Monday, January 4th, 2010

2010 is upon us. I was looking through my tags from the last year of posting and wasn't really surprised to see that James Cameron's Avatar took the top spot. As I've said before, I actually enjoyed Avatar, but there is probably about 20-30 films from 2009 that should be getting more praise than the effects laden cat people drama. Anyhow, it is undeniable that the science fiction 3-D tour de force has been dominating the cinematic news as of late, and should come as no surprise that it is the major topic on my first blog in the new year. First off, Cinematical has an article quoting Zoe Saldana and Cameron from an Interview with The Reelz Channel about the deleted additional footage of Jake Sully and Neytiri's sex scene, with Saldana even adding that the pony tails would plug in and play a part. Cameron also all but confirms that it will be part of the DVD release.

Also, Avatar continues to dominate the box office. Of course, this week provided virtually no new films, but Avatar maintained its momentum, having a very small percentage of a drop from last week with $68 million. This breaks the record for the highest third week of all time, previously set by The Dark Knight, as well as New Year's holiday gross, formerly held by Meet the Fockers. Despite this success, it is not the domestic U.S. numbers that are the amazing story, it is that the worldwide gross has topped a billion dollars and has already passed The Dark Knight for the fourth highest on the all-time release list, just below Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, in which it is estimated it will pass within the next week. Still off a little ways, but reachable is the number one spot, another Cameron film, Titanic.

Finally, on a note not related to blue cat people, CoolToyReview has put up a lot of the toys used for their online gallery for auction on eBay. Here is the link. The movie related auction contains mostly James Bond and classic Universal horror figures, with three Hot Toys figures, Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather, the Mark III from Iron Man and James Dean.

Monday, December 28th, 2009

2009's final weekend box office returns may have been the most interesting this year, which says a lot coming from a year that contained Paranormal Activity's surprise success, as well as the tween domination with The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and the raunchy Todd Phillips' comedy The Hangover raking in enough money to make many critics question it being the final nail in the coffin of the Hollywood star system. Yet, we come to James Cameron's Avatar's second week, garnering $75 million, only dropping a measly 2% from last week, taking in the second highest second week of all time, just behind The Dark Knight, not to mention breaking the record for 3-D sales, as $57 million of the intake was for the 3-D showings. Of course, this may still seem a bit far from the estimated $500 million budget on the 3-D blockbuster, even considering it took in an additional $60 million over the weekdays. Yet, the worldwide success of the film has already hit the $623 million mark abroad, when added with the stateside totals. What is even more impressive about the feat is that it contended with the debut of the much anticipated Guy Ritchie reboot, Sherlock Holmes, which took in $65 million, and despite landing second place, broke the record for highest Christmas Day opening of all time. Also in contention was the family friendly Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel, topping out a little over $50 million, and despite not being confirmed, I cannot find any other film to debut that high in third place. Even more impressive, the weekend as a whole earned roughly $270 million. This makes it the biggest earning weekend of the year, and topping last year's top weekend by 34%, being the weekend in which The Dark Knight and Momma Mia! debuted. It is also worth mentioning that Oscar contenders Up in the Air and Nine both extended to wide release, with the Rob Marshall musical even receiving a 2,000+% change in sales.

Of course, quality isn't always, and quite conversely usually opposite, on par with profit. Avatar is good, but it is overrated, while we have the debut of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus land in 26th place and in limited release, and despite over a year of following Terry Gilliam's latest flick, I have to let the critically acclaimed jewel float by unnoticed for the more mainstream flicks, at least until the DVD is released since I live in the middle of nowhere. In the same category of being looked over as Imaginarium earlier this year, was a British film called Bronson. Since Nicolas Winding Refn's bizarre biopic of famed prisoner/bare-knuckle boxer Charles Bronson didn't make a splash at the box office, or didn't stop the presses with any earth-shattering reviews, it floated underneath my radar quite easily. However, lucky to a few bloggers really pushing for Tom Hardy to receive some recognition for his titular performance, I did a good amount of reading and watched this fabulous trailer. Not only will the much quoted review comparing it favorably to Stanley Kubrick's masterful A Clockwork Orange catch your eye, but the trailer looks absolutely flawless and is definitely a must see once it is available. As a note, a higher quality version is available on YouTube, but embedding has been disabled.

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

A happier post to reflect the normalized view of the yuletide season. So I will begin with one of the better rumors that I read this past week. Via Hollyscoop, bubbly country music superstar Taylor Swift has been reported to be in talks to star as the titular character in a new Supergirl film. For some reason, this works for me. First off, Taylor Swift already looks more like Kara Zor-El than Helen Slater did in full costume. Secondly, in almost every incarnation of DC's superheroine, the work is pure fluff. And in spite of all the "Yo Taylor, Imma let you finish..." Supergirl YouTube entries we would have to endure, Swift is undeniably likable. Nonetheless, we're still probably looking at a terrible movie here, just a reasonably casted lead in a terrible movie.

So, I also missed the week of Avatar. Well, the film, as predicted by everybody, took the weekend box office, and has raked in the incredible reviews that many had counted on. Still, I saw the film in 3-D and I didn't see it as a game changer. In fact, I left still hoping that the entire 3-D phase would fade back into an exploitation gimmick that we would see maybe once or twice a decade in a decent film. But, the good things about the movie outweigh the bad (including Leona Lewis' atrocious love theme), considering that James Cameron is a much better filmmaker than the typical post-William Castle user of the 3-D medium. First, the effects are stunning. Pandora and the creatures that inhabit the land are unusually breathtaking. Second, Sigourney Weaver. Third, Sam Worthington, whom I have generally considered a sub-par actor puts on a hell of a performance, considering he is competing with one of the more impressive backdrops in cinematic history. Giovanni Ribisi is also in there. Also, can you imagine the cosplay based on this thing come convention season? The movie was far from the best though, as the plot involves way too much Native American allegory in a world where we have already and unfortunately been acquainted with the Quileute tribe. Not to mention the uncomfortable scene where (*SPOILER ALERT*) the two blue cat people fuck in the holiest place in the movie. Still, I would highly recommend it, just with the warning that you will not take a full on nerdgasm as promised by Harry Knowles and the rest of the Internet blogging elite.

Another thing that crossed my radar this week was this seven part review on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I've not finished the entire thing yet, but thus far it is very entertaining.

Finally, the newest trailer for Kick-Ass is out, featuring the character Hit-Girl, making it my most anticipated film of the next year. Young Chloe Moretz saying cunt may be the highlight, but the entire trailer is, for lack of a better phrase, truly kick ass.

Sunday, December 13th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: Steamboat Willie)

A few days ago, The Walt Disney Company returned to their traditional animation roots with The Princess and the Frog, the new film by Ron Clements and John Musker (the directorial duo is best known for two Disney classics, The Little Mermaid and Aladdin). In honor of the release, I figure I will take the high road and not blog on the normal Disney criticism of racist undertones, and celebrate 2-D animation. I mean, Pixar has yet to make a bad movie, but we all long for some more traditional animation to come our way, so I decided to embed the Ub Iwerks directed, Walt Disney written and produced short Steamboat Willie. It is the film that brought the iconic Mickey Mouse character to prominence, and was the third to feature Disney's mischievous rodent lead, the first being the less popular Plane Crazy, released earlier in the same year, 1928.

As always with Disney animation, an aura of controversy seems to follow this film, although the renown and changing times seems to downplay the one time censored parts. During the big musical number, many of the scenes are considered to display cruelty to animals, including a bizarre scene where Mickey plays sow nipples as an instrument. What happened to Disney, Iwerks and their animation properties after the success of this film needs not be explained, as the Disney corporate name is one of the biggest in the world, let alone the entertainment industry itself. However, it is to be noted that the film is part of the Library of Congress' National Film Registry, as well as being one of the top 50 cartoons, as voted by members of the animation medium.

As for owning the film, it has been released on DVD uncut twice in the Walt Disney Treasures collection. The first is a compendium of old Mickey Mouse cartoons in Mickey Mouse in Black and White, as well as being a special feature on The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, due to it being one of Iwerks' seminal works. Even easier though, unlike other popular Disney works, this film is available all over the Interwebs without Disney issuing out copyright lawsuits all over the place due to the fact that as it has fallen into the public domain. So without further adieu, here is a legal showing of Steamboat Willie.

Usually, I do not blog about anything else on my Short Film Sunday posts, but I have been seeing a lot of blogs featuring a recent interview with Sigourney Weaver. I would post a source, but basically every movie site online has posted it, despite the fact that I can no longer find the video of the session. Anyhow, Weaver was being interviewed for her role in Avatar, when the topic changes to her thoughts on the possibility of Ghostbusters 3, where she drops some huge spoilers. She mentions that her character, Dana Barrett's, son will become ghost buster for this installment, and that Bill Murray will be playing a larger role than she would, but this time as a ghost, thus meaning that Dr. Peter Venkman dies in the movie, or in the space between Ghostbusters II and the upcoming sequel, if it ever comes to fruition.

Also, in about an hour from the time this is posted, Adult Swim is going to air a new Space Ghost interview with Zoe Saldana on her role in Avatar. The advertising blitz has began, and the return of Space Ghost to my late night lineup is a damn good start to it.

Wendesday, August 26th, 2009

Ever since the trailer for James Cameron's Avatar dropped last week, the Internet has been abuzz with claims of disappointment, or if possible, even more unbridled giddy anticipation. For me, it is a bit of the latter, and now MarketSaw continues to build this eagerness by posting magazine scans from Empire's feature on the science fiction flick due out in December. In it, we finally see Sigourney Weaver's avatar. We also get the high definition picture of Zoe Saldana's Neytiri character. Since the San Diego Comic Con, we've been seeing the one still of Neytiri over and over, but the scan on MarketSaw is fantastically realistic. Let's hope that we don't get a huge media onslaught on this in the coming months, as I would prefer to go into the theaters knowing as little as I do now.

The Sun has a story up today claiming that Megan Fox has been signed on to play Catwoman in the inevitable sequel to The Dark Knight. One reason we know that this is bogus, is that it casually mentions that she will be working with the returning Christopher Nolan, whom we all know is nowhere close to making a decision about his involvement in continuing the latest Batman film franchise. Oh, and it is also The Sun. Cinematical has an entertaining poll up on what our favorite Batman 3 rumor has been thus far, which after reading over it, you realize they were probably all at one time a story in The Sun. What I think was the most entertaining of the rumors... Eddie Murphy as the Riddler. However, after Joel Schumacher's appalling cinematic abortions from the mid-90's I fear that there is a few ounces to truth to each of these claims.

Scoping out all the regular movie blogs this evening and I ran across a story from The Hollywood Reporter, that stated "Invincible director helm next XXX", or something to the effect. Of course, the story is speaking of the film XXX: The Return of Xander Cage, the third in the painfully terrible action trilogy, being directed by Ericson Core, the man behind the 2006 film Invincible, a true story about the Philadelphia Eagles' Vince Papale, as portrayed by Mark Wahlberg. I was shocked and hurt a little inside though when I originally read the catch of the article, as when I hear the title Invincible, I instantly picture the very underrated 2001 flick, a fable of a Jewish strongman that co-starred Tim Roth, directed by the brilliant Werner Herzog. Luckily, I was way off, and I will not have to care about the new XXX.

Taking Woodstock comes out today for the unusual Wednesday release. The film is directed by Ang Lee based on Elliot Tiber's autobiography on his involvement in 1969's Woodstock Festival. The film looks intriguing, yet I've only read bad reviews. Seeing that it is getting a limited release, I'll probably wait until DVD time to make my consensus.

I watched Pearl Jam's new video "The Fixer" tonight. Quite good, especially considering it was only their second music video in seventeen years, the other being the astounding Todd McFarlane animated "Do the Evolution". I wasn't going to put it on this blog however, until I ran across the video on Cinematical, as they informed me that filmmaker Cameron Crowe was the director of the video. Enjoy.

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

We have basically seen the new poster for Avatar pictured here already, as the same still of the Zoe Saldana's computer generated character Neytiri was all over the Internet's coverage of the San Diego Comic Con. The only new thing about this to me is the title of the film is there, with a note telling us that James Cameron did, in fact, direct Titanic. So why really post this when it's nothing new? I feel that outside of bloggers and mildly hardcore cinephiles, not enough people care about Avatar, or can distinguish the title from M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender when you mention it in conversation. Not that my unread blog is going to alert the world about what many think will be a milestone in science fiction and computer graphics, but rather that I want to blog more about this film, yet I know nothing about it other than the bit of information of Moviefone, IMDb or Wikipedia.

Variety reports that Hugh Jackman has been cast as the wonderfully eccentric P.T. Barnum in Fox's upcoming "contemporary musical", The Greatest Showman on Earth, to be scripted by Jenny Bicks of Sex and the City fame. A musical biopic of Barnum sounds intriguing to me, as I have always been fascinated with the man, and a musical spin on what I'm sure will be a rather bizarre life story could just be weird enough to truly stand out. The article also mentions that Anne Hathaway is in talks to star opposite Jackman. This thing could possibly have potential, but like so many interesting projects, should we expect this to crash and burn? Especially with the scribe of Sex and the City?

The Hollywood Reporter announced today that Watchmen's Sally Jupiter, Carla Gugino, will team up with Zack Snyder once again in his upcoming film Sucker Punch in a supporting role.

Finally, you can't really go to any movie blog this week without hitting an overload of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, so it is kind of hard to ignore. Today, on Stephen Sommer's official site, we see some concept art for the character Destro, confirming him to keep the metal head he was known for in the cartoon and toy line. Also, in a preview to an interview with Sommers on Cinematical, the web site announces that Sommers is hopeful he will be able to put a sequel into development. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be a sequel, because the movie will kill at the box office, despite if the film is a complete train wreck or not. Also, I am personally shocked that the film currently holds a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. I have to admit that I actually somewhat enjoy Sommers. It doesn't matter that The Mummy and Van Helsing had awful plots, or that they were critically bashed, they were the epitome of a summer popcorn movie, being flashy, fast-paced, high energy, and entertaining enough to make us forget all the stupidities of the plot. However, I cannot see myself leaving G.I. Joe happy, with 1) the super suits and 2) the incredibly high chance that Kid Rock's "American Bad Ass" will pop up somewhere in the film.