Rants from a Cinephile

Harry Potter and the Director That Redeemed Himself

2010-11-21T10:08:00.000-08:00

What is the difference between a good adaptation and a bad one? Especially when we are considering the adaptation being written from a property we hold close to our hearts? To me, the answer is be truthful and faithful to the source material, all the while being able to visually and stylistically surprise us. This may seem an easy feat to accomplish, but considering David Yates past work on the series, in my least favorite cinematic installment of the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, this may not always be true. One aspect is just the psychology of it all. When we each read J.K. Rowling's epic wizarding tale, we read our perfect version of it, meaning we made our perfect casting choices (such as my mental casting of Alan Moore as Rufus Scrimgeour), our perfect style and essentially our perfect translation of the novel ourselves. Therefore, when we got Order of the Phoenix, we had a few things matching our vision, the young Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood and the CGI rendering of the thestrals for example. However, Michael Goldenberg's (the man currently destroying our film version of Hal Jordan in Green Lantern) script left out important scenes, changed a few things and ultimately fell short of what we all had in our heads while reading.

I'll admit that Yates' next adventure into the Rowling mythos was better. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince we get the return of screenwriter Steve Kloves, whom in the end will have adapted seven of the eight films. Kloves still, in my head, missed some of the more important parts; however, we get some tender moments between Ron and Hermione, some significant Alan Rickman screen time, a slightly more foreboding atmosphere and of course the always stellar cast. It ended up being something that, for me, I hated to love. That is why when I read the news that Yates was returning to film the two films that would split the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I cringed deep inside. The film series, which started out with director Chris Columbus, moved onto the incredible Alfonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama, Tambien and Children of Men are among his impressive filmography) and finally dropping off into the hands of Mike Newell, not to mention the fact that Terry Gilliam, a true cinematic visionary and Monty Python alum, has always expressed interest in being part of this franchise, makes the choosing of Yates anything but settling.

So, anticipating disappointment, I settled down for the midnight showing of the first part of our last journey into the world of Harry Potter and his friends. Was I disappointed? Aside from the scene kids that kept talking about how much they loved Harry Potter, throughout the film, completely ignoring the film itself, I was delightfully pleased. Yates cannot take all of the credit, as given two films to adapt the screenplay, Kloves puts out the most faithful adaptation yet. (As a note, and spoiler alerts ahead, as I am pretending someone may actually read this, I, by no means am saying there wasn't things I disapproved of, for instance, the fact that Harry hardly even grieves over the death of Hedwig among several other things.) But Yates, along with franchise noob, cinematographer Eduardo Serra create a dark landscape that coincides with the bleak, death-ridden storyline.

But for me, the biggest saving grace for Yates, is the entire visually and stylistically surprising us thing I mentioned earlier. When we read this book, we pictured it to be foreboding, we probably played out the acting in our heads (maybe even not up to par as the likes of Helena Bonham Carter gives), but the addition of something out of the ordinary, not in my imagination while still fitting with the film and Rowling's storyline was the animated sequence when Hermione reads the tale of the three brothers. The entire thing looked like somebody took one of Tim Burton's rather macabre and twisted ideas and put it to imagery combining Gilliam's Tideland, and the anime prequels to Play Station's Heavenly Sword. It is this one moment that completely redeems Yates for me, and officially puts Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 as one of my most anticipated films in a long while.

As a note, I did some research and found out that the animated sequence came courtesy of animator Ben Hibon. Cartoon Brew has a bitching little short called Codebreakers that he did for MTV Asia. If you have a few moments to kill, check it out.

Jackass 3D

2010-10-17T12:32:00.000-07:00

One of my greatest childhood memories, like many children on the eastern side of the U.S., was trekking with the family down to magical Orlando, Florida to be fully immersed into the pre-pubescent euphoria of the Indiana Jones stunt show spectacular, travelling back in time with Doc Brown and all the many treasures that only Walt Disney World and Universal Studios can produce. One of the memory gems I can pull out from this cherished family vacation is how completely blown my mind was at the T2 3D: Battle Across Time show at Universal. I honestly felt like one of the stunned audience members in the laughable My Bloody Valentine or Saw 3D trailers, where if I just reached out I could touch Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Fast forward to 2010, mostly miserable in a theater due to it being filled to capacity with twentysomethings masquerading as some kind of hybrid of scene kid/Jersey Shore douchebag, I am ripped back into my childhood. Now, without a history of child molestation in my life, if someone was to ever say that feeling like a giant dildo was about to smash through my skull in glorious 3-D would jerk me back into my childhood like something from a Worther's Original commercial, I might feel a little uncomfortable. However, in the latest installment of the Jackass films, the perfect, gimmicky, trashy, use of a 3-D rubber sex toy being blasted out of a homemade canon through the screen did just that.

The above example is just one of the reasons that I have come to the conclusion that Jackass 3D is the perfect film to represent the 3-D medium. While the market is being saturated with effects heavy, overbudgeted , underwritten, overrated pieces of cinema like James Cameron's Avatar, including even Martin Scorsese currently working on a 3-D picture, it gets hard not to become sore and avoidant of all things outside of two dimensions. Coming alongside the announcement that Scorsese was going to do his upcoming The Invention of Hugo Cabret in 3-D, desperation struck the hardest with the realization that sadly, Cameron had changed cinema like he predicted his $500 million film would. That change however, is one in which even the masters would trade artistry for a buck. And what about the exploitation, trash and underground horror filmmakers that 3-D was meant for? Where are they to reclaim the art of using a gimmick?

Well, like a beacon from Heaven or at the very least a coked up William Castle, here comes Johnny Knoxville and company riding the proverbial white horse of salvation into the theater to give me hope for 3-D by a constant array of body fluids, full frontal male nudity, self mutilation, shock, schlock and near bestiality. The movie is by no means perfect, nor is every skit even funny, yet the ones that work, work well. However, the 3-D is better than anything I saw in Avatar, and a scene by Dave England reminiscent of the Japanese tub girl meme was the first time I believe I've actually been shocked at a film since my first viewing of the chicken scene from John Waters' trash manifesto, Pink Flamingos. So here's to you Jackass for bringing 3-D back to where it belongs, nestled safely in trash cinema.

Why The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is Terrible

2010-07-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

While awaiting the excesses of barbeque gluttony and the throes of pyromania, I thought I would set down to the ol' Microsoft Word and write out a short list of reasons I despised The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Enjoy fellow readers...

P.S.... Spoiler alert.

1. I'm not going to say that when it comes to the Twilight franchise that I'm a stickler for continuity. Case in point, when I heard the Bryce Dallas Howard, the oddly alluring daughter of Ron Howard, was replacing Rachelle Lefevre, I instantly thought improvement, instead of the diatribe of curses I usually issue forth when I hear of a casting amendment. However, there was one major continuity problem I noticed in the film during the fight scenes. Is it me, or did the MTV Movie Award winning fight scene (God strike me dead for knowing that without research) between Edward and James contain flesh tearing, blood and generally things we have become accustomed to in vampire driven fight scenes? How come all of a sudden in this film, the vampires have the same weakness as the titular antagonists' in SyFy's atrocious telefilm Ice Spiders? Whenever David Slade was named as the director, a man that openly disliked Catherine Hardwicke's first volume of the film adaptations, and the guy that helmed the bloody 30 Days of Night, I wasn't really expecting a masterpiece, but at least a bit of violent escape during the fight scenes, rather than hearing a seemingly misplaced sound effect of a dull metal clunk, followed by the revelation that the vampires are made of fucking glass. Really?

2. Too many close ups. One of the few things I actually appreciated about The Twilight Saga: New Moon was the cinematography. Javier Aguirresarobe, the cinematographer behind Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her and last year's bleak sci-fi flick The Road among others, highly impressed me during the Volturi scenes with the panning down the parade of red robes, long shots, the contrast in colors between Forks and Volterra. Yet, the same guy maintains extreme close ups to the point that we disregard the feeble dialogue and start noticing that Kristen Stewart has protrusion of her two front teeth, that there are freckles noticeable behind her make-up, that someone should have combed Robert Pattinson's sideburns in a few scenes and things that are generally left to the potentially murderous/crazy teenage fangirl.

3. That I felt like I was in a Mormon abstinence camp, created by a mother whom had been to a few vampire cosplay orgies before she saw the straight and narrow of Joseph Smith and swore off sex altogether. In fact, the entire moral compass of the film seems blurred. The story arc over the four books has nothing to do with Victoria or the Volturi, it boils down to simply, a love(less?) triangle. The film gives off the impression that in Meyer's world, it is okay to lead on two guys, not just on a courting level, but a level of forever (Edward proposal of marriage, Jacob's imprinting, which due to Kristen Stewart's Tommy Wiseau school of acting approach, we as an audience that hasn't delved into Meyer's wet dream in paper form, could not tale if she was upset that she was not imprinted on by Jacob, or was a little freaked out at the prospect that she may be), throughout a process of a few years. Yet, whenever it seems that Bella and Edward are going to be together forever, two committed lovers that are about to engage in sexual activity, Edward stops the tease of the prepubescent audience after fearing for Bella's mortal soul if she commits the sin of premarital relations. In what religion/moral system is premarital sex worse than deception? Speaking of convoluted morals, our heroes, the Cullen coven, including Edward, whom holds his religious values and fear of soul condemnations out in the open, let the Volturi take the innocent Bree Tanner (her name being another thing I am ashamed that I know without research). Does this mean that the heroes of our story find solemnly watching a few cold blooded killers punish a young, innocent, brainwashed girl for a crime she didn't know any better of, with death, is of high moral character, but a blowie would cause the Cullens to see Bella in Hell? This is also unfair to Mormons, who are way more screwed up than Twilight would lead us to believe.

4. The rest of the movie. I'm running a little long here, so let's some this up with a few rhetorical questions. Was Victoria made of gasoline? Seeing that Alice saw the battle four days prior, could nobody have planned for Bella to wear a jacket on the SNOW COVERED PEAKS OF A WASHINGTON MOUNTAIN!, to avoid the such-a-porn plot device of cuddling to keep alive? Based on this and westerns, is it true that Native American men are anti-shirt? Why is the female werewolf clothed heavier than her male counterparts? Did the mother not question why Edward opted to set and watch his fiancé and future mother-in-law through the patio window instead of actually conversing?

Finally, I'll end with the terrible revelation that this film currently has a 63% fresh rating from the top critics at Rotten Tomatoes, including Richard "one of the more astonishing upgrades in movie franchise history" Roeper and A.O. "robustly entertaining" Scott. Before anybody gets an idea that they should listen to these "prestigious" reviewers, let me remind you kids that Roeper disliked The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, because "it goes on forever" and Scott has previously shown his expertise on book adaptations by saying Joe Wright's Atonement is a "classical example of how pointless, how diminishing, the transmutation of literature into film can be".

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

2010-02-10T19:33:00.001-08:00

Being a man and an inspiring cineaste, it is hard to draw me into a theater on pure cuteness. However, if anybody could do it, Pixar would be responsible. The company, via Coming Soon, has unveiled a few of the new fourteen toys that will be in the upcoming Toy Story 3, including an extremely douchey Ken of Barbie fame, and these Japanesque peas in a pod. Of course, the cuteness of this toy will not be the only draw, as the movie's two predecessors are excellent films, and following the consecutive summer releases of Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up, it will be a disappointment if Lee Unkrich's film doesn't score a near perfect on Rotten Tomatoes.

My big rant of the night comes along with the debut of the full trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's big screen adaptation of The Last Airbender. /Film has an article on some of the fan rantings that are going on, eclipsing the decent looking trailer for the film. There seems to be some kind of controversy over the fact that playing the lead character Aang is a Caucasian, Noah Ringer. I just don't see how this is a controversy. First of all, in most films drawn in the style of Avatar: The Last Airbender, modeled after Japanese anime, the characters have general or mixed features, not really appearing as stereotypical Asians, Americans or whatever. Second point, this is Ringer's first film, and with limited amount of trailer time, we can't judge his acting skills, but the kid looks dead on. It just seems silly to me to blast this for being racist, while fanboys allowed the two blackfaced robots in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen jive talk for a good percentage of the film without giving it such an unfortunate title (although other demeaning titles such as shit, directed by Michael Bay and worst film of the year were all more applicable). Still, I think a lot of the rants are coming from tried and true anime fans that doesn't like Nickelodeon's original spin on the fantasy genre and Japanese influenced stylization. I still think the film looks like one of the more promising of this year's blockbuster season, and has at least subsided my fears of being the next Dragonball: Evolution.

The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision Blog has announced that Penelope Cruz is in talks to take a co-starring role, as "Johnny Depp's equal" in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. This rumor seems quite likely, seeing that the article drives home the point that it will reunite Cruz with director Rob Marshall, whom is taking over the Pirates franchise, and directed her in her Academy Award nominated performance in Nine.

Cinematical has an posted an article today confirming that Sony Pictures plans on releasing the latest Spider-Man film in 3-D. I share the same sentiments as author Scott Weinberg, as any potential the film had built up by signing on (500) Days of Summer's director Marc Webb and Zodiac's screenwriter James Vanderbilt, all is lost with the addition of the gimmick, or Avatar-induced cinematic plague.

Shock Till You Drop, in an interview with David Self, screenwriter of a reboot of Robocop, has claimed that Darren Aronofsky is still attached to the property, that will hopefully come to fruition after Aronofsky finishes up filming on Black Swan. Self cites MGM's financial problems as to why the exact future of the film is currently in limbo.

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

2010-02-09T18:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Deadline Hollywood supplied the movie blogsphere with the rumor that David S. Goyer and Jonathan Nolan, brother of The Dark Knight's visionary director Christopher Nolan, is currently working on a script for the third in Nolan's franchise. Today, DH's story followed up by announcing that Chris Nolan could very well be DC Comic's silver screen savior. Not only will the director be responsible for turning the Batman franchise around from Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin to his 2005 release, Batman Begins, but now the linked article is reporting that Warner Brothers has hired Nolan to mentor or "godfather" (an interesting term to be used in the Superman film universe, seeing that the first two films were written by The Godfather novelist Mario Puzo) a reboot of the Superman franchise, after the company decided to go another route than continuing with Bryan Singer's Superman Returns story arc. Still, Nolan will not be in the director's chair, the reason cited in the article, for working on Batman 3. There will surely be more rumors on this as the week continues, especially if anyone can actually get a statement from Nolan.

The other big news of the day comes from The Daily Mail's interview with Bill Murray. In it, the comedian discusses The Fantastic Mr. Fox, his thoughts on the underrated Groundhog Day script and his favorite performance, Broken Flowers. However, it is when the topic of Ghostbusters 3 comes up that the story sets the rumor mills running. Murray claims he will only return to the franchise if he gets to come back as a ghost, all but actually confirming Sigourney Weaver's slip-up in an interview during Avatar's press tour. Although I would prefer to not know that Dr. Peter Venkman will die within the first few minutes of the first movie, I can see this working, and don't really see it as a spoiler seeing that it is on every blog site, and if it happens in the manner that is being rumored, will probably be featured in the trailer of the possible film.

/Film posted an article featuring Stan Lee announcing via his Twitter that Marvel is prepping an Ant-Man movie. After the rumors of Edgar Wright taking the director's chair for the film and Pixar eyeing the project were both dispelled, the cinematic future of the Marvel character has been left unspoken about lately. I'm sure this little promise from Stan the Man will get the fans interested again.

In some actual confirmed news, The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision Blog has announced that Tim Robbins has joined the cast of The Green Lantern as Senator Hammond, the father of the film's main villain, Dr. Hector Hammond (as played by Peter Sarsgaard). I know absolutely nothing on Robbins' character-to-be, but just looking at his acting ability, it's not a bad choice.

Monday, February 8th, 2010

2010-02-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

The release of Cop Out in three weeks marks the first time I have not been genuinely stoked about a Kevin Smith film being released. I'm sure many critics, and Smith fans alike will trash Jersey Girl, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and even Mallrats, yet I have always been a diehard of the Red Bank, New Jersey native. So, in response to thinking that the Bruce Willis/Tracy Morgan buddy comedy will be one of his worst flicks, I have been putting a lot of stock and anticipation into Smith's upcoming efforts, including the much blogged about Hit Somebody, as well as Smith's shot at horror filmmaking, Red State. The horror flick has been a fan favorite idea for some time, and after a few requests for Smith to take fan donations to fund the film, a sort of backlash of cinema bloggers questioning the Clerks. director's douchebagginess over such a move has flooded in. /Film has an article covering Smith's response to the negative commenters. I personally wouldn't donate money, but Smith was going to match the fan donations and go without a salary, so I don't really see why he would be playing the villain here, especially if a few well-to-do fans could garner a production credit out of the ordeal. Still, with this tinge of controversy, I'm sure it puts Red State in the same column as Ranger Danger and the Danger Rangers as shelved Smith features I was heavily anticipating.

Deadline Hollywood has an article up on David S. Goyer's involvement and departure in the ABC series FlashForward, yet the story spirals into speculation on the sequel to The Dark Knight. The story claims that Goyer's exit of the show is due to writing the screenplay to the third Batman film with Jonathan Nolan. His screenwriting cohort is of especial note as well, as that would point all indication that director Christopher Nolan would return. Still, I've read several overviews of this on several blogs today, and they all call bullshit, so I suppose we will see.

Super Hero Hype has confirmed through an interview with director Joe Johnston, that Red Skull will be the official villain in the upcoming The First Avenger: Captain America. Let's just hope that whomever is casted in the role, sets their goal slightly higher than Scott Paulin from the 1990 film version.

Avatar's reign has finally come to an end after seven weeks, as James Cameron's mega-blockbuster film came in second place on the box office charts this weekend, falling to the Nicholas Sparks adapted romance flick Dear John. The Amanda Seyfried starring film, directed by Lasse Hallstrom had the second highest showing of all time during Super Bowl weekend, coming close to breaking the record held by the Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert film. Even more shockingly, Avatar failed to break any new records this weekend, some crediting this to contending against the New Orleans Saints big win last night, which broke M*A*S*H's long standing television viewing audience record for its finale. Cameron's film came in second on the all time list during the eighth weekend of release to his other film, Titanic. Next weekend sees three big releases in The Wolfman, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and Valentine's Day, so it will be interesting to see what kind of decrease the film will face in sales.

Finally, as I've been writing this, I've been watching the lackluster reunion of Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo as Clark and Ellen Griswold from John Hughes' beloved Vacation series of films, in the form of several Super Bowl ads, entitled Hotel Hell Vacation for Home Away, Inc. (As a note, the collected commercials are being officially referred to as a short film and sequel within the official Vacation canon). For the rest of cinema news from last night, Cinematical has compiled all the debut TV spots for Alice in Wonderland, Prince of Persia, Shutter Island, The Last Airbender, The Wolfman, Robin Hood and The Crazies.

Friday, February 5th, 2010

2010-02-05T20:44:00.001-08:00

Not blogged in a few days, and my starred items on Google Reader are building up like crazy, so lots of links in brief.

Bleeding Cool reports that DC Comics is looking for somebody to write a sequel or prequel to Alan Moore's Watchmen. The print bastardization of the seminal comic will surely make the maddening big screen jump in time.

The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision Blog reports that Taylor Lautner has been cast in the big screen adaptation of the Stretch Armstrong toy. Also, while reading the article I learned that Lautner was Sharkboy in The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. This could possibly make him the worst actor of all time.

I just recently found out that there is a musical with Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal attached called Damn Yankees in pre-production about a man who sells his soul to the devil so his team can make the World Series.

20th Century Fox, via Deadline Hollywood, has announced they want to reboot the Daredevil franchise. After getting into Frank Miller's comics of the hero this past year, I actually hope this fleshes out well.

CINSSU, a free film site, reports that Kevin Smith will be attempting to fund his stab at horror (no pun intended), Red State, by donations.

There has been such talk about ex-spouses James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow and their fight for the Oscar race. Cinematical has a great post featuring a music video Cameron directed of Bill Paxton's band Martini Ranch that starred Bigelow.

Check out the Super Bowl trailer for The Last Airbender on The Daily What.

Bloomberg reports that some of Sony's old films could be getting a 3-D Blu-ray conversion next year, including Spider-Man, Ghostbusters and District 9.

/Film has the teaser for the new fan documentary The People Vs. George Lucas up.

Access Hollywood reported that the young star in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Logan Lerman, will star as Peter Parker in Marc Webb's reboot of Marvel's Spider-Man franchise, actually being a teen Parker, rather than Tobey Maguire who was 27 when he first played the teenage hero.

Film 24, a British movie channel, interviewed Daryl Hannah recently, in which she claimed that she would eventually reprise her role as Elle Driver in at least another Kill Bill film in the future.

Cinematical announced that Avatar officially beat Titanic in the U.S. domestic box office earnings, surprising nobody. Also, not shockingly, Fox mentioning it its conference call a few days ago that they were perusing director James Cameron for a sequel.

Topless Robot has video proof that Nick Manning will be the next person to don the Dark Knight's cowl for a film... in Batman XXX: A Porn Parody. The link includes the safe for work trailer!

Empire readers named Batman and Robin as the worst film of all time in a poll.

/Film has the first official picture of Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy.

Deadline Hollywood is covering the huge buzz and Paramount's rumored dealings with the J.J. Abrams-produced documentary that is making big waves at the Sundance Film Festival, Catfish.

The Los Angeles Times has a story up on how Universal Studios Hollywood's rebuilding of the burned down King Kong ride will be based on Peter Jackson's telling of the classic cinematic tale.

Geekologie reports that Tinto Brass intends to create a 3-D porn film.

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

2010-02-02T19:56:00.000-08:00

The initial happiness of District 9 and Inglourious Basterds making the cut of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards Best Picture nominees almost makes it easy to overlook the fact that the mediocre-at-best film The Blind Side also ranked among the other nine films. Accompanying the aforementioned films include An Education, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, A Serious Man, Up and Up in the Air. Of course, James Cameron's widely praised and crazy popular Avatar also took home a nom, and from the reviews and buzz I've read, what I project as the winner of the major category, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker grabbed the tenth spot. Most of the nominees were to be expected, but I feel the big story is how many great films were passed up for The Blind Side. 2009 saw such great flicks as Coraline, Moon, Observe and Report, Star Trek, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Brothers Bloom, The Hangover, Watchmen, Ponyo, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Zombieland, Where the Wild Things Are, Invictus, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, (500) Days of Summer, Paranormal Activity, Bronson, Crazy Heart, The Road and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Given, the Academy wouldn't even consider half of the films I just listed, but all are way more deserving than the ode to forgettable Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman Michael Oher, not to mention the alleged racism of John Lee Hancock's drama. There was many other overlooked performances in this past year of film, some of which are covered in a decent article by Cinematical's Erik Childress.

I would list my predictions of who I think should win, but I am still playing catch up with a few films I have yet to see, including the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man, Jason Reitman's Up in the Air and a few more. However, reading so much over this past award season, I will relinquish who I think doesn't necessarily deserve the award, but will take it home.

Best Picture: The Hurt Locker

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart

Best Actress: Gabourey Sidibe for Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (I know I am going out on a limb here, as most sites will pick either Sandra Bullock or Meryl Streep, but I stand by the choice as a lock.)

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air (this may be the most difficult category to predict, as all five has their supporters, and have won awards thus far into the season.)

Best Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds

Best Adapted Screenplay: Nick Hornby for An Education

Best Animated Feature: Up

Best Art Direction: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Best Cinematography: The Hurt Locker

Best Costume Design: The Young Victoria

Best Documentary: The Cove

Best Editing: The Hurt Locker

Best Foreign Film: The White Ribbon

Best Makeup: Star Trek

Best Original Score: James Horner for Avatar

Best Original Song: "The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)" for Crazy Heart

Best Sound: Avatar

Best Sound Effects Editing: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Best Visual Effects: Avatar

Finally, if you do crave something other than this entire Oscar business, Kevin Smith gave a great interview on Bizarre Magazine's web site on the topics of golden showers, his first sex with his wife, and providing the tidbit that the much-talked about Hit Somebody, Smith's newest project that he hopes to start next year, is actually based on a Warren Zevon song.

Monday, February 1st, 2010

2010-02-01T18:59:00.001-08:00

That is one of the more priceless frightened faces on a child that I have ever seen. It is also completely unrelated to anything we're about to discuss. First off, in all of the award-season chaos, many people tend to leave the Golden Raspberry Awards off of their lists. Like always, the Razzies tend to be the worst of extreme mainstream cinema, instead of being the worst of cinema, period... as advertised. Case in point, Land of the Lost lands a nomination for Worst Picture, even though it had some supporters, one being Roger Ebert. Also, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen had a terrible script, but has kept a decent fan base, and despite not being a Fellini, the movie was entertaining enough at least, to keep it off this list. Other notables pointed out in /Film's coverage include four nods for The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Sandra Bullock's nomination for All About Steve, which could couple with a possible Academy Award nomination announced tomorrow for her role in The Blind Side (which for my consideration, would fit in more on this list than any other). There is also three decade awards that is worth checking out.

Other than Bullock, not a lot of Oscar speculation coming out of the nominations for the Razzies, but another award show went down over the weekend, the Directors Guild of America Awards, in which Kathryn Bigelow took home the trophy for Best Director for her film The Hurt Locker. Cinematical's Girls on Film column focuses on Bigelow's big win, trumping her ex-husband James Cameron among others. The article also notes that Bigelow's chances on Academy gold just shot up considerably, seeing that the winner of the highest honor the DGA presents has won the Oscar 90% of the time in the last 61 years. On top of all this, Bigelow also holds the distinction of being the first female winner of the DGA Award, and is looking as a nearly positive groundbreaker as the first female to gain the Oscar in the same category.

Finally stepping away from the award stuff for a bit, /Film has an article up focusing on Kevin Smith's Twitter account, where the Clerks. director has announced he is shopping Hit Somebody, a dramedy set in the world of hockey, to Warner Brothers. They also quote Smith as referring to Hit Somebody as an equal to 1993's Chasing Amy, the quality of which he has been, for lack of a better word, chasing ever since.

Well, with all attempts of not mentioning Avatar, the fact that the Oscars are announced this week, and the aforementioned news of Bigelow's triumph over the film makes it almost impossible. Also continuing to block me from ignoring the blockbuster is the fact that the film took the top spot at the box office again this week, for the seventh time, in the process breaking the record for the highest grossing seventh weekend of all time. Box Office Mojo's weekend report also estimates that the current record holder for worldwide box office will overtake the U.S. domestic record sometime this week, beating out Titanic. Cameron's film also was the first to cross the worldwide $2 billion mark over the past week. Many may wonder exactly why all the praise for the flick, including the comically monotoned guy that posted a 70 minute review of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace on YouTube. He now has an 18 minute review of Avatar posted. Here is the first part, enjoy.

Friday, January 29th, 2010

2010-01-29T19:42:00.001-08:00

I have to be honest, when reading James Bobin's name earlier today, I hadn't a clue who he was. But after a further look, the man who was a writer/producer for Da Ali G Show and Flight of the Conchords is rumored to be taking the directorial role for the latest Muppet movie that is being penned by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller. Vulture also reports that Bobin is also being courted by Judd Apatow for the Kristen Wiig-written Bridesmaids, which may put the Muppet project in jeopardy. Overall though, we can't really oppose Bobin's involvement with a reboot of Jim Henson's Muppets, so let's hope it goes through.

I can't get over how every few months, something pops up on the blogsphere to make The Green Hornet look even better. Today, I Watch Stuff noticed that Film Score Monthly was crediting Danny Elfman as the composer for Hornet on his profile page, despite that an official press release for Elfman's hiring has yet to make the rounds. Michel Gondry's style of directing seems like a dream match for Elfman's music, coupled with Seth Rogen's inaugural superhero screenplay, it would almost be the biggest shock of the year if it failed.

If you've ever watched This Film Is Not Yet Rated, Indie Sex or just plain had some issue with the MPAA along the line, you've probably figured that the U.S. was the harshest of all ratings systems, and that other countries allowed the art of cinema to go unabashed. Well, apparently, we MPAA haters have never really looked at Australia's ratings classification, because after their most recent announcement, courtesy of Geekologie, I'm sure they have always been slightly cracked. The ratings board has put a ban on the depiction of women with small breasts, because of the mental association it could have with pedophilia. Also out, female ejaculation, because it is similar to urination. Male ejaculation on the other hand is still in. So, to put this all in perspective, Natalie Portman's side shot in Hotel Chevalier, Wes Anderson's brilliant short prologue to The Darjeeling Limited would be banned under the new sanction because after seeing Portman, we would most definitely want to rape a child. Yet, we could go to a theater and watch Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs, which contains an ejaculation scene, and is for all purposes a hardcore porn with a hipster soundtrack that the Hustler parodies can't really afford.

On a final note today, another tidbit from the Sundance Film Festival. Here is the trailer for a short film I'm highly anticipating, Spike Jonze's I'm Here, a robot love story. Enjoy.

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

2010-01-28T19:38:00.000-08:00

The company behind such great films as Clerks., Pulp Fiction, Sex, Lies and Videotape, The Piano, Reservoir Dogs, Exotica, Shakespeare in Love, Velvet Goldmine, Dogma, Jackie Brown, the English dub of Princess Mononoke, Amelie, Apocalypse Now Redux, Gangs of New York, Cold Mountain, the Kill Bill films, Finding Neverland, The Aviator, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood among many other things is calling it quits. Founded by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the company was pretty much the face of the independent film surge in the 90's and ventured on to be attached, sometimes with other companies as in There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men with Paramount Vantage, to some of the better reviewed films of the 2000s. Along with the end of a legend in modern cinema goes a few unproduced films, via Cinematical. The best of which being Julie Taymor's adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, which was set to star Helen Mirren, Geoffrey Rush, Alfred Molina, Russell Brand and Jeremy Irons among others. Ironically enough, Deadline Hollywood had ran a story early this morning before The Walt Disney Company (the current owners of Miramax, which was bought from the Weinsteins) announced the closing of the studio that Harvey Weinstein was interested in buying the company back. I'm sure Kevin Smith's Twitter feed is all aflutter, so expect some of his, as well as Quentin Tarantino's, comments about this over the weekend.

It wasn't just Miramax, today was a sad day for the entertainment industry as a whole. Zelda Rubinstein, most famous for playing the role of Tangina Barrons in the Poltergeist horror franchise, which also won the actress a Saturn Award, died of kidney and lung failure at the age of 77 today. Although she will forever be known for her role in Poltergeist, Rubinstein kept acting and appeared as late as Richard Kelly's 2006 film Southland Tales. Joining her was author J.D. Salinger. Of course, Salinger didn't have a lot to do with film, as his most famous work, The Catcher in the Rye, has been rumored to be in the process of an adaptation since the 50's, with everybody from Elia Kazan to Terrence Malick vying for the director's chair. Now that Salinger has finally passed, at the age of 91, one can't imagine that one of the most controversial books in American history, that I for some reason have never picked up, will make its way to the big screen in the coming years for better or worse.

Somehow, in the last 20 or so posts, I have yet to escape without mentioning Avatar. Nonetheless, I have to pass along a great story that I originally read on BBC News today. Officials in Zhangjiajie, China have renamed the Southern Sky Column the Avatar Hallelujah Mountain, claiming that the location was James Cameron's inspiration for the floating mountain in his blockbuster. It actually doesn't stop there, Zhangjiajie will also be conducting "Avatar Tours" to tourists to show all the places that inspired the land of Pandora. I have yet to hear Cameron acknowledge this place, but if I ever visit China, the place does look truly beautiful.

On a final note for the day, I have yet to really speak of the Sundance Film Festival, because as a spectator, what can one say about mostly independent films that we know nothing about. We just salivate a few of the reviews and wait for their limited theatrical release to jump aboard the bandwagon. Anyhow, Screen Daily grabbed an interview with Sundance regular Gaspar Noe, director of the controversial rape/revenge flick Irreversible, about future projects. One, Noe plans to make his first 3-D film, a joyous, hardcore, erotica piece. Noe's exploitative filmmaking does make a decent match for the medium, bringing it back into the subgenre it belongs.

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

2010-01-27T20:08:00.000-08:00

'Tis a rare moment on this blog to be speaking of George Lucas and the central focus not be on the Star Wars franchise. But today is a rare day in such tradition, as The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision Blog has announced that the man behind the greatest science fiction franchise in the history of cinema is going to be taking a seat as producer on a new CGI children's film about fairies. The movie is set to be directed by Kevin Munroe, the guy whom I only know from the CGI TMNT and written by David Berenbaum of Elf fame. So, without any information on this thing whatsoever other than the aforementioned limited specs, what does everybody think of this?

I haven't read much on Edward Norton's dispute with Marvel Studios on the final edit of The Incredible Hulk, but, according to SciFiSquad, it does apparently exist. That's why it is even more a piece of news than it would be otherwise that Kevin Feige confirmed today that the character of Dr. Bruce Banner and his alter ego will officially be a member of the titular superhero team in 2012's The Avengers, and is hoped to be played by Norton. It also mentions that after The Avengers, a sequel to the Hulk film could be in the works.

Of all the bloggers on Cinematical, it is usually Monika Bartyzel that catches my attention the most. So, without even trying to summarize her entertaining article today, here is the link to a story that somehow involves the former Malaysian prime minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Avatar, Zoolander and the assumption that 9/11 was staged by America via the wit of James Cameron.

Remember the trailer for Repo Chick the other night and how terrible it was? Well, get ready to polish Alex Cox's Oscar, because in comparison to the Insane Clown Posse's latest film (this is actually a sequel, please do not let your brain explode), Big Money Rustlas, it appears to be excellent. So, if you feel like ending your day on a depressing note, watch this trailer. Who wishes that the ICP was Haitian based?

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

2010-01-26T19:49:00.001-08:00

James Cameron has now officially caused the RMS Titanic to sink twice. That's one more time than God. Today, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Cameron's latest film Avatar succeeded what many analysts and critics had expected, it surpassed his 1997 critically acclaimed classic Titanic. This may seem like a huge day for the world of science fiction; however, I feel distraught. I still stand by my original review of Avatar as a good movie. Good. That's all. Today, I watched a great film within the science fiction genre, Duncan Jones' mostly overlooked Moon. The Sam Rockwell-starring picture is more than just a Kubrickian homage, it actually ascends the pool of normal sci-fi, and hovers around with that of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Is that a bit of an overstatement? Pure blasphemy to some? Quite possibly, but agree or disagree, I would find it hard to look somebody favorably in the eye if they chose Avatar as a better film than Moon. Building on that same thought, I can't help but imagine if Cameron, instead of Jones, had his name attached to the low budget Moon, that it would be at the top contention for most of the cinematic awards currently going on.

The aforementioned argument still doesn't really touch on Avatar's popularity to the general public. But that does bring up yet another argument as the film may lead in ticket sales, but has barely crested the U.S. domestic top fifty in attendance, in part due to the inflated 3-D ticket price attached to the film. So not only does this mean a superficial win over not only Cameron's Titanic, but actual perennial genre favorites The Dark Knight, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and many more of the big money makers in the past decade. It also pretty much solidifies that this entire 3-D thing is not going to go away. No longer is this a fun exploitation gimmick, but a distraction for possible good films to make an extra buck. THR's Heat Vision Blog has already reported that Warner Brothers is looking in to transferring the two films based on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows into 3-D. So in summation, Avatar was worth its ticket, it was an good movie, but somehow has contributed to the eventual ruin of the medium as a whole.

From one box office sensation to another. Paramount Pictures' shocking underdog horror hit Paranormal Activity's sequel has been rumored to have Kevin Greutert, formerly of the Saw franchise. Deadline Hollywood is instead reporting that Lionsgate has exercised an option in Greutert's contract, forcing him to make Saw 3D (see the above argument on Avatar's adverse effect on the movie business), and taking him away from Paranormal Activity 2. Kind of an interesting story, that will at least give Lionsgate a scapegoat when Saw 3D gets the horrid reviews that has come to be expected of the five films between it and the original Saw film.

Oh, and as a note, the picture up there is of Felicia Day, of Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog fame, for her video "Do You Want to Date My Avatar". After all the headlines Avatar has been producing, it was really the only unused picture on Google Image's "Avatar" search.

Monday, January 25th, 2010

2010-01-25T19:31:00.001-08:00

A trip to Florida is weighing pretty hardily on my travel-lusting spirit as these new images of Hogwarts from Universal Studios Islands of Adventure's new The Wizarding World of Harry Potter section of the park were released today. I'm sure more will come from this closer to the opening of the attractions.

The big news today comes once again from the wallet of James Cameron. Legion and The Tooth Fairy failed to take down Avatar in the box office charts again, with the critically lauded science fiction flick taking the top spot for a sixth weekend in a role, dropping only 18% from last week. And, as we're becoming accustomed to, the movie broke more records, overtaking The Dark Knight's spot as the second highest grossing movie of all time earlier in the week, and breaking Titanic's record for the highest grossing sixth weekend of all time. And at roughly $558 million, analysts expect Cameron's latest to replace his Titanic on the all time list sometime in the coming week. Next week, we're posed for the possibility of a seventh week of Avatar's reign as the biggest competition will be Martin Campbell's Edge of Darkness, the adaptation of the BBC series starring Mel Gibson and Ray Winstone, which hasn't had the media build up that one would expect from Gibson, and could pass easily under the radar.

Variety ran a story a few days back on New Line Cinema gearing up for The Hobbit films, and in the midst announcing that the release date has been pushed back to late 2012. I have read several blogs on this, and despite Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson not yet admitting to the delay in the release, many are taking the pessimistic view and are beginning to question if the classic J.R.R. Tolkien novel will even ever make it to the big screen. I'm going to leave this one alone until del Toro or Jackson make a public statement on it however.

I have yet to read a story on MarketSaw that has later been proven as a truthful statement, yet the blogging world seems to be up in arms about a recent story the site published a story stating that a third installment of the Gremlins franchise is being developed for a 3-D film. I say rubbish. Even in the event the article turns out to be based on fact, unless the right director gets behind the chair, I'm looking at this as just another bastardization of the 80's.

Speaking of bastardizations of the 80's, Alex Cox released the new trailer for Repo Chick, a "spiritual sequel" to his 1984 cult classic Repo Man. The Emilio Estevez-starring flick contained its share of camp and kitsch fare, but the unashamed use of bad green screen in the sequel takes it over the edge of entertainment. I mean, I've read a decent amount of buzz from this thing from Cox fans on message boards, and maybe I'm judging it wrong, but regardless of how good it is, I think from viewing this trailer we can all assume that it will, even at its very best, not live up to Repo Man.

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

2010-01-20T20:22:00.001-08:00

It won't be long before we get Tim Burton's unique look at Lewis Carroll's classic tale of Alice in Wonderland. Of course, Burton follows in the footsteps of Jan Svankmajer, and even Walt Disney's own animation department with trippy versions of the most famous of all the "literary nonsense" genre. Still, the Disney train is looking at Burton to helm a new live action version of one of their classic animated princess stories, Sleeping Beauty. The film, entitled Malificent, will retell the story focusing on the titular evil antagonist. The /Film article this is reported on does not confirm Burton's participation with the project, but with a 2011 release of the Philip K. Dick adaptation The King of the Elves for Disney animation, whatever Pixar is doing, Tron Legacy and this, it looks like Disney may actually be something more than being the conglomerate ass of Hollywood in the coming years.

The daily dip of news from the world of Pandora comes way of ABC News today. It has been reported that while watching Avatar, a 42-year-old Taiwanese man suffering from hypertension got over-excited, took a stroke and passed away. This almost makes me want to stick a toe back on the James Cameron bandwagon for a bit.

Cinematical posted the story today that Paramount Pictures has announced the release date for the Coen Brothers' remake of the western classic True Grit to Christmas. How much does the recent buzz for Jeff Bridges' part in Crazy Heart psych everybody up for his ability to outdo John Wayne tenfold in this flick?

CineMusic has reported after not being able to complete the score due to scheduling differences, the portion of the score already recorded by Danny Elfman will be seeing the light of day when The Wolfman is released, replacing his replacement Paul Haslinger. Conrad Pope has been signed on to round out the unfinished score.

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

2010-01-19T20:18:00.000-08:00

This isn't a promotional poster for Inglourious Basterds, featuring Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine character. It is Hot Toys newest figure due out sometime within the coming year. I found this on Topless Robot, where the article said a quote that sums up the work Hot Toys does perfectly in my head, "there are actual people who look less real than Hot Toys' action figures".

Yesterday I mentioned the rumors of Tobey Maguire being casted as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, after the story ran in The Sun. Luckily, Harry Knowles of AICN e-mailed both Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro to dispel the casting. Not that I'm terribly anti-Maguire, or even think that he couldn't actually pull it off, but that still doesn't make him right for the role, so I am happy for the moment.

A day cannot go by without James Cameron's Avatar making some sort of ripples within the cinema blogsphere. Today, an Access Hollywood story has been making the rounds, focusing on an interview with George Lucas in which the iconic director cites Cameron's latest success as inspiration to go further with the transfer of the Star Wars films to the 3-D medium. Is this a good thing? Sure, we all salivate at the original trilogy returning to the big screen and making waves at the box office again, but I still just really detest this entire 3-D explosion.

Vulture announced today that Marc Webb, the director behind the hugely successful indie comedy (500) Days of Summer, has been officially signed on by Sony to direct the reboot of the Spider-Man films. Although still being unhappy about the franchise being taken away from Sam Raimi (by his choice or the studios has not been clarified at the moment), but this is a decent step in the right direction to making this film watchable.

In the most bizarre origin story of a rumor for the day, the folks at /Film has decided that either Iron Man 2 will be taking up reshoots in the future, or that Robert Downey, Jr. will reprise his role of Tony Stark in a cameo for the upcoming Thor film, due to the fact that Downey sported the Stark-ish beard-mustache combo at the Golden Globes. Does this actually mean anything? Probably not at all, but if a crazy rumor has to be started up, might as well be from some movie geeks with at least semi-logical basis.

Monday, January 18th, 2010

2010-01-18T20:35:00.000-08:00

The Avatar mania will not subside. Last night, despite facing a few more deserving films, James Cameron's blue cat people love story toppled the award show, pulling away with Best Picture - Drama, as well as Best Director for Cameron's part. Of course, this leads to the buzz that nobody really wants to hear, that Avatar now pretty much pulls out in front in the race for the top honor at the Oscars. The silver lining in the show, other than the Martin Scorsese tribute which I just watched online, was that Todd Phillips' raunchy comedy The Hangover pulled out the win in the Best Picture - Musical or Comedy category. Could this mean that the comedy could be a shocking entry into the contention for the Academy's ten nominees for Best Picture?

Building off the topic of Avatar, the film took the box office again this weekend, for the fifth straight time. Of course, as normal, it would also break a few records within the process, setting the record for the best fifth week showing of all time, beating out The Dark Knight and Titanic, as well as taking in the best long weekend for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, beating out Cloverfield's opening. Maybe even more impressive, the feat was accomplished with actual competition, toppling the opening weekend of The Book of Eli and the expansion of The Lovely Bones (which had a 53,000% increase). Next week, Legion and The Tooth Fairy will take on the blockbuster, but it is quite possible that we are looking at a sixth weekend at the top.

After it was announced that Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire was out of Sony's plans for a new Spider-Man flick, I didn't read any stories about it, but I thought back on the rumor that Maguire would be taking on the role of Bilbo Baggins. Well, the most concrete of all news sources, The Sun, has put Maguire's role in Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic The Hobbit as confirmed.

Variety announced today that Clark Gregg will reprise his role as Agent Coulson not only in Iron Man 2, but in Thor as well, presumably also leading to a role in The Avengers sometime in the future.

On a final thought, I spent the day not celebrating Dr. King's infamous speech, or sadly even the fate of our favorite late night host Conan O'Brien, but by celebrating the anniversary of my trip through the womb some 25 years back. It is a bit depressing, added with the workload of school bearing down on my procrastinating conscience awful heavily, but I also got motivated to start road-tripping as much as possible before the ability to do so enjoyably exits. One of the contemplated areas to go soon before the bigger trips begin is Philadelphia, so to give me a bit of hope, here is a low quality video of Sylvester Stallone running up the Philadelphia Museum of Art's steps in Rocky. Now, I bid you adieu to watch Scorsese on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

Friday, January 15th, 2010

2010-01-15T19:57:00.001-08:00

I'm be damned if Avatar hasn't popped up as the big thing in entertainment this past week, with The Tonight Show debacle and celebrities for Haiti and all. Yet, somehow, James Cameron still keeps creeping to the top of this blog. Yahoo! Movies reports that Cameron is finally going to start pre-production on Battle Angel, an adaptation of a manga series, Battle Angel Alita, by Yukito Kishiro, with a projected release date of 2011. The news is big because, adding Cameron and the built in manga audience, a sure blockbuster/nerd following combination will result in big bucks at the box office, but it also points towards the earlier speculations of Cameron adapting the nonfiction book The Last Train from Hiroshima to be much later in his plans than originally slated, or that the director is possibly looking at only a producing job on that flick while he focuses most of his attention towards Battle Angel. As an added note, not knowing anything about the manga, the image I stole from /Film's coverage of the story already has me more sold for that film than all the onslaught of positive Avatar press that is being shoved down our throats.

I haven't heard much of Mitch Glazer's upcoming film Passion Play, starring Megan Fox, Mickey Rourke and formerly Toby Kebbell. Don't know who Kebbell is? Me either, but look him up, and decide from the dicey male model-esque pics Google Image will return if Bill Murray would be the first name in your head to replace him. But that is who /Film reports is stepping aboard the project to fill the void, much to the delight of, well, I'm sure everybody. Murray will play a mobster, whom calls on an angel, played by Fox. Other than that, I don't know much, but as soon as I find out more, it will be passed along.

From one good replacement to one of the worst I've ever heard. Nerd Bastards has an article on the possible new director for the reboot of the Spider-Man franchise, Nimrod Antal. Although the virtually unknown Antal's possible hiring would be a big story on a normal day, the same article also says that stepping into Tobey Maguire's old red and blue tights will be the sparkling, brooding vampire face of Robert Pattinson. It's one thing to rip this project away from Sam Raimi, but to bring a connection between Twilight and Marvel? Jesus, is NBC behind this shit!?

I just re-subscribed to Netflix, and unfortunately for myself, for the second time in the past two weeks, the DVD-by-mail rental service is seeing negative press. This time, according to Bloomberg, within a legal dispute between The Walt Disney Company and Starz. Apparently, most of the films with the ability to stream on Netflix comes from a deal made with Starz, but Disney wants their contract with Starz updated so the films cannot be streamed. Despite Netflix's best efforts to give us more streamable material, companies like Disney and Warner Brothers are ruining it for us all to save approximately half a penny per employee. I mean, for Walt Disney to have been an anti-Semite, this is an awfully Jew move. Wow, that must be the harsh schedule of school catching up to my brain for the hate speech to spill out on this blog. That's for another one that I plan on starting up soon, stay tuned kiddos.

Finally, to end on a more depressing note than Robert Pattinson as Peter Parker or the conglomerate war against accessible film, here is the trailer for the adaptation of Tekken. If this doesn't win a Razzie next year, I may castrate myself.

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

2010-01-14T20:23:00.001-08:00

The accompanying picture today is the five child stars that will forever be fondly remembered as the golden ticket holders in the 1971 trippy family film classic, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. What is sad is that the only one of the five that Cinematical lists as still being in the entertainment industry is Julie Dawn Cole, the girl who played Veruca Salt, which points to the British series that is unknown to myself, Tales of the Unexpected. It should also be noted that Charlie Buckett, or Peter Ostrum, takes a shocking dive towards Mustache of the Year honors.

Following the coverage of The Green Lantern's casting process this week, with the announcement of Blake Lively and Peter Sarsgaard joining the cast, HitFix has announced that Watchmen's Jackie Earle Haley is still being heavily considered for the role of Sinestro, meaning that he would share the villainous limelight with Sarsgaard's Dr. Hector Hammond.

Finally, I have to admit I didn't really dig through as much movie blogs as I would normally do, as it is about time for The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, and here at my little site, News from a Cinephile, I'm for Coco. Send hate mail to NBC, and keep watching Conan for the little bit of time he has left. Here is a link to /Film's rumor mill on the late night debacle.

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

2010-01-13T20:10:00.000-08:00

So, the big things in the news today, finally overshadowing the reboot of Marvel's Spider-Man series or Avatar's financial success was the National Board of Review awards gala last night. First off, Ivan Reitman was in attendance in support of his son, Jason Reitman, and the honoring of his latest directorial effort Up in the Air receiving the distinction of the year's best film. While there, MTV caught up with Ivan to question him on the status of Ghostusters 3, and while the director wouldn't confirm nor deny Signourney Weaver's slip-up spoilers from a few weeks back, he did announce that he would be stepping behind the director's chair one more time in the series and that Harold Ramis' projected 2011 release could be happening as the script is finished and he has hopes of filming beginning within the year.

Secondly from the event, a special achievement award went to Wes Anderson for his stop motion film, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, in which he accepted via a nice stop motion animated skit. Forgive me for not being able to find an embeddable version of the clip, but here is the link to /Film's coverage.

Cinematical's Monika Bartyzel has an excellent article up on her elated feelings on the Los Angeles Film Critics Society's choice for the greatest film of the decade... David Lynch's typically bizarre homage to Hollywood life, Mulholland Drive. Well worth the read.

The New York Times announced today that the Nintendo Wii will join the ranks of the fellow new generation video game consoles and will begin streaming Netflix over the Internet. The only downside is Wii's inability to play high definition, although the linked article speculates on the release of a Wii HD, already an inevitability.

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

2010-01-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

There was a time (1985's Back to the Future - 1994's Forrest Gump) when Robert Zemeckis was a respected director. Now he takes another step at desecrating the beloved Beatles love song to hallucinogens, Yellow Submarine. The Hollywood Reporter announced the voice cast lineup for the motion capture animated film today, with the closest thing to excitement for me being the Dread Pirate Roberts himself, Cary Elwes, will take on the role of George Harrison. Joining Elwes is Peter Serafinowicz, best known as Pete in Shaun of the Dead, the popular Beatles cover band The Fab Four will provide the singing voices and from the BBC's Robin Hood series, Dean Lennox Kelly, will portray John Lennon. The most negative part of this bit of casting, other than the entire premise of remaking the movie in the first place, is that Adam Campbell will be playing Ringo Starr, whose prior credits include Epic Movie and Date Movie.

I think I let it slide a while back when it was announced that James Vanderbilt, scribe of Zodiac and the upcoming The Losers, was signed on to pen the screenplays for Spider-Man 5 and 6, which after yesterday's announcement of the cancellation of Sam Raimi's franchise of the Marvel hero in favor of a reboot, it would all but confirm that Vanderbilt would be out of a job for writing the web-slinger to the big screen. Yet, /Film reports today that Vanderbilt has already written a script for the reboot, described as a "gritty, contemporary" styling. I hate to be the one to have to say this, as Spider-Man 3's detractors surely outnumber the ones who found it tolerable, but the complete cheesiness of the entire thing is more on par with Stan Lee's writing style than a "let's make a Dark Knight Spider-Man". Bottom line, Spider-Man 2 is as dark as the character goes and stays relevant. Batman and the characters inhabiting Alan Moore's world of Watchmen are gritty enough to warrant films of such tone, but that doesn't mean that every heroic tale of a man in costume has to make us feel uncomfortable.

For the second day in a role, bad news from Marvel's Spider-Man camp is followed with some decent news from DC's The Green Lantern. After Blake Lively was casted yesterday, THR reports that Peter Sarsgaard has joined Martin Campbell's comic-to-screen adaptation as the main villain, Dr. Hector Hammond. I just wish Hammond had a beard so that Sarsgaard could keep the child molester look.

I hadn't heard much of Atom Egoyan's latest film Chloe until the French trailer leaked today and made waves due to Amanda Seyfried's nudity. Away from the spectacle of the Momma Mia! star becoming Internet fap material for the youngsters, it's the first Egoyan film that looks good to me since The Sweet Hereafter. Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore sharing Seyfried's spotlight isn't too shabby either. Here's the trailer.

Monday, January 11th, 2010

2010-01-11T20:17:00.000-08:00

The past year, this blog has been littered with casting rumors for Spider-Man 4. I woke up this morning to an AICN post where John Malkovich had supposedly confirmed that he would be playing the role of the villainous Vulture in the upcoming installment of Sam Raimi's Marvel franchise, a story I was sure would head the blog. That is until Sony's official Twitter feed announced that when the web slinger returns to the silver screen in 2012, he would be going back to high school, signaling a reboot. Then, later, Harry Knowles posted the official Sony press release announcing that Spider-Man 4 is officially dead and that Raimi, Tobey Maguire and all the old players are out. I can see canning the fourth installment of the series, but making a reboot of a fairly new, pretty well received series? I know that Spider-Man 3 has its enemies, but are we to say that this was so cataclysmically bad, like Batman and Robin bad, that it deserves to reboot the entire franchise, throwing the brilliant Raimi and the fitting Maguire to the wayside? Ridiculous.

Some better comic book news coming from the DC side of things as The Hollywood Reporter announced that Blake Lively has been cast as Carol Ferris/Star Sapphire in The Green Lantern film. I've not heard, but I doubt that Lively will take on the transformation into the Star Sapphire role that Ferris eventually plays in the comics. Still, I've not really watched Lively in anything other than her Saturday Night Live appearance, so this could be as terrible of an announcement as the above Spider-Man disaster.

The Writers Guild of America announced the nominees for their two major awards. There was really no surprise, especially with Inglourious Basterds and Up being disqualified for the writers not being part of the WGA, that (500) Days of Summer, A Serious Man and the much lauded The Hurt Locker would gain a nod for original screenplays, but two shocking picks popped up. First, James Cameron's screenplay for Avatar, which has its fair share of detractors. Even more shocking however, is the raunchy Todd Phillips comedy, The Hangover, to the delight of myself, but the chagrin of Erik Childress of Cinematical, whom broke the story for me. The category of adapted screenplay wasn't nearly as exciting, except keeping the fanboys happy with a nod for Star Trek, with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci's script competing against Up in the Air, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, Julie and Julia and Crazy Heart.

For a small note, I am going to try my damndest to expand my convention-going this year to visit Dragon*Con in Atlanta if my school schedule allows, but AdventureCon in Tennessee is an almost confirmed event, so I am happy to say that the tiny convention announced today that Billy Dee Williams, Lando fucking Calrissian, the black Harvey Dent and some memorable spots on Robot Chicken, will be a guest for the event.

On a final note, I saw this gallery of Star Wars burlesque featured in L.A. Weekly all over the Interwebs from a place called the Bordello Bar. Enjoy, some decently bizarre pictures.

Sunday, January 10th, 2010 (Short Film Sunday: Partly Cloudy)

2010-01-10T20:06:00.000-08:00

The Oscar season draws ever closer, and during a time where the only bit of sparse cinematic news has came at the hands of the huge financial successes of James Cameron's Avatar, there has not been much more to talk about than what could be the underdog and surprise picks for the Academy Awards. Of course, being my Short Film Sunday segment, I thought we would take a look at a very underrated category, the Best Short Film-Animated. I would like to say that I'm going to throw out an obscure short that nobody has ever seen, as that is my main goal while doing this segment within the blog, yet after finding that Partly Cloudy, the lovable short film that accompanied Up was on In Contention's short list, I had to pass along the flick.

The film comes from the masters of CGI animation, Pixar. It tells the story of the friendship of, what I suppose you may call co-workers, a cloud whom makes babies, and a stork that delivers them. It is directed and written by Peter Sohn in his directorial debut, formerly known as an animator/storyboard artist on films such as The Iron Giant, Osmosis Jones, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and WALL-E. Enjoy, and do it quickly before Disney pulls it.

Friday, January 8th, 2010

2010-01-08T20:59:00.001-08:00

It seems as if there is nothing that can be done to get James Cameron out of the news. The man behind Avatar recently reached the milestone of becoming the first director to have two films reach the $1 billion mark (the other, of course, being Titanic). Still, while doing promotional appearances for Avatar in Japan, Cameron met with Tsutomu Yamaguchi, one of the last living survivors of both the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This led to much speculation that Cameron's visit wasn't just for mere curiosity, but on a future film reference. Today, Variety confirms all of the speculations with the news that Cameron has optioned Charles Pellegrino's as-of-yet unreleased book The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back into a feature film. With Cameron's latest film, as silly and effects laden as it actually is, gathering a huge amount of Oscar contention buzz, a serious docudrama in the vein of Titanic of the tragedies in Hiroshima is already screaming for gold. I'm sure this will pop up a lot along the line.

Whilst on the topic of Cameron, Avatar will finally have some competition at the box office in the form of Daybreakers and Youth in Revolt. Will either of the films that look unusually good for early January releases be able to dethrone the giant blockbuster? Also out today on a lesser scale is the Amy Adams starring Leap Year and the exploitation throwback that will be way overlooked, Bitch Slap. All in all, a decent week for new releases considering the time of year.

Finally, here is a weird video that popped up on I Watch Stuff from a French show doing a dance number in homage to Star Wars. Enjoy the bizarre spectacle.

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

2010-01-07T18:58:00.001-08:00

Just as I am about the renew my Netflix account, the Associated Press reports today that the DVD-by-mail and streaming rental service signed a deal with Warner Brothers Pictures that will delay releases of all films under the Warner label for 28 days after the scheduled release date. I suppose the move for Warner is in hopes that Netflix users will start buying the films, or renting them elsewhere for more revenue. However, if you're already paying for Netflix, chances are Warner films will just be setting for 28 days in peoples queues for most of the next year. One of the perks that will come from this is that Warner supposedly signed over the rights for more of their content to be streamed across the Internet to PCs and video game consoles. I'll still probably go down the Netflix road once again though, as getting a film 28 days later is quite better than not being able to rent them at all, case in point Away We Go and Anvil! The Story of Anvil, two non-obscure films that did not get a release at any of the three local rental places. So the better question, will those that live in places with adequate rental options decide it is time to cut their losses with Netflix?

It was announced in Variety today that Thor has an official release date, May 20th, 2011. This is big news for those of us awaiting to see the Asgardians on the silver screen; however, its appearance on today's blog just isn't for that alone. The date had formerly belonged to Spider-Man 4, and after weeks of any website not being able to confirm or deny the rumors that the superhero flick was having production troubles and indefinitely delayed, the removal from Marvel's film schedule and replacement with Thor all but confirms it.

The Directors Guild of America announced their nominees for Director of the Year today, via Cinematical. It is no surprise to see that Jason Reitman, Quentin Tarantino and Kathryn Bigelow scored a nod, as all three have been rumored to be in top contention for the Academy Award. James Cameron also gained notice for Avatar, which according to how you look at it is the most shocking or the most obvious pick among the group. Finally, the underdog pick is Lee Daniels, for Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire. I'm going Tarantino all the way, but have a hunch that Bigelow will take the award.

Nerd Bastards has an entertaining article up, quoting an interview with Darren Lynn Bousman on his frustration with the release of Repo Men, as he feels that it is for all purposes, a re-envisioning, albeit non-musical, of his rock opera/horror flick Repo: The Genetic Opera. I see his point, but after already gathering a cult following, Bousman's flick will have a longer shelf life than the Jude Law/Forest Whitaker drama.

/Film announced today that the first 3-D Blu-ray has been scheduled for release. 'Twas inevitable. The Sony Pictures CGI animated Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs will claim the milestone of being the first, as the release coincides with the release of Sony's brand new Bravia 3-D compatible HD, LCD television sets. I am still hoping that 3-D is a passing fad, but this TV is another step towards a bleak future for that hope.

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

2010-01-06T20:22:00.001-08:00

Nicolas Cage is a good actor... sometimes. In the underrated The Weather Man he was decent, not to mention Spike Jonze's Adaptation. and his memorable turn as a drunk in Leaving Las Vegas are both milestones. Yet, he has become almost an Internet meme is his choice of bad movies in the past few years, including the worst possible written adaptation of Marvel's Ghost Rider or the remake of The Wicker Man. So building upon the more recognized comical version of Cage, is a great fellow Blogger account, NicCageIsEveryone. Enjoy.

Many actors end up doing side projects in music. Some fail terribly, others end up doing it quite successfully. Case in point, I can't help but fancy Scarlett Johansson as a musical artist in her team-up with Pete Yorn. Praise aside, regardless of how natural Johansson sounds behind the mic, her crossover doesn't hold a candle to Christopher Lee. Yes, the 87-year-old accomplished actor that has portrayed Count Dracula, Count Dooku and Saruman. And it just isn't any light pop fare, the noted genre in the Topless Robot article is "symphonic metal", a rock opera-ish account of the life of the King of the Franks, Charlemagne. You must click the link and listen to the samples for your own benefit.

Is there a worse award show than the People's Choice Awards? The Twilight Saga: New Moon took home Best Movie by the way, just in case you weren't sold on the aforementioned statement just yet.

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

2010-01-05T20:25:00.000-08:00

It was quite upsetting to read an un-blogged about story on how The Farrelly Brothers had finally passed on doing a Three Stooges biopic to go onto an Owen Wilson starring comedy called Hall Pass. Now we can rejoice that Sean Penn has come out of his short-lived retirement, as The Boston Herald has posted that the actor has expressed interest in playing Larry Fine again. I still think that the original rumor of Penn's replacement, Paul Giamatti, would be a better choice, but if anything, this will give the film more exposure. I'm also still not exactly sold on Benecio del Toro playing the part of Moe Howard, but my final decision of if this will be great or terrible weighs on the eventual casting news of Curly.

I am still deciding on what level of douchebaggery it would register if I purchased some old favorites on Blu-ray. Courtesy of a CHUD post, my decision may be made slightly easier, as the Back to the Future trilogy is being released on a new special five disc collection, which among other things will include a brand new short film, Jaws 19 in 3-D, the film seen in the background of Back to the Future Part II. Awesome, the way 3-D was intended to be used, a gimmicky accessory to the films we find great, not a medium to itself.

I am happy to pass along an article from The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision Blog, announcing that Sam Mendes will take the director's chair on the 23rd James Bond film, third in the reboot franchise with Daniel Craig portraying the suave spy. I think it will be interesting to see what the director of American Beauty can do with something as action packed as the Bond series, especially following in the footsteps of the transformation after Casino Royale. Still, most of my excitement isn't even really directed towards the Bond series at all, but because it dispels rumors that the series would be put on hiatus due to MGM's financial woes, which was also rumored to have put a wrench on the cogs on the preproduction of The Hobbit. Maybe this positive sign will continue along and get the J.R.R. Tolkien adaptation underway.

And finally, where we would be anymore without mention of James Cameron's Avatar in a post. Geekologie passed along a link to a forum to help those of us suffering from the realization that we will never see Pandora. This is obviously fake, but I find it disturbing that this is somehow getting the weirdness of Twilight fandom popping up here and there.

Monday, January 4th, 2010

2010-01-04T20:01:00.000-08:00

2010 is upon us. I was looking through my tags from the last year of posting and wasn't really surprised to see that James Cameron's Avatar took the top spot. As I've said before, I actually enjoyed Avatar, but there is probably about 20-30 films from 2009 that should be getting more praise than the effects laden cat people drama. Anyhow, it is undeniable that the science fiction 3-D tour de force has been dominating the cinematic news as of late, and should come as no surprise that it is the major topic on my first blog in the new year. First off, Cinematical has an article quoting Zoe Saldana and Cameron from an Interview with The Reelz Channel about the deleted additional footage of Jake Sully and Neytiri's sex scene, with Saldana even adding that the pony tails would plug in and play a part. Cameron also all but confirms that it will be part of the DVD release.

Also, Avatar continues to dominate the box office. Of course, this week provided virtually no new films, but Avatar maintained its momentum, having a very small percentage of a drop from last week with $68 million. This breaks the record for the highest third week of all time, previously set by The Dark Knight, as well as New Year's holiday gross, formerly held by Meet the Fockers. Despite this success, it is not the domestic U.S. numbers that are the amazing story, it is that the worldwide gross has topped a billion dollars and has already passed The Dark Knight for the fourth highest on the all-time release list, just below Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, in which it is estimated it will pass within the next week. Still off a little ways, but reachable is the number one spot, another Cameron film, Titanic.

Finally, on a note not related to blue cat people, CoolToyReview has put up a lot of the toys used for their online gallery for auction on eBay. Here is the link. The movie related auction contains mostly James Bond and classic Universal horror figures, with three Hot Toys figures, Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather, the Mark III from Iron Man and James Dean.

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

2009-12-30T20:19:00.001-08:00

Wow, I have a rather bad headache, and I was planning on just going to sleep. Yet, after reading on Cinematical that The Muppet Movie was inducted into the Library of Congress' National Film Registry, I got so excited I couldn't resist. For those of you not in the know, the National Film Registry was set up by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, that allows the Library of Congress to select 25 films a year for preservation in honor of being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films". This year, heading up the list is Jim Henson's lovable felt creatures in their debut feature film, 1979's The Muppet Movie, directed by James Frawley. Other noteworthy additions this year is Michael Jackson's long form groundbreaking music video Thriller, directed by John Landis, Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon, Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, the 1959 romantic comedy Pillow Talk and the avant-garde 1949 short film The Lead Shoes.

I also cannot go to bed until I pass along something awesome that Geekologie posted, an amazing replica of the Back to the Future DeLorean time machine from eBay.

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

2009-12-29T19:27:00.001-08:00

Usually I attempt to stray from pictures and videos of Star Trek fandom, as I feel pretty confident that most of our hardcore Trekkies were born out of the television incarnations of Gene Roddenberry's brainchild, making them feel quite unrelated to this cinema blog. However, this image of a few Trek fans donning nothing but body paint for some sort of bicycle ride that popped up on two of my daily reads, Geekologie and NerdBastards, beckoned my eye whilst posting.

On to something that fortunately, or unfortunately, doesn't contain graphic nudity, Hollyscoop reports that Sam Worthington could be up for another major blockbuster role. The actor was relatively unknown until he picked up a starring role in this summer's Terminator Salvation, followed by the hugely successful Avatar, and will star as Perseus in next summer's remake of Clash of the Titans. Now, apparently he is up for the titular role in a Flash Gordon reboot. I sincerely think that Worthington did a good job in Avatar, but I'm still unsure of pumping this guy to be a big box office draw. I mean, we don't want to see Jake Sully or Marcus Wright playing Flash Gordon. Then again, I personally don't think we will ever have anything comparable to the 1980 campy classic Flash Gordon, with Max von Sydow as Ming the Merciless and the bitching Queen theme song.

Finally, the entire short film within the feature film Nation's Pride, the flick that plays during Inglourious Basterds, has been released to the Interwebs. The short is directed by Eli Roth, and despite not being a fan of his Hostel series, his performance as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz, as well as this little piece is quite admirable. The clip stars Daniel Bruhl as Fredrick Zoller, the star of this psuedo Nazi propaganda film. The Cinematical article I originally seen this on points out that the DVD version of this informs us that there are cameos from Basterds director Quentin Tarantino, as well as Bo Svenson, the star of Enzo G. Castellari's The Inglorious Bastards, the "macaroni combat" flick in which Tarantino's film got its name.

Monday, December 28th, 2009

2009-12-28T19:36:00.000-08:00

2009's final weekend box office returns may have been the most interesting this year, which says a lot coming from a year that contained Paranormal Activity's surprise success, as well as the tween domination with The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and the raunchy Todd Phillips' comedy The Hangover raking in enough money to make many critics question it being the final nail in the coffin of the Hollywood star system. Yet, we come to James Cameron's Avatar's second week, garnering $75 million, only dropping a measly 2% from last week, taking in the second highest second week of all time, just behind The Dark Knight, not to mention breaking the record for 3-D sales, as $57 million of the intake was for the 3-D showings. Of course, this may still seem a bit far from the estimated $500 million budget on the 3-D blockbuster, even considering it took in an additional $60 million over the weekdays. Yet, the worldwide success of the film has already hit the $623 million mark abroad, when added with the stateside totals. What is even more impressive about the feat is that it contended with the debut of the much anticipated Guy Ritchie reboot, Sherlock Holmes, which took in $65 million, and despite landing second place, broke the record for highest Christmas Day opening of all time. Also in contention was the family friendly Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel, topping out a little over $50 million, and despite not being confirmed, I cannot find any other film to debut that high in third place. Even more impressive, the weekend as a whole earned roughly $270 million. This makes it the biggest earning weekend of the year, and topping last year's top weekend by 34%, being the weekend in which The Dark Knight and Momma Mia! debuted. It is also worth mentioning that Oscar contenders Up in the Air and Nine both extended to wide release, with the Rob Marshall musical even receiving a 2,000+% change in sales.

Of course, quality isn't always, and quite conversely usually opposite, on par with profit. Avatar is good, but it is overrated, while we have the debut of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus land in 26th place and in limited release, and despite over a year of following Terry Gilliam's latest flick, I have to let the critically acclaimed jewel float by unnoticed for the more mainstream flicks, at least until the DVD is released since I live in the middle of nowhere. In the same category of being looked over as Imaginarium earlier this year, was a British film called Bronson. Since Nicolas Winding Refn's bizarre biopic of famed prisoner/bare-knuckle boxer Charles Bronson didn't make a splash at the box office, or didn't stop the presses with any earth-shattering reviews, it floated underneath my radar quite easily. However, lucky to a few bloggers really pushing for Tom Hardy to receive some recognition for his titular performance, I did a good amount of reading and watched this fabulous trailer. Not only will the much quoted review comparing it favorably to Stanley Kubrick's masterful A Clockwork Orange catch your eye, but the trailer looks absolutely flawless and is definitely a must see once it is available. As a note, a higher quality version is available on YouTube, but embedding has been disabled.

Sunday, December 27th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: Storytime)

2009-12-27T20:12:00.000-08:00

For a lot of folks, seeing a movie on Christmas Day has become a time honored tradition, and unfortunately for everybody that does not live in New York City or Los Angeles, Terry Gilliam's latest flick The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was only released limited on the holiday. The new film is said by many critics to be a return to Gilliam's signature style seen up until 1988's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Not that the films that followed would not contain a hallucinatory style that couldn't be visually connected to Gilliam's previous works, as the "Americana trilogy" of The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas takes on its own Monty Python-esque surrealist moments at times. Still, with Imaginarium harkening back to the days of Time Bandits and Gilliam's first stand alone directorial effort Jabberwocky, themselves harkening back to his days as a member of the comedy troupe Monty Python, it just seems right to take a look at the animated shorts the eccentric director made even before his days with the influential British group.

Before Gilliam's fame took off with the likes of John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Eric Idle, he was featured on a British children's television show with the latter three called Do Not Adjust Your Set. Gilliam would not be a star of the show like his future Python cohorts, yet the show would heavily feature his animation, as well as giving him a chance to direct a few episodes. It would be this style that would show through in most of Gilliam's side project short films, and his animation work on Monty Python's Flying Circus and the films that would come to fruition from the group.

The first short would be the strange film entitled Storytime, from 1968, a year before Flying Circus would make its television debut. The short, no surprise, doesn't carry a linear, coherent plot. It starts off with a man telling a story of a cockroach, and ending with a scatterbrained series of events happening within a Christmas card. The film would of course lead to another short called The Miracle of Flight, which would lead to Gilliam co-directing the cult classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail. From that point on, with or without the help of his fellow Pythons, his work behind the camera has become legendary with a huge cult fan base. So, if you are like me, and nowhere near New York or L.A. and are craving the first viewing of Imaginarium, here is Storytime to tide you over. Enjoy.

Thursday, December 24th, 2009 (Christmas Eve, Part III)

2009-12-24T21:26:00.000-08:00

One final post for the day. Yes, that is Bea Arthur, as seen in the Star Wars Holiday Special. But to jump right in, I was hoping to feature it in a Short Film Sunday post, but they got away from me, so here is a link to the first of three parts of the 80's retailing of Charles Dickens' classic holiday ghost story, as told by Walt Disney's most famous creations in Mickey's Christmas Carol.

Also, here is a random scene (because I couldn't find a clip of the "... only one thing could tear me away from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window" scene) from A Christmas Story, and if you're reading this and it is actually Christmas Eve, for Christ's sake, turn to TBS and watch the 24-hour marathon of the most quotable movie ever made.

Finally, here is the best scene from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Have a great holiday season kiddos.

Thursday, December 24th, 2009 (Christmas Eve, Part II)

2009-12-24T20:51:00.000-08:00

A happier post to reflect the normalized view of the yuletide season. So I will begin with one of the better rumors that I read this past week. Via Hollyscoop, bubbly country music superstar Taylor Swift has been reported to be in talks to star as the titular character in a new Supergirl film. For some reason, this works for me. First off, Taylor Swift already looks more like Kara Zor-El than Helen Slater did in full costume. Secondly, in almost every incarnation of DC's superheroine, the work is pure fluff. And in spite of all the "Yo Taylor, Imma let you finish..." Supergirl YouTube entries we would have to endure, Swift is undeniably likable. Nonetheless, we're still probably looking at a terrible movie here, just a reasonably casted lead in a terrible movie.

So, I also missed the week of Avatar. Well, the film, as predicted by everybody, took the weekend box office, and has raked in the incredible reviews that many had counted on. Still, I saw the film in 3-D and I didn't see it as a game changer. In fact, I left still hoping that the entire 3-D phase would fade back into an exploitation gimmick that we would see maybe once or twice a decade in a decent film. But, the good things about the movie outweigh the bad (including Leona Lewis' atrocious love theme), considering that James Cameron is a much better filmmaker than the typical post-William Castle user of the 3-D medium. First, the effects are stunning. Pandora and the creatures that inhabit the land are unusually breathtaking. Second, Sigourney Weaver. Third, Sam Worthington, whom I have generally considered a sub-par actor puts on a hell of a performance, considering he is competing with one of the more impressive backdrops in cinematic history. Giovanni Ribisi is also in there. Also, can you imagine the cosplay based on this thing come convention season? The movie was far from the best though, as the plot involves way too much Native American allegory in a world where we have already and unfortunately been acquainted with the Quileute tribe. Not to mention the uncomfortable scene where (*SPOILER ALERT*) the two blue cat people fuck in the holiest place in the movie. Still, I would highly recommend it, just with the warning that you will not take a full on nerdgasm as promised by Harry Knowles and the rest of the Internet blogging elite.

Another thing that crossed my radar this week was this seven part review on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I've not finished the entire thing yet, but thus far it is very entertaining.

Finally, the newest trailer for Kick-Ass is out, featuring the character Hit-Girl, making it my most anticipated film of the next year. Young Chloe Moretz saying cunt may be the highlight, but the entire trailer is, for lack of a better phrase, truly kick ass.

Thursday, December 24th, 2009 (Christmas Eve, Part I)

2009-12-24T20:14:00.000-08:00

'Tis the holiday season, and I've been busy readying myself for festivities, therefore I have not been blogging as much. So it is with a heavy heart that I catch up with a bit of bad news to begin with today. First off, Brittany Murphy passed away at age 32 of natural causes. Murphy's career was up and down, and most recently she had been bound to several direct-to-Lifetime telefilms that were ultimately forgettable. However, she will be best remembered as Shellie in Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's Sin City, as well as the offbeat Tai in Clueless. Her on again, off again filmography also contains roles in Girl, Interrupted and voice parts in Happy Feet and the direct-to-DVD favorite of the Adult Swim crowd, Futurama: The Best with a Billion Backs. Her voice talents will also be emblazoned into all of us adult animation fans' minds forever, as she was featured in a twelve year run of Mike Judge's King of the Hill as Luanne Platter.

Also departing our world since my last post is science fiction legend Dan O'Bannon. The 63-year-old jack of all trades in the sci-fi medium passed away after a bout with Crohn's Disease. O'Bannon is best known for his writing, pumping out screenplays for Dark Star, Ridley Scott's classic Alien, Heavy Metal, Lifeforce and Total Recall to name a few. He also dabbled in special effects, most notably providing computer effects for Star Wars. O'Bannon would also occupy the director's chair for The Return of the Living Dead.

We would also lose the real life inspiration for Rain Man, due to a heart attack, this holiday season. Kim Peek, dubbed a megasavant in most psychology circles, was born with agenesis of the corpus callosum, commonly referred to as simply and erroneously autistic, despite the similarities between the two diseases. Peek gained fame from the bit of television other than Adult Swim that I frequent, being a few Discovery Channel specials and an appearance on Ripley's Believe It or Not!. However, Peek may be known eternally as the inspiration for Dustin Hoffman's Raymond Babbitt in Barry Levinson's Rain Man.

Finally, despite my unnatural emotional closeness to cinema and pop culture as a whole, the above names pale in comparison to the recent loss of a co-worker, John Fields. In fact, today, on Christmas Eve, he was laid to his final resting place. The saddest part of all, the night before he died of an asthma attack, I had stayed a little late to work with him, where we mostly talked about other co-workers, the lack of Willie Nelson Christmas songs, and our month long dissection of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. So, in honor of the fallen, here is the "Bear Jew" scene from the flick. Rest in peace John.

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

2009-12-17T18:58:00.001-08:00

After an unwelcome dose of Brett Ratner, and then the cinematic abortion that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the Marvel Comics' franchise would gladly welcome any director with somewhat capable hands, seeing that the only way it could spiral further downwards would be if they let Uwe Boll take the reins. Cinematical reports that the director of X-Men and X2: X-Men United, Bryan Singer, will return to helm X-Men: First Class. I would still like to see Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's version of Wolverine make it to the big screen, but with the damage that Gavin Hood did with Origins, moving to an adaptation of First Class seems like the best possible scenario.

Keeping on topic with Marvel, we get some more Spider-Man 4 news flooding in, courtesy of IESB. This time, it isn't involving rumors on whom director Sam Raimi will be casting in the top villain role, but that there is rumors swirling that Sony Pictures has put production on the project on an indefinite delay due to disagreements between Raimi and the studio heads. Although, the article also reveals that the working title for the film is SPIDER-M4N. So yeah, maybe it's a good thing it has been temporarily cancelled. Although, if this story is on par with 80% of the casting tidbits that has come our way, it will be entering pre-production in a week.

And finally, to keep in a complete Marvel theme today, Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2 had its trailer debut today. In it, we get the first really good look at Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, and the War Machine suit in action. Enjoy.

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

2009-12-16T19:59:00.001-08:00

Arriving to stores just in time for Christmas is the DVD for Family Guy's upcoming sequel to the original Star Wars spoof "moviesode" Blue Harvest, entitled Something, Something, Something Dark Side. The special this time will spoof The Empire Strikes Back, and the episode will have its television debut in early 2010 when the season starts back with a few new entries before the break. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, series creator Seth MacFarlane announced that they were already at work on spoofing Return of the Jedi, but confirms that he will quit, and not move into the prequel territory. Although, he offers up the Indiana Jones series, Star Trek or the Back to the Future trilogy as the possible next targets. The article also offers two rumored names for the third episode, The Great Muppet Caper or We Have a Bad Feeling About This.

Some bizarre news comes the way of a fellow Blogger account called StopAvatarMovie, which is protesting James Cameron's critically appraised Avatar, due out Friday, because the story is set in the future, but does not contain any primary gay, lesbian or transgender characters. Luckily, in a poll questioning how the author's readers would protest, 92% said they wouldn't. Anyhow, I don't really see how it is offensive that there is no outright gay love in the flick. I am sure, unless the entire thing is going to play out a lot differently than what I'm imagining, that most of the characters' sexual orientation will remain undisclosed, as it does not fit in the story. Also, gay people can't be entertained by a heterosexual relationship on-screen? The cat that writing this wouldn't be touched, and would be offended with others in the homosexual demographic, that enjoyed something like Charlie Chaplin's City Lights or even something like the year's best film thus far in my opinion, Inglourious Basterds due to the lack of explicitly stated homosexuality? Does this mean he expects us breeders to be unable to enjoy something like Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy or the highly praised Brokeback Mountain, due to the characters being different than us? The most bizarre argument of the blog is that Cameron should have casted someone like Kimber James for the role of Neytiri rather than Zoe Saldana. Because, James' other work such as Transsexual Babysitters 8 was definitely touching enough performances to land her in a film budgeted at $500 million. I hope, for the sake of the gay community, as well as cineaste's watching this thing, that it is a joke, although, the more you read it, the more you beleive it is legit.

Variety reports some sad news today, the passing of Walt Disney's nephew, Roy E. Disney. Disney was very influential after his iconic uncle's passing within The Walt Disney Company, mostly working with the financial elements and theme parks rather than racking up actual movie credits, although he did produce, and was heavily involved in getting the ball rolling for Fantasia 2000, finally realizing a dream of Walt's to continue his 1940 classic Fantasia as an ongoing project, as well as a writing credit for The Black Cauldron. He also produced one of my favorite short films of all time, Destino, a restored and completed short from Dominique Monfery, originally started as a collaboration between Walt and Salvador Dali.

Finally, here is a new trailer for Tim Burton's upcoming Alice in Wonderland, which shows off more of the bizarre Burton landscape we are used to seeing in his films.

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

2009-12-15T19:12:00.000-08:00

Well, the Golden Globe Award nominees were announced today, and is pretty much what has been keeping the cinematic blogsphere buzzing for the past fourteen hours or so. The biggest, and most welcome, surprise to me was that Todd Phillips' raunchy comedy win, The Hangover took a nod for Best Motion Picture- Musical or Comedy. The flick basically doesn't stand a chance against the upcoming musical Nine, directed by Chicago's Rob Marshall, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and a host of other Oscar darlings, along with Black Eyed Peas' Fergie oddly enough, and is loosely based upon Federico Fellini's 8 1/2. The quirky (500) Days of Summer, It's Complicated and Julie and Julia round out the category.

On the drama side of the major award, James Cameron's mega-blockbuster to release this Friday, Avatar, takes a nod that many are speculating will be in contention for the win, facing off against the one time Oscar favorite, Jason Reitman's Up in the Air, Quentin Tarantino's ingenious, and my pick, Inglourious Basterds, the sleeper success Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire and a film that most sites have been raving about for most of the year, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker.

Sandra Bullock got a nod for The Blind Side, and from what I can tell of the trailer, may be the most overrated performance of the year. Hopefully she will fall to what looks like a powerful performance from the almost unknown Gabourey Sadibe in Precious. I would say Morgan Freeman's turn as Nelson Mandela in Invictus is all but locked for the award for Best Actor. I will also stretch out and predict that Marion Cotillard is a lock for Best Comedy Actress for her showing in Nine despite Meryl Streep's double appearance in the category, or Bullock showing up again for The Proposal (Note: If you have taste, you probably just said something along the lines of "Say whaaaaaat?" or "Fucking Hell!", and that is why the Golden Globes' validity is slipping dramatically). Comedy Actor is a solid category however, harnessing the likes of Matt Damon, Daniel Day-Lewis, Robert Downey, Jr., Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Stuhlberg, and I can't say I'd be shocked by any of the five walking away with the award. Director is the only other category I could really see going all five ways. Bigelow gets a rare female nod in the directorial category for The Hurt Locker, being accompanied by James Cameron, Clint Eastwood, Jason Reitman and Quentin Tarantino.

Further predictions from my behalf. Keep in mind that since I live in a small area, I have yet to see many of the films that I would like to, so I am merely predicting who I think will take home the award, via buzz, awards favorites and so and so forth...:
Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique for Precious
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds
Animated Feature: Up
Foreign Language Film: Broken Embraces
Screenplay: Jason Reitman for Up in the Air
Score: James Horner for Avatar, although my heart lies with Karen O and Carter Burwell's work on Where the Wild Things Are full throttle.
Original Song: "Cinema Italiano" from Nine

Finally, to get out of the pre-Oscar garbage that must be talked about by cineastes the world over, to much chagrin usually, here is a very bitchin' clip from Kick-Ass. I posted this sometime back when a grainy, bootlegged version made its way to the Interwebs during the San Diego Comic Con. All the same, enjoy one of the few great clips of Nicolas Cage floating around the world wide web.

Monday, December 14th, 2009

2009-12-14T20:31:00.001-08:00

One may wonder how these four images comes together, but you soon will. I'll begin by saying that one of my favorite movies of all time is Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich, written by the enigmatic Charlie Kaufman. Kaufman's writing style on that film has been referenced in the cinema blogsphere twice today, and I must say, if we have to endure the copying of styles, it should definitely be that of Kaufman's. The first reference to the 1999 quirky classic comes the way of a Los Angeles Times article on the recent winner of the Hollywood Black List top spot, an annual ranking of the best screenplays yet to make it to the silver screen, The Muppet Man. The script is by an unknown by the name of Christopher Weekes, and is concerns the life of Muppet creator Jim Henson, but takes a more fantastical Kaufman-esque route that I think we would all generally identify as Henson's broad imagination would have seen things. Sadly, the article nearly confirms that the entry will stay on the Black List, as The Jim Henson Company would prefer a straightforward biopic on the ingenious man behind the felt creatures we all know and love.

Second on the list of Kaufman references comes the way of a Cinematical article on Tobey Maguire's future projects, particularly a film called Prisoners of Trebek, a surreal tale of a Jeopardy! contestant finding love during the show, with Alex Trebek taking a similar role to that of John Malkovich in the aforementioned Kaufman flick. Sounds absolutely incredible.

The article does not stop there though. It also links to a Latino Review story on how Maguire's agency is also in talks with Guillermo del Toro and the team behind The Hobbit to play the role of Bilbo Baggins. I have to say, I don't think anybody will be gung ho about the possible addition of Maguire, but I must say, if a person I am against has to get the role, at least I can be rest assured that Maguire actually has the ability to act. He kept the nerd audience at bay with a decent turn as Peter Parker, but more prominently showed his skills in the 2000 dramedy Wonder Boys. I am still personally pulling for a choice I saw offered up on a message board sometime back, Martin Freeman, most famous for his role in the British version of The Office, or to American audiences as Arthur Dent in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

In some more very intriguing news/rumors that deserves a full post on its topic alone, Pajiba has thrown David O. Russell (still known to me as the guy that directed the incestuous comic romance Spanking the Monkey) as the possible director for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Even more amazing than that, during one my nights spent playing Madden 10 instead of blogging, it was announced that Natalie Portman will be producing and starring in the big screen version of the eccentric read.

Finally, if all of that news/rumor mill hasn't been enough to quench your thirst for the day, here is possibly the most kick ass video of all time from Back to the Future Part III, where Verne, one of Doc Brown's children, manages to sneak in a somewhat suggestive gesture in the background that just took roughly nineteen years to find and garner its own YouTube video. Enjoy.

Sunday, December 13th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: Steamboat Willie)

2009-12-13T19:46:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, The Walt Disney Company returned to their traditional animation roots with The Princess and the Frog, the new film by Ron Clements and John Musker (the directorial duo is best known for two Disney classics, The Little Mermaid and Aladdin). In honor of the release, I figure I will take the high road and not blog on the normal Disney criticism of racist undertones, and celebrate 2-D animation. I mean, Pixar has yet to make a bad movie, but we all long for some more traditional animation to come our way, so I decided to embed the Ub Iwerks directed, Walt Disney written and produced short Steamboat Willie. It is the film that brought the iconic Mickey Mouse character to prominence, and was the third to feature Disney's mischievous rodent lead, the first being the less popular Plane Crazy, released earlier in the same year, 1928.

As always with Disney animation, an aura of controversy seems to follow this film, although the renown and changing times seems to downplay the one time censored parts. During the big musical number, many of the scenes are considered to display cruelty to animals, including a bizarre scene where Mickey plays sow nipples as an instrument. What happened to Disney, Iwerks and their animation properties after the success of this film needs not be explained, as the Disney corporate name is one of the biggest in the world, let alone the entertainment industry itself. However, it is to be noted that the film is part of the Library of Congress' National Film Registry, as well as being one of the top 50 cartoons, as voted by members of the animation medium.

As for owning the film, it has been released on DVD uncut twice in the Walt Disney Treasures collection. The first is a compendium of old Mickey Mouse cartoons in Mickey Mouse in Black and White, as well as being a special feature on The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, due to it being one of Iwerks' seminal works. Even easier though, unlike other popular Disney works, this film is available all over the Interwebs without Disney issuing out copyright lawsuits all over the place due to the fact that as it has fallen into the public domain. So without further adieu, here is a legal showing of Steamboat Willie.

Usually, I do not blog about anything else on my Short Film Sunday posts, but I have been seeing a lot of blogs featuring a recent interview with Sigourney Weaver. I would post a source, but basically every movie site online has posted it, despite the fact that I can no longer find the video of the session. Anyhow, Weaver was being interviewed for her role in Avatar, when the topic changes to her thoughts on the possibility of Ghostbusters 3, where she drops some huge spoilers. She mentions that her character, Dana Barrett's, son will become ghost buster for this installment, and that Bill Murray will be playing a larger role than she would, but this time as a ghost, thus meaning that Dr. Peter Venkman dies in the movie, or in the space between Ghostbusters II and the upcoming sequel, if it ever comes to fruition.

Also, in about an hour from the time this is posted, Adult Swim is going to air a new Space Ghost interview with Zoe Saldana on her role in Avatar. The advertising blitz has began, and the return of Space Ghost to my late night lineup is a damn good start to it.

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

2009-12-10T20:45:00.000-08:00

Mickey Rourke was great in The Wrestler. That was probably because Rourke is Randy "The Ram" Robinson. So, despite one of the better lead performances this side of Philip Seymour Hoffman this decade, it is always somewhat worrisome when the news of Rourke's hiring comes, especially if it is a flick as anticipated as Iron Man 2. Faith may be restored a bit more now, as this new poster for Jon Favreau's second installment of the Marvel franchise features Rourke as a very convincing Whiplash. Not to say that my faith ever completely faltered though, with Favreau and Robert Downey, Jr. being very capable hands for the comic-to-screen adaptation. Another addition to this poster, from the Cinematical article that I first saw it, claims that the rumor mill has been speculating that we will see a trailer for this by the end of the year before either Sherlock Holmes (which would be fitting) or Avatar.

Speaking of James Cameron's Avatar, via another Cinematical article, the huge-budget science fiction film screened for critics today, and the linked article lists several ecstatic Twitter mini-reviews. Does this get you stoked, or further the unattainable pedestal that we all will inevitably have this on after all the hype that is soon to go into onslaught mode for the December 18th release?

Spoiler TV is reporting that Jonah Hex currently has out a casting call for reshoots, as rumors are also circulating that Francis Lawrence has come aboard to help the troubled direction from Jimmy Hayward (it might be noted that Jonah Hex is Hayward's first live action feature, as his directorial debut was last year's Horton Hears a Who). Let's hope that, especially the source being Spoiler TV, that everything is still ok within the production of this film, probably the last chance for salvation within the sub-genre of the R-rated comic book movie.

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

2009-12-09T19:50:00.001-08:00

Aside from the Pocahontas, here is some decent zombified cosplay of the Disney princesses, courtesy of Geekologie.

The only real piece of news worth mentioning today comes from a story in the Los Angeles Times stating that Josh Brolin is being considered to star in a third installment into the Men in Black franchise, by either playing Agent K (portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones in the original two films) as a young man, or his successor. I'm still not really sold on a third MIB, but if the powers that be must cash in on this franchise one more time, and Jones is not going to be part of it, I suppose Brolin is a good choice, especially after his nerd stock will rise after next year's Jonah Hex.

Finally, to end a rather short post today, here is the red band trailer for Youth in Revolt, Michael Cera's latest film. It actually looks pretty funny, and I was shocked when I looked it up and found that Zach Galifianakis has a supporting role in the film, as well as Mary Kay Place, Jean Smart and Steve Buscemi to name a few. Anyhow, I find it amazing at how many films Galifianakis has been appearing in lately. A great, underrated year, with all his movie work and his Between Two Ferns series on Funny Or Die.

(Note: By pure accidental coincidence I linked to the first episode of Between Two Ferns, in which the guest was Youth in Revolt star Cera... enjoy.)

Youth In Revolt Red Band Trailer - watch more funny videos

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

2009-12-08T20:35:00.000-08:00

Ever since I began this blog, one of the mainstays has become casting news for Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man 4. The latest batch, via Movieline, of news concerning Peter Parker's newest silver screen adversary contains the one and only John Malkovich being rumored to play the role of The Vulture. I don't really know anything about The Vulture, and personally am behind both the rumors for Dylan Baker to finally take his role of Dr. Curt Connors to the villainous The Lizard and Bruce Campbell to take over a larger role in some capacity against the web-slinging hero. Still, I can't say that I can be truly against anything that has Malkovich in it. What I can be against though, is with the plethora of baddies that Spider-Man has faced over the years, that Raimi is thinking of creating a new one, The Vulturess, played by Anne Hathaway, earlier rumored to take on the role of Felicia Hardy/The Black Cat. Does this ludicrous part two of Movieline's article tend to take this over the edge of believability? Probably.

On another casting note that seems to dominate my blog, The Hollywood Reporter has an article today stating that The Hobbit will begin casting this week for every role except Gandalf, which is being reserved for Sir Ian McKellen. In an interview with Peter Jackson, he vows to not bow under star pressure for the film, stating that the star of the series and his Lord of the Rings adaptation was J.R.R. Tolkien, not any of the actors. Jackson wouldn't comment on if Andy Serkis and Hugo Weaving was a lock to return to their respective roles of Gollum and Elrond. The producer also denies rumors that James McAvoy had been approached for a rather large role (a rumor I had actually not heard before reading THR's story) and that the production of the films had been put on a delay.

After the seemingly endless list of lawsuits that streamed from the aftermath of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, it has been kind of shocking to me that the same level of legal troubles hasn't plagued Sacha Baron Cohen's latest raunchy comedy Bruno. Yet, finally, according to The Daily Mail, a lawsuit seeking over $100 million has recently popped up. The lawsuit stems from the scene where Bruno supposedly interviews at real life terrorist in a refugee camp, claimed to be the Lebanese leader of a group called Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Turns out, the actual man interviewed, Ayman Abu Aita, is a grocer, a self-proclaimed peace activist, Palestinian and interviewed at a hotel outside of Bethlehem. Not only does this kill any comedy the scene had, but after Cohen's stories of how he actually got the clip with the terrorist, most famously during his appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, but it certainly makes us wonder that with the low key legal department, that most of this flick was completely scripted. I mean, some of the scenes, such as the parent interviews, or Paula Abdul's cameo, seems so outrageously unbelievable, that now we have to assume that we've been had. Is it still funny to see Cohen's flopping penis in the midst of a focus group or a black baby hanging from a cross? Yes, but if we wanted scripted raunch, we would pull out some old John Waters DVDs.

According to BoxOfficeMojo, the latest in the spoof craze of films, Transylmania, set the record for all time low box office gross for a film debuting in over 1,000 theaters. Thank God, now maybe this will discourage Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer from continuing their careers.

On a final note, Cinematical's Jenni Miller had an article today complaining on the continued use of the term "The Wachowski Brothers" since Larry Wachowski has recently came out to live his life as a woman, now being referred to as Lana Wachowski. First time I heard this, and I though rather interesting news to pass along.

Monday, December 7th, 2009

2009-12-07T18:46:00.000-08:00

I was quite saddened a few months back when I read that Robert Luketic would be taking over the directorial position on the Barbarella remake, a project that had once been in the hands of someone more familiar with exploitation film, Robert Rodriguez. Trading Rodriguez for the guy most famous for directing Legally Blonde just doesn't really click for me. Anyhow, ever since Luketic's name became attached, it seems as if the project has took another dive into development hell, as no casting or production news has came forth. Despite the lack of news, a Cinematical article takes a look at this Absolut Vodka ad starring Zooey Deschanel as a blonde and noting the similarities to the erotic science fiction vixen. Would Deschanel take such a raunchy role? Despite looking the part, I can't really see Deschanel taking the role of a sexpot and leaving her (or our) comfort zone as the quirky girl. It would be like Janeane Garofalo taking the titular role in a reboot of Barb Wire. Sure, she could pull it off, but why?

In other kind of casting news, CinemaSpy reports that Tom Waits is in talks to join the cast for The Hobbit. The eccentric actor/singer whom last appeared in Terry Gilliam's soon-to-be-released The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, carries the right audience to fit in without too much argument from the hardcore Middle-earth-to-cinema fans. Still, who would Waits play? The consensus coming from the message boards I've been surfing through is the voice for Smaug. Although, this will cross another popular Internet rumor that Ron Perlman, a frequent collaborator with director Guillermo del Toro, will be taking up the voice acting duties for the dragon. Still, something to think about as we slowly trudge forward to the next piece of Hobbit news.

Shockingly, The Blind Side took the top spot at the box office in its third week of release, toppling the current reign of The Twilight Saga: New Moon... also in its third week. Is those top two in the runnings enough to make a cineaste slightly depressed? If so, maybe it is a bit of a spirit lift to note that per theater, nothing touches Disney's latest return to traditional animation with The Princess and the Frog and Jason Reitman's highly praised Up in the Air, which landed overall in the sixteenth and thirteenth positions respectively.

Friday, December 4th, 2009

2009-12-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

'Twas a slow news day today, so I'll share with you my big find, a Chinese toy company, Hot Toys. They were behind the awesome Joker figure from The Dark Knight that surfaced last year, but I didn't notice the company behind it then. They are currently releasing new additions to the Iron Man and 300 series that are definitely worth your time.

Yesterday, I mentioned that Jason Reitman's upcoming Up in the Air was named by the National Board of Review the film of the year, creating a significant amount of Oscar buzz. I don't know if I have already said it or not, but usually after something with George Clooney is released, I automatically assume it will be overrated due to an insane amount of political power the former People's sexiest man has on the movie industry and award ceremonies. That may be bad, as Good Night, and Good Luck was an outstanding film and generally his acting is pretty solid. Maybe it was my feeling that Michael Clayton got way too much attention, I don't know. Anyhow, I watched the trailer and did some digging for Up in the Air and it has quickly gained a top spot in my must see list. The trailer down below looks quite great, and the supporting cast, all of whom had their roles written especially for them from Reitman, includes Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman, Danny McBride, Melanie Lynskey, Sam Elliott, J.K. Simmons and the wonderful Zach Galifianakis. That is truly a cast anybody can get behind. Anyhow, enjoy the trailer.

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

2009-12-03T19:58:00.000-08:00

It seems that every time I notice The Hobbit in the news, it is always something disappointing. This time, in a German interview transcribed by TheOneRing with Peter Jackson, to promote his upcoming, critically appraised film The Lovely Bones, announced that filming would be pushed back to July-ish 2010. The producer of J.R.R. Tolkien's predecessor to the epic The Lord of the Rings did not elaborate on if it would affect the projected release dates of December 2011 and 2012, but we have to assume it will. This just adds to the turmoil that is MGM's financial troubles swirling just over the head of the films' pre-production. For something to perk you up after reading that, here is a link that I've been stuck on since reading the article on TheOneRing... New Zealand's Red Carpet Tours, taking us to the filming locations around the beautiful country. The 12 night tour is actually only $180 U.S. dollars, while the one night tour from Auckland to Hobbiton is $140. After blogging, I will probably spend the rest of the night, wishingly searching Orbitz for cheap flights.

I was going to make a joke about the economy to segue into this Variety article on how the box office this year will probably break the record for raking in some $10 billion, topping last year by 8%, but I find most of the economy talk rather insipid. Anyhow, those estimates come before the releases of Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel, which despite the horrendousness that will surely be contained within the hour and a half run time, will bring in the bucks from the kiddies out there, as well as potential blockbusters Sherlock Holmes and James Cameron's Avatar, not to mention a box office sleeper, the Oscar hopeful Invictus.

Invictus' Oscar dreams is another decent segue as the National Board of Review named their film of the year today, via Cinematical. The winner of the honor is Jason Reitman's latest, Up in the Air, starring George Clooney, whom also took home the NBR honor of Best Actor, tied with Morgan Freeman's Invictus performance. Taking home honors in the NBR's Ten Best Films were also good movie nerd fare such as (500) Days of Summer, Inglourious Basterds, A Serious Man, Up, Star Trek and Where the Wild Things Are.

Pajiba reported today that a rumored remake of Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds is back up and running with a new director attached, Dennis Iliades, the man behind the remake of Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left. I think somewhere in there I saw Michael Bay's name as producer, which almost assures that this already bad idea of trying to recreate the genius of Hitchcock by "modernizing" it, will be a total disaster.

Check out the new site MovieClips.com. The site boasts some 12,000 movie clips, with some good categorizations (I appreciate that at least) and even a bit of trivia. Anyhow, I'm not really sure why I chose the "Snap Out of It!" scene of Moonstruck as a demonstration, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless.

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

2009-12-02T20:06:00.001-08:00

Empire Magazine is turning twenty, and in response they have released this incredible gallery of pictures on their web site, featuring stars in photographs reminiscent of some of their more popular roles since the magazine's release. Pictured is one of the more dapper pictures of Mel Gibson post-Passion of the Christ and anti-Semitism, with the iconic Braveheart paint. Also included in the star-studded pictorial are Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christian Bale, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Sam Neill, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Michael Sheen, Ben Stiller, Laurence Fishburne, Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Sean Bean, Viggo Mortensen, Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Woody and Buzz Lightyear, Gerard Butler, Kevin Spacey and Tom Cruise. Quite a list, check it out.

A lot of award talk the past few weeks on here, and yet another ceremony has released its nominations. This time, the International Animated Film Society's Annie Awards, via Cinematical, announced that Henry Selick's underrated 3-D stop motion flick Coraline led the pack with ten nominations, with the much more lauded, and equally good film, Pixar's Up coming in second place with nine.

Variety reported today that two 3-D sequels are in the works. First, from Paramount, Zombieland will return to the big screen in a new chapter with the 3-D treatment. Is this a good idea? Zombieland was great, but I'm not sure how a sequel can be made without diluting what the original had. Not to mention that I'm still not really on board with the entire 3-D fad going on in the movie industry at the moment. The second sequel mentioned in the article is even more shocking, and uncalled for within the medium... a third Jackass film. I am willing to place my entire year's wages in a bet that the first thing filmed will be Chris Pontius' penis in 3-D.

Despite not being film news per say, due to Marvel Comics close link to cinema I feel it relevant to post a link to the bitchin' concept art of a Marvel themed amusement park being built in the United Arab Emirates, courtesy of Gamma Squad. It looks absolutely incredible, and furthers the notion that we should probably be packing up and moving to Dubai pretty soon.

Monday, November 30th, 2009

2009-11-30T20:24:00.001-08:00

The accompanying image for today's blog comes from Racked New York and is pictures of Bergdorf Goodman Men's Store's holiday window in New York City. A nice tie-in to Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Kind of sad to realize that a claymation fox is more exquisitely dressed than I ever will be.

The Satellite Awards nominees were announced today, with Rob Marshall's upcoming musical Nine picking up the most nominations. You can check out the entire nominee list at the International Press' official statement here.

The Satellite Awards are, for all purposes, just a preliminary match for the Golden Globe Awards, itself just a stepping stone to the Academy Awards. The nominee list led me to the Oscar prediction site, In Contention. The big category to look for is Best Picture, as it will contain ten nominees this year. The top nine contenders the site lists includes Nine, the Coens' latest A Serious Man, Pixar's Up and James Cameron's highly anticipated Avatar. Then, if that wasn't good enough for most film nerds, the dark horses and rest of the field mentioned for contention include J.J. Abrams' chapter in the Star Trek franchise, Neill Blomkamp's District 9 and Quentin Tarantino's brilliant Inglourious Basterds. I do have to admit that I'm a bit upset that Watchmen didn't even make the cut for consideration, but all the same, I can't be all that upset about the picks the site has thus far. Also worth a mention is the incredibly low key success Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, which shockingly is also boasting Best Supporting Actress nod at the Satellite Awards, as well as being top contender for the Oscar in comedienne Mo'Nique. We also have Clint Eastwood's sports biopic that will probably be the most overrated flick this award season, Invictus.

Sunday, November 29th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: I Met the Walrus)

2009-11-29T19:21:00.000-08:00

More than likely, you have never heard of Josh Raskin. In fact, when looking for an interesting short that I saw last year after reading it had been nominated for an Academy Award, I easily found the film I Met the Walrus. And despite the ease of finding his only body of work, finding any information on Raskin is difficult. What we do know about the director, interviewer, star, sound editor and animator of this unique short is that when he was fourteen, he had some interview equipment, and he managed to somehow score an interview with the legendary John Lennon at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto in 1969, catching Lennon at the age of 29, probably right before The Beatles' final studio album, Abbey Road, was released.

How long was this interview just part of Raskin's private collection I haven't a clue. Was it published somewhere? Did it even make a local news channel? Screen in a school classroom? With the limited information on Raskin and his film, I suppose we don't know. But whatever the case, the interview doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know about one of the more iconic musicians in history. Conversely, the entertainment wielded from this piece actually comes from Raskin, as the entrancing animation captures the scatterbrained fantasy that would be a fourteen year old boy's mind whilst interviewing a rock and roll god.

I mentioned that the flick was nominated for an Oscar, but lost out to Suzie Templeton's inferior, in my opinion, Polish stop motion animated Peter and the Wolf. The short did win the somewhat new Daytime Emmy category of New Approaches in Daytime Entertainment, which went to Sesame Street this year. Maybe more of an achievement in my mind than others. Still, enjoy I Met the Walrus...

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

2009-11-23T20:31:00.000-08:00

Strolling around the Interwebs and found this gem of a picture. Hope it brightened your day as it did mine.

The big news of the day comes courtesy of an MTV interview with Natalie Portman, in which the actress spilled the news that Kat Dennings was cast in Thor. Kenneth Branaugh's adaptation of the iconic Marvel character is already shaping up a nice cast and Dennings is just the latest name to be thrown into the pot, along with Portman, Anthony Hopkins and Chris Hemsworth thus far. The big question this arises is what character Dennings will play. The article ends with the speculation that she could step into the shoes of The Enchantress.

Finally, it should be no surprise to anyone how this weekend's box office returned. The Twilight Saga: New Moon easily took the number one spot garnering nearly $143 million. The teen vampire flick broke the midnight showing record set by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince set earlier this year, and the opening day record set by last year's The Dark Knight. However, fortunately for all of us movie nerds, Chris Weitz' installment in the Twilight franchise fell short of breaking The Dark Knight's weekend record.

Friday, November 20th, 2009

2009-11-20T20:58:00.000-08:00

I was going to take off the day from blogging due to some school work and just consider it one proverbial long awkward pause in honor of The Twilight Saga: New Moon's release today, but then I read some good news at the hands of Cinematical to combat my rant against the local movie rental place I posted the other night. The article announces that Netflix will soon be streaming independent films for download while their still in theaters due to unavailability to most audiences due to the limited releasing. The new program will be implemented through IFC and their Festival Direct project, which shows the indie flicks that are making splashes at some of the bigger film festivals, including Sundance, Cannes, Tribeca, Toronto, etc. as well as the In Theaters + On Demand service, which begins streaming certain films on the day they premiere in limited release. A lot of possibilities there, and with the rental company coming soon to Play Station 3 and my growing dismay towards Movies to Go, I'm sure I will soon be able to give a firsthand review of this.

Speaking of disappointment in the movie industry (that is, if you can consider my local rental store to be the movie industry), the short list for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards Best Documentary Feature Award has been receiving more and more controversy. I included the story of the snubbing of Capitalism: A Love Story and Anvil! The Story of Anvil on my blog the other day, but I left one major contender that was snubbed out, that being the highly reviewed James Toback documentary on the infamously bizarre and misunderstood namesake boxer in the flick Tyson. Toback himself took notice of this, as he took to an interview with The New York Times to claim that the selections process borders close to "extortion". The article goes on to give the Academy's rebuttal of Toback's claims; however, I'm sure it will not quite squash the buzz and controversy as we move ever forward to the iconic award show.

And... today is Friday, so that means new releases. Among the films in theaters this week include what looks like one of the more overrated flicks in some time, especially in regards to Sandra Bullock's performance, which the trailer at least doesn't really wow me, The Blind Side, the true story of a mediocrely famous Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman. Also, The Rock's career continues to look sadder in the animated Planet 51. We also get a helping of Werner Herzog's take on Abel Ferrera's cult classic in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, starring Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes, in a flick that most certainly has a better behind the scenes and back story than anything that will actually appear on the screen. And finally, yes, New Moon also made its debut last night at midnight. Instead of giving my take on how I feel about setting uncomfortably in a theater watching the only wet dream of Native Americans I've ever seen, I'll direct you to Roger Ebert's review, which includes the phrase "long pauses interrupt longer ones" while describing the plot. If that wasn't fascinating enough, to give a break of all the Twihard madness, here is a clip of Kevin Smith from this past San Diego Comic Con describing why we shouldn't hate the Twihards, and his feeling on the trailer of New Moon that debuted at the convention. Definitely worth a listen.

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

2009-11-19T19:54:00.001-08:00

This picture has been floating around all over the nerdy side of the Interwebs this week to coincide with the release of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek on DVD. The picture is Abrams updated version of the salt vampire that was made for a deleted scene that also contained a new version of Gorn, which you can see on io9.

Us Magazine, a periodical that I usually would refuse to read articles from, broke a story today that Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo will reprise their roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold for a new HomeAway commercial for this year's Super Bowl, paying homage to the 1983 comedy classic National Lampoon's Vacation that will also feature the Wagon Queen Family Truckster.

It is a slow news day, and I am currently watching The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on CMT, and I made a decision that the performance of "The Aggie Song" is the most unintentionally homoerotic piece of cinema in the history of the medium. Agreed?... Whatever the case, enjoy the clip.

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

2009-11-18T20:36:00.000-08:00

There is never any shortage of arguments as the Academy Awards begin to loom closer. Although we are still about three months away from the 82nd annual ceremony's nominations to be revealed, the controversy cloud has already swirled up with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's official site's announcement of the fifteen films that have been shortlisted for the Best Documentary Feature Award. Why would this be controversial? Well, because the only film on the list that I'm really familiar with is Louie Psihoyos' The Cove. That may be a bad example, as I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about most films that have passed through the public radar during the past year, but it is easy to let some decent documentaries to slip under undetected. Still, two of the most prolific films of the genre this past year, Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story and the surprise hit Anvil! The Story of Anvil, which boasts quite a high Tomato Meter rating on Rotten Tomatoes, are not present on the list. Not saying that the fifteen movies the Academy included on their list doesn't sound interesting, but none of them compare to Anvil!'s rating, nor do some of them even register a rating.

The above rant isn't to say that the Academy hasn't done anything right for this coming ceremony. In addition to adding five more nominees onto the ballot for the Best Picture category, as I covered yesterday, the cult film director Roger Corman garnered an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards last week. Of course, the exploitation master's sometimes lacklusting career isn't without its naysayers. An argument between two Cinematical writers have been brewing today, and I'm taking the side of Scott Weinberg, the supporter of Corman's massive body of exploitive fun.

The Spider-Man 4 rumors keep piling in. Monday, I wrote about how Rachel McAdams shot down the rumor that she would be filling the role of Felicia Hardy/The Black Cat. Today, Deadline Hollywood has already replaced McAdams role in the rumor mill, claiming that Anne Hathaway has been approached to take on the villain, or misunderstood love interest, or Marvel's answer to Catwoman or whatever the hell you want to call The Black Cat. There is no denying that Hathaway does look the part, but as many of the rumors coming in, I highly doubt there is any truth in this.

Finally, my patience is wearing thin with our local movie rental store, Movies to Go. There are a few others, but they're not even worth mentioning. Anyhow, void of newer releases Anvil!, Away We Go and Gigantic, but stocked with about twenty copies of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, as well as a few other flicks that make the second attempt at the video game franchise adaptation look like Citizen Kane, such as Sasquatch Mountain, several Girls Gone Wild selections and the straight-to-Nickelodeon George Lopez movie. Not only that, but I could spend days talking about how wrong the categorizations are, such as the Classics section, which is actually period pieces, or the fact that I noticed Into the Wild in the Comedy section. Also, we have the inability to alphabetize correctly, and the blaring sounds of The Pussycat Dolls emanating from the back, while the gaggle of harlotry that operates the cash registers have zero knowledge on basic movie information. Being a small store, I don't expect an academic lecture on Fellini or a section of exploitation rarities to rival Something Weird Videos' archives, but come on, I'm seriously thinking about committing the sin of starting to rent off of the Red Box. Come to PS3 Netflix.

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

2009-11-17T19:09:00.001-08:00

I have yet to jump aboard the Blu-ray fad. I know that it is supposedly better quality, but really, I'm doing the majority of my at home movie watching on a 90's Magnavox television set that probably couldn't differentiate the difference between the platform and its predecessor of DVDs anyhow. Also, I like to be consistent, and seeing that there are still movies out there that I want to see that have yet to make the jump from the VHS platform (John Waters' Multiple Maniacs for example), I just feel that the time to jump ship on the DVD train has yet to come. Still, the District 9 release may be the first Blu-ray that I purchase. Not only is Neill Blomkamp's feature length directorial debut a fantastic film that comes with the regular run-of-the-mill featurettes and extras that usually comes with a home release, but the Peter Jackson produced science fiction flick, according to SciFi Squad, will be making history by including a playable demo of a video game, this one happening to be to the highly anticipated Play Station 3 game God of War III. Also, enticing gamers to play the demo before the game is released, once the demo is completed, a featurette for the game is unlocked. And one final reason that this is becoming a must buy, in honor of the rapidly approaching Christmas shopping season, Amazon is already pre-sailing it for just $19.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave out the Governors Awards a few days back, and it would of went completely under my radar if I hadn't of noticed a Cinematical article on the topic. Among those receiving the honorary Oscar was actress Lauren Bacall, acclaimed cinematographer Gordon Willis and one of the original true cult directors Roger Corman.

Spider-Man 4 casting rumors has become one of the more common topics on here, and today Entertainment Weekly shot down one of the bigger rumors, that Rachel McAdams was set to play Felicia Hardy/The Black Cat during an interview to promote Sherlock Holmes. So does this put Dylan Baker as The Lizard back at the top of the runnings for the film's villainous lead? Also, when will we find out Bruce Campbell's role?

Monday, November 16th, 2009 (100th Post!)

2009-11-16T20:02:00.000-08:00

My 100th post here on the Blogger account, and a decently busy day for interesting movie tidbits, so off we go. First off, The Mirror was one of the many blogs posting the accompanying screen capture of R2-D2's cameo in J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek film coming courtesy of the special effects crew from Industrial Light and Magic as a calling card that the article also claims popped up in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The article goes on for a few videos that will make your day in the cameo department, including Orson Welles in The Muppet Movie, Tom Cruise's bizarre appearance in Tropic Thunder and a compilation of Alfred Hitchcock cameos.

Variety has reported today that the rumors of MGM's financial troubles are all too true, as the iconic film company has put its assets up for sale today, which among many other important things includes half the ownership to the upcoming The Hobbit films. This is possibly panic-worthy news for any cinema fan as the entire library of films tallies in above 4,000. The article also names Time Warner, News Corp. and Lionsgate as interested buyers. In short, I'm sure this will pop up in plenty of future blogs.

2012 easily brought in the top spot at the box office this weekend with a little over $65 million. However, the biggest story may have been the success and 213% increase of the indie drama Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire that landed in the third spot this weekend, tailing the heels of Oren Peli's amazing showing of the ultra low budget horror flick Paranormal Activity as two of the more financially successful indie films to come out of Hollywood in some time. In further box office news, Deadline Hollywood has reported that The Twilight Saga: New Moon has already broke the record for advanced ticket sales, beating out The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the previous owner of the record.

Mail Online has an interesting story up about some controversy stirring up in Britain, due to the promotional poster to the comedy Couples Retreat, as the UK poster erases Faizon Love and Kali Hawk, the black couple, from the poster. Yeah, probably not the best idea.

Cinematical has a story posted on a new casting call for Spider-Man 4, referred to only as "Toddler Boy", in which among all the speculations, Cinematical even includes Cletus Kasady, better known in the comic world as Carnage. An odd estimation, but intriguing all the same as the rumored and speculated villain list continues to grow.

Edward Woodward passed away yesterday. I didn't know the British actor from a lot, other than his appearance in Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz, so therefore I will direct you to Wright's personal site and his little tribute to the actor to find out more.

Finally, in honor of my 100th post, here is Liquid Generation's 100 Best Movie Quotes in 200 Seconds. I know that the second is Rob Schneider from The Waterboy, but trust me, 95 to 97 of the ones that follow are pretty fucking fantastic.

Sunday, November 15th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: Hotel Chevalier)

2009-11-15T19:22:00.001-08:00

I've been slacking on blogging again due to school *sigh*. I know, I know, I need to get my priorities straight. Anyhow, to be quite brief tonight, in honor of Wes Anderson's new film The Fantastic Mr. Fox debuting this past weekend, although nowhere remotely close to my home theater, I thought I would take a look at Anderson's beautiful short film Hotel Chevalier.

The film acts as a prologue, and had its theatrical debut alongside Anderson's most underrated film of his career, 2007's The Darjeeling Limited. The storyline of the film is simply the character Jack, whom is called and visited by his ex-girlfriend, in which they engage into a tiny bit of non-explicit promiscuity and we assume it is the end of their relationship, ending with the couple taking a view of Paris. Jack is played by Anderson regular, the incredible Jason Schwartzman and his ex is portrayed by the stunning and amazing Natalie Portman. It's minimal, offbeat, beautiful and perfectly coupled with the feature film that follows. The only thing in my opinion keeping Hotel Chevalier from gaining the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film is that the Academy disqualified the film for being released on the Internet before its theatrical run, as Anderson first released the films as an iTunes exclusive. Anyhow, please enjoy, unfortunately in two parts, Hotel Chevalier.

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

2009-11-10T21:05:00.000-08:00

A month or so ago, I read an article on Cinematical stating that J.J. Abrams had bought the rights for Stephen King's epic series, The Dark Tower, and would begin preparing for the adaptation after the series finale of Lost. When I read the article, I was searching for a new series to get involved in, and right now I'm reading the second book, The Drawing of the Three. Completely drawn in to the story thus far, it saddens me to report a new article from Cinematical that quotes an MTV interview with Abrams and Damon Lindelof, stating that the pair have decided to pass on adapting King's epic meta-fiction/fantasy adventure. The comments for the articles tend to think that longtime King collaborator Frank Darabont (most famously The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) should take the reins. Just to the second novel already, I can already tell that whomever does take it on, they have a nearly impossible task in front of them.

Another cancellation today, this one a little more welcome. Coming from Latino Review, the remake of Oldboy, that was set to be directed by Steven Spielberg and star Will Smith is now considered a dead project. Probably for the best.

With Christmas just around the corner, the collector/child in me is on the prowl for toys, so a few awesome movie geek toys...

Firstly, Japanator has a gallery of this incredible LEGO sculpture of Sophie's castle as seen in Hayao Miyazaki's beautiful Howl's Moving Castle.

Secondly, without even being a diehard fan of Akira, I am gravitated towards this amazing replica of Kaneda's motorcycle on Big Bad Toy Store.

Monday, November 9th, 2009

2009-11-09T20:34:00.000-08:00

I've been following the rampant rumor mill that is speculating on whom will be Peter Parker's next villainous foe in Sam Raimi's looming Spider-Man 4. First, after it was announced that Bruce Campbell would return to the film franchise with a bigger role, fans instantly expected/wanted him to portray Mysterio. Next, Dylan Baker announced that the role of Dr. Curt Connors would return, giving many fans reason to believe that he would finally get to take on the transformation into The Lizard. However, Mania has thrown another villain into the pot today, saying that Rachel McAdams is up for the role of the Black Cat. The article also goes on to say that Raimi and company are currently looking to cast another male villain, possibly debunking the aforementioned two rumored, or at least adding a bit of confusion as the general consensus has been that a scaling down on the amount of villains occupying screen time would be cut back after the clusterfuckedness of Spider-Man 3's ending. Also, it was rather hard to get an image for the Black Cat, as Google Image returned back more pornography tributes for Felicia Hardy's alter ego than any other comic femme on the net. So, yeah, if you're into that, knock yourselves out. Anyhow, the picture I eventually found is courtesy of Kevin Smith's product site, Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, as an avatar used for a signed copy of Spider-Man/Black Cat.

Three films debuted in the top five at the box office this week, with Robert Zemeckis' 3-D holiday film A Christmas Carol taking the top spot, and The Men Who Stare at Goats and The Fourth Kind garnering third and fourth respectively. This week also serves as the first time that Oren Peli's smash sleeper Paranormal Activity dropped in sales, landing at the five spot.

Fellow Blogger account Entertainment Web posted a massive gallery of a LEGO diorama of the ice planet Hoth as seen in The Empire Strikes Back.

Finally, with the ridiculous hysteria of The Twilight Saga: New Moon surely to take over the blogsphere in the coming weeks, it was refreshing to see a decent parody (replacing vampires with Frankenstein's monster[s]) of Twilight on Saturday Night Live the other night, that has been posted all across the Interwebs, our link coming the way of I Watch Stuff. Also, a decent job by Taylor Swift spoofing Kristen Stewart's constant lip biting.

Sunday, November 8th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: The Diane Linkletter Story)

2009-11-08T20:53:00.000-08:00

When it comes to bad taste, no one does it as well as the trash cinema king, John Waters. However, when looking over the filmography of the great Baltimorean filmmaker, possibly the most harshest, and most overlooked, is the 1970 short film The Diane Linkletter Story.

The flick was the fourth short film from Waters, and according to Wikipedia, as well as what my memory can take away from reading Waters' autobiography Shock Value, it was an accident. Waters, along with three familiar actors to aficionados of Dreamland Studios (Divine, David Lochary and Mary Vivian Pearce), was just attempting to try out a new camera that he purchased, that would be later used on the feature length Multiple Maniacs. As for the bad taste aspect, the description doesn't come at the hand of language and taboo acts depicted in the nearly ten minute short isn't comparable to what Waters would later become known for, as in the films Pink Flamingos, Desperate Living and Female Trouble, but rather the inappropriateness of the plot.

Based upon the real life suicide of Diane Linkletter, the little known 20 year old daughter of television personality Art Linkletter, the short features Diane (depicted by the one and only Divine) go on an LSD trip, get angry at her parents and jump out the window to her death below. The comedic look at the tragedy could almost play as a serious biopic it plays so closely to Art Linkletter's actual recounting of the event if not for the ingenious quips of Divine and Lochary. The film was actually shot as an ad lib for the camera the day after Diane's death. Still, if you find this a little too offensive, I would point to the first comment on the flick's IMDb page, as the author points out that it couldn't be as in bad taste as Art Linkletter releasing an album containing the Grammy Award winning "We Love You, Call Collect", exploiting the event as much as Dreamland had done.

As for the legacy of the film, it isn't very well know, having only one home video release to my knowledge and research, being on a VHS released in 1990 entitled A Divine Double Feature, coupled with a live showing of Divine's off-Broadway show The Neon Woman. It would also be the last short film Waters would do, as following Pink Flamingos, his career would take off as an auteur of depravity. It may be appropriate that the only way you can currently see Linkletter is by a rare find on eBay or from this low quality Veoh video. Still, a must watch. Please enjoy The Diane Linkletter Story.

View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Friday, November 6th, 2009

2009-11-06T19:36:00.000-08:00

As an anecdote to the week that has preceeded us, Geekologie offered up the accompanying image to the blog, that I thought would be a nice place to begin... Carrie Fisher and her stunt double, Tracy Eddon, sun tanning clad in the legendary metal bikini on Jabba's sail barge during taping of Return of the Jedi. Now then, on to some actual movie gossip and whatnot...

In one of the more amazing stories I've read in some time, The Guardian is reporting that an antique dealer, Morace Park, bought an old film, sealed within its original tin off of eBay for roughly three euros. Eventually, the dealer opened the tin and realized that it was actually an unknown seven-minute lost short from Charlie Chaplin, entitled Zepped. What peaked my interest the most in this article is Park's description of a typical silent Chaplin film, mixed with Monty Python-esque animation sequences of terror. The Guardian also interviews David Robinson, author of Chaplin: His Life and Art (which is one of the books given a writing credit in Richard Attenborough's biopic Chaplin by the way), in which the Chaplin scribe gives his estimation of what the film is actually worth, and how it came to be lost. My big question though, as a huge fan of Chaplin, is will we, the general public, ever get to see this?

There is nothing that can make me cringe more than news of another one of my favorite childhood television series being bastardized with CGI. So, my first reaction when I read the title of this Variety article, was disappointment that Yogi Bear was next in line. Still, a little hope crept up when I read that the voices of Yogi and Boo Boo would be Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake respectively. This doesn't mean that I will enjoy it, just that it will pass without the anger that will surely accompany the newest Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel.

MTV has an interview with David S. Goyer up on how he plans on making Ghost Rider 2 darker. I know Goyer has done plenty of good, including the incredible The Dark Knight, but I don't really think darkness of tone was the problem with the last incarnation of Nicolas Cage's flaming skull. Sam Elliott was good, but that was about it.

A decent movie weekend begins today. The Men Who Stare at Goats is at the top of my must-see list. Close behind is Richard Kelly's intriguing The Box. A Christmas Carol also debuts tonight, but it just seems a little too early to be celebrating Christmas, but knowing how long this flick will stay out during the yuletide season, I'm not feeling stressed to see it before the aforementioned two. Finally, The Fourth Kind is also out today, which will probably be awful, but the trailer just barely raises enough eyebrows with its claims of being based upon true accounts, to put me in the seats.

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

2009-11-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

'Tis late, and I wasn't blogging due to being engrossed with The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. I will very openly admit how much I hate the NBA, but with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird being guests, the little boy in me was entranced. Anyhoo, instead of boring you, dear readers, with news for another night, since I am anxiously looking forward to tomorrow, as we are going to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day with a bonfire after I get off work, I will leave you with a scene from V for Vendetta... it's A Christmas Story for Guy Fawkes Day.

P.S. Since I will most likely not be blogging tomorrow, at least if the day goes anything like I am hoping, I will also leave a bit of a parting gift. Christopher Walken, he's an actor so it is relevant to the blog in my mind, recently recited the lyrics of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.

Also, because I'm giddy, and in that rare, crazed Walken mood, here he is in one of the greatest music videos of all time, "Weapon of Choice"... directed by Spike Jonze (director of Where the Wild Things Are and Being John Malkovich)... further relevance for the blog.

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

2009-11-03T19:12:00.000-08:00

The accompanying picture for today's blog is quite possibly the most normal image to ever grace the screen on PictureIsUnrelated. Of course, there is no current news on Hayao Miyazaki's much revered animation classic My Neighbor Totoro, whose main character is taking center stage in the photo, but any chance I can get to direct people's attention to that site, I'll take it.

Yesterday, I reported on a interview done with Eduardo Sanchez of The Blair Witch Project, speaking of Paranormal Activity's recent success. As inevitable as this was, it is quite a shock that it took this long for rumors of a sequel to start brewing around, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter. The article says that Viacom's CEO Philippe Dauman is the instigator of the rumor, stating that it could be a possibility during the earnings conference call earlier in the day. At least it goes on to state that an analyst has serious doubts that a follow-up could garner the critical and financial success as its predecessor.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released in a statement today that Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin would host this year's Academy Awards. The only thing that worries me is the amount of time in the statement dedicated to promoting the hell out of Martin's banjo career.

Finally, I was directed to Walmart's buy page of a new Pink Label Barbie set, modeled after Edward and Bella from The Twilight Saga, from Cinematical. I suppose that the onslaught of New Moon advertising is unavoidable, but it still creeps me out to know that the marketing of pale disturbing paranormal stalker sex appeal keeps targeting younger and younger. Anyhow, since I resorted to toys that I didn't like, I have to include one that caught my eye a while back that I really want. Sideshow Collectables has released an awesome new action figure of Harrison Ford's turn as Indiana Jones in the already infamous "nuking the fridge" scene from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

2009-11-02T20:50:00.001-08:00

Oh, that darned economy. It has claimed a new victim, this time the rights of ownership to the Terminator film franchise. Sky News reports that Halcyon, the company behind the production of the latest in the series, Terminator Salvation, is going to auction off the rights to the popular franchise for future films or television series, but will not cover ownership of the royalties from the previous Terminator entries. I personally was one of the few that actually enjoyed Salvation, but I'm sure with the fans that was disappointed, this piece of news comes as a double-edged sword. On one hand, the fate of future films is out of Halcyon's hands, although on the other side, anybody, including Uwe Boll could win the auction. On a comical note, Joss Whedon has written an open letter to DeadlineHollywood about his possible plans for Terminator.

Well, you didn't think I mentioned Uwe Boll without reason, did you? I just read an article on Cinematical about Boll's latest film, Darfur, a serious film about the genocide situation in Sudan. To see what Boll does with a serious film, the article must be read, especially on his technique of filming a realistic rape scene. The flick stars Edward Furlong (the undisputed good Terminator films), Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, some of us found it entertaining), Matt Frewer (Moloch and Max motherfucking Headroom) and Billy Zane (Titanic), which makes me sad for all four of those actors. Cinematical also provides the trailer if you dare to set through it, I have not yet made the call.

As to have been expected, due to the shocking success of Paranormal Activity, and the seemingly endless line of comparisons towards the other indy handheld camera horror flick from a decade ago, The Blair Witch Project, somebody, TheStar.com in this case, has tracked down Eduardo Sanchez, one half of the directorial team for Blair Witch, for an interview. Also expected, Sanchez reveals plans for a possible third installment of his film series.

Finally, the Michael Jackson documentary This is It, debuted at the top of the box office charts this week by a hefty margin. Coming in at second was another solid week for Paranormal Activity, racking in on some Halloween moviegoers. Luckily, Saw VI continued to disappoint in sales as, despite it being Halloween weekend, placed below the fifth week of the negatively reviewed comedy Couples Retreat.

Sunday, November 1st, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: The Big Shave)

2009-11-01T19:31:00.000-08:00

The day after Halloween. Feels a bit empty, doesn't it? Horror films are slightly less relevant today than they were yesterday, and I am bordering from the second day in a role of severe migraine headaches due to high sugar intake. Even though we are leaving much of the horror film discussions in the past week, the countdown of the most horrifying scenes in film history that I included on the blog from Total Film last week is still swimming in my head, as it was my inaugural viewing of Martin Scorsese's 1967 short film The Big Shave, as the entire 5 minute short was number four on the list.

The film stems from Scorsese's tenure at New York University's film program, and was originally titled Viet '67, which has caused many critics to compare the nameless lead character's titular shave to America's involvement in the Vietnam War. The dark flick is considered by many the most famous of the shorts Scorsese made during his school career, and would definitely pave the way for some of the darker movie tones he would deal with later in the iconic reign over the cinematic universe that would follow. The plot may not be thick, as it is just five minutes of a man shaving his facial hair, and eventually, his skin, but in his only film appearance, Peter Bernuth, plays the stone faced role perfectly.

Most of the time during my Short Film Sunday post, I speak of what the director went on to accomplish, but I think it goes without saying that we are all familiar with Scorsese's work, as he is arguably one of the greatest directors alive or dead in the history of cinema. Some of his works include Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed and the upcoming Shutter Island just to name a few of the masterpieces. Anyhow, without anything additional to say about Scorsese that has not already been uttered thousands of times previously, enjoy The Big Shave.

P.S. Please don't go to YouTube to watch the video, as for some awkward happening beyond my reasoning ability, a plethora of extremely graphic taped vaginal exams are in the related video list to the side.

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

2009-10-29T20:51:00.000-07:00

Still trying to post something relevant to the Halloween season, I dug out two countdowns of the scariest films of all time, the first is an unranked look at 20 great genre films at the hands of Entertainment Weekly, originally published in 2004, the second a top 10 from MSN Movies. Of course, there is plenty of similarities, the classic pictured Exorcist, as well as John Carpenter's Halloween, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and Tobe Hooper's, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Still, there are a few interesting choices on both lists, most strikingly the appearance of David Lynch films. The bizarrely creepy voyeur Lost Highway on EW's countdown and the nightmarish surrealism from 1977's Eraserhead on MSN's list. Enjoy.

Another spot on EW's list is Jonathan Demme's 1991 Oscar-winning masterpiece The Silence of the Lambs. This is in no small part due to Anthony Hopkins brilliant performance as Hannibal Lecter. So it would seem the perfect time to pass along an article from The Hollywood Reporter that confirms Hopkins will add the role of Odin, Thor's father and ruler of Asgard to his repertoire of roles in the upcoming Marvel film Thor.

Currently, I'm reading an interview with Ridley Scott in Empire to see if he spills anything interesting about the Alien prequel he is set to direct down the line. I'm a bit saddened that it sheds light on nothing at all.

I mentioned yesterday that I was searching for Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, starring Andy Serkis, whom received a nod at the British Independent Film Awards for his performance, yesterday. Well, I regret to report that I can find nothing. When searching YouTube, if a trailer exists, it is trumped by actual videos of Ian Dury, in which the film is a biopic of. IMDb also currently lists the project as "in production", so hopefully I'll eventually grab this for a post.

Finally, the wait for a big trailer for James Cameron's Avatar is over. I resisted the temptation of posting a bootlegged low quality version last week. If you decide to actually watch this thing, please do it full screen. As a note, I actually hate when people talk about how awesome Transformers was, because it was all effects with no substance. I mean, there is plenty of films that put a good deal of bang in both categories, but after watching this trailer, attached to the huge buzz of the theater experience this will bring, it may be the only film I am really going to champion on effects alone. Not saying I'm ruling out a decent storyline, but really, there is too much eye candy in this to really care about Sam Worthington's legs, allegories to Native Americans or similarities to FernGully: The Last Rainforest's environmentalist bravado.

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

2009-10-28T21:06:00.000-07:00

With Halloween drawing ever nearer, I've been researching something more in the spirit of the times to post on my blog, and I ran across a great countdown of the 28 most horrifying film scenes of all time, courtesy of Total Film. Of course, the list doesn't completely stay within the genre of horror, as the infamous Divine coprophagia scene that closes John Waters' cult filth manifesto Pink Flamingos, that is picture is among the list dwellers. Also outside of the horror genre is the American History X curb stomp, the entire duration of an incredibly nauseating Martin Scorsese short The Big Shave, the eye slice in Luis Bunuel's surreal masterpiece Un Chien Andalou, and the lashing of Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ among others. Still, there is plenty of horror fun on the list at the hands of The Last House on the Left, An American Werewolf in London and Misery. A really incredible list, with video links to every scene if you're bored, and in a rather morbid mood.

In other news today, Empire posted the nominees for the British Independent Film Awards. I'm not extremely familiar with all, or hardly any, of the flicks that garnered nods. Regardless, the film Fish Tank led the pack with eight nominations, while more importantly for this blog, Duncan Jones' Moon picked up seven, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Sam Rockwell, which will certainly build a little steam towards Rockwell getting the big Oscar nod. Also, I am currently searching through YouTube to find the trailer to one of the films nominated, Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, which was honored in the form of Best Actor for Andy Serkis. The title and Serkis is enough to have me interested.

Finally, I spoke of Scorsese's appearance on the brilliant Total Film countdown up there. It may seem kind of weird to have the famed director of Taxi Driver and The Departed on a countdown of horrifying scenes, but once you think of the brutal realism usually displayed in his films, his two places in the countdown (the other being the buried alive scene from Casino) seem right at home. So what would happen when Scorsese ventures into the realm of horror? Well, a new trailer for his latest, the upcoming Shutter Island, hit the Interwebs today and looks as creepy as one could imagine. Leonardo DiCaprio stars, and it has jumped right on top of the most anticipated films for 2010 in my mind. Enjoy.

Shutter Island - Exclusive Trailer

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

2009-10-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

The casting for Michel Gondry and Seth Rogen's 2010 superhero flick, The Green Hornet, has been one of the more fascinating since I've started keeping a movie blog. Today, I learned that, despite principal photography and filming actually taking place now, the casting news thickens. First off, Rogen, in an interview with MovieWeb, has confirmed that Anvil, the Canadian metal band that gained prominence with this year's documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil, will play a band for the film. Also, Rogen announced that Edward Furlong has also been added to the lineup, although he would not confirm in what capacity.

A lot of things to cover today, so moving more quickly, an online petition has been started to get Sam Rockwell a nod for this year's Academy Awards, as the sponsor feels that Moon will be overlooked due to the film being director Duncan Jones' directorial debut, and nowhere near the promotional buzz needed to trump the other films that will be campaigning. I absolutely hate how political the Academy Awards are, as it really comes down to the best campaign, and not the best performance. Anyhow, without seeing Moon, I have to say that I hope Rockwell lives up to the praise, but I can't have an extreme opinion as of yet.

MarketSaw announced today that The Lizard will be the only villain in Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man 4. This is good news for Dylan Baker fans (assuming that I'm not the only one), but makes us have to question what the expanded role of Bruce Campbell will be. Also, it has to be noted that the source is MarketSaw, which reported last week that Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola will both direct a chapter in a sequel trilogy of George Lucas' Star Wars saga. Trustworthy?

At midnight, or a few short minutes from when I'm writing this, the highly anticipated Michael Jackson documentary This is It debuts at theaters. I still have my doubts about this rushed doc's quality, but who can resist the spectacle?

Paranormal Activity took the top spot at the box office this weekend, beating out Saw VI in its opening weekend. This is a breath of fresh air to anybody like myself who thinks that the Saw series has finally run its course, as well as anybody that is just generally excited about independent films gaining widespread success.

Movie-related Christmas ideas have already began pouring in, as DVDSnapshot, courtesy of a link from Cinematical, has posted the details and contents of The Mel Brooks Collection, a nine disc Blu-ray compendium of comedy, which will include such films as Blazing Saddles, History of the World: Part I, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Silent Movie, Spaceballs and Young Frankenstein among a few others.

Finally, I had a decent weekend whilst not blogging as I partook in several October activities including taking in The Rocky Horror Show live at Berea College, a corn maze and attending The Grand AdventureCon in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. We actually set in on two panels, one for Mickey Dolenz (of Monkees fame) and one for Kevin Nash, So Cal Val and Traci Brooks of TNA. I'd like to say I brought back some exclusive knowledge for my blog, but I don't think any of their cinematic careers, if they even exist much at all, are flourishing at the moment. Still, when looking up to see if they were going to be in anything, I ran across the fact that Dolenz was in Rob Zombie's re-working of Halloween, which I didn't know, and this picture...

That is So Cal Val in Princess Leia's infamous slave girl get-up. And yes, it is from a site dedicated to cosplay of that one costume (and does border of creepy most of the time). Even though my only readership is my fiance and another straight female, I think even they would appreciate such a site.

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

2009-10-22T20:30:00.001-07:00

When Sam Raimi announced a few weeks back that Bruce Campbell may play a bigger part in Spider-Man 4 than what he has previously done during the film franchise, the rumor mill began to circulate on what villain Campbell could play, most Internet bloggers settling on Mysterio as the most popular possibility. As much as I think this would be a great idea, and would be a step in the right direction to save Raimi's big screen saga of Marvel's web blaster after Spider-Man 3 was met with lukewarm reviews, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that this news probably meant Dylan Baker and his character of Dr. Curt Connors, was going to be denied the transformation into The Lizard and a major part. Maybe I'm more biased when it comes to Baker than I am the character of The Lizard. Sure, Campbell is awesome, but ever since watching Todd Solondz' dark comedy Happiness, I have felt that Baker is one of the more underrated actors in the cinema industry. But according to an article at Ugo, I may be wrong as Baker confirmed that he will be returning to play Connors once again, although he wouldn't say if he would be receiving a larger part this time around. Of course, I would like to see both characters, but with the biggest complaint of the third installment being villain overload, one would have to expect that changes will be made, and only one main villain, a la Dr. Octopus and the most critically-acclaimed entry, Spider-Man 2.

Yesterday I gave a link, via SlashControl, to watch The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas for free. Despite being on the SlashControl web site, the video was hosted by Hulu, the best, and possibly only legal way to watch good quality, free films online. Well, that is until next year, as Entertainment Weekly broke the news today that Hulu will eventually start charging for services. Honestly, like Hulu doesn't make enough money off of advertising sales.

If you never go, 80sTees.com is one of the better sites on the Interwebs to purchase clothing. Anyhow, I found a link to this awesome "Three Teen Wolf Moon" shirt. Great.

On Cinematical's Shelf Life column today, author Todd Gilchrist took a look at Robert Zemeckis' 1997 science fiction film Contact. I'm kind of shocked to say, not only have I never see the movie, but until tonight after reading Gilchrist's appraisal of how the film holds up nearly thirteen years down the line and searching some reviews on RottenTomatoes and Roger Ebert's web site, I didn't really even know much about it. Despite enjoying Zemeckis and Jodie Foster, the face value of a science fiction flick co-starring Matthew McConaughey is just off-putting enough to not be interested in. Still, I just watched this opening sequence, and now I think I'll put this as top priority to rent. Anybody ever see it? Worth watching? Overrated? Underrated?

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

2009-10-21T21:08:00.001-07:00

When did the 3-D fad go too far? Well, I think it came with the release of The Final Destination. However, there is still some good things to be done with 3-D. I'm looking forward to James Cameron's Avatar, the annual Halloween release of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas in Disney Digital 3-D is nice, and whenever I visited the Blogger account MarketSaw, and thought that I read a headline that the original Star Wars trilogy would be re-released in 3-D, I was halfway excited. Yet, the complaints and raves that was swirling around in the ol' noggin was soon abolished by wondering who the hell runs the MarketSaw site, and how reliable are they, seeing that the rumor I'm about to repeat has made its way around the blogsphere, as I first saw it on MovieWeb. Anyhow, after scanning down from the title, I realized the article actually states that George Lucas and company is contemplating a third trilogy in the Star Wars canon, all to be filmed in stereoscopic 3-D. The article goes on to say that Lucas would just have a production credit with the new films, and that Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola are being considered as directors of installments in the trilogy. Excited? Well, the article seems to doubt itself at the end, so don't get too bent out of shape. Oh, the accompanying picture to today's blog is just about as great as you can get, so if its apparently kosher to throw out crazy bits of info, I'll go ahead and drop Martin Scorsese's name in the hat to create the trifecta of new directors.

A story that to me is almost as absurd, but awkwardly true is that, via IWatchStuff, The Weather Channel has decided to start showing weather-related films, beginning with The Perfect Storm, and including Deep Blue Sea(?!). I mean, at least it makes sense for VH-1 to air Purple Rain, but Deep Blue Sea!? How does that work? And even if it came be considered a "weather movie", has it even got an audience? Is this for ratings? Ridiculous.

SlashControl was showing The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas for free today. Seeing that I'm writing this quite close to midnight, the link was broken. Still, it may be worth checking the site out, who knows what the free movie of the day will be tomorrow. And if you're really bored, the top five most watched movies includes the late Patrick Swayze in Black Dog, what looks to be a few softcore porn flicks and an old Sherlock Holmes movie.

An interview with David Duchovny over at The Daily Beast hints at a third X-Files film, but it is basically just Duchovny speaking on how much he would enjoy returning to the character of Special Agent Fox Mulder one more time. This is at least something to make my fiance's day a little happier if she reads this before work.

Finally, a good Cinematical article by Jessica Barnes is up on movies you feel that only you enjoy, her pick being About Last Night. I have two. The first being Howard the Duck, as the movie is pretty much considered one of the worst ever made on several review sites. I don't know if it's the nostalgia behind enjoying this as a kid or what. I do know a few people that like this, but according to Internet reviews, we are a rare breed. Also, we have Spider-Man 3. Sure, Venom was in the movie for only fifteen seconds, and was met with a demise that didn't even tip the iceberg of what the David Michelinie-created villain deserved. On the flip side, the transformation of Eddie Brock to Venom in the bell tower was a decent scene, Flint Marko was a pretty decent villain, and as much as everybody hated the cheesiness of it, all of the corny extras oozed Stan Lee's personality and wasn't so farfetched from any of the other stuff we had seen from the film's predecessors. So, anyways, join in on that discussion.

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

2009-10-20T21:23:00.000-07:00

During the Halloween season, there is always a plethora of places I want to go, including and not limited to, Halloween film festivals, corn maizes and supposedly haunted places to do a ghost investigation. One thing that I never really think of, especially seeing that I'm in the part of the world that cinema usually overlooks, is filming locations to classic horror fare. Turns out that in Morristown, Tennessee, roughly an hour and half away, was the site of Sam Raimi's classic 1981 The Evil Dead. Sadly, the site has a no trespassing sign up, but you can visit this web page to see pictures of the remnants of the burnt cabin if you would rather set online and look over risking jail time. They're also selling vials of earth and burnt cabin remnants. Anyways, this may warrant a stop on the next trip through the area.

Cinematical has a great countdown today of the seven best horror themes. A fitting countdown for the month that includes The Exorcist, Halloween and Psycho, among others.

Collider recently interviewed Jackie Earle Haley to debunk rumors that the actor will return to the DC Universe, this time to play Sinestro in the feature film adaptation of The Green Lantern. The good thing though, Haley didn't say he was uninterested, just was without invitation. So, we know Haley is a great actor, but with Haley being known to comic fans as Rorschach, would this be seen negatively? I mean, sure the man playing Hal Jordan, Ryan Reynolds, is also known as Deadpool, but that was in the horrific and very forgettable X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Still, I think Haley may be the best name I've heard thrown around for the role, so hopefully if casting hasn't already gotten underway, the folks over at Warner Brothers/DC will take a look at the positive buzz and consider this.

Speaking of superhero casting, until a sequel to The Dark Knight is either in theaters or completely confirmed to be dead, rumors will run rampant on who will be casted as the new villains. Well, this has been on my mind today as I had an off day from work and school and spent the entire day not moving from playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. Sure, I may have jumped aboard a bit late on this, but I can't get over how brilliant the character of Harley Quinn is. There is a overabundance of message boards you can go to in order to find who the public wants to play the villainess if she were to ever hit the big screen, such as this one from Newsarama, showing how truly terrible casting directors the general public would be. Anyhow, who do you think would make a good Harley? Of course, there is the veterans to the role, Arleen Sorkin, who voices The Joker's stalker-esque female companion in the aforementioned game as well as Harley's most widely known incarnation in Batman: The Animated Series. I also didn't think Marielle Guerber was a slouch in her version of the role in the dark French short Ashes to Ashes. The perfect voice, and possibly the perfect look if it had been shot right after the Wachowskis' Bound would have been Jennifer Tilly. Still, I can't really think outside the box on this one as reading down any list, they all seem absurd. Conversely though, I originally thought the same when I heard Heath Ledger's name mentioned, and that is now the reason that the future of Christopher Nolan's incredible reboot of the franchise is now in question... because he could never be duplicated. Anyhow, I'm going to get back to the game.

Monday, October 19th, 2009

2009-10-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

One of the most unfortunate things about living in the part of the country that I do, is that spectacular looking films, such as Robert D. Siegel's Big Fan, didn't come within a hundred miles. Still, the Patton Oswalt starring dark comedy has been championed in this blog for sometime as I wait with bated breath for the DVD release. While I wait, via Cinematical, the independent sports flick has nabbed three nominations (Best Feature and nods for Siegel and Oswalt's work respectively) at the Gotham Awards, honoring the best in independent cinema. Two other films that are high priority on my list to catch-up on when they finally hit store shelves is Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker and the Coen Brothers' latest, A Serious Man.

Speaking of A Serious Man, the flick took a decent leap in the box office this week, taking an 84% rise, still only netting it in the top 15. Also, Paranormal Activity still continues to climb its way to the top, landing at number three this weekend, taking sales up 148%, after a 1000+% increase last weekend. Still, the top story is that Spike Jonze's incredible Where the Wild Things Are took the top spot easily with approximately $33 million. Law Abiding Citizen and The Stepfather also debuted within the top five, which if not for Wild Things getting such a great release, would be cause to shoot ourselves in the head in honor of intriguing cinema, such as the 35th spot, Black Dynamite, which essentially will go unnoticed.

On the topic of Where the Wild Things Are, I was left with affirmation that Jonze is, in fact, one of the greatest geniuses in modern movies. The director of Being John Malkovich has really done no wrong thus far in his career, and prior to film, he has helmed such wonderful music videos as the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage", Fatboy Slim's "Praise You" and Wax's "California". So, it was definitely a shock to see an article on Cinematical highlighting a short film Jonze had done with douchebag extraordinaire, Kanye West, entitled We Were Once a Fairytale. It is hard for me to believe that, despite the high level of talent behind the camera, West could do anything remotely entertaining... on purpose. This thought continued as the embedded YouTube video provided by the link was taken down due to noncompliance in the form of a copyright claim from West himself.

Variety ran a story today about the possibility of reviving the failed attempt of a Broadway adaptation of Brian De Palma's classic horror flick Carrie. I don't really see why this wouldn't work. Actually, this makes me wonder why, when speaking of great Halloween staples in the same vein of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, why Carrie doesn't get some costumed midnight showings around this time of the year. Given, the Stephen King adaptation isn't nowhere near the same amount of fun as Rocky Horror, but the kitschy horror, and what would surely be a plethora of prom dress clad moviegoers doused in pig blood in the audience, definitely makes for at least one hell of an opening act. The Variety article also gives me reason to put up the prom scene clip from the movie, which has been on my mind recently, stemming from a rather comical incident during classes the other day. Enjoy.

Sunday, October 18th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: Halloween Extravaganza)

2009-10-18T19:25:00.001-07:00

This is the last Short Film Sunday I'll be posting before Halloween, seeing that next Sunday I will be hoarding nerdy memorabilia from The Grand AdventureCon in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. So, with the aforementioned information, I figure I should do a bit of a Halloween extravaganza, and put together three decent shorts that embody the spirit of the Halloween season.

First up, is the original short that inspired the feature length version that we are all a little more familiar with, Saw. The short, which was directed by James Wan and was written by and starred Leigh Whannell, the team behind the big screen version that would come out a year later, was actually made as nothing more than a pitch from Wan and Whannell in an attempt to be picked up from a movie studio and acquire actors. Of course, this short and the original film are actually good entries into American horror, so don't let the overkill of Saw VI, due out this coming weekend, or the announcement of an upcoming 3-D Saw VII, or even the VH-1 reality series Scream Queens ruin this for you. The short can now be viewed by the uncut edition of the Saw DVD.

Second, we get a little more child friendly with a 1929 short directed by the one and only Walt Disney and animated by the brilliant Ub Iwerks, The Skeleton Dance. The short was actually made just a year after Mickey Mouse's debut screen appearance, via the short Plane Crazy. The little film, part of the Disney Silly Symphonies series of shorts, has became a Halloween staple over the years, being named among the 50 greatest cartoons of all time in a survey of a thousand animation professionals, compiled by historian Jerry Buck, and Carl W. Stalling's score pops up on Disney Halloween CD's all over the place. A nice little fact, just nineteen days ago was the eightieth anniversary for this short.

Finally, if there is one short that embodies Halloween more than any other, it has to be Michael Jackson's Thriller. Some people may consider it a music video more so than a short film, but Wikipedia and IMDb are among the sites that count this as a film, albeit a TV film according to the latter. The video was definitely the first time filmmaking and music video would merge, and possibly the only time it would on such a magnificent level. The short is directed by John Landis, just fresh off of doing An American Werewolf in London, and co-stars Ola Ray (who, incidently will be one of the guests at the aforementioned AdventureCon) and the voice of horror icon Vincent Price. The short, which tells the story to the tune of Jackson's eponymous track off of one of the greatest albums of all time, Thriller, of a couple that leaves the showing of a horror flick due to the young girl being frightened, only to end up in a nightmare of walking, dancing undead. Of course, the short/music video will be bigger this year than ever after the passing of Jackson a few months ago. Adding to the hysteria of Wacko Jacko's October legacy is the fact that Thrill the World is expecting its biggest turn-out ever, which will attempt to break the Guinness World Record of most people dancing in sync to Thriller simultaneously the world over. Also, This is It, the documentary on the finals days of Jackson's life is set to come out just a few days before Halloween. Enjoy.

Thriller - Michael Jackson