Flush with the success of the Kill Bills, Quentin Tarantino now threatens to make The Vega Brothers (being John Travolta of Pulp Fiction and Michael Madsen of Reservoir Dogs.) Hmm. I was hoping his next project would be something a little more focused and less derivative of his previous work, after all the cool-guy posturing that afflicted Kill Bill.
Author: KcM
Purple Village People Eaters.
Evil unseen alien forces threatening rustic Americana…let’s hope they can handle water this time. Yep, it’s the trailer for the new M. Night Shyamalan movie. With Sigourney Weaver, Adrien Brody, Brendan Gleeson, and a strange period vibe to it, I’d normally be quite enthused about The Village. But Signs was so lousy and self-absorbed that the bloom is off the Shyamalan rose, and this looks to me like more of the same. Plus, William Hurt has been phoning it in now for at least a decade, and he usually means the kiss of death for a film these days.
Artful Dodging.
Hey, even thespians have to pay the bills. Kenneth Branagh is apparently joining Mission Impossible 3 (presumably as a villain), with Tom Cruise and Carrie-Anne Moss. Meanwhile, over at a more interesting project. Ben Kingsley takes on Fagin in Roman Polanski’s upcoming version of Oliver Twist. Update: Scarlett Johansson also climbs aboard MI:3.
Iraq-Contra?
“Woodward reports that in July 2002 Bush ordered the use of $700 million to prepare for the invasion of Iraq, funds that had not been specifically appropriated by the Congress, which alone holds that constitutional authority. No adequate explanation has been offered for what, strictly speaking, might well be an impeachable offense.” Sidney Blumenthal sees the behavior underlying Reagan’s Iran-Contra fiasco revived, while law professor Cass Sunstein delves deeper into the illegality and unconstitutionality of Dubya’s likely misappropriation of funds.
Terminal B.
A few days after the TV Spot landed, a longer trailer for Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal takes off over at the official site. I think Spielberg’s been on a bit of a roll lately, at least visually, but I fear this might be a product of his schmaltzier instincts. Ah well, we’ll see.
Rabbit Redux.
Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, the heartwarming tale of a boy and his demon bunny-friend from the future, will be re-released this summer with a new sound mix and 21 minutes of extra footage. (I assume most of this footage is the deleted scenes on the DVD.) Yeah, I’d go see it in the theater.
Requiem for Rorschach.
Darren Aronofsky on The Watchmen?! Ooh, that’s a great directing pick. One would think Aronofsky would give Alan Moore’s magnum opus a much more faithful treatment than Hollywood delivered with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or even From Hell. But, given Aronofsky’s track record on Ronin, Batman: Year One, and The Fountain, I’m not going to start holding my breath quite yet.
Barton Fitzgerald.
“In the summer of 1937, broke, in debt and trying desperately to dry out, F. Scott Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he joined the legions of jerks with Underwoods…” The University of South Carolina acquire the papers of Fitzgerald’s late Hollywood years, which disclose that the author of Gatsby actually struggled to make the Great American Movie, to no avail.
A “Lawless Enclave.”
Despite Justice Scalia carrying water for Ted Olson and the Bush team as per usual, it seems that a majority of the Supreme Court may not be amused by Dubya’s defense of the Gitmo gulag.
Revisionist History.
Once again, it seems, the Bush administration is falsifying records to cover up their shadiness. This time, the Pentagon deleted key remarks made by Rumsfeld to Bob Woodward on the certainty of the Iraq war. (Regarding an invasion of Iraq, Rummy told the Saudis in Jan. 2003, two months before operations commenced, that they could “take that to the bank.”) Given the other times the Bushies have been caught doing this, their withholding of Reagan and Bush Sr. papers, and the general moral turpitude of this administration, one has to wonder how snarled up the historical record is at this point.