Today's News: Spielberg back for clash of conquistadors?

Hot off MovieScene:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/152883/spielberg_maakt_mogelijk_montezuma

Spielberg is having a tough time in Hollywood at the moment. His Robopocalypse got cancelled while already in production (and after a year of development hell still hasn't resumed filming), and he stepped out of American Sniper (after which Clint Eastwood took over that particular project, so it'll still be a good movie). He hasn't signed on to direct anything else at present, though he is expected to do Indiana Jones 5 whenever that gets geared up. So what's a world renowned director to do? He's not the type to retire (despite pushing his seventies), so looking for new material is his best bet. Maybe he finally found something worth his while with Dalton Trumbo's Montezuma script (or the current adaptation by his colleague of old Steve Zaillian), one of the grand unfilmed scenarios in Hollywood for nigh on five decades. The epic tale of conquest and historical tragedy seems perfectly suited for a visionary director like Spielberg, who has shown to respect history without sacrificing the need for artistic license in favor of dramatic effect the audience craves. But what's to say Hollywood won't back out of this project as well? Historical epics are not exactly a hot item at present, nor are they guaranteed to bring in the big bucks, though they sure tend to cost a lot of bucks. Personally I think Spielberg would do better crafting a miniseries for television out of this, similar to his WWII dramas Band of Brothers and The Pacific. History does a lot better on telly these days, and quality TV would only enhance the possibilities of storytelling to the better. Cortez' brutal tale of conquest is rife with violence and suffering, exactly the type of story that would suit an HBO adaptation perfectly. Taking into account Spielberg already predicted the fall of Hollywood due to overexpensive productions not seeing their profits returned and thus dragging studios into bankruptcy: coupled with his own professional troubles in the studio system in recent years (he had major problems getting Lincoln going to), you'd think he himself would come to the conclusion that the past has more of a future on the home screens.

As for Javier Bardem as Cortez, I'm all for it. He's from Spain, he excels in playing brutal and cruel characters and he's a terrific actor too, so there's no reason against it in my mind, especially if he's motivated to play the part himself.

Today's Mini-Review: The Counselor

The Counselor: ***/*****, or 6/10

According to Cormac McCarthy, acclaimed author of novels such as No Country for Old Men and The Road (and thus indirectly also responsible for two great cinematic adaptations of said works), hell hath no fury like a woman hungry. In his screenwriting debut, The Counselor, we learn a thing or two about women for sure. They can be the most scheming, conniving, ruthlessly intelligent and sexually uninhibited creatures imaginable, or they can be loving, charming wives-to-be instead, though the former eats the latter for lunch if left to her shady devices. McCarthy also means to inform his audience on a diverse range of other assorted topics with this film, including the make-up of diamonds, the dangers of speeding (which can lead to both incarceration and decapitation), the sexually stimulating nature of fast cars and the machinations of a deadly device called a bolito (which we will end up seeing in working order in much more detail than we would like to have seen before the film is over) but the exact workings of the film's main topic, a drug deal gone horribly awry, remain rather elusive by comparison. McCarthy proves he's as consistent in his job as a screen writer as he is a novelist, as he keeps dabbling in the cynical realm associated with man's darker, greedier nature, but coherency unfortunately is not his strong suit as evidenced here.

The Counselor features all the ingredients of a strong, effective film, including an intriguing premise, a top-notch director in the person of Sir Ridley Scott and a solid cast to match. The counselor in question is an otherwise nameless man (Michael Fassbender) who leads a seemingly happy life with his fiancé Laura (Penelope Cruz), but aspires to gain much more by better playing his card of being in a position of influence, which leads him to the decision of getting involved in a lucrative but risky drug deal. His associates, the flamboyant bon-vivant Reiner (Javier Bardem) and the cautionary Westray (Brad Pitt) tell him of the dangers of such deals in juicy details (most of which we will see come to bloody fruition in a grand case of cinematic parallelism), but the counselor accepts the job nonetheless. You know this charming man is gonna regret his choice well before he actually makes it, but you'll find him sympathetic enough to root for him to be successful in this venture. When the trafficker loses his head, someone at the top of the game loses a lot of money, patience and general goodwill towards man, which leads to everybody's necessity to bail out immediately or face grave, disturbing consequences. Reiner's girlfriend Malkina (Cameron Diaz), a woman as gorgeous as she is devious and greedy above all else, soon seems to be pulling all the strings and relentlessly hunts the money and those in her way. A killing spree erupts, in which a fair share of people, decent and not so decent alike, lose it all, during which the counselor must come to terms with the very bad call he made, one we always knew from the get-go would come to this conclusion. This film sounds very much like a thriller, which it wants to be, but the amount of thrills it offers comes up short. In fact, the first half of the movie is comprised of endless dialogue, some beautifully written, some less catchy, but much of it quite digressing and ultimately redundant. When the shit finally hits the fan, it does so with a vengeance in a bunch of short, brutal bursts, but by that time many spectators will have seized to care, or worse, failed to understand just what is going on and who is connected to who in the ultimate scheme of things considering the many players and their complicated and underdeveloped interrelations.

Nevertheless, what The Counselor lacks in terms of writing, Sir Ridley often makes up for to some extent in directing, as the film's best moments are largely cinematic in nature, including the drug dealer accidentally shot in the head and immediately robbed by local vagabonds before being devoured by his own cheetahs, as well as the already infamous scene displaying Malkina's inexplicable drive to copulate with a nice car (Cameron certainly goes for it!), an ecstatic moment of absurdity that ruins the ride for its bewildered owner. The Counselor has all the hallmarks of a flawed masterpiece, as everything is necessary to craft a grand, suspenseful film, but none of it is arranged in the correct order and the dominant overall tone of cynicism, McCarthy's overarching theme, makes it hard to behold as it schemes its way towards an unsettling climax.

Today's News: BARRRdem setting sail for Neverland soon?

Here's a little scoop from MovieScene:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/151709/javier_bardem_wordt_mogelijk_blackbeard

Another live-action version of Peter Pan, eh? In fact, there's two in the works at the moment, including this one. If you've got Bardem as your bad guy you've certainly got the upper hand though. His talent for screen villainy has been well documented with both Skyfall and No Country for Old Men, the latter being rewarded with a properly deserved Oscar. So if the deal gets made, poor Peter Pan is in for quite a fight squaring off against Bardem's Blackbeard. Can Bardem beat Ian McShane's Blackbeard - from the haphazardly confusing yet half-decently entertaining Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - in terms of grotesque appearance and evil scheming though? Possibly, but there's a good chance Pan will at least be more consistent and well rounded than that film. What concerns me more in that regard is the writing for this movie, which is currently being scribbled down by Jason Fuchs, who has already displayed an interest for piracy in the dismal Ice Age: Continental Drift. Fuchs hasn't yet shown himself to be a talented writer, so there's still plenty of chances the movie will fall short in that department. If there's any failures involved, it's very likely we won't be able to attribute them to Bardem.

On a sidenote, this is another example of me posting a bit of 'unfinished news'. After all, Bardem hasn't been confirmed for Pan yet, he's still in talks to assume the mantle of the notorious pirate captain. You get this a lot when you're looking for news to post. Rumours, uncomfirmed casting, etc., it's all part of the business but can feel frustrating for readers and writers alike when a deal does not get struck, or projects get scrapped entirely. You often wonder what the result was about certain bits of old news you remember hearing about once and when you look them up again, there's just no additional information because much has changed about the project in question and it's now another project entirely. Recent examples include the casting of the second Avengers film, where certain actors were rumoured for a role months before actually signing on (in which case you have to post both the rumour and the actual confirmation, at the risk of introducing a sense of déja vu for your readers), or the increasing and decreasing cast levels for Jurassic World, which recently witnessed several fairly high profile casting rumours that ended up debunked as quickly as they popped up (including such names as Josh Brolin and Idris Elba, and now Jason Schwartzmann). Such irritating elements all come with the territory of posting film news, though I myself at least try to wait for studio confirmation instead of responding solely to rumours. Sometimes that means I miss news as others beat me to it, but on other occasions it means I don't post anything that eventually ends up going nowhere.