By Jason Apuzzo. • We’ve been through Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Super 8, Green Lantern and Falling Skies thus far this summer, and our next scheduled alien invasion comes this Friday in the form of Cowboys & Aliens. Although initially skeptical about this project, I’m now looking forward to it – largely because it looks to be more of a Western, truth be told, than a sci-fi project – and I’ve been eager to see Harrison Ford in a Western for decades. In a summer in which we’ve seen aliens demolish the downtowns of several major American cities – usually in 3D – Cowboys & Aliens looks to offer a more modest type of spectacle, one that’s based on old-fashioned star power and earth-bound heroics rather than visual effects.
Does this mean I’m going to like Cowboys more than Transformers (easily my favorite film of the summer)? Not at all – in fact, I’d say that’s highly unlikely at this point. But I miss the Western genre – its style, values and vision of the American frontier and the people who conquered it – and if it takes an alien menace to re-animate the genre for younger audiences, I’m all for it.
This is all to say that Cowboys & Aliens is currently looking like a film that is only nominally attached to the sci-fi genre, and is leaning heavily on the romance of the Old West for its appeal – and, ironically, this is probably why the film currently isn’t tracking very well, or is at least tracking more like a Western than a major sci-fi tentpole. The film’s director, Jon Favreau, has been taking a decidedly old-school approach to promoting the film, sitting down recently for some very enjoyable conversations with Harrison Ford, and also with the film’s producers Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Favreau almost comes across like an associate professor in cinema studies during these conversations rather than a hot director with a major film to launch. I’m liking his low-key approach, though, and I hope the film turns out to be good. You’ll get my full report on that Friday!
In the meantime, take a moment to check out this major career retrospective on Cowboys & Aliens’ producer, Steven Spielberg, held at the DGA recently and featuring James Cameron and J.J. Abrams. It’s 90 minutes of Spielberg at his most engaging, talking about his career from its humble beginnings all the way to today.
• The Battleship trailer finally set sail this morning … and I loved it. Imagine a cross between Top Gun and Battle: Los Angeles, with Liam Neeson and Brooklyn Decker thrown in, and you’ve basically got the vibe of this film.
Battleship stars Taylor Kitsch (who for obscure reasons has been tapped to carry both this film and Disney’s John Carter next year) as some kind of ‘rebellious’/Maverick-style hot shot Naval officer assigned to serve under Liam Neeson on board a battleship, while conveniently enough being engaged to Neeson’s daughter, Brooklyn Decker, who plays “a physical therapist.” I’ll bet! After a few glamor shots of Ms. Decker providing ‘physical therapy’ to her fiancé on a beach in Hawaii (is this covered under Obamacare?), we then get some beauty passes of Naval ships, etc., then head out to sea where some kind of massive alien flotilla has arrived. We get a pretty good look at the alien ships in this trailer, and the whole thing ends with Neeson ordering all guns to fire on the alien attackers.
The whole thing looks pretty entertaining, very much in the Michael Bay style – romanticizing the military lifestyle and its flashy hardware – and also like it may have something the otherwise commendable Battle: Los Angeles didn’t really have: humor. One thing I wasn’t crazy about, though: Taylor Kitsch looks completely dull in this trailer, as he does in the John Carter trailer (see below). The studios have really got to find some better young male leads these days. (I’m still stewing, btw, over how godawful Garrett Hedlund was in Tron: Legacy.) My suggestion? Outsource. Hire Brits and Aussies exclusively.
Footnote: if you look carefully, the film depicts Neeson leading what appears to be an international naval flotilla – led by America but with the Japanese featured prominently. I like that. I think it’s nice to remember who our actual allies are these days, as opposed to those who are simply our ‘trading partners.’ Hint, hint.
Battleship hits theaters in May of 2012, and I will be there. Here’s the trailer below.
• Comic-Con just wrapped this past weekend, and Ridley Scott’s don’t call it an Alien prequel Prometheus was a major focus of attention. Charlize Theron and screenwriter Damon Lindelof showed up to talk about the film, and Sir Ridley himself beamed in from Iceland to tease audiences with his hopes that the film will “scare the s**t out of you.” Frankly, that’s exactly what I want to hear. I still remember as a young person being frightened out of my wits by the original Alien, and I’m noticing that most of what Scott (and others) are currently saying about this project concerns it returning the Alien franchise to its roots as an outer-space horror series, rather than as a rolling metaphor on corporate imperialism – which is largely what the series was becoming.
I’m assuming there will still be anti-corporate/military contractor messaging in Prometheus, as in the other Alien films. On this point, incidentally, we already know that … ***SPOILER ALERT*** … Charlize Theron plays a frosty corporate suit in Prometheus, possibly the head of Weyland-Yutani … ***END OF SPOILERS*** … but as long as the wicked-military-contractors-in-outer-space stuff is kept to a minimum, we’ll presumably be OK. Of course, I’m also concerned that the film might engage (as Ridley Scott has hinted) in some mad, Erich von Daniken-esque theorizing about human beings sharing a genetic heritage with the aliens, but we’ll just have to wait and see. I’m simply hoping the film sticks to its roots as a horror film about aliens, and doesn’t go the full Avatar and make human beings over into the villains.
Other news out of the Prometheus panel at Comic-Con was that Scott is largely eschewing green-screen, opting instead for actual sets like in the original film (hooray!), and that he’s loving the 3D camera. Also: Charlize Theron apparently does some nude push-ups during one sequence, which may also be contributing to Sir Ridley’s newfound enthusiasm for 3D.
Catch the full Comic-Con panel recap (and read more details here), see the first official image from the film and the film’s official synopsis, and set photos here and here.
• Did you catch the trailer for The Thing? I thought it looked pretty good, but the film appeared almost indistinguishable from the John Carpenter version – and at the end of the trailer, they even recycled Carpenter’s spooky score. Basically it seemed like the same film, but featuring Mary Elizabeth Winstead instead of Kurt Russell. Is that really going to work? In any case, some new images are out from the film, along with a new poster.
This seems like an appropriate moment in which to acknowledge the recent passing of the great James Arness, whose many memorable roles included playing the ‘Thing’ in the original Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks classic The Thing from Another World from 1951.
Arness’ most famous role was undoubtedly that of Matt Dillon on TV’s Gunsmoke, a role he played for some 20 years (still a record for TV), but to sci-fi fans he’ll always be remembered for playing what may still be sci-fi’s most menacing alien invader.
Govindini and I had the pleasure of meeting Arness several years ago in the green room of The O’Reilly Factor, and he was kind, gracious and patient in answering our questions – especially when it came to The Thing. One point he insisted on was that Christian Nyby did indeed direct The Thing rather than Howard Hawks as has sometimes been claimed, and that Nyby was the one on the set each day. Most of our time with James Arness, though, was spent discussing Gunsmoke, a series he was obviously still proud of. He told us he was still receiving a lot of fan mail about the show, and that he was proud of Gunsmoke’s legacy in instilling good values in young people. He talked about how Westerns were able to teach young people basic lessons about courage and good character, and how he hoped Gunsmoke would be remembered for that.
Arness was a close friend of John Wayne’s, and The Duke gave him some of his most important early roles – including parts in Hondo, Island in the Sky and Big Jim McLain. Arness eventually became a major and beloved star on his own, of course – a rugged and personable giant of a man who will be greatly missed.
• One of the big projects arriving in March of next year will be Disney’s John Carter (Disney has inexplicably changed the title, which originally was John Carter of Mars). Pixar’s Andrew Stanton, who directed the film, has just conducted a torrent of interviews up in the Bay Area (see here, here and here), a new poster has been released along with concept art – and most importantly there’s now a trailer.
Alas, the trailer hasn’t really set the world on fire – and I can’t say I was all that impressed with it, myself. The film looks quite conventional – in fact, uncomfortably similar to The Asylum’s take on the same story (except the Asylum version has Traci Lords) – and extremely close to the Cowboys & Aliens trailer currently playing in theaters.
And this brings us to the unique problem presented by Edgar Rice Burrough’s original ‘John Carter’ novels as the basis for a film: the ‘John Carter’ stories have already been lifted for an endless number of famous projects, from Star Wars to Dune, from the Flash Gordon serials to Avatar. So much of modern sci-fi comes out of the original ‘John Carter’ stories that it would take a genius – or at least a major, established director (perhaps someone with Peter Jackson’s sensibilities?) – to pull this off and make it seem fresh. From what the trailer shows us so far, I don’t see that happening at the moment. The cast looks too West Hollywood-pretty, the film’s beats all seem contrived and predictable, and John Carter’s ‘hero’s journey’ seems just like every other hero’s journey from every other franchise we’ve ever seen – including Pixar’s. So we’ll keep an eye on this project, but my initial response is tepid.
• One of the mid-sized alien invasion projects at Comic-Con this past weekend was The Darkest Hour, directed by Chris Gorak (Right at Your Door) and produced by Timur Bekmambetov. The film is about a group of American teens who get trapped in Moscow during an alien invasion. Bummer!
The Darkest Hour opens on Dec. 23rd, and we should be getting a trailer in the next week or so. A lot of details came out about the film at Comic-Con (see here and here), including that the film’s alien invaders are … ***SPOILER ALERT*** … electrical in nature – and basically invisible. ***END OF SPOILERS*** So that’s new. In any case, the first production still for the film has been released, along with some concept art, and you can catch some Comic-Con interviews with director Gorak and star Emile Hirsch. Since this film takes place in Moscow, I may occasionally talk about it in our Cold War Updates! just for the hell of it.
[UPDATE 8/3: The Darkest Hour trailer just hit. I thought it looked fine, but hardly original given this overall trend. We’re also learning now that the film will be released in 3D.]
• Have you been watching Falling Skies on TNT? I’ve been enjoying it, although it seems like relatively little has actually happened over the show’s first 7 episodes. There are currently only 2 episodes remaining for the season in which I’m hoping/assuming the show’s creators will provide some sense of why the invaders are actually here – other than to harness cheap teen labor (which would make the aliens no different from Burger King).
I’m liking the lead show’s characters – Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood are superb – along with the show’s basic respect toward things like religious faith, family life and military culture. Falling Skies also has a kind of soft, warm, Spielbergean feel to it that works nicely on mellow Sunday nights.
But frankly, the characters who keep me coming back are still the bad-ass rebel John Pope and his former sidekick Maggie (the gun-toting blonde, played by Sarah Carter). They always come around to inject life into the proceedings when things get a little dull. I especially enjoyed the scene a few episodes back in which Maggie taught Moon Bloodgood the virtues of gun ownership for women. That was great.
Still, the show is sometimes a bit slow so here’s hoping things pick up as the season draws to its conclusion. Falling Skies has already been renewed for a second season, and you can otherwise catch interviews with stars Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood.
• A lot of new projects have been put into development or greenlit since our last full Invasion Alert! over Memorial Day Weekend, including: Roland Emmerich’s Singularity (due in May 2013), with Emmerich also attached to Asteroids; Sam Worthington is attached to something called Myth, and also to an untitled ‘space war’ movie at Warner Brothers; Mass Effect 2 is being adapted into a movie, along with Space Invaders (by Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura); Hilary Swank wants to do some huge left-wing, Avatar-style project set on Venus called Shrapnel; Tom Hanks wants to do Major Matt Mason (based on the old space toy series), set on the Moon; Paramount recently bought a pitch described as “Die Hard on an alien ship”; other projects brewing include 2084, 1952, The Nye Incidents, sci-fi adaptations of Heart of Darkness and The Count of Monte Cristo (?!), a new project from Bobby Glickert and producer Justin Lin, plus comedies Alien at Large and Neighborhood Watch …
… along with some very big news out of Comic-Con, which is that Voltron is finally going to be made into a live-action film. Why Voltron, you might ask? Perhaps because Transformers: Dark of the Moon is rapidly approaching the $900 million mark worldwide, with no sequels in sight …
• There’s a lot of news on the video game front. James Cameron’s Aliens is finally getting a proper ‘sequel,’ by way of a new video game called Aliens: Colonial Marines; there are cool new trailers out for Halo 4 and the new Halo Combat Evolved 10th anniversary game; catch this great Gears of War 3 gameplay; and Star Trek is getting a new video game. Plus, of course, both Mass Effect 2 and Space Invaders are now going to be adapted into movies. Can Halo be far behind?
• From the look of its early viral marketing campaign and some other telling details, Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium (starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster) looks like it’s going to go down the Avatar/Aliens evil-corporations-in-outer-space route. Uugh. Just for laughs, check out Matt Damon with a shaved head.
• Let’s have a show of hands. Does anybody really care about Men in Black 3? That’s what I thought. Well if for some reason you do, read about the film’s retro-style aliens, epic production problems, and catch a few set videos (here and here) and set photos.
• On the Creature Invasion Front, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim is taking shape, and it’s sounding like a massive, Toho-style monster bash in the old-fashioned style. Del Toro talks up Pacific Rim’s monsters as being the best ever (I’ll believe that when I see it), the film has a new July 2013 release date and logo, and Idris Elba and Rinko Kikuchi have been cast; David Goyer will be writing the new Godzilla; there’s new footage from Rise of the Planet of the Apes; Piranha 3DD has wrapped, and there are some gory, NSFW set photos out; some great new Shark Night 3D images are out also, along with cast interviews, including with Sara Paxton (here and here) and Katharine McPhee; details about the Trollhunter DVD are available, and the film will be getting an American remake; Steven Spielberg announced at Comic-Con that there may be a Jurassic Park 4; there’s a new trailer and new posters out for Terra Nova, and the series had a panel at Comic-Con where they showed the pilot; and some new set photos are out for Brad Pitt’s zombie-war epic World War Z.
• On the Indie Invasion Front, Another Earth is out and you can read an interview with star Brit Marling; Attack the Block is out in limited release this Friday, and you can see the full trailer and also a red band trailer, watch an interview with the director or read a NY Times feature on the film’s new star, John Boyega; plus, a new film called Roswell FM was recently announced.
• In Other Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion News & Notes: Tom Cruise’s Oblivion has a release date of July 2013; Guillermo del Toro still wants to do At the Mountains of Madness, which also has Cruise attached; Stephanie Meyer’s The Host will be released in March of 2013; I Am Number Four had a strong DVD debut, and there’s a new I Am Number Four novella out; it looks like we’re not going to be getting a live-action Star Wars TV series for a while, but you can at least see clips from the Star Wars deleted scenes that will be appearing on the forthcoming Blu-rays in September; also E.T. and Jaws are coming to Blu-ray; here’s a deleted scene from Super 8; James Cameron provides an update on the Avatar sequels, and there’s a new Avatar exhibit; Dean Devlin confirms that there is a concept and a written treatment for two Independence Day sequels; Producer John Davis talks about his adaptation of The Martian Chronicles, and also the future of the Predator series; the Tron sequel has a new writer; there’s a new update on Oren Peli’s low-budget Area 51; catch this new trailer for Apollo 18; read reviews here and here of Roger Corman’s cult classic Battle Beyond the Stars (which featured production design from James Cameron, and music from James Horner) newly out on DVD; plus there’s a lot going on right now with Total Recall, Judge Dredd and In Time that I don’t even have the time to go into.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … with Battleship‘s trailer coming out today, the easy thing to do would be feature yet another pic of Brooklyn Decker … but we don’t settle for the easy things here at Libertas, so instead we’re going to give you a look at Katrina Bowden from the upcoming Piranha 3DD – another forthcoming film highlighting America’s urgent underwater safety crisis.
And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion Front!
[UPDATE 8/3: The Darkest Hour trailer just hit. I thought it looked fine, but hardly original given this overall trend. We’re also learning now that the film will be released in 3D.]
Posted on July 27th, 2011 at 12:42m.
Whew! That’s an invasion alert! I appreciate the work … possibly the best read on the web for me.
Thoughts:
– Yes, the “Battleship” trailer is awesome, but I also really liked “John Carter.” I may be grading on a curve a bit here, because I’m starving for space opera.
– I am loving “Falling Skies” — I almost cried a few episodes ago when the group said a touching prayer at the end of an episode. Plus, citizens taking up arms just isn’t done enough.
– A “Mass Effect 2” movie can’t come fast enough … even though there’s a nasty little evil corporation thread in it, but I can handle that when done right. I’m far more excited about the possibility of a Halo film though.
– Sci-fi adaptations for “Count of Monte Cristo” AND “Heart of Darkness” …? I’m already there.
– As for video games, there’s a Star Wars Kinect game that’s going to be included with a Star Wars bundle, which has an XBox that looks like R2-D2. It’s just too cool.
– And did you see “Mercury Men” is on sffy.com? Libertas was way ahead of that curve.
Vince, thanks so much for your kind words – and also for mentioning Mercury Men! I completely forgot about it, in part because those guys were taking a very long time to debut the series.
Thanks also for your other comments, and when you get the chance I’d love to get more of your thoughts on the virtues/weaknesses of Mass Effect 2, about which I don’t know very much. As for John Carter, that’s such an important project that I’ll be giving it as much of a chance as I can … I just thought it lacked originality, and looked a bit too made-for-TV for comfort. Incidentally, much of that is because TV’s become better lately when it takes on sci-fi; another project John Carter resembled was the old Sci-Fi channel’s Dune miniseries, which was quite epic in scale.
I may have overstated the questionable elements of “Mass Effect 2”. The game’s muddled morality, and heavy themes of racism just seemed to weigh down the experience a bit. One of the main elements of the film is a human-supremacy group that’s willing to go to any lengths to see humans’ role expanded in the galaxy. And, of course, it’s basically a private military organization.
Through all of that, the escapism and sense of discovery was there — it drifted a little more toward modern Battlestar Galactica, and away from Star Wars in tone. That shocked me a bit, because the first game was a fist-pumping adventure about individuality, duty, and freedom of thought.
Also … it’s cool that you mentioned the prominent role of the Japanese in the “Battleship” trailer. So many times, conservative commentators freak out when there’s multi-national forces as protagonists. That was one of the best elements of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” Like you said, we do have allies, and they deserve credit.
Vince, thank’s for your thoughts on Mass Effect, and I will definitely keep an eye on that.
On the whole issue of the Japanese, one of the reasons we’ve been able to enjoy this whole post-War boom in the Western world – in terms of our affluence and technology – is because of Japanese innovations, and our own close relationship with Japan. (Also: it’s worth mentioning that the Japanese have been able to become a major economic power without turning their population into pseudo-slave labor, unlike some nations in that part of the world.) But the Japanese are such unassuming, humble people that they never really take credit for it. The Japanese have been good allies for us in the post-War era, and I simply like seeing good feelings sent their way …
Mass Effect cast you as Commander Shepherd, a human military officer who is elevated to SPECTRE status by the Citadal Council (basically the ruleing body of the Galaxy intially made up of represnetives of three alien species with Humanity becoming the fourth at the end of the first game). SPECTRES are basically the Councils go to guys for all kinds of nasty business and are authorized to use whatever means they deam necessary answrable only to the Council. In the first game you as Shepherd are tasked with hunting down a rogue SPECTRE named Saren, who you disocver is being manipulated by “The Reapers” a race of sentient machines hibernating in Dark Space outside the Galaxy who return every 50,000 years or so to harvest all organic life that has evolved to a certain stage.
Mass Effect 2 finds Shepherd working alongside “Cerberus” an antagonist in a couple optional side missions from the first game, Cerberus being a rather shady human supremicist group considered terrorists by the Citidal Council and the Human Government. Shepherd and Cerberus are looking into the dissaperance of human colonies and what connection to the Reapers these dissaperances have. Besides combat being streamlined and the RPG elements minamized the biggest difference between Mass Effect 1 and 2 are setting and tone.
Mass Effect 1 sees you on the edge of civilized space but still within it for the most part and focus’ more on exploration (for me it felt closer to Star Trek then Star Wars). Being a BioWare Game interaction with you team did play a big part as was the moral choice system (you can chose between Paragon, Renegade and Neutral Responses but your always the hero, same goes for the second game). Mass Effect 2 takes place largely beyond civilized space in the lawless Terminus Systems a haven for pirates, criminals, warlords, and terrorists basically anyone who for whatever reason can’t or won’t live according to the standards of the rest of the Galaxy, thus the tone becomes darker. The other major goal is recruiting a squad for a “suicide mission” part of which involves earning your squadmates loyalties and insuring they can focus on the mission.
Well Cerberus is never completly trustworthy the biggest threat seems to be from willfully blind politicians (the Citidal Council refuses to believe the Reapers are a threat) and ME2 did go darker places (sacrifices for the greater good are a constent theam whether it was Mordin Solus and his role in culling the Krogan population, a particularly violent and warlike race or Shepherds destruction of a planet and 300,000 people to delay The Reaper invasion for a few months (as seen in the DLC The Arrival), it is balanced by a sense of loyalty and commitment that is earned as the game progress’ between the squadmembers.
As far as future Invasion alerts you might want to keep an eye on Mass Effect 3. according to the new trailers out it opens with the Invasion of Earth and focus’ on Shepherd rallying his allies across the Galaxy to save Earth.
Hey Jim, thanks very much for that thorough explanation – I really appreciate it. And I want to thank all you guys in the comments section for filling me in on all this stuff – particularly with respect to the gaming scene. It’s a big help, and I’ll repay it down the line by following all of these projects in future Invasion Alerts!, etc.
Jim, I just caught the Mass Effect 3 trailer on your recommendation and thought it looked great! I will definitely now be following that … and as for Mass Effect 2, it seems like it will be quite a project to squeeze all of that plot into one film, so we’ll see how they solve that particular problem.
Wow, quite an update!
1. The “Battleship” film looks fun, I was hard to see where they were going to go with the concept was the film was announced, but an alien invasion route is always a way to go. Taylor Kitsch looks more energetic in this film than in John Carter, that trailer was completely underwhelming. (So was the Spider-Man trailer, but that is a subject for another time)
2. So many horror remakes (or reboots, whatever) have been so lousy that The Thing prequel actually looks very promising, interesting to see how they end it given its connections to Carpenter’s masterpiece
3. If Ridley Scott is directing any sci-fi film I am there, let’s hope he recaptures some of that old Alien and Blade Runner magic.
4. As a historian of Russia, I will have to check out Darkest Hour, I hope the aliens put off their invasion after my research trip is over next summer!
5. Jason, since you appear to be interested in video games set in space, I strongly recommend EA’s Dead Space series, they are very well done and genuinely frightening, and were directly inspired by Alien (the first game) and Aliens (the second game)
Anyway, great update, it certainly beats endless articles on amateurish documentaries about Alaskan politicians!
Thanks for the kind words, Sean. I appreciate it. A few thoughts:
1) What I’ve read is that this new version of The Thing is supposed to dovetail right into the opening of Carpenter’s version. I think that’s a decent idea, and I actually like the trailer, but it does seem dangerously close to Carpenter’s take. One minor point: I’m actually hoping this version is less gory than Carpenter’s, which went way over the top and lost me when the guy’s head sprouted legs and started crawling across the floor.
2) I’m really hoping Ridley Scott has some juice left and doesn’t waste the opportunity of this film to make political points. I haven’t been frightened by a sci-fi film in ages, basically since the original Alien.
3) Putin will clobber any aliens that arrive. Don’t worry.
4) Thanks for telling me about Dead Space, because I will definitely check that out.
As far as your last point, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. 😉
I saw Decker recently in “Just Go For It.” Granted, it was a dumber-than-dumb movie, but I gotta tell you, she managed the almost-impossible task of making an already awful movie just that little bit worse. She’d be great cast as an inanimate object, like if you needed someone to play a stick of wood. The girl can’t act at all.
I’m willing to believe that, but I’m thinking she won’t be asked to do a lot here. At the very least, she made it through the trailer just fine!
Govindini and I saw Transformers again last week, and we were both struck by how good Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was, relatively speaking, for a model/newbie. It’s not as easy to do this stuff as people may think, and she managed to create a fairly lively character out of what probably was pretty thin material on the page. I’ve never seen Ms. Decker act, so I won’t make any predictions, other than that her image will be appearing frequently in our Invasion Alerts.
Too bad, as you mentioned, Rosie H-W did not have more to do in Transformers 3. She actually had a nice screen presence, nicer than Megan Fox, at any rate. Still, I just hope for more Hayley Atwell pics on this site, although Brooklyn Decker is fine as well!
Let me tell you a little secret about why Rosie came across better than most newbies would in the same situation. Americans like me are hard-wired – for better or for worse – to associate British accents with intelligence. It’s an ingrained prejudice, there’s nothing we can do about. Simply by going through the British education system, and speaking with the old country’s accent, she comes across as more thoughtful than any randomly selected American model would – or even many American actresses.
There was a scene late in the film, for example, in which she had to explain to the military team that they needed to strike a ‘cupola’ atop one of the downtown buildings. Her pronunciation of ‘cupola’ was so perfect, and she said it several times – and I couldn’t help but think, 90% of American actresses couldn’t pronounce that word properly.
“Still, I just hope for more Hayley Atwell pics on this site, although Brooklyn Decker is fine as well!”
I have seen Miss Atwell in some period pieces in her early career, The Ruby in the Red Smoke, and Mansfeld Park, and I took immediate notice of her although those damn Regency and Victorian ladies wore too much clothing. If you want to see her in more modern attire she was in the recent re-imaging of the Stranger.
The Wall Street Journal recently did a feature on seminars held for romance writers on the actual mechanics/engineering of bodice-ripping. After reading it, my thought was that it was amazing the Brits had any birthrate back in the day, at all.
I really enjoy these updates, and I feel almost churlish that my first post lauding them has a “but” to it… but there’s a tiny factual error that I wanted to bring to your attention. In your update on the remake of THE THING, you say “at the end of the trailer, they even recycled Carpenter’s spooky score.” John Carpenter didn’t do the music, though; the great Ennio Morricone did.
Loved reading the recollection of James Arness. And I’m another one that (unexpectedly) dug the BATTLESHIP trailer.
Actually Matt, Carpenter did do some of the music on that film – but he didn’t take a credit. In any case, Morricone is one of my favorite composers – and that film’s score is certainly one of its best points. And thanks for your kind words …
Carpenter and Alan Howarth did contribute some snippets to the film’s soundtrack, but the little sample of music heard at the end of the trailer — the “heartbeat theme” — was composed by Morricone. Here’s a link to a message board where a poster did an insane amount of legwork to break down just how much of the music in the film was Carpenter’s and how much was Morricone’s:
http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=73647&forumID=1&archive=0
“Footnote: if you look carefully, the film depicts Neeson leading what appears to be an international naval flotilla – led by America but with the Japanese featured prominently. I like that. I think it’s nice to remember who our actual allies are these days, as opposed to those who are simply our ‘trading partners.’ Hint, hint.”
The Japanese Navy has 110 major ships, more than the Royal and French Navies, so having them in the film is legit. (As a side note the Royal Navy is being reduced to a size comparable with such heavyweights as Belgium.) After the US Navy helped so many times trying to take down Godzilla the Japanese owe us one.
Thanks for that Michael. I’m glad the Japanese have such a robust force, because the Chinese have been pouring a lot of resources into their navy.
And yes, we’ve sent so many jet pilots and our scientific brainpower over to help the Japanese with their Godzilla problem that it’s about time they help us out when aliens come knocking at our door. (Incidentally, I was just watching The Terror of MechaGodzilla last night – Ishiro Honda’s final Godzilla film. Great stuff.)
Also: in the trailer the aliens seem to be going after Hawaii, so I imagine that having the Japanese involved as our allies is meant to, as it were, not re-open any old wounds … and personally if I were an alien arriving from outer space, Hawaii would seem to be the perfect vacation spot.
A dirty little secret is despite the post-war Constitution limiting defense spending to 1% of GDP the Japanese are the 2nd biggest spenders on defense. I am not sure if the ChiComs have overtaken Japan and even experts are not sure since ChiCom official accounting is as reliable as from a Hollywood studio.
I didn’t know any of this – and I’m actually quite relieved to hear it. I was thinking we were shouldering more of the defense burden over there …
Carpenter and Alan Howarth did contribute some snippets to the film’s soundtrack, but the little sample of music heard at the end of the trailer — the “heartbeat theme” — was composed by Morricone.
Thanks for that detail, Matt. It really is a great theme, so credit should go where it’s due … I have a 3-disc set of Morricone’s scores, incidentally, that is one of my most cherished possessions. And tonight on Turner Classic Movies you can catch one of his very best scores, which was for Pontecorvo’s Battle of Algiers.
Didn’t catch it on TCM, but I’ve seen it. Great movie. I was very struck by the fact that, even though the film is a revolutionary slam against French colonialism, the only character with any depth was the general assigned to take down the terrorists. In terms of plot function, he’s the antagonist, but in the way he’s presented, he’s more like an antihero — someone with whom you can empathize, but whose actions are not sympathetic within the film’s schema. For a polemic, it’s a surprisingly nuanced film.
And there’s great music, of course. 🙂
Yes, the music is wonderful. What I like about that film, aside from its energy and documentary-realist style, is that Pontecorvo was honest enough to allow the French their say. As a result, Battle comes across as an opinionated film – but not as a propagandistic one.
Good update, Jason.
I am also looking forward to Cowboys & Aliens. I’ll watch any new western these days (well, I guess I did skip Jonah Hex, but that’s the exception that proves the rule).
Unlike you, I was very underwhelmed by the Battleship trailer. It just seemed so bland, boring, a retread of so many things done more interestingly/excitingly in Transformers, etc. None of the characters were revealed to be at all interesting, and everything was so predictable (yes, even in a trailer). So a big, fat “meh” from me, and (judging from comments on other sites) I would guess from a lot of people. The movie’s going to have to prove it’s got something else up its sleeve to become a real hit.
I’m also a bit disappointed by John Carter. It should be better. That said, it looks more fun than Battleship and I have some confidence in Andrew Stanton, so we’ll see.
Thanks for the kind words, and I’ll grant you this: Taylor Kitsch’s character in Battleship isn’t looking very interesting, although I’m sure an enormous amount of time will be spent on his ‘character arc,’ as they say. And I also doubt it will be up to Transformers standards – but it still looked fun to me. I don’t need this to be On the Waterfont, just entertaining.
Let me explain the likely reason why Kitsch is starring in both of these films: he doesn’t cost very much, and these are already super-expensive films. That decision, though, may end up backfiring.
Brooklyn Decker……Release the Kraken!
Sadly, Taylor Kitsch looks like so many young male American pretty boy actors, the only emotion he seems to be able to display is befuddlement.
Battleship looks like solid summer entertainment as long as they keep the real actor Liam Neeson and Brooklyn Decker’s highbeams on the screen.
You’re a man with his priorities straight, JG! As always, we are in agreement …
Finally saw the trailer being at home, damn Big Brother software at work. Unfortunately the US Navy does not have any Iowa class battleships in active service. But hey always nice to see those 16 inch guns ablazing. I am such a military geek those 16 inchers are more important than another measurement…
Yes, those ships may not be practical anymore, but they certainly are cool …