Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
Trailer for "The Pacific"

Tom Hanks’ and Steven Spielberg’s “Band of Brothers” – the ten-part WWII miniseries that premiered on HBO in 2001 – was a gripping, nuanced, and often philosophical look at the horrors of war, told from the perspectives of a band of soldiers enmeshed in the very heart of it.

I remember how the series really was the first thing, back in 2001, that drew me into World War II and military history. It seemed to have struck such a miraculous balance – steadying the often simultaneously exhilarating and horrifying experience of combat with a poignant, truthful look at the nature of humanity. It shows the power that good storytellers like Hanks and Spielberg have, when they choose to examine stories and events in history that fascinate them.

For a few years now, Hanks and Spielberg have also been working on a reprisal for HBO, a sort of companion series that would examine World War II through the lives of a different set of soldiers, in a different war theater.

From Empire Magazine:

Based on veteran Eugene Sledge’s wartime account With The Old Breed, The Pacific follows three Marines into combat against the Japanese in 1942, island-hopping across the brutal, blood-saturated battlefields of the Pacific campaign and back home again post-VJ Day.

We received the first glimpse of the new series yesterday, with a trailer that premiered on HBO. (I’ve linked to an online copy on YouTube.) It’s absolutely riveting and totally worth a few minutes of your day.

Jun 22, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Tintin is ready for Hollywood

The Los Angeles Times:

He turns 80 this year but still looks 18, with the same fair-haired quiff. Like Madonna and Sting, two other famous blonds, he goes by one name. Mention him and a European is likely to cheer, while an American is more apt to go, “Huh?” But that’s destined to change now that Steven Spielberg is making a movie based on his life.

He is Tintin, intrepid cub reporter and nemesis of evildoers, whose long career in numerous cartoon strips and comic books, with faithful dog Snowy at his side, has made him one of Belgium’s most celebrated exports (up there with chocolate and waffles).

… Just in case you hadn’t yet heard about the $130 million dollar project, which just wrapped.

Spielberg’s had the long-running Tintin comic series optioned and under development for decades, and it was announced in 2007 that he would partner with Peter Jackson to produce a trilogy of films featuring the young reporter – with the two trading off as directors, Steven directing the first, Peter the second, and then them co-directing the third. They’re using an innovative motion-capture method – similar to what was used to create Gollum in “Lord of the Rings,” as well as to make Robert Zemeckis’ “The Polar Express” and “Monster House,” and even to age Brad Pitt in David Fincher’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – which will allow them to hopefully replicate the original style of Georges ‘Hergé’ Remi’s comic books.

From the sounds of it, though, Tintin will mark a fairly revolutionary advance in this kind of movie-making. I’m picturing something of a stylized, film noir-like mix between the 2004 “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” and maybe a more two-dimensional and alive-looking (i.e. sans creepy, glass-eyed Santa Claus) “The Polar Express”, though I could be completely off. Here’s what Jackson said to Variety about the film’s look in 2007:

Jackson said WETA will stay true to Remi’s original designs in bringing the cast of Tintin to life, but that the characters won’t look cartoonish. “Instead,” Jackson said, “we’re making them look photorealistic; the fibers of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people — but real Herge people!”

Daniel Craig, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost are among the cast, and Jamie Bell stars in the title role. (Though I much preferred the first casting choice: Thomas Sangster. That kid has just got it.)

“The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn” is set to release in 2011.

May 25, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , , , , , , , :: #

Steven Spielberg, Gamer Dad

From WhatTheyPlay.com, a look at another side of filmmaker Steven Spielberg:

“I’m old enough to be able to say that I was the first person to ever play Pong in my generation back in 1976 back when I was making Jaws. I was shooting Jaws on Martha’s Vineyard and somebody wheeled a Pong to the carousel ride in Oak Bluffs. And Richard Dreyfuss and I would unwind after those torturous days of shooting that movie almost five nights a week playing Pong with each other in the carousel. My interest in video games is really from the outset of the industry before it was a revolution.” – Steven Spielberg

The rest of the article is about Steven’s love of video games, his involvement in game development, and playing video games as a family. His latest game, Boom Blox Bash Party, is a sequel to the successful Boom Blox – an interactive, multi-person experience that he says was based on the idea of “knocking things down” the way “we play with our kids.” Ultimately, he views both games as a way of bringing families together, as a family activity.

[In] our family, we have older kids and younger kids – I have seven kids – the older kids play the M-rated games the younger kids are playing the E-rated games and therefore they don’t ever play in the same space. I wanted to get a game that would bring the entire family participating together, and that’s where the idea for Boom Box came from. It was that need to bring the gaming family into the same space.

He also talks about user-generated content in games (where kids construct, rather than destruct), the economics of video games as entertainment, and the intersection of the movies and gaming industries. It’s a great read.

May 19, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #