If time travel is ever to be invented, wouldn’t we already have had evidence of it? The question is enough to give grammarians seizures, let alone filmmakers. As Jeff Daniels’s world-weary time-traveling crime lord says in Rian Johnson's Looper, “this time travel shit fries your brain like an egg.” And the film, out this Friday, is far from the most brain-frying cinematic treatment of time travel. more »
I’m a sucker for a good time-travel story. I’m also a sucker for a mediocre time-travel story with a stylish veneer or a sense of humor, so I found myself surprisingly captivated by the latest, belated Men in Black sequel. It doesn’t really work, but it does make for a more interesting story than the tedious Exploits with Alien Goo that I remember from the first two Men in Black films. Fortunately, it looks like there might be even better time-travel movies on the horizon. I have high hopes for Looper, which looks somewhat Twelve Monkeys in its mood and time-travel philosophy, and Sundance favorite Safety Not Guaranteed appears to be taking the indie, Dana Scully approach to the conceit. For these and other future efforts, I’m offering four ingredients for a successful time-travel story.
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While promoting Tower Heist during a recent television interview, Eddie Murphy took a moment to forecast that he will be the most awful Academy Awards host of all time. (Has he seen last year's ceremony co-hosted by Anne Hathaway and James Franco?) Click through to watch Murphy repeatedly cut off his Tower Heist co-star Ben Stiller to predict just how bad his Oscars show will be. Spoiler alert: It ends with a powder blue suit and a golden statuette shower.
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So you've always dreamed of owning an electric DeLorean DMC-12 -- the same design seen in the Back to the Future trilogy, only fueled by electric energy so that when you do finally fashion it into a time machine, it won't emit harmful tailpipe pollutants as you travel into the future to score an almanac containing the outcomes of 50 years worth of sporting events and return to present day to use the almanac for financial gain, Biff-style. Right? Well, good news! The DeLorean Motor Company has unveiled an electric prototype of the car that they plan to make available in 2013. Details ahead.
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Turns out Frank Marshall's mysterious Back to the Future tweets this week weren't just for a cash-grab retro Nike tie-in shoe, but part of an entire operation created to raise money for the Parkinson's research charity of Michael J. Fox, the film series star. As of 9:30pm PT Thursday, one hour into the 10-day auction of 150 pairs of the limited edition kicks -- fully replicated from Marty McFly's shoe closet and pimped out in futuristic detail -- bids were already in the thousands for a single pair. Worth the money? Check out specs, photos, and more on the worthy cause.
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Over at Mental Floss, a question was posed yesterday that's plagued fans of the Back to the Future films for years: "Is it ever explained why Marty hangs out with Doc Brown?" Before long, an official-ish answer surfaced, courtesy of BTTF co-writer Bob Gale. The answer won't shatter your world, but at least it puts those suggestions of inappropriate older man-teenage boy relations to bed.
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Reason #1 why we love Lea Thompson, who just landed a new ABC Family pilot, Switched at Birth: She's the girl we all wanted to be in the '80s. Reason #2: She's like the estimable honey badger when it comes to real talk about her old Red Dawn co-star turned Qaddafi of Hollywood, Charlie Sheen.
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