Sad news: special effects master Stan Winston has passed away at the much too young age of 62. RIP.
Keira Knightly as Eliza Doolittle in a new version of My Fair Lady? Uhm… For my part, My Fair Lady has always been my favorite musical, so obviously I look at this with a fair amount of trepidation. Meanwhile, you have to wonder if are they going to skip/alter some of Higgins’ (hilariously) sexist song lyrics, such as “A Hymn to Him”:
Why is thinking something women never do?
Why is logic never even tried?
Straightening up their hair is all they ever do.
Why don’t they, well, straighten up the mess that’s inside?
In any case, I’m sure the new version will make sure to point out much more strenuously than the Rex Harrison version Things that Are Wrong, just so that we rubes in the audience can be educated as well as entertained. Maybe Whoopi Goldberg could appear in a short before the film, warning, “Sexism was wrong then, and it’s wrong now.”
In similar news, Guy Ritchie is set to direct a big screen adventure for Sherlock Holmes….
With so much stuff out by now (still no Green Slime, though), they’re far fewer less awesome DVD releases these days. Still, having exhausted the store of Godzilla movies they had rights to, the fine folks at Classic Media, who have put out a simply fabulous series of Toho films up to now, are next to release a double bill of Rodan and (finally) War of the Gargantuas. The set will offer both the Japanese original cut and the “International” versions, aka in English (not the American dubs, though). Also included is an hour-plus documentary called Bringing Godzilla Down to Size. Damn, that’s awesome.
Also due out soon is the Jaws rip-off / political paranoia piece Barracuda, mated with something called Island Fury. That disc courtesy of Dark Skies, who generally give good product.
