Thursday, May 25, 2006

Goonies Meets Indiana Jones

That's a pretty high stake to claim. I ran across the pitch in an old article about Ryan Little's next epic action film, Outlaw Trail. But this time Little errs on the side of fun. Action Adventure. Holds up grand circle-of-life diagram: "You know, for kids."

Certainly Little has proven some prospect as a lofty director, with his short, but bulleted list of films. (Saints and Soldiers is perhaps his most well-known or respected.) I have to admit when I first heard about this project it didn't sound as promising as it now does. But even having said that, I have a very mixed response.
In a way, I appreciate Little for setting the bar higher for Mormon artists. I think he has been doing something most Mormon cinematists (I know, it's not a word, but don't you think it should be?) have wanted to do and mostly failed. He's approaching the market without insulting it. That deserves an explanation, but I'm not going to get into all of just what I mean right now. Suffice it to say that I think he's representing a fairly good moral side to things without guile or pretense.

No, my problem lies more in that I just wish I could milk more from him. He's still a kid, at least in terms of directing. I'm a little impatient, and I have a hard time believing he's going to really pull off what "they" have pitched. (I say "they" because I have no idea where my above-posted pitch comes from, other than it's cited in the article.

Still, there are definitely some key people attached, and money is up, so maybe, just *maybe* I'll get a piece of what I've been waiting for among Mormon movie makers. In any case, I expect good things from Ryan down the road.

Continued reading here.

Another incidental reading.

p.s. remind me to tell you about my theory on Westerns...

posted by Rhapsidiomite @ 11:10 PM
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