Trailer Tuesday: Noah

-

Brace yourself for controversy of a Biblical scale. Because opening early next year is this "timeless" take on the Noah's Ark tale, called, rather unsurprisingly Noah. 

In a role that is not so different from his work as Jor-El in Man of Steel, Russell Crowe is a good man who receives visions from God that the world is going to be destroyed. No one will believe Noah that a catastrophic flood is coming to rid the world of sinners, least of all vindictive local ruler and rival Ray Winstone. Still, Noah and his family - including wife Jennifer Connelly, sons Logan Lerman and Douglas Booth, plus adopted daughter Emma Watson - commence the task of building a giant, tar-slapped ark to survive the impending Flood. Anthony Hopkins also appears in the film as Noah's geriatric grandfather Methuselah.


Acclaimed writer-director Darren Aronofsky is the man at the helm of Noah, and given that this is the same filmmaker responsible for Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan and, especially, The Fountain, cinemagoers can certainly look forward to some dazzling, surreal dream sequences... which may or may not put the devout in a panic.

For the record, Noah is based on Aronofsky's own story, which has already appeared in graphic novel form over in Europe and is soon to be released by Image Comics in the US. In the comic, Noah's story is given a sci-fi spin, with events set in the ancient past or - Cloud Atlas-style - a future so distant that civilisation has collapsed and humanity is once again surviving day to day in the muck.

Personally I think this interpretation sounds fantastic. However, negative response to Aronofsky's taking of non-literal creative licence at test screenings suggest that the director will be fighting some serious studio meddling in the coming months. All so that Paramount doesn't enrage the religious types with this $130 million epic. Here's hoping the film doesn't suffer for attempts to make it "safe."

Noah opens in North America on 28 March 2014. The film's South African release date is tentatively set at this stage for the same day.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is the rebooted Lara Croft gay? Evidence for and against...

-
Image
As some of you know, I’ve been fangirling hard over the new Tomb Raider , the first entry in the video game series since 2008, and ostensibly a reboot for the entire franchise . Taking the form of an origin story, Tomb Raider 2013 depicts the events that transformed a beautiful, if bookish, archaeology graduate into a pistol-packing adventurer with a devil-may-care attitude. We meet Lara Croft as a pretty, fairly ordinary 21 year old, brooding over her work notes, listening to her mp3 player and very much confined to the shadow of her male mentors. By the end of the game, however, she’s taken charge – she’s had to! – and, battered, bruised and bloody, she’s both a survivor and hero, right down to rescuing the princess and carrying her away in her arms. Yeah, this is probably the best point to mention that there will be some Tomb Raider 2013 spoilers in this post, so read ahead with caution. Anyway, I loved the game. Technically it’s near faultless, it looks beautiful, the ov...
Read more

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Queer Icon (Part 4)

-
Image
Part 4: The mystery of Lara Croft’s sexuality “Now what’s a man gotta do to get that kind of attention from ya?” – Larson Conway (Tomb Raider, 1996) Despite being an icon for many queer pop culture consumers, Lara Croft’s own sexual orientation remains ambiguous. Outside of the Top Cow comics and live-action films – where Lara is blatantly heterosexual, with a fondness for slightly scruffy bad boys (who keep betraying and hurting her) – the character comes across as primarily asexual. Kurtis Trent is the only male figure who even comes close to being a love interest in the game series. Lara's apparent sexual disinterest is despite the adventurer appearing very sexually attractive herself; a figure of desire with bee-stung lips, voluptuous breasts, toned stomach and impossibly long, athlete’s legs. Yet Lara is never dominated by sexual yearnings or romantic affections. She is very much in control of herself at all times. It’s worth noting, however, that over time th...
Read more

Ladies I Love: Part 2 - Rhona Mitra

-
Image
Following on from the first post in this series , you may realise that I have a very definite type. Anyway, today we profile model-turned-actress Rhona Mitra . This 36 year old Briton is of English, Irish and Indian descent. You'll have seen her pop up on the big and small screen multiple over the past decade and a half, although Mitra's claim to fame is that she was the second ever model (some say first if you rule out "unofficial"  Nathalie Cook ) to play iconic video game character Lara Croft . From 1997-1998, Mitra could be found in PR material, as well as at trade shows, events and conventions as a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Tomb Raider 's kick-ass archeologist lead. There have been many official Lara Croft models over the years , but as far as I'm concerned Mitra remains the best. In my mind, of all of them, she most closely resembles the video game character in terms of facial features. Plus she comes from money and had a rebellious boarding...
Read more