« Ride pimper, possible wife killer | Home | Exit Through the Gift Shop »
April 13, 2010
Genetically-engineered movies
Director Andrew Niccol seems like he has it all figured out. He wants to make sci-fi movies, like his first movie Gattaca, but he wants to be able to plausibly fill his movies with conspicuously gorgeous people. So he makes his story about genetically engineered characters who are literally scientifically perfect. Enter Uma Thurman and Jude Law, hot sci-fi stars.
Niccol's next movie, titled I'm.mortal, is about a world in which the aging gene can be turned off. The wealthy elite never age and can live forever, while the poor struggle to buy the most agelessness they can afford (it sounds a little like Logan's Run.) Voila! You can fill your cast with 23 year-olds! No need for any aging hags, and no regard for realistic age differentiation whatsoever. Dakota Fanning can play Chace Crawford's mom and Megan Fox's great-grandmother. Why not?
Unfortunately for Andrew Niccol, his scripts that require his cast to be abnormally attractive haven't been so successful in the past: all three movies he's directed (Gattaca, S1m0ne, Lord of War) have been bombs, and the only real success he's had is his script for The Truman Show. Which actually sort of follows the same model of engineering a story to get the cast you want: it pretty much required that Truman be played by a universally beloved huge star, and Jim Carrey is probably a big reason why the movie did so well.
How this guy gets to keep making movies after so many failures is beyond me.
Anyway, maybe after I'm.mortal (that is one overly complicated smug little bastard of a title), he'll write a script about a world in the not-too-distant future, where genetically perfect teens have evolved to a state where they no longer need to wear clothes for protection from the elements. Birthday Suits? Na.kids?
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://amysrobot.amyinnewyork.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1101
Comments
All naked genetically-modified girls in the future would be hair-free, obviously. Isn't that what science is for?
Times article on female hair is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/fashion/15skin.html?hpw
The comments on the Times article are here:
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/fashion/15skin.html
One woman wrote a sort of crazy comment pleading women to remove not only their armpit and leg hair, but also all of their unsightly downy facial hair:
"In addition to cleaning up the armpits (frequently) and the legs (a little less frequently since growth has slowed), can we please address the cheek-fuzz, goat-tufts, femme-moustaches and chin whiskers? Not just with bleach. There's nothing wrong with a light pass of the Trak-II over cheeks, chin, jawline, sideburn area and throat on a regular basis after one's shower. I do. So do many women in Asia. Think of it as a new kind of 'facial'."
Yeah, I'm going to take some me-time to shave my entire body and face, like a relaxing facial with a razor blade. How luxurious.
Posted by: amy at April 13, 2010 4:09 PM
How much time does this woman have in a day?
Posted by: T-Rock at April 19, 2010 4:36 PM
I'm all for it as long as all the chicks shave their legs. No one wants to think the future is full of Mama Bears.
Posted by: T-Rock at April 13, 2010 3:47 PM