New Oz: The Great And Powerful Trailer looks suitably epic

It’s going to be very strange watching Oz: The Great and Powerful after reading Wicked. You may recall that, in Gregory Maguire’s novel set in L Frank Baum’s universe, The Wizard was the bad guy who tricked Dorothy into offing his political rival, “The Witch of the West”. He’s still pretty dubious in this one, but less overtly, um, wicked. Sam Raimi directs, so we should be in for a visual treat, and the trailer certainly hints at the expected rip-roaring rollercoastery stuff. It’s a Disney film, which will rein in Raimi’s habit of grossing out the the audience, though I’m sure he’ll have plenty of opportunities to “punish” his cast.

If Chins Could Kill … Confessions of a B-Movie Actor

I’ll take a few moments to highlight a fun, easy read I breezed through a couple of years back: If Chins Could Kill … Confessions of a B-Movie Actor, which is essentially Bruce Campbell’s autobiography. If you have no idea who Bruce Campbell is, you probably have no business reading it, but he’s the star of the Evil Dead trilogy and go-to cult actor for everything from The X-Files to American Gothic via Xena: Warrior Princess. 

Bubba Ho-Tep

Bubba Ho-Tep is probably the strangest film I have ever seen. It’s from the director and most of the crew behind Phantasm, and is adapted from an acclaimed short story by cult author Joe R. Lansdale. It stars Bruce Campbell as an elderly Elvis Presley, shuffling around a convalescent home and trying to thwart an ancient undead mummy with the aid of a black man who swears he’s JFK (“They dyed me this colour!”).

Bruce Campbell promises not to fart out Evil Dead remake

Could this actually be good news? Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Ghost House Pictures are teaming up again to remake cult classic The Evil Dead – and they’re pledging not to suck.