loonyblog.

Quote of the evening?

In between promoting designers and raving about the competition, celebrities had to listen to some very odd -- and even insulting -- questions.

"Before you were a movie star, you were a serious actor," said ABC's Chris Connelly to Orlando Bloom.

A loss, but a good one.

See, in 1996, I lost because in several categories, I went with what I thought should win, rather than what would win. It's a mistake I've never repeated. This year, while I lost, I managed to get every single major category correct. The only ones I missed were score, song, costume design and cinematography. Unfortunately for me, my father got three of those right (he managed to miss only one this year, a feat to which I tip my hat).

So I graciously accept this defeat. Next year I hopefully won't be as distracted, and will be able to spend more time on research.

So beautiful...should have sent...a poet.

Both movies were simply stunning. Hero, with its bright, bright colors and sweeping camera movements was just jaw-dropping (particularly the fight among the leaves). And Days of Heaven (in my opinion, the best looking film ever made) just popped off the screen. And because DoH was shot in a 16:9 aspect ratio, it ran totally full-screen (like most recent films, Hero was shot in a larger aspect ratio, so it's shown anamorphic, with slight bars on the top and bottom of the screen). The scene with the locusts and fire in Days of Heaven should be seen on every HDTV ever made.

I went with the Sony KD-34XS955 for a few reasons. One, that I only have room in my wall unit for a 34 - 42 inch screen. And secondly, because of the image quality on all sources. This thing makes regular television look great (except for things taped off the WB, as that comes in really dark for some really annoying reason), Xbox games look amazing, and DVDs naturally look great as well. Plus it was relatively cheap for an HDTV. LCDs, rear-projection televisions and plasmas may get all the press, but believe me, if you can support the obscene weight (this thing weighs 200 pounds!) it's worth it.

The one thing I haven't tried on here yet is a pure HD signal. Time Warner's being their usual pain in the neck, and it looks like I won't be able to get a Cable Card until Friday. This year's Oscars will have to be in SD instead. I'll live.

Song of the South.

Still, if handled with the utmost care, this could be an interesting DVD release. But even if this is seen as a positive thing, I don't think we'll be seeing any of the more controversial Looney Toons cartoons released any time soon, like "Angel Puss" (featuring Li'l Sambo) or probably the most offensive one ever made, "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips".

My 2005 Oscar predictions.

Continue reading "My 2005 Oscar predictions."

Oscar 2005.

As I haven't been following the craziness over the past few weeks with my usual fervor, I'm not as confident this year as I usually am...still, a bet is a bet, and I don't intend to lose (and the last few years have been painfully close, too). Stay tuned.

Movie review quote of the year.

"Saying Uwe Boll’s Alone in the Dark is better than his 2003 American debut House of the Dead is akin to praising syphilis for not being HIV."

"Alone in the Dark co-stars perpetual party-girl Tara Reid as an archeologist. That alone should give you some clue as to how bad this movie is."

At long last, Dune!

The Dune: Extended Edition will be released in a metal snap case (SRP $27.98). 2 versions of the film will be included... a 137-minute theatrical version, and the 177-minute extended edition. BOTH will be available in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen (which would mark the first time the extended edition was available in widescreen). The theatrical edition will feature both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 audio, while the extended edition will be Dolby Digital 5.1 only. Extras will include never before seen "behind-the-scenes" footage, documentaries on the special effects, visual design and costumes, deleted scenes, original photographs and artwork from the set (newly resurrected from personal collections) and more.

Ma Kent is cast.

Meet Jimmy Olsen (no, really this time).

Believe it or not, this was the best picture I could find of the guy (c/o Yahoo Movies). In everything else, he was either dressed up like a Jungle native, or decked out for a KISS concert.

Also cast, according to Entertainment Weekly, is James Marsden, who will be playing Richard White, son of Perry, and love interest for Lois Lane. Whiney (and occasionally weepy) Cyclops aside, I like Marsden, so this is an okay choice with me.

Oscar nominations.

Let's start with the actor categories: I was pleasantly surprised to see Jamie Foxx nominated for both Ray and Collateral. I haven't actually seen Ray (I try to see as few Oscar movies prior to the awards as possible...it throws off my predictions), but I did see Collateral, and thought the acting was top notch. It was nice to see Thomas Haden Church and especially Virginia Madsen nominated for Sideways (which is probably my favorite film of the year, although I've seen so few that I'm really not qualified to make that call), although the snubbing of Paul Giamatti is a real shame here. I was a little disappointed to see Annette Bening nominated for Being Julia, not because I dislike Bening by any means, it's just that particular role seemed a little over-dramatic to be a serious contender. Having said all that, the actress category is really interesting this year, with Bening's old rival Hilary Swank back for a second round, Catalina Sandino Moreno and Imelda Staunton both being serious contenders, and then there's the wild card that is Kate Winslet.

For the screenplay awards, I found myself scratching my head over the nomination of Before Sunset for adapted screenplay. Since when did having a separate story credit qualify as adaptation? It's not like this is an adaptation from a printed story...it's a story written specifically for the movie! Oh well, whatever. At least Sideways was nominated for adapted and The Incredibles for original screenplay.

The documentary category shows itself to be forward-thinking for the third year in a row. The days of the World War II documentary being the easy win seem to be behind us, with Tupac: Resurrection and Super Size Me among the nominees. I was actually surprised that Joe Berlinger's Metalica: Some Kind of Monster was overlooked here.

The others: the music categories are downright sad this year, particularly among the nominees for original song...if either Shrek 2 or Shark Tale wins for animated feature I'll lose faith in humanity...hallelujah for the nominations A Very Long Engagement received...visual effects is unusually tough to call this year, as is the makeup category and the costume category is pretty weak as well, with only one real period piece among the lot (and not a very good one at that).

All in all, not a bad list of nominees. Stay tuned for my full picks as we get closer to Oscar night.

Bizarre.

Oh wait, no. Ewwwww...spam.

Say hello to Perry White.

Laurie seems like a fine, non-offensive casting choice, although naturally we'll still have to wait and see if they decide to go in some kind of weird direction with the character, such as the weird Elvis obsession in the Perry White on Lois & Clark ("great shades of Elvis!" indeed).

Regardless, Laurie joins Brandon Routh as Clark/Superman, Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, Shawn Ashmore as Jimmy Olsen and Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. Not a bad cast at all. Here's a look at the Perry White-to-be (photo courtesy of the Hugh Laurie FAQ):

So who's left to cast? Unless they decide to skip the origin entirely there's still Jonathan and Martha Kent (even if they don't skip it, these two will probably be in there somewhere), there's still the possibility of an appearance by Kal-El and Lara (although let's hope to god it's not as excruciating as Marlon Brando's zillion dollar atrocity in Superman: The Movie), and beyond that, it could be any character from the Superman stable. Lana Lang? Pete Ross? Emil Hamilton? Brainiac? Metallo? Lobo? Supergirl? Darkseid? (Just for the record, if Darkseid is ever in a live action movie and not played by Michael Ironside, I will start an organized revolt). Filming is supposedly starting soon, so any casting should be leaking out in the next month or so.

Lex locked, let loose the loons.

The question of course, is which one Bryan Singer & Co. are going with...will this be Lex the business man, as has been the case in the comics and animated series for the last decade or so? (Not to mention Smallville). Or will we see a return to the wisecracking evil genius Lex, as was depicted in the Gene Hackman-era films? Personally, I'd like to see a mix of the two. I've grown to like the more serious Lex, but there's always going to be a place in my heart for the classic version. I'm also going to be curious to see if they go with bald Lex, or opt for a revisionist look at the character (IE with hair), similar to the one John Shea depicted on Lois & Clark (although let's hope they leave out the cornball role played by the otherwise great Tony Jay).

In any event, Spacey's in, and that's good news indeed. Here's a pretty Lex-esque photo of the man (picture courtesy of Criminal Grace):

V for vindication.

Beyond that however, I find the tag line pretty cool as well: "Remember, remember the 5th of November." That's probably the film's release date (11/05/05), but it's also Guy Fawkes Day, and a line from the poem written about that day:

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot.

P for Portman.

In any event, I really, really, really hope they pick the right voice to play V (and since you never actually see the man behind the mask, it really is primarily a voice they're casting). I always pictured someone with a very theatrical voice in the role...V is, after all, a vaudeville-esque character (he says so himself). My first choice would probably be Avery Brooks, good ol' Captain Sisko from Deep Space Nine. This isn't just me being a DS9 fanboi (which I most certainly am) -- Brooks is a classically trained actor with just the right amount of theatricality. Also, the comic never actually says why V was in that internment camp. In the comic that's a perfectly acceptable literary device, but whoever is cast in the role will inevitably give off some kind of suggestion as to the background of the character. Putting an african american in the role gives a reason without coming right out and saying why (for those who haven't read it, in the book, minorities, homosexuals and other "deviants" are rounded up by an oppressive English government and put into camps).

But of course, I doubt they'll cast a relatively unknown actor like Brooks. My more mainstream picks would be people like Laurence Fishburne (again, a classically trained african american actor), Patrick Stewart (again with the Star Trek reference, but he's certainly got the theatrical background) or even Wesley Snipes.

Needless to say, I'm on the edge of my seat with curiosity. While Superman is the adaptation I'm following the closest (well, duh), this is a near-second. I think the Watchowski brothers can handle this well (even if they are only producing) and the material is ripe for adaptation. I think a stage adaptation would have been great, but short of that, this could be worthy of its source material.

I hope.

Is this Lois Lane?

The only thing I've seen her in so far is The Rules of Attraction, and that wasn't the most in-depth of roles (although I do remember her looking good), and she's definitely a bit on the young side at just 22. Still, while she's not my first choice, I won't be offended if this turns out to be true. It's still much better casting than Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane, or Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang (sorry, but although I've come to live with it, even after all this time, I still think she was miscast).

Also mentioned on Superman-V is that Shawn Ashmore (that's Iceman in X-Men/X2), has been cast as Jimmy Olsen. Again, not bad at all, although it would be odd to see a Jimmy Olsen who's actually older than Lois Lane (I would assume the actors would be playing younger and older respectively).

WTF?

OSCAR winner Steven Spielberg will bring one of the toy phenomenons of the 1980s to the big screen - generating a booming adult collectors market for the robots known as Transformers.

The director has announced he will follow next year's The War of the Worlds with a live-action tale of the mechanical heroes who disguise themselves as cars, trucks and jets.

My guess is that in the coming months we'll hear about John Woo's new Go-Bots movie, Michael Mann's Voltron, Sam Raimi's Bionic Six and of course, Quentin Tarantino's Mr. T and the T-Force.

Back that up a second.

Citing Chow's wife, Jasmin Chan Wui-nin, Chinese-language newspaper Apple Daily said Chow will play the famous 15th century Chinese pirate Cheung Po Tsai for the second and third installments of the film.

Chow will team up with members of the original cast including Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush and Keira Knightley along with newly joining Keith Richards as the father of Depp's character.

Oh dear god, no!

Superman cast.

At only 25 he's a bit younger than I'd like, although Christopher Reeve was only 26 when he made the first Superman, so Routh can certainly grow into the role. The age thing will have one strange side effect -- the actor playing Superman as an adult in the movie will be younger than the actor playing Superman as a teenager on television (Tom Welling is 27). Still, I'm pleased with this casting. Now comes the all-important casting of Lois Lane and Lex Luthor. I don't think it's going to happen, but I'm still holding out for Selma Blair as Lois Lane. Although I must say, as absurd as her presence on the show has been, I'm sort of liking Erica Durance as Lois on Smallville. The role is silly as can be, but she plays it well.

Forever Superman.

Needless to say, Reeve was my childhood hero. He made us all believe a man could fly, but he also embodied the role with an effortless charm that you can't fake. What I really liked about Christopher Reeve as I grew older is that unlike many actors who were type-cast and grew bitter about the role that made them famous, Reeve seemed to actually understand and respect what it meant to be Superman on the silver screen. He was a larger-than-life hero to so many people around the world and didn't just brush it off as so many other actors did.

In his later years, Reeve gained a new level of respect and admiration for putting a public face on disability. Despite his near-fatal accident that left him paralyzed, he never wavered, and never stopped fighting for new forms of research to help not just himself, but all victims of spinal cord injuries. He also became an outspoken crusader for stem cell research, and fought for widespread health and disability coverage in this country.

On a personal level, I'm sad because we'll never see Christopher Reeve walk again. I never doubted that I'd see that happen some day, and far more importantly, he never did either. As I said on this site in one of my earliest posts, I believe in the idea of Superman, and that will outlive us all. Christopher Reeve the man has passed away, but his image will live forever and his work lives on with the Chrstopher Reeve foundation. I think he'd be proud of both of those.

I heart Criterion.

That's not grime on my scanner...the art is done that way intentionally to look aged. It's a great effect.

God bless those people at Criterion. Sniff. As an added plus, over the weekend I sold my original Videodrome DVD back to GameStop to get credit towards my pre-order of Fable. Life, she is good.

Strange things I learned from audio commentaries.

Despite the fact that it's since become a first person shooter staple (going back as far as the original Wolf 3D), the chaingun wielded by Jesse Ventura in the original Predator was hardly practical. For one thing, it weighed so much that there were safety lines holding it upright when it was in use. But that's just one of many problems. Another is that it turned so fast, they had to crank it down just so it would show up on film!

But probably the nicest factoid, is that it only held enough bullets for five seconds of fire. The chaingun was intended to be mounted on a jeep, not carried, as it is in the film. Because of this, it was impossible to have any serious amount of ammo. There were two guys behind Ventura with bullets for the weapon at all times. Thanks to that stupid-fast firing rate, at the end of each take, the actor was buried up to his ankles in shells.

So cool. Yet so impractical

Whoever wins, fans lose.

Continue reading "Whoever wins, fans lose."

Attention anyone in Seattle...

Strange things I learned from audio commentaries.

According to the commentary by Terrys Jones & Gilliam, in the original draft of the screenplay that eventually became Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Holy Grail was found in Harrod's in the Holy Grail section. And there was much rejoicing.

When you think about it, that makes total sense. Or at least, it makes about as much sense as anything in that movie, perhaps a bit more. I mean, where else would it be?

DVD overkill.

For the last six months or so (seriously, it's that big) I've been making my way through all the extras in Fox's absolutely brilliant Alien Quadrilogy set, which despite the name, is without a doubt the best DVD set ever made. But what's important about the Quadrilogy isn't that it's got nine discs for four films, it's that everything in here is super high-quality.

Each of the four Alien movies has both the original and a separate, special-edition (not director's cut) version, which contains extra and/or alternate footage. Every movie has a great multi-person commentary track, and each movie has its own disc of extras, containing a slew of documentaries, artwork, screenplays and archival material. On top of all of that, there's a ninth disc containing the extras from the old Alien and Aliens laserdisc sets, plus miscellaneous documentaries about the whole series.

As a long-time DVD owner/collector, I've seen tons of special edition releases, and I've come to appreciate a really nicely put together set of extras. The Quadrilogy screams quality, and it's not just a case where Fox gathered everything they could find and shoved them onto a bunch of DVDs. As much as I love the Lord of the Rings DVDs, the four disc SE for The Two Towers was already scraping the barrel, as the first set filled one of its discs with tons of general stuff about the entire series. What's left for the last movie? Got me. (Maybe that's why they haven't announced it yet).

I find it highly unlikely that there's really enough decent content to fill up ten discs for The Matrix films. The movies aren't long enough to be spread across two discs each, which means every movie will need to take up 3.3 discs on its own, and let's face it, even the most die-hard Matrix fan won't be that interested in all that junk. WB should concentrate on creating higher-quality content on less discs instead of competing for the largest box on the shelf.

But then again, I couldn't care either way. I didn't like the first movie enough to bother with any of its special edition releases (of which there were several), and certainly won't bother with this.

Awesome.

It's a mock-trailer, of course, and not a real film. And it probably wouldn't work as a real film, so it's just as well. But it's such a fanboi's wet dream, that it has to be seen to be believed. The film depicted in the trailer is an amalgam of various plotlines from both universes, but it's basically a mix of the President Lex storyline mushed together with various scenes from various animated series and the Superman and Batman movies.

Much like Batman: Dead End, the production's top-notch, or at least, it is for a fan film. Heck, for a fan film, it's downright amazing, even more so than Dead End because of all the different stuff involved here. Go check it out. I still think a Batman vs. Superman movie is a bad idea, but this? This is different. I'd go see this movie in a heartbeat.

SuperSinger

The spectacular Spider-Man (2).

Continue reading "The spectacular Spider-Man (2)."

SuperBay?

While I'm not the biggest fan of Michael Bay's work in general, I do think that The Rock is one of the best pure action movies I've ever seen (and I've seen a whole lot of 'em). Michael Bay is an exciting director, and really, the reason why movies like Armageddon are so painfully dull isn't his fault, it's the screenplay. The Rock had a great screenplay, which Bay played to perfectly. I can't say I've seen anything else from him that lived up to that potential, but with the right script, he could do a hell of a Superman movie. For the record, by "right script" I mean anything but JJ Abrams' script that was trashed so thoroughly at Aint' it Cool back in '02.

One other interesting thing about Michael Bay: his movies always have this sort of super-patriotic, gung ho military feel to them. While it'd be really easy to screw up, I think a Superman movie that focused on truth, justice and the American way wouldn't be half bad, if handled properly.

Christopher Walken's Superman?

On a slightly more depressing note, this list doesn't hold a whole lot of promise. Looking over the list, there are a couple of actors I'd find acceptable to play Superman: Brendan Fraser, for all his goofiness and George of the Jungle-ness, would actually be a somewhat decent choice, as would Jude Law. The problem with most of the people on this list however is that while they may make a somewhat decent Superman, they'd make an absolutely horrible Clark Kent. That was the key to Michael Keaton's Batman performance, and why I think he was such a good choice. Yes, his cleft chin looked a little strange in that Batsuit, but he was a really likable Bruce Wayne.

Can you imagine David Boreanaz as Clark Kent? Or Josh Hartnett? Or Ashton Kutcher? Ugh. I think Jude Law could do both roles, and Fraser could probably do it reasonably well, but they're the only two on that list capable of it. Actually, I think Rupert Everett would do a great job in both roles, but somehow I don't think that will ever happen.

Four discs of love.

Please don't suck...

Criterion, I could kiss you.

Here are some of the extras on the disc (a full list is up at Criterion's site):

• New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image and sound and enhanced for widescreen televisions
• Audio commentaries by director David Cronenberg, actors James Woods and Deborah Harry, and director of photography Mark Irwin
• Camera, a short film starring Videodrome’s Les Carlson, written and directed by David Cronenberg in 2000 as part of the 25th anniversary celebration of the Toronto Film Festival
• Forging the New Flesh, a new half-hour documentary featurette by video effects artist Michael Lennick about the creation of Videodrome’s landmark video and prosthetic makeup effects, featuring new interviews with Rick Baker and others
• Samurai Dreams, the complete and unedited faux Japanese AV feature seen in the film
• Fear on Film, a 26-minute roundtable discussion from 1982 between filmmakers David Cronenberg, John Carpenter, John Landis, and Mick Garris about censorship, special effects makeup, and horror cinema

How to rip DVD audio commentaries.

Anyway, until this week, ripping was a fairly convoluted procedure. Using a PC (as opposed to my desktop Mac), I would extract the audio tracks in question to AC3 format using DVD Decrypter, convert them to WAV using Ciler's AC3 Tool, and then convert them to DVD using Musicmatch, which I would also use to add in proper ID3 tags and rename the files to a more acceptable format. This system, although a bit clunky, worked fine. But thankfully, I've finally stumbled upon an easy-to-use alternative that's native to OS X (yes, I know I could have used OSex all along, but that was an even worse procedure).

This method's not free, but it works great, and I've even got some fancy touches thrown in for good measure, so read on for complete directions.

Continue reading "How to rip DVD audio commentaries."

Say what!?

I've been meaning to write a piece about the jumbled mess that Smallville's mythology has become (and the sudden sorta-but-not-quite-entirely appearance of Kara Zor-El in the season finale just added to that), but this just takes the cake. For what it's worth, the fact that a quote attributed to producer Alfred Gough misuses the word "it's" suggests to me that this is less-than-trustworthy news.

Let's hope so, because personally, I'd like to see a Superman movie that wasn't tied to some of the sillier plot twists in Smallville. I like the show, but that would be such a burden on any movie.

Update: Well that didn't take long...The Superman Homepage contacted Gough directly, and it turns out that those quotes are indeed a whole lot of bunk. Typoed bunk, at that.

Merchandising run amok.

But then, I guess I shouldn't talk...I was totally drooling all over these super deformed Alien figures recently. But then, that's different. Those are really, really cool. Ditto for the Predator and Army of Darkness figures. Those rock. It's totally different.

Yeesh.

Here's an excerpt from Eurogamer's article that explains why the game has this title:

The idea apparently is that Goldfinger is locked in a war with Dr. No for control of a massive criminal organisation (we can guess which), and that your aspiring henchman gets to rise through the ranks, customising and upgrading his villainous abilities along the way, and fighting alongside or battling against various Bond characters including the aforementioned Ms. Onatopp, bowler-hat-chucking Oddjob, Scaramanga (he of the Golden Gun fame), Pussy Galore, and of course Goldfinger himself.

So then, you might be wondering, why is it called GoldenEye? Because, it says here, your nameless henchman lost an eye in an encounter with Dr. No, and Goldfinger's technicians replaced it with... a... golden... eye... Nice one, EA.

The funny thing is that it sounds like a good idea for a game, so why on earth did EA bother swiping the title like that?

Trailer report: 4/04.

Continue reading "Trailer report: 4/04."

Drool.

But the promise of dual layer burning is too hard to ignore. As I've said here before, I've taken to archiving shows from my TiVo onto DVD, but because I can only burn to single-layer discs, there's a two-hour limit per disc. While I recently picked up some dual-sided single layer DVD-R discs, it still means that for maximum quality, I'm forced to burn a two hour movie as a flippy-disc, and nobody wants that.

I'm guessing that Apple's next version of iDVD will support dual-layer burning (for up to four hours on a single disc!) and their next superdrive will support dual layer DVD-Rs. And that for me, is the holy grail of DVD burning.

Review: Memories

Incredibly, year after year went by with no localized release. I briefly considered modding my DVD player and importing the Japanese release (which did have English subtitles, if I remember correctly), but ultimately decided that someday, someone would have to realize that anything by the creator of Akira would have enough of an audience in this country to make it worth the time and costs necessary to translate it.

It took a damn long time, but Memories is finally out in this country, complete with glorious English subtitles.

Continue reading "Review: Memories"

A Mametastic collection of Mametessence.

Mamacity:

n

1. Fearless daring; intrepidity.
2. Defiant or swaggering behavior: his mamacity was such that he didn't care about the consequences of his actions.

Mametly:

adj. Mametlier, Mametliest

1. Posessing excessive amounts of testosterone: His bravado went beyond sheer masculinity; he was the mametliest person I'd ever seen.

Mamathine:

adj.

1. Of, relating to, resembling, or constituting a play by Mamet, David: the many improbable but not implausible plot twists were mamathine in their scope.

Oh, come on!

At the risk of offending these people, I must say...that's the silliest thing I've ever heard. Can you imagine an otherwise perfectly innocuous film getting an R because a character lights up at one point? The ratings system is broken enough as is without this extra bit of lunacy watering it down even more.

How about the fact that plenty of overly violent films get PG-13 ratings simply because they lack any profanity or sex?

The way smoking is depicted in movies is a direct reflection of how it is perceived in society as a whole. If you want movies to depict it differently, change the world first. Movies will follow.

Review: Underworld

Underworld began with an interesting enough concept: there is a centuries-old war being waged by clans of vampires against clans of werewolves, which are known here as "lycans", a term derived from lycanthropy, the psychological disorder in which a person believes he or she has the characteristics of a wolf or other animal. The general idea here is that a vampire falls in love with a werewolf, and the story is basically West Side Story with vampires and werewolves. Like any great team-up, this has fanboy cred written all over it. Vampires feeding on werewolves? Werewolves munching on some vampire flesh? And the potential for hot vampire-werewolf love scenes? How could this possibly go wrong?

Continue reading "Review: Underworld"

Yet another game to movie adaptation.

Hopefully the movie will have a better camera than the game, or else all the action will happen off-screen and walls will get in the way of important plot elements.

I'm so funny.

To the victor go the spoils.

• Ran (Masterworks Edition)
• Three Colors Trilogy
• This is Spinal Tap (Special Edition)

Oscars 2004 Wrap-up

Last night was the most dull, and uneventful since 1998, when Titanic swept the awards. In fact, last night's 11 wins for Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King tied that record with Titanic and Ben-Hur.

This was all great, except for the fact that I decided to take a couple of chances this year, and every time, the award went to the frontrunner. By the end of the night I was praying that Johnny Depp or Bill Murray would win, or that Sophia Coppola would win just to shake things up a bit. Alas, that never happened.

Incredibly, the only time I was really surprised was when "Harvie Krumpet" won the animated short instead of the Dali/Disney short "Destino." I imagine Roy Disney was shocked as well, and it's a shame, because I was looking forward to hearing his speech (which would have no doubt been a war cry for his attempts to reform Disney).

Fortunately, I only took a chance on a couple of categories, so I still won my bet. But the one category I really am disappointed in myself for missing was documentary, as I really, really wanted Errol Morris to win, but changed my pick at the last minute to Andrew Jerecki's Capturing the Friedmans.

As for the obligatory celebrity watching: Heather and I were waiting for Renee Zelwegger to hyperventilate in that dress of hers (I mean jeez...how tight was that corset she was wearing?)...I thought Errol Morris gave a great speech (and found it funny to see what a goofball he is when he's actually in front of the camera)...Jack Black and Will Ferrel were surprisingly good in their singing prior to handing out their award for original song...Sophia Coppola reminded us all why she's a much better writer and director than she was as an actress...I loved Sean Penn's quiet, restrained speech...ditto for Tim Robbins...I thought all the song performances were wonderful, especially "Belleville Rendezvous", which really makes me want to run out and see The Triplets of Belleville...speaking of songs, while she didn't win, did anyone else notice how great Annette O'Toole looked?

As always it was an entertaining show (and kept to a pretty tight schedule...it only went over by ten minutes or so), but after last year's surprise wins, I was hoping for a bit more excitement. Oh well. Hopefully next year will be another one that keeps me on the edge of my seat.

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast.

This morning I woke up with less confidence in my choice of Capturing the Friedmans over The Fog of War (especially now that I see my father chose the latter), but otherwise I remain as confident as I'm going to get.

Here's the rundown of the major categories:

• Best Picture: LOTR: Return of the King
• Best Director: Peter Jackson
• Best Actor: Sean Penn
• Best Actress: Charlize Theron
• Best Supporting Actor: Tim Robbins
• Best Supporting Actress: Shohreh Aghdashloo
• Best Original Screenplay: Lost in Translation
• Best Adapted Screenplay: Mystic River

This can't be serious.

Dragonball Z: "Smallville" spunk Tom Welling is being rumoured for Goku.

Well, I guess there is something there...although I think some serious prosthetic hair is going to be necessary in order to complete the illusion:

I'm seeing double! The resemblance is truly uncanny.

I am lord and master of the DVD.

So instead, I labored to find a solution, and can now actually say that I've figured it out. Of course, iDVD has a really annoying 2 hour limitation, so I needed to split the movie in two and burn it to two separate discs...but it's worth it.

While I've long known how to do it using Toast, that was a bare-bones affair. Because I used iDVD, I was able to include the easy-to-make custom tracks and menus, and anything less to me wouldn't have felt right.

Ahh...I rule.

If I'm feeling ambitious, I might post a tutorial on how to do it one of these days. It's a bit complicated and convoluted, but once you get the hang of the process it becomes second nature.

Somebody stop this guy. Please.

Take a look at that list. Now, I'm sure most people can guess the (ahem) four reasons why a Fear Effect movie is a good idea, and BloodRayne has that dominatrix-vampire thing going for it. But freaking Dungeon Siege? I mean come on! How on earth that could possibly be anything better than the worst kind of low-level renaissance faire drivel is unknown to me.

In an attempt to steer Mr. Boll in the right direction, I present a few suggestions for games that might make for similarly entertaining movies:

• Fantasy Zone: The story of a little spaceship nobody believed in fighting against impossible odds. And weird looking flying mushroom things. With Chris Rock as Opa Opa.
• Tetris: The story of one man's quest for revenge against the system that ruined his life. With Keanu Reeves as the detective who never gives up hope. And Lawrence Fishburn as the diabolical madman bent on world domination.
• Yar's Revenge: Evil insects from the Razak system are invading our space! It's time to fight back as only we can..with extreme force. Featuring Jim Carrey as Yar, the man who's been pushed too far.
• Breakout: A taut political thriller that follows one FBI agent (Renee Zelwegger) as she fights against the clock to prevent nuclear war. With George Clooney as the man she loves.
• Zero Wing: All your base are belong to us! When that mysterious phrase begins appearing randomly across the globe, one woman (Nicole Kidman) tries to decipher its meaning. But can she do so before time runs out while raising two kids and working part-time as a waitress? With Omar Sharif as CATS and Robin Williams as the pilot who takes off for great justice.

Superman is dead. Long live Superman.

Hallelujah.

I think Warner Bros. needs to give a lot of thought to how the heck they intend to position a reinvention of the Superman movies while at the same time letting Smallville continue on television. Especially if they're seriously considering younger actors to play the Lois Lane and Clark Kent roles, which I will always view as a serious mistake. Christopher Reeve was 26 when the first movie was made, and that's about as young as you can possibly cast the role (and even then, the actor needs to look about 30).

Today's superheroes-in-Hollywood roundup.

• The Batman (New Animated Series): According to Newsarama, this new series will be known as "The Batman" and will take place in year three of the Batman continuity. Confirmed voice actors are Adam West as the mayor (insert Family Guy reference here) and Gina Gershon as Catwoman. Comments to Newsarama's post suggest that Kevin Conroy will not be playing Batman/Bruce Wayne, but that part will instead be played by the person who voiced Peter Parker in the Spider-Man series on MTV. As far as I'm concerned, Kevin Conroy is Batman, so I seriously hope this isn't true.


• Superman: Apparently Beyoncé Knowles is actually up for Lois Lane. Shoot me now.


• Tintin: Dark Horizons has some new casting rumors for Spielberg's planned Tintin movie, but what's really wild is the rumor that none other than Roman freaking Polanski wants to make an alternate adaptation of Tintin in Tibet. I think Polanski's a great director...but Tintin???


• Wonder Woman: Apparently these shots of Sarah Michelle Gellar dressed as Wonder Woman for a skit at the MTV Movie Awards have some people talking that she's up for the role in the movie, but Superhero Hype! doesn't buy it. Which is good, because SMG looks like a twelve year old out on Halloween in that outfit.


• Batman: Intimidation Game: Some official details on Christopher Nolan's new Batman movie are up at Dark Horizons, and they do sound promising indeed. The plan is to make this as grounded in reality as possible, and so rather than go with a Tim Burton-style fantasy Gotham City, the current plan is to use exterior shots filmed in New York and London. Sounds great to me.

The brave troopers at ILM.

Just what we need...

Griffin's project will find Aniston starring as a young woman who discovers that her family's darkest secret was the inspiration for the book and the movie "The Graduate" and that she may have been the biological offspring of that scandal.

Just a thought...

(Thanks to Reuters and The Hellbound Web for the screencaps, respectively)

Best DVD packaging ever.

Review: Comic Book: The Movie (DVD)

Continue reading "Review: Comic Book: The Movie (DVD)"

Is it weird to feel sorry for a major movie studio?

In that getup she'll only strike fear in the hearts of costume designers worldwide.

And remember...she's an Oscar winning actress!

Bring it on!

The total running time? 250 minutes.

Bring it on, baby. Bring it on.

As a point of comparison, here are running times for other enormous movies:

• The Godfather: 175 minutes.
• Titanic: 194 minutes.
• Apocalypse Now (Redux version): 202 minutes.
• Seven Samurai (restored version): 206 minutes.
• Ben Hur: 222 minutes.
• Lawrence of Arabia (director's cut): 228 minutes.
• Gone With the Wind: 238 minutes.

Okay, we can all relax now.

As for Johnny Depp as Lex Luthor, that's still up in the air.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...

Pixar to End Talks with Disney.

Why must they do this to me?

I'm speechless.

Talk about The Passion.

Stanger's Episcopalian, which means he's obviously not going to have the same perspective as a Catholic priest. But it's definitely worth a read, as he explains why he believes the Gospels should not be taken literally (again, he's Episcopalian, and has a different perspective on the issue), how Mel Gibson's reasoning for making the Romans speak Latin sickens him and why the decision to emphasize the pain and suffering of the crucifixion was not necessarily a good one. Here's an excerpt that pretty much sums it up:

What would be your advice for would-be moviegoers?

I'd say don't bother. I think it's a big bore.

I think a 5-year-old who has to get cancer surgery and radiation and chemotherapy suffers more than Jesus suffered; I think that a kid in the Gaza Strip who steps on a land mine and loses two limbs suffers more; I think a battered wife with no resources suffers more; I think people without medical care dying of AIDS in Africa suffer more than Jesus did that day. I mean, I don't want to take away from that, but this preoccupation with the intensity of the suffering, I think, has no theological or spiritual value.

Oscar Nominations '04: First Impressions

Continue reading "Oscar Nominations '04: First Impressions"

You know you're really cold, when...

In other news, Renee Zellweger should do everyone a favor and just make a Bridget Jones movie in-between anything else. I mean, come on...she hasn't looked this good since well...Bridget Jones's Diary.

Oh, and Charlize Theron could wear a burlap sack and still look beautiful. Oddly, she chose instead to wear this thing last night.

The awards that really matter.

I'm talking, of course, about the 24th annual Razzie Awards, honoring the worst films of the year. This year's nominees, as always, are an interesting lot. Gigli leads the pack with nine nominations, although there are lots of other notable films being recognized, including Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat, From Justin to Kelly, The Real Cancun and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.

With the Oscar race being pushed up to the end of next month (gulp) it's going to be extremely difficult to predict the winners. But I'll make this prediction now: I foresee a sweep of the Razzies by Gigli.

Yes, I have no life.

So here it is, a re-edited, re-cut version of the Return of the King trailer, with Herb Alpert's "Spanish Flea" as the soundtrack. One quick note about the size: when posting to .Mac, iMovie creates this super-small sized version...there's not a whole lot you can do about it. Next time (if there is a next time) I'll re-encode a better version with Quicktime Pro. But anyway, here it is:

Pointless? And how!

Eeewww.

Spurlock starts out the picture of health, a strapping 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds. Three doctors and a nutritionist, who reappear throughout, examine him and attest to his well-being. But within a few days, he's vomiting out of the window of his car. And it's downhill from there. Spurlock's body goes through a general deterioration that surprises even his doctors in its rapidity. (His girlfriend, a vegan chef, is beside herself.) Gaining weight is just the outward sign; his liver becomes toxic, his cholesterol skyrockets, his libido sags, he gets headaches, and he becomes depressed.

Now that I can live with.

But hey, I won't deny that Ms. Blair is a far, far, far better choice than Natalie Portman, who was recently rumored to be among the shortlist of actresses being considered. She can act (as proven in Storytelling, if nothing else), and at least Selma Blair is the right age for the role. At only 22, Natalie Portman is waaay too young. Heck, she's only one year older than Kristin Kreuk, who plays the teenage Lana Lang on Smallville!

Now we just need to hope that an equally promising actor is found for Clark/Superman. Those rumors about Ashton Kutcher ("Dude, where's my cape?") scared the crap out of me.

Mmm...sacrilege.

This continues my long standing belief that 99% of a trailer's effectiveness comes from its soundtrack. Anyone want to cut a trailer for Return of the King with some Herb Alpert in it? My sides are splitting already.

The ten best movies of 2003 I forgot to see.

Continue reading "The ten best movies of 2003 I forgot to see."

It begins...

Today the New York Film Critics Circle released their awards, and topping the list as best picture is none other than The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Other notable winners include Hope Davis as best actress (for American Splendor and The Secret Lives of Dentists), Sofia Coppola for best director (for Lost in Translation) and Capturing the Friedmans for best non-fiction film.

Pixar in 2D?

So we'll see. I was just thinking that someone with a lot of clout (like Pixar) should pick up the slack left over when Disney canned their traditional animation department. If anyone can do it, it's Pixar.

Cronenberg the actor.

Directors trying their hand at acting is nothing new, and vice versa. Woody Allen doesn't quite count, because he was a comedian first, and a director second (ditto for Charlie Chaplin, if you want to go all the way back), but guys like Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino (who actually did do acting work long before he became a director) have been doing it for years. But what's somewhat unique in Cronenberg's case, is that most of his acting work is for other people's movies, not his own (and therefore isn't quite as egotistical as the others mentioned above).

Clive Barker made a wise decision to cast Cronenberg as Dr. Decker in Nightbreed, a role that allowed him to act really sadistic and evil. Come to think of it, looking at his various roles over the years, Cronenberg seems to play a lot of oddball doctors. He even cast himself as a gynecologist in a cameo in The Fly.

Cronenberg probably doesn't have much of a range as an actor, but his presence always adds something unique to a movie. Take his extremely brief appearance at the end of To Die For, for example. He's only on screen for about a minute, but he has a great, creepy presence, and as soon as he shows up you know something bad's about to go down (I won't spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it).

Another interesting director-turned-actor, is Curtis Hanson, who for some reason I really liked in his brief cameo in Adaptation. I think some directors just have a unique presence. Some people, like Hanson and Cronenberg can pull it off. Others, like Tarantino or Steven Spielberg (both of whom have a manic energy that really belongs behind the camera) should leave the acting to the professionals.

Machines rise, expectations fall.

Continue reading "Machines rise, expectations fall."

Poetic movie reviews.

It's not worth your money.
Not even one look.
Mike Myers has butchered a great children's book.

There once was a book called The Cat in the Hat.
You've probably read it, and loved it at that.
But now it's a film
And boy, is it rank,
Made just to put cash
In the studio's bank.

Philip K. Dick: Hollywood Superstar

I've long thought that certain Phildick books would work really well as movies, but there's a real problem with doing so. If you're a reader of Dick's, you probably have noticed that most of the film projects that are in the works, or have been made from his body of work are adapted from his short stories, rather than his novels. Even Blade Runner was based on a novella (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), rather than one of his full-blown novels. This is, unfortunately, a side effect of Dick's storytelling. His stories are always wildly original, and his novels even more so. Ultimately, this means it becomes next-to-impossible to give a one-sentence pitch for a Philip K. Dick novel. With Minority Report that was easy. But can you imagine attempting to describe The Man in the High Castle in a 60 second pitch?

That isn't to say that Phildick novels haven't been optioned. Apparently both Time Out of Joint and A Scanner Darkly are in the works. Of the two, Time Out of Joint is fairly conventional, and I could see that becoming a solid, screw-with-your-head action flick, but A Scanner Darkly? That's Dick's wild novel with a protagonist that's suffering from multiple personality disorder (but doesn't realize it). I can't see how that would translate into a movie, and without that key element it becomes merely a sci-fi anti-drug movie.

His life was interesting enough where I'm sure someone will make a biopic about him someday. If they're smart, it'll be totally unconventional, focusing on his far-out religious experience (which was well interpreted by Robert Crumb years ago) and less on the more depressing parts of his life (like his failed marriages and various addictions). Until that happens, chances are every now and then an unusually clever sci-fi movie will come out that's based on (or at least rips off) something by Philip K. Dick, an author the general population knows nothing about. It's a sad fate indeed, but at least practically all of Dick's novels are back in print (including his non-sci-fi works), which means it's that much easier to discover his work.

How can you have any pudding if you doint eat your meat?

Oh great...now I'm going to have "The Trial" stuck in my head all day. That's just what I need.

Good morning Worm your honor...

No, no, no, no, no, no!

Why must they hurt me so? I survived Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, for heaven's sake!

\m/ ROCK!!!! \m/

If you've never seen either Gimme Shelter or The Last Waltz, do yourself a favor and hunt 'em down. They do indeed rock (and Gimme Shelter is more than a bit scary at times).

What the hell is a "quadrilogy"?

I'm very tempted to pick this up, but I think I'll pass for the time being. Having successfully kept myself from buying any games for the past three weeks (which is a lot harder than it sounds -- this is when 90% of the big releases come out) I think I can wait to buy this as well. I've already skipped the Indiana Jones and Looney Toons box sets (okay, those were hard) and am passing on the X-Men collection as well, so one more shouldn't hurt.

Truth be told, I'd probably have bought all of those if it weren't for the fact that Paramount's dead set on releasing the entire Deep Space Nine series before the end of the year. Season six just shipped, and season seven follows next month, and these happen to be pretty expensive for TV on DVD sets (much more than Fox's, which I find to be a bit annoying). Plus I've got the next Babylon 5 set a few months away, and you can understand how these things add up. But no matter: it's just one more thing for the good ol' Amazon Wish List, which is already larger this year than I think it's ever been.

Scary movies.

I can't say I really think the pink elephants scene from Dumbo belongs on the list, but it was nice to see them mention Return of the Living Dead, which is an oft-overlooked movie because of the fact that it's half parody, half horror movie. Other clever picks include the Large Marge scene from Pee Wee's Big Adventure (which I must admit, really did scare me the first time I saw it) and the eyeball scenes from Zombie and Un Chien Andalou. There's just something about eyeball piercing that's horrifying on a gut level.

Totally absent from this list (probably for good reason) is a movie that absolutely scared the crap out of me when I was a kid...Superman III. Yes, Superman III, the one that featured Richard Pryor and Robert Vaughn, and was more comedy-laden than any of the other Christopher Reeve Superman movies (well, except for Superman IV, but that was unintentional). Superman III is a very silly movie, but at the end, there's a scene where Vera Webster (played by Annie Ross) is absorbed by the giant evil supercomputer and turned into a robot. Looking back on it, it's not a very scary, or graphic scene...but for some reason as a kid this horrified me. Even as an adult, that residual fear stays with me as I watch the movie. When the scene finally arrives, it's not scary in the slightest. But the childhood memory of that fear has its own affect.

I'm sure everyone has one or two movies like this. I know there are people who found E.T. to be scary as all hell when they were younger, and I'm sure there are people who haven't gotten over the trauma of seeing Optimus Prime get gunned down in Transformers: The Movie.

I'm probably going to watch a movie this evening, and I haven't decided if I'm going to watch a traditionally scary movie or Superman III. In the end, which is scarier? A movie I know was made to scare me, or a film that unintentionally permeated my childhood nightmares?

Ahem.

Does that say what I think it does?

Set aside what it says about Hollywood that today even Disney thinks what the public needs is ever-more-graphic depictions of killing the innocent as cool amusement. Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice. But history is hardly the only concern. Films made in Hollywood are now shown all over the world, to audiences that may not understand the dialogue or even look at the subtitles, but can't possibly miss the message--now Disney's message--that hearing the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express yourself.

Catwoman scares me.

This costume doesn't even look good for what they're trying to do! By comparison, the neoprene suit Michelle Pfeiffer wore in Batman Returns is a stunning bit of design work. That one at least conveyed a real sexiness. This one looks like an S&M Halloween costume bought at Rite Aid that was mauled by a tiger. No offense to Ms. Berry, but she's going to look absolutely ridiculous in this getup. For her sake I really hope Sharon Stone has an even sillier costume in her role as the evil she-bitch bad person.

Is CGI killing cinema?

Right on, man. Thank god we have people like Tarantino spending huge amounts of money on big-budget kung fu movies, because that's going to be the antidote to big-budget CGI films. I don't mind if someone wants to trash CGI movies, but at least let it be someone whose latest project isn't so bloated that it it needs to be split into two movies. You want to know what's the antidote to big budget CGI movies? It's playing at theaters right now.

Boo!

There aren't many truly scary movies out there. Some movies do dread really, really well (George Romero's zombie flicks are probably the best examples of this) but not too many movies are capable of totally freaking me out. On the short list of films that have actually managed to scare me over the years are movies like Halloween, The Exorcist, The Shining, The Blair Witch Project and The Thing. (Jeez, what's with all the "the"s in there?). But probably the single scariest movie I've ever seen is, has always been, and probably always will be The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is more than just a horror movie. It's a deeply disturbing film of unabashed terror. And I love it for that. Of course, this means I can only watch the thing once ever few years at most, but it's a real masterwork of horror cinema.

Incredibly, the trailer for the upcoming remake doesn't look bad at all. But this is one of those remakes that I feel is totally pointless, as the original has not aged at all and is still every bit as scary as it ever was. One interesting thing about the remake is that it's not longer billed as being "a true story" but rather "inspired by true events." Those events of course being the real story of murderer Ed Gein, who also inspired Psycho and the killer in The Silence of the Lambs. The reason for the "true story" label on the original is that the idea is that what you are watching is meant to feel like a true story. That is to say, it has a distinct documentary feel to it, so that the events are actually taking place as you watch them. But hey, if this new one can actually manage to turn out to be moderately scary despite the presence of actors like R. Lee Ermey and Jessical Biel, I'll certainly give it a fair shot. But I doubt it'll eclipse the original. Not by a long shot.

Disney's crimes against animation.

Pixar's movies make tons of money because they're great movies, not because of the style of their animation. Pixar themselves has always admitted this from day one! Their movies go through intense screenwriting revisions before full-scale animation gets underway, and then it's continually revised as they go along. The people at Pixar make great movies. The animation (good as it may be) comes second.

The erosion of 2D animation in cinema is a crime against filmgoers. 3D is good, yes. But it's a style, and nothing more, and shouldn't be looked at as being the future of animation in cinema. In the article linked above, it's mentioned that Michael Eisner has toyed with the idea of remaking classic Disney movies in CGI. No idea could possibly be more offensive to anyone who appreciates the work of the great Disney animators from the days of Walt. A CGI Snow White would be as offensive as the colorization of black and white movies during the 80's, if not more so.

I really hope all of this is cyclical. It would only take one huge, Lion King size success to turn this whole thing around. The only problem is where is it going to come from if the major studios no longer want to make 2D animated movies?

A Passion Play

Here are their specific points of concern, from that press release:

• The film portrays Jewish authorities and the Jewish "mob" as forcing the decision to torture and execute Jesus, thus assuming responsibility for the crucifixion.
• The film relies on sinister medieval stereotypes, portraying Jews as blood-thirsty, sadistic and money-hungry enemies of God who lack compassion and humanity.
•  The film relies on historical errors, chief among them its depiction of the Jewish high priest controlling Pontius Pilate.
•  The film uses an anti-Jewish account of a 19th century mystical anti-Semitic nun, distorts New Testament interpretation by selectively citing passages to weave a narrative that oversimplifies history, and is hostile to Jews and Judaism.
•  The film portrays Jews who adhere to their Jewish faith as enemies of God and the locus of evil.

Now I'm as liberal as they come...I believe in total free speech and Mel Gibson has the right to make a movie about anything he wants. If he decided to make a pro-Nazi film, that's his right. But there is a real danger here, and one that needs to be addressed openly. The Catholic church long absolved Jews of any crime of deicide, but Gibson is a member of a church that splintered off from mainstream Catholicism, and therefore his church doesn't necessarily accept that. What I think needs to be done here is to show an interfaith discussion of these issues. If the only ones speaking out on this are Jewish, it'll look like we're the only ones with a problem with this, and that is very much not the case, as leaders from a cross-section of religions have all expressed their concern. If you're still not sure of the danger, read this and this at the ADL's web site, as they provide some important historical background.

You must remember this...

We were sitting in the fourth row, which was close, but not so close as to force you to look straight up at the screen. The layout of Alice Tully hall is really ideal for a movie like this, as there's always a gap between the first row and the screen anyway, so that wouldn't have been too much of a problem even if we were all the way up front.

But regardless, the movie was spectacular. I've seen Casablanca more times than I can possibly relate, but never on the big screen, and this was a simply stunning restored print. And being close just made the experience even more larger than life than usual. There really is a difference between seeing a movie on DVD at home and in a theater like this, and it was as close to a perfect cinematic experience as I've ever encountered.

One thing that I did notice, since the last few times I've seen the film have been on DVD, was the difference between good ol' film and a digital format. Especially with a film like this, film really is a better medium. I've sort of been on the fence about this issue, since I love DVD, and I see the advantages to switching to a digital format. But seeing Casablanca last night swayed me completely to the film side. For something like Toy Story or Shrek I completely understand how digital is an advantage, but for everything else, I'm convinced celluloid will always be superior, or at least, it will be for the foreseeable future.

Oh, and the celebrity stalker in me couldn't help but stare in amazement as the one and only Lauren Bacall made her entrance. She didn't get on stage, but she was in the audience, and she even though her age is catching up to her, she still looks pretty darn good. As for why she didn't get up on stage, I imagine she's probably sick of everyone asking her to teach them how to whistle (as she's been saying for the last 60 years, "you just put your lips together and blow").

The Ubiquitous Phil LaMarr

While he's probably best known for being the guy who got his brains splattered in Pulp Fiction or his work on Mad TV, he's actually been doing an insane amount of voiceover work in the last few years. He's the voice of Green Lantern on the Justice League show, the voice of Static Shock, he's Samurai Jack, he's the voice of Hermes, the rastafarian accountant on Futurama ("tally me banana!"), he played a couple of characters on Family Guy, he was a deluded warrior in The Animatrix, and he did an admirable job of not laughing out loud at the dumbass dialogue he was forced to spout in Metal Gear Solid 2. And that's just my quick list...check out this much larger one at the Voice Actor Page...the guy was on Mr. T and the T Force, for god's sake!

Clearly the guy is a talented voiceover actor. I mean, he had to say "La-li-lu-le-lo" repeatedly without laughing, and he worked alongside Mr. T. Who knew the guy who cowered and splattered in Pulp Fiction was capable of so much?

More polygons, less cleavage.

Review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The biggest problem with the movie is a fundamental one: they tried to make it into a mass-market property, which it's not. Kids will be turned off by the fact that they've never heard of these characters, and adults won't be thrilled at the fact that the edge has been taken away.

But that's not the only problem here, not by a long shot. The two additions to the team, Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray, are pointless and disappointing respectively. Sawyer is there for absolutely no reason whatsoever. And not only that, but they don't even attempt to give him a reason for being there. He just shows up, says he's from the CIA, and that's the end of it. There isn't a single reference to anything from his past. And how could there be? He's Tom freaking' Sawyer for god's sake...he has no reason for being there!

Continue reading "Review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"

Yeah, I rule.

Of course, my newfound coolness hasn't done much for my legendary lack of common sense. Despite Ebert's urging to the contrary, I'm probably going to go see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen tonight. Why? Because I'm a glutton for punishment, and part of me really, really, really wants to believe the movie doesn't suck. Even though I'm pretty sure it will.

The problem with Netflix

Case in point: I just spent far too long trying to find Die Another Day so I could add it to my queue. If you know the name of the movie you're looking for it's quite easy, but in this case I was drawing a blank, since let's face it -- all those Bond names run together after a while. So I did a search for "007" and came up with squat. Same with "Bond". So I figured I'd check their "Netflix 100" list of most rented movies, and it was nowhere to be found, as apparently they only refresh this list twice a month. Eventually I found what I was looking for by consulting the IMDB, which pulls up the last few Bond flicks when using "bond" as a search term. You have to wonder what kind of database Netflix is running that a simple "most popular titles" list can only be rendered semi-monthly.

But I have other problems with their site as well...their "collections" lists that are supposed to provide movie suggestions based on single themes, often have a totally random collection of movies. Take their "70's Cinema" list for example. Now, when I hear that I expect to see movies from major directors of the era, like Coppola, Scorscese, Altman and so on. And there are some of those movies in there. But there's also stuff like Logan's Run and Piranha, which may have been released in the 70's, but really shouldn't be on that list. Or at least, if you are going to put them on the list, remember to put The Godfather in there as well. Having Frogs but no Godfather is a serious oversight.

Of course, I complain about these things, but considering how lousy the alternative is, I won't be dropping Netflix any time soon.

The Matrix Unloaded

Speaking of The Matrix, on a whim last week I went and saw The Matrix Reloaded. While I certainly enjoyed myself (there are worse ways to spend an afternoon), I remain an outsider to the whole Matrix fan base. This sequel had more of what I liked from the first movie (great action sequences and special effects), but sadly it also had a lot more of what I didn't like (terrible dialogue and unlikable characters). And like the first movie, I found pretty much every moment that didn't take place within the matrix to be a big bore. When the characters shut the hell up and started pummeling on each other, I thought it was a decent movie. But when they started talking, or standing around in a poorly lit room with sunglasses on just for the sake of looking cool (you can't see! What's wrong with you people! It was like an entire cast of Bonos!) I found myself wishing for a fast forward button.

But it wasn't a terrible movie. Not particularly good, but I think I liked this one more than the first. If nothing else, this one has the lovely Monica Bellucci, who doesn't do a whole lot more than stand there and look pretty -- but at least she's in there to shine some light on the movie.

Movies made while you wait.

The movie itself, as its official site pretty much makes clear, really doesn't offer anything more than that. Like a studio version of Girls Gone Wild, this movie, from the people who brought you MTV's The Real World, follows a bunch of young, sexy college students as they get liquored up and party on Spring Break. But what I found surprising, and didn't know until I read this article from Time Magazine, is that this movie is about this year's spring break, not last year's. Which means it wasn't just shot recently, it was shot and edited in a month. Good gravy! ("Thanks, it's just brown and water.")

I can't say any reality show to date has appealed to me, and this movie certainly doesn't. And of course, this thing ain't winning any Oscars (unlike another recent documentary) but to be shot, edited and released in a month, is pretty damn impressive. Hopefully this won't start a new flood of super-rushed movies. Can you imagine what it would be like if the average production time for a movie was six weeks? On the other hand, improv-movies don't have to suck, but then the director's usually given plenty of time to edit it together. Apparently Christopher Guest whittled A Mighty Wind down to 87 minutes from 50 to 80 hours of original footage. Just imagine what he would have done if he only had a month to do that. My guess is it would be twelve hours long and harder to sit through than the director's cut of Gods and Generals will be when it's released (supposedly that's going to be as much as six hours long, which is excruciating since the movie's not supposed to be very good in the first place).

But I guess the final word on this movie comes from AICN's Harry Knowles, who says in his review of the flick that it's a "limp flaccid covered cock of a movie." Now that I respect.

The Trailer Report: 4/03

Underworld: This is a really poorly made trailer, but the movie looks quite cool nonetheless. It's clearly influenced by recent action flicks like Blade II, but there's nothing wrong with that (I for one really enjoyed Blade II). But it's still a crappy trailer. What saves it is the pretty clever concept of the movie (it's Romeo & Juliet with vampires and werewolves) and of course Kate Beckinsdale running around in skintight leather. You can't go wrong there.

The Matrix Reloaded: I just can't get excited about this movie. I didn't like the first one, and this looks like more of the same. Like the original, I'm sure it will be cool visually, but I'm also sure it'll be loaded with the same lame story and characters, with serious overacting from the talented people involved. Great quality on the trailer though. I wish everyone released them like this.

Timeline: This is one of those trailers that's terribly encoded, and sounds like it's being played from inside a fishbowl. That said, it doesn't look half bad. The book was great (or at least a lot of fun), and Richard Donner's a solid action director, so I have high hopes for this one.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: I didn't even bother downloading this one at first because, well...it's based on a freaking ride at Disney World! But nonetheless, I was persuaded by some of the other things I've read about it online, and I'll be damned if it doesn't look like a fun movie. It's got a decent cast, and while I certainly won't see this while it's in theaters, or probably even bother renting it, it looks enjoyable enough that I might TiVo it some day.

New Suit: I'd never heard of this movie when I downloaded the trailer, but it looks remarkably fun. It's "The Emperor's New Clothes" told in Hollywood, and its premise is outlandish enough to actually happen. There's a good cast here, which features Heather Donahue from The Blair Witch Project (and more recently Taken) as well as Dan Hedaya who's always fun (when he's not in total caricature mode, that is).

The Italian Job: There's not a whole lot here I haven't seen a dozen times before, but this looks like a good time nonetheless, thanks to a great cast that includes Donald Sutherland, Edward Norton and Charlize Theron.

So that's it for now. There's a ton more sitting on my hard drive, of course, but that's a good chunk of the notable ones. If you're like me and want to keep on top of these things, visit Movie List daily.

Oh dear lord, no!

J.Lo And Ben To Play It Again

Hollywood couple J.Lo and Ben Affleck have secured a deal to remake the classic movie Casablanca, according to reports.The pair are said to be delighted with the multi-million pound deal and are now in talks wirth American producers.The original film was a hit in 1942 starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

Star Trek, Michael Moore and 9/11

For those who want More, Moore, More, Entertainment Weekly has an interesting Q&A with the director of Bowling for Columbine. He talks about his controversial Oscar speech, along with his plans for the future. Apparently his next project is tentatively titled Fahrenheit 9/11, and deals with the Bush administration's actions after 9/11. Sounds like fun to me.

More Oscar Thoughts

I'll get to my thoughts in a minute, but first let me fully debunk 8BJ's claims. Previous violent films to be recognized by the Academy include Platoon (1987), The Godfather I & II (that'd be 1973 and 1975 respectively), Braveheart (1996), and The Deer Hunter (1979). What Jake seems to be unwilling to accept is that Gangs of New York was neither a popular movie, nor was it a particularly well-liked movie both in and out of Hollywood. And that means a whole lot more than how violent it is.

But that aside, I've been trying to come up with my own theory for why Polanksi won, and I'm coming up pretty short. As best as I can guess, there was backlash suffered from the over campaigning for Scorsese and Chicago by Miramax and Harvey Weinstein, which led to many voters moving on to the next on their list. Or simply that people were so divided between those two, that the votes were split completely, allowing for a small lead to put Polanski over the top. But honestly, I haven't a clue why he won. Personally, I think it's great. He deserved it for Rosemary's Baby, he more than deserved it for Chinatown, and among the other nominees, he deserved it this year as well. Good for him.

One last fun bit of Oscar trivia...this article at MSN Entertainment (spotted on OscarWatch) points out that Spider-Man's Kevin O'Connell broke the record for most Oscar losses, having missed out on his 16th award when he lost the sound category to Chicago. Keep at it, Kevin! If Randy Newman can win eventually, I'm sure you will too.

Here we go...

We're only a few hours (okay, like nine) away from the Oscars...yee haw! If anyone's interested in a printable ballot, you can feel free to use the one I threw together for my father and I. Although be warned, it only has the categories we're betting on, so stuff like makeup, sound and sound editing aren't on there.

Heather's out of town again, which is probably a good thing, since she goes to sleep early, and the Oscars always run late. This way I can be as loud as I like, especially when the phone starts ringing in between awards.

Between now and game time I have some minor things to do, including looking at an apartment, but mostly I think I'm going to sit here and try my best not to run out and buy a Game Boy Advance SP.

Let the games begin!

Best picture: Chicago
Best director: Rob Marshall (Chicago)
Best Animated feature: Spirited Away
Best actor: Daniel Day-Lewis (Gangs of New York)
Best actress: Renee Zellweger (Chicago)
Best foreign language film: Nowhere in Africa
Best supporting actor: Chris Cooper (Adaptation)
Best supporting actress: Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago)
Best documentary feature: Bowling for Columbine
Best original screenplay: Talk to Her
Best adapted screenplay The Hours
Best original score: The Hours
Best film editing: Chicago
Best cinematography: Road to Perdition
Best song: I Move On (Chicago)
Best costume design: Chicago
Best art/set direction: Gangs of New York

Finally, some good news.

Oscar picks soon. Stay tuned.

The final stretch...

As promised, my picks will run in an article on Shacknews tomorrow. Once that's online, I'll post a list of them here, and of course on Sunday I'll provide a post-game wrap-up here.

My bet aside, I am confident in my picks this year. With Chicago we have an honest-to-goodness Oscar movie, and I'm choosing it for a handful of major awards (but not all).

Save the original trilogy!

Movies, movies, movies.

On Friday I had a chance to watch Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, the absolutely spectacular documentary that's running this month on Trio about the great movies and wild scene of the 70's. If you get Trio (and it's entirely possible you do but never noticed it before) do yourself a favor and tape, TiVo or watch this thing live. It's just amazing how many people they spoke with for this thing, and there's a lot of great info about the last real golden age of cinema.

As for current movies, I've made my preliminary Oscar picks, and expect to publish the final ones on Wednesday night. This year's definitely going to be a challenge, but it's no harder than last year was, and in fact it might even be a little easier (if only slightly). At my Father's request, I've dropped a few categories from our ballot, but I think I'm going to lobby to get 'em back in. Having three extra categories, especially obscure ones, can always tip things in my favor, and I have a sneaking suspicion that we're going to be really close again this year (damn him for doing research! This used to be so much easier!).

Preach on, Harry.

I've said pretty much all I need to say on this matter, but the fact is that Superman means something to a lot of people, and the more dissenting voices the better.

I tip my hat to AiCN for a well-reasoned argument. Just be warned, that same maturity can't be said for the site's anarchic comments.

I want to believe.

Why do I mention all of this? Because every bit of news I read about the upcoming Superman movie simply fills me with disgust. While supposedly the current script is better than this abysmal early draft, this latest bit of casting news hasn't done a whole lot to inspire any confidence in me. I like Alias as much as the next guy, but frankly I'd be perfectly happy if J.J. Abrams would just stay the hell away from Superman.

The fact that it's being planned as a trilogy suggests the kind of epic hubris that brought us Batman & Robin, and I would really rather not see Superman's triumphant return to the big screen be rushed so Warner Bros. can cash in on the current superhero frenzy caused by the decent adaptations of Marvel's major characters.

I saw Daredevil last weekend, and while it wasn't exactly high art by any means, it was entertaining, and unlike any recent attempts at adapting DC heroes into movies, was clearly done with respect and admiration for the source material. I don't want the new Superman movie to fail...I think there should be at least one new movie every ten years...but I'd rather not see one than have something that's going to milk the franchise or something potentially disastrous like the Superman vs. Batman movie that was proposed.

Was Gollum snubbed?

While the acting categories are never the most progressive, there have certainly been a handful of flukes, like Anna Paquin's stunned acceptance of her award, or the unusually insightful choice of giving an award to Kim Basinger for her decidedly non-flashy role in L.A. Confidential. But as nice and groundbreaking as it would have been for Serkis to get a nomination, it's hampered by two major problems.

The first, and I hate to say this to those hardcore fans out there, is that it simply wasn't that good of a performance to begin with. Yeah, it was good, and compared to Jar Jar it was practically Hamlet, but was he really that good? I think the underlying acting was better than the CGI exaggerations, but that's part of the performance too, and you can't simply ignore that.

Which raises the second problem: who do you nominate? Andy Serkis may have been "the guy in the suit," as that article points out, but unlike John Hurt in The Elephant Man, there was a great deal of external work that went into it, which the actor had nothing to do with. When you talk about great performances, you have to appreciate the subtle nuances, and the little ticks in expression. Serkis had none of that, because it was all put in by the animators. So even if Gollum was determined to be an Oscar-worthy performance, not only would Serkis be nominated, but so too would every animator who worked to bring that performance to life. And considering how many people worked on that movie...you can see how complicated that would be.

Acting and animating are very similar, yes. But unless there is only one person involved, it no longer qualifies as pure acting, and crosses over into pure animation. In my mind, for a "synthespian" to be nominated in an acting category would require one of two things: either the performance was 100% created by the digital actor via super-sophisticated AI, or the acting was performed entirely by the actor in the motion capture suit, and what we see on the screen is merely the exact same performance only with a different skin. I'm not saying that either one of those won't happen in the future, but it's a little early to start working on those acceptance speeches.

Not so fast there, Roman...

Of course, I guess they're not counting Bob Dylan who accepted his award via satellite back in 2001, since he already was hooked up to a satellite feed for a performance of the song that eventually won the Oscar that evening.

I don't defend Polanski's actions, either the original crime he committed or the fact that he fled the country (which, given that it was consensual sex is the worse of the two crimes, if you ask me) but if he manages to finally win an Oscar I'd like to see some kind of acceptance speech, if only because of how personal a movie The Pianist was for him.

TiVo update: it hasn't locked up on me again since my last post (phew) but I have had some playback glitches...I'm definitely not out of the woods yet.

Oscar Nominations

This has actually gotten more stressful in the last few years, since I have published my picks annually (first at Blue's News and last year at Shacknews). This year will be no different, and I'll probably be putting them up at the Shack, otherwise they'll be here (or most likely both).

Also not helping is the fact that my father has discovered the value of serious research in picking the winners. Previously he based his choices on gut instinct or personal opinion, which resulted in my beating him outright virtually every time. In the 10+ years that we've been doing this I've only lost once, and I've tied once, putting a great deal of pressure on me to keep up my winning streak.

But it's been getting harder with each year. A few years ago when Titanic was the big movie, everything was simple. And two years ago when American Beauty was the front runner, I successfully predicted every one of the major categories (and almost had a full set for every one...I went against my instinct and bet on American Beauty for editing over The Matrix...a poor decision indeed). Last year was really touch-and-go there for a bit...thankfully I went out on a limb by picking Halle Berry, but that was really a last-minute choice. Without that I would have tied again.

So what do I think of this year's lineup? It's a bit too early to make any predictions, but based on my thoughts on the movies nominated, I'd say it's a good batch. It's nice to see The Pianist nominated for so many categories, although we won't know how good a shot it has until after the guild awards come out. I was thrilled to see Philip Glass nominated for original score (for The Hours), and it's nice to see Conrad L. Hall and Paul Neuman on the list for Road to Perdition (for Cinematography and Supporting Actor respectively). The biggest surprise is of course Michael Moore's nomination for Bowling for Columbine in the Documentary category. Seeing it nominated for a Writer's Guild Award was pretty strange, but this was even more surprising, given the Academy's previous habit of skipping all but the stuffiest documentaries (previous movies to be skipped include Crumb, Hoop Dreams and Moore's own Roger & Me).

But again, it's too early to make any real predictions. In the coming weeks I'll be doing just that, so stick around and I'll go through the list with a fine-toothed comb.