After years of turning down any and all parties who inquired after the film rights for his novel Blindness, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Jose Saramago finally relented to the director-writer team of Fernando Meirelles and Don McKellar after years of cajoling and convincing. McKellar also has a part in the final film, a sprawling story of ruin and redemption that spanned the globe in its production that's been significantly re-cut -- and significiantly improved -- from the version first unveilled in Cannes in May. McKellar spoke with Cinematical in Toronto about the re-cut version of the film, the secret thread between his brilliant directorial debut Last Night and Blindness (" ... my paranoia about the apocalypse hadn't been resolved yet ..."), how Hurricane Katrina influenced the look of Blindness, the need for humor at the end of the world and much more. ...

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Last night, James and I had tickets to the TIFF premiere of Blindness, adapted from the Nobel Prize-winning book by José Saramago. James reviewed Blindness when we saw the film at Cannes, but I'd heard through the Telluride grapevine that the film had undergone a substantial edit since then. The cut we saw back in May was overlayed with a heavy, expositional voiceover throughout that completely killed the film, which I otherwise had liked quite a bit. So when I heard there was a re-edit playing here at TIFF, I knew we had to see it.

I'm happy to report that the newly edited version of Blindness is a vast improvement over what we saw at Cannes. Not only did director Fernando Meirelles (who also made one of the best films ever, City of God) remove the irritating and distracting voiceover, but as a result of doing so had to significantly re-cut, and in the process ended up with a much, much better film. He's tightened it up a lot, particularly a very troublesome bit concerning a major character arc shift for Julianne Moore's character, The Doctor's Wife, which was one of the parts I most had trouble with at Cannes. And while the film's running time is about the same, it now paces much quicker and thus feels like a tauter, shorter film that's much more engaging.

To triple dip or to wait? That is the question facing Dude-loving fans of the Coen Brothers' cracked comedy The Big Lebowski, which is due out on September 9 in a Tenth Anniversary Edition from Universal Home Video. Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, John Turturro, Steve Buscemi, and Julianne Moore star. The announcement was made without details on bonus features; DVD Active has now posted pictures of the menu screens, so we know what's new.

The Big Lebowski was initially released on DVD in 1998, and then was remastered for the 2005 Collectors' Edition. That edition included a "making of" feature, photos by Jeff Bridges, and a brief, jokey introduction. Those extras were included on the HD-DVD edition, released in June 2007 (and reviewed at High-Def Digest). The Tenth Anniversary Edition features those extras plus more: "The Dude's Life," "The Dude Abides: The Big Lebowski Ten Years Later," production notes, theatrical trailer, "The Lebowski Fest: An Achiever's Story," "Flying Carpets and Bowling Pin Dreams: The Dream Sequences of the Dude," interactive map, and photo gallery.

A standard Tenth Anniversary Edition will reportedly retail for $19.98, while a Limited Edition "in special bowling ball packaging" (pictured) will also be available. No news on a Blu-ray edition, though, so the question remains: will you triple dip or wait for Blu-ray? Or will you roll this sucker into your alley? The Dude wants to know.

UPDATE: Here's the trailer in Quicktime quality.

Of all the films I'm looking forward to this fall, Blindness ranks fairly high up there. Canadian distributor Alliance has just made available a full trailer that proves to be fairly intriguing, as an optometrist (Mark Ruffalo) and his seemingly immune wife (Julianne Moore) cope with an inexplicable epidemic of sight loss.

I'm a sucker for most anything vaguely apocalyptic, and while this very well could turn out to be akin to watching the first act of Children of Men through a milk-filled mask (which I've done, mind you), the prestige behind the project* says otherwise. We have acclaimed screenwriter Don McKellar adapting Nobel-Laureate José Saramago's novel, with Academy Award nominee Fernando Meirelles directing a cast that also includes Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal, Alice Braga, and Sandra Oh.

I must say, going off that taste and last spring's teaser, I still like the look, sound, and feel of this one, especially Moore's little retort (you know the one), and that's not to mention that any trailer which employs John Murphy's underrated score from last year's Sunshine to set a rightfully ominous tone is always fine by me. We'll get to see (sorry) what trials and tribulations await the world on September 19th.

*Not to mention Rocchi's review of the film from its Cannes world premiere.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Blindness (click to enlarge), which enjoyed its world premiere as the opening night film of this year's Cannes Film Festival back in May. Starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael García Bernal, Blindness tells of a city overcome by a blindness epidemic where its citizens are stricken with instant "white blindness." As folks are quarantined off in an abandoned mental hospital, one woman who remains unaffected pretends to be sick in order to take care of her husband, a doctor, who's now blind. Based on Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's novel, and directed by the very talented Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener), Blindness definitely looks to bring the creep factor -- and with this outstanding cast, I'm sure it will claim a spot as this fall's first great flick.

Don't close your eyes for too long, because Blindness hits theaters on September 19.

Fernando Meirelles's new film Blindness begins with the rush and push of urban life; traffic, crowds, activity, purpose. And then, one man cries out: "I'm blind." He eventually makes it to an ophthalmologist, but there's nothing physically wrong with his eyes; he simply can't see. "It feels like I'm swimming in milk," he explains, and we see, through his eyes, the blank, empty swirl of what used to be the world. And then another person says they are blind, and then another, and soon those few, frightened voices form a chorus of chaos as "the White Sickness" spreads like wildfire and leaves a ruined world in its wake.

Adapting Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's novel, Blindness feels like a curious mix of highbrow literary aspirations and lowbrow genre fiction; as the White Sickness spreads from person to person in a clear chain of connection and things fall apart, it'd be easy to dismiss Blindness as Dawn of the Dead for NPR listeners or Outbreak for grad students. Meirreles has taken a similar two-pronged approach before -- The Constant Gardener is an excellent critique of the failings of modern capitalism that also works as a strong, suspenseful thriller -- and while Blindness may not work as well as that film, it's also a clear case of a film, and filmmaker, failing to hit the mark occasionally only because they've set the bar so high for themselves.

Cinematical has received two brand new exclusive Blindness images ahead of the film's world premiere tonight at the 2008 Festival de Cannes. Directed by Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener), Blindness was selected as the opening night film for this year's Festival de Cannes, and it stars Julianne Moore as the wife of a doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who suddenly becomes the only one who can see in a town where everyone is struck with a mysterious case of blindness. Based on the novel by José Saramago (adapted by Don Mckellar), Blindness also stars Gael García Bernal, Alice Braga and Danny Glover.

Cinematical is on the ground in Cannes, and both James and Kim have already seen Blindness. We'll have our review of the festival's opening night film later on in the day. Check out our second exclusive photo below, then head to the gallery for more. Blindness arrives in theaters on September 19.

We thought this looked awesome last summer, and now we have some confirmation. MSN has posted a teaser trailer for Blindness, Fernando Meirelles' apocalyptic thriller based on the novel by José Saramago, and it creeps me out. The movie is about a blindness epidemic that sweeps through a city, afflicting everyone except one woman (Julianne Moore) who is apparently immune. She's then forced to feign blindness (Why? If no one else can see, what's the difference?) to care for her husband (Mark Ruffalo) as everything around them goes to hell. The tonal shift at the beginning of the teaser is genuinely startling, maybe because the upbeat music doesn't stop playing as you'd expect, or maybe because it deals with something that is one of this cinephile's worst nightmares.

I like Meirelles' City of God as much as the next guy, but the real reason I'm excited for this is that the screenplay is written by Don McKellar, whose previous stab at depicting the end of the world, Last Night, is one of my favorite films (with one of the most perfect endings of all time). Blindness is expected to play the Toronto Film Festival this September, with a US release slated for October. Can anyone who's read the book give us some (non-spoiler) hints of what to expect?

[hat tip: comingsoon.net]

Less than a month ago, I brought you word that Julianne Moore was going to star in a new horror thriller called Shelter -- a project that has been in the works for a good 4 years now. With a star in place, and production to begin late next month in Pittsburgh, Variety reports that she's got a co-star; none other than Henry the VIII himself, Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Now Variety says that the logline (one-sentence film summary) is "being kept under wraps," but as I mentioned last time, this project has been around for ages, and MovieWeb put up a summary back in 2004 (the original THR link is dead). Unless there's been a major rewrite, Michael Cooney's script "follows a female forensic psychiatrist who specializes in debunking multiple personality disorder. When she discovers that her latest patient's various personalities are all murder victims, she struggles to find a logical explanation for the man's delusion."

You might remember that back in October, a new project started to gear up called The Private Lives of Pippa Lee. Based on Arthur Miller offspring Rebecca Miller's upcoming novel (that she adapted and will direct), the pic will focus on "a dutiful wife whose husband falls for a younger woman, freeing her to explore her buried sensuality and leading to a very quiet nervous breakdown."

I was ouching just at the thought of sensual exploration leading to a nervous breakdown, but now I have two reasons: along with the added cast just posted by The Hollywood Reporter, it's been confirmed that Robin Wright Penn is the wife, and Winona Ryder is the younger woman. For frak's sake, there's only a handful of years between the two women. Are they planning to age Wright Penn, or do they just think she looks that much older?

Anyway, adding to the tasty cast is Keanu Reeves, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Alan Arkin, and Monica Bellucci. Arkin will, of course, play the husband who leaves Wright Penn in the dust, and Bellucci will play his first wife -- so he's a dude who loves those May-December romances. Gyllenhaal will get the honor of appearing in flashbacks as Pippa Lee's "diet pill-addicted mother." Julianne Moore is some "lesbian novelist." And finally, Reeves gets to explore Wright Penn's sexuality. Now it all makes sense -- fool around with Keanu and you'll go crazy!

Once everyone finishes up their current gigs, production will kick into gear this April in Connecticut.