Newsbites: Gilly! Hobbit! Mel! Cinerama! City! Racism! Expelled! Charlie! Superman! etc.!

Last updated on: April 29, 2008 at 5:02 pm by Peter T. Chattaway

Newsbites: Gilly! Hobbit! Mel! Cinerama! City! Racism! Expelled! Charlie! Superman! etc.! 2008-04-29T17:02:00-07:00 Peter T. Chattaway

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Time to unload another stockpile of links ‘n’ things.

1. Bridge to Terabithia (2007) was a modest hit, so now, reports Variety, it is time to convert one of Katherine Paterson‘s other children’s novels to the big screen, namely The Great Gilly Hopkins. Like the film version of Terabithia, this one will be based on a screenplay by Paterson’s son David. I read the book once, a couple decades ago, and I remember very little of it beyond the fact that there was a fair bit of swearing — so it will be interesting to see how the film turns out, if, as Variety says, the filmmakers do intend to make this a “movie for children”. For what it’s worth, Paterson has also called the novel “the most openly Christian book I have written”.

2. The Hobbit director Guillermo Del Toro has given another interview, this time to MTV News, in which, among other very interesting things, he nicely dismisses recent efforts to cast doubt on his affinity for the works of Tolkien:

MTV: Just two years ago, you were quoted as saying, “I was never into heroic fantasy.” Did your views change?

Del Toro: I wasn’t. I completely gravitated towards horror. For whatever reason, I never hooked into sword and sorcery. I really rediscovered fantasy through my love of filmmakers as a filmmaker. Something kind of popped and jelled. I now can empathize with one side of the fantasy genre without ever wandering into lubricated musclemen with giant swords. “The Hobbit” occupies a particular seat in fantasy that is irreplaceable. They can dredge up old cadavers in my closet. I’m not running for president. I’m a f—ing filmmaker! I’m just trying to make the movie I want to.

3. Variety reports that Mel Gibson is going to step in front of a camera again for the first time in years, as the star of Edge of Darkness, a remake of a British mini-series from the 1980s. Coincidentally, Gibson’s last speaking part was a supporting role in The Singing Detective (2003), which was also a big-screen remake of a British mini-series from the 1980s. Even more interesting: The new version of Edge of Darkness is written by William Monahan, and Gibson once claimed that he had been offered a part in The Departed (2006) — which was also a remake written by William Monahan.

4. Lou Lumenick reports that a new DVD edition of How the West Was Won (1962) will digitally erase the “join lines” that were an inevitable byproduct of the original three-panel Cinerama process. Apparently only one other fiction film, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962), was shot using this technique, but that film was also shot in CinemaScope, so existing video versions have been transferred from a one-panel master. How the West Was Won, on the other hand, only existed in the three-panel format — until now. I’m not entirely sure what to make of this; I have never seen this film, and a part of me thinks it would be nice to watch the film without the ugly “join lines”, but a part of me also thinks I should experience the film the same way everyone else has experienced it until now.

5. High-Def Digest confirms that a “director’s cut” of Alex Proyas’s Dark City (1998; my article) is due to come out on DVD and Blu-Ray in July. RopeOfSilicon.com says the “director’s cut” will be about 15 minutes longer than the version that came out one whole decade ago.

6. The New York Times has an article looking at how some of the more racist cartoons produced by Warner Brothers way back when are now available on YouTube, despite efforts by the studio to suppress them. One complicating factor is that some of the cartoons are so old, it’s not exactly clear who owns them, if anybody. Jerry Beck says the article “has had an (unintended?) effect in further spreading the awareness of said cartoons”, though it has apparently also prompted YouTube to yank one of the videos that Beck links to.

7. The National Post has a profile of Walt Ruloff, the Canadian producer of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed:

For the past 17 years, Walt Ruloff has done an admirable job of keeping out of the public eye. For years, the business press seemed to miss the tale of how he, along with a roommate, built a world-beating software company out of their Toronto bedroom. After just seven years, when they sold Inter-Trans Logistics Solutions to a U.S. buyer for $160-million, “I took my family and my little kids and we hid off on a little island called Bowen Island, just outside of Vancouver,” he says. There they stayed, unnoticed, unbothered. Until now. . . .

“I’m definitely not a creationist. I’m the furthest thing from a creationist,” says Mr. Ruloff, who produced the film through his company, Premise Media. Just a mild-mannered West Coast Anglican venture capitalist, he maintains, who was trying to do a bit of biotech investing one day when he stumbled upon what he believes are the taboos of biology.

“The first thing I discovered in talking to these biotech engineers was they weren’t allowed to ask a whole bunch of questions; they weren’t allowed to collaborate under these new paradigms that were being discovered,” he says.

“They were all kind of talking in code. I realized that the issue was that what they were discovering has massive metaphysical implications and so they were trying to retrofit their findings back into a Darwinist position.”

Coming from the software business, Mr. Ruloff explains, he was used to tossing commonly accepted thinking out the window every few months. “People in the biology field and biotech and microbiology are kind of on the threshold of some massive breakthroughs, and they need to be able to collaborate. And if what they find has metaphysical implications who cares? If Darwinism is going to collapse, well, who cares? Let’s move on.” . . .

Still, the film is having an impact. Private screenings for lawmakers in Florida and Missouri have helped fuel state bills that could put intelligent design into public classrooms. But while he waits to see if his project brings change to the halls of academia, Mr. Ruloff is warming to his new career. “What I loved about software [is] it’s very creative, very dynamic, very fluid. And the movie business is all that on steroids. If we are profitable and we can figure this Holly-wood machine out, we hope to make a lot more films.”

When it comes to matters of faith, there’s a built-in market for such films as Expelled among America’s 70 million or so Evangelical Christians. “Being a capitalist that I am, there’s an opportunity here.”

8. The Washington Times reports that former senator Charlie Wilson himself thinks Charlie Wilson’s War might have missed an important political detail or two:

Former Rep. Charles Wilson played no official role in the making of last year’s film “Charlie Wilson’s War,” which chronicled how he helped the Mujahedeen repel the invading Soviet army in the 1980s.

If the Texas Democrat had participated, it’s clear he would have cast an actor to portray a figure all but ignored in Mike Nichols’ production — President Reagan.

“He was absolutely essential to the victory,” over the Soviets in Afghanistan, Mr. Wilson says during a phone interview to promote “War,” out on DVD this week. . . .

“There just wasn’t time,” he says, adding former Speaker of the House Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill deserved a film mention as well for his support of Mr. Wilson’s efforts. . . .

“Charlie Wilson’s War” ends with a cautionary note about the lack of follow-through that left a power vacuum in Afghanistan.

“The American people are a generous people, a creative people, a can-do people, but we have the world’s shortest attention span,” he says, a lesson he hopes will be applied to the current Iraq war.

“Learn from it. Finish the job,” he notes, adding that the United States owes it to Iraq to reconstruct the battered nation. “We must at least try.” . . .

9. ComingSoon.net has an interview with Superman Returns (2006) star Brandon Routh that might shed a little light on what producer Thomas Tull meant by that “angry god” comment:

CS: What sides of Superman and Clark Kent are you excited about exploring in the sequel?
Routh: Well, I think that something that audiences are looking for – and I certainly am, too – is for Superman to actually be able to lay a punch on someone or something. I was filming and I thought, “I haven’t really hit anything. I feel like I’m going to need to let some of this anger out.” So I’m happy that I think that’s going to be a central part of the sequel, getting a good villain that we can actually have physical altercations with.

10. The National Post has an update on the war of words between Paul Rusesabagina, the hotelier played by Don Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda (2004; my review), and Paul Kagame, the current president of that country. Kagame says Rusesabagina is a lying opportunist; Rusesabagina says Kagame is a war criminal.

11. Yellow Scene magazine says a new independent movie called Stealing Baby Jesus could be a boon to the Colorado film scene:

It’s about a rash of thefts of baby Jesuses (Jesi?) from manger scenes all over Denver during the holidays. As Denver DJ Warren John Narrates from atop a billboard in an encroaching blizzard, the city is whipped into a frenzy over the rash of disappearances. Throughout the ensuing hullaballoo, the interpersonal relationships between characters are explored against the backdrop of faith tested; parent to child, husband to wife, friend to friend. It’s “Love Actually” meets “Miracle on 34th Street;” a holiday piece that connects seemingly unrelated dots to a conclusion both touching and funny.

12. The Hollywood Reporter says Cloud Ten Pictures, the Ontario-based outfit that has produced the Left Behind trilogy (2000-2005) and a slew of other end-times movies, has promoted writer-director Andre van Heerden to the position of CEO, while Variety says the studio has signed a new distribution deal with Koch International, after being dumped rather suddenly by Sony.

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