
Bob Peck = Mel Gibson?
Oh dear god.
Flames because I'd rather set myself on fire than watch Hollywood massacre that excellent drama.
Brit thesp Ray Winstone has replaced Robert De Niro in the big-screen adaptation of telly classic Edge of Darkness after the latter walked out two days into shooting over "creative differences", Variety reports. Winstone joins Mel Gibson on the Martin Campbell helmed project, which began production in Massachusetts on 18 …
This is sounding more and more like one of those Orange adverts you see when you go to the pictures to watch a film. I guess they are going to relay the existence of the plutonium to the waiting world via video calling. It doesn't matter if they're underground, Orange can get a single anywhere!
Mmmmm, Joanne Whalley .... mmmmm ..... Oh, what's that? I'm sorry, I must have been day dreaming. Is it getting hot in here?
Ah, the remake, you ask? Surely, it's only being made to sell to American audiences who have never watched the absolutely brilliant (and still so) original ...
(PS: You can also catch a young Joanne Whalley in "Willow" - on the set of which she met hubby Val Kilmer).
So, another paranoid, scaremongering, anti-nuke, anti-corproration piece? Yes, the original was a well-made production with excellent acting, but the whole story was so far in the outfield it was comic. The original ending (ditched by the BBC2 crew because it was too far-fetched for even BBC2!) was supposed to be the dying cop is magically transformed into a tree, surrounded by the black flowers that were due to eat humanity (triffids, maybe?)! Given Gibson's contribution I expect another well-made, well-acted and beautifully shot picture with a plotline still full of truck-sized holes. I expect lots of pre-release marketing with references to other such anti-nuke/anti-corporation films such as Silkwood and The China Syndrome.
When will Hollywood realise there are certain things it is good at and certain things it simply cannot do? When success, fame and ultimately huge piles of money are the driving factors in a production you don't get beautiful things in the same vein as Edge of Darkness.
There are songs that should never be covered by anyone else or even rehashed by the original artist - regardless of the talent involved - they are a perfect product of their time and place. Same goes for films like EoD.
@ Andy: True, but I'd rather sit down to the DVDs of a rainy Sunday and see Jo Don Baker do it.
Craven: "One thing through all this I've never been able to figure out: just whose side are you on Jedburgh?"
Jedburgh: "Me? Why, I'm on the side of the angels!"
Craven: "You are not, nor have you ever been, on the side of the angels."
If Winstone can play the part satisfactorily then surely Bob de Niro was somewhat 'over specced' for it? It'd be like replacing Cate Blanchet with Paris Hilton, or an R8 with a pushbike - why do you need an R8 when all you're doing is going to the shops once a week to buy microwave dinners ;o)
To paraphrase the versatile (ahem) Mr. Winstone:
... I'm 'enry the fakkin' aytf, I am, geezah
(OK, Sexy Beast was great but mostly for Ben Kingsley ;o), did anyone notice how incredibly 'Oaken' Winstone was in Beowulf?)
It's really quite difficult to see where this is going to get funding (a green anti-nucular anti-establishment drama, with Hollywood funding?????), which may in the end be a good thing if it makes people revisit the (unbeatable) original. Amazon don't have the BBC original themselves right now (their marketplace people do), other places do have it, it's also available through Guardian Reader Offers (but not online!) at £10:
http://www.guardianoffers.co.uk/mall/productpage.cfm/GuardianOffers/_MMEdgeOfDarkness/%2D/Edge-of-Darkness-%2D-The-Complete-Series
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/tvandradioblog/2008/sep/09/leaveourtvmemoriesalone
One for the dinosaur trainspotters, and a related one for the conspiracy-deniers
q1) where did the Systime offices feature in the original EoD, and what will be used instead?
q2) If you don't know who Systime were, try this Hansard extract:
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1986/feb/25/systime-plc
Having read the extent to which the processes of law and fair trade were distorted by illegal actions by the US company and their local representatives, actions which were ignored by UK law enforcement, for something relatively mundane like a superminicomputer, ask yourself whether the allegedly far-fetched nuclear-industry plotline in EoD is that far-fetched after all?
Evil Graham is exactly correct - Ray Winstone plays a superb Ray Winstone. Sometimes you *do* want a character like that, and when he's being Ray Winstone, Ray Winstone is truly excellent.
Amazingly, I am not kidding too - I rate him highly as a psychopath. Actor! I mean an actor who plays an excellent psycopath.
But Edge of Darkness? The original was so good, it should be left alone.
Thinks: Remember "Wings of Desire"? Remade into "City of Angels" with Nicholas Fucking Cage, and relocated to Los Angeles. Remember "The Italian Job"? Set in Italy, of all places. Remade and reolcated.
Hollywood: Give it a rest, will you? There are some good films out there that do not involve California. You don't need to remake and enshiten them just so you can make cash out of more people.
And what is the Paris Hilton angle, anyway?