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Okay, I'm kinda resurrecting an old thread, but since you mention Sally Hawkins as a possible nominee in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky... I thought I would mention Elegy. Ben Kingsley is superb... a performance all about vanity in which the actor sheds his own in order to embrace the character's. There is a great line in it about all beautiful women being invisible... because we never get beyond their beauty so we (men) remain blind to them. Penny Cruz peals away many layers in this story. She really is proving to be a fine, fine actress ... in English. We all knew from her Spanish work that she had the skills, but a few misfires in America had me wondering if I had been fooled by the subtitles. In Volver she was obviously really good (and I agree with Dave about the Italian movie, Don't Move... that was all bad hair and too much mascara). Could this be her year? Elegy plus Woody's movie?

A short while back, I heard that The Punisher was in trouble. Specifically, Lionsgate was talking about taking the movie away from its director, Lexi Alexander. That would be a shame, I think, because I thought Alexander showed a great deal of promise with Green Street Hooligans.

The 'rumor' is that Lionsgate has already taken the movie away from Alexander, and they intend to heavily re-cut the film and replace the original score with random cuts of heavy metal music. Here's a piece somewhat objectively detailing the alleged issues. Again, this is all gossip at this point.

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/news/articles/4902.asp

The Spirit - I've never read the original Eisner comic, but this film looks confused as hell. Hopefully it's just one of those poorly cut trailers that is masking a gem. Then again, probably not.

Actually, The Spirit trailer genuinely looks like porn. A bunch of hot women with various sexual situations. A noble masked man who succumbs to their temptations. No semblance of a plot. And, all of the sudden, a scary black dude who wears various freaky outfits and apparently threatens the femmes. I haven't read the comic either, but I wouldn't judge the comic on this anymore than I'd judge Ed Brubaker's Catwoman arcs on the Catwoman movie, which came out as Brubaker was finishing up his run.

It's kind of an odd thing that - whenever a movie's in trouble - fingers get pointed at the studio, not the filmmaker. I'm not talking about "Punisher: War Zone" specifically, but there was another story out this past week about a movie that got dumped by its distributor and, of course, people are (obviously, without having seen it) citing all sorts of gossip for why the studio is fucking it - when the truth is, as hard as it may be to believe, the film's Just Not That Great (yep - I have seen it/discussed it with many others who have seen it and felt similarly) and not really worth the expensive p & a campaign it would take to break it into the marketplace. But, people online (and by that, I mean fans and internet movie journos) seem to always err on the side of the filmmaker even if - perhaps - that person may be notoriously difficult or an outright maniac.

Oh, and I'm not talking about "Meat Train." With all the finger-pointing, it'd take Woodward and Bernstein to nail down what actually went on there.

Trick 'R' Treat?

"But, people online (and by that, I mean fans and internet movie journos) seem to always err on the side of the filmmaker even if - perhaps - that person may be notoriously difficult or an outright maniac."

This is so true. Back before Pathology came out, some horror sites expressed outrage that it was going to get a limited release and pleaded with fans to make every effort to see it in theaters. Even though they hadn't seen it. But a "cool" red-band trailer and the fact that it has the same writers as Crank convinced them that it must be a great movie getting screwed by the studio.

Sometimes it's bad enough when the studios _don't_ dump a movie that they should.

I cannot speak for the fans, or even the Internet film journos, but I can tell you as a print journo that, yes, my first impulse always -- always -- is to believe the filmmaker is being screwed. And I am the first to admit, that is grossly unfair. But trust me: If you've been in my racket long enough, you have had all sorts of unpleasant experiences with editors who tried to "improve" your stuff by snipping and rewriting, only to inadvertently delete important info, change the meaning of statements or events, or, worst of all, "correct" things that already were correct. Don't get me wrong: I have worked with terrific editors (especially at Variety) who have saved me all kinds of embarrassment over the years. But there have been a few who screwed up stories and reviews that still have my byline attached. Why is why, for better or worse, I'm always inclined to take the director's side in these disputes. It's a prejudice, but there it is.

I'm usually on the director/writer's side too, but sometimes it's just random chance who's to blame. Random example -

When the theatrical cut of Daredevil came out in 2003, there was all kind of info claiming that Fox and Marvel chopped the film to bits, screwed with it, forced them to spend more money for less quality FX, and demanded a PG-13. The film released in theaters was arguably the worst film of 2003, and I made no bones about saying such.

So, when the director's cut was released on DVD in late 2004, I was shocked, SHOCKED to discover that the film as intended was actually pretty darn good. It was longer, more coherent, with R-rated content that wasn't chopped up for a PG-13, and a few film choices that just made it a better picture. So, I thought, maybe Mark Steven Johnson was a pretty decent director, next time I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Then he made Ghost Rider, a film actually far worse than Daredevil despite Johnson apparently having complete artistic freedom. Go figure.

Another Random note, I'm curious as to how Punisher: War Zone fits in the continuity of the previous Punisher. Since, for all intents and purposes, the Dolph Lundgren Punisher could work as a sequel to the Thomas Jane film (when the Lundgren film starts, if I recall, Punisher has been underground for five years and the people who killed his family aren't specifically dealt with). Then perhaps this new one (with a little trimming to deal with new origin stories) could fold in to make an accidental trilogy. I'm sure someone somewhere will eventually do some FanEdit to make the three films work as a whole series.

There are also films where nobody involved, not the director nor the producers, have the ability or interest to make it good, depending on the circumstances.

Lexi is a great director and a terrific person who is getting shafted because that's what Hollywood likes to do to any woman who tries to break out from directing romantic comedies. Lexi has gone back to blogging after having to remove everything from her blog re: Punisher but she seems pretty optimistic and less defeatist than you might imagine after all the crap that's been going around since San Diego. Lionsgate on the other hand has really shat all over the good will of those who have been supportive of getting Lexi to direct Punisher (probably all those who saw and loved Hooligans like myself), not to mention Marvel and Gale Anne Hurd who are handling the situation poorly so soon after the problems they had with Edward Norton on Incredible Hulk.

The footage I saw at Comic-Con (which is probably online) looked great and suggested the type of ultra-violent Punisher movie that fans of the comic books would expect.... it's too bad that everyone else is so hellbent on screwing it up.

I'm not surprised to hear that Trick R Treat isn't that great...it looks to me like the kind of movie with nice atmosphere, maybe one really good segment, then the rest are medicore to lame. But it's not like a studio has never released a bad movie before. It seems if they released it on Halloween they could pull some bucks in. Can it be worse than Prom Night or any of those terrible looking movies? You'd figure they would at least dump it to DVD.

I bet the trailer for The Punisher showed all of the money shots, so what's the est of the movie like, when there's supposed to be talking and drama? The first one was pretty boring and this one just looks like some direct to DVD shitbomb.

I was in Dublin when Happy-go-lucky came out and my god is it sad and pathetic to see the differences in marketing. I love all of this derpity derp coming out on the american trailer as if i was watching an advertisement for a rob schneider, and then, to show that the character is quirky in the uk ads, they play some regina spektor or something... they are both perverse sort of when you look at them both, but the american one definitely gets on my nerves ALOT more... check out the UK version here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMwD7Zy6Vno

Both trailers are pretty cutesy.

I've gone out with that woman. A few times.

It's all fun and games until that night when she's got a knife at 3 a.m. and you discover what's beneath the happy-happy and you just want to sleep, but you also think "I deserve this, somehow."

Oops, turning into Milkman here!

I'm sure the actual film deals with her dark/depressive/crazy side, but that's no way to sell a movie to the Friday night date crowd.

Re: The Punisher 2
What happened to Thomas Jane? Artistic difference again?

"The Punisher" was the most hardcore and awesome comic book flick prior to "The Dark Knight."

Jane all drunk and awesome laying laws and driving that bad-ass car and hanging out with Romijn and METAL on the soundtrack.

METAL is the GREATEST THING EVER. Whoever this Lexi is, she should have thought to include MORE METAL in her cut.

(I am thoroughly surprised: They hired a chick director for PUNISHER 2???????)

Ludivine, Ludivine, Ludivine, Ludivine
I can't tell if I am enthralled by her talent or her, ahem, talents.
I am right in the middle of watching Love Songs (took a break to watch Smart People last night) and she does pout well and has an interesting take on playing wounded women but she's hasn't really capitalized on her earlier show of promise.

She was the best thing in Peter Pan if that means anything.

LexG: That "chick director" is, no kidding, a world-champion kickboxer. When I interviewed her for Hooligans, I suggested this headline to an editor: "Lexi Alexander Can Kick Your Ass." Inexplicably, my suggestion was rejected. But that easily marketable element -- badass lady directs badass movie -- is just one of many reasons why I think Lionsgate is blowing this big time.

Took my nephews to see that Peter Pan in the theaters. I liked it a lot better than they did, none of us were expecting it to be so girly.

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