Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Movie Minesweeper - The Movie Minesweepers Take So Long You Wouldn't Believe It Edition

- Daniel Robert Epstein has passed away. I was only recently introduced to his work (though I'd read much of it before, not linking the pieces to any given individual) and now... Very sad news.

- Brian Lynch has spilled lots of beans regarding his script for The Next Muppet Movie. Shame we'll never get to see it.

- An African-Americanised remake of The Big Chill is on the way. Will some entrepenurial sneak beat them to it with an African-Americanised remake of Return of the Secaucus Seven?

- World Trade Centre screenwriter Andrea Berloff is to write a film about the Fugees football team, a youth soccer squad made up of refugees. As part of the deal, half a million dollars were coughed up to build a football pitch for the team.

- Paris Hilton has been ditched by her acting agency. What toom them so long?

- The One is a Chinese propoganda film centred on the olympics. They've got a real battle on their hands if they want it to be the best propoganda film centred on the olympics - the competition happens to be one of the most beautiful films ever made.

- Isabelle Mergault's You Are So Handsome is headed for a US remake.

- As rumoured, Tom Vaughan has taken over the director's chair for What Happens in Vegas. Don't worry: the film was always very likely to be a clunker.

- Martin Campbell seems set to direct a US remake of 36 Quai Des Orfevres; Richard Price is to write the new script. Will this see another De Niro/Pacino coupling? Not according to The Hollywood Reporter - the detectives in this new version are to be in their 30s. Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg?

- Greg Kinnear and Maura Tierney are the latest additions to the Baby Mama cast. Two for two: result.

- Jennifer Aniston is to produce a women-in-prison film for Dreamworks and she may well star. The thing is, this is more Chicago than The Big Bird Cage - Goree Girls is to be a musical, not to mention a period film, being set in the 40s. Does Aniston have any singing and dancing skills?

- Christina Applegate has taken the female lead in The Rocker, opposite Rainn Wilson.

- The NBA presented a 3D broadcast of a recent Cavaliers game in my old stomping ground of Cleveland. The future, I tell you. I don't understand sport - at all - but I know that 3D is coming and won't be leaving.

- Jesse Bradford is to star in The Echo, which is a remake of Sigaw. I like Jesse, but I wish he got better roles.

- The new Thunderbolt Ross is William Hurt. His is the one Hulk role that always seems to draw some real talent.

- Meanwhile, the new Harry Potter is an archaeologist. Maybe.

- Hmmm. Frankenhood is about resurrecting a corpse to win a street hockey tournament. It wrapped this weekend, Charlie Murphy is in it and Lionsgate are going to release it. Guaranteed. Cult. Film.

- Tobin Bell has given his first Saw IV interview. Snooooooze. Somebody give him a very different role, please. And quickly.

- Star Trek fans are being invited to submit fan fiction to some kind of official contest. The understanding online seems to be that the winning text could be rendered canon. The theme? Kirk vs. Picard. Make an entry all about Connect 4, Downfall, Kerplunk and Twister and I'll love you forever.

- Or you might want to make a video fo
r Hall and Oates.

- Seems like The Long Kiss Goodnight 2 will be lacking any kind of Shane Black involvement. That's sacrilege in some circles.

- The LA Times have Mark Protosevich writing Thor, and Matthew Vaughan directing.

- What's more, the same article is all about J. Michael Straczynski writing a solo Silver Surfer film. I saw the Fantastic Four, by the way, and will review it later - but the news isn't good. As expected.

- You'll need a password for The LA Times but you can get one at BugMeNot.

- Some people understood the ending of The Sopranos, some people did not. Really, it isn't so complex - it was virtually spelled out for folk. There's not much room for useful debate.

- Paramount Vantage are to produce Oliver Stone's Pinkville, a story of the My Lai massacre featuring Sean Penn and Channing Tatum.

- The same article declares that Killing Pablo has gone into turnaround.

- There's a very convincingly explicit clip from Captivity online. Don't watch in polite company.

And now, my dog needs a walk. And no, that's not a euphemism.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And don't forget the biggest news of the day for us Dutchies: Carice Black Book van Houten has landed a role in Valkyrie!

Anonymous said...

So, you think the Sopranos family was shot dead? Because the entire "it goes black" discussion could just as easily apply to the audience being killed, as we're not able to see Tony's story or family from here on. And all of the "nephew to Phil" and "guys from the diner were pseudo-enemies from past episodes" has been declared bunk by everyone from Nikki Finke to Chase himself.

Brendon said...

Yeah the 'cast of characters' diner line-up is, and always was, obviously bogus. Forget that.

Any interpretation that 'the audience' were killed is suspect for all sorts of reasons (not least of which is that it is hideously pretentious and, yes, the show always was hideously pretentious but this a new, ridiculous style of pretense that it hadn't dabbled with).

That Tony was offed does bring closure - the closure that Chase insists exists in the scene/episode.

And these shots are supposed to be directly related to Tony's experience. That's the idea - all of it. The whole sequence.