Pixar Making A Silent Movie?
Well, sort of. Online sources have published the first real tidbits on Pixar’s next-but-one film Wall-E, the story of a robot on a future Earth, from Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton. Apparently, the plot takes place on a future Earth that is choked with rubbish, with all the people having moved to space stations and clean-up crews of robots attempting the mammoth task of making the Earth fit for habitation once more. And there’s pretty much no dialogue for at least the first third of the film, just a humble robot and his pet cockroach. Read more – but beware spoilers – here! Sounds like they might be on to something.
Hallstrom Can See Dead People AND Talk To Animals
Lasse Hallström, he of Chocolat and The Cider House Rules, has been a bit off his form recently, but he’s got to be hoping that all that will change with Sammy, a romantic comedy about a woman who can sense what animals are thinking and a man who can sense the thoughts of dead people. It’s Dr Doolittle meets The Sixth Sense! The Ghost Whisperer meets The Horse Whisperer! Except, given that it’s to be directed by Hallström and written by Delia Ephron, it’ll be sugary enough to rot your teeth just by seeing the poster.
The Other Lives Of Others?
A deal announced today between the Weinstein Company and Mirage Pictures, the company run by Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, apparently included English-language remake rights to ace German film and Best Foreign Film Oscar winner The Lives Of Others. Yup, a brilliant foreign effort yet to even be released in this country is already on the remake treadmill – and in this case, it’s impossible to see what an English-language remake can add. The film is so specific to its time and place that you can’t do a Departed and refit it to a new location, so you’d be making a film set in Communist Germany, just not in German. Far be it from us to slag off a film not yet made, but this sounds suspiciously like a Bad Idea.
Rambo’s Nemesis Found
A former Burmese guerrilla called Sai Mwang has been plucked from obscurity and cast in the new Rambo movie after an open casting call. He’ll play a brutal Burmese officer out to foil out-of-retirement John Rambo’s (Sylvester Stallone, as if you didn't know) quest to rescue aid workers who have disappeared in the jungles of Myanmar. Sai Mwang and 299 others answered an ad searching for a “Burmese male, 32-40, military-looking man, character face, unlikeable", which suggests to us that those audionees have some serious self-esteem issues. Anyone reading this in Myanmar, give 'em a big hug!