My mind is not on the news today. I'm pretty much too nervous for tomorrows race to think straight. Looking at what I've written so far pretty much confirms that. Sentence structure is all over the place, I wander aimlessly through paragraphs and don't have anything insightful to say about any of these unusual upcoming projects (although some would say, quite rightly, that's typical of my news posts). I suppose it doesn't help that none of this weeks stories really inspire me, the project either sounds daft, or extremely vague or I've mentioned it before. Take a look at whats coming up and tell me whether you think the same.
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Isn't everyone fed up of superheroes now? This summer proved that too many saturate the market with The Green Lantern in particular crashing and burning, and non-marquee superheroes or the stories of normal people who want amazing powers seems to fare even worse, just look at the box office figures for Scott Pilgrim or Kick Ass. Yet Hollywood still thinks there's cash in the old cow leading to Universal acquiring this dismal sounding action comedy spec from David Guggenheim.
The title refers to the majority of days in the year where our hero imagines, plans and contemplates the heroic deeds he will do on the one day of the year he has superpowers. Which to me sounds like it could be an awfully long boozy chat about what powers we'd choose to have - let's face it we've all been there proudly admitting invisibility would be cool even if it led to Hollow Man levels of perversity.
Plus I wonder what happens if your one day turns out to be a slow news day. You may want to stop a evil scientist from destroying New York or go beserk on an invading SWAT team, but aren't you more likely to be required to put out a chip pan fire or find a stolen car? Worthy no doubt but hardly worth having super powers for.
Guggenheim is currently riding high so it's no surprise to see all his ideas jumped on. Last year he quit as editor of US Weekly when his Safe House script was picked up (look out for Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds in that next year) and has just seen success with it's follow ups Santiago (sold to Fox) and Puzzle Palace (Summit Entertainment) so there must be something good about what he writes - or something immensely easy to sell.
Read on for twisted oaters, an intriguing clue, two strong female leads and the latest in casting titbits.
Untitled Gothic Western
I think John Carpenter must be a little confused. He seems to believe it's still the early 80's. At the Fright night festival 2011 he talked about the possibility of making a gothic Western, something he's currently working on. Admittedly in the clip online he does confess that making Westerns is tough at this time and commercially difficult to justify to the studios, however the ambition to make a genre straddling Western still seems a little brave. I also read in follow comments that he is hoping to get Amy Adams on board, which considering she's about to star in Man of Steel seems unlikely. Although it is reminiscent of casting Karen Allen in Starman only a couple of years after Raiders of the Lost Ark so he has form, but like I said before that was at his peak. Maybe he'll prove me wrong, only time will tell.
David Lynch
For far too long we appeared to have lost the surrealist master (right) to animated shorts, dance music and subversive clubs but after the five year feature hiatus since INLAND EMPIRE the man who puts Lynch in Lynchian could soon be back to cinemas near you. That's essentially a lot of preamble to nothing because all I have as a story is David saying in a recent interview with Rolling Stone " I’m working on another new film, but it’s not there yet." No details; no plot, title or cast, no real sign that's he's serious. But I really do hope he is. I need more backward speaking dwarfs in my cinemagoing experiences.
Juliet/The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
I've had the strangest feeling of deja vu this week (I knew you'd say that) as two projects we first reported on here years ago have resurfaced. First up it's the adaptation of Anne Fortier's 2010 novel which is sort of sequel to Shakespeare's doomed romance - a direct descendent of Juliet (um, how did that happen?) finds out that's Mercutio's "plague on both your houses" was a real and long-lasting curse - which we first heard about on 10 January 2009. Or going back even further to 28 July 2008 there's the young adult novel about Miss Doyle, the scion of British aristocracy, who finds herself a lone passenger on a trans-atlantic liner with a tale of intrigue to unfold. Back then Saoirse Ronan was attached as the title character but delays have meant she's too old and the task of casting has just begun. Oh, and if you don't believe me about the age of these stories, feel free to click on the labels below.
Casting News
We've heard the first couple of names bandied around with Lars von Trier explicit sex movie Nymphomaniac and frankly they couldn't be more disturbing. Among the sexual conquests of our heroine will be previous von Trier collaborators Stellan Skarsgaard and Willem Dafoe. Shouldn't he be concentrating on finding the girl before surrounding her by middle aged men? Les Miserables continues to build it's cast with the news that Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter are circling thes role of greedy innkeeper Thenardier and his wife, erm Madame Thenardier, not much of a surprise given their previous in musicals (in Bran Nue Dae and Sweeney Todd respectively) and the recent work with director Tom Hooper on The King's Speech.
Saturday, 10 September 2011
What about leap years? (Film News - 10/09/11)
Thursday, 27 January 2011
John Carpenter's The Ward
2010. Dir: John Carpenter. Starring: Amber Heard, Lyndsy Fonseca, Mamie Gummer, Danielle Panabaker and Jared Harris. ●●●○○
Yesterday I fell head over heels for cinem that pushes boundaries, today, alas it's back to the grind with John Carpenter's The Ward, a movie that is no doubt proud of it's crass commercialism. Neither a leading piece in it's field of ghost stories nor a woefully dull failure John Carpenter's return to the genre is best defined as a steaming pile of averageness.
Amber Heard is the pyromaniac Kristen committed to North Bend Psychiatric hospital, looking suspiciously like an apartment block I stayed at in Florida once, learning how to get along with her ragtag bunch of fellow inmates and suspiciously forceful nursing staff. Of course anyone who's ever seen a horror movie set in an asylum already knows how this is going to end, although it reminded me most of a James Mangold's 2003 motel-set thriller (that'll be a spoiler so don't look it up unless you want to know the ending).
Of course we all know with a John Carpenter movie it's not the ending we're interested in but the journey. The titular ward is creepy enough with it's random blackouts and obilgatory electrical storms, and the staff do a good job of appearing to be either brutal or complicit in the games played by it's ethereal presence. Jared Harris in particular, as her gentle shrink, seems to be hiding much too much information about Kristen's past.
The other girls bravely try to play their intentionally cliched, cardboard cut-out characters without overplaying the slutty/kooky/bookish element written into the role. At the tim I thought Mamie Gummer did the best job, but just hours later I suspet I was influenced subconciously by her mother just proving how I too belong in that asylum.
The scares are there, hands jumping out of steamy shower scenes, bodies flying out of enclosed spaces, and there are even nods to the less effective gorno tactics of modern horror with electric shock therapy causing bleeding eyes, but without any feeling for the characters you tend not to care which of the supporting ladies will disappear first.
I suppose we couldn't have expected a return to Hallowe'en level talent for Carpenter, but at least he's improved greatly since his last couple of movies.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Tuesday Trailers - John Carpenter's The Ward
It's finally here, the trailer for John Carpenter's latest foray into cinemas and the last of our five options for two weekends away. It will effectively be fighting against two other horror films (although given that includes Black Swan it's a very loose description) for the top spot. It looks pretty standard but should contain some masterful jump cuts if his previous high standards have in any way stayed with him.
John Carpenter's The Ward opens on 21 January 2011.
