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.

Monday, January 18th, 2010

The Avatar mania will not subside. Last night, despite facing a few more deserving films, James Cameron's blue cat people love story toppled the award show, pulling away with Best Picture - Drama, as well as Best Director for Cameron's part. Of course, this leads to the buzz that nobody really wants to hear, that Avatar now pretty much pulls out in front in the race for the top honor at the Oscars. The silver lining in the show, other than the Martin Scorsese tribute which I just watched online, was that Todd Phillips' raunchy comedy The Hangover pulled out the win in the Best Picture - Musical or Comedy category. Could this mean that the comedy could be a shocking entry into the contention for the Academy's ten nominees for Best Picture?

Building off the topic of Avatar, the film took the box office again this weekend, for the fifth straight time. Of course, as normal, it would also break a few records within the process, setting the record for the best fifth week showing of all time, beating out The Dark Knight and Titanic, as well as taking in the best long weekend for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, beating out Cloverfield's opening. Maybe even more impressive, the feat was accomplished with actual competition, toppling the opening weekend of The Book of Eli and the expansion of The Lovely Bones (which had a 53,000% increase). Next week, Legion and The Tooth Fairy will take on the blockbuster, but it is quite possible that we are looking at a sixth weekend at the top.

After it was announced that Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire was out of Sony's plans for a new Spider-Man flick, I didn't read any stories about it, but I thought back on the rumor that Maguire would be taking on the role of Bilbo Baggins. Well, the most concrete of all news sources, The Sun, has put Maguire's role in Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic The Hobbit as confirmed.

Variety announced today that Clark Gregg will reprise his role as Agent Coulson not only in Iron Man 2, but in Thor as well, presumably also leading to a role in The Avengers sometime in the future.

On a final thought, I spent the day not celebrating Dr. King's infamous speech, or sadly even the fate of our favorite late night host Conan O'Brien, but by celebrating the anniversary of my trip through the womb some 25 years back. It is a bit depressing, added with the workload of school bearing down on my procrastinating conscience awful heavily, but I also got motivated to start road-tripping as much as possible before the ability to do so enjoyably exits. One of the contemplated areas to go soon before the bigger trips begin is Philadelphia, so to give me a bit of hope, here is a low quality video of Sylvester Stallone running up the Philadelphia Museum of Art's steps in Rocky. Now, I bid you adieu to watch Scorsese on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

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.

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Strolling around the Interwebs and found this gem of a picture. Hope it brightened your day as it did mine.

The big news of the day comes courtesy of an MTV interview with Natalie Portman, in which the actress spilled the news that Kat Dennings was cast in Thor. Kenneth Branaugh's adaptation of the iconic Marvel character is already shaping up a nice cast and Dennings is just the latest name to be thrown into the pot, along with Portman, Anthony Hopkins and Chris Hemsworth thus far. The big question this arises is what character Dennings will play. The article ends with the speculation that she could step into the shoes of The Enchantress.

Finally, it should be no surprise to anyone how this weekend's box office returned. The Twilight Saga: New Moon easily took the number one spot garnering nearly $143 million. The teen vampire flick broke the midnight showing record set by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince set earlier this year, and the opening day record set by last year's The Dark Knight. However, fortunately for all of us movie nerds, Chris Weitz' installment in the Twilight franchise fell short of breaking The Dark Knight's weekend record.

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Still trying to post something relevant to the Halloween season, I dug out two countdowns of the scariest films of all time, the first is an unranked look at 20 great genre films at the hands of Entertainment Weekly, originally published in 2004, the second a top 10 from MSN Movies. Of course, there is plenty of similarities, the classic pictured Exorcist, as well as John Carpenter's Halloween, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and Tobe Hooper's, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Still, there are a few interesting choices on both lists, most strikingly the appearance of David Lynch films. The bizarrely creepy voyeur Lost Highway on EW's countdown and the nightmarish surrealism from 1977's Eraserhead on MSN's list. Enjoy.

Another spot on EW's list is Jonathan Demme's 1991 Oscar-winning masterpiece The Silence of the Lambs. This is in no small part due to Anthony Hopkins brilliant performance as Hannibal Lecter. So it would seem the perfect time to pass along an article from The Hollywood Reporter that confirms Hopkins will add the role of Odin, Thor's father and ruler of Asgard to his repertoire of roles in the upcoming Marvel film Thor.

Currently, I'm reading an interview with Ridley Scott in Empire to see if he spills anything interesting about the Alien prequel he is set to direct down the line. I'm a bit saddened that it sheds light on nothing at all.

I mentioned yesterday that I was searching for Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, starring Andy Serkis, whom received a nod at the British Independent Film Awards for his performance, yesterday. Well, I regret to report that I can find nothing. When searching YouTube, if a trailer exists, it is trumped by actual videos of Ian Dury, in which the film is a biopic of. IMDb also currently lists the project as "in production", so hopefully I'll eventually grab this for a post.

Finally, the wait for a big trailer for James Cameron's Avatar is over. I resisted the temptation of posting a bootlegged low quality version last week. If you decide to actually watch this thing, please do it full screen. As a note, I actually hate when people talk about how awesome Transformers was, because it was all effects with no substance. I mean, there is plenty of films that put a good deal of bang in both categories, but after watching this trailer, attached to the huge buzz of the theater experience this will bring, it may be the only film I am really going to champion on effects alone. Not saying I'm ruling out a decent storyline, but really, there is too much eye candy in this to really care about Sam Worthington's legs, allegories to Native Americans or similarities to FernGully: The Last Rainforest's environmentalist bravado.

Monday, July 13th, 2009

This past March, I was averaging around 80% of all conversation being devoted to the Zack Snyder-directed adaptation of Alan Moore's classic graphic novel Watchmen. A lot of people I spoke to decided to dislike the film because of the change in the story's ending, although since it kept the central themes of Moore's writings, and the fact that the first 150 or so minutes of the film was nearly spot on perfect, it more than forgave the ending of a film that I feel is the best of the year, thus far. Notice that I put "nearly" spot on up there. Well, that's because the few things that Snyder did leave out for the theatrical version have either been teased or promised for the director's cut of the DVD, due out July 21st. Of course, one of the main events of the buy will be the deleted scene of Hollis Mason's murder, which shockingly, Warner Brothers has released on the Internet. Unfortunately, WB has disabled embedding of the clip, so here is the link for the YouTube video. Enjoy the clip, because like the rest of the film, it is unbelievably perfect.

Speaking of Snyder, I read a while back that he was shockingly going to put out his first PG-13 film with Sucker Punch, described in a previous Cinematical article as "Alice in Wonderland with machine guns". However, the chances of achieving the rating has just got slimmer as the blogsphere has been all abuzz due to a Metro UK story claiming that newly confirmed star of High School Musical fame Vanessa Hudgens will "strip naked" in the film.

Remember after it was announced that Raja Gosnell would take over a live-action version of The Smurfs, I said God hated Hanna-Barbera? Well, it was announced today, via Variety, that the wonderful cartoon Hong Kong Phooey will be next in-line for the live action/CGI hybrid silver screen fix, directed by Alex Zamm, whose last picture was the direct-to-video Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts. So yeah, that statement is now official.

Yesterday we took a look at a very impressive fan film in Ashes to Ashes (check it out if you already haven't). Today, Cinematical ran a story on the mother of all fan films, 472 people breaking up Star Wars into 15-second intervals, to make a hodgepodge mesh of different styles and interpretations of the film. Headed up by Casey Pugh, this could be ingenious, or the worst idea ever. Either way, it will certainly be interesting.

Natalie Portman was announced to be the big screen version of Jane Foster, the love interest of Thor. I'm not extremely knowledgeable on the Thor comics, so I don't know if this is a good call or not, but I quite love Portman, so it could definitely be worse.

Bruno took home the top of the box office this weekend. I have been trying to distance myself from reviews, in fear that I may ruin some of the better jokes. The sad thing is, I fear that with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince dominating this weekend, my local theater might just decide that it isn't even worth toying with anymore, as the second week intake up against the upcoming blockbuster will certainly be pitiable compared to this week.

And finally, speaking of the newest installation of the Harry Potter series, I will not be blogging tomorrow as I am to head out of town to a decent theater to take in the midnight showing. I will be back on Tuesday, probably with plenty of rants, and maybe with something a little special I can dig up as an offering for my absence.