A maniacal villain seeking immortality, a bevy of deadly beauties and snowy streetscapes under the watchful eye of a shadowy, masked hero: this must be a job for — Frank Miller. Miller, 51, an icon of the comic book world credited with bringing the genre to a wider audience, has returned to the big screen with his cinematic adaptation of the 1940s serial comic The Spirit about a crime fighter who comes back from the grave to protect the city he loves.Miller won box-office success with 2005’s Sin City, based on his graphic novel which he co-directed with Robert Rodriguez and director Zack Snyder’s adaptation of his graphic novel version of the ancient battle of Thermopylae in 300.
With The Spirit starring Gabriel Macht as the hero pitted against Samuel Jackson as “the Octopus” and his sidekick played by Scarlett Johansson, Miller tackles a classic of the comic book world created by his long-time friend and mentor, Will Eisner, who died in 2005. “It started with an argument,” Miller told Reuters of his relationship with Eisner. “And he and I argued for 25 years. It was a loving argument — it was a Bronx Jew versus an Irish Catholic.” Eisner helped create the comic book format with The Spirit in the 1940s, but he has added a few modern amenities — such as a conspicuous cellphone — to a tale with a film noir-influenced look.
The Spirit finds his crime fighting complicated by his long-lost love, Sand Saref, played by Eva Mendes; his former fiance, Ellen, played by Sarah Paulson; and knife-wielding dancer Plaster of Paris, played by Paz Vega.
Dustin Hoffman finds Last Chance for love
At 71, Dustin Hoffman says he will never retire from acting, but he may have to look far beyond the Hollywood that made him famous to find the roles he relishes as he ages. His latest film, Last Chance Harvey is a small ode to finding love late in life, a theme that should resound with the fastest-growing movie-going audience – viewers over 40. It opened in U.S. theatres on Christmas Day. Hoffman, who plays down-on-his-luck Harvey opposite Emma Thompson’s Kate, would like to make more films for older fans, just as he reveled in representing a younger generation as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate 40 years ago. But the two-time Oscar winner and seven-time nominee doesn’t think the Hollywood studios – bent on big films that blanket theaters – are capable of taking on senior romance.
“If I had my druthers, it wouldn’t be to change the studio system. It would be to add two or maybe three languages to my repertoire, which now only consists of street English,” Hoffman said in a recent interview. “But if I could speak French, Spanish and Italian, I’d be working in movies that interested me more. They still honour love stories about people who are past the age of not needing facial work. You can age in Europe.” Hoffman, born and raised in Los Angeles, says he never understood, even as a kid, the obsession with youth and what he calls “the lack of respect for age here that doesn’t exist in all countries.”
