I believe this is a new edit of the John Rambo promotional material from a few months back. Users of some operating systems might have to use 'Net Transport' to download the file but for me and my Mac at least, it's direct.
[EDIT: And there's now a higher-res version uploaded to Rapidshare, as I learned from the comment below]
[EDIT: The story initially broke at AintItCool again, it seems]
A gallery stuffed with every John Rambo still so far officially released has gone online.
It's hard for me to second guess this film's politics. I genuinely have no idea if it will swing slightly left or rather right. I do, however, expect it to be rather underwhelming. The best this film will do for me, I imagine, is to force a new special edition of First Blood on DVD, or create a lot of incidental publicity for Son of Rambow.
As far as Mr. Stallion goes, I'm hoping that Stallone really is attached to Inglorious Bastards, and that it gets moving soon. Schwarzenegger I could care less about - he makes a good robot, but I've never bought him as a human - and Adam Sandler I am dubious of, but Stallone seems to be a good fit for the project.
- You can watch Four Eyed Monsters online now, for free. For every viewer to register, the filmmakers receive a dollar. 'Only' 100,000 viewers will cover the film's budget.
- Brett Ratner is to direct Playboy, a Hugh Hefner biopic. Hilarious. For a long time, Oliver Stone was attached, but not any more. Even more hilarious.
- Laura Albert has lost her law suit with Antidote. To cut the long story short: Albert was the author of the books allegedly written by J T LeRoy, and she was only unveiled once LeRoy was shown not to exist. Antidote had optioned Albert's book Sarah, believing it to be a memoir, not complete and utter fiction, and once the curtain was pulled back they had no interest in the film any longer and let their option expire. They've now been awarded 116,500 dollars in this fraud suit.
- JoBlo are hosting an excerpt from Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno script, as published in Entertainment Weekly. [Or try going a page earlier]
- More EW scanning over at SlashFilm where they've some stills from Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited.
- Matt Dillon is joining Robin Williams, John Travolta and Kelly Preston in Walt Becker's Old Dogs.
- The latest wave of John Rambo stills are quite straight and lifeless.
Aint it Cool have the premiere teaser trailer for John Rambo. What do you think?
[EDIT: You can also download the trailer directly - until Monday, when Aint it Cool are taking it down]
I happened to watch First Blood last night (thanks, BBC1) and enjoyed it thoroughly, mainly thanks to Ted Kotcheff, the director. The idea isn't a bad one, but it's hardly The Deer Hunter. Nor is Stallone John Cazale. But I really can't see how such a thing devolved into the Rambo and Rambo 3 (er.... that's silly) sequels. And it truly shows Falling Down up for the fascist claptrap it is.
I think there's not much suggestion John Rambo will bring the series back to the quality of the first installment, and indeed, rather than care about further films in the Rambo sequence, First Blood inspired me to revisit more Kotcheff.
Probably Kotcheff's best film, Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? was apparently getting lined up for a remake. This news popped up in the trades a year or two ago... but since then? Nothing. A shame, because it would have probably guaranteed a special edition DVD of the original. Or maybe not - the Fun With Dick and Jane do-over didn't do dick (or jane) for the DVD status of Kotcheff's original.
Around about now, you're probably ready to pounce on me, brandishing Weekend at Bernie's. Well, give it a go - but it won't stick. The badness of Weekend at Bernie's was no more Kotcheff's fault than, say, B*A*P*S can be pinned on Robert Townsend... Sure, neither of them should have signed up, really. They should have known better... but, heck, you know...
We all make mistakes. Like "this dodgy script can be rescued, I'm sure".
Kotcheff could have been another Alan Clarke, had things gone slightly differently. He too worked on Play for Today, and in English theatre. And there's a lot more Clarke to First Blood than is widely discussed. All the same, he doesn't need to be another Alan Clarke to be taken seriously. Forget about the guaranteed mediocrity of John Rambo, take a different route out of the First Blood family tree and explore not the history of the star, but the director. It's certainly a more surprising journey.
- Soundtrack dot Net have some pictures from the scoring sessions for American Gangster. Looks like it's going to sound good.
- Yes, yes, there are pictures of Stallone as Rambo online, I know, I know.
- A clip from the Caveman pilot is now up for your viewing... pleasure? A thought provoking commentary on modern day race relations. Apparently.
- Mischa Barton is in the new St. Trinian's. Confirmation also comes that Russell Brand is playing Flash Harry, and that some filming has taken place in Hawaii. For some reason.
- Almodovar's El Deseo have commenced production of a documentary about El Senor de Sipan, "the ruler of ancient Peru's ruins".
- John Turturro is remaking Theo van Gogh's 1-900.
- The Playstation 3 version of Stranglehold will come with John Woo's Hard Boiled also on the disc. Of course, buying a Wii and a Blu-Ray player, something like Eledees and then also a copy of Hard Boiled on its own would be more satisfying at the end of the day. In related news, Sony are losing money - lots of money - because of the PS3.
- Today's second Rob Schmidt story: ThinkFilm are selling his film Bad Meat at Cannes. I met Schmidt at the London Film Festival years and years ago - at the time, Daniel Waters was a close friend of his. Wonder if they're still chums?
- Grant Morrison gives a very good interview to Wired. It's all Area 51, no mention of We3 - shame.
- VH1 have previewed their top 10 blockbusters of 2008. Maybe I'll try and rustle up a list for 2009 at some point, go one step beyond.
Bandana fans rejoice: Rambo's fashion sense hasn't moved on even one inch. What does he look like?
Speaking to the Kyle and Jackie O show on the Australian 2Day FM radio station, Sylvester Stallone revealed that the new Rambo film is to be called John Rambo, as per Rocky Balboa.
I'm hoping this trend in sequel naming carries on long enough for it to get really silly: it could get very silly. Daniel Craig takes the title role in James Bond, plain and simple; Clint comes back for Dirty Harry Callahan; Ernest Borgnine revisits his Oscar-winning glory in Mary Piletti; it's a romantic rave from the grave in Baz Luhrman's Romeo Montague + Juliet Capulet; and look out earth, here comes John Q. Alien.
