A Thousand Years of Good Prayers Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If there's a number in a film title you've got a sequel, right? Not necessarily, unless Oceans 1 through Oceans 10 came out on some obscure underground label I've never heard of. The trailers are getting all mathematical on our collective ass this week, and each of them (sort of) sports a number in the title.

Four Christmases
It happens every year. The first time I see a sign of the coming holiday season I cringe. I like Christmas fine once it gets here, but being forced to think about it in September is asking too much. Anyway, this is actually a TV spot, which is appropriate since it sounds like the plot was lifted from a sitcom. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon are playing a couple who, thanks to a canceled flight to Fiji, are forced to visit all four of their divorced parents on Christmas Day. Pretty wacky, huh? This flimsy plot is being held up by an impressive cast which includes Mary Steenburgen, Robert Duval and Sissy Spacek ... but I doubt that will be enough. Note: Link above now pointing to new full-length trailer.

Terminator: Salvation
OK, there's actually no number in this title, but we're all mentally planting a "4" after the word Terminator. After Terminator 3 I really didn't care if the series lived or died. Without James Cameron at the helm and Linda Hamilton in the lead we were left with mindless action and none of the compelling elements from the first two films. This is only a teaser, but with Christian Bale taking over the role of John Connor, I'm thinking there may be hope. We get a glimpse of a post-apocalyptic future, and Connor tells us via narration that this is not the future his mother warned him about. Considering how bleak that future was portrayed in the previous films, it's chilling to imagine how it could get worse.

Now, I know Wayne Wang isn't in most cinephiles' good graces these days.* He's spent most of the decade making bland and unremarkable middle-brow flicks like Maid in Manhattan, Because of Winn-Dixie and Last Holiday. But the director behind The Joy Luck Club and Chinese Box still has a fair bit of cachet, and when he does something like make his new film available in its entirety online and for free, people pay attention.

So, pay attention: Wang's The Princess of Nebraska, an indie he premiered at last year's Toronto International Film Festival (where it got a positive review from Cinematical's Kim Voynar), will be offered for free on the internet in September. The filmmaker partnered with ex-SXSW chief Matt Dentler and his Cinetic Rights Management to make this happen, as a means of releasing Princess simultaneously with its companion film, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, which will come to theaters courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. The exact plans of the release (i.e. where, how) haven't been announced, but I'll keep an eye on it. Take a look at this IndieWire story for more.

Not, probably, the start of a new Hollywood trend, given that The Princess of Nebraska -- a no-budget drama about a pregnant Chinese teenager's struggles in the United States -- probably wouldn't have done much business anyhow. But if Dentler and his colleagues can figure out a way to get people to watch the thing, who knows. Indie filmmakers could always use a new channel.

*The exception is our own Eric D. Snider, who informs me: "I love Wang films!"

In The Princess of Nebraska, Wayne Wang's companion film to his other Toronto entry, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Wang tackles adapting another short story by Yiyun Li. Wang brought to life A Thousand Years of Good Prayers with methodical pacing and the careful unfolding of a story about the conflicted relationship between Mr. Shi, a Chinese father and his adult daughter, Yilan; in Princess, Wang uses an edgier style to show us 24 hours in the life of a college student some 15 years younger than Yilan, who lives in Omaha but has traveled to San Francisco.

The two stories are unrelated, but Wang uses them to contrast the subtle generational differences between a woman raised in "old-Communist" China against a younger woman raised in the post-Tiananmen Square China infused with an influence of Western capitalism and Paris Hilton. The "princess" in the story is Sasha (newcomer Ling Li), a college student in Omaha who, after a trip to Beijing and a fling with her friend Yang, finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. Sasha has traveled to San Franciso to get an abortion; why she would come so far is never made really clear, other than that Boshen (Brian Danforth), a mutual friend/lover of Yang's, lives there, and presumably he has promised her assistance.

Either Wayne Wang is about to get, like, Joss Whedon-busy, or somebody is lying to the trades on his behalf on a regular basis. Back in February, it was announced that he was going to direct a "caper-comedy" called Lowlifes, about a housewife who "discovers she has a talent for burglary." That film, however, is nowhere to be found on his IMDb page. In its place are two dramas: New York Confidential, the Jason Itzer biopic we told you about last fall (though back then it was called Rocket Fuel for Winners), and a new one called Good Cook, Likes Music, about "a trailer-park slacker [who] sends away for a mail order bride -- a woman who turns out to be a musical prodigy who changes his life." Gotta love those mail order prodigies.

And now, in addition to those three projects, Production Weekly reported this morning that Wang is also going to direct a screen version of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, a collection of stories by Yiyun Li "about life in modern China and the United States." The screenplay focuses on a Chinese man who travels to the Pacific Northwest to fix his relationship with his recently-divorced daughter. When the man arrives in the States, "he meets an older, Farsi-speaking Iranian woman. Even though they are total strangers, with the inability to communicate with a common language, they forge a bond with each other." Man, I'm such a sucker -- as cheesy as that sounds, I've been sucked in already. I bet there's going to be lots of pretty, fog-shrouded scenery, too.

If Production Weekly is to be trusted, from Wang's list of four (possible) projects, Good Prayers is going to be done first: It's expected to start shooting in Washington state this fall.