"Looking to the past...
Ok, let's talk film. Well I am reading in THR.com, the following:
Stone has just closed a deal with Fox to direct the follow-up to "Wall Street," now tentatively called "Wall Street 2," with Douglas starring. This would provide an unusual amount of continuity since Stone directed and co-wrote, with Stanley Weiser, the original 1987 exploration of the inner workings of the finance sector and its complicated relationship with greed.
The plot line for the new "Wall Street" iteration has not been divulged, but it will pick up with corporate raider Gordon Gekko, the character for which Douglas won a best actor Oscar more than 20 years ago. Gekko's larger-than-life presence will once again loom over a younger upstart looking to navigate the shark-tank world of today's Wall Street.
Shia LaBeouf is in talks with the studio to take on the younger role. Stone and Co. hope to begin production over the summer.
The question I ask (and will aptly answer) is what happened to Oliver Stone anyway? Why does he feel the need to look into the rear view mirror of his past film and recreate a film that wasn't a franchise to begin with? The answer is obvious. He hasn't had a hit in a while. I am a huge fan of Oliver Stone and I will defend him to my dying day. His guerrilla approach to filmmaking is nothing less than inspiring. He takes risks and chances that Tarantino only dreams of. He started out as a screen writer, penning the scripts for Midnight Express and Scarface. Ha! Bet you didn't know that. Well, that's why I am here, to remind you of the lost talents of directors who are performing less than par today.
Stone's first film, "Platoon" won best picture of the year and rightly so. It was a incredibly realistic piece that showed war as a horrible place. You have to remember that Clint Eastwood and the string of Dirty Dozen like films back the 70's and even 1950's with "From Here To Eternity" and such were glorifying war. WW II made everyone a hero and films until the 70's were made to make war seem majestic and heroic. When the Vietnam war hit, the world knew that was was something different than the hero stories that our grandfather's told us...It was real, gritty and not triumphant as we we seeing on the screen.
Gritty, all too real...Fantastic...
Platoon was the first of it's kind in the realistic war scenario. Even Spielberg had to go back and set the WW II record straight with "Saving Private Ryan". Spielberg was not the first filmmaker to show was as the monster it is. So, here comes Oliver Stone fresh off writing really straight forward, political stuff with Midnight Express and Salvador. His newest script is a gritty look at the Vietnam war and it works. It changes the way all future war movies will be made.
A performance that gives me chills...
After that he does "Wall Street" which is a break from his political stories and it is so well made it is nominated for Best Pic and gets Douglas an Oscar, in a role so well played and written. Then Stone does his polical fare with "Born on the Forth of July", "JFK" and "Heaven and Earth". They all do very well and earn Oscars for every one.
"
"Enter Shia Labeouf...
Yet, he steps into what I will now call the Tarantino trap, retro here. As we all know Tarantino will lose his mojo with his new film. Stone does not reinvent his vision. He keeps hacking away at material that is too violent and unnecessary. In fact he teams with Tarantino for "Natural Born Killers" and for many an audience is it way over the top with violence. The mayhem that was once OK in war movies and "Scarface" is unnecessary for this new film. You see Stone toning down a bit and refocusing with "Nixon" and "Any Given Sunday", yet he now lacks the ability to cover new ground no matter what ground he tries to expose. As an audience, we have grown tired of his maverick liberal style thrown in our face. What worked in "JFK" is no longer a hot item.
Even with his recent stuff, "Alexander" was a mess, yet if you watch the "Final Cut", it is actually quite good. Though that version clocks in at four hours. The three hour version is not very good. His latest, "W." is good, but gets ignored by critics and the audience.
Well to make a long story short. Stone is realizing that he needs to reinvent himself or he will sink. He knows he needs to stop making liberal political pics and start making film that will appeal to a broad audience. It is the "17 Again" factor. The Zac Efron film was a shallow as a puddle of water, yet it was basic and appealed to a broad audience. And that's what it is all about. "Platoon" and "Wall Street" appealed to a broad audience and they worked. A film about George Bush does not appeal to a large audience, especially when no one liked him in office to begin with.
Does this mean that he should do an "Obama" film? Well I am sure one with Denzel Washington is in the works as we speak. But, in the mean time Stone is doing what Tarantino will have to do soon. They will have will have to reinvent themselves. Spielberg did it. He stopped doing the "Wonderment" kids films of the 80's after "Hook" bombed. Now he does real gritty film and he is the master. Stone will go back to the basics of attracting a wide audience. Shia's casting is not a bad idea actually. I hope Stone's best work is yet to come.
Will other directors like Tarantino reinvent themselves to stay fresh and successful or will they fail over and over. I am sure we will see a Pulp Fiction 2 in order to save Tarantio's career in five years. Bank on that! Until tomorrow, let's talk film!
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