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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

I have to admit, I enjoy the first Saw movie. This whole new subgenre of "gore porn" was in its infancy, and James Wan and Leigh Whannell actually seemed to care as much about plot, as they did the imaginative ways to implement a modern day Herschell Gordon Lewis gorefest. Now, we are almost at the release date of the sixth installment, with a seventh announced, due out next year, and to say that the franchise has gone stale, catering more to teenage boys with mental complexes, with complete abandonment of story, or horror for that matter, is an understatement. I mean, the movies even spawned a show in VH-1's Celebreality line-up to find a star for Saw VI for Christ's sake. Let's just say, as much as we all may tire of Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, we haven't seen their likenesses alongside Flavor Flav, that douchebag that killed Jasmine Fiore and New York in the same television line-up. Terrible. With that said, I also generally like 3-D. As a gimmick, take for instance this very NSFW trailer to Tom DeSimone's raunchy exploitation 3-D Prison Girls, it works great. For big budget events, it at least gets us excited, case in point James Cameron's upcoming Avatar. It also isn't that bad of an idea for a traditional showing, a la Disney's annual release of the 3-D treatment of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. However, this overkill of everything 3-D is killing me. With both of these generally good things, turned this cinephile's biggest maddening movie peeves, it is no surprise that ShockTillYouDrop has announced that Saw VII will indeed be shot in 3-D format. Is anybody honestly going to be excited for this?

Further destroying any hopes for me to write anything but some bitches and moans today, IWatchStuff posted an interview with Bill Murray, in which he states that Harold Ramis may have overstated Murray's possible return to the character of Peter Venkman in the possible Ghostbusters 3. It's not that Murray is completely against doing another film, but thinks the script should at least be better than Ghostbusters II. Really though, wouldn't we all be mad if Murray would return to something cheap. This is actually good news, masquerading as disappointment.

MovieWeb has the official list of the submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. I really know nothing about any of the possible nominees. In fact, I've only heard of a few like Joon-ho Bong's Mother, Havana Marking's Afghan Star and Miguel Littin's Dawson, Isla 10. Of course, this award, more than any other at the Oscars, is the most political and usually many good films get left out. For instance, Tomas Alfredson's brilliant Let the Right One In got snubbed at last year's Oscars and Guillermo del Toro's beautiful Pan's Labyrinth didn't get the nod in 2007. One movie I have heard a lot about this year not present in the list is the South Korean horror flick Thirst. Anyhow, this is always just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Oscar displeasure, so stay tuned for those rants.

Monday, October 5th, 2009

'Tis a slow week for blogging due to it being finals week. Despite missing the last three days, there has not been a lot of cinematic news pumping through the blogsphere. This may be due to the fact that instead of blogging or digging up some kind of casting news to bitch about, cinephiles actually have a few decent options in theaters this weekend. Taking the top of the box office was Zombieland, which was shockingly great. I expected it to be comical, but from the wonderful opening credit sequence set to Metallica's "For Whom the Bells Toll", I was hooked. Also, I don't think it is a huge spoiler to say that Bill Murray cameos in the film, as whenever I searched Zombieland on Google search, all that came back was Murray's name. Anyhow, the short amount of time may be one of Murray's best comedic performances since Groundhog Day, try to digest how awesome that compliment was.

Other than Zombieland, there was five other very watchable releases that is definitely on my must-see list. First, the Coen Brothers' most recent dark comedy A Serious Man, which showed up disappointingly outside of the top 25 on the box office charts, but still looks incredible. Pixar re-released Toy Story and Toy Story 2 as a 3-D double feature for a two-week engagement, kicking off one of the best autumn movie seasons for family films since the 80's. In addition, Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It!, which is garnering what some feel surprising critical praise in a coming-of-age comedy set in the world of roller derby girls, and starring Ellen Page. Michael Moore's most recent documentary, a commentary on the current state of our country's economic woes, Capitalism: A Love Story opened up as well. Finally, the least of the big releases of the weekend, Ricky Gervais' fantasy/comedy that has been getting some undeserved criticism for being "atheist propaganda", The Invention of Lying, landed in the top five of the box office.

Not only has the blog sites not had time to bitch about casting news, or worry more on the fate of Marvel comic to film adaptation this week for raving over the decent batch of quality flicks, but another independent horror movie, Paranormal Activity, has been taking off with some good old fashioned word of mouth advertising. Apparently, Twitter has been a big help to the film, and if you visit the official site of Oren Peli's debut feature, that was originally made in 2007, you can demand that it be shown in your area. I thought, due to the mockumentary style, that it looked somewhat interesting, but with such an early fan following, who wouldn't want to see this?

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

I had imagined with "going green" being the bees knees in Hollywood recently, that Dr. Seuss' fantastic 1971 environmentally friendly fable The Lorax would have already been put on the big screen. The wonderful tale is my favorite children's book of all time, and through the years I have had fears of Mike Myers in a skin tight orange catsuit and a mustache that would make a proverbial lovechild of Nietzsche and Rollie Fingers blush. Yet, although I have always fancied a brilliant stop motion adaptation, Variety has announced that the inevitable has happened, and at the very least, it will take the road of the Horton Hears a Who film, and join the ranks of CGI-mania, directed by Chris Renaud, Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio. I'm sure until the release in 2012, I will rant and rejoice about this beloved gem of my childhood, but the one good thing I can say so far, is that I enjoy the tentative release date is what would have been Theodor Geisel's 105th birthday.

I mentioned stop motion animation up there, and when talking about the medium one can't help but mention Wes Anderson's upcoming The Fantastic Mr. Fox. I posted pictures a while back showing off the titular Mr. Fox, but now the official site of the film has a gallery up with some of the better pictures featuring Bill Murray having some fun with the figures being used.

The Green Hornet casting news has been littered all about my blog, and a new piece of news, courtesy of LatinoReview, states that there is a new replacement for Stephen Chow's abandoned Kato role. Famous South Korean actor Kwon Sang-woo has been confirmed by several unnamed "Chinese news outlets" to be taking the role of Seth Rogen's sidekick. The actor has yet to breakthrough stateside, so I have no clue if I should be excited or repulsed, but I'm still generally stoked about what Michel Gondry could do with a superhero flick written by Rogen and Evan Goldberg, so I seriously doubt this guy's previous credits would really matter in my overall excitement for this.

In more casting news, via IWatchStuff, Bryce Dallas Howard has joined the cast of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, taking over for Rachelle Lefevre in the role of Victoria after some scheduling squabbles. Now, I try my best not to speak of anything pertaining to the Twilight universe, but this bit of casting intrigues me. I may be alone here, but I think Howard is a good actress, and using the little bit of knowledge I know of the Twilight books, Eclipse is when Victoria becomes a decent villain, which would seem to turn to the side of luck, albeit a slight continuity snag, for the vampire romance. This may stifle a bit of the initial complaints when I accompany the lady to the theater for this, especially added to the fact that the third installment will be directed by David Slade (of 30 Days of Night fame), who has publically criticized the original film, and the hightened chance he brings that may change this into a watchable film for anybody who isn't masturbating nightly to a cucumber with "Team Cullen" painted on it with nail polish while simultaneously using Dad's barbeque fork to simulate a vampire's bite.

Finally, Cinematical gave a link to a great blog called Reelizer today, which features cinema-based art. Some interesting stuff on there. I could picture some of these on a larger scale adorning my living room walls. Enjoy.