Time for some more brief news and review bits, I think.<\/span><\/p>\n 1.<\/a> Legion<\/a><\/i>, the supernatural thriller starring Paul Bettany as the archangel Michael, just got a little weirder. In the middle of a story on all the actors who have joined the cast, Variety<\/a><\/i> gives a little more detail about the plot:<\/p>\n Scripted by Stewart and Peter Schink, the thriller casts Bettany as the archangel Michael, the only one standing between mankind and an apocalypse<\/a>, after God loses faith in humanity. Man\u2019s lone hope rests with a group of strangers who must deliver a baby they realize is Christ in his second coming.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Good grief. From Omen III: The Final Conflict<\/a><\/i> (1981; my comments<\/a>) to Bless the Child<\/a><\/i> (2000; my review<\/a>), many films have been based on the premise that the Second Coming will be just like the first coming, with Jesus being born as a baby and all that. But that is not what the Bible describes at all<\/i>. It\u2019s not going to be a mere reincarnation.<\/p>\n And hey, why is the God of this film losing faith in humanity so soon after sending his Son back into the womb of another human being? Or, hmmm, maybe the film is working from the premise that Jesus isn\u2019t being \u201csent\u201d at all, but is coming in spite of<\/i> his Father\u2019s loss of faith in humanity.<\/p>\n Whatever. The newly-announced actors who have joined this film include Dennis Quaid<\/a> \u2014 who discussed his own Christian faith with me a couple years ago<\/a> and has another Apocalypse-themed film, The Horsemen<\/a><\/i>, in the works \u2014 as well as Tyrese Gibson, Jon Tenney, Charles S. Dutton, Lucas Black, Kate Walsh, Adrianne Palicki, Kevin Durand and Willa Holland.<\/p>\n 2.<\/a> One of the more spiritually interesting films I have seen in the last few months is Longford<\/a><\/i> (2006), starring Samantha Morton as one of England\u2019s more notorious criminals and Jim Broadbent as the Catholic member of the House of Lords who befriends her, perhaps more naively than he ought to have done. (See the brief review<\/a> by my friend Steven D. Greydanus.) It was written by Peter Morgan, who won an Oscar for The Queen<\/a><\/i> (2006) \u2014 so I am intrigued to hear, via Variety<\/a><\/i>, that Morgan has just sold a script called Hereafter<\/i>, which is described as being \u201cin the vein of \u2018The Sixth Sense<\/a>.'\u201d I would love to know more about this film, but alas, no more details have been made public \u2026 yet.<\/p>\n 3.<\/a> Variety<\/a><\/i> says Oliver Stone has cast James Cromwell as former President George H.W. Bush, Ellen Burstyn as former First Lady Barbara Bush, and Elizabeth Banks as current First Lady Laura Bush in W<\/i>, the biopic \u2014 formerly titled Bush<\/a><\/i> \u2014 that stars Josh Brolin<\/a> as current President George W. Bush. Banks, who has starred mostly in comedies so far, tells Entertainment Weekly<\/a><\/i> she is a registered Democrat and is \u201cstill trying\u201d to figure out how to play her character, though she also says, \u201cI hope to do right by her. I have nothing but admiration and respect for the First Lady.\u201d<\/p>\n 4.<\/a> The Screengrab<\/a> notes that last Tuesday would have marked the 100th birthday of David Lean<\/a>, if he had not died in 1991. Lean directed my favorite film of all time, Lawrence of Arabia<\/a><\/i> (1962), as well as Great Expectations<\/a><\/i> (1946), Oliver Twist<\/a><\/i> (1948), Summertime<\/a><\/i> (1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai<\/a><\/i> (1957), Ryan\u2019s Daughter<\/a><\/i> (1970) and a handful of other films, some of them classics, that I have never really written about, such as Brief Encounter<\/a><\/i> (1945), Hobson\u2019s Choice<\/a><\/i> (1954), Doctor Zhivago<\/a><\/i> (1965) and A Passage to India<\/a><\/i> (1984). Prior to all that, he was also an editor on films like Pygmalion<\/a><\/i> (1938) and 49th Parallel<\/a><\/i> (1941).<\/p>\n 5.<\/a> TrekMovie.com<\/a> reports that principal photography on Star Trek XI<\/a><\/i> has wrapped \u2026 and now the filmmakers have over a year<\/i> to do the post-production and to get the movie ready for its premiere in May 2009. The website also notes that this movie had the second-longest production schedule of any of the Star Trek<\/i> films produced so far, lasting 20 weeks; only Star Trek: The Motion Picture<\/a><\/i> (1979), at 24 weeks, was longer.<\/p>\n 6.<\/a> Personally, I loved the unresolved ambiguities in Amir Bar-Lev\u2019s documentary My Kid Could Paint That<\/a><\/i>, but I had to burst out laughing when I came across this paragraph in Jeffrey Wells\u2019s review<\/a> the other day:<\/p>\n And perhaps \u201cmaybe\u201d is all one can say about this situation. Maybe a definitive bust or exoneration is out of the question. But I don\u2019t want fucking maybes when I go to see a movie. The only way I\u2019ll accept them is when the filmmaker somehow conveys what he\/she really thinks, and persuades me to come to the same gut conclusions. If there\u2019s no clarity or closure or at least some kind of ending that has a discernible undercurrent, then whadaya whadaya?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There, I just burst out laughing again while copying-and-pasting that paragraph. Ah, joy. God bless Jeffrey Wells. Really.<\/p>\n 7.<\/a> The Associated Press<\/a> looks at whether the new Mike Myers comedy The Love Guru<\/a><\/i> might be insensitive to Hinduism:<\/p>\n Still, weeks before the movie is even ready for screening, some in the Hindu community feel that \u201cThe Love Guru\u201d has the potential to ridicule important elements of their religion. <\/p>\n Rajan Zed, a self-described Hindu leader from Nevada, demanded that Paramount Pictures screen the film for members of the Hindu community before it is released in June. Based on the movie\u2019s trailer and MySpace page, Zed says \u201cThe Love Guru\u201d \u201cappears to be lampooning Hinduism and Hindus\u201d and uses sacred terms frivolously. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople are not very well-versed in Hinduism, so this might be their only exposure,\u201d he told The Associated Press. \u201cThey will have an image in their minds of stereotypes. They will think most of us are like that.\u201d <\/p>\n Paramount, which has screened sensitive films for select audiences in the past, said early screenings would be held for the Hindu community. <\/p>\n \u201c`Love Guru,\u2019 which is not yet complete, is a satire created in the same spirit as Austin Powers,\u201d Paramount said in a statement, noting that the film features spiritual teacher Deepak Chopra and Hindu actor Manu Narayan. \u201cIt is our full intention to screen the film for Rajan Zed and other Hindu leaders once it is ready.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n But religious communities rarely take well to faith-themed comedies, said Diane Winston, a professor of media and religion at the University of Southern California. <\/p>\n \u201cTo be funny, you have to get in people\u2019s faces and disturb their complacent perspectives,\u201d she said. \u201cReligious groups have tended to be very concerned about their portrayal in the media, especially the entertainment media. Often \u2026 in comedies, it\u2019s a very broad representation which they perceive as offensive. It\u2019s the nature of stereotype.\u201d <\/p>\n Her take on \u201cThe Love Guru\u201d trailer and Web site? Rather than a spoof of Eastern religion, it seems more of a satire of American culture\u2019s tendency toward materialism, promiscuity and quick spiritual fixes told through a pseudo religious figure. <\/p>\n \u201cThe character didn\u2019t have to be a guru. He could just as well have been a rabbi, minister, priest or imam,\u201d she said. \u201cThese are problems within the culture at large. <\/p>\n \u201cHindus were a fresh target,\u201d she continued. \u201cJews and Christians have been parodied before so perhaps Myers thought this was a different take on a familiar comedy routine.\u201d . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 8.<\/a> Libertas<\/a> says some people are planning to stage a protest outside a Los Angeles theatre showing the Iraq War drama Stop-Loss<\/a><\/i> tomorrow night. Dudes, why give it that extra bit of publicity? If recent<\/a> trends<\/a> are anything to go by, the film will die a lonely death at the box office without all the attention.<\/p>\n 9.<\/a> In related news, Stop-Loss<\/i> star Ryan Philippe tells MTV News<\/a> he came very close to playing Anakin Skywalker<\/a> in the Star Wars<\/a><\/i> prequels<\/a>. Interesting. And given the direction George Lucas went in the end, I don\u2019t have a hard time imagining that at all.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Time for some more brief news and review bits, I think. 1. Legion, the supernatural thriller starring Paul Bettany as the archangel Michael, just got a little weirder. In the middle of a story on all the actors who have joined the cast, Variety gives a little more detail about the plot: Scripted by Stewart […]<\/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-957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n