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| 24.THINGS TO COME
FARPOINT will take place February 15, 16 & 17 at Marriott’s Hunt Valley Inn on 245 Shawan Road, Hunt Valley, MD. Guests include STAR TREK's George Takei (Sulu), STAR TREK III and IV's Robin Curtis (Lieutenant Saavik ) and STAR TREK DEEP SPACE NINE's Philip Anglim (Vedek Bareil). Activities include a Dealers’ Room, panels, Vic’s Place on Friday night for Karaoke, a Saturday night masquerade, Ten Forward lounge, an art show, a charity auction and Klingon Jail. Registration is $45 for the full weekend, $30 for Saturday and $25 for Sunday. You can either follow this link (for Online readers) or contact Farpoint Enterprises, Inc./6099 Hunt Club Road/ Elkridge, MD 21075. KATSUCON 8 will take place February 15-17, 2002 at the The New Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Baltimore located at 700 Aliceanna Street. This is a major Anime convention. Guests and activities will fit that theme. Pre-registration is $45.00 if postmarked by December 31st. After that registration will be cash-only at the door. All three days are $50.00. Friday or Saturday only is $30.00. Sunday is $15.00. For more information either follow this link (if you're loking at this Online) or drop a note to Katsucon Entertainment, Inc./ ATTN: [The department you want to reach]/ P.O. Box 222691/ Chantilly, VA 20153-2691. |
| 30.QUICK TAKES
THE ARAC/IRAQ CONTROVERSY: The upcoming movie ARAC ATTACKS changed its name to EIGHT-LEGGED FREAK. The producers, Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, feared that, in the wake of the terrorist attacks, the film's original title sounded too much like IRAQ ATTACKS. . . . EPISODE II'S RELEASE IS SET TO MAKE A WORLDWIDE SPLASH:STAR WARS: EPISODE II - THE ATTACK OF THE CLONES is doing something that no other movie has ever done. It will be opening on the exact same day all over the globe. It will open in North America on Thursday, May 16, 2002. Because of time differences around the planet it will open on Friday, May 17 in some distant parts of the globe. A spokesman for Fox explained, "The world is shrinking, and we wanted to take advantage of that." . . . ADMIRAL KATHERINE JANEWAY TO APPEAR IN NEMESIS. Kate Mulgrew will appear briefly as Admiral Catherine Janeway, issuing orders to Captain Picard, in STAR TREK NEMESIS. . . . STAR TREK NEMESIS VILLAIN CAST. The newest TREK has a Romulan nasty. His name is Tom Hardy. He's a British actor who you may have seen in BAND OF BROTHERS or you might see in the upcoming BLACK HAWK DOWN. Hardy will be playing the role of "Shinzon." . . . BERRY, HALLE BERRY. Halle Berry is in line to be the new Bond girl opposite Pierce Brosnan in the 20th James Bond film, tentatively titled BEYOND THE ICE. The production is gearing up for a Jan. 14 start-up. Lee Tamahori will direct. Producers have been granted a waiver by the British actor's union to go ahead, even if an expected strike takes place. . . . RABBIT REDUX. Dimension Films has hired Craig Mazin to write the script for a proposed remake of the venerable fantasy movie HARVEY, which originally starred James Stewart and an invisible 6-foot 31/2 inch rabbit. The original 1950 film was based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Mary Chase. . . . NEW FEMALE LEAD CAST FOR MATRIX II & III. Ever since the death of the pop-star Aaliyah there's been speculation as to who would replace her in the upcoming MATRIX sequels. Say hello to Mrs. Smith - Mrs. Jada Pinkett Smith. She describes her character as a female Morpheus (the Lawrence Fishburne character). She's just finished four months of intense kung-fu and wire training. She'll be flying to Australia in February for five months of filming. When asked about the films' visual effects, she smiled and said, "Oh man, you have no idea what's in store for you . . . no idea." 31.ARTHUR C. CLARKE HITS THE HOLODECK Science Fiction legend Arthur C. Clarke appeared at a tribute to his iconic 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in November as a hologram. "Beam me up, Scotty, indeed," Clarke was heard to say. The event, hosted by Patrick Stewart at the Playboy Mansion, featured a replica of the monolith and three actors in ape suits waving bones at the entrance. Clarke, who was at his home in Sri Lanka, attended virtually via a three dimensional holographic technology created by Teleportec. Due to poor health Clarke has vowed never to leave Sri Lanka again. 32.CHARLES BRONSON FIGHTS THE BATTLE OF A LIFETIME Perhaps there is no crueler fate than to have lived a memorable life only to have those memories stripped away at a point in life when they become all the more precious, as we slow with age. It's like undergoing a biological mugging! Charles Bronson, the actor whose movies thrilled us for decades, is waging such a battle. The 80-year-old star of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, DEATH WISH and TELEFON is fighting Alzheimer's Disease. He was diagnosed with the brain disease a year ago after suffering ill health for the previous two years. A friend said, "Most of the time he is able to recognize his family and friends but he doesn't like to leave the house because he gets confused easily." Bronson's sister added, "He speaks very slowly and sometimes his words are slurred." The actor, who is using both conventional and alternative medicine to battle the disease, is being cared for by his third wife Kim, who is 39-years-old. 33.THE SCI-FI CHANNEL GIVES US A TOUR OF LORD OF THE RINGS The Sci-Fi Channel will give fans an insider's tour of the making of the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy in A PASSAGE TO MIDDLE-EARTH: THE MAKING OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS, a one-hour Scinema Beyond special, 8 PM on Dec. 9. Peter Jackson hosts the behind-the-scenes special. Jackson discusses the creation of the three films with behind-the-scenes footage, video production diaries and interviews with cast and crew. The special looks at the creation of Hobbiton, Rivendell, Lothlorien and the mines of Moria; development of the Elvish language; and the prosthetics that transformed humans into hobbits, elves and Ringwraiths, among other things. The show will also feature interviews with stars Elijah Wood, Liv Tyler, Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen. 34.LIV TYLER HAD TO RELY ON DIAL-AN-ELF Liv Tyler had to use a special helpline number while learning the Elvish language for her role in LORD OF THE RINGS. She plays princess Arwen in the movie trilogy. She admits it wasn't easy picking up the invented Elven lingo. She says, "There was basically a 1-800 Help-An-Elf number. There was this man, I think he was an Oxford professor. We would call him for a translation. I would always make a note of the line with an English translation next to it so that I understood what I was saying." For those of you prone to visiting Klingon-language camps, there is another community of champions of an invented language whose roots are in fiction. There are serious scholars of Tolkien's invented tongues. Those of you reading this Online might want to stop by the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship (ELF) site. You can amaze us with your command of classic "tengwar" at our next meeting (and before you ask, no, I will not be writing a special Elvish language edition of "The ICS Files"!). 35.FANS ARE FORCED TO WAIT FOR THE NEXT APES Movie bosses are waiting until 2003 to release the next PLANET OF THE APES sequel - to ensure that audiences are desperate to see it by the time it arrives. The summer blockbuster will definitely have a sequel, but bosses want the public to hunger for APE action before it's released. Producer Richard Zanuck said, "We don't want to rush the film into theaters next year - we'd rather buy extra wanna-see time for the sequel. Right now, we're tossing around ideas for the story. We want to take our time and get it right." APES was the one bright spot in an otherwise dismal year for Fox's filmed entertainment division. Worldwide it grossed $355 million. Mark Wahlberg made a deal with Zanuck to make two PLANET OF THE APES films, before signing up for the first picture. There's no word on Tim Burton's possible involvement. Guys, don't rush the sequel on my account. I can wait, a very long time. 36.MICHAEL BAY GETS BACK TO BASICS When folks think of Michael Bay they usually think of explosions and action and special effects. The man who gave us PEARL HARBOR, THE ROCK and ARMAGEDDON is looking to make a change. He wants to go with a more minimalist approach. He's created a low budget genre film division called Platinum Dunes, which will help younger directors in their quest for success. The company, which is named after Bay's first student film, is to be run by producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, both friends of the director, and will make films in the $5 million to $12 million price range. Bay explains, "Since PEARL HARBOR, I've decided to change things. I've started a commercial division this past summer called - and we're making fun of ourselves with the name - the Institute For Development Of The Advanced Perceptual Awareness. I'm 37 years old and it's time to not just be the guy who does huge movies. I want to branch out, expand and with this low budget division, be instrumental in the careers of younger directors." 37.GANGS OF NEW YORK MAY CHANGE IN LIGHT OF THE TERRORIST ATTACKS Martin Scorsese is rethinking his new movie, GANGS OF NEW YORK, in light of recent events in America. The director believes the film's theme - immigration into New York in the late 19th Century - has been affected since the Terrorist Attacks on America in September. He muses, "What the picture really deals with is who is American: who has the right to be here. At this point I look at the picture and things seem different to me. That doesn't mean things are going to be edited in terms of the political climate - I really have to take a hard look at this. Not just the violence, I'm talking about the attitude and use of racial swearwords." Scorsese's lavish production, filmed over many months in Italy, features an all-star cast including Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz and Daniel Day-Lewis. 38.WESLEY CRUSHER RETURNS ON TREK X Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION has announced that he's going to appear in the upcoming TREK film. He'll reprise the role of Dr. Beverly Crusher's son, who left the series in mid-run. While taping the STAR TREK cast edition of the NBC game show WEAKEST LINK, Wheaton struck up a conversation with his old co-star LeVar Burton about the movie. He told Wheaton that he would call producer Rick Berman on his behalf. Wheaton's agent called to tell him that Paramount had made him an offer to reprise the Crusher role in STAR TREK: NEMESIS. "We just needed to work out the details," Wheaton announced. "So we spent some time negotiating it, and - get this - Rick Berman told my agent that he was 'very pleased' that I was going to be in the movie!" Wheaton had been under the impression that Berman didn't like him. NEMESIS is slated to begin filming in December. 39.THE LUCAS EMPIRE STRIKES BACK AT PORN PRODUCERS Lucasfilm is suing the producers of a porno version of STAR WARS, alleging that it's too similar to the original. George Lucas' production company filed a federal lawsuit against Media Market Group Ltd., the New York producers of STAR BALLZ claiming copyright and trademark infringement. The suit argues that consumers could be confused into thinking that Lucasfilm sponsored or produced the X-rated movie. Linda Wildblood, a partner at Media Market Group, said that her company's movie is an animation parody. "Just like SCARY MOVIE is a spoof of horror movies, STAR BALLZ parodies many different movies and themes," she said. "No one in their right mind could look at it and say this is STAR WARS." Sorry Ms. Wildblood. Would be litigators have to do many things before they can call themselves "lawyers." Unfortunately, being "in their right mind" isn't on the list. 40.SAMUEL L. JACKSON AND THE COLOR PURPLE George Lucas has made STAR WARS history - by allowing Samuel L. Jackson to have his own personally colored light saber. Jackson plays Mace Windu in ATTACK OF THE CLONES, and, after making a special plea to the Lucas, has secured himself a purple light saber. Jackson explains, "I actually made a request to George, just kind of jokingly. I said, 'Everyone's got these same color light sabers, you think you can make my light saber purple?' "George said, 'No, there's red for the bad guys and blue for the good guys.' So I'm like, 'All right, all right.' Anyway, I got there the next Monday and he's like, 'Guess what?' and he turns on this trailer and I've got a purple light saber! Yeah!" And Jackson's special treatment has created intrigue amongst STAR WARS' massive band of dedicated followers. He laughs, "This has caused a huge furor in the STAR WARS community. Everyone's like, 'What is the meaning of this? Why does he have a purple light?' People are gonna be asking me that now, 'Why do you have a purple light?'" I'd like to think that Jackson's wrong - that with all of the other important things going on in the world that fans won't even notice his purple saber. I'd like to think that . . . but I can't. 41.THE SECRET OF SAMUEL L. JACKSON'S SUCCESS - DON'T BLINK WHEN FAME APPROACHES Samuel L. Jackson puts his scary screen presence down to a childhood love of the 'no-blinking' game. Jackson is noted for his ability to convincingly portray intense characters, which he believes is all down to the fact he doesn't blink - something he learned as a kid. He says, "I have this habit of being able to stare unblinkingly at you until you break. I did this in UNBREAKABLE. It used to amaze M. Night Shyamalan, and he'd go, 'But you didn't blink!' I'm like, 'Did you want me to?' I hadn't thought about it. I guess it's just one of those things that as a kid I was interesting in doing. We used to play that game where the first kid to blink lost. I always won that game!" 42.WE WERE SOLDIERS IS COMPARED TO PRIVATE RYAN Sneak glimpses of Mel Gibson's latest movie have left some viewers in tears. The violent new war movie, WE WERE SOLDIERS, has been likened to SAVING PRIVATE RYAN for its graphic scenes of battle. A viewer revealed, "Everybody compared it to the first 20 minutes of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, although the sequences are throughout the whole movie, defining it as extremely gory. Although the violence is extremely detailed, such as a man's face being burnt, women cried throughout the movie since (director) Randall Wallace keeps showing the families' reaction while their husbands, sons and loved ones are at war." The movie is set in Vietnam, in a place that came to be known as "The Valley of Death." In a small clearing called landing zone X-Ray, 400 young fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, all troopers from an elite American combat division, were surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. The ensuing battle was one of the most savage in U.S. history. The movie is a tribute to the nobility of those men under fire, their common acts of uncommon valor, and their loyalty to and love for one another. It's due for a Summer 2002 release. 43.WELLS TALKS TIME MACHINE Director Simon Wells said that his upcoming film version of THE TIME MACHINE will differ from both the novel by his great-grandfather, H.G. Wells, and the 1960 George Pal film of the same name. "Our version is much more of a personal voyage that has to do with loss and hope," said Wells, who will be making his live-action directing debut after directing animated features such as BALTO and THE PRINCE OF EGYPT. "We've created a story in the beginning to explain the construction of the time machine, which involves our time traveler's [Guy Pearce] loss of his fiancee. She died in a horrible accident, and he's built the machine to try to go back and change this. He fails to do this, and that's part of what drives him to the future. At the end of the day, there's a philosophical oversweeping idea here, which is that any one of us would change our past if we could. We all have things we've done in the past that make us cringe and think, 'Oh God, I wish I could change that.' But we can't. It's by accepting our past and learning from it that we can actually move into our own future. The irony of this is that our hero has built a machine that lets him move through time, but eventually he's stuck at this one place. And the journey he goes on teaches him, in a sense, how to let go of the past and look into his future." THE TIME MACHINE will clock in to theaters in March 2002. 44.MORGAN AND WONG CONTEMPLATE UPDATING WILLARD James Wong, who is producing a remake of the 1971 horror movie WILLARD, (not much of a movie but a great title!) said that the remake will liberally update the original. The film will mark the directoral debut of Wong's longtime writing and producing partner, Glen Morgan. They recently completed THE ONE, with Wong directing. "We're hoping to start when the budget is finalized, in late January," Wong said. "There are actually a lot of ways to update the film. I think the film has a great premise, [but] if you look at it now, it doesn't really hold up as well. . . . There's much to it in terms of even the character, how Willard relates to his mom and his boss and so on (hey, how about how Willard relates to his movie club!). And of course, we have the technology to really make those rats [real]. When you watched the movie before, I think when Ernest Borgnine gets attacked, it looks to be like 25 rats. Now we can really do something, you know, not just in terms of size . . . but we can do something that will be much creepier and scarier." No casting decisions have been made yet, but Wong added that he's considering a cameo for original star Bruce Davison, who made his feature-film debut in WILLARD. "That has not been decided. We haven't really started casting yet. But that certainly is a thought. It's really up to Glen." 45.X MINUS X The next X-FILES movie will not include the TV show's long-running story arc about aliens. Chris Carter is close to signing a deal to make the second feature based on the TV series and intends to star David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in it. It was not clear whether Robert Patrick would be given any role in the film. Carter has said recently that he wanted it to be just a "good scary movie." Chris, I think that's the reason that we fell in love with your show in the first place. 46.THE RETURN OF THE AFGHAN MOVIE FAN The usher carried a rubber whip. The policeman on duty toted a submachine gun. Patrons had to check their knives, brass knuckles and other weapons at the door. And audience members had enough combat experience to criticize the film's climactic shoot-out scene as unrealistic. No, we're not talking about a cinema in downtown Baltimore. These are Afghani movie fans who are beginning to renew their passion for cinema in a post-Taliban world. Hundreds of teenage boys enjoyed an afternoon at the movies in Kabul, something they could not do for the past six years. The object of their curiosity - ELAN: THE ROAD TO WAR, an Indian action movie - was outdated, blurry and damaged. None of them could understand the dialogue. And the smell of the overcrowded theater they fought to enter was revolting. But no one seemed to care. "I've never been before," explained Nasir, a 12-year-old tailor's apprentice who fought his way to the front of the small mob trying to catch the 1 p.m. show. "I'd like to go once to see what happens." In his 12 years, Nasir has lived through an invasion, a civil war and three different governments, but he has never seen a movie. Going to the movies - like watching television, flying kites and listening to music - was forbidden by the Taliban as a superfluous activity that distracted from religious studies. The day after the Taliban seized control of Kabul in September 1996 the cinema was closed down by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Saleh Mahmood, the cinema manager, was arrested by the Taliban's religious police and jailed for three weeks. He and five other theater owners hid their antique projectors and a few films in their homes and other locations. The films his theater now shows are the ones he hid six years ago. The two-hour movie that drew the large crowd told the story of a young man with an uncanny resemblance to Sylvester Stallone in RAMBO who is drawn into a world of gang violence. Balletlike martial-arts fight sequences with crunching punches, crippling kicks and countless shattered windows and tables prompted whistles of delight from the audience. Dozens of conversations in the theater drowned out the movie's sound, but it didn't matter. No one understood the Hindi-language dialogue anyway. Many moviegoers said American action movies with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Arnold Schwarzenegger were more popular, but Mr. Mahmood said he could not afford them. Several young men panned the film's shoot-out scenes. "It wasn't very realistic," said Mohammed Naim, a 25-year-old Kabul mechanic. "We've seen a lot of fighting here. That's not real fighting." "It was the first time I have ever seen a film and I loved it," said Omaid, 17, from Kabul. "But now I would like to see a film about brotherhood and peace in Afghanistan." 47.IMAGINATIVE CINEMA FOR THE MONTH OF DECEMBER DECEMBER 7: OCEAN'S 11 is a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack film starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and plenty of their friends. In the 21st century version of the Rat Pack, the goal with this film is to assemble a cast of A-List stars that would probably not all get to work together in any other way. In the original film, the gang were all WWII veterans who were paratroopers together. In this new version, it appears the various players are just shady characters looking for one big heist. A gangster by the name of Danny Ocean (George Clooney) rounds up a gang of associates to stage heists of three major Las Vegas casino's (Bellagio, The Mirage, and Treasure Island) simultaneously during a popular boxing event. Helping him are Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Casey Affleck, Don Cheadle and Elliott Gould. The movie's directed by Steven Soderbergh (ERIN BROCKOVICH). The screenwriters is Ted Griffin (BEST LAID PLANS, RAVENOUS). DECEMBER 19: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING is one of the most anticipated films in movie history. In this first of three parts, we learn how an ancient Ring, thought lost for centuries, has been found and through a strange twist in fate has been given to a small Hobbit named Frodo (Elijah Wood). When Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen) discovers the Ring is in fact the One Ring of the Dark Lord Sauron (Sala Baker), Frodo must make an epic quest to the Cracks of Doom in order to destroy it! However he does not go alone. He is joined by Gandalf, Legolas the elf (Orlando Bloom), Gimli the Dwarf (John Rhys-Davies), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Boromir (Sean Bean) and his three Hobbit friends Merry (Dominic Monaghan), Pippin (Billy Boyd) and Samwise (Sean Astin). Through mountains, snow, darkness, forests, rivers and plains, facing evil and danger at every corner the Fellowship of the Ring must go. Their quest to destroy the One Ring is the only hope for the end of the Dark Lord's reign! The director is Peter Jackson (HEAVENLY CREATURES, THE FRIGHTENERS). The movie is, of course, based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. The screenplay is by Frances Walsh (HEAVENLY CREATURES, THE FRIGHTENERS), Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson. DECEMBER 21: KATE AND LEOPOLD is one of a small number of films in an odd sub-genre'. It's a time-travelling romantic comedy. A team of scientists has accidentally transported a late 19th century count, Leopold (Hugh Jackman), through time to the future. As they try to figure out how to return him to the past, the ex-girlfriend, Kate (Meg Ryan) of one of the scientists (Liev Schreiber) gives Leopold a tour of New York (no doubt with all of the fish-out-of-water jokes you can imagine), and yes, the time-crossed duo falls in love. The movie's directed by James Mangold (director/co-writer of GIRL, INTERRUPTED and director/writer of COP LAND). The screenplay is by James Mangold and Steven Rogers (HOPE FLOATS, STEPMOM). DECEMBER 25: IMPOSTOR
is about a weapons engineer (Gary Sinise) who invents the ultimate weapon
in a war against aliens. His discovery leads to him being suspected of
being an alien himself. Also in the film are Madeline Stowe and Vincent
D'onofrio. The movie's based on the short story "Impostor," by Phillip
K. Dick (upon whose work the films TOTAL RECALL and BLADE RUNNER were also
based). It's directed by Gary Felder (DON'T SAY A WORD, KISS THE GIRLS,
THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU'RE DEAD). The screenplay adaptation was
by Scott Rosenberg (GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS, HIGH FIDELITY). The screenplay
itself was by Caroline Case (KISS THE GIRLS), Ehren Kruger (SCREAM 3, ARLINGTON
ROAD) and David Twohy (PITCH BLACK, THE ARRIVAL).
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