Baz Luhrmann has certainly had an eclectic career as a filmmaker, doing everything from Shakespeare with Romeo + Juliet (1996) to F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby (2013), with a little pop-opera set in a late-19^th century brothel in-between, aka Moulin Rouge! (2001).

Now, he is ready to try his hand at Kung Fu.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Australian filmmaker has been tapped by Legendary Picture to adapt the 1970s martial arts series, decidedly originating from the U.S., Kung Fu. If the deal is closed, Luhrmann will also give a crack at rewriting xXx scripter Rich Wilkes’ draft.

Kung Fu ran from 1972 to 1975 on ABC and starred David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk who finds himself in America on a search for his missing brother. Featuring pop culture relics such as the phrase “young grasshopper,” as well as certainly inspiring filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, Kung Fu definitely has a nostalgia factor. According to THR, this new movie adaptation would change the landscape to China with Caine questing after his father.

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Transformers: Age of Extinction is a soft reboot of the Transformers franchise. The means out Shia LaBeouf and in Mark Wahlberg. Yet, it also means new robots and lots of them. Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are of course still around, doing the Autobots proud. However, there are more Autobots and Deceptacons than you can shake a stick at…and even Dinobots!

Check out all the character design art released via TFW20005 blow….

Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction will be out June 27, 2014.

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Everything we have heard about Tusk has been cryptically intriguing to say the least. As the horror movie that Kevin Smith put Clerks 3 on the backburner for, he has described the North Carolina-set film as the story of a man who turns into a walrus (or at least dreams about it). It’s about a podcaster who goes to the wood to solve a mystery, but little else is known about Smith’s second horror movie (his first being Red State), except that it stars Justin Long and Michael Parks.

Well, we can now add Johnny Depp to that list.

While talking to Newsday, Long dropped this surprising bit of news when he revealed that actor Johnny Depp would be appearing in the Smith movie.

When talking about upcoming work, Long said, “It's called Tusk. Johnny Depp is in that one.”

Johnny Depp in a Kevin Smith movie is something that we have never seen before but somehow seems so, so right.

Tusk is expected to drop later this year.

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The Sinister Six movie is a reality, and it appears to be coming together much faster than anybody would have anticipated. At first, it just seemed like another way for Sony to play Marvel's Avengersgame and put together a team movie for their Spider-Man film universe. Honestly, we're not sure we really believed they'd pull it off. But it's happening. And not only that, it sounds like we'll be seeing that Sinister Six movie before The Amazing Spider-Man 4, and helmed by Cabin in the Woods' Drew Goddard, no less.

But how on Earth are they planning on making a film about Spider-Man villains, some of whom haven't even been introduced yet in the movies, work? Sinister Six producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach had some words for IGNabout it. Arad and Tolmach wouldn't confirm or deny an actual Spider-Man appearance in the film, although it's their hatred of Spider-Man that will bring them together. But most telling is their talk of a "redemption" narrative for the villains of the film, with Arad telling IGNthat "everybody's looking for redemption; they're unforgiven. Would you see one of the Sinister Six starting to feel like that? Yes. And people love it, by the way. They love when a villain finds his way back because we're all very forgiving."

You can fully expect to see the seeds of the Sinister Six movie planted in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which opens on May 2nd.

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We've gotten our good lookst at Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael (plus Shredder and April O'Neil) in the first trailer for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, but there was one major part of the equation still missing: Master Splinter. Not to worry...the first TV spot for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot finally reveals our favorite anthropomorphic rat sensei. 

Watch it here:

It's not much, and, unfortunately, the trailer still ends on that kinda disturbing closeup of Mikey, but there's still plenty of action on display! It's not a full-on view of Splinter, either, but from what we can tell, he might be getting ready to face off against William Fichtner's Shredder. Seinfeldalum Danny Woodburn did the motion capture for Splinter, but it's Tony Shalhoub doing the voice. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles opens on August 8th, 2014.

Source:IGN

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The MTV movie awards may not be the Oscars, but they know what fans want. And in some cases, they know what fans don't even know they want. Specifically, how about a full-blown post-apocalyptic battle between a bunch of X-Men (several of whom have never been seen on screen before) facing off against Sentinels? You'd like to see that, wouldn't you? Behold, then, as MTV answers your prayers with a killer clip from X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Watch it here:

Sunspot squaring off against shape-shifting, terrifying, Terminator-like Sentinels should be enough to keep you warm until X-Men: Days of Future Past opens on May 23rd. If that's not enough, Shawn Ashmore doing the full Bobby Drake, ice slide and all, should do the trick. Still not enough? Colossus powering up? Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde? Whatever it is that gets your mutant blood boiling, one thing is absolutely certain: there hasn't been an X-Men movie of this size and scope before.

Source:X-Men Movies

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Just how badly are we fiending to see Dinobots on the big screen? So badly that we're happily delivering this latest Transformers: Age of Extinction TV spot to you, just for those extra few seconds of Grimlock goodness. Look, we're going to get to see Optimus Prime riding and/or fighting a robotic T-Rex in this film, so it's very difficult to not be excited about it while we can.

Watch the latest TV spot and glean from it what you will.

And then there's this new poster, which sure does look like it prominently features Unicron.

Transformers: Age of Extinction, the fourth film in the Transformersfranchise (did you ever think you'd see the day?) opens on June 22nd. It stars Optimus Prime, Megatron, Grimlock and his Dinobot buddies, and some human co-stars like Mark Wahlberg and several other talented, but sadly non-robotic folks, including Stanley Tucci.  

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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has been focusing much of its marketing lately on reminding fans of the presence of villains other than Electro. But this latest clip from the new Spider-Man movie reminds everyone that Jamie Foxx's Max Dillon is a bad guy to be reckoned with...and one who isn't fazed by the prospect of collateral damage. We don't think anything in this clip could be considered a spoiler, and you've caught some of it in trailers before, but there are a few unique bits to it, which we'll discuss after you've had a chance to watch it...

This is probably the most expansive exploration we've yet seen on film of Peter's Spidey sense. More than just something that warns him of danger, the Spidey sense is what allows Spider-Man to react in the ways he does. It's also the best look we've ever really gotten at actual web shooters on screen, and how they function in different situations. It's nice to get into the nuts-and-bolts of superheroing every now and then, and it's something we've seen precious little of in Spider-Man films so far.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens on May 2nd.

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Director/editor/co-writer Mike Flanagan is making an immediate name for himself with Oculus, his new feature starring Karen Gillan, Katee Sackhoff and Brenton Thwaites. The story of a seemingly normal family corrupted in both the past and present by a malevolent evil encased in an antique mirror, Oculus is an expansion of a short film that Flanagan made in 2005 under the same name. While the short featured just one man alone in a room with the mirror, the feature delivers an atmospheric sense of dread, a disorienting feeling of temporal displacement and a tightly crafted story that makes it one of the most unsettling horror films I’ve seen in some time.

Flanagan spent a decade working on reality and documentary programming, where he learned the editing skills that serve him so well, while at the same time making a string of small indie features culminating with the creepy Absentia in 2011. That film – which cost just $70,000 to make – put him on a path that eventually led to Oculus. The latter was picked up for distribution by horror specialists Blumhouse Productions (the Paranormal Activity movies, Insidious, The Purge, etc.), who are also behind his next picture – which has already been shot – called Somnia.

With Oculus in theaters now, Den of Geek sat down with Flanagan to talk his approach to horror movies and what to expect from him next.

Den of Geek: Let’s start with the genesis of this, going back to the short film on which it was based.

Mike Flanagan: The short film was really to try to get out there and just make something. And kind of immediately, as it got out into the festival circuit , people were enjoying it and there was interest in expanding it into a feature -- but everybody wanted to do the found footage thing because there was cameras in the room. And I didn't think that worked for this story because the only thing that really is going to make it work is if we can say that what you're seeing on the screen isn't objective. Found footage has to be objective. You have to believe the frame. So it was really hard to find partners who were willing to do it another way. It took like seven years.  We would go into meetings and show the short and people loved it and they would always come back to that. It got really frustrating and I would just keep putting it in the drawer.

So I did Absentia, which is like this tiny little no-budget feature, to prove that I could do a feature. That got me the meeting at Intrepid (Pictures), and I went in, I met with Anil Kurian there and pitched five ideas out and they all kind of landed with a thud. I was on my way out the door and I was like, why not, I'll throw this one out there too but it will probably go the way it always goes. But I threw it out there and he watched the short and they got in touch the next day. They went, “We really like this short -- as long as you don't do it found footage.” And I was like, “Okay, great, I'd love to have that conversation.” So we got together and developed the script together.

The feature itself was seven years in development in one sense because it took us forever to figure out how to take a story of one guy alone in a room and stretch it to feature length without making it really boring. That was really hard to crack at first.

Mirrors are kind of a staple in horror movies.

Yeah. Well, as a kid I did all the Bloody Mary games and using a mirror to scare yourself. But as I got older, the thing that's awesome about mirrors is that they're completely ubiquitous. It's often our first interaction on a given day. We all stare into one for a good amount of time and we base our entire image of ourselves off of what we see back, which is wrong. It's backwards to start and then each mirror is slightly distorted. The imperfections of the glass presents us with what we assume is reality, but it isn't. So we took that idea that we take for granted that this is an objective reality but it's not. And then I learned about the tradition in the Jewish faith where they'll cover a mirror at a funeral to prevent souls from coming back through and I thought that was terrifying.

I loved a lot of the movies that have used them as devices to great effect like the Disney horror movie -- which is awesome -- Watcher in the Woods, plus Prince of Darkness and things like that. There are always examples of them being kind a cool garnish on a horror story. But doing one where it's front and center is hard to do because people -- there's this reaction immediately, when you say it's about a haunted mirror there's this kind of eye roll to it. It's like, a mirror, really? What's scary about it? I always liked the challenge of that, how to take an inanimate object and build something around it that's scary. But it's not the most intuitive movie monster.

There are aspects of the movie that come across a lot like things you read in horror literature, like leaving the mirror’s origins unexplained. Did you grow up reading a lot of the genre?

I did. I did not growing up watching a lot of horror. I wasn't allowed a lot of it and I was a real chicken. Whenever I would see horror movies I would be traumatized and I'd have to watch them behind my hands or behind the couch sometimes. So I grew up first with authors like John Bellairs and R.L. Stine for kind of the young adult horror. But I found Stephen King in the sixth grade and that was it. I became a rabid fan. What I loved about his work was the attention that was paid to character. The amount of reliance he had on the imagination of the reader to kind of create a lot of the real horrors and I thought that was incredible.

I then got into Lovecraft in a big way and that idea of kind of this other world just beyond the veil of ours that defies understanding and doesn't need a back story and an explanation, you know -- like this is an alien force that if you even were to try to comprehend it completely it would drive you mad. I thought that was scarier than anything. A lot of horror fiction kind of bends over backwards to create this is elaborate reason why this evil thing is the way it is or where it came from. I always feel like that takes away some of the scare. Evil in the world doesn't have an answer and we try, as a culture, to create one in so many different ways that I think in our fiction when we don't give it that kind of explanation it's just scarier. So that's something that I believe in philosophically for the genre, but it's hard sometimes to make that argument with producers and studios.

They want everything explained these days.

Yeah. They assume the audience will react to simplicity and we kind of came at it being like no, they'll react to complexity because everyone sitting down in the theater is a complex individual. And if we can respect that and treat it intelligently and not offer easy answers maybe that kind of horror will linger in a way. The more explained stuff tends to evaporate. It's like you come out of the theater and the movie’s over and it's gone. If Oculus can stick with somebody even for a day then it will maybe be something special. That was just the hope; I guess we'll see.

When you started watching movies what were seminal films in the genre for you?

My answers to that are kind of boilerplate to a lot of people who are fans. The Shining, The Exorcist. I had got so desensitized to horror after not getting into it as a kid, like I took in so much of it as I got older that it became really difficult to scare me. So every now and then I would stumble across these movies, often foreign films or obscure kind of limited release pictures, that would really unsettled me. Brad Anderson's Session 9 blew me away. Lake Mungo blew me away. So for me it was always like, I'd find these little movies and I would get so excited and try to show them to people and say, I want to make a movie that people will really respond to, considering how jaded horror fans are by the genre they love.

You either need to push the movies to extreme levels to make a splash like Martyrs, which knocked me over -- you either have to push it so far that the visceral reaction is unavoidable, or you've got to kind of pull back the other way and kind of get into a place again where a viewer has to activate their own imagination as opposed to having a passive viewing experience.

That's a tough thing to sell. It's a really tough thing to pitch, but as a fan I feel like there's a lot of really exciting smaller horror that I wish would get a wide release. And one of the things for this movie, you know, I never really expected a wide release, I hoped for one. And now that we have it…if we connect with people and people support the picture it will hopefully encourage studios not to kind of fall back on the easiest kind of horror movies to make when it comes to wide releases and take more chances. And I really hope we can help with that at least a little bit. Because as a fan I would just love to see more challenging material get out to the mainstream.

What hat do you enjoy wearing most: director, writer or editor?

Oh, they're all fun. I think editing is ultimately the most exciting because it informs writing and directing in a really cool way. That's where you finally get to see the movie stand up. They're all rewarding and challenging in different ways, but the one hat I never truly take off is the editing hat.

Because you’re always doing it in your head, even as you’re writing or filming?

Yeah. And because that one colors everything else so much, I think that's where I enjoy it the most. It’s like, you start alone when you're writing. You're just there and the sky’s kind of the limit, but there's no one else to blame but yourself for what you're doing. Then production is just this combination of so many people who are coming together and all pushing the story into existence. And then you end alone again the edit bay. It's a really neat cycle, and being able to live with the project through all of that is something a lot of people don't get to do. I've been really lucky that they were willing to let me edit my own stuff. That's when I really get to sit back and actually watch everything come together into something cohesive. So I think that's my favorite part.

Is it interesting to find yourself aligned with horror specialty company Blumhouse Productions not just for Oculus, but for your next movie, Somnia?

Well, Blumhouse is neat because they really demonstrated for the first time that you didn't need what the studios told you you needed to get out to a mass audience -- you could make a movie for little or no money without star power or name recognition in the cast and it could still find a mass audience and be very successful. So that cracked open this whole new model for the genre where, you know, 15 years ago filmmakers who were working on the level that people are working on consistently now would never have been able to get out there in a wide release. So Jason (Blum), I think, kind of single-handedly blazed that road for the genre. I mean it's turned into such a factory of interesting and varied genre movies that it was really gratifying that they saw what they saw in Oculus and decided that they really wanted to put their weight behind it, because they're a heavyweight and we were such a tiny movie. It was really exciting. So that's been wonderful. As a horror fan, I love what they do for the genre and that their name is on this movie is just really kind of surreal.

With Somnia, it’s the second time I've gotten to work with most of the people from Oculus, same DP, same producer, a lot of the same department heads. It was kind of a family reunion at that point. Somnia has been the sentimental favorite of my scripts for about six years and I always wanted to get the movie made and did not think anybody would make it because it's a more challenging movie then Oculus in a lot of ways. It has a lot more heart. Its emotional center is much more kind of beautiful and fragile. There was a lot of discouragement when we took that out as a spec script because people reacted against the emotional component … (they thought it might) alienate a lot of horror fans. I disagree with that. I think people respond really positively to that. So it was really gratifying to be able to make that film. It's certainly the most ambitious thing I've gotten to work on across the board. And that we were able to go into production before Oculus was released was really great, because it could go either way when Oculus comes out.

Is Somnia still in the horror genre?

It is. It's got some absolutely definite horror elements to it, but there's a whole other gear to it that's very different. Oculus is very intense and bleak and kind of ultimately hopeless. Somnia is fragile and hopeful and kind of beautiful at the end of the day. We would pitch it as a beautiful horror. It was really hard to compare it to something else so it's a risky movie, because I don't know how it will go over. But at least nobody can come back at the end and be like, “Oh, you're just rehashing Oculus.” This has always been kind of a very different little project and I hope it connects with people. I really do. I guess we'll find out.

Oculus is out in theaters now.

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If the movie is called Avengers: Age of Ultron, then it seems quite reasonable that the Vision would make his big screen debut as well. After all, it was Ultron who was responsible for the creation of Vision, in an attempt to infiltrate and destroy the Avengers. There had been reports that Paul Bettany, the voice of Jarvis, was undergoing makeup and costume tests related to Avengers: Age of Ultron, and now he's confirmed, thanks to an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, that he is, in fact, taking physical form as the Vision.

Watch the segment here, which leaves no doubt that Mr. Bettany is going to join the ranks of the Avengers in some capacity:

Now, for that extra layer of comic book detail, we'd like to remind everyone that Vision was created from the body of the original Human Torch (not Johnny Storm, but the flaming android of the Golden Age), and that character had a quick cameo in Captain America: The First Avenger:

Whether this ends up meaning anything in Avengers: Age of Ultron remains to be seen. But it is nice to see Marvel connecting the dots like this. 

Paul Bettany can next be seen in Transcendence which opens on April 18th.

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We all have our own fantasies that get us through the day-to-day activities of life. It’s a timeless theme that is so universal that when a short story captures it as movingly as James Thurber’s 1939 masterpiece The Secret Life of Walter Mitty did, it must be relived again and again.

But sometimes those dreams can become a reality, as seen in Ben Stiller’s lyrical adaptation of Walter Mitty, which will be available on Blu-ray and DVD on April 15, 2014. But for any who have already watched that movie and dreamed of joining Stiller’s titular Walter, as well as Sean Penn’s Sean O’Connell, on a desolate field in Iceland for a rousing game of soccer, we’ve got great news: a piece of that dream can become your reality!

Den of Geekis giving away the exclusive prop of that soccer ball that Stiller knocked across a field, alongside a copy of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Blu-ray for one lucky winner.

To enter, the rules are simple. What’s your greatest fantasy or daydream while at work? The more creative and unique the answer, the better your odds are of winning the prized game ball. Although, let's keep it family friendly, folks. The world is watching.

You can submit your answer to us either via our Facebook page, Twitter feed, or Google+. The contest will be open until 11:59 pm on Sunday, April 20. If you get your answer in by that time, then hopefully at least one fantasy will come true when we pick a winner on Monday, April 21!

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John Turturro’s Fading Gigolo is a sleekly professional service, offering the pleasure of a knowingly forgotten sensation: a New York City for adults.

Showing as much or more interest in making love to the Manhattan of a bygone era as to any woman, Turturro’s fifth directorial effort is a movie that savors the aroma of a Gotham that smells like mahogany and is populated by grown-ups who have no qualms about sinful behavior, but they like to do it with dark chocolate on hand, and the sound of smooth jazz playing in the background. Indeed, both of these requirements are mandated by the top client of Fioravante’s (Turturro) small business. She’s played by Sharon Stone, the resident sex symbol from a time when Turturro was surely not fading, and they both prove they still got it here in this bottle of springtime cabernet.

The biggest telltale about Fading Gigolo’s romanticisms for a land of antiquated blues and citizens who never sleep—because of high strung neuroses—is its origin point of conflict, drama, and perfect humor: Woody Allen.

Making the rare appearance in another director and writer’s film, Allen plays Murray, the owner of a hundred-year-old family bookstore that specializes in used and rare literature. Sadly, the film begins when Fioravante helps Murray close down shop for the last time, because nobody other than the film’s small circle of interest seems to read anymore. But Murray proves to be more adept for survival than many of Allen’s onscreen personas from his own hand. As the father of a large brood in need of support, Murray stumbles upon a brilliant entrepreneurial idea; he and Fioravante could make a lot of cash quickly if they get into the male prostitution bracket. It’s certainly a growth industry! Turturro’s protagonist, as with much of the film, seems very passive about the prospect, but when you’re the writer and director of the movie, it can’t be so bad, because all the clients look like Stone or an equally devious Sofia Vergara, who plays married Stone’s BFF, both of whom are looking for a man to seduce into a three-way. However, at Vegara’s insistence, it must be a real man. Somehow, I suspect they shouldn’t have to resort to paying for this vacant position.

All the witticisms and easy-going banter between Turturro and Allen, suggesting an off-screen friendship, turns the pill of what the characters (and the movie itself) are selling into a light aphrodisiac after dinner. Allen fires on all cylinders throughout the picture, recalling when asked by Stone’s Dr. Parker if he’s ever had a ménages à troi, “Yeah, in 1977 during a blackout. Nobody could see anything, but it still was very pleasant.” The classic cocktail party repartee helps overshadow that Murray is one of the filmmaker’s skeevier characters, a guy who sells pimping in the classiest five borough spots with a jester costume on.

And it is in the Brooklyn borough that Fading Gigolo finds its strongest and most surprising calling card. Despite being marketed and titled under the unlikely “get rich quick” story of Murray and Fioravante, the movie, in truth, seems most interested in stepping outside of that rosy Manhattan skyline it basks in early for an autumn-themed trip into parts of New York not often filmed. Murray himself is the father of a multi-cultural family, proudly showing a divergence in Turturro’s New York from the one ironically sold in Allen’s own cinematic postcards. But the picture’s real interest is in the “tribe” that Murray has become lost from, namely the large Hasidic Jewish section of Williamsburg.

In the part of Williamsburg where wearing hats is not meant to be a post-modern fashion statement, Murray slowly recruits Avigal (Vanessa Paradis) into his growing clientele. As the grieving widow of a husband who at most touched her once on their wedding night, Avigal is a deeply wounded creature that ultimately walks away with the whole picture. Paradis surprisingly underplays the shackles of 300 years of repression under a bound and tightened wig with only tortured eyes and a frequently dimming smile. The reason Turturro curiously insisted on his own protagonist’s passivity becomes clear when Fioravante offers a back massage and so much more to Avigal. The business transaction between the two turns into an overture of human contact with religious connotations that transcend Avigal’s suffocating community, however briefly, and its watchful gaze, which glowers with more than concern. Enter one self-appointed neighborhood copper, Dovi (Liev Schreiber), who follows her to Manhattan for meetings of a decidedly non-Hebrew persuasion.

However, the movie never crosses the line to condemn the cultural limitations of this religious tradition, even if it finds its strongest voice in a woman looking to break them. This is probably because Fading Gigolo is strangely quiet on all its subject matters. While it revels in a New York of old and older when it comes to the Hasidic subplot—culminating in a somewhat humorous and somewhat terrifying trial for Murray, the non-believer, behind communal walls higher than Jericho—above all the movie still chooses to observe and not judge or even comment on the morality of any character’s persuasion. As a narrative, Fading Gigolo might ultimately disappointment, as it is a collection of disparate moments with a messy conclusion that muddles Avigal’s humanist renewal and the smiles of Fioravante and Murray with catharsis or resolution.

Nonetheless, it is in these moments and strange characterizations that we see the movie that Turturro was content in making. It’s a long-savored drink of life and people who populate a world where there are no giant robots or talking cars. Their urban co-existence can be messy with experiences ever so fleeting, such as Fioravante and Avigal’s brief October romance. Still, it is a moment worth consummating and is blissfully ignorant of sin, whether it be of the flesh or of the celluloid. In that sense, Fioravante and Murray make for a pleasurable evening companion, indeed.

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Let's take a magical journey back to 1994. Kevin Smith was feeling pretty good. His no budget (okay, his budget was everything he owned) film Clerkshad found a niche and was received well by both critics and the public alike. A character driven story with whip smart dialogue, Clerkswas the perfect indie film for a generation stuck in perpetual brooding after the rise of grunge. The studios took notice. Following a screening of the film, Dazed and Confusedproducer Jim Jacks approached Smith and his co-producer Scott Mosier about taking their next project to Universal Studios. A deal was made and soon Mallratsbegan to take form.

Released in Fall 1995, Mallratsdidn't exactly have a long gestation period. Like some of the great Beatles' albums, this may have helped it in the end. Mallratsused a paint-by-number comedy structure, and injected a small portion of period geek humor as the Smith signature on the otherwise contrived comedy action. Smith also utilized what would become his real signature, long dialogue driven scenes, which stuck out from the typical comedy structure of the film.  

After a sizable marketing campaign and a supportive studio, Mallrats bombed on release. Opening on a mere 852 screens, the film was unable to break $2 million at the box office and came in 13th on its opening weekend. Buried by critics and unable to draw crowds to theaters, it was a short time before Mallratsbecame a video store regular...a movie that was always available, because the new stuff was already rented. Remember those days?

Kevin Smith himself quickly moved on from the film. 15 months later, Chasing Amy debuted at Sundance and reestablished Smith as an indie darling. From there, he would continue his career with a solid lineup of films and a devoted fanbase to support him. Over those same years, something else happened. Through the video store, and its “edited for television” airings, Mallrats built a serious fanbase. Smith himself acknowledges that many of his fans now started with the film and it holds as important of a role as any of his others. Ultimately, it was for some of the reasons it failed initially that it now thrives as a cult classic.

Let's get one thing straight, Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee) is NOT the main character of Mallratsas written. T.S. Quint (Jeremy London) holds that distinction. Brodie's plotline is a parallel to the “normal” romantic arc of T.S. And Brandi. The game show is the beginning and the end of the film's story, and their subsequent reconciliation is the focus of the film. Brodie is the bridge from the normal world to the world of the freaks, the “mallrats.” The characters who are most recognized and referred to (Brodie, Jay, Bob, Trish, and Willam) are, in most respects, tools to move T.S. through his journey to Brandi. Ultimately, it is the collusion of T.S. and his mallrat cohorts that brings about his victory. The wacky weirdos are as much plot devices as they are characters, surrounding the vanilla T.S. but never fully taking over the film.

Along with some questionable performances (Jeremy London admits on the 10th anniversary edition of the DVD to be stoned for much of the production) and an inspired but inexperienced director, this seems to be a major culprit in the films initial failure. The main character didn't quite have it, and the more interesting, nerdy supportin characters weren't all that accessible to the audience at large. Once again, let us to return to the wonderful world of the mid-nineties....

After the speculator bubble of the late '80s and early '90s burst, oversaturation forced comic books to return to an extremely small market, one so small that Marvel Comics would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 1996. Comic shops were closing left and right, and the devoted fan base began a struggle to sustain itself. This led to a renaissance in creator owned characters, whose creators would eventually shift back to the bigger publishers at the turn of the millennium. Smith himself would even be involved in that, but that would be years after Mallrats' release.

In short, when Mallratshit screens, the general public didn't know or care about comics. They were not the basis of constant blockbuster films and television shows. Furthermore, without the widespread use of the internet, it took legitimate effort to learn anything about any “cult” interest. Most people simply did not have any inclination to do so. Some of us old folk remember how insane it was that an X-Men movie was being made, and how little trust we had that it wouldn't be a disaster. The general audience wasn't open to the one thing that made Mallratsspecial: its nerdiness. Freely referring to comics and comic creators as if they were common knowledge simply didn't work on a large scale. Brodie encapsulates this in a scene, having to explain Wolverine's berserker rage to T.S.,  who happens to be the character closest to the general audience. T.S. proved that the audience was not expected to know what Brodie was talking about. Throw in the flaws perhaps caused by the largely inexperienced cast and crew, and the public simply wasn't interested. This is where the film's second life began.

The lovable, drug dealing ne'er do wells. The layabout. The promiscuous teenager. The arrogant, but ultimately insecure comic book fan. Not quite the people that most admit to associating with. Those who did saw something else in Mallrats; themselves. The Mallratsfanbase connected not with T.S., but with Brodie...because they were Brodie. Not the pale, retiring, sterotypical comic book nerd, but a vibrant guy who had to live with the fact that he had interests that nearly no one could relate to. For the fan, comics and the like are an escape from the hardships and failures of the real world. Brodie has the same desires and needs for affection as others, but his lack of success and ability to truly connect with most people hindered him his entire life. His camaraderie with the other mallrats, the other freaks, rings true.

Throughout the film, Brodie uses his interests to distract himself from Rene (Shannen Doherty), even when they are still together. The mall ( and the “dirt mall” to a lesser extent) itself represents this escape, a place where he can be a player in a world that doesn't care about what he does. Yes, all of the action in Mallratsis pretty ridiculous, but Smith's dialogue brings legitimate heart to the 'rats and it ends up saving the film on a few levels. The freaks and geeks watching the film adopted Brodie as their lead, and this changes the film's endgame in several ways.

First, Brodie entertains the audience by having the types of conversations they had themselves and, perhaps more importantly, had not yet seen in media. Brodie, ever passionate and defensive of his chosen arts, wanders around a public forum as if it is his own. This plants an idea. While the audience only sees moments of interaction between Brodie and the other mallrats, his relationship with each of them is exhibited through dialogue. Yes, Mallrats takes place on a day like no other, but the audience is given an idea of what the other days have been like. T.S. is simply not part of that world, and though arguably has the same amount of citable backstory as Brodie, ultimately lacks depth. By tapping into an archetype, Smith created a fuller character.

The film, when watched by a certain audience, goes from a silly account of a man's engagement plans being ruined to the emotional journey of a realistic middle class nerd. Yes, the circumstances of the gags are still ridiculous, but unlike T.S.'s arc, Brodie's possesses a moral. In T.S.'s story, he loses Brandi for basically no reason. He is blamed for a death he is not responsible for, and that no one could really believe he caused. This concept was obviously intended to be the crux of his arc, but was so silly that it falls flat. In the end, the mallrats save T.S. and being that he didn't do anything wrong, he learns no lesson.

Brodie, on the other hand, is deeply flawed. He has let a stubborn insistence that his interests (comics, video games) are so defining of him that he cannot be bothered to put himself in discomfort for others, in this case, Rene. Though Rene and Brodie are a perfect intellectual match, Brodie cannot have her until he is willing to focus on her needs.

Brodie's sage comes in the form of Stan Lee. The real Lee is not present in the film...in fact, the original script featured a fictional comic book guru. Mallratsproducer Jim Jacks, having been friendly with “The Man”, was able to contact Lee and have the script adjusted accordingly. Even with his silly, feigned comic book history references, the character “Stan Lee” is able to plant a thought in Brodie's mind. This being that even the man who is the “master” of comics is as obsessed with love as anything else. A very basic idea, but this ultimately leads to Brodie's climax. Brodie has always possessed the ability to make Rene happy, as they are more similar than different. What Brodie needed to do was admit that something outside of himself was worth the effort. Once he applies that effort in the closing scenes, he not only regains Rene, but is handed security in the form of a television gig. It isn't realistic, but at least the message is there.

In 1995, this didn't work. The audience wasn't in the theater, and wouldn't be there for quite awhile. How would Mallratsfare in 2014? I don't think it would be much different. With as many as a half-dozen superhero movies being released a year the audience would recognize Stan Lee and Wolverine with no prompting. Maybe the open forum of the internet would help the jokes fly a little better. None of this changes the fact that the most functional narrative in the film follows a character who most people probably can't relate to.

Yes, conventions are now giant events and The Avengers is the biggest movie in recent history, but this didn't change everyone into a “geek”. Yes, There is a cosplay TV show, but that didn't change everyone into a “geek”. The Big Bang Theory is one of the biggest shows on TV, but it plays off the fact that the “geeks” are difficult to relate to and live in their own world. When Brodie supplants T.S. as the main character, Mallratsbecomes a cautionary tale, perhaps one that is more relevant now than ever.

In a world where it is increasingly easy and (horrifyingly) acceptable to define yourself by one interest and to only seek out those who share them, our once small community has become so interconnected that it appears (and only appears) that nerds actually run the world. The loneliness that Brodie is doomed to feel is much easier to deny, but is as present as ever. Because of this, the moral of Mallratsis ever more important: Don't let your self interest define you. Don't let your love for one thing keep you from other experiences. Don't use your passion as a defense against the world, use it as a way to make your mark in it. That's what you can take away from Mallrats, and that is why it has survived when it seemed doomed. Snootchie Bootchies.

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