My Day with Film (Saturday, 12/3/16)

Saturday, 12/3/16


Dear Diary,

I'm close to landing a stint as an intern on the set of a new indie thriller shooting in Louisville this week and next. I've been in touch with some great people and now just waiting on approval from the Assistant Director staff. More to come on that in the days ahead.

James Wan is directing the AQUAMAN movie starring Jason Momoa for Warner Brothers. It's part of the whole Justice League / Batman v Superman movie universe. The official release date has been announced for that film: October 5th, 2018. That's the exact day my baby sister turns 21. Damn, I'm getting old.

I just saw an article from Indiewire which said that Johnny Depp, David Lynch and J.K. Simmons recently joined THE BLACK GHIANDOLA, a short film directed by Catherine Hardwicke, Sam Raimi and Ted Melfi. It's about a young man risking everything to save the girl he loves after his family is killed by zombies. The kicker is that the short was conceived and co-written by young Anthony Conti, a teen battling stage IV adrenal cortical cancer. It makes my heart happy to see all this A-list talent coming together to turn this kid's filmmaking dreams into reality. I hope to see the finished product someday.

In other news, I think you'll be pleased to know that GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, VOL. 2 looks even better than the original. Marvel just released a brand-new trailer which you can (and should!) check out here:

Baby Groot is poised to steal this entire movie.

Lastly, I'm trying to decide what movie to watch tonight. I have at least one episode of BLACK MIRROR to get through, but after that I'm not sure. Yesterday BLACK MIRROR had me in the mood to watch my Criterion disc of David Fincher's THE GAME, so maybe that'll be the one.

Until tomorrow,

BC

"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" Review

From Seth Grahame-Smith, the author of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, comes the next bloody bastardization of history - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

The film is an adaptation of Jane Austen's famous novel about romance and decorum between upper and lower classes during the time of the British Regency. The big wrinkle is that the country is overrun by the undead. In addition to being trained in the ways becoming of wifely young ladies, Elizabeth Bennett (Lily James) and her sisters are highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat. Their suitors - Mr. Darcy (Sam Riley), Mr. Bingley (Douglas Booth), and Mr. Wickham (Jack Huston) - are all military brats equally skilled at zombie-killin'.

Despite their incessant, well, "pride" and "prejudice" towards one another, I'd still want all these folks on my side during the apocalypse.

The only "lovable loser" who may not be of much service besides cracking wise is Parson Collins, played by Doctor Who's Matt Smith. Each character is relatively consistent with the manner in which Austen originally wrote them, although Smith's version of Collins is made out to be the jovial scene-stealer. Smith seems to have a bit of fun with the idea of a clergyman searching for a wife and plays the role with a bit of sexual ambiguity that the preview crowd found endearing.

Despite relatively strong characters, the story doesn't always support them. It often dabbles too far into either Austen territory or Romero territory, thus ultimately feeling imbalanced. The Austen stuff feels almost too much like a Lifetime Original Movie adaptation, but the zombie action is exciting and often just violent enough to be satisfying. Hardcore gore-hounds will probably be displeased, but again, there's a surprising amount of blood and entrails for a PG-13 film.

Unless you were a fan of Grahame-Smith's book, I wouldn't rush out to see Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in theaters. Worthwhile only as a Redbox rental for this year's Halloween sleepover.

C-