Movie Minesweeper - The Lucky Boy Edition

Remember how I was talking about Neil Gaiman's Death film last week? And I wished for a copy of the script? Well, I got my wish. I've just finished reading it. And while it percolates a little, I'm going to share another Movie Minesweeper links list with you, and then I'll write a review. For me at least, it's all very exciting.

Here are your links.

- Mark Millar has seen the Steve Ditko documentary produced, written and presented by Jonathan Ross. He's called it his favourite documentary ever.

- Howard Stern only last week turned down a brief voice role in the Transformers movie. Quite a fun casting idea, actually - think for a second and you'll know just which robot they wanted him for. His agent's advice on why he shouldn't take the role was seriously flawed. And now we'll probably be left with Opie. Or Anthony.

- Several signed Hostel 2 posters are being auctioned off for charity. I found the link at DreadCentral.

- Michael Bacall has been hired to write the fiction version of Seth Gordon's King of Kong. He's also writing the Scott Pilgrim script for Edgar Wright - or at least he was. Must like his retrogaming, that boy.

- Russell Crowe is to produce - but not appear - in Dolce's Inferno, a fairly standard seeming romantic comedy. According to Variety, "The contemporary romantic comedy concerns a hardnosed L.A. gossip columnist who falls in love and watches his world spin out of control".

- Daniel Craig dropped out of Blindness, now Mark Rufallo is stepping in.

- Variety have quoted Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith at the BAM screening of Son of Rambow. Jennings: All the technical, clever stuff, that is actually from the clever people I asked to do it. I have no idea how it works; Goldsmith: There's 1,400 people here tonight. Can you imagine if we got a bad response? Of course, they did not get a bad response. Son of Rambow is a great, great film - certainly the best I've seen so far this year.

- Eli Roth has a very, very, very big penis. But it's fake.

- The NY Times are weighing up the chances of four potential Sammy Davis Jr. biopics.

- Patrick Stewart is talking up his collaboration with John Logan on a modern-day Merchant of Venice.

- Nikki Finke (unknowingly?) pays tribute to Ray Dennis Steckler in a headline.

- A completely CG trailer for Kit Kittredge: An American Girl Mystery is already online. Download it now.

- A list of films and TV shows set to be hyped at Comic-Con this year has been unveiled. Beowulf, Hellboy 2, Stardust, Sweeney Todd, American Gangster, Where the Wild Things Are, Trick'r Treat and The Strangers are the film ick faves on show.

- Another behind the scene clip from The Golden Compass has shown up.

- Brian Helgeland is doing a rewrite of Nottingham.

- David Poland was appalled by Hostel 2 too.

- Working Title have optioned the documentary Young@Heart with the intent to turn it into a feature film. Basically, it's about a rock group composed of pensioners, something a bit like The Zimmers.

- The trailer for Triangle is online now. I found the link at Twitch.

Now, just a couple of more detailed posts and onto Death. So to speak.

Triangle Poster

From the Dreamachine site. Click to make bigger.

Bermuda Triangle, It Makes People Disappear

Chris Smith, writer-director of Severance and Creep, has been speaking to ShockTillYouDrop, and he's let on just what his next film will be. Called Triangle, like the 'much loved' Kate O'Mara soap opera from the very early 80s, this one will be a "a psychological horror film set on an ocean liner. Weirdly, it's a movie that will play in time loops, like a character getting stuck in a glitch. That's what the Bermuda Triangle is and this character has to combat her way back. It's a slick idea that I will get bang-on right".

Confident, isn't he? Good.

So, I'm assuming these glitch-stuck boats go somewhere to get snagged in time. If they're just in the triangle when it happens, they certainly wouldn't disappear from radars. In fact, I'm very keen to see if any sort of sense can be milked from this premise at all.

I'm thinking it sounds a bit like Groundhog Day going creepy on a boat, crossed with those bits about black cats from The Matrix..?

Smith himself has written for soaps, having previously hidden plenty of movie references and allusions in his scripts for Eastenders. I'm still hoping he'll start weaving Eastenders references into his films, maybe a cameo for Lofty or Well 'ard.

Dreamachine

Hanway Films - financiers of the best film of 2006, Terry Gilliam's Tideland - and Celluloid Dreams - financiers of the best film of 2007 so far, Garth Jennings' Son of Rambow - have merged.

Variety announce that the new company will be called Dreamachine and have a library of 500 films. It will be run by Hengameh Panahi and Jeremy Thomas. Thomas will continue to produce films independently through The Recorded Picture Company, but these will then be handle by Dreamachine.

Upcoming films from the new super sales entity include Tom Kalin's Savage Grace, Ringo Lam, Tsui Hark and Johnnie To's Triangle, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis and Todd Haynes' I'm Not There. Hopefully there'll be even more of this calibre to come now they've pooled dollars.

Looks like Cannes this year is going to be dominated by this wonderful new beast.

Triangle

Variety have more details on Triangle, the film directed by Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To - one at a time, one after the other, for 30 minutes apiece.

The film will wrap by next week and be submitted for Cannes. I can see it being selected quite easily.

The plot apparently revolves around "three desperate friends who are given an opportunity to find buried treasure by a mysterious stranger." Simon Yam, Louis Koo, Kelly Lin and Sun Honglei are the announced cast.

I'm sure I'll like at least half an hour of it but this might end up the most abruptly shifting structure we'll see in the cinema in a long time.