A week after Paul Thomas Anderson was good enough to let slip twenty minutes of his upcoming Upton Sinclair riff, There Will Be Blood (it’s a "riff" and not an "adaptation" because Anderson reportedly departs from the novel in significant ways as the story progresses), at the Telluride Film Festival, Paramount Vantage has finally delivered … Continue reading
If Mark Romanek hiring the legendary Rick Baker to design the lycanthrope for his forthcoming Wolf Man update means the production is going heavy on practical f/x, then we could be in for something special. Of course, this is piling speculation upon speculation: ShockTilYouDrop‘s report about Baker’s hiring has yet to be confirmed by Universal, … Continue reading
When Will Smith and director Gabriele Muccino parted ways on Tonight, He Comes (now John Hancock) due to the dreaded "creative differences" (Hollywood speak for "You’re a piece of shit!"/"No, You’re a piece of shit! And gay! And I can prove it!"), I thought it was the end of the end of an historic partnership … Continue reading
Remember that Simpsons episode where Homer buys a gun and proceeds to use it as an all-purpose tool to turn off lights, change the channel, crack nuts and so on? The protagonist of Michael Davis’s Shoot ‘Em Up, Mr. Smith, approaches firearms with a likewise sense of versatility, only Smith is a lot handier with … Continue reading
When Tulia was going to be a One False Move reunion of sorts for Billy Bob Thornton and director Carl Franklin, I had high hopes for the torn-from-the-headlines drama about racially motivated drug busts in a small Texas town. Folks I’ve encountered who’ve read the Nate Blakeslee book on which the film is/was to be … Continue reading
I’m sorry, but what was it, aside from the meager domestic returns, that Steven E. de Souza’s Street Fighter failed to get right about a video game in which cartoon characters wallop the shit out of each other? Were there storytelling nuances he missed? Character arcs left unresolved? Finishing moves misrepresented? Getting indignant over a … Continue reading
Robert Graves’s novel, I, Claudius: Stutterin’ to the Top of the Roman Empire, was the basis for the greatest television miniseries of all time. What are the chances it will inspire the greatest movie of all time? And what are the chances I could come up with a lamer intro to this piece? Producer Scott … Continue reading
Realistic action is good and all (that’s why we have geniuses like Michael Mann), but what’s more fun than a gun battle staged as a Vincente Minnelli musical number? This is why Hollywood dragged John Woo out of Hong Kong, and it’s also why Michael Davis is going to be working in this town for … Continue reading
I’ll say this for Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the experience of reading it isn’t nearly as repugnant as the further writing and philosophizing it inspired (I can hear Devin howling above the stripper-music din of Jumbo’s Clown Room as I type this). Bereft of its additional, objectivist baggage, it’s just a crushing bore, a masterpiece … Continue reading
For a guy who could write his ticket after last year’s critical and commercial triumph, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Sasha Baron Cohen sure took his sweet time writing it. And if you were hoping the delay in between projects meant Cohen was having second thoughts about Bruno, … Continue reading