AVClub: For its first 40 or so minutes, Arabian Nights, Volume 3: The Enchanted One—the final part of Portuguese director Miguel Gomes’ ambitious Arabian Nights project—plays like a time-machine accident, warping jewels-and-hookah-smoke Arabian imagery into vintage pop songs, as Scheherazade (Crista Alfaiate) travels to an archipelago of bandits, break-dancers, and wind spirits, their absurd backstories relayed through dozens of explanatory titles. (“In the Antiquity Of Time, there lived a man named Paddleman,” begins one.) And then, after all that buildup, the movie breaks out of this Holy Mountain-on-a-shoestring world to present the most outlandish story of all—which, it turns out, is a documentary about working-class birdsong hobbyists in present-day Portugal. At first, this seems like a gag, except that it keeps going, until the audience realizes that almost an hour has passed, and they’re still watching a documentary about birdsong hobbyists. Then one of the birdsong hobbyists...
What's Playing says:
Cannes, FRANCE (May 12, 2011) – FilmDistrict announced today the company has acquired all U.S. rights from Inferno Entertainment to ARABIAN NIGHTS, with Chuck Russell (The Mask, Scorpion King) set to direct and Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games) set to star. Russell also co-wrote the screenplay with Barry Ambrose. Inferno’s Bill Johnson is producing the film with ROAR’s Will Ward and Jay Froberg, and Mayhem Pictures’ Mark Ciardi. Inferno’s Jim Seibel is executive producing. Inferno is handling worldwide sales of the film.
Yahoo News: Anthony Hopkins is in final negotiations to play an evil sorcerer in "Arabian Nights," an action-adventure picture starring Liam Hemsworth, the high-flying paramour of Miley Cyrus.
Am I the only one who doesn't care to see Hopkins in another villain role? I mean he's still a great actor, but with his age, it's getting harder to see him as a villain. Especially from an Arabian Nights tale, he just doesn't seem to fit the bill.
