My impetus for doing that "Big Picture" episode about Wonder Woman was the then-recent "WTF?" news about wacky-lawyer afficionado David E. Kelley pitching a TV show "reimagining" of her; and I wound up having the benefit (in terms of newsworthiness) of the piece actually airing right in the midst of said pitch apparently being turned down by... well, everyone. Myself, I took that as a lucky break - partly for the bit of extra attention (re: google results) it probably garnered my show but MOSTLY because it sounded like we'd dodged the bullet of what smelled like a pretty bad idea.
Well, not so fast.
Sez Deadline, NBC is picking up the project - seemingly based on the positive reception of Kelley's new Kathy Bates vehicle, "Harry's Law." This will come as great news for fans who've been wondering where their fix of awful television tangentially based on DC Comics properties was going to come from once "Smallville" ends.
Y'know... these days, reporting on the development of "geek properties" into movies produces no feeling so strongly as temporal-whiplash: One moment it's like your living in some kind of movie-nerd wish-dream utopia where Rot Lop Fan is turning up in a "Green Lantern" movie or there's a five-film inter-continuity buildup for a live-action "Avengers" epic... and then the next moment your zapped into some kind of living-parody of the worst excesses of "Catwoman"-level bastardizations where you hear stuff like this:
"The project is described as a reinvention of the iconic D.C. comic in which Wonder Woman -- aka Diana Prince -- is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life."
So... Kelley wanted to do a version of his well-worn basic schtick but with a currently-trendy superhero twist ("Ally McBatman," essentially) and seized on the most "everybody knows" female hero for a name, is the impression I'm getting from this. That, or he's doing the best meta-parody of adaptations that rip everything remotely unique or interesting out of their source-material. Delightful.
Likely trajectory: Makes it to the air, widely-panned, brief period of grasping-at-straws by fandom at minor slices of DC-fanservice shoved into later episodes, canceled after one season if that (like "Smallville" would've been were it airing on a real network,) DVD boxset for the discount bin, eternal life as a punchline for fans and comic-writers, go-to "better than" barometer for whoever finally bites the bullet and makes a proper movie out of the character.
Saturday, 22 January 2011
Friday, 21 January 2011
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
Batman Villians Cast
OBLIGATORY BATMAN DISCLAIMER: I am aware of the Internet Law declaring that Christopher Nolan can do no wrong in any way, ever. I am aware that "Dark Knight Rises" is thus awesome until proven guilty, so there's no reason to get in a huff and bury me in infuriated rebukes if I happen to say anything that sounds like even the slightest hesitation at jumping into the circle-jerk. Thank you ;)
As most of you are certainly already aware, Warner Bros. has announced the identities and casting of the villians (or maybe not in at least one case?) in the next Batman movie. Anne Hathaway is CATWOMAN, while Tom Hardy is... BANE.
Okay. Those are both pretty suprising.
Catwoman less so, since she's really the only enemy other than Joker that's always on the must-do list; but I'm rather impressed that they were willing to risk reminding everyone of Halle Berry's career-suicide only a few years ago.
Seeing how she's realized will be FASCINATING, for two reasons: Firstly, "hot chick who dresses like a cat... because" is bit over the edge from Nolan's thus-far insistent hyper-realistic grounding for these things; so you have to wonder how they plan to make it "work" without just ripping the bandaid off the whole "it's Gotham City, it's the DC Universe, when you start a criminal career here you get a nickname and a costume" bit. In Frank Miller's "Year One," which they've been using as a reference for the series, she got an updated origin as - what else? - a prostitute (because... well, because Frank Miller, pretty much) and some subsequent interpretations have had the "costume" be repurposed S&M gear, neither of which you'd expect WB to let slide in a PG13 tentpole. I think a lot the audience will "forgive" minor logic-leaps if the trade-off is Anne Hathaway in a rubber/leather/whatever catsuit... but I doubt Nolan would, for good or ill. I actually would not be the least bit surprised to learn that the character will just be Selena Kyle: Attractive Burglar - no costume, no nickname, maybe she has a pet cat so everybody gets the reference.
But even setting aside "fanboy" concerns... film fans who've kept an eye on Nolan's career HAVE to wonder how he approaches a character like this. Catwoman, traditionall, is "about" only two things: Sexuality and femininity - neither of which he's ever shown much (cinematic) interest in. In fact, it's been persuasively argued that one of the BIG recurring themes in his films is the idea of no-nonsense masculine professionalism being "undone" (if not wholly corrupted) by an unwelcome feminine influence - hell, that's actually a good PLOT SUMMARY of, say, "Inception." So what does "Catwoman" look/act like, and what function does she serve, in the vision of the most sexless major filmmaker working today? Color me intrigued.
And then there's "Bane." I... egh. This is the part where the "trust in Nolan" thing is REALLY taxing. Bane sucks. Bane is basically useless. Basically a super-smart bruiser in a mask who turns into a Latin-American Incredible Hulk with super-steroids, he's the Batman equivalent of Venom - a deeply uninteresting character mainly popular in the 90s whose perplexing shelf-life is solely based on participating in a memorable story-arc. Unlike Venom, Bane's story - which involves Batman getting crippled and replaced by a reformed religious-nut baddie who regresses and becomes an armored "evil" Batman - is probably not going to be told in the movie. There's potential in the idea... but if not for the "Nolan pass" this would NOT be very encouraging news.
What I'm interested in is how they plan to even "do" this guy: Again, the thus-far strict no-fantasy/no-scifi/real-world theme of these films doesn't really seem to have room for a guy who turns into an invincible muscle-freak by juicing himself with chemicals... so what is he?
Of secondary but interesting concern: Will it be an "issue" that they've cast a white British actor to play a character who's typically supposed to be of Latin or at least South-American descent? I mean, this is just as much of an "OUTRAGE" as Idris Elba in Thor, yes? No?
As most of you are certainly already aware, Warner Bros. has announced the identities and casting of the villians (or maybe not in at least one case?) in the next Batman movie. Anne Hathaway is CATWOMAN, while Tom Hardy is... BANE.
Okay. Those are both pretty suprising.
Catwoman less so, since she's really the only enemy other than Joker that's always on the must-do list; but I'm rather impressed that they were willing to risk reminding everyone of Halle Berry's career-suicide only a few years ago.
Seeing how she's realized will be FASCINATING, for two reasons: Firstly, "hot chick who dresses like a cat... because" is bit over the edge from Nolan's thus-far insistent hyper-realistic grounding for these things; so you have to wonder how they plan to make it "work" without just ripping the bandaid off the whole "it's Gotham City, it's the DC Universe, when you start a criminal career here you get a nickname and a costume" bit. In Frank Miller's "Year One," which they've been using as a reference for the series, she got an updated origin as - what else? - a prostitute (because... well, because Frank Miller, pretty much) and some subsequent interpretations have had the "costume" be repurposed S&M gear, neither of which you'd expect WB to let slide in a PG13 tentpole. I think a lot the audience will "forgive" minor logic-leaps if the trade-off is Anne Hathaway in a rubber/leather/whatever catsuit... but I doubt Nolan would, for good or ill. I actually would not be the least bit surprised to learn that the character will just be Selena Kyle: Attractive Burglar - no costume, no nickname, maybe she has a pet cat so everybody gets the reference.
But even setting aside "fanboy" concerns... film fans who've kept an eye on Nolan's career HAVE to wonder how he approaches a character like this. Catwoman, traditionall, is "about" only two things: Sexuality and femininity - neither of which he's ever shown much (cinematic) interest in. In fact, it's been persuasively argued that one of the BIG recurring themes in his films is the idea of no-nonsense masculine professionalism being "undone" (if not wholly corrupted) by an unwelcome feminine influence - hell, that's actually a good PLOT SUMMARY of, say, "Inception." So what does "Catwoman" look/act like, and what function does she serve, in the vision of the most sexless major filmmaker working today? Color me intrigued.
And then there's "Bane." I... egh. This is the part where the "trust in Nolan" thing is REALLY taxing. Bane sucks. Bane is basically useless. Basically a super-smart bruiser in a mask who turns into a Latin-American Incredible Hulk with super-steroids, he's the Batman equivalent of Venom - a deeply uninteresting character mainly popular in the 90s whose perplexing shelf-life is solely based on participating in a memorable story-arc. Unlike Venom, Bane's story - which involves Batman getting crippled and replaced by a reformed religious-nut baddie who regresses and becomes an armored "evil" Batman - is probably not going to be told in the movie. There's potential in the idea... but if not for the "Nolan pass" this would NOT be very encouraging news.
What I'm interested in is how they plan to even "do" this guy: Again, the thus-far strict no-fantasy/no-scifi/real-world theme of these films doesn't really seem to have room for a guy who turns into an invincible muscle-freak by juicing himself with chemicals... so what is he?
Of secondary but interesting concern: Will it be an "issue" that they've cast a white British actor to play a character who's typically supposed to be of Latin or at least South-American descent? I mean, this is just as much of an "OUTRAGE" as Idris Elba in Thor, yes? No?
83rd Academy Awards Foreign Language Film Shortlist
If you follow me in Twitter you already know that I think that this list is crazy!! Take a look as these are the nine (9) films out of the 66 qualified films that advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category.Algeria, “Hors la Loi” (“Outside the Law”), Rachid Bouchareb, director;
Canada, “Incendies,” Denis Villeneuve, director;
Denmark, “In a Better World,” Susanne Bier, director;
Greece, “Dogtooth,” Yorgos Lanthimos, director;
Japan, “Confessions,” Tetsuya Nakashima, director;
Mexico, “Biutiful,” Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, director;
South Africa, “Life, above All,” Oliver Schmitz, director;
Spain, “Tambien la Lluvia” (“Even the Rain”), Iciar Bollain, director;
Sweden, “Simple Simon,” Andreas Ohman, director.
The list is crazy as there were so many EXCELLENT films that are gone that I can’t simply believe it. I have the problem that I haven’t seen eight films and the only one I have seen couldn’t watch it! LOL! Besides film is too similar to one by Mexican director Arturo Ripstein, whom I don’t particularly like too.
But from buzz I know than Denmark has to be nominated as well as Canada (both ‘dying’ to see them); I like very much films by Rachid Bouchareb, so don’t mind him being nominated plus is a Cannes film; know that Japanese non-commercial cinema is great and I’m really curious about the Swedish film. But I’m also dying to see Biutiful and IF gets a nomination, then probably Javier Bardem could be nominated again, this time in the Best Actor category, interesting as it happened at the BAFTA’s.
Won’t list the many great films that are not in this short list, but well Academy members always gives us BIG not pleasant surprises in this category.
To read announcement at official site go here.
1st French Online Film Festival - News
Hope that none of you had problems loading or watching films at the festival; I still have one short that doesn’t load to be over with shorts and been watching feature films slowly as probably due to slow servers films do not load smoothly, so I’m waiting for them to fix the bugs so watching films will be more pleasurable.Most problems come from the success the festival has been having as of last night and after five days, preliminary statistics are truly impressive, take a look.
110,000 visits to the site
520,000 pages views (which means that as an average, each visit generated 5 page views)
159 different countries
Country Visits Ranking
Brazil: 16,000
Russia: 15,000
France: 11,000
Mexico: 9,300
USA: 7,500
UK: 5,000
UAE: 4,600
Germany: 4,300
Italy: 4,000
Japan: 4,000
Tech problems are common when you do things for the first time but organizers are continuously working to solve them, so is totally understandable that fest first week had some bugs.
Hope you’re enjoying as much as I am the festival and expect reviews of feature and short films as soon as fest is over.
If you haven’t check the festival site, what are you waiting for? Please go here.
Enjoy!!!
The King’s Speech
Extremely well-crafted film by Tom Hooper that will satisfy you beyond any expectations you might have after the so-much buzz that has generated in this award season. As story is character driven extraordinary performances are a must and you have no idea how great performances are not only by Colin Firth but also by Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter and I should include performances by supporting cast like Derek Jacobi and Jennifer Ehle among others.As probably we all know film tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. In my opinion film took some creative licenses to make film very entertaining, so much than after characters were introduced and story starts to develop film becomes mesmerizing; you can take away your eyes from the screen as you don’t want to miss a second from what’s happening. Very well-done movie with an excellent script from David Seidler, who had to wait 30 years to be able to write script as the Queen Mother gave her authorization to do it only after her death, according to what I read.
So film tells the story of the Duke of York who reluctantly assumes the throne; everyone –except his father- thinks that he’s unfit to be king due to his stammer that makes him unable to speak fluidly; as radio was recently commercially released, kings were not anymore only required to do public speaking but also do radio broadcasts, especially the Christmas speech instituted by his father. So after many failed attempts to help him speak without stuttering, he finally ends in the office of Lionel Logue, the man that will help him to speak more fluidly and deliver the radio speeches, especially the much important ones during WWII. It’s a compelling, uplifting and remarkable story that is hard to understand the reason why King George VI “disappeared” from history (against well-know figures of the same era) as well as why with or without proper authorization this story was not told before.
As a film is spectacular with the highest production values and great costumes plus care to details to successfully recreate those not-so-long-ago days; special mention to director Tom Hooper that is very hard to believe that this movie is only his big screen second feature film, as he has work mainly on TV
This is a film that I consider suited for general audiences who enjoy very satisfying movies that will entertain with a great-to-watch story, excellent production values and unforgettable performances.
There are many films that I watch only once, but I know that I will revisit film many times as I really liked story and magnificent performance by Colin Firth that now I know more than ever deserves the highest honor at Oscar, even when I still believe that last year the Oscar belonged to him too.
Big Enjoy!!!
Watch Trailer @MOC
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