Thursday, September 07, 2006

Linkage: 'Truth,' goof and 'Sleuth'

The improbably popular An Inconvenient Truth -- Al Gore's surprisingly fascinating and compelling eco-conscious documentary -- will be released Nov. 21 in what's being described as "earth-friendly" packaging. Well, of course.

Meanwhile, over at FishBowlLA, an indelicate question is raised: Why did Fox decide to dump Mike Judge's Idiocracy?

And what's all this, then? Jude Law starring in another remake of a Michael Caine movie? Actually, Caine himself also is slated to appear in the new version of Sleuth, playing the flamboyant mystery writer memorably essayed by Laurence Olivier in the 1972 original. Law will take over the character originally portrayed by Caine, a hunky hairdresser who has designs on the writer's wife. Kenneth Branagh will handle the directing chores for the remake -- which, like the '72 version (directed by Joseph Mankiewicz) -- is based on the ingeniously plotted play by the late Anthony Shaffer (whose 1973 screenplay for The Wicker Man recently was recycled, with unfortunate results, as a Nicolas Cage vehicle). All of which raises another indelicate question: How can the remake possibly hope to score the same impact as the '72 movie? In this Internet era of spoiler-filled blogs and fansites, it will be almost impossible to keep the play's (and the original film's) jaw-dropping plot twist a secret from the uninitiated until the remake hits megaplexes.

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