Monday, August 3rd, 2009

After all of the critical acclaim to Hayao Miyazaki's earlier films, such as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle and several more classics of Japanese anime, you have to wonder why the animation master's latest film, the upcoming Ponyo hasn't gotten more attention. Not only does Miyazaki have an outstanding resume, including an Academy Award and some of the highest grossing anime in America or otherwise, but the film caters to a family audience, and without really knowing anything about Ponyo, I think it would be safe to say that it would be a much more intelligent and entertaining story than the currently playing family fare Aliens in the Attic. And to top it all off, Walt Disney Pictures has the U.S. distribution rights for Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's stateside releases. Whatever the case, due to lack of promotion, I've suffered through a Japanese and French trailer thus far, and finally the English speaking trailer is out for what will surely be just another masterpiece in the immaculate career of Miyazaki. Enjoy.

@ Yahoo! Video

Variety announced today that Steven Spielberg will be behind a remake of the 1950 Henry Koster fantasy classic Harvey, which starred James Stewart. I read on a message board, sparked by Spielberg's latest job, complaints that Hollywood has ran out of original ideas. It is fair to say that some of Spielberg's best work has been written straight to the screen with the Indiana Jones series, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Yet, it's not like he hasn't made a name for himself by adapting stories before, with classics such as Jaws, Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. So, it's not that devastating. I also don't really think anyone can outdo Stewart as an actor, but the film is 59 years old, was produced during the Hays Production Code and doesn't get nearly the recognition it deserves. Therefore, I don't think a remake, especially in the capable hands of Spielberg, is a cry of blasphemy.

Speaking of remakes, sequels, reboots, or whatever the hell is going on with George Miller and his Mad Max franchise, the famous Australian character could be coming back. SciFiSquad reports that Jeremy Renner dropped the bomb that he was meeting with Miller and taking a screen test for the film. More importantly than Renner's casting though, it gets this film out into the blogsphere. Good idea or bad? I'm leaning towards bad, as the last good action/exploitation film remade for current day Hollywood was the wretched Death Race. Who can't see the same thing coming here?

Cinematical debuted the poster to The Open Road, starring the unlikely pairing of Justin Timberlake and Jeff Bridges. It's a baseball movie about a minor league pitcher and his estranged father. I've yet to see a trailer or read anything further, but here's hoping this will be the first good baseball movie since Kevin Costner was a legitimate award contender.

Funny People took the box office as expected, with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince keeping the second spot, edging out G-Force by approximately $400,000. The biggest shock of the week is that the Bollywood film Love Aaj Kal hit the fifteenth spot, grossing higher than new releases Adam, The Cove, Thirst, Lorna's Silence and the documentary that I hyped on Friday Not Quite Hollywood... combined. Quite the impressive feat from a film that as far as I've seen, has completely slid under the radar, and I've yet to hear any critic or blogger speak of it.

Finally, via The Detroit News, Michael Moore claims that his upcoming film Capitalism: A Love Story could be his last documentary. Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoyed Canadian Bacon, but I think Moore is more entertaining being an asshole to our government.

Friday, July 31st, 2009

I have read for some time that Fox has been trying to get a new prequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 science fiction masterpiece Alien off the ground for some time. I never got too excited about this. Both Scott's original and James Cameron's sequel Aliens were incredible films, and I am one of the few who even quite enjoyed David Fincher's spot in the series in the mostly negative-reviewed Alien 3. However, not even talking about Alien Resurrection (a disappointing effort from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, one of the men behind the fantastic The City of Lost Children), I figured that the two Alien Vs. Predator films had officially killed off the franchise once and for all. Any and almost all fans of Scott's original concept would have feared that any new installment would have been going down the same road as these colossal cinematic failures. Yet, today Variety gave all the fans of the original series hope when it was announced that Scott would return to direct the prequel. The man behind the screenplay will be Jon Spaihts, which I'm not familiar in the least with. Let's hope he holds a candle to Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett or Walter Hill.

Speaking of director news, Variety again, has a blog up saying that Walt Disney Pictures is close to bringing Rob Marshall aboard to helm the fourth installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Marshall doesn't seem like a great choice to take on the comic swashbuckling stylings of the series, having previously directed the high profile musicals Chicago and the upcoming Nine. Yet, before Gore Verbinski stepped behind the camera of the first three films, he was mostly known for the American remake of The Ring. Also, after At World's End, which felt so disappointing following quite a smarter sequel in Dead Man's Chest than anybody was prepared for, maybe a new direction needs to be taken. So long as Johnny Depp comes back as Captain Jack Sparrow, we'll at least have a decent performance to look forward to.

Following the theme of Disney, the official Walt Disney Animation website updated some stills of the visual development of the 2010 film Rapunzel. I personally cannot wait until some kind of visual is released from King of the Elves, an animated Disney adaptation of a Philip K. Dick fantasy short story. Either way, the fact that Disney is focusing on hand drawn animation again is enough to make any movie fanatic happy, no matter what genre you generally favor.

I am slightly disappointed with Seth Rogen. A few weeks ago he was all in the tabloids after an exchange of words and jokes with the writers of HBO's Entourage. Now, Us Magazine (I shudder at even having read a story from their site), reports that while promoting Funny People on Howard Stern's Sirius XM radio show, Rogen and director Judd Apatow spoke about their co-star in Knocked Up and her claims that the film was sexist. We all know that Heigl's only asset is her looks after all of her quite public squabbles with the writers of Grey's Anatomy. So, can't Funny People sell itself without getting free publicity beside of a an attempted shot at catching Miley Cyrus' underage snatch by a paparazzo?

Anyhow, speaking of Funny People, Apatow's latest film, starring Adam Sandler, Rogen, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman, Leslie Mann and a few other legitimately funny people, came out today. Judging from the trailer, it looks like Sandler's first good film since Punch-Drunk Love, and possibly the first film of his that will make us laugh since Happy Gilmore. Great reviews are also pouring in. Of course, as I write this, I am also trying to plan out where I can go see the film, because although I'm almost certain that the film will take this weekend's box office, the fact that it is the best reviewed film coming out today on Rotten Tomatoes, not to mention the draw of both Sandler and Rogen, my local Carmike Cinemas have chosen to not get this film, instead filling our theater with Aliens in the Attic. I had hoped, that for the sake of a bright future, humanity would cause this thing to flop. The trailer looks absolutely abysmal. RT gave the film a 25%, which makes me feel like it is the most overrated film of the year thus far. I mentioned yesterday how ecstatic I was for children's cinema this year with the upcoming releases of Where the Wild Things Are and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Yet, what the anticipation these films gives does for children's cinema, this film takes out, rapes it, name calls it's mother, and shits on its face. I sincerely hope that this doesn't take the box office this weekend, destroying any shock value that G-Force gathered when it overtook Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this past weekend. Anyhow, bottom line, if you have any other theater to go to, boycott your local Carmike. The longer I keep this blog, the more any readers that happen upon it will learn of my grave distaste for our local cinema. Oh, another option this weekend is The Collector, a mediocre-looking horror flick, as well as the documentary Not Quite Hollywood, chronicling the days of ozploitation, the name given to exploitation films out of Australia. It will most certainly be a very overlooked, entertaining gem for any fan of the exploitation era, as some of these films never reached us stateside. You can check out the trailer (which is NSFW, and probably best not to embed) at the official site. Enjoy.