Thursday, November 19, 2009 11:48 AM | From MovieJungle
Patrick Swayze, star of memorable films such as "Dirty Dancing" and "Ghost," died on Monday after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Despite revealing in March last year that he had pancreatic cancer, he continued his work on the A&E series "Beast."
His first strong role came in the form of 1983's Francis Ford Coppola film "The Outsiders" where he starred with C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise and Diane Lane.
He later went on to star create big fan base with films like "Road House" and "Point Break."
He is survived by his wife Lisa Niemi, brother Don who is also an actor and his mother.
You'll be sorely missed Patrick.
Stars and Couples Retreat to the Red Carpet For LA Premiere
The stars of Couples Retreat descended on the red carpet in LA last night to promote the ensemble comedy. Kristen Bell and Malin Akerman showed off their legs in short and sweet dresses, but the ladies were minus one since Kristin Davis is back east working on SATC2. It wasn't all about the women, however, as Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn hammed it up for the cameras. Dax Shepard was there to support his girlfriend Kristen and the group all laughed it up during the afterparty. If their friendly demeanor offscreen is any indication, we're in for a hilarious ride when the film hits theaters on Friday.
Images include: Kristen Bell, Vince Vaughn, Dax Shepard, Malin Akerman, Heavy D, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman, Jonna Walsh, Erika Christensen, Helen Mirren, Jean Reno, Kali Hawk, Ralph Macchio, Robert Duvall, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Faizon Love, Dana Fox, Carlos Ponce
He’s seemingly been attached for ages, but as the film gets underway, Jackie Chan has been officially announced as starring in Kung-Fu Kid.
He’ll play a wise kung-fu master who tutors young Jaden Smith (last seen in The Day The Earth Stood Still, below) in the ways of China’s most famous martial arts.
What started as a basic remake of The Karate Kid – with Jaden Smith in the Ralph Macchio role and Chan taking over from Pat Morita’s Mr Miyagi – has now mutated into a China-set kung-fu version. Harald Zwart, who brought the world One Night At McCool’s and, much more offensively, The Pink Panther 2, attended a ceremony with his cast to mark the start of the planned three-month shoot.
We’d reveal more about what went on at the event in Beijing, but you’d end up clawing your own eyes out in sheer boredom.
Just so you know, I'm going to rag on this remake every single time I have to write about it. Hollywood deciding it would be a great idea to feed the enormous egos of the Smith family by remaking the classic Karate Kid just boils my blood. Not to mention Jackie Chan going down that same long shameful road by actually starring in it.The trades has news that there's a new writer on board for the remake. Not that it matters who they get, because the film is going to suck:It looks like the Karate Kid will get a dose of Happyness.Columbia has brought on Steven Conrad, who penned 2006’s “The Pursuit of Happyness,” to work on the studio’s reboot of the 1980s film.The studio has also signed Oscar nominee Taraji P. Henson to play the mother in the pic. Henson said on the red carpet at the recent MTV Movie Awards that she was soon off to work on the film, but this marks the first time the studio has confirmed the news.Relative newcomer Chris Murphy was originally hired to write the script of the reboot. Conrad has a relationship with two of “Karate’s” producers, James Lassiter and Will Smith, via “Happyness,” which the pair’s Overbrook Entertainment produced and in which Smith starred.
The CAA-repped screenwriter also penned the Nicolas Cage family tale “The Weather Man” and is attached to write the Scott Rudin-produced drama “Aloft” and the celebrity look-alike dramedy “Chad Schmidt,” the latter also with Sony.Production will begin next month on the new “Karate,” which Harald Zwart is directing. Jaden Smith occupies the role played by Ralph Macchio in the 1984 film, while Jackie Chan takes on the Pat Mortia part.The pic moves from Japanese themes and a California setting to Beijing where, according to reports, Smith’s character has just moved with his single mother and finds himself the target of bullies before turning to Chan’s character as a mentor.
Last time I checked, Karate was a Japanese martial art, not a Chinese one. Will they rename it The Kung-Fu Kid? It'll never happen. They have to rely on the name Karate Kid to sell any tickets. A bummer because this monstrosity of a remake is going to stain the name of the Macchio/Morita film for forever. Am I being a bit immature and petty over a story I don't even know will be any good? Yes. Yes, I am. Get him a body bag, yeah!!!
Source: The Trades
Jaden Smith for "Karate Kid" remake.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009 6:59 PM | From MovieJungle
Will Smith's youngest son Jaden Smith will star in the reincarnation of the 1984 film "The Karate Kid."
The original film starred Ralph Macchio as Daniel Larusso, a new kid in a school who, after being humiliated by the karate jock, turns to learning the art under the guidance of martial arts master Mr. Miyage (the late Pat Morita). With his romantic interest Ali Mills (previously played by Elisabeth Shue) as support, he takes on the Cobra Kai dojo in a tournament to win back his pride and move to becoming a young man in the process.
Jerry Weintraub, starter of the original franchise, will produce alongside Will Smith, James Lassiter and Ken Stovitz of Overbrook Entertainment. Script is being penned by Chris Murphy and filming it set to start next yer in Beijing with China Film Group Corp co-producing in China.
The film is a cult favorite and one of the most revered films of the 80s. This was a long time coming. Macchio starred in the second film then exited to make way for double-Academy Award winner Hilary Swank to star in "The Next Karate Kid."
The Movie Jungle New In-Towners Feature
Wednesday, June 3, 2009 6:58 PM | From MovieJungle
To mark the release of Lionsgate's comedy "New in Town," we've thrown together a list of actors and actresses we remember best as new folks in town
Renee Zellweger in New In Town
Ambition can kick you in the butt when you least expect it. Such is a tale about Lucy Hill, an ambitious Miami-based executive who's used to all the spoils of modern-day-life. When the company needs to reorganize, she proudly says I can do it to a job in Minnesota and winds up biting off more than she can chew with the bone-chilling cold.
Still, after being introduced to Ted Mitchell (Harry Connick Jr.), an unexpected romancemay just blossom if she can just survive long enough.
Michael J. Fox Doc Hollywood
En route to LA to take up a great position as a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, Dr. Ben Stone (Fox) winds up crashing through a fence in the small town of Grady and doing community service whilst the cars being fixed. Small towns have a way of bringing out the best in you and so does a sexy looking doctor called Lou (Julie Warner). In time, the Doc ends up falling in love with his new way of life and the towns warm inhabitants.
Still fun to watch today as are most of Foxs classics.
Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid
We had to get this one in here as its one of the most memorable new-in-towners around. Macchio starred as Daniel Larusso, a kid who moves to California from New Jersey. Hes in for more than he bargained for when he falls for the Ali (Elisabeth shue), former love of the schools bad boy karate buff Johnny (William Zabka). After getting the life beaten out of him, he takes karate lessons from Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), a teacher with methods he at first doesnt understand. Following a training regime including waxing floors, painting fences and attacking waves, he enters a tournament and gets his chance at some payback.
Should be interesting to see the new adaptation starring Will Smiths son Jaden, but this should never be remade. Another shifty decision by Sony?
Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise in Far and Away
Nicole Kidman is Shannon, a spoiled brat from a wealthy Irish Kristie family who dreams of something more. Joseph Donnelly (Tom Cruise) is out for payback after the Christies tax hungry henchman Stephen Chase (Thomas Gibson) burns down the family home. When Josephs assassination of attempt on Shannons father Daniel (Robert Prosky) goes bad when his rusty rifle backfires, hes left with facing off against Chase in a pistol match. Shannon rides in and snatches away Joseph as her servant boy and whisks him off to America. Here, the duo find themselves in the roughest of neighborhoods, literally fighting for their lives and falling in love. A wonderful journey.
Kevin Bacon in Footloose
Probably the ultimate new kid in town film. Beloved by teens of the eighties, Footloose is a story of Ren McCormach (Bacon), a city kid in a small town where the pure love of rock music and expression in dance are a forbidden fruit and cursed by Reverend Shaw Moore (John Lithgow).
Ren sparks a romance with Moores troubled daughter Ariel (Lori Singer) and an upcoming prom brings out the core of the story with the youngster lifting the sleepy town back on its feet.
Karate Kid Remake Keeping Title, Taking Jaden Smith to China
When Will Smith announced that his production company would be remaking “The Karate Kid,” he set off waves of speculation about how drastically he would break from Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita’s original story.
Macchio went on record, saying that recreating the figure of Mr. Miyagi with Jackie Chan, let alone the rest of the [...]
Karate Kid Remake Plot Details Revealed
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 10:42 AM | From Screen Rant
Just one of the many remakes in the works is of the classic 1980’s movie The Karate Kid, reportedly renamed the Kung Fu Kid (urgh….). Will Smith’s son Jaden has already been announced as playing this version’s Daniel (played in the original by Ralph Macchio), and Jackie Chan will be playing the remake’s Mr. Myagi (seriously…).
So what [...]
Dragonball Evolution Review
Saturday, April 11, 2009 11:56 PM | From Film Junk
Dragonball Evolution
Directed by: James Wong
Written by: Ben Ramsey
Starring: Justin Chatwin, Chow Yun-Fat, Emmy Rossum, Jamie Chung, James Marsters, Randall Duk Kim, Joon Park, Ernie Hudson
Asian culture has had a massive influence on North America over the past decade and a half, to the point where nearly every popular children's animated series is now either being imported from Japan or created in the same art style, virtually every horror movie is required to have creepy children in it, and the majority of action movies made since The Matrix has tried to emulate the same slick martial arts choreography. Now the latest trend in Hollywood has producers trying to repackage some of the biggest Japanese animated series as live action films, and it seems only appropriate that Dragonball is one of the first to find its way to the big screen.
Based on the manga by Akira Toriyama, Dragonball mixes martial arts, Chinese mythology and science-fiction to create an addictive soap opera of epic proportions. While the show never became truly mainstream here in North America, it was certainly popular enough to receive a big budget feature film adaptation. The thing is, it probably should have happened a lot sooner, because Dragonball was at the height of its popularity back in the late '90s. It also probably shouldn't have come from a Hollywood studio because they clearly do not have a firm grasp on the source material. The end result is something that is only going to anger fans while completely baffling the uninitiated.
Justin Chatwin stars as Goku, a socially awkward high school student who is being trained as a martial artist by his grandfather (Randall Duk Kim) and told strange stories of aliens who tried to destroy the world 2000 years ago. On his 18th birthday, his grandfather gives him an ancient artifact known as a Dragonball and asks him to keep it safe. Little does he know that the evil Lord Piccolo, who was imprisoned 2000 years ago, has escaped and is now trying to recover all seven Dragonballs in order to grant him the wish of a magical dragon. When Goku returns home from a party one night he finds his house destroyed and his grandfather dying. He must seek the help of a Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat), and collect the Dragonballs using a tracking device invented by his new acquaintance Bulma (Emmy Rossum).
For the most part, Dragonball Evolution is a blur of stale CGI, terrible art design, and painful dialogue. More importantly, it has absolutely no relation to the Dragonball that I'm familiar with. The fact that they chose to give it the hip and meaningless subtitle "Evolution" (because, you know, it sounds cool) speaks volumes about this film.
Their first mistake was setting the movie in something resembling the real world. I guess they wanted to hook viewers with a universal high school story shaping Goku as a nerd who is picked on by bullies and has a crush on a girl who is out of his league. Unfortunately this has been done so many times before that it feels awfully cliched, and to make matters worse, Goku gets revenge on the bullies within the first ten or fifteen minutes, rendering his entire character arc obsolete. Justin Chatwin's acting is so wooden that all of these early scenes are painful to watch, and he also has an arrogance about him that makes him completely unlikeable. They really needed to cast someone like Shia LaBeouf, Tobey Maguire or heck even Ralph Macchio if they had any hope of working that angle.
Fortunately, high school is left behind pretty quickly... unfortunately, the movie goes on to become an incoherent mess. I'll be the first to admit that Dragonball is a pretty silly concept on paper, but it certainly deserved better treatment than this. Even with a nonsensical plot, they still could have maintained the spirit of Dragonball if they had captured the long build-ups and the grand scale of the fights. Instead we are lead from one random CG backdrop to another, stopping for a quick, uninspired fight at each step of the way.
If only the movie could have offered up a few decent action sequences, all may have been forgiven. Director James Wong previously did the 2001 Matrix knockoff The One starring Jet Li, but the action in Dragonball Evolution doesn't even measure up to that. All of the fights are either short choreographed sequences of punches and kicks delivered by actors who are simply going through the motions, or uninteresting gun fights. The fact that the movie is rated PG (not even PG-13!) tells you just how tame the action really is.
As for the final battle, which should have been absolutely epic, it ends up being mired in a cloud of lazy digital effects. It was initially believed that the budget for the movie was $100 million, but recent reports put it closer to the $45 million range, a figure that doesn't really surprise me. Everything looks and feels cheap, from Piccolo's ridiculous green make-up to the sparse sets and digital environments. It's too bad that Stephen Chow couldn't contribute more in his producer role, since his own movie Kung Fu Hustle is one of the few things that made me think Dragonball could actually work as a live action flick.
In the end, it comes as no surprise that Dragonball Evolution is a terrible movie. It seems like Fox has been trying to hide it from the public for so long now, and the lack of marketing only proves that they had no confidence in it whatsoever. The foreign market is probably what they are most interested in, since they released it overseas a full month earlier than North America. However, this movie is so ill-conceived and so far removed from the source material that I can't see anyone being satisfied, least of all the original audience for the manga and anime. It's absolutely dreadful. -- Sean
Poll: Does Jaden Smith, "Kung Fu Kid" Sound Better?
From the get-go, the new Karate Kid film was going to be different. Ralph Macchio was traded in for Jaden Smith. Then Mr. Miyagi was traded in for Jackie Chan, thrusting the project into a more kung fu state of mind. And now, well, it sounds like Columbia Pictures is listening.
According to an interview with 3 News (toward the end of the interview), the film is no longer called Karate Kid -- Chan says it's now Kung Fu Kid. I'm thinking they should've decided this from the get-go and saved us all some energy. While the idea still doesn't appeal to me, it's a lot more palatable to say that you're taking the basic idea and going in a totally different direction, rather than throw fans of Daniel Larusso and Mr. Miyagi into aggravated hissy fits. Then again, there's a good possibility that this only came about because the legions seemed quite unthrilled with the news (even if it's insanely obvious to most of us that no one can replace Mr. Miyagi).
But there you have it -- the themes will be the same, but it won't be anything like the film we remember, and presumably, it won't step on the toes of the classic that many love.
