What do you think you're 'Dune'?

One thing you've got to love about Hollywood, or perhaps just the players therein, is its/their boundless optimism. Witness today's report in Variety about yet another stab at a screen version of the putative cult classic novel Dune. You'd think that after the critical and box-office debacle that was David Lynch's version (and yes, reader, as you know me well, you will not be surprised to learn that I'm kind of fond of this highly misbegotten film—those worms rule!) and the this-is-on-the-Sci-Fi-Channel-and-who-gives-a-shit miniseries, the message to leave well enough alone would be clear.

Also, I know Frank Herbert's saga is a cult novel and all, but if I remember correctly, said cult was largely made up of hippies, whom today we call "baby boomers." And baby boomers no longer constitute a core or key demographic as far as movies today go, right? I mean, far be it from me, Mr. Art For Art's Sake Or Even For Just The Hell Of It, to care about satisfying demographics and what not. I'm just trying to put myself in their shoes to see if any of this makes sense.

In any case, once it starts production, I won't be getting any access. Newly announced director Peter Berg hates my guts.

Or, rather, he will remember that he hates my guys if he is ever reminded of who I am.

When I started writing reviews in Premiere magazine back in 1998, one of my first assignments was then-actor Berg's directorial debut (which he also wrote), Very Bad Things, a very, um, bold movie, right down to its tempting-critical-fate title. The picture didn't get very many good reviews at all, but I suppose that mine, which I suppose could be called scathing, although I'm not the one who should be doing the calling, touched a nerve, as it spurred a couple of confrontations between the film's talent and Premiere staffers who were not myself. At some red carpet event shortly after Thing's opening, Berg was being interviewed by a junior staffer, and on learning she was from the mag, visibly angered. "That review was fucking uncool," he noted. Some short time later, another staffer was in Chicago, at a party that happened to be attended by Things costar Jeremy Piven, who wanted to know "what was the deal" with the guy who wrote the review. Specifically, he wondered if I was "British"—which I suppose would excuse my not getting the trenchant satire of American mores contained within Things—and wanted to know how old I was—I suppose because if I was 60 or something that would excuse my not getting Things' "edgy" humor. As it happens, I'm only Pivens' senior by six years.

Berg has since gone on to direct more decent fare—Friday Night Lights, both the film and television series, impressed many—and generic stuff dressed up to look smart, e.g., The Kingdom. His Dune will certainly be nowhere as odd as Lynch's.

Comments

[swhitty]

You're on Berg's enemies list, Glenn? An honor.

"Very Bad Things" played like "Bachelor Party," as rewritten by a drunken Harold Pinter and directed by Steve-O.

There. Now do I get to join too, Peter?

[Mark]

David Lynch's Dune must be the most mis-understood sci-fi film in the history of the cinema. Certainly nothing as odd, provocative and compelling would be greenlit by a major studio today. I fear Berg's version will be a workaday, bland, franchise-friendly Narnia/Potter/Pirates clone.

[Masakazu Fumitaka]

Jeremy Piven and Daniel Stern deserved Oscar nods for their work in Very Bad Things. The emotional pitch those two reached during the convenience store scene was quite impressive. Piven's palpable sense of fear is rendered in excruciating detail, and Stern, playing a man with everything to lose, radiates a kind of narcissitic survival instinct that seems all too familiar to those who have found themself caught in a situation beyond their control. I would gladly use the term Kafkaesque to describe Peter Berg's debut, if Kafka had been born in Darien, Connecticut, spent his teen years getting hammered on stolen bottles of Nyquil, and been expelled from Andover for sexually assaulting the school mascot.

[Justin]

OK, I'll ask it:

Why does Peter Berg hate you?

I like Friday Night Lights (movie and TV serie)...

[Glenn Kenny]

Justin, the explanation is in the text after the jump...

[W. Australopithecus]

DUNE is one of those cult novels like LORD OF THE RINGS that gets passed down to every generation of SF/fantasy nerds, so it's possible it could find its demographic, if it weren't that it's damn near un-filmmable....

[Wes]

Don't forget the aborted Jodowrosky version of DUNE from the '70s. To star Dali, H.R. Giger's first production design work, and a soundtrack by Pink Floyd!

[jim emerson]

OK, please re-print your "Very Bad Things" review.

[Glenn Kenny]

It'll involve something resembling an anthropological dig, but look for it here some time Tuesday. Oy.

[Brandon]

Unless this new film is going to show Paul drinking his own body fluids through that conversion suit, I say let Jodorowsky take a stab at it, finally, and they can CGI in Dali, which would surely cost less than what the real one was asking to appear in it (apparently one of the major reasons it never happened?).
Damn artists.
Oh, and Berg is apparently attached to a Robert E. Howard film too. So, is fantasy his thing now or what?

[Dan]

I'll be the first to admit I like Berg. Yeah, he's not Renoir, but he's got that feeling of a good, sturdy journeyman director who likes to make movies, not feature-length music videos (I feel much the same about John Moore). And I don't think "Dune" is unfilmable, provided you're willing to skip over all the internal parts that Lynch wasn't. You basically get "Star Wars", which was the entire idea when they made the damn thing in the first place.

The problem is that leaves you with a movie about Iraqi insurgents. Who win.