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Posts tagged as “Movies”

Identity Crisis

What is going on with all those brand renaming themselves?
Gatorade changes to G, Pizza Hutt to The Hutt, RadioShack to The Shack, and now Cartoon Network, who freshly announced a slate of non-cartoon shows, is also considering a name change?

There are even whispers inside the channel’s Burbank animation studios that the network might drop “Cartoon” from its name.
[…]Rob Sorcher, a veteran cable programming executive who joined Cartoon Network last year after a stint at AMC, where he spearheaded that network’s push toward original dramas and was involved in the development of “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad.”
[…]Although they are committed to their approach, they disagree on the fate of Cartoon Network’s name. [Sorcher] said he expects “we will have to deal with this down the line.”

Please don’t do this.

Side-note with some movie stuff:
Remember Outland, the SF/western 1981 movie with Sean Connery?
Well, it’s getting a remake with Shoot ‘Em Up‘s Michael Davis set to helm the project.
Who’s the guy writing the script? That would be Chad St. John.
You might recall that John also wrote SOTW6‘s The Days Before (notice how FlashForward is also on there, kinda funny considering the two scripts’ stories).
Anyway, I loved the Days Before script so I’m wondering what Chad will be able to pull for this Outland remake.
Incidentally, the current issue of Script Magazine has a piece on Chad St. John.

There’s also this other Dirty Dancing remake currently planned by Lionsgate.
What is interesting is that this time the writer is Julia Dahl. If you don’t know her, she was The West Wing‘s executive story editor from 2001 to 2002, and wrote two of the show’s 3rd season episodes.

Moving back to TV territory…
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences lost its longtime PR agency, the Lippin Group, due to the recent debacles surrounding this year’s Emmycast.

ABC is moving on a haunted-hotel series entitled Clive Barker’s Hotel from two original Saw writers, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton. I’m not here talking about the original movie, rather the latest four instalments (Saw IV throguh Saw VII).
Charlie’s Angels/Terminator Salvation’s McG might also be set to direct the pilot if the project comes to fruition.

And finally, some more great news for Caprica (remember, the Battlestar Galactica spin-off).
James Marsters is joining the cast for a “seizable arc” in at least three episodes of the show’s first season.
He will play “a dangerous terrorist leader by the name of Barnabus Greeley. Driven by desires both moralistic and carnal, Barnabus is as lethal as he is unpredictable.”

There’s also this new FlashForward poster that I just find plain awful.
The faux-embossed character pictures are kitschy, the “flash-forward” ball is badly done and made out of basically the same fifteen pictures used over and over again, and the sea reminds me of some 1990 photography background.
See for yourselves:


My eyes are bleeding…

News in, news out

To start us off, here are a few casting announcements:

United States of Tara/Big Fan‘s Patton Oswalt is joining Battlestar Galactica‘s spin-off Caprica in a recurring role. He should play Baxter Sarno, a Caprican comedian. He also has this talk-show where the two of the main characters appear (Daniel and Amanda Graystone).

Alias’ David Anders is back on TV finally (not counting Heroes).
He is indeed joining 24‘s 8th season cast next to all the other new peeps like Katee Sackhoff, Freddie Prinze Jr., Callum Keith Rennie and Anil Kapoor.

Lionsgate meanwhile just bought US rights to Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass for a 2010 release.

There’s also gonna be yet another DC/Vertigo property is heading to TV.
A live-action drama adaptation of Midnight, Mass has received a script commitment
The potential show is being written by Mercy‘s showrunners, Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts
a sexy globe-trotting couple (Adam and Julia Kadmons) solving crimes and mysteries of the supernatural throughout the world.
So it’s like Mr. and Mrs. Smith meets Supernatural?

And finally, A Nightmare on Elm Street reboot scribe Wesley Strick is set to write the pilot for a(nother) potential HBO series based off Andrew Logg Oldham’s memoirs (Stoned and 2Stoned). The guys was the former Rolling Stones producer and manager.

I’m sure they’ll pick that one out of the countless other projects they have in development…

Orbit (Script) – Review

Orbit (Script) – Review

Here comes another script review: Orbit.

The movie is based off the 2006 John Nance of the same name.
The script was adapted by Sheldon Turner who currently has a billion projects in development, including Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air and X-Men Origins: Magneto.

Obviously, spoilers abound in these neck of the woods.

The main story is about a father (Matthew Dawson) able to go into space after winning a lottery game made by NASA PRs. For a few weeks, he is trained at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center by Owen, an astronaut whom Mat “replaced.” Once the training done, he leaves Earth aboard the Intrepid with four other peeps.
But when he arrives in space, he finds out that the other members of the crew have died. He is now trapped alone, with a limited amount of oxygen left, and no way back home.
Thinking he is a dead man anyway, he uses his computer to gather his final thoughts that are, unbeknownst to him, beamed back to Earth where the rest of the world begins to follow his last (?) moments.

The concept seems very intriguing and exciting. However, the execution was in this instance pretty bad (borderline awful).

Let’s begin with the two main differences with the novel.
A major change made was with Dawson’s personal life (named Kip in the original work).
Whereas in the book Mat/Kip’s main drive for being in orbit is due to his son blaming him for his wife’s death, in the movie however the main reason for him trying out for the NASA lottery is more somber. Matt still has a 15-year old son (Brian), but in this story he has lost his other child (Danny) and both he and his wife (Cindy) have difficulties coping with it. His son loved space, which makes for a logical character motivation.
The other important change will be talked about later on and concerns the computer used by Mat.

Now, onto the actual movie.

First, a lot of screen-time is given to the actual training.
Mat only goes into space around page 35 (out of 115).
Even if the 20 minutes are supposed to set up the relationship between Mat and his mentor/rival Owen, ultimately this is just wasting a lot of valuable time. This is something that basically leads to nowhere (the training that is). Sure, we all know that the efforts put into building astronauts are immense, but why spend a fifth of the movie on it?

Moving on to once Mat is in space.

So, he discovers that all the onboard astronauts have died due to a sudden depressurization of the main cabin.
Given that he’s a newbie at these things, it’s understandable that panic sets in and he feels as if he’s a dead man floating.
Therefore I wasn’t too shocked to see him not being able to save himself. Who would be able to repair a broken spaceship?

That said, here comes the strangest part of the movie.

He begins e-mailing himself (or rather blogging) his last thoughts.

Yeah, don’t ask me how.
What I understood was that he hooked up to his Apple Computer a handy-talkie to make into a sort of “ham radio,” boosting his signal, allowing him to send messages (but not receiving any).

It’s like MacGyver MacGruber in space.

Remember that other important novel change?
In the original story, he actually writes on the spaceship computer, which makes way more sense than some pathetic attempt at product placement (yes, Apple is really written in the script).

And now we move on to the other huge pill to swallow.
As I’ve said before, he only has a few hours of oxygen left, and NASA is now aware that he’s trapped alone up there (thanks to his amazing Blogspot posts – true story).
What do they decide to do?
Put together in the span of literally a few hours a rescue mission comprised of Owen, two other astronauts, and an experimental shuttle (meaning one that has never, ever, flown).

The use of the latter allows this incredible exchange to occur:

RICHTER
(re: the experimental shuttle)
You ever seen anything like that?

OWEN
Sure.
Don’t you guys ever watch “Battlestar Galactica”…?

Priceless.

The departure of the rescue mission also reminded me a lot of Armaggeddon (not in a good way).

So, yeah, two utterly ridiculous plot points.
There’s also this pointless love story between Owen and the NASA PR lady.
Don’t even get me started on that.

Despite those (major) flaws however, a few good things came out of the script.
The space scenes are well-constructed and should be beautiful to see. I could easily picture them accompanied by some Bear McCreary-esque music.

The characters were also engaging.
So much so that at times what happened on Earth with Brian and Cindy seemed way more likable and interesting than what was going on elsewhere, starting with Mike.

Two small upsides, but still worth noting.

Bottom line: the execution of a great idea (man trapped alone in a spaceship) could have lead to a more interesting story that should not have lacked believability. Despite interesting characters, my disbelief couldn’t be suspended high enough, even if the story takes place way up in space (greatest pun?).

Orbit is slated for a 2011 release. Thomas Bezucha is currently on board to direct the pic for 20th Century Fox.
Last I heard it was one of the studio’s top priorities before a potential SAG strike (that never happened).