In surprisingly positive movie adaptation news, Naomi Watts is said to be starring in an upcoming remake of The Birds. According to the article I saw, this time they're apparently trying to stick closer to the original Daphne du Maurier short story—which leaves me a little confused. It's been a long time since I read The Birds, but didn't Hitchcock come up with the Melanie Daniels character all on his own? The original story's protagonist was a farmer or something. Watts would make a fabulous Tippi Hedren 2.0, but who's she going to play in this version? [Source]
BBC One is making a feature-length film adaptation of Noel Streatfeild's children's classic Ballet Shoes. This production will star Victoria Wood, Richard Griffiths, Marc Warren, and Emma Watson (Harry Potter's Hermione Granger). I'm not sure how I feel about this: on the one hand, the BBC usually does a nice job; on the other, Miss Watson's acting skills have yet to knock my socks off, and I hope she wasn't given the part just to add a little Rowling-mania glitz to the production.
I totally encourage everybody to check out the trailer for the upcoming "digitally-enhanced live action" movie adaptation of Beowulf--it had me giggling for hours. Literary purists might be a little taken aback by this effort to turn one of history's greatest epic poems into a Final Fantasy-style cheesefest, but what do they know? C'mon--this thing is rumored to be released in 3-D!
Although... is anybody else taken aback by natural Angelina Jolie looks as a CGI character?
Note: Wordcandy author Neil Gaiman co-wrote the screenplay for this sucker.
The people behind the upcoming film adaptation of The Jane Austen Book Club are currently running a contest with an excellent grand prize: a ticket to one of the 2008 JASNA-sponsored tours of England!
According to the sweepstakes homepage, the tour will "...offer access to homes and events not available to the general public, such as the annual meeting of the British Jane Austen Society held on the grounds of the manor house owned by Jane Austen's brother. Private teas, luncheons, and dinners in historic settings are also part of the tour. A British guide specializing in Austen and her era will accompany the group. The itinerary will center on Jane Austen's homes and places she visited, including Steventon, Bath, Chawton, Winchester, and London. Accommodations will be in first class and good tourist class hotels, with full breakfast daily. The group will travel in luxury air-conditioned motor coach."
That sounds worth the effort of filling out the form, doesn't it?
When will British girls learn? I don't care HOW cute you are, Emma Watson, NO ONE is cute enough to carry off this kind of outfit. Those BOOTS! That SATIN! Those... dangly ribbon things!
Additional: I saw the new Harry Potter movie last night, and I am happy to report that it was great. It had different strengths than the last two HP films, but I was very impressed by this director's decision to full-out change some elements from the book, rather than, ah, selectively editing it. I know tampering with Rowling's series is risky, but some of stuff in a nearly nine-hundred-page-long book just doesn't work as well in a two-and-a-half-hour long film, and I totally applaud this director for recognizing that.
Slate has posted an essay about the upcoming movie adaptation of Richard Yates's 1961 book Revolutionary Road, described by the essayist as "one of the most depressing novels ever written". Why is it that we will soon be able to enjoy this fun-filled cinematic gem, but nobody will make a freaking Georgette Heyer adaptation?!?
Interested parties can now download the high-definition trailer for the upcoming The Golden Compass movie. While all the human actors look great--I can't believe how slinky Nicole Kidman looks--the trailer is still a little dorky. I'm sorry, tech geeks, but CGI continues to look totally fake, and I can't stand the trailer intro, which loudly reminds us that this movie is from the same people who brought the Lord of the Rings series to the big screen. Also, why are there so few shots of the daemons? Was the crappy CGI not ready in time for the trailer release?
None of this, of course, means that I won't be there to see this movie on opening night.
The film review site Pajiba is reporting that one of the big literary successes of 2006, Marisha Pessl's debut novel Specialty Topics in Calamity Physics*, is going to be turned into a movie.
*This book has been languishing in my "To Be Read" pile for over a year now. My mother assures me that it's Wordcandy-friendly, but something about it smells Oprah's Book Club-esque, so I've been putting it off.
New Line's website for their Golden Compass movie adaptation is up and running, and allows fans to play a twenty questions-style game that determines what their deamon would be. (It's kinda fun--mine was an ocelot named Gabriel.)
Here is another sneak peak of what to expect this summer from the next Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Now if we could just get a sample chapter from the final book... (yeah, I won't be holding my breath on that one).
Updated:: You can see the US High-Definition trailer (which looks like it might be a little different from the one above) here.
MSN.com is reporting that Daniel Craig and Julianne Moore* are in talks to star in a film adaptation of José Saramago's Nobel Prize-winning novel Blindness. I've never read Blindness (I'm still working up the courage), but I've always been curious, even though I hear that Mr. Saramago is too intellectually lofty to use any quotation marks: toss in a few man-eating plants and it sounds like you've got the plot of John Wyndham'sThe Day of the Triffids. It's too bad that Mr. Wyndham never decided to turn up his nose at standard grammar usage. He might have won a Nobel Prize, too.
*Wasn't she just in a movie about a humanity torn apart by a bizarre medical condition?
The trailer is out for the new Nancy Drew movie and I have to say: I am not sure that I'm going to enjoy this film. Maybe it is all of the Veronica Mars I've been watching for the past few years, but I just can't see Emma Roberts as Nancy.
We're rarely happy about Wordcandy movie adaptations, but we've found that if we play it safe and keep our expectations very, very low, we can usually get through them without too much trauma. Unfortunately, we're hearing rumors of several jaw-droppingly terrible movies coming down the pike, including...
A) a film called Malice in Sunderland, which will apparently be a "modern take on the classic fairytale, Alice in Wonderland, set in the North East of England". Even if they hadn't called Alice a fairytale--which it isn't--and hadn't given this book such an unbelievably stupid title, I'd still hate it, because they've cast freakin' Mischa Barton in the main role. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
B) Becoming Jane, a "biographical portrait of a pre-fame Jane Austen and her romance with a young Irishman", starring Anne Hathaway. Didn't they already try sexing up Austen with the dread Mansfield Park adaptation? I'm not hearing good stuff about this one.
C) And, creepiest of all, TMZ is reporting that Tom Cruise is in talks with Ben Stiller to do a "humorous" updated version of The Hardy Boys. C'mon, Tom! We've already got the perfect project for you! What are you waiting for? [Source]
A few reactions, some Harry Potter bits, and another anime/manga rec:
1. I have now seen the first episode of the the Wallflower anime, and yes, the artwork is awful. (Plus, they chose a disturbingly girly voice actor for Sunako.) It could be worse, but I wouldn't pay money to watch something of this quality. Then again, thanks to YouTube, I don't have to. Overall grade: C-
2. I've seen Blood and Chocolate, too. If you go to watch a crappy horror movie, you'll be fine; if you go to see something like the book, you'll be profoundly disappointed. The filmmakers should have just called it Underworld III: This Time, No Vampires. In the movieverse, Adian is a sensitive graphic artist with carefully tousled hair, Gabriel is this Eurotrashy dude going through a midlife crisis, and Vivian is a dour young woman with a running fetish. Everybody spends a lot of time leaping off of walls.
Also, they used real wolves, which looked pretty cool when the pack was running around but got rather disturbing during fight scenes, and I didn't see one of those "No animals were harmed..." things at the end of the film. Overall Grade C+
3. More Harry Potter news Rowling has said that two "major" characters will die in the last installment of her Harry Potter series. I'll believe it when I see it. If you'd like a complete list of the bits and pieces of info Rowling has given readers on book seven, click here.
4. If you're looking for a cute, silly anime (and manga, if you're willing to brave IRC and hunt down the scanlations) that's appropriate for all ages, try Gakuen Alice. This series does a nice job of blending a G-rated romance/friendship story with a few darker plot elements. It's not Shakespeare, but it's a sight better than The Wallflower. Overall Grade: B
5. And, last but not least, Nathan gave me a DVD of the complete Goong series for my birthday, for which I am profoundly grateful. It's even better this time around, because I can fast-forward through all of the scenes featuring either A) the four main characters staring sadly into space, B) pointless flashbacks, or C) Yul's mother's yawn-inducing political machinations. If you can get your hands on this series--watch it online, get it from bittorrent, whatever--you should TOTALLY DO SO, because it is AWESOME. Overall Grade: A-
The film adaptation of Annette Curtis Klause's wonderful YA novel Blood and Chocolate is out today, and the reviews are uniformly unenthusiastic. There's a lot of comments along the lines of "it's not the worst movie I've ever seen", while the reviewers who've read the book are describing the film as "a complete and utter bastardization of the novel". There are also a number of jokes about the title, including my favorite: the critic who suggested that they re-name it Hot Topic: The Movie.
On the other hand, it's not like I was expecting a GOOD movie, so I'm still looking forward to it. When it comes to film adaptations of my favorite books, I find that low expectations are the secret to happiness.
Last night, after countless hours of gifts, desserts, and relatives, it was time for Nathan, Meg, and me to meet up for our annual Christmas movie outing. This year we decided to see Eragon. We knew it looked terrible, but our Christmas movie is never chosen for its intellectual weight, and after two days of non-stop family members, a little D&D-style stupidity sounded perfect. Dragons? Swordfighting? Right up our alley!
Sadly, we probably would have been better off renting Reign of Fire--at least that had Christian Bale in it. Eragon seemed to consist mainly of this (admittedly, very, very pretty) boy riding along on horse- or dragonback, set to inspirational music. Then there was a big battle scene at the end, which was cut so choppily that I couldn't tell what was going on, featuring a bad guy whose look seemed to have been lifted wholesale from the Subspecies movies. I'm not saying that I won't see the other movies in the series--hey, a girl's got to see something on Christmas, and that boy is cute as a freaking button--but this was a hot mess.
I was very excited to see this, though:
There's going to be a movie based on Annette Curtis Klause's Blood and Chocolate! Sure, it's by the producers of Underworld, and it stars a soap opera actress with perfect nails, and they obviously totally screwed up the story... but still! Neat!
In surprisingly positive movie adaptation news, Naomi Watts is said to be starring in an upcoming remake of The Birds. According to the article I saw, this time they're apparently trying to stick closer to the original Daphne du Maurier short story—which leaves me a little confused. It's been a long time since I read The Birds, but didn't Hitchcock come up with the Melanie Daniels character all on his own? The original story's protagonist was a farmer or something. Watts would make a fabulous Tippi Hedren 2.0, but who's she going to play in this version? [Source]
