DAN'S MOVIE DIGEST 181 - DVDfever.co.uk

Dan Owen reviews

DAN’S MOVIE DIGEST
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In the Pipeline

Cover MOVIE NEWS DOOMSDAYNeil Marshall third film following Dog Soldiers and The Descent will starRhona Mitra (right), most famous for playing Lara Croft in early promotions.

In Doomsday, a lethal virus codenamed Reaper slaughters thousands of people,leading to the authorities containing the infected behind Hadrian’s Wall inScotland. 30 years later, a group of specialist (led by Mitra) aredespatched into the quarantine zone to find a cure…

HIS DARK MATERIALS – THE GOLDEN COMPASSThe first of Philip Pullman’s three novels being adapted into a moviecertainly has an astounding cast, and it’s growing by the week! We now hearthat Eric Bana (Munich), Kevin Bacon and John Hurt are involved alongsideDaniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Sam Elliott and Dakota Blue Richards. THE HOBBITDirector Peter Jackson officially declared himself off the proposed Hobbitmovie. Jackson’s team are engaged in a lawsuit over accounting practiceswith New Line Cinema’s dealing with The Lord Of The Rings, and the studiodoesn’t want to wait until this matter is laid to rest before committing toThe Hobbit. So they’re actively looking for a fresh director. You can readJackson’s letter to his fanshere.

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SPY VS STUEx-007 Pierce Brosnan (right) is set to go back to the world of espionage for thiscomedy, about a commitment-phobe called Stu who plans to propose to hisgirlfriend during an island vacation. However, on the other side of theisland is a debonaire spy (Brosnan) who competes with Stu for hisgirlfriend’s affections. THE THING – REMAKEJohn Carpenter has already suffered the indignity of a poor remake of one ofhis classic films (The Fog), although he was executive producer and gave ithis blessing! But now, cherished 80s “body horror” classic The Thing isbeing remade.

The good news is that Battlestar Galactica creator Ronald D. Moore isscripting the new movie, itself a remake of Howard Hawks’ original. Theproducers are Marc Abraham and Eric Newman, who helped remake Dawn Of TheDead, while original producer David Foster is also involved.

No word on the director yet, but I’m personally glad Moore is working onthis. He’s proven he can re-invent things with BSG, while the premise itself– of a shape-shifting alien dug up in the Arctic — should involve some CGImonstrosities.

Carpenter’s remake was a seminal film that stands up to scrutiny even today(the make-up was the last hurrah for non-CGI creatures in many peoplesminds) but I’d curious to see what 21st-Century tech can achieve…

WOLF CREEK 2Director Greg McLean has suggested he might film a sequel to his surprisehorror hit.

McLean: “I possibly will be [doing the sequel]. I want to do it. It’s such agreat character. The first I met the Weinstein’s, at Sundance, they said’How much to do the sequel?’ I just said I didn’t want to cash in now. Itjust wasn’t right, because what that says is that the first film’s notserious — it takes something away from it.”

“I’ve never been against popping out sequel after sequel — Saw, forinstance, has an ingenious plot that you can do it with that — but [WolfCreek] was designed to be a particular kind of horror film, not the kind offilm you can just pop ’em up. They get trashy. I’m really proud of the filmand I don’t want to just put out a piece of shit — so if it takes two orthree years, it doesn’t matter.”

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INTERVIEW

Darren Aronofsky (right) is the director of Pi and Requiem For A Dream. These areboth movies the general public probably don’t know of, although Dream ranksas one of the most harrowing and emotionally draining experience I’ve everhad in a cinema. Go check it out!

Anyway, Aronofsky returns after years of absence with The Fountain, a sci-filove story starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz.

Coming Soon spoke to the director:

ComingSoon.net: I feel like a hypocrite because when I talked to you in SanDiego after watching the movie, I suggested that you don’t do any interviewsand just let people figure out your movie for themselves. I definitely gotmore out of it on second viewing.

Darren Aronofsky: Well, thanks! I think the first 20 minutes often sets theaudience apart, because we were trying to mirror that feeling of sci-fi orgraphic novels where the first 80 pages or so, you don’t know what’s goingon, then suddenly it starts to make sense and a whole world starts to fleshout. I think that with “The Fountain,” for the first 20 minutes, people arelike “What’s going on?” but then it suddenly starts to make sense. If peopleget that far, they’re in.

CS: Has the movie changed a lot since the version I saw in San Diego a fewmonths ago?

Aronofsky: There’s a slight change that I tinkled with three or four monthsago. There was a line that Hugh Jackman wanted in the film that I loved, butI couldn’t figure out how to cut it in, which is that line in the trailer:”Death is a disease; there’s a cure, there’s a cure and I’ll find it.” Thatwas not in the first cut. What happened is that San Diego was the final cut,and then there was this one thing that kept us battling in the edit room fora long time, and it had to do with the order those scenes were right aroundthat part of the film. I think we all made the right decision and a fewmonths ago, I kind of figured out in the middle of the night. I had one ofthose “oh!” moments and I approached Jay, my editor, and said, “Will thiswork?” and we threw it together on our own to look at it, and me and Jaythought it was much better. Sometimes you just need that time. It happens tome, I look back at “Requiem”-and that’s the reason I don’t watch “Requiem”or “p” any more, ’cause I know I would see things and I’d be cringing-butluckily, the one good thing that came out of waiting for our release datewas that we had the time to make it a little better. I think that’s what didit. What’s funny is that it’s actually exactly how the script is now. Wemoved away from the script and changed it a little bit, but then I figuredout a way to bring it back to the script.

CS: One of the themes of this movie is obsession, whether it be to find theTree of Life or find a cure for death, so I’m sure a lot of people mustassume that this movie was your obsession, having spent so much time tryingto get it made.

Aronofsky: (laughs) I got a comment on that! For me, it’s not aboutquantity. It’s about doing the film that you believe in. Filmmaking is sucha hard job, there’s so many disappointments, there are so many challenges,there’s so many roadblocks, especially when you’re trying to do somethingdifferent that’s not exactly in this small box. But it’s all I know how todo, and so I just believed in this material and it just rang true from mygut and I just had to get it done, so here we are.

CS: Do you think once the movie hits theatres, you can finally find someclosure and leave it behind you?

Aronofsky: Absolutely. A good friend of mine, another filmmaker, once toldme, “You never finish a film, you abandon a film” and I think that’s true. Ithink it all finally settles in when I get that DVD, packaging,mass-produced, and I’m like, “Okay, this is the movie and it’s all done.”

CS: But these days, directors like Ridley Scott are doing massive reworkingsof their movies, releasing “Director’s Cuts” so would that be something youmight ever do?

Aronofsky: No, I’ve been lucky with all my movies. My final cut has been mycut. I think at some point I’d love to do a remix of a “p.” When we mixedthat, there was only Dolby SR, and I’d love to discrete remix of it at somepoint, which is kind of like tinkering after it’s all done, but it’s justupdating it for the latest technology and doing an HD version of it.

CS: Also, having some money to throw into it might allow you to do somethings you weren’t able to do originally.Aronofsky: Well, we mixed “p” in like 5 days, which is just absurd, but I’mpretty happy with the mix. I think we did a pretty good job, and I like theway it feels and looks. I’d love to do a 10th Year Anniversary, so hopefullythat will happen at some point. Ten years in ’08, so we got a couple years.

CS: You just have to make sure you don’t go all George Lucas and startputting in new characters using CGI.Aronofsky: No, no, I wouldn’t go that far. That’s obsessive.

CS: Going back a bit, you started making this movie a number of years ago ona bigger budget with a different cast. How did you end up with Hugh Jackmanafter Brad Pitt dropped out and you had to start all over again?

Aronofsky: To be honest, Hugh wasn’t even on my initial list, and that’sbecause I hadn’t seen him do anything except for his “X-Men” work. He’sgreat in that and that’s a very difficult thing to do, but I didn’t reallyknow his work. Then I saw him in “The Boy From Oz,” the thing he won theTony for, and even though he plays a singer-songwriter who’s married to LizaMinelli, which has absolutely nothing to do with the character in “TheFountain,” he had such passion and charisma and commitment and fever, that Iwas just like, “I have to see what this guy thinks of my script.” When heread it, he just really got it, so that’s how it all worked out.

CS: What was his reaction after seeing the completed film? It must be a verydifferent experience than making the movie since there’s no way to know whatit will be like when edited together.

Aronofsky: What was his reaction? You’ll have to ask him, but he told meit’s not only the favorite film he’s ever been in, but it’s his favoritefilm. But you have to ask him, because I can’t quote him. He was reallyhappy with it, but it was really strange because the day I showed him thefinished film was also the night Rachel went into labor. It was a verysurreal night.

CS: Do you ever stick around to see the movie with an audience to see howthey react?

Aronofsky: I think the last time I’ll see this film ever will be tonight atthe premiere in L.A. I think once it’s done-I’ll probably watch it again onDVD just as a quality check, just to make sure it’s correct-but I won’t eversee it again after tonight.

CS: Did you watch it in Toronto or Venice or any of the other premieres?

Aronofsky: Oh, no, no. I watched it actually in Spain at this film festivaloutside of Barcelona called Sitges, which is a fantasy film festival,because it was a really young, youthful crowd and the projection wasbeautiful and two of my best friends in the world were there, so I decidedto watch it with them. You see a film so many times when you’re making it,that at a certain point, you just have to stop watching it or otherwise, youcan get lost in the ego conversations in your head about it. You get lost inso much stuff in your head. That’s why I haven’t seen “Requiem” since itcame out, or “p” since that came out, so it’s been a long time. Even if itcomes on TV, I’ll watch it for ten, fifteen seconds, smile to myself andthen move on.

CS: I deliberately avoided reading the graphic novel until after seeing themovie, but I was surprised how much of the story and images were similar tothe movie. Did you get any inspiration from Kent Williams’ art in thegraphic novel while shooting the movie?

Aronofsky: I did steal a few shots from Kent. When he breathed the ring inand it turns into the Queen, that transition I got from Kent. I think Kentdefinitely had his own vision, but you can just see how connected thescripts were. It wasn’t that big of a difference between the two movies.

CS: When you went back to redo the movie, starting from scratch on a lowerbudget, what did you end up changing?

Aronofsky: Well, if you look at the battle scene, right there was $15-20million dollars. That was a big thing, getting rid of that. Then there wasthe big action sequence in space, which is the thing that I probably doregret not having done, but there was that big action sequence on the outersurface of the ship that I wanted to do, but that we couldn’t afford either.

CS: When I visited the Montreal set, I saw the spaceship and I saw the otherTree of Life, but were the other locations also done on the soundstage likethe lab and hospital?

Aronofsky: Everything was a soundstage, except the museum sequence andLillian’s farmhouse, of course, but everything else was built. The way [theproduction designer] interrelated everything was very inspirational to me.Everything comes out of Tom in the space ship. All the other sets anddesigns come out of the same type of material, same type of colours, sametype of background as what was happening on that tree ship. Things like thethrone room with all those candles hanging, why did we have those candles?Well, if you stick a character in front of it, those candles go out offocus, and they look exactly like the starfield of Tom in space. TheChristmas lights on the rooftop behind Rachel also go out of focus andbecome a starfield. You’ll start to notice as you watch it again; you’ll seecelestial objects floating throughout all the time sequences. That wascertain stuff that we did and there’s a lot of that type of thing.

CS: It must have taken an insane amount of planning to cut all that togetherand make the transitions work. Were some of the delays of the movie done toget extra time to get all the editing and post-production done?Aronofsky: No, I don’t think so. I think we had a pretty normal timeframe ofediting. The film was done in February, we’ve just been waiting for arelease date for eight or nine months. The studio wanted to release us inthe fall, so that’s what it’s been. We’ve been waiting for that, and that’swhy it’s taken this amount of time to get here. Otherwise, the cut and thepost for a visual effects movie was pretty much right on time.

CS: When I saw the movie in San Diego and again last week, watching themovie was almost like a religious experience where everyone was very quietand respectful. I’m curious if that’s been the same with other audiences.

Aronofsky: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Audiences have been very kind of silentwatching the movie. I did a lot of Q ‘n’ A’s afterwards, and it’s been asimilar positive reaction. I keep getting exactly what you just said. Peopleall over the world from Tokyo to Spain to Belgium to D.C., people almostalways in these Q ‘n’ A’s afterwards come up to me and they go, “Hey, man,that wasn’t a movie, that was an experience.” That to me, has been justgreat, because to take someone, not just on a normal narrative journey butto take them somewhere else, and just thinking and feeling in a way theyhaven’t felt before, that’s a great compliment, and I’ve enjoyed that. I’veseen a similar reaction around the planet.

CS: I was really surprised when I woke up at 4 in the morning the day afterseeing the movie, thinking about something in the movie that really affectedme.

Aronofsky: What’s interesting is most films you leave and you’ve got thewhole journey. When I made “p”, it was a very different world. People saw amovie once, and then maybe saw it again on DVD. In fact, “p” washistorically the first film downloaded, and it was also one of the earlyDVDs and we were playing with the menus and designing all that stuff. Ithink in today’s world where kids are downloading sh*t to their computer, totheir iPod, people are watching stuff over and over again, so we wanted tomake this puzzle that gets richer and richer the more people see it. There’sa lot of things in the film that people aren’t going to get on a first trip.That’s not completely true. There are some people who’ve been out there inthese Q ‘n’ A’s I’ve met who get it instantly, and they basically tell meexactly what it’s about and they’ve gotten what it all means, but a lot ofpeople I think are grasping for it the first time. But I hope that it willturn into a cult film like ‘”p” and “Requiem” and people will want to see itagain.

CS: For this movie, you’ve moved from Artisan to Warner Bros. They seem toreally be behind making movies as an art-form rather than as a commercialventure, but they obviously must care about making their money back as well.How’s that been working out?

Aronofsky: I hope there’s enough commercial elements in the film that peoplewant to see it, and I think it asks the big questions about why are we here?What is life? What is death? What is love? And those are questions peoplehave been asking, since we crawled out of the primordial soup. I think thereis a commercial end to that, and at the core of the film, it really is alove story between Hugh and Rachel. Another thing I’ve noticed on the roadis that people keep saying that when they’re there with their loved ones,they’ve just had an incredible experience, and I think it might be a reallygood date movie in the sense that the women get to see this great lovestory, they get to see Hugh Jackman’s shirt off. The guys get a little Mayanadventure and some whacked out science fiction, and afterwards you’reGUARANTEED, I promise you, a good conversation. (laughs)

CS: I wondered how you felt about American movie audiences these days andwhether you think they really want to learn the answers these days? The realworld seems so tough and awful that many moviegoers may just want to beentertained rather than having to think about movies.

Aronofsky: I think you’re right. I think definitely people want to just havethe entertainment of escape at times, but I think that people also do wantto be transported to a different consciousness and have a differentexperience. You know, people aren’t going to the movies anymore, and I thinkfor me at least, it feels like when I go to the theatre, I see somethingthat’s pretty well advertised but I feel pretty let down as thesame-old-same-old. If “The Fountain” gives you anything, it’s definitely avery, very different and new experience.

CS: Where do you go from here? This time since finishing the movie, have youcontinued to write?

Aronofsky: Exactly. We’re developing a few projects and I can’t talk aboutthem yet, but we’re very, very close.

CS: In the years since “Requiem,” there was a lot of talk about you playingwith other people’s characters like “Batman” and “Watchmen.” Have you gottenover the desire to do that?

Aronofsky: That was all a bunch of hype. For the last five or six years,I’ve been working on “The Fountain.” We’ve had conversations on a few. Imean, “The Watchmen” I was on for a week, literally. I was definitelyinterested in doing it, and then they wanted to go right away, but I wasworking on “The Fountain” so I couldn’t do it. And “Batman” was a writinggig, a chance to work with Frank Miller, but things got blown out ofproportion by the internet. I’ve been trying to make “The Fountain” and I’mpretty much a one-trick pony. I get my dream project and I stick with it,and now we’re starting to figure out what to do next.

DAN’S MOVIE DIGEST BLOG (DMDB) –Dan Owen.blogspot.com

The sister blog to this weekly movie-related news service is still goingstrong. Right now the blog is focusing on TV reviews for Heroes (theexcellent new superhero drama from the States), the disappointing Doctor Whospin-off series Torchwood, and the BBC’s enjoyable Robin Hood series.

DAN’S MOVIE DIGEST 181

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