BREAKING NEWS: Cloud Atlas Film Adaptation in the Works

In what may be one of the oddest cinematic adaptations of all time, First Showing’s Alex Billington reports that Run Lola Run/The International director Tom Tykwer is hard at work attempting to adapt David Mitchell’s imposing novel, Cloud Atlas, for the big screen. He has enlisted the Wachowski Brothers for help. While Mr. Billington seems to possess an unfamiliarity with Michell’s great novel, asking Tykwer “which of the six he would be focusing on” (which, uh, sort of defeats the purpose), what’s interesting here is that Tykwer, who has written all of the scripts for his films, is even trying to adapt what is possibly an unfilmable novel. Whether or not Tykwer has asked the Wachowski brothers to read several books before reading Mitchell’s novel and getting to work on the script remains unknown. (Hat tip: mdash)

Review: Choke (2008)

Writer-director Clark Gregg’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s 2001 novel has a number of things going for it. It has, first and foremost, the intriguing choice of Sam Rockwell cast as sex addict Victor Mancini. Rockwell plays this role as a strange amalgam of Greg Kinnear’s Bob Crane in Paul Schrader’s Auto Focus and Luke Wilson’s detached presence. His lanky mien suggests a Stan Laurel to the slightly chubby Brad William Henke’s Oliver Hardy. And while Henke here is not bad as Victor’s best friend and co-worker Denny, a chronic masturbator unafraid to lust after Victor’s mom (Angelica Houston), this comedic pair-up doesn’t quite anchor the film the way it should. Denny, like many wingmen before him, exists here mainly to pester Victor to move to “the fourth step,” or, in less Erhard-like terms, get on with his life or, as another character tells him later in the film, “to begin at the beginning.” With Victor, Denny attends support group meetings to help the pair get over their sex addiction. But Victor spends most of this time banging an anal bead enthusiast named Nico (Paz de la Heurta) in the backroom.

Rockwell’s look is certainly right. His shaggy brown hair, desperately in need of a haircut, frequently sticks up, suggesting a 1990s Northwestern slacker aesthetic. He wears shirts with gaping holes near the collar. He works a day job as a historical reenactor and, early on, declares directly to the camera, “I am the backbone of colonial America,” a postmodern possibility that Gregg never quite pursues that suggests that his addiction is a throwback to a more early and hypocritical age. Victor insists that he’s an asshole, but maintains a wide-eyed and bemused presence that seems perfectly aligned with the film’s often frustrating inability to decide whether it’s satirical or sincere.

No Country for Old Men’s Kelly Macdonald appears as Paige Marshall, whose eyes were seemingly invented for the light, but who we know, upon her character’s first step inside the mise en scene, will almost certainly become Victor’s love interest and will almost certainly never live up to Bechdel’s Rule. Which is too bad. Because the more I see of Macdonald, the more I realize how much she has it. And it will take a very intelligent film director, perhaps one with more smarts than even the formidable Coens, to give her the role that will finally catapult her into the superstardom she deserves. Her presence in this film is part of the Big Reveal, which is a substantial copout. But then if you’ve read Palahniuk’s book, you know the Big Reveal already. And Macdonald likewise know it. Her character speaks in a particularly pronounced hayseed vernacular, pronouncing “traumatic” like “TRAW-MA-TIC.” But this permits her to play Paige as if she’s on the inside of a terrible joke.

The terrible joke may very well be the fact that David Fincher was not only the first director to make a film about a Palahniuk novel, but the one to transform it into his masterpiece. One cannot view Choke without being aware of Fight Club’s imposing shadow. Like Fincher (and screenwriter Jim Uhls), Gregg has one interesting scene that plays as nihilistic absurdism. In Fight Club, it was the moment in which Edward Norton punched himself in the face to blackmail an office manger. In Choke, it’s presented when Rockwell insists to a group of asylum inmates that he’s not a good guy, proceeds to take away a walker from an older woman and smash it against a locker. But while there is something in this scene vaguely reminiscent of Lars von Trier’s The Idiots, the scene plays like some doughty transplant from a pre-9/11 America. It works to establish Victor’s internal dilemma, but it doesn’t feel particularly contemporary.

Gregg is at his best when he avoids this dated approach to shock value for the more troubling truths of the seemingly perverse, such as one moment involving a woman who Victor seeks out for a rape fantasy involving a knife. The woman sets very specific terms, speaking less like a person with fey needs and more like a human resources manager. (The safe word is “poodle.”) There’s also an interesting exchange in which Victor confronts the boyfriend of a woman who has fallen asleep giving him a hand job. Victor urges the boyfriend to turn back and walk away. But these scenes work because of their naturalistic ironies. They present moments that are not particularly normal, but frame them as if they are normal. Even when the dialogue itself feels transplanted from some banal sitcom. And to consider again Victor’s insistence that he is “the backbone of colonial America,” this suggests an American take on the many unusual situations of this type that one finds within Francois Ozon’s early, more daring films. I have neglected to point out that Victor has worked out a scam, whereby he lodges a piece of food in his throat, chokes, and wanders around a restaurant in search of the right benefactor to perform the Heimlich. He does this to earn some pocket money to help pay for his mother’s care in a hospital. It is something that occurs quite frequently throughout this film, but these moments, which should have likewise served as nihilistic absurdism, simply did not stand out for me. Part of this may have to do with Gregg’s inability to push things far enough. Gregg does not entirely understand, as Fincher did, that this is the kind of behavior must be played out as melodramatic in order to work. There is one somewhat funny moment in which the choke confidence game backfires at a Chinese restaurant. But the moment simply doesn’t have the naturalistic irony or the nuanced play of these other scenes I have mentioned. And in a film largely concerning itself with the subject of phoniness, it seems absolutely vital for a filmmaker to get the tone absolutely right.

Gregg’s film does disguise New Jersey locations somewhat successfully as the Northwest. The apartments are laced with tacky wallpaper. There are many dead patches of lawn on the historical reenactment site. There are unwashed radiators, grimy kitchen surfaces, and photographs tacked carelessly to walls. But the film’s many flashbacks to the 1970s and 1980s, containing muted browns and the kind of predictable tan jackets and vests that have become something of a production design cliche, reveal that this is more kitsch than verisimilitude. More of a time capsule than a movie of the moment.

Gregg has been mostly faithful to Palahniuk’s novel. But he doesn’t quite have Fincher’s talent to properly translate Palahniuk’s cartoonish riffs on reality to the big screen. He does have Victor and Denny frequently stare at women and suddenly see them topless, and this tic even extends to an older nun. But this isn’t really pushing the envelope, much less forcing us to ponder the perceptions we keep to ourselves. His efforts to plunge into the scatological, such as a moment in which Denny drinks out of a dish and an incident late in the film involving chocolate pudding, don’t feel particularly offensive and don’t particularly unsettle us the way they did in Palahniuk’s novel. It is also a telling sign that most of the sex scenes occur with clothes on. The vulnerable nature of being naked, which should mean something in light of the film’s dialectic between love and sex, is confined to “being in the circuit” late in the film. But it feels perfectly safe. The kind of thing you’d find within some harmless Skinemax movie from the 1980s.

If a Chuck Palahniuk film adaptation cannot unsettle us, what then is the point of making it?

The Real Enemy Mine vs. The Reel Enemy Mine

My review of The Reel Stuff, an anthology of horror and speculative tales turned into Hollywood films edited by Brian Thomsen and Martin H. Greenberg, appears in today’s Los Angeles Times. In addition to the reading (in most cases, rereading) I had to do for the review, I watched many films: hence, the crazed kudos for Candyman posted at some ungodly hour not long ago.

Johnny Mnemonic had the consolation of some unintentionally hilarious moments and Screamers was a hoot, complete with a distinguished Canadian actor licking a knife and scowling, “It’s never sharp enough.”

But the worst film of the bunch was Enemy Mine. I hadn’t seen the film in almost two decades, but time had not been kind. Its failure, however, had less to do with its sweeping production value (even with the visible matte lines) and more to do with its almost total bastardization of Barry Longyear’s Hugo and Award-winning novella. Aside from changing the book’s ending to include a literal mine (did they really think the audiences were that dumb?), screenwriter Edward Khmara and director Wolfgang Petersen placed less emphasis on Davidge’s unexpected role as surrogate father, introduced over-the-top meteor showers, and otherwise muted the novella’s themes of war and camaraderie. There is even a terrible moment in which Pepsi product placement gets Dennis Quaid excited.

Longyear’s novella was collected in a handsome book put out by White Wolf called The Enemy Papers, which also featured two other stories, “The Last Enemy” and “The Tomorrow Testament,” set in the same universe. But this went out of print. Thankfully, the book is also available through Back in Print. Longyear also has a website and an interesting history.

Flatland: The Movie

I don’t know how I missed this, but it appears that Edwin Abbott’s Flatland (the inspiration for Rudy Rucker’s novel, Spaceland) has been turned into a thirty minute film. There’s a trailer available at the site, with colorful squares and triangles.

There Will Be Mischief

Variety has an early review of There Will Be Blood — the forthcoming film matchup of Paul Thomas Anderson and Upton Sinclair. “Magnificently strange” is certainly a good sign. And the film appears to maintain the playful experimentation established in Anderson’s last film, Punch Drunk Love, kick-starting with “an electronic sound that soars to an almost unbearable pitch,” which throws the film’s first fifteen minutes into a narrative without dialogue. There’s also a score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. I wasn’t really on the fence in terms of my curiosity, but now I’m extremely intrigued about what Anderson has concocted here.

Jeff Bridges as Graydon Carter?

Variety: “U.K. law firm Davenport Lyons brokered the deal with majority funder Aramid Entertainment backed by hedge fund coin. Project, reputedly carrying a $20 million budget, is also being developed with the U.K. Film Council, Film4, InTandem Films and the Irish Film Board….Cast for ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People’ includes Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst and Jeff Bridges as Vanity Fair’s flamboyant editor Graydon Carter.”

Is a Little Seen John Barth Film Adaptation a Lost Masterpiece?

Bold words from Lee Hill:

I know this is a minority view, but I think End of The Road is some kind of masterpiece, a tattered signpost pointing to a road not taken by American cinema. The New Hollywood of the late sixties and early seventies, like most new waves, promised more than it could deliver. As great as the work of Coppola, Scorsese and Spielberg was in the seventies, their politics was often safely couched in genre or pyrotechnical display. If Road had been even a modest success, Avakian might have joined Robert Altman or John Cassavettes in creating a more rigorous brand of new American cinema.

Interestingly, the film was written by Terry Southern. Sadly, it appears unavailable on VHS and DVD.

One Thing’s For Sure: It Won’t Be Filmed in a Basement in Terre Haute

Richard Ford’s Frank Bascombe trilogy will be turned into a miniseries, encapsulating all three novels. (via Slushpile)

Philip Roth Goes Hollywood

Variety reports that Philip Roth’s The Dying Animal is headed for the big screen, with Nicholas Meyer scripting and Penelope Cruz, Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson starring. Meyer previously wrote The Human Stain. No word yet on whether Meyer will be addressing David Kepesh’s previous existence as a human-sized mammary gland, but Lakeshore, the company behind this production, is also trying to get a film version of American Pastoral off the ground with director Phillip Noyce attached. So while Noyce may not be much of a breast man, we can only hope that Meyer is.

Clive Owen as Marlowe?

Coming Soon: “Children of Men producer Marc Abraham has revealed to The Courier-Journal that he will reteam with that film’s star Clive Owen for a feature adaptation of one of Raymond Chandler’s short stories. Owen will play the private detective Philip Marlowe.”

First-Person Shooter Knockoff Meets Flaacid Oliver Stone. Terrific. What a Way to Kill a Franchise!

Variety: “HBO has acquired the rights to turn George R.R. Martin’s bestselling fantasy series ‘A Song of Fire & Ice’ into a dramatic series to be written and exec produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. ‘Fire’ is the first TV project for Benioff (’Troy’) and Weiss (’Halo’) and will shoot in Europe or New Zealand. Benioff and Weiss will write every episode of each season together save one, which the author (a former TV writer) will script.”

The Baroque Miniseries Cycle

Reuters: “Sci Fi Channel has teamed with George Clooney to develop a miniseries set in a futuristic civilization. ‘Diamond Age’ is based on Neal Stephenson’s book ‘The Diamond Age: Or a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer,’ which the author will adapt for the six-hour TV version.”

But No Calvino?

A list of unfilmable novels. (via Romancing the Tome)

Simon Pegg & Toby Young?

The IMDB reports that Simon Pegg is pegged to star as “Sidney Young” (legal problems?) in an adaptation of Toby Young’s How to Lose Friends & Alienate People. (More here.

Pornographer’s Poem

Michael Turner’s The Pornographer’s Poem, one of the first LBC nominees, is being turned into a movie. Maybe. The project’s been on hold for sometime. And the director attached is Jeremiah (Benny & Joon, Christmas Vacation) Chechik. Which suggests an approach that takes no chances. (via Reverse Cowgirl)

What They Film About When They Film About Carver

The Age serves up a list of films slicing up Raymond Carver’s stories. (via Slushpile)

Literary Adaptation Bread

KTLA: “Galled by decades of this kind of equation, New York publishing houses have launched ventures intended to get a bigger piece of the Hollywood action. And who could blame them? Publishers almost never control the film rights to the books they put on the market.”

Even more interesting is Random House putting up half the money for literary adaptations in a deal with Focus Films. One possible side effect: Does this mean more faithful literary adaptations or greater control? Or does it mean business as usual?

The Moral of the Story: Lose the Guillotine, Lose the Audience

Guardian: ” They sat in their seats and hooted and whistled and shouted and slow-clapped. It felt as though the audience was providing the ending that Sofia Coppola was too decorous to show, bringing down the guillotine on a rather silly, spoilt little film. Marie Antoinette is a poodle-brained period fancy. Part curtsy, part style spread, it tells the tale of a beautiful queen and the lovely parties she attends. If ever a movie deserved to be thrown to the mob, it is this one.” (via Romancing the Tome)

“The Book of Revelation” Film Adaptation

Maud Newton points to this site, which contains a trailer and information on the film adaptation of The Book of Revelation. Thankfully, the movie is being made in Australia, as opposed to Hollywood money, which will preclude the likely NC-17 rating it will be saddled with once it hits the States.

About a Boy

Chris Weitz, who in 2004 committed the grand contumelies of kicking Tom Stoppard off the project and nixing all references to God, is now back on the His Dark Materials film project. I fear the worst. (via Ghost in the Machine)

Keira Knightley + Ian McEwan = Recipe for Disaster?

Romancing the Tome observes that a film adaptation of Ian McEwan’s great novel Atonement is in the works. Attached to the project is Joe Wright and Keira Knightley, the team behind last year’s Pride and Prejudice adaptation. Knightley is playing Cecilia. Even stranger, Rue McClanahan is involved. It seems strange to me that Wright seems single-handedly committed to classing up Knightley’s career. Maybe it’s just me, but compared with, say, Sarah Polley five years ago, I really don’t see her as an actor of considerable heft.

At the Beverly Hills 90210 of Madness?

Cthulu + Tori Spelling. (via Warren Ellis)

Excerpt from Upcoming “Atlas Shrugged” Script

Starpulse: “After years of delays, Ayn Rand’s famous novel ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is being made into a feature film starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, according to media reports. Lionsgate Films bought the rights to the film version of the 1957 novel, considered in many polls to be one of the most influential books in history. According to Hollywood trade paper Variety, the Mr. And Mrs. Smith co-stars, who are both fans of the Russian novelist, would play the lead roles of Dagny Taggart and John Gault. [sic]”

Return of the Reluctant has obtained an exclusive excerpt of the upcoming Atlas Shrugged script, which was reportedly written by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie themselves.

INT. TAGGART TRANSCONTINENTAL OFFICE — DAY

Taggart is bent over the desk. Galt is behind her.

GALT
Your name is neither Jen nor Aniston. She is not selfish enough.
TAGGART
That’s why you came to me. It is the natural way of things.
GALT
If you do not give into your latent selfish desires, I will impregnate you again. Say it! Say it!
TAGGART
Who is John Galt?
GALT
That is quite a witticism. Again!
Galt handcuffs Taggart’s wrists.

GALT
I can’t hear you. If you do not have a response, I must ask you to whimper. I am an intense man, Dagny. Do not test me.
TAGGART
Who is John Galt?
GALT
Do you feel pain?
TAGGART
Yes. Pain is the best thing for America. Pain is the best thing for me, and therefore for America. We can build railroads. We can accumulate capital.
GALT
I am satisfied that you have come to terms with this concept. We can do more. This is a battle of wills. Who’s your daddy, Dagny?
TAGGART
John Galt!

(via Bookdwarf)

Screenwriters Not Nominated for Oscars Are Still on Safe Ground

Daniel Clowes on the Art School Confidential film adaptation and more: “But, of course, there’s some human instinct that takes over at the very last minute. As the envelope’s being opened and all of a sudden it occurred to me that without a doubt we were going to win and I was just stricken with panic. I don’t think I’ve ever been more terrified in my life. I was so happen to hear the words ‘Akiva Goldman.’” (via Fantagraphics Blog)

Beatrix Goes Hollywood

Book Standard: Renee Zellweger to Star as “Peter Rabbit” Writer Beatrix Potter.

Excerpt from Beatrix screenplay:

INT. FARM — BEATRIX’S STUDY — 1904 — DAY

Norman Warne walks in, holding a glass of sherry. Beads of sweat drip down his forehead.

Beatrix is writing.

He tightens his cravat.

WARNEThese tales of rabbits, if I may say so, Beatrix, are nice, but–

BEATRIXThey had me at hello.

Beatrix drops her quill into the inkwell and continues writing.

WARNEThis I understand. But what of me? What of us, darling? I know you like your animals, dear. But I’m tired of living a lie. This secret engagement. The rabbit noises I must make when we — er — consummate certain private affairs before their prime.

Beatrix sets down her quill and smiles at Warne.

BEATRIXWait a minute! Nice rabbits don’t kiss like that.

WARNEFor the three hundredth time, my good lady, I am not a rabbit! I am a human being!

Beatrix puts her fingers to her lips, extending them as if rabbit teeth, and jumps across the room like a rabbit.

WARNEDarling, don’t be ridiculous.

Beatrix sets down her fingers.

BEATRIXYou once said you liked me just as I am and I just wanted to say likewise. I mean there are stupid things you publish. You always like the wrong book in every situation and I seriously believe that you should rethink the length of your garters. But, you’re a nice man and I like you and, if you don’t mind me saying, dear Norman, you do perform oral sex on me from time to time, which is more than one can say about most men in 1904. If you wanted to step into my bed chamber and make more rabbit sounds — perhaps you could be the locomotive and I could be the caboose, if you know what I mean — that might be nice. More than nice.

I Wonder How They’ll Do “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”

Monsterpiece Theatre: The Postman Always Rings Twice

Who Knew There Were Producers Willing to Green Light 1970s Race Allegory?

There’s a movie based on Bernard Malamud’s The Tenants starring Dylan McDermott, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Seymour Cassel? Wow! Must see!

Of Course Cut Into the Major Bank That Golden’s Making Off the Movie Rights and the Pride Will Dramatically Shift

Arthur Golden writes the Washington Post about the film version of Memoirs of a Geisha: “The criticism of experts in the geisha world, as recounted in Sarah Kaufman’s Dec. 15 Style article…had little effect on the pride I feel in Rob Marshall’s beautiful and moving film based upon my novel ‘Memoirs of a Geisha.’”

Gladwell to Change His Last Name to “Livewell”

Leonardo DiCaprio, Malcolm Gladwell and Traffic writer Stephen Gaghan. You’d think these three would have little in common other than Christian names with at least two syllables. But Hollywood, being a batshit crazy place, smells a hit. $1 million has been shelled out by Universal to Gladwell for the rights to Blink. Gaghan’s getting $2 million to write the screenplay. Never mind that the book isn’t a work of fiction and that there’s no narrative thrust to speak of.

No word yet on how much the hair stylist is getting to shape Leo’s hair into Malcolm’s badass fro.

Tideland: Visionary Filmmaking or Just Plain Bad?

While Galleycat is quick to point to some of the book-to-film successes at the Toronto Film Festival, the literary adaptation that has us interested is Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of Mitch Cullin’s Tideland. Is this a comeback for Gilliam? Could it be that Gilliam has produced a film that is too sui generis? The early reports so far have been interesting:

Cinematical: “[W]hile I found the film extremely easy to follow, there are definitely some uneasy scenes. But the result is what I believe to be a wonderful film as told through the eyes of a little girl with such an overactive imagination she can get through situations of death, mental handicap, drug abuse and poverty without batting an eye. This young charismatic actress is amazing and carries the whole film.”
Screen Daily: “Tideland does look very beautiful, with Nicola Pecorini capturing some striking images of cornfields and countryside and the camera constantly prowling and tilting to emphasis the way reality has become skewered. The craftsmanship is small compensation in a film that is too often merely weird and uninvolving.”
Reuters: “Terry Gilliam’s ‘Tideland’ provoked some of the strongest negative reactions. Told from the surreal point of view of the daughter of two junkies, played by Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilly, it inspired some 30 walkouts halfway through a press and industry screening.”
The Boston Globe: “The movie’s a classic case of a gifted filmmaker’s obsessions finally sailing over the edge and taking him along, but as the prairie Candide at the movie’s center, 10-year-old Jodelle Ferland has a talent to make Fanning call her agent in alarm.”
Indiewire: “…big-ticket items like Cameron Crowe’s ‘Elizabethtown’ and Terry Gilliam’s ‘Tideland’ sank like lead balloons.”