When I first heard the “Hey, Stoker! Or is it Stroker now?” line in the trailer for Stoker, I figured it was just another addition to the canon of assholishly self-amused bonehead movie bullies, a favorite stock character of mine (Cherita’s tormenters in Donnie Darko being a particular highlight). I didn’t realize it would turn out to be such a prophetic statement. Stoker really IS more like Stroker, an art-film 101 jerk-off session. It feels like symbolism in search of a story, provocativeness without a point, and if I hadn’t seen Oldboy, I’d think Chan-wook Park was some art school wannabe. Since I have seen Oldboy, let’s call it an off night. Or maybe directing a film written in a non-native tongue is just really hard. Yeah, probably the second one.

On the plus side, Park and writer Wentworth Miller (that bald dude from Prison Break, strangely enough) have made my mandatory paragraph of summary really easy: troubled India Stoker (played by Mia Wasikowska in ridiculous colored contact lenses) is your typical rich, broody, possibly-psychic pale chick straight out of every Tim Burton movie. When her dad dies, her creepy uncle Charles (Matthew Goode) moves in, presumably to put the moves on her slutty weird mom, Nicole Kidman. And that’s pretty much it for set up.

I call her uncle “creepy,” but actually, almost everything he does for the first two-thirds or so of the movie could be considered normal, or even polite, and it’s only the framing and music that make it creepy. It feels like Park didn’t really understand the subtext of the script he was shooting (or more accurately, the lack thereof). In fact, the first 30-40 minutes of the movie consists almost entirely of mundane action and dialog, made to feel foreboding through forced music, editing tricks, and stock “ominous movie” shots, like the one where the ingenue in her ethereal white dress opens her second-floor window to a gentle breeze and looks down at her antagonist, ominously waving and smiling up at her as he does something weird in the garden. The content doesn’t make it portentous, only the form does. You’re not quite sure why you’re watching it, other than that someone clearly thinks it’s important. (That someone? You guessed it, Frank Stallone).

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Korea’s Park Chan-wook has been a cult favorite director ever since 2003′s Oldboy (which is currently being remade by Spike Lee), but somehow, he hasn’t left home to make Hollywood feature (probably all that sweet, Korean P-tang). That is… until now! Stoker stars Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska, Jackie Weaver, and Dermot Mulroney, whose name I imagine being almost impossible for a Korean dude to pronounce.

After India’s (Wasikowska’s) father dies in an auto accident, her Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), who she never knew existed, comes to live with her and her emotionally unstable mother Evelyn (Kidman). Soon after his arrival, she comes to suspect this mysterious, charming man has ulterior motives, but instead of feeling outrage or horror, this friendless girl becomes increasingly infatuated with him. [Apple]

“Hey, Stoker! Or is STROKER now? Because I heard that’s what your MOM’s been doing. To your UNCLE.”

Yes, that is real dialog (1:16 mark). My God, this Korean. He always knows the quickest way to my heart (with a hammer, or bad bully puns). And it’s like he’s practically begging me to point out that the dad’s name was “Dick Stoker.” It’s no “Mike Hawk,” but it’ll do. Yes, I will see this movie. Opens March 1st, 2013.

Chan-Wook Park’s Oldboy (2003) is one of those foreign films that so many people have already seen that a remake would almost be sacrilege, but in the eyes of studio execs, people who watch foreign films aren’t an audience worth considering anyway so shut up while Kevin James takes a gorilla ice skating.  Last we heard, a deal that would’ve had Spielberg and Will Smith involved in the remake fell through when Dreamworks and Mandate couldn’t come to an agreement.  But Mandate apparently still owns the rights to the remake, and now Twitch reports that they’re in talks with Spike Lee to direct.  Yes, Spike Lee. I for one can’t wait for ODay Sioux’s inevitable out-of-context rant about how much he hates Arab cab drivers.

Twitch has learned that Spike Lee is currently in talks to direct the long-rumored Hollywood remake of Park Chan-Wook´s Oldboy.
The film is set up at Mandate with Doug Davison and Roy Lee producing and Mark Protosevich (Thor, I Am Legend) writing the script.

The original starred the brilliant Min-Sik Choi as Oh Dae-Su, a man with five days to find and exact his revenge on the man who imprisoned him for 15 years.  Whether a straight remake or a new adaptation of the original manga, I imagine Spike Lee’s version would play out much the same way. “Oldboy 2: Who you callin’ ‘Boy?”” they could call it.

(“Stop.  Hammer time.”)

Good news, everyone: I wrote a humorous headline.  Also, Steven Spielberg and Will Smith’s planned remake of Park Chan-Wook’s Old Boy (actually, if you want to get technical, it was supposed to be a separate adaptation of the original Old Boy manga) is dead.  Latino Review reports that it was killed when Dreamworks couldn’t come to a deal with Mandate pictures.

So now if you want to see Old Boy, you’ll just have to watch Old Boy.  And to get your fill of Will, you’ll have to satisfy yourself with his remake of Karate Kid, Flowers for Algernon,  I Am Legend 2, Hancock 2, Men in Black 3, Bad Boys 3, that street magician movie, the Hurricane Katrina movie, and God knows what else. Will Smith is basically the Michael Jordan of acting, in that no one knows his actual personality, which as it turns out is really good for business.  That’s why publicists coach actors and athletes to answer all questions with variations on the same clichés. That, and Tom Cruise is a succubus.  It’s true, I read it in Science Magazine.

Okay, folks, it’s comments of the week time again, and this time I’ve got prizes to give away.  First place gets a Thirst poster autographed by the director and the soundtrack, three runners up win the soundtrack. Thirst opened in select theaters on Friday. You can see when it will be in your queer town here.

The way COMMENTS OF THE WEEK works is: at any time this week, when you read a comment you think worthy of recognition, YOU nominate it by copy and pasting it in the comments section below.  I pick the winner from among the nominees the following Sunday/Monday. (To help you find it more easily, the nomination thread is always linked in the ABOUT section).

FIRST PLACE – from the James Cameron with a gun post – goes to… Read the rest of this entry »