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.

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

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

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

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

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

Sunday, July 26th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: Vincent)

Last week's short film, Treevenge, was directed by Jason Eisener, a director that I feel one day may become a big name. This week however, I am going to feature a filmmaker that most up and comers hope to emulate, the masterful Tim Burton. Almost everything the 50-year-old director has touched, has become something of a masterpiece, or cultural phenomenon. This past week has been no exception, as during the San Diego Comic Con, the trailer to his newest film, Alice in Wonderland, an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's whimsical novel, made its debut. Burton's official website also released a teaser gallery from his upcoming picture book, The Art of Tim Burton.

Burton had just as interesting of an early career years before he got to this point. His career began as a cell animator for the 1978 animated version of The Lord of the Rings, directed by Ralph Bakshi. Then, I have read rumors for years that he was an uncredited Muppeteer in 1979's The Muppet Movie, and the listing still exists on IMDb, as well as on Burton's Wikipedia page. Leaving the 70's behind, Burton got a job as an animator on the Disney film The Fox and the Hound. While working for Disney, we would also get our first look at Burton behind the camera, taking the helming role when he would shoot tonight's featured short, Vincent, about a young boy named Vincent Malloy, that was obsessed with Burton's real life hero, horror icon Vincent Price, who also narrated the story. The film saw a brief theatrical release running before the forgotten Matt Dillon film Tex, but the brilliant short went mainly unseen, as some of the more macabre references to Price's films wasn't very Disney-friendly, and the crowd wanting to see the badly received teen drama Tex didn't mesh with Burton's humor.

The film would lead to another Disney short called Frankenweenie in 1984, which would lead to Burton being fired by Disney for wasting the company's money and creating a film that was too scary for the audience in which it was intended. Both shorts would later find success and cult followings once they showed up on the special edition DVD for The Nightmare Before Christmas, and of course, the popularity of YouTube. They would also succeed in getting Burton noticed by Paul Reubens, a bizarre comedian that went under the pseudonym Pee-Wee Herman, who also famously created an act that looked like it should be targeting children, but kept an adult audience with its wit. He was impressed and got Burton to direct a screen adaptation of The Pee-Wee Herman Show, Burton's first feature film, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. This would be followed with a second huge cult hit in Beetlejuice, and rounding out the 80's, Burton would hit his first blockbuster gold with the film Batman.

The 90's would follow with another pairing with Price, this time in a small, and Price's last, on-screen role in Burton's masterful story Edward Scissorhands, a dark big budget sequel in the Caped Crusader franchise with Batman Returns, his return to stop motion animation in the classic Nightmare Before Christmas (a film that centered around the character Jack Skellington, whom made his debut as a background character in Vincent), his first flop that still has some following in Cabin Boy, creating a great homage to cult film icon Edward D. Wood, Jr. in Ed Wood, stepping down to producer in the moderately successful Batman Forever, returning to praise cult cinema with the star-studded Mars Attacks!, and rounding out the decade with another clever, dark adaptation in his first horror film, Sleepy Hollow.

In the new millennium, Burton gave us the only film of his that I have disliked, a re-envisioning of the classic Planet of the Apes, the very whimsical tale of growing old in his underrated Big Fish, another lavish and unique telling of a classic story in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, another return to the world of stop motion with Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, the horror musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and rounding out the decade by producing Shane Acker's upcoming film 9.

To think, such a grand career from roughly six minutes of animation, and a clever poem about his hero. Without further adieu, one of Burton's best, albeit short, works Vincent.

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

I worked late tonight, so I come home expecting to sleep rather than blog, but then I check a few things online and get completely submerged into all of the San Diego Comic Con coverage. The first thing I find is via ComingSoon, where the 2010 Joseph Kosinski Tron sequel finally got a title, Tron Legacy.

Elsewhere, we get plenty of coverage on The Green Hornet over at Cinematical. First, director Michel Gondry raps about the upcoming feature, and in a separate story, writers Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen (who also will star as the titular character), revealed the hero's car, a black 1966 Chrysler Crown Imperial.

It was also announced that Saw's James Wan will take over the job of director in an adaptation of one of my favorite video games of all time, Kanomi's Castlevania. I'm not crazy familiar with any of Wan's work, other than Saw; however, it may be an improvement over the last director attached to the project, Sylvain White, who previously directed Stomp the Yard, yet on the other hand has already signed on the helm the big screen version of DC Comic's The Losers.

Today, during the Avatar panel, fifteen minutes of the film was shown. Yet, if you are envious like me, and about a three day drive from San Diego, we will all get a chance to watch the preview for free on August 21st at IMAX theaters worldwide. An interesting marketing ploy for something that I felt already had quite a bit of buzz going on to not have a built in fan base already.

Away from Comic Con, well, it could have actually debuted there, but IGN doesn't have much of a write up about it, a new poster to Samuel Bayer's remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street came out today to compliment our first view of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger yesterday. The poster features Haley again, although as before, we cannot make any of his features out.

And finally, the Alice in Wonderland trailer that I had promised yesterday. You'll have to click the link though, as embedding was disabled on Moviefone, as well as YouTube. As expected, the film definitely looks intriguing, and very Tim Burton-y.

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Have you ever been really excited by the upcoming release of a film, yet think you will hate it? That is kind of how I feel about next year's remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. I was the same way with Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween, as I was sure it wouldn't be anything like the original John Carpenter version that I loved so much, yet I couldn't wait to see it. This newest picture that I found on MySpace Trailer Park, giving us the first, albeit unrecognizable, shot of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger, furthers my excitement, yet doesn't show enough to distill the dread of probable disapointment.

The teaser trailer for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland went online today, but before I could get home from work, was pulled until tomorrow. Still, if you can't wait, I'm sure there is still somewhere that has yet to pull it out there.

Yahoo! Movies has another look at Scarlett Johansson in Iron Man 2. We've still yet to see a quality picture of Johansson in full Black Canary get up. I'm sure that will be saved for the trailer.

AICN dropped the bomb today that Sam Raimi is on board as the director of a film adaptation of World of Warcraft, which will begin to shoot after Spider-Man 4. I have still yet to delve into the fandom of WoW, so I can't be too excited, but can you imagine the following this movie will obtain?

All movie blogs of the Interwebs will be buzzing this week due to the San Diego Comic Con getting under way. Although I am excited to receive all the nerdy spectacular news that will flow forth, envy for the cats in attendance is really the weightiest emotion I'll have this weekend.

SciFiSquad has a story saying that the F.W. Murnau Foundation of Germany has gotten their hands on some footage of Fritz Lang's epic 1927 science fiction masterpiece Metropolis, which up until now has been presumed to be lost. The footage, found in the archives of an Argentinean musuem, will be cleaned up by the Foundation, and will be released sometime in the future. The linked article tends to think the release will be in 2010 at the earliest, but it will definitely be an event, as it will be the most complete version shown, since probably the late 20's.