Tag: Cinema

Rabbit Redux.

Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, the heartwarming tale of a boy and his demon bunny-friend from the future, will be re-released this summer with a new sound mix and 21 minutes of extra footage. (I assume most of this footage is the deleted scenes on the DVD.) Yeah, I’d go see it in the theater.

Requiem for Rorschach.


Darren Aronofsky on The Watchmen?! Ooh, that’s a great directing pick. One would think Aronofsky would give Alan Moore’s magnum opus a much more faithful treatment than Hollywood delivered with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or even From Hell. But, given Aronofsky’s track record on Ronin, Batman: Year One, and The Fountain, I’m not going to start holding my breath quite yet.

Barton Fitzgerald.

“In the summer of 1937, broke, in debt and trying desperately to dry out, F. Scott Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he joined the legions of jerks with Underwoods…” The University of South Carolina acquire the papers of Fitzgerald’s late Hollywood years, which disclose that the author of Gatsby actually struggled to make the Great American Movie, to no avail.

Making a Killing.

“‘This is the beauty of having two volumes,’ said Rick Sands, chief operating officer at Miramax. ‘Vol. 1 goes out, Vol. 2 goes out, then Vol. 1 Special Edition, Vol. 2 Special Edition, the two-pack, then the Tarantino collection as a boxed set out for Christmas. It’s called multiple bites at the apple. And you multiply this internationally.’ Ah. Only a company as brazen as Miramax would flat-out admit they plan to screw DVD buyers. I wouldn’t have bought the Kill Bills anyway, but if you were thinking about it, it seems best to hold off. (And, yes, this is different from the LotR extended editions, since those were announced in full well before any version of the film went on sale.)

Streep on Lansbury.

Undeterred by the lukewarm reception to The Truth about Charlie, Jonathan Demme tries his hand at another remake in this new trailer for The Manchurian Candidate. Hmm…so the Communists have been replaced by a corporate conglomerate (Manchurian Global), and Sinatra is now Denzel. That works, although Meryl Streep seems wildly over the top here. (In fact, she may even be out-Voighting Jon Voight.) Well, let’s hope it’s a return to form for Demme, and not another needless remake.

Holy Holes and Broken Bats.

Also in the trailer pipeline of late, “Jesus” Jim Caviezel channels Bobby Jones in Stroke of Genius (Not in a million years…this feels like a Lifetime movie, right down to Claire Forlani as the long-suffering wife…and where’s Bagger Vance?), and Bernie Mac rests on his hitting laurels in Mr. 3000 (Nice of ’em to condense the entire movie into a three minute viewing experience.)

Double Billed.

Well, I’ll say this much for Kill Bill, Vol. 2…it’s a vast improvement over the atrocious Vol. 1. Perhaps because, one kinetic trailer park catfight notwithstanding, Tarantino isn’t trying to be an action director this time around, the second half of this revenge tale hangs together much better than the opening act. There’s actually time devoted to character beats here, which, as QT should know, is ultimately his forte as a writer and director. As such, Michael Madsen and David Carradine in particular get a chance to bring some much-needed complexity to the wafer-thin plot around which these films are constructed.

Still, like its predecessor, Kill Bill Vol. 2 has the whiff of a vanity project. It’s obvious Quentin had the time of his life making these two films, and they definitely seem to work as a love letter to a certain subset of grindhouse and chop-socky film fans (a group which includes David Edelstein, Roger Ebert, and Elvis Mitchell.) But, frankly, I thought a lot of Vol. 2 felt sloppy and derivative. I still don’t see why this project had to be two films, particularly as, once again, there’s so many drawn-out, redundant, or unnecessary episodes on display here. What’s up with the Uma car intro? Bud’s boss? Daryl Hannah’s googlesearch notes? Bill’s ridiculously QT-like riff on Superman? The tremendously stupid pregnancy test faceoff? As I noted about the first half of Kill Bill, Jackie Brown moves languidly, but with purpose. For much of these KB flicks, which often feel more like some sub-Tarantino outing (Killing Zoe, for example) than they do Jackie or Pulp Fiction, I was just bored.

Ultimately, there’s a difference between paying fleeting homage to some film influence and constructing a four and a half hour movie that just moves lazily from homage to homage. The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly, some Wu-Tang flick, Oh, look, The Vanishing. I’m sure that I recognized less than 10% of the movies Tarantino was referencing here, and I’m sure that probably invalidates my opinion of the film in many people’s eyes. And, if QT wants to show off his film-geek cred so blatantly and the film-geeks eat it up like candy, who am I to complain? Still, I very much hope that Tarantino had to get this orgy of excess out of his system, and that he’ll now settle down and focus his considerable talents a little more narrowly, instead of jumping all over the map as he does here.

My Ringdom for a Horse.


Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly…
Reader Jenny from NH passes along this series of pics from Troy (mirrored here), which includes this shot of Sean Bean as Odysseus (who’s been strangely missing from the trailers.) Along the same lines, some new King Arthur images are also up today, including this one of Arthur, Guenivere, and Lancelot (although word is the love triangle has been scrapped.)

The Prophet of No Tea.

The cast of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy rounds out with John Malkovich as a “religious cult leader called Humma Kavula, created by the late author especially for the long-gestating film.” Hmm, strange. In case you missed earlier reports, the cast also includes The Office‘s Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent, Mos Def as Ford Prefect, Sam Rockwell as Zaphod, and Zooey Deschanel as Trillian. Should be better than Vogon poetry, at any rate.