Jonathan Demme and Stephen King teaming up for cool time trip

It seems like forever since I've seen a movie directed by Jonathan Demme, and even longer since I've seen anything that sprang from the over-active mind of Stephen King. I did, however, enjoy Demme's last movie, "Rachel Getting Married," quite a bit, and I have "Something Wild" just sitting in my Netflix streaming queue. And now also comes word that the director, who doesn't work nearly often enough, is teaming up with King for what should be a pretty epicly fun time trip.

Demme is attached to write and direct a feature film based on King's upcoming novel, "11/22/63," which as you can perhaps guess from the title is a science fiction work that centers on the assassination of JFK. Here's the official plot description from King's website:

Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students — a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk. Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane — and insanely possible — mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life — a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

Sounds like a movie trip well worth taking, so stay tuned for more on this as soon as I see it. And after that today, before a couple of videos, it's all about TV comedy, starting with a show that I was slow to pick up on, but have now become quite addicted to this summer: Psych.

Silly? Sure, but how could a show about psychic detectives be anything else? Luckily, thanks to stars James Roday and Dule Hill, it's also always fast and funny, and it wears its geek flag proudly, especially with the sublime "Twin Peaks" tribute episode "Dual Spires" (get it?), the last one I've managed to catch so far. And now comes word from USA that season six will premiere on Oct. 12 at 10 p.m. Bring it on already!

And in other potentially very funny TV news, Larry David's constant enabler and agent on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," the great Jeff Garlin, has just signed a deal with ABC Studios to write, executive produce and star in a half-hour comedy. No word yet on just what it might be about, but with Kid in the Hall Bruce McCullough on board to co-write this, I'm still betting on something very funny.

Now on to a couple of videos to wrap up an admittedly short report so that I can get some housework done before going to see "The Help," starting with the second trailer I've seen for "50/50," one of the movies I'm definitely most looking forward to for this fall. As you'll see from the trailer, Reel Fanatic fave Joseph Gordon Levitt stars in the comedy of sorts based on Will Reiser's battle with cancer, and he's joined by Seth Rogen and Anna Kendrick, who I'll watch in just about anything outside of the "Twilight" oeuvre. Enjoy the trailer, and keep an eye out for the movie on Sept. 30.

And finally today, I just bought the album "Watch the Throne" by Jay-Z and Kanye West, and though it's gonna take a little while to absorb all that ego, it sounds pretty epicly good so far. Below is the video for the first single, "Otis," which was apparently directed by Spike Jonze, though you really can't detect many signs of that. What is has, however, is a great sample of Otis' "Try a Little Tenderness" and, for some reason, Aziz Ansari failing pretty miserably at dancing. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant weekend. Peace out.

A first look at the first cop show I'm going to watch in many years

I'm not sure why, but I just haven't found a cop TV show I've enjoyed in a very long time, essentially since the end of "The Wire."

My friend and fellow cubicle slave Randy Waters tells me "Southland" is worth catching up with, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Coming soon from AMC, however, is one I'm going to take a chance on, and not just because it comes from the network that brought us "Mad Men" and "The Walking Dead."

So, what makes "The Killing" intriguing to me? Well, first and mostly, it's because the 13-episode series will focus on one investigation, the titular event. Based on the Danish television series "Forbrydelsen" and created by "Cold Case" showrunner Veena Sud, it revolves around the murder of a young girl in Seattle and the police investigation involving many possible suspects. The show will have its two-hour premiere on Sunday, April 3, because, I guess, like HBO before it, AMC always likes to premiere new shows on Sundays.

To be clear, I'm certainly not expecting anything as compelling as "Twin Peaks" or any of TV's best cop shows, but its been a long time since we've even had a decent police serial, so here's hoping this turns out to be good. Enjoy the trailer, and then stick around for a short dose of "Jackass"-ery just perfect for a Wednesday morning.



With "Jackass 3D" on DVD this week, here's one of the DVD bonus clips just to remind you that, most likely, your day really isn't that bad. It's Jason "Wee Man" Acuna trying to jump a ravine on his very small bike, and knowing he's a very willing victim of these shenanigans, just enjoy it, and have a perfectly passable Wednesday. Peace out.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Twin Peaks 2.0? Not hardly, but not awful either

ABC has indeed released the first 14 minutes of its upcoming take on oddity called "Happy Town," and while it is truly more than a little insulting to release this on or very near to the 20th anniversary of David Lynch's TV masterpiece, it's actually better than I thought it would be.

But more on that at the end. First up comes news from David Cross that's sure to upset "Arrested Development" fans, but considering all the bulls*** we've been fed about an "AD" movie, I really don't think you can blame him for being probably the much more realistic messenger. Here's what he had to say to TVsquad.com:

"(I)t's not going to happen. Way too much time it's been (since the show ended). I mean, there's so many people involved. Everyone's doing their own thing, you know. And everybody's aged. It's just not going to happen. I'm sure I speak for everybody when I say we'd love for it to happen, we'd love to work on it, but just I don't think ... not going to happen."

Unfortunately, everything he had to say there makes a lot of sense. So consider the idea dead at least for now, but in the meantime remember that series co-creators Mitch Hurwitz and James Vallely are set to return to Fox (I believe) next fall, with Gob Bluth in tow. Will Arnett is indeed to co-star in "Wilde Kingdom" as what sounds a whole lot like his "Arrested Development" character, a dude who falls for a do-gooder played by Felicity herself, Keri Russell. Even though "Sit Down Shut Up" was just the epitome of awful, I'm still betting this will be a winner.

After that today, it's all about stylish horror, both in the form of a new film from Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and a truly creepy visit from Werner Herzog.

First up the Fresnadillo news. If you saw what he did with "28 Weeks Later," a far more visceral affair than its predecessor, "28 Days Later," you know the man has a talent for directing great horror flicks. And now comes word that he's signed on to direct something called "Intruders," which will star Clive Owen and Daniel Bruhl, a.k.a. the "Nation's Pride" from Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds."

All that's known so far about the story is that it will be about an 11-year-old girl who is battling demons of some kind, but given the man's track record (he also directed the seriously satisfying Spanish thriller "Intacto"), this is definitely one to keep your eyes on.

And in something more immediate but at least as creepy, director Werner Herzog has taken a little time to put his own twisted spin on "Curious George," and since it was easily the funniest thing I found this morning, it's well worth a listen. If you like this, I believe he does his own take on "Madeline," too, which should be easy enough to find. My favorite line here has to be "George quickly learns a hard lesson about desire," but it's really all good. Enjoy.



OK, finally, though nothing can really properly follow that, ABC has indeed put the first 14 minutes of its upcoming series "Happy Town" online, and if the purpose was to get me to keep watching, mission accomplished, I suppose. It's not great, but it will apparently star "Angel" vet Amy Acker, never a bad thing, and the story about a mysterious killer does seem to hold some promise, even if the obvious attempt to emulate the magic of "Twin Peaks" is most likely going to be a constant annoyance. Anyways, enjoy, and have a great weekend. Peace out.

Demko's DVD shelf: The weird, wonderful world of "Twin Peaks"

With the triple punch of "Spider-Man 3," "License to Wed" and "Captivity" hitting all at once, it would be very easy to dismiss this as a spectacularly craptastic week on DVD, but beneath the surface there are reasons to cheer, mainly in TV releases.

Just how good was David Lynch's "Twin Peaks"? The best way to judge that, unfortunately, is in the number of imitators that followed and failed in its wake.

What Lynch's show had over these others was that it created a genuine sense of mystery. Whereas most "supernatural" TV shows just pile on the quirk for quirk's sake, each piece of the puzzle that was "Twin Peaks" was essential to making the murder of Laura Palmer and everything else in this weird little burg on the US-Canadian border so intriguing.

Given that the show only ran for 30 episodes it's surprising that it's taken this long for the complete series to come to DVD, as it does this week with "The Definitive Gold Box Edition," supervised by Lynch himself.

If you actually spring for these 10 discs, which I'll have to look at my finances before doing, it would seem Lynch and co. have made it worth the considerable expense. Along with the newly remastered (I'm never quite sure exactly what that means) episodes, there are deleted scenes; a feature-length documentary, "Secrets from Another Place"; the featurettes "A Slice of Lynch" and "Return to Twin Peaks"; an interactive map of Twin Peaks; the complete Log Lady introductions; Kyle MacLachlan's appearance on "Saturday Night Live" and Julee Cruise's music video for "Falling."

This is listed as costing $99.99 (marked down to $64.99 at Amazon.com, but still not cheap), but for a groundbreaking TV show that instead of being ahead or behind its time just created a time unto itself, I'd have to say it's well worth it if you can spare the change.

Scrubs - The Complete Sixth Season
I never would have guessed that a sitcom this silly (yet undeniably entertaining) would have reached the magic number of seven seasons occupied by several of my favorite shows ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Gilmore Girls" and - if you count the two halfs of season six as separate entities - "The Sopranos.") The pacing and the characters on this show all just work for me, so I've got the DVR set to record all of season seven and will, eventually, spring for this on DVD too (since I have all the other season already.)

"My So-Called Life" - The Complete Series
The title alone should have had me running screaming from this mid-'90s show, and it probably would have if it weren't for Claire Danes and her mysterious beau, Jared Leto as quite possibly the broodiest teen in TV history. Though I'll still take "Freaks and Geeks" any day, this show was actually fairly moving when it didn't just make you cringe, and is well worth another look on DVD, assuming you can rent rather than buy it.

Talk to Me
It's one of the great crimes of my film year that I didn't manage to see this one in the theater, but in my defense it did hit during the one week (and one week only, in Macon) when I happened to be on vacation. Don Cheadle stars in the true story of Ralph Waldo "Petey" Green, an ex-con who weaseled his way onto the radio in DC in the '60s. It also stars the great Chiwetel Ejiofor and was directed by Kasi Lemmons, who managed to make one of my favorite movies, "Eve's Bayou," and just one other flick ("The Caveman's Valentine") before seeming to disappear completely for about 10 years. Welcome back! According to the IMDB, she's also the owner of this rather dubious title: The only black woman to manage to direct three major feature films. Now that's just depressing.

John Waters: This Filthy World
Essentially a DVD of director John Waters doing standup comedy and seeing just how gross he can be, this is perfect for DVD because, although he is often very funny, it does eventually get tiresome and call out for the remote. When he's on, though, he's as outrageous as you could possibly expect, so if you like Mr. Waters' movies (and I very often do) this is well worth a rental.

Two news tidbits

Speaking of "Freaks and Geeks," Sam Weir is about to make a very welcome return to series TV as a regular on "Bones," which just might be enough to get me to tune in for the Fox show. John Francis Daley will play Dr. Lance Sweets, a therapist appointed by the FBI to determine whether Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) can continue as partners. The Hollywood Reporter report also listed him as the star of the "upcoming" "5-25-77," so maybe that means Patrick Read Johnson's autobiographical flick about his quest to see the first "Star Wars" movie may actually someday get a proper release. Daley's also listed as writing his first feature film for New Line, "The 40 Thousand Dollar Man," which I can only assume will be a - hopefully funny - spoof of "The Six Million Dollar Man."

Robert Townsend sighting!
I may be the only person who was asking "what in the world ever happened to Robert Townsend?", but in case anyone else was actually wondering, here's the answer. It seems he's enlisted Ving Rhames to play Sonny Liston in "Phantom Punch," a biopic he will direct about the legendary pugilist. The flick began shooting Monday in Toronto and should wrap in December. The title refers to the single "phantom punch" Liston took from Cassius Clay that many believe led to the demise of his career. I love good boxing movies even more than I do Mr. Townsend, so I give this a hearty huzzah!

A truly goofy trailer for "I'm Not There"

I still have fairly high hopes for this Todd Haynes flick about Bob Dylan, but after the disappointment that was Wes Anderson's "Darjeeling Limited" I'm keeping my expectations in check. It's better to be pleasantly surprised anyway, right? Here's the international trailer which, as you'll see, is just an extended riff on Dylan's most famous music video. Please, please, please don't let this movie suck! Peace out.