Texas' Father Geek here with Latauro and his effort, or lack thereof for this week... seems he's been spending too much time pokin' around in the "Bush" lately, the ol' outback can be a little too hairy sometimes it seems...
I'm not such a bad guy, once you get to know me.
AICN-DOWNUNDER
Sorry, this week is a bit sparse on news... in fact, I only regurgitated some vaguely-interesting pieces of casting news that have already been printed elsewhere. (I’ve been busy.) So call it a big wash-out, if you will.
But, if you’re going to keep reading, it’ll probably be for the MATRIX REVOLUTIONS review. Or not. Enjoy.
NEWS
* Heath Ledger has signed on to the action thriller CRASH (not the Cronenberg wound-fucking one... I believe) alongside Brendan Fraser, Forrest Whitaker and Thandie Newton.
* Miranda Otto, fresh from being painfully gorgeous in LORD OF THE RINGS, will join Giovanni Ribisi, Dennis uaid and Tyrese in a remake of THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX, to be directed by John Moore.
AWARDS AND FESTIVALS
2003 FILM CRITICS CIRCLE OF AUSTRALIA AWARDS
The big winner at the awards this week was JAPANESE STORY, taking home Best Picture.
BOX OFFICE
RUNAWAY JURY debuts at third spot, but otherwise there are no surprises here. Expect to see MATRIX REVOLUTIONS taking the first three spots as of next week.
Annnd the money magnets are...
- 1. INTOLERABLE CRUELTY
- 2. KILL BILL VOL. 1
- 3. RUNAWAY JURY
- 4. FREDDY VS JASON
- 5. CALENDER GIRLS
RELEASED THIS WEEK
A distributor awakens from a long coma and realises nobody released THE 51ST STATE yet, Ivory Merchant maintains their string of critical praise by putting “Le” in the title, the Wachowskis win back good favour or incite deadly fanboy wrath, Jackie Chan makes us cry.
Annnd the new ones are...
- FORMULA 51
- LE DIVORCE
- MATRIX REVOLUTIONS
- THE MEDALLION
REVIEWS
MATRIX REVOLUTIONS
Peter Jackson made a pretty big decision with THE TWO TOWERS. In shifting the Shelhob portion of the story over to RETURN OF THE KING, he decided to go with a satisfying resolution instead of the tantalising cliffhanger. And it’s a noble decision. Giving an emotionally gratifying conclusion to a story that’s only two thirds completed is a far more difficult task than giving a final “bang!” that’ll leave people hungry. Sure, they’ll be jonesing to see Part the Third, but that was always going to be the case.
It’s a choice I’ve found myself respecting more and more. I’m sure I’ll love KILL BILL, but I’ll only know when I see the end. For as cool as the cliffhanger moment was, I still feel like I’ve only seen an act-and-a-half of a film. It just doesn’t feel like a complete thing. And it’s the same with RELOADED. I had a lot of problems with it, but the last moment, the last beat left me angry. The film hadn’t come to a satisfying ending, and the cliffhanger was perhaps the worst I’ve ever seen.
So I didn’t have low expectations as much as I had *no* expectations. Going into REVOLUTIONS, I was more concerned with other things: finally seeing these gigantic cinemas at Knox I’d been told so much about; trying to figure out who the *real* critics sitting on the bus with me were; wondering how I was ever going to finish my final assignment for Uni... honestly, the last thing I was thinking about was the film I was about to see. Reminds me of the life-changing experience that was seeing LOST HIGHWAY for the first time.
There’s no pause before we go into the action. Picks straight up from the end of RELOADED (and, for that matter, ENTER THE MATRIX). Immediately, it became clear that RELOADED and REVOLUTIONS are two movies split down the middle. That, really, they’re meant to be viewed as one.
Despite enjoying the original MATRIX, it didn’t blow me away. It didn’t surprise me. The action, oddly enough, didn’t seem new; the plot had been done before in many an SF novel; the philosophy seemed recycled. But I didn’t want to trash it too much. After all, the action was infinitely more interesting to watch that the standard fist fight/explosion; it’s about time movies pushed their plots as far as books do; I’m impressed that the film deigned to discuss philosophy at all. What I’m saying is full points for effort.
REVOLUTIONS is one of the most ingenious films I’ve seen in a long time. It’s getting nothing but pannings, anger and Bin Laden analogies, but the Wachowskis have done what I’d long since thought impossible: they’ve crafted an ending that is both surprising and satisfying. And it still leaves questions open. It reminded me a lot of the ending to “Deep Space Nine”. So what works?
Smith works. Smith is, in fact, one of the greatest movie villains of all time. Right up there with Darth Vader and Joseph McCarthy. The work Hugo Weaving does in this is superb, and it should serve to raise his stock even further. Keanu is very good, as is the rest of the cast. The dire-logue is less in this film; there doesn’t seem to be much room for it with all the action. Oh yeah, the action. It’s amazing. It doesn’t typically impress me, but the final fight between Smith and Neo is my favourite of the trilogy. It’s superb. It’s magical.
But what impressed me the most was the balls that the Wachowskis have. They may have waited until the final act of the final film, but they fuck with their characters in an unrelenting and markedly non-Hollywood way. But then these films have always been about that, haven’t they? Subverting the popular. And what’s the deal with the ending? Well, everyone’s got their own theory and I still haven’t quite worked mine out. But I will say this: I don’t think the “Revolutions” of the title refers to the big uprising, such as the ones so popular in France all those years ago. I think the suggestion is that it’s all going to happen again. “Revolutions” means something happening again and again, like “revolve”. We know it’s happened six times already... are we being told it’s going to happen again? Or maybe it’s all face value, and this really is the ending. Like I said, I still haven’t formed my opinion fully.
I’m writing this whilst watching BOUND, which is playing on TV at the moment. It’s interesting to see their progression. What interests them. What they can do with a small budget. In the meantime, allow me to lend my voice to the minority who think that REVOLUTIONS is amazing. Incredible. And that it improves the trilogy as a whole.
NEXT WEEK
- Donald De Line (producer of THE ITALIAN JOB remake) announces plans to remake PASSAGE TO INDIA, following a group of teens on a road trip for New York to Las Vegas
- STAR TREK: INSERRECTION to follow Ezri Dax, Seven of Nine and T’Pol as they investigate a time anomaly caused by repeated skin-friction at a foamy women-only sauna
- Rob Schneider, Pauly Shore, Carrot Top, Tom Arnold, Matthew Lillard, Tom Green, and Joe Piscopo to star in the much-anticipated remake of MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL
Peace out,
Latauro
downunder@aintitcoolmail.com
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