Michael Moore to offer free film download aimed at 'slacker' voters
U.S. documentary maker Michael Moore plans to make his next film available online for free later this month.
Slacker Uprising, a 97-minute documentary about the 2004 U.S. elections, is an unabashed attempt to rally young voters for the coming presidential vote.
Moore said he plans to offer it as a free download for three weeks beginning Sept. 23.
He also is considering a theatrical release, positioning Slacker Uprising as an election year movie, just as his Fahrenheit 9/11 was an anti-Bush force during the 2004 campaign.
"I've been thinking about what I want to do to help with the election this year," Moore said on Thursday.
Slacker Uprising follows Moore on a 62-city tour to rally young voters during the 2004 campaign, and like most of Moore's work, it is pro-Democrat.
"This film really isn't for anybody other than the choir," Moore said. "But that's because I believe the choir needs a song to sing every now and then."
The 2004 rallying of the youth vote resulted in more than 20 million 18-to-29-year-olds casting ballots, an 11 per cent increase from 2000.
Moore wants these "slackers," whose voter turnout is traditionally disproportionately low, back in the ballot booth in 2008. He released a paperback book, Mike's Election Guide 2008, last week and is aiming squarely at the internet generation with his free download.
Moore said he took notice when the band Radiohead last year released an album, In Rainbows, online with pay-what-you-like pricing. He also took note of Neil Young's experiment with streaming his anti-war album Living with War online before its standard release.
Moore promises a high-resolution download through Blip.tv. His 2007 film Sicko was leaked online through YouTube in a low-quality version before its release.
People can sign up for the download at SlackerUprising.com.
Moore is also encouraging neighbourhood screenings of the film on what his website calls "a night of a thousand house parties," planned for Oct. 4.
Aaron Eckhart Spills Dark Secret of Two-Face's Fate
Los Angeles (E! Online) - Aaron Eckhart has had a good summer. He can take credit for some of The Dark Knight's awesomeness, with his Harvey Dent/Two-Face baddie getting almost as freaky as Heath Ledger's Joker. But $500 million later, we have to ask him: Two-Face could survive that deadly fall at the construction site, right?
"No," Eckhart told E! News at the junket for Towelhead yesterday. "He is dead as a doornail. He ain't comin' back, baby. No."
The fans want him back, and the actor wants to come back, but ultimately director Christopher Nolan is the bad parent.
"I asked Chris that question. He goes, 'You're dead.' Before I could even get the question out of my mouth, 'Hey Chris, am I...' 'You're dead.' "
But death has never been a problem for comic book characters! "I'm not coming back," he said. "Unfortunately, Heath was supposed to go along."
Eckhart knows, too, that there are plenty of Batvillains waiting for spots in the sequels. He's even jealous about one rumor. "I heard Angelina Jolie was going to be Catwoman," he said. "I thought that was a great idea. I'd like to be in that one."
Oh, but sorry. Didn't you hear? You're dead.
Columbia Scaring Up Ghostbusters Revival
Los Angeles (E! Online) - No need to believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis.
Just believe that the allure of nostalgia and a monster paycheck is strong enough to get Bill Murray to strap on that positron collider again.
Variety reports that Columbia Pictures is gearing up to bring another Ghostbusters film to the big screen, ideally featuring all four main characters from the 1984 blockbuster and its 1989 sequel—Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson.
Both '80s-era films were cowritten by Aykroyd and Ramis and directed by Ivan Reitman.
Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, both executive producers on The Office, have been tapped to pen the new installment—after which, Columbia will approach its would-be leading men.
Eisenberg and Stupnitsky recently collaborated on the Ramis-directed comedy Year One. Despite a handful of small parts over the years in comedies such as Knocked Up and As Good as It Gets, Ramis—who also helmed three episodes of The Office last year—has had more of a career behind the camera since his Egon Spengler days.
While the project remains officially unconfirmed, the general consensus is that getting Murray to suit up after all these years will be the hard part—although the Oscar-nominated thesp deigned to contribute his Dr. Peter Venkman voice for the new Ghostbusters: The Video Game.
After helping to keep the dream alive for the past two decades, Aykroyd told a radio station last year that the idea of another Ghostbusters sequel was still alive and kicking. But...
"It will not happen as a live-action [movie], 'cause Billy [Murray] will not come on, in the live-action stage anymore for it," the veteran character actor said. "But he will voice his part, and we are looking to do it as a CGI animated project."
But who knows what will happen if the script stacks up?
Ghostbusters II didn't exactly recapture the magic of the original, which grossed $229.2 million (at '80s prices) at the box office, but it still brought in $112.5 million and millions more from home video sales.
Besides, even the lamest sequels are usually good for lines like, "Only a Carpathian would come back to life now and choose New York!"