The box-office failure of Ocean’s 8 made me think of a conceit from the summer of 2014 when in an argument I recast Inception with all the male roles played by women and vice versa.
Look, I didn’t have anything to do with you not making it into the recasting. And stop asking me questions while I’m trying to handle the plastic explosives.
It wasn’t always possible to cast the same nationality or exact age but I quite liked my recasting then, and think it still stands up now. Try in particular to think about the scene in limbo near the very end where Cobb, Mal and Ariadne are at the table chez Cobb arguing over whether Cobb should stay with Mal in limbo forever.
Replacing Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb – Cate Blanchett
Replacing Joseph Gordon-Levit as Arthur – Lizzy Caplan
Replacing Tom Hardy as Eames – Emily Blunt
Replacing Ellen Page as Ariadne – Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Replacing Ken Watanabe as Saito – Li Gong
Replacing Dileep Rao as the Chemist – Archie Panjabi
Replacing Marion Cotillard as Mal – Mads Mikkelsen
Replacing Cillian Murphy as Fisher – Jodie Whitaker
Replacing Tom Berenger as Uncle Peter – Margo Martindale
Replacing Pete Postlethwaite as Fisher Sr – Eva-Marie Saint
Replacing Lukas Haas as the 1st Architect – Tina Majorino
and
Replacing Michael Caine as Miles – Vanessa Redgrave
It’s back and bigger and better than last year’s debut celebration – Jeff GoldBLUMSDAY returns to the Lighthouse on June 16th.
Sure, some people will be dressing up in Edwardian boater hats and cycling around town pretending they’ve either actually read or read and liked James Joyce’s Ulysses. But some people will be dressing up in whatever feels right to celebrate the hesitations and mumblings of one cinema’s most famously uh-ing actors. Screen 3 is taken over the entire day to showcase the charisma of Goldblum from glorious cameos in blockbusters, to leading roles in dumb action and gory horror, and memorable supporting turns in rich drama and zany nonsense. Can anyone manage to see all 5 films? Someone will try…
(c)Columbia Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection
The Big Chill
Screen 3 13:00
1983 saw Goldblum and Harry Shearer as memorable comic support in The Right Stuff, but the breakthrough for Goldblum was a plum role in Lawrence Kasdan’s epochal drama. Seven friends from college reunite for a weekend at a South Carolina winter house to attend the funeral of their friend (Kevin Costner) who has killed himself. Kasdan’s opening use of ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ to introduce all the characters is taught to aspiring screenwriters, and the richly character driven examination of memory and nostalgia, and enduring friendship, clearly informed 2011’s Little White Lies.
Independence Day
Screen 3 15:00
Roland Emmerich’s meisterwerk: a big dumb blockbuster capable of appealing to two different audiences for two entirely different reasons at the same time, because it is a work of uber-American patriotism, directed by a German. While people in Idaho punch the air, people in Ireland fall off their chairs laughing. Goldblum is the recycling, cycling, chess-playing computer whiz who alone possesses the skills to strike back against the all-conquering aliens. But it will take quips by Will Smith, an epic speech by Bill Pullman, and a dog escaping a wall of flame to pull off.
Thor: Ragnarok
Screen 3 18:00
Thor and Loki come up against their long-lost sister Hela, and get their asses kicked. She takes over Asgard with literally contemptuous ease. And so Thor finds himself pitted against the Hulk in gladiatorial combat on a strange world presided over by an even stranger dictator: The Grandmaster. Is his character name a joking reference to Goldblum’s prowess at chess in Independence Day? Definitely not. But Goldblum is clearly enjoying himself as part of the parade of rambling, improvised tangents as Maori magician Taiki Waititi produces the funniest film Marvel Studios have ever permitted released.
The Fly
Screen 3 20:30
Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis are one of the tallest screen couples ever in David Cronenberg’s 1986 horror re-make, which took Vincent Price’s 1950s original, removed the camp, and added plentiful gore and Cronenberg body horror. Goldblum starts to transform into a giant hybrid of man and fly after an unwise experiment with his new invention goes catastrophically wrong. It’s all very well to be optimistic and aspire to be the first insect politician, but it’s more likely that by the time you are a giant man-fly that you’ll just start melting people’s hands off.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Screen 3 22:30
What can one say about The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension except that it clearly falls within Hollywood Babylon’s Lighthouse remit of showing trashy films to drunk people. Peter Weller is Buckaroo, Goldblum is New Jersey, and John Lithgow is over the top as the villain. The cinematographer was replaced mid-shoot for making this not look cheap and campy enough. Think on that as you raise an eyebrow, the way Sheriff Lucian Connally raises his hat, at 1984’s most convincing brain surgeon and rock musician.
Talking Movies 