The blog for Peter T. Chattaway, film critic, journalist, religion junkie, etc. Not all posts will be film-related, but film will always be just around the corner.
CT Movies recently re-posted an interesting article on Schindler's List (1993), Holocaust movies in general, and the challenges posed by evil and goodness. The article, by Marc LiVecche, is worth reading in full, but two sentences leapt out at me:
Denis Haack has previously written in Comment that there are two ways to avoid reality: sentimentalism and cynicism. The resistance to Schindler's List is, I fear, a result of the cynical view that wants to downplay goodness.
If it were almost any other Spielberg movie under discussion, I would suggest that people might be resisting it because the movie itself exemplifies the sentimentalist way of avoiding reality. And indeed, if memory serves, there are a few moments here and there, even in Schindler's List, that have been criticized for their perceived sentimentality, at least by some people.
This raises an interesting question: What if one is being cynical about someone else's sentimentality? What if both the artist and the critic are avoiding reality, but in different ways? What if neither of them is facing reality as it is, and they are both simply haggling over the best way to avoid it? Do the two approaches cancel each other out? Do they reinforce one another?
How do we resist sentimentalism without being "cynical"?
The Independent ran an article a few days ago on the dire situation facing many Hollywood properties these days, especially those that require pricey special effects. At the end, it suggested that even the Harry Potter franchise might not be "totally secure":
Its screenwriter, Steve Kloves, said recently that Warner Bros was worried about the prospects for the last three films in the series, since J K Rowling is no longer driving anticipation for the titles by producing new books.
I'm skeptical of this last bit, since it was Warner's idea to split the seventhbook into two separate films in the first place. As it is, I would be very surprised if the sixth movie, due July 17, failed to do as well as the previous films, all of which grossed between $795 million and $975 million worldwide.
But it must be admitted that fantasy and adventure films have been having a tough time lately. Disney just dumped The Chronicles of Narnia, New Line Cinema was virtually euthanized because of The Golden Compass, and Steven Spielberg -- whose DreamWorks studio already has enough financial hassles to deal with in general -- is now looking for someone to co-finance his Tintin trilogy.
The situation isn't all dire, though. As the article notes, Paramount seems pretty confident in its Star Trek reboot, and Twilight has turned out to be something of a cash cow for Summit Entertainment (though admittedly, the first movie in that series had a low-ish budget, and the sequels probably will too, at least for now).
And while the article doesn't mention it, we also have The Hobbit on the horizon, and there is no shortage of comic-book movies, too.
So I wouldn't be too worried about the genre. Yet.
Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.
Twilight -- CDN $15,380,000 -- N.AM $167,325,198 -- 9.2% Yes Man -- CDN $3,690,000 -- N.AM $49,798,560 -- 7.4% Seven Pounds -- CDN $2,810,000 -- N.AM $38,762,647 -- 7.2% The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -- CDN $2,780,000 -- N.AM $38,725,647 -- 7.2% The Day the Earth Stood Still -- CDN $4,490,000 -- N.AM $63,480,184 -- 7.1% The Tale of Despereaux -- CDN $1,840,000 -- N.AM $27,448,085 -- 6.7% Valkyrie -- CDN $1,850,000 -- N.AM $29,520,979 -- 6.3% The Spirit -- CDN $637,413 -- N.AM $10,305,501 -- 6.2% Bedtime Stories -- CDN $2,260,000 -- N.AM $38,029,113 -- 5.9% Marley & Me -- CDN $2,540,000 -- N.AM $50,738,566 -- 5.0%
A couple of discrepancies: Twilight was #8 on the Canadian chart (it was #12 in North America as a whole), while Doubt was #10 on the North American chart (it was #13 in Canada).
Fox is still determined to prevent the March 6 release of Watchmen, and Warner is still determined to defend its right to the property in court -- either at the January 20 trial under the current judge, who recently issued a preliminary ruling in Fox's favour, or by taking its case to the Court of Appeals. So say Variety, the Associated Press and Nikki Finke.
Meanwhile, Lou Lumenick notes that a settlement between Fox and Warner is very unlikely, since Warner is already sharing its revenues on this film with Paramount, which is distributing the film overseas, and Legendary Pictures, which also co-financed the movie. With so many companies already claiming a piece of the pie, there may not be enough left over for Fox.
Lumenick also speculates that Paramount could sue Warner, too, if Warner loses the release-date battle and thereby screws up Paramount's plans. That may or may not happen in the end, but just the possibility of such a train of unintended consequences brings to mind something that a certain blue-skinned superhero once said: "Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends."
DEC 31 UPDATE: David Poland goes over the legal documents.
This is a few days late, but never mind. Fred Sanders has written a fascinating post on the theological significance of the fact that traditional depictions of the Nativity typically show an ox and an ass bearing witness to the birth of Christ. After reading his post, I checked an old post of mine on the depiction of the Nativity in Ben-Hur (1959) to see if the screen-caps there conformed to this tradition, and sure enough, at least one of them does.
Many thanks to the colleague who tipped me off to this article in the Dominion Post, which gives us a brief update on Kingdom Come, the life-of-Jesus movie that is set to go before the cameras in New Zealand as early as February. There isn't a whole lot here, information- wise, that wasn't already covered in the articles that Matt Page linked to earlier this month, but the new photo indicates that the sets, at least, have been progressing nicely. The film will be directed by Dean Wright, a visual-effects and second-unit director on the Lord of the Rings and Narnia movies, and there is still no word on who will be playing Jesus himself, or anyone else for that matter.
The funny thing is, it was only the last half-hour that did this to me. The first two hours left me cold -- partly because the title character, played by Brad Pitt, is such a passive guy, and partly because I never quite got a sense of the humanity behind all the special effects, and partly because the screenplay really is full of the sort of banal aphorisms that Glenn Kenny itemized here. But the final half-hour still got to me, and on a deeper level than most films do, so who knows, maybe the first two hours were a success, inasmuch as they set things up the way they were supposed to. Maybe a second viewing will clear things up.
In the meantime, it strikes me that there are quite a few reunions in this film. It brings together a number of people who have worked with Pitt before, including:
David Fincher -- Pitt's director on Se7en (1995) and Fight Club (1999)
Cate Blanchett and Elle Fanning -- Pitt's co-stars in Babel (2006)
Julia Ormond -- Pitt's co-star in Legends of the Fall (1994)
This gets me thinking about the other high profile reunions that are currently gracing the big screen. Revolutionary Road, for example, re-unites Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and Kathy Bates -- all of whom co-starred in Titanic (1997). And Valkyrie re-unites director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie -- both of whom got their start by collaborating on Public Access (1993) and The Usual Suspects (1994).
Are there any other examples of that this season?
I suppose Bedtime Stories might count, since it features many of Adam Sandler's frequent collaborators, but that seems, to me, less like a "reunion" and more like the ongoing activity of a "stock company". There needs to be more of a gap between the current film and the last film that brought at least some of these people together if it is to be considered a "reunion", I think.
MTV Splash Page reports that "the first authorized collection" of the Supermancartoons produced between 1941 and 1943 will be coming out on DVD in April; however, with the exception of one new featurette, it sounds like this is mainly a repackaging of materials that were previously included with the 2006 editions of the first two Superman movies (1978-1980).
Coincidentally, my children began watching these cartoons a few weeks ago, and my daughter in particular has become quite a fan. Hearing her say the name "Superman!" so excitedly, I suddenly find myself thinking that it might not be such a bad thing to have a simple superhero who fights for "truth and justice", full stop, instead of all the angsty, alienated, self-conscious, morally confused heroes that I and other comic fans have been enjoying for so long (and that includes the Superman of all five movies). One day, sure, she'll be ready for the more grown-up and/or adolescent stuff -- but for now, let's keep the superheroics on a level that an almost-three-year-old can understand.
IGN.com reports that a "special edition" of The Robe (1953), one of the first Bible epics of the sound era and the first feature-length movie to be released in CinemaScope, is coming to DVD and Blu-Ray on March 17, just a month or so before Easter. A number of bonus features will apparently be available on the Blu-Ray only, but one that will be included on both versions is an isolated music track devoted to Alfred Newman's score, which I have owned on CD for years; the track 'Farewell to Diana' has been one of my favorite bits of movie music since I was a schoolboy. I haven't actually watched the movie in years, but my recollection, based on the last time I saw it, is that it wasn't as good as some of the epics that came out after it; the two male leads, Richard Burton and Victor Mature, were both deservedly nominated for Golden Turkey Awards many years later (not just for this film, but for their hamminess and woodenness, respectively, in general), and the action scenes felt a tad generic, like a pale imitation of, say, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). But who knows, a fresh viewing -- especially in high-def -- could change my mind.
1. It has been public knowledge for some time that JeffBridges will reprise the role of Flynn in Tron 2.0 ... but now comes word that Bruce Boxleitner may reprise the role of Tron himself! -- ComingSoon.net
2. J.J. Abrams says his Star Trek movie is only a few days away from being done, done, done -- and then "we're going to flash-freeze it so it's totally fresh for you in May." In this day and age, when everyone from Peter Jackson to Baz Luhrman finishes their movies at the last possible minute, it might seem odd that Abrams would finish his film several months in advance. But remember, Star Trek was originally going to be released on Christmas Day, i.e. tomorrow -- so it looks like Abrams stuck to his original schedule, more or less, even after the studio postponed the release date. -- Facebook
3. That remake of Forbidden Planet (1956) might not be a remake, per se; it might be sort of a prequel, and it might be the first part of a trilogy. Oh, and James Cameron is reportedly interested in directing. -- IESB.net (x2), Latino Review
5.Bedtime Stories director Adam Shankman is in negotiations to direct The 8th Voyage of Sinbad, which "centers on sailor Sinbad and his crew, who are marooned off the coast of China and embark on a quest to find the Aladdin's lamp. Along the way they meet a beautiful empress and do battle with fantastic creatures and a rebellious Chinese general who threatens the kingdom." -- Hollywood Reporter
6.Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy says he thought of putting a gag in the sequel involving Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but he decided against it because it would have been "historically blasphemous". I wonder if the fact that the real-life Armstrong and Aldrin are still alive, unlike most if not all of the other historical figures in these movies, was also a factor. -- MTV Movies Blog
7. They've already rebooted the Jack Ryan series once, with The Sum of All Fears (2002), so why not reboot it again? Paramount has hired screenwriter Hossein Amini to write an "origin story" for the character, "not derived from Clancy's novels". -- Hollywood Reporter
1. A judge has ruled that 20th Century Fox has "a copyrightinterest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the ‘Watchmen’ motion picture." The film, which is currently set for a March 6 release, was produced by Warner Brothers and Paramount, and it is at least theoretically possible that Fox could block the release altogether. The judge's ruling came as a surprise, since he had said only the week before that the matter was so complicated it could only be resolved at a trial slated for late January. -- New York Times (x2), Variety (x2), Nikki Finke
2. Warner Brothers president Alan Horn says Green Lantern may be the DC Comics superhero closest to getting a new movie right now. And reports indicate that the filmmakers may already be scouting locations in Australia. -- Collider.com, Sydney Morning Herald
3. Stephen Chow is no longer going to direct the new version of The Green Hornet, and he might not stick around to play the sidekick Kato, either, since he wants to make a superhero comedy with Jack Black. -- Variety, Associated Press
4. A new film based on Judge Dredd is in the works. It will presumably have nothing to do with the 1995 film starring Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider. -- 2000 AD Forums
5. A new film based on The Phantom is in the works. It will definitely have nothing to do with the 1996 film starring Billy Zane and Catherine Zeta-Jones. -- Tim Boyle
The Hollywood Reporter announced tonight that Disney has decided not to be involved with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third installment in The Chronicles of Narnia. Walden Media is now looking for another studio to co-finance and distribute the film -- possibly Fox, which formed a sort of partnership with Walden a couple years ago but shut it down in all but name two months ago. Whatever happens, it looks like we will never get to see a boxed set with all seven Narnia movies, even if the rest of C.S. Lewis's fantasy series does get filmed in the end. In cases like this, when a franchise is spread out among multiple studios, the studios tend not to collaborate on the home-video release.
DEC 27 UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times says Walden and Disney could not agree on a release date, and there were "creative differences" between them as well, in addition to the budgetary and logistical concerns that have already been reported.
DEC 28 UPDATE: Jim Hill notes that another factor which prompted Disney to let go of the Narnia franchise was the DVD sales for Prince Caspian, which were a lot, lot slower than they were for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005).
In 2006, and again in 2007, I kept track of all the G- and PG-rated films that cracked the weekly top ten lists, to see how many of them were aimed primarily at families or children, and how many of them were basically for grown-ups.
Four months ago, I posted a list of all the G- and PG-rated films that had been released so far this year. Now, with the year basically over, it's time to update the list.
The G- and PG-rated films that have cracked the weekly top ten lists so far break down into the following categories (with the ones that were #1 at the box office for at least one week in bold):
Family films (for children, tweens, or religious audiences):
Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.
Quantum of Solace -- CDN $20,940,000 -- N.AM $161,200,412 -- 13.0% Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa -- CDN $15,810,000 -- N.AM $172,392,069 -- 9.2% Twilight -- CDN $14,380,000 -- N.AM $158,423,218 -- 9.1% Australia -- CDN $3,350,000 -- N.AM $41,796,525 -- 8.0% Four Christmases -- CDN $7,180,000 -- N.AM $100,110,827 -- 7.2% The Day the Earth Stood Still -- CDN $3,420,000 -- N.AM $48,366,989 -- 7.1% Bolt -- CDN $6,450,000 -- N.AM $94,900,059 -- 6.8% Seven Pounds -- CDN $994,645 -- N.AM $14,851,136 -- 6.7% Yes Man -- CDN $1,220,000 -- N.AM $18,262,471 -- 6.7% The Tale of Despereaux -- CDN $587,038 -- N.AM $10,103,675 -- 5.8%
A couple of discrepancies: Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa was #10 on the Canadian chart (it was #12 in North America as a whole), while Slumdog Millionaire was #8 on the North American chart (it was #11 in Canada).
I have been keeping an eye out for I Love You, Man ever since I first heard the film was going into production a year ago, so it seems only fair that I should post the newly-released trailer here. Warning: some of the humour here is distinctly Apatovian, even though this is not a Judd Apatow movie. (Co-stars Paul Rudd and Jason Segel previously co-starred in Knocked Up, which was directed by Apatow, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was produced by Apatow.) The film is set for a March 20 release.
Click here if the video file above doesn't play properly.
My review of Wendy and Lucy is now up at CT Movies. The image above comes from this film, and yes, I spotted the Stryper logo immediately, the first time I saw this film at the local film festival. What can I say, I was a pretty big fan, back in the day.
I spent all day yesterday working on three or four different assignments. And I spent all day today in a movie theatre. (Yes, a single movie theatre; by some fluke, all of the day's preview screenings were scheduled for the same venue.) Tomorrow I will go back to working on two or three other assignments that are due before Christmas. But I figured I should explain why things have been so dead here lately -- and I also wanted to note the fact that today marked the end of preview screenings for 2008. By the time next year's preview screenings begin, my wife will be working full-time again and I will be looking after the kids full-time again, though I will still be writing and blogging as time permits. So, once again, a phase of my life has come to an end and big changes lie ahead. And how fitting that one of today's films should concern, in part, a writer who gives up his or her job to stay home and look after his or her children. I could definitely relate to that.
Someone had the brilliant idea of taking a section of the trailer for J.J. Abrams' upcoming Star Trek movie and replacing the visuals with footage from the animated series. I especially like the way the face of Robert April, the first captain of the Enterprise, plays over the voice of Christopher Pike, the second captain.
Click here if the video file above doesn't play properly. Hat tip to TrekMovie.com.
1. Two actresses have been cast for the sequel to Tron (1982), and by some strange fluke, both of them -- Olivia Wilde and Beau Garrett -- were in the torture-porn flick Turistas (2006). Wilde will play "a worker in the virtual world who tries to help fight Master Control Program, the villainous intelligence protocol that was the nemesis in the original film," while Garrett will play "a siren in the virtual world." The title of the sequel seems to be in flux, since the papers reporting this bit of news don't agree on whether the new film will be called Tron 2.0 or Tr2n -- and neither of them mentions the other rumoured title, TRZ. -- Variety, Hollywood Reporter
2. We have known for some time that Peter Morgan was writing a screenplay called The Special Relationship, which would complete the "Tony Blair trilogy" that began with The Deal (2003) and continued with The Queen (2006). The first two films were directed by Stephen Frears, but now comes word that Morgan plans to direct the third film himself. Michael Sheen -- currently starring in Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, which was also written by Morgan -- will be back as Blair. -- Variety
Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.
A couple of discrepancies: Role Models was #10 on the Canadian chart (it was #13 in North America as a whole), while Nothing Like the Holidays was #7 on the North American chart (it was #16 in Canada).
Ever since it was first announced that there would be a fourth Terminator film, we have known that the company that owns the rights to this franchise was hoping that that film would become the first installment of a full-blown trilogy.
But it wasn't until this week that they made it official and said that they are going ahead with the fifth film -- even though the fourth film doesn't come out for another five months.
Announcement was among the news that came out of the Dubai Intl. Film Festival, which bowed Dec. 11 and runs through Thursday.
McG was in Dubai for the announcement, despite his well-known fear of flying, which led to him dropping out of the Oz-shot "Superman Returns." He mentioned that incident in remarks during the announcement.
No decision has been made as to where to film the next "Terminator," although the Middle East was mentioned as a locale.
When Anderson and Kubicek acquired the rights the lucrative "Terminator" franchise last year from previous owners C2, the former ad exec and banker envisaged the re-booted series as a trilogy. Christian Bale has signed on in the role of John Connor for all three roles. Newest pic is tentatively skedded for a 2011 release.
The duo had originally planned to wait until the release of "Terminator Salvation" next summer before deciding on whether to proceed with the next chapter, but the positive studio, fan and media reaction to footage from the current pic has encouraged them to move forward ahead of schedule.
"We feel the time is now to start shaping the next part of this," Kubicek said.
Speaking of the footage that the fans are reacting to, here is the newest trailer, which came out a week ago:
Click here if the video file above doesn't play properly.
1.Chris Weitz wanted to direct back-to-back sequels to The Golden Compass (2007), but that film was a box-office disappointment ... so now, he may get to direct back-to-back sequels to Twilight instead. For the moment, Summit Entertainment is promising only that he will direct New Moon, based on the second book in the series -- but there has been speculation for some time that Summit may want to shoot that sequel in conjunction with the third installment, Eclipse. There is also speculation that a new actor may be hired to replace Taylor Lautner, who played the latent werewolf Jacob in the first film. Pre-production is slated to begin in Vancouver next week, and if all goes according to plan, New Moon will be in theatres by November 20 -- less than a year from now. -- Entertainment Weekly (x2), Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Nikki Finke, MTV Movies Blog, VancouverFilm.net
2. Darren Aronofsky says "a big movie star" is attached to his movie about Noah, but first he's going to produce a graphic novel based on his idea for that film. -- Rope of Silicon.com
4. David Goyer also says there has been talk of rebooting the Blade (1998-2004) franchise, without Wesley Snipes. -- ShockTillYouDrop.com
5. Warner Brothers likes what Michael Bay and his buddies at Platinum Dunes are doing with their reboot of the Friday the 13th (1980-2001) franchise, which comes to theatres early next year, so now the studio is letting them reboot the A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984-1994) franchise, too. -- ShockTillYouDrop.com
I'm a big fan of the original RoboCop (1987; my comments), so I must say I get a kick out of this plot synopsis set to rap music -- or, rather, to a rap-ified version of Basil Poledouris's original score (warning: the violence and profanity remain R-rated):
Click here if the video file above doesn't play properly.
Two quick comments, if I may:
First, the silent-movie bit at the end is just goofy, and completely unexpected. I love it.
Second, I marvel at how casually the rapper says the villain, Clarence Boddicker, is popping a "DVD" into the player, around the 5:00 mark. DVDs did not exist when this film came out; indeed, they would not be put on the market for another decade. What's more, CDs were still something of a rarity at this time; I lived in a small college dorm with about 50 other guys when this movie came out, and only one of us -- maybe two, I'm not quite sure -- had a CD player. It was, in fact, because of my exposure to this guy's CD player that I made a point of buying one for myself after the term was over and I had come home. (It cost about $350, as I recall -- about the price of a Blu-Ray player today.) So when this film came out, the mere fact of playing something on a disc rather than a tape was still right there on the cutting edge -- and the thought of playing a video off of one of these small compact discs was pure science fiction. And, well, look where we are now.
Now I just need to figure out how to get data from a computer by stabbing it with one of those spikes. Then again, USB plugs are smaller and less likely to poke out an eye. Never mind.
In the meantime, a footnote to the interview: One of the things Derrickson talks about is how he tried to get the science right, and lo and behold, LiveScience has an item by SETI Institute astronomer Seth Shostak on his stint as a scientific consultant on this film. Definitely some interesting tidbits there.
It's not up at their website yet, but various sources are reporting that the Los Angeles Film Critics Association has named WALL•E the best film of the year ... while naming Waltz with Bashir the best animated film of the year. Make of that what you will. But it looks like the efforts of some, to get animated films recognized outside of their "ghetto", could result in a paradox or two. Here's a question: What if WALL•E is nominated for Best Picture and Best Animated Feature at the Oscars and wins neither? What if the Academy's voters think giving it two awards would be excessive, and they cannot agree on which of the awards it should get?
I have not yet seen the new version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, but I watched the original version again last night, and found myself thinking back to a couple of comments that other people had made about that film recently. So, here they are.
First, Glenn Kenny notes that the film was not only about finding peace in our time, however compulsory it might be, but about looking ahead to the day when we might have the kind of futuristic science that Klaatu and his culture represent:
One of the first of countless post-nuke sci-fi parables, Earth was set in the then-present day, the better to preach its pacifist creed. Still, it was every bit a movie about the future. Klaatu has an entirely human appearance and bearing; he also has advanced technology, a "salve" that heals a bullet wound overnight, superior reasoning ability and more. He represents Earth's, or more specifically given the film's provenance and milieu, the United States' potential. Watching the film today, one can conceivably mourn both the cozy-looking past of the American '50s and the never-to-be realized future that Klaatu represents. I somehow doubt the coming remake will stir any such feelings.
Second, and in a similar vein, Eric D. Snider notes that the film depicts two doctors lighting a couple of cigarettes -- right after one of them grumbles that Klaatu's superior medicine and prolonged life expectancy make him feel like "a third-class witch doctor." The scene almost plays as satire nowadays, but back then, nobody would have thought there was anything funny or ironic about it. Hmmm, maybe the future has seen some improvement.
1. John Travolta will play a thin woman, and Zac Efron will experiment with drugs, if John Waters' proposed sequel to the musical version of Hairspray (2007) gets made. -- MTV Movies Blog
2. Producer Kathleen Kennedy says there probably won't be a Jurassic Park IV, despite years of development, partly because Michael Crichton -- who wrote the novels that the first two films were based on -- died last month. -- ComingSoon.net
3. Producer Frank Marshall says the next Jason Bourne movie may be based on Robert Ludlum's The Parsifal Mosaic, a non-Bourne novel that deals with a retired spy. That might be one way to deal with the fact that the Jason Bourne persona doesn't exist any more in the movie versions of Ludlum's books, now that his true identity has been revealed etc. -- ComingSoon.net
Newsbites: The female storytellers and supernatural stories edition!
1.Catherine Hardwicke will not direct the sequel to Twilight, despite the fact that it has a strong female fanbase and is one of the most successful films ever directed by a woman. Reports differ as to the reasons for her departure from the franchise: conflicting personalities, disagreements over how to adapt the next book, and disagreements over the speed with which the sequel should be rushed into production have all been blamed. -- Nikki Finke, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Patrick Goldstein
2. Warner Brothers really, really doesn't want to let go of the Harry Potter franchise. They have already decided to split the final story, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, into two separate films, thus guaranteeing at least three more years of Harry Potter movies. And now comes word that they want to find some way to adapt The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a book-within-the-book that was published on its own last week. Hmmm, perhaps they could also make a couple of pseudo-documentaries based on Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, two Hogwarts textbooks that J.K. Rowling wrote between novels several years ago (my review). -- CinemaBlend.com
Some people say the sports car depicted in George Lucas's student film below reminds them of the cars in American Grafitti (1973), or of Luke Skywalker's landspeeder in Star Wars (1977):
Click here if the video file above doesn't play properly.
Nothing at Rotten Tomatoes. Nothing at Metacritic. Nothing at the Movie Review Query Engine. It opens across the continent only four days from now. And now I am aware of at least one major city that will have no screenings whatsoever for this film. Looks like the independent animated fantasy Delgo has joined the club.
It's December, and I was recently re-admitted to the Vancouver Film Critics Circle, so there were a lot of movies to see last week -- movies that the studios hope we will remember fondly when it comes time to vote on the best films of the year.
I can't really talk about most of these films yet, since they have not yet been released -- at least one of them won't be coming to Vancouver theatres until the end of January! -- but I must say that, if the majority of these films had anything in common, it was a pronounced thematic emphasis on death, aging, and the loss of opportunities in life as one gets older.
Sometimes these themes were put to a redemptive purpose, sometimes they were given a more negative slant, and sometimes they just kind of sat there and invited us to think about them in any way that we saw fit.
And while I can't name the film in question, I would be lying if I said that at least one of these films didn't have me crying like a baby by the end, albeit a very quiet baby. Like, seriously, these were sinus-clearing sobs that came from a deeper place than any tears that I have cried in a while, certainly at a movie.
Suffice it to say that, by the end of the week, I was zonked, so my wife took the twins to the Feast of St. Nicholas festivities at our church by herself on Saturday morning while I stayed home and looked after the baby -- whose name, as it happens, is Nicholas. And as I fed him and played with him, I wondered.
I wondered what he would be like at 80. I realized I would not be there to see him at that age myself (unless I live to be 117, which is, uh, unlikely). I wondered how old he will be when I die. I wondered how I will die. I wondered if I will remember wondering about Nicholas's old age, as I die. I wondered if I will remember anything, period. I wondered what he will remember.
Sounds morbid, I know. But every now and then I am reminded of the passing of time and how what once seemed like the future has already become the past, and is now lost to us. Having a baby like Nicholas around, wearing his older siblings' hand-me-downs, I am frequently reminded of what it used to be like to look after the twins two years ago -- and how different the twins have become since then, and how I will never be able to hold them in quite the same way, even as I find new ways to love and care for them.
So even as there is growth, there is also loss, of a sort. And that's before we get to the really big loss that awaits us all.
Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.
A couple of discrepancies: Babine was #10 on the Canadian chart (it wasn't on the North American chart at all), while Cadillac Records was #9 on the North American chart (it wasn't even released in Canada).
1.The Dark Knight comes to homevideo on Tuesday, but that doesn't mean it has left the theatre for good. Warner Brothers announced this week that the film will be re-released across the country on January 23 -- one day after the Oscar nominations are announced. Among other things, this will basically guarantee that The Dark Knight becomes the fourth movie ever to gross over $1 billion worldwide -- following Titanic (1997), The Lord of the Rings:The Return of the King (2003) and Pirates of the Caribbean:Dead Man's Chest (2006). Interestingly, The Dark Knight is the only film in the all-time Top 20 to have made less than half of its money overseas -- and the only other such films in the all-time Top 40 are Star Wars (1977) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), both of which came out a generation ago, when distribution patterns were very different. -- Variety
2. Will Smith has a few ideas for the prequel to I Am Legend (2007), and he says there will "definitely" be a sequel to Hancock, as well. -- Collider, JoBlo.com
4. Len Wiseman, director of the first two Underworld movies (2003-2006) as well as Live Free or Die Hard (2007), has signed on to direct an adaptation of the apocalyptic comic-book mini-series Atlantis Rising. -- Variety
5. Sigourney Weaver hints that she and Ridley Scott have talked about making a follow-up to the original Alien movies (1979-1997) -- but without the aliens. "What we’re interested in is taking the character of Ripley and seeing what other science fiction story we can tell about someone who has lived several lives," she says. -- MTV Movies Blog
Theologian John Stackhouse has announced at his blog that he and Ralph Winter -- a producer on the last four original-series Star Trek movies, all four X-Men movies, both Fantastic Four movies, the remakes of Mighty Joe Young and Planet of the Apes, the first Left Behind and many other films -- will be teaching a course on 'The Ethics of Filmmaking' at Regent College next summer:
It’s just one week, so we will have to cover a lot of ground in a short time, but I think it’ll be a blast. It’s simply called “The Ethics of Filmmaking” and it will cover how money, sex, power, and ideology affect commercial filmmaking, with particular reference to Hollywood but to other other film centres (such as Vancouver itself) and, indeed, to other media as well.
Vancouverites, and anyone who plans to be in the Vancouver area during the last week of July, mark your calendars.
The Hollywood Reporter seems to have put the wrong headline on this story, but anyhoo. They report that British filmmaker Dominic Murphy -- whose first feature, White Lightnin', premieres at Sundance next month -- is developing a film about the role played by certain religious groups during the Biafra airlift in the late 1960s:
The deal is for "a slate of projects" and will kick off with "Jesus Christ Airlines," which is being written by Kit Peel. . . .
Peel, a former journalist, is set to deliver his version of the events in the lives of one family set against the backdrop of the Biafra Airlift. For nearly two years, the pilots of Joint Church Aid flew in arms and food to Biafra over Nigerian air space, keeping the small, breakaway West African state alive. Murphy spent part of his childhood in Nigeria with his family. Murphy will direct.
Incidentally, this will not be the first film to go by this title; Danish director Lasse Jensen made a documentary of this name, which was also about the Biafra airlift, in 2001.
I happened to watch Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra (1934) for the first time today, and I was surprised when, a little more than an hour into the movie, Herod the Great showed up. He says that he has come directly from Rome, and that he is on his way back to his kingdom in Judea, but while he is in Egypt, he has a message for Cleopatra: namely, Octavian wants her to kill Mark Antony.
In the next scene, Herod and Mark Antony share some drinks and some laughs, and then Herod, still laughing, tells Antony that Octavian wants Cleopatra to poison him -- a message that Antony himself laughs off, until a later scene in which he discovers that Cleopatra is testing different kinds of poison on her prisoners.
So Herod gets to be friendly with all the major political figures -- Octavian, Cleopatra, Mark Antony -- while at the same time disturbing the two political figures with whom he shares actual screen time. And you get the impression that he rather likes disturbing his friends, even though they are all discussing serious matters of life and death. The important thing, for Herod, is that he has influential connections, that he can flaunt those influential connections, and that he can keep those influential connections.
I have no idea whether there is any historical basis for these particular scenes. But for what it's worth, Wikipedia indicates that Herod secured his position as "King of the Jews" with help from both Mark Antony and Cleopatra between 40 and 37 BC, and that, when civil war broke out between Antony and Octavian, Herod switched his allegiance to Octavian in 31 BC. Antony and Cleopatra would go on to die in 30 BC, after losing their war with Octavian, while Herod continued to rule Judea until his own death in 4 BC. Octavian, who went on to become the Emperor Augustus, did not die until AD 14.
The Herod cameo in this film is particularly interesting for two reasons: One, I am not aware of any other Cleopatra movie that has included Herod as one of its characters. And two, both Herod and director DeMille are often associated with biblical epics, yet this is the only DeMille film that depicts Herod -- and it is not, strictly speaking, a biblical epic! Even DeMille's one life-of-Jesus movie, The King of Kings (1927), never gets around to depicting Herod the Great, because it focuses exclusively on Jesus' adult ministry and never depicts the Nativity.
Herod, incidentally, is played here by Joseph Schildkraut, who had previously played Judas Iscariot in The King of Kings. Cleopatra, of course, is played by Claudette Colbert, who had previously bathed in asses' milk as the Roman Empress Poppea in DeMille's The Sign of the Cross (1932) -- and who would soon go on to win an Oscar for starring opposite Clark Gable in the classic screwball comedy It Happened One Night (1934).
Entertainment Tonight recently posted this sneak-peek of the new trailer for Terminator Salvation. Be warned: the way it edits the words and pictures together, especially at the beginning, it seems to hint at what I had thought was a semi-major spoiler.
Click here if the video file above doesn't play properly.
1. Zack and Deborah Snyder say the theatrical cut of Watchmen is getting ever-so-slightly shorter, but the director's cut will run to 3 hours and 10 minutes. -- SciFi.com
2. Stephen Sommers, director of Van Helsing (2004) and the first two Mummy movies (1999-2001), plans to pattern his Tarzan movie after the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks (2003-2007); he is reportedly "ditching the boy-raised-by-apes origin story for a 1930's-set romp with a hefty helping of romance . . . with buffed-and-tanned actors flying through the jungle and sprinting up trees, parkour-style." -- Entertainment Weekly
4. Jay Baruchel is in talks to play the title character in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, opposite Nicolas Cage, who will be playing the Sorcerer himself. The film -- which "takes place in contemporary New York, where a wizard searches for an apprentice" -- is a live-action Disney production, but it is unclear whether it will have anything other than the title in common with the famous Mickey Mouse cartoon that first appeared in Fantasia (1940). -- Variety
5. A remake of John Carpenter's They Live (1988) is in the works. So is a remake of Carpenter's The Thing (1982), although, in fairness, that particular film was itself a remake of Howard Hawks's The Thing from Another World (1951). -- Hollywood Reporter
6. A remake of Robert Zemeckis's Romancing the Stone (1984) is in the works. -- Hollywood Reporter
1. The Sci Fi Channel is turning the Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica into a full-blown series in its own right. -- Variety
2.Quelle coincidence. No sooner does Dirty Harry name the Errol Flynn swashbuckler Captain Blood (1935) his "TCM Pick O’ The Day" for today, December 3, than the trades start reporting that John Brownlow has been hired to write the remake for director Philip Noyce. -- Variety, Hollywood Reporter
3. Ray Stevenson has joined Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis in the postapocalyptic thriller The Book of Eli. -- Variety
4. The rumoured prequel to Planet of the Apes -- once called Genesis: Apes -- is now called Caesar. And director Scott Frank insists that, contrary to earlier reports, his film will not be a "remake" of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972). -- CinemaBlend.com, CHUD.com
5. The sequel to Tron was once called Tr2n. Now, reportedly, it is being called TRZ, whatever that means. -- FirstShowing.net
2.Wallace & Gromit:A Matter of Loaf and Death has also been nominated for an Annie Award, namely for Best Animated Short Subject. The film itself premieres on Australian TV this week, and will go to other countries in the coming weeks and months. -- Cartoon Brew
4.The Dark Knight will be the first major studio film ever to be released via video-on-demand before it is released on DVD, when it is released in those formats in South Korea. -- Variety
5. Scottish actor Kevin McKidd says he is in talks to play the Norse god Thor in the Marvel Comics movie of that name. -- IGN.com
6. British web developer Jeremy Keith has posted an interesting item on how a photo of his that he posted at Flickr ended up in the background of one shot in Iron Man. -- Jeremy Keith
The "50th anniversary edition" of Sleeping Beauty (1959) came out this year. In 2008. On the film's 49th anniversary.
The "70th anniversary edition" of Pinocchio (1940; my comments) comes out next year. In 2009. On the film's 69th anniversary.
And now, it is said that the "20th anniversary edition" of Oliver & Company (1988) and the "10th anniversary edition" of A Bug's Life (1998) will also be coming out next year. In 2009. On the films' 21st and 11th anniversaries, respectively.
The newest issue of BC Christian News is now online, and with it, my film column, which looks at the current state of the Narnia franchise -- including a brief comment or two on the brand new Prince Caspian DVD -- as well as the gay-rights biopic Milk.
1. To mark the current Advent season, Barbara Nicolosi has posted a tiny excerpt from the script for Mary, Mother of the Christ, which she co-wrote with Benedict Fitzgerald. -- Barbara Nicolosi
2.Dean Wright, a visual-effects and second-unit director on the Lord of the Rings and Narnia movies, is going to direct a life-of-Jesus movie in New Zealand called Kingdom Come. -- Matt Page
3. Ray Winstone will play Julius Caesar in Cleo, Steven Soderbergh's 3-D rock opera starring Catherine Zeta-Jones as Cleopatra and Hugh Jackman as Mark Antony. Soderbergh describes the film as "historically pretty accurate but its sort of like ‘Viva Las Vegas’ meets ‘Tommy.’” -- MTV Movies Blog
4. Brian Grazer, in his efforts to clarify earlier reports that Russell Crowe would be playing both Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Ridley Scott's Nottingham, manages to make the film sound even more puzzling. -- MTV Movies Blog
Born, raised, married, and still living in Vancouver, British Columbia. In addition to a 2005 Evangelical Press Association award-winning film column for BC Christian News, my articles have appeared in such publications as Books & Culture, Christianity Today, Bible Review, Faith Today, ChristianWeek, the Vancouver Courier, the Vancouver Sun, the Georgia Straight and Beliefnet.com. I am a member of the Vancouver Film Critics Circle and the Faith and Film Critics Circle.
