It's Cannes this week. Admittedly it's unlikely you've had missed it. An odd thing happens during the world's most prestigious film festival - Hollywood effectively shuts up. All news over these ten days must come through the Croisette. This means there's loads of talk but little actual stuff going on. Very few stories getting any traction. That said there are a couple here that may excite.
Human Nature
So Darren Aronofsky won't be directing The Wolverine, although with no movement on that for some time I'm beginning to wonder if the whole venture is looking like it's been given up on, but what will he turn to instead. This point last year he had half a dozen projects all in contention but it appears he's gone leftfield and chosen a 15 year old script that's been sitting in development hell for most of that time.
With George Clooney as a possible star Jeff Welch's spec focuses on a man cryogenically frozen who wakes to find that mankind is longer the dominant species and now exist as pets. This will no doubt raise some fascinating ethical points about the morality of owning animals and what it means to be a human as well as hopefully including some kick-ass action set pieces.
Of all of Aronofsky's options I will confess this one excites me the most. We all wanted him to try something bigger in scope after Black Swan and this a more mind bending sci-fi premise than anything else discussed. Plus I wouldn't mind having George Clooney as a pet!
I doubt if any scenes like this will make the final cut, but I am rather hoping they might...
Read on for thuggish criminals, cinematic experiments and the latest casting rumours from Cannes and elsewhere.
Borderline
My main question with this run of the mill looking thriller, from Justin Marks the writer of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, will be how the family taken by hostages where the FATHER WITH EVERYTHING ON THE LINE must confront the CRIMINAL WITH NOTHING TO LOSE somehow connects to the title. Will it start and end by a National border or will the soundtrack be filled with early Madonna tracks. Keep tuned to find out first.
Five Obstructions, take 2
Intriguing but highly unlikely as it is the rumour that Martin Scorsese and Lars von Trier will be working together on a new project is coming out of Cannes again. Apparently Marty will take a look back at his early works and remake a short five times using certain rules as stipulated by the mad Dane, similar to The Five Obstructions documentary in 2003. Frankly I still doubt it will happen however if it does the combination of a director as willing to experiment as much as Scorsese with the punishing von Trier at his back is irresistible.
A screencap from the 2003 documentary directed by Jørgen Leth, with advice from Lars von Trier.
Casting News
Standby for handbags at dawn over Rachel Weisz as she adds The Bourne Legacy and possibly the now confirmed Johnny Depp starring remake of The Thin Man to her potential slate of forthcoming movies, unfortunately it may clash with Oz, the Great and Powerful so someone's going to miss out. I still think Al Pacino has a couple of great performances in him (even though some others from his heyday are utterly spent) so it's good to see him sign up as an older Mob advisor in Barry Levinson's Gotti: Three Generations, oh I am aware that he may just coast on his form in the genre but I'm still hoping for something special. David O. Russell is convinced he wants to work with his muse Mark Wahlberg again, whatever the project ends up being as he's signed him onto the cast list of The Silver Lining's Playbook although whether that will actually be the next film he makes is still in the air.
Saturday, 14 May 2011
Here Boy, fetch. (Film News - 14/05/11)
Saturday, 23 October 2010
It's not the Happening (Film News - 23/10/10)
I have done provisional posts for "out this week" before, second guessing critical reactions to films not yet released, but this is a first time provisional news post. This weekend I am unable to reach a computer for longer than an hour (a big thanks to Kirklees Library service even for that opportunity) so I have looked up the stories on my crappy mobile and written my post in long hand with the hope of typing it up before the hour dealine is over. It's honestly like watching the closing sequence of a Bond movie here in the Library. Wish me luck:
Day of the Triffids
John Wyndham's classic apocalytic sci-fi novel about a meteor shower that blinds the World and the strange carnivorous plants that take over at the top of the food chain is not as cinematic as you might immediately suppose. There have been a number of noble efforts to adapt the project over the years including a recent BBC miniseries but thay have all failed to highlight the horror implicit in man-eating shrubs from which we are unable to defend ourselves. In most cases the main let down has been the animatronics and puppetry of the Triffids themsleves.
Step forward Sam Raimi, the producer/director responsible for making trees scary in the Evil Dead trilogy, to work his magic. Unfortunatley whilst I love Raimi's excellent comic-horror hybrids (the aforementioned trilogy and Drag me to Hell come to mind) I persoanlly believe the parable in Triffids only works if the terror is undiluted. As viewers of The Happening will attest it's hard to believe flora fighting back, and to suggest that mankinds grip on planetary domination is weak and fleeting will be tough where there are lashings of gory guffaws.
Can Raimi adequately turn off the comedy of will this just be another disappointing adaptation? Are the plants really just watching and waiting forour downfall? Let me know in the comments.
Read on for Affleck's choice, the end of humanity and MacGuffins galore.
Replay/Trade
The offers for Ben Affleck continue to mount up following the critical and commercial success of The Town. The latest two projects pitched to the writer/director are Replay, where a 40 year old gets to go back in time to 18 and relive his adult life (this sounds suspiciously like that awful Zac Efron vehicle 17 again to me), or Trade, which is based on a wife-swapping arrangement in professional baseball. On a side note isn't it odd how baseball and sex are always interlinked in a negative manner? Personally I'd rather see Affleck swinging his bat so I'm voting for Trade (I'm so very sorry for that image).
One Thousand A.E.
You would've thought that M. Night Shyamalan had been banned from the making movies given the relentless stream of abuse abuse heaped upon him on the internet. He's more reviled than even Uwe Boll and Brett Ratner (possibly because he once had so much promise). However The last Airbender took a credible $130m in the US domestic box office and it seems studios are still willing to let him handle a megaphone. Next up is this sci-fi epic set to star Jaden Smith (son of Will, and freash off The Karate Kid which passed $160m). Unsurprisingly we know nothing about the plot but rumours are rife that the AE of the title refers to After Earth. Although I personally suspect that a community of religious nutters have locked themsleves in a spaceship and told their kids about the end of the world even though their still all in a industrial estate in Slough. Nice (originalish) third act twist or what?
The Thin Man
The 1934 original is a classic screwball whodunnit with alcoholic well-to-do detective duo Nick and Nora Charles (played to perfection by William Powell and Myrna Loy) trying to find the eponymous missing scientist whilst mixing martinis and waliking their adorable Fox Terrier. The crime itself is such a periphery incident to watching the leads it can hardly be called a mystery but it does at least move the plot forward.
The original is a delightful cocktail so I struggle to see why Johnny Depp is so keen to update the project (with Rob Marshall at the helm), especially given how dipsomania is more frowned upon now than back in the gin swigging thirties. Saying that I can see how the idea of playing a playful drunk would appeal to the man behind Captain Jack.
Overall this might be worth watching but it could be a horrific travesty. Keep an eye what happens next.
Casting News
There may have been more castings bandied aroung this week but the only one that caught my eye is the replacement of Matt Dillon with John C. Reilly in Roman Polanski's God of Carnage. Reilly will play Jodie Foster's hubby with Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz as the other couple in this stage to screen adaptation about parental grouping defending their children fighting and ending up emulating their petty motives. Sounds absolutely unmissable to me.
