Last we checked in with the Wachowski, er, siblings, they were busy doing high-minded stuff like Cloud Atlas and that

Andy and Lana (formerly Larry) Wachowski are returning to the Warner Bros. fold with Hood, a modern, urban take on the Robin Hood myth.
The Wachowskis wrote the script and will direct the tale, which in keeping with the modus operendi of the duo, is shrouded in secrecy.
The pair are already reaching out to actors, with insiders saying Will Smith as one of those who they reached out to.
While a take on Robin Hood may not be much to go on, knowing the proclivities of the duo, it will undoubtedly have a brand of visual take and their comic book-fused pop art sensitivities. [THR]

Ooh, ‘modus operandi.’  You can fancy this up with your Latin words all you want, it won’t disguise the fact that ‘an urban take on Robin Hood called Hood’ sounds like a poster in Tracy Jordan’s office, or a Martin Lawrence bit that starts with, ‘You know if that’d a been a brother stealin from the rich, he’d a been all like…”

Might as well have called it “Robbin’ Hood.”  You could have a poster with Ice Cube holding up a big burlap sack with a dollar sign on it.

A while back, I posted the above picture of Arianna Huffington with the Wachowski Siblings on the set of a test shoot for a film we didn’t know much about at the time.  But based on the latest news from Cannes, it seems that it’s some kind of Brokeback Mountain set in the Iraq war.

This one’s a drama that focuses on a “hard R” homosexual relationship between a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi. It’s a cinema verite-style treatment that begins in the near future and then spans back over years that include the current war in Iraq. I’ve heard the siblings completed the script, want to direct it next, and that it is out to financiers. [Deadline]

Well that’s great.  When it comes to gay relationship movies, my first question is always whether it’s going to be as graphic as allowed under current law.  GRR, PYRAMID OF NAKED DUDES!  But wait, there’s more.  According to SlashFilm, Jesse Ventura is in it too:

Wait til you hear what they did. They brought me, and they brought Arianna Huffington in after me. Arianna was there, and they had her looking like cleopatra. What they did… Do you remember what John Travolta looked like in that horrible film Battlefield Earth? They put multicolored dreadlocks on me all the way to here. They gave me this crazy beard that was hanging down pointed, looked like Travolta, right? And they put a third eye in the middle of my forehead. Because what this is, is this is a hundred years in the future, and they wanted me to talk about the current war in Iraq and how I felt about it. And so I got to vent, looking like this maniac in this whole outfit.

So, uh, based on what we know, it’s basically a futuristic movie about gay sex that happened in the past, with commentary from wacky, third-party political candidates.  At this rate, I’m assuming there’s a scene where the head of H. Ross Perot shows up to discuss “the giant sucking sound.”

He thought it was NAFTA.  What this movie presupposes is, maybe it was rough gay sex?

Arianna Huffington recently Tweefed pictures from what she says is the set of the Wachowski siblings “futuristic movie on Iraq.” Some people said she was probably actually just filming a screen test, while others said it could be for the adaptation of Cloud Atlas they’re producing, though that doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with Iraq.  Bottom line, no one knows and who really cares.

I was just interested to see how Lana (née Larry) was looking these days, especially after they laughed off those sex-change rumors not too long ago (in an article by Roger Friedman, it should be noted).   So at least now we know she’s going by Lana.  And I gotta say, she doesn’t look half bad as a chick, all things considered.  Kind of like the quirky lesbian friend.  If I didn’t know she used to be a dude, and you put a gun to my head and told me I had to do one of the chicks in that picture, I’m not sure which I’d choose.  Though why would you ever do that?  You’ve got some issues, man.

(I think she kinda looks like a cross between Adam Duritz and Alanis Morrissette.  Either way, she’d totally fit in at a Twilight convention.)

[via /Film]

(It’s ironic that the spark factory is where dudes most often go shirtless)

I’m still convinced this film is going to blow massive yak nuts, but at least Ninja Assassin finally has a decent trailer.  It’s basically the male equivalent of Twilight.  Full of lame clichés and even sort of missing the whole point as to what it’s supposed to be about (confuses macho posturing for violence just like Twilight confuses melodrama with romance), at least this one focuses on the blood instead of the horrible plot.  Granted, the blood is CGI as are the weapons, but it does have a shirtless Asian guy in a spark factory and a chick getting chopped up and stuffed in washing machine.  Not exactly my fetish, but… I could ‘bate to it.

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(“Hey, bros, watch me pose shirtless with these swords I never actually cut anyone with.”)

I always get a couple people whining in the comments section when I rip on Ninja Assassin (from Wachowski Bros protege James McTeigue and Korean pop star Rain), but come on, tell me this synopsis doesn’t give you a major case of the dismissive wanks.  From Collider:

Raizo is one of the deadliest assassins in the world. Taken from the streets as a child, he was transformed into a trained killer by the Ozunu Clan, a secret society whose very existence is considered a myth. But haunted by the merciless execution of his friend by the Clan, Raizo breaks free from them…and vanishes. Now he waits, preparing to exact his revenge. In Berlin, Europol agent Mika Coretti has stumbled upon a money trail linking several political murders to an underground network of untraceable assassins from the Far East. Defying the orders of her superior, Mika digs into top secret agency files to learn the truth behind the murders. Her investigation makes her a target, and the Ozunu Clan sends a team of killers to silence her forever. Raizo saves Mika from her attackers, but he knows that the Clan will not rest until they are both eliminated. Now, entangled in a deadly game of cat and mouse through the streets of Europe, Raizo and Mika must trust one another if they hope to survive…and finally bring down the elusive Ozunu Clan.

Blow me.  And of course the clips are all stylized slo-mo and wire fu.  Haha, I love you, masturbatory posturing.  All I’m saying is if you film two guys sword fighting, someone better be getting a limb cut off or else they may as well be frotting.
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