2005/05/16HWAET! I'm happy to report that we've hired a Costume Designer of the highest caliber, Gabriella Pescucci, a regular collaborator of both Gilliam and Burton. I am extremely excited by this addition to our growing hall of thanes. In the mean time, Neil and I feverishly continue on the rewrite, each in his respective corner of the world.
2005/05/10The rewrite continues...but this time Robert Zemeckis is pulling out all sorts of cool stuff: Computer generated layouts based on artwork by artists like Doug Chiang; sculptures of our Beowulf, molded from advanced 3-D printers; and all manner of ancient Danish relic. There's DVD's of every battle ever put to film -- every dragon ever put into a movie. There's whole libraries of books brought in from every corner of the globe on Viking history, architecture, and custom. There's also the casting sessions of the film, all stored on a secure web portal. It's like watching a house rise up around you -- an incredible feeling. The other day, Neil and I wandered in to find Beowulf sitting there, talking to Z. "Incredible work, boys!" he thunders, just before he tells us with a wonderfully bombastic cockney accent how the "geezer" driving the limo took him four hours in the opposite direction on the way to his meeting at the super-secret facility where we're making the film. Then Z. sits us down and we continue the script changes. "Remember," he tells us with a mischievous glint in his eye, "with mocap every second costs the same no matter what you're doing -- so you may as well let your imaginations run wild. Do what you always wanted to do -- don't hold back." He then turns to me and asks if I want to buy his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles upright arcade machine...
2005/05/06Nice...can't wait for the Beowulf one.
2005/04/25First day of shooting on Silent Hill! Break a leg Christophe!
2005/04/24George Pan Cosmatos (1941-2005). I was saddened today to learn of the passing of director George Pan Cosmatos. His various obituaries seem to highlight Tombstone and Rambo, but it was the excellent Of Unknown Origin that got me to sit up an pay attention. And though I didn't know him personally, his son Panos, also a gifted filmmaker, occasionally visits Avary's Domain and chats with me via email. Rest in peace, Mr. Cosmatos. Tonight I dust off my Of Unknown Origin laserdisc and enjoy a favorite.
2005/04/23Silent Hill location photos. Despite our efforts to keep the production hidden and quiet, HorrorMovies.ca has posted a series of still photos of the city that has been dressed (by uber-Production Designer Carol Spier) to look like Silent Hill. Now that Quint at Ain't-It-Cool has reported the story, the place will likely be mobbed by Silent Hill fans, all hunting me down to tell me "don't fuck it up!"
2005/04/22Horrorshow! I don't know about you (or those of you who've watched it), but for me watching Project Greenlight is a gut-wrenching, nerve-wracking experience. I watch it in agony -- unable to turn away, unable to turn it off. I sometimes scream at the TV, thinking that maybe, just maybe, someone inside the program will hear the simple solutions to their production problems. Seeing Gulager wave his hand and say "fuck it -- you do it" to the production guys...it curdles my blood. Doesn't he have a shot list or storyboards?! Whenever I make a movie I have to meet with the bond company and usually outline my production plan -- or they won't bond the movie. What's going on here?! Is this drama simply concocted to frustrate me?! Clearly the message of the show is that you should know your budget and schedule so that you know the parameters to work within -- get your working style across in a plan to your production team well in advance of the day. On top of it all, that HP conference room trailer sickens me (not that it's HP, mind you...just that it is what it is). If I were directing Feast that trailer would be the first thing to go -- I don't care if it was donated for publicity purposes or not...it would be gone. No one should ever be in that thing. They should be on set, where they belong...fixing the problems of this production. The worst of it all is that when I go to sleep the show continues in my dreams...or should I say nightmares.
2005/04/20AMAZING NEWS! As reported by Fangoria, those great guys and gals at Anchor Bay Entertainment are releasing Don Coscarelli's pre-Phantasm opus about childhood, Kenny and Company! This is great, great, great, great news since Kenny and Company has never had a decent release on VHS or DVD. I've long bugged Don about this, but apparently 20th Century Fox had no interest in releasing the film to home video -- obviously no one ever informed them that this is one of the finest films about youth ever made. Don was about 20 when he made the film, and still young enough to remember what most adults forget about our childhoods. The film is peppered with the little things -- the important things -- like the joy of ordering a Suicide (a soda mix of every kind of soda) or that the best way to avoid getting your flags pulled off in flag football was to spin in circles while you ran -- or what it was like to wrestle with the emotions of first love from afar. I adore this movie (so much so that I showed the bad transfer I taped off of KCOP one Halloween to Fincher in preparation for Lords of Dogtown), and am so happy that Anchor Bay is giving it the deluxe treatment.
2005/04/19Open Water is a perfect date film. I just finished watching it with my wife on DVD and we were both, being PADI certified divers and victims of hellish vacation disasters, thoroughly enthralled from beginning to end. Literally. I simply love Lions Gate Film's new, menacing logo of thundering alien clouds (not to mention their balls-of-steel for releasing fantastic alternative fare like this) right through to the credit roll clip -- which was the perfect accent to an excellent cinematic experience. What other odd, left-of-center date movies are there?
2005/04/12After a full day of staring at my computer, making revisions to the Beowulf screenplay, the last thing I wanted to do was to drive for 90 minutes to go to an industry screening of a movie. I was tired -- I was in flip flops and my most comfortable and faded cargo pants -- and I simply didn't feel like it. "No, mon frere!" Neil told me, "you must come to this incredible little movie, and you will thank me later for kidnapping you." Begrudgingly, I agreed and drove into the city. Naturally, when I showed up looking like I had just come from collecting driftwood on the beach, ThinkFilm head honcho Jeff Sackman (who I've known since the early Lions Gate/CFP days when we were all trying to mount my film, Gala Dali) made a comment about my lack of shoes. The movie Neil had dragged me to turned out to be The Aristocrats, and little did I know that this movie would prove to be the most culturally significant film I've seen in well over a year. It's an astonishing achievement, and the most hilarious, gut-busting, and enriching moviegoing experience I've had in quite a long while. This is a very funny film, and it slips its message in without you even knowing it. This movie is exactly what this country needs, right now more than ever. When this film comes out, I urge you to go see it. |
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