Re: Battlestar Galactica Director Talks!!!

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Nick
Macpherson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> >From: Hank [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> 
> >>There's a great interview with the director of Battlestar Galactica at
> >>http://www.eclipsemagazine.com
> >>
> >
> >   What's really amazing is how smug he manages to be in his very
> >first sentence.   The interviewer asks him the usual cream-puff
> >question, "Australia seems to be quite the wellspring of quality
> >directors. Why do you think that is?
> >   And this nug responds, "Australia used to have a very high
> >level of high school and undergrad education. When I travelled to USC,
> >which is admittedly known for its academic stands, I realized how much
> >better educated I was than my contemporaries."
> 
> I liked this quote: 'The biggest thing I tried to do was make it real -- I
> would ask the question "Are we doing justice to the families of the victims of
> 9/11? Are we doing justice to the young soldiers in Iraq?'
> 
> I hadn't heard of Michael Rymer till I read the interview and saw that he did
> Queen of the Damned, one of the few movies that makes Battlefield Earth look
> good.  No wonder he got the prize job of re-making Battlestar Galactica for the
> Sci-Fi Channel.  

At least he admits Queen of the Damned was screwed up, even if he
doesn't take complete responsibility for it. 

Since I steered Michael to the material that became his first sale, let
me lay out the arc for ya -

1. Via a $cientology front group called Citizen's Commission on Human
Rights, set up to try to destroy psychiatry and psychology, material is
dug up on a shrink in Australia who was drugging his female patients
and raping them. Michael was living in L.A. but didn't know the story.
He wrote the script, Village Roadshow made it. 

2. Next gig was an NBC movie about some schoolkids in trouble due to a
flood. Because they shot it so cheap they did this Texas setting movie
in Australia. He's Aussie, he got the writing job.

3. He wrote Angel Baby. Nicole Kidman wanted to buy it. He wanted to
direct it. She said no. He moved back to Oz and got govt. money to do
it. Some people loved it. I thought it was horrible but I didn't tell
him or his wife Loretta that. 

4. That movie got him top managers and agents. Various monies, nothing
made, then Queen of the Damned. It was horrible pose-y stuff to me,
maybe you disagree. 

5. He's lucky he got the BG job but let's face it. The original was a
TV knockoff of Star Wars and pretty crappy. Maybe they've improved it?

Maybe a "superior" education didn't include seeing all the above for
what it is, cheap entertainment. (And there's nothing wrong with that.) 
Although I think Michael's insertion of a political statement in the
context of discussing the miniseries is pretty dumb as well as flat-out
wrong, it'll probably earn him some coin in Tinseltown social circles.
I think he needs to walk away from some darkness, though, and have told
him so.

-- 
The French couldn't hate us any more unless we helped 'em out in another war.

-- Will Rogers