This week the film headlines have been dominated by the Oscars (congrats to everyone involved with The King's Speech - really must get round to watching it) and by Charlie Sheen's continuous breakdown however slinking underneath the headlines have been a number of projects discussed which may be worth keeping an eye on.
Boys in the Boat
The Weinstein Company is having a very good week - see my comments above - so obviously they're already on the way to planning for future Oscars. As it is with this historical movie set on the eve of the Second World War, focusing on the US Olympic crew who defied the will of Adolf Hitler and his aryan rowers (pictured passing the winning post below). Hoo-rah! 
Bizarrely all Harvey has paid for is the rights to a book treatment that isn't even finished by David James Brown, so expect a very very long wait until this gets made.
At the moment Kenneth Branagh is linked to direct but luckily he has cancer-ridden drama Italian Shoes with Anthony Hopkins on his slate first.
Read on for returning boxers, drinking buddies, classic literature, a Job story, a project that worries me, flowers and Quentin Tarantino as well as all the latest production news fit to print.
Fighter 2
Whilst working the red carpet last Sunday Mark Wahlberg (left) made references to a potnetial sequel to the oscar winning boxing movie. Likely to focus on Mickey Ward's three bouts with Arturo Gatti. I really am amazingly uninterested in seeing this happen, but if it does they really need to think of a better way to film the boxing segments.
Honeymoon with Harry
The drama about an alcoholic groom who's fiancee dies so he goes on the honeymoon with his not quite father-in-law is back on track with Jenny Lumet giving the script a polish before passing it on to director Jonathon Demme. The pair have worked wonders with dramedy before in 2008's Rachel Getting Married.
Hunchback of Notre Dame
We haven't had a major live action version of Victor Hugo's classic monster romance for many years so it's no surprise to hear Josh Brolin is trying to get the talent together to make a new version. So far he has Sherlock Holmes 2 scriptwriters Michele and Kieran Mulroney and he's looking to entice Tim Burton to he directors chair. I am concerned about the potential tone of this adapatation given the diverse perspectives but it will be good to see Brolin swinging from the bells screaming for Esmerelda. That's Charles Laughton on our right taking the role in 1936 - don't expect Brolin to mess with the formula too much.
Joe
Apparantly The Coen Brother's A Single Man wasn't close enough to the Biblical Job for Will Smith so he's signed up to a modern retelling which starts with the premise that God and Satan are fighting over a man's soul. Smith will star as the titular put upon hero who will lose his wealth, health and family in what the writers (Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson of The Fighter) claim is a comedy.
O.K.C.
We're on dodgy territory here. Barry Levinson is set to make a low-budget film about Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh using a script by Clay World (who's brother was on McVeigh's defence team). This could be an interesting artsy look at why a seemingly well-adjusted adult commits such a horrific crime, or it could become a extraordinary attempt to belatedly clear McVeigh's name, or at least shift the blame onto extremists groups - a possibility that would be offensive to the families of those who were killed or injured as a result of his attack.
Tulip Fever
The temptation to put this long-gestating British movie at the top of todays headlines was high, but that would have made three weeks in a row leading with Tom Hooper rumours and I don't want to be seen as rubbing it in. Effectively trailed by Gordon Gekko in Wall Street 2 Deborah Moggach's novel is set against the trading on tulip bulbs in 17th century Holland - althugh it's essentially a love story between a penniless artists and a married woman. It has been close to being made a couple of times - in 2004 the cameras were set to roll when funding collapsed (somewhat aptly) - but given the currently financial mess we're in I doubt it could be more prescient.
Tulips in Amsterdam (see background windmill) pictured.
Untitled Quentin Tarantino Western
Quentin's seen how well True Grit has done commercially and seems t have decided the time is ripe for his spagetti western. I wasn't a fan of Inglorious Basterds but I think his excess and asthetic could work in a Wild West setting. Christoph Waltz and Franco Nero are among those already getting calls from the auteur.
Production News
Whilst trawling through IMDb this week there are a shocking number of projects that have kicked into gear over the last month, far more than you would expect to see in a single month. In fact just try to imagine 16 films you want to see all opening in one month - doesn't bare thinking about. So production has begun on gambling biopic Lay the Favourite, writer's block tale Third Act and Lasse Hallstrom kicked off on both Swedish crime thriller The Hypnotist and transgender drama The Danish Girl. Returning to forthcoming schedules (having disappeared for a short while) are Lee Daniels's civil rights movie Selma, Great Hope Springs with Meryl Streep and the Al Pacino version of King Lear. There's also tough family drama Back Roads, sci-fi tinged romance Adaline, literary adaptation The Great Gatsby (which I still don't understand why Baz Luhrmann wants to shoot in 3D), young adult adaptation The Graveyard Book and football drama Les Seigneurs. For action fans there's Headshot and Bourne Legacy and for music fans there's yet to be titled biopics about Mahalia Jackson and Tupac Shakur.
Whew! There are a couple more which turned up of which I had no previous idea they even existed. As follows:
El Chico Blanco
Drama about two friends who take different paths with one joining the police and the other choosing crime and eventually become mortal enemies. Oddly just writing that seems terribly passe, but I was strangely drawn when I heard it was written by Twilight actor Peter Facinelli.
Whole Lotta Sole
British comedy - steady - about a robbery in a Belfast fish market (hence the pun filled title) that goes horribly wrong. Brendan Fraser and Sophie Okonedo are set to be two of the hotchpotch selection of hostages. Possibly set in the market pictured below...
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Future Oscar Bait (Film News - 05/03/11)
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Inglorious Basterds
2009. Dir: Quentin Tarantino. Starring: Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth and Michael Fassbender. ●●●○○
I have an extraordinary dilemma in reviewing Tarantino's latest feature, in that over the last few days since I saw the film I have had three distinct reactions to it.
Whilst watching it, and indeed whilst whistling the closing credits on the way home, I was like a small boy. Imagining I could take on the entire Nazi party, wondering what levels of destruction I could do single handedly, gleefully chuckling as my (imaginery) machine gun torn off the face of passers-by who looked at me funny. Later my film theorist intellectual side reminded me of the various nods to classic cinema, nods to Ford, Aldrich and Godard among others. The intellectual revelled in the period detail and tha audacity of the project, praising the way that tension was built up in each scene.
With the Id and Ego satisfied I could have easily written a five blob review of Basterds on Saturday night, however it was then that the Super-Ego kicked in and I began to have very serious doubts about the film.
To understand this I ought to briefly describe the plot, or at least precis it as much as is possible. There are in essence 2 storylines involving revenge and vengeance. The first involves Shosanna Dreyfus (Laurent) surving the massacre of her family at the hands of Col. Hans "The Jew Hunter" Landa (Waltz) and then following a handy set of coincidences having the opportunity to take a few Nazi's out. The second revolves around LT. Aldo Raine's (Pitt) squad of Basterds, an elite group of Jewish scalp hunters who intend to demoralise German troops in France and their final mission involving the British and German undercover spies. Both storylines come to a head in the cinema owned by Shosanna and a bloody climax ensues.
Tarantino breaks this up into 5 chapters, each of which jumps to the opposing storyline and essentially allows the tension to build from scratch to a different shocking or exciting denoument. Each of the chapters specifically invokes ideas of different genres, and I don't deny I will almost certainly pore over a DVD copy when I can to look for the changes in the camera angles and lighting that reflect each chapter's core style. The tension is in a large part due to Tarantino's hyper-real dialogue with it's playful use of language. Conversations that dance and skirt around major plot points occur in every chapter, whether it's Landa interrogating a French peasant or gentle probing of adversaries to look for weakness as in the LaLouisiane scene.
The actors given these scenes manage to excel Waltz and Laurent do an especially good job, but the performances from Fassbender as British film critic turned spy Lt. Archie Hicox and Diane Kruger as German film star Bridget von Hammersmark are very impressive. Pitt, Roth and the rest of the Basterds are so grossly underwritten that their sections could easily have been cut out completely but for the connections with the other plot strands.
In keeping with the references to other cinematic landmarks Tarantino does his best to constant remind you that you're watching a film. There are a couple of bizarre narrative sections from Samuel L. Jackson, character names are scrawled on the screen, history is revised to such an extent that it makes Braveheart seem accurate and there's even a burst of David Bowie in the soundtrack. With all of these elements together the film can safely be excused as a fantasy, a nerdy film geek getting his own back on history and executing his own private revenge on Hitler.
However there is something rotten at the core of Inglorious Basterds. There were three key moments in the movie where Tarantino clearly shows his hand and possible shows his contempt for humanity. SPOILERS follow from here, so please do not read on unless you are prepared.
1. The Basterds have beaten a German squad during an engagement and now have three prisoners. They interrogate the Sergeant in order to identify the location and armaments of the next nearest unit. Unsurpringly he refuses to tell them so "The Bear Jew" (Roth) is called to execute him, using a baseball bat naturally. The German soldier is prepared to die, Roth asks him whether he received his Iron Cross for killing Jews, he replies "for bravery" then wham! Roth beats him to death. It is bloody and deliberate and close to being funny. The implication is that the bravery doesn't matter, that in some way that Sergeant was complicit with the greatest crimes of the Nazi's, purely due to him putting the uniform on. I disagree with this sentiment whilst discrimination and segregation of ethnic groups was commonly practised most Germans were unaware of the genocide being committed by the Nazi party at the time. It is also sad that we are not given an understanding of the extraordinary peril this soldier would have faced to be given his Iron Cross.
2. Bravery by soldiers leads us nicely to another point. The only German creditted with any extraordinary ability is Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl) who as a sniper killed over 200 allied troops from his bell tower vantage point. For most of the film he seems couteous and, whilst not shy about his talents, at least humourous and diffident in front of Shosanna with whom he has become infatuated. During the final cinema scene, watching the Nazi propaganda piece Nation's Pride based on his accomplishements and starring Zoller he visible shuffles in his seat, and eventually excuses himself. For a moment I imagined that he had doubts about what he had done, feelings of guilt or compassion. He goes to Shosanna in the projection room and then turns into an agressive bully - suddenly seeming like he's more likely to rape her than woo her. The possiblity of a noble German or a character identifying the sanctity of human life is again dashed.
3. Finally the film ends with a massacre. Many people are killed. Lots are Nazi generals and politico's, others are simply film makers. The issue of killing civilians, or whether it is right to replace one brutal regime with another is not raised. The victims are shot and then fall down dead, there are no injuries or pain just turning from one state of living to a state of death. The treatment of war is not just cartoonish but frightening.
SPOILERS OVER.
All these elements add up to make me feel that in spite of the brilliance at work, in spite of how enjoyable the film was, I simply cannot endorse a film which treats people which such contempt. Thare's a lot of gloss here, but no humanity.
Saturday, 25 July 2009
Film News (25/07/09)
The world is going crazy, there's so much news and previews it's enough to make your head spin. That's right it's Comic-Con, long since evolved from the origins of San Diego comic book geeks to packing in the screaming Twilight geeks. Whether it works as somewhere to showcase footage or to pump the audiences is another question, but whilst the stars and studios continue to swarm there the news will eventually bubble out. And for the non-Comic-Con news there's an interesting recurring theme of indecision but first:
Batman 3, or is it 7, or 8?
It's no surprise that after the astonishing success of The Dark Knight that a sequel would be made, although the proposed direction of Nolan's new/old trilogy may well have been massively altered by the untimely death of Joker Heath Ledger. However Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon) has let it slip - and I'll let you believe it wasn't planned if you want to - that filming starts next spring for a 2011 release. I personally think that 2011 is already a bit crowded with Spider-Man 4, Green Lantern and Thor but I expect Warner Bros know what their doing.
Cosmopolis
In our first indecisive director news David Cronenberg is developing Don DeLillo's novel about a multi-millionaire who starts hemorrhaging cash during a stock market rash and must dash across Manhattan to stop it. Whether this will be closer to Wall Street or Falling Down remains to be seen. Already this year Cronenberg has talked about The Matarese Circle with Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise, as well as a Eastern Promises sequel, so goodness knows which of the projects he'll run with first.
The Green Hornet
Stephen Chow has finally dropped out of The Green Hornet completely, leaving a Cato sized hole in the cast of this 2010 comic book adaptation. They're still planning on lensing later in the summer, and have even confirmed Nic Cage as the bad guy and Cameron Diaz as a love interest so expect a new martial-arts master to be installed soon.
Master and Commander 2
Master and Commader: Far Side of the World was a superb, film. Rightly selected by the Academy for a best picture nod, how it didn't get some notice for Russel Crowe is beyond me. After umming and ahhing for some time Crowe is interesting in getting back to the high seas, with a script nearing completeion. Let's hope that the notoriously picky Peter Weir, who directed the original and has already stated he thinks a sequel is unlikely, can be persuaded to helm (ho ho) it.
Red
Morgan Freeman has joined Bruce Willis in the comic book adaptation Red. Willis plays a black ops agent who returns to take on a high tech killer. Whether Freeman will be a collegue, a scheming politico or the killer himself remains to be seen.
Temeraire
Peter Jackson has been waxing lyrical about a number of projects he has involvement in at Comic-Con, but aside from Tintin, Lovely Bones and District 9 he had a brief synopsis about what is likely to be his next film to direct. It's set during the Napoleonic Wars, chronicling the bizzarely over-looked (cinematically) period in European history. Oh, and there will be dragons. I don't know whether to be completely psyched or shocked in disbelief.
Three Little Words
James Mangold has another project that means a lot to him, so much so that he wants to direct. It's not Wichita, or his Legal thriller, or Juliet, or Cyclops, but a totally new project based on one of these child abuse biographies that are clogging up book shops. By all means try holding your breath until James picks another film he wants to work on. It won't be that long.
Warcraft
The film adapataion of the popular World of Warcraft computer game has moved one step closer by appointing Sam Raimi as director. It's a complex internet community roleplay adventure so how that will translate into a three act structure is a mystery. Could be beautiful to look at, could be atrocious to watch!
Untitled Quentin Tarantino Western
Tarantino is another director who likes to keep ua all guessing what his next picture will be - after all Inglorious Basterds was first mooted some ten years ago. So at the UK premier of Basterds he tipped that his next picture will be a Western. I personally feel that its the sort of thing that Quentin could do very well if he tries to avoid all his stylistic twitches, after all what was Reservoir Dogs but a 90 minute Mexican stand off, and Kill Bill borrowed heavily from Western sensibilities. 
Box Office News
Release Date News
The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus - Falling back a week is Terry Gilliam's latest starring Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrell and Heath Ledger as different versions of Heath Ledger. Artistically this looks like pure Gilliam, but it's fascinating to try to estimate how it will do financially. Make a deal with the devil on 16 October 2009.
Taking Woodstock - The Woodstock film, which only includes Woodstock as a backdrop to one families development in the late 60's, has also shifted back a week into the incredibly crowded November. Honestly - you won't be able to turn around for decent films in November. Grow your hair and put some flowers in it on 6 November 2009.
A Serious Man - The Coen Brothers have been keeping their latest film carefully under wraps with no shots or trailers yet. It's a dark comedy so it's hard to know which of their eclectic back catalogue to except it will emanate, especially as there doesn't seem to be an excessive body count this time round. Sleep on your brother-in-laws sofa on 20 November 2009.
Invictus - Whether this is a complete Nelson Mandela biopic, or whether it solely focuses on the Rugby World Cup, you can guarantee that Clint and Morgan will be getting Oscar nods for their efforts. Catch an odd-shaped ball on 05 February 2010.
Valentine's Day - In the least surprising release date news of the year it's been announced that the mishmash of intertwining love stories set around Valentines will open around Valentines. Smooch on the back row on 12 February 2009.
Alice in Wonderland - The teaser trailer came out this week, complete with angry red queen, soporific white queen, scary Cheshire Cat grin and what is set to be an immensely quotable "Alice! You're terribly late, you know. Naughty." from Depp's Mad Hatter. Go through the looking glass on 05 March 2010.
The Green Hornet - It seems impossible that this light comic adaptation will be finished in less than a year, considering the casting news above, but the gods of release dates are spoken. Have your sidekick do a kung fu chop on 23 July 2010.
Inception - Christopher Nolan is floating on a tide of good will right now following the monster returns for The Dark Knight, whether the tills will ring as much for a original property remains to be seen. Escape the barriers of your mind on 13 August 2010.
The Last Airbender - I don't think putting this against Inception is a good idea (even if there's is little crossover appeal), so expect another shift later in the year. For now try to control the elements on 13 August 2010.
Box Office Report
There's no surprise that Transformers has confidently taken the top spot over the June openers, as predicted right here (no points for that I know). It's bounded straight up to the second highest grossing film in the UK this year; although a certain boy wizard will be overtaking it before it surpasses Slumdog Millionaire. The rest of the top five are a mixed bag with a couple of comedies, an underwhelming Terminator film and a heartwarming tale about terminal cancer. We have very odd tastes here in the UK. Naturally I neither saw, nor recommended any of these films.
1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2. The Hangover
3. Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins
4. My Sister's Keeper
5. Year One
