Are you going to the Toronto Film Festival this year? Want to make it through customs unmolested on your way home? Maybe you should consider skipping the screening of DOAP – no, it’s not Dugongs on a Plane. It’s Death of a President. And it’s a mockumentary about the assassination of George W Bush.

Matt Drudge is already freaked out about DOAP, and that should give the film some notoriety on some level. I haven’t seen Range’s other films, so I can’t tell you what to expect, but I will say that my interest is piqued. And not just because I hate Bush! The basic format sounds interesting, and reminds me of the excellent CSA: Confederate States of America.

What
is this? Every single day of the week (almost), a new "Graboid", a
single moment grabbed from a random movie, appears on this site for you
to guess the name of the film, share with your officemates, or discuss
on our message boards. Sometimes the Graboid will be very easy and
sometimes it’ll be as obscure as obscure gets. So read the news, read
the reviews, and enjoy a screencap each and every day for your guessing
pleasure.

As of 5/15/06, the Graboids are archived right here!
Guess and discuss today’s Graboid on the Message Boards.
Send an email about this feature.

Note from Nick: I’ve made this as easy as can be. I’m going to mail the passes. I’m not giving you any trivia or instructions to deal with. All I have asked for is your address and that you use the links below. Why? Because those links below create a subject line that makes it easy to filter these emails out so I can mail passes. But maybe and I mean MAYBE 15% of you have used those links, so what I get is blank emails or emails that say "Hey Nick" or Movie Passes" or "Craven", which really threw me off. Use the links or I am not sending a pass. Bottom line. Also, if one person sends like 5 emails with their friends’ names on each different one to gobble up a stack of passes, you aren’t getting them either. This is the last straw. I make it easy, I do the work, and it’s free (for you, not me). Show a little decency, eh?

I was also surprised to see how many effects there were in the trailer for this movie, something that both excites the primal side of me but also raises the question in my tiny head "what about subtlety?". Then I remembered that this is a fun movie, a The Lost Boys by way of The Craft with a little of The Skulls tossed in for good measure. I expect every film to be Evilspeak and that is why I fail. This sounds like fun, so screw my typical pessimism. This looks fun! Go, The Covenant!

By the way, I’d love to see the readers in some of the smaller cities represent. It’s rare I get to send you passes, so let’s do it right this time.

Everything this week feels like it’s related to the Transformers set visit (including these damn crabs!). While hanging out in downtown LA waiting for shots to be set up, many of us would get to talking, and the talk would often turn to nerdy subjects. I talked to producer Tom DeSanto (seriously – if the guy was any nicer the Hollywood system would have eaten him alive already. It’s incredible how down to earth and geeky he is) about JJ Abrams’ Star Trek XI, something that Paramount publicity has already begun working on.

I have to admit that I thought that Abrams’ take would disappear after Mission: Impossible III sucked, blew and then didn’t make enough money. But it turns out that Paramount loves JJ and hates Tom Cruise, so despite the fact that MI3 would have been no good despite its star, Abrams continues on the Star Trek revitalization.

I’m not a big Star Trek fan (although I was as a kid, to my eternal shame, and I have a head full of Original Series trivia as a result), but I’m eagerly awaiting information on just how Abrams is going to revitalize this franchise. While many of us nerds on the Transformers set had differing opinions on where the series should go, we all agreed that it was pretty surprising that it was coming back so soon. The recent bad films and terrible TV series really took the luster off the name, and I would have expected Paramount to let the whole franchise cool its heels for a couple more years before bringing it back. They have a lot of faith in Abrams, it seems.

There’s this new indie movie opening this weekend that I wanted to hate, because it’s all about Williamsburg hipsters, but I ended up really liking. The film is called Mutual Appreciation, and one of the reasons I dug the movie was the star, an actor/musician named Justin Rice. He’s funny and loose onscreen, and felt very real, even when being kind of a dick.

Then today I get an email telling me about this new film Rice is in – where he stars with Zach Galligan! Yes, Gremlins star Zach Galligan, who could totally pass for Rice’s older brother, I think. The film is an indie that’ll be shooting on the streets of New York City called Let Them Chirp Awhile. It’s being shot in 35mm black and white using vintage lenses and filters – the filmmakers are shooting for that “Old Hollywood” look. They’re also comparing the look to Woody Allen’s Manhattan, which is an audacious comparison to make, since I think Manhattan is one of the best looking movies ever made.

The movie, which is being described as a tragi-comedy, also stars WB babes Laura Breckinridge and Pepper Binkley. Is Pepper Binkley a real name? That sounds like she should be friends with Betty and Veronica, and maybe get her own sassy spin-off comic. I am in love with her already, and I haven’t even seen a picture.

Let Them Chirp Awhile is the feature debut from a good local boy named Jonathan Blitstein.

I just got an email from a friend asking me if Harold Perrineau’s character on Lost has been killed off. Not yet that I know of, but that’s not a terrible assumption considering that the guy has just signed on to star in 28 Weeks Later, the hacky sounding sequel to 28 Days Later, which is shooting right in the middle of Lost time.

Perrineua will play an “upbeat” American pilot in the sequel, which finds a new viral outbreak hitting London a half year after the last one burnt itself out. The movie also stars Jeremy Renner, not playing a scumbag for once. If he’s playing a guy named Walt and Perrineau gets to spend half the movie shouting his name, they have my money for this seriously unnecessary sequel.

So what does this mean for Lost? Spoilers for the end of Season 2 to follow… At the end of the second year, Michael (Perrineau’s character) and his son Walt were sent off in a boat by the Others with a compass heading that would allow them to escape the Island of Mystery. The show has been filming for a little while now, so it’s quite possible that Perrineau shows up in the first couple of episodes, and it isn’t like the guy didn’t disappear from the series for half of last year anyway.

Here’s the thing – the show takes place over a very limited amount of time. Just over two and a half months have passed on that island in the last two years, and the actor playing Walt has grown as you would expect a young adult to grow – ie, two years worth, not two months. The show runners have said they have a plan to deal with the actor’s growth – wouldn’t it be great if the plan was to have Michael and Walt’s boat hit a mine in the opening of the season three premiere?

If 28 Weeks Later does well, expect the series to continue with 28 Fortnights Later, 28 Months Later and Four Score and 28 Years Later.

It’s interesting that even after a couple of years of high profile movies getting spoiled all over the internet that the big studios still haven’t figured out how to stem the tide. The thing is that the production of a big movie has so many ancillary aspects – from FX to merchandising – that it’s impossible to keep everything a secret. And then once some stuff starts leaking, like it has with The Transformers, it becomes hip to leak your own stuff.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I’m not that comfortable with self-proclaimed and self-policed ‘fanbases.’ Whether they be Browncoats or Trekkies or ‘Transfans’ (which sounds like they troll the t4m sections of Craigslist). There’s something about an unthinking and blind devotion to any property that’s creepy, whether it be the Bible or Lost. But it’s especially creepy when it’s about a property that wasn’t meant to be taken half as seriously as the fans take it.

The other problem with these fanbases, these Transfans who will look at this picture of Prime and weep in frustration and who are threatening to protest outside Michael Bay’s office, is that they just don’t understand the filmmaking process. They don’t understand why the original, boxy designs won’t work in a photoreal environment, or why studios don’t make 150 million dollar movies about a whole bunch of robots and without people. I’m not sure how worthwhile it is to the studio to reach out to these people (although the studio really is doing so), just because they’ll all probably see the movie anyway, and the ones who won’t wouldn’t see it unless it was a live-action recreation of that shitty animated movie that was the depressing capstone on the final, dreary years of Orson Welles.

As for me, I don’t care how Prime looks until I’ve seen him in action in a clip or a trailer. I think that Transformers is probably a perfect fit for Bay, and if he keep some of the script’s schmaltzier and more boring qualities under control we are going to see a very exciting giant robots on the rampage movie that won’t win a single non-technical award but will be a very rewarding two hours spent in a theater on a hot summer day. That’s what makes me interested in seeing things from this film, not wondering if it has enough fealty to a poorly animated 1980s cartoon.

BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
STUDIO: Buena Vista
MSRP: $29.99
RATED: R (for no good reason)
RUNNING TIME: 83 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES: None

The
Pitch

"It’s like taking Romeo and Juliet and then
photocopying it alongside The Fast and the Furious, and then
photocopying the photocopy, and then photocopying that, and then getting all ‘creative’ on the result."

The
Humans

Gilbert Chavarria, Calvi Pabon. (Both of whom
might want to change their names, now.)

The
Nutshell

Roger Corman, he who is set to watch over
independent cinema, presents the story of young Reno, an
impoverished car enthusiast who finds himself embroiled in the seedy side of
street racing and disorganized crime. He makes himself some enemies, scores
himself some cash, and falls for the sister of the aforementioned enemies.

The
Lowdown

How bad, exactly, do you imagine this will be? Expectations
do not form a viable basis for criticism, but they can occasionally function as
a shorthand. For example, from the artwork, the obscurity, and the lame title,
I’d hazard a guess that you either:

a)
aren’t reading this because you don’t trust your cunning CHUD staff to make crap
reviews entertaining, or

b) you
think that Asphalt Wars shows off a level of talent that even its meager
budget overvalued. B is a good choice. What sucks for me is that now I have to
tell you why, in three easy steps.

Case study number one: in the first impromptu race
of the film, our protagonist grits his teeth in great concentration, the sound
of his motor humming all around him, his eyes on the finish line — while
through the rear window we can see that he seems to be parked, motionless, in front of a
brick wall. The acting really sells the scene.

Warp nine, Mr. Nastygram!

I think it’s gaining on you.

Case study Nummer zwei: The primary conflict that
our hero faces is convincing his uncle that he’s a big boy, now, and deserves
his car back. The range of emotion displayed in
these tantrums is staggering. As an added bonus, the car is invested with serious metaphorical weight.

Case study numero tres: These are the women the
filmmakers could afford.

No, not them.

I don’t get it.

This would be a great place to be pithy, I guess: Asphalt
Wars contains zero-percent redeeming factor by volume. Don’t watch it
unless you’re related to the director, and even then I bet you’d have about as
much fun as you would have watching aunt Nanner’s slideshow of her trip to the
ice cream social. It’s trite, ugly, and effectively mute.

The
Package

There is a void.

2 out
of 10

BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
PUBLISHER: Tor Books
PAGES: 352
AUTHOR WEBSITE: www.aleemartinez.com