Footage of next summer’s video game adaptation Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has popped up online, and with it has popped up some minor controversy. Apparently, viewers are speculating that Jake Gyllenhaal’s abdominal muscles, seen prominently in at least one shot, are not actually his own. Because this footage is from the set and not from some post-production house, it can’t be an airbrush job, but it might be a prosthetic plate covering up his own less-toned abs. The “conspiracy” theory originates with commenters at Towleroad and was brought to most people’s attention via Kyle Buchanan at Movieline. But is it worthy of discussion?
I just recently watched Chris Bell’s steroid documentary Bigger Stronger Faster*, so I’m concerned with the allegations, and whether or not they’re of importance. Shouldn’t we be glad that Gyllenhaal may not have needed to get juiced? Or, should we instead demand that the actor, if not so ripped, show off his own body, so as not to fool young men who might grow up thinking they need a body type that isn’t in fact real? We know, thanks to Bell’s film, that such image issues are as harmful to men as skinny model types are damaging to women, so perhaps this is indeed a necessary discussion.
Unfortunately, the ab conspiracy/controversy has only been brought up by a few so far, while other blogs are merely taking the bait and talking about how amazing Gyllenhaal looks. Check out parts of both discussions after the jump:
Now that DreamWorks’ detachment from Paramount is officially happening, it’s time to find a distributor for the soon-to-be private company. Universal and Disney are currently the main contenders, but there just seems to be something wrong about a DreamWorks-Disney partnership, even if DreamWorks Animation isn’t part of the move.
Personally, I think Harvey Weinstein should hold off releasing Stephen Daltry’s The Reader until 2009, but I’d like to see Harv and Scott Rudin literally wrestle each other to see who wins their distribution dispute.
Speaking of ruining classics, there’s a Rashomon remake in the works that will update the story’s setting to a modern day rape trial. But then does it have to be an official redo, since there’s tons of Rashomon-influenced movies anyway?
You Don’t Mess with the Zohanopens today, and it’s apparently a terrible waste. Boy, do I miss the days when Adam Sandler played stupid and immature rather than skilled and pretending to be gay. At least then it seemed okay that he was possibly making everyone in the room dumber just for having watched his movie. I guess it’s fair that with everyone else doing man-boy comedy these days Sandler is trying to do something with a hint of a political message, but personally I liked it better when he was the least mannish, most boyish man-boy to hit the screen since Jerry Lewis. Making shampoo and conditioner fight? Comedic genius, in my opinion. Making a modern day Shampoo? Not genius at all.
Looking back at Billy Madison, possibly his least mature but most consistently hilarious feature, it now seems as though Sandler has gone through a My Fair Ladysort of transition. And just as with that musical I prefer Eliza Doolittle with a Cockney accent, with Sandler I prefer the gibberish. I also like when he sings in his movies, as in this other favorite clip from Billy Madison. So here’s an idea: cast Sandler as Eliza’s father, Alfred, in the just-announced film adaptation of the musical. I’d love to hear him sing “Get Me to the Church on Time,” and Mr. Doolittle isn’t meant to be the brightest bulb, either. And yes, before you leave that comment, Sandler is actually old enough to be Keira Knightley’s dad.
Ahhh! Between Adam Sandler pretending to be Israeli and Jack Black pretending to be cute, nobody knows who’s going to win the weekend box office! Will 8 year-olds be able to clear their schedules to see both?!?!?
Serial Andrew Lloyd Webber enabler Cameron Macintosh will co-produce a remake of My Fair Lady, starring Keira Knightley in the Julie Andrews role. Though the producers say they’ll keep the story set in 1912, they’re not only calling it an “update”, but they’re planning on shooting the musical in actual London locations.
F. Gary Gray has landed complete rights to the Marvin Gaye catalog, giving his Gaye biopic a theoretical leg-up on another Gaye biopic, one slated to star Jesse L. Martin, which Variety says will only “focus on the singer’s declining years, because the filmmakers have rights to use songs only from his post-Motown career.” Also, that film though “reportedly skedded to start last month in Europe, has not begun production.”
I don’t want to imply that I find all corset movies to be boring — though I’ve never been a big fan of that stuffy period-piece genre — but after watching the new trailer for The Duchess(courtesy of Moviefone), I’ve bookmarked the film as potentially the most effective sleeping aid of 2008. The main problem is that Keira Knightley in a corset is one of the most tired things in filmmaking these days. In fact, Knightley in any type of period piece (even Dominowas set in the past, remember) is apt to make me drowsy. Too bad, considering I’d like to give The Duchess a chance, what with it originally being adapted by the excellent Danish scripter Anders Thomas Jansen (the current screenplay appears to be reworked by period piece scribe Jeff Hatcher – yawn).
To me, The Duchess seems like a means for the true period-piece fans to take back what’s rightfully theirs. It’s like a more traditional take on themes we saw in the wonderfully fresh Marie Antoinette. After all, Georgiana Spencer (Knightley) was another 18th-century It Girl, fashionably innovative and something of a party animal. You might have figured this out from the beginning of the trailer, which clearly points her out as “the Empress of Fashion,” though you might have been confused or doubtful since the reveal of Knightley’s appearance is pretty underwhelming, considering both that the fashion to us is 300 years old and that on Knigthley it looks so commonplace. At least we get to see the actress with her “father” Jonathan Pryce’s wig from Pirates of the Caribbean and later a perm that would make Elsa Lanchester laugh with superiority.
Big, classy, Oscar-bait World War II dramas don’t really get much better than Atonement, Joe Wright’s swooning adaptation of Ian McEwan’s 2001 novel. If the last half hour or so seems to drag to a bit of an anti-climax, it’s only because the first forty minutes are so exhiliaratingly jam-packed with style, plot and character nuance, that the rest of the film is necessarily spent with both characters and viewers struggling to comprehend the full weight of what came before. Atonement swells to an early high and then glides down to earth, and it’s only at the deceptively low end that the film’s massive emotional arc becomes apparent.
It’s in this early section that Wright perfects an almost seamless method of time-shifting, in order to display events several times from the point of view of different players–a brilliant cinematic interpretation of an extremely novelistic device. The action begins on a languid summer day in 1935, on the impossibly grande English country estate of the Tallis family. Precocious, play-writing 13 year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) watches from an upstairs window as her older sister Cecelia (Keira Knightley) has an ambiguous, compromising altercation at an outdoor fountain with Robbie (James McAvoy), a servant’s son whose Cambridge education has been paid for by Cecelia and Briony’s father. Briony slams the window and we cut back in time, to Ceclia flouncing out of the mansion and onto the grounds, where she meets up with Robbie and strolls with him out to the fountain. The incident looks very different from the ground, and it soon becomes clear that Robbie and Cecilia are dancing around their mutual but unspoken love.
Over the course of the evening, Briony will witness three additional incidents, two directly involving Ceclia and Robbie and another open to interpretation, and she will drastically misinterpret all. Out of some mix of jealousy and younger-sister frustration, Briony carelessly manipulates these misunderstandings, until the sisters can only watch––Cecelia, without recourse; Briony, it seems, without guilt––as Robbie is removed from their lives for the foreseeable future.
I’ve been so consumed with Mumblestuffs and the upcoming double-onslaught of Telluride and Toronto that I totally forgot about the Venice Film Festival, which begins today. Here’s a look at some of the better preview pieces floating around today:
It’s the festival’s 75th birthday, and Reuters has an historic timeline.
“Following recent wins for Vera Drake and The Queen, four out of the 22 films competing for the festival’s main award, the Golden Lion, have British directors,” writes Helen Pidd for The Guardian.
One of those directors is Peter Greenaway, whose Rembrandt biopic Nightwatching marks a return to something resembling narrative filmmaking after almost ten years spent on experimental video work. Pidd’s colleague Peter Bradshaw hasn’t seen it, but thinks it should win the Golden Lion anyway. “[F]or sheer shake-up value, giving Greenaway the Golden Lion would probably be the most gratifying.”
Bradshaw also reviewsAtonement, another homegrown production and Venice’s opening night film. “It is clever, sophisticated: though perhaps multiplex audiences might find it a little too tricksy. Time will tell. Atonement will certainly provide food for thought and a colossal sugar-rush of romance for Venice festivalgoers tonight.”
Filing a report on Glenn Kenny’s blog (the Premiere critic says he’s skipping the Lido because he’s “a Toronto guy, and only the most peripatetic of critics can do both fests”), Mark Salisbury has great praise for Atonement’s lead performances. Keira Knightley gives “yet another fine performance that should silence her detractors…But even she is outshone by [James] McAvoy. So good in The Last King Of Scotland (and so overlooked, too, because without his counterpoint, Forest Whitaker’s Amin wouldn’t have been half as effective) McAvoy asserts his position as Britain’s brightest male star with a performance of such range, dignity and humanity that it should, if there’s any justice, find recognition come awards season.”
For Reuters, Mike Collett-White notes that Venice programmers have amped up the Hollywood star factor this year, perhaps in an attempt to stave off competition from other festivals. Most of the must-sees at Venice (Lust, Caution, I’m Not There,The Darjeeling Limited) are world-premiering there before hitting festivals like Toronto and New York in the coming month.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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Ahhh! Between Adam Sandler pretending to be Israeli and Jack Black pretending to be cute, nobody knows 
