TheBoysAreBackInTown Tagged Articles at Cinematical

As we head towards the weekend...

• Walt Disney Company has jumped into its first co-production with China for an animated Chinese film called The Magic Gourd. Based on children's novel, the movie is about a boy who finds a wish-granting gourd. It was whipped up by Centro Digital Pictures (which did Kill Bill), and marks the company's move away from the classic icons like Mickey Mouse, that made them famous. It looks funky, so maybe we'll be lucky enough to see a dubbed/subtitled version here, because really, who wouldn't want to see a magic gourd?
• Before you get all excited, I'm sad to say that this isn't a feature film. However, it's a really great little fan short done by Donato Di Carlo at the CFP Milano film school. Although it's in Italian, there are subtitles to read -- but really, you don't need them because the animation is what counts. The short is a great embodiment of the popular aspects of the strip -- school, Susie, Hobbes and his hatred of certain foods, although I wish they'd included the Transmogrifier. I can only hope that Bill Watterson will see this and we'll finally get an animated version -- one that can embody the comic like this short has.
• Lastly, there is another Clive Owen movie in the works, which he can add to the docket that already has Sin City 2 and The International. Capitol Films is currently in Cannes, shopping worldwide rights to an Australian movie to be directed by Scott Hicks called The Boys are Back in Town. An adaptation by Allan Cubitt of Simon Carr's comically dark memoir, it details a man who loses his wife to cancer, and then dives into "least resistance parenting" to raise his two sons. Sounds like great Clive material to me, but we'll have a while to wait as Variety says it will start shooting in January.

It's kind of remarkable to me that Australian filmmakers have a knack for taking some of the most tired film plots and combining them with a distinctive sense of humor. Movies like Strictly Ballroom, Muriel's Wedding, and even it's "Hollywood cousin" My Best Friends Wedding (both directed by P.J Hogan) were movies that, normally, you couldn't pay me to sit through, but for some reason, those Aussies just seem to know how make it work. Which makes me think there might be some promise in the next project for Shine director Scott Hicks.

The Hollywood Reporter announced that Hicks had signed on for his first Australian production since the Oscar winning Shine. On board to produce is Southern Light Films and they have already made a deal with BBC Films. The Boys Are Back in Town will center on a twice-divorced single father and sportswriter who has the duties of fatherhood thrust upon him when he's forced to raise his two sons. If you are a fan of English crime television, you might be happy to know that Prime Suspect writer Alan Cubitt is penning the script based on real-life UK sportswriter Simon Carr.

On paper the film might not sound earth-shattering, but Hicks has proven himself to be a talented director, and I hope that quirky Aussie perspective can help fight off any of the usual feel-good movie clichés.