On the heels of the terrible Universal Studios fire comes word of another landmark movie location gone up in flames. San Diego's Kansas City Barbeque, which can be seen in Top Gun (watch one of its memorable scenes, dubbed in Italian, above), was been gutted by a fire that started yesterday in an open cooking pit. According to the AP article reporting on the fire, the restaurant was used for the scene in which Maverick (Tom Cruise) first picks up Charlie (Kelly McGillis) by singing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," but this is incorrect (that scene was shot in Coronado, at the Officer's Club at Naval Air Station North Island). Kansas City Barbeque was used for the above scene in which Goose (Anthony Edwards) and Maverick are singing "Great Balls of Fire," as well as the final scene when "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" is playing on the jukebox.

The restaurant had capitalized on the fact that Top Gun was filmed there, and as you can see on its website, people referred to it as the "Top Gun Bar." You could even purchase Top Gun merchandise there and see props from the film, including the piano that Goose plays on and the jukebox from the end. Although the fire was reportedly extinguished in only 20 minutes, the restaurant has been destroyed and apparently those props are now lost forever.

Upon hearing the news that Paramount might be dropping out of ComicCon, my first thought was "Now how much longer will it be until we see Star Trek stuff?" I have an odd relationship with this movie -- I'm not a Trekkie, but I find myself devouring any bit of news that leaks out about J.J. Abrams' reboot. There are thousands of ways it could go right -- and about a million it could go wrong.

But now, an interesting glimpse into the new world of Trek has surfaced over on Ain't It Cool News. AICN founder Harry Knowles made a visit to Abrams' editing room, and is apparently the first person to see any footage of the film. While it always feels a bit cheesy to post someone else's set visit, we're talking about the top secret Star Trek! We take what we can get. From the sound of it, Abrams didn't even want to show or tell this much, so this will probably be the last anyone hears about it for months!

From Knowles' description of the footage he saw, things are still in a very rough stage, which explains why Paramount isn't racing to put it before San Diego audiences. But what is described sounds so very cool that I lament their absence even more. Obviously, a set visit is subjective, and I always read all such reports with skepticism planted firmly in my mind. But read it, and see if you don't feel the same way.

I can't post the entire thing here -- but I will post my (and Knowles) favorite bit. He was allowed to see a scene where a newly graduated Starfleet class is assigned their ships. For those wanting to avoid spoilers, I'll post it after the jump.

Fair warning: This is a slight, trivial, and practically meaningless piece of upcoming movie news -- but it touches on three things we love here at Cinematical: Action movies based on cartoons based on ancient marketing campaigns, horny directors, and fake breasts. Here we go:

According to SFGate's Hot Dish blog, sexy actress Sienna Miller was forced to wear fake hooters so as to accentuate her cleavage in the upcoming G.I. Joe movie. Ms. Miller will be playing The Baroness, and apparently her god-given boobies were not adequate in the eyes of director Stephen Sommers. ("'I'm gonna be honest, I like girls with big boobs," is what the director told her. Strange comment from a guy whose leading ladies have been Famke Janssen, Rachel Weisz, and Kate Beckinsale, three gorgeous women who aren't exactly D-cups.)

Ms. Miller notes that she was "mildly offended" by the breast issue, and I'm kind of surprised that the topic didn't come up before her first costume fitting, but hey ... The Baroness is pretty stacked. Perhaps Mr. Sommers is just trying to remain faithful to the source material -- or yeah, maybe he just likes big boobs. Lord knows the target demographic for G.I. Joe loves boobs. Check out images of Sienna as The Baroness in the gallery below.

...after the jump: more pics!

So, who's going to San Diego Comic Con this year? Are you excited? Pumped up? Mildly interested? Pretending you don't care in order to impress someone of the opposite sex, but deep inside really do care and, as such, are counting down the seconds? It's okay, we're friends -- we can talk. This year, myself, Scott Weinberg and Elisabeth Rappe will be on the ground at Con representing Cinematical, and I think I speak for all of us when I say we're ready to get our geek on.

Aside from the very cool Masters of the Web Panel on Thursday morning (7/24) at 10am (which yours truly will take part in), we've been anxiously waiting to see which studios show up and with what product. Looks like Fox was first out of the gate, as I've been told they'll be there with bells on ... along with panels for Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg, John Moore and Mila Kunis expected to attend so far) and The Day The Earth Stood Still (Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Scott Derickson and Erwin Stoff expected to attend so far). There will also be an advanced screening of The Rocker, with Rainn Wilson in attendance for a Q&A. Of course, this is all tentative until everything is finalized next month.

On the other hand, Anne Thompson brings us the unfortunate news that Paramount will not be hosting a panel or bringing any stars to this year's Con. Apparently, a Paramount spokesman told Thompson that "the timing was off this year." Thus, fans will miss out on potential presentations of G.I. Joe, Star Trek, Transformers 2 and The Last Airbender. Sucks. Though you never know ... plans may change and there could still be a surprise or two. Here's hoping we get something, anything, from one of these highly-anticipated films.

UPDATE: Paramount's fishin' around today, so I don't think they're out just yet. More when we know ...

This past Sunday, The New York Times featured a popular City-section story about the first-ever prom held for students of Brooklyn's International High School. In case you don't like to read, you can simply watch the video accompaniment here. And if you don't like to read and you don't like documentary-style videos, and have a lot of patience, you can wait for the feature film, which will apparently be hitting theaters some time in the future. According to New York magazine's Vulture blog, a number of producers are interested in optioning the article, while Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have personally brought it to the attention of Paramount Pictures, where Pitt's Plan B Entertainment has a first-look deal. Supposedly an unnamed non-Paramount studio exec beat us all to the punch by joking that "maybe Maddox and the twins can star in it." Of course, he forgot about Pax and Zahara (and the twins aren't really international).

Actually, the first joke I thought about was the running gag on TV's The Critic about the kid from Easter Island who attends the United Nations School. Then, the second joke I thought of was about Brangelina's adopted children. Then I kept thinking of other things, such as how thanks to Prom Night people might assume this other prom-themed movie is also a horror flick. But that's not so much a joke as it is me trying to think on a studio exec's level (hey, we were synchronous with the Maddox bit) in order to contemplate what they'd call the thing. International Prom? A Prom for All Nations (ala the video's title)? Or will Hollywood appropriately go for one of those song-based titles? Been around the World, perhaps?

I've come to the conclusion that Steven Spielberg must not need any sleep. Because Variety is reporting that he's just added another project to his busy plate: 39 Clues, a multiplatform adventure series that will launch September 9th and run for two years. It spans a series of ten books, collectible cards, and an online game. The game will actually be designed around a contest, where young participants will try to solve the mystery scattered throughout the books, with a chance to win $10,000. Whew! Just typing all that makes me tired, I can't imagine sorting through it to make a movie.

39 Clues does have a neat, Indiana Jones feel to its storyline -- it centers on the most powerful family in the world, the Cahills, who boast Houdini and Napoleon among their relatives. The adventure kicks off in the first book, Maze of Bones, when the death of the Cahill's matriarch, Grace, sparks off a race for the inheritance. She hasn't made it easy, you see: Her last will offers her descendants the choice between $1 million, or a clue. Scattered around the world and throughout history, the clues will reveal the source of the family's secret powers. Spielberg is contemplating taking the director's chair, and aims to have a screenwriter attached in the next few weeks. And the first book hasn't even hit Barnes and Noble yet!

I'll always remember reading a review of Casino where a reviewer said that even a mediocre Martin Scorsese movie is better than the 'best' movie made by any other director. That particular piece of wisdom has always stuck with me whenever I was plunking down my hard earned dollars on a Scorsese film that wasn't necessarily 'my thing' -- cough, Kundun, cough. So with that in mind, you can be sure that I'll be there on opening day for his new thriller, Ashecliffe (formerly Shutter Island). The Boston Herald recently scored some pictures of star Leonardo DiCaprio and Scorsese on the set of the period thriller, with the added bonus of getting to see DiCaprio brandishing some firearms (thankfully, it was for the movie).

The film is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), and centers on two U.S. marshals who are sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane. Things start to go downhill when a riot on the island has them trapped, and not to mention some events that are outside of the realm of the everyday. Mark Ruffalo joins the cast as DiCaprio's partner, and Michelle Williams also stars as DiCaprio's wife. The film immediately brings Spellbound to mind, and knowing what a Hitchcock fan Scorsese is, I will look forward to seeing Scorsese work in a few of those 'master of suspense' touches.

Ashcliffe is scheduled to arrive in theaters on October 2nd, 2009.

After enduring a moderate amount of fuss, our devoted readers can now click here for the Apple-exclusive English-language trailer for Brad Pitt and David Fincher's long-in-the-works The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Apparently made available only in the HD format to correspond with Fincher's expectedly demanding standards, the trailer is indeed that much more striking for it. To borrow my own words for it:

"...while the sparse dialogue clues us in on the surreal nature of the events unfolding, the bigger selling point is the scope with which director Fincher and star Brad Pitt find themselves working. It's as if Fincher tapped into his inner Jeunet, and as for Pitt... well, between this and that Burn After Reading trailer, the man's looking to have one hell of a year, and with any luck, so will audiences."

Benjamin Button is scheduled to hit theaters this Christmas, and when the next trailer for it comes around, we'll be sure to make mention of it once we're certain that everyone can actually watch the thing.

If you don't count his vocal work in the Shrek films, The Love Guru marks the return of Mike Myers to the big screen after a five-year absence. Last seen in 2003's The Cat in the Hat, Myers is now unveiling -- or is that unleashing? -- a new character, Guru Pitka, a self-help maven who brings the spiritual teachings he learned from Guru Tugginmypudha (Ben Kingsley) in India to America. Much like Austin Powers, Guru Pitka gives Myers an opportunity to play to what he thinks of as his strengths, giving us an outlandish-looking character with a thick accent and a fish-out-of-water back story. The problem is that Pitka's entirely too much like Austin Powers -- not a character, but instead a series of catchphrases, makeup appliances and goofy mannerisms that lets Meyers indulge in his penchant for sex gags, bodily-function gags and constant, self-satisfied glances at the camera.

Any time you review a film like this negatively, people ask "Why can't you just enjoy a few laughs?" And I can't give a simple answer to that, but I think it comes down to the fact that I can't just enjoy a few laughs if they're surrounded by a much larger chaotic mass of things that aren't funny. So it is with The Love Guru, as Pitka's brought to Toronto to help Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba), the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, get her broken-hearted star player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) over his girlfriend Prudence (Megan Good) leaving him for L.A. Kings goalie Jacques "Le Coq" Grande (Justin Timberlake) so that the Leafs might win the Stanley Cup. The occasional funny bit is drowned out by the mass and might of Meyers's self-indulgent eagerness to wallow in his obsessions -- poop, accents, naughty talk, makeup and innuendo.

Over the weekend, Paramount Pictures International went over the $1 billion mark, reportedly thanks to the success of its distribution of summer blockbusters Iron Man ($210 million), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($350 million) and Kung Fu Panda ($41 million), as well as earlier releases The Spiderwick Chronicles ($91 million), Cloverfield ($90 million) and No Country for Old Men ($86 million). Paramount is the first studio to reach a billion bucks in international grosses this year, and it did so faster than in 2007, when it didn't top the figure until late July.

But is it really fair for Paramount to be bragging so much? On her Variety blog, Anne Thompson weighs in on the news, pointing out that all three of the studio's summer blockbusters were produced outside the main studio. Indiana Jones was Lucasfilm; Iron Man was Marvel; Panda was DreamWorks Animation. Of course, Paramount deserves a lot of credit for the marketing of these films, but Thompson wonders what it will be like if DreamWorks really does break away soon. Fortunately it has a good looking slate for the next few years, thanks to next year's toy-based titles Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and G.I. Joe, and then the next four or five Marvel Studios releases in 2010 and 2011.