Feral Jundi

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Film: ‘Killing Pablo’ is dropped and replaced by the ‘A-Team’?

Filed under: Film — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 7:04 PM

 

     I am not down with this, and I was looking forward to the movie version of Killing Pablo.(the story about hunting down the drug lord Pablol Escobar in Colombia).  And more than likely, hollywood has an agenda with this dorky A-Team movie thing.  If it follows the original, then you will have veterans once again portrayed as a bunch of psycho dorks going on idiotic missions for a price.  Even if the movie is done somewhat seriously, it will still be presumed to be as idiotic as the series.  I am not looking forward to this, and I think these guys are gutless.  Killing Pablo would have been a far more interesting movie, and if Christian Bale was going to star in this one, it totally would have been a hit.  (Dark Knight comes to mind?)  Come on hollywood, grow a pair and produce a movie that people would actually be interested in watching. –Matt

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Fox assembles ‘A-Team’

Carnahan, Scotts join remake set for 2010

January 27, 2009

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Twentieth Century Fox has assembled a creative team to transform 1980s TV series “The A-Team” into a summer 2010 film.

Studio has set Joe Carnahan to direct and Ridley Scott to produce, with Tony Scott exec producing through their Scott Free banner.

Also producing are Jules Daly and Stephen J. Cannell, the latter of whom created the original TV series.

Carnahan will team with Brian Bloom to polish a script by Skip Woods (“G.I. Joe”). The intention is to start production by June for a June 11, 2010, release.

Fox has struggled to find a way to exploit the branded TV show while avoiding the series’ campy tone. Director John Singleton had most recently been attached to such an attempt before dropping out. Woods came in and started over.

“Tony and I feel that marrying this Scott Free project with Joe’s sensibility will result in a fast-paced, exciting franchise, one we hope will be around for years to come,” Scott said.

Carnahan and the Scott brothers say they will use the original premise of the series as the template for an action film. In the original, four Vietnam vets convicted of armed robbery escape from military prison and became do-gooder mercenaries.

The Middle East will replace Vietnam as the place the four did their tour of duty, but Carnahan said the origin story is the jumping-off point.

“You can … make a film that reflects on the real world without losing the great sense of fun and the velocity of action in a classic summer popcorn film,” Carnahan said.

Carnahan has put his Pablo Escobar film “Killing Pablo” on the back burner. The project was complicated by the bankruptcy filing made by the Yari Film Group.

“I am determined to make that movie there or elsewhere, but it’s an interesting time in Hollywood, and you have to be aware when you get the opportunity to step into a business model that is working,” Carnahan said, noting that many of the top-grossing studio films are based on branded properties.

“This was a coveted property, and reimagining a show that I remembered as a kid was tough to turn down,” Carnahan said. “Fox hired me to make it as emotional, real and accessible as possible without cheesing it up.” 

Story Here

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Film: The Cult of the Suicide Bomber 1 and 2, by Robert Baer

Filed under: Film,Israel — Tags: , , — Matt @ 3:43 PM

     I Just finished watching part 2 and ordered it through Netflix.  These two documentaries are awesome, and Mr. Baer did a great job in peeling back the layers of this horrific tactic.  If you want to see into the mind of these folks, and get a feel for the why and how, then check this out.  –Matt

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The Cult of the Suicide Bomber 1 

The Cult of the Suicide Bomber 2 (2008) 

Editorial Reviews

About the Actor

Robert Baer spent twenty years running agents from inside the CIA s Directorate of Operations, operating against Hizballah, Al-Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations, and was considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker). His memoir See No Evil was a New York Times bestseller and inspired the movie Syriana, starring George Clooney.

When Baer left the agency in 1997 he received the Career Intelligence Medal, with a citation that says, He repeatedly put himself in personal danger, working the hardest targets, in service to his country.

–Robert Baer [was] one of the most talented Middle East case officers of the past twenty years. (Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Atlantic Monthly)

Product Description

On 18 April 1983 a truck drove into the entrance of the US embassy in downtown Beirut killing 63 people, including six CIA officers. Never before had the CIA lost so many officers in a single attack. In the weeks and months after the bombing top investigators from the CIA and FBI failed to solve the mystery of who was responsible. For Robert Baer, the CIA s top operative in the Middle East, it became a lifelong obsession.

His investigation and the answers he found became the Emmy Award-nominated motion picture, The Cult of the Suicide Bomber. In the first film Bob uncovered the history and evolution of suicide bombing as a weapon of radical Islam. Now in this vital new film he discovers how the phenomenon has spread to the West and changed the role of women in the Middle East, and crucially tells us how this threat can be defeated.

With shocking footage of actual suicide bombings and interviews with failed suicide bombers, The Cult of the Suicide Bomber is the most definitive documentary on suicide bombers ever produced.

Baer himself says: I almost look at the Cult of the Suicide Bomber films as a CIA briefing. In the CIA, we were taught to go to policy makers and tell them what we believe is the absolute truth. For me, the Cult films are the absolute truth.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Film: House of Saddam Trailer, HBO Series, Dec 7

Filed under: Film,Iraq — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 1:07 AM

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

War Art: ‘Waltz With Bashir’, an Israeli Animated War Documentary

Filed under: Film,War Art — Tags: , , — Matt @ 1:39 AM

     This is a first for me.  I have never seen an animated documentary, and I was really enthralled with how the trailer looked and felt.  If you go to the website, the director has more trailers to check out. 

     I guess the film will be opening up on December 25th in New York and Los Angeles.  The politics and controversy that surround this film is an area that I will not comment on, and that is really not what hit me with this thing.  To me, this is more of an intimate film about the director’s war experience and how he conveyed that through animation.  I really liked the style of this thing, and I am sure we will see more of this type of animation in the future. –Head Jundi

Website Here

 

Monday, October 27, 2008

Film: ‘Blackwater’ Screenplay Moving Forward

Filed under: Film — Tags: , , — Matt @ 10:27 AM

   Alright guys, you know who you have to write to, in order to make sure they get it right.  If you want Hollywood to control the story, then don’t say a thing.  Or write this guy on his blog, and let him know how you feel.  Invariably, Hollywood is going to screw up anything they get their hands on though, and I really am not too motivated about this film.  

   Even if the writers have the best of intention, the guys with the money are the ones that dictate the narrative.  And seeing how Hollywood has completely screwed the pooch with how they have treated the troops and their service in Iraq, I really do not have much faith in this thing.  I could be wrong, and these guys might have the intention of producing a quality product that honors the sacrifice of those that died in that company and in the industry, but I doubt it. 

    On the other hand, Hollywood has been screaming for action in the Sudan, and several actors have mentioned Blackwater as a possible tool to save lives there.  But if this film is meant to be another hack job, then I will be disappointed but not really surprised. –Head Jundi

 

Preliminary poster for Blackwater film.

 

Blackwater film by Ron Shusett & John Chadwell moving forward

October 25th, 2008

By John Chadwell

For those who might be interested in the progress of mine and Ron Shusett’s screenplay, “Blackwater,” I just wanted to let you know that it’s moving forward, perhaps not as rapidly as we would like it to, but all the same it’s still very much alive.

There has been some reorganization with the producers that is not entirely clear to me, but we’ve been told that there are investors lined up to back a slate of films, including Blackwater, now under the Shusett Productions banner.

(more…)

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