Waiting for “Sin City”

I am not doing forecasts that often, but if you would ask me about the movie of the year for 2005, my bet would currently be on “Sin City“.

Why? Well, lots of reasons.

Let’s see:

• Story. “Sin City” is based on the comic book series authored by Frank Miller (who is one of the directors of the movie). I almost heard you go “Ewww” is disguise. Wait a second. This film is proudly wearing the R rating. Here is a quote for you from IMDB:
  

  Rated R for sustained strong stylized violence, nudity and sexual content including

  It looks like this film has everything that is missing from other comic book based movies.

• Directorship. Mainly two people directed this movie – Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez. Miller is the author of the comic book, and Rodriguez is one of the best man out there for making crime actions. One of the scenes was directed by Quentin Tarantino
• Cast. Imagine now Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Elijah Wood, and few other stars acting in one movie. Exciting!
• IMDB rating. I know IMDB has a history of screwed up ratings, but it looks true for this movie. As of this writing 17,379 votes were given for this movie to reach the 8.4 mark. It is also marked as #102 in IMDB’s top 250 movies of all times. And let me tell you something – there are no bad movies on that list, from what I’ve seen.

Let me also give you a few quotes from the trivia page.

After a poor Hollywood experience in the early-’90s, Frank Miller refused to relinquish the movie rights to any of his comic works, “Sin City” in particular. Robert Rodriguez, a longtime fan of the comic, filmed his own “audition” for the director’s spot in secret. The footage, shot in early 2004, featured Josh Hartnett and ‘Jamie King’ acting out the “Sin City” short-story “The Customer is Always Right”. He presented the finished footage to Miller with the proclamation: “If you like this, this will be the opening to the movie. If not, you’ll have your own short film to show your friends.” Miller approved of the footage and the film was underway. Rodriguez also screened the footage for each of the actors he wanted to cast in the film – all of whom are reported to have been instantly amazed.

Directors Rodriguez and Miller planned each shot in the movie by using the panels from the original book as storyboard.

Jessica Alba went to strip clubs as a part of her research for her character.

The cars and the guns were real, not CGI.

Knowing that the stories would have to be cut down for time, Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller shot them (The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill and That Yellow Bastard) in their entirety anyway in order to be completely faithful to the source material and as a feature for the planned DVD.

Robert Rodriguez scored Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) for $1. Quentin Tarantino said he would repay him by directing a segment of this movie for $1.

This was one of several films around the world to be shot on a completely “digital backlot” (i.e. with all the acting shot in front of a green screen and the backgrounds added during post-production). While the other movies (Immortel (ad vitam) (2004), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), and Casshern (2004) – two of which were shot on film) were shot first, this movie’s use of High-Definition digital cameras (like “Sky Captain”) in addition to the “backlot” method makes Sin City (2005) one of the world’s first “fully-digital” live action motion pictures.

Jessica Alba did not know how racy the images of her character Nancy is in the novel until after she signed on for the film.

Boy, am I waiting to see this movie or what?!