stuff
'The secret of the Western, continuously disavowed in text after text, is that there is no difference between civilization and savagery--civilization is savage.'
- Amanda Ann Klein, "The Horse Doesn't Get A Credit" in Reading Deadwood
'...grand moments, the dark deep waters beneath, bone-riddled.'
- Uncensored
Todd McCarthy's review of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, directed by Andrew Dominik (his second movie, after the Eric Bana-starrer Chopper), and featuring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. The music is by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, who also collaborated for John Hillcoat's outback Western, The Proposition. [imdb]
McCarthy writes:
'A ravishing, magisterial, poetic epic that moves its characters toward their tragic destinies with all the implacability of a Greek drama, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" is one of the best Westerns of the 1970s, which represents the highest possible praise. It's a magnificent throwback to a time when filmmakers found all sorts of ways to refashion Hollywood's oldest and most durable genre.'
Is it too early to say that the art-house Western is making a sort of come back? David Denby reviews James Mangold's 3:10 to Yuma at The New Yorker:
'There haven’t been many big-screen Westerns recently, but the form has lost none of its slightly absurd solemnity. It hasn’t lost its physical beauty, either, or its fervent seriousness about honor and courage.'
Ironically enough, Ridley Scott, director of Blade Runner, said this week at Venice that the science fiction film no longer has any new ideas to offer. Like with the Western, he says, “There’s nothing original. We’ve seen it all before. Been there. Done it.”
Well, I'll grant him that the scenery over the last decade doesn't look too spectacular, but isn't it too early to slam the nails into the coffin? At least wait till (and you'd better believe I've been saving this one, what with the Western cross-references) the John Hillcoat-directed adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road gets a showing. Paul Howlett at The Guardian also disagrees with Scott, although I don't think it helps his case to point out Spielberg's derivative Minority Report.
Zoe Saldana (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) has reportedly been offered the role of Uhura in the new Star Trek movie. Saldana's starring role in James Cameron's big-budget science fiction epic, Avatar, however, may cause scheduling conflicts. (StarTrek.com)
Angelina Jolie will star opposite Pierce Brosnan in the Thomas Crown Affair sequel, The Topkapi Affair. Based loosely on the 1964 classic heist movie Topkapi, it will presumably be set in Istanbul, Turkey. (Cinematical) [imdb]
Denis Seguin reports from the set of Fernando Meirelles' (City of God) adaptation of Blindness, the novel by Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago:
'One by one and then in waves of pandemic the people of a city are struck by white blindness. Nothing but white. The social fabric frays then is rent, first by the panic and then by the hunger. But how to show that to a cinema full of wide-eyed punters and make them share the experience?'
Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo star alongside Danny Glover, Gael García Bernal and Sandra Oh. [imdb]
At The Guardian, Ian Curtis' former bandmates talk about their reactions to Control, Anton Corbijn's film about the Joy Division lead singer:
"This sounds awful but it was only after Ian died that we sat down and listened to the lyrics," says Morris. "You'd find yourself thinking, 'Oh my God, I missed this one.' Because I'd look at Ian's lyrics and think how clever he was putting himself in the position of someone else. I never believed he was writing about himself."