Posts Tagged ‘big’

A remake to go ape over

Some films should be left alone. Cinematic history is littered with masterpieces whose reputations are unfairly tarnished by the clunkers repackaged for a later generation, remade with little or no regard for the original’s integrity, vision and soul.

The 1976 John Guillermin-updated remake of Merian C. Cooper’s 1933 classic King Kong was a perfect example of such misguided monkey business, proving that colour, big stars, bigger bangs and Dino De Laurentiis as producer can add up to something you’d rather not step in.

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It’s been quite a decade or two for Philip K. Dick – it’s a pity he’s not still around to enjoy all the success his books have had when given the Hollywood treatment. I was a bit of a sci-fi fan in my youth, and always had a soft spot for Dick’s work. Admittedly, I spent an awful lot of time re-reading parts of his books that just didn’t make any sense, but I persevered and am very glad I did. Of course, our Phil has had many of his books or short stories turned into films – Total Recall (1990), Minority Report (2002), A Scanner Darkly (2006) and some little-known cult hit called Blade Runner (1982). It is with great pleasure I learn that production will soon begin on UBIK, possibly my favourite (and certainly one of the strangest) of Dick’s stories. I’m really not sure how they’ll shoehorn the outrageous concepts onto celluloid, but I’m certainly looking forward to the finished product. You can read the press release here.

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Sing-along-a-Bond?
Do you want the good news or the bad news first? The bad? OK. Amy (‘Look at me! Look at me!’) Winehouse was reported by the BBC to be involved in the production of the latest Bond outing Quantum of Solace. The good news? A couple of days later, her producer, Mark Ronson, was quoted as saying that Ms Ooh-Aren’t-I-Controversial is “not ready to make music”. Hardly surprising, really. My theory is that she’s either being a bit heavy-handed with the Columbian marching powder, or she simply can’t think of anything that rhymes with ‘solace’. Let’s face it, she’s no Sheena Easton, is she?

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I bet you’re wondering what the hell the title’s about, aren’t you? Well, wonder no more. I have two pieces of news that will be of interest to anyone who likes a movie or two. First up, the very epitome of pretentiousness, a movie and Pink Floyd all in the same article. Oh, and before the hate mail starts coming in, I like Pink Floyd, OK?

Just recently, I stumbled across a page on the internet which hosts the screenplay for Alan Parker and Pink Floyd’s 1982 masterpiece The Wall. This was a film that nearly didn’t get made because of the ‘artistic differences’ between Parker and Waters. This suggests to me that at least one of them was an arrogant prima donna but I’m glad they finally got around to it. The script itself is downloadable from the page in PDF format, or can be viewed on line. This is no fan-penned imitation but the real script, scanned from the original 1981 document and includes all the song lyrics, scenes as written by (I presume) Waters and many pen-and-ink storyboards.

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