Thursday, June 4, 2009

SiM Focus: Hughes Brothers

Do the brothers have another great film coming?

BY COLIN ENQUIST

Hughes brothers' (Albert and Allen) films are so often violent and visceral that critics have either loved or hated with no in-between. Music videos were how Albert and Allen got into the film industry and it all got started in 1993. When the film Menace II Society debuted (at Cannes Film Festival) the co-directors (and co-writers with Tyger Williams) had, in my opinion, created their most accepted movie yet. Dead Presidents didn't really impress me, many critics or fans that the duo was slowly gaining. The third film the duo shot (not including their brief stint into the documentry arena) was the Alan Moore adaptation of Jack the Ripper, titled From Hell. The result of their first time playing around with Hollywood's big budget (double what the first two films they shot cost) was again received with a very mixed reaction. Being hailed as "A rare, clever, horror film" (Kim Newman Empire Magazine) or trashed "The Hughes boys blow it by burying a fine cast ... in stock scares, sappy romance and clichés that really are from hell" (John Travers Rolling Stone), From Hell was given a NC-17 rating before they cut out some of the gore. Tension was reportedly growing on the set of From Hell where one brother wanted to show the gore while the other was fine with it being implied off-screen.

The brothers have also, on a few occasions, been known to make questionable decisions.
The consequences of one of these decisions resulted in an altercation with Tupac Shakur during a music video shoot, which may have been over what role was chosen for the rapper in their upcoming film Menace II Society. Shakur was dropped from starring in Menace and the brothers took him to court where he was eventually sentenced to 15 days in prison. Marijuana is another item the brothers are very candid about, not keeping their love for smoking it a secret at all! They embrace both their African-American and Armenian heritage but dislike when they are called upon to speak on behalf of African-Americans. Albert has stated that he believes his artistic ability comes from his Armenian side.

Gary Whitta wrote the script for The Book of Eli (set photo to the left), the brothers' first film together since 2001's From Hell. Allen who typically works with the actors while directing will get to work with Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis, Gary Oldman and Ray Stevenson who star in the film which has a release date of January 15th, 2010. Albert focuses more on the technical aspects of the film. Not much is known about the film aside from it being set in a post-apocalyptic world, where a lone hero (Washington) guards the Book of Eli, that could provide knowledge that could redeem society, while others conspire (Oldman) to take possession of the book. The film sounds interesting and I think with the track record of the directors it is safe to say this will at least be worth viewing if not another good film.

3 comments:

Emil Tiedemann said...

I think it WILL be another great film, but only time will tell!

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure what this article is about. It's a grammatic and syntatic nightmare. If it means to express hope that "Book of Eli" is likely a good film, then I agree. ;)

Anonymous said...

Aside from the already mentioned errors sounds like it'll be a good movie. And just for the heck of it... nomad310, since the movie hasn't been released it's grammatically incorrect to say it 'is' likely a good film, since it's not done and released yet :)