BrianHelgeland Tagged Articles at Cinematical

"How the hell can you run a goddamn railroad without swearing?"
-The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

"I got 99 problems, and a bitch ain't one."
-The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

About as loud as Joseph Sargent's original was lean, Tony Scott's take on The Taking of Pelham 123 is more indebted to his name than its own, all restless shots and relentless cuts, ticking clocks and roving maps, a stream of shouting and shooting and speed-ramping and slow-motion and all that jazz. The conversations are cranked up, and the confrontations are amped up, but to what end? Scott whips out the familiar frame-blurring techniques that have ostensibly served him well in the past, but his flair tends to instead rob a crackerjack crime thriller of an inherent momentum that has served it quite well over the span of almost four decades.

You ever get the feeling that a film is going to have a rocky road in front of it, no matter what? This certainly seems to be the case with Ridley Scott's Nottingham. Call me an optimist, because I still have faith that Nottingham (or whatever it decides to call itself) has a shot at being one heck of a flick. Things first started to look up when it was rumored that Cate Blanchett would be taking over the role of Maid Marian, and today Variety has confirmed that the Aussie actress has officially signed on. Speaking as someone who puts Blanchett alongside Meryl Steep as one of the coolest chicks working today, I'm thrilled that Crowe is getting a co-star that can hold her own.

But that's not all, because Scott and company finally decided to open up, and new story details have been revealed. The original script was written by Kung Fu Panda's, Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, but Brian Helgeland was later brought in for a rewrite. According to Variety, "Crowe plays Robin of Loxley in an original story that hews close to historical facts of the period. Abandoned as a child, he finds community with the common people of Nottingham. Robin's abandonment and trust issues hamper his ability to fall in love. He meets his match in Marian, a strong, independent woman." The film is now being pitched as Gladiator meets Robin Hood -- I guess Crowe and Scott figured the formula worked well enough the first time, so why not capitalize on some of that 'Maximus magic'?

So now that we have a brand new Maid Marian and a look at what is in store for Crowe's man of the people, who's with me when I say that it's about time we give Scott's re-boot a fair shake?

The wires (yes, I still think of them like that) were buzzing all weekend with MTV's big scoop -- that while Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott were out promoting Body of Lies, the network cornered them about the long-delayed Nottingham, Scott's revisionist Robin Hood story. There have been a lot of names attached to the role of Robin Hood, ranging from Christian Bale to newcomer Sam Riley.

Forget all of that because now, from Scott himself, comes the announcement that Crowe will be playing both roles. Mum on the details, the director would only say it was "a good old clever adjustment of characters. One becomes the other. It changes." I would take that to mean that the Sheriff of Nottingham becomes Robin Hood after having to steal from the poor one too many times ... or they're twins, which would be pretty lame, especially for Scott and Crowe.

But wait -- there's more! CHUD points out that in reading the original screenplay, they noticed the Sheriff was caught between a tyrant king and a less-than-heroic Robin Hood. Nothing in this script indicated the Sheriff and Robin Hood could be played by the same actor. Now, Brian Helgeland came in and did a rewrite, and much depends on that.

The medievalist in me suspects this is less shockingly revisionist than a return to the old medieval legends, where Robin Hood was merely an outlaw who beheaded people from time to time, not the Robin of Locksley we all know and love. It's a pretty flexible legend, and I'm very anxious to see what Scott does with it ... when it finally heads into production, that is.

John C. Reilly and Salma Hayek starring in a Paul Weitz semi-horror flick / adaptation of a best-selling kids book? Sounds interesting enough to me. It'll be the first movie for Ms. Hayek since she took some time off to have a baby, and she'll be co-starring opposite the Dewey Cox star in Universal's Cirque du Freak. (Check out Monika's previous report right here.)

The film, which is based on a popular 12-book series by Darren Shan, begins production this month. Variety offers us non-readers a handy little synopsis: "Reilly will play a vampire who drafts a 14-year-old to serve as his assistant. The youth is turned into a half-vampire and becomes the catalyst in a battle between vampires and the rival Vampanese. Hayek will play Madame Truska, the bearded lady." According to the IMDB, the adaptation was written by screenwriter Brian Helgeland, whom you'll no doubt remember from L.A. Confidential, Mystic River and (of course) 976-EVIL.

Mr. Weitz's most recent film was American Dreamz, but I choose to focus more on his good movies. Like the first American Pie, the fantastic About a Boy, and the seriously underrated In Good Company.

Putting together last week's list of my favorite screenplays of the 2000's was relatively easy. I came up with about ten worthy candidates and narrowed from there. When I started putting together this week's list -- my favorite screenplays of the 1990's -- things got a lot more complicated. I had a much larger list of worthy candidates to choose from. It made me realize that a) the 90's, particularly the late 90's, was a genuinely incredible time for film, and b) I was going to have to split my list into two halves: 1995 -- 1999 and 1990 -- 1994.

So, in support of all the great screenwriters currently on strike, what follows is my favorite screenplays produced between 1995 and 1999. Read that last sentence carefully! If you've got movies you'd add to or subtract from my list, I would love to hear them, but make sure your choice fits the criteria. On my 2000's list, I was getting comments like "How DARE you not include Citizen Kane, you freaking idiot?"

Now then, with all apologies to the scripts it killed me to leave off (Office Space, A Simple Plan, As Good As it Gets, Chasing Amy, Lone Star, Three Kings, Swingers, Jackie Brown, Kingpin, I could go on and on), here is my alphabetical list: