I was right? Wolverine final print confirmed as identical to workprint?

As some of you know (especially people who follow me on Twitter and Facebook), a bit I had written on Tuesday inspired a bit of controversy when Movieline (the revamped online version of a magazine I used to read) asked a 'Fox Source' for comment on said story. In the article (published at Mendelson's Memos, Film Threat and Huffington Post), I noted with amusement that, despite Tom Rothman's claim that the work print version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine was ten minutes shorter, the final running time of the theatrical cut was the same 107 minutes as the work print. This alleged 'exchange' basically had the Fox source claiming that I was not aware that the bootleg in fact lacked finished production elements (music, fx, matte work, etc).

On the plus side, my article got mainstream attention at Yahoo and The Internet Movie Database, as well as several other mainstream movie sites. Well, apparently my hunch was right on the nose. According to this (hopefully accurate) Ain't It Cool News article, written by the alias Merrick, well... see for yourself:

"Well, having seen the finished film, the mystery is solved: the workprint version IS in fact identical to the release print, sans effect and some audio work. It's obvious that FOX is trying their darndest to keep this news from getting out, because it will eliminate most of the motivation for people who have seen the workprint to pay for a ticket."

Once again, if this is true, I don't blame Tom Rothman for doing everything in his power to mitigate the effects of the leak, up to and including lying to the public about the content of the final product (to paraphrase a popular political chant, no one died when Tom Rothman lied). I do however think it is very suspicious that no one has been arrested for the leak. A lack of a clear conclusion will further fan the flames of 'inside job conspiracy' and/or 'a kid of a powerful executive at Fox or an outside company' (think Hasbro). I'm purely speculating here, but I'm thinking that if this were some web-hacker or a disgruntled/glory seeking Fox employee, the villain would have been caught by now.

Oh, and Fox, would you mind releasing a few more official screen grabs, so I and other writers don't have to keep using the same three or four images? Thanks.

Scott Mendelson

James Marsden cast as the lead in Rod Lurie's Straw Dogs remake

Rod Lurie announced last night, along with The Hollywood Reporter, that the lead actor in his upcoming Straw Dogs remake would be none other than James Marsden. Great news for an actor who is still waiting for leading man breakout after several scene stealing performances in the last few years. He survived an X-Men series that, all positives aside, couldn't be bothered with Cyclops. He more or less stole Superman Returns from Brandon Routh by being more heroic and likable than the Man of Steel himself (good for Marsden, but very bad for the film). He was terrific in Hairspray, and he was the only character who didn't royally piss me off in Enchanted. He was dangerously close to Mark Ruffalo territory in 27 Dresses, as the kind of actor who could make a bad romantic comedy into a watchable one. Late last year, he pulled the same trick with a bawdy supporting role in the slightly better than expected Sex Drive. I'm pretty sure that Straw Dogs represents his first out and out lead role, which is saying something as the guy has been acting since 1993 (his first small role was in the NBC telefilm In The Line Of Duty: Showdown In Waco).

Come what may, this casting choice seems to imply that Rod Lurie is attempting to be more faithful to the original literary source (The Siege of Trencher's Farm) than Sam Peckinpah was with his 1971 film. In the original book and this new film, the main character was a big-city writer. Dustin Hoffman famously played the role as a somewhat nerdy mathematician. I'm guessing that this casting is a sign that Lurie wants this new version to be compared to the original book, rather than the first film adaptation (the first film took place in rural England, this one will take place in the American deep south). So noted and fair enough, although I'd suggest changing the film title back to that of the original book for starters. Oh, and Rod Lurie's Nothing But The Truth comes out on DVD on April 28th. The original company, Yari Pictures, went bankrupt right in the middle of the awards rush. Sony was nice enough to pick the film up for home video distribution. You no longer have any excuse for passing up this tight, well-acted thriller.

Scott Mendelson

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince posters- Mostly grand, but why is Draco's nose so um... altered?

These are four pretty terrific posters for the upcoming Harry Potter picture. No one does individual character posters better than Warner Bros, and these action shots are no exception. Everyone looks moody and serious and, for the first time that I can recall for one of these films, Ron Weasley isn't being made the butt of a joke or made to look foolish in the print materials.

Just one awkward question. Why is Draco Malfoy's face and specifically his nose so um... altered? If I were Tom Felton's agent, I would not be happy about this relatively obvious misrepresentation of my client's facial features. Especially when compared with the screen shot from the latest film on the right, someone took some creative license at drawing board. I'd hate to think that someone at Warner decided that the evil Draco Malfoy needed a less Aryan nose to better represent the forces of Voldemort. That would of course be ironic, since Voldemort and his Death Eaters are all about genetic superiority and ethnic cleansing. I'm sure I'm making too much of this, but the artwork really jumped out at me.

Review: Crank: High Voltage (2009)

Crank: High Voltage
2009
96 minutes
Rated R
by Scott Mendelson

Crank: High Voltage is a movie that spends 90 minutes seemingly punishing the audience for having enjoyed the first Crank. The original picture was of course the definition of a guilty pleasure. It was loud, trashy, vulgar, and violent. But, underneath all of the mayhem and property destruction, there was a real movie with and an actual relatable plot. While the original film wasn’t terribly concerned about whether you felt for any of the characters, this sequel basically dares you to give a damn.

A token amount of plot: After plunging from a helicopter and landing on a car, the wonderfully named Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) inexplicably wakes up to find a group of evil Chinese doctors attempting to harvest his organs. Bloodshed ensues and he escapes, only to realize that his heart is missing and in its place is an electric artificial model. Sure enough, Chelios once again has only one hour to make things right, unless of course he can keep the electricity flowing into his body one way or another. Can Chev find his original heart in time for Doc Miles (Dwight Yokum) to put it back in?

The problem with Crank 2 is also its greatest asset. Unlike the original, which at least had a pretense of being somewhat earth bound, High Voltage raises the level of carnage and mayhem to the level of a cartoon. If Crank was attempting to be a film version of Grand Theft Auto, then Crank : High Voltage is basically a gore-drenched Loony Tunes cartoon. Among other highlights, elbows are sliced off, a shotgun is inserted into a man’s butt, and a woman watches as her fake breasts are punctured by bullets and her chest melts away. There’s an inexplicable climactic moment where a good guy pauses mid gunfight, turns around, and unloads into the back of the unarmed gardener. I have no problem with extreme violence, but the film makes no bones about being filled with gore for the sake of gore. The absolute lack of any emotional investment makes the picture feel much ickier than it would have been had it even pretended to be telling a story. The first few times I took slight moral offense at the heartless carnage on display. After that, I just became bored.

What made Crank work was that, amidst all the mayhem (which, gore and body count-wise, was actually relatively restrained until the climax), we had an undertone of a man realizing that he had wasted his life on the very day it was to end (to say nothing of the irony that he was killed in retribution for the one murder he chose not to commit). Yes, it was trashy, loud, and anarchic, but it worked on its own limited emotional scope, and the filmmakers stuck to their guns and actually killed Statham at the end.

Alas, the sequel betrays the limited investment that anyone had in the characters of the first film. Not only is Chev now not dead, but apparently he is in a position to save his own life for good if he can recover his um... stolen heart. People can certainly relate to the idea of knowing they've only got hours to live and taking revenge on the people who murdered them. I don't think many people can relate to the idea of having their heart stolen, replaced with an electric heart, and then having to get the original back from gangsters.

Dwight Yokum isn’t given nearly as much to do this time around. Amy Smart is given even less to do other than striptease, fight with other women, and end up… well, that’s a spoiler but I didn’t like it one bit. Random minor characters from the first film show up only to remind you that this is a sequel. To be fair, I did enjoy the climactic appearance of a major player from the first film (no spoilers, but I think they were paying homage to the video game Doom 2). As for Chelios himself, the first film walked a fine line between making him an impulsively violent hit man and yet still making him a vaguely noble samurai whom we could actually root for. This time around, the savage beast is unleashed and the film spends much time recounting what a menace Chelios really is (for the first time ever, Jason Statham is unlikable). If Chev Chelios is such a monstrous outlaw, why should we root for him to get his heart back and live to murder and maim again?

The answer of course is that all of these qualms are beside the point. Crank part duex is theoretically a thoughtless, soulless picture where violence and destruction happen on a grand guignol purely for the hell of it. But, when you’re working in a mid-budget R-rated action film, there aren’t really any prizes for gross outs and pointless carnage. Writer/Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor are breaking no taboos and are operating in an arena where they have no limitations and no real restrictions. Thus they are not being ‘edgy’ or ‘daring’, but simply being loud and brutish. The irony of course is that the very video games that Neveldine and Taylor are attempting to emulate have in fact grown up in the last several years. Even Grand Theft Auto IV has created rich characters and shades of gray moral choices to balance out its wanton violence. Compared to the video games of today and even the original Crank, Crank: High Voltage is just too pointless and dumb to merit any real reaction at all.

Grade: C-

10 Years after Columbine part 02 (004/26/01)

This second post Columbine editorial was written two years after the shootings, for my college newspaper. In it, I bitterly recounted a brand new 'blame entertainment' lawsuit that had been filed in direct correlation with the two-year anniversary of the crime. The irony of course was that it was an almost identical sort of lawsuit, as well as the identical illogical reasoning that sparked the lawsuits that I discussed the week after the shootings. The more things change...


Here We Go Again...

by Scott Mendelson

“Imagine, if you will, an increasingly plausible future scenario. You are angry about affirmative action. So, you write a letter to the editor to USA Today. You state that something has to be done about this situation. You state that action must be taken to avert this alleged injustice. In response to your letter, a disturbed, angry loner whom you have never met walks into the local NAACP building and opens fire. The families of the victims then sue you. Your crime? You wrote material that you should have known could have inspired a crime. You put out a call for protest, but you should have known it could have been taken as a call to arms.”

The above paragraph is nearly two years old. It was the beginning of my twelfth and final editorial for my high school paper. This post-Columbine-piece dealt with lawsuits filed by victim’s families and survivors of a couple of related shootings which held Hollywood and the video game industry responsible merely because they should have known that their products would be misinterpreted and misused. Both lawsuits were dismissed late last year and those who enjoy free artistic expression breathed a sigh of relief. Alas, the peace could only last so long…

Two weeks ago, a day before the two-year anniversary of the Columbine shootings, the families of several victims filed a five billion dollar lawsuit against several video game companies and Internet porn sites, claiming that video games and pornography are responsible for the actions of individual human beings. Once again, even though these products were not intended to insight violence, the makers should have known, say the plaintiffs, that some random loony would have used this video game or that porn site as inspiration for a violent act. Here we go again…

There has never been a factual, objective link between violence in TV, movies, video games, and books and violence in the real world. Early this year, Surgeon General David Satcher released the findings of a massive study on youth violence found that media violence was not a major cause and was not a contributing factor to youth violence. As common sense would indicate, the economic background, family life, educational background, and mental well being of the child were far more important factors.

Artists should never, ever be responsible for the actions of someone else in relation to their art. To hold ID Games responsible for a fan of Doom going on a shooting spree is to hold JD Salinger responsible for the death of John Lennon is to hold the Catholic Church responsible for the latest abortion clinic shooting.

Alas, the dubiousness of the claims is not why this issue is being revisited. I swore that the previous piece would be the final time I would write about such foolishness. Alas, Joseph Lieberman is now trying to pass legislation to enforce a voluntary movie ratings code which was never intended to be a matter of law, and various champions of decency are trying to get MTV’s Jackass thrown off the air because kids are too stupid to read the warnings before each show (the news shows condemning Jackass while showing the same offending scenes carry no such warning). But the simple wording of the lawsuit brings a once-hidden agenda blindly to light and is the cause of this piece.

“Absent the combination of extremely violent video games and these boys' incredibly deep involvement, use of and addiction to these games and the boys' basic personalities, these murders and this massacre would not have occurred.''

So, the attorneys involved fully acknowledge that the perpetrators themselves are just as much to blame as the evil empires of Nintendo and Sega. Alas, the perpetrators are dead and their families are not wealthy. But video game companies are big, faceless corporations that have deep pockets. Maybe, the plaintiffs could scare them into settling for a few hundred million before this suit, like the nearly identical Paducah case, gets dismissed on constitutional grounds. Obviously, greed is nothing new in the realm of civil litigation, but once again the stakes are high. What was true two years ago remains true today.

“Quite simply, if either of these lawsuits triumph, the first amendment will be a thing of the past. From then on, you will be in constant fear of what you say and what you write. If someone uses your written or spoken word as inspiration for a crime, you will be held liable, regardless of your true message. We will thus live in a nation of voluntary censorship. Don't let our most precious freedom become the next victim of random violence.”

Sometimes I wonder why I bother…

Warner Bros's Earth Day mitzvah - a cheap HD-DVD to Blu Ray trade in program.

Kudos to Warner Bros. for their new HD-DVD to Blu Ray trade in program. I kinda wish they had done this a year ago when I actually had a handful of Warner HD DVDs, but better late than never I suppose (my local public library now has several HD DVDs and I have a tax deduction). Basically, send in the cover art, plus $4.95 and shipping and handling, and they'll send you the corresponding Blu Ray of the same title. Considering that it was Paramount that prolonged this format war by going HD DVD only back in October 2007, it might behoove them to offer a similar trade program (especially for pricey stuff like the Star Trek Original Series HD DVD sets). Between this and that wonderful archive program they started several weeks ago (they released countless old films from the vaults and allowed consumers to custom order DVDs for purchase), Warner Bros. is all but shaming their competition in the home video realm.

Scott Mendelson

Star Trek screens to rave reviews, and mourning the midnight screenings that I no longer attend.

First of all, the trades (Variety and The Hollywood Reporter) are raving about Star Trek. I'll hopefully get to see it within the next week, but it looks like I may just have to (happily) eat crow regarding Paramount's financial gamble. Oh, and thank you Paramount for scheduling advance night screenings at a reasonable hour (starting at 7pm). When you become a parent, one of the things you give up is the ability to do those beloved 12:01am advance showings of the big summer movies. Should I not be able to make the press screenings, I'll happily just waltz on in on Thursday night without worrying about losing sleep. Still... some great memories of those midnight movies. When Allison is old enough, I'll gladly tag along to whatever midnight screenings she wants, be it X-Men Origins: Random Mutant Who Can Shoot Wooden Stakes Out of His Arms or The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.

Scott Mendelson

Review: Tyson (2009)

Tyson
2009
87 minutes
Rated R

By Scott Mendelson

What do Henry Tillman, Alex Stewart, Michael Spinx, and I have in common? None of us have lasted even a single round against Mike Tyson. I still remember the code for Mike Tyson’s Punch Out that allowed you to skip straight to the title bout (007-373-5963), and I never, ever defeated him. For about a two-year period, I was a boxing fan. When Tyson was in his late-80s peak, I distinctly recall several of his fights on HBO. My uncle ordered the much-hyped Tyson/Spinx fight on pay per view in 1989; leaving to grab a snack in the opening round and return moments later to discover the fight was over. To this day, I can vividly remember the shock of watching the seemingly invincible Iron Mike getting knocked out by the theoretically light weight Buster Douglas in the tenth round. Like the correlation between Mark Twain and Haley’s Comet, my fascination with boxing came and went with Mike Tyson.

Just over nineteen years after that stunning upset, Mike Tyson has sat down with friend and director James Toback for a blunt and intimate discussion of his childhood, his boxing career, and the downward spiral that his life plunged into following his epic loss. Anyone with a passing knowledge will know the main details. The rape conviction and subsequent three-year prison term, the failed attempts at a comeback, the infamous 1997 incident where bit off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear in the middle of a match (an incident that more or less ended his career)… they are all covered in seemingly forthright detail by the man himself.

The majority of Tyson is simply Mike Tyson sitting in a chair, facing the camera, and telling the story of his life up to this point. There are plenty of fight clips, news snippets, and other assorted visual aids, but at the end of the day, this is simply one of the most famous boxers in the history of the sport waxing poetically about his successes and failures.

While one can question the reliability of the narrator in several instances, he certainly earns our benefit of the doubt with his apparent honesty regarding all manner of bad behavior. Of his marriage to actress Robin Givens (currently a member of the Tyler Perry casting pool), he casually remarks the futility of one side accusing the other of being a bi-polar, emotionally abusive psychotic, while the other side accused their spouse of being a venomous gold-digger. He resoundingly proclaims his innocence of the rape charge that sent him to prison, and his memories of jail provide one of the highlights of the picture. The most potent moments occur as footage of the infamous ear-biting incident play onscreen, while Tyson recounts a kind of stream of consciousness of what was allegedly going on in his head during the fight.

What emerges from this narrative is a classic tale of a young man who achieved unimaginable success at an age when he was in no position to deal with the fallout. While the filmmaker is obviously a sympathetic ear (Toback has cast Tyson in two of his previous films), there are still doses of unflinching honesty to be found. What is contained here is compelling and worth listening to, but Tyson seems to be only scratching the surface. This first-person documentary is best viewed as a sort of ‘cliff notes’ for the great autobiography that has yet to be written.

Grade: B

Ten minutes shorter, bub? Final cut of X-Men Origins: Wolverine runs 107 minutes - the same running time as the bootleg cut.

Well, tickets for X-Men Origins: Wolverine are now on sale at most major theater chains (they had been on sale at the Arclight chain for awhile now). So, if you watched that bootleg a few weeks ago, and you're feeling guilty about it, now's the chance to appease your conscience. Free tip - the AMC theater chain does super cheap shows on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for any showing before noon. So, for $6.00(in Los Angeles, likely cheaper elsewhere), you can purchase a ticket for Wolverine and swipe the slate clean.

Here's the funny part though. Remember when Tom Rothman swore up and down that the final version of the film would be ten minutes longer? Apparently that was a lie. The bootleg apparently ran 107 minutes with credits. The official running time listed in the AMC and Arclight websites lists the film as running... drum roll... 107 minutes. While Tom Rothman had no choice but to convince moviegoers that the free version would be vastly different from the completed picture, it'll be interesting to see the reaction should that not turn out to be the case. Because, at this point, it would seem to not be the case. Aside from unfinished effects work and several minutes of extra Ryan Reynolds Deadpool footage that apparently comprised the majority of the reshoots (due to an alleged scheduling conflict), it's becoming increasingly likely that the bootleg that went out three weeks ago was in fact a rough version of the final film. And, judging by comments that have been posted at my various outlets and elsewhere, that's not a good thing at all. Boy, what a relief that Fox now has a bullet-proof excuse should the film under perform next month.

Scott Mendelson

10 Years after Columbine part 01 (05/06/99)

Since today marks the 10 year anniversary of the Columbine school shootings, I thought I'd republish the three editorials that I wrote in response to the event. The first piece was my final article for my high school paper. It concerns several class action lawsuits that were making their way through the court at the time of the shootings. Since these lawsuits concerned prior acts of violence, and the works of art that allegedly served as inspiration, no reference was actually made to the Columbine homicides. Of course, this is a ten year old article, and written for a suburban high school audience, but here is a look back.

The Thirteenth Victim: The First Amendment?

by Scott Mendelson

Imagine, if you will, an increasingly plausible future scenario. You are angry about affirmative action. So, you write a letter to the editor to USA Today. You state that something has to be done about this situation. You state that action must be taken to avert this alleged injustice. In response to your letter, a disturbed, angry loner whom you have never met walks into the local NAACP building and opens fire. You are then sued by the families of the victims. Your crime? You wrote material that you should have known could have inspired a crime. You put out a call for protest, but you should have known it could have been taken as a call to arms.

We, as a nation, must finally accept the fact that art, be it a Marilyn Manson concert, or the Statue of David, cannot be blamed when people act out in response to exposure. The sheer volume of violent material available vs. the number who have chosen to act violently in response to such images all but excludes the theory that Hollywood causes our nation to become kill. Television, books, music, video games, or movies are not capable of turning completely healthy individuals into sociopaths. Besides, if this is the case, why are there so few acts of similar violence in Japan or Great Britain, where citizens see the same television and movies, listen to the same music, and read many of the same books? The seed of discontent must be planted by other factors before a person turns to ways to recreate a fantasy. Of course, I have always believed that such sexual or violent material can actually prevent violence by providing a healthy outlet for fantasy, but that is for another day.* If one artist is capable of such impact, then every artist is. One man's Howard Stern is another man's Mr. Rogers.

There are two lawsuits in place right now that allege responsibility on the part of various entertainment companies for acts of violence. The suits allege that Hollywood is to blame because Hollywood should have known that, out of 270 million people, a choice few could use their work as possible inspiration for violence.

At this present moment, Oliver Stone and Warner Bros. are being sued for just this offense. According to the plaintiffs, Stone and company should have logically expected two kids to view Natural Born Killers, get high on drugs, and kill someone during a stickup. Even though the film attacked the concept of a media that glamorizes violence, he and others are now being sued because someone didn't get the joke. By this concept, Steven Spielberg will be held responsible, should someone ever watch Saving Private Ryan, which many teens enjoyed as a 160-minute gore-fest, and go on a killing spree. All forms of expression send all kinds of messages to all kinds of people.

There is another lawsuit being brought against Time Warner, Sony Pictures, Id Games, and various Internet porn sites. Filed by the families of the three students killed in a Kentucky high-school shooting last year, it alleges that the makers of Doom, the producers of Internet pornography sites, and the makers of The Basketball Diaries, a flawed if well-intentioned film concerning teen drug addiction, are responsible for the actions of one misguided teenager.

Although I often shy away from blaming the parents, as it is often undeserved scorn, I must ask who allowed the child to view such sites or play such games? As for the film, an art-house flick starring Leonardo DiCaprio that few people saw in its initial theatrical run, the suit alleges that the teen was inspired by a dream sequence where DiCaprio kills classmates with a shotgun. If this scene is truly responsible, how can we justify the constant display of this scene during the past two weeks on countless news stations that allegedly impressionable kids can view? Ten million people saw Natural Born Killers. At most, a dozen acted out following the viewing. How many were high on drugs at the time? Why are the drug dealers not being sued? By this rationale, after the release of Free Willy, there should have been dozens of incidents of people breaking into their local Sea World to free Shamu. Are we to deny free expression to the masses on the account of the few disturbed individuals who would copy a work of art? Are we to ban Shakespeare when people start beheading others after reading Macbeth? Are we to blame J.D. Salinger because Mark David Chapman was carrying Catcher in the Rye when he killed John Lennon?

What about lawsuits filed against God? If such cases triumph, I'm sure the families who have lost relatives in abortion-protest killings would love to have money from those who produced The Bible, which possibly inspired those who kill in the name of Jesus Christ. Would Jesus condone such things? Probably not, but that is irrelevant in such lawsuits. He should have known that teaching his gospel would have led others to commit murder in his name.

Quite simply, if either of these lawsuits triumph, the first amendment will be a thing of the past. From then on, you will be in constant fear of what you say and what you write. If someone uses your written or spoken word as inspiration for a crime, you will be held liable, regardless of your true message. We will thus live in a nation of voluntary censorship. Don't let our most precious freedom become the next victim of random violence.

* For more information regarding the positive link between pornography and violence, send a note to for a copy of my term paper on the subject.