Gattaca’s gift is its unity of vision. Seldom do films combine music, art, and character with such exquisite resonance. When you think of Gattaca, you recall the score by Michael Nyman, because it embodies the longing the film conveys. Combined with memorable art direction, Gattaca becomes a powerful film that gracefully imprints the memories of those who see it.

Set in a not-so-distant future where the genetically enhanced are offered every social advantage, Gattaca follows the dreams of one un-enhanced man, Vincent Freeman (flamboyantly played by Ethan Hawke). In addition to his inferior genes, Vincent is also hindered by a heart disorder which makes his dream of space travel impossible in the eyes of potential employers. Desperate, he illegally poses as Jerome Morrow (Jude Law), and covertly passes security checks by using Jerome’s superior DNA.

The film is an eloquent parable on the pursuit of happiness. Jerome is born with every advantage but lives in crippled misery asserting, “he wouldn’t have it any other way.” Vincent desperately wants to leave his world; every morning he violently brushes his skin, trying to abolish as much of himself as possible. Yet he tackles his dream with ferocity – something few of us dare do.

Ultimately the film echoes our innermost desires – to love, to hope, and reach for dreams that reside at the extremity of our reach, just beyond the stars.

Otra película de vampiros? Bah! Pero con Ethan Hawke y Willem Dafoe en el cast la cosa no es tan detestable.

En 2019, un virus convierte la mayoría de la población en vampiros, quienes para alimentarse y sobrevivir crean una especie de granjas donde “ordeñan” la sangre de los pocos humanos vivos. Obviamente esto no va a ser Let the right one in o Blade 2, pero tampoco se ve tan mala como Crepúsculo no? Habrá que esperar como trata la taquilla a estos seres con orejas puntiagudas.

El guión y dirección está a cargo de los desconocidos hermanos Spierig, quienes hicieron la película de bajo presupuesto Undead, que aunque desconocida, tuvo buena aceptación en los festivales de Sitges, Fantasporto y Melbourne.

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[The image above (like the one at the bottom of this post) is from a design by Paul Lasaine for an abandoned version of Moby Dick developed by Dreamworks, directed by the Brizzi brothers. You can see several more images at his blog. The plan was to tell the story from the whale's point of view; a fascinating idea that the studio didn't want to follow up.]

I’m planning to post updates here on Spectacular Attractions about the two forthcoming adaptations of Moby Dick , along with notes about earlier versions. It’s something I’m distracted by at the moment, so this is an outlet. If anyone has further information than I can gather from the Web, please add comments below.

Here’s some of what we know so far. Timur Bekmambetov, director of Wanted is signed to direct a massive-budget version for Universal Pictures, which will begin shooting once he’s finished making Wanted II. From what I can tell, it sounds like they’re inspired by the graphic-novel aesthetic of 300, which preserved the pictorialism of Frank Miller’s original text but, for my money, made it too pristine and over-designed to be emotionally engaging. The script has been written by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage. You may find Cooper’s statement enticing: I find it kind of ominous:

Our vision isn’t your grandfather’s ‘Moby Dick’. This is an opportunity to take a timeless classic and capitalize on the advances in visual effects to tell what at its core is an action-adventure revenge story.

To that end, they’ve removed Ishmael’s first-person narration. This means that we can see lots more scenes of Moby Dick trashing other ships, without being limited to one character’s perspective. But Ishmael’s narration is always subjective, questionable – part of the drama of reading Moby Dick is feeling the distance between literature and experience. You can feel the narrator’s urge to communicate every detail of what he sees, but you can also feel the mystique of folklore, the tingle of secondhand reports of a sea monster. Seeing more of Moby Dick undermines some of the mythic structure of the novel, in the same way that remaking Jaws with lots of close-up views of a CGI shark would throw away what made it frightening in the first place. But obviously, it’s too early to judge. Certainly, Melville’s book provides plenty of opportunity for awesome spectacle, but it would be a shame if that came at the expense of its ability to create a detailed picture of life on a whaling ship, or the complex psychology of its narrator.

First up, though, Mike Barker is directing another adaptation for TV (produced by Germany’s Tele Munchen Group) with a budget of over $25,000,000, with William Hurt as Ahab, Charlie Cox as Ishmael, Gillian Anderson as Elizabeth, Ethan Hawke as Starbuck, Apocalypto’s Raoul Trujillo as Queequeg, plus Eddie Marsan and Donald Sutherland.  It’s written by Nigel Williams, who scribbled a damn fine script for HBO’s Elizabeth I with Helen Mirren, and used to write episodes for Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: let’s hope he’s still got some of that knack for tale-spinning. There’s quite a bit of teasing info, and lots of photos from the set, at the website of  Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, where the film finished shooting last month: it was dressed to look like 19th-century Nantucket. I’m afraid you’ve already missed it, but there was an auction of props used in the film: see here for pictures.

On her blog, Gillian Anderson hints at a harmonious set with good relations amongst the cast, but also that it was “cursed”:

Anyhoo so here is LAX and on my way to the welcome drizzle of London before the welcome sunshine of somewhere else and time just flies and flies and I wish I could tell you what I’m doing next but I can’t and Oh there was Moby Dick which was so much fun and such a great group of people not least of which was the director Michael Barker who is an angel of a man and Ethan (Hawke) and Charlie (Cox) and then William (Hurt) and oh my Donald Sutherland who I would give my left anything to properly work with again. It was blessed. Well, and cursed but I won’t go into that.

I think we would want an adaptation of one of the most monumental literary expressions of reckless obsession to require similar levels of anguish to recreate. That’s probably a silly superstitious belief, but there’s a strong mythos that surrounds the big productions that run into difficulties. It would seem cheeky to remake Moby Dick with too much ease, when it took Melville so much effort to drag out of his mind, condensing his arduous seafaring experiences into a gargantuan statement of the awe and danger of nature. It is scheduled for completion early in 2010.

How odd that we’ll get two adaptations in such a short space of time. The differences between them will, I hope, prove interesting and illuminating on the topic of transitions from literary to screen media.

Você está muito longe de Forks…

Se você estiver procurando um filme sobre vampiros que não envolva garotos sem camisa e vampiros que andam no sol, sua escolha no momento será Daybreakers.

Seu lançamento ocorrerá em janeiro de 2010, sua história : em um futuro próximo, os vampiros assumiram o poder no mundo, só que os meros mortais de sangue quente, os humanos querem que isso acabe.

Para os vampiros os humanos são nada mais que um “gado”, e sendo assim nenhum respeito ou direito existe.

O filme é estrelado por Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill e Willem Dafoe, assista o trailer abaixo da película.

Now that we have a brief respite between Twilight movies let’s take a look at a good vampire movie.  This trailer isn’t too different from the first trailer, but that’s alright, probably you never watched that one anyways.  Here’s the rundown on the plot.  The vampires have taken over the world and they’re running out of humans.  But secretly the humans are building resistence cells.  Also there’s a cure for the vampires.  Add that to some gloriously good cinematography and some good actors and I think we have an exciting movie.

Click on the better poster for the trailer.

From Yahoo.

- izi

The trailer for Ethan Hawke’s new vampire film “Daybreakers” has been posted on the Internet.

In Daybreakers, nearly all of the world’s population are vampires. The remaining humans left on Earth are hunted down and harvested for blood. A discovery is made that the blood supply is running low and that there is only enough blood to feed to population until the end of the month. The government is trying to find a new source of blood to survive, but all their experiments are not working.

A human ambush’s Hawke’s character and he finds out that their is a cure that will turn vampires back to their human selves. Hawke’s character races to save humanity from extinction and prevent the vampires from starving to death.

Daybreakers stars Ethan Hawke (Gattaca), Willem Dafoe (Spiderman), Sam Neill (Jurassic Park), Claudia Kraven, Isabel Lucas (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), Vince Colosimo (Body of Lies).

Daybreakers hits theaters nation wide on January 8, 2010.

Having a good conversation is one of my favorite feelings. That moment when you feel almost buzzed with the excitement of how much you want to respond to and absorb what the other person is saying. These conversations happen both with the people I love most and oddly, the people I know least. With the latter category, the buzz comes from the fact that neither one has any expectations for what the other will contribute. I live for these chats.

Peace,

Sources: weheartit, imdb

Blog title from “The New Year” by Death Cab for Cutie

Source Stills Offer Glimpse Into ‘Daybreakers’ | Rabid Doll

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obuV1KrvEYo

Sung by Julie Delpy in the movie Before Sunset.

Let me sing you a waltz
Out of nowhere, out of my thoughts
Let me sing you a waltz
About this one night stand

You were for me that night
Everything I always dreamt of in life
But now you’re gone
You are far gone
All the way to your island of rain
It was for you just a one night thing
But you were much more to me
Just so you know

I hear rumors about you
About all the bad things you do
But when we were together alone
You didn’t seem like a player at all

I don’t care what they say
I know what you meant for me that day
I just wanted another try
I just wanted another night
Even if it doesn’t seem quite right
You meant for me much more
Than anyone I’ve met before

One single night with you little Jesse
Is worth a thousand with anybody

I have no bitterness, my sweet
I’ll never forget this one night thing
Even tomorrow, another arms

My heart will stay yours until I die
Let me sing you a waltz
Out of nowhere, out of my blues
Let me sing you a waltz
About this lovely one night stand

no words needed. just enjoy it.

Looking for something to do this weekend that’s worth the investment?  Check out Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama’s production of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”  The production ends on Sunday, November 22, but it is worth the rushing to get a seat.  Tickets range from $10-25 with discounts for students and seniors.  For more information click here: http://tinyurl.com/yg3lcxn

Why miss out anyway?   See the next big stars before they are famous.
Some of the creative arts greatest talents are former students of  Carnegie Mellon Drama’s program:

* Van Hansis, actor (As The World Turns)

* Maura West, actress (As The World Turns)

* Rob Marshall, film director, nominated for a 2003 Academy Award for Chicago.

* Ted Danson, actor (Cheers, Damages)

* Jack Klugman, actor

* Ethan Hawke (briefly attended), actor

* Pablo Schreiber, actor

* Andrew Kober, actor (Hair)

* Gabriel Macht, actor

* Gaius Charles, actor (Friday Night Lights)

* Ann Roth, costume designer (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley)

* Eugene Lee, scenic designer (Saturday Night Live)

* George Romero, film director

* Dagmara Dominczyk, actress (The Count of Monte Cristo)

* Erik Jensen, actor/playwright

* Stephen Schwartz, film and theatre composer

* John Pasquin, film director

* John Wells, executive producer/creator (The West Wing, ER)

* Patrick Wilson, actor (Angels in America, Little Children, Watchmen)

* Blair Underwood, actor

* Billy Porter, actor/singer

* Laura San Giacomo, actress

* Sourced from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Mellon_School_of_Drama

Essa cena diz tudo:

É… vai uma valsa aí?

Antes do Amanhecer já foi indicado a Melhor Diálogo e a continuação poderia ganhar também:

- Memory is a wonderful thing if you don’t have to deal with the past. (…) You can never replace anyone because everyone is made up of such beautiful specific details.

Não?

By: Craig Sharp – FilmShaft.com

Ethan Hawke

If glittery vampires such as those in The Twilight Saga: New Moon aren’t quite your thing then worry not, because the tougher, meaner variety are still doing the rounds also.

A new quad poster has been released for Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig’s DAYBREAKERS, starring Willem Dafoe, Ethan Hawke, Isabel Lucas and Sam Neil. Gone are the lovey dovey vampire/werewolf/human love stories, the Wolf Pack and dare I say it, The Volturi – all replaced by good old fashioned blood, action and evilness (if that’s a word).

Fresh off the success of their inventive take on the zombie genre, Undead masterminds Michael and Peter Spierig direct Ethan Hawke in an ambitious tale of a futuristic Earth populated entirely by vampires, and the efforts made by the creatures to ensure that their food supply doesn’t run out as humankind is faced with extinction.

Isabel Lucas

The year is 2017, and a vampire plague has turned most of the planet’s human population into bloodsucking ghouls. As the population of mortals fast begins to dwindle, a resourceful team of vampires sets out to capture and farm every remaining human while simultaneously researching a consumable blood substitute. Just when all hope seems lost, a secret is discovered that may provide the key to saving the human race.

Source: HeyUGuys

Watch this scene!

Before Sunset on IMDB

For everyone who already frequents my blog, my blog is now featured on Haligonia.ca, a local website that features all sorts of local content, which is pretty damn’d awesome if I may say so myself. I am thrilled to welcome a whole new fleet of Haligonians to the wonderful world of Glen Matthews.

And now, to welcome said fleet.

Every good blog (and let me tell you, my blog is effing awesome) has a general theme. This blawg’s theme is me, The Glen Matthews. But what do I do? I am an actor! Fun, right? SO the purpose of this blog is to invite you to follow me in my various exploits in the film industry!

This is my headshot. I like it, it covers up my self-loathing very well!

Most notably, I worked on MOBY DICK, featuring Ethan Hawk, William Hurt, Gillian Anderson, and a bunch of other actors who are much prettier than me (click here for blog entries regarding Moby Dick). A couple of weeks ago, I worked on Cory Bowles‘ second short film RIGHTEOUS, which of course, I blogged about. Last year, I went to Sundance Film Festival with the short film TREEVENGE (blogged the entire adventure to Park City, Utah here) directed by Jason Eisener, who is currently in pre-production for his first major motion picture HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, to be shot here in the Spring.

Impressed? You shouldn’t be, it’s merely a series of lucky encounters & mind-blowing coincidences that make quantum physics look like a set of building blocks.

You can check out my page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Glen-Matthews/) where you can watch plenty of videos of me doing things, and determine whether or not you can tolerate me enough to become a fan of mine. I implore you to do so, it improves your life!

All that I hope to do is offer a definitive timeline to accompany my raise to fame & riches (lots of riches), and my inevitable battle with Ellen Page for Halifax’s affection. I invite you to follow my adventures in the film & theatre industries and live your life vicariously through mine.

-Glen

PS. This entry was riddled with truthy sarcasm. The worst kind.

PSS. Seriously, please like me.

Director Richard Linklater and cinematographer Lee Daniel may have just realised one of the fundamental truths of the camera: put a man and a woman in a cramped space together for enough time, and soon the subtlest mannerisms are going to become some of the most outright and obvious expressions of their feelings.

I am talking about their two movies Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, recommended to me in this post, by Literary Dreamer. The basic story is that Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) meet on a train and immediately hit it off. Jesse has to get off at Vienna to catch a flight to the US the next morning, so he convinces – using a virtuoso argument involving time travel and a theme, of regrets about life-changing decisions, that is going to resonate through both movies – her to get off with him and catch a later train to her native Paris. Before Sunrise is about – spans – the day and night they spend roaming around Vienna (it is a part of his original argument that he’ll be roaming around all night because he can’t afford a hotel). The next movie is about what happens nine years later.

In Vienna, the size of the spaces they occupy for a significant amounts of time grows steadily larger, from a two-seat on a tram to a music trial room to a park. Which brings me to the fundamental truth. After a while of them sitting so close together that his removing his jacket provokes her to unconsciously withdraw physically, under the pretense of arranging her hair. And then there’s a wonderful little sequence where they go into a small room to listen to a record, and both of them… let me invoke Roger Ebert here (both of whose reviews I recommend for reading only after watching the movies, as he spoils them): “each one looks at the other, and then looks away, so as not to be caught. The way they do this – the timing, the slight embarrassment – is delicate and true to life.” For me, it transcended a sweet little scene to become an outright comedy, the type in which you laugh purely out of love. By the time we’re into parks and roofs and long shots, you can recognise each little mannerism from so far away that you find their movement more interesting than the scenic locations.

I wasn't looking at the green-lighted entrance

And, of course, there’s the dialogues. They discuss everything from what’s wrong with the world to… well, I don’t want to spoil, so I’ll just say why you are sitting and watching these two movies. And they are so good, so well-placed… Against my better judgement, here’s one from early in the second one (I, however, will abstain from identifying the souce of this dialogue):

Maybe what I’m saying is, the world might be evolving the way a person evolves. Right? Like, I mean, me for example. Am I getting worse? Am I improving? I don’t know. When I was younger, I was healthier, but I was, uh, wracked with insecurity, you know? Now I’m older and my problems are deeper, but I’m more equipped to handle them.

There is, however, one problem with the movies:  the ends sucked. First, I thought it was because I enjoyed the characters so much. However, on closer thought – taking into account the fact that there’s going to be a third one -, I decided that maybe they were supposed to. Though technically closure shouldn’t happen (these two movies with closures would be truly horrible), I think I felt that there could be some amount of closure to be found in that third movie. There was the early morning, before sunrise; then there was the day, before sunset; what about an account of that night, to finish things – and the twenty-four hours – off? If it comes to India, there’s one person who’s going to be there, first day, first show. Otherwise, as soon as he DVD is out.

For now, Waking Life.

Har akkurat sett denne filmen, og jeg synes den var litt rar, og ikke den beste filmen jeg har sett. Philip Seymour Hoffman gjør som alltid en god rolle, og Marisa Tomei er også ganske god. Ethan Hawke har jeg aldri vært noen fan av, og ble det ikke i løpet av denne filmen heller. Filmen handler om Andy som har en godt betalt jobb, og er gift med Gina. Men han har et alvorlig narkotikaproblem og har også stjålet penger fra jobben. Broren Hank har lite penger for han må betale en dyr utdannelse til sin datter, og skylder mye i barnebidrag.  Han har også et forhold med brorens kone Gina. Andy og Hank finner ut at de skal rane foreldrenes gullsmedbutikk…men noe går forferdelig galt. Filmen hopper veldig fram og tilbake, og den klarte aldri å fange oppmerksomheten min helt….At det skal være en thriller er jeg ikke helt enig i, for den var hverken skummel eller spennende.