Auteur Watch - Olivier Megaton

Now normally I would reserve this spot for the likes of the hot young director of the #1 movie this week, but somehow the far more interesting story is that of the abovementioned, whose Transporter 3 has been hanging in there by fingernails lo these far too many weeks. Behold the power of Statham. Which reminds me, we just got Snatch on DVD. Of course, that was pre-Karate Statham, so it's like a whole different bird. All together!!
So what gives, anyway? Much like the Species series or the Alien series before it, each Transporter movie in the series has a different director! ...what other series of note? What the heck, the Jaws series; half sci-fi. But it's the writers that tie the respective movies in each series together. In the instant case, it's Robert Mark Kamen, writer of such hits as The Karate Kid 3 and Lethal Weapon 3... okay, so the Oscars have apparently left him to languish by the wayside. As it turns out, that Ph.D. is paying off, because this guy's the American emissary of ... TA-DA!!! Luc Besson! The Stephen J. Cannell of France. Okay, that was below the belt. But how does one classify ol' Luc? Part Tarantino, part Spielberg, all filmmaker. Of course, even Spielberg doesn't have as many puppet directors as Besson for all the B-List projects he's producing. And Luc's entering into Zemeckis Mo-Cap territory with all these Arthur and the Invisibles trilogy crap. Who do you think you are? The Wachowskis? He must have a secret brother director. Besides Kamen.
But Olivier, he's got a plan to distinguish himself from the likes of Leterrier and Nahon and Krawczyk and Pires and Corey Yuen and Bonvoisin and the countless others, I can only assume. Well, ol' Olivier's got a plan all right. I still can't figure out what it is, but I think it has something to do with working with other people named Olivier. Like Angie co-writer Olivier Bocquet! Or Exit editor Olivier Mauffroy! C'mon now. There's gotta be one more here... Or how about La Sirène Rouge sound syncer Olivier Chatron? Or how about special effects makeup artist Pierre Olivier Persin? ...yeah, but it's close enough. I guess his plan is to borrow the cars of these people, find their checkbooks in the glove, and write a few checks. What the hell. Beats going back to graffiti, eh? I gotta get some sleep...