You should maybe go see Wrath of the Titans, the sequel to Clash of the Titans, this weekend. Why?, you ask? It looks really dumb, you say? It’s not even clear that any Krakens will be released, you astutely point out? Listen: I have it on good authority that it is, at least, better than the awful first movie. None other than its star, heroically candid Australian-Na’vi Sam Worthington, said so!
Remember in Knocked Up, when Seth Rogen and his crew are at the club appreciating the steely charms of Eric Bana’s Israeli assassin in Munich? “Every movie with Jews, we’re the ones getting killed … Munich flipped it on its ear. We’re capping motherfuckers. If any of us get laid tonight, it’s because of Eric Bana in Munich”? Later, it’d turn out that scene had a motivating factor in Quentin Tarantino’s Nazi-hunting-saga Inglourious Basterds. According to Eli “Bear Jew” Roth, on set, “We joked about the line in Knocked Up where they go, 'Munich [is about] Jews kicking ass.' Quentin was like, 'No, no, no. This is the movie they were talking about in Knocked Up! This is Jews kicking ass.'" Well, prepare yourself, people with a vested interest in seeing Jews kicking ass on screen. Steven Spielberg wasn’t done with the Tough Jew subgenre after Munich: he’s making a Moses movie, and it’s going to be gnarly.
I’d like to thank the Academy for throwing an extra mystery at those of us who treat predicting the Oscars as something between a hobby and a blood sport: This year, we have to figure out not only which movies will be nominated, but how many. After concluding that the appropriate number of Best Picture contenders was five for 65 consecutive years, and then 10 for two consecutive years, what the Academy’s board of governors has now settled on is “from five to ten.” How can we narrow that down? Well, the Academy did offer one clue by revealing that when it experimentally retabulated the ballots from 2001 through 2008, the results yielded, in different years, five, six, seven, eight, and nine nominees — but never ten.
Tom Hanks might star in an adaptation of Erik Larson’s nonfiction book In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, which has just been optioned by Universal and Hanks’ Playtone production company. The book revolves around William Dodd, the United States’ ambassador to Berlin in 1933, his socialite daughter Martha, and the family’s transition from naiveté to “awareness of the mounting brutality around them.” When reached for comment on the project, Tom Hanks made a bug-eyed face before asking, “holy crap, did I just sign up for another World War II movie?” Grade: A- [HR]
Earlier today, Empirereleased an excerpt from an upcoming Steven Spielberg interview in which the movie legend revealed some less-than-fond feelings for 2008's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. “Of course he did,” you might be say to yourself. “That movie was terrible!” And yes, it certainly was — but Spielberg directed the film, and you’d think he’d keep quiet, especially since the movie made like a billion dollars despite its crappiness. But Skull-bashing has actually become something of a trend among the film's principal participants. So, which of the people who made Indy 4 hate it the most?
Dane Cook has landed a development deal at NBC, and will produce and star in a half-hour comedy with an eye on a fall 2012 premiere. The ever-divisive Cook’s movie career has mostly fizzled, but he’s still a huge stand-up pull, and, despite whatever personal aversion you may have, there’s no reason why Cook shouldn't be allowed to take a crack at a TV show. If this fails too, though, Dane should probably move to a small village in Southern Italy and start a new life as a kindly cobbler. Grade: D [Deadline]
Yesterday, the news about Antoine Fuqua was that he was directing a Suge Knight documentary for Showtime. Today, the news about Antoine Fuqua is that he’s in talks to direct Hunter Killer, an adaptation of George Wallace and Don Keith’s novel Firing Point, in which a Navy SEAL team has to rescue a Russian president, taken hostage during a coup, and stop a rogue general from starting international war. And with that, we bring to a thrilling conclusion the latest edition of our beloved feature, News About Antoine Fuqua. Grade: B+ [Showblitz]
Today brings news that two of the world’s three most powerful Stev(ph)ens, Spielberg and King, have joined forces with Showtime on a deal to transform King’s one-million-page book, Under the Dome, into a series. The novel more or less follows the plot of The Simpsons Movie, only with less yellow nudity, and should provide a number of seasons worth of angst, suspense and, hopefully, a heavy dose of Klassic King profanity (we’re always been partial to his use of "Whoremonger!") But what’s notable about the release is how it’s changed from when the project was initially being pitched around Hollywood: Under the Dome was originally conceived as a miniseries (or, in contemporary nonsense parlance, an “event series”). Now it’s set-up as an ongoing. What changed?
Today arrives the first full-length trailer for The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s lovingly motion-captured adaptation of a beloved Belgian comic. Our reaction? Creepy! (The reaction in Belgium? However you say “creepy” in French and/or Flemish!) For some bullheaded reason, Spielberg and Jackson have doubled-down on the Uncanny Valley-residing mo-cap technology that has transformed true believer Robert Zemeckis from an Oscar-winning auteur to a studio-killing crank. Sure, the visuals are superficially impressive, rich with classic Spielbergian action, and the cast impresses: Jamie Bell’s voice strikes the right note of boyish curiosity as Tintin, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost bumble serviceably as doltish duo Thomson and Thompson, and green-screen Hall of Famer Andy Serkis supplies a nicely sozzled Captain Haddock. But, mijn god, the look of this thing!
Quiet down, everyone! Professor Spielberg wants us to get serious. War Horsebegan life as a children’s book and was then transformed into a highly successful play that drew raves more for its brilliant puppetry than its compelling drama. And now Steven Spielberg has put on his “mature” beard and adapted it for the screen with all traces of children’s entertainment and, sadly, puppetry, removed. It’s not hard to see why the material drew the master’s eye as it’s pure box-office — and Oscar — bait: the classic story of a boy who loves a horse (but not, you know, in that way, loses horse to World War I, and then embarks on an epic quest to reunite with said horse.
This week brings the release of Super 8, director J.J. Abrams’ bighearted tribute to the sort of wide-eyed, family-friendly alien adventure movies Steven Spielberg used to make before he discovered less interesting things such as American history, Oscars, and Tom Hanks. The compelling wrinkle? Spielberg himself is the film’s executive producer and, in Abrams’ words, its "key voice." Imitation, flattery, and outright theft have a long, distinguished, and shameless history in Hollywood — but this strikes us as something different. Rather than merely aping his idol, Abrams is, essentially, making a Spielberg film for Spielberg.
And this got us thinking: What other faded masters could use the vibrant influence of their own artistic descendants — and what current up-and-comers could really use the firm, if graying, hand of an old master? Thus we propose the Director Mentorship Academy, in which younger directors enroll to make a better version of someone else’s movie — with the help of that very someone else. Below are some suggestions for the inaugural class.
