gallipoli Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Peter Weir Picks His Next Project
Filed under: Drama », Scripts », War »
Peter Weir directs movies about as often as I do, these days, which is a damn shame, since he's one of the best there is. He hasn't touched a camera since Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World in 2003, and 1998's The Truman Show before that. He was attached for a while to Johnny Depp's Shantaram as well as the WWII epic War Magician, but neither of those panned out. This week, Variety reports that he's committed to a new project: The Way Back, a true story of a group of soldiers who escape from a Siberian gulag in 1940. As with Master and Commander and his best film, Gallipoli, Weir wrote the screenplay for The Way Back himself. He starts shooting the movie in March, in eastern Europe.
I suspect that Weir's selectivity is the key to his fantastic track record. He's a solid, straightforward director, but he really knows how to pick the great stories -- the ones that mean something. (Though I hate Dead Poets Society, so go figure that one out.) Two of his films are among my all-time favorites -- Gallipoli and The Truman Show -- so I'm basically obligated to get excited about anything he does. He does anything rarely enough that it's not too much of a burden.
Christopher McQuarrie Now Writing WWI Movie
Filed under: Action », Drama », Scripts », War »
There aren't a whole lot of WWI veterans left (I think there's less than a handful of Americans), which is a shame with Memorial Day coming up since many people aren't familiar with the significance of that Great War. It certainly hasn't helped that Hollywood -- the history textbook writer for many young Americans -- hasn't been interested in the first World War as a subject for a long time. The studios used to produce great WWI films like Wings, All Quiet on the Western Front and Sergeant York. Then WWII came along and became the more popular war, with its definite villain, Adolph Hitler. Meanwhile the best WWI movie we've gotten in awhile (from the U.S., anyway) is the terribly cartoon-like Flyboys, which actually had to be made independently. There's hope on the horizon, though, as a new WWI epic is being written by Christopher McQuarrie. The screenwriter of The Usual Suspects and the upcoming WWII movie Valkyrie, McQuarrie is interested in making a film that not only depicts the Great War, but also explains it. His script, titled No Man's Land (not to be confused with the German WWI film Niemandsland or the recent foreign Oscar-winner No Man's Land) focuses on the stories of three soldiers who stand in to illustrate the reasons for their nation's involvement in the war. One is an American who fights first for the French Legion and then for the U.S.; one is a Brit who is wrongly accused of being a coward; and the third is a German trench dweller.
Is Taylor Lautner Our Next Superhero?
100 Greatest Films Beyond the Canon
'Entourage' Movie in the Works?
Spielberg Backs Out of 'Harvey'
Discuss: Should Gay Actors Stay in the Closet?
_thumbnail.jpg)
_thumbnail.jpg)
