Something 4 The Weekend by
Welcome ladies, gentlemen and film
fans everywhere to entertainment manchester's weekly
feature 'Something for the Weekend'. If, as
Forrest Gump once might have said were he a film fan,
cinema really is like a box of chocolates, then think
of us as your mini-menu, steering you away from the
coffee creams and towards the Turkish delights of the
movie world.
If we may be so bold, Entertainment Manchester would like to claim The Fountain as a record-breaker. No, it hasn't broken any box-office records or anything as grand as that. Instead, it’s the only film to appear on our Something for the New Year list... twice. A grand accomplishment we're sure you'll agree. Director Darren Aronosfky probably has a different opinion though. Since conceiving of the film after watching The Matrix way back in 1999, The Fountain has been a labour of love for the Requiem for a Dream helmer, with emphasis on the labour.
Brimming with ideas, Aronofsky set about writing a script, tentatively called The Last Man, with friend and neuroscience expert Ari Handel. The film would deal in the big themes: life, mortality and love and be, according to Aronofsky: "the most ambitious thing I've done to date." Research began, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett became interested and talk was out that the film would redefine science-fiction in the same way Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey had.
It was, in short, big news. But sadly it was too big and script problems soon hit. This wasn't just a science-fiction epic, you see. It was, effectively, three science-fiction epics; a time-travelling tale which crossed the centuries from ancient conquistador times, to the modern day, to the deep space voyagers of the distant future as the two central characters spark a love affair which spans the ages. But unimpressed by the script, Pitt quit and Blanchett soon followed suit after falling pregnant. Production ground to a halt even with several large sets built and the film wasn't resurrected until February 2004, when Aronofsky agreed to shoot with a lower budget.
Hugh Jackman was hired to replace Pitt and Aronofsky’s partner Rachel Weiz stepped in for Blanchett. Finally, after yet another stalling, shooting got underway in March 2005, culminating, after a few more unwelcome set problems, later that year. You‘d think, then, after all that turmoil, the Gods would go easy on The Fountain when it finally hit cinemas over a year after it was scheduled to. But, yet again, it’s proven troublesome, encouraging boos from critics at its Venice Film Festival premiere in September last year and sorely under performing at the American box office.
The critical reception here has been mixed at best meaning it’s likely to struggle as well, especially as it faces off against one of this year’s Oscar contenders in the shape of The Blood Diamond. Following on from The Constant Gardner, this Leonardo Di Caprio starrer is another Hollywood indictment of human rights abuses in modern Africa, following Djimon Hounson’s farmer, Di Caprio’s smuggler and Jennifer Connolly’s journalist as they play a deadly game of cat and mouse in a bid to gain possession of a priceless diamond.
It’s joined, in what is a typically sombre near-Oscars week, by another thought-provoking film: Bobby. Yet, this comes with a twist as it’s written and directed, bizarrely enough, by former Breakfast Clubber Emilio Estevez. And if that’s automatically putting you off, think again because the film must have something going for it, having attracted an astonishing cast including Anthony Hopkins, Helen Hunt, William H Macy, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Elijah Wood and, somewhat understandably, Emilio’s dad Martin Sheen.
Using an interweaving narrative, Estevez’s ambitious film follows twenty-two guests at The Ambassador Hotel on the night Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. The Kennedys have, of course, been subject of critically acclaimed films before, most notably Oliver Stone’s conspiracy-liscious JFK. However, Estevez’s film seems less paranoid than Stone’s, using Kennedy’s murder as a way to show how the hope of the 1960s was ended with the deaths of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King Jnr.
So, if you want murder, sadness and tragic time-spanning love stories, you now know where to look.
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