Although it has been facing the wrecking ball for some time now, it was announced today that the Dixie Square Mall, the Chiacgo-suburbs shopping plaza famously featured in the 1980 musical comedy The Blues Brothers will finally be torn down. It joins a number of former Chicago locations that can now only be visited in the movie.

Opened in 1966 at 151st Street and Dixie Highway in the suburb of Harvey, the mall hosted some 60 merchants at its peak in the 1970s. By the time that director John Landis and film crew arrived in Chicago to film The Blues Brothers in 1979, the mall was already in financial trouble and had closed. In fact, it was its vacancy and availability for filming that lead to  the creation of the the movie’s famous indoor car chase sequence.

The property sat vacant for more than three decades. In the last several years, Harvey officials have tried in vain to redevelop the site, with the property changing four times in the last six years. Finally last year, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn granted $4 million in state disaster relief funds to tear the crumbling building down.

In a statement, Harvey Mayor Eric Kellogg said -

The former Dixie Square Mall was once the heart of a thriving industrial community. However, the filming of this movie left the city of Harvey with an eyesore that has become one of the oldest white elephants in the country.

But Mayor Kellogg is being unfair and grossly mis-characterizing the film’s part in the mall’s history. The city was already in an economic downturn at the time and had a rising crime problem. It has been reported that many people were choosing other shopping centers in what could be considered safer neighborhoods. It was already a problem property before the film came to town. To state otherwise is to hide the city of Harvey’s own inability to do anything with the property over the last 30 years.

Here is the first of a four part look at the shooting of that famous sequence-

Via Chicago Tribune.

1. Chronicle (FOX, 2,907 Theaters, 83 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Here a mix of two things I bet you’d never seen together, a superhero film and a faux-documentary/found footage type of film.

The story, co-written by Max Landis, son of John, deals with four teenagers who develop superpowers. As their powers grow and they become stronger, they must decide what to do with them. Judging from the trailer I’ve seen, some decide to become total douche bags.

As far as I know, this is not adapted from any comic book. Not that similar themes haven’t been explored in that medium before. Absolute power corrupting absolutely is a well-worn theme in comics. Maybe this film will add something new.

2. The Woman In Black (CBS Films, 2,855 Theaters, 95 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Transitioning out of a immensely popular genre role is tough. It’s even harder if it’s a role you have been playing almost exclusively since you were 12. But that is what Daniel Radcliffe is going to begin this week as he stars in his first post-Harry Potter film.

And as a vehicle for the start of the rest of his cinematic life, he might have made a wise choice. He plays a lawyer named Arthur Kipps who comes to a remote town to settle an estate. While there, he finds the town terrified of a woman wearing a black dress, whose presence means a child will soon die. Kipps is forced to solve the mystery of the woman in black before his own child becomes a victim of the curse.

The supernatural theme and PG-13 rating might entice the Potter fanbase in. And the film was produced by Hammer Films, a name that any horror fans would tell you adds luster to the film. Let’s see if that’s enough to encourage audience to stop seeing Radcliffe only as Harry.

3. Big Miracle (Universal, 2,128 Theaters, 107 Minutes, Rated PG): This film is based on a true story dating way back to the year of 1988. I’m going to have a moment of silence for that year, my junior year in high school, being ancient history.

A family of whales get trapped under miles of ice in the northern most point of Alaska, with only a small opening for them to come up and breathe through. As the temperatures get colder, that opening get smaller as more of the water freezes. The story becomes a global sensation as a race against time ensues to save the whales’ lives.

Anyone alive during this time probably knows how the story ends (Here’s a hint: Bring tissues with you to the theater), but if you are a fan of these kinds of films, it might be an enjoyable, if somewhat bittersweet, experience for you and your family.

Last week, Twentieth Century Fox honcho Tom Rothman stated that he was committed to getting an Academy Award nomination for Andy Serkis’s motion capture performance work in Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. Rothman noted that part of the push would be to educate Academy voters as to how motion capture works and that what is seen on the screen is the work of an actor and not just some technological trick.

But that education may be a bit of an uphill battle.

Recently, while talking with director John Landis about his new book Monsters Of The Movies*, conversation tangented off to the topic of motion capture performances. Landis stated that he did not believe that an actor can be the driving force behind a motion capture performance.

I don’t think people understand how motion capture works. Andy’s performance is wonderful, but it’s the animators that make it work. It’s not like the actor performs and its fed into a machine and the machine realizes the picture. Look at the credits of any of these movies and you’ll see hundreds of names. It’s extremely labor intensive. And that’s down to the skill of the animators.

As much as I love Andy Serkis, I’ve worked with Andy [on the comedy Burke And Hare] and he’s great. He’s brilliant as Gollum. But it’s the animator that makes that work, it doesn’t matter what the motion capture performance is like if the animation is shitty.

Bob Zemeckis has done a number of these films. But the one with Tom Hanks? The Polar Express? Now I’m sure that Tom’s performance was great, but I thought that it looked like a weird robot in the movie. That just has to do with the skill of the animators.

Now, I have to admit that I have been a big John Landis fan nearly all my life. I’ve met the man at a couple of fan events and he has always been very gracious and nice. I have an autographed picture of him and myself hanging on the wall behind me as I type this. So it pains me a bit to say that I have to say that I disagree with him on this. While the role of the animators is important in the success of a motion capture performance, I’m not sure they are the make-or-break factor he believes them to be any more than a bad costume or shoddy makeup job would be.

And I would imagine that Landis is not alone in his view of how motion capture works. It will be interesting to see how Rothman and company push forward to change that perception.

*And we’ll have that conversation for you later this week.

The bumper or tag scene. It’s that short scene that comes after the end credits have finished, a little extra for those in the audience who have sat through the scroll list of names of the films grips, sound crew, special effects technicians and caterers. It usually doesn’t have much bearing on the preceding film, but is just a nice little Easter egg for those who stuck around.

Although cinema is over a century old, the tag scene has only come about I the last couple of decades. Up until the late-1960s, most films had their credits in the beginning, just a quick on-screen card or two to note the main crew members behind the film. Sometimes, the main cast list was reprised at the end of a film, but that was all. But as film loaders, grips, focus pullers, stand by painters, transportation captains, boom mic operators and more were added, the credits were shifted to the end of films, where they could play out while the audience left. It wouldn’t be long until someone decided that just because the credits were rolling it didn’t mean that the film was over.

Let’s take a look at the five most influential of these mid- and post-credit scenes.

Airplane!

When David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker released Airplane! in the summer of 1980, they wound up rewriting many of the rules for film comedy. And one of those rules was that the laughs didn’t have to stop just because the films credits had started. Those Airplane! audience members who didn’t jump up and head for the exists the moment when Otto and his inflatable stewardess flew the TransAmerican jetliner off into a hail of fireworks were treated to a couple of gags buried with the film’s end credits crawl. (Generally In Charge Of A Lot Of Things – Mike Finnell, Author of A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens)

The topper came at the end of the credits, though with a quick little scene featuring the man in the cab who Ted Stryker (Robert Hayes) abandoned on the curbside of LAX at the beginning of the film. Although the film cuts back to him twice during its first 50 minutes, he isn’t seen for the rest of the picture. But Zucker, Abrams and Zucker hadn’t forgotten the poor soul and cut back to let us know that he was still waiting for Stryker to return to take him on his trip. But after waiting nearly the entire run-time of the film for his cabbie to come back, the now slightly frustrated man vows, “I’ll give him another twenty minutes! But that’s it!” A funny moment and one that is noteworthy as it appears to be the first time that a button scene appeared in a film.

“When In Hollywood, Visit Universal Studios. Ask for Babs.”

While not technically a tag scene, there is a joke that comes at the end of National Lampoon’s Animal House’s credits that calls back to something from the main part of the film. Specifically, the film’s closing moments revealing the futures facing members of the Delta and Omega fraternities. Martha Smith’s character of Babs is revealed to have become a tour guide at Universal Studios. At the time it was standard for Universal Studios films to have an end title card promoting their studio tour in Hollywood and Landis decided to give a last wink to any of the audience still in the theater by changing the card to read “When In Hollywood, Visit Universal Studios. Ask for Babs.”

The gag soon became one of Landis’s many signature touches; perhaps only second to his use of the phrase “See you next Wednesday.” He would use it for all of his subsequent movies made for Universal including The Blues Brothers (1980), An American Werewolf In London (1981), Coming Soon (1982), Into The Night (1985), Amazon Women On The Moon (1987) and Blues Brothers 2000. It also appears on the Animal House DVD supplement/mockumentary Where Are They Now?: A Delta Alumni Update.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

One of the refreshing aspects of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was the amount of times that Matthew Broderick’s titular character broke the fourth wall to speak directly to the audience. It was something that hadn’t really been done in cinematic comedy since the days of the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope and Ollie and Johnson’s Hellzapoppin’. It is a conceit that carries right through to after the credits when Ferris pops back on screen and tells everyone to go home. Probably not a gag that really works in this day and age of home video, but it is still a nice last moment to end the film on.

While I can find no documentation to back it up, I have to wonder if this button scene started as an improvised joke on the set. Hughes was open to improvisation on the set and the moment where Ferris is singing “Danke Shone” in the shower grew out of Broderick practicing the song for the parade sequence while the crew was setting up the shower scene.

Wild Things

While not technically button scenes, there are several short scenes in the 1998 thriller Wild Things that were embedded into the closing credits crawl that revealed that what audiences thought they saw in the bulk of the film might not have been what actually happened. Which is saying something as the movie has several twists and turns.

By this time, it wasn’t completely unusual for a film to have additional material in the credits. Through the late 70s and early 80s, Burt Reynolds would customarily put shooting outtakes into the credits of his films to show how much fun the cast and crew had while making the film. It was a practice that Jackie Chan copied for his Hong Kong action films after he appeared in The Cannonball Run, but he used it to show that how dangerous many of the stunts he and his team performed really were. But Wild Things was one of the first to include material which could legitimately be called vital narrative material. (Yes, I know Ferris Bueller has the credit sequence scene with Rooney’s car getting towed and him having to hitch a ride on the bus, but it is a scene that isn’t really necessary to the story.) And in just a couple of years, the idea of narrative material at the end of the credit roll would be placed into ply by the next film on our list.

Iron Man

On May 2, 2008, comic book movie fans were buzzing about how Marvel Studios’ Iron Man may or may not end. Rumors had been circulating that Samuel L. Jackson had filmed a cameo for the film but early reviews didn’t mention it. It wasn’t until the first midnight screenings ended on the East Coast and folks took to the internet confirmed the existence of such a scene after the credits. Of course, the scene also opened up a flurry of new questions, most specifically, what did Jackson’s character Nick Fury mean when he referred to “The Avengers Initiative”?

The following Monday, during a quarterly earnings conference call Marvel formerly announced their plans to build an interconnected series of superhero franchise films that would culminate in one giant crossover/team-up film, The Avengers, confirming what fans were wildly speculating about over the previous 72 hours. And with only one scheduling change – Thor was originally marked to come out last summer and The Avengers was slotted for this summer – the studio has managed to keep on track for what could be considered the most ambitious bit of franchise management seen yet. And Marvel has continued to use button scenes at the end of all their films to help build that shared universe and tease the next film on their schedule. The result is the high-level of anticipation for next summer’s The Avengers even among non-comics fans.

Note: Burke And Hare was released last year in Great Britain and is just seeing a US release this weekendin theaters and OnDemand this weekend. Our review is a repost of our impressions of the film following a screening at a Lincoln Center Film Society event in New York City on March 3 with director John Landis in attendance for a question and answer session afterwards.

When John Landis made his last feature film, the virtually direct to video Susan’s Plan, he was in something of a slump. Many fans were scratching their heads, puzzled as to how the director of Animal House, An American Werewolf In London and The Blues Brothers could have made such disappointments as The Stupids and Blues Brothers 2000. But in the time between then and now, he has made two documentaries and a few television episodes, leaving fans wondering if he would return to making features at any time, and if he did, would we see some of that old Landis magic.

Burke And Hare is that return and there is definitely a hint of the old Landis magic to be found. If he was looking for a film with which to stage a comeback, Landis couldn’t have found much better material than what is here. A dark comedy with a tinge of pathos at the end, Burke And Hare is a tonal echo of American Werewolf. But what does one expect from a tale of two fairly inept murderers?

William Burke (Simon Pegg) and William Hare (Andy Serkis) are two Irishmen who moved to Edinburgh, Scotland to seek their fortune in the early 1800s. However, their fortune seems to be elsewhere as they soon find themselves broke and without prospects. However, when they find out that the city’s many medical colleges have an ongoing need for fresh cadavers for educational dissection, they think they’ve found a way to make a fortune. But after their first “sale,” an old tenant who died of natural causes in the boarding house that Hare’s wife runs, they realize that they’ll have to be a bit more assertive in their procurement of bodies for their client, Dr. Knox (Tom Wilkinson).

Though based on two historical figures, there’s not much depth to the roles of Burke and Hare, but Pegg and Serkis infuse them with enough life to keep things moving. Jessica Hynes also does some good comedic work with the small bits she is given as Hare’s wife. Isla Fischer does some nice work as the (fictional) love interest of Burke and it is nice to see her in a comedic role where her character isn’t portrayed as a fool. In his role as a rival doctor, Tim Curry not only shows that he has perfected the art of the contemptuous sneer, but also gives great subtle deadpan reactions to every scene he is in. And as always with Landis, you may also want to keep an eye out for cameo appearances from some his director friends.

Landis would be the first to admit that Burke And Hare is not a perfect film. In fact, at the Lincoln Center Film Society screening, he flat out said so during the question and answer session held afterward. He stated that he had some interference during the editing of the film and one of the producers had an objection to the historical accuracy of one character’s fate versus giving everyone a happy ending. Fortunately, Landis didn’t budge on this count.

A couple of scenes feel disjointed and have no real momentum to them. In one sequence, Burke and Hare are rolling a barrel with a body in it through the cobblestone streets of Edinburg. They lose control and have to chase the barrel down a series of hills and alleyways. Individually, there are shots that contain some slapstick humor but the entire bit doesn’t feel as if it flows organically.

And while Burke And Hare isn’t great, vintage Landis, it is still good Landis. It’s a good first step to rehabilitating his cinematic reputation and fairly enjoyable way of passing an hour and a half.

Most directors are known for a specific genre that they work in. But John Landis has managed to create modern classics in two genres -comedy (Animal House, The Blues Brothers) and horror (An American Werewolf In London). Three if you break off The Blues Brothers from comedy and classify it as a straight up musical.

And while his most recent film Burke & Hare (which will finally have a US release on September 9) had some horror elements, it was definitely a comedy. But during a recent interview with Bloody Disgusting to promote that film, Landis revealed that he is currently working on an all-out horror film.

You know what? Actually, I’m writing one with Alexandre Gavras* and we’re shooting it within the next two years in Paris … Yeah, a little monster movie. It has no title [yet]…You’re the first people to know about it. . . It’s interesting…my cast has to be bilingual because it’s being shot in French and English. We know who’s gonna star in it, but this is all off the radar right now [so I can't tell you who they are].

* Alexandre Gavras is the son of legendary Greek filmmaker Costa-Govras.

Setting aside a pair of episodes for Showtime’s Masters Of Horror series, 1992′s Innocent Blood was the last time that Landis worked in horror. Of course, the last two decades have been rather rocky ones for the director. Hopefully this project will help reverse those fortunes.

As to this unnamed mystery project, who are the bilingual actors Landis wants to star in it? At a guess it could be Marion Cotillard or Jean Reno. And even if this story didn’t involve John Landis, the possibility of either of thembeing involved in a horror film would be enough to keep us following it.  More details when they are revealed.

Note: Although Burke And Hare has already opened in Great Britain and is beginning to roll out in other countries, it has not yet been picked up by an American distributor yet. The film screened at a Lincoln Center Film Society event in New York City on March 3 with director John Landis in attendance for a question and answer session afterwards.

When John Landis made his last feature film, the virtually direct to video Susan’s Plan, he was in something of a slump. Many fans were scratching their heads, puzzled as to how the director of Animal House, An American Werewolf In London and The Blues Brothers could have made such disappointments as The Stupids and Blues Brothers 2000. But in the time between then and now, he has made two documentaries and a few television episodes, leaving fans wondering if he would return to making features at any time, and if he did, would we see some of that old Landis magic.

Burke And Hare is that return and there is definitely a hint of the old Landis magic to be found. If he was looking for a film with which to stage a comeback, Landis couldn’t have found much better material than what is here. A dark comedy with a tinge of pathos at the end, Burke And Hare is a tonal echo of American Werewolf. But what does one expect from a tale of two fairly inept murderers?

William Burke (Simon Pegg) and William Hare (Andy Serkis) are two Irishmen who moved to Edinburgh, Scotland to seek their fortune in the early 1800s. However, their fortune seems to be elsewhere as they soon find themselves broke and without prospects. However, when they find out that the city’s many medical colleges have an ongoing need for fresh cadavers for educational dissection, they think they’ve found a way to make a fortune. But after their first “sale,” an old tenant who died of natural causes in the boarding house that Hare’s wife runs, they realize that they’ll have to be a bit more assertive in their procurement of bodies for their client, Dr. Knox (Tom Wilkinson).

Though based on two historical figures, there’s not much depth to the roles of Burke and Hare, but Pegg and Serkis infuse them with enough life to keep things moving. Jessica Hynes also does some good comedic work with the small bits she is given as Hare’s wife. Isla Fischer does some nice work as the (fictional) love interest of Burke and it is nice to see her in a comedic role where her character isn’t portrayed as a fool. In his role as a rival doctor, Tim Curry not only shows that he has perfected the art of the contemptuous sneer, but also gives great subtle deadpan reactions to every scene he is in. And as always with Landis, you may also want to keep an eye out for cameo appearances from some his director friends.

Landis would be the first to admit that Burke And Hare is not a perfect film. In fact, at the Lincoln Center Film Society screening, he flat out said so during the question and answer session held afterward. He stated that he had some interference during the editing of the film and one of the producers had an objection to the historical accuracy of one character’s fate versus giving everyone a happy ending. Fortunately, Landis didn’t budge on this count.

A couple of scenes feel disjointed and have no real momentum to them. In one sequence, Burke and Hare are rolling a barrel with a body in it through the cobblestone streets of Edinburg. They lose control and have to chase the barrel down a series of hills and alleyways. Individually, there are shots that contain some slapstick humor but the entire bit doesn’t feel as if it flows organically.

And while Burke And Hare isn’t great, vintage Landis, it is still good Landis. It’s a good first step to rehabilitating his cinematic reputation and fairly enjoyable way of passing an hour and a half.

Director John Landis is currently lining up financing for his next film a bio-pic about EC Comics publisher William Gaines. Entitled Ghoulishly Yours, William Gaines, the film will tells Gaines’ rise as publisher of such horror comics as Tales From The Crypt and Vault Of Horror to his appearance before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954 that hoped to link juvenile crime to comic books to him getting his revenge on uptight society by founding the satirical Mad Magazine.

From what I know of Gaines, he certainly strikes me as a character with a life rich in material for a bio-pic. Gaines certainly didn’t win himself any fans when he answered matter-of-factly and without kowtowing to the committee. (You can read a transcript of his testimony here.) In the backlash that followed, Gaines saw his company’s line of comics specifically targeted by industry self-regulation designed to put him out of business. He would get the last laugh though, when he retooled his humor comic Mad into a magazine in 1955 to avoid the restrictions of the newly created Comics Code Authority and it would go on to be one of t he most successful magazines of its type for decades.

I have to admit that I see Landis’s interest in the project. Like Gaines, Landis has dabbled in both horror and humor, creating classics that are still enjoyed today. And if you’ve ever read any of the old EC horror comics, you may detect a trace of black comedy that obviously informs Landis’s An American Werewolf In London.

Via Deadline.

Say what you will about the British press – And believe me, there is a lot of negative to be said, especially when it comes to their tabloids – when a major film starts shooting in Great Britain, they are usually the ones who have the first pictures of the production. So it is again with director John Landis’ dark comedy Burke And Hare, currently shooting in Edinburgh, Scotland, thanks to the Edinburgh Evening Standard and the Daily Mail. The two papers have published a pair of photos each of stars Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis in the the film’s title roles as two 19th century grave robbers who sold freshly (and illegally) exhumed cadavers to doctors and medical students. Isla Fisher, Jessica Hynes (Pegg’s former co-star on the British series Spaced) , Tom Wilkinson, Hugh Bonneville, Tim Curry and Sir Christopher Lee co-star.

Comic actor Henry Gibson, whose film career spanned four decades, died Monday, September 13, 2009, at his home in Malibu, California it was announced earlier today. He was 73.

After making his breakthrough in the late 60s comedy series Rowan And Martin’s Laugh-In, Gibson carved out a career in numerous comic supporting roles in both television and films. Although his first screen appearance was in the Jerry Lewis comedy The Nutty Professor (1963), Gibson’s first important role didn’t come for another decade when director Robert Altman cast him as the evil Dr. Verringer in The Long Goodbye, a rare dramatic role. Gibson would appear in three more films for Altman. For the directors 1975 Academy Award-winning Nashville, Gibson played the obnoxious country music star Haven Hamilton. Gibson also wrote all of his character’s songs.

Despite his short stature, Gibson frequently played quiet yet comically menacing-types. In John Landis’ 1980 musical comedy The Blues Brothers, he played the head of a group of Illinois Nazis chasing after John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd’s titular musicians. (Gibson had previously worked with Landis on the sketch film Kentucky Fried Movie (1977).) He had more villainous turns in films like The ‘Burbs and Innerspace. Other film appearances include Gremlins 2, Magnolia, Wedding Crashers and Big Stan.