When I got to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art last night just minutes before showtime, the theater was nearly full. Every unoccupied seat was marked with a bag or coat, and for a few minutes, I thought I’d being spending my evening propped against the back wall. The crowd was here for the final installment in a series of immensely popular live reads organized by director Jason Reitman, of Up in the Air and Juno fame, and tonight’s film of choice was Ghostbusters, which just so happened to be directed by Reitman’s father, Ivan, so the fact that I thought I’d just roll in and plop down was probably my own fault. Eventually, though, I found a seat in the back row, and the lights went down, and everything was fine.
After a brief introduction, Reitman was the first one onstage, and the jokes about not fucking up his inheritance began. “Everyone wanted to be a Ghostbuster for Halloween,” he said. “But I was the only one with a real Ghostbusters gun.”
Just out of common decency, really. Let's let it go? Until it actually happens? Because otherwise you have the last few years of endless rumors and innuendo about the movie, which no one but Dan Aykroyd seems to really want at this point. Not that it matters that there's no tangible development; every time another bit of unconfirmed nothingness bubbles up, the Internet freaks out, and we all get sad about the passing of time and the sullying of what was once good and true and pure (a.k.a. the first Ghostbusters). And the latest spike in the cycle is now here, courtesy of some information that director Ivan Reitman might have — or might have not! — shared in an interview with Collider. The evidence in question:
Hangover director Todd Philips's production company has optioned the rights to Guy Lawson's recent Rolling Stone feature "Arms and the Dudes," about two stoners who become weapons dealers and win a $300 million contract to arm America's allies in Afghanistan. Shooting will begin right after Crystal the monkey completes basic firearms training. Grade: B. [Variety]
He made Bradley Cooper look smart in Limitless this year, so it's hard to fault director Neil Burger for taking it comparatively easy with his next movie: He's in talks to remake the 1967 classic Bonnie and Clyde. Burger's de-glamorized update — which will be written by Up in the Air's Sheldon Turner — would portray the bank robbers as younger than in the original film (they were in their early twenties when they got gunned down by cops) and draw from Jeff Gunn's recent book Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde, in which we learn that Bonnie was a former prostitute and Clyde was sodomized in prison. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?Grade: B- [Deadline]
This week brings the release of Super 8, director J.J. Abrams’ bighearted tribute to the sort of wide-eyed, family-friendly alien adventure movies Steven Spielberg used to make before he discovered less interesting things such as American history, Oscars, and Tom Hanks. The compelling wrinkle? Spielberg himself is the film’s executive producer and, in Abrams’ words, its "key voice." Imitation, flattery, and outright theft have a long, distinguished, and shameless history in Hollywood — but this strikes us as something different. Rather than merely aping his idol, Abrams is, essentially, making a Spielberg film for Spielberg.
And this got us thinking: What other faded masters could use the vibrant influence of their own artistic descendants — and what current up-and-comers could really use the firm, if graying, hand of an old master? Thus we propose the Director Mentorship Academy, in which younger directors enroll to make a better version of someone else’s movie — with the help of that very someone else. Below are some suggestions for the inaugural class.
