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.

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.

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Just as I am about the renew my Netflix account, the Associated Press reports today that the DVD-by-mail and streaming rental service signed a deal with Warner Brothers Pictures that will delay releases of all films under the Warner label for 28 days after the scheduled release date. I suppose the move for Warner is in hopes that Netflix users will start buying the films, or renting them elsewhere for more revenue. However, if you're already paying for Netflix, chances are Warner films will just be setting for 28 days in peoples queues for most of the next year. One of the perks that will come from this is that Warner supposedly signed over the rights for more of their content to be streamed across the Internet to PCs and video game consoles. I'll still probably go down the Netflix road once again though, as getting a film 28 days later is quite better than not being able to rent them at all, case in point Away We Go and Anvil! The Story of Anvil, two non-obscure films that did not get a release at any of the three local rental places. So the better question, will those that live in places with adequate rental options decide it is time to cut their losses with Netflix?

It was announced in Variety today that Thor has an official release date, May 20th, 2011. This is big news for those of us awaiting to see the Asgardians on the silver screen; however, its appearance on today's blog just isn't for that alone. The date had formerly belonged to Spider-Man 4, and after weeks of any website not being able to confirm or deny the rumors that the superhero flick was having production troubles and indefinitely delayed, the removal from Marvel's film schedule and replacement with Thor all but confirms it.

The Directors Guild of America announced their nominees for Director of the Year today, via Cinematical. It is no surprise to see that Jason Reitman, Quentin Tarantino and Kathryn Bigelow scored a nod, as all three have been rumored to be in top contention for the Academy Award. James Cameron also gained notice for Avatar, which according to how you look at it is the most shocking or the most obvious pick among the group. Finally, the underdog pick is Lee Daniels, for Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire. I'm going Tarantino all the way, but have a hunch that Bigelow will take the award.

Nerd Bastards has an entertaining article up, quoting an interview with Darren Lynn Bousman on his frustration with the release of Repo Men, as he feels that it is for all purposes, a re-envisioning, albeit non-musical, of his rock opera/horror flick Repo: The Genetic Opera. I see his point, but after already gathering a cult following, Bousman's flick will have a longer shelf life than the Jude Law/Forest Whitaker drama.

/Film announced today that the first 3-D Blu-ray has been scheduled for release. 'Twas inevitable. The Sony Pictures CGI animated Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs will claim the milestone of being the first, as the release coincides with the release of Sony's brand new Bravia 3-D compatible HD, LCD television sets. I am still hoping that 3-D is a passing fad, but this TV is another step towards a bleak future for that hope.

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

Usually I attempt to stray from pictures and videos of Star Trek fandom, as I feel pretty confident that most of our hardcore Trekkies were born out of the television incarnations of Gene Roddenberry's brainchild, making them feel quite unrelated to this cinema blog. However, this image of a few Trek fans donning nothing but body paint for some sort of bicycle ride that popped up on two of my daily reads, Geekologie and NerdBastards, beckoned my eye whilst posting.

On to something that fortunately, or unfortunately, doesn't contain graphic nudity, Hollyscoop reports that Sam Worthington could be up for another major blockbuster role. The actor was relatively unknown until he picked up a starring role in this summer's Terminator Salvation, followed by the hugely successful Avatar, and will star as Perseus in next summer's remake of Clash of the Titans. Now, apparently he is up for the titular role in a Flash Gordon reboot. I sincerely think that Worthington did a good job in Avatar, but I'm still unsure of pumping this guy to be a big box office draw. I mean, we don't want to see Jake Sully or Marcus Wright playing Flash Gordon. Then again, I personally don't think we will ever have anything comparable to the 1980 campy classic Flash Gordon, with Max von Sydow as Ming the Merciless and the bitching Queen theme song.

Finally, the entire short film within the feature film Nation's Pride, the flick that plays during Inglourious Basterds, has been released to the Interwebs. The short is directed by Eli Roth, and despite not being a fan of his Hostel series, his performance as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz, as well as this little piece is quite admirable. The clip stars Daniel Bruhl as Fredrick Zoller, the star of this psuedo Nazi propaganda film. The Cinematical article I originally seen this on points out that the DVD version of this informs us that there are cameos from Basterds director Quentin Tarantino, as well as Bo Svenson, the star of Enzo G. Castellari's The Inglorious Bastards, the "macaroni combat" flick in which Tarantino's film got its name.

Thursday, December 24th, 2009 (Christmas Eve, Part I)

'Tis the holiday season, and I've been busy readying myself for festivities, therefore I have not been blogging as much. So it is with a heavy heart that I catch up with a bit of bad news to begin with today. First off, Brittany Murphy passed away at age 32 of natural causes. Murphy's career was up and down, and most recently she had been bound to several direct-to-Lifetime telefilms that were ultimately forgettable. However, she will be best remembered as Shellie in Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's Sin City, as well as the offbeat Tai in Clueless. Her on again, off again filmography also contains roles in Girl, Interrupted and voice parts in Happy Feet and the direct-to-DVD favorite of the Adult Swim crowd, Futurama: The Best with a Billion Backs. Her voice talents will also be emblazoned into all of us adult animation fans' minds forever, as she was featured in a twelve year run of Mike Judge's King of the Hill as Luanne Platter.

Also departing our world since my last post is science fiction legend Dan O'Bannon. The 63-year-old jack of all trades in the sci-fi medium passed away after a bout with Crohn's Disease. O'Bannon is best known for his writing, pumping out screenplays for Dark Star, Ridley Scott's classic Alien, Heavy Metal, Lifeforce and Total Recall to name a few. He also dabbled in special effects, most notably providing computer effects for Star Wars. O'Bannon would also occupy the director's chair for The Return of the Living Dead.

We would also lose the real life inspiration for Rain Man, due to a heart attack, this holiday season. Kim Peek, dubbed a megasavant in most psychology circles, was born with agenesis of the corpus callosum, commonly referred to as simply and erroneously autistic, despite the similarities between the two diseases. Peek gained fame from the bit of television other than Adult Swim that I frequent, being a few Discovery Channel specials and an appearance on Ripley's Believe It or Not!. However, Peek may be known eternally as the inspiration for Dustin Hoffman's Raymond Babbitt in Barry Levinson's Rain Man.

Finally, despite my unnatural emotional closeness to cinema and pop culture as a whole, the above names pale in comparison to the recent loss of a co-worker, John Fields. In fact, today, on Christmas Eve, he was laid to his final resting place. The saddest part of all, the night before he died of an asthma attack, I had stayed a little late to work with him, where we mostly talked about other co-workers, the lack of Willie Nelson Christmas songs, and our month long dissection of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. So, in honor of the fallen, here is the "Bear Jew" scene from the flick. Rest in peace John.

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Well, the Golden Globe Award nominees were announced today, and is pretty much what has been keeping the cinematic blogsphere buzzing for the past fourteen hours or so. The biggest, and most welcome, surprise to me was that Todd Phillips' raunchy comedy win, The Hangover took a nod for Best Motion Picture- Musical or Comedy. The flick basically doesn't stand a chance against the upcoming musical Nine, directed by Chicago's Rob Marshall, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and a host of other Oscar darlings, along with Black Eyed Peas' Fergie oddly enough, and is loosely based upon Federico Fellini's 8 1/2. The quirky (500) Days of Summer, It's Complicated and Julie and Julia round out the category.

On the drama side of the major award, James Cameron's mega-blockbuster to release this Friday, Avatar, takes a nod that many are speculating will be in contention for the win, facing off against the one time Oscar favorite, Jason Reitman's Up in the Air, Quentin Tarantino's ingenious, and my pick, Inglourious Basterds, the sleeper success Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire and a film that most sites have been raving about for most of the year, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker.

Sandra Bullock got a nod for The Blind Side, and from what I can tell of the trailer, may be the most overrated performance of the year. Hopefully she will fall to what looks like a powerful performance from the almost unknown Gabourey Sadibe in Precious. I would say Morgan Freeman's turn as Nelson Mandela in Invictus is all but locked for the award for Best Actor. I will also stretch out and predict that Marion Cotillard is a lock for Best Comedy Actress for her showing in Nine despite Meryl Streep's double appearance in the category, or Bullock showing up again for The Proposal (Note: If you have taste, you probably just said something along the lines of "Say whaaaaaat?" or "Fucking Hell!", and that is why the Golden Globes' validity is slipping dramatically). Comedy Actor is a solid category however, harnessing the likes of Matt Damon, Daniel Day-Lewis, Robert Downey, Jr., Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Stuhlberg, and I can't say I'd be shocked by any of the five walking away with the award. Director is the only other category I could really see going all five ways. Bigelow gets a rare female nod in the directorial category for The Hurt Locker, being accompanied by James Cameron, Clint Eastwood, Jason Reitman and Quentin Tarantino.

Further predictions from my behalf. Keep in mind that since I live in a small area, I have yet to see many of the films that I would like to, so I am merely predicting who I think will take home the award, via buzz, awards favorites and so and so forth...:
Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique for Precious
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds
Animated Feature: Up
Foreign Language Film: Broken Embraces
Screenplay: Jason Reitman for Up in the Air
Score: James Horner for Avatar, although my heart lies with Karen O and Carter Burwell's work on Where the Wild Things Are full throttle.
Original Song: "Cinema Italiano" from Nine

Finally, to get out of the pre-Oscar garbage that must be talked about by cineastes the world over, to much chagrin usually, here is a very bitchin' clip from Kick-Ass. I posted this sometime back when a grainy, bootlegged version made its way to the Interwebs during the San Diego Comic Con. All the same, enjoy one of the few great clips of Nicolas Cage floating around the world wide web.

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

It seems that every time I notice The Hobbit in the news, it is always something disappointing. This time, in a German interview transcribed by TheOneRing with Peter Jackson, to promote his upcoming, critically appraised film The Lovely Bones, announced that filming would be pushed back to July-ish 2010. The producer of J.R.R. Tolkien's predecessor to the epic The Lord of the Rings did not elaborate on if it would affect the projected release dates of December 2011 and 2012, but we have to assume it will. This just adds to the turmoil that is MGM's financial troubles swirling just over the head of the films' pre-production. For something to perk you up after reading that, here is a link that I've been stuck on since reading the article on TheOneRing... New Zealand's Red Carpet Tours, taking us to the filming locations around the beautiful country. The 12 night tour is actually only $180 U.S. dollars, while the one night tour from Auckland to Hobbiton is $140. After blogging, I will probably spend the rest of the night, wishingly searching Orbitz for cheap flights.

I was going to make a joke about the economy to segue into this Variety article on how the box office this year will probably break the record for raking in some $10 billion, topping last year by 8%, but I find most of the economy talk rather insipid. Anyhow, those estimates come before the releases of Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel, which despite the horrendousness that will surely be contained within the hour and a half run time, will bring in the bucks from the kiddies out there, as well as potential blockbusters Sherlock Holmes and James Cameron's Avatar, not to mention a box office sleeper, the Oscar hopeful Invictus.

Invictus' Oscar dreams is another decent segue as the National Board of Review named their film of the year today, via Cinematical. The winner of the honor is Jason Reitman's latest, Up in the Air, starring George Clooney, whom also took home the NBR honor of Best Actor, tied with Morgan Freeman's Invictus performance. Taking home honors in the NBR's Ten Best Films were also good movie nerd fare such as (500) Days of Summer, Inglourious Basterds, A Serious Man, Up, Star Trek and Where the Wild Things Are.

Pajiba reported today that a rumored remake of Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds is back up and running with a new director attached, Dennis Iliades, the man behind the remake of Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left. I think somewhere in there I saw Michael Bay's name as producer, which almost assures that this already bad idea of trying to recreate the genius of Hitchcock by "modernizing" it, will be a total disaster.

Check out the new site MovieClips.com. The site boasts some 12,000 movie clips, with some good categorizations (I appreciate that at least) and even a bit of trivia. Anyhow, I'm not really sure why I chose the "Snap Out of It!" scene of Moonstruck as a demonstration, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless.

Monday, November 30th, 2009

The accompanying image for today's blog comes from Racked New York and is pictures of Bergdorf Goodman Men's Store's holiday window in New York City. A nice tie-in to Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Kind of sad to realize that a claymation fox is more exquisitely dressed than I ever will be.

The Satellite Awards nominees were announced today, with Rob Marshall's upcoming musical Nine picking up the most nominations. You can check out the entire nominee list at the International Press' official statement here.

The Satellite Awards are, for all purposes, just a preliminary match for the Golden Globe Awards, itself just a stepping stone to the Academy Awards. The nominee list led me to the Oscar prediction site, In Contention. The big category to look for is Best Picture, as it will contain ten nominees this year. The top nine contenders the site lists includes Nine, the Coens' latest A Serious Man, Pixar's Up and James Cameron's highly anticipated Avatar. Then, if that wasn't good enough for most film nerds, the dark horses and rest of the field mentioned for contention include J.J. Abrams' chapter in the Star Trek franchise, Neill Blomkamp's District 9 and Quentin Tarantino's brilliant Inglourious Basterds. I do have to admit that I'm a bit upset that Watchmen didn't even make the cut for consideration, but all the same, I can't be all that upset about the picks the site has thus far. Also worth a mention is the incredibly low key success Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, which shockingly is also boasting Best Supporting Actress nod at the Satellite Awards, as well as being top contender for the Oscar in comedienne Mo'Nique. We also have Clint Eastwood's sports biopic that will probably be the most overrated flick this award season, Invictus.

Monday, September 21st, 2009

After watching Neill Blomkamp's District 9, I felt like I was watching something more important than the normal science fiction farce. Of course, the storyline is obviously full or allegorical connection to South Africa's former apartheid state. Blomkamp himself being a native of Johannesburg, South Africa and living in the country under apartheid definitely had his own images in comparing the treatment to the aliens as compared to the treatment of foreigners migrating to the country. So I was shocked a little today when the entire blogsphere was running this BBC News story on how Nigeria's Information Minister, Dora Akunyili has called for a ban of the film in Nigeria as well as an apology from the filmmakers for the portrayal of Nigerians as street thugs, prostitutes, criminals and/or cannibals. I'm kind of shocked, because I found an entire underlying theme of "environment dictates behavior". I think it is to be believed that the aliens were all like Christopher by nature, transformed by the brutal surroundings, using the comparison of the Nigerians, one of the real life sufferers of apartheid, as a comparison point, showing what the government had caused them to become to survive. Such a pity, it probably deserves to be seen by the very demographic it is being held from, as it would probably touch a little deeper than the rest of the western world in which it is being embraced.

I was slightly disappointed at the fact that Jennifer's Body didn't make its rounds to the local theater, despite being a for sure #1 at the box office in my mind. Wow, did I misjudge or what? The Megan Fox vehicle that is getting mixed reviews, and still looks very intriguing to me, landed at a measly fifth spot with just under $7 million. The Informant! landed the number two spot, despite being released limited with a little more than $10 million. However, topping the weekend with $30 million, the children's 3-D flick Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

IWatchStuff posted a typically bizarre Japanese commercial for Panasonic which features a new clip from James Cameron's Avatar. The article also links to a new website for the upcoming highly anticipated film that I have yet to see, masquerading as a business/promotion site for the Resource Development Administration's AVTR program.

I read an awful article on Cinematical in which The Weinstein Company has given Twitter credit for Quentin Tarantino's latest Inglourious Basterds raking in over $100 million dollars at the box office. Please don't let this become a marketing norm.

Finally, the amazing featurettes from Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox keeps pumping out. The latest containing what author Roald Dahl's widow Felicity has to say about the film and how close it would be to Dahl's imagination.

Monday, August 31st, 2009

I have always said that sometimes The Walt Disney Company gets more bad press than they deserve. Sure, they are the most shrewd of all Hollywood businesspeople, as well as being known on the blogsphere for being wildly hypocritical in most of their judgments, not to mention being branded as racists from Dumbo to The Princess and the Frog. Yet, they continue to pump out great films such as WALL-E and this year's Up alongside Pixar, and no matter how overpriced, continues to generate the one place on earth that lives up to the affectionate term of "magical", the Walt Disney World Resort. However, when I turned on the ol' computer today, I read that the big conglomerate mouse had finally gone too far, they had bought Marvel Comics. We have a plethora of questions that arise from this $4 billion deal that occurred this morning, including what will happen to the movie properties and plans that Marvel Entertainment had lined up for the upcoming years, culminating in a collaborative Avengers adaptation? Does this spell the end for the chance to see a quality Wolverine film, based on the works of Frank Miller and Chris Claremont? When will we face an inevitable Disney/Marvel crossover? A better question, will Pixar dabble in the newly acquired 5,000 Marvel characters? Even away from the relevancy of this movie blog, what about the comics? Disney television deals? Universal Studios Islands of Adventure's fate has my inner traveler nervous. Will Disney destroy Marvel? Will characters like Frank Castle/The Punisher be re-worked to become family-friendly to fit the Disney brand? Will Stan Lee still be a huge influence in the Marvel offices? What will the folks affiliated with Marvel say about the merger?

I suppose most of these questions will be answered in the next few days that follow, but right now the media shit storm is in full swing, and MTV has posted an article about what we supposedly know about the deal thus far. You can also check out the official press release at Marvel's official site, and I have yet to find, but I've read that somewhere on there, you can actually listen to CEO Isaac Perlmutter's conference call. Also, a link to the first place I read the story, BBC News. And don't forget to check out what the non-movie crowd is saying, via the comment section on Geekologie. Also, not missing a beat, don't miss Cinematical's weekly article Girls on Film, where Monika Bartyzel compares the classic Disney princesses and Marvel's top heroines. There is also an article on the site by Jeffrey M. Anderson, featuring lots of rather cheesy jokes that in all actuality touches on the fears of all geeks the world over at the moment. And for one final link to the story, the picture comes courtesy of coverage at Kotaku.

So, with the future of comic books-to -silver screen in jeopardy for a cinephile, what could possibly make the news day worse? How about a franchise that doesn't know when to quit? How about three?

First, Variety reports that even after Halloween II was just able to climb to the number three spot at the box office this weekend, the franchise may be continuing, sans current director Rob Zombie. The Weinsteins have apparently got a yet-to-be-named filmmaker on tap to take the franchise in a different direction, and a different dimension... or what's becoming a very cliché gimmick in 3-D.

Also from Variety, it was announced today that Nu Image and Millennium Films greenlit a fifth film in the Rambo franchise. Sweet Jesus, that is just a terrible idea.

Finally, just when you thought you couldn't take anymore, The Hollywood Reporter declares that Peter Craig is writing a new screenplay for a third Bad Boys for Columbia Pictures. We are yet to find out if Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer, Will Smith or Martin Lawrence will return. Also, would it even really matter?

Finally, if you haven't lost all your hope in the wonderful world of cinema, The Final Destination took the top spot at the box office this weekend, topping the second week of Inglourious Basterds by a little over $8 million, not even to mention $27 million over Big Fan. Try not to kill yourselves before tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Yesterday I began the ol' blog with a picture of Todd McFarlane's rather "twisted" vision of Dorothy Gale and the munchkins. Today, seeing that the news world was quite slow, I got this deviantART picture off of Cinematical, of a darker version of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The picture brings up the inevitable question with the dark fairy tale trend (see: The Girl in the Red Riding Hood and yesterday's main topic of a supposed sequel to The Wizard of Oz), when will we get a fitting darker version of Snow White, that is not the 1997 TV movie Snow White: A Tale of Terror, starring Sigourney Weaver. Don't get me wrong, I love Ripley, but that movie just wasn't my cup of tea if you get me. Also, does anybody ever think we will see a cinematic version of Alan Moore's very adult comic Lost Girls, a story telling the sexual exploits of three fairy tale icons, Wendy of Peter Pan, Alice of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the only other version of Dorothy that could be more sexualized than McFarlane's unsettling toys?

SciFiMoviePage has an audio interview with District 9 director Neill Blomkamp up, in which the director notes that the studio is interested in pursuing the sequel, although he doesn't confirm his own thoughts, or any possibilities that we could see this. Also, would a sequel, in which we no longer have the good open ending, ruin the mystery of the first film? I suppose it is inevitable, and no amount of complaining or logic could stop it. I just hope the screenplay matches its predecessor in the intelligence department and doesn't fall into the Transformers-esque cash cow sci-fi flick.

Speaking of sequels, The Hollywood Reporter announced that a sequel to Hancock is being penned. Personally, I could live without it.

MTV has a pretty good article giving us five facts from Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds that we probably don't know.

/Film has a decent interview with Terry Gilliam posted on his upcoming film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Gilliam is always an interesting enough read; however, Cinematical's Monika Bartyzel has an interesting article up pointing out the fact that Gilliam stated he would love to work with Pixar, even going as far to compare it to Walt Disney and Salvador Dali's pairing in the short Destino that I featured a few weeks back. A good, thought-provoking read. Personally, I think if classic Disney animation can pair up with a Philip K. Dick story for King of the Elves in a few years, Pixar Animation could definitely pick the obscurely entertaining brain of Gilliam.

Monday, August 24th, 2009

I've spotted the 1939 fantasy family classic The Wizard of Oz on several movie blogs today. Some have put in their two cents on the incredible achievement of still being very relevant today, despite the film turning seventy this year. Others have noted a possible sequel being mentioned by way of the Daily Express. More in particular, some blogs have focused on the rumor of Dakota Fanning taking on the role of Dorothy, while others have been focusing on a quote by co-producer Todd McFarlane stating that in this possible sequel from Warner Brothers the character of Dorothy would be more comparable to Sigourney Weaver's Ripley from Alien more so than Judy Garland's turn as the most celebrated cinematic version of L. Frank Baum's leading lady. This "dark" turn may sound shocking, but I'm quite surprised that none of the movie blogs have screeched to a halt while reading this and collectively said, "Holy shit! Todd McFarlane!?". Yeah, the accompanied picture is from McFarlane's "Twisted Land of Oz" toy series. The blindfolded, lingerie-clad, KISS boots-wearing, busty epitome of sexually charged S&M being dominated by some kind of perverted mutants is McFarlane's idea of Dorothy and the sweet little munchkins. I'm not saying this idea would be wholly unwelcome, as I would prefer to have a horror/sexploitation reimagining of the film rather than a failed Hollywood cash cow sequel. I am saying however, that of all the movie blogs I check daily, none of them connected McFarlane and Baum's sacred land of Oz to these very adult toys? Shotty journalism.

Another very interesting story, coming from DeadCentral is that John Landis, made famous by Schlock, An American Werewolf in London, Innocent Blood and the Michael Jackson video/short film Thriller, will be returning to the horror/comedy genre. The film, Burke and Hare, will be based upon a real life crime duo, William Burke and William Hare (check out their Wikipedia page, very interesting) that would kill people and sell their bodies for money during early 1800's Scotland. Oh, and get this, not only should we be excited that Landis is aboard, but Simon Pegg (known for his work with Edgar Wright in the subgenre) is also rumored to be starring in the film.

Spike Jonze's upcoming Where the Wild Things Are just keeps getting better and better. I've seen a few trailers, but I have yet to come across the fact that Karen O, of Yeah Yeah Yeahs fame, is doing several original recordings for the soundtrack that can be listened to for free on the movie's MySpace page right now. I almost can't see how this film can possibly live up to my expectations.

Inglourious Basterds easily took this weekend's box office, also setting a record for a Quentin Tarantino directed film and easily beating last week's top entry, District 9. The only other debut in the top ten would be from frequent Tarantino collaborator Robert Rodriguez in his children's flick Shorts in the six spot. So for next week, does Tarantino's Nazi themed epic stand a chance to stay atop in the wake of Halloween II's release?

Finally, Daily Star has an article stating that Robin Williams has been asked to play breakout Internet star and famed Britain's Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle. I personally imagine that Williams wasn't talking about a biopic, and possibly a future Saturday Night Live sketch, but whatever.

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

A huge movie news day to be so late in the week. First, the cinema blogsphere has been in utter turmoil since the trailer for James Cameron's upcoming sci-fi opus Avatar debuted this morning. The high quality Apple trailer has had problems all day, and now, the version I seen before work courtesy of TrailerAddict is no longer working. So, in the coming days, as soon as I find a trailer that I can embed, I'll put it on my blog. Anyhow, the big question of the day is, did the trailer hold the impact that the buzz had made all of us anticipate? Cinematical's Erik Davis has a nice article about that topic. I feel that it keeps the buzz. It looked incredible and kept most of the story elements from us. We're still left in the dark, with just a smidgeon of visuals. I hope it stays that way, leaving us completely shocked with whatever Cameron gives us on the big screen in December.

Aside from not being able to access the Avatar trailer, the day was by no means short on movie previews, with CNN Video posting this premiere of the trailer for Michael Moore's latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story.


The Hollywood Reporter named the future scribes for the feature film Shazam! adaptation. Most blogs I went to today talked more of actor-turned-writer Billy Birch being part of the project, but I am more satisfied with the fact that his co-writer on the script will be Geoff Johns, a famed comic book writer that has worked with both DC and Marvel Comics. He is most famous for the work done with characters such as The Green Lantern, The Flash, Booster Gold, Hawkman, the Teen Titans, Batman and The Avengers. Oddly missing from that list is Captain Marvel, the hero of the Shazam! series. I'm not sure if Johns ever covered Billy Batson's alter ego in his work on the JLA comics or in his Infinite Crisis work, but it is always comforting to have an actual comics guy working on the screenplay.

ScriptShadow, a Blogspot account that reviews Hollywood scripts has come across Darren Aronofsky's upcoming effort Black Swan. I didn't read the entire review, as anybody that is even a casual fan of Aronofsky knows, you want to be left in the dark on the first viewing. With that said, you can't really go anywhere online today without finding out something on the script, and that is an included sex scene between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis' characters. Not just any sex scene at that, but an "angry aggressive" sex scene. I just hope not to be hit by any masturbation juices from the surrounding seats whilst watching the movie in theaters.

Yesterday, I touched on a bit of anger stemming from a potential Dirty Dancing remake. Today, via Variety, there is talk of a reimagining of the trippy animated Beatles cartoon Yellow Submarine. The film is to be put in the capable hands of Robert Zemeckis, through Walt Disney Studios, using his motion capture technology employed in the upcoming A Christmas Carol. The fact that Zemeckis is behind this still doesn't make me hate the idea any less. The movie works because it is trippy. If the Blue Meanies look like actual blue monsters, I refuse to watch it. I'm all for a reason to get The Beatles music back into the mainstream, a la the new Rock Band game, but is ruining a classic, that as far as I'm concerned isn't dated, the answer?

I won't be able to blog tomorrow as I have to work the graveyard shift. I'll be back on Saturday, but since I will not get to talk about it tomorrow, do not forget to go see Inglourious Basterds if you have the chance. I will more than likely have to wait until Saturday. Quentin Tarantino's film is really the only good thing coming to theaters this week. Robert Rodriguez has a film, in the same week as Tarantino. That would usually be reason to celebrate, but Rodriguez' flick is for kids, a film called Shorts that seem sub-par and as insufferably bad as his Spy Kids stuff. There is also about six other films that look watchable at first glance, but will all probably go unseen by me that I will not get into.

A rather long post, so I will end with the new trailer for Joe Johnston's The Wolfman. Quite good, enjoy.