Since I just mentioned Pirates 2, which is a film I sadly kinda hated, I should perhaps note that the promotional materials for Pirates of the Caribbean III: At World’s End are now online, and they include a decent look at Chow Yun-Fat in samurai-pirate regalia. Why do I get the sense I’ll be seeing this despite myself?
Category: Fanboy
The War of Middle Earth.
“I don’t want to work with that guy anymore. Why would I? So the answer is he will never make any movie with New Line Cinema again while I’m still working for the company.” More troubling news for The Hobbit: In an interview with Sci-Fi Wire, New Line president Robert Shaye lays into Peter Jackson over the outstanding lawsuit filed by Wingnut films over ascertaining LotR revenues. (PJ’s response is here, and I’m inclined to agree with him. What reason would New Line have to hide the books, unless they’ve been practicing shady math?)
The Man with the Golden Gun (and One Red Shoe.)
Also (sorta) in the trailer bin, Tom Hanks. Is. Bond. (By way of my sister Tessa.)
Excessive Fauning.
Well, I’m not very happy about being on the other end of the review spectrum for this film, which was one I’d been really looking forward to. But, I must confess, I’m somewhat mystified by the almost-universally stellar reviews that have accompanied Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. It’s not a bad movie by any means, but I found it the least accomplished of this year’s crop of A-list genre films (The Prestige, Children of Men, The Fountain — the latter in particular seems to have been unfairly maligned in comparison to this one.) Billed as a “fairy tale for grown-ups,” Pan’s Labyrinth is a diverting but disconnected hodgepodge of fantasy, horror, and historical fiction, held together, if at all, only by occasional reference to Del Toro’s usual visual affinities, such as creepy insects, yonic symbols, punctured/torn flesh, and Doug Jones in funny suits. And as far as fantastical tales of children during the Spanish Civil War go, Del Toro has tread this ground before with the haunting Devil’s Backbone, and, to be honest, I preferred that film in almost every regard.
So, here’s the setup: Once upon a time — 1944, to be exact — there was a young girl on the verge of adolescence named Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) who was forced to accompany her sickly, pregnant mother (Ariadna Gil) into the Spanish countryside, and to live with her wicked (Fascist) stepfather (Sergi Lopez of Dirty Pretty Things, and I do mean wicked — he beats an old man’s face into bloody fragments within the first twenty minutes.) Although befriended by a kindly maid (Y Tu Mama Tambien‘s Maribel Verdu) — one who may have ties to Republican remnants in the nearby mountains — Ofelia is deeply disconsolate in her new home. That is, until a congenial fairy-mantis she encountered on her way in takes her deep into the nearby garden labyrinth, where an unnerving faun (Doug Jones) discloses that she may in fact be a long-lost princess of an underground world. To claim her birthright, Ofelia must first accomplish three fairy-tale-type tasks, all the while evading her wicked stepfather and doing what she can to protect her ailing mother. But, much to her dismay, Ofelia soon finds that her fantasy world can be just as dangerous and even deadly as her stepfather’s company, particularly once the two worlds begin to collide.
But do they collide? Perhaps I missed some vital subtext, but I found Ofelia’s dreamworld adventures — other than the “Girl, you’ll be a Woman soon” flourishes, like the bloody book — to be generally remote both from her problems at home and from the Republican-Fascist feud, other than that all three narrative strands grow increasingly grisly and grotesque. And, while certain scenes definitely linger in the senses like eerie reminiscences of a fever dream, most notably the Wraith’s Table, they don’t really serve the larger story in any way I could fathom. (Also, why does Ofelia suddenly decide to go all Augustus Gloop in that scene anyway? Dream logic, I guess, but it seemed out of character.) Throw in a few second-act torture scenes that are more off-putting than they are resonant or even necessary, and Labyrinth starts to wear thin well before the end. In sum, Pan‘s a decent film that’s worth seeing if you’re in the mood for it, but it’s by no means the genre classic it’s being made out to be. Perhaps the subtitles gave it gravitas in some corners, but, to my mind, Pan’s Labyrinth gets a little lost in its own maze.
Compass Heading.
More images from The Golden Compass emerge online, including new looks at Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards), Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliot), Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman), and Lord Asriel (Craig. Daniel Craig.) Also in the mix, Eva Green (as Serafina Pekkala) and Ian McShane (as the voice of Ragnar Sturlusson). [They’re also posted here.]
Keeping Up with the Joneses.
We’ve heard it a few times before, but apparently this time it’s for real: A Steven Spielberg-directed Indy 4 is a go, with a David Koepp script and a planned May 2008 release.
Hallows Be Thy Name.
Old news now, but it happened while on the track: Harry Potter’s final chapter gets a title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Grind, Kingdom, Prime, FF.
Another wave of holiday trailers comes down the pike: Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez let their B-film freak flags fly (again) in the full trailer for Grindhouse, with Kurt Russell, Rose McGowan, and Freddy Rodriguez, among others; Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Chris Cooper, Jeremy Piven, and Richard Jenkins fight the war on terror in Saudi Arabia in this first look at Peter Berg’s The Kingdom; and Shia la Boeuf and the US military run from metal toy-like things in the new preview for Michael Bay’s Transformers (If you’re interested, see also the pic of Optimus Prime here.) Word is the trailer for Fantastic Four 2 is also showing in theaters at the moment, although the only thing online right now is this rather meh image of the Silver Surfer…hopefully, they do a better job with Galactus. Update: The FF teaser is now up.
Me and My Shadow.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Sam Raimi, apparently. The Evil Dead/Spidey director looks to be moving forward on another version of The Shadow (which should in all likelihood be better than the 1994 Alec Baldwin version.)
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
“British intelligence. The term seemed redundant. It conjured up vast experience, levels upon levels of history, and, more than that, a cynical realism. When Americans were eschewing spying — ‘Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail,’ Secretary of State Henry Stimson said in 1929 — the Brits, uber-gents to a man, were steaming open envelopes galore, keeping a vast empire together with only a handful of spies, assassins, and dissolute diplomats who were not worth a damn after lunch.” In Slate, Richard Cohen asks, less facetiously than you might think, if James Bond might be responsible for the Iraq War.