A small british film company has completed filming of a “true to the book” War of the Worlds adaptation. Seems to be two fingers in Spielberg and Cruises direction. They’re even trying to get it out next year. Interestingly we were discussing it at work here and it appears that Well’s copyright runs out in 2006, so it will be free reign then. I’m not sure why everyone seems to want to do it the year before it runs out, maybe I’m missing something.
I’m probably a few months late on the uptake but there is a new Captain Scarlet TV series being made. By Gerry Anderson himself! However the CGI doesnt look like it will be anything like FF:SW or even other TV series. Looks a bit like the clunky Dan Dare CGI series. Now there was a let down.
I just did a quick search and found the IMDB entry for the Golden Compass, due out according to them in 2005.
The screenplay is being written by Tom Stoppard who wrote the screenplays for Brazil, Empire of the Sun, Shakespeare in Love, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and more. So hopefully it will stay true to the books.
Also some good crib notes on yahoo
It’s been a long time coming but Shaun of the dead has a trailer. It looks hilarious, same brand of humor as spaced, Simon Pegg wrote it and stars in it, along with Nick Frost and Jessican Stevenson. I cant find any definite release date yet.
W00t! W00t! This is a great flic. I have to say it’s definitely in my top 5 for the year so far, quite probably up there in the top 2. I have to decide if it was better than City of God (which I just noticed I never actually wrote anything about). Anyway George Clooney goes on to prove himself more than just a handsome face by pulling together an incredibly polished film.
The script is great and fast paced, Charlie Kaufman wrote it and it is far and away better than Adaptation (which I’ve also written nothing about yet, naughty). If you have a choice between the two see this one, adaptation is just a build up to one big and, by the end, one very tired joke. The dialogue sparkles and slips off the actors lips. The cast is superb, including many amusing cameos… camera slips by Brad Pitt in the dating game. Rutger Hauer does some scene stealing, posing for a Polaroid while silencing a skier.
But possibly the best is that it is visually stunning. It’s beautiful to watch, filters and over exposure are used to great effect, giving some scenes weight by blowing them out completely, other scenes being dreamlike due to the filters or film used, dreamlike and like a film shot by some kind of Lomo (now wouldn’t that be a great idea). The cinematographer was Newton Thomas Sigel, who also worked beside Bryan Singer on both X-men films and the Usual Suspects. I wonder if it was him pushing the visuals or Clooney. Some of this may have also been down to Stephen Mirrione, who edited also on Swingers, Traffic and Ocean’s Eleven.
And I like the fact that they didn’t try to interpret the story in a is-he-crazy-or-is-he-not indeterminate fashion.
Vidocq (2001) Rocqs!! You must go see it.
Fantastical Pitof (Digital effects on City of Lost Children and Alien Resurrection, this is his first directorial outing) film based on Eugene Vidocq, the father of modern criminal investigation. It does away with any pretence of historical reality, merely using the Paris revolt of 1830 as the backdrop for a supernatural detective story. It’s like Batman in frock coats.
Shot all on DV with interesting effects; false colour skies, distorted digital imaging, loads of filth and more badies in long black cloaks than you can shake a sword cane at. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I saw it last night.
So there is always a silver cloud to every airline… I don’t get to go to Norway this weekend but there’s always the London Sci-Fi film festival to keep me happy.
You can go and see Soylent Green and Farenheit 451 in a row… Soylent Green is books! They burn people don’t they!
Or malice@doll, computer generated anime about a robot prostitute.
Recent David Cronenberg release. I liked it. Slow moving, ponderous and deliberate, you can see the twist a mile off but that’s actually an indication of how well you get to know the character of Spider. Fiennes, as Spider, was great mumbling and stumbling along, giving him a real sense of paranoia and schizophrenia; a man truly broken by his madness. Miranda Richardson was also very good, pulling off two rolls in the film that had me confused for a good 30 mins. With Gabriel Byrne also in there Cronenberg must have been very happy with the cast he had assembled.
It feels very different from the rest of Cronenberg’s movies… probably because he had no hand in writing it. Still has the trademark “What’s real, what’s in your mind?” schtick which he does very well (admitidly over and over again). There was none of his body modification/morphing going on either. It’s a movie for a more mature audience. When I say more mature it’s more of an adult themed movie. I think a lot of Cronenberg’s movies appeal to adolescents because of the elements he uses; the fantasy of discovering that you are someone else, that your body is changing, the wonder and the fright of drugs and the power of one’s mind and actions. Very relevent themes for teenagers.
Spider is a careful character study with solid performances, more like a slightly warped BBC drama than typical Cronenberg.
Great plot, a great example of how the hollywood plot formula can work. Evocative setting, good acting from all the leads, Michael Caine is doing very well for himself later in life. I was amused to just find out that there was one previous adaptation of the book, made in 1958 just after the book was published. The book itself was a best seller at the time and most critics claim Greene to be prophetic in his vision. From seeing the film I would have to agree. Will have to read the book too.
