The debut of MOONLIGHT - a formulaic conflation of vampire and film noir motifs - is prosaic and static, never building any suspense and only slowly developing the action. The lead character is too busy striking a series of poses for the camera, which glides gracefully -and slowly - around him, in order to provide enough time for the narration to spell out details we would rather see dramatized. The result resembles less an episode of a TV show than an episode-length promo for a TV show - that, or a men’s cologne commercial. The hour running time (minus commercials) is front-loaded with exposition, but none of it is new or exciting; it simply bogs down the plot development, which takes a back seat to laying the ground work for the series to follow. The most perplexing mystery is the one regarding why the producers felt the need to famliarize their audience with an already overly familiar concept. Continue Reading »

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The third season of GHOST WHISPERER launched on Friday night, September 28, with “The Underneath,” which picked up from the conclusion of last season’s finale “The Gathering,” showing series lead Melinda Gordon (Jennifer Love Hewitt) literally having her head examined thanks to a cranial close encounter with a falling object. The new episode suggests that Season Three will be occupied with sorting out the personal implications of Melinda’s ability to speak with the dead, who now include her missing father; along the way she will continue to help others whose loved ones need to send a last message before moving on into the light. Continue Reading »

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David Goyer, who scripted the three BLADE feature films and directed the third, has signed on to  helm yet another vampire film, an adaptation of Baltimore, or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire. The graphic novel, Mike Mignola (Hellboy) and Christopher Golden (The Myth Hunters), tells the tale of Lord Henry Baltimore, bitten on the battlefield by a vampire bat during WWI. To fight the vampire curse, Baltimore assembles a team to confront the Red King, who is evil incarnate. Mignola and Golden will write the screenplay.

Goyer’s other credits include directing THE INVISIBLE and co-scripting both DARK CITY and BATMAN BEGINS. The film will be produced at New Regency, which is also developing another vampire-themed graphic novel to the screen, Virulents, which will be directed by John Moore from a script by John Cox.

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It seems this season will be filled with genre television shows. NBC’s BIONIC WOMAN made its debut on Tuesday. Tonight we have the return of CBS’s GHOST WHISPERER at 8:00pm, followed by the vampiric MOONLIGHT at 9:00pm. But according to Variety, the show we really should be anticipating is PUSHING DAISIES, which plants its first seed on Wednesday, October 3:

Standing head and shoulders above this fall’s other seedlings, “Pushing Daisies” is whimsical, romantic, funny and visually distinctive — such a delicate mix of ingredients, frankly, you fear for its longevity in the cold, cruel world of primetime. The producers are seeking to offset that fragility by incorporating a procedural element into this tale of love and death, but that only invites skepticism the souffle will collapse by episode four or five. Such commercial considerations, however, shouldn’t detract from this beguiling pilot, and credit ABC with taking the season’s boldest leap in hoping that love conquers all.

Director Barry Sonnenfeld has already winced at comparisons to Tim Burton, but given the exploding color scheme and fairy-tale trappings (including narration by Jim Dale, reader of the “Harry Potter” books on tape), they’re all but unavoidable, and in a good way.

Series creator Bryan Fuller previously explored the great beyond in “Dead Like Me,” but this is a far more impressive construct, built around Ned (Lee Pace), who discovers at an early age that he possesses the power to bring the dead back to life with a single touch.

The tradeoff: If he touches that person again, they die forever — and leaving the resurrected alive causes someone else in the vicinity to drop dead, achieving a weird kind of cosmic balance.

Ned has found a way to eke out a living from this talent on two fronts: His dazzling pies, where his touch invests the fruit with tremendous flavor; and moonlighting with a detective (Chi McBride) who inadvertently witnessed his gift first-hand, reviving murder victims long enough to find out who killed them and split the reward. Still, it’s a detached, emotionally frigid existence, as his coworker Olive (the ever-adorable Kristin Chenoweth) points out.

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Variety’s Festival Central has a nice run-down on Sitges, the venerable festival devoted to fantasy and horror films. Entitled “Sitges - Blood, Gore and Palm Trees,” the article is mostly a history of the fest, with a glimpses of this year’s edition:

Blood and gore amongst the palm trees. That might sound like a B-movie pitch but it’s actually the essence of Europe’s largest fantasy film festival - the Sitges Catalonia Intl. Film Festival, which celebrates its 40th edition this year.

In its attractive Mediterranean setting, revolving around the Hotel Melia, Sitges is like a relaxed version of Cannes - with a vibrant mix of screenings, press conferences and exuberant parties, attracting celebrity guests such as Sam Raimi, Quentin Tarantino, Terry Gilliam, Guillermo del Toro and David Cronenberg.

The quaint, sun-drenched fishing town of Sitges - a 25-minute ride from Barcelona - is perhaps an unlikely breeding ground for chainsaw fanatics, but in the 1960s the town was a hotbed of counter-culture against Franco’s Spain. The fantasy genre, which prides itself on violating taboos and caricaturing sources of social malaise, was the ideal vehicle for subverting the fascist regime’s moral straitjacket.

In the turbulent year of 1968, the Sitges fest was born as the International Fantasy & Horror Film Week and launched its Official Competition section in 1971. John Carpenter recently made a tribute to this nascent period, setting part of Cigarette Burns (2005) at the 1971 fest.

This year’s festival will include screenings of 1408, a retrosepctive of North American horror movies from the ’70s and ’80s, and the presentation of a lifetime achievement award to George Romero.

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This film is yet more evidence that, like the walking dead who shuffle across the screen, the zombie sub-genre refuses to die a peaceful death. In a way, this is a good thing: films as diverse as relatively lavish LAND OF THE DEAD and the virtually no-budget AUTOMATON TRANSFUSIONprove that there is life in those rotting corpses yet. In the case of RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION, however, one begins to realize that the franchise is becoming almost as mindless as the zombies it portrays, lumbeirng on with only repetitive instinct,while all true vitality has long since passed away. This film is not exactly awful (it’s no worse than the recent HALLOWEEN), but it lacks the ferocious intensity that a truly good horror film should have, and its attempt to pass itself off as a post-apocalyptic action-adventure falls short of what your average low-budget cult movie could achieve.

More or less ignoring the ending of RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE (there is a lip service explanation late in the film), the new film does not pick up with Alice (Milla Jovovich) under surveillance by the evil corporation responsible for the virus that turns people into zombies; instead, we are introduced into your standard post-apocalyptic world, where a handful of remaining humans struggle for survival now that civilization has fallen. The script by Paul W. S. Anderson shows a few fleeting glimpses of promise, beginning with a sly opening sequence of Alice waking up and trying to escape from the lab - only to be killed by one of the many booby-traps awaiting her. The revelation that this Alice is one of many clones who have met their deaths looking for a way out, is a clever nod to the movie’s videogame origins, in which the player’s on-screen character is frequently “killed,” only to rise again and take another crack at over-leaping the pitfall that felled him/her previously. Continue Reading »

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According to Sci-Fi Wire, NBC is planning a remake of KNIGHT RIDER, the silly show from the mid-’80s in which starred David Hasselhoff co-starred with a talking car named K.I.T.T.

NBC has tapped filmmaker Doug Liman to produce a Transformers-inspired reworking of the 1980s hit action-drama Knight Rider, Variety reported.

The network is readying a two-hour backdoor pilot for the series, with tentative plans to air it as a TV movie later this season. Liman is open to the idea of directing, assuming his feature schedule allows. If the TV movie clicks, a new-model Knight Rider could be on the air as early as next fall, the trade paper reported.

Dave Andron (Raines) is writing the pilot script and will serve as supervising producer, alongside executive producers Liman and Dave Bartis (The O.C.) for Universal Media Studios and Dutch Oven Productions.

The new show will explore the idea of “evil” cars to offset the heroic talking K.I.T.T. car of the original series, which starred David Hasselhoff.

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20th Century Fox has resheduled its planned sci-fi film THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, which is set to star Keanu Reeves. When the remake (of a 1951 classic directed by Robert Wise) was announced last month, the plan was for a May 9, 2008  release, but with production not even begun, the film could not be ready in time. The new target date is December 12.

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Paramount and DreamWorks want to get a sequel to TRANSFORMERS into theatres on June 26, 2009, and they hope to get Michael Bay back into the director’s chair.

Despite the tensions between them, DreamWorks and Par have plenty of incentive to move forward with the next installment in the budding franchise. “Transformers,” starring Shia LaBeoufand based on the toy robot line, has grossed nearly $700 million worldwide, giving DreamWorks its first live-action franchise.

Still, the high-profile project isn’t guaranteed total immunity from the ongoing battle of wills between DreamWorks’ David Geffen and Steven Spielbergand leadership at Paramount conglom Viacom.

The studios stressed that they are targeting the June 26 date, but that it isn’t ironclad.

Even if Spielberg and Geffen exit their deal at Par, as they have threatened to do, the “Transformers” property stays at the Melrose lot, as do all other DreamWorks projects.

“Transformers” was a passion project for Spielberg, with DreamWorks developing the project and taking the creative lead after partnering with Paramount (that was before Par bought DreamWorks).

Spielberg, who took an exec producer credit on “Transformers,” was closely involved with the film, including bringing Bay aboard to direct and LaBeouf to star. He’s expected to be involved in the sequel.

Bay has not yet inked a deal to helm the follow-up but is in the final stages of negotiation. With Bay’s involvement, LaBeouf is expected to return as well.

The plan is to start filming before a possible strike, even if it is necessary to complete the movie after the strike is resolved.

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Russell Mulcahy has signed on to direct ZEN AND THE ART OF SLAYING VAMPIRES, based on the first of a thre-book series by Steven-Elliot Altman. The story follows a man who is attacked by vampires but struggles to defeat the blood-thirst by utilizing Zen mediation. Altman is writing the screenplay. Mulcahy said he like “the pathos of the lead characters and the way it is wrapped in a world of mythology.”

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Dark Horizon’s Garth Franklin reports that Warner Brothers and the Weinstein company have settled on terms to distribute GATCHAMAN and ASTROBOY, feature films produced by Imagi Animation Studios, the company behind TMNT.

ASTROBOY is the seminal Japanese anime television series. Created by Japan’s legendary Osamu Tezuka, it became a syndicated hit on American screens in the ’60s. The story involves a scientist who creates a robot to replace the son he lost. Colin Brady (TOY STORY 2) directs the feature film version, which is schedled for a 2009 release.

GATCHAMAN is of more recent vintage (the 1970s). It’s about five heros whose DNA enables them to defend the Earth from aliens. TMNT’s Kevin Munroe directs the film adaptation.

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The Sci-Fi Channel is renewing two popular series:

Sci Fi Channel has ordered a third season of its top-rated original series “Eureka” along with a second season of reality show “Destination Truth.”

The cable network has ordered 13 new hourlong episodes of “Eureka.” The dramedy, from Universal Media Studios, is set to begin production on Season 3 in Vancouver early next year for a summer 2008 premiere.

Cast members Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson, Joe Morton, Jordan Hinson and Ed Quinn and executive producers Jaime Paglia and Charlie Craig are returning the for the third season.

“Eureka” is set in a Pacific Northwest town that is actually a secret community of geniuses assembled by the government to conduct top-secret research. Its July 18, 2006, premiere (4.2 million viewers) stands as the highest-rated telecast in Sci Fi history.

” ‘Eureka’ rose to an even higher creative level in its sophomore season, combining entertaining, compelling stories with deeper character development and great cast chemistry,” said Mark Stern, executive vp original programming at Sci Fi. “And clearly the audience noticed, bringing millions of new viewers to the channel.”

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The ratings for the Wednesday night premier of BIONIC WOMAN were the highest for any new television drama this season.

Bolstered by the third consecutive night of “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC edged by a tenth of a point NBC to take its second victory in the first three nights of the new TV season. But NBC, whose “Bionic Woman” came out swinging, winning in adults 18-49 against “Grey’s Anatomy” spinoff “Private Practice” (which also did well), kept up the pressure for two of the three hours of primetime, according to preliminary estimates released Thursday by Nielsen Media Research.

The 9 p.m. showdown between the two high-profile NBC and ABC dramas - along with the established “Criminal Minds - was won by NBC’s “Bionice Woman (13.6 million, 5.5/14). “Bionic” grew exponentially from its lead-in, and added nearly a half-rating point in the demo in the second half-hour.

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If tonight’s pilot offers any indication, BIONIC WOMAN promises to be a great series. Although the source material was not the most auspicious, the new show succeeds by updating the premise with a contemporary sensibility and taking the material seriously. The premier episode offers up the requisite action, but more important it draws us into an invovling drama with solid characterizations and dialogue that sell the science fiction element in a way no techno-babble could ever hope to achieve. tells an intriguing story, marred only by the conventions of the form (i.e., the story exists not to resolve the conflicts but to leave them wide open for future adventures.

The story kicks off with teaser of a security team taking out a beautiful blond woman named Sara Corvis (Katee Sackhoff), who has apparently lost the ability to control herself since receiving bionic implants. Years later, bartender Jamie Sommers (Michelle Ryan) is dating Will Anthros (Chris Bowers), a college professor who lectures on reconstructive surgery. Jamie is critically injured in an”accident” when Corvis (who turns out not to be dead) drives an eighteen wheeler into Anthros’ car. Anthros turns out to be an important gog in a secret government program to create a bionic soldier; without authorization, he has Jamie taken to the facility, where he operates, replacing her injured legs, an arm, and eye, and an ear. The remainder of the episode portrays Jamie’s coming to terms with her new abilities, leading to an inevitable confrontation with Corvis.  Along the way, we are introduced to Thomas Kretschmann as a mysterious Man who engineers a prison escape for Will’s father, Anthony, who seems to be responsible for Corvis’ apparent return from the dead. We also meet Jonas Bledsoe (Miguel Ferrer), the head of the bionic project, who makes it clear to Jamie that he expects cooperation in exchange for the millions of dollars of government-funded equipment used to reconstruct her body. Continue Reading »

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I’ve mentioned before that THE OTHER SIDEwill be getting a one-week run in Los Angeles, prior to its DVD debut on October 2. Now comes word that the 7:30pm screening on Friday, September 28 will be followed by a Q&A session with the cast and director Gregg Bishop.

I saw the film at Shriekfest last year, and the Q&A session afterward was quite lively and informative. You really should make the effort to check out this great little sleeper movie, and the chance to meet the filmmakers in person should be the extra added incentive you need.

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