#based on his grindhouse trailer

[mudwerks]

(via THANKSGIVING - Official Trailer (HD)

[brokehorrorfan]

Thanksgiving will be released on Steelbook 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital on October 15 via Sony. The 2023 slasher is based on the faux-trailer from 2007’s Grindhouse.

Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever) directs from a script by Jeff Rendell. Patrick Dempsey, Addison Rae, Milo Manheim, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Nell Verlaque, Rick Hoffman, and Gina Gershon star.

Thanksgiving is presented in 4K with Dolby Vision, approved by Roth, and Dolby Atmos. A letter to the fans from the filmmaker is included. Special features are listed below.

Disc 1 - 4K UHD:

Carve Diem - Making-of featurette (new)

Giving Shanks - Making-of featurette (new)

Theatrical Trailer

Disc 2 - Blu-ray:

Audio commentary by director Eli Roth and writer Jeff Rendell

Deleted and extended scenes

Outtakes

Massachusetts Movies: Eli & Jeff’s Early Films

Behind the Screams featurette

Gore Galore featurette

After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the holiday. Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan. Will the town uncover the killer and survive the holidays…. or become guests at his twisted holiday dinner table?

Pre-order Thanksgiving.

[greensparty]

Stuff I'm Looking Forward to in November

How is it now November? In addition to All Saints Day (Nov. 1), Day of the Dead (Nov. 1-2), All Souls Day (Nov. 2), Daylight Savings Time Ending (Nov. 5), Election Day (Nov. 7) Veterans Day (observed on Nov. 10, officially on Nov. 11), Diwali (Nov. 12), Thanksgiving (Nov. 23) and Native American Heritage Day (Nov. 24) here is what's on my radar this month!

Movies:

Priscilla

After last year's Elvis biopic, The King's Queen Priscilla Presley gets the biopic treatment courtesy of Sofia Coppola. Opens 11/3.

Sly

Director Thom Zimney has done a ton of great docs on Bruce Springsteen including Letter to You as well as Elvis: The Searcher. Now he is turning his eye to Sylvester Stallone. Premieres 11/3 on Netflix.

The Killer 

A David Fincher film is always an event. But when he reunites with Seven screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, it's an even bigger event. After a limited release on 10/27, it premieres 11/10 on Netflix.

Thanksgiving

In 2007's Grindhouse, one of the highlights of the fake movie trailers they had between Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's features was Eli Roth's trailer for Thanksgiving about a Thanksgiving-themed slasher film. It took a while, but now Eli Roth's actual feature film is finally dropping on 11/17 (just before Thanksgiving)!

Next Goal Wins 

Taika Waititi is one of the most interesting directors working today. In addition to what he has brought to MCU with the last few Thor movies, his Jojo Rabbit deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Now he's back with a sports dramedy. Opens 11/17.

May December 

This drama had me at "Todd Hayne directs Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman". Opening 11/17.

Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain

The comedy writing team of Please Don't Destroy have stolen many an SNL show in recent years. Now they are starring / writing their own film produced by Judd Apatow. Premiering 11/17 on Peacock.

Napoleon 

Napoleon Bonaparte gets the biopic treatment from Ridley Scott. Opens 11/22.

Maestro

After his directorial debut with A Star is Born, Bradley Cooper's next directorial effort is a Leonard Bernstein biopic. Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg are producers on this as well! Opening 11/22 before a Netflix premiere on 12/20.

Music:

Snail Mail Valentine (Demos)

I was a huge fan of Snail Mail's excellent 2021 album Valentine. Now she is releasing an EP of demos and outtakes. EP drops 11/3.

The Beatles' Final Song and Reissues

Possibly the biggest deal for Beatle fanatics since The Beatles Anthology in the 90s is happening this month. Their final single "Now and Then" containing John Lennon's 1979 recording combined with George Harrison's 1994 recordings (when they attempted to record it for Anthology) with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr's modern day recording. While AI was used for the production, contrary to some interpretations this is NOT a Beatles song created by AI. Single is dropping 11/2. As if this weren't exciting enough, the remastered re-release of 1973's The Beatles 1962-1966 (AKA The Red Album) and The Beatles 1967-1970 (AKA The Blue Album) are being re-released on 11/10. (Review coming soon).

Scream DC Special

D.C. punk legends Scream (the band that Dave Grohl joined as a teen and was in pre-Nirvana) have not released an album in 30 years (Fumble, which featured Grohl re-joining for that album). Now the group is releasing a new album (featuring tons of special guests including Grohl) on 11/10.

Conventions:

NorthEast Comic Con

Over the last few years I've been lucky enough to cover the NorthEast Comic Con, a fun MA-based celebration of comics, collectibles and pop culture. Guests for the Winter edition include Heather Matarazzo, Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald and more. Con takes place at Boxborough Regency (Boxborough, MA) from 11/24-26.

Fake Holidays:

In addition to actual holidays this month, there are also fake or unofficial holidays like Black Friday (11/24), Record Store Day Black Friday Edition (11/24), Cyber Monday (11/27) and Giving Tuesday (11/28).

[biglisbonnews]

Addison Rae Cast in Previously Fake 'Thanksgiving' Movie Addison Rae is making a fake movie... reality!Deadline reports that the TikTok dance mogul and aspiring actress has been cast in Eli Roth's upcoming horror movie Thanksgiving. She's joined by former heartthrob Patrick Dempsey, with Spyglass Media producing and Roth directing. The film, according to Deadline, is based on a fake movie trailer directed by Roth from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's double feature Grindhouse.In the trailer, which is presented as an upcoming slasher in Grindhouse, a serial killer carves his way through a Massachusetts town celebrating its annual Thanksgiving traditions. A narrator can be heard in the fake trailer, saying, "An uninvited guest has arrived, and this year, there will be no leftovers." One memorable scene shows Roth beheaded mid-orgasm in a convertible.As Deadline notes, 15 years have passed since the release of Grindhouse, when talks first surfaced of an adaptation for Thanksgiving. This is not Rae’s first foray onto the silver screen. In 2018, she starred in the Belgian-German animated film Spy Cat, directed by Christoph and Wolfgang Lauenstein. She also appeared in the "gender-bent" remake He’s All That on Netflix. As Deadline notes, the remake was a part of her "massive" multi-million dollar deal with the streaming giant that "rivals" other big names with similar multi-picture deals. In a press release, Rae said of the deal: "Getting the opportunity to work with Netflix was such a pinch-me moment and now to be able to continue the relationship is beyond my wildest dreams. I’m thrilled to be able to collaborate with this incredible team and am excited to develop projects while continuing to strengthen my skills as an actress."Elsewhere, Rae has been embroiled in a three-way family beef with her mom and dad, who made headlines last year for their romantic excursions. In August, her mom Sheri went on a date to the VMAs with rapper Yung Gravy. Her dad, meanwhile, was caught up in a cheating scandal, and has posted numerous videos about Rae and his ex-wife. Related | Aubrey O'Day Shades Addison Rae's MusicIn December, Rae also found herself in the crosshairs of former Danity Kane singer Aubrey O’Day, who said of her music: "Beyoncé can release a genius album, and the two biggest artists that have huge record deals are Addison Rae and Bhad Bhabie." To O’Day’s credit, she also added: "I don't know the dances that she did on TikTok, I'm sure they were very impressive."Photo via Getty/ Jason Mendez https://www.papermag.com/addison-rae-thanksgiving-movie-2659465183.html

[cryptonews256]

Tim Miller Steps In For Eli Roth To Handle ‘Borderlands’ Reshoot As Roth Cooks Up Feature Version Of ‘Grindhouse’ Trailer ‘Thanksgiving’

Tim Miller Steps In For Eli Roth To Handle ‘Borderlands’ Reshoot As Roth Cooks Up Feature Version Of ‘Grindhouse’ Trailer ‘Thanksgiving’

EXCLUSIVE: After word circulated today on the fanboy sites that Eli Roth has been supplanted by Deadpool’s Tim Miller on the long-gestating Lionsgate vidgame adaptation Borderlands, allow Deadline to lend a little insight to what is actually happening. Roth handed over the reins on two weeks of reshoots to his pal Miller, because he has to get going with Thanksgiving, the horror film based on a…

[gotankgo]

Shogun Assassin (1980) was assembled from the first two films in the Lone Wolf and Cub series from Toho with 12 minutes of footage from Sword of Vengeance (1972) and the rest from Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972). This edit was «directed by Robert Houston and his partner David Weisman, a protégé of Andy Warhol and director of Ciao! Manhattan (1972). A fan of the original Kozure Ōkami films, Weisman had obtained the rights for $50,000 from the American office of Toho Studios.» from Wikipedia

The editing eliminates much extraneous narrative structure in favor of a simple dreamlike unfolding of events punctuated by intense violence. Unlike the original films, this version is narrated by the child. A propulsive electronic score by by W. Michael Lewis and Mark Lindsay (of Paul Revere and the Raiders) adds an exciting edge to the proceedings. Seeing this in a grindhouse theater would have been ideal and Shogun Assassin was successfully distributed theatrically in the U.S. by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures and was also popular afterwards in the home videocassette market.

the trailer

the feature

[aion-rsa]

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings Deals With The Mandarin’s Difficult History

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

In a spectacular Marvel twist, the first Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings trailer confirms a rumor that the film’s director, Destin Daniel Cretton dropped last year: the Mandarin is Shang-Chi’s father.

Typical for the MCU’s shared universe, this plays out well on multiple levels. In the original comics, Shang-Chi’s father was none other than Fu Manchu. Fu Manchu was created by Englishman Sax Rohmer with his pulp fiction book The Mystery of Doctor Fu-Manchu in 1913. It was a stark, racist portrayal of Asians, and Rohmer capitalized upon the ‘Yellow Peril’ xenophobia of the time by milking his Fu Manchu character for a long running serial of over a dozen books. Fu Manchu became the West’s preeminent orientalist villain, a ruthless mad scientist evil genius with a signature mustache. The character was depicted in dozens of films, always portrayed by Caucasian actors with slant eye make-up including Boris Karloff, John Carradine, Christopher Lee, Peter Sellers, and even (in the spoof Grindhouse) Nicolas Cage. Even Ming the Merciless from the Flash Gordon comics was inspired by Fu Manchu. It’s essentially the same character right down to the facial hair, except in space. 

Marvel had a working agreement with the Rohmer estate to use Fu Manchu when Shang-Chi debuted in 1973. That eventually expired so the familial connection between Shang-Chi and Fu Manchu was downplayed later. Naturally, today Marvel needs to avoid reviving a racist stereotype, especially with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings boasting its diversity with the first Asian MCU superhero. 

Enter the Mandarin

The Mandarin was introduced in the comics in 1964, created by Stan Lee and Don Heck. He was another ruthless mad scientist evil genius, as well as a master of martial arts, and derived his power from ten finger rings based on salvaged technology from an alien spaceship. He was a major adversary of Iron Man, and in the MCU it was Ten Rings terrorists who initially kidnap Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) which inspires him to start creating his suit. The Mandarin also received some accusations of being a racist caricature over the years, although not nearly as bad as Fu Manchu. 

In the MCU, the Mandarin first “appears” in Iron Man 3, played by Ben Kingsley. The announcement drew early criticism of whitewashing the role, a landmine that the MCU would step on later with Tilda Swinton’s portrayal of the Ancient One in Doctor Strange. However, when Iron Man 3 debuted, it turned out to be another brilliant Marvel twist. Kingsley wasn’t the Mandarin after all. He only played him on TV. Kingsley was actually Trevor Slattery, a naive English actor playing a role, completely unaware that he was a pawn in global terrorism. 

It was a brilliant correction, meta in scope, especially because Iron Man 3 was heavily marketed to China. In fact, China got a different version of the film that included more footage of some of the A-list Chinese actors in the cast like Fan Bingbing and Wang Xueqi. It was a successful play as Iron Man 3 broke the opening day box office record in China at that time. 

So, is Slattery’s Mandarin Shang Chi’s dad? 

Of course not. In a direct-to-video Marvel One-Shot titled All Hail the King Slattery gets interviewed in jail by Jackson Norriss (Scoot McNairy). Norriss hopes to break Slattery out to introduce him to the real Mandarin. Unbeknownst to Slattery, Norriss is a covert agent of the Ten Rings. 

This One-Shot wasn’t a typical end-of-credit MCU scene. It was included on the Blu-Ray edition of Thor: The Dark World. For a while, it could be found on YouTube, however Disney has scrubbed it off streaming platforms for copyright issues. 

The Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings trailer teases the conflict between Shang Chi (Simu Liu) and his father, the Mandarin a.k.a. Wenwu (Tony Leung). Apparently Wenwu is the Mandarin’s alias for the film. The name means “scholar warrior” in Mandarin. It’s a novel moniker for the character suggesting that there will be other changes. The teaser also converts the Mandarin’s ten finger rings into glowing vambraces.  

Tony Leung is a decorated A-lister with nearly a hundred films to his credit. Considered one of the greatest Hong Kong actors of his generation, he won Best Actor at Cannes for In the Mood for Love. His filmography ranges from gritty gangster films like Hard Boiled and Internal Affairs, martial arts epics like The Grandmaster, Ashes of Time, and Hero, and outstanding dramatic collaborations with leading directors like Wong Kar-wai (Chungking Express, 2046) and Ang Lee (Lust, Caution). Like Iron Man 3, Leung’s inclusion is another play for the China market, as is this whole project. In the wake of the pandemic, China surpassed the United States as the most lucrative film market in the world. It’s great casting. If anyone can bring gravitas to the Mandarin, it’s Tony Leung. 

What Sets Asian Families Apart

Parent-child relationship issues are a persistent theme in Hollywood depictions of Asian families. It can be traced back to The Joy Luck Club, through to Crazy Rich Asians and The Farewell (both featuring Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings costar Awkwafina) and even into The CW’s reimagined Kung Fu TV series. However, it’s fair because the Confucian influence on Asian families is something to be reconciled for any Asian westerner today. 

Liu just came off the beloved Canadian sitcom Kim’s Convenience, which also tackled Asian family dynamics. Liu played Jung Kim whose prevailing story arc was the relationship between him and his father, Mr. Kim (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee). Sadly, the show ended abruptly in Season 5 when their creators moved on, despite already being renewed for a sixth season last year. Now in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Liu swaps an immigrant dad running a bodega with a ruthless mad scientist evil genius. 

With each new project, MCU is getting wiser about diversity and representation. In their latest project, the underlying racial issues addressed in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier have been on point. With Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, it’s looking like the MCU is going the right direction to correct a racist legacy into something positive. And we can all use more positivity now. 

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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is expected to premiere on September 3, 2021.

The post Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings Deals With The Mandarin’s Difficult History appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3dC3R3z

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Will The Future Rule? Making Sense Of Chainsaw Man's Anime Adaptation

  Chainsaw Man is a comic where the hero rides on the back of a shark through a hurricane. It’s also a non-stop series of narrative rug-pulls exploring the psyche of a teenage boy struggling to grow up in a world where everything and everyone is expendable. Chainsaw Man is one of my favorite reading experiences of last year: I laughed, then cried, then yelled at the sheer audacity of what was happening on the page. A mash-up of Devilman, FLCL, and grindhouse schlock, it wormed its way into my heart in a way a comic has not in a while.

  And I’m not alone: Look online and you will find Chainsaw Man animation reels and Chainsaw Man MADs. You’ll find these two excellent fan-made EDs, and this great (but spoilery!!)  write-up on The Comics Journal. You’ll find plenty of fan-art and folks shrieking 24/7 about Makima, Aki, and Power. As the joke goes, “Why animate Chainsaw Man when all of Chainsaw Man is animated already?” Well, joke’s on them. Do you hear that sound in the distance? The shriek of metal against metal? Chainsaw Man is getting an anime, folks.

    Adapting Chainsaw Man is a tricky proposition. At first glance, the comic was practically made for it, with its cinematic layouts and spectacle. But the monster designs are complex, and the balance of tone and content is deceptively easy to spoil. Focus too much on the character drama and you miss the comic’s knowing stupidity. Gloss over Denji’s weakness and the story tips over into insufferable power fantasy — or depending on your tastes, an even more insufferable power fantasy. Adaptation is about interpretation, and about choice; rendering Denji’s story as literally as possible on the screen would be a fool’s errand, especially for a comic that so deeply loves movies. 

  The trailer MAPPA released is pre-animated, but that’s fine! As sakuga fanatic and anime industry expert Kevin Cirugeda has pointed out on Twitter, some of the best anime productions of all time started with pre-animated trailers. We don’t know release date details or its final look, but based on what we’ve been given, we can make educated guesses.

    What stood out immediately to me on the list of staff were two names: Kensuke Ushio and Kiyotaka Oshiyama. Ushio’s a former member of the great rock band LAMA who’s since composed for anime including Ping Pong the Animation and Liz and the Blue Bird. Oshiyama’s a genius, capable of everything from monster designs to directing and animating whole episodes of anime by himself (plus, he directed FLIP FLAPPERS!) When did these two folks last work together? On Masaaki Yuasa’s Devilman Crybaby, of course! Ushio composed the score, while Oshiyama was put in charge of devil designs and directed an episode as well. Now they’re back in the same positions, with Ushio writing the music and Oshiyama handling the monster designs. 

  The director of the series is Ryu Nakayama. Some might call him “inexperienced,” but this isn’t quite true: looking through Nakayama’s past work reveals some impressive credits ranging from directing and storyboarding an episode of Fate/Grand Order Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia to handling GAMERS!’ entertaining opening sequence. Best of all, Ryu Nakayama collaborated with character designers Mai Yoneyama and 7ZEL to direct “raison d'etre,” an animated music video for singer-songwriter EVE. EVE’s YouTube channel of music videos is shockingly consistent, starring a murderer’s row of talented animators. “raison d’etre” is up there with the best of them, featuring striking color design and an ever-changing oneiric cityscape. I can’t say this early on if Nakayama will succeed in grappling with what is sure to be a challenging production, but the chance to see what one of EVE’s collaborators might make of a series like Chainsaw Man is a gift.

    There’s another name on this list that’s just as important as Nakayama’s: Tatsuya Yoshihara, credited as the Action Director. You probably know Yoshihara from his work directing Black Clover. I know him from Muromi-san, a series with a truly deranged opening animation that begins with cute dancing mermaids and ends with shrieking heavy metal and the complete extinction of life on Earth. Yoshihara and Nakayama have collaborated in the past, most memorably for me on an episode of Yatterman Night. Nakayama contributed a significant amount of work to Black Clover, and now Yoshihara has his back on perhaps the most important project thus far of Nakayama’s career.

  The remainder of the staff list is similarly loaded. Yusuke Takada is an art director who’s contributed great work to series like The Eccentric Family, where he worked directly with Chainsaw Man’s current color designer Naomi Nakano. Hiroshi Seko’s a scriptwriter credited on countless popular action series, such as the best action series of the past decade Mob Psycho 100 — but also on last year’s weird science fiction extravaganza DECA-DENCE! Technical director Makoto Nakazono acquitted himself well at Trigger on SSSS.Gridman and Little Witch Academia. Yohei Miyahara’s an accomplished photography and CG director. There really isn’t a weak link on this team — the folks producing the series clearly want a hit, and they’ve hired the talent to ensure that is what they will get.

    Will the Chainsaw Man anime be good? I’m personally very excited! But I don’t know. Anime is hard to make. Too much of it is made too quickly. Producers in the anime industry have been ramping up their efforts to recruit more foreign talent so as to fuel the industry machine, and Chainsaw Man’s production will likely result in the line between “anime fan” and “animator” becoming even muddier. This isn’t even including the factor of continued COVID-19 prevalence in the world. There are a lot of variables, and any one of them could make life difficult for folks on the Chainsaw Man team.

  Here’s what I can say: I’ve watched that Chainsaw Man trailer an embarrassingly large number of times. I believe that Nakayama and his crew are capable of creating a worthy adaptation. I trust that MAPPA currently sees the series as their golden goose, regardless of where things stand in a year or two. It’s almost certain that this show is going to make or break many, many people’s careers. Until it airs, all I can hope is that those working on the project are given the time and resources they need to do their best work. After all — THE FUTURE RULES!

  Are you a fan of Chainsaw Man? What’s your favorite EVE video? Do you think you could defeat Kobeni in Dance Dance Revolution? Let us know in the comments!

      Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When he is not playing this very challenging video game, he sporadically contributes with a loose group of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can find him on Twitter at @wendeego

    Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a feature, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Adam Wescott

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Fu Manchu

(WARNING! This analysis contains DISCUSSIONS OF OUTDATED RACIST STEREOTYPES! This analysis does not support or condone such things whatsoever and merely is here to analyze the cultural impact of the character!)

"Imagine a person, tall, lean, and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government—which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."

— The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu (1913)

I think it really goes without saying that the late 19th century and early 20th century were deeply, incredibly racist. One such manifestation of the racism and xenophobia of the times was the villainous archetype known as the Yellow Peril. The so-called “Yellow Peril” is a caricature of eastern cultures, portrayed in a villainous light; the characters are diabolical criminal masterminds who tend to be geniuses, know kung fu, have mystical powers, command barbarian hordes, and dress like the most stereotypical dynastic noble you could imagine. Just think of every single cringeworthy Asian stereotype you can imagine, stuff it into one villainous package, and BOOM! You have yourself a Yellow Peril villain.

You’ve most definitely seen villains that fit some semblance of this trope. Lo Pan of Big Trouble in Little China and Long Feng from Avatar: The Last Airbender are notable examples (and ones that aren’t particularly problematic, as their works don’t rely on some white guy saving the day and instead have Asian heroes). But we’re not here to talk about them, oh no – we’re here to talk about the grandaddy of them all, the villain who codified the idea of a Yellow Peril villain to such… er, for lack of a better word, “perfection,” that even though he has somewhat faded from the public consciousness he has managed to continue inspiring villains up until the present day: Fu Manchu.

While not the first Yellow Peril villain, he is pretty much the face of it. He is what comes to mind when you envision such a villain, which may be because his cultural impact runs so deep – characters such as Batman’s nemesis Ra’s al-Ghul, the Iron Man foe The Mandarin, and James Bond baddie Doctor No among many others all draw inspiration from this legendary Devil Doctor. So what exactly is his deal that has made him such a problematic icon?

Motivation/Goals: So Fu Manchu’s goals started with him being a Chinese nationalist but eventually he moved into your standard world domination, with him developing over time into becoming a sort of noble criminal, a diabolical mastermind with some level of ethics, class, and standards; the man sent his nemesis gifts on his wedding day and always stuck to his word. This doesn’t seem like much now, but you gotta remember, this guy was one of the first big literary supervillains; you’ve gotta cut him a little slack.

Performance: So it is time to discuss the elephant in the room… not once in his long and storied history in film has Fu Manchu been portrayed by an actor of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Indian descent. Fu Manchu has always, always been portrayed by the worst possible option in every single case: a white guy in yellow face. Christopher Lee is perhaps the most well-known white man to play him in a serious work, portraying him in a series of films, though Boris Karloff portrayed him as well. 

Peter Sellers portrayed Fu in his last major cinematic appearance, though unlike most other examples that film – The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu – was a parody, which does at least take away a little bit of the bad taste.

The only valid white man portrayal is, of course, from the fake trailer for Werewolf Women of the S.S. As said fake trailer is a ridiculous sendup of exploitation films and trashy cinema in general, the inclusion of a white man playing the fiendish doctor is pretty much part of the joke – but it’s who they got that’s the real treat. We’ll get to that shortly, but before that…

It is honestly really disgusting that in the long history of this character, he has never once been portrayed by an Asian actor. You’d think at some point that someone might at least just cast any sort of Asian due to the unfortunate tendency to view Asian actors as interchangeable, but they couldn’t even do that.

Final Fate: Fu Manchu is notable because he always gets away, even if his plans are foiled; in fact, he’ll sometimes have plans within plans, so even when he loses, he still wins to some degree. But enough about his in-universe fate; let’s talk about the real world fate of the character, where Fu Manchu has a very odd legal status in terms of public domain.

While the first three books are in the public domain, some characters from later books are not considered part of the public domain, which has lead to situations such as Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu not being able to be reprinted for years. On top of this, as the character’s creator Sax Rohmer died in 1959, Fu Manchu is not in the public domain in Europe; this has led to him appearing but not being directly named in Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where he is only referred to as “The Doctor” (amusingly, he goes up against Moriarty in that comic, the character he draws inspiration from).

Best Scene: In what is one of the very few non-offensive uses of the character, Fu Manchu is given a brief cameo in the trailer for Werewolf Women of the S.S. that shows up in the Rodriguez/Tarantino double feature Grindhouse, and he’s played by… well… just watch:

Final Thoughts & Score: Fu Manchu is an absolutely fascinating villain born out of incredibly problematic places.

There is absolutely no denying that Fu Manchu was created from a deeply racist place. It’s an unavoidable fact. There is no getting around it. Fu Manchu as a character was meant to demonize the Chinese, to the point where production of films based on him as well as the novels was halted in times of war when the Chinese were allies. These books, these stories, are all extremely problematic by the standards of today.

But with that being said… who, exactly, is the title character? Do you know, without looking it up, who the hero who Fu Manchu antagonizes is, the Holmes to his Moriarty? This is Fu Manchu’s series, and throughout it he projects an air of intelligence, sophistication, and even honor that you wouldn’t expect would be afforded to a character such as him. As far as racist propaganda goes, an extremely charitable person could be able to call this “progressive” in some regard. Positive discrimination is a step up from regular discrimination, right? Again, there’s really no getting around the glaring problems with the character and his origins, but the fact Fu Manchu is one of the first supercriminals in literature and manages to just be unflinchingly cool to the point where you’ll probably end up rooting for him over the bland white protagonists says something for how utterly racism fails when it manages to make the object of its derision infinitely cooler than the race it’s trying to prop up as superior.

By my own criteria, Fu Manchu could only be an 11/10. I can’t deny how much of an impact, for better or for worse, the fiendish doctor has had on pop culture, to the point where he gave his name to and subsequently killed off a variety of facial hair, a feat only matched by Hitler. But this comes with a disclaimer: I cannot stress enough that Fu Manchu is deeply and inherently problematic on a conceptual level, and that despite how genuinely cool and fascinating he is in the right hands it doesn’t and cannot erase that his original purpose was to demonize the Chinese and Asian cultures. He also managed to help perpetuate yellowface and helped to popularize cliches that have plagued Asian villains to this day. While many in his wake have still managed to be cool and engaging in their own right, it really cannot be said how this character has a very complex history. Has he done more bad than good? That’s not for a white guy like me to determine; I’m merely here to determine the overall quality of the villain and determine their impact, and Fu Manchu undeniably has impacted culture. It would be wrong and disingenuous to break my own rules to give him a lower rating due to his problematic elements, but at the same time I cannot sit here and pretend they do not exist.

I would love to see the day where Fu Manchu can be reclaimed to some extent. Look at Shang-Chi, for example; the (at this time) upcoming Marvel film is set to feature the Fu Manchu-inspired Mandarin as a major character, and he is set to be played by Tony Leung Chiu-wai, a Hong Kong actor. If one of the characters inspired by him can get portrayed by an Asian actor, perhaps someday in the future Fu Manchu can be reclaimed from his racist origins and given the respectful treatment he deserves. Fu Manchu is a character that is in many ways accidentally incredible and iconic. Born from horrendous racism, and yet the racist screeds depicting him always somehow manage to prop him up as the best character in the lot… it’s the paradox of racist thought, to go so far in demonizing their target they manage to make them more interesting and engaging than the generic protagonists. Fu Manchu is a truly great villain mired in the problems of the time he was created; in the right hands, great work could be done with him.

Bottom line is: Rob Zombie, get Nicolas Cage on the phone and start filming Werewolf Women of the S.S.

[brokehorrorfan]

Thanksgiving will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on January 30 via Sony. Directed by Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever), the 2023 slasher is currently available on VOD.

Based on the faux-trailer from 2007’s Grindhouse, the film is written by Jeff Rendell. Patrick Dempsey, Addison Rae, Milo Manheim, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Nell Verlaque, Rick Hoffman, and Gina Gershon star.

No word on what, if any, special features will be included at this time.

After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the holiday. Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan. Will the town uncover the killer and survive the holidays.... or become guests at his twisted holiday dinner table?

Pre-order Thanksgiving.

[itsfinancethings]

New story in Technology from Time: Video Games May Be Key to Keeping World War II Memory Alive. Here Are 5 WWII Games Worth Playing, According to a Historian

The 75th anniversary of Japan formally surrendering to the U.S. aboard the battleship USS Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945, arrives at a moment when the question of how the war is remembered feels more necessary than ever. Veterans’ stories, books, movies and TV shows have kept memories of the war alive for the last 75 years, but how will those stories be told when there are fewer people around who lived through those era-defining years?

Recently, some people in younger generations have turned to a perhaps surprising source for World War II stories: video games. Games have become more realistic not only in terms of technological advancements, but also in terms of featuring real people and, at least in term of blockbuster games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty, getting input from real experts on military history.

For example, the upcoming virtual-reality game Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond will feature documentary shorts, and creators interviewed WWII veterans about their wartime experiences to inform the set, which includes missions across Europe and in Tunisia. Inside their headsets, players will walk in the boots of a combat engineer recruited for espionage work by the Office of Strategic Services, which was a real U.S. intelligence agency during World War II and a precursor to the CIA. On Thursday, at the virtual Gamescom convention, Respawn Entertainment unveiled a new trailer for the game, which will be released this holiday season.

Respawn EntertainmentA scene from the upcoming virtual-reality game Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond.

One of the most popular WWII video game franchises, Medal of Honor began with educational aspirations. As Peter Hirschmann, who worked on the original 1999 game and is the game director for Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, recalled to The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year, Saving Private Ryan director Steven Spielberg knew that his R-rated movie wasn’t for kids but expressed a wish that there were more popular culture available to spark interest in the war’s history among younger viewers. “He then had the foresight to see that one of the dominant forms of entertainment emerging was games, so he laid it out: ‘I want to make a WWII game that kids can play to introduce them to these stories,'” Hirschmann said. “He was very specific about wanting to call it Medal of Honor, because that award represents going above and beyond the call of duty.”

So far, given that the U.S. is one of the biggest video game markets in the world, the U.S. perspective on the war dominates in video games too; as is the case with World War II movies, most are set in Western Europe. In fact, in 2013, Russian players blasted Company of Heroes 2 for repeating American stereotypes of the Eastern Front.

Ultimately, history games can spark interest in learning more, says Bob Whitaker, a professor of History at Collin College and host of the podcast History Respawned, where historians talk about history-themed video games. His own passion for this subject dates back to playing Civilization II in the mid-1990s, which inspired him to create a “mod” (a player-made tweak) re-creating his grandfather’s experience in World War II as a pilot who flew missions over the Himalayas.

And he wasn’t the only one. “Recently with the centenary of the end of World War I, I can’t tell you how many conversations I had with students and other scholars about how games they played like Battlefield 1 or Valiant Hearts: The Great War portrayed the First World War,” he says. “Going forward you are going to see the same sort of conversations about Second World War games.”

In the next 75 years, he hopes more historians will see the value of games as Spielberg did. “I look at games as being in a similar positions as motion pictures were in the beginning of the 20th century. Games will be taken much more seriously in the 21st century; they’re going to carry much more historical weight,” says Whitaker. “Games are going to be a part of the ways in which we remember the past going forward. Historians have to offer a helping hand in case players want to know more.”

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

Below, Whitaker picks five other titles that show how games are telling the story of World War II:

Through the Darkest of Times (2019)

“In Through the Darkest of Times, developed by [Berlin-based] Paintbucket Games, you play as a German resistance group living in Berlin during the Second World War. The White Rose was a group of German students who attempted to resist the Nazi regime. Students were executed, and the game is trying to tell that story to a certain extent. Games are typically about player empowerment, living out a power fantasy. Your missions don’t often involve violence, but instead the weapons of the weak: sabotage, graffiti, and spreading leaflets. The game exposes players to a history most people don’t know while the game’s mechanics illustrate for the player how difficult resistance to Nazism often was for ordinary people.”

Attentat 1942 (2017)

“Developed by Charles University in Prague, it’s about the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, featuring survivors. It only takes about two to three hours to finish so it’s the type of fun, cheap game you could play in an afternoon. A number of historians helped to develop the game, so stands out for its fidelity to the history of the conflict. It marries compelling game mechanics with authentic history.”

Call of Duty: WWII (2017)

“Most Second World War games don’t mention the major tragedies or anything related to the Holocaust.

While Call of Duty: WWII does fall into clichés and traps with WWII video games where you’re getting a lot of bombast, blockbuster set pieces, at the same time, the developers at Activision are doing something rather brave, which is bringing up the Holocaust in a major AAA video title. It culminates in a mission where you are liberating a concentration camp. There is no violence. You’re solemnly going through the remains at the concentration camp.”

Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014)

“Wolfenstein: The New Order is a pulpy, grindhouse sci-fi version of World War II, set in the early 1960s when the Nazis have won the war. Your player, ‘B.J.’ Blazkowicz, goes into a prison camp, and in course of the mission, you see Jews, people of color, other enemy groups being treated poorly in these camps. You see gas chambers, crematoriums, bodies are being burned.

We’re moving into an era where survivors of the Holocaust are passing away, and you’ve got to rely on secondary sources. As we get further away from the Second World War, it’s really important to remind players of the crimes the Nazis committed.”

Hearts of Iron IV (2016)

“Hearts of Iron IV attempts to replicate as accurately as possible the starting conditions for various world powers in the late 1930s, giving you the opportunity to either replicate history or pursue some sort of counterfactual scenario in which you are attempting to change the outcome of the war. People use that to create more historically-realistic scenarios, but it’s also controversial because it’s popular among groups of ‘modders’ who revel in racist and ethnonationalist counterfactual histories. The base game is solid, but some of the player-created content can be very disturbing. Games are not like a book or movie. As the audience, you’re not simply receiving the game. You can add onto the game and manipulate it.”

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[ramajmedia]

What Is Robert Rodriguez's Net Worth? | Screen Rant

Robert Rodriguez made a name for himself with his maverick approach to filmmaking - here's the director's estimated net worth. Robert Rodriguez has one of the most inspiring journeys to becoming a filmmaker, where he took some money raised from submitting himself for medical testing and went to Mexico to shoot cult classic El Mariachi. The movie follows a luckless mariachi who is mistaken for a criminal by hitmen. Rodriguez was only 23 when he made the movie, which was shot for a mere $7,000, and originally intended to sell it as a straight to video feature.

Instead, El Mariachi attracted some heat due to its incredible making-of story, and Columbia Pictures picked it up and gave Rodriguez more money for post-production. The movie spawned a bigger budget sequel in Desperado, where Antonio Bandaras played the vengeful mariachi, and he rounded out the trilogy with 2003's Once Upon A Time In Mexico. Rodriguez has become famous for his ability to produce movies that are shot fast and cheap but look much bigger in scope, such as Sin City. He's something of a one-man band when it comes to filmmaking and can also write, edit, and compose his own music.

Related: Everything You Need To Know About From Dusk Till Dawn's Season 4 Cancelation

Robert Rodriguez has been prolific since the moment his career took off, with his most recent project being the well-received blockbuster Alita: Battle Angel. He's a busy producer too and founded his own cable channel dubbed El Rey Network in 2013, which produced original shows like From Dusk To Dawn: The Series. No doubt due to his enterprising approach to his career, Celebrity Net Worth reports Robert Rodriguez is worth an estimated $50 million.

Rodriguez is also great friends with fellow auteur Quentin Tarantino, and the pair have collaborated on movies like the 1995 anthology Four Rooms, Sin City and their most famous experiment Grindhouse. This project was an homage to the low-budget genre fare of the 1970s, with Tarantino directing Death Proof while Rodriguez helmed Planet Terror. The movie also featured fake trailers directed by the likes of Edgar Wright and Rob Zombie, and two of these false previews - Hobo With A Shotgun and Machete - eventually being made into solo feature films.

Rodriguez quite literally returned to his roots with next project Red 11, which was produced for $7,000. The concept is even based on his time in the research hospital to fund El Mariachi, with the title referring to the number and shirt he was assigned. He also directed the ultimate forthcoming movie 100 Years starring John Malkovich, which was sealed in a time-locked safe that won't open until 2115. Robert Rodriguez is also rumored to be directing the remake of John Carpenter's Escape From New York, though there's currently no word on when the movie will go into production.

Next: Alita: Battle Angel Was (Just) A Box Office Success

source https://screenrant.com/robert-rodriguez-net-worth/

[ethanalter]

Roger Corman Revs Up 'Death Race 2050': 'We Have the First Picture to Portray Donald Trump as the President of the United States'

Roger Corman checks out a death trap vehicle for ‘Death Race 2050’ (Photo: Universal)

Roger Corman had already enjoyed a prolific (and lucrative) two-decade career as a B-movie auteur by the time a little movie called Death Race 2000 raced into theaters in 1975. But that instant cult hit, which was produced for less than $1 million and wound up grossing at least five times that, holds an exalted position in Corman’s filmography thanks to its fusion of grindhouse thrills and comedy club laughs. “I was trying to combine a car-racing picture with a little bit of social commentary, and a lot of humor,” Corman tells Yahoo Movies, calling us from, appropriately enough, a moving car.

Set in the then-far off future of 2000, the original Death Race imagined an America beset by civil strife and ruled by a totalitarian leader. The only thing that unites this United States of tomorrow is the Transcontinental Road Race, a turbo-charged dash from New York to Los Angeles. Its drivers are explicitly encouraged to let nothing — including citizens — come between them and victory. Seen today, the film still delights, and not just because it offers the opportunity to see David Carradine and a young Sylvester Stallone duel as competing drivers, Frankenstein and Machine Gun Joe. The movie is also an obvious influence on subsequent futuristic stories that seek to mingle bloody action and snarky satire, be it RoboCop or Demolition Man.

Simone Griffeth and David Carradine in ‘Death Race 2000’ (Photo: Everett)

Now, with the year 2000 long since in the rearview mirror, Corman, who turned 90 last spring, decided it was time to make a Death Race that wouldn’t be dated for another few decades. Enter Death Race 2050, the latest film produced by the “King of the B’s,” directed by G.J. Echternkamp. Available on Blu-ray and DVD on Jan. 17, the loose remake sets Frankenstein (now played by New Zealand action star Manu Bennett) down in the year 2050, when the USA has become a giant corporate conglomerate overseen by a despotic chairman (Malcolm McDowell) with an all-too-familiar hairdo. We spoke with Corman about taking Death Race back to the starting line, his time working with a young Jack Nicholson, and what happened with his infamous Fantastic Four movie.

Related: John Waters’ Five Favorite Roger Corman Movies

Prior to Death Race 2050, the Death Race franchise was revived as a 2008 feature by Paul W.S. Anderson followed by a series of direct-to-DVD spin-offs. What were your contributions to those versions? My work as a producer on those was almost zero. They gave me the script to the first one, and the others, and asked for my notes on the first one, but other than that I had no actual function. But I know Paul Anderson and I know what he was doing [with Death Race]. He was going for a straight action picture, which was what the first draft of Death Race 2000 was as well. When I read it, I thought there was something missing, and that’s when I came up with the idea of the drivers’ killing of the pedestrians, as a way to integrate the public with the violent sport that they love. But you couldn’t take that too seriously, so that’s when I introduced the element of comedy. When I called Universal about [their plans for] Death Race, I told them that [satire] was really essential to the original idea. So they asked me if I would like to make one. I went back to the original idea and here we are.

‘Death Race 2050’ (Photo: Universal)

The film satirizes a number of contemporary social issues including climate change, terrorism, and corporate greed. What we tried to do is take the same themes that were in the original and project them to 2050. So the United States of America has become the United Corporations of America, and the president is also the chairman. And here we got a little bit lucky. While we were shooting, we thought, “Why don’t we give the president a Donald Trump hairdo?” It wasn’t in the script, and we never dreamed he would actually become the president! So, we can say we have the first picture to portray Donald Trump as the president of the United States.

‘Death Race 2050’: Welcome to Death Race:

We also tried to pick drivers who would reflect certain aspects of today. My favorite driver, other than Frankenstein, is Tammy the Terrorist. That name just came to me, and then we tried to figure out who she might be. I didn’t want to get involved with ISIS or anything like that, so I made her into the high priestess of a new religion whose saints are Elvis Presley and Justin Bieber and so forth.

Death Race 2050 mixes the low-fi elements of the original — the practical cars, for example — with modern day technology like CGI. Having observed the rise of digital effects firsthand, how do you feel about its impact on the industry? It’s helpful when it’s used well. Jim Cameron, who started doing some of this stuff when he worked with me making the special effects on our low-budget sci-fi films, uses them correctly. He did it beautifully on Avatar, for example. The only objection I have is when computer graphics take over and the story suffers.

Have you noticed a difference between the generation of young directors raised in the digital effects age versus the young directors you worked with in the ‘60s and ‘70s? I think the basic art of motion pictures has been known for a long time. The difference I see in young directors now is that they are integrating more effects, which can be done well or not as well. They’re also cutting faster. If you look at a picture made just 20 or 30 years ago, you will see shots held on the screen a little bit longer, and sometimes a whole lot longer, than they are today. There’s also more camera movement, which is due to the introduction of the Steadicam, and the fact that cameras have become lighter and more portable. I was looking at La La Land the other day, and that first shot on the freeway is an amazing technical achievement. It’s all over the freeway and there’s not a cut in it. It must have taken them a week! It’s a virtuoso use of the camera.

‘Death Race 2050’ (Photo: Universal)

Turning to your own work as a director, the Edgar Allan Poe films you made are so much fun to watch. Are those the movies you’re proudest of? I’m proud of most of them! Some didn’t turn out quite as well as I’d hoped. [Laughs] Some of those stories were no longer than two pages, so we expanded them. For example, “The Pit and the Pendulum” was only about the pit and the pendulum. So we used the story as the third act, and then tried to write the first and second acts in ways we thought would be faithful to Poe’s vision.

Do you have any good Jack Nicholson stories from your early collaborations with him? Jack was a very good writer, and he wrote a number of scripts for me. When I made The Trip, about an LSD experience, I chose him to co-write the script. As a conscious director, I took a trip myself and had a spectacularly wonderful experience. Afterwards, we talked about the script and I said, “If this is based on my trip, it’s going to be an advertisement for LSD.” And Jack said, “Don’t worry — I had a couple of bad ones. We can put it all together.”

Director Roger Corman (left) with actor Bruce Dern during the making of ‘The Trip’ (Photo: Getty Images)

When I saw the recent animated documentary Tower — about the 1966 University of Texas shootings — I instantly thought of Targets, the film Peter Bogdanavich made for you, which was a fictionalized version of that tragedy. I’m very proud of Targets. It was Peter’s first film, and I think it’s a semi-forgotten film. After we made it, I sold it to Paramount and they got worried about the connection to the Tower shootings and postponed the release, before only giving it a limited release. I’ve always thought that was a mistake on their part. They had a brilliant little picture and it should have gotten more of a release.

In general, distribution appears to be one of the bigger challenges facing films today. In the ’60s and ’70s, your movies always seemed to find a theatrical release. When I started, every film that was decently made got full theatrical distribution. Today, they’ve frozen the lower budgeted films out. Death Race 2050 is a big budget film for me, but for Universal it’s low budget. With a few exceptions, all of these lower-budgeted films are released on DVD or Netflix now. It’s unfortunate, because I like to primarily see films in theaters, but that’s the way the industry is — it’s an art and a business.

Roger Corman’s ‘Fantastic Four’ (Photo: Uncork’d Entertainment)

It’s worth noting that you are associated with the one of the most famous unreleased films of all time: the 1994 version of The Fantastic Four. That was the weirdest production I was ever involved in! A German producer [Bernd Eichinger] came to me saying he had an option on a Fantastic Four movie and a $30 million budget, but his option expired on December 31. This was in October! He said, “Can you take this script and make it for less money?” I said, “How much money do you have?” and he replied, “A million dollars.” Cutting $29 million out of a $30 million budget is a pretty big cut! We actually did start the film on schedule, and I always thought it was a good little picture. But my deal with Bernd stipulated that he had a certain amount of time before its release to sell it to a major studio. He did sell it, but part of the condition [of the sale] was that they didn’t want a $1 million picture to go out there and contaminate the marketplace. So, years later, it ended up being a $100 million film!

Watch a trailer for ‘Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four’:

[crookedtable]

'Machete' and 'Machete Kills' (featuring Sandro Falce)

After decades in the industry, Danny Trejo finally landed his first leading role in 2010. Directed by longtime Trejo collaborator Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis, the wild action movie served as the culmination of Trejo's career up to that point. And they called it Machete.

Based on a fake trailer Rodriguez directed for Grindhouse -- his 2007 double feature with Quentin Tarantino -- Machete leans into exploitation and politically incorrectness with reckless abandon. And the film's effort in capturing the grimy tone of 1970s B-movies is a hell of a good time.

Sandro Falce returns to the show to talk about not only Machete and the whole Grindhouse phenomenon. We'll also cover Rodriguez's even more insane 2013 sequel, Machete Kills. Plus, we throw some wishful energy into the ongoing prospect of the third film, Machete Kills Again... in Space!

So join us as we take a stab at talking all about Machete.

SYNOPSIS

Machete: After nearly being killed during a violent fight with a powerful drug lord (Steven Seagal), a former Mexican Federale known as Machete (Danny Trejo) roams Texas streets as a vigilante and sometime day-laborer. Hired to perform a covert hit, he is double-crossed and forced to go on the run. Machete may be down but not out, and he carves a path of blood, bullets, and broken hearts in his quest to settle the score.

Machete Kills: When the U.S. president (Carlos Estevez) has a mission that would be impossible for just any mortal man, the person he needs is Machete (Danny Trejo), a knife-wielding ex-Federale agent. Machete's mission is to take down Voz (Mel Gibson), a madman revolutionary and an eccentric billionaire arms dealer who has come up with a plot to start a nuclear war. Facing death at every turn from assassins, Machete pulls out all of his skills to get the job done.

SHOW NOTES

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