The Weinstein Company is pulling the plug fast on the still developing third installment of the Halloween franchise reboot done by director Rob Zombie. The film in question already received their first draft of the script, with everyone scrambling about to get this feature going with initial filming by sometime in November. The newest sequel, entitled Halloween 3D, was already set on the fast track literally days after the release of Halloween 2 (H2) with a set summer 2010 release. Deadline Hollywood has more information on the status of this film:

But I understand that Bob Weinstein shut down H3D pre-production “because Bob just felt it was rushing too fast.” Now Dimension (Films) plans to start the film after My Bloody Valentine 3D helmer Lussier is free.

Now what the big time production company plans on doing is re-releasing Halloween 2 to theaters on midnight Saturday, October 31rst. The sequel only made 32 million so far, some saying that the cause for them not earning more is not only due to its original release (August 28th) but its competition, The Final Destination. The fourth installment of yet another popular horror franchise ran away with the money, completely shutting out the Rob Zombie film box office wise in its opening weekend and it never fully recovered.

Youth In Revolt, Miguel Arteta and Michael Cera’s adaptation of a novel that has permeated every Urban Outfitters store in existence, has had its release date pushed back by The Weinstein Company despite getting positive reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Instead of being released at the end of next month, it will now be in theaters on January 15th of next year. Slashfilm speculates that this may be due to the company’s acquisition of possible Oscar-contender A Single Man, but is quite possibly just another foul-up like the botched release track of Fanboys.

Regardless, I look forward to seeing what director Miguel Arteta has in store for us. I’m unfamiliar with C.D. Payne’s book, but it’s been around since 1993 – more than enough time for a good script to be formed.

Normally when a film leaves me cold, I tend to shy away from thinking about said picture. If I must, I’ll ponder the film and realize that I’d just seen a film I wanted to like, but had ultimately witnessed something mediocre or worse. Walking out of Inglourious Basterds, I recalled the same feeling as walking out of The Matrix Revolutions. I wanted to like it, and convinced myself for a while I did. In the end, the mediocrity of that film won and while the trilogy still gets my defense, I no longer consider the whole a work of genius like the perfectly standalone first entry. Basterds initially left me thinking ‘good, not great.’ Then through the rest of the day I couldn’t stop thinking of the film. By the time it was all said and done, I had reached the only conclusion that could be made:

Inglourious Basterds may be Tarantino’s best film.

First things first: I do not subscribe to the notion that Quentin Tarantino is the be-all end-all of cinema. In fact, if anything, the man is really overrated as a director and slightly overrated as a writer. He’s not a terrible filmmaker by any stretch (although Death Proof tries to convince you he is,) but he left an impact on cinema that ruined crime films post-1992. One person put it to me one time that “Tarantino masturbates onscreen,” and that statement seems right on track. He loves to hear his characters talk, instead of showcasing their actions, having them do something interesting. This indulgence destroyed the second half of Grindhouse, and the legacy has been continued here in Inglourious Basterds.

And that is one of Basterds best strengths, as everything that didn’t work in Death Proof is perfected here. The words are weapons, and all the trademark Tarantino pop-references are present but they build tension. These characters do talk, and it does go on and on and on, but all of it leads up to something and has some sort of payoff. Yet as opposed to some of Tarantino’s other works, it never feels like it drags on. He indulges as we’ve come to expect, yet here he turns his dialogue into gunfire. Q.T. keeps one on the edge of his seat as the characters fire back at one another, and above all feels his most relaxed as he crafts his most entertaining film to date.

Yet the true winner in this marvel isn’t Q.T., but Christoph Waltz who portrays one of the best, most charismatic villains since Alan Rickman defined the suave baddie with Hans Gruber in Die Hard. I’m going to echo what some of my colleagues are declaring, that Waltz doesn’t deserve just a nomination for his role as Colonel Hans Landa – oh, no. The Oscar itself is already chiseling his name in under ‘Best Supporting Actor.’ Consider it a crime if he doesn’t get every supporting actor award. The man embodies Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird by putting on an Acting School. To continue the gushing, while it’s arguable this man is the leading male of this particular story, Waltz needs to be jettisoned as a leading man in the future. He has everything, from screen presence to charm. Landa is the perfect Nazi, a terrible person who enjoys slaughtering his foes. Yet Waltz does everything he can to make him likable, only to have it snatched away by an act of valor.

His adversary, the lead Basterd, comes in the form of Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo ‘Apache’ Raine, who has much more personality than he did in his last film. Pitt’s also having a ball, playing on every hard-assed lieutenant stereotype. It’s never been done with this kind of swagger though, as Pitt makes for a wonderful protagonist (or is it antagonist?) You root for the guy as he captures and plays with his Nazi prey before dispatching them, as it’s just as fun as hell to see the actor mosey through this. The most unique of his ‘Basterds’ is likely Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz, portrayed by Eli Roth. Regardless of his filmmaking abilities, one can enjoy the ruthless aggression with which Donowitz dispatches Nazis. Lowbrow actor Til Schweiger makes an appearance here as Hugo Stiglitz, a man who’s notorious for murdering large numbers of the Gestapo. All he really needs to to is pose and look gruff and tough, but damn if the man doesn’t do it so well.

Covering all required bases of World War II, Melanie Laurent gives a beautiful performance as Shoshana Dreyfus, a Jew who avoided death at the hands of Hans Landa. She’s the most sympathetic of the group, as displayed by the brutal slaughter that opens the movie. Her motivations are openly justified, and Tarantino is wise enough to watch them build up chapter by chapter through the film. She gives everyone some breathing room with her journey as a refugee who tricks the Nazis into hosting the premiere of Stolz der Nation at her theater. The star of said film is Frederick Zoeller who’s graciously, arrogantly, and expertly played by Daniel Bruhl. In a great sense of irony, Zoeller stops being egocentric for just a moment – and it costs him big time. It’s almost operatic, the way Tarantino directs it and plays it.

Tarantino masterminds all of these stories to come together in a climax that should be taught in history classes. All of these stories mesh together, and I’ll dare to say they meld better than three stories present in Pulp Fiction. Give credit where it’s due as Q.T. makes a near perfect war film, that’s actually about movies. His love of cinema has never been more evident, going so far as to show us the mark for reel changes. While also at his best, Tarantino is also at his most fun, enjoying what’s happening just as much as the audience is.

“Y’know, I think I’ve made my masterpiece.”

So you have Quentin. So you have.

Rating: ★★★★½ 

The latest of popular director Quentin Tarantino’s flicks, Inglorious Basterds marches its way into our craniums, or already has if your a fan of the filmmaker. The Weinstein Company reels us into days long past as they bring us through the Brad Pitt starring WWII action movie.

In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as “The Basterds” are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.

Check it out, there’s a few new individual posters that have cropped up along with quite a few production stills from the film. You know you want to see it, give in.

Inglorious Basterds comes out in theaters everywhere on August 21rst. For more clips, pictures and all sorts of other things, stay tuned here on Atomic Popcorn.

Marv: When will you finally do A Dame To Kill For?

That’s right folks, the long developing sequel from Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez‘ 2005 hit Sin City is up for grabs. I am sure a great deal of you are asking how this came to be, and that mainly is in part due to Dimension Films and the Weinstein Company who originally obtained the rights for the flick. They did have grabs on the flick, but now word from the producers is that Miller’s people as we should just call them for now, whoever they are, are shopping around the property as good as Julia Roberts did herself in Pretty Woman.

Apparently speculation of this ‘butterfingers’ notion was denied last week, saying that Dimension and Weinstein had their arms wrapped around the property. Now, the future of the sequel that a great deal of fans expected to already have well been released by now is launched into an even deeper development hell with possibly nobody to even hold onto it. Rodriguez has not mentioned a lick about being attached to the sequel, even though his creative juices flowed throughout the original all the way to convincing Frank Miller to make several of the comics from the Sin City series into a movie at all. At this point, the future of this could-be franchise is lost in the fog.