By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Sundance and More
The Sundance Film Festival opened with a whimper and not a bang after Nick Broomfield’s (Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam) documentary, Kurt and Courtney, was dumped after legal threats from EMI records, claiming unauthorized use of Cobain’s songs (See our Sundance Daily Report).Broomfield is reportedly not as upset as you might think. “This is agonizing, but it will become part of the film and will make a better ending. And I’ll be doing a bit more skiing than I’d anticipated.” On the Courtney watch, it looks like she’s chosen her next film: the ensemble drama, 200 Cigarettes, which seems to be yet another classic in the Fine Whine school of film making.
Morgan Freeman is getting younger. He’ll once again star as Alex Cross in Along Came A Spider, the prequel to his hit thriller, Kiss TheGirls. In other bloody news, the Academy (yes, that Academy) is giving a special science technology award to Pete Clark, a longtime effects expert who co-developed, with 3M (the people who brought you Post-Its),really cool simulated blood. Sadly, the Academy passed up other such inventors, like the guy who developed the fake urine for Ransom, the fake vomit for Barfly and the fake flatulence for Blazing Saddles.
S.W.A.T.: The Movie is getting closer every day and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it. It looks like the cop movie to end all cop movies will combine the massive talents of Tomorrow Never Dies director Roger Spottiswoode and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Besides the opportunity to break new records for amounts of space taken up on the poster by a director/actor team, Arnold must be jumping at the opportunity to work with a director whose incredible track record with major movie stars includes Tom Hanks in Turner and Hooch, Robin Williams in The Best of Times, Mel Gibson in Air America and Sylvester Stallone in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.