No More Golden Eggs

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Much of what's wrong with New Moon seems tracable to director Chris Weitz. In the view of L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan, Weitz is a "polished" and "smooth professional who makes the vampire trains of Melissa Rosenberg's capable script run on time, but he almost seems too rational a director for this kind of project. This lack of animating madness combined with the novel's demands give much of New Moon a marking-time quality."

It was precisely this animating madness, a kind of "crazy-in-love energy" that made Twilight work as well as it did, Turan believes. (As do I.) All of this seemed to come from original director Catherine Hardwicke, whom Turn calls "a filmmaker of intense, sometimes overwhelming and out of control emotionality who seemed to feel these teenage characters in her bones."

The reason Weitz recently told Moviemaker magazine that he might hang it up before too long, or so I suspect, is that deep down he knows he dropped the ball and screwed the pooch. "I still feel that I'm learning," he says, "and yet I also feel that the number of aspects that go into making a film of the sort that I'm making now have become so multifold that it's really exhausting.

"Every time I make a movie I'm pretty much convinced it's the last time I'm going to be able to do it and that really it's a rather silly occupation to undertake. But I think I have maybe one more film in me."

He also talks about wanting to "learn to be a better surfer," and "learn to speak Spanish fluently...I'd like to travel around, live in Italy; I'd like to learn kung fu...It's nice to make movies, but it's also really hard."

Weitz is also talking about the arduous making of The Golden Compass, and how his New Line cinema bosses were awful to deal with and how the failure of that film kind of broke his spirit. But his more recent New Moon experience is obviously weighing on his mind right now, and we all know that people don't talk about wandering around Europe and eating elegant dinners at sunset and becoming better surfers unless their souls are in need of healing.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on November 19, 2009 at 4:17 AM

comment #1

Eloi Manning says ...

Or maybe he received several million dollars from Summit and would rather spend some time enjoying it than filming close-ups of bare-chested wolf boys in some damp Washington field.

Posted by Eloi Manning at November 19, 2009 4:58 AM

comment #2

Phreaker says ...

Yeah, no. Bad novel, bad script = bad movie. You can't polish a piece of shit.

Posted by Phreaker at November 19, 2009 5:49 AM

comment #3

Masheen says ...

Well... Twilight Part 3 eg Eclipse will be directed by Dacid Slade who might not be Cuaron caliber but in the end not such a rational director like Weitz is. So there's hope I guess (not that anyone cares besides teenage girls)

Posted by Masheen at November 19, 2009 5:52 AM

comment #4

DeafBrownTrashPunk says ...

THE GOLDEN COMPASS was actually quite good and very underrated. I loved the film for its very dark, almost sinister tone.

I wonder if I'm the only one here who likes the film...

Posted by DeafBrownTrashPunk at November 19, 2009 7:28 AM

comment #5

Scott Mendelson says ...

I liked The Golden Compass too. It's no classic, but it's remarkably polished, well-acted, and avoids the two big traps of franchise filmmaking these days - it's not too long (110 minutes) and it feels like a complete stand-alone film. Having said that, I almost wish they had kept the novel's original ending, because (from what I've been told from people who've read it) it's a stunning cliffhanger.

Posted by Scott Mendelson at November 19, 2009 8:27 AM

comment #6

Noiresque says ...

I knew that New Moon would be as soon as CW was attached. Yes, Twilight is tripe, but its popularity lies is due to the fact that it is basically the exploration of the active gaze of a teenage girl, and how she feels pleasure from desiring another, rather than being desired, or rather than being the object of the male gaze. Hardwicke knows that territory. Maybe CW needs his brother, because About a Boy and (yes) American Pie contained emotional and revealing layers that his solo projects lack. I loathed his film of The Golden Compass, and yes, I love the series.

Not only was the ending destroyed, as Scott Mendelsohn stated, but the entire construction of Craig's character was off. Azrael was falsely was portrayed as a tough but kindly uncle, which completely unbalanced the his relationship with Lyra, and, in effect, her psyche, which was darker, emptier, yet stronger than what was shown on screen.

I was really pleased with Kidman's casting (I pictured her, or someone like Catherine Zeta-Jones as Mrs Coulter) and whilst she trotted out that stupid breathy pseudo-Marilyn voice that she has favoured since Moulin Rouge, she was one of the better parts of it.

Posted by Noiresque at November 19, 2009 1:12 PM

comment #7

JohnCope says ...

I too loved the original Pullman book and despised Weitz's awful, miscalculated movie. I really wonder how many people who love that book feel the same about the movie. I would bet very few.

Posted by JohnCope at November 20, 2009 12:06 PM

comment #8

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comment #9

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