who we are
staff picks
More CT Movies & TV
All posts from "May 2009"
« April 2009 | Main | June 2009 »
May 30, 2009Glass doors and the loneliness of Kirk
The first two Star Trek movies are very different from one another, in many ways. But despite these differences, they do have some interesting parallels.
For example, both films depict Kirk not as a captain -- at least not at first -- but as an admiral who takes command of the Enterprise when a crisis arises; and in both cases, the captain who relinquishes command of the ship is dead or "missing" by the end of the movie, due to an act of self-sacrifice.
But watching the two films back-to-back last night, I was struck by one other thing they have in common: namely, their use of glass doors to symbolize the loneliness of Kirk. You can see it, for example, in the shot above, from The Motion Picture.
This is the final shot of a sequence that began with Kirk and Captain Decker butting heads over who would be the best person to lead the Enterprise on its current mission. Once the head-butting is over, Kirk dismisses Decker, only to be lectured privately by Dr. McCoy, who had tagged along to witness the tête-à -tête between the two captains. And when McCoy finally leaves the room, Kirk stands motionless behind his desk as the glass doors close, symbolizing both the loneliness that comes with being in a position of authority as well as the estrangement that comes between Kirk and his colleagues when their hearts and minds are not properly aligned with one another.
This sequence is shot from a number of angles, but I like the two to the right in particular. The first image once again places Kirk behind the glass, and it emphasizes the separation between Kirk and Spock as one of them tries to touch the other's hand. (There is a lot that could be said about this, given how important hands are to Vulcan interaction, but I'll skip all that for now.) But you can still see McCoy, Scotty and at least one other crew member in the background -- so I really like the second shot, and the way it emphasizes Kirk's utter isolation. Yes, Spock is there, but he is dead, and facing away from Kirk, and trapped behind the glass. If there is anyone else in Kirk's life that he could turn to -- a support network, if you like -- they are all kept well, well out of the frame.
Newsbites: The hiding-in-Canada edition!
2. Paul Gross is starring in Gunless, a comedy Western in which he'll play "a notorious American gunslinger who turns up in a rural British Columbia town" that has "no working weapons" and is "populated by sundry eccentrics." The film is currently being shot in Osoyoos, B.C. -- Hollywood Reporter, Globe and Mail
A Childhood Reimagined
Hollywood has always stolen from itself to keep the masses entertained. Remaking popular films is hardly new. The idea is that if it was a hot property once, it might be so again. In the early days of cinema, films like Ben-Hur were rolled over again and again.
But it seems that lately they’ve gone overboard. Or maybe it’s just that they’ve finally begun mucking about on my sacred ground.
I didn’t protest when they remade The Honeymooners, The Addams Family, The Beverly Hillbillies, Get Smart, Lost in Space or Bewitched. I had no special attachment to those shows. They were from a different generation. I didn’t even care when they remade Charlie’s Angels (I did care that the movies were so difficult to sit through) Starsky and Hutch, Dukes of Hazard or The Brady Bunch, though it certainly hit a bit closer to home.
But as the definition of “oldies†on the radio continues to slide from one decade to the next, I’ve noticed that Hollywood is now seriously plundering my childhood (the 1980s) for their latest projects.
As if the first Transformers weren’t bad enough, they’ve gone and made themselves a sequel. And don’t even get me started on that aberration they call the latest trailer for GI Joe.
Those are some of the more obvious one. Did you know that they are also planning remakes/big screen versions of the following:
The Smurfs
Thundercats
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
Flight of the Navigator
Conan the Barbarian
Karate Kid
War Games
Voltron
The Neverending Story
Clash of the Titans
Tron
Predator
And that’s just a few, completely ignoring the torrent of horror films currently being plagiarized, er, I mean, "reimagined."
I feel like pulling a Paddy Chayefsky, screaming from my window to the street below, “Leave my childhood alone!â€
Remember when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez sought to remake Casablanca? Others are interested in making contemporary editions of Bonnie and Clyde and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Does it matter that we’ve already had recent versions of Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles, Planet of the Apes, or The Fugitive? Nope, because those are on the way too. The Crow? Let the Right One In? Ditto and ditto.
But you know the industry is really starved for ideas when they turn to non-filmic inspirations, There’s a Bazooka Joe movie on the way. Before you get excited and think it’s about a guy named Joe and his trusty rocket launcher, I must inform you they are building an entire movie around bubblegum! And let’s not forget the new movies based on the popular board games, Battleship and Monopoly. Yes, Monopoly.
Maybe if the ratio was flipped I wouldn’t care so much. But the terrible truth is that for every Battlestar Galactica or The Dark Knight there are a dozen Wild Wild Wests. And looking at what’s coming down the sluice, it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
What’s that?
I hear you! Have no fear, I’m coming to help!
You’ll have to excuse me. I think I hear My Little Pony crying about some strange tanned man in a black suit and fine Italian shoes… Or is that a Care Bear?
Paul Verhoeven to direct a Christian thriller?
But an interest in Christian fiction isn't one of them.
Oh, sure, he has long wanted to make a movie about the "historical Jesus", and he has often discussed how the imagery in his films makes critical or subversive use of religious themes. And who can forget that pious member of the Dutch Resistance in Black Book (2006) who is reluctant to use his gun ... until he hears someone take the Lord's name in vain?
But nothing in Verhoeven's oeuvre would necessarily lead you to think that he'd be interested in directing an adaptation of a Christian novel, under the supervision of a Christian producer.
Nevertheless, that seems to be what he's doing, now. The Hollywood Reporter says Verhoeven is going to develop and direct an adaptation of The Surrogate, a book by Christian novelist and screenwriter Kathryn Mackel; and the film will be produced by Ralph Winter, who previously worked with Mackel on the Christian films Left Behind: The Movie (2000) and Hangman's Curse (2003) but is better known for his work on the X-Men (2000-2009) and Star Trek (1984-1991) franchises.
The story itself, according to the Reporter, concerns "a couple desperate to have a child who find themselves in an unbearable position when they find out the surrogate they hired to carry their baby is insane."
Even without the Christian subtext, I can only imagine what someone like Verhoeven would do with a premise like that. But put the two together and, well, the resulting film should be pretty interesting.
Nine does not always equal 9
Another Post-Apocalypse Flick . . .
USA Today grants a "first look" at Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli
The Book of Eli, set in America after the apocalypse, stars Denzel Washington as a man with a mysterious book that might hold the key to man's salvation. USA Today brings us a first look at the film, with five images.
Co-director Allen Hughes told the newspaper, "This is the first time I can remember where it feels like America is, at its core, vulnerable. We're mortal. After 9/11, the reaction showed how thin that line is between order and chaos. It feels like we're at a boiling point. That's why these themes of redemption and salvation are so powerful now."
'Dogma,' 'Life of Brian': Best Movies for Christians!
At least that's what one online list would have you believe
If you were making a list titled "100 All-Time Best Movies for Christians," where would you start?
Probably not with the blasphemous Dogma, in which one character, a woman working at an abortion clinic, is allegedly the last living descendant of Christ. And probably not with the scathingly satirical (some would say heretical) Life of Brian.
And yet ChristianColleges.com has posted a list with those two films--and many more head-scratchers--at its site. The posting goes on to say that its list includes movies that "are a great way to affirm faith," going so far as to call the films in its list "Christian movies."
Huh? Dead Poet's Society, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and The Last Temptation of Christ are "Christian movies"? Yowza.
Check out the whole list here.
A Newt, a Pope, and a Doc
Gingrich making a documentary about Pope John Paul II's role in bringing down Soviet Union
Nine Days That Changed the World will release this fall under Gingrich Productions. Gingrich also discussed his conversion to Christianity with Gilgoff, saying the influence of popes JPII and Benedict affected him deeply.
How Sarah Connor made the war worse.
But what really struck me were the deleted scenes, which I don't believe I had watched since I first got the DVD in 2001. And why did they strike me? Because they make it fairly clear that, on some level at least, Sarah Connor is responsible for the war.
That's right, Sarah Connor is responsible for the war.
How can this be, you say?
Well, in one deleted scene, Sarah looks up Cyberdyne in the phone book -- just like the Terminator looked up her in the phone book! -- and tells Kyle excitedly that they can destroy Cyberdyne and prevent the war from happening. After some arguing, and a bit of an emotional breakdown on Kyle's part, Kyle finally agrees to do this. (So you can see, in this, the seeds of Sarah's later vigilante actions in T2.)
And then, in another deleted scene set a few hours after Sarah has successfully destroyed the Terminator, we see that the Terminator's crushed remains have been noticed by a couple guys, one of whom instructs the other guy to take the Terminator's microcomputer chassis over to the company's R&D department. We then cut to the outside of the building, as Sarah is loaded into an ambulance, and the camera pans up to reveal ... the Cyberdyne logo on the front of the building. (So you can see, in this, the seeds of T2's later revelation that Skynet will grow out of the pieces of the Terminator that survived the original film.)
Is it a coincidence that Sarah, Kyle and the Terminator ended up in the Cyberdyne building? To a point, yes. The car chase that immediately preceded the chase-on-foot in the Cyberdyne factory was pretty crazy, and who could have predicted where the various wrecks and explosions would have ended up? But on the other hand, no, it wasn't all that coincidental. Why were they in the vicinity of the Cyberdyne building in the first place? Because, as we saw in the earlier deleted scene, Sarah and Kyle had agreed to try to sabotage Cyberdyne. They were already making their way over there.
So. Just as the Terminator came back in time to kill Sarah and prevent the birth of John Connor, thereby inadvertently drawing Kyle Reese back in time and guaranteeing the birth of John Connor, so too Sarah Connor tried to destroy Cyberdyne and prevent the birth of Skynet, thereby inadvertently drawing the Terminator towards the Cyberdyne factory and guaranteeing the rise of Skynet. And this point -- this similarity between the two characters' actions, and the consequences of their actions -- is underscored by visual motifs such as the phone-book scanning.
I can see why these scenes were deleted from the film. For one thing, they created an ambiguity around Sarah and her actions that could have complicated our feelings towards her. In a sense, they almost put her on the same level as the machines that sent the Terminator back in time: both she and the machines suffer from a kind of hubris, believing that they can change the past (in the machines' case) or the future (in Sarah's case), but in the end all they do is guarantee their own failure.
Of course, commercial cinema being what it is, The Terminator ended up having sequels anyway, "final battle" or no "final battle". And ironically, as the series has continued to unfold, Sarah's actions have turned out to have even more unforeseen consequences.
In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Sarah tries once again to destroy Cyberdyne -- and this time, to cut a long story short, she succeeds! The nuclear war no longer happens on 1997 as everyone predicted ... but it does happen several years later, in 2004, as per the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). (Or in 2011, as per one of the timelines in The Sarah Connor Chronicles.) Sarah did not completely prevent Judgment Day; instead, she merely delayed it. And so, as John Connor says in the trailers for Terminator Salvation, he now has to face the fact that "this is not the future my mother warned me about."
The guaranteed victory of the original movie -- the fact that the war was over and the "final battle" had already been won -- has been completely undone. John no longer has any assurance that he can win this war. And all because Sarah would not accept the prophecy that she had been given.
Newsbites: The classic tales reimagined edition!
2. Jim Caviezel (pictured) will star in William Tell: The Legend, which promises to be a "fact-based" film that shows how Tell "challenged the Hapsburg monarch Hermann Gessler" and thereby "ignited an uprising against the Austrian government which led to the formation of Switzerland." It is not clear whether this is the same movie that was announced six months ago, under the title Ironbow: The Legend of William Tell, or a different movie altogether. -- Hollywood Reporter
3. Speaking of possibly rival productions, two different films based on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were announced in the last couple weeks. One, simply titled Jekyll, will star Keanu Reeves. The other, called Jekyll and Hyde, will star Forest Whitaker and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson and will be directed by Abel Ferrara. But wait, there's more! Universal, the studio behind the Keanu Reeves movie, is also developing another version of the story with Guillermo Del Toro -- but he'll be so busy with The Hobbit and various other projects for the next few years, these other films will almost certainly be out of his way by the time he finally gets around to putting his own spin on this tale. -- Hollywood Reporter, Variety
4. The villain in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, will be "an occult-dabbling Satanist" based on Aleister Crowley. Meanwhile, co-star Rachel McAdams has confirmed that the film will probably omit some of the character's signature elements, such as the deerstalker cap and the catchprase "Elementary, my dear Watson." -- USA Today, MTV Movies Blog
5. If you saw the documentary Lost in La Mancha (2002), then you know all about the forces that sabotaged Terry Gilliam's previous attempt to film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Last week, Gilliam announced that he's ready to give it another go, hopefully some time next year, and he's talking to Johnny Depp about playing the lead again; this time, however, Depp has become such an in-demand actor that he might not be able to squeeze the movie into his schedule. The film "will revolve around a filmmaker who is charmed into joining Don Quixote's eternal quest for his ladylove, becoming an unwitting Sancho Panza." -- Variety, Hollywood Reporter
6. Kung Fu Panda co-director John Stevenson is attached to direct The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, in which the titular mythical creature "survived Theseus' attack in the labyrinth and walks among us today. He's a short-order cook in a Midwestern diner not far from his trailer-park home who falls for a waitress named Kelly." Stevenson is also attached to direct Grayskull, the new live-action version of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, the script for which was recently assigned to a new writer. -- Hollywood Reporter (x2)
7. Norwegian filmmaker Tommy Wirkola is developing Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, in which the title characters grow up to become "specialized bounty hunters looking to put down the cackling black-hat set." Adam McKay, who is producing the film with Will Ferrell, said: "It's a hybrid sort of old-timey feeling, yet there's pump-action shotguns. Modern technology but in an old style. We heard it and we were just like, 'That's a freakin' franchise! You could make three of those!'" -- Hollywood Reporter
8. Marcus Nispel is in talks to direct The Last Voyage of Demeter, which is based on a chapter in Bram Stoker's Dracula "describing the arrival of the vampire count in England on a cargo ship that has crashed into the rocks at Whitby with no crew and the dead captain lashed to the steering wheel. Stoker tells the story via the captain's log of the voyage, which begins in Bulgaria and becomes increasingly disjointed as members of the crew disappear." -- Variety
9. The makers of the Underworld movies (2003-2009) are now developing a film based on the comic book I, Frankenstein, which "brings together classic monster characters, including Frankenstein's Monster, the Invisible Man, Dracula and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, in a contemporary film noir setting. The Monster, for example, has evolved, learned how to control his anger and now acts as a private investigator. Dracula, meanwhile, is a kingpin of crime, and the Invisible Man is a secret operative." -- Hollywood Reporter
10. Wake the Dead, a modernized version of the Frankenstein story, may have hit a speed bump or two, as many of the people who were designing the characters over at WETA have been busy with The Hobbit. -- MTV Splash Page
10. Amanda Peet has joined the cast of Gulliver's Travels as a "potential romantic interest" for the title character, who is being played by Jack Black. -- Hollywood Reporter
11. The cameras are rolling on Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, and an early photo of Russell Crowe in costume has some people quibbling that (a) his Robin Hood looks too much like his character in Gladiator (2000), which was also directed by Scott, and (b) such haircuts would have been unlikely in the Middle Ages, especially for those living on the lam in a forest somewhere. Meanwhile, it is rumoured that Tom Stoppard has been hired to rewrite the screenplay. -- USA Today, Jeffrey Wells (x2), Roger Friedman
12. Vanessa Hudgens will star in Beastly, "a retelling of 'Beauty and the Beast' set in modern-day New York" in which "an arrogant 17-year-old" is "hideously transformed in order to find true romance." -- Variety
13. MGM has picked up North American rights to Bunyan & Babe, a modernized version of the Paul Bunyan story in which "the folklore icons join with two children to save their town from an unscrupulous property developer." -- ComingSoon.net, Hollywood Reporter
14. Monica Bellucci has joined the cast of The Sorcerer's Apprentice as "Veronica, a sorceress and the long-lost love of Nicolas Cage's character, Balthazar Blake", while Toby Kebbell has joined the cast as "Drake Stone, a celebrity illusionist who joins forces with Alfred Molina's evil sorcerer, Horvath, to gain ultimate powers." Photos from the set have begun to pop up online, and the New York shoot was recently marred by two separate car accidents. -- Variety (x2), The Bad & Ugly, Hollywood Reporter
Passion producer making 'religion-inflected' Rwanda movie
acquired Immaculee Ilibagiza's religion-inflected autobiography, titled "Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust," that tells of the author's return to spend Easter with her Catholic family in 1994 when the Tutsi massacre took place.The film will join a growing list of movies that have dealt with the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath over the last few years, including Hotel Rwanda, Shooting Dogs (released in the United States as Beyond the Gates), Sometimes in April, A Sunday in Kigali, Shake Hands with the Devil and Munyurangabo -- the last of which was produced by a YWAM team and was released this month on DVD to Film Movement subscribers.The author witnessed a number of her family members killed. She survived by hiding in the bathroom of a Hutu pastor for three months, and attributes her survival during that brutal time to her faith.
Rating Woes
I have a friend, a young film critic, who is incensed that the upcoming Terminator: Salvation has been given a PG-13 rating. And he's not the only one. I understand where he and others like him are coming from, yet I cannot identify with their anger, nor my friend's assumption that the more family-friendly rating is an automatic reflection of the film's assumed poor quality.
Doubtless the rating decision is a marketing move - the film will take in far more money the wider an audience it can attract. That's basic economics. Playing to those economics, at the expense of artistry and the creative process is, unequivocally, shameful. But is that what's going on here?
Director McG has stated that he cut very little to bring Terminator: Salvation within the PG-13 guidelines - one scene of violence and another of nudity. Losing both scenes, he said, in no way impinged on the holistic, structural integrity of the story. If that is indeed the case - and what more do we have to go on right now than his word - the gratuity he describes won't be missed by anyone other than those who go to movies seeking little more than titillation.
Condemning all R-rated films simply because they are R-rated is misguided. Some stories, in pursuit of the truth of their narrative, naturally incur an R-rating. Would The Passion of the Christ have been nearly as effective had Christ's torture and crucifixion been sanitized? Tragically, we do not live in a G or even PG world. Ours is a fallen world and, struggle as we might to bring the light, we harm our witness and make a mockery of the truth if we claim otherwise. When a film reflects the world as it truly is, oftentimes an R-rating is inevitable. (I am in no way implying that Terminator: Salvation throbs with a message of Christian redemption, no matter what the title may imply.)
In the same way, we cannot decry films that mange to relay this truth (or simply entertain) without gratuitous sex and violence as a necessary prime mover for their plot. Good drama (or comedy for that matter) is hardly beholden to body counts and bare breasts. As another, older critic friend recently said, "Wantonness doesn't equal quality."
Ben-Hur, Jesus, and water bottles
Today Vaughan posted this picture of a crew member lighting the actors who play Judah Ben-Hur and Jesus. I don't recognize the actor playing Jesus, but I wonder if this version of the story will show his face, or if it will merely show the back of his head, like the films made in 1925 and 1959 did.
Note also that the actor playing Jesus is holding a water bottle. That's kind of funny, since it looks like the scene they are working on is the one in which Jesus gives Judah a drink of water -- but presumably out of a gourd or some similar vessel, and not a plastic bottle!
Although, come to think of it, this wouldn't be the first film to show Jesus offering someone a water bottle ...
Weisz to play Lamarr -- and maybe Delilah too?
Star Trek -- at the box office, on the charts
As of Sunday night, the reboot had grossed $79.2 million in its first weekend alone -- which is better than all but three of the previous films did during their entire theatrical runs. But of course, they've been making these films for 30 years now, and ticket prices have gone up, up, up.
Perhaps, instead of looking at the raw, unadjusted dollar figures, we can get a sense of how well these films have done -- or haven't done, as the case may be -- by comparing the grosses for each film to those of other films that were released in the same year.
Alas, Box Office Mojo does not have a chart for 1979, the year The Motion Picture came out. (It also does not have yearly charts for the worldwide figures prior to the 1990s.) But that particular film earned $82.3 million in North America, which was better than the next two films did, so presumably it ranked about as high in its year as those two films did in theirs.
And then there is the rest of the series:- 1982, June 4 -- The Wrath of Khan -- $78.9 million (domestic) -- #6 (domestic)
- 1984, June 1 -- The Search for Spock -- $76.5 million (domestic) -- #9 (domestic)
- 1986, November 26 -- The Voyage Home -- $109.7 million (domestic) -- #5 (domestic)
- 1989, June 9 -- The Final Frontier -- $52.2 million (domestic) -- #25 (domestic)
- 1991, December 6 -- The Undiscovered Country -- $74.9 million (domestic) -- #15 (domestic) -- $96.9 million (worldwide) -- #14 (worldwide)
- 1994, November 18 -- Generations -- $75.7 million (domestic) -- #15 (domestic) -- $118.1 million (worldwide) -- #20 (worldwide)
- 1996, November 22 -- First Contact -- $92 million (domestic) -- #17 (domestic) -- $146 million (worldwide) -- #22 (worldwide)
- 1998, December 11 -- Insurrection -- $70.2 million (domestic) -- #28 (domestic) -- $112.6 million (worldwide) -- #35 (worldwide)
- 2002, December 13 -- Nemesis -- $43.3 million (domestic) -- #54 (domestic) -- $67.3 million (worldwide) -- #66 (worldwide)
It's fascinating to think that the first four films all ranked in the Top 10 of their respective years, whereas none of the other films did. Presumably this is due, at least in part, to the fact that the first four films were the only films that did not have to compete with brand-new Star Trek episodes on TV. Given a choice between new movies and ten- or twenty-year-old re-runs, people chose the movies. But given a choice between new movies and a steady stream of new TV episodes...?
As it happens, the new film is the first Star Trek film since 1986's The Voyage Home that has not had to compete with an existing TV show. And that earlier film just happened to be the top-grossing movie in the franchise to date -- even after 23 years of movie-ticket price inflation -- at least until the reboot came along. So if a lack of small-screen competition is key to a Star Trek movie's cultural impact, it's no wonder the new movie is doing so well.
One last thought: If you want to compare actual ticket sales, rather than how each film ranks on an annual chart, we can turn to the average ticket price chart at Box Office Mojo and deduce the following -- with the films listed in order from those that sold the most tickets to those that sold the least:- 1979 -- The Motion Picture -- $82,258,456 @ $2.51 per ticket = 32,772,293 tickets
- 1986 -- The Voyage Home -- $109,713,132 @ $3.71 per ticket = 29,572,272 tickets
- 1982 -- The Wrath of Khan -- $78,912,963 @ $2.94 per ticket = 26,841,143 tickets
- 1984 -- The Search for Spock -- $76,471,046 @ $3.36 per ticket = 22,759,239 tickets
- 1996 -- First Contact -- $92,027,888 @ $4.42 per ticket = 20,820,789 tickets
- 1994 -- Generations -- $75,671,125 @ $4.18 per ticket = 18,103,139 tickets
- 1991 -- The Undiscovered Country -- $74,888,996 @ $4.21 per ticket = 17,788,360 tickets
- 1998 -- Insurrection -- $70,187,658 @ $4.69 per ticket = 14,965,385 tickets
- 1989 -- The Final Frontier -- $52,210,049 @ $3.97 per ticket = 13,141,145 tickets
- 2002 -- Nemesis -- $43,254,409 @ $5.81 per ticket = 7,444,820 tickets
And if the new film were to sell as many tickets as The Motion Picture did -- thereby becoming the top ticket-seller of the entire franchise -- it would then have grossed a total of $235.3 million. And that would have been enough to make it the #4 movie of 2008, the #7 movie of 2007, the #4 movie of 2006, and so on.
Based on the insanely good word-of-mouth the new film is getting, I'd say that kind of box-office success seems do-able right now.
Newsbites: The ancient characters edition!
2. Movies often seem to come in twos: two volcano-based disaster movies, two asteroid- or comet-based disaster movies, two Truman Capote movies, etc. And now ... two John Milton movies? Scott Derrickson has been developing a big-screen version of Paradise Lost for the past few years already, but now comes word that Martin Poll will produce an "indie version" of the Milton poem based on an otherwise-unfilmed screenplay that was published in book form in 1973. Two "unknown young actors" named David Dunham and Patricia Li Bryan have been hired to play Adam and Eve "as part of a multiethnic cast." -- Hollywood Reporter
3. The TV mini-series version of Ben-Hur now has a cast: Joseph Morgan -- no stranger to sword-and-sandals flicks, having played Philotas in Oliver Stone's Alexander (2004) -- will play the title character, while Kristen Kruek will play his sister, Emily VanCamp will play his girlfriend Esther, Ray Winstone will play his adoptive father, and Stephen Campbell Moore will play his treacherous former best friend Messala. Hugh Bonneville is also on board to play Pontius Pilate. -- Hollywood Reporter
4. Steve Coogan and Rosario Dawson will play the Greek god Hades and his "imprisoned" wife Persephone in Percy Jackson. This is not the first time that either actor has tackled a Greco-Roman role; Coogan plays the Roman emperor Octavius in the Night at the Museum movies (2006-2009), while Dawson played the title character's wife in Alexander. -- Hollywood Reporter
5. Danny Huston has been cast as the Greek god Poseidon in Clash of the Titans; for what it's worth, the same character is being played by Kevin McKidd in Percy Jackson. Meanwhile, producer Richard Zanuck has confirmed that the studio hopes to turn this movie into a franchise, but he notes that "everybody's hoping for that these days." The film has been in production for two weeks now, and photos of at least one of the outdoor sets have begun to pop up online. -- Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Business Wire, Lo que pasa en Tenerife, Las Horas Perdidas
6. Brett Ratner is no longer attached to direct the next version of Conan the Barbarian. Rumour has it the producers might be thinking of hiring Wachowski-sibling protégé James McTeigue to direct the film now. -- Empire, CHUD.com
7. Devil's Due will publish a comic-book mini-series based on the upcoming TV show Spartacus: Blood and Sand. The TV series is set to premiere in January. -- MTV Splash Page
Newsbites: The imaginary friends edition!
2. Russell Brand is set to star in a remake of Drop Dead Fred (1991). The original film "starred Phoebe Cates as a wallflower who loses her job and husband during the course of a lunch hour. Forced to live back home, she's reunited with her childhood imaginary friend (Brit actor Rik Mayall), who promises to help but causes more havoc." -- Hollywood Reporter
3. Leah Meyerhoff is writing and directing Unicorns, an "indie drama" about "an awkward teenage girl who escapes to a fantasy world when her first romantic relationship turns increasingly abusive." For the moment, I am assuming, based on this synopsis, that the "fantasy world" in question exists only in the character's head and has no objective Narnia-like reality. -- Hollywood Reporter
Vatican Newspaper: 'Angels & Demons' Harmless
L'Osservatore Romano calls upcoming film 'harmless entertainment'
It's not quite an endorsement from The Vatican itself, but Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano says Angels & Demons, which releases next week, is inaccurate in areas but otherwise "harmless" and not a danger to the church.
The movie, which had its world premiere in Rome on Monday, offers "more than two hours of harmless entertainment, which hardly affects the genius and mystery of Christianity," L'Osservatore's reviewer wrote. It's "a videogame that first of all sparks curiosity and is also, maybe, a bit of fun."
In a reference to Dan Brown's books, The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, the L'Osservatore writer continued, "The theme is always the same in both novels: a sect versus the church, even though the parts of the good and the bad are distributed differently. This time, with 'Angels & Demons,' the church is on the side of the good guys."
A Hollywood publicist working the film to the religious press sent an e-mail Thursday noting the differences between some Christian responses to the film and what the Vatican paper is saying now. Here's the entire body of that publicist's e-mail:
Ted Baehr of Movieguide in a fundraising letter on Angels & Demons: "A clear anti-Christian message that not only are Christians evil and murderers but also that science has proven faith in Jesus Christ to be outdated! In the end, it is the highest echelon of the Catholic Church who is the villain!"
The official Vatican newspaper review of Angels & Demons:
"Two hours of harmless entertainment, which hardly affects the genius and mystery of Christianity."
There's an old Irish saying, "when everyone tells you you're drunk, you better sit down."
I'm not familiar with that Irish saying, or even exactly sure what it means, but I'll simply reiterate what's been said by many: Angels & Demons is fiction -- no more true than Wolverine or Star Trek or Terminator Salvation, the other big fiction flicks releasing this month -- and as Christians, there's really no need to join the angry mob and yell that it's a "smear" campaign or that Tom Hanks is a "pawn of Satan." Nobody's forcing anybody to watch the movie, or even believe anything that's being portrayed. If it's not your thing, skip it. If it is, then enjoy it for what the Vatican's newspaper is calling it: "harmless entertainment."
Jesus is still standing strong. The Rock ain't gonna budge.
Angels & Demons & Prelates, Oh My!
Controversy escalates over the upcoming prequel to 'The Da Vinci Code'
We've already had plenty of lively banter between Ron Howard and Bill Donohue. Then we had some shmoe calling Tom Hanks a "pawn of Satan."
Now the Vatican has joined the fray, ironically without commenting.
Howard is saying that Vatican officials obstructed his efforts to shoot the film in Rome, saying he couldn't shoot scenes anywhere in the city with churches in the background.
"Was I surprised? No. Am I a little frustrated at times? Sure," said Howard.
A Vatican spokesman wouldn't comment, but apparently said enough to imply that Howard was just spouting off to "drum up publicity," according to the AP. That's a pretty feisty "no comment."
CNN would disagree, noting that the film is not drawing the Vatican's "ire," while quoting an Opus Dei priest as saying, "I don't think that anyone at the Vatican is paying much attention to the premier of 'Angels & Demons.' . . . I think the church's attitude has been, from the beginning, 'hands off.'"
Meanwhile, Tom "I'm Not the Pawn of Satan" Hanks told the German publication Bild, "I am a very spiritual guy. I do believe in God. We go to Church. My children are baptised. But I don’t know a lot about the condom ban. I have been happily married for 21 years!" Of Angels & Demons, he said, "It’s fiction but has amusing facts."
In India, Christian protests have resulted in a decision to show the film only after certain parts have been deleted, according to the Hindu News Update: "The Censor Board has assured them of deletion of some of the portions before release of the movie, which will also have a disclaimer saying that it is a work of fiction."
A work of fiction. Good to remember that, and not get too worked up about it. Eh?
Doug TenNapel + Hugh Jackman = Ghostopolis
The story centers on a man who works for the government's Supernatural Immigration Task Force. His job is to send ghosts who have escaped into our world back to Ghostopolis. When a living boy accidentally is sent to the other side, the agent must team with a female ghost (and former flame) to bring him back.This would be at least the fourth movie deal that TenNapel has made in the last few years -- Paramount has Monster Zoo, New Regency has Creature Tech and Universal has Tommysaurus Rex -- but this marks the first time that an actor has been attached to one of them, as far as I can recall.
Whether any of these films will get the green light remains an open question; I gather TenNapel's stories can be pretty bizarre, which might make them difficult to adapt for the big screen. And there may be other issues, too. Two years ago, Christian columnist Terry Mattingly wrote a profile of TenNapel and his big-screen ambitions, and noted:
Part of the challenge, admitted TenNapel, is capturing his blend of fantasy and Christian faith. Some critics wish he would quit weaving sin, redemption, politics and science into his plots. Then there are church people who think he should be drawing evangelistic, "Christian comics" and avoiding his occasional blasts of sci-fi potty humor.For what it's worth, Christianity Today's sister magazines have profiled TenNapel at least twice, albeit quite a few years ago. If memory serves, Computing Today ran a cover story on him that is no longer online, back around the time he released the computer game The Neverhood (1996); and there was also a brief blurb on TenNapel and his wife in a 1997 issue of Marriage Partnership.
TenNapel also blogs occasionally at the conservative movie site Big Hollywood.
Year One -- the set-visit reports begin
The main report at ComingSoon.net focuses on costumes, production design and the like -- though it also notes, without quite saying so, that the film seems to have shuffled the chronology and geography of the Book of Genesis somewhat. Describing what they saw in the city of Sodom, they note that the set included something that was "meant to represent the Tower of Babel," with scaffolding and extras playing slaves who are working on the tower's construction.
The individual interviews bring up some interesting subjects, too. For example, co-stars Jack Black and Michael Cera talk about how their improvising has been affected by the fact that they aren't allowed to use certain words and expressions that might sound too "modern", like "textbook" and "bathroom" and "dodged a bullet".
Meanwhile, David Cross reveals that his character, Cain, will have a considerably bigger role in this film, beyond simply killing his brother Abel:CS: How did you put a comedic twist on playing Cain?Finally, director Harold Ramis discusses some of the ideas behind the movie:Cross: Well, unfortunately we shot those scenes already before I got my Bible. [everyone laughs] I just had fun being duplicitous. And mean. And nasty. And murderous. And conniving. And I end up ratting Jack and Michael out. I get promoted because of it. And it's fun. I mean anytime you get to do that. I usually only get cast in two things. It's either nerdy guy or sarcastic, nasty guy, but this is kind of a new twist on sarcastic, nasty guy, so I like it.
CS: You mentioned "Life of Brian" before. We were talking earlier about other great Biblical comedies like "History of the World Part I" or "Wholly Moses!," which is a bit of a forgotten film. What's going to differentiate this movie from some of the other classics? What's your spin on it, basically?Cinematical also has a set-visit report, but it is much shorter and doesn't get anywhere near as in-depth.Ramis: Well (chuckles) our spin is that "Wholly Moses!" was awful! [laughter] And that's well forgotten, and "History of the World" I looked at again and it's very old school. It's very Catskills. It isn't really expressing any kind of philosophy. Whereas the Python films do contain some kind of social commentary, and there's a sense of playing with real literature with the Pythons, and that's sort of what I was going for here. I've been looking at the Old Testament for a very long time, starting as a Hebrew school student, and just thinking about it every year. I've had some really enlightening contact with a progressive rabbi that I know, and these ideas, suddenly after 9/11, seem much more important. The role that religion plays in the world, the power of Fundamentalism over people's lives. I thought, maybe I can take all of those ideas I had about the early world and use them in service of this idea. And to somehow find an interpretation of Genesis that would hook directly into where we are today. All our problems go all the way back right to the beginning.
CS: Do you think that the Old Testament is inherently funnier than the New Testament?
Ramis: I don't know about funnier, but I was explaining to someone that the New Testament is a much better narrative, that's why it's more popular, because it's like a hero's journey. It's one character, the story takes place in one person's lifetime, it has a beginning, a middle and an end, and a redemption. You look at the Old Testament, and it's one dysfunctional family after another. Somehow, when we tell Bible stories to kids, they turn out to be little morality tales, but they're not! You read the Old Testament, and people, they're more than flawed; they do some terrible things to each other, and there are no happy endings; there are no resolutions. These stories just go on and on in the Old Testament. I noticed that, and I also noticed that they're all journeys in the Old Testament. Everyone's on a journey; they've either been expelled from somewhere or exiled or they're fleeing from something or they're out seeking something in the world. When I thought about doing the Old Testament, there was no single story that has a good enough arc to be a movie, unless you're doing "The Ten Commandments" again. So I thought I could take all these stories from the early part of Genesis and smash them into one story. I'm sure most of our young audience will not know the difference anyway. (laughter) So it was a way to try and forge a narrative out of a bunch of Genesis material.
Movie Hatch--New Social Site for Filmmakers
MovieHatch is a new website with a great pedigree. Billing itself as a social network for film people--professional and aspiring--you can upload your work and vote on other people's work. There are blogs and contests, pitching tips and news stories. Partners and judges come from Hollywood and Indiewood alike.
Sign up and let us know what you think in the comments below--does Hollywood need its very own Facebook?
Newsbites: The Marvel Comics edition!
2. But what does this reference to "pushing the storyline forward" mean? Will Wolverine lay the groundwork for X-Men: First Class? We already know that Wolverine features new actor Tim Pocock as a younger version of Cyclops, the laser-eyed character who was played by James Marsden in the original trilogy -- and in a recent interview, producer Lauren Shuler Donner said young Cyclops would be featured in First Class, along with young Jean Grey and young Beast: "It is the first class of Xavier's school, way back when . . . hopefully First Class will become its own franchise and we can follow them as they grow up." -- Comics Continuum
3. Or will it lay the groundwork for a movie devoted to Deadpool? Ryan Reynolds, the actor who plays Deadpool in the current film, says he would be very interested in doing a spin-off movie based on that character, but he says he would want it to be much, much more faithful to the original comic-book character than the current movie is. -- MTV Movie News, MTV Splash Page
4. Or will it lay the groundwork for yet another Wolverine movie? Hugh Jackman admits that he has been "talking to writers" about doing such a film. -- MTV Splash Page (x2)
5. And let's not forget that Magneto prequel, which producer Lauren Shuler Donner says is also waiting in the wings, depending on how well the Wolverine prequel does at the box office. -- Sci Fi Wire
6. In other Marvel-related news, Sony Pictures chiefs Amy Pascal and Michael Lynton say they are open to the possibility of making Spider-Man 4 in 3-D. Meanwhile, director Sam Raimi says Spider-Man 3 (2007) wasn't as good as the first two films because he didn't have as much creative control on that film as he did on its predecessors. He says the script for the new film is due this summer, and he hopes to meet with Kirsten Dunst soon to convince her to play Mary Jane Watson again. The film is currently scheduled to hit theatres on May 6, 2011. -- Forbes, Screen Rant, Sci Fi Wire (x2), IGN.com, MTV Splash Page
7. Meanwhile, Sony is developing a movie devoted to the supervillain Venom. Zombieland co-writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese won't say whether their film takes the Spider-Man 3 version of the character into account, but they do say that they have already turned in the first draft of their script. -- Sci Fi Wire, ComingSoon.net, MTV Splash Page
8. Casting is under way for Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark, the stage musical directed by Julie Taymor and co-written by Bono and The Edge. -- MTV Movie News, MTV Splash Page
9. The cameras have been rolling on Iron Man 2 for a few weeks now, and director Jon Favreau has been Twittering the production every step of the way. Story details are still sketchy, but Robert Downey Jr. has revealed that this movie will not be based on the 'Demon in a Bottle' storyline -- though that storyline may come up in one of the subsequent sequels -- and he says the story will basically be about "how a dysfunctional family saves life on Earth as we know it." The story may also involve a love triangle between Tony Stark, Pepper Potts and the new character Black Widow, who will be played by Scarlett Johansson. Other returning actors include Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Clark Gregg as SHIELD agent Phil Coulson. New actors include: Don Cheadle as James Rhodes (replacing the original film's Terrence Howard); Mickey Rourke as the Russian villain Whiplash; Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer; comedian Garry Shandling as a U.S. senator; and Kate Mara in an as-yet-unspecified role. -- MTV Splash Page (x2, x3, x4), Collider.com, Nikki Finke (x2), Hollywood Reporter, Sci Fi Wire, Variety, IESB.net, Jeffrey Wells, USA Today
10. Meanwhile, Faran Tahir, who played the villain Raza in the original Iron Man, speculates that there might be a part for him in Iron Man 3, depending on what Favreau and his writers do with the villainous person or persons known as "the Mandarin". -- Sci Fi Wire, MTV Splash Page
11. Kenneth Branagh is still working on his Thor movie and is "thinking ahead" to how his tale of the Nordic god might connect to the more tech-based storylines of Iron Man and the other Avengers characters. Casting rumours have come and gone with regard to who might play Thor himself, but one of the more persistent rumours is that Branagh might want Josh Hartnett to play the villainous god Loki. -- MTV Splash Page (x2, x3), IESB.net
12. Speaking of The Avengers, Marvel Studios has delayed the release of that film to May 2012, to give the intervening films a little more breathing room. And if Marvel sticks to the current schedule, then its properties will probably end up owning the first weekend in May for six years straight: Spider-Man 3 in 2007, Iron Man in 2008, X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009, Iron Man 2 in 2010, Spider-Man 4 in 2011 and The Avengers in 2012. -- ComingSoon.net, Hollywood Reporter, Variety
13. And now for something completely different: Vin Diesel says he is interested in playing Doctor Doom or possibly even Namor the Sub-Mariner. -- MTV Splash Page
14. Marvel Entertainment is developing a "writers group" that will consist of roughly half-a-dozen writers whose job it will be to convert some of the company's lesser-known comic books into movie scripts. The group will reportedly focus on characters like "Black Panther, Cable, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Nighthawk and Vision." -- Variety, Nikki Finke
Human vs. machine = spirit vs. body?
Victory lies in the soul of the human spirit, not in the hands of the machines.A phrase like "the soul of the human spirit" sounds a little redundant at first, but when you hear it contrasted with "the hands of the machines", it sounds more emphatic than anything else -- and its meaning seems clear enough. As far as John Connor is concerned, machines are defined entirely by their physicality, their material qualities, their bodies, but humans are defined by something more invisible, something more intangible, something more spiritual.
Incidentally, this isn't the first time John Connor has referred to the "hands" of his opponents. In a trailer that was released late last year, John Connor remarks, "The devil's hands have been busy," and then proceeds to say some not-very-friendly things to a man who may or may not be a Terminator.
Is the man in question really a Terminator? John Connor certainly seems to think so, at least in that scene. But other trailers released since then have indicated that this man might be something else, either a human-machine hybrid or a machine that has achieved an unprecedented degree of consciousness, such that he is now virtually indistinguishable from a human being.
Either way, it seems John Connor may have to rethink the sharp line he has drawn between "human" and "machine" in this film.
Note, also, that this TV spot goes on to include a line from Kyle Reese, spoken as he points to his head and then, presumably, to his chest, just below the frame:Stay alive, in here [head] and in here [chest].Once again, the trailer suggests that true "life" is not simply to be found in the body; it is not simply a matter of keeping all the physical parts working. Instead, it is to be found in something more intangible, tethered though it may be to the body: in this case, the mind and the heart.
But who is Kyle talking to in that clip? John Connor? One of the other human resistance fighters? Or is it possible that he is speaking to the mechanical man? If so, does Kyle know the man is at least partly mechanical when he says this line? What does Kyle believe about the human-machine dichotomy in general, and about how it might apply to this man in particular?
I guess we'll learn the answers to at least some of those questions in three weeks. In the meantime, the trailers have certainly given us a fair bit to chew on.
And for what it's worth, I can't resist noting the irony that almost all of the humans depicted in this film will probably be played by actual people who were physically present in front of the camera, while many of the machines will be digital creations that exist only in the minds of the computers that generated those images.
recent posts
Archives
November 2009October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 |
