Day: July 19, 2010

By Jason Apuzzo. • In his review today, Todd McCarthy (formerly of Variety, and author of a very fine biography of Howard Hawks) confirms that re-born Russian communists – in the form of a long-dormant Soviet sleeper cell – are indeed the villains of the new film Salt. The goal of these Reds? To kill the current Russian president on American soil, and – I’m guessing here – take advantage of the resultant chaos to seize control back of Russia? The suspense in Salt apparently consists in the question of whether CIA agent Angelina Jolie, who was apparently captured and brainwashed in North Korea (shades of The Manchurian Candidate here), is part of the sleeper cell or not.  I’m guessing not.

All of this may also suggest why, as we’ve reported here previously, Salt has already been banned in China.

I’m loving the sound of this, frankly, although I assume in penance for this neo-Cold War scenario the filmmakers will feel the need to take gratuitous pot shots at the CIA, and make them the ‘enemy lite’ of the piece. Still, you take what you can get, right?

We’ll be keeping an eye on all this.  Here at LFM we’ve been documenting the return of Cold War fever (see here, here, here, here and even here), and I’m certainly looking forward to this latest outbreak. Jolie does an interesting interview on the film today, as does director Phillip Noyce (who did the early Jack Ryan films).

It’s hard not to have mixed feelings about Jolie at this point.  What is undeniable, however, is that Jolie’s baroque, decadent personality in public is something that can work to her advantage on-screen in over-the-top-roles like this one.  So few ‘stars’ nowadays actually have personalities; that’s obviously not a problem here.  The question is whether middle America is really interested in following her any more.  [By contrast, I expect this film to go gangbusters overseas.]  We’ll find out, starting Friday.

The funny thing is how universally acknowledged it is (including by me) that Jolie is probably better at this stuff than 90% of the male action stars.  That’s both a credit to her, and to some extent a rebuke of what passes for male action stars these days.  I mean, I’ve been kidding a lot here lately about Adrien Brody being in Predators (he was also in King Kong, of course) – but this is the whole problem, isn’t it?  Adrien Brody should not be battling aliens, unless you’re eager to have the aliens win. I’d feel more confident about Jolie under such circumstances.  Wouldn’t you?

Oh, and one other juicy tidbit about the film from today: apparently Salt was originally intended for Tom Cruise … who opted instead for Knight and Day. Ouch.

Posted on July 19th, 2010 at 5:20pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. • No surprises here: due to the initial hype, Inception finished first at the weekend box office – but I suspect the drop-off on this one will be significant over the next few weeks. Opinions on the film continue to be sharply divided, of course.  The New Yorker’s David Denby is the latest influential critic to pan the film, calling it “an engineering feat, and, finally, a folly.”

Momentarily setting aside my own highly sarcastic, upside down review of the film, I can tell you that I otherwise found Inception to be a perfect example of the soulless, technocratic filmmaking that we’ve  all become accustomed to from Hollywood – although Christopher Nolan is very clever at disguising his film as being something else (i.e., upscale art house fare). Besides also being a deeply nihilistic and (as is so often the case with Nolan’s films) creepily misogynistic film, the film offers a dull, rationalist’s take on the fundamentally irrational dream state – and thereby misses the point of what dreams are actually like.  The film is pedantic when it should be uncanny, too swift to get to the next explosion rather than actually explore a character.  Basically the film’s a bore, put together with a slide-rule instead of inspiration.  And I suspect audiences will grow cold on it over time.

I’d like to thank our wonderful readers for putting up with my upside down review, so to speak, and for keeping the debate on this film civil – something that (unfortunately) doesn’t always happen when Nolan’s films are being discussed.  LFM’s readers are the finest out there.

• Will 50% of Hollywood’s box office take be coming from 3D films within the next 3 years? One major theater chain thinks so, and is putting its money behind that technology.  And probably they’re right.  The pressure to release in 3D is immense right now, and is already changing how movies are being conceptualized, even at the script stage.

• And speaking of which, Tim Burton is apparently developing the board game “Monsterpocalypse” into a summer 3D tentpole project. And if it were still legal to trade movie futures, that would be the one to put your money on …

• Did you know Breck Eisner is developing a Flash Gordon project? What a shame.  He hasn’t done enough penance yet for Sahara to get such an important franchise.  What happened to Stephen Sommers?

• It looks like the new Maggie Thatcher movie might be a hit job.  The family is apparently “appalled” at the project.  Here’s the money quote from the UK’s Guardian:

“… the screenplay of The Iron Lady depicts Baroness Thatcher as an elderly dementia-sufferer looking back on her career with sadness. She is shown talking to herself and unaware that her husband, Sir Denis Thatcher, has died.

“Sir Mark and Carol are appalled at what they have learnt about the film,” says a friend of the family. “They think it sounds like some Left-wing fantasy. They feel strongly about it, but will not speak publicly for fear of giving it more publicity.”

What a shame … but completely predictable, since Streep is involved.  Thatcher deserves so much better than this shabby treatment.

• … and speaking of dementia, the UK’s Guardian also does a long interview today with Oliver Stone, who is now apparently working on a new project called Oliver Stone’s Secret History of America.  Stone is becoming something like the left-wing answer to Howard Hughes back in the day – except that before going insane, and producing some very bad films, Hughes actually had some serious accomplishments to his name.

• Avatar is apparently very big in the Amazon. Do they have 3D down there?

• Here’s Peter Jackson showing a childhood film of his that was inspired by Ray Harryhausen’s work … with Ray Harryhausen in the audience watching along. Great stuff.  Ray is such an inspiration to everybody.

• Did you hear?  Aaron Sorkin will be making a film about John Edwards, and casting has already begun.  Given what a dud Edwards’ campaign was, does this pic have an audience?

• MUBI has some nice things to say today about Disco & Atomic War and 1428, two recent films from the LA Film Festival that we loved here at LFM (see our reviews here and here).  Thanks to them for that.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … there’s a new billboard out today featuring Tron: Legacy‘s Olivia Wilde as ‘Quorra.’  We’re looking forward to this film come December.

And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood …

Posted on July 19th, 2010 at 4:36pm.