Wednesday 13 August 2008

Days in New York...

3

For a full explanation, please see the start of the countdown.

TV

Damages
1x09 Do You Regret What We Did? [2nd watch]
1x10 Sort of Like a Family [2nd watch]

Tin Man
Part 2 Search for the Emerald
An improvement on the first part, as it breaks away from slavishly re-imagining the original story, but it still suffers from a cookie-cutter fantasy plot, low production values, a turgid pace and hammy acting.

Films

Trailers for:

Ashes of Time: Redux

Babylon A.D.
Exciting near-future action flick, or just a Children of Men rip off?

Bangkok Dangerous
Surprisingly exciting trailer for the new Nic Cage actioner. He's looking a bit old for that haircut though.

Choke
Adaptation of the new Chuck Palahniuk novel. Looks very good.

City of Ember
Could-be-fun kiddy post-apocalypse sci-fi.

Cthulhu
Looks like a cheap fan film to me.

Death Race
Provided there's not too much plot and plenty of cool car action, this could actually be pretty cool. Then again, it is directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.

Defiance
Promising new work from the director of Blood Diamond.

Hamlet 2
It has no right to look any good, but this looks hilarious.

Igor
Was looking forward to this. Not at all now. Disappointing for me, "oh dear" for whoever edited the trailer.

Righteous Kill
Conversely, this looks brilliant. Maybe it can even live up to the hype its pairing of stars brings.

Twilight
I'm sure fans of the books will love it, but it looks just as crappy as it sounds.

W.
"Odd" is just about the best word to describe this. Fitting, I suppose. But since when was Tony Blair blond?

Articles

Hollywood feels the crunch by Peter Bowes
(from BBC News)

iPhone Software Sales Take Off: Apple's Jobs by Nick Wingfield
(from The Wall Street Journal)
Brief interview with Steve Jobs about the stunning success of the new iPhone App Store.

Zak Penn Writes The Argonauts by Helen O'Hara
(from Empire Online)
"Zak Penn is to write and produce a new take on The Argonauts, the crew who accompanied the Greek hero Jason in his search for the Golden Fleece. Penn's story will be an "original take" on the legend... But this is just one of a wave of Greek-themed projects in Hollywood at the moment... there's Louis Leterrier working on Clash of the Titans; Warners is planning a 300 sequel... Relativity Media is making War of Gods about Theseus; Brett Ratner's mulling God of War (don't confuse those two; this one's based on a game); and there are at least three Hercules projects in development, including Peter Berg's Hercules: The Thracian Wars (based on a comic). Oh, and DreamWorks is making a different film called The Argonauts, about modern treasure-hunters thrown back through time when they find the original Argo."