Uh oh…will The Hobbit end up being a Brett Ratner film? Peter Jackson’s Wingnut Films is apparently suing New Line Cinema over its share of FotR profits. Well, this is surprising. I didn’t realize relationships had cooled to that extent. Update: More details here.
Category: Fanboy
Zarquon!
Clever, clever…UGO obtains the rumored new Internet-only and Guide-centric Hitchhiker’s trailer. It mostly conforms to the earlier one, but still, it’s nice to finally hear Stephen Fry, as well as Alan Rickman as Marvin.
The Lion Tamer.
The Narnia powers-that-be have posted a second peek into the wardrobe, this one focusing on director Andrew Adamson. Not much here, frankly, but some of the WETA creature designs look really spiffy.
Lung Shadows.
At first, after the early director troubles and the casting of Keanu, I wouldn’t have given Constantine a snowball’s chance in Hell. But, while I can definitely see how it might come off as long-winded, somewhat inscrutable, and mostly boring to folks who hadn’t read the comics, I found the movie a surprisingly good adaptation of the source material. Much more atmospheric than your average February release comic book film, Constantine is a well-thought-out, well-constructed (if occasionally overlong) B-picture. As Keanu might say, “Whoa.”
I haven’t read Hellblazer much in the past decade, but what I remember most about the early adventures of John Constantine were (a) his frequent conversations and complicated pacts with the various demilords of Heaven and Hell, and (b) the absurdly short life-spans among his worldwide network of demonologists, clairvoyants, freaks, and hangers-on. To its credit, Constantine gets both details exactly right, with Tilda Swinton, Gavin Rossdale, Djimon Hounsou, and Peter Stormare playing otherworldly nobility to great effect (although I think I preferred Viggo’s take on Lucifer in The Prophecy), and Max Baker and Pruitt Taylor Vince (born to play a Constantine sidekick) layering on the eccentricities thick as unlucky compadres of the man of the hour.
When Constantine falters, it’s mainly in the long, protracted scenes between Keanu and Rachel Weisz, the latter of whom plays twins (one the love interest, the other the McGuffin.) The two (or three, whatever) don’t have much chemistry, and they stop the film cold occasionally in the middle hour. Also, the depiction of the Underworld, which basically resembles Sarah Connor’s nuclear nightmare in T2, has that cheap FX-house look to it, and fails to capture the wry malevolence often seen in DC’s comic-book Hell (for example, in the various torments visited upon Alan Moore’s Anton Arcane in Swamp Thing, or, in a creepy vision that I’ve never escaped, when Grant Morrison’s Kid Eternity encountered his teddy bear in the throes of agony, pleading for respite and demanding vengeance for his abandonment.)
Still, despite these lapses, I found Constantine for the most part an enjoyable and sequel-worthy adaptation, and an auspicious sign for fanboy cinema in 2005. Perhaps this’ll even bode well for FF…Nah.
Sithtery Science Theater.
Unspoiled, beware — While the next Episode III trailer may not break until March 11, even more pics from the film are turning up here and here.
I am the Resurrection.
By way of the new-look DYFL, the X-Men try to figure out what it takes to die for good in the Marvel universe in the flash film Death Becomes Them. Claremont, like nature, always finds a way.
Of Divided Mind.
You may well have seen it by now — I caught it before Constantine, along with the Hitchhiker’s trailer, but, if not, Keanu, Winona, Downey, and Woody get animated in the Waking Life-ish trailer for Richard Linklater and Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly. Haven’t read the story, but I’m impressed by the look.
Saber-Rattling.
While pointing out this article about George Lucas’ cameo in Episode III, Quint of AICN also reveals a motherlode of new Ep. III images. Some of these are rather spoilerish, but you probably have a sense of where the story’s going anyway.
One of those Days.
Attention, People of Earth…I had a devil of a time downloading it at first, but nevertheless, a 95%-complete version of the long-awaited Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trailer is now online. I’m really looking forward to seeing this on the big-screen — all the characters look great (sass these hoopy froods), and right now I’m definitely digging the DIY, low-fi aesthetic — that Away-Team moment at the end (on Magrathea, presumably) looks like it could’ve been taken right out of an old Doctor Who or Blake’s 7. Update: It’s now up at the official site.
circumlocutory pleonastic flibbertigibbet!
Having already exposed Chuck Palahniuk as a (gasp!) hack, Laura Miller, Salon‘s guardian of the literary citadel, now aims to dethrone H.P. Lovecraft (and neither Cthulhu nor a number of readers are pleased). C’mon now…is that really necessary? It’s not as if Lovecraft is some endlessly promoted sacred cow of the literati — he’s just an early 20th-century spinner of pulp yarns with some cachet among the fanboy nation, one with some very Cronenberg-like hang-ups and a better flair than most at evoking unfathomable dread. What with all the goofy adjectives and leaps of hyperbole, Lovecraft is obviously an easy caricature — so why bother? Miller seems to be something of a Tolkienite and generally sympathetic to fantasy writing, so her hit here is all the more surprising. Frankly, I’d find her criticism more scintillating if she didn’t resort to shooting fish in a barrel.