Harry Potter and the Director That Redeemed Himself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.