A once influential theatrical artist with a flair for surreal provocation and a madcap sense of humor makes some questionable decisions and winds up in a world where, at least for the moment, no one much cares for his stories. Doe this remind us of anyone we know?

Well, ex-Monty Python animator and trouble-plagued big budget cult movie director Terry Gilliam has made no secret of the autobiographical nature of “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.” Between that, the tragic death of Heath Ledger midway through filming, and the numerous references to the grim reaper that fill this dark and occasionally comic fantasy, it’s kind of impossible not to think about the grim real world conditions of its making; not only did the production lose its star in the most painful way possible partway through filming, but producer William Vince also passed on from cancer during post-production, while Gilliam himself suffered serious injuries after being hit by a car. The writer-director emphasizes that the screenplay for “Parnassus” was not significantly rewritten after Ledger’s death, but in view of this strangely disjointed film, that brings up a lot more questions than it answers.

READ THE REST AT BULLZ-EYE.COM

It’s well past the Comic-Con related time to plug my the work of my cartoonist pal, Randy Reynaldo, and the fact that he (and sometimes I) may be found at booth S14 in the con’s least populated area, the legendary Small Press Pavilion (really just a section). Come, take a break from the crowds and check out a great comic. Tell ‘em Bob at FtY sent you.

I do this every year and, so far, no one has shown up at the booth fessing up to being an FtY reader at the con. Hope springs eternal.

* First, I’d like to start by officially introducing the latest addition to the blogroll. More a Legend Than a Blog is emitted by the fertile mind of my good friend, film lover and music-maven CZR, who is actually the only other person to have ever blogged here other than yours truly (under a different name). His site is a treat and he deserves a heartily warm welcome to the cinephile (and music) blogosphere.

CZR’s latest takes on the “Ten Characters” meme, which I’m still tardy on myself. (Brian Doan tagged me some time ago, but I only noticed he had done so about a month after the fact!)

* Over the weekend, a couple of posts by me appeared over at Premium Hollywood regarding weekend box-office, etc. There will be more of this to come in the near future, and that may cut into my blogging here to some degree. I’m definitely planning to preserve this spot as a place for more personal and/or esoteric musings and I’ll look into a way to connect my work at both places somehow, but posts here may become even more sporadic. We shall see.

* And, in other, other news, A veritable geek storm has erupted over an item at the Hollywood Reporter reporting a Star Trek and Twilight inspired reboot, or something, of the Buffy, the Vampire Slayer franchise, only without Buffy creator Joss Whedon, sans Buffy’s erstwhile “scooby” friends (no Willow!!!! Aaaagh!!!!!!), and, if I read it right, without Buffy.

A bit of backstory: Fran Rubel Kuzui, director of the original, pleasantly mediocre, movie version of the franchise once upon a time fashioned a perfectly respectable, pleasantly lightweight autobiographical indie romantic comedy, Tokyo Pop (or that’s how I remember it…I haven’t seen it since it’s 1988 release, when I was but a highly precocious toddler). In typical Hollywood fashion, on her second (and, so far, final) feature as a director, most accounts hold that Rubel and company seriously refashioned Whedon’s original screenplay from a serio-comic actioner to an out and out teen comedy with random changes made to the screenplay from a number of sources, including, according to Whedon, co-star Donald Sutherland (who you will never see in any other Whedon project, it’s safe to say).

Since then, Rubel Kazui has held on to some of the rights, and fans of the Buffy TV show saw her name at the front of every episode…and almost nothing else about her existence that I know of. It’s safe to assume that she had zero input on the television show and received the credit as part of her compensation for the rights. Now, as most of you probably know, a major plot thread of the TV show was Buffy’s trouble-plagued romance with a (mostly) good guy vampire named Angel, setting the hearts of fans of Sarah Michelle Geller and David Boreanaz seriously aflutter. Hence, the Twilight connection — though lips that touched blood never touched those belonging to movie-Buffy Kristy Swanson.

So, with those Trek and Twilight grosses pointing the way, Kuzui and Vertigo Entertainment, which usually specializes in remaking Asian films for the American market, is trying to restart the franchise, apparently using a loophole from the original concept of there being a new slayer in every generation. As a fan of the show, trust me when I say this is nowhere near as clever as the loophole J.J. Abrams and company came up with to stay on (most) Trekkies’ good sides. Overall, this idea strikes me as if the Coca-Cola company had put out New Coke as a non-carbonated non-cola. Buffy without Buffy Summers, and the Whedonverse, without Whedon = box office gold?!? Nah.

Assuming it ever happens, of course. Whedon is an extremely savvy third-generation show biz writer who has already pulled off the unheard of feats of retrieving a lost screenplay concept and remaking it as his own TV show, and then turning another quickly-canceled television show into a major, if not immediately profitable, Hollywood film (Serenity). He is usually protective of his properties, to the extent that he has any control. I’m guessing that this one is almost certain to generate very interesting behind-the-scenes maneuvers.

As always, on Whedon-related matters Whedonesque is very much on top of the story.

UPDATE: Michael Ausiello has managed to elicit a four word response from Joss Whedon, whose currently working on his horror film collaboration with Drew Goddard, “The Cabin in the Woods.” Those four words are:

I hope it’s cool.

H/t Whedonesque.

UPDATE, the second: The aforementioned Brian and CZR each have some worthwhile thoughts on Buffy-less Buffy, or whatever it is.

I haven’t posted anything about Joss Whedon’s sci-fi look at “consensual slavery” since March, but I just want to quickly mention that, whatever the show’s flaws, the last two episodes have been overall pretty terrific and hopes are high for a sharp season finale. Because of very low ratings — ameliorated to an unknown extent by good  DVR numbers — it may well also turn out to be a series finale…sort of.

(One episode, done on the cheap, appears to be a basically a DVD-only deal at this point. There’s no reason to fear that the season will end on a cliffhanger, however. Whedon’s done at least one season finale I can remember — the borderline Bunuelian dream episode, “Restless” from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer – that was really a coda to the season’s main story and a very cryptic hint of things to come. I’m guessing the 13th episode, wherever it ultimately lands, will be in somewhat the same spirit.)

Whedon has brought out his writing big guns for the final three shows of the season/run, including his brother Jed and wife Maurissa Tancharoen, who appear to have been crucial to Whedon’s very successful web experiment, Dr. Horrible, and veteran TV writer and dormant writing blogger, Jane Espenson, most recently of Battlestar Gallatica but a deservedly well-known star in, you should pardon the expression, the Whedonverse. (She also wrote a hilarious episode of Andy Barker, P.I.)

The first episode of the final three was an increasingly clever and poignant stand-alone murder mystery in which the Dollhouse’s manager (Olivia Williams of Rushmore) uses the dollhouse technology to resurrect a friend who wanted to solve her own death. The unlikely premise worked despite the pretty apparent reality that Eliza Dushku just doesn’t yet have the acting tools available to play the kind of jaded, sharp-tongued upper-crust quasi-Anglo socialite the episode called for. The following episode resumed the show’s main arch, and we’ll leave it at that. (Plentiful spoilers are available just about anywhere else you turn, however.)

I will get a bit spoilery, though, and mention that another smart move was the all-too-literal mothballing of the obnoxious security chief played by Reed Diamond, of Homicide: Life on the Street. However, in one of the funniest moments of the entire (not terribly funny) series, he was impersonated to perfection by the doll, Victor, when some information was needed. Vowel-challenged actor Enver Gjokaj — oh, for the days when actors changed their names if they were even slightly hard to pronounce — has emerged as the show’s best acting surprise.

Speaking of acting, while star/producer Dushku can be very moving and effective, but has been a sore disappointment when called on to plays roles far outside her usual range, fellow fem-doll Dichen Lachman, who has numerous fans, has left me wondering what the fuss is about. However, Olivia Williams has been doing a great job finding her inner George Sanders, and Harry Lennix as the apparently well-intentioned ex-cop, Boyd, only gets more interesting in a potentially colorless role.  Also, the initially annoying Fran Kranz, who is scheduled to turn up in the horror film Whedon cowrote, The Cabin in the Woods is steadily improving as the resident head geek, an increasingly interesting, highly amoral, variation on past Whedon characters. It probably helps that he hasn’t had to call Boyd “manfriend” any time recently.

When Dollhouse first started and on through several episode, I was starting to even forget why it was I enjoyed Whedon’s shows to an absurd degree. I’m starting to be reminded.

If you want to catch up on past Dollhouse episodes, the last five (unfortunately not including the semi-reboot, “Man on the Street”) are still available via Hulu.

****

And for those who think they see a sexist subtext in Dollhouse despite, or perhaps because of, Joss Whedon’s well known feminist bonafides, here’s some actual text from John Hyatt, just pre-Slow Turning, on a similar theme, who I’m sure didn’t mean it quite the way it sounds to me today….

When it came to TV and movies, her material was often not nearly as strong as her talents, but Beatrice Arthur, who according to the AP died today of cancer, was the kind of performer who never let anything stand in her way.  Certainly, as Maude she made TV history and brought to the screen the kind of outspoken, and charismatic woman who is beyond strong and very much a fact of daily life, particularly if you belong to any of a number of ethnic groups.

Whether it was delivering the often, at least by modern TV standards, rather contrived sitcom dialogue both on Maude and even more so on her longest running sitcom, Golden Girls,  holding her own, or even emerging triumphant during such notorious musical comedy fiascos as the ill-conceived film version of Mame (which I haven’t had the guts to see in decades) and the really ill-conceived and now legendary Star Wars Christmas Special – in which she is, actually, kind of marvelous — she was as reliable a performer as they ever come. If there was a moment to be found in material, she would find it.

Indeed, artistically she seems to have had better luck on the stage and in early television. It’s not generally known that her “big break” was as Lucy Brown in Marc Blitzstein’s groundbreaking 1954 off-Broadway version of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil’s masterpiece, Threepenny Opera, a production that first brought original Pirate Jenny Lotte Lenya to the United States and also featured Jerry Orbach, Ed Asner, and Jerry Stiller. Clearly, the production had a great impact on Ms. Arthur, and she reportedly said that “Sid Caesar taught me the outrageous; Lee Strasberg taught me what I call reality; and Lotte Lenya, whom I adored, taught me economy.”

Anyhow, the sad news of Ms. Arthur’s  passing has really only just gotten out (I heard about it just before writing this via Pasadena public radio station KPPC), but I don’t think it too early for a sampling of how one woman could be a part of history, turn mediocre (or worse) material into a kind of poetry, and generally just be an entertainment immortal based on, among other things the outrageous, reality, and economy.

We’ll start with a moment where Bea Arthur and Maude Findlay collided with American history.

More videos, including musical highlights, after the flip…

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Up to now, I’ve been a no-show at the several cinephile exams that have been hosted over the last couple of years at Dennis Cozzalio’s legendarily brainy film geek blog, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. Well, before splitting for a hard-earned vacation, Dennis has posted a new exam on film-related matters, up in honor of the cartoon dog genius, Prof. Peabody, which you’re all encouraged to take.

I’ve posted my responses in the comment thread over there already, but now that I’m a SLIFR slacker no more, I thought I’d make ‘em do double duty here because we know that my opinions matter, or something.

Here goes….

1) Favorite Biopic

“Lawrence of Arabia” – an obviously great film and a rather pedestrian choice given that I really like biopics, sometimes the cheesier and and more ridiculously fabricated the better. Therefore, quasi-demi-honorable mention is alluded this triumvirate of absurdly wrong biopics – “The Jolson Story” (it’s amazing how much Al Jolson’s life was just like the plot of “The Jazz Singer”!), “They Died With Their Boots On” (the love affair between Custer and the Indians your socialist history teacher doesn’t want you to see!) and “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” (he didn’t just appear in action movies…he lived them!).

2) Dyan Cannon or Tuesday Weld?

It’s close, but I give it to Dyan Cannon for being hilarious onscreen and genuinely wacky offscreen.

3) Best example of science fiction futurism rendered silly by the event of time catching up to the prediction

The Jetson’s treadmill? I’m drawing a blank here.

4) Annette Funicello & Frankie Avalon or Troy Donahue & Sandra Dee?

Frankie & Annette – I grew up watching those movies on channels 5 & 9 (I think) out here up to age 10 or so. Not that those movies are in any sense “good” (I wonder if I could sit through any of them now?), but F&A at least have a certain amount of charm and sense of humor, which I really can’t say about Troy Donahue, at least.

5) Favorite Raoul Walsh movie?

Not really “White Heat,” and no, definitely not “They Died with Their Boots On”… The winner is “The Roaring Twenties” – by far. Just a magnificent entertainment. I need to see that one again some time soon.

6) Sophomore film which represents greatest improvement over the director’s debut

This is tough, but I guess I’m going to say Polanski’s “Repulsion” as it’s brilliant and “Knife in the Water” left me feeling merely 90 minutes older after it was done. Though, that was in college and I might have a very different reaction now. (Another possibility is “Rushmore” – though I loved “Bottle Rocket” quite a bit, so it’s dicey.)

7) Ice Cube or Mos Def?

Mos Def – because he convinced me he was actually English in “Hithchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

Favorite movie about the music industry.

Many, many fun movies in this category, but I guess I’m going to have to go with “Nashville.”

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I hate to write this one. Andy Hallett passed on yesterday at age 33 after a long struggle with heart disease. He was known to fans of Angel originally as the suavely lovable demon karaoke singer/nightclub owner, psychic, and occasional stoolie originally known as “the Host,” and later revealed to be Lorne, aka Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan. He eventually became a full regular cast member on the show and, as Brian Doan says in his terrific remembrance, it’s conscience with a camp sense of humor.

Lorne, whose show-biz sensibilities were somewhere in between Scott Thompson of  “The Kids in the Hall” and a more benign George Sanders, was definitely one of the most popular supporting characters of Angel, a darker, sometimes noirish, spin-off of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer that, while sometimes highly uneven, occasionally threatened to become more interesting than the show which spawned it. He certainly got many of the funniest lines, but delivered them with a kind of ageless melancholy and was no simple comic relief demon.

During the show’s intriguing final season, creator Joss Whedon took him to some very dark places, particularly in  “Not Fade Away,” the brilliant final episode, and Hallett went to those places with an apparent ease that belied the fact that Lorne had been his first role. How sad that, as an actor, it turned out to be his one of just a very few.

Still, he is extremely well remembered by his coworkers and fans who, over the years, have had nothing but nice things to say about him personally, as well as making his character one of the most beloved in the “Buffyverse.” Note the literally hundreds of sincerely sad remarks on the thread announcing his death on the fan blog, Whedonesque.

Joe Reid of NPR has more.

UPDATE: Angel executive producer Tim Minear has a very nice video tribute up to Lorne/Andy Hallett featuring many of his highlights from the series over at Facebook.

When it’s come up with friends, I’ve been mostly noncommittal about Joss  Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse — and I’ve barely mentioned it here since my first post about it back before Valentine’s Day. That was mainly because I was sincerely unsure about it; I don’t think I liked the early episodes all that much more than most people. Though it’s always held my attention and has improved a bit from week to week, it’s not like it still doesn’t have the capacity to drift off into the kind of nothingness that even the most brilliant TV creators are not immune from. (If anyone out there watched as much of David Milch’s Deadwood follow-up, John from Cincinnati, as I did, they know what I’m talking about.)

Clearly, however, the show has become more focused and, while it will never be a laugh fest (and it really shouldn’t be, considering the topic), it’s become less somber, more freewheeling, and found moments of apt humor. It’s also started to hint at some very interesting ideas. And the early buzz on the episode screening tomorrow night (Friday, 3/20) and guest starring FtY favorite (and Rattouille lead voice), actor/stand-up comic Patton Oswalt, seems to be justifying that fact that Whedon himself has been talking up this episode and the one after to anyone who’ll listen as in some sense the actual beginning of the show.

Such deliberate hyping raises the possibility of big disappointment, but based on the dramatically improved last two episodes — and it may not be a coincidence that the ratings rebounded some last week — I’m ready to suggest that folks reading here maybe consider tuning in and checking out tomorrow night’s episode and seeing what’s what.

And, now, two minor complaints with the show for anyone reading this who is already watching the show.

1. Is there any way we can tell the writers to stop having techie/creative putative genius Topher (Fran Kranz) addressing ex-cop Boyd (Harry Lennix) as “man friend”? It’s just wrong.

2. This is very inside Whedonism, but the set outside Ballard’s (Tahmoh Penniket’s) apartment looks to me  as if it’s been recycled from a set used in the pivotal Angel “Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been?” Anyone else spot that?

UPDATE: Well, now I’ve seen “Man on the Street” and while I won’t go to the lengths of pure “squee” being emitted by most online Whedon fans and some critics — I have some plot quibbles and some long range concerns about the new direction this spins the show in — it’s certainly a very solid hour of television that shows Whedon melding most of the best of his old style blend of humor and tragedy into a darker, but also slicker and sexier, world.

Without delving into big spoilers, the acting was also the best we’ve seen in the series so far with Patton Oswalt thoroughly exceeding my already high expectations in a part that definitely stretches his usual geek-boy roles. Olivia Williams, whose been a high point of each episode so far, is even more so here.

And, star Eliza Dushku — who actually has relatively little screen time this episode — actually does show actory stetching beyond her usual good-bad-tough-girl stereotype and gets one of the funniest lines (repeated twice for effect), to boot. Even Reed Diamond’s noxious security honcho has some of near humanity, as does that “handler” with the odd resemblance to Huey Lewis and other seemingly minor characters as Miracle Laurie’s good-hearted woman-next-door shine as well. This thing just may work.

The episode — which went down slightly in the ratings after a slight rebound a week or two back, probably because it aired opposite no less a geek cultural event than the series finale of Battlestar Gallatica — is currently viewable for free via both Hulu and Fox On Demand. All in all, I’d say it’s a good time to check to show out.

H/t, as always for this sort of thing, to Whedonesque.

Robert Benton has seen more than one cinematic revolution in his time. He and his late screenwriting partner, David Newman, were major players in two films that forever changed movies: 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde,” which brought European New Wave aesthetics into mainstream American cinema and permanently altered the portrayal of violence in American pop-culture, and 1978’s “Superman,” which created the big-budget superhero flick and convinced the world Christopher Reeve could fly. But as the writer and director of a little movie without violence, groundbreaking special effects, or even a whole lot of controversy, Robert Benton actually helped change real life with 1979’s “Kramer vs. Kramer,” about a careerist father (Dustin Hoffman) raising his son alone after being left suddenly by his wife.

Read the rest at Premium Hollywood

Right here. Really.

Thanks to Terry D.