Blogs
Mon Sep 8, 10:23 AM
Mon Sep 8, 10:00 AM
Mon Sep 8, 9:32 AM
Sun Sep 7, 8:30 AM
Mon Sep 8, 9:00 AM
Fri Sep 5, 3:16 PM
Mon Sep 8, 11:31 AM
Mon Sep 8, 9:00 AM
Recent Articles
Recent Articles by Scott Foundas
Summer '08: Batman saved the season, while a little Sex went a long way and the indies went south.
Now playing
Presidential candidates vie (and pander and plead) for one heart and mind in Swing Vote.
With Step Brothers, Ferrell, Reilly, McKay & Co. still don't wanna grow up. And thank God for that.
As Batman begins again, the fallen actor peers into the void.
No related articles found
National Features >
SF Weekly
A blogger steals someone else's life story and calls it her own.
By Ashley Harrell
Westword
How William Orr's quest for better, cheaper gas became a crime.
By Alan Prendergast
The Pitch
I worked at Kmart with John McCain's director of strategy.
By Alan Scherstuhl
The Invasion
Now playing
Published on August 30, 2007
Is there a Razzie Award for worst casting? If so, reserve it early for this fourth, spectacularly lousy screen version of Jack Finney's 1954 novella The Body Snatchers, which some bright light envisioned as the ideal starring vehicle for the Cold Mountain herself, Nicole Kidman, and for Daniel Craig, last seen as poker-faced James Bond. Earth to Hollywood: The whole point is that these characters are supposed to have a difficult time camouflaging their emotions, so that when extraterrestrial DNA begin turning everyone around them into soulless drones, there's actually some, um, suspense as to whether they'll be able to bluff their way to safety. Not that using actual pod people as actors is the only innovation German director Olivier Hirschbiegel and debuting screenwriter David Kajganich bring to the table: This time, those pesky alien spores are transmitted not by plant life, but rather (I kid you not) projectile vomit, while the script (which reportedly received some eleventh-hour doctoring by the Wachowski brothers) waxes undergraduate-philosophic about how maybe our war-torn, psychotropic-popping world might be a better place without humans. Incredibly, the same studio (Warner Bros.) that in 1993 barely released Abel Ferrara's superb Body Snatchers spent millions to reshoot The Invasion (with V for Vendetta director James McTeigue at the helm) after an early cut tested poorly. True to pod-person form, it's difficult to tell who did what.