Eat your heart out, James Franco. While you were filming naked

Marion Laval-Jeantet [pictured, in 2007] prepared her body to accept the horse blood plasma by getting injected with different horse immunoglobulins over the course of several months.
These foreign animal antibodies were injected in progressively larger amounts to allow her to build up tolerance in a process that she referred to as “mithridatisation,” after the Persian king of Pontus, Mithridates VI, who supposedly built up an immunity to poison by regularly consuming small doses of it.
Earlier this year, after months of preparation, she was injected with horse blood plasma, which contained the full spectrum of immunoglobulins without provoking an allergic reaction.
As part of the performance piece she also wore a set of stilts with hooves on the end to feel at one with the horse. She walked around with the donor horse in a “communication ritual” before having her hybrid blood extracted and freeze-dried.
She explained to Centre Press that the whole process made her feel “hyperpowerful, hypersensitive and hypernervous.” She added: “I had a feeling of being superhuman. I was not normal in my body. I had all of the emotions of a herbivore. I couldn’t sleep and I felt a little bit like a horse.” [Wired]

I consider this an important piece.

She injected herself with the blood of a horse and it made her feel “a little bit like a horse?” Why, I hardly know where the science ends and the art begins! Eat your heart out, James Franco. Suddenly it seems… the dicknose is on the other hoof.

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So Steven Spielberg has made a film about WWI, as told from the perspective of a horse (“We always said, filth was the real enemy. Mmm, oats!”), and the trailer (below) looks every bit as ridiculous as the synopsis:

DreamWorks Pictures’ “War Horse,” director Steven Spielberg’s epic adventure, is a tale of loyalty, hope and tenacity set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during the First World War. “War Horse” begins with the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert, who tames and trains him. When they are forcefully parted, the film follows the extraordinary journey of the horse as he moves through the war, changing and inspiring the lives of all those he meets—British cavalry, German soldiers, and a French farmer and his granddaughter—before the story reaches its emotional climax in the heart of No Man’s Land.The First World War is experienced through the journey of this horse—an odyssey of joy and sorrow, passionate friendship and high adventure.

Now imagine that set to a preposterously epic John Williams score (the melodrama goes to eleven!), and you basically have the trailer.

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So Disney made this movie, Secretariat, which tells the “impossible true story” of a copywriter who doesn’t care about the literal meaning of words of an unlikely racehorse with a quirky trainer, who helps save a struggling farm, and proves that women can own horses just as good as men can (no, really).  Sample dialog from the trailer:

“SECRETARIAT IS NOT AFRAID AND NEITHER AM I.”

“THIS IS ABOUT LIFE BEING AHEAD OF YOU… AND YOU RUN AT IT.”

“OUR FATHER’S FARM HAS BEEN LOSING MONEY FOR YEARS.  WE NEED A CERTAIN TOUCH, NOT A HOUSEWIFE.”

“YER CHANGIN’ THAT HORSE’S LAAHFE.”

“NOPE.  THAT HORSE IS CHANGIN’ MAAHNE.”

Okay, so I made that last part up.  This is not actually about Sandra Bullock teaching a horse to play football. That is the subject of another Disney movie, Air Bud 12: Hoof it to the Colisseum.  This one is basically Seabiscuit 2.  How to sell such a movie?  Why, with a picture of John Malkovich looking like he’s about to bite into my face like an apple, of course.  Dude spent a lot of time with horses during filming.  Like, a lot of time.

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A tipster to Videogum recently sent in this video, along with the following note:

My mom sent me this. She knows the producer and said it cost 25 million dollars to make.

The film, called You Make My Day, is being produced by Emmy-winning composer Michael J. Lewis, and says on its website that it’s “seeking funding for filming and CGI production,” so I’m guessing what this guy meant was that they want $25 million to make this movie, not that they’ve already spent it.  I hope.  I really hope. Here’s the synopsis:

An Epic Musical Romantic Adventure set in a mystical island kingdom where horses reign and birds keep watch.

The horses, meanwhile, are named Ari and Princess Tehani.  My favorite shot is the lovingly composed frame at the 38-second mark where we get to see the morning sun stream through Princess Tehani’s tail mane.  Perfectly normal, perfectly healthy.  Heck, what middle-aged man hasn’t composed entire musicals based on his pets’ love life?  (one more vid after the jump)

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Let’s face it, Season of the Witch is an elaborate practical joke.  It has to be.  There’s no way you get Nic Cage and his painted-on forehead, slap a wig on him, make him ride on a white horse and talk about witches in Olde English, unless the payoff is laughing your ass off when he takes it all super seriously.  You just know every crew member on this shoot is doubled over wiping tears from their eyes right now.  Hey, Nic, so, uh, in this next scene, the hero’s gonna smear some cat poop all over his face.  Yeah, it’s uh, something the knights of the round table used to do – an old superstition, you know.  Pfftt, Oh my God, look at him, dude, he’s actually doing it!

[via USA Today]