What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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August 28 - September 3, 2022 WHATS UP! T11 an old Charles Bronson one, but how close is it to the orig- inal? A: It depends who you ask. If you ask Simon West, director of the new version of "The Me- chanic" (2011), it's radically dif- ferent. If you ask Irwin Winkler, who produced the 1972 original, and David Winkler, who helped his dad produce the remake, the new version is "very faithful." It all comes down to differences in perspective. In an interview with Premi- umHollywood.com, the Win- klers said they had been trying to remake the film for years and had paid multiple writers to draft scripts. Those writers, they said, were trying to modernize it too much by focusing on larger, more technical action sequenc- es. "It started to work for us when we went back to the original [movie's] script," the Winklers said. That script apparently fo- cused more on the relationship between the lead characters — the assassin and his apprentice. That's the heart of the film and that remained unchanged. West, meanwhile, focuses on the work that was required to update the film for modern tastes. He told movie blog CHUD.com that today's audi- ences are "much more sophisti- cated" and wouldn't, for exam- ple, believe the half-cooked plans the characters got away with in the original. "I think [in the original] they got into a house by pretending to be a pizza delivery guy, or a chicken delivery guy," West said. "People would just not accept that now." All this said, the broad strokes of both films are certainly iden- tical. For those who haven't seen one or the other, they're about a top-notch hitman who takes a murdered friend's son under his wing and teaches him the assas- sination trade. Q: I absolutely loved the Robert Redford movie "Three Days of the Condor." I was in a bookstore the other day and saw a paperback called "Six Days of the Con- dor." Is that a sequel? Did they make a movie of it? A: All movies based on books have to cut something out to make a two-hour run time. In this case, director Sydney Pol- lack ("Tootsie," 1982) had to cut out three whole days. That is to say, Pollack's 1975 cinematic classic "Three Days of the Con- dor" was based on the novel "Six Days of the Condor" by James Grady, published the previous year. Both titles are derived from the amount of time the protago- nist — a CIA researcher played by Robert Redford ("The Natu- ral," 1984) in the film — is on the run from various people trying to kill him. In the novel, it's six days, but Pollack and screenwriters Lo- renzo Semple Jr. ("Pretty Poi- son," 1968) and David Rayfiel ("The Firm," 1993) cut that down to three for the film. They also moved the action from Wash- ington, D.C., to the trendier lo- cale of Manhattan, among other changes. Original author Grady actual- ly wrote three sequels — "Shad- ow of the Condor," "Last Days of the Condor" and "Next Day of the Condor" — but none was ever filmed. Have a question? Email us at questions@tvtabloid.com. Please include your name and town. Advance Pest Control 2 x 2 TAKE 5 BY ADAM THOMLISON TV Media Q: Why is "Young Rock" on NBC described as fiction, with no characters intended to represent real people? Of course many of them are real. A: The short answer to why that little bit of fine print ap- pears at the end of each episode of NBC's "Young Rock" is: legal reasons. Essentially, it's a way for the people behind the show to pre-empt any chance of a law- suit. It is, of course, absurd in the case of "Young Rock," a show whose whole premise is that it depicts the pre-fame years of wrestling and acting superstar Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson ("Skyscraper," 2018). How could a show like that honestly claim that "no depiction of actual per- sons, entities or events is intend- ed"? The same way "Raging Bull" did in 1980. That movie, about a boxer named Jake LaMotta (por- trayed by Robert De Niro, "Taxi Driver," 1976), lists the real Jake LaMotta as both a writer and consultant, yet it still uses an al- most identical disclaimer. That's one of the more famous exam- ples, but there are countless oth- ers. Slate magazine wrote an ex- tensive history of this disclaim- er, finding that its origins go all the way back to the 1930s and the historical drama "Rasputin and the Empress" (1932). The makers of that movie were successfully sued by an exiled Russian prince — one of the people who actual- ly murdered the actual Rasputin. According to Slate, a judge at the time told the studio, MGM, that it might not have lost the lawsuit if it had said somewhere in the credits that it wasn't trying to depict actual historical events. And so an often-ridiculous disclaimer was born. As for "Young Rock," it's extra ridiculous because of how much work The Rock himself report- edly put into making the show's stories accurate. He told the New York Times that he took this element seriously, and was constantly meeting, calling or texting series creator Nahnatch- ka Khan ("Fresh Off the Boat") to share fragments of memories to inform the show's storylines. Q: I know the Jason Sta- tham movie "The Mechanic" is supposed to be a remake of Dwayne Johnson in "Young Rock" HOLLYWOOD Q&A Solution on page T23 Use the clues above and beside the grid to fill in the squares www.advancepestcontrolnwa.com Family Owned, Competitively Priced, Quality Service Since 1981 Rogers 479-636-5590 Springdale 479-756-1788 Eureka Springs 479-253-8967 PEST CONTROL TERMITE FERTILIZATION WEED CONTROL PRE-EMERGENTS