After his death earlier this month, I wondered aloud why no one had ever made a biopic of chess champion Bobby Fischer. Certainly his enigmatic character, his vile side, and his chess genius made him a natural subject. His opponent at the World Chess Championship, Boris Spassky, was a relatively outspoken Russian and a near dissident who might have been in the gulag if his chess hadn't made him a prominent hero of the Soviet state. Their clash was a high-profile Cold War episode, surrounded by intrigue, suspicions of bizarre plots, Fischer's wild antics, and world power. Then you have Fischer's post-match vanishing act and decades of insane anti-US, anti-semitic ramblings. That doesn't even account for the life of Fischer's mother, a devout fellow traveler monitored by the FBI. A lot of great material.
Well, apparently this is the blog that gets deals done. Universal Pictures has announced it will produce Bobby Fischer Goes to War, an adaptation of a fascinating book about the Fischer-Spassky match by David Edmonds and John Eidinow. They've tapped Kevin MacDonald to direct. Great choice. Damn near perfect. He's a very good director with a strong taste for 1970s Cold War political dramas - The Last King of Scotland and One Day in September, about Idi Amin and Munich, respectively. He should do a great job.
I'm thinking Sam Riley for Fischer, although with MacDonald on board, it could be James McAvoy. Spassky, that I have not yet figured out.
Couldn't be more excited about this.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Lawrence of Arabia in Plano
For all Dallas-area readers, you can watch Lawrence of Arabia tonight at The Angelika in Plano. I've seen it on a big screen twice. It's an experience that I highly recommend. The best film ever about walking.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Big films, small roles
The Los Angeles Times has an article naming five jobs of great casting small roles in nominated films. I'll second all of them.
Once: The Madness Stops
"Falling Slowly" reportedly has been ruled eligible for the Best Original Song category at the Academy Awards. Smart.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
For Dallas-area horror fans
The Screening Room, the Dallas Morning News' movie blog, reports that a screening of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead will be shown at the Inwood Theatre Feb. 21 as part of the second annual AFI Film Festival. Cool.
Bon Voyage, Sean Young
I've always felt badly for Sean Young and her history of bizarre (alleged) behavior. (Alleged, I say, because I wasn't actually there with Joel Schumacher (correction: Tim Burton) to see her appear in her homemade Cat Woman outfit. I've just read about it.) We wish her well as she enters rehab after her latest episode, drunkenly heckling The Diving Bell and the Butterfly director Julian Schnabel at the Directors Guild of America ceremony. Best of luck, and we'll always have Blade Runner.
Random Lebowski quote of the day
"Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism. At least it's an ethos." Walter Sobchak, on nihilists.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Metropolitan cast for Cloverfield
How much better would Cloverfield be if we replaced the cast of Abercrombie models with less than zero to say with the cast of Whit Stillman's Metropolitan? Instead of having the rescuers running across town to rescue a Paris-wannabe, they could be going to save the incredibly lovable and vulnerable Audrey. Now there's someone worth saving. Chris Eigeman could be spouting ironic, absurdist observations about being trapped in a monster movie. Tom could be pontificating on Lionel Trilling's take on Godzilla, because of course he hasn't actually seen the movie. Why see the movie, when reading the criticism gives you both the filmmaker's view and the critic's view? The super-nerdy one could be analyzing the effect of the monster attack on the Urban Haute Bourgeousie. Women trying to escape across the Brooklyn Bridge in ball gowns. It would be so much better.
Once faces Oscar probe
Just as complaints are rising about the musical nominations for the Academy Awards, the Academy is looking at perhaps reversing the one thing it definitely got right when considering the musical categories - nominating "Falling Slowly" from Once as Best Original Song. Versions of the song appeared twice on albums that predate the release of Once - one album by The Frames, one by nominees Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. The defense is that the song was recorded for the the movie during its production, which pre-dated the release of the two albums. The defense ought to be that it was the best song that appeared as an integral part of a film this past year and it would be a travesty if it did not get nominated - and win.
The other thing that this points out is that the rules stink. I understand that you don't want an Antonio Banderas-Penelope Cruz duet cover of "All You Need is Love" receiving a nomination. But I would almost take that eventuality over a rule that would disqualify this amazing song, one that is integrally tied in to the plot and performed by the original singers. This rule would almost certainly disqualify all the songs in Singin' in the Rain (and maybe did - I haven't checked the history.), most of which had been around since the 1920s and had been used in earlier movies. Is that really what the rules should be doing?
If this goes through, I can only hope that the August Rush song somehow also gets disqualified and two more Enchanted songs enter the race. Having four or five songs from the one same Disney movie would be the fate that this category deserves.
UPDATE:
David Carr, the New York Times' Oscar blogger, has more information, as do his posters. They seem to think the songs were commissioned for the movie, but when the prospects for getting it off the ground looked bad, Hansard went on and started playing it as part of his various musical projects. Then the movie project got back off the ground.
Again, this is nibbling over what appears to be a bad rule that doesn't reflect the reality of current songwriting for film. Perhaps the Academy needs to analyze less the wheres and whens of the origin of "Falling Slowly" and analyze more whether their rules are disqualifying what should be perfectly eligible songs and scores. The Academy needs to figure out what it wants these awards to represent, what it doesn't want it to represent, and re-write the rules accordingly.
BTW, a thank you to poster Pinko Punko for pointing this issue out in the comments to my other post, before it was formally an issue.
The other thing that this points out is that the rules stink. I understand that you don't want an Antonio Banderas-Penelope Cruz duet cover of "All You Need is Love" receiving a nomination. But I would almost take that eventuality over a rule that would disqualify this amazing song, one that is integrally tied in to the plot and performed by the original singers. This rule would almost certainly disqualify all the songs in Singin' in the Rain (and maybe did - I haven't checked the history.), most of which had been around since the 1920s and had been used in earlier movies. Is that really what the rules should be doing?
If this goes through, I can only hope that the August Rush song somehow also gets disqualified and two more Enchanted songs enter the race. Having four or five songs from the one same Disney movie would be the fate that this category deserves.
UPDATE:
David Carr, the New York Times' Oscar blogger, has more information, as do his posters. They seem to think the songs were commissioned for the movie, but when the prospects for getting it off the ground looked bad, Hansard went on and started playing it as part of his various musical projects. Then the movie project got back off the ground.
Again, this is nibbling over what appears to be a bad rule that doesn't reflect the reality of current songwriting for film. Perhaps the Academy needs to analyze less the wheres and whens of the origin of "Falling Slowly" and analyze more whether their rules are disqualifying what should be perfectly eligible songs and scores. The Academy needs to figure out what it wants these awards to represent, what it doesn't want it to represent, and re-write the rules accordingly.
BTW, a thank you to poster Pinko Punko for pointing this issue out in the comments to my other post, before it was formally an issue.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
DGA goes Coens
Last night, Joel and Ethan Coen won the Best Director award from the Director's Guild of America. So now we know pretty well who will win the Oscar as well. The onslaught of guild awards puts such a damper on Oscar season. The suspense, or what there ever has been of it, gets killed off once these announcements get publicized. I could do without the smaller awards.
Friday, January 25, 2008
State of Grace
Grace Is Gone [PG-13]
Grade: B
John Cusack’s performance in Grace is Gone is a big stretch. Not just for him, but for me.
Having grown up watching him and being used to his always young visage, it’s a shock to the system to see him as a graying father, pudgy and in Adam West glasses, stuck in a sales manager job to keep his two daughters feeding. His character, Stanley Philips, was finally removed from his beloved army life for bad eyesight. From the way he treats his employees, you sense his longing for his old profession.
He met his wife, Grace, in the military. This being wartime, she has shipped out to the deserts of Iraq, leaving the family in her husband's overwhelmed care. When word comes that Grace has died on a mission, Stanley slumps onto the couch in grief. Soon military representatives are knocking on his door with forms. And it won’t be long before he must tell his two daughters that their mother won’t be around to see them grow up.
Fearing that learning of their mother’s death will rob his two daughters of their innocence, he doesn’t tell them. He huddles the family into the car and heads for an impromptu vacation to a theme park, to give them one last gasp of un-fractured youth before it shatters.
Director James C. Strouse's debut effort was widely hailed at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, and it’s only now making its way into a true release. This is one of the few of the Gulf War films that works simply because it doesn’t revolve around temporal political concerns but everlasting emotions. The film has vulnerability to spare, as the strict father deals with his guilt and regrets and clumsily feels his way into the motherly role. It’s not the type of film that I would personally pay to see. Just not up my alley. But I respect it for its care and its decency.
Grade: B
John Cusack’s performance in Grace is Gone is a big stretch. Not just for him, but for me.
Having grown up watching him and being used to his always young visage, it’s a shock to the system to see him as a graying father, pudgy and in Adam West glasses, stuck in a sales manager job to keep his two daughters feeding. His character, Stanley Philips, was finally removed from his beloved army life for bad eyesight. From the way he treats his employees, you sense his longing for his old profession.
He met his wife, Grace, in the military. This being wartime, she has shipped out to the deserts of Iraq, leaving the family in her husband's overwhelmed care. When word comes that Grace has died on a mission, Stanley slumps onto the couch in grief. Soon military representatives are knocking on his door with forms. And it won’t be long before he must tell his two daughters that their mother won’t be around to see them grow up.
Fearing that learning of their mother’s death will rob his two daughters of their innocence, he doesn’t tell them. He huddles the family into the car and heads for an impromptu vacation to a theme park, to give them one last gasp of un-fractured youth before it shatters.
Director James C. Strouse's debut effort was widely hailed at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, and it’s only now making its way into a true release. This is one of the few of the Gulf War films that works simply because it doesn’t revolve around temporal political concerns but everlasting emotions. The film has vulnerability to spare, as the strict father deals with his guilt and regrets and clumsily feels his way into the motherly role. It’s not the type of film that I would personally pay to see. Just not up my alley. But I respect it for its care and its decency.
My Quantum of Solace theme song
Much of the blog world has been brimming with opinions about the title for the James Bond movie set for release in November, Quantum of Solace. One of the foremost complaints is that the phrase could not possibly fit into a theme song. I thought I would put that fiction to rest. Besides touching on the concept set out in a 1960 Ian Fleming short story, I believe I’ve touched all the important bases for a Bond theme song – mystery, romance, death, and the ever-so-subtle insinuation of sado-masochism.
You can help me work on it. You can even post your own.
When I say Quantum of Solace,
You say, “What does that mean?”
Love, and the choices betweeeeee-een-eeeen.
When love’s cold traps befall us,
You say, “How does that go?”
The price you don’t knowwwwwwwwwww.
Innnnnnn the dying embers
of love’s chilled caress.
Looking for a touch of comfort
In a world that owes you less.
A quant-um of solace
In a fire set ablaze
A quantum of solace
In a fire set ablaze
When secret worlds stall us,
You say, “What should I think?”
Serve me your poooooi-soned driiiiiiink.
When death comes to call us,
You say, “What can I do?”
In six feet, you kneeeew-ew-ewwww.
Loooooooooove comes and goes
in the small - est a - mounts.
Our lashing bodies still smoulder
But it’s the thought that really counts.
A quant-um of solace
In a fire set ablaze.
A quantum of solace
In a fire set ablaze.
You can help me work on it. You can even post your own.
When I say Quantum of Solace,
You say, “What does that mean?”
Love, and the choices betweeeeee-een-eeeen.
When love’s cold traps befall us,
You say, “How does that go?”
The price you don’t knowwwwwwwwwww.
Innnnnnn the dying embers
of love’s chilled caress.
Looking for a touch of comfort
In a world that owes you less.
A quant-um of solace
In a fire set ablaze
A quantum of solace
In a fire set ablaze
When secret worlds stall us,
You say, “What should I think?”
Serve me your poooooi-soned driiiiiiink.
When death comes to call us,
You say, “What can I do?”
In six feet, you kneeeew-ew-ewwww.
Loooooooooove comes and goes
in the small - est a - mounts.
Our lashing bodies still smoulder
But it’s the thought that really counts.
A quant-um of solace
In a fire set ablaze.
A quantum of solace
In a fire set ablaze.
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