Podcast

MOV113: “Je doutais qu’il vienne”

This week we start off with a little known feature called Heavenly Creatures, a movie by lord of the epic movie quadrillogies, Peter Jackson and staring a then unknown Kate Winslet. Does this true crime biopic surprise us or is it just too bizarre? Next up we swing on over to the present to look at the long awaited reboot of your friendly neighborhood wall-crawler The Amazing Spiderman. Find out if we feel it’s truly amazing, or truly unnecessary. Finally we look to the future to talk about The Bourne Legacy. Does this not quite reboot look to live up to the Bourne Legacy? Or will we be Bourned out of our minds? All this plus news about Skyfall casting, An unexpected split of Mockingjay, and The Great Gary Mitchell controversy on this 113th reel of COL Movies: Je doutais qu’il vienne

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News:

The Past: Heavenly Creatures (1994)

Rotten Tomatoes: 94% Fresh; 81% Audience

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Director: Peter Jackson

Staring: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet, Sarah Peirse

Trivia:

  • Based on a true life murder by the movie’s main characters – Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme.
  • Short video version also available on Investigation Discovery’s show “Deadly Women”, Season 3, Episode 8 – “Fatal Obsession”
  • Almost all locations used for filming were the genuine locations where the events occurred. The tea shop where Honora Parker ate her last meal was knocked down a few days after the shoot ended. According to director Peter Jackson, when they got to the location of the murder on the dirt path, it was eerily quiet; the birds stopped singing, and it didn’t seem right. So they moved along a couple of hundred yards.
  • Juliet Hulme was revealed to be mystery writer Anne Perry who came forward and revealed her real identity in 1994 during the making of the film, but all attempts to find Pauline Parker failed. In 1997, Pauline Parker was finally traced to a rundown cottage on a farm near Strood, Kent, England, where she currently runs a children’s riding school. Since assuming the name of Hilary Nathan, she has become a devout Catholic and devoted her life to handicapped children..
  • Orson Welles’ photograph in the stream is a reference to a similar shot in The Third Man.
  • All of the journal voice-overs are direct from real diary entries made by Pauline Parker. The characters in the stories (if not the stories themselves) and make-believe world are also authentic.
  • Kate Winslet was one of 175 girls who auditioned for the role of Juliet Hulme.
  • Melanie Lynskey was cast as Pauline Parker two weeks before filming began. Co-writer Fran Walsh discovered her at the last minute while scouring local high schools for Parker lookalikes.
  • A picture on the wall in Pauline’s bedroom is a photograph of the real Juliet Hulme.
  • The feature film debut for stars Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet.
  • Producer Jim Booth passed away shortly after the production was complete. The film is dedicated to his memory.
  • Co-writer Fran Walsh suggested the idea of making the Parker-Hulme murder into a film to director Peter Jackson. Walsh said she had a fascination with the murder since childhood.
  • Since the Parker-Hulme murder had been an infamous crime that was strongly sensationalized in New Zealand history Jackson decided rather than do a film that would be a historical look back at the crime to instead create a drama about Parker and Hulme’s intense friendship. In addition to reading Pauline Parker’s diary Jackson and company undertook a nation wide search for anyone who had known the girls and interviewed them to get a closer look at their life.
  • Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet were so strongly into their roles that they would interact with each other as their characters off screen.
  • Time listed this film as one of their 10 best films of 1994.
  • Most of the cast was selected because of their physical resemblances to their real-life characters.
  • Both Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet went on to find fame and popularity in roles with the character name of Rose: Lynskey in Two and a Half Men and Winslet in Titanic.
  • Peter Jackson makes a cameo as the homeless man kissed by Juliet outside the theater.
  • The special effects in the film were handled by the then newly-created Weta Digital.
  • The film has garnered critical praise, and was an Academy Award nominee in 1994 for Best Original Screenplay. It featured in a number of international film festivals, and received very favourable reviews worldwide, including making top ten of the year lists in Time, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The New Zealand Herald.

Talking Points:

  • Too bizarre?

Critic Notes

  • Positives: Jackson does an amazing job creating the world worth killing for; Outstanding performances from the leads; Powerful and evocative
  • Negatives: Very few negative comments, but – Jackson can’t decide what kind of movie he’s making, the switching from melodrama to “fantasy land” is abrupt and jarring; tension is high for most of the movie, but it fizzles out by the end

What We Learned:

  • A brick in a pair of nylons can be a murder weapon.
  • Affairs are much more exciting than marriages.
  • All the best people have bad chests and bone diseases.
  • Only the best people fight against all obstacles in pursuit of happiness.
  • Orson Wells is the most hideous man alive (well, was at time the movie was set).
  • Everyone should live by the motto: Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may be dead.
  • The Fourth World… it’s sort of like heaven. Only better, because there aren’t any Christians!
  • Peter Jackson excels at making people look creepy
  • Homosexuality can strike at any time and is great for weight loss
  • “Je doutais qu’il vienne” is in fact the spoken subjunctive

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: Wow, was this a boring film. I just couldn’t get into it an just wanted to switch to something that was actually interesting. Definitely not a film for me.
Ray:It was really nice to see some of Peter Jackson’s earlier serious work. Having seen what he did with The Lovely Bones helps make this film make a little more sense.. It can be a little bizarre in that Black Swan sort of way..so if your not tolerant or don’t enjoy a bizarre look into the mind of someone who is disturbed… stay away.
Steve: I didn’t think I was going to like it as much as I did. Although I didn’t know it was a true crime, I picked up some hints that it reminded me about something I’d seen in the past and “bam”, I found the info. Once I knew that, I liked it a lot more. Winslet was awesome for this being her first film!

The Present: The Amazing Spider-Man

Rotten Tomatoes: 74% Fresh; 84% Audience

Director: Marc Webb

Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Denis Leary

Trivia:

  • In early January 2010, Sony announced that they cancelled their idea of making “Spider-Man 4” with director Sam Raimi and actor Tobey Maguire, who started their work together on Spider-Man, and instead decided to re-boot the Spider-Man franchise with a new story and crew.
  • On selecting Andrew Garfield to play Peter Parker/Spider-Man, director Marc Webb said, “Though his name may be new to many, those who know this young actor’s work understand his extraordinary talents. He has a rare combination of intelligence, wit, and humanity. Mark my words, you will love Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker.”
  • This film marks the first time Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) becomes The Lizard on film. Although Curt Connors appeared in the original Sam Raimi films, played by Dylan Baker, the character never became the Lizard despite some strong hints.
  • This is the first “Spider-Man” film to not feature Spider-Man’s perennial love interest Mary-Jane Watson (in the original three films played by Kirsten Dunst). Instead, Peter Parker’s original girlfriend Gwen Stacy appears (who had been played by Bryce Dallas Howard in the third film).
  • All four Spider-Man films have filmed on the Universal Studios Hollywood back lot. Ironically symbolic of the series itself, portions of the back lot burned down on June 1, 2008, meaning that first three used the old back lot while this reboot uses the new back lot.
  • Originally the Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson had a place in the script and J.K. Simmons was going to reprise the role from the Raimi films; later John Slattery, Sam Elliott and R. Lee Ermey were considered for the role. However, with the shift of the focus to high school, the newspaper angle was removed from the script.
  • Rhys Ifans rejected his stunt doubles, and insisted on performing all his own stunts as the Lizard.
  • For his role as the Lizard, Rhys Ifans wore a special motion-capture suit: “I had a green suit on, and then this cardboard head, and these big claws. It was the most fucking insane thing I’d ever done…”
  • When first wearing the Spider-Man costume Andrew Garfield admitted to shedding tears.
  • In this film Captain George Stacy is strongly opposed to Spider-Man’s activities, and Gwen Stacy is both aware and supportive of Peter Parker’s role as Spider-Man. This is in stark contrast to the comics, where George Stacy was a strong supporter of Spider-Man, and confessed on his death bed that he was aware of Peter’s identity, while Gwen Stacy blamed Spiderman for her father’s death, and as such Peter never informed her of his identity.
  • To prepare for his role as Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield studied the movements of spiders and tried to incorporate them as much as he could: “Parker is a boy/spider in terms of how he moves, and not just in the suit.”
  • In this film Spider-Man uses artificial devices to shoot webs, inspired from the original comics where he possessed similar devices for his webbing (only later would he gain his more famous superhuman ability to shoot webs). Marc Webb explained the web-shooters were a creative decision to showcase Peter’s intellect: “We wanted to emphasize that these are things that Peter Parker made and that he is special himself even if he feels like he’s an outsider.”
  • According to costume designer Kym Barrett, the Spider-Man costume was specially designed to resemble an acrobat costume: “We wanted a design that would make the body longer and more lithe, someone incredibly agile; the legs of the spider-symbol on the chest were used to emphasize that.”
  • Denis Leary’s friend Jeff Garlin, a Spider-Man fan, said to him, “The first time I met you, I thought you were George Stacy!” This inspired Leary to audition for the role of Captain Stacy.
  • It was a creative decision by the filmmakers to have most of the stunts performed practically on rigs by actors/stuntmen, rather than extensively use CGI animation. Marc Webb explained they wanted to make the film more physical and thus more realistic. While filming in New York the crew built a whole rig hundreds of feet long over Riverside Drive in Harlem, and Andy Armstrong built a car rig with a series of wires to help with VFX which required an incredible wealth of acrobatics.
  • Released during the 50th Anniversary of Spider-Man.
  • During one scene in Peter’s bedroom, a photo of actor/comedian Donald Glover, is visible. In 2010, when the movie was first announced and initial casting for the role of Spider-Man was underway, Glover used twitter to somewhat jokingly campaign for an audition.
  • The famous line by Ben Parker “With great power comes great responsibility” is not once uttered in the movie, although it is alluded to when Peter and Uncle Ben argue about Peter forgetting to pick up Aunt May.
  • When Spiderman swings through New York at one point he yells, “Hey, I’m swinging here!”. This is in reference to the famous ad-lib by Dustin Hoffman in New York based “Midnight Cowboy”, “Hey, I’m walking here!”.
  • Kirsten Dunst, a Blonde, played the red headed Mary Jane Watson. Emma Stone, commonly a Redhead (though naturally blonde), played a blonde Gwen Stacy.
  • Just inside Peter Parker’s bedroom, next to his door is a wall decoration of a double helix DNA strand splitting at the bottom. Likely a nod to the earlier ‘Spider-Man (2002)’ trilogy where parts of DNA strands are replaced by spider DNA.
  • Wilhelm Scream: when Peter pushes Flash up against the lockers.
  • The Daily Bugle newspaper office (and all associated characters) do not appear in this film, a first for the Spider-Man feature film franchise. However, the newscast featuring the Lizard’s rampage late in the film has a Daily Bugle logo in the bottom corner of the screen.
  • The first live-action Spider-Man motion picture where the villain goes to jail for his crimes.
  • Marc Webb describes the theme of the movie as “the missing piece within all of us: Peter has no parents, and he fills that void with Spider-Man. Curt is not as strong as Spider-Man on the inside, but he wants to get back his arm and fill that void, and essentially he becomes a big bully.”
  • EASTER EGG: When Peter first enters Gwen’s room, there is a stack of books sitting right inside the window through which Peter enters. The book at the top of the stack is the novel “Seabiscuit.” ‘Tobey McGuire’, who portrayed Peter in the original trilogy, also played the lead character in the film adaptation of Seabiscuit. It is quite possible that this detail was included as a tribute to the original trilogy.
  • The link of the main viral marketing site was first revealed in the second trailer in February 2012. The official Twitter account of the same name of the website revealed a scavenger hunt by posting “Property of Peter Parker… Lost” with the longitude and latitude coordinates of direct markets in major cities in the United States. Discovered in these places was a JanSport backpack modeled as Parker’s backpack which contained many items. One of the clues, hidden in the backpack, was a link to a page on the viral site which unlocked countdown timers for the cities of Los Angeles, New York City, Atlanta, Denver, Seattle and Phoenix, Arizona. Once the countdown was up, each of the city-specific Twitter accounts for the marketing campaign would send out five different pick-up locations in each city. The given locations had a particular person stationed there to give the first person who had the password a package and the tag-name “operative”. To show their support of Spider-Man, these operatives painted the Spider-Man logo as a graffiti. They also had a chance to unlock the first scene of the film where Peter goes face to face with an intimidating doorman. The main viral website revealed hints to other websites such as a photo blog that was expressed from Peter Parker’s point of view. In the photo blog website, an unlocked puzzle revealed the words “evolve”, “through” and “engineering” which then put together led to another website with design sketches on how to build a web-shooter.

Talking Points:

  • There were so many “possibilities” for this film – changing from college to high school, not including Daily Bugle, not including Black Cat as originally reported, why do you think they made all these changes? To set up for more films?
  • What’s the deal with the post credits short? Thinking Kingpin? Green Goblin?
  • Did Peter reveal he’s Spiderman to May?
  • Fighting style
  • Does all Peter want to do when he’s around Gwen is kiss her?

Critic Notes

  • Positives: Grittier and more touching than previous visions of the hero; New and refreshing reboot; In the vein of dark reboots like Nolan’s Batman; Visually good, but the story is actually complementary if not better; Garfield’s Peter Parker and Spider-Man are very good – if not better than Toby Maguire’s.
  • Negatives: Nothing new or inventive is brought to the table – same old Spider-Man; Not charming as previous versions; too “slap-sticky”; In a summer of superhero movies, this one is forgettable

What We Learned:

  • If you’re going to steal cars, don’t dress like a car thief.
  • We all have secrets: the ones we keep… and the ones that are kept from us.
  • Cops don’t usually wear skintight red and blue suits.
  • It’s fattening and impractical to live in a chocolate house
  • You can get a great cell signal in the NYC sewers.
  • Doormen can be intimidating.

Trailer:

Recommendations :
Jeff: Oh. wow, this was great version of Spiderman, and the casting was great. Definitely would say this is a must see. Still think it would be better if this was done by Marvel directly.
Ray: Action sequences great.. everything else was pretty much a bore for me.. Cant stand the new “geek chic” emo hipster Peter Parker which you have to suffer through for almost an hour before any superheroing starts. For me this was a wait for Home Video title.. my couch is much more comfortable to fall asleep on. The sequel will probably be much more “Amazing” with all of this crappy Origin story out of the way.
Steve: I can’t say I was a huge fan of the recent Spiderman movies. However, there was something about this one that I really did like. I think it was the humor, although it threw me at times. I liked Andrew Garfield a lot, but not Emma Stone. The effects were cool and I liked the 3D, especially for the long swings and stuff (kind of like 3D rollercoasters). I’d give it a B+ overall.

The Future: The Bourne Legacy

Release: August 10, 2012

Director: Tony Gilroy

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton

Summary:

Faced with the public and political fallout from the events of The Bourne Ultimatum, the CIA decides to shut down “Operation Outcome,” the successor to “Operation Treadstone.” Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), an agent of Operation Outcome, and Stephanie Snyder (Rachel Weisz), a doctor who helped create the Outcome agents, must find a way to escape before CIA agent Byer (Edward Norton) can have them assassinated.

Talking Points:

  • How do you make a film without the knowledge of the guy who made the series famous?

Trailer:

Excitement:
Jeff: Fighty fighty, Jeremy Renner. I’m aboard.
Ray: I’m a big fan of the Bourne series and I think this looks like a really interesting continuation of that universe. Really curious to see how Jeremy Renner does when he’s the sole action star focus.
Steve: Looks pretty cool! I like this type of film and even though I might not run out to see it at the theater, I would definitely see it. I like the subversive world of clandestine operations and secret agent stuff. Legacy definitely looks like it’s going to deliver it.

The Past:

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The Present:

The Future:

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