Peven wrote:bullshit. Weaver did solid work, but nothing exceptional, and the role didn't call for it either. "Alien" was all about direction with acting coming in a far distant second.
Spandau Belly wrote:I really liked KINGDOM OF HEAVEN too. I actually thought Bloom was good and only failed to deliver during the big Braveheart speech moment, but not in any embarassingly bad way, just a little underwhelming. But yeah, Eva Green and Ed Norton were both in top form and I like the guy playing Saladin who didn't even speak English and had to learn his lines pheonetically.
The movie is an excellently paced political drama that juggles several plotlines, character arcs, and very different chapters well.
Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:I think the gift that actors bring to the overall power of a film is very underappreciated, unknown and completely overlooked. Why Alien does work is directly and mainly down to the performances, not so much in part the camera tricks, lighting, disguising the Alien or the pace build up to it's attack, all those things are great, I'm not taking anything away from that, but any director will tell you that what makes fear work in a film is how well fear is portrayed by the actors involved.
If Sigourney or any other other cast were weak or gave rather flat performances then we wouldn't have Alien, we wouldn't have it's terror and power. All of that comes from the actors, without them all the technical aspects of that film wouldn't work at all.
To say that the actors have nothing to do with the scariness of that film is to deny Directing Workshop Rule 1 - it's all down to the actors. Without them NO film would work.
Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:[
To be honest, Bloom does get better everytime I watch him. At the end of the day the guy is in over his head, but I put that down to mostly him being too young and not mature enough to play some guy who comes across as being around a good 10 years longer and has seen enough of war or violence or whatever to make his words and actions have more conviction.
Spandau Belly wrote:I think Scott wishes he had made a movie about a replicant who, oblivious to the fact that he is a replicant, is programmed to hunt other replicants. Scott has tried to reshape the film he did make to tell this story and even convinced himself he made this film.
I think BLADE RUNNER's greatest strengths and weaknesses all come from the chaos in which it was made. Everybody working from radically different scripts; ideas, plotlines, and characters being popped in and out during filming; Scott indulging his various aesthetic whims without concrete narrative reason for doing so; Rutger Hauer unsupervised and off the chain. It all adds up to a movie that I find fasincating and unique to watch, but I can't say it all comes together 100%.
So would a better film come about if they all planned a lot more and everybody involved was on the same page creatively and they stuck to their plan throughout the making of the movie? Maybe. I'm not sure. But I am interested in seeing him try. And if he wants to finally tell this story about a replicant who hunts other replicants, I would be happy to see that story.
Trent Moore wrote: Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend has been adapted for the big screen a few times, most recently in the 2007 Will Smith flick of the same name. But did you know Ridley Scott tried to get a Legend movie off the ground in 1997, and got so far along that some freaky vampire concept footage was made?
TheButcher wrote:Watch a concept clip from Ridley Scott's aborted 1997 I Am LegendTrent Moore wrote: Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend has been adapted for the big screen a few times, most recently in the 2007 Will Smith flick of the same name. But did you know Ridley Scott tried to get a Legend movie off the ground in 1997, and got so far along that some freaky vampire concept footage was made?
Damon Lindelof: I am not. Ridley [Scott] and I talked at great length during the story process of the first movie about what subsequent movies would be if Prometheus were to be successful. And I think that the movie ended in a very specific way that hinted at, or strongly implied that there were going to be continuing adventures worthy of writing stories. What those stories would be would not necessarily usurp or transcend the Alien franchise as we saw it because we know that the Nostromo hasn’t come along yet. So the idea was to set up a universe that… Is it a prequel? Okay. If that’s what we want to call it, sure. But the sequel to this movie is not Alien. The sequel to this movie is this other thing.
So Ridley and I talked about what that other thing might be, and he was excited about doing it. But then I think what ended up happening was that the movie came out, and there was a reaction to the movie. And I got really wrapped up in Trek, and really wrapped up in this movie that I’m producing and writing with Brad Bird. And I have a TV project that I was really passionate about. Ridley and I had a meeting after Prometheus came out where we started talking again about where this journey would go. And in that meeting I said to him, unfortunately, before he could ask me and go through the discomfort of whether he was going to ask me or not… It’s sort of like having a date where you’re letting the other person know, “I’m in another relationship.” So I can’t tell you that he asked me and I said no. But I did communicate to him that I was working on these other things.
The thing about Prometheus was it was a rewrite. Jon Spaihts wrote a script and I rewrote it. And still it was a year of my life that I spent on Prometheus, kind of all in. The idea of building a sequel to it—from the ground up this time—with Ridley is tremendously exciting. But at the same time, I was like, “Well that’s probably going to be two years of my life.” I can’t do what J.J. [Abrams] does. I don’t have the capability. I’m usually very single-minded creatively. I can only be working on one thing at a time. So I said to him, “I really don’t think I could start working on this movie until I do this other stuff. And I don’t know when the other stuff is going to be done.” And he was like, “Well, okay, it’s not like I asked you anyways.” He and I are on excellent terms and it was a dream come true to work with him. But much to the delight of all the fanboys, I don’t see myself being involved in Prometheus-er.
Todd Gilchrist wrote:Although expectations are high for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, screenwriter and executive producer Damon Lindelof tells The Hollywood Reporter that a sequel is far from a foregone conclusion.
The Lost writer and producer said he and Scott had serious conversations about what would and wouldn’t go into Fox's Prometheus, which opens June 8 in North America.
“Ridley was very interested in talking about, ‘What are the answers to the questions that Prometheus is posing that are not necessarily definitively spelled out in the body of Prometheus?’ ” Lindelof says.
“I said to him, we should be prepared for people to feel frustrated if we’re going to be withholding, so we have to be very careful about what we’re saving for later," he continues. "Because it’s not a foregone conclusion that there are going to be sequels, and so if there isn’t a sequel, just be comfortable with what we gave them in this movie."
Lindelof says that his experience on the acclaimed but decidedly polarizing Lost attuned him to the opportunities -- and responsibilities -- of creating a mythology for Prometheus that audiences will care about.
“The audience is given a little more information than the characters in the movie have,” he explains. “And it’s our hope that fires the imagination up enough for them to say, ‘I might want to see Prometheus again’ or ‘I definitely want to see where this movie takes me.’ Because this movie has two children: One of these children grows up to be Alien, but the other child is going to grow up, and God knows what happens to them. And that’s what the sequel to Prometheus would be.”
When Scott originally launched the project with screenwriter Jon Spaihts, the director suggested that the title be Paradise, heralding the word’s “spooky connotations.”
After Lindelof took over the reins on the script, the title changed to Prometheus, though rumors linger that Scott might revive Paradise for a sequel.
“That’s only a title that was being tossed around at various stages in the development,” Lindelof says. “He did need to know what the answers to some of these questions are in Prometheus, just to shoot Prometheus. [But] Ridley was very confident and assured in saying, ‘I’m very comfortable with exactly what Prometheus is providing.’ ”
Lindelof’s next project is 1952, an epic tentpole written for Disney to be directed by Brad Bird that, like its predecessors, is shrouded in secrecy. But he admits that he’d be tempted to come back to write a sequel, even if he acknowledges that the fledgling series might benefit from some new blood the next time around.
“Right now my focus is doing this movie for Disney, and then I obviously want to do another television show, but if Ridley wants me to be involved in something, that would be hard to say no to,” he says. “At the same time, I do feel like the movie might benefit from a fresh voice or a fresh take or a fresh thought. Sometimes the baton should be passed, if that’s what the story demands.
“I had [Prometheus] for the period of time that I was running the race, and if that story continues, it could actually benefit going into someone else’s able hand," Lindelof adds. "Although, I feel like some of the iceberg below the water for any potential future movies in that storyline has already been constructed based on conversations that Ridley and I had about it.”
Spandau Belly wrote:I had never heard about this. I wonder why the Scott version got scrapped.
Spandau Belly wrote:Edgerton as Ramses? I just don't see it. Maybe I'm just too attached to Yul Brynner's portrayal, but it just seems like a bad fit.
I hear 'Edgerton as Ramses' and all I can picture is Ramses strutting around the pyramids chugging Red Bull and blasting House of Pain on a ghettoblaster.
Aaron Couch wrote:An unnamed Ridley Scott film is set for March 4, 2016.
Sandy Schaefer wrote:Finally, the studio also set an unspecified Ridley Scott project for release on March 4th, 2016. The hard-working director previously indicated that his followup to his Biblical blockbuster Exodus (which opens December 2014) will be a sci-fi offering, though that only partially narrows the list of possibilities – as Scott currently has three projects that fall under that genre’s jurisdiction in development: a Prometheus sequel, a second installment set in the Blade Runner universe, and the novel adaptation The Forever War.
TheButcher wrote:
Tom Hooper, Ang Lee, David Fincher And Steven Spielberg Eye Intriguing MoviesMIKE FLEMING JR wrote:First up, Steven Spielberg has ended his long flirtation with directing Gods And Kings, the epic-sized Warner Bros film about life of Moses based on the script by Michael Green and Stuart Hazeldine. That puts Warner Bros in a bind because of the rival Moses project, the Adam Cooper/Bill Collage-scripted Exodus, which is gathering steam at Fox, with Ridley Scott looking to mobilize that as soon as he completes The Counselor. But Warner Bros is now out to Ang Lee, who just won the Best Director Oscar for Life Of Pi. I’m told he’s intrigued with the project but hasn’t had a formal meeting on the script. Imagine what either director can do with that subject matter, and with the ratings on History Channel’s The Bible miniseries, the audience is certainly there. Spielberg hasn’t dropped the project for another; while he postponed his next film Robopocalypse, he hasn’t replaced it with anything as he continues to develop that robot pic. Spielberg also recently told French TV he’s developing a Napoleon miniseries for TV based on Stanley Kubrick’s screenplay and research. for
Kristopher Tapley wrote:As one Biblical epic sets sail (so to speak) in theaters this weekend, news out of Las Vegas' CinemaCon is that another has undergone a title change.
Ridley Scott's "Exodus" starring Christian Bale is now known as "Exodus: Gods and Kings," a combination of a similar Warner Bros. project's title (which Steven Spielberg and Ang Lee were circling at one point) and "Exodus." The studio could not clear the rights for "Exodus" alone, I'm told, because MGM owns it in perpetuity.
Bale will star as Moses in the film. Last year he told HitFix to expect "shocking stuff" from the film. "It's an intriguing piece, because it's very few people that I've met that have actually read the Torah, the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, all the way through," he said. "Most people read snippets. If you read it all the way through, it's harsh. It's really 'Old Testament.' And violence in the extreme. He was not a man of any half measures whatsoever."
The actor is coming off a Best Actor Oscar nomination for David O. Russell's "American Hustle" and also appeared last year in Scott Cooper's "Out of the Furnace." He also has Terrence Malick's "Knight of Cups" on the horizon.
"Exodus Gods and Kings" is set for release on Dec. 12.
“I’ve had a lot of opportunities and I tend not to do that. They’re the hardest single thing to write. Taking a comic strip character is very hard to write. Because comics are meant to work in one page, to work in frames with minimalistic dialogue. And a lot of it is left to the imagination of the reader. To do that in film you’ve got to be a little more explanatory. And that requires a good screenplay and good dialogue.”
PABLO KNOTE wrote:10. Black Rain (1989)
While Ken Takakura’s stardom almost always remained confined within the borders of Japan, his relatively good English skills also made him suitable to play supporting characters in several Hollywood films. He acted as honorful Major in Robert Aldrich’s “Too Late the Hero” (1970) and as baseball couch in “Mr. Baseball” (1992), but he made his most memorable appearences in Hollywood films by playing versions of his honorific yakuza personality as in Sidney Pollack’s “Yakuza” (1974), written by Paul Schrader, screenwriter of “Taxi Driver” (1976).
The role he is probably best remembered for in the West, however, is that of the hardboiled detective Masahiro in Ridley Scott’s grim crime thriller “Black Rain”. While the hectic MTV-influenced visual style make the film seem rather dated, it is elevated by its multi-national cast, among them Michael Douglas and Tomisaburo Wakayama. Yet, it is Ken Takakura who makes the most lasting impression as Masahiro by successfully translating his heroic tateyaku personality to the completely different way of filmmaking of 1980s Hollywood.
Tom Mes wrote:His obscurity is a paradox however, since millions around the world have seen Matsuda's final screen performance as the slippery villain Sato in Ridley Scott's Nihon-noir cop thriller Black Rain. An atypical role in many ways, it is the proverbial exception to the rule. In the part of his career that has come to define him, Matsuda played brash, cool, rebellious heroes, his tall figure and chiselled features furthermore lending him a virility and sex appeal that none of his forebears could match. As undisputably charismatic as Toshiro Mifune, Ken Takakura, Koji Tsuruta and Bunta Sugawara were in their prime, there was very little about them that would make women swoon or that would make scriptwriters decide that they should get the girl before fade-out.
Black Rain's release in 1989 created a storm of publicity for Matsuda, who due to his failing health (which had already bothered him during the shooting of the film) was unable to provide any of it in person. The news of his illness still not made public, TV appearances and magazine shoots were cancelled and the actor even had to forego attending the film's Japanese premiere on October 5, 1989. A day later, with an offer for another Hollywood movie already in his mailbox, Yusaku Matsuda truly joined the ranks of the immortal.
Bill Higgins wrote:In the late '70s, Fox had two big reasons to love sci-fi: 1977's PG-rated Star Wars and, two years later, the much more violent, R-rated Alien. Darth Vader looks almost cuddly compared to Alien's implacable star, designed by the Swiss surrealist painter H.R. Giger. "We used to say they were The Beatles and we were The Rolling Stones," says Alien producer Walter Hill of the blockbusters. "Our film had something people hadn't seen up to that point: the artifice of a B-movie done in an A-movie style."
THR called Alien "extremely effective and scary as hell," which is what director Ridley Scott wanted. "It's much harder to really frighten people than to make them smile or laugh," he says. "The two great films for that are The Exorcist, because possession by the devil has a certain credence to it, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which has flat-out horrendous violence that shocked the hell out of me. My goal was to take the audience to the edge of stress."
Scott, then 41 and with only one feature on his résumé, was fifth in line to direct Alien — behind Robert Altman. ("I could not see Bob doing this," he notes.) When Fox finally offered Scott the job, he declined to make any script changes. "You can easily give notes and turn a 'go' film into a development deal," he says. "I just said, 'I love it, I love it.' And we made it." He revisits the material in Alien: Covenant, a prequel out May 19.
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