The Waiting is the Hard Part

I am never late for a movie. Before the lights go down, I always end up sitting for at least a good 15 to 20 minutes in the Green Hills Cinema 16 with Britney Spears or Backstreet Boys being blasted at me at an extraordinarily uncomfortable volume. This is not my choice—it’s my wife’s. She can’t stand to miss the trailers. She loves trailers. She loves to watch that Coming Attractions show on the E! network. In fact, I think she likes the previews for upcoming movies and television shows more than the actual movies and programs themselves.

If you’ve seen a heavily hyped film or TV show in the past year, you really can’t blame her: The trailers are often better and more promising than the very thing they’re promoting. So if you’re like me and my honey, and you’re looking forward to anticipating wanting to see something, then here are some things coming down the pipeline over the next year that may get your blood flowing one way or another.

♦ One of the most highly anticipated films of the summer season is Tim Burton’s version of the 1968 sci-fi classic Planet of the Apes. The cast alone is enough to get you jumping out of your seat: Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, the always welcome Kris Kristofferson, and heart-stoppingly angelic model Estella Warren as the token mute-pretty-girl-in-fur-bikini. Several intriguing rumors have also emerged from the set, including something about a human/ape sex scene, George Clooney appearing in a small role as an ape general, and Charlton Heston coming back for a cameo—this time as one of those damn dirty apes.

But the latest news is the most tantalizing yet. Britain’s Guardian reported last week that Burton has shot five different endings for the movie, and the one he chose is a real kicker. Burton has maintained from the beginning that this is not a remake but a new version, and there will be no Statue of Liberty poking out of the sand. See you in line.

♦ Two of the most startling new film talents of the past decade, Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, followed up their breakthrough successes with considerable disappointments. Since Pulp Fiction, Tarantino has squandered his talent trying to act in several misguided movies and directing one good but only moderately successful film, Jackie Brown. Meanwhile, the film world is waiting for him to come back swinging.

Well, from what I can tell, we’re going to have to keep waiting. Despite reports that Tarantino was working on a film called Kill Bill with Uma Thurman, it was revealed last week that he may be writing a Pulp prequel featuring the Vega brothers, Vic (Michael Madsen in Resevoir Dogs) and Vincent (John Travolta in Pulp Fiction). On the surface, it seems like a fun idea, but it also suggests an artist who has run out of ideas. For a director whose films borrowed heavily from other movies, it’s kind of sad when he’s got to start stealing inspiration from himself.

Paul Thomas Anderson dazzled audiences in ’97 with his heartfelt tale about the misfits of ’70s porn, Boogie Nights. Then he made one of the most overwrought, unbearable, histrionic, pretentious messes of recent memory with ’99’s Magnolia. Now possibly digging himself a deeper hole, Anderson just wrapped his next film, starring the detestable Adam Sandler. I can’t think of a more untalented or unfunny man to receive a $20 million paycheck. The ludicrous plot involves Sandler’s character, the owner of a phone-sex business, becoming obsessed with obtaining frequent-flyer miles given away with the purchase of a brand of pudding, then using the miles to fly to Hawaii and search for a woman he met, played by Emily Watson.

Yes, you read that correctly.

♦ In September, ABC will be bringing us The Runner, a Matt Damon-Ben Affleck executive-produced reality show in which viewers are given 28 days to find a literal cross-country runner: If the runner makes it to the other side of the country, he gets a million dollars; if a viewer catches the runner, he or she gets the million dollars. Could this sound any more boring? I’d be more interested if the viewer were challenged to find the runner and throw things at him to make him stop. Either that, or the runner is forced to chain-smoke an entire pack of filterless Camels first thing in the morning and see how long it takes him to pass out. Now, that’d be entertainment!

♦ FOX is in the midst of casting a hip-hop TV-movie version of The Wizard of Oz. Of course, this has already been done—it was called The Wiz and featured a pre-plastic-surgery Michael Jackson. Rumors are that the king of gangsta badassness himself, Justin Timberlake, will play the brainless scarecrow, which is just blatant typecasting. But the real excitement (for me, at least) is the casting of R&B teen diva Mya as Dorothy. (I’ll admit it—I am nurturing an ever-growing crush on this young beauty.)