Yesterday, I was watching The Adventures of Tintin with the kids, and I was struck — not for the first time — by the way some images that were obviously designed for 3D can look a little odd, composition-wise, when viewed in a 2D format. (more…) Read more
Most of the major characters have already been cast, but a few new actors have joined the cast of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah in supporting roles — and one of them’s a doozy. Recent casting announcements have included Marton Csokas (Kingdom of Heaven) in an unspecified role, Dakota Goyo (Real Steel) as the young Noah and Barry Sloane as a “poacher” — but the one that catches my eye is the announcement that Kevin Durand (Legion) is playing “a watcher .... Read more
There has been so much buzz lately about Darren Aronofsky’s Noah and various other biblical projects in the works, that I almost forgot that Will Smith was attached to star in a movie about Cain a couple years ago. Yesterday, however, Deadline Hollywood brought it back to mind by reporting that Smith might not only star in the film, but direct it as well. (If he does, it would mark his feature directorial debut; his only previous turn in the... Read more
First, let’s get what should be obvious out of the way: you don’t need a villain to make a good Star Trek story. Indeed, the top-grossing entry in the franchise ever, prior to J.J. Abrams’ reboot a few years ago, was Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), and there were no villains in that film unless you count the human race, which had hunted humpback whales to extinction. Likewise with the original TV series, in which some of the... Read more
Peter O’Toole announced his retirement from acting yesterday, and I must admit I’ve been dwelling on Bible movies enough these past few days that my first thought was, “Well, I guess that’s another part that the makers of Mary Mother of Christ will have to re-cast!” O’Toole had been attached to play Symeon, the old man who was informed by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah (as per Luke 2). It wasn’t... Read more
Darren Aronofsky has been talking about making a movie about Noah and the Flood for so long, I actually mentioned it several times at this blog before I went on my two- or three-year hiatus (most recently here, back in December 2008). But in the past year or so — following the critical, box-office and awards success of Black Swan — Aronofsky has been making his dream a reality, with A Beautiful Mind co-stars Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly set... Read more
Deadline.com reports that Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado will play Jesus in The Bible, a five-part mini-series being made for the History channel by Mark Burnett, a producer who is better known for his “reality TV” projects such as Survivor, The Apprentice and Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?. Interestingly, Morgado was attached to another biblical project a few years ago, when it was announced that he would play Joseph in Mary Mother of Christ. But that film has gone... Read more
I may have stepped aside from regular blogging for two or three years, but some of the projects I talked about back then are still in development. Case in point: Black Nativity, an adaptation of the 1961 Broadway musical. When I last mentioned it in April 2009, Fox Searchlight was said to be “fast-tracking” the film for release in December of that year — but I don’t think I heard anything about it again after that, until today. (more…) Read more
Like a lot of people, I made a point of watching Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) again before his prequel Prometheus came out last month. One thing that struck me on this viewing was how frequently Scott uses close-ups of non-human faces, indeed of mere things. I had certainly noticed individual shots on previous viewings, but it was only during my latest encounter with the film that all these images began to jostle together in my mind, and that I began... Read more
If anything signaled the end of Disney’s dominance in the feature-length animated-film department, as well as the rise of computer-animated films over traditionally hand-drawn animated films, it was the release, ten years ago, of Ice Age. Prior to that, most of the major cartoons — the successful ones, that is — were produced by Disney, distributed by Disney or, in the case of DreamWorks, produced by former Disney people who were either imitating Disney’s style (a la The Prince of... Read more
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