#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
TVSquad reports the surprising news that CBS is developing a remake of the Quinn Martin series THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO, which starred Karl Malden and Michael Douglas as two SFPD detectives. Screenwriters Sheldon Turner and Robert Port are writing the script and Simon West is attached to direct if it goes to pilot. Can CANNON and BARNABY JONES be far behind?
Over the last two days, I’ve received hundreds of hits on a four year old post about Disney giving Keira Knightly bigger boobs in the KING ARTHUR publicity stills and poster art. So why the renewed attention? It turns out that Knightly has refused to let another studio do the same thing for her new film DUCHESS:
“Keira Knightly is essentially giving young women permission to stand
up in their communities and their schools and their families and say,
‘Look, this is the way I look and it is OK,” said “Perfect Girls,
Starving Daughters” author Courtney Martin.
The 23-year-old’s chest has been the subjected to scrutiny
before. In promotions for “King Arthur” in 2004, the actress’ A-cup was
morphed into a C-cup on posters. At the time Knightly admitted, “those
things weren’t really mine,” though she still went along with the
publicity campaign. “I think that’s incredibly brave and could have a
huge impact on young women,” Martin said of Knightly’s decision.
LA FEMME NIKITA was a fantastic French thriller that was remade, scene for scene, in the American POINT OF NO RETURN and the Chinese BLACK CAT…as well as a USA Network pilot/series. But none of the remakes could match Luc Besson’s original.
Here’s the amazing “restaurant” scene from the original LA FEMME NIKITA (broken down into two clips) and the same scene in the U.S. remake.
Many years ago, Michael Mann wrote and directed a flop pilot for NBC called LA TAKEDOWN, starring Scott Plank and Alex MacArthur. The pilot would be a forgotten footnote in Mann’s career if not for the fact that he pulled off an amazing feat — he manged to remake it, almost word-for-word, scene-for-scene, as the big-budget feature film HEAT, starring Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro. This may be the one and only time a busted TV pilot has been remade as a feature film…with hardly any changes. Here is the original “restaurant” scene from LA TAKEDOWN and the same scene in HEAT. Same words, better actors. What a difference acting ability makes…
My wife and daughter are in France for a month, so I’m all alone at home…unless you count my daughter’s dog, the hamster and the fish. I feel like a zoo keeper…my life has become BORN FREE in a tract home. But the solitude has given me the chance to catch up on some books and movies, when I’m not cleaning backyards, cages and fish tanks…
OSS 117: LE CAIRE NID D’ESPIONS
This French spy spoof is everything GET SMART wanted to be and AUSTIN POWERS should have been. It perfectly mimics the look, feel, sound, fashion and acting style of the 1960s spy films down to the smallest, lovingly crafted detail. And on top of that, it’s hilariously funny, too.
IN BRUGES
This a bloody, dark comedy about two hit men who are sent by their boss to chill out in Bruges, Belgium after an assignment goes bad. I loved everything about this film which, in terms of tone and violence, is sort of a cross between PULP FICTION, JACKIE BROWN and SEXY BEAST. I don’t understand why this movie didn’t generate some attention…it’s seemed to open and close in a weekend here in L.A.. It’s a shame, because this may be one of the best movies I’ve seen all year.
WANTED
Sure, the stunts and effects are cool, but this movie left me cold. I just never got into the characters or the story. I found myself glancing at my watch, biding my time until the next stunt. It badly wants to be THE MATRIX or BOURNE IDENTITY, but to me it felt like I was watching a video game instead of an actual
movie.
SERAPHIM FALLS
A post-Civil War western starring Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson, both of whom were totally miscast.
Not that it mattered. It’s a strange cross between OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, JEREMIAH JOHNSON, and RAMBO, and not a fraction as entertaining or fresh as those movies. Brosnan plays a former Union soldier (who apparently has Navy SEAL survival training) relentlessly pursued through snow-capped mountains and parched deserts by vengeance-seeking former Rebel soldier Neeson. Neither man is a villain or a hero which is, of course, the point of the movie, which is driven home with the subtlety of a wrecking ball. The movie seems tired, familiar, and pointless.
THE GARGOYLE
This isn’t a movie, but rather one of the hot galleys from BookExpo. It’s by first-time author Andrew Davidson and it’s a breath-taking, though problematic, debut. The story falls into what is becoming something of a genre unto itself: the “wounded man finds redemption and love with the woman who nurses him back to health” and who endures his agony by escaping into a 
fantasy world of imagination and flashbacks. The story, as a result, shares some similarities to THE ENGLISH PATIENT, THE SINGING DETECTIVE and THE WATERDANCE, to name a few. Despite some familiar motifs, this is a brilliant, compelling, and darkly funny novel…at least for the first two-thirds. It’s about a coked-up porno actor who is in a terrible car accident that nearly burns him alive. It’s in the burn ward that he meets a woman who is either a schizophrenic or his lover from several past lives. To say more would ruin things. I was enthralled for the first two thirds of the book, as much by the story as the prose. Davidson is a master storyteller, and I don’t say that lightly. I can’t believe this is his first novel. The writing and structure evokes John Irving, Robertson Davies, and Susanna Clarke…with several “side trips” that could stand alone as mini-novellas (something Irving has done in several of his books by having his “author” characters share their stories or by using extended, anecdotal flashbacks). The book fumbles in the finale third, with an extended dream sequence and a limp, pointlessly drawn out conclusion that doesn’t satisfy on any level. It doesn’t matter. That small disappointment is more than outweighed by the brilliance of what precedes it. The characters, images and stories in this amazing book will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading. I strongly recommend it.