http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1950258,00.html

Hollywood Elsewhere is tinseltown-centric, but the videogame industry is becoming more and more a part of that world. English dubs of CG movie sequels to videogame megafranchises courting bona fide Hollywood name talent (plus Mena Suvari) is just a piece of the larger integration of intellectual property crossover. I'm thoroughly convinced that the Godfather videogame is a sign of the apocalypse, but there are some good things coming out of the Silicon Valley/Hollywood crossbreeding: specifically the failed, horrendous genetic mutation-level failures going on. The telling sign is that a Japanese giant is specifically embracing a different path with their new console: The Nintendo Wii. You must have heard about it by now. It's the system your paralyzed-from-the-waist-down granddad can bowl on and everyone has on the Must Have list for Christmas. With this curiously-named machine, The Big N is poised to reclaim a massive marketshare they haven't had since the days when everyone "The Old Nintendo" and were blowing into cartridges. The tide-altering aspect of the new system is the control interface, which integrates motion-sensing technology to track the player's movement. Mo-cap has been used badly in the past by most of the major console manufacturers, most memorably by Nintendo themselves with a heavy-handed peripheral that was called The Power Glove. In a scene from The Wizard (finally on DVD), it was touted as the end-all-be-all of controllers, and wouldn't you know, now it is, just in a different form. What this lets you do, foe example, is swing your "Wiimote" and have your character on screen swing their sword/fishing pole/butterfly net/butcher knife. The brilliance of the thing is that you really don't have to be good with a standard game controller to be able to play. The game packed-in with every console features Tennis, Bowling, Baseball, Golf, and Boxing. You can just all around the room like the hopped-up-on-speed kids in the commercials, or you can barely move from your seat with the same result on-screen. The development team apparently started from a good place: drive a new user experience and please moms shopping for their kids. The company as a whole did good by the consumer by producing an apparent more than ample supply for the entirety of the holiday season. But what about this PS3 everyone is shooting each other or breaking into cars for? It's a hot item, but it's going directly after the hardcore gaming crowd that's been catered to by way of the system's very existence. The fact is, analysts and layman reporters alike are saying hold out on the PS3 and grab a Wii as fast as possible. Even software companies are saying they find the Wii preferable, probably due in large part to the 50% (or more) lower cost in developing a title on Wii vs. PS3. All this came through prior to reports (on launch day) that the PS3 may not have shipped in even smaller numbers than the reduced figure of 400,000. Nintendo stock is at an all-time high in Japan, mostly thanks to the huge sales of Nintendo's killer touch screen-enabled DS handheld, put in part thanks to expectations of their new Sony Killer. I worked on 10/26/2000, the launch day of the PS2, a system that became a huge seller mostly thanks to three games (Grand Theft Auto 3, its sequel, and

Not only is Larry King a great quality indicator thanks to his brand name quotewhoring for movies that are never worth your time, but he also carries no stock in the Internet as a viable means of communication. The science is still out, I guess. How little does he care for the internets? He's never used it nor is he aware of how it works on a very elementary level. Jeff Wells would say I'm falling to old media standards for reporting this days late, but c'mon, it's not like Larry King could even theoretically read this. I mean, who uses the internet, anyway?

Back in March, I highlighted a documentary I think is just as eye-opening as Super Size Me if not more important. Well, at long last, Maxed Out has acquired distribution through Magnolia according to Variety. If Super Size Me made you sick to your stomach, this will make you want to throw up each time you look at your credit card.

Variety today reported that the deal to have Sacha Baron Cohen play Adolfo Pirelli in Tim Burton's Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd has been made and he's set to absolutely steal the show. Cohen is king of the hill as far as anyone is concerned for the "music hall foreigner" characterizations he is so good at, and this will be a great showcase of just how over-the-top and at once restrained he can be. Many comic actors out there just scream "look at me, look at me" by sailing too far over the top, but Cohen is content to choose when to push the boundaries (or leave them in his wake) and when to hold back. Unlike many successful American comedians, he will probably not refuse non-leads, and instead choose the roles that are really worth his time, no matter how large or small they may be. Cohen's the real thing.

On an email group I'm a member of, a woman recently posted an item about Borat, specifically in regard to her absolute and utter loathing of the movie. Free of the significant degree of de-sensitization prevalent among many of the reviewers and members of the general public, reactions like these are out there and may be indicative of Middle America being left out of the loop. Are just as many turned off as turned on to the tune of "You Be My Wife"? Or is this a generational thing, like many parents just didn't get why Monty Python had to use such vile toilet humor and make jokes out of sex and foreigners? The Borat question of preference, in my mind, comes down to "would you like your broken-English-speaking foreigner portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen, or John Cleese?" "Would someone of appropriate expertise PLEASE explain to us WHY this movie is so popular and WHY most of the reviews have been good? [Her husband] almost walked out. I thought it was the worse [sic] piece of %!$!$!# film I've ever seen. What am I NOT seeing here? Two hours of my life I will never get back. A part of brain is now irreparably damaged. "And I'm not stodgy about movies. LOVED Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle! I saw The Kentucky Fried Movie. HIGHlarious. I think I have a very clever and above average sense of humor. I get satire. I understand making fun of ethnic groups, women and gay people if done in the spirit of satire or in making a socio-political statement. Such was not the case, I believe. Making fun? HOW it was done made me ill. (Watching two hairy naked men rolling around fighting in a hotel room in the 69 position didn't make me feel great either. Among so MANY other things.) "I thought this movie to be on the level with the "Jackass" movies, made for an audience of frat boys and truck drivers (no offense to truck drivers and frat boys...well, maybe the frat boys....) What am I NOT getting here? Please to explain?"

http://www.defamer.com/hollywood/studio-60/studio-60-cancellationwatch-nbc-officially-picks-up-a-full-season-213808.php

Dimension Films passed on Castlevania based on the script turned in by Paul W.S Anderson (Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, Alien vs. Predator). The teaser poster shown off at the AFM inspires no confidence ..."Dracula Begins"? ...are they serious?

Western Value

The remarkable thing is the execs aren't paying attention to the marquee value of a western in southern states, especially one that looks "traditional" (none of that Brokeback "nonsense"), and especially a movie with Jesse James at the center of it. No matter what stereotypes one ascribes to their citizenry, the southern states will go see something if it's good and feels familiar. It doesn't have to be full of right-wing sentiment and John Wayne machismo and bravura, as long as there's that homegrown struggle against the big bad world caving in on the West. The rebellious outlaw story is one that people who stay away from the cinema will go see. There just aren't many H&G (horses & guns) flicks out there anymore, and it's a damn shame. The West is dead in contemporary America, but that doesn't mean there are no stories left to tell. Well, what about Unforgiven? Hell, Open Range surprised a lot of people with how well it did. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada could have released wider than it did. That is, if the studios had put some faith in the audience being there. At SXSW 2003, AICN's Harry Knowles moderated "A Conversation With" Peter Fonda discussing his career, the state of movies, and a particular western. One of my favorite parts of that year's festival was the screening Fonda's little-seen directorial debut, The Hired Hand from the recently-restored print. DP Vilmos Zsigmond (Vil Ziggy, as Fonda affectionately referred to him) shot the movie with Fonda around the same time as (not sure if just before or after) Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller and just before Deliverance, and I daresay this movie has prettier pictures than the other two. The movie was art at a time when the studio wanted "Captain America" to make anything but a western. They let him make it, but castrated it by severely cutting its number of screens upon opening and promptly buried it after a two week run. The logic? No one wants to watch Westerns anymore...especially when they're long and not full of action sequences. Only thirty years later did people audiences have a chance to see it, and then, only in a limited re-release and festival tour, followed by a DVD that got severely under-marketed just as DVD was exploding. The barebones edition sold at Wal-Mart for under $10, but nobody knew it was there. People still want to see westerns, the studios just don't think they do. The audience never left, the studios just don't believe they're still around.

Not everyone out there is into musical theatre, but I am. It brings me great joy to bring news of a new musical about to close after less than a month: The Times They Are A-Changin'. The music of Bob Dylan as interpreted by Twyla Tharp and a cast of Cirque du Soleil-esque dancers dressed as clowns, dogs, and other bizarre things has happily gone the way of other massive flops after 35 previews and 26 regular performances (by closing night on November 19th). Carrie: The Musical comes to mind (which got legendarily terrible reviews as well, one from the inimitable Joel Siegel). The Best Week Ever posted a clip excerpting 30 seconds of Like a Rolling Stone as it was performed on The View. If the iFilm link weren't dead, I could point you toward the whole thing. I'll update later if I find it.

Following the big Dem wins on Tuesday, The Dixie Chicks are getting a little vindication one way or another, especially when so many people in flyover states rejected the GOP for not representing them. The Chicks' current tour has apparently provided them with an outlet for feelings many more Americans share with them now than when they got blacklisted. The question I'd like answered is whether this election win is going to translate into more screens for Shut Up and Sing, or if it's just going to get its DVD date pushed up.

Emmy-winning composer Basil Poledouris has passed away. His most memorable scores include Robocop, The Hunt for Red October, and Lonesome Dove (which he won the Emmy for). One should also note that the pair of Conan scores he did that helped pave the way for fantasy films to have real, polished-sounding orchestral scoring.

Kazakhstan, home of the misspelled currency, dislikes Borat the film and person, and guess who agrees? Russia! AFP reports this morning that Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan has been banned in Putinland "over fear it would offend audiences". The government agency that refused to license Borat hasn't done this to a non-pornographic film since the downfall of the Soviet Union.

Arthouse Cowboy Redux

Welcome to the new look and flow of Arthouse Cowboy. Comments don't work yet, and I've got to work out my archive system, but these are the new digs. Expect outages and funky garbled layouts, and you'll be pleasantly surprised over the next few days, as I don't expect either to happen. Fresh posts will show up below this one...from the year 3000...

I can't believe I'm using IMdB as a source, but here it is: Mickey Rourke and Quentin Tarantino totally broke up, and it was, like, totally weird for like...both of them? Now, Mickey is all "psshh, let the bitch talk if she wants to talk, I mean she's a dirty nasty bitch who needs a good ass-whuppin', I'm just sayin'..." and Quentin is all, "like, whatev." The long and short of it is thus: Rourke was set, locked, and loaded to play Stuntman Mike in Tarantino's Death Proof half of Grindhouse, and then, just prior to start time, Kurt "Snake Plissken" Russell took on the role. Shortly after that, True West Magazine broke that The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes ghost-directed Tombstone as Jeff reported here. Oh the drama! All that lumped with Robbie Rod's divorce hitting during principal photography of Planet Terror and this gritty, grimy double feature is turning into a hotbed of art life imitating past art life: the exploitative, dirty process that making these cheap thrill pics was. Was there a post-Sin City fallout between The Rourke and the Troublemaker/Band Apart camp? Who knows, and from someone who sees drama drenched in drama covered in nuclear-melted drama working in the theatre, I don't really care. That I-need-to-know-the-dirt impulse has become much less prevalent since TMZ and Defamer leave little to the imagination. Celebrity Glamour is dead, so long live Celebrity Grime? It's more often I find myself wishing I didn't know "how the sausage is made" in Hollywood so I can ignore what's being ingested. Wow, that was disgusting...then again, so are non-kosher franks. Unfortunate as many parts of all the controversy may be, great art usually comes out of fiery conflict. In this case, of course, we're talking about trashy, dirty, guilty pleasure art, but art nonetheless. One thing I do know is that a Sin City sequel minus Rourke is a lot less interesting than one with, but I'm just hoping a second one gets made at this point.

Thanks to the intellectually stimulating Grammar Girl at QDNow, it's come to my attention that someone at the Kazakhstan Central Bank forgot something in the process of printing a run of their new currency: how to spell the word "bank". Reuters and the BBC have respective stories..but I gotta throw this out there: is added publicity from an obvious sham documentary really the biggest problem The Nation With No Spell Checkers has?

Election junkie that I am, I was up last night watching Macaca take a Macaca on himself, scores of Republican cries in anguish...hell, I even turned on CBN (the Christian Broadcast Network of Our Lord and Saviour, Pat Robertson) and got some chuckles. I had wandered over to the Comedy Central Indecision bloglate last night, and figured it had spread by this morning, surely. Then, mere minutes before the official announcement, was talking to a coworker about how I'd read late last night that Rummy was on his way out. "No, man, you can't be serious...holy CNN Breaking News, dude, you were right!" Comedy Central beat The Drudge Report. Journalicious... Robert Gates' profile at Wikipedia.

Arthouse Cowboy will be unavailable sporadically throughout the week as we perform some background maintenance on the site and move this column to H-E 2.0. Check back if you want, but consider this a minor hiatus.

The Old & New Nightmare

The most unique possible hijacking of the night before a wedding happened the other night when my girl and I came up with an ingenious plan. To soothe some tensions between members of the wedding party, we kidnapped everyone and went to see the first 3D movie most of the 20-somethings in the group had seen theatrically. Tim Burton's stop-motion classic really does stand the test of time, contimuing to delight and captivate. Even though everyone was a little tuckered out from a night of Indian food, booze, and uncomfortable encounters with relatives, it was an Event. There was a cool reason to go to the movies that went beyond "we've nothing to do so let's go waste $20". Increasingly, the only thing the late teen/20s-ish audience has to see at the movies is "Concept A/B/C/D starring Comedian/Singer/Star/TitsonLegs A/B/C/D who slept with Person X". If you want to go see it, you better hope you live near a major city. The following states have no screens showing the 3D feature: Alaska Dakota (North or South) Maine Montana Nebraska New Hampshire New Mexico Oklahoma Vermont West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming The full list of cinemas currently showing the movie in 3D can be found here compiled by the good folks at From Script to DVD. Burton's Corpse Bride was quite good, but boy oh boy was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory hit and miss (though kids love it to pieces, I'm told) and the less said about Planet of the Apes the better. I really enjoyed both Big Fish and Sleepy Hollow very, very much. The dark fairy tale that's the subject of this post is really the reason I hold out hope for Burton's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. Helena Bonham-Carter is an infinitely capable actress, but I would have thought of her more for the mysterious beggarwoman than the role that begins and ends with Angela Lansbury or Patti LuPone, depending on who you are. Johnny Depp's singing chops will remain a mystery until we hear him sing the part, months from now, and the pending casting of Sasha Baron Cohen as the insanely over-the-top Pirelli can do nothing but make one smile. Batman '89, lauded as it may be by many, was a very non-canonical take on adapted material, as was Charlie. To an extent, Burton's artistic license on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow worked better than going with the standard Ichabod Crane the Frightened Schoolteacher. The reason I will always hold out hope for an upcoming Burton project is one of my very favorite films, Ed Wood: satire, history, horror, and the obscure all rolled into one. More impressions and reactions to The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D to come tomorrow (or later tonight if I can't sleep).

Franken, Pirates, The Wizard

Hollywood Elsewhere on the March

I've been working in the background on a variety of site additions and improvements for the grand scheme, so updates have been minimal. Another contributing factor has been helping organize the local theatre awards this year, which is just as time-sucking a job as working full-time. Among the stuff to expect in the coming weeks... The Return of the Hollywood Elsewhere Podcast Some cosmetic cleanups