The kids are asleep, so it’s time for more newsbites!
1. Do you want a sneak peek of the storyline for WALL-E, the next film from Pixar (after this summer’s Ratatouille, that is) and director Andrew Stanton (2003’s Finding Nemo)? Jim Hill has the spoiler-filled details. FWIW, I’m cautiously optimistic; as one of the comments puts it, the film sounds like “E.T. meets A.I.“
Meanwhile, Variety has an interesting story on the “Pixar-ization” of Disney since the two companies merged early last year:
Catmull says the layoffs weren’t a result of corporate pressure, but his and Lasseter’s decision to move Disney Animation from putting out one pic per year to one every 18 months.
“It took Pixar 10 years to get to one movie per year,” Catmull notes. “We had to get things back in balance and then grow from there.”
Such sentiments, while reasonable, underline why many in the animation community say Mouse House artists are struggling with an inferiority complex: Pixar kept its leadership, didn’t experience any layoffs, and is putting out one pic per year.
In other words, the 72-year-old Disney Animation has to follow the example of its 20-year-old sibling.
2. Remember how Roger & Me (1989) was supposed to be all about Michael Moore‘s inability to get an interview with General Motors CEO Roger Smith? Whoops, it turns out Moore actually did get an interview … and left it on the cutting-room floor. This and other details are revealed in Manufacturing Dissent, a new documentary by a couple of left-leaning Canadians that premieres March 10 at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. The New York Times interviews the filmmakers.
3. Variety says producer Jeremy Thomas and director Jon Amiel are preparing a movie about Charles Darwin based on Annie’s Box, a biography by Darwin’s great-great-grandson Randal Keynes (whose own son Skandar plays Edmund in the Narnia movies):
It focuses on the period when Darwin was writing “The Origin of the Species,” his ground-breaking treatise on evolution, while living a family life at Down House in Kent, near London. . . .
The “Annie” of the title is Darwin’s first daughter, whose death aged 10 left him grief-stricken. With his scientific discoveries leading him toward agnosticism, he was unable to find consolation in belief in an afterlife, but coped with his loss by plunging into his work.
Incidentally, I interviewed Amiel four years ago, back when his disaster movie The Core (2003) came out. It was a fun chat.
4. Angela Zito has a very interesting interview with Into Great Silence (2005) director Philip Gröning at The Revealer:
AZ: Did you get surprising responses?
PG: Many. People go and see it often. The mother in law of my exec producer went to see it 8 times. She’s a psycho-analyst. A person in Rome saw it twelve times. Then the reaction I was surprised by most, was that so many people come up to me or go on the website and express gratitude—it’s not that they say “This is a great film” they say “thank you for the time we had.’ And now in France, it seems like a phenomena of people going in and starting to pray in the cinema Maybe this is a misunderstanding… But on another level, I wanted the film to transform into a monastery and this is what happens.
AZ: It feels very Buddhist, but you are not Buddhist—do you have a meditation practice?
PG: Oh no. I’m Catholic. And it’s very deliberate that I did not do this film on Buddhist monasteries. This is where the collaboration with my friend Nico ended. When we could not get into the monastery he asked, why don’t we go to Tibet? I said I want to do this for myself, to find out why I am so anti-religious, having being brought up so strictly Catholic. I want to heal some wounds and go back and understand where I’ve come from. I cannot understand that by going into a Buddhist monastery. I was not a Buddhist child, and my audience did not have a Buddhist childhood either. There is a problem with all those beautiful films which are for us a sort of religious tourism. Nice, but it’s not really going very deep.
Just on a theoretical level there is a mistake in going from the background you come from to an entirely fresh background. The way you know that a religion is your religion is that you have problems with it. If you don’t have problems with it, it’s not your religion.
5. Jim Carrey discusses his “spiritual side” with Glenn Whipp of the Los Angeles Daily News:
Q: So your production company — JC23 — has more to do with the 23rd Psalm than your fascination with the number.
A: A friend gave me a book about the 23rd Psalm and I thought, “That’s a great way to look at my life and career. To make choices without fear. To know that I’m taken care of, that I’m all right. And I can choose boldly.” And in Hollywood, the line about a banquet in the midst of your enemies is not bad, either. It makes you feel better.
6. Variety reports that Ice Cube will star in First Sunday, the directorial debut of playwright David E. Talbert:
Talbert script casts Cube as one of two men who bungle an attempt to heist money from a church. They wind up taking its parishioners hostage, and those churchgoers slowly convert the robbers to see the error of their ways.Filming will begin May 14 in Los Angeles and Baltimore, with pic to be released to coincide with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. . . .
Though he hasn’t directed a feature yet, Talbert has already proved his appeal with urban audiences. He has spent 15 years writing more than a dozen gospel-tinged plays that have been performed in theaters around the country. His latest, “Nick of Tyme,” is currently on tour with Morris Chestnut in the lead.
7. The Associated Press has a fun story on Switzerland and the abundance of subtitles in movie theatres there:
Switzerland is the only European country with four recognized languages — with English making up an unofficial fifth language — and the Swiss have long been proud of their multilingual status. Most other countries have just one dominant language, so movies are either dubbed or subtitled in that language. . . .
A fondness for subtitles is not the only difference between Swiss and American movie theaters — consider the Swiss movie ratings, which are both more varied and more rigid than their U.S. counterparts.
Movies can be rated K/6, K/8, K/10, J/12 or J/14, which means a child or teen has to be that age to view it. Babies and toddlers are banned unless a special family matinee is advertised. Parental discretion is not allowed. . . .
Other surprises await ex-pat theatergoers. One is the price 16-19 Swiss francs (up to $15.50) for an adult a serious ouch that surpasses even Manhattan’s $11 tickets. Another is the traditional Swiss intermission. Explosions could be thundering, lips could be inches away from connecting, but the screen goes black, the lights go on and it’s time to head to the lobby for popcorn, ice cream or a cigarette. . . .
Speaking of seats, they are reserved, with comfy cushions and lots of leg room. That eliminates the American stampede for seats when the doors open, but woe to those who want a different view. The Swiss are not amused to find someone in their reserved seat and stare down anyone who dares to arrive late, even amid the endless pre-movie ads.
So the Swiss only like interruptions at specified times?
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