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I really, really disliked Roger Deakins and Denis Villenueve‘s last collaboration Prisoners, but it sure was pretty to look at!

Herein lies my dilemma: these two are now teaming up for Blade Runner 2. The original Blade Runner is one of my favorite films of all time, and Deakins is easily one of the best cinematographers working today, if not THE best. That long line of wonderful Coen Bros‘ films that he served as DP on can attest to that, along with some stellar work on movies like Skyfall and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

I guess I’m going to have to see another Villenueve flick in hopes that he’ll actually produce something that I’ll find enjoyable. Their most recent collaboration, Sicario, hasn’t hit theaters yet but is receiving generally good reviews on the festival circuit.

Let’s be honest here, I’d probably go see a Deakins shot Blade Runner even if the sound wasn’t working at the theater.

This new sequel to the 1982 dystopian classic will star Harrison Ford and, according to reports, possibly Ryan Gosling, who was in negotiations for a leading role. The script is written by the first film’s scribe, Hampton Fancher and Micheal Green (Green Lantern), based on a story by Fancher and Ridley Scott. Scott, director of the first Blade Runner, is set to executive produce.

Here’s the full press:

LOS ANGELES, CA, MAY, 20, 2015 – Twelve-time Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins will join director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Incendies) on Alcon Entertainment’s sequel to BLADE RUNNER, it was announced by Alcon co-founders and co-CEO’s Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson.

Deakins, who will be presented with the Pierre Angénieux Excellens in Cinematography Award at the Cannes Film Festival on May 22 reteams with Villeneuve on what will be their third feature collaboration, havingpreviously worked together on Alcon’s Prisoners, starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal as well as Villeneuve’s upcoming film Sicario, a drug-trafficking drama starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro from Black Label Media, which is in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

Deakins received his latest Academy Award nomination this year for his work on Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken.  He was previously nominated for Joel and Ethan Coen’s Fargo, The Man Who Wasn’t There, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men and True Grit; Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption; Martin Scorsese’s Kundun; Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; Stephen Daldry’s The Reader, which he shared with Chris Menges; and, more recently, Prisoners and Sam Mendes’ Skyfall.

Film is scheduled to start principal photography in summer of 2016. Hampton Fancher (co-writer of the original) and Michael Green have written the original screenplay based on an idea by Fancher and Ridley Scott. The story takes place several decades after the conclusion of the 1982 original. Harrison Ford will reprise his role as Rick Deckard.

Villeneuve previously worked with Kosove and Johnson as the director of Alcon’s critically acclaimed Prisoners.

Kosove and Johnson state: “Roger is an extraordinary talent and we are very excited that Denis and Roger have chosen to continue their collaboration in bringing the sequel to BLADE RUNNER to the big screen.

Alcon Entertainment acquired the film, television and ancillary franchise rights to BLADE RUNNER in 2011 from producer Bud Yorkin to produce prequels and sequels to the iconic science-fiction thriller. Yorkin will serve as a producer on the sequel along with Kosove and Johnson. Cynthia Sikes Yorkin will also produce.

Frank Giustra and Tim Gamble, CEO’s of Thunderbird Films, will serve as executive producers. Ridley Scott will also executive produce.

Among its many distinctions, BLADE RUNNER has been singled out as one of the greatest movies of all time by innumerable polls and media outlets, and overwhelmingly as the greatest science-fiction film of all time by a majority of genre publications.

Released by Warner Bros., BLADE RUNNER was adapted by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples from Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and was directed by Ridley Scott following his landmark Alien.” The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction).

BLADE RUNNER was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993 and is frequently taught in university courses. In 2007, it was named the 2nd most visually influential film of all time by the Visual Effects Society.

Deakins is repped by ICM.

 

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Hooray, it’s Friday! My weekend is going to be filled with Cowboy Bebop and early Miyazaki as I try to give anime a proper go. Hopefully your plans are even more fun! Here are your Friday morning headlines:

– It’s now official, Harrison Ford is returning for a sequel to Blade Runner, and replacing Ridley Scott in the director’s chair will be Academy Award nominated director Denis Villeneuve (Enemy, Prisoners). The new film will be scripted by Hampton Fancher, who co-wrote the original, and comics-scribe/Green Lantern screenwriter Michael Green (who is also working on the sequel to Prometheus). This story will take place several decades after the end of the first and is based on an idea of Scott and Fancher’s.

Does the world really need a sequel to Blade Runner? Probably not, and I say that as someone who thinks Blade Runner is the best science fiction film ever made. Though I can’t help but be curious as to what Villeneuve may bring to the table visually.

– CBS’ Supergirl continues to add to its cast as David Harewood (Homeland) will be joining the cast as Hank Henshaw, better known to comic fans as Cyborg Superman. In this series, Henshaw will be an ex-CIA agent that now heads up the Department of Extra-Normal Operations which monitors extraterrestrial threats to the planet. Sounds like an antagonist to me.

The series has also enlisted Chyler Leigh (Grey’s Anatomy) to play Alexandra “Alex” Danvers, Kara’s adopted sister. It’s worth noting, that every cast member added to Supergirl thus far has either been a female or a person of color, which I find to be a wonderfully exciting development.

– By way of the folks at Latino Review, here are some new Daredevil images from Empire:

– Last up, we have a nice poster by Gabrielle Dell’Oto for the upcoming March 3rd mid-season premiere of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. focusing on the changes occurring in Skye and Raina:

 

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I am interested in writing a nonficiton book and talked to an editor about the idea this week. She is interested. Hurrah!

But she needs a full proposal that includes a table of contents and a sample chapter. In other words, I have to do some–no, a lot–of work, on spec, before I get a contract. And then, it will be a ton of research to write the book. It’s daunting. To even be in the game, I have to do a lot of work.

I am inspired by Harrison Ford. In an article in the April, 2013 issue of American Way, Jan Hubbard reports on what Ford had to do to get the his latest role. Ford had read an early version of the screenplay for “42,” the new movie about Jacki Robinson’s entry into the world of baseball. Ford was intrigued by the role of Branch Rickey, the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who desegregated baseball by signing 26-year-old Jackie Robinson.

Director Brain Helgeland wasn’t interested in well-known actors for any of the parts. He wanted people to see the movie because they wanted to learn about Jackie Robinson; he didn’t want people to go to see another “Harrison Ford movie.”

Helgeland refused to even talk to Harrison Ford about the role. Ford was too big an actor.

“Nothing against him,” says Helgeland, who won an Oscar for writing the screenplay for L.A. Confidential in 1997. “He’s obviously a strong actor and a movie star and someone that movie fans int he country are really fond of, but I didn’t see how it could work. I didn’t see him playing a character.”

Now–what would you do, if you were Ford?
Move on to the next role? There are probably lots of directors courting him for their movies.

Instead, Ford went to work.
He studied his character, Branch Rickey. He found archival film of Rickey and listened to hours of audio tape. He read and re-read the script. He did his homework.

Then, and only then, did he insist on a meeting with Helgeland. (OK, he’s a big enough actor to get that meeting, but the rest of the story depends on his preparation work.)

During the conversation, Ford asked Helgeland how he saw a particular scene playing out, because there were two ways it might go.

Then, Ford broke into a private audition, complete with Rickey’s voice and mannerisms.

“Helgeland said, ‘He took on that Branch Rickey voice and he did the whole scene off the top of his head, so he obviously had memorized it,’ Helgeland says. ‘And I was sitting there saying, ‘Geez. He could really pull this off.’”

OK, Mr. Big Actor, Mr. Harrison Ford. If YOU can do that much prep to get a part, I can work hard for my proposal, my audition. I can do the research, create a viable Table of Content sna dwrite that sample chapter. And I will work hard enough to nail it. Because I want this book.

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Newly released Cowboys & Aliens may not be an Oscar contender, but it’s darn good fun and worth the price of a movie ticket … which, in the current movie climate, is saying something. Simple plot line:  “A spaceship arrives in Arizona, 1873, to take over the Earth, starting with the Wild West region. A posse of cowboys are all that stand in their way.”

Sounds like the cowboys might get their asses handed to them, you know? But as a friend of mine pointed out, “If James Bond and Indiana Jones can’t save the world, who can?”

I grew up watching Harrison Ford (and not because my friends thought my dad resembled the guy). I watched all the Indiana Jones movies, and embarrassingly, they may be the reason I minored in classical civilizations in college. I was among the many viewers who were thoroughly disturbed by the movie What Lies Beneath, when <spoiler spoiler SPOILER> Harrison Ford turned out to be a bad guy. That said he’s not exactly a good guy in Cowboys & Aliens—at least not at the beginning.

At the beginning, we zoom in on Daniel Craig in the middle of what resembles Sedona, covered in dirt and blood. (The film was actually shot in New Mexico, by the way.) He doesn’t remember who he is, where he came from, or why he’s wearing a wacky metal bracelet. Despite his lack of memory, he sure can kick some cowboy butt, and I’ve been proven wrong: Daniel Craig (most famous as James Bond) should not always wear tuxedos—he should always wear leather chaps and cowboy hats.

From there, the stranger waltzes into town and causes a raucous, until alien spaceships show up and he uses his mysterious bracelet to blow ‘em away. So begins the battle of cowboys versus aliens.

Jon Favreau is the director. He did Iron Man. (Robert Downey Jr. was the original choice for Daniel Craig’s character, in fact.) So expect lots of fast-paced action scenes, explosions, and comic quips amidst the bloodshed—alien and human alike.

The aliens themselves are reminiscent of the aliens in … well, Alien. They’re really cool and gross; you’re gonna love them. There are good creep-out moments that had me jumping and enough shallow character development to keep you rooting for the good guys.

Harrison Ford is his charismatic, comic self. The man’s still got it, despite being sixty-nine years old. Daniel Craig is hotter than the desert heat, as is Olivia Wilde, for you Y-chromosomes out there. There are plenty of other interesting cameos. No name stars, but people who’ll make you say, “I know that guy.” And you’ll like him, because there’s plenty to like about this movie.

As I mentioned, it’s not going to win any Oscars (except maybe for special effects), but it’s good, clean, action-

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If you have a moment, view the Slate online magazine slide show on the history of American children's book illustrations, based on Timothy G. Young's book, Drawn To Enchant. The slide show does mention African American illustrators and books, including the 1982 book, Jake and Honeybunch Go to Heaven by Margot Zemach. Thanks to the blog 100 Scope Notes for the lead!

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