Saturday 17 January 2009

Film News (17/01/2009)

The news this week has been dominated by the awards season (Golden Globes and BAFTA nominees) and to a lesser extent by the Sundance film festival which opened on Thursday. I have opinions about film awards, but I will wait until the Oscar nominations this week before I make any rash statements. Sundance sounds exciting, and there are certainly a few films showing that I have an interst in, however I'll leave it to real journalists and critics who actually go there to inform us about the atmosphere and the quality of films being shown.

Here are this weeks other highlights.

Black Hole

And so the current financial crisis and mistrust of the banking system is beginning to filter into the multiplexes. Universal have picked up the rights to Michael Gilio's Black Hole script. Alas it isn't a remake of the classic 1979 Disney sci-fi, but a gentle tale about a retired rancher who loses his savings to a telephone scam somehow related to investment banking.



Black Mass: The True story of an unholy alliance between the FBI and the Irish mob.

Just 2 days ago I was talking about how much I'm looking forward to Jim Sheridan's next project Brothers, so now he's started work on the next item on his schedule: an adaptation of the true story of Whitey Bulger, notorious FBI informant as written by pulitzer prize winning journalists Dick Lehr and Geread O'Neill. Boston, where Whitey (right) built up his criminal empire, is fast becoming the crime capital du jour, what with The Departed and the Lehane adaptations being set there.

Mother Trucker

This prison escape drama has moved into a pre-production phase. Prison escape? How boring I hear you say? Only this involves a prisoner escaping in order to see his dying mother and then stealing an 18 wheel lorry to drive across the southern states. Still disinterested? I didn't think so.

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