Last week, we explored the concept of shoving products into movies, but there’s an equal and opposite marketing method where movies are shoved into product commercials – especially if the character is an iconic one. There’s a distinction to be made here about the difference between celebrities endorsing colognes and fictional characters doing it, although the line can definitely be blurred. Movie star endorsements are as old as the medium, whether it’s Buster Keaton slugging out the chalk for Simon Pure Beer, Charles Bronson going overboard with his self-sprinkling of Mandom, Arnold Schwarzenegger scream-laughing for a Japanese energy drink, or Abraham Lincoln selling us churros. And that doesn’t include all the normal, run-of-the-mill advertising where an actress loves a brand of make-up or a wrestler loves beef jerky. A human being selling out is one thing, but there’s something especially heinous about a character being used to market a product because it’s an element of art forced into a square hole of commercialism. Oftentimes its done without the creator’s consent (or consent is contractually taken away from the starting block). In most cases, the original actor doesn’t even have to be involved (for better or worse), especially if there’s a costume involved. In its rawest form, it’s the uglification of something we love. This list is light-years away from being complete, but it hopefully shows a well-rounded view of different types of movie characters in commercials throughout a few different time periods.

Ever since Brazilian director Jose Padilha was confirmed to direct MGM’s long-gestating Robocop reboot, there has been the lingering question as to what would happen to all of the work the original director, Darren Aronofsky, put into the project. Aronofsky was all set to take on Robocop, and had even written a script, but some looming bankruptcy problems with MGM and an otherwise full schedule for Aronofsky put the kibosh on all of that. Well, Crave recently sat down with Padilha to talk about his upcoming Elite Squad 2, and eventually steered the conversation toward the subject of Robocop. When asked about the Aronofsky script, Padilha said, “I haven’t read Aronofsky’s script. Aronofsky is a great director. I love his films. I am very proud because I saw Pi in the opening Sundance screening and I loved it. So Aronofsky’s great. I have my own take on Robocop. I know what his take was and it’s totally different. It’s a different thing, different kind of film, even different period in time so I haven’t read his previous work.” On one hand, that’s kind of disappointing, I would have loved to have seen what a major director like Aronofsky envisioned for this project. On the other hand, I’m much happier about a filmmaker who is enthusiastic about his own vision taking over Robocop rather than having a utility player come in, just pick up the pieces, and do whatever the studio wants.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s the roughest, toughest, meanest movie news column around. It also owns one of those silly shirts and smokes cigars. Of that, you can be sure. We begin our newsy journey tonight with a photo of three f*ckin’ guys you might have heard of on the set of The Expendables 2, proving once and for all that witty banter, big scarfs and an awful flowered shirt will be part of the highly anticipated testostisequel. All I can think is… someone needs to get to dat choppa!

News of a RoboCop remake has been bouncing around for literally years, usually with Darren Aronofsky’s name attached in some manner. Recently, the plan for the film has been that Aronofsky would serve in a producer’s role and José Padilha, helmer of 2007’s Elite Squad, would be sitting in the director’s chair. Even more recently, Dutch film site Film1 caught up with the director to have a chat about Elite Squad 2, and at the end even managed to get a quote out of him about how his approach to the material will differ from original RoboCop director Paul Verhoeven’s. Padilha’s comments were posted in some sort of indecipherable moon language, but luckily the gents over at /Film were kind enough to run it through Google translate and have some good old-fashioned English come out the other end. Padilha roughly said, “I love the sharpness and political tone of RoboCop, and I think that such a film is now urgently needed. But I will not repeat what Verhoeven has done so clearly and strongly. Instead I try to make a film that will address topics that Verhoeven untreated. If you are a man changes into a robot, how do you do that? What is the difference between humans and robots developed? What is free will? What does it mean to lose your free will? Those are the issues that I think.” That’s kind of vague, but I guess what Padilha is getting at is that his version of RoboCop will focus [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s the day’s best movie news and links exploding onto your computer screen. Can you handle that? MSN has debuted a new image of two new characters from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. “Two of the youngest Dwarves, Fili (Dean O’Gorman) and Kili (Aidan Turner) have been born into the royal line of Durin and raised under the stern guardianship of their uncle, Thorin Oakensheild. Neither has ever travelled far, nor ever seen the fabled Dwarf City of Erebor. For both, the journey to the Lonely Mountain represents adventure and excitement. Skilled fighters, both brothers set off on their adventure armed with the invincible courage of youth, neither being able to imagine the fate which lies before them.” Quick, get me a Tolkein nerd to translate that. Are these guys cool, or not? Because they look cool.

Serve the public trust. Protect the innocent. Uphold the law. Synopsis Welcome to Detroit, sometime in the near future. The city’s a cesspool. Its streets are overrun by homicidal criminals. Greedy industrialists, charged with protecting the common good, are bleeding the place dry. Enter Officer Alex Murphy. He’s an honest cop, freshly transferred to the city’s anarchic Metro West precinct. He’s also one unfortunate cop, savagely cut down the first day on the job. Not to worry. Thanks to the miracle of cybernetics, Murphy will rise again as the city’s most unlikely savior.

When do they get started? When some poor schmuck volunteers. Fortunately, that schmuck – in the form of Elite Squad director Jose Padilha – has signed up for the job to direct the reboot of Robocop. Is there a better choice out there? Probably not. For one, Padilha is almost completely unknown to US audiences, and if the studios are going to keep forcing us to revisit the icons of our past, they might as well introduce us to the talent of the future while they’re at it. The project could give some great exposure to a worthy director. For two, Elite Squad and its follow-up are incredible movies that use violent action as less of a plot device and more of a calling card. Essentially, the logic of why MGM chose Padilha (even with names like Robert Rodriguez floating around) is a hell of a lot clearer than why, say, the guy who directed that Justin Bieber concert is now directing G.I. Joe 2. This is optimistic news. Although it will be light years different than Darren Aronofsky’s vision, Padilha is a talent that demands to be seen, and this project is a great way to showcase his particular set of directing skills. Let’s see if they can get this monster to work. [Heat Vision]

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this stuff late at night, what do you expect?

When it was suggested to Detroit mayor David Bing that the city should build a statue of Robocop to show up the statue of Rocky in Philadelphia, he very politely responded on Twitter that the city had no plans to build a statue of Robocop at this time. Forgive me for getting political on a film site, but it’s idiotic leadership like this that is the reason Detroit’s economy is in the shape that it is. A Robocop statue is the sort of basic human right that every citizen of every city in the world should be able to exercise. To deny it to the citizens of the city in which the film was set is unthinkable. Not content to stand for Bing’s tyranny, a guerrilla group of young activists have taken to social media and have begun a movement to fund the statue themselves. Revolutionaries have started a Facebook Group, a website, and are using the fundraising site Kickstarter to get money for the production of the statue. A piece of property in Roosevelt Park facing Michigan Central Station has been promised if enough money is raised. For more information on the project, go to detroitneedsrobocop.com, or to give money to help the cause head over to Kickstarter. In order to get the project off the ground $50,000 must be raised, and so far the total is just under $19,000. We only have until March 26th to make this happen. It’s time to come together people; don’t let the [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this stuff late at night, what do you expect?

The winds of change are blowing here in Austin, Texas. With Fantastic Fest over, a tad-bit of emptiness has washed over the land and left me yearning for more great genre experiences. Which brings me to this week’s selection of Blu-ray releases — one that includes a few unique genre flicks and one lovable turd that reminds me of a documentary that was launched into the stratosphere by the film community here in Austin. Also, there’s this animated movie from the Mouse House that will absolutely blow your mind on Blu-ray. It’s as if the cosmos has looked down upon us in our post-Fantastic Fest haze and said “hey, here are some good movies to satiate your need for the good stuff.” It’s a week full of releases that are delivered right on time, just as the leaves start to change and Halloween begins to peek its head around the corner. Time to spray blood on the walls and fall in love again with a tale as old as time, or some other confused multi-metaphor. It’s another round of This Week in Blu-ray.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; if you meant to read Culture Warrior, please log off and try again.  But if, like me, you find intellectually-stimulating, expertly-written lectures on film and society require way too much of you, let me be the first to welcome you to the alternative.  Every week I reach behind the front-facing movies on the shelf to find the dusty, long-abandoned misfits hiding deliberately out of sight. These movies are not what you might call quality, given your definition of quality is the actual definition of quality, but that doesn’t stop them from tickling a very specific part of me. I will document the badness of these films to maintain some guise of credibility before squandering all your faith in me by then lovingly rubbing their schlocky goodness all over myself. And if that doesn’t whet your appetite, I will also pair the film with an apt snack food item to assert the so-bad-it’s-good concept. This week, I bid you subject yourselves to: The Vindicator.

For a moment there was a part of my nerdy brain that wanted to a cross-over between RoboCop and the serial killer with the Dark Passenger, but it was fleeting. While it would be cool to see Peter Weller bring back his most famous cyborg crime-fighter, just having him as a member of the Dexter cast should be good enough. Throughout most of the upcoming season, Weller will play a “troubled Miami Metro police officer who gets caught up in an internal affairs investigation.” This investigation will no doubt have some effect on the world of Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), as Dexter is now going to be looking for danger around every corner after the way season four ended. No spoilers here, but you probably know what I’m talking about. Weller should be a welcome addition to this solid and ever-growing cast. [Deadline]

There’s no secret to the fact that MGM and director Darren Aronofsky aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on their planned reboot of RoboCop. We’ve been covering the situation since March 2008, and it is clear that as the project has evolved, the two parties have distinctly different visions for what this franchise relaunch should look like.

MGM chairperson Mary Parent needs something big to resurrect the once-great studio that is now mere days from imploding. It has to be big, steely and it must be in 3D! Of course, this doesn’t jive with everyone.

Today is Cyber Monday, the unofficial holiday that is the web’s response to Black Friday. Which means that its time to spend a bunch of money on Blu-ray movies, right?… Right?

We may have taken for granted that Darren Aronofsky was going to end up being the director for Robocop. It’s likely that he’ll still do it, but a new scheduling problem may make it that much harder to pull off.

It’s possible that you’ve seen this around the web, as a number of our friends and neighbors in the movie blogosphere have also picked it up. But just in case you missed it, I would like to share with you something very cool.

There is something to be learned by looking at the current situation of director Darren Aronofsky and so many other filmmakers before him: if you make a critical hit such as The Wrestler, all of those ‘passion projects’ that have been collecting dust in studio offices in Hollywood seem to ‘magically’ gather steam.

Whether or not you live here in Central Texas is irrelevant, because I think we can all agree that you should be hitting up the Mondo Tees website and checking out the new line of “Badass Cinema” shirts designed by Mark Todd.