As a director, Ben Affleck is following up his critical success on “Gone Baby Gone” with another crime thriller adaptation set in Boston., Based on Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan, “The Town” appears to be one of those cops-and-robbers tales where the both sides get equal time and a woman is in between them. This time, Affleck is the main robber, Don Draper Jon Hamm is the cop (G-man, actually), and Rebecca Hall (“Vicky Christina Barcelona,” “Please Give“) is the woman who is, naturally, caught between them. Jeremy Renner and Blake Lively are also about.
My thoughts — this appears to have a good cast, but I wonder if director Affleck should have had second thoughts about casting himself and not his, say, his brother or, really, anyone else. True, in my view he’s gotten perhaps a little too much crap for his acting over the years. He’s been very good in a number of supporting roles. He also has been pretty darn weak in some crucial leading roles. We’ll see. Also, I didn’t love Affleck’s earlier cops-and-criminals drama quite as much as most critics, so we’ll see about this one.
Well, at least I hope can get this done nice and quick because I’m really looking forward to making a Manhattan very soon. Forgive me if I miss something huge.
* As per Nikki Finke, the early box office returns for “Inception” are looking good.
* Though I was a big fan of “The West Wing” while he worked on it, my one complaint with Aaron Sorkin’s abandoned TV classic was that it was a bit rosy in how it viewed politics and politicians. Currently flying high as the screenwriter of the upcoming docudramas, “The Social Network” and “Moneyball,” he was almost the Gene Roddenberry of political drama in imagining a relatively ideal world that could be, but probably never would be. I don’t think excess positivity is going to be an issue in his movie directorial debut, as he’ll be covering the John Edwards mega-debacle. To think I contemplated voting for/volunteering for the egocentric jerkwad who, had he succeeded, would have sunk a party and a nation on the altar of his ego.
* Things have been hopping over at our sister site, Bullz-Eye.com. Earlier in the week Will Harris, with a little assistance from one or two other people who will remain nameless, took a look at 25 cinematic swan songs from film acting greats. Very cool (except for seven of them, which I’m unable to judge). Also, today, Will had a chat with his friend and rising young star, Dileep Rao, currently being seen in “Inception.”
* There may be no justice in the world, but Roman Polanski’s next movie is already being prepped, and it sounds good. It’s the film version of the London/Broadway hit play “God of Carnage.” Being as it’s a dark comedy/drama, it sounds right up Polanski’s alley. Also, Polanski’s 1994 film version of Ariel Dorfman’s “Death and the Maiden” was one of the most seamless stage-to-film translations I’ve ever seen.
* My high school history teacher, who was also a saxophone playing jazz fan on the side, always used to say that of all the rock music figures, the one he was sure wouldn’t last beyond another couple of decades in terms of popularity was Janis Joplin. Her super-gritty style was just too of the late sixties moment, he theorized. Indeed, she seems to be one of the less popular of the rock superstars of that era today. Well, director Fernando Meirelles of “City of God” and Amy Adams — a top-flight actress who is way cute to be playing the weather-worn Joplin — will be hoping to disprove that theory with a new biopic.
* I like the sound of this: Stanley Tucci, who obviously gets along very well with Meryl Streep, will direct her and Tina Fey in a mother daughter comedy. * The Playlist apparently wants to make me happy. First, they report that the long-awaited DVD of the pre-prepared exploitation double-bill, “Grindhouse,” as it was originally presented in theaters is coming this October. Second, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is apparently planning to appear in some kind of a musical. Interesting.
I’m just annoyed that I missed his rendition of the Donald O’Connor “Make ‘Em Laugh” number from “Singin’ in the Rain” on SNL last year and it’s gone from Hulu for some reason. Moment of rank and utterly baseless speculation here: Could a team-up with fellow three-namer Neil Patrick Harris be in the cards? “Dr. Horrible and Dr. Horribler” perhaps? Forget I said that.
You’d think that having three of the most bankable movie stars in Asia (one of which is also a pretty big name in the U.S.) would be enough to get any film imported overseas, but it’s taken nearly three years for Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s “The Warlords” to arrive stateside, and quite frankly, it’s easy to see why. Set towards the end of the Qing Dynasty, the movie stars Jet Li as Pang Qingyu, a military general who barely survives a massacre of his fellow soldiers by playing dead. After he’s nursed back to health by a beautiful villager (Jinglei Xu), Pang convinces a group of bandits led by Er Hu (Andy Lau) and Wu Yang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) to join the royal army and fight against the Taiping Rebellion with the promise of freedom and wealth. But when a web of political deceit threatens to break up the trio’s blood oath, they must decide what’s more important: their loyalty to one another or their lives.
If only the film was a little more engaging. While Ho-Sun Chan’s gritty action sequences are beautifully captured, he has no idea how to handle his characters outside of battle. They’re barely developed over the course of the movie, and though we do get a glimpse of how the emotional exhaustion from fighting for so long begins to affect their relationship, it’s steeped in so much melodrama that it saps the life out of the story. The three leads do a good job with what little they’re given to work with, but they don’t click the way that blood brothers probably should. Then again, you’re never really given a good reason why they’ve taken this oath to begin with, so it’s not too surprising when they fail to protect one another as promised. Heck, they don’t even seem like to like each other, and when that relationship is the heart of your film, it’s pretty much doomed to fail.
I’m getting a very, very late start tonight/this morning so let’s see how efficient and brief I can be. Also, we’ll see how many utterly huge stories I’ll miss.
* I suppose the big news today is that it really appears as if there’s already an Edward Norton replacement after his departure as the Hulk from “The Avengers” was egregiously mishandled by Marvel’s Kevin Feige. The choice appears to not be Joaquin Phoenix but the first-rate, not nearly famous enough Mark Ruffalo. He is the deceptively low-key actor I’ve been rooting for since catching him in “You Can Count On Me” back in 2000. (It was my favorite movie of that year and also made me a life-long fan of Laura Linney.) Ruffalo is currently in the year’s probable indie-smash, “The Kids Are Alright.” As sussed out from various reports by Kevin Jagernauth of the Playlist, it appears he’s still in some pretty serious negotiations that are not yet really anything like a done deal. He’s a shrewd choice for Marvel and this would be a good way to salvage a thoroughly unfortunate situation.
* Joaquin Phoenix might not be the Hulk, but the probable mockumentary (or not) about him made by his brother-in-law, Casey Affleck, has been picked up by Magnolia. I’m not looking forward to the already infamous “Cleveland steamer” scene. Just FYI, much as I admire John Waters, “Pink Flamingos” is on my short “never see” list, but that infamous final scene is a lot worse, I suppose. I get ill just thinking about it.
* The fascinating outlandish career of arthouse poet turned stoner-action-comedy specialist David Gordon Green may take another fascinating turn if he really does remake Dario Argento’s “Suspiria” — which, I somehow managed to sit through some fifteen years or so back despite my squeamish/scaredy cat ways, because, among other reasons, it’s so freaking beautiful. Also, I’ve always had the hots for Jessica Harper.
* Nathaniel Rogers didn’t get a mention, though he certainly deserves it. The openly actresexual blogger did, however, get a very nice interview with his idol, Julianne Moore, who I kind of idolize myself. More congratulations are in order.
* I suspect that those old Steve Reeves Hercules movies will wind up being a lot more watchable than whatever Brett Ratner makes of the mythical strongman. I’m sure he can’t top the Disney animated film, even if it wasn’t the greatest of the studio’s nineties animation output. Cue the “do you like to watch gladiator movies” jokes.
* If you’re wondering why the post two posts below this one has no video, here’s why. Somebody let me know if there’s a new version up, since the whole thing is a bit of a legalish technicality.
* Note to my friend, Zayne: Yeah, I missed this reconstruction of a lost ultra-obscure exploitation gangster film tonight about kidnapping the Pope (and asking for a $1.00 from every Catholic in the world — though these days I doubt they’d pony up). I’m therefore bummed.
* Alison Nastasi has an interesting response to a fairly thoughtful rant by Dustin Rowles on the controversy around the new cover art for the remake of another film on my probably never-see list, “I Spit On Your Grave.” The poster is obviously in horrible taste, but isn’t that kind of the point?
* Now that a fourth tape is out, I wonder if Mel Gibson will get the message and give up the drunk dialing.
* I’m confused. If the planned film with Jeremy Piven and Thomas Jane is in any way actually closely modeled on John Cassavettes’ “Husbands,'” as director Mark Pellington seems to say, then I don’t think it should be called a “thriller.”
I’ve been known to be a bit squeamish about gory horror films and the like, but the only movie I ever completely gave up on watching on video simply because I couldn’t handle the darn thing contained not a speck of blood as far as I know. It was Todd Solodnz’s “Happiness.” While I had enjoyed his earlier “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” this was a whole new level of emotional horror and, at least at that moment near the turn of this century, I simply wasn’t up to the task. Perhaps out of embarrassment or feeling left out of the loop, I’ve skipped the two multistory films the oddball auteur has made since.
However, even though this is said to be some kind of companion piece of quasi sequel (with different actors) to those earlier films, I am now intrigued by his “Life During Wartime.”
Whatever else is true, it’s great to see Charlotte Rampling underperforming her heart out and Allison Janney has got to be the most underrated actress of the millennium. H/t Nikki Finke.
