Unreasonable punishment (Film News - 15/01/11)

Movie news isn't quite back to full throttle following the New Year break, but some interesting side stories are beginning to come out as well as fevered rumour mongering over the stars in big ticket films due to come out in 2012. Let's dive straight in.

Prometheus

For months we've thought Ridley Scott was wog primarily on a prequel to his highly successful 1979 haunted house in space flick Alien but it seems the scrpt has taken a numbef unusual turns and is now so far apart from the original concept it can no longer carry the Alien moniker in the title. He's settled for Noomi "Dragon Tattoo" Rapace in the lead role with Charlize Theron (or maybe Anjelina Jolie) supporting.

Of course we don't know how close to what we've already heard this film will be now there's no xenomorph, clearly the space jockey will be out but what of the rumoured mind controlling sex-obsessed Aliens or the bio-weapon cautionary tale that featured in some script versions?

The title may shed some clues, in classical mythology The Titan Prometheus (which literaly translates to Forethought) stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mankind, he was then punished by being chained to a rock where an eagle would eat his liver every day (being a deity it regrew overnight). Prometheus has been famously painted over the years, including the below by Jacob Jordaens. Mankind were punished too, as a direct result they were give women, in the form of Pandora who came with an ominous box. Whether Scott plans to riff on any section of the mythology or simply nod to the translation that could be an interesting premise for a sci-fi epic.



Read on for in-your-face orgies and more hopeless selling out from Hollywood.



Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice Remake

Director Paul Mazursky's been stirring up the batter this week. In an interview in the Wal Street Joural he said he was willing, at 80, to remake his 1969 swingers comedy but only if the studio would give him the budget for a orgy scene filmed in 3D. Doesn't bare thinking about.


The original's "orgy" scene.

Pirates of the Caribbean 5

Disney are so confident that On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment in the bloated cash-cow franchise that is Captain Jack, that work has already begun on the fifth film. Both Depp and number 4 director Rob Marshall are being courted to return to the series. It's enough to make you want to boycott the next one in protest to the flagrant profiteering, but I am really looking forward to seeing it come May (as you'll see very soon....)

Casting News

The female cast of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Rises have been dominating the coverage this week, there have even been articles in The Inependent and Guradan about the possible roles and the significance of them. Frankly it's a bit of a poisoned chalice as the love interest for Bruce Wayne always seems to ge the fuzzy end of the lollipop, added to which Nolan repeatedly leaves his female characters underwritten, all of which makes it surprising that women in the frame include Eva Green, Anne Hathaway, Keira Knightley, Natalie Portman, Naomi Watts and Rachel Weisz! Naomi is also set to get into a catfight with Amy Adams over the role vacated by Charlize Theron in J. Edgar, which proves Clint still has it.

Peter Yates


This last week we also saw the passing of veteran British director Peter Yates, his best known works are probably Breaking Away (left) which captured small town America in a way no native could've done and stage to screen adaptation The Dresser which garnered Academy Award nominations for it's co-stars Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay. He also is responsible for unleasing Cliff Richard into cinemas with 1962's Summer Holiday which proves no-one's perfect. I shall be re-watching some of the better films this weekend, I hope you get a chance to do the same.