The Column Without a Name!
November 3, 1998

"It rode out from the desert into a small town, only to have some local goons come gunning from it.  It wouldn't have any of it, and gunned them down before they could even draw their pistols.  It then set up shop in town, awaiting the goons' friends, who were sure to arrive--with a lust for revenge!"

Shot of Old West-esque post office wall: "WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE: THIS COLUMN"

Yeah, so you already know the reward for naming this column could be a whole gaggle of unsold Batman and Robin video tapes, perfect for making rewritable again with a strip of scotch tape.  cleaning up around the kitchen and bathroom. But just a friendly reminder to you folks, we are looking for a new name for this column. Please submit your suggestions to Deadpool directly. If we pick your title, you'll be rewarded. With what?!? Well... we're still not quite sure yet...

Will there be an announcement about "Final Fantasy" on the 5th?

According to one of our scoopers there will be a formal annoucement that the mega-hit SquareSoft video game will make the move to become a movie adapatation. There has been a lot of rumors and talk about a FF movie for over a year now, but according to our source the rumors are about to become reality. Stay tuned to CA for the exclusive when the announcement breaks.

Another brick heard in "The Faculty" opening credits?

Harry Knowles has been raving that the opening scene of The Faculty will be a classic. Even test screening scoopers told us it was an amazing scene. Now comes the word that a certain rock band will be featured on the soundtrack. Who? Why, none other than Aerosmith. Yeah, the same old guys who did the sappy Armageddon soundtrack. But wait - now it really gets interesting. What is the title of the song Aerosmith is doing for The Faculty soundtrack? Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall'.

Hmmm... wouldn't it be cool if that song was heard during this ultra-cool opening scene? Wanna place any bets on that becoming a reality?

Prince of Egypt News

Hummmm... www.princeofegypt.com has opened... and what my verdict about the DreamWorks' web site?

INCREDIBLE... Unbelievable, the coolest movie publicity site ever made. I surfed on it for an hour today. It sent shivers down my spine. This movie will blow our minds. Amazing work by the Dreamworks Online team. I still have goosebumps from that surfing experience.

In other POE News, Wal-Mart and Dreamworks will join force to launch a publicity blitz starting November 24th. "Consumers will be able to purchase a Prince of Egypt Gift Pack containing: a handsomely bound collector's edition storybook, which retells the adventure of  The Prince of Egypt in words and full-color images; a limited edition lithograph depicting the characters in the film; and a collector's edition music CD featuring selections from the three albums released in support of the movie. And as a bonus 2 commemorative tickets to The Prince of Egypt. The tickets are redeemable for adult or child admissions to any theatre showing of movie, marking the first time that retail shoppers will be able to buy advance film tickets that are redeemable at any theatre, any time during the film's run of engagement, subject to the theatre's normal seating capacity. It will be sold at Wal-Mart for $19.96. A four tickets gift pack will sell for $29.99." Interesting publicity strategy for Dreamworks Animation. [Taken from the Dreamworks press release]

Meet Joe Black Review

Here's a nicely detailed review has arrived from one of our female scoopers about Brad Pitt's latest flick. Is it a stinker or a winner? Read what she has to say:

"Interestingly, despite the fact that the passes were given out to anyone who had an amex card or signed up for one, i'd say that 70% of the packed audience was female.  Looks like Universal has been doing their work with the marketing of the movie as a Brad Pitt love-in.  Which it is, i won't deny it - the camera loves him (even if not every one of us girls is smitten by him) and he cuts a striking figure in double-breasted suits and tuxedos.

The first thing you notice about  Meet Joe Black  is that it is smooth. Everything about it: the characters, the camerawork, the score, the golden lighting.  It takes place almost exclusively in quiet, controlled environments limited to the most upper of classes.  People do not speak in clipped sentences.  They draw out their words and phrases into elongated mouth exercises that make the silences in between seem more potent.

Of course, the only reason that smoothness is the first thing you notice is because the length of the movie is the last thing you notice, when you finally get around to waking your ass up as the credits roll - all told, Meet Joe Black runs an unnecessary 174 minutes, an indulgence by director Martin Brest that is largely a mistake.  There are some beautiful scenes in his film, but not enough to justify such a time investment.  Meet Joe Black is in no way the epic Saving Private Ryan or even the more flawed Beloved, and it has no business lasting beyond 2:20.  While the pull of Brad Pitt is strong, the length will (i hope - somebody has to put the fear of the dollar into the studios because this ever-increasing length trend is annoying) do some damage to MJB's box office.

The movie itself, ignoring length, is not at all bad.  in fact, it's quite good.  It's not the inspired work of  Scent of a Woman (but then, Pitt isn't even half the actor that Al Pacino is), but as a date flick it performs admirably.  The title is more oblique than that of the film this is a remake of, Death Takes a Holiday; Meet Joe Black , though, is the basis of the film.  Who is this mystery man, everybody wants to know?  Joe is revealed as every american's worst nightmare at the film's amusing penultimate scene.

MJB is by turns amusing and somber, volleying back and forth between the humor of Joe's wide-eyed, child-like experience of the corporeal world, where everything is simply "splendid" or "excellent" or "delicious", no more, no less, and the implications of his presence on earth.  He is here but a short time to experience life with Bill Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) by his side; at the end of his vacation, Joe will go back to wherever it is he comes from, and he'll take Bill with him. Complications arise when the relationship between Joe and Bill's daughter, Susan (Claire Forlani), blossoms into a love that has a vise-like grip on both of them.

The acting is fine.  Anthony Hopkins is the best of the bunch (surprise, surprise) as the only person who knows Joe's true identity, and it just eats away at him.  His eyes flash and his temper simmers just below the surface as he attempts to enjoy his last day's of life.  Forlani and Pitt are a matched pair, emoting and speaking similarly measure for measure. Forlani's susan is more emotional than her male counterpart but still restrained; i haven't yet figured out if pitt's performance is understated or just bland.  Joe is so quiet, so unassuming and subdued, that he sometimes lacks emotion altogether.  A stylistic choice of characterization, yes, but it becomes frustrating for both the viewer and the other characters to deal with this tight-lipped, somewhat self-absorbed (a man is seat-grippingly killed at the beginning of the movie because Joe "needed a body") fellow.

Meet Joe Black is far from perfect.  The music swells too much in touchy places and it goes on for too long without justifying the extra minutes, eating them up instead in long pauses that attempt at profundity but succeed only in showcasing Pitt's glamorously blonde head from various angles of adoration.  But it's good enough to warrant seeing and enjoying, especially if you like that sort of thing.

3 out of 4 stars."

[Our review has been provided by 'Oopsie', who can be seen in the soon to be coming video release of The Polish Wedding.]

Two spoofs for the price of one...

Teen slashers... been there, done that... well not quite. What's the latest trend? Spoofing them, it seems. Take a look at two recently-announced projects that got put on the fast track last week:

Scream If You Know What I Did Last Summer

Dimension Films (yes the same company who brought you the post-modern grandma of teen slasher flicks, Scream) has bought a spec script by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (Spy Hard). Pre-production is said to begin soon for a early '99 start.

Scream If You Know What I Did Last Halloween

Produced by Steve Nemeth (Fear and Loathing in Las-Vegas), this one's scheduled to begin shooting come December. Not much is know about it other than it is financed by Kushner-Locke, the same production company behind the upcoming Jerry Springer movie Ringmaster.

My thoughts on this... come on people... can we have a little more originality??? None of these two will make any money at the box-office, anyway.

Coming Soon

And now a sneak peek at some upcoming subjects that will be tackled in this beautiful column: a review of the Austin Powers 2 script, the trailers of the winter round-up, a Prince of Egypt soundtrack review and upcoming reviews of limited release films like American History X and Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful.

Help! I'm in need of some reading material...

I'm looking for a few good scripts to read and review in my column. They could be spec scripts or scripts for movies already in development, or scripts written by old, established writers or scripts penned by fresh faces looking for that big break. And I'm here to tell the world about them. If you've got a screenplay that you want me to read, email me and let's talk.
 

Stay Tuned...

That's All Folks...

Jean-François Allaire (aka 'Deadpool')
deadpool@colba.net
Contributing Content Writer
Coming Attractions


Jean-François Allaire is a 19 year old aspiring writer. Surfing the internet by night and stalking the streets of Montreal by day, he's always on the prowl for news from the set. J-F is a major contributor to Coming Attractions, always pushing himself to look for that story that needs to be told. If you work behind the scenes on a film production and you're just another name in the credits (or no credit given), and you feel that nobody cares, well guess again... Feel free to send him your funny, strange, and heart-warming set stories. Hell... he may even interview you!

Previous issues of Deadpool's column are also available.

 



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