Looking over the news from the week of March 22-28, 2009, quite frankly, not much of it sparked a lot of enthusiasm. But there were a few items that made me go hmmmm, especially compared to the rest. First up is a low, but in an effort to keep things moving in a productive direction, the rest of the list are (cross your fingers) highs.
A chill came to my heart when I saw the chat with screenwriters Stiles White and Juliet Snowden. These people were at least partially responsible for the train wreck known as Knowing (they share credit with Ryne Douglas Pearson and Stuart Hazeldine), and I cannot imagine entrusting such classics as Poltergeist and The Birds to them. On the other hand, if by chance they were involved with scripting the few enjoyable parts of Knowing (i.e., before all parties involved lost control of themselves), then maybe there’s some slim hope for these two reduxes. But I’m certainly not holding my breath, nor do I suggest any of you do so either.
Moving on to something that fills me with actual anticipation … word came down the pike that finally, after almost a full decade, American Psycho director Mary Harron is attached to a full-fledged genre feature. She’ll be adapting Rachel Klein’s The Moth Diaries, which is set in an exclusive girls’ boarding school. Yeah, I know, yet another angsty teen-centric project, but if anybody can make it suitably dark and subversive, it’s Harron.
Everyone’s looking for a fresh story and a fresh face, and definitely the prospect of seeing what the talented, up-and-coming Jessica Lowndes is able to pull off in Altitude has piqued my curiosity. She’s shown a great deal of potential in every role I’ve seen her in, and the idea behind this sci-fi/horror hybrid sounds promising as well.
Fred Durst is generating a lot of buzz with the opening of his directorial debut, The Education of Charlie Banks, this weekend, and I thought he did a more than passable job of acting a few years ago in Population 436, so I’m all for him tackling a genre project, even if its name is a bit too on-the-nose. Qu’est-ce que c’est? It’s called Psycho Killer and is about a serial killer for Satan! Hopefully we won’t be wanting to “run run run run run run run away” from the theatre when it opens.
Two rather encouraging by-products of the Twilight phenomenon are a backlash against pretty, sparkly creatures and the call from hardcore horror fans for a return to true monstrosities. I’m not sure how far they’re going to push it, but Summit Entertainment’s got a script — albeit not much else (including a satisfactory title) — about “the grim reality of bedding down with a monster.” Like Creepy said when he first reported the story, lord knows we’ve all done that! All kidding aside, if they play it straight and don’t pull any punches, we could be in for something fairly interesting here.
Which brings us to the one thing that really brightened up the place and was undoubtedly the most engaging image we’ve seen in some time around these parts … the Woman’s Story of the Week: Badass “True Blood” NZ Ad Campaign. By the time “True Blood” finished its all-too-brief 12-episode run here in the States, I was hooked. Yes, the vampires are attractive and, well, vampy, but thanks to series creator Alan Ball’s approach to the subject matter, there’s an underlying current of fuckedupness in “True Blood” that makes the clichés tolerable. And it was a rare pleasure to watch Anna Paquin come into her own with the character of Sookie. I guess we’ll find out within the next few months whether or not HBO has an equally cool marketing campaign planned for the US. The first episode of the new season, “Nothing But the Blood”, premieres on June 14th.