Spy Kids

Dick Clark Dead at 82

New Year's Eve just won't seem quite the same. The iconic Dick Clark died this morning from a massive heart attack at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, which followed an outpatient procedure he underwent last night.

After making his mark with American Bandstand, which Clark hosted various incarnations of from 1952 to 1989, he continued to bring music into America's living rooms with New Year's Rockin' Eve. Clark hosted the show every year from 1972 to 2003 before a stroke kept him from 2004's show (Regis Philbin stepped in). Clark was back in Time's Square for 2005's ball dropping with new co-host Ryan Seacrest, and has made an appearance each year since.

In addition to an extensive producing career, Clark also appeared in several TV shows and movies, including playing himself in a 2002 episode of Just Shoot Me!, a financier in 2001's Spy Kids, and breaking from his "nice guy / America's oldest teenager" image as a murderer in the final episode of Perry Mason.

• Spy Kids
• Dick Clark
• Hollywood Dailies

Robert Rodriguez "Can't Say No" to Sin City 2

Talk of a Sin City sequel began almost immediately after the movie opened. Having earned nearly quadruple what it cost to make, and with plenty more Sin City stories by creator Frank Miller to draw on, a sequel almost seemed inevitable.

Actor Clive Owen dropped some encouraging news back in September when he said that a "good source" informed him that Sin City 2 could begin filming as early as next year. Now, in a recent interview, director Robert Rodriguez said that he might be directing the sequel in the near future.

I know Frank wants to do it, I know I wanna do it, and its always sort of [a] time-permitting kind of thing, but it's not like I can tell you definitely we're starting ... it's not my next picture ... I know that. Doesn't mean that it's not the picture right after [that] because that's still a possibility.

Rodriguez said that the "next picture" he will tackle after Predators will likely be a reboot of his Spy Kids franchise, with "different kids, not the old kids" of the original series. He said that he also has plans to direct another movie next year, but would not say whether it is in fact Sin City 2, as Owen implied, or some other project. Rodriguez did verify that he has had a script for Sin City 2 since 2007, but said that fan expectations for the sequel have continued to increase with the passage of time, so the script in question needs to be revisited.

Well it's the one that Frank wrote and we have to look at it now and go, "Is this really the one?" I think it's built up so much, like are we really going to satisfy everybody with what we have, should we add to it? It's the thing we've always talked about but now two years later going on three we'd probably make some adjustments but nothing that would take a long time.

Rodriguez's next film in theaters will be Machete, opening April 16, followed by Predators on July 7.

• Sin City
• Sin City: A Dame To Kill For
• Machete
• Spy Kids
• Predators
• Robert Rodriguez
• Frank Miller
• Clive Owen
• Clive Owen

Robert Rodriguez Talks Shorts' Inspiration

Director Robert Rodriguez is well-known for making genre movies like Sin City and the upcoming Machete, but he's also the creator of popular kid movies like the Spy Kids series. His latest venture, Shorts, follows the adventures of a young boy who finds a rock that can grant wishes. Rodriguez explained the genesis of the movie to Moviesonline:

We have a castle turret [in my house]. Part of the house that I'd built thinking, 10 years ago when I built it, some day I was going to use it as a set for a movie with my kids when I had kids and then it ended up happening with this. I was going to shoot it like El Mariachi in my backyard and come up with a storyline later. When my son came up with the idea of doing a Little Rascals type movie, of course, that was something I had thought of doing years ago and I had totally forgot about it. He would talk about the canyon and a rock. He loves rocks, he collects rocks. He kept saying a rainbow rock. So I thought, what if it’s a wishing rock, and I asked him what he would wish for if he wished for anything because I was going to test the idea on him.

He said, "I wish for a butt for a head." I said, "Are you sure?" and he said, "Yeah." So, I asked my other son who is older and wiser what he'd wish for and he said, "I wish to be a potato." So I said, "Hmmmmm. Okay. I'd wish for a million more wishes." And then, their faces kind of dropped. You could tell they were thinking, "Oh, I just wasted my wish." ...

... I realized this is a great idea for a movie. If you got a rock and could have anything, you really wouldn't know what to wish for at first. Of course, if you're a kid, it's "a never ending supply of chocolate" and now he's got stuff shooting out of his pockets. "Let's wish for telephonesis" and, of course, he says the word wrong. Everything is taken literally and you can just have a lot of fun.

When it comes to making kids' movies, Rodriguez's plan is simple: just make a good movie that everyone can enjoy:

... they weren't expecting something like Spy Kids, where it's like – "Wow, somebody actually looked like they wanted to make a family film, and set something in this age, where it's about what you can get away with, instead of what you can aspire to." You know, "This movie's a gem," or something like that.... We just want people laughing in the theater, and we don't have anything else to do, so let's just entertain. Anything we can do to just get a laugh, just make the kids laugh, and the parents will feel like they took their kids out to have a good time.

• Shorts
• Spy Kids
• Machete
• Robert Rodriguez