Movie Nation

What American smart-aleck didn’t get his or her start reading the infamous Mad Magazine, where parodies abounded, sarcasm reigned and anarchy was the watchword?

What, me worry?

Some filmmakers want to raise $50,000 to make a documentary about this once-glorious institution, and they’re almost there. They’re credible enough to have raised $32,000 of that $50,000. Go here for their kickstarter link to donate and get Alfred E. Newman and his creators on the big screen.

There’s a trend story in this “Red Dawn” remake, “Top Gun” re-release (this weekend), return of Sly and Arnold to their ’80s era Big Screen guises. Was Hollywood betting on a return to Reagan era right-wingery at the polls last November? I may have to ponder and write that, cuz hate mail from mere horror film trolls — saw your Facebook page, Alexia Cavanagh, “troll” about covers it all — doesn’t do it for me these days. I crave the GOOD stuff, the foaming at the mouth variety.

The fact that “Red Dawn” bombed, as have Sly and Arnie, that we didn’t see a Mitt Romney inaugural, and nobody I know has any interest in seeing a 27 year old Tom Cruise dogfight movie with USAF trainers (T-38s, i think?) meant to portray hostile enemy aircraft, that Tony Scott, who directed “Top Gun” killed himself last fall…looks like the movie business was betting on the wrong zeitgeist.

Will Ferrell’s years-long excursion into funny buddy pictures, edgy dark comedies (“Everything Must Go”) and Spanish experiments (“Casa de mi Padre”) is over, so “Anchorman 2” continues to come together as a potential Christmas blockbuster comedy. To ensure that, they’re not relying on Ferrell’s somewhat faded star power alone. They’ve got Steve Carell as a competitor anchorguy, and now Kristen Wiig in a small part as that competitor’s wife.

It has been years YEARS since I linked to anything on Ain’t It Cool. Not a prejudice or anything, I had just forgotten that this groundbreaking fanboy site was there. And “breaking” gossip from there seemed to dry up as the field got crowded.

But they — ok HE — has some notion, perhaps based on something resembling a tip, that the J.J. Abrams “Star Wars” movie will somehow focus on Yoda — early days, Jedi training, later days, something.

Hollywood is phasing out production of 35mm celluloid film prints this year, ending a 120 year technological tradition that dates from the very beginning of motion pictures.

And the last places in North America to show movies that way are, unsurprisingly, dinosaurs just like “film” prints. Drive-in Theaters — scattered across the country — I once visited every surviving one in Florida for a story — were slow to convert.

This LA Times story explains how projection companies are helping them finish up the conversion that regular theaters went through, with a vengeance, just a few years back.

Here’s a shot I took with, coincidentally, my last “film” camera, an Olympus, of the Silver Moon Drive-In, still in Lakeland, still the prettiest drive in theater in Florida.

 The modern reshaping of the economic struggle between East and West plays out in “The Sorcerer and the White Snake,” a sharp Chinese reminder that not all cheese comes from Switzerland or Wisconsin.

A mad, laugh-out-loud mashup of “The Little Mermaid,” “Harry Potter,” assorted vampire tales, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” the disaster epic “2012” and oh – “Pokemon” – just to impose the cinematic precedents on display here, “Sorcerer” is a Chinese twist on the reliable sword and sorcery genre which caused Hollywood to impose “Clash of the Titans” and “Immortals” on the undeserving.

And it could be a point of pride that this effects-driven nonsense is every bit as bad  — in a fun way – as those blockbusters.

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Here’s what we know about Melissa McCarthy’s new comedy, “Identity Thief.”

First, we’re referring to it as a Melissa McCarthy comedy. Her “Bridesmaids” breakout and enduring TV series have made her a reliable comic brand. Yeah, Jason Bateman’s been reliably funny on the big screen for almost a decade, but when you’re hot you’re hot. And McCarthy’s hot.

Secondly, it’s a Seth Gordon film. He did a pretty good job with the dark and funny “Horrible Bosses.”

Third, it’s a February release. Not a January one, which would have been a “no confidence” vote. Coming out just before Valentine’s Day, it’s in prime position to drag in couples looking for comedy without “romantic” being attached to it. Rude and raunchy.

Fourth, reviews are embargoed by the studio until Friday. So that wipes out the whole “not a ‘no confidence’ vote” theory.

The trailers are funny. So fingers crossed.

Gillian Flynn’s novel “Dark Places” is about a woman who witnessed a crime as a young girl, a notorious massacre, and testified against her brother in the trial for it.

Years later, a club of people who like to re-examine old cases tracks her down to try and see if there might be an alternative solution to the crime, that there’s a chance that her brother was innocent.

Deadline.com is reporting that the film version, which was to have been an Amy Adams project at one point, now has the interest of Charlize Theron.

Exactly.

But then again, I’ve made my views of this redundant remake pretty clear.