'pus TeX
Old movies are better, aren’t they? Yes: the best rnovie yOu'll see at Cinemas this December is the reissue of the Bing Crosby/Danny Kate/Rosemary Clooney classm. mu3ical
White Christmas.
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Paul Dale welcomes Josh Brolin's first lead role and Oliver Stone's Presidential biopic W. with glee
f’firmation of Oliver Stone‘s cinematic dementia may well have to be put on hold with the release of his snap freeze George W Bush biopic. The last decade has not
been kind to Stone. with the twin debacles of
Alexander and World Trade Center: bttt a peek at the trailer for W. suggests that it could be a return to form for this broad stroke polemicist. Taking in Bush Jr‘s days of what his father (played by the pig farmer from Babe James Cromwell) calls ‘partying. chasing tail and drink driving‘ as he tried out a variety of shoe-in managerial posts. in addition to his more well known antics. it is certainly difficult to resist a film that features Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney. Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice and erstwhile Truman Capote impersonator Toby Jones as Karl Rove. Yet it is in the casting of the 43rd Whitehouse incumbent that Stone really may have hit pay dirt.
Josh Brolin. the son of long serving Hollywood based TV and film character actor James (these days better known as Mr Streisand. he married Barbra in I998. 12 years and one wife after he divorced Josh‘s mother) finally moves into star status as good ol’ Dubya. It has been a less than meteoric rise for this ex-Goonie with blink and
Quarantine
Hollywood lost no time remaking the creepin effective Spanish horror [REC]. relocating the action to LA where a news crew gets locked into an apartment building with some seriously scary inhabitants.
(14 Nov) (27 Nov)
28 THE LIST 4—18 Sep 2008
Sam Rockwell and Kelly Macdonald star in only the second adaptation of a Chuck Palahniuk novel. this bizarre tale concerning a sex-addict con- man who takes his own death to pay for his Ma's hOSpital bills.
you‘ll miss him roles in a forgettable slew of 80s and 90s television series and a few memorable
turns in some risible indie film schlock (Bed of
Roses. Best Laid Plans). It was of cottrse his Nolte—esque performance as psychotic doctor in (irindhouse segment Planet Terror and his likeably vague and fatalistic fortune hunter Llewelyn Moss in the (‘oen's No (‘oantry For Old Men that finally put this 40-year-old in the frame.
From Charlie Sheen in Wall Street and Platoon. Val Kilmer in The Doors. Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth ofJuly and Kevin Costner in JFK. Stone‘s films have always carried the hidden agenda of moving their star's careers either tip one notch or into an egotistical cul de sac from which there is no return. But Brolin is second generation Californian studio stock. he‘s taken so long to get here it is unlikely his head will be turned by impersonating the most powerful idiot in the world. Hearing Bush the Elder admonish his unemployable charge on the trailer with the phrase: ‘Who do you think you are'.’ A Kennedy? You‘re a Bush so act like one.’ fills one with the opprobrium of unstoppable nepotism.
W. is released on Fri 7 Nov.
The Changeling
Grandpa Clint Eastwood directs super-mama Angelina Jolie in this thriller about a mother whose prayers for her kidnapped son to be returned to her come true . . . or do they? (28 Nov)
Blockbuster remake of the sei-ii thriller about a spaceman who comes to Earth warning of the it's imminent destruction only to be taken as an invader. In a perfect piece of casting, Keanu Reeves plays the alien. (72 Dee)
Reworking
practice
With the big screen adaptation of Brideshead Revisited on the horizon Eddie Harrison examines other upcoming revamps
The home of Lord and Lady Brideshead. imrnortalised in Evelyn Waugh‘s classic novel. is revisited by director Julian Jarrold for a 2008 fall release. A more accurate description of the project might be Brideshead Rebooted. since Waugh's study of the British aristocracy has already had a memorable screen incarnation - a 659 minute long lTV series in 1981. The new version may look magnificent. but purists may ask. is it really Waugh?
The golden-sunset sentimentality associated with the television production of Brideshead is not the only theme extracted from Waugh's 1945 book. Jarrold's 135 minute version. based on a script by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies. attempts a more pointed version of the novel's original love triangle. With racy taglines like 'Every temptation has its price'. the 2008 Brideshead is steelier than the languid television production: the squalling guitars in the trailer suggest a thriller rather than a period piece. Despite rumours of Jude Law. Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly taking the roles of Charles. Sebastian and Julia. Jarrold‘s Brideshead puts Matthew Goode. Ben Wishaw and Haley Atwell centre-stage: Michael (Bamboo and Emma Thompson lend star-power as Lord and Lady Marchmain.
It's not the only reboot in the works. Kevin MacDonald is Currently working on State of Play. adapted from the popular BBC drama. And in Hollywood. Darren Aronofsky. creator of Pi and Requiem For a Dream, has signed up to revamp Robocop. The success of The Dark Knight is likely to inspire studios to look backwards rather than forwards for new ideas: strangely enough, it's exactly the kind of unimaginative. grasping thinking which Waugh's best work so cuttingly satirised. (Eddie Harrison)
I Brideshead Revisited is released on Fri 3 Oct
i i
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson Everyone from Johnny Depp through Tom Wolfe. Jimmy Carter. Jefferson Airplane and Hell's Angel Sonny Barger pay tribute to the late and lamented American writer. gun-lover and drug-taker. (19 Dec)