About a year ago, we noted a plethora of Nazi-related films on the horizon, including The Reader, Valkyrie, Defiance, and Inglourious Basterds. Of course, as long as it takes films to gestate and then move along into production, this phenomenon was likely purely coincidental, other than the timing of certain Oscar bait. Also certain is the non-Oscar bait status of another developing trend that replaces Nazis with Bounty Hunters as this season’s must-have cinematic accessory. Oh, and it helps if the token Bounty Hunter character is paired with a rather vacant-looking actress of very limited ability. You know, one with boobs.
Two such films in production are Jonah Hex and The Bounty Hunter. The latter has just released a teaser poster, which might truly signal the beginning of the end for Gerard Butler’s career. As for Jennifer Aniston, she’s still wearing the same mildly exasperated expression that she’s used to portray nearly every single one of her roles. Yawn. Now, Jonah Hex looks sort of interesting, due to its subject matter and the involvement of Josh Brolin as the titular scarred (and bordering upon mythic) bounty hunter character of the comic book series. Brolin recently revealed that he accidentally did the unthinkable by breaking the thumb of John Malkovich (who plays villain Quentin Turnbull) during an action scene, and Malkovich was surprisingly zen about his injury:
Brolin explains, “I had a fight with him on the movie that we did, he did amazingly and he ended up, I think, breaking his thumb. We were fighting during the movie and we’re screaming at each other, and there’s a knife in his hands and then they (the directors) say, ‘Cut!’, Then he says, ‘Josh can you come here for a second?’ and I’m like, ‘Sure’. And he goes, ‘Can you pull my thumb?’ So I go, ‘Er, yes, I guess’, so I pull it and he goes, ‘Thank you, I think you broke it.’ And I did, I broke it.”
“Ouch” doesn’t even begin to cover that one. Incidentally, some rumours have persisted that Malkovich’s character is a “voodoo practitioner raising the army of the undead,” but director Jimmy Hayward attempts to clear the air, saying that Turnbull “is more of a terrorist who’s upset about the Civil War than he is someone who’s trying to fight and re-win the Civil War.” And finally, for whatever reason, the Hex cast also includes Megan Fox as a corseted prostitute. You know, one with boobs.
