Thursday, February 21, 2008

David Fincher is my hero


Fresh off being royally screwed by the Academy for the amazing "Zodiac" comes the news that David fuckin' Fincher has been signed on to direct the Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman adapted version of Charles Burns' awesomely fucked up graphic novel "Black Hole." A while back there was rumblings about Alexandre Aja (Haute Tension / Hills Have Eyes....) running this show, but, as much as i'll always defend Haute Tension, i'm glad he got the boot. So freaking pumped. If you haven't read the book its worth the buy (or i can let you borrow it) Heres a quick synopsis straight from wikipedia:

Set in the suburbs of Seattle during the mid-1970s the book follows a group of mostly middle class teenagers who over the summer contract a mysterious sexually transmitted disease known as "the Bug" or "the teen plague", which causes them to develop bizarre physical mutations, turning them into social outcasts. Several teens with the bug find seclusion at "The Pit", an encampment in the woods outside of town. Later some of the characters move to a tract house while its owners are on vacation. Burns has said that the mutations can be read as a metaphor for adolescence, sexual awakening and the transition into adulthood.[1]

The look of the comic is meant to evoke the feel and atmosphere of classic 70s teen horror films like The Last House on the Left, Carrie and Halloween.


Heres the original scoop from Variety:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117981202.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Quit screwin with my childhood Warner Brothers


Really what were they expecting when they hired Spike Jonze for this movie? He is the freaking perfect, this isn't a movie about furry CGI animals....errr. From CHUD

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE... BEING COMPLETELY RESHOT?
By Devin Faraci
We're on the verge of losing a movie. Spike Jonze's version of Where the Wild Things Are is a film with an uncertain future as executives behind the scenes at Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures are right now trying to figure out whether or not to essentially reshoot the entire film.

If the entire film gets reshot you will hear that the decision came because of technical issues, specifically the animation of the Wild Things' mouths and facial features. The film uses people in huge Jim Henson Creature Shop suits, and the plan was to shoot the suits and animate the Wild Things' faces later. That has been proving to be more technically difficult than anyone had foreseen, even though test footage had been shot (a leaked clip from the movie that hit the internet this weekend was in fact some of that test footage, according to a statement from Spike Jonze). This is a bad situation, obviously, but one where some footage could be salvaged, meaning that a complete and total reshoot of the film wouldn't be necessary.

Yet I'm hearing that just such a massive reshoot is what is on the table right now. And it's not because of technical issues, unless you want to consider the lead kid actor and the script technical issues. Sources tell me that the suits at Legendary and Warner Bros are not happy with Max Records, the actor playing Max, the mischievous boy who is crowned King of the Wild Things. Worse than that, they don't like the film's tone and want to go back to the script drawing board, possibly losing the Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers script when they do it. Apparently the film is too weird and 'too scary,' and the character of Max is being seen as not likable (check out some of the test screening responses that Slashfilm is running).

Where The Wild Things Are screened for a test audience in Pasadena late last year; my friend BC, who watches a horror movie a day, caught the screening and liked what he saw, but I've also been told that the movie is 'subversive,' which is just the sort of thing that drives studio suits up the wall. The film, I keep hearing, is pretty great at this early stage of post-production, but it could very possibly not be a commercial movie. You can imagine the panic at Warner Bros when they realized they'd made a reportedly 75 million dollar kiddie art house film.

Can Warner Bros force Spike back to do the sort of massive reshoots they want? I've been on the phone to Warner Bros and Legendary and have not been able to get official statements about the status of the film, or whether Spike has final cut. A less reliable source has told me that he does in fact have final cut, which means that if he doesn't want to go back and do the reshoots he doesn't have to - but Warner Bros could still fire him and assign the reshoots to someone more compliant. Spike has a crew he likes to work with and they have not yet been told to gear up for additional shooting although they do know that it could be coming.

The scary thing is that this wouldn't be unprecedented for Warner Bros. Just a couple of years ago they scrapped Paul Schrader's Exorcist prequel and sent Renny Harlin out to remake the thing using the same sets and some of the same actors. Both versions ended up being terrible, but this studio has shown their willingness to do something just this nutty before.

There has been a glimmer of good news, and it's that Spike issued a statement about the leaked clip. For a little while I contemplated the idea that it had been leaked by Spike as some sort of move against the suits, but what could that move have meant? The fact that Spike is making statements about the clip - and that he's making statements at all about the movie - is a sign that not all is lost.

Everything points to Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are being a unique and fascinating film. It's not a cookie cutter kid movie, and I know that was part of the original appeal to folks at Warner Bros - why the hell else do you bring Jonze on? I didn't make it out to that Pasadena test screening, but now I wish I had so that I could report to you just what sort of a movie Spike has made. The reality, though, is that it doesn't matter since I tend to come down on the side of the great talent in these cases, and there's no question that Spike is a great talent. I don't trust the money people to look at a movie that's different and non-comformist and to understand it. Of course they're afraid of it. You can make movies where you don't take risks, but in this case they've decided to take the risk. They should let it play out and see what happens.

It's important to keep in mind that as of this weekend nothing was decided or set in stone. Hopefully all the behind the scenes stuff will settle soon, Spike will get to release the movie he wants to release and Warner Bros will strongly support the film with marketing and advertising. Meanwhile I'll keep my ear to the ground and let you know what I hear.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Sunshine ('07)

Dir. - Danny Boyle
Running Time - 107 mins
Star. - Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Michelle Yeoh


This movie is a strange beast. Its a mixture of several things; 2001: A Space Odyssey and Aliens (two of the best sci-fi movies ever made) and Event Horizon (one of the more eerie but ultimately flawed sci-fi flicks i can remember.) The prior is what makes this movie one of the more memorable sci-fi outings in recent memory.

The sun is dying out and in and effort to save all of man kind from an ice age and the certain death of all of human kind, the diverse team of scientist and astronauts aboard the Icarus II must re-ignite the sun with the gigantic neutron bomb attached to their ship, this is after the Icarus I failed to do so, and went completely missing in space. After passing Mercury the ship picks up the Icarus I's distress beacon and decides to alter its course slightly to investigate. What follows, as one would probably guess, is a series of really fuckin bad luck...the shit really hits the fan.

The story is great and completely engaging, but the few flaws the movie has come in the last 30 mins or so, when it really fuckin counts. SPOILERS. From the second the disgruntled charred captain of Icarus I shows up seemingly out of no where, it starts to get a little weird. You never really fully see the man, the camera jilts when ever you see his charred body, he's hell bent on stopping Icarus II from delivering the payload...much like, as it turns out, he did to the Icarus I, which he sabotaged and killed off the crew. His reasoning? Something to the effect of this is what god wanted to happen, god doesn't want human kind to live anymore, the sun is dying out for a divine reason. While he ends up lending to the movie a pretty chilling and outright scary element, it really seemed too late in the game to introduce him, and his overarching biblical agenda. It felt too much like it was a add on into the movie for Danny Boyle or the screenwriter to throw some of their own political voice in there.

While this aspect of the film didn't completely ruin the movie for me, i think I really could of done without it. I really think this movie would of had potential to be a classic if Boyle just made the movie about the Icarus II crew, and their journey to the sun, and their ultimate martyrdom for the human race.

As we've seen with ever other Danny Boyle outing (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) the man is quite the visionary director. The films visual attributes are very reminiscent of the sprawling awe inspiring stuff Kubrick showed us with 2001, but with a more modern touch ala Cameron's Alien movies. Needless to say everything about the way this movie looks is nothing short of beautiful and completely breathtaking up until the final shot of the film. And to me this is what ultimately saved it, its pros outweigh its cons, its definitely worth 2 hours or your time. B+