A Dead Zone movie is possible
Looks like a Dead Zone movie is possible. Anthony Michael Hall, who starred in the USA network sci-fi show, told SCI-FI wire that he’d be interested in doing a Dead Zone movie. Hall, who played psychic Johnny Smith for the show’s six-season run, reminds everyone that he’s not optimistic a Dead Zone movie will be made. “I don’t think we had the size of a cult following that, let’s say, The X-Files did. You look at Sex and the City or The X-Files, these movies were done long after the shows pumped out their last episodes,” says the actor. Also, The Dead Zone having a previous incarnation as a feature film might preclude any new attempts. (In the film, which was released in 1983, Christopher Walken starred as Johnny Smith.)
Whatever the case may be with the possible movie, Anthony Michael Hall remains grateful about the opportunity to star in The Dead Zone. “I would certainly be open to the potential for [a reunion feature]. I would never turn my back on what [the show’s late producer] Michael Piller did for me. He gave me this incredible opportunity. When I look back at [my] career, I view him and John Hughes as almost guardian angels of my career,” Hall says.
[via PopCandy]
American Teen Poster Inspired by The Breakfast Club
Since it’s premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, movie critics have been comparing this year’s best film (so far) American Teen to John Hughes’ 80’s teen classic The Breakfast Club. Paramount Vantage has decided to run with this idea, and curb the marketing for the film (or at least the poster) around the idea of a modern day real life Breakfast Club. I’ve been more apt to compare it to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but the Breakfast Club comparison works just as well because of the social class system of the characters followed.
My good friend Neil at Film School Rejects was able to get his hands on the poster art for the July 25th release. Click on the image below to enlarge.
So, Wassup With John Hughes?
“Did he make a comeback yet?”
In a recent interview with the L.A. Times, Kevin Smith called ’80s director/’00s recluse John Hughes his “generation’s J.D. Salinger.” I’m not going to get into that comparison, no way, but it’s worth mentioning that Salinger hasn’t written anything in 40 years, whereas Hughes hasn’t done much movie-wise in a decade. He has more in common with Terrence Malick (20 years between Badlands Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line) than the completely AWOL Salinger.
Recently, Hughes received a credit under an alias for his, albeit old, story idea for Drillbit Taylor. Sure that film flopped hard, but its release has given the media reason to put out a Hughes APB and it’s hit the Internet pretty hard. Driving home on Monday, I heard a report on NPR about race and the unflappable popularity of Hughes’s character Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles. It’s clear that audiences still want the real deal to return, especially during this current hunger for the ’80s and LOL comedy.
As the Times points out, Hughes still maintains select ties to showbiz folk, notably producer and friend Tom Jacobson, and he met with Vince Vaughn a few years ago. I know, big deal, but he’s not exactly chain smoking, shooting guns in his house and sleeping in his bowling alley. Will the man who perfected the affable white goofball in beloved, classic films like Weird Science, Planes, Trains & Automobiles and The Breakfast Club really never write/direct another movie? Ever? You really think so? Even with comedy’s ring leader and producer of Drillbit, Judd Apatow, offering gushers like…
“John Hughes wrote some of the great outsider characters of all time,” says Apatow. “It’s pretty ridiculous to hear people talk about the movies we’ve been doing, with outrageous humor and sweetness all combined, as if they were an original idea. I mean, it was all there first in John Hughes’ films. Whether it’s ‘Freaks and Geeks’ or ‘Superbad,’ the whole idea of having outsiders as the lead characters, that all started with Hughes.”
Apatow uses the same kind words for director Harold Ramis (Caddyshack, Vacation, which Hughes wrote) and now he’s producing Ramis’s arguable comeback film, 2009’s anticipated Year One. So you have to wonder, with all of Apatow’s conecs and influence, has he not mentioned an official return to comedy to one of his biggest inspirations? Jus’ sayin’.
Discuss: Would you like to see John Hughes return, as long as it’s not Curly Sue Squared? Moreover, what are the odds we’ll see it happen?
Sundance Movie Review: Assassination of a High School President
Assassination of a High School President is a murder mystery set in a high school, without the murder. Assassination of a High School President will likely be compared to Brick in every review you read, and every conversation you have about te flick. Yet, Assassination is not a copy of Brick, in fact, it was written before Brick. Imagine if John Hughes had made Chinatown set in a High School. So where Brick was a hardcore film noir story set in the world of high school students, Assassination is a high school movie with a noir mystery storyline.
Brett Simon’s debut feature is set in an intricate, hilarious, twisted world set inside St. Donovan’s private school. Not quite the 90’s, 80’s or 70’s, Assassination is set in an alternative universe where cellphones don’t exist, students type on Apple IIe’s, yet references to the Iraq war and Chuck Palahniuk. Reece Daniel Thompson is Bobby Funke, a sophomore reporter for the St. Donovan’s school newspaper. When the SAT tests go missing from the High School Principal’s safe, Funke goes all Woodward and Bernstein, tracking his own private watergate, following the mystery twist after twist. Assassination’s lightning quick dialogue is nothing short of brilliant. Even Mischa Barton couldn’t ruin this movie, as much as she tried with her O.C.-level acting skills (wait, should the wording still be “skills” when I’m obviously being derogatory?)
The world of this story is so masterfully created. From the production design, to the characters, Assassination feels like a living breathing parallel universe where the characters talk in voice over. While each character has a very specific story purpose, you feel like each character has an extensive back-history, comparable to the characters in the universe of The Simpsons or Groundhog Day. Bruce Willis turn as the crazy High School principal is also worth noting.
If there is one fault, and it is a minor one, it involves the film’s conclusion. Like most mystery stories, the resulting explanation at the end of the story never lives up to the intense build-up. Assassination is no different in that respect. But don’t get me wrong, you will not for a second feel cheated. You will leave the theater after seeing this film knowing you underpaid for your ticket.
Brett Simon has traveled the festival circuit with his short films, including Sundance, where his short film The Sailor’s Girl premiered in 2005. He’s a successful commercial and music video director (which includes the award winning “Somebody Told Me” for The Killers). Unrelated but noteworthy, Screenwriters Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski are former production assistants on South Park.
Assassination is one of the most interesting films I’ve seen in the last couple years.