JUNE, 18


INVASION

Sci-Fi / Alien Invasion

The Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Franka Potente, Topher Grace, Idris Elba, William Hurt

The Director: Brett Ratner
The Screenwriter: Steve Connors
The Producer: James Cameron

The Plot:

2010

As the movie begins, we see a succession of spectacular violent sequences:
-Ordinary life is going on in NYC’s Fifth Avenue when suddenly the day darkens and little black tiny creatures, like beetles, fall from the sky in thousands and attack people devouring them.
-A shepherd of dromedaries is resting with his animals somewhere in an unknown desert when a huge and nasty living creature rises from within the sand and exhales on him a viscous green substance that literally burns him.
-An airport tower is at full activity in France with everyone working on their computers. Suddenly, the windows explode and we see again the tiny creatures devouring people and crushing against the computers to make them explode.
-A beautiful Italian Toscana little village… Suddenly, a dark wind begins to flow and gets more and more thicker until we don’t see nothing. When the air clears up again, we see everyone’s dead with their bodies partially melt.
-A family modest home. Dad, mum and their little son are having breakfast when we see how the tiny creatures begin to come in from the gaps of the front door. As the parents are attacked, the kid gets to run away.
-Washington D.C. A strange spaceship is descending to the White House. As we see it closer, the spaceship is not made of any kind of metal. It’s a kind of huge living creature itself.

2020

We attend to a strange religious ceremony. The presumed priest is a nasty looking creature. His half-naked body is full of abstract tattoos and his distorted face similar to a human skull shows a peculiar bone comb and a rough skin. He is bigger and stronger than a regular human being.

He is talking to a crowd of humans. They all stand up listening to him. All of them are dressed with a kind of grey tunics and both men and women have the same hair cut.

The priest talks to them…

‘We did not come to invade you. We came to convert you. You are not our slaves. You were slaves of your own technology. You did not believe in the true gods. You only believed in machines. The mission of the Yungzouns is to bring the Faith on the Mighty Gods to all the galaxies. Those of you that join the true Faith will be free. You will learn what means the power of purification through pain and suffering. Pain takes you closer to the Mighty Gods. Suffering is a way of illuminating your spirits. Sacrifice is the way to reach a higher level of existence!’

After his speech, we see a sacrifice ceremony in which a group of men and women are thrown into what seems to be a kind of volcano but in fact is the huge mouth of a strange creature. The human crowd watches the ceremony not showing any feeling or emotion in their faces.

2030

A room where a high level reunion is taking place. We see ten Yungzouns, all of them similar to the priest we just saw. They are discussing about the situation on Planet Earth. The one that seems to be the leader of them all talks:

‘The process of conversion is going slower than we expected. Humans were too dominated by their pagan cult to technology. Most of it has been completely destroyed all over the planet: all those sinful devices they called computers, televisions, airplanes… A majority of humans have submitted to the True Faith. But there are still small cells of resistance who consider that what we want is turning human race into slaves. They don’t understand our mission. They don’t understand we only want them to join the True Faith and accept pain, sacrifice and death as the honor it is. There is no bigger dignity than a painful death!’

‘And thus what the Mighty Gods want from us, their servants’, reply all at once the rest of the Yungzouns in a litany tone nodding their heads.

‘Life is only the path to purification!’, says the leader.

‘And so we praise for a honorable death’, answers the rest.

The leader nods with satisfaction.

‘So, General NormHark, what news do we have about that new terrorist group, the so called Infidels?’, asks the leader of the Yungzouns to one of the others.

2035

A platoon of Yongzouns is travelling through a desertic road. They use trailers that, like all their vehicles, are living entities. A group of five old helicopters appear on the sky and attack them opening fire with old submachine-guns. They answer the attack exhaling the green burning substance. A group of strange creatures, something similar to huge spiders, lifts off from the trailers and fly to the helicopters sticking up to their glass cabins. As the spiders touch the glass, the helicopters’ engines collapse making them crush.

One of the helicopters falls upon some bushes at the side of the road. Due to the impact, a slight dust of spores rises from the bushes. And, as they are inhaled by the Yungzouns, they all begin to suffer spasms and finally die.

A man gets to come out alive from the rests of one of the crushed helicopters. He sees what’s going on with the spores killing the Yungzouns. It’s Warrior (V.Mortensen). Before he runs away, he keeps some spores on a handkerchief.

2040

We meet the Infidels, a clandestine group that resists to the Yungzouns invasion. The main members of the group are Warrior, a tormented and brave man obsessed with exterminating the Yongzouns (at some moment, we get to know that he is in fact the little kid we saw at the beginning); Shade (F.Potente), a woman saved two years before in a commando operation by Warrior when she was going to be sacrificed; Dr. Larve (W.Hurt), a scientist; Screwdriver (T.Grace), chief of mechanics; and Maroon (I.Elba), who was a professional boxer in his young days.

They live in hidden caverns in the most primary way. They dress with basic clothes made with furs (since they discovered that animal furs repel the assassin beetles), they hide most of the time in their deep caverns full of twisted passages… they are all tough and mostly primitive people. Inside the caverns, Screwdriver leads a group of mechanics that try to build bombs, helicopters, trucks and all kind of guns with pieces reunited in undercover operations. Also, inside the caverns Dr. Larve has a laboratory and a team of scientists that has been working for years trying to find a formula based on the spores that kill the Yungzouns so they can use them as a massive destructive weapon against Yungzouns. In total, the Infidels are no more than fifty or sixty people.

They act in any operation oriented to sabotage in any way the Yungzouns. They have no strength to really face them or beat them but, at least, they live free and do not surrender to the new society created by them where any kind of technology is forbidden (all Yungzouns’ vehicles and weapons are living creatures from outer space genetically manipulated by them), human sacrifices are a common thing and the majority of humans are treated like a minor specie and often reunited in what the Yungzouns call ‘Liberation Camps’ (in fact, something very similar to Nazis’ concentration camps). Warrior is the leader of the Infidels’ community.

The only hope for the Infidels is that Dr. Larve finally gets to invent a chemical weapon based on the spores they can use against the Yungzouns. And Larve says that he is getting close to it.

Dr. Larve tells Warrior that he needs sodium hydrogen for finishing his investigations about the spores and building up the weapon. The only place to find it is at Lant Lab, a scientific plant where the Yungzouns work genetically manipulating different outer space species to turn them useful as transport vehicles and flying spaceships.

So we follow Warrior, Shade and Maroon as they infiltrate in Lant Lab to steal a load of sodium hydrogen from the Yungzouns’ plant. Everything seems to be going fine until a Yungzouns’ guardian sees them. He tell his superior and the superior orders not to capture them, but to shoot a locator (which is a little insect that is shot as a dart and quickly impregnates the victim’s skin) to follow then. The locator is shot into Maroon’s body. So the three of them return with the sodium hydrogen to their hideout. But now the Yungzouns know where they are.

Dr.Larve finishes his work. The massive killing weapon is ready. The plan is to test it in one of the crowded new cities created by the Yungzouns, spreading a gas containing the essence of the spores through the sewer system of the city. As soon as they breath it, the Yungzouns will die but humans in the city will survive. Screwdriver begins building a truck to transport the heavy container with the lethal weapon (kept in a big tank) in it.

But before everything’s ready, the Yungzouns make a surprise attack to the Infidels’ caverns. It’s a wild and unbalanced battle. Thousands of killing beetles precede the Yungzouns soldiers inside the caverns. The Infidels can hardly resist. The Yungzouns take no prisoners and soon it becomes a slaughter.

Warrior and Shade carry the weapon to load it at Screwdriver’s truck. Maroon and other Infidels try to stop the advance of the beetles and the Yungzouns with flame throwers but fire does not kill them. As they are getting ready to leave the caverns on the truck, a group of Yungzouns gets into the mechanics’ cave. There, Dr. Larve is captured by the Youngzouns and Warrior, Shade and Screwdriver see how two Yungzouns wildly and literally tear his body to pieces.

Warrior, Shade and Screwdriver get on the truck and drive away through a cavern’s exit. Outside, they see Maroon and other Infidels also running away. Only Maroon gets to jump inside the truck while the rest of them are killed by the Yungzouns.

The group gets to escape and hide in a forest. As they wonder how the Yungzouns found their hideout, they realize something happened at the plant. Lightning a fire, Maroon accidentally cuts his hand and, to his surprise, he sees that the blood coming out of the cut is not red but strangely orange. He understands that there’s something in him and it was probably what allowed the Yungzouns to find them. So he is putting the group in danger again…

Maroon tells the group to drive away from the forest. He explains them he has something inside of him infecting his blood. He cannot go with them and they should leave urgently. So Warrior, Shade and Screwdriver leave with the truck. Maroon stays in the forest and, as he expected, a group of Yungzouns soldiers soon shows up. He faces them just to let his friends escape. When he cannot resist anymore, Maroon holds a grenade on his hands and explodes it so he and some of the soldiers die.

Warrior, Shade and Screwdriver travel to the city they planned to try the new weapon at. They carry the tank inside the underground sewer system of the city through an access at the surrounds of the city. It’s a hard work carrying it across the dirty and humid passageways to reach the city center. After hours of hard work, they reach their target point and start to load the complex mechanism of the tank. But they get an unexpected visit…

Strange creatures unknown for them attack them. They are a peculiar mix of big lizards standing on two feet. They are probably an specie created by the Yungzouns to eliminate any living form – or thread like them – in the sewer system.

Warrior and Screwdriver shoot the giant lizards while Shade keeps working on the weapon. They shoot and kill three of them but the fourth one, once shot, screams with an extremely high tone. Warrior understands that it is a kind of alert signal. Soon, Yungzouns soldiers might arrive. They have to leave as soon as possible.

Shade tells them that the weapon is not ready yet. She will stay until it begins to spread the lethal gas out of the sewers and into the city’s air. She tells Warrior and Screwdriver to leave as she is the only one who knows how to make the weapon work. Warrior rejects to leave her alone.

Yungzouns appear. The weapon is almost ready. Warrior and Screwdriver shoot the Yungzouns. Bullets do not kill them but at least makes it more difficult for them to get to where Shade keeps manipulating the weapon. But they are getting closer and closer…

Shade shouts Warrior and Screwdriver to run away. The Yungzouns are close to capture her. The Yungzouns exhale the green substance on Shade’s body… Warrior and Screwdriver realize they cannot do anything to save her and run away. The weapon starts to work spreading its gas…

As the poisoned gas starts to spread all over the city, Yungzouns everywhere start to die. As humans citizen of the city see the Yungzouns suffering spasms and weakening, they begin to attack them. It’s a kind of human rebellion. We see humans reacting against the Yungzouns all over the city.

Warrior and Screwdriver reach the surface and see what’s going on. They lead humans to take control of the city.

Once all the Yungzouns have died, Warrior and Screwdriver organize citizens so they can defend the whole city from the arrival of more Yungzouns. Probably, the air of the city will remain poisoned for the Yungzouns for some time so they will not dare to come. Warrior and Screwdriver have kept test tubes with the lethal gas so it can be massively developed to fight the Yungzouns before the air is cleaned and they can return.

Warrior tells the crowd that, from that day, the city will be known as Freedom City and promises them that, if they all fight together, it will be the starting point of the human victory against the Yungzouns.


Stark’s Comment:
This SHOULD be the first blockbuster of the Season after ‘Earth 3k2’ and ‘Kingdom 2’ weren’t. The Studio has put an almost obscene amount of money on this production so my knees are trembling waiting for the box office’s numbers of this one. The nightmare of having a ‘Gears Of War 2’ here makes me – and probably Steve Connors too – lose my sleep.

Behind The Scenes:
-The only time that James Cameron has produced somebody else’s film in CMP it was a box office’s flop: ‘Minos’, directed by Paul Verhoeven.
-Brett Ratner successfully directed the second and third installments of the Asimov’s Robots Trilogy written by Steve Connors: the acclaimed ‘The Naked Sun’ and Best Picture GMA Nominee ‘Robots Of Dawn’.
-Robert Zemeckis was the first director attached to this movie. But when he got involved in the production of ‘Game Boy 3’, Zemeckis abandoned this project and Ratner replaced him.
-The first stars considered by Steve Connors for the movie were Will Smith and Halle Berry. But he changed his mind and replaced them with Mortensen and Potente.
-All the alien characters in the movie have been digitally generated using the same technology used in other Connors’ movie, ‘Gears Of War’.
-‘Invasion’ has joined the list of the most expensive CMP’s productions ever.

ASTERIOS POLIP

Drama / Human Spirit / Love Story

The Cast: George Clooney, Gong Li, Danny DeVito, John Goodman, Kathy Bates

The Director: Spike Jonze
The Screenwriter: Dawson Edwards
The Producer: Scoundrels Productions

The Plot:

A lonely man sits in his filthy apartment watching porn on his rainy 50th birthday night. Lightning strikes the building, and the man rushes out with only a lighter and his wallet. He loses everything else inside. Through a series of flashbacks and narration, we learn that this man drenched in rain is Asterios Polyp (G.Clooney). He was a highly successful "Paper Architect", which is someone whose designs are flawless but they are never built. As a child, Asterios committed everything he read to memory, and we watch as his mother has a c-section birth to two twins; one alive, one dead. The mother decides to name them both in Greek fashion, Asterios is the one that survived, and Ignazio was the baby that didn't. We learn that Ignazio (Voice of G.Clooney) is the one narrating the story of his brother.

We return to present time to see Asterios walking around the New York streets in a storm. He hops over the security turnstyle gate and boards the subway. He randomly decides to stop at the Greyhound bus station. We see a slightly invisible matching figure following him, that's Ignazio. Ignazio questions "What if reality were an extension of the self?" We then flashback to Asterios teaching a architecture design class, being an asshole to students; putting their ideas down instantly with the slickest of replies. Ignazio tells us that Asterios would still pass the worse of students, because he knew they would fail elsewhere. We see a split screen with Asterios having orgasmic sex with a very beautiful student, and him having sex with a less attractive "pudgy" student. Ignazio asks If its possible for someone to alter his own perception of reality in order to overlap with that of another?

We then see ruins of a large Roman stadium structure of old. Seemingly empty, Asterios walks inside, only to see a sick version of himself in a hospital bed in the center of the stadium. Ignazio? He wonders....

Asterios wakes up to the sound the Greyhound bus driver yelling, "Apogee!" Asterios exits the bus at the small rural town of Apogee, and walks past a bookstore and stops at a mechanic shop. There he meets Stiff Major (J.Goodman), a large but friendly man. He asks Stiff for a job, despite knowing zilch about mechanics. Stiff asks how much does he expect to be paid, to which Asterios responds "Enough so I'll have a place to stay." Stiff then immediately offers his empty room in his home to Asterios. Asterios walks to the library to read up on car mechanics. We flashback to a staff party, where Asterios is showing off his intelligence and arrogance with great confidence. Over the gathering crowd, Asterios notices a Japanese/American woman. Her name is Hana (G.Li), and she's incredibly shy and uncertain but smart and pretty. The two seem to enjoy each others company, excluding her distaste for his smoking habit.

Major brings Asterios home to his son, and now angry wife Ursula (K.Bates). While the couple fight about Asterios, we drift off to another flashback of Hana and him getting together quickly. It didn't take long before their lives were entwined, she moves into his apartment changing almost everything...much to his initial dismay. We then transition to another dream like sequence where Asterios and Ignazio are literally combined, but Ignazios side is sickly pale and slightly invisible. The two are in a row bow, under a tidal wave. Just before the wave crashes down, we're in another flashback. Ignazio tells us that Hana/Asterios weren't perfect, and we see a series of scenes of "I'm right/You're wrong" with the two lovers.

Hana wakes up, with Asterios sitting on the edge of the bed. He tells her that there are cameras in every room and they are recording. She slaps him, but before she leaves, he tells her about feeling like half a man because of Ignazio never being born. That he records his apartment to sanctify himself for surviving, as a brother always watching way. Hana smiles, pulls down her bra strap revealing her breast...

A new morning in Apogee, Major is off to the Independence Day parade, and Ursula yaps about "true" freedom to Asterios from breakfast until the parade is over. The night comes, and the family plus Asterios watch the fireworks; life seemingly grand. The next week, Ursula asks Asterios to accompany herself and her son to the town's giant crater for a picnic. The crater is massive, and Asterios tells Ursula that the chances happening again are significantly high since asteroids hit the Earth at different sizes everyday. We flashback to Hana taking a design job for a Broadway play with a rude and horny little man named Willy Illium (D.DeVito), who is a self proclaimed genius with almost obvious ulterior motives for her. Hana is around less and less, and we see Asterios calling her from New York late at night only to get her voicemail in return. One day after returning from a meeting with Willy, Hana and Asterios argue about the day. Asterios questions Willy's intelligence and Hana cries about how Asterios never sticks up for her when Willy makes such obvious sexual passes.

Asterios meets Ignazio who's apparently living the life he's had all the way up to Stiff's mechanic shop in Apogee. Ignazio tells Asterios that, in this reality he is Ignazio and that there isn't much that separate the two. We then flashback to Asterios receiving and reading divorce papers from Hana. We get three split screens of Hana in different times telling Asterios "You just have to pay attention; Pay more attention; You just don't pay attention."

Back in real time, Asterios helps Stiff build his son a treehouse. Ursula asks why is he so happy with an average treehouse, and he tells her that its the first thing he's ever built. Days later, Asterios turns the same rundown car Stiff was working on when they first met into a usable vehicle. Packing nothing but the thought of happiness, Asterios leaves Apogee and the Major's for Minnesota, to visit Hana.

The rundown car is struggling getting through a big snowstorm, it spins out of control. Asterios is safe, but he has no choice but to walk the remaining distance. He finally arrives at Hana's residence(as he remembered from the divorce papers). Hana lets in the almost frozen Asterios and covers him with a blanket a chocolate. She asks why he is here, and he tells her that he needed to see her again. She smiles, and shows him her new art. Asterios is legitimately impressed. He asks why she never remarried, and Hana states that she never found another Asterios Polyp. He starts to tell her all the things he's wanted to say since she left him but before he can, she says "It can wait, lets enjoy this." The two get close over the burning fireplace. Asterios asks "What's that sound?" and we zoom outside to see a giant asteroid seconds from colliding with the house.


Stark’s Comment:
In my opinion, Edwards reaches another level of creativity with this story. I simply love the screenplay of this movie. Whatever happens in box office is another story…

Behind The Scenes:
-Spike Jonze makes his debut in CMP with this movie.
-This is the second movie produced by Scoundrels Productions, the CMP’s affiliated company created by George Clooney and Brad Pitt. The first one was the megahit ‘To Catch A Thief’.
-John Goodman had to shoot in a row all his sequences in this movie to be able to join on time the shootage of ‘Sam & Twitch 2’.
-Kathy Bates also had to shoot quickly her sequences in ‘The Orphanage’ to join this production on time.
-Danny DeVito had not been seen in a CMP’s movie since Season 2, when he played the villain of ‘The Return Of Ultraman’.

ALICE

Drama

The Cast: Kate Winslet, Jay Hernandez, Jimmy Bennett, Luis Armand Garcia, Sam Neill

The Director: Paul Haggis
The Screenwriter: James Bradley

The Plot:

Alice (K.Winslet) is a bitter woman that leaves together with her only son, Billy (J.Bennett), in the most dangerous neighborhood of LA, an area ruled by street gangs. Alice works as a cashier in a small supermarket. She is pretty bad-tempered, unfriendly and not very sociable. She does not care about her look, she never dates and doesn’t really have somebody that can be called a friend. Her boyfriend left her when she was pregnant and she lives in the same small house where she grew up. She only worries about her son but not about herself in any way. Her only known hobbies are heavy-smoking and listening old Elvis’ albums when Billy has gone to bed. She hates gangs and latin people in general, although her neighborhood is mainly inhabited by latin families.

Alice’s life will get complicated after members of a gang assault the supermarket. It is her on the cashier when three guys threaten her with knifes asking for money. To everyone’s surprise, Alice takes a gun out of her purse and points at them without hesitation. The guys realize she is not kidding. In fact, she looks like looking forward to killing them. So the three of them run away.

But since that happens, the gang members begin to hound Alice and Billy. They cruise with their cars in front of her home, they throw dead rats at her small garden, they even wait Billy when he gets out of school just to tell him dirty things about her mother… Alice gets more and more stressed and paranoid, mainly worried about Billy. She goes to the Police but they tell her they cannot do anything as no crime has been really committed.

Alex (J. Hernandez) contacts her. Alex is a nice social assistant experienced in working with boys from the gangs. Alex has heard about Alice’s problems and, although she is pretty hostile to him, offers her his help. Alice even visits the social center where Alex works and meets Rob (L.A.Garcia), former member of a gang and a nice guy that offers himself to take care of Billy when he goes and returns from school as a kind of bodyguard to prevent him from any danger.

Alice begins to trust Alex and a slight friendship grows between them. But she states him perfectly clear that she is not interested in men at all and that he must not make any kind of advance on her.

One night, the situation explodes. Billy has not returned from school. Scared to death, Alice looks for him everywhere with the help of Alex. Finally, Police calls her. Rob has been brutally beaten by the gang and Billy was found by a policemen hiding in the local park. Alice picks up Billy at the Police Station and they both return home. She rejects to be driven home in a Police car.

When she gets home, gang members show up and shout at her that what happened was just a minor example of what may happen next. Alice gets out and faces them. ‘Are you coming for a ride with us, sweetie? Wanna know what can we do to you?’, asks her one of the guys. ‘Fuck you’, answers Alice. Then, the guy shows her a shotgun. Alice takes her own gun from the back pocket of her jeans and coldly shoots him death.

Alice is arrested and accused of murder. She has a legal aid lawyer assigned, Tom Reynolds (S.Neill). Reynolds’ strategy during the trial is based on self-defense. But Alice knows the guy only showed his shotgun but had no intention of shooting her. She knows she killed him in cold blood and it wasn’t self-defense.

As the trial takes place, Alex regularly visits Alice in jail. Alice’s only sister is taking care of Billy. Alice and Alex talk a lot. Alex tells Alice that he was a gang member himself during his teen years. Alice admits she has racial prejudices against latins… because her boyfriend, Billy’s father, was latin and he treated her so bad.

Must Alice be punished or not? That’s the debate of the story. Did she kill the guy because she is aggressive, racist, and an embittered woman? Or she just shot her gun because she was a lonely and scared mother feeling threaten and trying to protect her kid?

Tom Reynolds’ strategy on court succeeds. Alice is declared innocent for acting in self-defense. But she confesses Alex that she feels guilty.

Alice and her son reunite again. Alice has decided to move. She is leaving LA and moving to the small town in Texas where her sister lives.

Last time she sees Alex she asks him if he considers her a murderer or not. Alex answers that he does not like to judge people. ‘We are all made of shadows and lights and we have to learn to live like that. Just give yourself a chance, ok?’, he answers.

As she is driving away from the neighborhood, a car passes in front of her. She sees gang guys inside. A tear rolls from her eye as she asks Billy with a melancholic smile if he is ready for the trip.


Stark’s Comment:
Bradley, who always likes to put a comedic touch in his stories, steps directly into hard drama with this movie. ‘Alice’ means his reunion with his regular muse Kate Winslet. We will try again here the strategy we are following lately with low budget movies. So it will be another hit or miss.

Behind The Scenes:
-This is the 7th time that James Bradley and Kate Winslet work together. Thanks to her works in Bradley’s movies, Winslet has picked up a Best Actress GMA (‘Man In The Mirror’) and three more GMA nominations: Best Actress (‘The Toymaker’), Best Starring Couple (‘Man In The Mirror’) and Best Supporting Actress (‘Things I Forgot To Tell You’).
-Paul Haggis had to decline directing ‘John Wayne Must Die’ when its shooting dates met with this production.


METROPOLIS: Green light for a very big project. Richard Franzwa has written a contemporary version of Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’, a classic released in 1927 and still considered as the first sci-fi movie in Movie History. The original movie, labeled as a masterpiece of german expressionism, was a fable about Marxism and a critic to socialist revolution. It is still considered as an amazingly creative production with a surprising technical quality. To manage this huge challenge, Franzwa has teamed up with no other than Steven Spielberg, the latest winner of the Best Director and Best Picture GMA. Spielberg will direct and produce this top budget production. ‘Metropolis’ also tells a love story ala Romeo and Juliet and to play the two lead characters have been chosen Cillian Murphy (‘Change Of Heart’, ‘The Gunpowder Plot’, ‘Bullet Witch 0’) and no other than Natalie Portman, still recent her controversial work in the failed ‘Secret Sins’.

SAM & TWITCH 2: Matt Kubrick has always liked to include some CMP’s authors in the cast of his movies (remember here ‘You Can’t Do That In The Movies’ or ‘Raise Of The Darkman’). In this one, we will see two CMP’s screenwriters making cameos: Chad Taylor and the now temporarily retired David Makalaster. Also to be seen in the movie: Michel Ironside (‘Lobo’, ‘Justice League’) and Jodelle Ferland. Jodelle is having quite a busy Season, as she was seen past week in ‘Jack Vance’ and is expected to be seen again in another movie coming up this Season, all of them written by Kubrick.

THE RESURRECTED – THE FORGOTTEN PART II: Past Season, ‘The Forgotten’ meant the return to CMP of its famous mobsters saga ‘The Heirs’. The movie, cowritten by Chad Taylor and Joey Stark, only made a correct box office of 47 millions. But that has not discouraged Harry Stark for green lightning this sequel. Again, Jonathan Demme is directing and this time Taylor signs the screenplay alone. Talents seen in the first movie and returning in this one include Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michelle Williams, Michael Douglas, Tom Wilkinson, Sharon Stone and Robert Pattinson. Remember that Gordon-Levitt, Wilkinson and Pattinson were nominated at the latest GMA for their works in the first movie.

STAR WARS: HOLOCRON INITIATIVE: Benicio Del Toro, not seen in CMP since ‘In Spirit’, and Javier Bardem, already seen this Season in ‘Earth 3k2’, will meet the dark side of the Force in this new Star Wars’ movie written by Dawson Edwards and being directed by David Yates.

THE FLASH: BLITZ: Green light for another sequel this week. It’s finally here the awaited sequel of ‘The Flash’, written again by Dawson Edwards. ‘The Flash’ was released back in Season 9 and it made a very good box office of 108 millions. The character then returned in Season 13 in the blockbuster ‘Justice League’. Now, the second movie focused on him is here. And again Joshua Jackson will play The Flash while Antoine Fuqua, director of the first movie, also returns behind the cameras.

JOHN WAYNE MUST DIE: GMA Nominee Will Patton (‘Riders Of The Storm’) and GMA Nominee Julianne Moore (‘Altered States’) play in this Ron Howard’s war drama the parents of Garrett Hedlund. And the cast also includes a surprising cameo of GMA Winner Shia LaBeouf, who returned to CMP this Season after many Seasons away starring ‘Earth 3k2’.

PRISON LETTERS: This Josh Collins’ drama being directed by Francis Coppolla and co-starred by Dakota Fanning and Abigail Brelin tells the peculiar pen-friendship between a young girl and a convict. And to play the convict has been chosen Jake Gyllenhaal. This way, Gyllenhaal takes a break in what has been his main occupation in CMP for some Seasons now: the Dark Tower movies.

THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON: After his personal success leading a cast for the first time in CMP in ‘That’s The Way’, Cameron Bright refused the offer to play a minor role in this Collins’ movie. To replace him, Collins and director Frank Darabont have chosen Cayden Boyd, who will make his CMP’s debut here. Another young talent to be seen in the movie will be Ryan Simpkins, seen before in ‘Bedtime Stories’ and the Colins’ comedy hit ‘Married To The Supervillain’.

GRACELAND: Surprising choice to play Priscilla Presley in this biopic of the king of rock, Elvis, written by Josh Collins and being directed by Cameron Crowe. The wild Lindsay Lohan has been the chosen one. Lohan, who will try to resurrect her acting career with this movie, worked for CMP before in the blockbuster ‘Silent Hill’. Megan Fox was considered for the character at some point during pre-production phase before Lohan was finally chosen.

ONE NIGHT STAND: Guy Ritchie is directing this action movie written by Chad Taylor and starred by Ian Somerhalder and Olivia Wilde. And Joseph Fiennes will be seen in it. Fiennes won the Best Supporting Actor GMA for his work in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Human Axis’. He could be seen too in the drama ‘Change Of Heart’.


STEVE CONNORS – ‘INVASION’

1.You have been focusing lately on console games adaptations. Now you return to an original story. Do you feel more involved in a movie when working with original material?

Not necessarily. I have to admit that adaptations take a little less work. I have been working on the screenplay of ‘Invasion’ for a long time. It was pretty difficult to write. I changed my mind about the story a lot of times so I had to rewrite it over and over. I have always been writing original stories together with the games adaptations and, at the end, I love all of my movies, no matter if they are original or adaptations.

2.Why did you offer James Cameron to produce the movie? You had ‘Avatar’ in mind?

Not really. ‘Invasion’ has nothing to do with ‘Avatar’. We have mean aliens here! I just thought this was a huge project and Cameron is a specialist in putting up big productions. That was all. I then considered Robert Zemeckis to direct it because he manages so well putting together real and digital characters and all the aliens here are digitally generated. But at some point I decided to change him for Brett Ratner because he directed my robots movies and I thought it would be nice having him on board again.

3.Your first choice to star this movie were Will Smith and Halle Berry but then you suddenly changed your mind and chose Viggo Mortensen and Franka Potente. Why?

I think I owe Smith one after the disaster of ‘Gears Of War’… But during one of the rewrites of the story I suddenly just didn’t see Smith and Berry playing the characters anymore. I cannot explain it. I just felt I needed other kind of stars. But I promise Will Smith I will try to compensate him some day for ‘Gears Of War’… *laughs*

4.’Invasion’ looks as the beginning of a franchise. Is that right?

Let’s wait for box office first… These top budget productions are very dangerous releases. Right now, my mind is put on how this movie is going to work. I cannot think of sequels at least until next week, when box office’s numbers are announced.

5.Let’s talk about your games adaptations. What can we expect in the future?

To be honest, I am not very happy being Mr. Adaptations… I don’t know why but I don’t feel completely comfortable with that. But yes, there will be more to come… Of course, you can expect ‘Assassin’s Creed 2’ and maybe ‘Uncharted 2’. There’ll be other surprises. And I still think that ‘Heavy Rain’ should become a movie so maybe some day I’ll work on that.


GEORGE CLOONEY

Some people love Clooney, some people hates him. George Clooney is one of those stars that does not leave indifferent to anybody. Is he just a handsome star? Or is he a talented actor and moviemaker? In CMP’s world, Clooney has developed his two faces: the very mainstream star and the daring artist. This week, he releases his 8th work for the Studio betting again for this second personality: the artsy talent that dares to take risk working in innovative productions. But he has done almost all kind of movies for the Studio so far…

BILL AND THE ROCKET MAN
Season 1
Wes Anderson / James Bradley
B.O.: 102 mill. / N.Gains: 89 mill.
Clonney co-starred with Paul Giamatti the first so called ‘Wes Anderson’s Fables’ (later came ‘Fools Game’ and ‘Man In The Mirror’) written by James Bradley. Clooney was also the producer of the movie. Giamatti played an ordinary man that had to face that his longtime imaginary friend, the superhero Rocketman played by Clooney, was getting old. A great movie that meant for Giamatti and Clooney a Best Starring Couple GMA, the only GMA won by Clooney.

DEAD MAN’S SONG
Season 2
George Clooney / Joey Stark
B.O.: 99 mill. / Net Gains: 92 mill.
Clooney directed and starred this tribute to old film noirs playing a tough detective ala Bogart. Kim Basinger was his co-star and Morgan Freeman was also seen in the movie. It worked nicely in box office and it meant another step in Clooney’s prestige in CMP as moviemaker beyond acting.

THE LITTLE SISTER
Season 3
Jack Hammer / Jack Hammer
B.O.: 41 mill. / N.Gains: 8 mill.
Again, Clooney demanded to be not only the lead star but also the producer of the movie. And again, he played a tough detective, this time the iconic Philip Marlowe, in this adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s novel. This adaptation was acclaimed but critics although it didn’t become the box office’s hit expected.

NIGHT CAB
Season 8
Steven Soderbergh / Matt Kubrick
B.O.: 7 mill. / N. Losses: 32 mill.
After five Seasons away from CMP, Clooney returned accepting a surprising job. He co-starred with Sasha Baron Cohen this wild comedy about the relationship between a professional killer (Clonney) and an Indian cab driver (Cohen), in what some critics saw as a parody of ‘Collateral’. The movie was a tremendous disaster joining the list of the CMP’s movies that have generated more net losses for the Studio. It’s the only flop in Clooney’s career in CMP.

DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS
Season 9
Jon Favreau / Steve Connors
B.O.: 57 mill. / N.Gains: 35 mill.
The disaster of ‘Night Cab’ did not discourage Clooney from trying luck again in comedy. This time, he teamed up with his friend Brad Pitt to co-star this remake of the wonderful comedy originally starred by Michael Caine and Steve Martin. And, for the third time, he was again the producer of the movie too. It was a difficult challenge to reach the level of the original comedy but Clooney and Pitt survived to it. Not a box office’s big hit, but a decent reception by both moviegoers and critics.

ALTERED STATES
Season 11
Marc Forster / Richard Franzwa
B.O.: 55 mill. / N.Gains: 20 mill.
Clooney accepted to star this remake of the peculiar Ken Russell’s movie from the 80’s about a scientist experimenting drugs on himself. Again, another correct but not particularly impressive box office in his career. Clooney was nominated for the first time for the Best Actor GMA. But he didn’t win. Jeff Bridges and his Rock Star took it from him.

TO CATCH A THIEF
Season 13
Jack Hammer / Jack Hammer
B.O.: 150 mill. / N.Gains: 131 mill.
Ten Seasons after ‘The Little Sister’, Hammer directed Clooney again in this remake of the Hitchcock’s classic. A curiosity: third remake for Clooney in a row. The movie meant the first production of the new company created by Clooney and Pitt, ‘Scoundrels Productions’. It also meant a friends’ reunion, as Pitt and Angelina Jolie completed the starring trio. ‘To Catch A Thief’ succeeded both with audiences and critics. And it is the best box office in Clooney’s CMP career.

ASTERYOS POLIP
Season 14
Spike Jonze / Dawson Edwards
Awaiting release
Not a remake for once. Clooney stars the second movie produced by his company, ‘Scoundrels Productions’, and bets for an artsy and very original story. Whatever happens, it all looks like this new movie will help to consolidate Clooney’s prestige in CMP as an actor but also as a daring artist always looking for new things.


Viggo Mortensen and Franka Potente star one of the big bets of CMP for this Season, the epic top budget sci-fi adventure ‘Invasion’. Here we have them both at the premiere of the movie in Los Angeles.



Oh, I love controversies… ‘Secret Sins’ has become quite a headache for CMP. And not only because of the box office’s embarrassing disaster. Many journalists and not only movie critics have been specially hard criticizing the sequence in the movie where Natalie Portman has violent sex with a masked stranger in the changing room of a shop. Controversy has risen so much that Joey Stark has felt obliged to make a public statement about it: ‘By any mean we pretended to make an apology of rape or anything. It’s a sequence of hard sex. But Portman’s character thinks that she is having sex with Jude Law’s character and, in that sense, is a consented intercourse. I never thought of it as a rape. I am surprised of how this sequence has been misunderstood as a kind of defense of a horrible crime like rape is.’

And more headaches for Mr.Stark… Season 14’s release schedule has suffered some last minute changes. CMP’s executives had not realized until a few days ago (what are they paid for?, I wonder) about the similarities between some movies to be released this Season. They had planned to release two Chad Taylor’s screenplays (titled ‘Daniel’ and ‘Amedia’) that had more than one point in common with movies already shot: ‘Rebel’ and the upcoming ‘Asterios Polyp’. To avoid it, the release schedule had to be urgently modified and two other Taylor’s pitches have replaced these ones. Now, ‘Daniel’ and ‘Amedia’ have returned to the waiting list. ‘Planification is the key of success’, says usually Harry Stark. Well, Mr. Stark, some of your executives have not learnt the lesson yet…

But the big headache for Big Boss Harry is being how Season 14 is going on so far. Nine movies released. Four of them have dramatically flopped in box office (‘Rebel’, ‘Kingdom: The Dark and the Light’, ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Secret Sins’). None of them have got even close to the magic ‘100 millions’ (best box office is still ‘Earth 3k2’, that made only 89 millions)… Very poor beginning of the Season. I wonder how many tranquilizer pills will have to take Mr. Stark if the astronomically expensive ‘Invasion’ does not work in box office as expected…

And talking about astronomical budgets, I have to mention here the new work of the trio Ridley Scott / Tony Scott / John Daws. Yes, the ones that won the Best Picture GMA with ‘The Gunpowder Plot’. The movie, titled ‘New World’, is another futuristic story ala ‘Invasion’. It is still in pre-production phase. But, according to rumors, the movie budget has already risen to the skies. Like ‘Invasion’, this one is another strong bet from CMP and I’ve got to know that the executive production team is beginning to feel… let’s say, a bit nervous watching how costs get out of control and how risky this release is becoming.

‘Scoundrels Productions’, the affiliated company created by George Clooney and Brad Pitt is not going as well as they expected. This week, they are releasing their second production after the successful ‘To Catch A Thief’. The problem is that Clooney and Pitt wanted to produce not only movies starred by them but also indie and low budget movies without them in the cast. So far, CMP’s authors have not shown too much interest in working with Scoundrels Productions… at least if Clooney or Pitt are not in the cast. So both stars keep looking for new pitches to become what they want to be considered: two independent producers not worried about box office’s success but about art (…and that makes me wanna yawn).