Screenhead

Sunday, November 1, 2009 on one of the biggest sports days of the year – NFL match ups plus Game 4 of the World Series – James Cameron’s Avatar trailer will get the world’s biggest live trailer viewing when it debuts on the world’s largest video display — Cowboy Stadium’s Diamond Vision Screen – while millions of football fans watch it at home. 

FOX Sports will take the entire country viewing FOX NFL SUNDAY, America’s No. 1 NFL pre-game show, to Arlington, Texas and the new Cowboys Stadium, where the three minute and thirty second trailer will play live from the enormous Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision screen. 

The crowd attending the Cowboys-Seattle Seahawks game will experience the Avatar trailer live just minutes prior to the noon (Central) kickoff between the Cowboys and Seahawks, on the enormous, four-sided, high-definition screen that hangs above the Cowboys Stadium playing field.  At the same time, millions of others watching FOX NFL SUNDAY will see the trailer on-air – making it the largest live motion picture trailer viewing in history.

In addition, throughout the day ninety-second Avatar commercial spots will air on all regional games carried on the Fox affiliates, the national game on Fox, and the World Series on Fox.

Avatar opens in theaters everywhere December 18.

The idea of putting Hugh Jackman in a role featuring enormous battling robots  is an idea that makes me question if my medication is sufficiently strong, but then I read about it in a few movie websites–including right here–and suddenly things start to make sense.

But it’s true–the movie’s called Real Steel, and it assumes a future in which boxing is declared illegal as it’s too dangerous.  Thus, it’s replaced by letting one-ton fighting robots take over.  Jackman will discover a model previously thought obsolete that has the strangest habit of actually winning.

It’s kind of an awesome thought, with Jackman playing the Doc Lewis to the robot’s Little Mac, even if it’s got that vaguely familiar / derivative feeling to it  thanks to previous attempts at making a Robot Fight Club like Rock ‘em Sock’em Robots, the old Virtual Boy game Teleroboxer, or even the really apt description of a weird hybrid of Rocky meets Robot Jox

I’ll admit though, this has the great potential to be a charming, hilarious and action-packed title when and if they finally figure out just what all they’re going to do with it.  They won’t even start filming this until at least summer 2010, so forget about catching this one before 2011.

You know, I expected a certain amount of imitators to crawl out of the woodwork with the recent resurgence of Fast and Furious.  I expected them to be on the low end of the old quality scale.  But I never expected the British version of Fast and Furious…Octane.

Octane gets us nice and acquainted with Brent Black, who is the current king of the Brighton street racing scene by virtue of having a really incredibly tricked out vintage Ford.  Apparently, no one in England can match the sheer power of Ford, which the crew at Top Gear would LOVE to dispute.

Anyway, Black runs the circuit, and as such, gets an offer to tangle with some SERIOUS racers from, well, I’m not sure where exactly they’re from, but they’ve got some cars that can actually give Black and his Ford a race.  These guys are also the kind who really, REALLY don’t like the thought of losing.  So it’s not really surprising when Black’s shop burns down and takes the Ford with it.  So will Brent be able to pick up and win his most dangerous race?  Or will he lose it all?

You might expect a movie like Octane to have lots of hot cars, hot chicks, and hot action.  What you get is cars that crawl along, doing occasional “burnouts” as though someone’s in the background screaming about how the price of replacement tires just isn’t in the budget.  You get a pregnant girl who happens to be Brent’s girlfriend who seemingly will not stop smoking and drinking despite the fact that she’s very pronouncedly pregnant (later to be replaced by a more attractive crackhead, which in itself is saying a lot).  And you get some really, REALLY halfassed action sequences that are a lot more like comedy than they are like action, just incredibly unintentional.

Oh, and poetry.  Let’s not forget the poetry.

I’ve seen some real wreckages in my day, but man, this may be one of the saddest, sorriest attempts to cash in on a much more popular title that I’ve seen in recent memory.  Octane might well be a whole new standard of craptacular that the British moviemaking industry should be downright ashamed of.

Packed with cliches and other assorted failures, Octane is nothing so much as a pathetic waste of a movie.  It’s clearly struggling to do, well, something…but I really can’t tell what.  Is this some kind of commentary on youth?  The underground race scene?  I have nary a clue what they’re out for and frankly, I could not possibly care less than I do right now.

Octane, to be perfectly honest with you, is utter garbage.  If you’re looking for a really unpleasant way to spend an hour and a half that at least peripherally involves auto racing because you can’t stand to wait for Fast and Furious to hit, well, this is the movie for you.  Also, if you want a movie that’s a really easy MiSTie bait, this one’s king.  I had a great time mocking it because it takes itself so seriously.

It only seemed appropriate that I should get something like enjoyment out of this gigantic misery tour of a movie, and that was the best there was.  The Screenhead Ten Scale gives this flaming car wreck a three out of ten, because there’s fun to be had here for the creative.

You know, I’m not a HUGE car buff–I consider a car to be little more than a way to point A to point B.  Though I do prefer to get their comfortably, quickly, and without spending an arm and a leg in gas costs–just an arm is good enough by me–I’m not terribly enthused by the thought of cars that look like small spacecraft that go from zero to sixty before you even blink.  I only really know what torque is thanks to high school physics, and horsepower to me means about as much in my car as it does in my lawn mower.

Though I will admit, I DO enjoy British television–I’m abundantly glad for BBC America, and even the older stuff you find on PBS is actually much enjoyed by both me and my family.  My personal favorite is Keeping Up Appearances, because that Hyacinth woman is just six different kinds of awesome, and she’d probably have a fainting spell if she were described as such.

So when the boys out at BBC America’s PR firm (at least I guess they are–they sent me the disk and they’re some old friends) shipped me a copy of Top Gear season 10, I was skeptical. Especially when I discovered that this show’s been around since 1977 almost continuously.  Almost continously, of course–there was a brief interval in which the show was retooled, so how they call this season ten is quite beyond me.

Strange semantics in numbering aside, Top Gear is a show that really got me.  Like I said, I’m not much of a “car guy”, thinking of them more as utilitarian objects than as artistic statements, but man.  The show is hosted by three guys who deeply, DEEPLY, love cars, and will introduce us to all manner of cars and car-related content.   The first episode, for example, features an interview with actress Helen Mirren (of The Queen) that caps off with having her take a lap around a test track and then putting her score up on a wall of fame reserved for guests. They call this their “Star in a Reasonably Priced Car” segment.

They then spend a great deal of time looking for the best road in the world, and you’ve never seen British guys display such sheer glee.

It continues on like this for fully ten episodes, including what they call “the Botswana Special”. They’ll attempt to cross the English channel in amphibious cars.  They’ll stage the most ludicrous drag race ever, involving an Aston-Martin taking on a rocket pack and roller skates.  At one point they will engage the Royal Air Force’s Typhoon jet fighter in a two-mile race with the Bugatti Veyron.  What these guys display here is, essentially, a car show for people who don’t really care about cars.  You can almost feel their enthusiasm as they tell you all about their cars of choice, and that’s the mark of a good reviewer in my book.  Yes, this is partially a review show, but it’s also got a lot more than that, as you’ve seen from the preceding remarks.  This show is almost sufficient to INSPIRE car love in those who don’t have it.  Almost—but man, what a good try.

Basically, if you have even the slightest interest in cars, even the SLIGHTEST, you will find Top Gear to be both engrossing and entertaining, with plenty of laughs and surprises as they introduce you to cars you will likely never see and have probably never even HEARD of.  I had my eyes opened by this little chunk of British programming, and I’m glad for the experience.  Chances are good you will be too.

The matchup between the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays during the World Series could be the lowest-rated World Series ever. I guess this is due to the fact that fans are clamoring for a Red Sox-Dodgers matchup. Fox’s World Series hopes started off promising, with the Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox in the playoffs. But the Cubs, Angels and White Sox fell in the first round and the Dodgers were eliminated by the Phillies in the second. The low-profile Rays, the worst team in baseball last year, then finished off the defending champion Red Sox on Sunday night.

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The Wrestler stars Mickey Rourke as a has-been wrestler who decides to head back to the ring with aspiration of a comeback. He meets up with Marisa Tomei, a stripper, who gives Rourke a place to stay, which brings about a friendship between the wrestler and her son.  

Directed by Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain) and scripted by Robert Siegel, The Wrestler won The Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.  

Fox Searchlight features 5 videos from The New York Film Festival’s press conference for The Wrestler. The director and cast comment on the process of making the award winning movie. Rourke is a treat to watch here.

Ryan Merriman, Aidan Quinn and Andie MacDowell get to play the Abbate family in a film, 5^th Quarter about a college football player’s tribute to his late brother. He inspired his team to a record season, and the heartfelt story is a gem for the big screen.

The independent film will be directed by Rick Bieber.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the story follows the Abbate’s after the devastation 15-year-old Luke Abbate’s death in a 2006 car crash and their painful decision to donate his organs to five people. Wake Forest junior Jon Abbate (Merriman) asked his coach to change his jersey number to Luke’s number, five. Just before the fourth quarter of each game, the linebacker began holding up five fingers along with his parents, Steven and Maryanne (Quinn and MacDowell) as they sat in section five of the stadium.

Soon news of the personal tribute spread, so even opposing players and fans joined them by the thousands. The spread of the tribute inspired the family to launch the Five Foundation. The foundation is dedicated to the educations of young adults about responsible driving.

Ironically,  Abbate’s low-ranked team soon reached a school-record 11 wins and even earned a trip to the Orange Bowl.

The film has hometown roots as writer-director Bieber acquired rights to the Abbates’ story and will begin the six-week shoot Oct. 16 on and around the school’s Winston-Salem campus. Former Wake Forest player Robert McCreary and Alan Cohen are executive producing the $5 million-range project. Stacy Earl (who appears in Bieber’s upcoming regional release “Crazy”) and Michael Harding also star.

Hollywood reporter states that even real-life players of the story play themselves in the film, including the Abbates’ Atlanta-based pastor, Jon Abbate’s trainer and Wake Forest’s game announcer.  The film will also feature tapes Jon’s games to intercut with scenes shot in Wake Forest’s stadium to increase a sense of realism to the film.

Spike Lee is all set to start shooting a feature-length documentary about Michael Jordan. Director informed a Cannes crowd that he desires to bring the basketball legend to the festival with the documentary next year.

The NBA is financing the documentary along with Lee’s 40 Acres & a Mule Filmworks.

Jordan documentary plans to include extensive unseen footage shot by NBA cameras during the final two years in Jordan’s career, the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons. Lee and Jordan previously collaborated on a series of Nike TV commercials.

According to Variety Lee told the Cannes crowd, “Mike wants to come to Cannes, so hopefully we will be here next year.”

ComingSoon.net has snagged the exclusive debut of the new poster for Universal Pictures’ “Leatherheads”.  The film opens in theaters on April 4th, and stars George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, John Krasinski, and Jonathan Pryce. You can check it out here.

And, if you haven’t already caught the trailer for “Leatherheads”, visit this earlier post we did here at Screenhead about the film.  It also features a quick synopsis of the film, so you know what you’re getting into.

Things aren’t going so well for the infamous baseball player Barry Bonds, who was recently handed a federal indictment for perjury, but there is at least one bit of good news we have for him: HBO Films is planning to make a movie about him.   Scrap that.  It’s more bad news for the star who’s trying to beat the steroid abuse rumors.

The movie in question is actually based on events described in the book Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports, which was written by San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams.

The is beginning to make some progress, and according to Variety, Ron Shelton has been brought on board to direct the film, as well as co-write it with John Norville.  If you don’t recall, Shelton and Norville teamed up once before to collaborate on Tin Cup.  Shelton already has an impressive sports film resume, with films like Cobb, Bull Durham, Tin Cup, and White Man Can’t Jump included.