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.

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.

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Another day that I should be sleeping due to my work schedule, yet like yesterday, a plethora of geeky wonderdom has come out of the San Diego Comic Con for all of us cinephiles to gawk at, complain about and rejoice over. First, the picture there is the first poster for 2010's Jimmy Hayward directed Jonah Hex.

Maybe the biggest story to come out of the convention today comes via the panel promoting The Book of Eli, the Hughes Brothers' upcoming film set in a post apocalyptic dystopian society, starring Denzel Washington as the protagonist and Gary Oldman taking on the villainous role. Mila Kunis, Michael Gambon and a few others star in a film that we are yet to find much out about the plot. However, via I Watch Stuff, we get to see the initial trailer, and during the interview itself, Oldman dropped a bomb that took a little of the focus away from The Book of Eli for a moment. Cinematical reports that Oldman, who plays Commissioner James Gordon in Christopher Nolan's reboot of the Batman franchise, claims that a sequel to The Dark Knight will begin filming next year with a potential theatrical release as early as 2011. This announcement brings up a lot more questions than it answers. Of course, the most worrisome of those questions, that the Cinematical staff promptly points out, is with Nolan busying himself finishing his anticipated film Inception, as well as touring for press junkets and whatnot up until at least the middle of 2010, then how quick could a blockbuster of Dark Knight stature be shot and ready to be in theaters by 2011? Does this mean Nolan is out?

Cinematical's affiliate SciFiSquad also has a very interesting review of the Peter Jackson-produced science fiction film District 9, that seems to be continually overlooked. I was hoping for more information of the plot, as well as maybe some questions directed towards Jackson about his film The Lovely Bones, or of course, a little something about The Hobbit; however, after already being a little stoked for Niell Blomkamp's tale of alien life in Johannesburg, South Africa, the ecstatic review from Kevin Kelly is one of the first detailed pieces I've read on this movie and increases my level of excitement quite a bit.

Stepping away from the Comic Con bubble for a moment, Variety has announced that there will be a Saw VII, with David Hackl returning to direct. Does this inevitable story make the entire advertising campaign for Saw VI being the "final chapter" even more annoying to anyone else?

It's also Friday, so for those of us unfortunate enough to be outside of San Diego, we can go see a few flicks this weekend. Orphan is probably the highest profile release this week. The film seems like one that is either hit or miss, no in between feelings. It holds a 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, was slammed by Variety and The New York Times, and given a three and a half star rating from Roger Ebert. It advertises a twist that could make or break the film, and has the star power of the incredibly talented Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard. The other two movies that will be wide release this week might not be so good. First, G-Force, despite having Zach Galifianakis and the voices of Tracy Morgan, Penelope Cruz, Sam Rockwell and Nicolas Cage, I just don't think anything could save this Disney film. Also, The Ugly Truth, a romantic comedy starring Katherine Heigl. Despite her likability, I can't see it being worth seeing. Some overlooked films for the week that will almost certainly go under the radar is the raunchy indy bromance comedy Humpday, Kevin Spacey as a quirky psychiatrist in Shrink, with appearances by Gore Vidal, Robin Williams and many others, and finally The Answer Man, which I want to find more out about, stars Jeff Daniels, nabbing supporting roles from two up and coming actresses Kat Dennings and Olivia Thirlby.

And finally, from TrailerAddict, Where the Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak speaks about Spike Jonze and his upcoming, highly anticipated adaptation. Enjoy.