He is an alien from Bolovax Vik, he is also the key instructor for all new Green Lanterns. Now you can do one or two things with Kilowog you can either suit up an actor in rubber which I'm iffy on or you can completely CGI this guy which if you look at the picture may be recommended. Since I'm more inclined to go with CG, I'll give you a few actors that could fill in for the voice. Now Dennis Haysbert, who played President Palmer in 24, is also the voice of Kilowog on the Animated Justice League and I think he's obviously a good choice. He's got a nice deep commanding voice. Carl Lumbly, another veteran of Justice League and he also played Dixon for five years on Alias would scare the crap out of any wannabe Lantern Poozers.








The Guardians and Ganthet
They are little blue guys that run the Green Lantern Corp, kind of like little blue Yodas. You could probably do CGI with them but if you have to use a human I like Vern Troyer as Ganthet, the last of the Guardians. Warwick Davis would be good as well. Only little people will do and that is a short list.














John Stewart



It would be asking a bit much to put all of the Green Lantern's in this one movie or even a trilogy but since it's not real I say, why not one more. John Stewart, an architect and former military man he was given the ring as a replacement for Hal Jordan. I think I've gotta go with Chiwetel Ejiofor (pic below) for first place. He's young and fit and he's a great actor. He was nice and complex in Serenity, Children of Men and in his latest role Talk to Me. I think Jamie Foxx and Tyreese Gibson could be great choices as well. Laurence Fishburne would be fantastic but he might be a bit old.
















Guy Gardner








The comic relief and the muscle of the Green Lantern Corp all wrapped into one. There are a few people that could pull off Gardner but if they were to do it at all I would want only Dennis Leary. He's got the smart mouth and the kick ass attitude that would make Guy a really fun addition to the films. I didn't really add Kyle Rayner cause that may be one Green Lantern too many but if they were to be daring and use all four Green Lanterns I would say grab former Cyclops James Marsden.





Mongul

The last big baddie other than a CGI Parallax which of course we won't really cast. Mongul is another alien from the planet Warworld who gets the distinct honor of destroying Coast City causing Hal Jordan to flip out and go to the dark side. He's big and he's yellow so we need someone who can take up space but look convincing under heavy prosthetic. My personal fav would be Michael Ironside (pic below)he's no stranger to evil fuckers like the one he played in Total Recall. He also provides the commanding voice of Darkseid on Justice League.

As far as the Director goes Warner should shoot big. It is a Comic book movie but it's also deep into sci-fi territory and there isn't anyone I would want more than Ridley Scott. His resume says it all. Blade Runner, Alien, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. He could make this a massive intergalactic film while simultaneously building strong character arcs for each of the vastly different Lanterns. I totally believe Ridley Scott could pull this off.

I think this film would work best as a trilogy starting off with Hal Jordan fighting Sinestro in the first film and at the end his lantern becomes infected by Parallax. For the second film the evil Mongol could destroy Coast City, GL's hometown, causing the now infected Hal Jordan to cut loose and become the evil Parallax. You can introduce John Stewart as the second Green Lantern tasked with taking Hal Jordan down. At the end you can have Hal redeeming himself by re-igniting the sun and sacrificing his life in the process. For the third film you can skip over The Spectre storyline from the comics and have one of the Guardians, maybe Ganthet, revive Hal Jordan when the Green Lantern Corp needs him the most. The reborn hero is asked to stop Sinestro once more except this time his evil nemesis has help. Hal and the GL Corp duking it out with Sinestro and his fear mongering Sinestro Corps. The special effects budget would rival Pirates of the Caribbean and Spider-Man 3. It would be the most beautiful thing these geek eyes would ever see.

The Real Michael Vick

It’s been a rough year for professional sports. You have the ongoing problem with Steroids in baseball. In the NBA referee Tim Donaghy has admitted to and will now name names of others involved in gambling on NBA games and possibly point shaving in games he officiated. In the NFL you have players charged with gambling on dogfights and the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons smack in the middle of it. I, like many others, were shocked to hear that a great player, family man, the Michael Jordan of the NFL, could be caught up in something like this. The public perception can be overly harsh as rumors swirl around the embattled football star. Which are true? Why is this such a big deal?

For weeks Michael Vick has spoken about his innocence but as his friends began to abandon him and leave him out to rot, he finally succumbed and is now pleading guilty to the charges against him. He acknowledges that his friends were doing this illegal event on his property, he admits his guilt, but then he says he just shouldn’t have trusted his friends so blindly. Now I want to give the guy the benefit of the doubt but personally I don’t believe him. He had plenty of opportunity to take responsibility for the acts taking place on his property but he waited until his friends turned on him to plead guilty. The Feds seem to have a mountain of evidence against Vick, including detailed allegations about the training of the dogs and the actual fighting all occurring on his property.

Not to mention allegations from his alleged cohorts that Vick himself personally killed eight of the dogs. The format in which he killed these dogs should be the rationale for his lengthy stay in prison. He hung, drowned and possibly electrocuted many or all of the dogs. He should also be accountable for the more than 50 bulldogs confiscated from his property. These dogs will now probably be euthanized, because of their training, it is almost impossible to rehabilitate them for adoption. What kind of a sick bastard does this kind of stuff? Again I will reserve full judgment on the guy until after the court proceedings but obviously, this doesn’t look good. There are ways of killing the dogs humanely, by putting them to sleep, hell shooting the dogs in the head is more humane than what he is accused of. It also doesn’t help to have fellow athletes, like New York Knicks star Stephon Marbury and Clinton Portis a running back for the Washington Redskins, saying dumb shit like dog racing is a legitimate sport not unlike hunting and “I don't know if he was fighting dogs or not, but it's his property. It's his dog. If that's what he wants to do, do it.” These guys are total idiots as it looks like Portis may also be investigated for ties to dog fighting.

I think the worst part of this is the fact that the NAACP has joined the bandwagon defending Vick and his actions while at the same time saying they don’t condone dog fighting. This isn’t a racial issue they aren’t trying to put poor Michael Vick in jail cause he’s black they are trying to put Michael Vick in prison because he either A. brutally murdered eight dogs while running an illegal dog fighting ring killing, maiming and torturing countless other animals as he and his friends gambled. Or B. allowed his friends to do all of these things on his property but because they were his friends he never tried to stop them. Either way, he has much to answer for. In the meantime don’t feel sorry for Vick, it’s his mess and he will have to pay for it one way or another. Too many people are wondering whether or not he should ever play football again and I say let’s just see if they convict him first. At any rate Vick may also be the beginning of a larger problem in all of Pro sports. Are other players engaged in this illegal gambling? It certainly seems likely. My brother brought up an interesting point about rage, anger and hatred and that the dog fighting may be a systemic outlet for this kind of behavior. It’s definitely something to think about. Check out this great article from ESPN writer Jamele Hill, she has some nice points about the situation and how the media and the black community should deal with this situation.