Nicole Kidman vs The Pod People (Insert Tom Cruise-Scientology Joke HERE)

Hey guys, it's Donnie... I have a very hard time getting myself excited for Nicole Kidman projects. Most of the time...I just don't care. She does these movies that just seem totally uninteresting and only seem to garner attention because she's involved in it. But for every 3 studio projects she does, she does one smaller independent project which vaguely picques my interest. Personally I'm still waiting to see if she actually follows through on the project she had set up with Wong Kar Wai.

Last weekend it was announced that Nicole Kidman was going to be toplining Invasion, a remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, one of the most remade films ever, to which I said...whatever. Seriously, I really didn't care much at all. However, two things have since made me sit up and take notice. First off, the film's going to be directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, the man behind Downfall, the film about an unhinged Hitler hiding in the bunker at the end of Dubya Dubya Two. It hits DVD in a few weeks and I've heard fantastic things, so I plan on checking that out soon.

Secondly, the powers at Warners have since announced that Invasion is no longer a remake. It seems that the project started out that way, but screenwriter David Kajganich seems to have strayed significantly from the original story and come up with what the studio has deemed "a fresh new concept". So it's now only a quasi-remake. Kidman plays a psychiatrist who discovers that aliens are altering the behavior of her clients (but apparantly not to the point that they stop going to therapy?) and somehow her son may be the key to stopping these alien Freuds.

Okay, so now I'm vaguely interested to see where they go from here. However, Kidman and her $16 million paycheck still have nothing to do with it. Kinda like when I sort of wanted to see The Interpreter, not because I wanted to watch Sean Penn brood and Nicole Kidman have a funny accent, but because Sydney Pollack actually got to film in the UN General Assembly Chamber, which no other film has ever gotten to do. Well, we'll see what develops I suppose. Probably nothing spectacular. Call me crazy, but I'm just not getting a good vibe off this thing...