Tradecraft: Is Bradley Cooper the New Napoleon Solo?

Tradecraft: Is Bradley Cooper the New Napoleon Solo?

Variety reports that Bradley Cooper is the new frontrunner to play Napoleon Solo in Steven Soderbergh's Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie. The trade reports that Matt Damon and Johnny Depp both passed on the part (to which George Clooney was originally attached), and Cooper's agents worked hard to position him for the part of U.N.C.L.E.'s top agent. The offer is now out to him and he's expected to accept, with shooting set to commence in March before Soderbergh helms his Liberace biopic for HBO. The spy role would bring Cooper's career full-circle, since he first rose to stardom on a spy series playing Will on J.J. Abrams' Alias. I really liked him on Alias, and I was sorry when Will left the show... but, honestly, I can't picture the Hangover star filling Robert Vaughn's shoes as Napoleon Solo. Hm...

Tradecraft: Cinemax is Hooked on Spies

Tradecraft: Cinemax is Hooked on Spies

Deadline reports that Cinemax has booked another action drama "set in the world of international espionage" from their Strike Back showrunner, Frank Spotnitz. This one, Nemesis (also known as Morton for some reason), is another UK co-production, but this time with BBC One as opposed to BSkyB. The former X-Files showrunner will be teaming with Kudos, the production company behind Spooks/MI-5. According to the trade blog, Alias' Melissa George (next seen opposite Pierce Brosnan in the A&E Stephen King miniseries Bag of Bones) stars as "a highly skilled operative for an elite private intelligence firm who survives an attempt on her life that might have been orchestrated by members of her own team. Once she returns to the firm, she must perform her secretive duties without knowing who to trust and who wants her dead." The Beeb commissioned eight episodes last January, and Cinemax just came aboard. No word on whether that means more episodes, but I doubt it. Like Strike Back, Nemesis will indulge in some cool location filming. Shooting kicks off this fall in Europe and North Africa under the direction of S.J. Clarkson, who previously collaborated with Kudos on episodes of Hustle, Whitechapel and Life On Mars. Oh, and of course the logline likens it to The Bourne Identity. That pretty much goes without saying with any new spy show or movie these days. Now here's a gratuitous image of Aussie George channeling Ursula Andress in a white Bond Girl bikini...

Tradecraft: Fox Buys Female Spy Pilot

Deadline reports that Fox has bought a pilot pitch from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles showrunner Josh Friedman called The Asset. Okay, promising start. That's a good title for a spy series! What's it about? According to the trade blog, the hour-long action show "is described as a character-driven drama set in the New York office of the CIA, which centers on a female agent." All right... I'm positive that Friedman wouldn't just pitch Alias or Covert Affairs and that Fox wouldn't buy a direct clone of an existing show, but I do wish they would have put whatever it is that sets this one apart in its logline! Oh well. You know me. I like spy shows about female agents, so I'd give it a try even if it were a direct copy. That said, I'm pretty sick of shows set at various CIA offices in America. (The most egregious offender was Alias, in which the Agency had a sprawling Los Angeles headquarters.) While Covert Affairs found a pretty clever twist to give Annie Walker some domestic missions, the CIA's mandate is for overseas missions. For this reason (and because I prefer exotic locations to ones I see outside my window... and because the pilot script was awesome), the female spy show I'm most looking forward to right now is ABC's Missing, which takes place in Europe and was actually shot there!

Tradecraft: Michael Vartan Reports For Eurospy Duty

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Alias co-star Michael Vartan is the latest actor to board one of Luc Besson's EuropaCorp-produced neo-Eurospy movies.  But I'm not quite sure how to frame this story: is he the latest Eurospy hero, or is he the next Eurospy babe?  Most (but not all) of these Besson-produced mid-budget action movies feature both, and I always try to cover that casting.  Despite Vaughn's occasional action heroics on Alias, Vartan seems a little soft to carry an action movie on his own.  And he won't.  Once more, he'll play second fiddle to a much stronger female lead.  The movie he's joining is Columbiana, the one we heard about earlier this year set to star Star Trek's Zoe Saldana as the first woman action hero in one of these neo-Eurospy movies.  So if she's the hero, then perhaps Vartan is merely the babe.  It sure sounds like it: "Vartan will play Saldana's boyfriend, an artist with no idea what she does for a living who is her only link to normalcy."  What she does for a living (in case you've forgotten) is killing people, all the while hoping to take revenge on the gangsters who murdered her family when she was a child.  Besson (who created another enduring female assassin character two decades ago in La Femme Nikita) co-wrote the script with his Taken collaborator Robert Mark Kamen; Transporter 3's Olivier Megaton is directing.

The trade reports that "production will begin in late summer in Chicago, New Orleans and Mexico City. The action thriller is set to be released Sept. 2, 2011."

Crazy Reboot Rumor Of The Day: Alias!

Dark Horizons points the way to a story at E! Online that wherein the fairly reliable TV gossip columnist Kristin Dos Santos reports that the powers that be at ABC are mulling a "reboot" of J.J. Abrams' seminal early 21st Century spy series Alias.  As of now, these rumblings are merely rumblings, but they've apparently rumbled enough to know that they would jettison the complicated Rambaldi mythology that made the show interesting in its early years, but ultimately weighed it down (as complicated mythologies are wont to do) when the writers couldn't dig their way out of the convoluted maze they'd created.  I really loved Alias.  It's first season and a half (up through the satisfying conclusion of the SD-6 plotline) were absolutely brilliant.  And I called it "seminal" for a reason: along with 24 and The Bourne Identity, it was one of the early adapters that really jump-started the spy genre at large in the post-9/11 world. 

Spies are bigger today than they have been since the Sixties, and that's thanks in part to Alias.  But is there really a point in "rebooting" or "reimagining" the series without the off-kilter mythology that set it apart, the creator who made it great, or the cast who defined those characters?  Personally, I can't imagine anyone other than Jennifer Garner playing ultra-fit superspy-with-a-life Sidney Bristow.  Without Rambaldi or Garner, you're left with a cool spy premise about a young woman working for an agency that she thinks are the good guys but suddenly discovers are actually the bad guys... but does that make a show?  I'm not sure.  I would love to see the Alias brand live on in feature films or even a sequel series (although Abrams' upcoming NBC spy series Undercovers about a pair of married ex-spies who come out of retirement after five years is pretty much what such a series would probably look like), but I don't know if I can really swallow a reboot of a series that only went off the air four years ago.  (Even the CW's La Femme Nikita reboot seems a bit soon, and that show ended longer ago.)  It seems like with Lost ending ABC is just desperate to stay in the J.J. Abrams business (however tangentially) in any way they can, kicking themselves for letting his deal lapse. 

Tradecraft: New J.J. Abrams Spy Series

Alias creator, Mission: Impossible III director and all-around hitmaker J.J. Abrams has co-created another spy series and all the networks want it, according to Variety, which reports that the pilot script has triggered a bidding war between ABC, NBC and CBS. Rival trade The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that NBC has as good as won already. The script, by Abrams and Felicity writer Josh Reims, centers on two spies who work together and are also husband and wife. Sounds like it might as well be a sequel to Alias! While that premise has been tried before countless times (from bigscreen hits like Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Undercover Blues* to smallscreen flops like Under Cover and Mr. & Mrs. Smith), Abrams certainly has the golden touch to make it work. And he's shown he can make a great spy series with the first two seasons of Alias. Variety describes the as yet untitled series as an "adventure/action" spy thriller.

*OK, maybe not a hit, but I didn't want to interrupt the nice symmetry of the sentence by clarifying!

Tradecraft: Playing Catch-Up

Sidney Bristow, Producer

Alias star Jennifer Garner has started her own production company with partner Juliana Janes and signed a first look deal with Warner Bros., according to Variety. "To start with, we'll develop material as potential starring vehicles for me," Garner said. "I'd have to be pretty passionate about something to commit to the project if I wasn't intending to be in it." Accordingly, the actress's Vandalia Films' initial slate is pretty heavy on romantic comedies, but does boast one title of interest to spy fans: an adaptation of Queen & Country vets Anthony Johnston (also responsible for the Alex Rider comics) and Mike Hawthorne's graphic novel Three Days In Europe. While the genre is more caper than spy, it's a great comic, and the comedic romantic adventure is also good middle ground for Garner somewhere between Alias and 13 Going On 30. Hugh Jackman is set to be her co-star.
(Via Michael May's Adventureblog)

(Film) Executive Actions

Film exec Charles Segars has taken action by acquiring Gary Grossman's trilogy of novels about DIA (and later Secret Service) agent Scott Roarke. "The books in the deal include Executive Actions, Executive Treason and an upcoming third novel in the series," reports Variety. The Manchurian-esque first novel follows Roarke's attempts to thwart a long-term sleeper agent eying the Presidency of the United States.

DreamWorks Eyes Real-Life Spy Thriller

The newly redesigned Hollywood Reporter reveals that DreamWorks is in negotiations to acquire a new CIA thriller from World Trade Center screenwriter Andrea Berloff. In keeping with its cloak-and-dagger themes, little is known about the project except that it's "based on the true story of two spies in the upper levels of the intelligence agency."

Acker's a Doll Now

Aintitcool reports that Angel co-star Amy Acker has joined the cast of Joss Whedon's upcoming Fox secret agent show, Dollhouse. Acker is no stranger to spy TV, her villainous Kelly Peyton was one of the highlights of Alias' final season. Dollhouse stars Eliza Dushku as a secret agent whose mind is wiped clean after each mission in order to create a whole new identity. Dushku, however, starts slowly gaining consciousness of her world and her confusing place in it.

More Austin Powers Rumors

Aintitcool also ran a story recently citing a Boston.com article as saying that a fourth Austin Powers movie was closer than thought to being a reality. According to the report, the script is finished and a leading lady has even already been cast: supermodel Gisele Bundchen. Previous rumors had hinted at a scenario focusing on Dr. Evil and his band of baddies rather than Austin. Even though the original was fairly brilliant, after two mediocre sequels I can't really get too excited over the prospect of more Mike Meyers spy shenanigans. The one upside, however, is that a new Powers title is sure to get studios sifting though their back catalogs for legit groovy Sixties spy movies to put on DVD around the time of its release, and that's really worth it right there! It was Goldmember, after all, that originally coaxed the Flint movies out of Fox, along with Fathom and Modesty Blaise...

Review: Alias: The Complete Fifth Season

It’s unfortunate that my first Alias review on this blog is of its stumbling final season rather than its infinitely grander beginning, but the latest DVD release is indeed Alias: The Complete Fifth Season. And it’s not as bad on DVD as it was on TV. In fact, it’s a serviceable collection of entertaining episodes. Definitely not the thing to buy if you’ve never seen Alias before, but still an integral part of any fan’s collection.

One of the major problems with the fifth season was that Jennifer Garner’s pregnancy meant that she would be out of action for a while, so new characters had to be written in to solve the ensuing fight deficit. Unfortunately, none of the three new regulars had enough time to be developed into interesting characters. (Well, actually Angel veteran Amy Acker managed to make an impression as Kelly Peyton, but she was a villain, not a good guy.) Luckily, on DVD you can easily fast forward through all of Balthazar Getty’s plotline as Tom Grace, knowing in retrospect that it ultimately goes nowhere. (And if you didn’t know that, I’m telling you now: there’s no payoff, so don’t bother.) Rachel Nichols’ character annoyed me while watching the show on TV, but on second viewing on DVD her character definitely improves. She actually does have an arc during the season, even if it’s essentially the same one Sidney went through in Season 1.

The other major problem with the final season actually started to hinder the show as early as Season 3. Milo Rambaldi, a DaVinci-esque Italian alchemist, wrote Nostrodamus-like predictions and created fantastic bio-weapons centuries ahead of their time, then hid the pieces around the world. These inventions made great Macguffins to be sought by nearly all of Alias’s characters, but sadly Season 5 is what happens when Macguffins run amok. What started out as a great premise that drove the first few seasons turned into a burden when it became clear that the writers hadn’t planned out what to do with it. Rambaldi’s much talked about "Endgame" changed so many times that it no longer made a lick of sense and, frankly, it’s hard to care about it too much. My solution? Don’t.

Watching the show on TV I was eager for the arc to play out and disappointed that it didn’t. Re-watching on DVD, I was able to just watch the episodes on their own and found nearly all of them thoroughly enjoyable. When it comes down to it, Alias is a fun show, not a serious one. Even though some of Rambaldi’s inventions recalled the sci-fi trappings of The Prisoner, a much better Sixties comparison for Alias is The Saint. Certainly not high art, but each episode is just a lot of fun. And there are many days when I’d rather watch a Saint than a Prisoner. Same goes for Alias. Season 5 works just as well as any of the others if you just decide you’re in the mood for an Alias and watch a single episode rather than trying to follow the whole arc.

"Bob" stands out as a particularly great stand-alone episode, and makes the best use of Rachel Nichols’ newbie spy when she sleeps with recurring villain Sark (David Anders) only to learn later that he’s a bad guy. There are a lot of humorous moments, the best of which has to be super-serious Victor Garber’s deadpan delivery of the line "thong."

The Alias humor is on display throughout the season. The Joe Friday-esque agents/babysitters in "There’s Only One Sydney Bristow" are hilarious, and seem to have walked right out of a Joss Whedon show. ("Oh, no, ma’am. The mother/child bond is impossible to replicate, even by Agent Dalton and myself.") That episode (the series’ hundredth) also serves up some great Alias action and the return of old favorites Will Tippin (Bradley Cooper) and Anna Espinosa (Gina Torres). It also uses the same device (literally) as series creator J.J. Abrams’ M:i:III when a tiny bomb is inserted in someone’s head. (Unfortunately that episode aired just a week before the movie came out.)

The finale, "All the Time In the World" (nice Bond reference!), doesn’t wrap up the Rambaldi plot with any satisfaction, but it’s still a good episode. The fate of series villain Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin) is priceless, and provides Garber’s Jack Bristow with a final badass moment to rival any of Jack Bauer’s. ("You may have beaten death, Arvin, but you can’t beat me!")

Alias: The Complete Fifth Season comes packaged in a bottom-loading plastic slipcase that’s too loose so that the cardboard gatefold that holds the discs falls out when you pull it off the shelf. It’s a bad design. The four single-sided DVDs are double stacked in the gatefold.

Disc 4 houses all the extras except the commentaries. First up are several forced trailers for other Disney products that have nothing to do with Alias like Apocalypto, Pirates and that Mark Wahlberg football movie. You can also access some more appropriate trailers from the main menu for things like the Alias "Rambaldi Cube" that houses the complete series and J.J. Abrams’ other (even better) show, Lost: Season 2.

The first legitimate extra is called "The Legend of Rambaldi." I was expecting nothing more than a clip montage and pleasantly surprised at what I got instead. It begins like a History Channel special on a real alchemist. This bit is very well-done, with a pitch-perfect narrator (probably a veteran of many such specials), nice motion control shots of Rambaldi artifacts from the show, and good B-roll of the Italian city where the inventor was supposedly born and old paintings of historical figures who apparently interacted with Rambaldi. I don’t remember if we once saw bits of this on the series, but if it was originally produced for this DVD, then it shows that a lot of time and effort was put into these extras.

The featurette nicely segues (via Marshall) into Abrams talking about Rambaldi and admitting that he’s nothing more than a Macguffin. Then we get a peak inside the "Rambaldi vault" where the show’s prop guy talks about all the various devices they had to make. Pretty neat. Spliced in is Rachel Nichols (who’s all over these DVD features) talking about "her favorite Rambaldi artifact" which doesn’t make much sense. Michael Vartan puts it well when he says "Fuck Rambaldi." (It’s bleeped.) Less convincing is the story editor, who tries to tell us that Rambaldi has become a spiritual underpinning for the series, although Ron (Sloane) Rifkin makes sense when he says it’s "purely religious." Abrams pretty much negates all that hokum by saying Rambaldi himself is far less important than what he did to motivate our characters and move our story. True, and I'm glad to see them admit it. Still, they could have had the courtesy to their audience to wrap it all up in a way that made sense!

The next featurette is on the 100th episode and contains a lot of behind-the-scenes footage on set. It’s got interviews with the prodigal Bradley Cooper (who says Will’s back "to get tortured some more") and the ubiquitous Rachel Nichols. Finally, there’s some party footage hosted by her, in which we see just about everyone who’s ever been on the show milling about. Even J.J. Abrams, who by all accounts abandoned his series outright during it’s final season, drops in, although he doesn’t seem to know a lot of the crew. The highlight is Victor Garber and Ron Rifkin clowning around, in stark contrast to their dour characters.

"The Music of Alias" puts the spotlight on the amazing scoring of Michael Giacchino, but unfortunately isn’t nearly as in-depth as the similar feature on Sean Callery on the latest 24 DVD set. It’s mostly lots of people saying nice things about Giacchino and each pronouncing his name slightly differently. More interesting is some footage of a scoring session intercut with clips of the finished scene they’re working on. Giacchino himself is interviewed, and reveals that "Alias at the beginning relied a lot on these techno rhythms that were layered on top of an orchestral track, but as the show progressed it became more about these people, it needed to be more emotional... And so I found myself, over time, using that techno less and less. Now it’s a completely orchestral show." Fascinating. I didn’t really notice the change! Whatever the style, his music has been the most consistently fantastic element of the show from start to finish.

There’s a blooper reel cut in with a silly, newly shot "recreation" of the first phone call from J.J. to Jennifer full of irony. The reel puts the funniest bit up front, with Michael Vartan being chased out of an ice cave by a pink Yeti, then descends into humor of the Balthazarr Getty talking on a banana phone variety. Har, har! Also in here, for some reason, is a short clip reel of Sidney in skimpy clothes, which certainly makes pleasant viewing.

Things wrap up with "The New Recruit: On Set With Rachel Nichols," which turns out to be a lot more interesting than I was anticipating. It’s mostly behind the scenes of "Bob" (in which the Renaissance Hotel at Hollywood & Highland sat in for Brazil), and contains funny bits of Nichols and Anders cutting up during their sex scene.

Nichols and Anders also contribute the best of the season’s four commentaries on that episode, along with writers Monica Breen and Alison Schapker. The track is jokey, but also informative, and covers all aspects of the episode from writing to production. Everything a good commentary should be. It’s much better than the more testosterone-laden track on series premiere "Prophet 5" by Victor Garber (who is funny) and producers Jeff Pinkner and Ken Olin (who really seems like a dick, even though he didn’t on previous seasons’ commentaries). The other commentaries are on "Horizon" and "There’s Only One Sidney Bristow," with the latter being by former production assistants who present a slightly different view of the show. They’re pretty frank. When one marvels how amazing it is that the staff keeps coming up with new, original ideas, another cuts in and says, "What do you mean?" She goes on to point out how Prophet 5 is exactly like The Covenant and K Directorate and all the other Evil Organizations led by Councils of varying numbers that have popped up on the show in the past.

If you’re a fan of the show and on the fence about buying this season because it was sub-par, I’d say go for it. It’s not a satisfying conclusion to a series viewers have invested a lot in, but it is a collection of above average TV episodes that are each enjoyable in their own right. And the extras are pretty good. Again, this isn’t the place to start if you’re new to the show, but it’s definitely worth having for dedicated followers of Sydney Bristow. (And it’s pretty cheap compared to the other seasons!)

Spy Shows On DVD: Alias and 24 News

Alias: The Complete Collection hit shelves today in a really nifty "Rambaldi artifact" cube collecting all five seasons of J.J. Abrams' cult spy series starring Jennifer Garner. I haven't got it and probably won't, since I have seasons 1-4 individually already, but DVDTalk has a really in-depth review with lots of pictures of the snazzy packaging. For those of you like me who have been collecting the seasons individually, you can also get Season 5 on its own. (Though you'll still be missing the exclusive bonus disc that only comes with the Complete Collection...)

Alias was a fun series that's well worth checking out for any spy fan, if you haven't already. It was one of the few recent shows to successfully provide a weekly dose of Bondian espionage fantasy, combined with some sci-fi/mystical elements. It's perfect for viewers who like prefer their spy series more "fun" than 24. The first two seasons are truly awesome entertainment, the third one's not bad, and the final two have their moments, though the series had really gone downhill by the time it reached its disappointingly lackluster finale earlier this year. Jennifer Garner made a wonderful, sexy lead, Victor Garber was brilliant as her spy dad, tougher-than-tough Jack Bristow, and Ron Rifkin was deliciously sleazy as bad guy Arvin Sloane. The rest of the primary cast was also great, and the series boasted some stellar guest stars including the one and only Sir Roger Moore (in the first season).

24
In other Spy TV news, TVShowsOnDVD.com has revealed that Fox will release the first four episodes of the new season of 24 on DVD right off the bat when Season 6 debuts in January.
24 - Season 6 Premiere will retail for $14.98.