1.<\/a> The Hollywood Reporter<\/i> says Woody Allen\u2019s Match Point<\/i> has a distributor<\/a> now, and it\u2019s DreamWorks, the studio that scored Allen\u2019s biggest box-office success<\/a> in years with Small Time Crooks<\/i> (2000) \u2014 his top-grossing directorial effort since Crimes and Misdemeanors<\/i> (1989) \u2014 and then let him go after his follow-ups The Curse of the Jade Scorpion<\/i> (2001), Hollywood Ending<\/i> (2002), and especially Anything Else<\/i> (2003) turned out to be among his biggest flops since Shadows and Fog<\/i> (1992).<\/p>\n They say Match Point<\/i> is Woody\u2019s best film in years, and I sincerely hope that\u2019s true, as I used to be a big fan of his, but I haven\u2019t found any of his films all that memorable since 1994\u2019s Bullets over Broadway<\/i> (unless we count 1998\u2019s Antz<\/i>, the DreamWorks cartoon which starred his voice). I am certainly intrigued to hear that the film takes place in London \u2014 not in New York! \u2014 and that it stars Scarlett Johansson, whose art-house cred was beginning to waver, following her roles The Perfect Score<\/i>, which was utterly disposable, and In Good Company<\/i>, which was okay but didn\u2019t give her much to do besides being The Girlfriend or The Daughter, depending on which male character\u2019s perspective you see her from. But I finally got around to seeing Melinda and Melinda<\/i> (which is being distributed by Fox Searchlight) the other day, and it sure seems to me like Woody is still treading water.<\/p>\n 2.<\/a> The Hollywood Reporter<\/i> also says Layer Cake<\/i> director Matthew Vaughn has ankled X-Men 3<\/i><\/a>, which starts shooting here in Vancouver in just two months. The script is in place, the actors are in place, now all they need is someone to call the shots.<\/p>\n As a Canadian and a Christian, the X-Men<\/i> franchise<\/a> has always had a slightly extra appeal for me, even though I was a DC fan, not a Marvel fan, back in my comic-collecting days. The coolest character in the films \u2014 Wolverine \u2014 is a Canadian, and the first movie was filmed in Toronto, and the scene in the bar where we actually see real Canadian currency onscreen warmed my heart when I saw the film for the first time during my two-week trip to New Mexico and other points in the United States in the summer of 2000. That money shot (!) was a nice piece of home.<\/p>\n The second film was made in Vancouver, several months after Sir Ian McKellen was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring<\/a><\/i>, and there were plenty of \u201csightings\u201d \u2014 at the Fringe Festival, at the Film Festival, and so on. McKellen, who plays Magneto in the X-Men<\/i> movies, didn\u2019t have a whole lot to do in the second one, but he stayed in B.C. for quite some time, and even lent his talents to local independent filmmaker Carl Bessai, starring in his low-budget film Emile<\/a><\/i>.<\/p>\n Add to all this the fact that one of the producers on these films is Ralph Winter, an open Christian who I interviewed over the phone while he was making the first film in 1999, and then met in person when he spoke at Regent College while he was making the second film in 2002 \u2014 plus the fact that the second film introduced the Christian superhero Nightcrawler \u2014 and it\u2019s all been fun.<\/p>\n 3.<\/a> Charles Colson<\/a>, former Nixon hatchet man turned evangelical broadcaster, is upset about the revelation that the infamous, mysterious \u201cDeep Throat\u201d was actually the No. 2 guy at the FBI.<\/p>\n Just a couple more news bits. 1. The Hollywood Reporter says Woody Allen\u2019s Match Point has a distributor now, and it\u2019s DreamWorks, the studio that scored Allen\u2019s biggest box-office success in years with Small Time Crooks (2000) \u2014 his top-grossing directorial effort since Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) \u2014 and then let him go after his […]<\/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-2780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n![](\"https:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7991\/933\/400\/dick.jpg\")
Me, I\u2019m just wondering how all those old Nixon movies will look, now that we know who this guy really was. It has been years since I saw All the President\u2019s Men<\/a><\/i> (1976), but I imagine that would be really interesting to watch right now. And I lament the fact that the resolution of this mystery probably means we will never again be treated to such inventive comedies as Dick<\/a><\/i> (1999), which posited that \u201cDeep Throat\u201d was actually a couple of teenaged girls, played by Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams. (And what an odd film that was. I wonder how the filmmakers pitched it, or what sort of cross-demographic marketing plan the studio had. I love the bit where Dan Hedaya, as Nixon, says to his dog, \u201cQuiet, Checkers! Or I\u2019ll feed you to the Chinese!\u201d But there are a couple of arcane political references wrapped up in that one bit of dialogue that must have flown right over the heads of the film\u2019s intended teenaged audience.)<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7991\/933\/400\/bornagain.jpg\")
FWIW, Born Again<\/a><\/i>, Colson\u2019s account of how he converted to Christianity while the Watergate scandal brewed, was turned into a film<\/a> in its own right in 1978, starring Dean Jones (The Love Bug<\/a><\/i>, The Shaggy D.A.<\/i>) as Colson; Jay Robinson (The Robe<\/a><\/i>\u2018s Caligula) as his lawyer David Shapiro; 1940s leading man Dana Andrews (Boomerang!<\/a><\/i>, Up in Arms<\/a><\/i>, Laura<\/a><\/i>) as Tom Phillips, the man who introduced Colson to the faith; and Peter Jurasik (Babylon 5<\/a><\/i>\u2018s Londo Mollari!!) as Henry Kissinger. It appears to be available on video<\/a> right now, but not yet on DVD.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"