Citius Altius Directius

Frankly speaking, the Olympics and movies haven’t dated each other enough. As far as I’m concerned, any time you get to invoke the 5 rings of the Olympiad and re-tell some feel good story of an amateur underdog finding international glory, that’s a ticket and popcorn sold to my wallet. Miracle is the best hockey movie ever made, and while the competition was lighter, I will go on the record to say Cool Runnings has run away with the gold medal for all bobsledding flicks.

(Sorry, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”)

But since Bode Miller’s recent Winter Games performance didn’t exactly set screenwriters’ pens afire, there’s probably few Olymovies in the near future. So, in order to maintain that relationship with Hollywood, the 2008 Games in Beijing have hired on Ang Lee to serve as an “arts and culture consultant” for their Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Personally, we here at YAB think it’s a decent idea. Anything to take the focus off these children-devouring mascots.

But seriously, the partnership of the Olympics and Ang Lee could go a long way to green light more Olympic movies. Now more than likely, Lee was chosen above all other motion picture directors for at least one of the following four reasons:

1) He’s Chinese, and the Olympics will be in China.
2) They haven’t forgiven the other Chinese director, Yimou Zhang, for “House of Flying Daggers” yet. (Why wouldn’t that flick just end?)
3) It’s a “Dude, we’re sorry we had to ban Brokeback Mountain in our country – please come back and visit, Ang,” kind of begging plea.
4) Yao Ming demanded Tibetan freedom as an appearance fee.

So, yeah, whatever the reason, Ang Lee is on board. With Lee at the helm, he will look to bring some important elements back to the grandeur and majesty that the Opening and Closing Ceremonies were originally conceived to be. Perhaps the sophistication and sincerity of Sense and Sensibility. Or perhaps he’ll instill us with the agility and grace of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And if all else fails, he could also make stuff explode and blow up, a la The Hulk.

But even though we totally can make the connection of nationality, was Lee the right director for this movie? According to IMDB, he’s busy working on a WWII epic with a Mandarin script with one of the guys from Hero. And since Lee averages a completed project once every, eh, year and a half, what happens if he gets behind schedule? What if he just throws into the story of love and violence some B-Roll of a giant green Eric Bana destroying government buildings? His credibility could be shot. Would you want that former shell of a Hollywood director at the helm of the biggest sporting event in the world??? (After the World Cup, that is.)

So who else do we have in mind? Well let’s bring down the job description. You’ll need someone comfortable working with a massive cast, someone who isn’t afraid of musical theater (that knocks out O-Stone, no doubt.), has put together films that grace an international stage, needs to be funny (something the Opening Ceremonies often lack, and would actually entice me to watch), can work with recurring themes, is probably cool with someone internationally famous like Bocelli or Pavarotti or Yanni or Yao Ming killing all the inertia of their show because the studio execs tell us “This guy is big!”, and most importantly, has never directed a film titled “The Hulk.”

Why not J.J. Abrams?

He’s a fresh face that helmed a surprisingly good Mission Impossible III, and the rest of his experience comes via Lost and Alias. Big casts? Lost has roughly 50 billion characters to keep track of. Musical theater? He’s versatile, and could probably get some tips from buddy Rob Marshall (Chicago.) Lost doesn’t get more international (where is that damned island, anyway?), and the man has a sense of humor that doesn’t require me staring at my TV cracking rhythmic gymnastics jokes.

Ang, best of luck to you, but we’ve got our pick waiting in the wings.