Three new Episode III TV spots aimed at kids show up online. If you find yourself with high hopes for this final installment, these should help recalibrate your expectations to accord with the other two prequels.
Category: Cinema
I’m Super, Thanks for Asking.
While Superman director Bryan Singer flies to the aid of Peter Jackson, son of Krypton Brandon Routh emerges as Clark Kent in the streets of “Metropolis,” as does Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane.
Rock of Ages.
The new trailer for Ridley Scott’s Crusader-pic Kingdom of Heaven is now online, and while it looks nice enough, I have to concur with the AICN guys: It’s hard to take the movie seriously with the goofy college-metal in the background.
Being Stanley Kubrick.
Also in today’s trailer bin, a french site premieres the trailer for Color Me Kubrick, with John Malkovich in the true story of a directorial impostor.
Strangelove.
New Line and LotR producer Mark Ordesky hire scribe Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons, The Quiet American) to pen the screenplay for Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. How this fellow, barely a novitiate in the Magickal Arts, (or for that matter anyone but the esteemed and learned Mr. Norrell) could do this remarkable tome justice is quite beyond me.
Slap-Stick(s).
Moviefone obtains a full scene from Hitchhiker’s (and one not in the book), namely Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, and Marvin trying to cross a field of those slap-happy doodads from the first trailer. A bit goofy on its own, but if the rest of the movie has succeeded into lulling you into Douglas Adams‘ trademark sense of humor by this point, I could see this being pretty funny.
The Passion of the Karol.
Pulling his Captain-Walker-for-the-fundies schtick again, Mel Gibson is apparently now planning a Pope John Paul II biopic. Hoo boy.
Pardon me for breathing.
Attention, People of Earth: Touchstone releases eight character-specific and guide-themed posters for Hitchhiker’s. Also, some of y’all might have seen this extremely negative first review of the film over at Metafilter. Well, I’d take it with a grain of salt. Not only does this guy seem Marvin-like in the extreme, he has a nasty purist streak that rivals those of the most-impossible-to-satisfy Tolkien fans. At least in this corner, the jury’s still out.
Stella!
Last night, my sister and I went to go see the most recent revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, with Natasha Richardson as Blanche and John C. Reilly as Stanley. And, while I don’t claim to be an expert by any means — At the risk of looking like a rube, I’ll admit I went in with only vague impressions of the Brando-Leigh version, which I found had been interpolated, embarrassingly enough, with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof — I quite enjoyed it.
At turns willowy and brittle, Richardson’s Blanche DuBois has, as Michael Stipe once put it, that “knowing with a wink that we expect from Southern women.” A pampered schemer whose delicate flower act obscures the grim realizations borne of an all-too-tragic life, Blanche is a fading memory of the Old South — She seems lost without a mint julep in hand and completely out-of-place in rough-and-tumble post-war New Orleans. I expect Richardson’s take on the role is probably slightly less sympathetic than in some other versions — no one deserves Blanche’s horrible fate; nevertheless, Richardson’s DuBois, so insufferable at times in the early going, does an exemplary job in Act 1 of proving Benjamin Franklin’s adage that “fish and visitors stink after three days.”
For his part, John C. Reilly is also memorable as the vindictive, animalistic Stanley (although nobody would argue, except perhaps Stanley himself, that this iteration of Kowalski has any of Brando’s physical magnetism.) Reilly’s Stanley is a hard-living working-class schlub who becomes increasingly more dangerous as the “Every Man a King” prerogatives he expects of domestic life are affronted by Blanche’s continued presence. Most of the time, he sits coiled like a snake, bottle in hand…but, when the moment strikes, Reilly lashes out with a feral fury that’s all the more frightening for being unexpected (he’s definitely not the type of guy you want in your poker game.) And, when Stanley finally gains the upper hand on his unwanted houseguest, his predatory instincts take hold in brutal and remorseless fashion.
At any rate, a good show. I can’t compare it to earlier iterations of Tennessee Williams’ play, but I can say that Richardson, Reilly, and the rest of the cast at the very least do Streetcar justice.
Mean Machine.
Word is ex-footballer Vinnie Jones, also of Lock Stock and Snatch, may suit up as one of the X3 villains, namely Juggernaut. That’s a right good fit, innit?