Time to unload some more notes that I\u2019ve been sitting on.<\/span><\/p>\n 1.<\/a> My favorite comment on the recent awards season, including the Oscars, comes from Salon.com<\/a>\u2018s Andrew O\u2019Hehir:<\/p>\n It\u2019s no surprise that \u201cNo Country for Old Men<\/a>\u201d swept the three biggest prizes, but here\u2019s how odd the year was: The academy showers its laurels on a film that has made about $63 million in domestic box office, while the big winner<\/a> at the supposedly independent Spirit Awards<\/a> has grossed double<\/i> that amount. Maybe the two organizations should just switch names, dates and locations. I mean, would anybody notice?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 2.<\/a> TrekMovie.com<\/a> reports that 12-year-old Jacob Kogan<\/a>, who recently starred as the creepy title character in Joshua<\/a><\/i>, has been hired to play the young Spock in Star Trek XI<\/a><\/i> \u2014 the release date of which has been moved<\/a> from Christmas 2008 to May 2009. (You mean we have to wait over a year<\/i> before we can see this movie?) The website says Kogan will share at least one scene with Winona Ryder<\/a>, who is playing Spock\u2019s mother, and it notes that we have seen the young Spock before, in Star Trek: The Animated Series<\/a><\/i> (1973-1974) and in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock<\/a><\/i> (1984).<\/p>\n 3.<\/a> When the first Narnia<\/a><\/i> movie came out three years ago, some of us complained<\/a> about the way it felt like a pale imitation of Peter Jackson\u2019s Lord of the Rings<\/i> trilogy, among other things. So imagine how we are reacting<\/a>, now that Gregory Ellwood<\/a> of MSN Movies has sneak-peeked the second movie<\/a> and says it \u201cshould win over some moviegoers who wanted more \u2018Lord of the Rings\u2019-style scope to the \u2018Narnia\u2019 franchise.\u201d Question for the filmmakers: After you\u2019ve finished pumping lots of battle sequences<\/a> into the first two movies, what are you going to do with Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/a><\/i>, which is supposed to be all about a mystical sea voyage?<\/p>\n 4.<\/a> Lars von Trier<\/a> has been talking about making a movie called Antichrist<\/a><\/i> for a few years now \u2014 and until now, all I knew about it was that it would be \u201cbased on the theory that it was Satan, not God, who created the world\u201d. But now the Daily Telegraph<\/a><\/i> adds a detail or two, as part of a broader profile of von Trier himself:<\/p>\n Instead, his next feature is Antichrist, a \u201cpsychological thriller that evolves into a horror film\u201d. It features one man and one woman, yet to be cast, will be shot in Germany and in English this summer and deals with the favourite Von Trier topic of cruelty between the sexes: \u201cYou have to guess who is the Antichrist,\u201d says its producer, Meta Louise Foldager, mischievously. Von Trier is testing ways of manipulating the image in it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 5.<\/a> MTV Movies Blog<\/a> reports that Paul Haggis, who finished the final draft of the next James Bond movie<\/a> mere hours before the writers\u2019 strike<\/a> began, has \u201cno idea\u201d why the filmmakers gave it the title Quantum of Solace<\/a><\/i> nearly three months later. Asked what he thought of the title, \u201che just sighed and said: \u2018No comment.'\u201d<\/p>\n 6.<\/a> Now that the strike is over, Variety<\/a><\/i> says Warner Brothers is hoping to get that lame-sounding Justice League<\/a><\/i> movie into production in time for a release sometime in 2009. Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald<\/a><\/i> says the production may bolt Australia in favour of Canada due to \u201ca dispute over whether it is eligible for the Federal Government\u2019s new incentive for film production.\u201d<\/p>\n 7.<\/a> The Hollywood Reporter<\/a><\/i> says Max Thieriot, who just played the young Hayden Christensen in Jumper<\/a><\/i>, will star in a movie called Driving Lessons<\/a><\/i> as \u201cthe religious, right-wing teenage son of Bunnie (Hope Davis), a woman given a second chance at her unhappy marriage to Jack (Dermot Mulroney) after losing her memory. It conveniently helps her forget an interracial affair with her burly next-door neighbor Simon [Chi McBride].\u201d<\/p>\n 8.<\/a> It\u2019s definitely too late to take part in this now, and I\u2019m nowhere near New York to begin with, but still, a heads-up for future reference: The Revealer<\/a> recently hosted a screening of two movies that touch on the growth of Christianity in China:<\/p>\n The Cross & The Camera: the films of Gan Xiao\u2019er<\/b> 9.<\/a> Variety<\/a><\/i> reports that horror-and-comedy veteran John Landis<\/a> is attached to direct Ghoulishly Yours, William M. Gaines<\/a><\/i>, \u201ca biopic based on the life of the publisher of EC Comics and Mad magazine.\u201d<\/p>\n 10.<\/a> Variety<\/a><\/i> reports that The Golden Compass<\/a><\/i> is a hit in Japan, where it just opened, and the film could add as much as $51 million to its worldwide take in that country alone. It\u2019s too bad the struggling<\/a> studio<\/a> won\u2019t get to enjoy<\/a> the extra profits, since it pre-sold the foreign-distribution rights way back when.<\/p>\n 11.<\/a> I haven\u2019t seen the original Starship Troopers<\/a><\/i> (1997) since it first came out, but, ridiculous as it was, I remember loving the satire and the special effects and thinking it was a really good guilty pleasure. I haven\u2019t seen the second film, which went straight to video, but now the third film<\/a> is upon us, and it reportedly gets into religious matters. io9<\/a> reports from WonderCon:<\/p>\n Starship Troopers III<\/i> is much truer to the original Heinlein book than the first two movies, Van Dien and Neumeier both stressed. We might actually get to see the power suits that Heinlein talks about in the book. \u201cI feel a great debt to the fans of the novel,\u201d said Neumeier. \u201cI adore the novel. I read it when i was 13.\u201d<\/p>\n Neumeier sees the Troopers<\/i> trilogy as a sort of history of war movies. The first Starship Troopers<\/i> is sort of a riff on World War II movies, partly motivated by Verhoeven\u2019s desire to deal with the experience of Germans in the mid-1930s, when the Nazis were rising to power. The second Troopers<\/i> is more of a Korean war movie. And the third one is much more of a Vietnam war film, dealing with issues of religion and politics. It\u2019s also about \u201chow the state can use religion both badly, and for good.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Gabriel McKee<\/a> at SF Gospel comments:<\/p>\n I\u2019m not entirely sure what the connection is between Vietnam War movies and religion, just as I\u2019m not sure what the connection is between Heinlein\u2019s novel and church-state relations. It sounds like it will be as satirical as the first film, containing more fake TV news and commercials. But considering that my approach to the first film has always been that it is, specifically, a satire of Heinlein himself<\/i>, I have to question the wisdom of making the film more faithful to its source material.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For what it\u2019s worth, this is the currently available trailer:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_woGjV_q8fM<\/a> Time to unload some more notes that I\u2019ve been sitting on. 1. My favorite comment on the recent awards season, including the Oscars, comes from Salon.com\u2018s Andrew O\u2019Hehir: It\u2019s no surprise that \u201cNo Country for Old Men\u201d swept the three biggest prizes, but here\u2019s how odd the year was: The academy showers its laurels on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
In the post-Mao era, religious life rarely appears in China\u2019s new independent films. Gan\u2019s feature Raised From Dust<\/a><\/i> portrays the troubles of a rural Christian family whose father is dying. The documentary Church Cinema<\/i> shows Christian audiences\u2019 reactions to his feature.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Click here<\/a> if the video file above doesn\u2019t play properly.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"