A couple of weeks ago, End Credits covered the documentary An Inconvenient Sequel, which featured Al Gore on his continuing quest to solve climate change. If only he had known that several weeks later the solution would present itself in Geostorm. Okay, so “solution” may be the wrong word, especially since it predictably all goes wrong, like another movie that came out last weekend, The Snowman. We’ll talk about that movie’s director and his self-sabotage, the latest on the industry from a fan-favourite director, and how we might get a cool new animated vision of an old superhero movie idea.
This Thursday, October 26, at 10 am, Adam A. Donaldson with Peter Salmon will discuss:
1) Fincher Advice. David Fincher is back… on TV! His new series, Mindhunters, just premiered on Netflix, which is a reminder that while many in the industry are concerned about the growing dominance of streaming platforms in the movie business, Fincher was an early adopter by helping to bring House of Cards to life on Netflix. The director of Seven and Zodiac has offered new insights on a number of fronts in the movie business; streaming, Marvel, and franchise filmmaking we’re all discusses in a recent, insightful interview, and we’ll parse what Fincher had to say about all that, and how he almost was in the running to direct a Star Wars movie.
2) Frosty for The Snowman. Last weekend, The Snowman opened in theatres everywhere, and it was a disaster in terms of both box office and critical reception. It had everything going for it: a prestigious cast, great source material, and an accomplished director, but The Snowman still ended up, at best, being one of those movies that’s so bad it’s good. In fact, The Snowman is so bad that even its own director, Tomas Alfredson, had basically disavowed it before it had even opened. So was Alfredson just too honest in his appraisal of his own film? Or should Alfredson have stood by his movie until the bitter end (which in this case is really bitter)?
3) Superman Lives Lives? Back in the 1990s, a Superman movie starring Nicolas Cage as the Man of Steel and directed by Tim Burton was in production. Based on the comic book storyline “The Death of Superman”, it seemed like all the elements were in place to launch a brand new Super-franchise, but it fizzled. Script problems, and such. It would be 10 more years till we got another Superman movie, but now 20 years after the plug was pulled for Superman Lives, the suggestion’s been made that Burton’s vision might finally be seen in animated form. Good idea, or awesome idea? We debate.
REVIEW: Geostorm. The Earth can only take so much until it cries out, “Enough!” That’s basically the point of Geostorm, a big, dumb sci-fi disaster movie that dares to say, “Come on, you know that this is beneath you.” Watch Gerard Butler as the world’s most unbelievable science-genius. By way of Dublin, Oklahoma, Butler and his little brother Jim Sturgess, who does something at the White House (it’s not clear), try to convince you they really are brothers as they try to stop a massive government conspiracy to turn the machine that saved the world into a world-killer. Or something! Their weapon of choice: a Geostorm! What is it?! Who will live?! And so on…
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Thursday at 10 am.
Leave a Reply