60 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/ Rants, raves and randomness from the Empire office 20/11/2008 15:18:56 james@empireonline.com (James Dyer) http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=318 I rewatched the awesome, awesome Dirty Harry the other night, dear readers, when something struck me. Not literally, you understand – I prefer my movie watching to be unencumbered by the interface of heavy objects and my head. Anyway, I had watched Lethal Weapon just a few days before that, so that was still fresh in my mind. Now, as a student of Shane Black (again, not literally), I knew the impact that ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan had had on Lethal Weapon and the screenwriter's creation of the deliberately mythic hero, Martin Riggs. There’s nothing accidental about it – Callahan and Riggs are both cops on the edge, both widowers, both guys who’ll do whatever it takes to get things done. And as I watched Harry talks a jumper down off a roof in, ahem, unorthodox fashion - just as Riggs does in Lethal Weapon -  thought formed in my head. Now, go with me here: Dirty Harry is a premake of Lethal Weapon</b... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=318 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=316 Zombie apocalypses* scare me something chronic - I still have nightmares caused by 28 Days Later and even Resident bloody Evil gives me the heebie jeebies. But nothing has made me genuinely want to up sticks and move to a remote glen somewhere more than World War Z, so I'm both intrigued and alarmed at the news that Marc Forster has signed on to direct the film, making the long-rumoured project a more immediate reality. The intrigue comes from the fact that this is an intensely visual, cinematic book. A collection of first-person accounts of a zombie plague and the human fight-back, the film includes classic horror psyche-outs as the zombification slowly spreads, the vectors of the disease painstakingly traced, and then big action-horror set-pieces as the armies of the world are first devastated by the Z-hordes (swiftly nicknamed Zack - like Charlie in Vietnam or Jerry in WWII) and then begin to learn new tactics to turn the limited human safe havens into loci for a push back against the grey... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=316 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=314 Terry Pratchett's one of the most popular writers of fiction in this country - nay, the world - and no wonder. He's smart, erudite, screamingly funny and intimidatingly literary, as well as being a dab hand at those staples like plot and character. His books brim over with throwaway gags, slapstick and farce, but also set up elaborate parodies of art, literature and historical figures. So why is it so hard to adapt them for the screen, even when throwing money and star names at the problem? I watched The Hogfather when that was broadcast on Sky a Christmas or two back, and then The Colour of Magic, which just came out on DVD this week. Both have impressive cast lists, particularly the latter, which boasts Sean Astin as Twoflower, David Jason as Rincewind, Jeremy Irons as the Patrician and Tim Curry as the conniving wizard Trymon. Brian Cox narrates, Christopher Lee voices Death and James Cosmo is Chancellor Weatherwax. These are Good People - largely even the Right people (although if ... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=314 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=313 Empire was privileged to be at a world first screening of footage from Star Trek this morning and any reservations we may have harboured over JJ Abrams’ reimagining of the franchise have been well and truly beamed away. What we saw was a medley of action, excitement, humour and a true reverence for the franchise that should both appease fans and suck in newcomers. Abrams himself appeared to introduce four separate clips from the film, clearly a little apprehensive about airing his footage for the first time and so many months away from its May 2009 release. “The thing about Star Trek is that I was never really a huge fan. When I was asked to do Star Trek, though, I found myself saying ‘yes’. I just thought it was the right thing. There have been 10 movies and about a million series but when the first series came out I always felt it was someone else’s show. I appreciated there was a promise of adventure but quite frankly that’s always what I felt it w... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=313 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=308 Dear Mark Wahlberg, I have been a fan of yours for many years, probably since your break-out performance in Boogie Nights. I saw Three Kings three times in the cinema, and you were fantastic. In my household, yours is a name not to be slighted. I have defended you on many occasions and would like to keep doing so, but you’re making my job very difficult as of late. We are all aware of what a shambles The Happening turned out to be, and that’s okay, you know, everyone makes mistakes. Being in one bad movie every now and then is alright – ask Michael Caine – but imagine my soul-destroying disappointment when the first reviews of your latest film, Max Payne, started rolling in. Another critical bomb in the space of six months? I knew I had to take action, and that is why I find myself writing to you here. The pen is mightier than the sword, Mark Wahlberg, and the keyboard is like the machine gun of pens. I hope you understand that I’m doing this for your... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=308 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=303 R2-D2 is whistling at me. And, for once in my geeked-up life, this isn't a FULLY ARTICULATED ACTION FIGURE or a WORKING ALARM CLOCK WITH GENUINE MOVIE SOUNDS. PRESS TO TRY ME! This is the real thing. I swear to God, it's Artoo frickin' Detoo. Trundling around the floor of a large wood-panelled lobby on three wheeled legs, beeping at me, flashing his little blue light, and generally acting like R2-D2. Namely, like a demented loon with no real control over his limbs or tongue. Of course, though, it's not the real thing. This Artoo unit has been lovingly assembled, down to the scratched and faded paintwork, by a dedicated Star Wars fan from Wales, called Chris. And he's on hand today, controlling his creation with a giant remote, showing off its full array of beeps, blips and whistles. There's not a single R2 noise this thing can't make - even down to the Leia ‘General Kenobi' speech, and that strange elephantine scream R2 makes when he's terrified. It's astonishing. Right now, I im... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=303 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=290 You could hear the screams of horror when it was announced that Hollywood hottie Josh Hartnett had signed on to star in Rain Man in the West End. Admittedly, they calmed down somewhat when it was revealed that he'd be taking the Tom Cruise role rather than the Dustin Hoffman one, but even so the theatre seemed to be full of a) serious theatre-goers hoping to be proved right in their prejudices and b) women with stars in their eyes. Neither group, I suspect, got quite what they were hoping for. The thing is that Hartnett's actually rather good. As Charlie Babbitt, a selfish wheeler-dealer with a father complex the size of Windsor Castle, he's callous and brash and clearly damaged goods. He's also adept at delivering dialogue at roughly the speed of a Lambourghini Gallardo in top gear, which is a good thing since the role very much demands it, and he doesn't shy away from the fact that Charlie's kind of a bad-tempered little shit throughout the film. In the latter scenes of the piece, he taps i... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=290 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=297 Divorce is never fun, as Guy Ritchie and Madonna are no doubt realising right now. However, it seems it may have its career benefits. As the details of their split emerge, it appears that both parties are channelling their energies into work in order to weather the storm. And the result of this renewed vigour for all things business is that some of your best work can come out of the heartache. A case in point is the recent up in Anne Hathaway’s status, directly following her split from long-term lover Raffaello Follieri. Creating Oscar buzz with her perfect performance as tortured drug-addict Kym in Rachel Getting Married, Hathaway shows that the rollercoaster of personal heartbreak can be directed into the creative to fuel the on-screen emotionality. Similarly, Nicole Kidman earned her first Oscar nomination (for Moulin Rouge) straight after her divorce from Tom Cruise. And with Guy Ritchie making a return to form with RockNRolla, we can see that flying solo can h... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=297 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=287 Being new in a big city can be a daunting prospect. While riding down to London from the North on the back of my Dad’s tractor, I was worried that I might suffer a bit of culture shock and be unable to adjust to city-life. Thankfully I had cinema to guide me, and I now feel fully prepared to deal with whatever challenges London tries to throw in my path (the path of my tractor to be exact). Here’s what I learned from the films of Guy Ritchie; 1. Everyone in London is a criminal. There are types of criminal who are nicer than others, but are criminals none-the-less. 2. Everybody speaks in an incomprehensible barrage of rhyming slang, but it’s just so darn jolly that you can’t help but smile, nod, and pretend you know what they are on about. 3. Don’t gamble. All gambling is fixed, be it boxing, cards, dog-racing – you will not win, and will likely have to enter into some devil’s pact to pay back your debt. <br... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=287 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=286 You know how they say it's always good to try new things, get out of your usual routine and generally mix things up? Well, that was proved to me this weekend when I ventured out to a friend's hen party to an 80s weekend in Butlins in Bognor Regis. There is literally no part of that last bit of that last sentence that's very me, except maybe for the words "friend" and "weekend". Still, I decided to give it a go and ended up having a thoroughly entertaining time - not least because the wild mix of movie-costumed stag parties and hen dos that turned out to be lurking around the aforementioned resort made me feel right at home. Yup, venture out of a Saturday evening in Butlins and you too could find superheroes by the dozen (including Bananaman, for which bonus points), an entire chorus of Star Wars characters (top marks to the large male Leia in golden bikini), a plethora of Blues Brothers, a Beetlejuice, a number of Spartans (but less than 300, whatever they had scribbled on their ... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=286 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=284 Having watched the trailer for Warner Brothers' $80million adaptation of Watchmen in a full theatre, the excitement was palpable. More than anything though, it left me wondering whether this is going to be a production closed to the general public, for the enjoyment of the well informed and the fanboys only, destined to be nothing more than a cool trailer. Will it register with the masses, as similarly obscure 300 did last year? Can it break out of the fanboy box, the bane of such films as V for Vendetta and A History of Violence? I'll admit, it's a question that has left me uncertain. DC comics, the publisher of Watchmen, sold 100,000 copies of the graphic novel in 2007. In July, The Dark Knight came to theatres around the world accompanied by a 3 minute trailer for the film version of Watchmen. Less than a week later, DC comics ordered an additional print of 300,000 copies of the book. That figure has since risen to 900,000. The trailer, with ... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=284 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=282 There was a time, not so long ago, when heroes walked the Earth. Fighting for truth, justice and the right to bear pumped-up arms, they were a race of godlike beings whose preferred brand of quip-quip-bang-bang lawgiving marked them out as heroes of cinema. But the likes of Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis (hell, even Van Damme and Seagal) are all gone, consigned to straight-to-DVD hell or branching out into elder statesmen roles or governmental positions. Still, we weren't worried. There were many possible replacements to fill their bulging wifebeaters, so we'd be fine. Except that somewhere along the way all those up-and-coming action stars fell by the wayside, until only one muscleman remains – and he's British? That’s right; the ultimate action star of our times is Jason Statham, a bald Cockney who made his name playing diamond geezers and cheeky rogues. That’s not to say The Stath has had a smooth ride but, for one reason or another, his contemporaries have fal... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=282 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=281 At this point, Mamma Mia! has outgrossed The Dark Knight at the UK box office, and either has outstripped (or looks set to) all the Star Wars prequels and all the Harry Potter movies. It was only in its 12th week in the charts that it dropped below the number two spot here - and then only to number 5 (Dark Knight, in comparison, came out two weeks later and fell to number 15 that week). It is, quite simply, a phenomenon, but it's a phenomenon that happens (albeit usually to a lesser extent) every year, at least once. It occurs when a film - usually aimed at women or kids - suddenly takes off and beats ALL box-office predictions. And the Hollywood analysts stand around and wring their hands, bewildered to discover that the two quadrants not composed of males actually do go to the cinema sometimes. Hence the general astonishment at the success of <... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=281 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=280 Greetings, dear readers, and welcome to another episode of My Cult Characters. First, apologies for this blog’s long absence. I’d like to tell you I’ve been busy on a mission to return a gifted mountain gorilla to her birthplace near the ruins of Zinj, but I haven’t — that’s the plot of the film Congo. Anyhow, on with the show. I won’t sugarcoat it — my next pick is a freak, even by David Lynch’s standards. He appears in Mulholland Drive, the film I love the most out of Lynch’s freaky filmography, and while he could easily be snipped out of the film without making much of a difference, for me he’s the icing on this curious-tasting cake. I am referring to The Cowboy. A Wild West-styled creep so out-there he’s known to his friends as The Lone Deranger, this chap turns up at several points in the splintered narrative, mostly hovering malignantly in the background of crowd shots. But his moment in the limelight, and the reason... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=280 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=279 OK, this isn’t film, but it’s film-esque, and has us all talking, so we wanted to share. Heroes kicked off its third series last night, and is now officially more lost than Lost. Following a second season stunted by the writers' strike, we hoped to get back to the grasp of some gripping “Save the Cheerleader” action. But if the cheerleader doesn’t need saving, and if Sylar can be stopped by a mere louver door, then where can it go from here? We are now in plot blurring territory, where the writers rip up all the character notes (if they had any), and rewrite them, a week at a time, losing track of what has gone before with every passing episode. But our discussion of this is going to get spoilerific, so if you are saving this quality drama for the weekend or didn’t watch the second episode on BBC3 later, then look away now! Opening on a flash-forward to the future, we see that Future Peter has a major gash across his face and Claire Bear has evo... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=279 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=277 For the second in our Stage to Screen series*, we're going to look at two shows - The Sound of Music, on the London stage, and Mary Poppins, now touring the UK (it hits Edinburgh tomorrow, I believe). The link should be obvious - both films that inform the shows are Bank Holiday favourites, both are beloved by your granny, and both originally starred the inestimable Julie Andrews. And what both shows prove is just how good, and how underrated, Andrews is. Let's take The Sound of Music first. It's been showing in London for quite some time already, but since the Empire budget wouldn't stretch to a ticket while Connie was still starring, it's only now that we've gotten a chance to see it - and boy was it disappointing. This is because Julie Andrews' contribution to the role of Maria is hugely underestimated. She had such poise, and so much s... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=277 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=275 What's with all the adventurous movies being turned into Broadway musicals? Yesterday’s news that American Psycho is going to be turned into a Broadway show — although it is unclear whether there will be any actual song and dance musical numbers — films my little heart with joy. This is partly because nothing says The Great American Songbook more than yuppies wielding chainsaws. But also partly because the upcoming crop of musicals based on movies — Chocolat, Shakespeare In Love, Catch Me If You Can, The Color Purple, The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert — don’t push the envelope far enough in what the Broadway musical-movie interface should be. Patrick Bateman might just do that. But the news got me thinking. What are the movies that really should be readied for curtain up? Here are my suggestions for show stopping tunes from some unlikely musicals — beware spoilers. Are you listening Cameron Mackintosh? Taxi Driver New York,... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=275 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=274 It happens only once every three or four years: an event so glitzy, so glamorous, so jam-packed full of movie stars that it makes The Oscars look small and inconsequential. We’re talking, of course, about Walt Disney Studios’ large-scale unveiling of their slate for the next couple of years, which took place today in LA at the Kodak Theatre, in front of an audience of thousands, and featuring a cast worth millions. It was a truly spectacular, star-studded affair, featuring appearances from the likes of Nicolas Cage, Johnny Depp, Jim Carrey, Dwayne Johnson, Robin Williams, Tim Allen and Miley Cyrus. Then there were the musical numbers. And the marching bands. And the trailers. And the clips, from Tr2n to Prince Of Persia. And the 3D presentation of Bolt. And the announcements – of Johnny Depp in Pirates 4, Alice In Wonderland AND The Lone Ranger; of Nicolas Cage in National Treasure 3 and The Sorceror’s Apprentice. But why squeeze all that into ... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=274 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=267 Have you been to the cinema lately? I mean a real cinema like a multi-plex away from London, where they great unwashed flock every weekend. It’s changed. Time was, you rolled up in your jeans and t-shirt, bought a ticket for whatever you fancied that evening and then sat in the dark and enjoyed the film. Preferably without talking. Now, you can’t go to the cinema without tripping over someone in a knight of Narnia outfit or an Abba flare suit. And they haven’t just come to watch. They’ve come to sing, dance, fight and shout dialogue at the screen. Cinema, regular every day films, have become a participation experience. And we’re not just talking sing-a-long-a-Sound-of-Music here. We’re talking regular films. I had to turn down a girls only trip to Sex And The City recently because I failed to meet the dress code of Manolos and Louis Vitton handbag. Actually, I had to turn it down for reasons of taste too, it’s the kind of ... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=267 http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=265 There’s two very good films on this Saturday – Shakespeare In Love (ITV1, 10.15pm) and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring (C4, 7.30pm). But being a discerning Empire reader you already know they’re good films. Heck, you’ve probably seen them both a gazillion times. But the reason I mention them is they feature very good performances from good looking people who Hollywood tried to turn into leading men. It’s something I like to call the ‘Good Looking Actor Fallacy’ or GLAF™. It’s the fallacy that just because someone is good looking, they can carry a film. Maybe, it’s just that some Hollywood execs are lazy and think, “Hey, there’s a good looking dude. We won’t worry about giving him anything like good dialogue or character motivation ‘cause all the slobs want to do it look at him and drool anyway…” I’m talking about people like Ben Affleck, Rupert Evere... http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=265