It's become increasingly rare to find actual, real "cool news" on Ain't It Cool News these days. Between all the Crash-heavy Best of 2005 lists, personal Harry Knowles anecdotes designed to let you know that he has totally met Quentin Tarantino and bizarre, Uwe Boll-themed rants, they so rarely get around to anything actually cool. Let alone news!
But here, tonight, we have not one but two stories that are interesting, if true.
The first is fairly certain to be factual, as it comes directly from The Hollywood Reporter. You know, as opposed to directly from some dude's basement in Austin.
Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson is in advanced talks to produce and direct "There Will Be Blood," starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a turn-of-the-century Texas oil prospector in the early days of the oil business. The sprawling period piece, which Anderson has spent several years writing, is loosely adapted from Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel "Oil!"
Oh my god, that is hot shit.
PT Anderson? Daniel Day-Lewis? 20's period piece? Based on Upton Sinclair's "Oil!"? Can I buy my ticket now?
As I have probably discussed here on the blog previously, I take issue with one item on PT's filmography, and that one item may be his most-loved film. I found Magnolia to be silly, overblown, trite, nonsensical and egomaniacal to the extreme. Though it's of course not a complete failure - Tom Cruise and John C. Reilly in particular give terrific performances - but the movie is just nowhere near as, I don't know, complete as Boogie Nights or the sublime Punch-Drunk Love.
I really don't see how this one could fail, though, with the strength of this material and Bill the goddamn Butcher in the lead role.
This next story is nowhere near as interesting. In fact, you can probably stop reading right now.
One of Ain't It Cool's "spies" has reported that a Marvel suit revealed plans for Hulk 2 on AOL.
Vice Chairman of Marvel, Peter Cuneo was being interviewed by AOL's Motley Fool Radio Team (yikes... who exactly signed off on that name?) and said that Bana has pulled out of the sequel.
Strange... I was fairly sure that Bana was contracted for at least one more SMASH. Maybe he was only contracted for a theatrical sequel. According to Mr Cuneo, the Artist Forever Known As Poider pulled out of the film when he discovered it was going to be direct-to-DVD.
My first reaction was, "who gives a shit," because Hulk suuuuuuuuuuuucked.
But then I thought, if Ang Lee and Bana are both out, and it's going direct-to-DVD, maybe they can totally reinvent the Incredible Hulk movie franchise. Make it more of what I wanted to see in the first place - a kind of comic book-style Fugitive movie, with Bruce Banner on the run from the government, trying to avoid Hulking out and revealing his location.
And then I read further down and saw that they are considering David Duchovney for the Banner role, which I think is a pretty solid choice. He's convincing as a science nerd, and he can do emotionally repressed (remember Kalifornia?) I'm inclined to say there's a good chance Hulk 2 will be better than the first film.
Thoughts?
I have to admit I love Magnolia nevertheless. I loved the music of Aimee Mann (you remember all of the actors singing "together" at different places), I adored the performance of Tom Cruise and especially of the amazing Philip Seymour Hoffman. Maybe it was egomaniacal but I still remember a lot of scenes and I can't say this about a lot of movies.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to "Oil". Only Daniel Day will be worth it!
As for Duchovny, you strangely omitted one great asset of his range that would greatly aid Hulk- he can do mysterious, jaded, broken, brooding hand model, as he proved in Zoolander. I think this will be an important new dimension brought to the Big Green Dude.
ReplyDeletePT Anderson to me, unfortunately, remains as one of the most over-regarded young filmmakers out there right now. I've enjoyed his work and find it intriguing, but not engaging- his over-focus on style and lyric narrative leaves me lacking for character- the central need of any film. His oeuvre does not support the one of my central tests: if a great director's name is attached to anything, I'll see it. With PT, I'm willing to wait until video at this point. He's got some maturing to do.
I hve to agree, though, that Punch Drunk Love was "sublime." What a great choice of words! That's exactly what occured in that film- PT sublimated his overwrought desires toward style, and instead deeply collaborated with his star- and this collaboration between he and Billy Madison really created a great character story, and a wonderful combination of styles.
I think that this is what I'm excited for. Daniel Day Lewis IS one of those triggers for me- I'll see anything with him in it. And I think that if PT Anderson really collaborates with DD and the text of his source material [and what great material!] then I'm with you... Sign me up!!
Yes, I now see the article has been corrected, and if "Hulk 2" happens, it will in fact happen with Bana. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteAnd, berns, you'll have to extend that "suuucks" for 100,000 letters before I'll consider "South Park" a failure.