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.

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

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

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

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

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

'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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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.