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Estate Sales Are Not Great Places for Dates

By Brian Prisco | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (8)

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Leave Stanley alone!

Whenever an creative person dies, someone like J.D. Salinger, chances are they’re going to leave reams of unpublished or unproduced material. And while the part of me that respects their work is anxious to see that material see the light of day, the common sense motherfucker wants that shit buried where it can’t be tainted. It’s not just words on a page that make something magical, but the artist’s integral vision and styling. The shit’s unfinished for a reason.

When Stanley Kubrick passed, he supposedly left behind several unproduced screenplays and projects. One of them was Lunatic at Large, a project penned by my favorite grizzled noir-smasher, Jim Thompson. It deals with a psychotic ex-carnival worker who escapes from a mental institution and meets up in a bar with a young lady. I’m picturing this in black and white with the hardboiled edge of Jim Thompson working — his usual bastard narration and mean-spirited characters getting the hell beat out of them.

Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson are attached, which is probably the best fit you can find for a Thompson project — other than Casey Affleck and Jessica Alba in the upcoming The Killer Inside Me. Thompson protagonists are wiry and dangerous like a coiled serpent, and the bombshells are usually curvy and pouty-lipped. The kind of girl you’d see smoking a cigarette and eating a piece of diner pie. So that’s not the part that worries me.

They’ve got Stephen R. Clarke writing and Chris Palmer possibly set to direct. Don’t recognize the names? Of course you don’t. Clarke’s done some script work on television shows you’ve never heard of and Palmer’s a fucking commercial director. So these are the guys to take up Kubrick’s mantle? Fuck and that. You want someone to do Thompson type work? John Hillcoat, James Mangold, hell even Sam Mendes or even Casey’s big brother, Ben.

Two letters make me worry the fuck out of the project: A.I. Spielberg got his hands on the Kubrick property and worked his “magic” and the final project was an unholy mess. You could literally see the dividing lines between the Kubrickian elements and Spielberg’s little artsy touches, which is why you get a talking teddy bear-andriod paired with a sexbot.

(Source: The Playlist and Production Weekly)









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Comments

Oh, but I would pay for Jude to be my sexbot anyday.

And, I love Sam Rockwell in ANYTHING.

Posted by: dammitjanet at April 19, 2010 12:01 PM

It's a tragic thing when an artist dies before completing his work.

It's an equally tragic thing when someone else tries to complete their work with their own artistic vision.

It's an equally tragic thing when someone eles tries to complete their work by imitating the artistic vision of the original artist.

It's an equally tragic thing that the art never sees the light of day.

It's tragic all over.

Posted by: superasente at April 19, 2010 1:11 PM

Johannson is clearly trying to get back into my good graces after everything she's done post-Lost In Translation by shacking up with a Kubrick movie co-starring Sam Rockwell.

...And dammit, it just might work.

Posted by: ChristianH at April 19, 2010 1:28 PM

Wait a minute, what's not to like in a teddy-bear paired with a sexbot??? AI has a lot of awesome stuff, and that's one of them! Yeah, it was probably supposed to be way better, and the movie is kind of messy and boring in lots of parts, but it's still a good movie, a very nice sci-fi compared to all the trash we are used to. And in this case, we are better off with a movie not-as-good-as-it-should-have-been then no movie at all.

Posted by: zito at April 19, 2010 2:32 PM

I guess I could see if the screenplay was finished and a decent director put in place - but if someone else is going to finish writing, leave Stanley's name out of it.

Posted by: Cindy at April 19, 2010 2:39 PM

"psychotic ex-carnival worker who escapes from a mental institution"

Sam Rockwell playing this is JUST SO MUCH YES that it actually transcends language.

Posted by: Mimi at April 19, 2010 6:00 PM

Casey Affleck is an incredible actor. Just saying.

Posted by: A-schaef at April 20, 2010 6:47 AM

"You could literally see the dividing lines between the Kubrickian elements and Spielberg’s little artsy touches, which is why you get a talking teddy bear-andriod paired with a sexbot.

Actually, A.I. was based on a science fiction short story. And guess what, it got a teddy bear in it. So this teddy bear is not just Spielberg's "little artsy touches" but staying true to the source, you little prick.

Posted by: Arthur Dent at April 20, 2010 8:28 PM