Specials: New Yorke in June? Irons and Malkovich. The future of X-men.

I’D LIKE NEW YORKE IN JUNE (but it’s coming to stores in July) 
The new Thom Yorke solo album The Eraser is coming, and today I heard a few tracks from it. I enjoyed them. They sounded like songs from Amnesiac, with fewer guitars. The twitchy electronic loops and beats are there, and familiar power-chords, along with Yorke’s typically spooky vocals and lyrics. But I can’t say it struck me as anything more than half-decent Radiohead b-sides. Maybe if I hear the whole album, it’ll make more sense to me why Yorke went and did this.

BESTSELLING BOOK TO BECOME, WHAT? A MOVIE?
What would it look like if John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons decided to be in a fantasy epic? Something like this.

PRODUCER RALPH WINTER ON X-SEQUELS
Will there be more X-Men films? Yes and no, according to producer Ralph Winter. Yes, there will be films about these characters, but no, not as “X-Men movies.” Looks like Wolverine will get his own movie, and perhaps Magneto as well.

I love these characters, and I do hope we see them again. I wish I had liked X-Men: The Last Stand. I visited the set several months ago, and sat right next to Brett Ratner. We watched as Magneto lifted Wolverine off the ground and threw him into some trees. Cool stuff. It’s amazing how much work is involved in three seconds of footage. There were about a hundred people running around that set.

But alas, so many cool stunts and effects, such thin storytelling. Last Stand needed a stronger script that explored the characters’ development in-depth, the way the first two films did. They were some of the most thoughtful comic book films yet made. This one looked great, and the cast were as engaging as always, but it wasn’t very thoughtful storytelling. Joss Whedon’s comics did a better job with the material. You can’t develop complex characters and then just dump them from the franchise in forgettable death-or-departure scenes, unless you want fans to go away very disappointed.