film news: september 2008

From Variety: Guillermo del Toro is booked until 2017 some really potentially awesome projects. I think everyone's fairly aware of his attachment to The Hobbit, but he's also looking to make Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Frankenstein. I'm most excited about the last one, and I dearly hope he casts Doug Jones as Frankenstein's monster. (If you want to know more about him, you can watch this short interview about his two roles in Pan's Labyrinth.) Hopefully this adaptation will be more faithful than the previous ones, and I would love Doug Jones in the part because, as the novel describes the monster, he's oddly beautiful in a haunting and dangerous way. I could go on a whole rift about Shelley's Frankenstein, but I won't. I have a lot of faith in del Toro's ability to transfer the dualities of the novel (nature/science, Kantian/Burkian sublime, thought/action, community/isolation, human/inhuman) to the big screen. Also worth noting, del Toro plans on adapting H.P. Lovecraft's novella At the Mountains of Madness.

From Film Junk: Ghostbusters 3 is coming, and it is to be penned by writers from The Office. Sony is looking to reunite the cast, and... Zzzz. Sorry, I fell asleep. I couldn't care less about this franchise. I loved the original films, but only as nostalgia pieces. Don't we all get a little misty-eyed when remembering the good ol' days with Mr. Marshmallow Man? Man, gas was only a dollar back then. The sequel was ridiculous fun (and I prefer it to the first one), but I'll never forgive it for making kids think art galleries are creepy.


From Cinematical: Acting couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly have signed on to play Charles and Emma Darwin in Creation (hmm, a multi-layered title, I like). The film will be directed by Jon Amiel and the script, based on Randal Keynes' book Annie's Box, is by John Collee. The film will supposedly portray Darwin as a man torn between his love for his deeply religious wife and his growing belief in a world where God has no place. The book focuses on Charles and Emma's first daughter, Annie, who died in 1851 when she was just ten years old. From this review:

The Darwin of these pages is an almost saintly figure: patient, reasonable, freethinking, only angered by cruelty. His boundless intellectual curiosity was combined with a relentless honesty. He insisted on sharing his scepticism about salvation with his wife, the devoted but devout Emma Wedgewood. As his father had predicted, this made her fearful about his prospects in the afterlife, and the gulf between them deepened as they grew older together. It was never deeper than when they lost the girl whom Darwin described as "the joy of the household".

The Darwin industry produces biographies regularly, but this one has a rare combination of emotional power and historical authority. Annie's death seems to have reinforced Darwin's doubts about religious consolation. As the author of a theory that relieved God of any responsibility for creating new species, Darwin found it hard to believe that he intervened in human life. And as a grieving parent, he found it impossible to see this death as part of any divine plan. It might have an explanation, even a cause, but no reason. Keynes's Darwin, in other words, is a thinker facing up to the realities of the secular world most of us now live in.

Also from Cinematical: Denzel Washington is set to star in the post-apocalyptic drama Book of Eli, and it will be directed by Albert and Allen. He will play "a lone hero in a not-too-distant apocalyptic future who must fight across America to bring society the knowledge that could be the key to its redemption." I hope this is the ideological opposite of Indy 4. This time, knowledge is power. (Thanks, Foucault!)


Also from Film Junk: Michael Cera says Arrested Development is in, well, arrested development. Actually, he says it's not happening, but I refuse to believe that. If there is anything good and true in this world, this beyond brilliant show will become a movie. Michael Cera is eventually going to grow out of his George Michael Bluth awkwardness (he's currently in his Michael Cera awkwardness phase), so this movie needs to be made pronto. I want more cousin-loving, dust-buster-sexing, Lucille/loose seal, Shemale, Steve Holt!, Fuck-Mountain goodness! Above is one of my favorite sequences... "If you're wondering why there're two sets of footprints in the sand, it's because I had to do another take."

And finally, the Dr. Horrible soundtrack is available on iTunes. If you've never seen the show (which should be a punishable crime), I recommend, in this order: "My Eyes" (NPH is so damn sexy in this song, a la his performance in Tick, Tick... BOOM!), "My Freeze Ray" (from Episode I, sets the tone of the Dr. Horrible-Penny relationship), and "Brand New Day" (from the funny Godzilla scene).


There you go, folks. Dr. Horrible in its entirety. Now you have no excuse to be lame.