Remembering Stan Winston: Cameron, McG, Favreau, Wright, Darabont
The passing of Stan Winston hit everyone off guard yesterday, including the many people who have worked with the legend over the years.
McG has posted a statement on the Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins website, declaring his intention to dedicate the fourth Terminator film to the memory of Stan. Here is an excerpt: “Stan was a good guy who was in it for all the right reasons. He loved what he did. Stan confided in me once, that he created imaginary monsters as a child to keep him company. He said he felt like the only kid in the world who did this. Little did he know his childhood friends would come to be the heroes of millions. You are not alone Stan, the fruit of your imagination will be with us forever.”
Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright blogged: “A real genius. And a sad loss.”
Meanwhile, AICN has done an awesome job of gathering statements from some of the filmmakers who have worked with him over the years. Here are some highlights.
James Cameron: “We’ve lost a great artist, a man who made a contribution to the cinema of the fantastic that will resound for a long long time. I don’t need to list the indelible characters he and his team of artists brought to the screen. Readers of your site know them. We all know Stan’s work, the genius of his designs. But not even the fans necessarily know how great he was as a man. I mean a real man — a man who knows that even though your artistic passion can rule your life, you still make time for your family and your friends. He was a good father, and he raised two great kids. His wife of 37 years, Karen, was with him in the beginning, helping him make plaster molds in their garage for low budget gigs on TV movies, and she was with him at the end.”
Jon Favreau: “He was a giant. I was blessed to have known him. I worked with him on both Zathura and Iron Man. He was experienced and helped guide me while never losing his childlike enthusiasm. He was the king of integrating practical effects with CGI, never losing his relevance in an ever changing industry. I am proud to have worked with him and we were looking forward to future collaborations. I knew that he was struggling, but I had no idea that he would be gone so soon. Hollywood has lost a shining star.”
Frank Darabont: “One of the blessings of being in movies is when you meet icons whose work you deeply admire and they turn out to be fantastic people. They’re the ones you’re honored to encounter along the way, the people who are kind and gracious and inspiring in addition to being superbly talented. They exhibit genuine humanity and touch your heart in various ways, and you foolishly figure they’ll always be around to get to know better as the years go on. But then they are taken far too soon, and you’re left with the deep and lasting regret of not having gotten to know them nearly as well as you’d wanted or expected to. I’ve met and lost a number of extraordinary people who fall into this category, among them Roddy McDowell, John Frankenheimer, Sidney Pollack, Dave Stevens, and John Alvin. Stan Winston now sadly joins my list.”
Read the full letters, including more from Joe Dante, Rick Baker, Monster Squad director Fred Dekker and others on AICN.
American version of Spaced put to rest?
If the rumors are to be believed, then the inevitable has occurred. Fox has passed on the Americanized version of Spaced (nicknamed “McSpaced”) and its fans are breathing a collective sigh of relief.
Producer McG made a huge mistake when he decided to not include the creators of the original, British version in his remake yet he included their as if they were still involved. Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes-Stevenson and Edgar Wright have been very vocal in their displeasure regarding the remake.
Known for its cinematic style and pop culture references, the original Spaced launched the careers of everyone involved. Pegg and Wright have gone on to bigger and better things (such as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) and Stevenson has starred in several British productions afterwards.
It’s never a good sign when one is trying to remake a show and pisses off the original creators. NBC was smart enough to have the creators of The Office rewrite their original pilot and give them creator credits. Why couldn’t Spaced?
[via Aint It Cool]
Schwimmer Lords Over Little Britain
Who knew David Schwimmer was such an Anglophile?
Fresh from his feature directorial debut, the veddy British comedy Run Fat Boy Run, the former Friends star is currently helming the Los Angeles-set segments of the upcoming HBO six-parter Little Britain USA, based on the BBC sketch show of the same name (minus the USA part).
Like the U.K. original, the series will still focus on the adventures of comedians Matt Lucas and David Walliams, albeit in a variety of North American settings. Production is currently underway in North Carolina.
Guest stars appearing in Schwimmer’s segments so far have included Rosie O’Donnell and Sting.
Schwimmer, who also directed the occasional episode of Friends, got decent reviews for his effort on Run Fat Boy Run, but the tale of a commitment-phobic schmoe, played by Simon Pegg, who enters a marathon to win his awfully hot girlfriend back wasn’t as well received as the recent Pegg-starring indie sleeper hits Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.
SXSW Movie Review: Run, Fat Boy, Run
In just three films, actor/comedian/screenwriter Simon Pegg has gone from playing a lovable, if clueless, slacker fighting off a zombie apocalypse and saving his girlfriend, his best friend, and a pint of beer (not necessarily in that order) in Shaun of the Dead to an anti-slacker/overachiever/cop exiled to a small sleepy town experiencing a rash of mysterious deaths in Hot Fuzz and now, in Run, Fat Boy, Run, another slacker, maybe not quite as lovable this time, trying to win back the woman he left at their wedding ceremony five years ago. Offering a mix of raunch, silliness, slapstick, and sentimentality, Run, Fat Boy, Run is the perfect romantic comedy for moviegoers who don’t care for the genre.
Dennis (Pegg) still regrets leaving his fiancé, Libby (Thandie Newton), at the altar more than five years ago, made all the worse because Libby was pregnant at the time. While Dennis seems to have lived down to his failure to marry Libby, working as a security guard at a women’s clothing store, barely able to make the rent, Libby has moved on, running a successful bakery and dating an American businessman, Whit (Hank Azaria). As Dennis looks on, Libby and Whit get closer, Whit begins to take an active interest in Jake (Matthew Fenton). Feeling, rightly, excluded from Libby and Jake’s life, Dennis agrees to run in a marathon that’s only three weeks ago.
Out of shape and an everyday smoker, Dennis doesn’t stand much of a chance of completing the marathon, but that doesn’t stop him from giving it a shot. With his best friend Gordon (Dylan Moran), a slacker/gambler who bets on Dennis completing the marathon, and his landlord, Mr. Ghoshdashtidar (Harish Patel), acting as his coach and assistant coach respectively, Dennis can’t lose. Actually, he can, very easily, but as the prospect of losing Libby and Jake looks increasingly likely, especially after Whit suggests a move to Chicago that would take Libby and Jake away from him, Dennis learns a few life lessons in (you guessed it) perseverance and self-discipline, both of which will make him a better father, a better husband (if he can convince Libby), and a better person overall.
A sports comedy/rom-com (as the British like to call it) that’s more formulaic than either Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz (where the romantic subplot was eliminated in favor of a platonic relationship), Run, Fat Boy, Run nonetheless proves that formula isn’t the problem (at least not always), it’s what you do with the formula or template that counts. Minus a too-long third act that follows, what else, Dennis’ improbable marathon run (it lasts twenty-odd minutes), Run, Fat Boy, Run perfectly balances verbal and physical humor with advancing the story. Credit to that goes to Simon Pegg, who co-wrote the script with actor/comedian/writer Michael Ian Black (The State).
Director David Schwimmer (yes, that David Schwimmer) basically stays out of the way and lets Pegg and the rest of the cast do their thing and yes, that’s all to the good. With a rom-com or sports comedy, the story and characters are more important than the visuals, something Schwimmer is obviously aware of from his previous experience working in television and film. Unfortunately, the one thing or rather person Run, Fat Boy, Run doesn’t have is Pegg’s onscreen comedy partner, Nick Frost. Frost co-starred in Pegg’s last two films, but here doesn’t even merit a cameo. Maybe next time.
Dylan Morgan, who contributed to a literally gun-wrenching death in Shaun of the Dead with Pegg and Frost, takes on the best friend duties. To be fair, Morgan’s comic timing is almost as good as Pegg’s or Frost’s. It’s just too bad Frost doesn’t appear in Run, Fat Boy, Run. Hopefully, the Pegg-Frost-Wright (as in writer/director Edgar Wright, Pegg’s writing partner on Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) will get together sooner rather than later (probably later as Pegg will next appear as Scotty in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot).