The last Quiz This games were quite popular, so here's another one for you. There's nothing to win but pride and glory.
Which filmmaker has collaborated with Mike Nichols, Mark Romanek, James Cameron, Steven Soderbergh and Gary Ross in the same type of endeavour; and what is this particular endeavour?
Answers/guesses in the comments below. And yes, it is kind of a trick question. Sort of.
AintItCool have run a picture of Rick Baker and Benicio Del Toro playing werewolves and, frankly, I found it very exciting. Even more brilliant is Mark Romanek's statement about the image:
This was taken about three months ago -- Our first meeting with the three of us.
This pose was a jokey homage to the classic Universal Wolfman/Famous Monsters Magazine-era style, but seeing Benicio getting "wolfy" for the first time, even in jest, gave us chills. It was our first glimpse of what we could expect from this amazingly original and gifted actor.
It was very exciting to see these guys in the same room. Rick could tell immediately that Benicio was a sincere fan of the Lon Chaney Jr. original. Rick is such a Wolfman fan, he admitted that he's only campaigned for two films in his entire career. One was Ed Wood and the other is this project.
Seeing them together in the same room made me feel the project was finally becoming a reality.
Rick's assistant Kazu took extensive hi-rez digital photos (on this incredible 30 megapixel Hasselblad digital camera) of Benny making various facial expressions. we were all so stunned to see just how expressive Benicio's snarls and grimaces were, even without make-up.
Rick joked, "so, whattaya need ME for?!"
That said, the designs that Rick has created for Benicio are astonishing -- subtle, detailed, (sexy), terrifying.
I've said it before, and I'll no doubt say it again: when Romanek has no more than four or five films under his belt I think the world will look back on his record and recognise it as the work of a true giant in film history. There's more filmmaking expertise on display in Static, One Hour Photo and a small handful of Romanek's music video and commercial work than almost any other filmmaker has ever acheived in even a lifetime career. Romanek is not only one of the greatest craftsmen in cinema he's one of it's most thrilling visionaries.
Officially, then, The Wolfman is the one film coming in the next couple of years that film ick is most excited about... so, if you know anything about it at all, please, please, send the info over.
Alex Proyas is rather busy at the moment - his Dark City director's cut is a more ambitious overhaul than first thought, including new effects work; he's making the Dracula prequel, currently being called Dracula Year Zero, and joining Mark Romanek in rebooting Universal's Monstrous sideline; and now, what I thought I already knew has more backers, because he seems to be squarely in the frame to direct the Silver Surfer movie.
This is by no means the first I've heard of this, but it is the first 'mainstream' news source I've seen lend credence to the grapevine mumblings. Adding the rumours into the mix, the deal seems to be this: J. Michael Straczynski is currently working on a script for a Silver Surfer film, Avi Arad is negotiating for Proyas to sign, shooting is likely to take place in Australia in the second half of next year and there's no sign of The Fantastic Four anywhere in the film's concept.
Proyas and Straczynski should be enough to keep this film far away from, say, Scorpion King levels of irrelevence - or, for that matter Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer levels of incompetence.
- Merrick discusses the script for the Escape From New York remake at Aint ItCool and makes it sounds utterly redundant, witless and insulting. I'm not sure he agrees, though.
- According to Michael Bay, on his official site, Tom De Santo was barely involved in the creative process behind Transformers and 'treated the set like a theme park' and Don Murphy trashed the script and made Michael 'and the writers feel like a big sh*t pile'. You have to wonder how trustworthy Bay's reportage is - he's been caught out barefaced lying before now.
- Milos Forman isn't directing an Amarillo Slim biopic.
- Kevin Costner is producing The Explorer's Club, a web series that will be animated by the Chiodo brothers.
- WorstPreviews have a picture they claim is from the set of The Wolf Man but... I'm not sure. Yet. Trust me: I like the idea of Mark Romanek being on set, making a new feature film, but my information had this one still in pre-production.
- Director Yam Larans had announced the female lead of his film The Echo on his blog but, curiously, the post disappeared. It's Amelia Warner - maybe he shouldn't have revealed this but, er... too late. The cat is out of the bag.
- Don Bluth has discussed his entire career in a new interview.
Steve Conrad has been hired to do an extensive overhaul on the script for In Deep, originally written by George Beckerman in the late 80s, and he's apparently being paid 1.6 million against 2.5 million for his trouble.
The director attached is Mark Romanek which, if you ask me, is a very good thing. Both of Romanek's features so far - One Hour Photo and Static - are genuine masterpieces.
Ben Stiller is producing the film and seems likely to star. The plot revolves around a man who challenges a parking ticket and, as a result, becomes sucked further and further into 'criminal allegations'. Sounds like Changing Lanes maybe, or even The Winslow Boy, in an odd way. It may, however, be nothing like either of those because all I know for sure is that this simple logline won't be anwhere nearly as sophisticated as the actual film.
Romanek is due to go into production on The Wolfman later this year, with Benicio Del Toro in the title role and, possibly, Anthony Hopkins as his father (and fellow bearer of the lupine genes?).
Yesterday was a very busy day for me, culminating in an evening at the theatre, under the spell of Derren Brown. But I'm back now, and I'm determined to catch up. So expect a few Movie Minesweepers today, to say the least.
- There's a neverending graveyard of movie projects that never came together. Premiere have compiled a 20-strong list of the more interesting, including a number of film ick faves that never were: Mark Romanek's A Cold Case, The Onion Movie (no, really), Ridley Scott's Tripoli, Richard Goleszewski's Tortoise vs. Hare, Cameron Crowe's Phil Spector biopic and, perhaps the greatest loss of them all, Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Premiere have managed to scrounge up status reports on some of the films, and it isn't exclusively bad news.
- Michael Davis already has a script written for a Shoot 'Em Up sequel.
- A new adaptation of Hell House could be on the cards. Could Richard Matheson be the next Phillip K. Dick, getting a whole slew of options sold in the next few years?
- Guillermo Del Toro has told his fans on a forum that Danny Elfman is scoring Hellboy 2. He's also promised 30 distinct creatures in the film.
- The redband trailer for The Brothers Solomon requires age verification.
- Ronald Moore has given a video interview that is up at Collider. The big scoop is that he's working on an I, Robot sequel.
- On a very similar note, Billy Ray has told SciFi that he's scripting a Westworld remake.
- Brian Yuzna has been discussing Beneath Still Waters with UGO, also touching on House of Re-Animator as they chatted. Will we ever get to see it...? Yuzna is optimistic.
- Time magazine are explaining Why Pixar Is Better.
- IESB are reporting that Steve Pink is to direct Fletch Won and... wow.... Joshua Jackson is to play the title role. That's incredible.
- Nicolas Cage won't be in Capone Rising after all. Perhaps there won't even be a Capone Rising. If there is, then Gerard Butler is still going to be the young Sean Connery.
- The Australian Daily Telegraph seem to think there's the possibilty of one more Star Wars film for cinemas. Nonsense. I think it will be at least ten years until Lucas announces more Star Wars feature films.
- Ubisoft have developed the videogame tie-in for Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf.
- CelebritySmack have a shot of Madonna, movie director. Apparently, Filth and Wisdom is only a short. That's merciful.
- Surprise surprise: Hope Davis will be in Charlie Kaufmann's Synecdoche, New York and once that's wrapped, she'll shoot Genova with Michael Winterbottom.
- Trent Reznor is trying to turn his album Year Zero into something more audiovisual, perhaps a film. Apparently, he's talking to 'A-list people' in order to do so. Sadly, this likely means David Fincher and not, say, Mark Romanek.
- Fox are planning a movie based on The Sims. Sim City I can see - the hurricanes and Godzilla-alikes might make for fun - but The Sims? Isn't this just every sitcom ever? Maybe they can do a cross-license and bring back Friends at the same time, as the same project.
- Tell me why. I don't like Monday Monday.
- Lodge Kerrigan is to write and direct a remake of Les Voleurs. This is a very good thing. We'll never get to see In God's Hands - stupid god and his clumsy hands - but at least we have something to look forward to again on the Kerrigan front.
- Rintaro, director of the animated Metropolis, is the latest to get going on a CG Penguin film. Apparently, the film is going to be kind of Franco-Japanese, somehow. Great name, though: Yona Yona Penguin.
- The BBC have comissioned Outcasts, a rather serious sounding new sci-fi series. Expect the American remake to follow.
- HorrorMovies have a rather exciting new clip from Hostel 2.
- And... Eli Roth is making strides with his Trailer Trash project, smaller steps with his Grind House 'sequel'. He's also pretty clear that he's done with Hostel, and won't cook up a third installment.
- There's going to be an Ocean's 14 but not a fourth Jason Bourne film? Suits me just fine. I won't lose any sleep over that outcome.
- A Lone Ranger film from the Pirates of the Caribbean team. Not for me, thankyou.
- US readers can see two clips from Sicko. [EDIT: Or download directly instead]
According to Anthony Hopkins, he's in the frame for a role in Mark Romanek's Wolfman film. He'll be playing the father of Benicio del Toro's character, the titular wolfman, but seems to think the character has lycanthropic tendencies himself.
He said "There's also a chance I may play the Wolfman in London in a movie with Benicio Del Toro" and later added "I play the Wolfman's father in Paris. A wonderful part."
Seems like sensible casting to me. You?
A couple of weeks ago, after being privileged enough to see a very early screening of Son of Rambow, I was lucky to be able to share a few words with Garth Jennings, the film's director. As one half of Hammer and Tongs he has been responsible for many of the best music videos of the last ten years, and their work was slated to be the subject of the next Directors Label DVD.
Jennings didn't seem to think it was going to happen. He admitted that he didn't know, but did indicate that things had gone very quiet.
Now it's clearer. The second wave of discs - Mark Romanek, Jonathan Glazer, Stephane Sednaoui and Anton Corbijn - did not acheive anything like the sales of wave one - Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze and Chris Cunningham. Sadly, this has pretty much rang the death knell for the whole project.
As well as Hammer and Tongs, Shynola were due a disc too, alongside Jean Baptiste-Mondino. Instead, it looks like there is going to be only one more title, a second volume of Gondry's work. Without a doubt, Gondry was the biggest draw in the whole series so far - though I do love my Romanek collection in particular. Despite featuring most of his most famous promos, Gondry's first disc barely scratched the surface of his full ouevre so rest assured that there's plenty more good stuff to fill out another installment.
It's good news that there's more Michel to come, but I only hope collections from Hammer and Tongs and Shynola can find their way out through some other means. Any entrepeneurs out there willing to take a punt?
A brief footnote. Visitors to the official Hammer and Tongs website may have noticed the text (working title) popping up everytime the words Son of Rambow are used. I feared that there may be a problem - either with the use of the Rambo copyright, or with the film's distributor Paramount Vantage finding this title unusable in marketing terms - so I e-mailed Hammer and Tongs to find out what is going on. Here's Garth's reply:
"It is still a working title because we might add a sub-title. We're not sure yet. Nothing sinister though."
The film does have a subtitle on imdb, where it is referred to as Son of Rambow: A Home Movie. I prefer the shorter version, for sure.
Mark Romanek is to make another feature film. About time too. It's The Wolfman.
Aint it Cool seem to have broken the news - I can't see it elsewhere yet. We already knew that Benicio del Toro was lined up to star and that Andrew Kevin Walker was behind the script. Don't despair, however: I'm sure Romanek has a rewrite planned.
A preview of Mark Romanek's new Jumpman spot for Nike Jordan is online now. The full 60 second commercial will air exclusively on ESPN this week before being unveiled online on the 17th -a t which time I will surely provide a link.
Type "Son of Rambow" into Google and what do you get? Just two pages. And one of them is this one. In some weird amalgam of Googlewhacking and Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, I think I may have just won a gold medal.
The other search result is the official site for Hammer and Tongs, Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith's commercial, music promo and feature film production company. They have made one feature film so far (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) with another one in the works (the aforementioned Son of Rambow) as well as countless dearly beloved, triple-A music videos. You know their clip for Blur's Coffee and TV, and you love it, I promise. The one with the milk carton that does the funny walk? Yeah? Told you.
The Quicktime cinema of their work is definitely the best thing on the site, and if you are even a little bit interested in moving images, you owe it to yourself to give it a through going over.
With must-own DVD collections of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham and Mark Romanek's work, Palm Pictures' Directors Label series is incredibly strong, established instantly as a kind of Criterion Collection for short-form and promotional works. The third wave is deep in development and I hope it addresses all of the obvious omissions: Tim Pope, Shynola and Hammer and Tongs.
The fact that I'm the only blogger out here shouting off about Son of Rambow is a little bit disappointing to me. First of all, I'd like to think that there's somebody out there who knows more about what's going on with the film than I do, so they can spill the beans. Secondly, I remember all of the online fuss this time last year, and even the year before, over Guide to the Galaxy. Where's the brouhaha this time?
I'm reminded me of when Fellowship of the Ring was nearing release. Seems that the whole world was waiting to see if the film lived up to the books. I wanted to see if the film lived up to Heavenly Creatures. I was there because of Peter Jackson, not Tolkien. Again, I was interested in Guide because of Jennings and Hammer and Tongs, not really Adams.
(Having said that, Adams was obviously a smart man with lots of very strong ideas, some killer gags and, basically, just a lovely public demeanour.)
When Guide was released, and I rushed off to see it as soon as I could, the preview-screening fuelled two-thirds backlash had already begun. Some very, very critical pieces had been published, one infamous supporter of Adams had caused all manner of fuss, and expectations were being chopped off at the neck. Then the film began, and, frankly, I had no idea what any of them were talking about.
It's not a perfect film. It's not nearly a perfect a film. But it is a great film, and the skill and care with which it was made, not to mention the wild creativity and wit, cannot be underestimated. Remember the airlock scene, where Mos Def and Martin Freeman are ejected from the Vogon ship? A brilliant piece of cinema with set design, sound, composition, performance all putting in a piece of the puzzle. Isn't that how it's meant to be? And just the shape of Marvin, his posture, and his movement - even in silhouette - there's his character, right there. I've got a list of things I love about this film longer than you could ever stand to listen to them.
Jennings is a visionary. That is to say, he has visions that he shares with us and they communicate his ideas very powerfully. The man is a born filmmaker. Son of Rambow, on that evidence alone, is going to be a film genuinely worth looking forward to.
I've made a handful of music videos myself, though certainly not enough, and the budgets I've had have been varied (all the way from none to not much at all). One thing I have always told the bands or their management, though, is that whatever their budget, there will be a treatment that works within it. There always is. Having more money will broaden your options, no doubt about it, but no matter how limited the cash reserves are, a clever, creative director will find a treatment that works within that budget. Every time I've pitched for a video, as long as I knew the restrictions before hand, I was able to offer a treatment that satisfied me, the band and the bursar.
Sometimes, though, coming up with the great idea that works without money can be tricky, and it does often feel dispiritingly impossible to me while I'm sitting there, staring at a blank screen. I have been trapped before, staring at the white nothingness, listening to the track over and over, not knowing what to do.
And then, I remember and watch Hammer and Tongs' video for Big Fan by The Wannadies. It's all the inspiration I need.
Reportedly, the video cost only thirty pounds, spent primarily on ice-cream. My short film Dirty Rotten Double Crosser had even less of a budget - spent on a second hand typewriter and a round of drinks. John vs Laura and Aphrodisiac Casserole were not only made for essentially nothing but also to incredibly short deadlines that can be measured in hours, not days. I'm particularly proud of my promo for How High is Your Waistband by Dan Cairns, which was not only budgeted in the very low double figures and shot on an extremely tight schedule but is also a genuine one-of-a-kind, stop-people-in-their-tracks trick that took a lot of planning to pull off.
All I try to do, you see, is to live up to the spirit of ingenuity and invention, crafstmanship and egoless hard work that I think Hammer and Tongs exemplify.
If only they were hiring...
(There's more on Son of Rambow across film ick)
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