Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Being a man and an inspiring cineaste, it is hard to draw me into a theater on pure cuteness. However, if anybody could do it, Pixar would be responsible. The company, via Coming Soon, has unveiled a few of the new fourteen toys that will be in the upcoming Toy Story 3, including an extremely douchey Ken of Barbie fame, and these Japanesque peas in a pod. Of course, the cuteness of this toy will not be the only draw, as the movie's two predecessors are excellent films, and following the consecutive summer releases of Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up, it will be a disappointment if Lee Unkrich's film doesn't score a near perfect on Rotten Tomatoes.

My big rant of the night comes along with the debut of the full trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's big screen adaptation of The Last Airbender. /Film has an article on some of the fan rantings that are going on, eclipsing the decent looking trailer for the film. There seems to be some kind of controversy over the fact that playing the lead character Aang is a Caucasian, Noah Ringer. I just don't see how this is a controversy. First of all, in most films drawn in the style of Avatar: The Last Airbender, modeled after Japanese anime, the characters have general or mixed features, not really appearing as stereotypical Asians, Americans or whatever. Second point, this is Ringer's first film, and with limited amount of trailer time, we can't judge his acting skills, but the kid looks dead on. It just seems silly to me to blast this for being racist, while fanboys allowed the two blackfaced robots in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen jive talk for a good percentage of the film without giving it such an unfortunate title (although other demeaning titles such as shit, directed by Michael Bay and worst film of the year were all more applicable). Still, I think a lot of the rants are coming from tried and true anime fans that doesn't like Nickelodeon's original spin on the fantasy genre and Japanese influenced stylization. I still think the film looks like one of the more promising of this year's blockbuster season, and has at least subsided my fears of being the next Dragonball: Evolution.

The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision Blog has announced that Penelope Cruz is in talks to take a co-starring role, as "Johnny Depp's equal" in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. This rumor seems quite likely, seeing that the article drives home the point that it will reunite Cruz with director Rob Marshall, whom is taking over the Pirates franchise, and directed her in her Academy Award nominated performance in Nine.

Cinematical has an posted an article today confirming that Sony Pictures plans on releasing the latest Spider-Man film in 3-D. I share the same sentiments as author Scott Weinberg, as any potential the film had built up by signing on (500) Days of Summer's director Marc Webb and Zodiac's screenwriter James Vanderbilt, all is lost with the addition of the gimmick, or Avatar-induced cinematic plague.

Shock Till You Drop, in an interview with David Self, screenwriter of a reboot of Robocop, has claimed that Darren Aronofsky is still attached to the property, that will hopefully come to fruition after Aronofsky finishes up filming on Black Swan. Self cites MGM's financial problems as to why the exact future of the film is currently in limbo.

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.

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Not blogged in a few days, and my starred items on Google Reader are building up like crazy, so lots of links in brief.

Bleeding Cool reports that DC Comics is looking for somebody to write a sequel or prequel to Alan Moore's Watchmen. The print bastardization of the seminal comic will surely make the maddening big screen jump in time.

The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision Blog reports that Taylor Lautner has been cast in the big screen adaptation of the Stretch Armstrong toy. Also, while reading the article I learned that Lautner was Sharkboy in The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. This could possibly make him the worst actor of all time.

I just recently found out that there is a musical with Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal attached called Damn Yankees in pre-production about a man who sells his soul to the devil so his team can make the World Series.

20th Century Fox, via Deadline Hollywood, has announced they want to reboot the Daredevil franchise. After getting into Frank Miller's comics of the hero this past year, I actually hope this fleshes out well.

CINSSU, a free film site, reports that Kevin Smith will be attempting to fund his stab at horror (no pun intended), Red State, by donations.

There has been such talk about ex-spouses James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow and their fight for the Oscar race. Cinematical has a great post featuring a music video Cameron directed of Bill Paxton's band Martini Ranch that starred Bigelow.

Check out the Super Bowl trailer for The Last Airbender on The Daily What.

Bloomberg reports that some of Sony's old films could be getting a 3-D Blu-ray conversion next year, including Spider-Man, Ghostbusters and District 9.

/Film has the teaser for the new fan documentary The People Vs. George Lucas up.

Access Hollywood reported that the young star in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Logan Lerman, will star as Peter Parker in Marc Webb's reboot of Marvel's Spider-Man franchise, actually being a teen Parker, rather than Tobey Maguire who was 27 when he first played the teenage hero.

Film 24, a British movie channel, interviewed Daryl Hannah recently, in which she claimed that she would eventually reprise her role as Elle Driver in at least another Kill Bill film in the future.

Cinematical announced that Avatar officially beat Titanic in the U.S. domestic box office earnings, surprising nobody. Also, not shockingly, Fox mentioning it its conference call a few days ago that they were perusing director James Cameron for a sequel.

Topless Robot has video proof that Nick Manning will be the next person to don the Dark Knight's cowl for a film... in Batman XXX: A Porn Parody. The link includes the safe for work trailer!

Empire readers named Batman and Robin as the worst film of all time in a poll.

/Film has the first official picture of Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy.

Deadline Hollywood is covering the huge buzz and Paramount's rumored dealings with the J.J. Abrams-produced documentary that is making big waves at the Sundance Film Festival, Catfish.

The Los Angeles Times has a story up on how Universal Studios Hollywood's rebuilding of the burned down King Kong ride will be based on Peter Jackson's telling of the classic cinematic tale.

Geekologie reports that Tinto Brass intends to create a 3-D porn film.