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| Monday, September 12, 2005 06:11 PM |
| Soul Shells |
 by Fëanor |
Poppy and I are back from a weekend trip to Ithaca! It's a beautiful place, full of waterfalls and gorges, and I'll soon have the pictures posted to prove it. But first, I've got some bullet points to catch up on:
- Funness, via Vis_Major:
| Your Superhero Profile |  Your Superhero Name is The Magna Detective
Your Superpower is Flying
Your Weakness is French People
Your Weapon is Your Plasma Thorns
Your Mode of Transportation is Kayak |
- Leonardo DiCaprio as Teddy Roosevelt doesn't sound like a great idea to me, but then again, Scorsese is directing. I thought Scorsese's Gangs of New York and The Aviator, both also starring DiCaprio, looked terrible, too, until I saw them and discovered they were excellent films. So he'll probably make this work somehow, too.
- I like Tommy Lee Jones, but The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada would sound really interesting to me anyway even if it weren't also his directorial debut. After all, folks are apparently describing it as "the best Sam Peckinpah movie since the late maverick himself ventured south of the border." Luckily, it's just gotten a distribution deal, so we'll see it on the big screen one of these days.
- For some reason, the writers at Cinematical seem to think it's a bad thing that a game studio has just bought the rights to make video games based on the classic Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone Westerns The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, A Fistful of Dollars, and For a Few Dollars More (which, incidentally, they list the incorrect title for--sigh). I think they're crazy. Yes, the studio plans on discarding the original stories and making their own that are just inspired by the films. But they're also planning on using Ennio Morricone's amazing music. Sounds fantastic to me. And I think there will be a market for these games, despite what Cinematical says. Even if there isn't much of an overlap between the gaming fans circle and the Leone fans circle on a theoretical Venn diagram, I still think there are plenty of gaming fans who wouldn't turn down a shooting game set in the Old West, even if they don't recognize the specific source material.
- Disappointing news--Guy Ritchie's latest film, Revolver (despite the amazing trailer), is getting terrible reviews. I'm hoping they're all wrong. But when a bunch of critics get together and agree like that, they've usually got something...
- Chan-wook Park, the talented Korean director responsible for Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, is planning on making I Am a Cyborg his next project, and then following up that with a vampire movie. Could I be more excited? Well, possibly, but it would be hard. Although I'm still on the fence about Oldboy, Sympathy was fantastic, and the guy is undeniably talented. And anyway, I can never turn down movies about cyborgs (even if they are just imaginary) and vampires.
- Ever since I first posted about Snakes on a Plane, I've felt like I have to follow up with any breaking news I find on this movie. So here, for your edification, are some unsurprisingly ridiculous-looking still shots from the film. I can't remember where I came across this link now, but it was probably The Movie Blog or Cinematical.
- Here's an interesting article (again, I can't remember where I found this, though it was almost certainly Cinematical) about Hong Kong talent coming to America, and then getting discouraged, bored, and/or annoyed and going back. I know what they're talking about. I've said since he first started making movies in America that Jet Li has been wasted in practically every project he's appeared in. I think the guy has a lot of potential, both as an action star, and as an actor (seriously, the guy is good), and I'd love to see him break out and make a truly great film. If that means he has to go back to Hong Kong, then so be it.
I'd love to see Jackie Chan in a great film, too. For a while there I was checking out every one of his movies I coudl find, but now I'm kind of tired of his goofy antics.
- Apparently, the trend of movies becoming musicals is going to continue unto pure insanity. We're talking musical versions of Blade Runner, The Color Purple, Batman, and even Weekend at Bernie's. I'm going to try not to pre-judge these ideas, but...um, you people are crazy.
- I'm linking to Cinematical's run-down of the latest Variety this time because of the third bullet point down--apparently, the guy who made Gone in 60 Seconds (one of poppy's favorite movies, btw) is helming a film called Season of the Witch, which is about 14th century French knights and monks combating a witch. I am not much of a fan of 60 Seconds, but...this sounds cool.
- I love Steven Soderbergh, I loved poor Spalding Gray, and I love their collaboration, Gray's Anatomy, so a film by Soderbergh about Gray would be fantastic. I'm looking forward to this one, definitely.
- I hope they do make more Jack Aubrey films, and I hope Crowe comes back. Master and Commander is fantastic.
- UPDATE: Btw, I know this won't interest most of you, but a sample of my writing has appeared on Phillyist again, this time in an article about what kind of season the Eagles will have this year. Their first regular season game is tonight; I'll probably tape it and watch it later.
Which reminds me, I also need to tape "Battlestar Galactica" tonight, as I once again completely forgot it was on last Friday. I don't know what's going to happen when "Lost" comes back on (did it already?), considering I can't even keep track of one TV show at a time...
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