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Lady of the lake
Call Lav Diaz's latest film Essential Truths of the Lake a prequel to his When the Waves are Gone (Kung Wala Nang Mga Alon 2022); call the film a deeper dive into Diaz's returning character Hermes Papauran, the oft-described 'greatest Filipino investigator ever.'
That was the mantra Oliver Stone reportedly repeated to himself while making his latest feature -- the idea being to show what happened on September 11, 2001, when two passenger jets hit the Twin Towers and sent them tumbling down. "The details are the details are the details," he says, having been told in no uncertain terms by producers Michael Shamberg and Stacy Sher (who gave him the aforementioned mantra) to keep the paranoid conspiracy theories to a minimum (JFK anyone?) and stick to facts.
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(Warning: story discussed in explicit detail)
Cantonese folk hero Wong Fei-hung has no real equivalent in other cultures -- what if Abraham Lincoln could kick so high hard fast his leg would leave no shadow? What if Jose Rizal was not just an accomplished healer and martial arts master (he's both, plus naturalist, sculptor, poet, and popular novelist) but bald as an ostrich egg? What if writer-producer-director Tsui Hark retold Wong's long-popular exploits in epic form, arguably one of the high points if not the high point of Hong Kong cinema's golden age?
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Some folks may find it hard to believe (having trouble myself) but The Meg and its present sequel Meg 2: The Trench are adapted from a pair of science-fiction novels by Steve Altern, with a possible six more books if this installment makes money (indications suggesting it will). Adapted by three writers no less, which raises the question: can you even tell?
I remember that Lubitsch version and loved it for the effervescent humor, the witticisms flipped at you like little crepes; at the same time it was a lavish production-- the ballroom scene alone had hundreds of extras and a thousand gaslights, and MacDonald wore a dozen gowns. Lubitsch, apparently, could direct a big production and still keep his signature airy tone.
Erich Von Stroheim's The Merry Widow you'd hardly recognize as the same creature except for the famous waltz that plays a prominent role in the plot. He delves into the widow's backstory, building up a failed romance between the widow (Mae Murray)-- who starts out as Sally O'Hara, dancer for the traveling show The Manhattan Follies-- and Prince Danilo (John Gilbert); against them he pits Crown Prince Mirko (Roy D'Arcy), a repulsive example of royal inbreeding, all smirks and leers and hypocritical fastidiousness (he loathes flies, but laughs in agreement when Danilo calls him a swine).
