Cinematical

When I was in college in the 90s in Austin, Texas, I used to frequent a video store called "I Luv VIdeo." The locals all called it "I Heart Video," though, because of their distinctive sign. They had an amazing array of video tapes from all over the world, including a huge section of Asian cult hits. This is where I was introduced to John Woo and his movies like Hard Boiled, The Killer, and Bullet in the Head. The man is an amazing director, but since moving to Hollywood his work has been erratic. For every Mission: Impossible 2, there's a Windtalkers. For every Face/Off, there's a Paycheck.

Red Cliff is his first film since Paycheck, and it's a triumphant change for Woo as he moves into epic storytelling with a film so large it had to be split into two parts. Unfortunately, American audiences only received a cut-down version of both films, but Woo says that the full version will be coming to DVD soon. Right now, you can catch Red Cliff in theaters (it opened nationwide in the US on November 25) or On Demand in some markets, and I can testify that it is still a very satisfying film to watch. This is a huge movie with a ton of action, a great story, and it's good to see Woo returning to his Asian roots.

Read on for our full interview with John Woo just after the break.

When you try to explain what Best Worst Movie is about to anyone, even a lot of film fans, you're likely to receive a blank stare or a confused line of questioning. So it's a documentary about bad movies? How can it just be about Troll 2? Why would anyone make a documentary about Troll 2, a movie that few have seen except in some late night cable fever dream? My own attempts at explaining it were pretty lame: Well, because it's funny, and because Troll 2 has a cult following thanks to the Internet, the Alamo Drafthouse, and IMDB forums. People really, really love to laugh at this movie. It's just really funny, and the documentary explores the fandom, and the poor people behind Troll 2, and ... never mind.

But you shouldn't say "never mind" about Best Worst Movie. Yes, this is a documentary about Troll 2. You'll learn about the people they stuffed into those awful masks, about how the director nailed young Darren Ewing's own Chuck Taylors to a flower pot and made him stand for 14 hours straight, and that Rossella Drudi wrote it in a fit of pique after her friends became vegetarians. You'll learn just how mortifying it is to be in a movie that's so very, very bad and what it does to your fledgling dreams of stardom. You'll learn more than you ever wanted about Troll 2, but that doesn't mean this is a documentary to say "meh, never mind" about, because Best Worst Movie isn't just about one crappy movie from 1990. In its own kooky way, it's about everything. It's about the breathlessness of fandom, delusions of grandeur, the power of the Internet, the skeletons in your closet, and settling for ordinary when you dreamed about the stars.

Idle thoughts on a Sunday afternoon: How radically different would some movies be if the sexual orientation of a single character was changed? Actress Meredith Baxter revealed last week that she's a lesbian, which made me think of her most famous role as a mother in Family Ties, which made me think of Michael J. Fox, who played her son in that series. And that made me think of his most famous role as a son in Back to the Future, which made me think: what if Marty McFly's mother (played by Lea Thompson) was gay?

That would eliminate the most squeamish element of the movie: Lorraine's attraction to Marty. (When she's admiring him in his Calvin Kleins, yeesh! Get me out of here.) Instead, Marty might have time traveled back to 1955, seen that Lorraine wasn't attracted to George McFly (Crispin Glover), and then gradually come to realize -- with his 1985 perspective -- that his mother wasn't attracted to any of the boys in school, but was nursing a secret crush on one of her female classmates. Recognizing the social pressures against homosexuality in the 50s and battling his own mixed feelings, Marty still maneuvers circumstances so that his mother will decide to remain in the closet and marry George. Marty goes back to the future with a heavy heart, glad to be alive but with the secret, bittersweet knowledge that his self-sacrificing, loving mother may not be not truly happy.

What other movies might be radically changed if the sexual orientation of one of the characters was different?

We New Yorkers have it really good. We can get anything delivered to us at pretty much any time of the day or night. We have decent public transportation, albeit a system that's overpriced, occasionally breaks down during the rain, and is smelly. And we have our pick of the litter when it comes to new movies.

But! It doesn't have to be that way with Mystery Team, a little comedy from the folks from the DERRICK comedy troupe about three uber-dorks who are called upon by a little girl to find who murdered her parents. In fact, because so many more people demanded it in Phoenix than in New York City, that's where they officially unveiled it first! Mystery Team also stars the always awesome Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation, Funny People, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) as her crush-worthy older sister. The stars are doing a lot of legwork to promote their film, including giveaways, Q&As, and other good stuff. Don't you want them to come to your own? Dontcha? Demand it now, and maybe you too can join the Sword Club. Demand It worked for Paranormal Activity, and they didn't even have a Sword Club.

If you don't believe me, will you believe Cinematical's awesome EiC, Erik Davis, who caught it at Sundance and wrote, "It's Encyclopedia Brown meets Napoleon Dynamite with a pinch of Ace Ventura... and it's hilarious." You can watch DERRICK's latest short here, which is full of funny and NSFW language.

Next up are shows in Albuquerque, NM, and Chicago, IL. And maybe your town next.

It's the ninth inning, two outs and the bases are loaded. The famous starting pitcher has been sent to the showers. Brad Pitt is the catcher and is waiting on the mound with the manager, who is calling for the ace reliever to save the game. And his name is Bennett Miller.

Steven Soderbergh was three days from the start of filming on true-life underdog baseball flick Moneyball when he was unexpectedly yanked from the director's chair by Columbia Pictures head honcho Amy Pascal. She didn't like the latest script revisions, so Aaron Sorkin was hired to make sure Moneyball takes a more mainstream, less documentary approach than what Soderbergh evidently had in mind. To complete the task, Variety reports that Columbia is now ready to put the ball in the hands of experienced mainstream director Bennett Miller ... whoops, that's not right.

Miller may not be well-known, but he directed the critically-acclaimed, true-life Capote four years ago, so maybe the studio feels that he has an affinity for the genre. Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Academy Award for his performance in that film, and Miller was nominated, so, again, that speaks to his ability to work with actors. Capote was a very good picture, in part because Miller took a measured, low-key approach. Will that work with Moneyball? In the best of all possible worlds for Columbia, Moneyball, based on a non-fiction sports book by Michael Lewis, will follow the audience-pleasing, financial successful path of another movie based on a non-fiction sports book by Michael Lewis: The Blind Side.

This week's column is based on a true story. Did I get your attention? Why is it that all the awards organizations love true stories so much? So many of this year's award contenders are based on true stories: Public Enemies, The Damned United, A Woman in Berlin, Julie and Julia (229 screens), Coco Before Chanel (145 screens), Amelia (1975 screens), Bright Star (25 screens) and even The Informant! (62 screens), as well as up-and-coming contenders like Invictus and The Young Victoria. And even if they're not specifically "true" stories, we have movies like The Last Station, about a real-life person, or movies like Brothers and The Messenger with torn-from-the-headlines plots.

It's getting so bad that, while watching it, I was even wondering whether Up in the Air was based on a true story. And certainly Precious seems based on a true story, even though it's very clearly "based on the novel PUSH by Sapphire." But why do we need this? Is it a cushion? What happens if we're exposed to pure imagination for a change? Would Star Trek have been better if it had been based a true story? What about Up? Could those balloons have really hauled that house halfway around the world? Probably not, but nobody questioned it for a second, and it doesn't matter.

Oh, Screen Gems, Screen Gems, Screen Gems. You guys just can't crank 'em out fast enough, huh? Last year, you managed to be in the process of remaking [REC] while it was still making the festival rounds, and this year, we see the trailer for next year's more multi-cultural remake of 2007's Death at a Funeral. (It's after the jump.)

Neil LaBute of Lakeview Terrace fame replaces Frank Oz to direct a cast that includes Chris Rock, Danny Glover, Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan, Columbus Short, and a handful of white people - including James Marsden in Alan Tudyk's under-the-influence funeral guest role (inspired casting, I'll admit) and Peter Dinklage in the part last played by... Peter Dinklage. Hell, even the same screenwriter is credited, because the screenplay would appear to be almost identical, save for a few more race-related remarks.

Far be it from me to judge from just two minutes, but the tone of this seems far more broad and slapsticky than its bawdy British predecessor. Oh, well, a black comedy has now become a black comedy in a completely different sense of the word.

DAAF 2.0 lands April 16, 2010.

Brooklyn's Finest
Three cops, each trying to get through the day. Richard Gere plays a veteran of the force just days from retirement, Don Cheadle has been working deep undercover for a long time and Ethan Hawke is a husband and father of seven desperate to provide for his family. I'm not sure I buy Gere as uniform cop at his age, and I kept expecting him to say "I'm too old for this sh*t!" Watch for this one on January 16.

Crazy on the Outside
Tim Allen plays a recently released convict who has spent three years in the big house, though his mother thinks he was in France, and now he needs to get his life back on track. The premise sounds pretty simple, but there are some laughs here and an interesting cast including Sigourney Weaver, Ray Liotta and Kelsey Grammer.

Our brothers and sisters over at TV Squad have busted through the boob tube and brought with them the following juicy bits of must-see eye candy.

• The Christmas season is upon us and in the "it's nice to see some things don't change" department, Wednesday's showing of Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer on CBS beat out the other major networks in the ratings.
• Comcast has just purchased NBC, and here are five suggestions for what they can do with their newly acquired network.
• I love this one. Here's Neil Patrick Harris in "Frosty the Inappropriate Snowman."
• If you like you're 19th century British drama mixed with gut crunching zombie action there's good news: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies may be making its way to the small screen.
• American Idol runner up Adam Lambert caused a stir on The American Music Awards and now ABC has dropped him from an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel LIve!
• ...and finally, we all have our favorites but check here to see what the ten most watched TV episodes of the decade were.