Here's a Movie That Has Some Real Promise: The Fountain

This image kind of sucks, I know, but it's the only good one that came up when I typed in "The Fountain" on Google image search. This is Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz in some scene in Darren Aronofsky's newest and upcoming film, The Fountain. This is the movie Brad Pitt was supposed to be in for the longest time, but then dropped out for some reason I don't remember. Couldn't been that good a one. The teaser came out today and though I think its format is kind of goofy (1 Man, 1 Love, 1 Quest), the imagery is amazing -- right now it's looking like one of those movies that's going to make an honest attempt at being both powerful and original instead of going blatantly for either box office gold or Oscar gold (which amount to the same thing), something the studios go out of their way to never do. (I think Eternal Sunshine took the prize for originality last year). What's amazing to me is that, in this teaser, in just two shots edited together -- the horseman thundering down a path towards the castle with a torch in hand, quickly cutting to a car driving along a freeway towards a shining metropolis -- more was attempted with the, (yeah I'm going to say it), filmic medium than anything I've seen in a long time. I wonder if Aronofsky was thinking of Kubrick's edit in 2001: A Space Oddysey -- the one where he cuts from the bone to the space station -- when he wrote that series of shots. How cool is it to be excited about shots again? Aronofsky's resurfaced finally after years and years of trying to get this thing made, but where's Fincher? Where's PT Anderson? Quentin? Why do we always have to wait years and years for these guys to do a new movie but we get a new Michael Bay movie every year? This year we're getting two Kiminski/Spielberg movies! Two! Are the young artistic directors being lazy, resting on their laurels, or are the studios too skittish to give these guys money and a release date every year (or even every two years?) Methinks the latter. (But a little of the former in some cases.)

Anyway, been waiting to hear something about this movie and I'm pretty excited by this teaser.