twelve monkeys Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Bruce Willis returns to cinemas this week with Surrogates, his first starring role since Live Free or Die Hard. It has been 21 years since the original Die Hard, and it seems as if studios and executives are still trying to make lightning strike twice with Willis as an action hero. Fortunately, Willis' finer instincts keep coming through with some of his quirkier choices between the big-budget blow-em-up movies. And though a casual fan wouldn't know it, he has demonstrated over the years a marked talent for acting. That's right. Bruce Willis is an actor, and a damn good one. It's a shame he has yet to earn a single Oscar nomination, and he could have -- should have -- earned some for the following great performances.

1. Butch in Pulp Fiction (1994)
He shows up 20 minutes in, in a single shot that lasts a full two minutes. It's just Bruce, framed in the center of the shot. The background is lit low and mostly out of focus. He doesn't speak for two minutes; we're listening to Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) speak, but we're looking at Bruce. We're looking at that mug. It's a tough, hard mug, but he knows that Marsellus has his number, so his guard is not entirely up. That look of hard disappointment anchors it. Most of Willis' acting is like that: an invisible stamp of quality that makes everything else around him look good. Then, check out the rest of the film, the way Tarantino's dialogue seems to perfectly fit his mouth, and the brilliant way he pulls off his many non-speaking scenes.

Behold my 1000-plus words way of asking you this simple question: how many times have you seen The Dark Knight?

Here's a little story I probably tell too often (it's even in my "Meet the Team" bio): Long ago, at an art school that should remain nameless (I hated the place too much to give it any kind of credit), I studied film production, with the crazy notion that I would be the one to bridge the gap between Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino (this was in the mid-90s, when all film students just wanted to be the latter). And while I wasn't any good at being the kind of leader necessary to be a great director, I thought I was on track to (at the very least) become an Oscar-winning screenwriter.

Then, in the middle of my freshman year, I went to see 12 Monkeys. And when it was over, I stayed in the theater and I watched it again. I believe this to be the moment when I decided that I no longer wanted to be a filmmaker and wanted to be a film watcher. But it would take me another year of school -- during which I changed the names in my dream from Spielberg and Tarantino to Gilliam and Hartley -- to realize that I could be a ... professional movie theater employee!

Years more would go by before I actually realized that I was better off writing about the movies than attempting to write for the movies, and fortunately all that time managing multiplexes gave me an extra niche to write about, as well. This week's column, however, despite its long-winded introduction, is not about how I came to write "The Exhibitionist." It's actually more specifically about that repeat screening of 12 Monkeys 12 years ago. Because thanks to The Dark Knight's box office success reportedly linked in part to repeat business, I've been thinking about the few movies that I've actually seen in the theater more than once.

It's good to get excited about Terry Gilliam again. Despite my intense disappointment with the director -- for many years my favorite living filmmaker -- with the annoying and boring Tideland, I'm happily hopeful about his next project, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Earlier this year, Jessica told us about the film, which was said to be about a traveling circus featuring a headliner with a special power to bring audiences into his mind. Well, the Gilliam fansite Dreams now has the full details on the plot, as well as more details about the cast -- which I mentioned yesterday includes Heath Ledger, Verne Troyer, Tom Waits and Lily Cole -- plus a concept drawing.

First thing that needs to be pointed out is that Ledger will not actually be starring in the title role, as I had assumed. Instead Christopher Plummer, who was great in Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys, will play the lead, an immortal man with a traveling show and the gift of guiding the imaginations of his audience. Waits plays Mr. Nick, aka The Devil, with whom Parnassus made a deal with long ago. Cole will co-star as Parnassus' daughter Valentina, who was mistakenly promised to Mr. Nick in another bad deal with the Devil. Ledger plays a guy named Tony, Troyer plays a guy named Percy and Andrew Garfield plays a guy named Anton. I won't go into the rest of the film's plot, though, in case you're worried about spoilers. If you want to know more, you can certainly visit Dreams, where you can also see the rest of the concept image that I've cropped and presented above.

The drawing should remind folks of Gilliam's visual masterpiece The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which was co- written by Imaginarium co-writer Charles McKeown. Despite the period look of the drawing, though, Dreams claims that this new film will be set in present day. The visuals for Imaginarium should still be amazing, as the film apparently spends a lot of time in "a never-ending landscape of surreal obstacles." Sounds like the Gilliam I'm used to -- and the Gilliam I'm really looking forward to seeing again.

[via Rotten Tomatoes]