Some Vaguely Interesting (But Not Really) Spider-Man 3 Screenshots

http://media.movies.ign.com/media/041/041073/imgs_1.html

I guess this is their "bullet in the eye"?

So Many Mexicans: An Oscar Story

Oscar Nominations
Not good enough for Best Picture apparently, Pan's Labyrinth (the all-time best movie I've never seen) has picked up six Oscar nominations just days after breaking the language barrier and successfully expanding into the wider U.S. market. For all the nominations, if you missed them everywhere else and got all sweaty and anxious and stumbled here by chance during your frantic search for answers, click HERE to where IMDB's given them all a very nice layout I could never hope to emulate on a blog page that rarely posts my pictures in the right place and makes gigantic gaps between paragraphs that make me spend up to four whole minutes correcting them everytime I post.

As you can see, the nominations are largely as was expected. Of course, there's always something (or usually many things) worth griping about, and I'll pick Borat's nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Okay, it was a funny movie, and that constitutes creative comedic writing. But COME ON. There wasn't even a proper script for the whole movie, probably just a "plan of attack" in terms of narrative and I doubt scripting exceeded funny ways of questioning participants and, later, voice-over (something which should never alone constitute Oscar-calibre writing no matter how clever or funny). Alas, it was Borat's only nomination, so perhaps they simply wanted to not snub it entirely for fear of getting shat on by the press, as would have been inevitable. In fact, forget "perhaps", I'm willing to bet that's EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. Because the Academy does this every year to some poor movie, throwing in a sympathy vote while not really wanting it to win a damn thing out of fear of... whatever. Last year they had to go a step further and give Brokeback several nominations and even the sympathy Director win (which it deserved anyway) just to make it seem like they were being fair in snubbing it for Best Picture. Everyone watching knew what they'd done, they just couldn't prove it.

So sure it happens all the time, it's just that this Borat case seems to have exposed many Academy members as apparently not knowing what a screenplay is. Odd really. But given Poseidon made it to the big screen, not entirely surprising.

As Before
An unoriginal topic (already covered last week), but worth mentioning twice because this goes beyond discussing just the quality of the show. Basically, Heroes is killing me. I'll get to that in a minute.

First of all I'll ask: how the hell is ths such a popular hit over in the States? It's not that I can't see why people would watch it, which may seem to contradict my previous sentence, but rather the show is, if Monday's episode is anything to go by, moving at the pace of a snail. You know Lost last year? How nothing ever actually happened? Okay, well Lost progressed more in a single second-season flashback than Heroes has in its first three episodes so far, and the most recent episode was, in that respect, completely ridiculous. Oh, and only 39 minutes long, which may have contributed (ever so slightly). But yeah, at the moment it's all just a bunch of disconnected threads waiting way too long to get tied together (which will obviously happen eventually to some degree) meaning we get maybe six or seven minutes of each character's story per episode. And meaning nothing happens unless they force it in ridiculous ways. And boy oh boy do they force it in ridiculous ways. Just because someone can survive absolutely anything, doesn't mean they'd die every fucking day under normal circumstances. For fuck's sake. Claire, who possesses this power, has (in the space of three episodes) head her entire neck twisted around when accidentally hit by a football tackle (uh-huh), and has now had her neck impaled on a spike during a sex attack by a character who made no sense and made one of the shallowest, most stereotypical turns to evil-doer in TV history. What was I saying? Oh yeah: why is show so popular? Well we've established that nothing happens, there are nearly more ads than minutes of show, we barely spend enough time with characters to learn their names and that the show finds ridiculous means to force things to happen to make otherwise dull story threads interesting. What I don't understand is why millions of people have been happy to wait week after week for more of this. But they have. Last night in the States 24 barely beat it in the ratings. And in 24 shit happens all the time. 24 should be Bauer-ing Heroes.

Sound like a show-quality rant? Well it is and it isn't. My question about why the hell so many damn people have to be watching Heroes stems from my frustration at having millions of people see, and subconsciously commit to memory, a plot device I came up with two years ago (when it was original and innovative) which is getting butchered in the interests of shallow Hollywood entertainment. I've often mentioned, here and around, that man-in-a-bear-costume movie I want to make someday. You know, the one that I told you about while you stood there nodding and smiling and thinking to yourself Yeah, good luck with that, or maybe I hope this nutter hasn't got a knife. I'm well aware I'm the only person in the world who thinks this can be a good movie, and that's enough support for me. But anyway, in Heroes the Japanese guy (whose character and story are the only decent parts of the show so far) finds a comic book in the first two episodes (I forget which, they were played back-to-back here) which shows him himself and what's going to happen to him. When the comic book was introduced I was hoping that was it. It didn't seem to have too big a place in the show beyond making the guy want to contact the comic's author and, yes, I thought that was it. Never to be seen again. I'll explain why that left me relieved in a second. But then this third episode aired and took it further. He saw something in the comic book: a girl getting hit by a truck. And he used the book to find the location, find the girl and save the day. Pretty cool plot device.

Yeah, well I've had basically the same thing happen in the first act of the bear movie since April 2005. Main character, we'll call him Bear for now, is a bear wandering the streets of a big city and who essentially (eventually) amounts to a superhero. He stumbles upon a poster in the window of a comic book store. The poster depicts a superhero: a bear in a big city, like him, only our Bear isn't a hero just yet. He goes inside, buys the comic and in the early hours of the next morning is reading a page in which a man walking by on his cellphone gets into an argument with a lady screaming at him from an apartment window several floors up. Then THIS EXACT THING HAPPENS in front of Bear in real life. Next in the comic book: a young woman is followed at a distance by a man in a car, just across the road from the argument moments earlier. In the comic book, the superhero bear character tails them and finds the woman being attacked in an alleyway around the corner, and he steps in to heroically save the day. Bear then looks up from the comic and sees the woman and the car, sure enough, just across the street, and doesn't hesitate in tailing them, convinced that she's in trouble as depicted in the thus-far believable comic book. He find the woman and the man in the alleyway and saves the day. Thus, a hero is born. Of course there's a little more to it than that, and it plays out much less damsel-in-distress-ish than it sounds. You need to understand these events in the context of the character at that point - it's not as shallow, straightforward and simple as I described it, but the other details are beside the point for now. On top of that, the comic book device also forms both a symbolic and physical link to that other film I blogged about a couple of weeks back, Paris. It wasn't just something that happened that could be replaced if someone else did it in the meantime. It was a crucial element. And now the intrigue that goes with seeing such a device play out for the first time, drawing the audience into what amounts to the film's inciting incident, has been royally fucked in the ass by having Heroes expose millions of people to such a plot device already. I'm not saying millions of people would ever see my bear movie, just that enough will have seen Heroes such that my use of the device will be labelled as a rip-off. I can handle coming up with something that I think is original and interesting and then finding out someone else did it forty years ago. Wasn't so original afterall perhaps. But to come up with something, search the net and find no trace of it having been done anywhere, and then have some hack making a shit show, but nonetheless in a position to actually execute the ideas he has, use the same thing a year later in an emphatic wasting of potential is, yes, somewhat frustrating.

Fortunately, Heroes is walking in all the right directions right now toward setting itself up for homage. The main themes of my film, which admittedly took 18 months to figure out and meant the film was for a long while written on instinct, put it in a perfect position such that the comic thing can act, for anyone who's seen the show, as an homage to Heroes to in turn further the themes its trying to explore through contrast. Or something. But I think it can be done. So that way people don't look at the comic device and say "thief" but rather wonder what point's trying to be made. Of course, I'd rather I didn't have to do that and had people think I'd come up with something original and innovative, but it's not an awful second prize I suppose. Maybe. I'll sob for a couple more days and then get over it.

Lemontree
Been down to Murvale Reserve on Monday and had a quick look around the Macleans fields yesterday to figure out how I'm shooting my "forest scene," and I think that while I might need to rely a little on coverage at times just in case, I can probably shoot most of the shots I had planned, which is awesome. So enough worrying about a movie that's years off if I even get to it at all, the news is all good so far for a current, relevant project at least. So far. I won't breathe a sigh of relief yet until certain casting-related things are sorted out. No pressure. Ahem.

A Rare Proper-ish Review, Littered With Crash Comparisons

Babel: A Really Good Film In There Somewhere
Babel is the movie Crash wanted to be, and which Paul Haggis (who I maintain contributed the last half-hour of Casino Royale only) could never write. But while its a more insightful and (no-shit) more subtle film than last year's winner of "Best Picture" at the Oscars and "Most Overrated" the second it was labelled "great" by anyone anywhere, and is helmed by a director who at least has somewhat of an idea of how to handle its subject matter, it has its problems.

I guess the whole web of life thing is getting real old real fast as it becomes a more frequently used device for filmmakers to try to "open our eyes," or perhaps damn us all, in the hope that by giving us a broad enough scope we might see "real life" in there somewhere and find the film important and relatable to the world around us. And it's a shame that Babel furthered that feeling for me when it was one less storyline away from nailing the approach. Magnolia nails it. Crash is at the other end of the spectrum, where the director thinks his audience will buy any number of coincidences and contrivances and eat up any message so long as its force-fed with a flavour-masking dollup of obviousness and a glass of bullshit to wash it all down.

Brad Pitt's Oscar clip

Babel's four storylines begin as follows. (1) An American couple holidaying in Morocco: wife is shot while riding a tour bus. A stray bullet? The work of bandits? Terrorists? They're too far from anyone that can really help so they stop off at some shit-hole third world village and Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt cry a lot. (2) A Moroccan family living out in the middle of nowhere, apparently, with some sheep or goats something. The kids are given a gun to shoot predators, and while playing around with it and testing its range, shoot at a car, and then a tour bus. Oooohhhhh. They hit someone. Who we later find out (but guess immediately anyway) is Cate Blanchett. I didn't ruin it. It's obvious, and it's close to the start. Plus if you've seen a trailer or TV spot you knew already. (3) Back at home, Blanchett/Pitt's kids are with their Mexican nanny. The nanny can't go to her son's wedding because she has to look after the kids. She goes anyway. Obviously, something will therefore go wrong and she will be found out, its just a matter of how much Haggis they throw at us along the way. (4) A deaf Japanese girl finds herself constantly rejected by those around her, and seeks attention.

Inarritu said (according to the booklet thing at the Rialto) that he began filming Babel as a film exploring the barriers between human beings but, through constant rewriting as filming progressed and as the locations they were shooting in continued to open his own eyes to the world around him, became a film about the things which bring us together. Like Crash, cultural barriers are certainly a key focus, but its not simply "everyone's a racist at heart." The Western tourists eager to flee the middle-of-nowhere Moroccon town and leave the wounded Blanchett and her husband to wait for help that may not even be coming are perfectly realistic characters driven by realistic motivations - fearing their surroundings, particularly if the shooting was a deliberate targetted attack, you can't really look at these people and judge them. They're fearful of this landscape. And why wouldn't they be: the first thing the public hears of the shooting is that the Americans are calling it a possible terrorist attack. Possible, sure, but only in the sense that anything's possible. The work of a bullet fired by a couple of kids on the edge of their farmlands, remember. But they have to mention "terrorism" as a possibility. That's the world we live in now, with the Western media's (outside perhaps the BBC) tendency to sensationalise (and American government and military's tendency to over-react) no doubt contributing to the divide between the Western world and the third-world as it becames a more foreign and fearful place. Inarritu draws attention to this; America's trigger-happy public assessment of a situation they as yet know nothing about is met with a cold reception from the Moroccan government, claiming to have largely eradicated terrorist cells in the country, frustrated no doubt to be simply thrown into the mix as another dangerous third-world country particularly given the inevitable damage to their image and, consequently, tourism industry. This political locking of horns sees Blanchett's shooting become a worldwide news event before help has even arrived. And that help's been held-up now too; the American helicopter's not getting clearence from the Moroccans because of the debacle. So yeah, she's lying there, bleeding away, while the Americans do their "rabble, rabble!" South Park thing. And I was sitting there thinking: that's so true.

But this movie isn't simply politically motivated. Like I say, there is a broader theme here and the Blanchett/Pitt story is just one angle from which it's approached.

The Japanese story seems quite far-removed at first, and indeed while many may look at this thread and ask "what's the point?" or "how does this connect", I would argue that this is part of the point. The story is connected in a way that could be looked at as almost being Crash-ridiculous; the gun used to shoot Blanchett and Pitt was sold to the boys' father by a guy who received it as a gift from a Japanese hunter he guided several years earlier. And yeah, that Japanese hunter is the father of the deaf girl who stars in the Japanese story. How dare this movie use a silly string of events to justify putting this story on screen, you ask? I hope you didn't, because many people have and they seem to be in the mindset that the connection is ridiculous just because it sounds like it should be. But the connection isn't the point. It's not as if the story at the other end is some other International crisis and that they're connected in such a way would be unlikely and ludicrous. It's Inarritu saying that this is just one of those things happening in some part of the world; this character could be that person connected in that way because that person could be anybody. It's a smaller-scope story, like that of the boys responsible for the shooting in Morocco. I feel the need to emphasise this because I've read the silly-connection criticism everywhere and it's frustratingly moronic.

The Japanese story, one not of cultural clashes but of a girl facing barriers within her own society, eventually emerges as perhaps the strongest element of the film, and is suitably chosen to end the film (in a fairly breathtaking way). As with the story of the boys responsible for the shooting, which as I say is quite straightforward storywise, I won't elaborate too much here because doing so would ruin a few things worth discovering for yourself.

It's not that the film shines throughout. You could pick weak points in any of these stories. But the weakest is undoubtedly the Mexico storyline, the one where the nanny takes the American kids with her to her son's wedding. Now we're fully into Crash territory. It's not simply that the story resembles Crash thematically, which it does (it still does it far better), it's just that now I too have to be critical of the connection here. Shortly after having his wife shot while on holiday, back home Pitt's kids end up involved in a rather eyebrow-raising police chase that seemed a tad what-the-fuck-ish, and soon find themselves wandering dehydrated through the desert, all setting-up for a tragic set of cirucmstances faced by the nanny with the film, in the process, being insightful. You've got to be shitting me. Thing is, I liked what they did with the story; but while the "point" was strong, the means of getting there really let this movie down. It seemed way too contrived that this happened too. But fortunately, I can therefore only label one quarter of this movie as such, whereas with Crash it was the entire thing. And there really are some strong points worth giving credit for too; the use of time for example is superb. We learn of what happens to Blanchett in the days after her shooting not simply by time-lapsing five days but by setting the Japanese story, playing out intercut with the others, five days later. And other stories are set a day or two apart too to provide different perspectives on events also, something the film does effectively.

I said before that this film was a decent pick at the Globes for Best Drama, and I suppose it is - it's far better than Crash, and that won the Oscar. But I should also add that I made that comment within the context of expectation. In other words, for an awards show they could have picked a lot worse. I don't think Babel is brilliant filmmaking. At times it is, certainly, but its one of those flawed films that could undoubtedly have been tighter. The good thing is that if you watch movies a lot (like I do) you let yourself subconciously give films a little bit of room to make mistakes without noticing them too much or letting them hinder your enjoyment - until, that is, said-film crosses the line (like many films do). Well, Babel doesn't really cross that line too often, so I could appreciate it for what it was and it gets a thumbs up from me. Certainly worth your time, unless you're dying of cancer and have like two weeks to live.

Remind Me Not To Bother Next Year

How Irony-y
Just a minute ago, in the process of removing something stuck between my teeth using a toothpick, the end of the toothpick snapped off and became stuck between my teeth.

Heroes, Fugliness & Golden Balls. And By Balls, I Mean Artistic Vision.
Quite an interesting few days on the entertainment front I guess, over here at least. Heroes and Ugly Betty, two of the highest-rating and most acclaimed shows of the 06-07 U.S. television season debuted on NZ screens, followed by the Golden Globes on Tuesday night. Heroes in my mind came off as a disjointed show with good ideas and no idea how to execute them, but I'll give it time to find its feet; afterall, Prison Break initially seemed like a superficial Shawshank knockoff right down to the character types (Hadley=Bellick, Bogs=T-Bag, Brooks Hatlen=Westmoreland) and protagonist-warden relationship, and that show's turned out more than okay. Ugly Betty? Could be decent I guess. Seemed likable, even if the pilot's resolution was as cliched and predictable (as well as somewhat not-at-all-believable) as hell.

More interestingly, the Golden Globes kicked off the major awards season. Did I say more interestingly? Because the dull bastard child of the Oscars and Emmys just got duller. Hampered by overly long speeches from overly uninteresting "Oh wow! Must thank everyone"ers and the lack of a host, the show remained watchable if only due to the large proportion of British Globe-winners, because while the Yanks kept going up and listing every name in the phone book while doing their best not to faint with surprise, it seemed like every British recipient had something amusing to say and wasn't really taking it all that seriously because, you know, the awards are afterall a load of nonsense. Until at least, as Bill Nighy commented with a sly grin, you win one: then they suddenly seem "so real and meaningful."

The worst crimes of the night came in the major categories at the end which were not only rushed because they'd let everyone, mostly Warren Beatty, talk too long, and were consequently reduced to quick anti-climactic buzzkilling roll-calls of nominees, but were also scarred by Oscar-syndrome at times, especially in the Comedy/Musical category where the best four (consensus-wise) were all overlooked in favour of Oscar-bait Dreamgirls (triumphing in its category over the likes of Little Miss Sunshine and Thank You For Smoking because its "that type of movie" and is also the only one currently in cinemas, which no doubt earned it the all-important retirement-home vote by being the only film most aging critics would have remembered). I can live with Babel taking home Drama; I've always thought awarding zero, one or multiple films in any given year makes more sense (and will never happen) because the "best" film in one year is often the 6th best the next year - i.e. there's no quality standard, rendering the award meaningless beyond an intra-annual comparison - but Babel was at least "at that standard" even though many will probably argue The Queen and The Departed, neither of which I've yet seen, are better and should have taken home the globe if only one is up for grabs. But well done to Babel, or something.

At the Globes they inevitably try to stuff too much into one evening, mainly because the Hollywood Foreign Press knows that without the TV-Cinema hybrid hook they'd be exposed for the redundant pre-Oscar prediction ceremony that it really is; as it happens, nobody seems willing to publicly point out that awarding TV shows barely half-way through their seasons is stupid and pointless, and so the show lives on for another year. So with the lettuce already overflowing from between its one-too-many buns, what you don't get then is that all-important, time-consuming ingredient: the host. The Oscars are the Oscars for a lot of reasons, but its with a strong host and presenting line-up that the show usually ends up more worthwhile for the creativity on-stage than for that which the show's celebrating off it. Who can forget Ben Stiller's "green screen" stunt last year? If you missed it, it's worth a look - possibly the best thing to happen to the Oscars in years. Can't find it on YouTube myself.

Yeah, well this year at the Globes he stood there and announced the nominees and looked bored. And strangely old. In fact, only Tom Hanks's "ballsy" Beatty presentation kicked any kind of ass.

Anyways, the good news is that the next lot of major awards will be at the BAFTAs, a show which inevitably kicks all kinds of ass from a variety of continents because it's crawling with British people who, as we have already established, are entertaining by nature. What's more, the BAFTAs award movies for "being good". Yeah, that old philosophy.

"Pirates" Upgrades Its Wardobe Department

Following on from a partial script-leak a few weeks back, the latest cat to escape from POTC3's rather porous bag has come in the form of a batch of character posters showcasing a stylish new look... of sorts. At World's End and Dead Man's Chest were shot together and will probably look very much the same (by comparison it took two years between films plus Joel Schumacher before Batman's infamous nipple-suit arrived on the scene) but this radical departure from the colourful marketing approach of the last two films is at the very least intriguing if it's any indication of what to expect from the film itself.

If You've Seen Casino Royale

Then you'll appreciate the Abridged Script by Rod Hilton.

MADS kidnaps EVA and a car chase ensues.

DANIEL CRAIG
Perfect. A big car chase climax and we've got a nice, taut little movie.

Suddenly the car chase ends abruptly. DANIEL gets TORTURED, then NOT TORTURED.

EVA GREEN
I love you inexplicably. We don't actually need to have any chemistry to get away with this big character change, right?

DANIEL CRAIG
Let's make up for the lack of chemistry by tacking on 30 minutes of trite, mushy garbage.

Well actually that's the best part. But there are some terrific parodies on there such as Click which, if you've seen the movie, nails it to the wall.

Check out the archive here.

Dear Reader

An Apology
I read over yesterday's blog entry this morning and considered deleting it. In case you were fortunate enough to have avoided it, it reads like this:

"I had some experience with music today that I'm not making an effort to properly articulate in any interesting way and am basically saying nothing."

"By the way, some Simpsons episode was mediocre, as opposed to bad. Now that I have established this as a relevant subject, I can finally write that thing I've been meaning to say for weeks since I last saw the Who Shot Mr. Burns? episode regarding why the Simpsons movie should be like that, but as many weeks have passed by I have forgotten what my main points were and am basically saying nothing."

"Hmm, uh... this is going nowhere... Movies to look forward to in 2007, that could be interesting. Well, could be, but it doesn't mean I'll make any effort to ensure that's the case. In fact, let's write as little as possible, and basically say nothing beyond listing a few titles, quite pathetic for someone so passionate about cinema. But what the hey."

I've thought it over and reconsidered. I think I need the post to stay, and I might even link the main page to it just as a reminder to myself to stop wasting people's time by writing uninteresting bullshit - it'll serve as a reference point whenever I think I might be scraping the bottom of the barrel. Last year when I was writing for I Love Lamp there was a point where we were getting 150-200 hits a day and yeah, with that kind of audience you kind of have to stay on your toes because it's like standing up in front of a small assembly and babbling on about meandering bullshit: if you don't make an effort, and who the hell's gonna come back for more? Especially when it's an assembly, because at assemblies you get sore legs and buttocks and it smells like feet. Well I hadn't checked StatCounter for a while but I found that a surprising fair few unfortunate souls visited here yesterday for whatever reason, albiet many were brief accidental-stumblers from America possibly eager to escape being sent to Iraq, but that's kind of aided yesterday's entry in becoming somewhat of a wake-up call telling me that I shouldn't be vomiting out chunks for dull uninspired nothingness on too regular a basis because it's a waste of a lot of people's time. Where's the passion? The fire? Where the hell did the all-important

go? If I'm gonna talk about why Grindhouse is worth seeing, I shouldn't be listing off a few features like I'm selling a Toyota. I should be calling it for what it is: the most badass you'll-literally-exit-the-theatre-in-a-fuckin'-wheel-chair thing you'll see all year. Let me see that face again:

Ladies and gentlemen, that's Grindhouse.

2007 In Film

Tool
You know how sometimes you buy an album and it takes a while to see what's so great about it then you'll be sitting there in the right mood listening to it while you do something and it's just kind of "there" playing in the background and you're not paying it much attention and all of a sudden you realise you "get it"? Maybe not. But that happens to me a lot and it just happened to me and Ænima, which I finally picked up from Real Groovy on Monday. Awesome album. Eventually.

Lateralus is up next I guess, which I hear takes ages to "get." May as well tackle it - I do have available "ages" to wait until Chi-Dem arrives. Possibly literally.

"All I Wanted Was A Second Honeymoon And Now The Floor's Made Of Lava..."
Incredibly, an episode of The Simpsons from 2004 they just screened on TV3 this evening didn't completely suck; it wasn't great but it was actually almost passable as an "old episode." Why? It was family-centric for one thing, which always helps, it avoided being overly outrageous and bizarre in ways that simply don't fit in with the tone of the show, it featured some very clever lines and amongst other highlights parodied the Catch Me If You Can credits sequence fairly effectively too, recalling some clever references from the old eps.

But I was thinking about The Simpsons Movie coming out this year, the plot of which is currently unknown, and how they should approach it. From the teasers, it looks like they're going for big dumb jokes, and I'm hoping what we've seen so far won't actually be in the film (might not be, they're pretty basic gags that could have been thrown together to avoid letting us see anything of the film itself), though I get the feeling this is going to be one of those lame "adventure episodes" stretched out over 90 minutes. And I think the best model they should have based this film on would have to be the two-parter Who Shot Mr. Burns? from back in the day. I saw it a few weeks ago and it struck me as the type of thing which, in feature length, could set up for some tight, focussed storytelling within the typical Simpsons mould we're expecting from the film anyway - avoiding it from becoming too bloated in its lengthy form. Right now I honesly think it's gonna suck, and I've been right about movies way too often lately.

Movies You Have To See In 2007
I did this in February last year and was sometimes right (Inside Man, MI3, Superman Returns, POTC2, Snakes On A Plane, The Good Shepherd, Flags Of Our Fathers, The Departed) and sometimes so very, very wrong (Ice Age 2, Poseidon, Miami Vice, X3, The Sentinel). But anyways, looking through the 2007 release schedule, here are my picks for movies you have to see this year and the all important "why"...

Smokin Aces (January) - The new film from the guy who did Narc stars Jeremy Fuckin' Piven and looks funny, action-packed and stylish. Need I say more?
The Number 23 (February) - Jim Carrey's new film is a dark twisted tale of paranoia in which he discovers a book that appears to be based on his life and ends with somebody's murder... Kind of similar to last year's Stranger Than Fiction, but despite that and the fact that it's directed by Joel Schumacher (who did, in all fairness, nail Phone Booth), it looks very cool
300 (March) - A historical epic based on the works of Frank "Sin City" Miller and directed by the guy who did the Dawn Of The Dead remake *drools*
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (March) - This one's done as a CG, but it could be shot on Super 8 and I'd at least rent it
Grind House (April) - I plugged this one last year too when it was scheduled for October 2006. Rodriguez + Tarantino + Kurt Russell + Zombies + Woman with a gun for a leg. Holy fuckin' shitballs, it's a cinephile's wet dream come true
Pirates 3 (May) - Yeah, skipped over Spider-Man 3 because IT WILL SUCK. Heard nothing but bad news. I'm still not sold on Pirates 3 either actually, but if it's better than 2 then it'll at least be worth seeing, because part 2 was quite decent if ultimately unsatisfying due to its inevitable incompleteness
Hostel 2 (June) - Hostel was a surprisingly intriguing, sadistic hardcore-thriller / softcore-porno, and I think we can count on Eli Roth for a sequel of equal "quality"
Ocean's Thirteen (June) - Let's not kid around here: Twelve was abysmal. But, on the other hand, Thirteen has AL PACINO.
Live Free Or Die Hard (June) - Die Hard 4, for those who missed the reference. Like The Simpsons, I think they may take the wrong approach - the trailer hinted at big budget action but little of the suspense or humour that's characterised the series in the past. That said, ITS DIE HARD 4 BABY
Harry Potter 5 (July) - I've skipped Evan Almighty (expecting typical bad Hollywood material and a waste of Carrell's talents) and Transformers (damn you Michael Bay), but I must recommend this one - the series is on the right track after the last two entries, and I'm particularly interested to see how they turn this next installment into a movie given the general lack of movie-ness of the book
The Bourne Ultimatum (August) - The perpetually solid-but-not-spectacular series finishes with a movie directed now by a post-United 93 Paul Greengrass; i.e. maybe he'll calm the fuck down for this one too
Rush Hour 3 (August) - Oh yeah, another awesome sequel - Tucker + Chan equals gold so this should be great. Yes, that's CHRIS Tucker in case you forgot, he hasn't been in a movie since... Rush Hour 2. In 2001. Seriously.
Mr. Bean's Holiday (September) - I'm skeptical, but the awful trailer showed this was closer to Bean-the-TV-character than the last movie's Bean-via-Hollywood, which can only be a good thing
American Gangster (October) - Ridley Scott directs Denzel and Russell Crowe and it's a crime drama. w00t indeed.
The Golden Compass (December) - Based on Northern Lights, which I loved back at Macleans a few years back. Cool.
I Am Legend (December) - Will Smith who, with The Pursuit Of Happyness's incredible success, proved himself once again to be the most bankable actor in the world, stars in a movie where he fights vampires or something: a pretty awesome way to finish the year I say

Poor Nicolas Cage

A Case Of Having To See It To Believe It
After The Wicker Man received the worst reviews of Nicolas Cage's career so far, I began wondering if it was the end of this once-reliable actor's fragile stint as an arguable A-list star. Coming off the success of National Treasure, his next two films The Weatherman and Lord Of War suddenly bombed within weeks of each other in September 2005; both were decent movies that were simply shafted by their studio, but without a strong marketing campaign each proved he needed more than his name to get people through the door. Then came the Ghost Rider delays, a sign of poor quality and lack of studio confidence if ever you see one. The Wicker Man seemed like the nail in the coffin given what people were saying about it.

But until today I didn't realise just how bad The Wicker Man really was. I haven't seen it yet, but I've seen enough, courtesy of this YouTube "highlight" reel (below). Watching it you have to consciously remind yourself that this is not a comedy, and any serious movie that requires that effort from its audience is in trouble. No professional screenwriter should have ever even dreamt up any of these scenes - ever - let alone written them on paper. And to think that the producers, director and financially-paranoid studio executives must have all read them and thought "super", and then Nicolas Cage, who'd done a movie like Adaptation, read this script and was convinced to sign a commitment to make this movie. What a world we live in.



"NOT THE BEES! ARGGGGHHHH! MY EYES! ARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHflblaghflhfludh!!!!"

We're (less violently) shaking our heads with you, Mr. Cage.

A Quick One While He's Away

How To Prank A Telemarketer
A slice of genius from YTMND.com. Takes like no time at all to load, and I know you have at least a couple of spare minutes if you're visiting this blog, so you have no excuse not to WATCH IT NOW. With the sound on of course.

James. Cameron. Is. Back. Officially.
Fox has greenlit the $190m blockbuster Avatar, written and to-be-directed by the king of big budget moviemaking, James Cameron - nearly 10 years since his last feature, Titanic, wrapped filming.

Avatar is written by Cameron from an idea he nurtured for over a decade, while working on the technology necessary to realize its wholly imagined world. A return to the action adventure sci-fi genre that made him famous, Avatar is also an emotional journey of redemption and revolution. It is the story of a wounded ex-marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in bio-diversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival. It thus again combines the elements of massive spectacle and intimate character that made Titanic the highest grossing film of all time; a title it still holds by over three quarters of a billion dollars.

Said Cameron, "For me, as a lifelong fan of science fiction and action, 'Avatar' is a dream project. We're creating an entire world, a complete ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and a native people with a rich culture and language. The story is both epic and emotional. The two things that make this film even possible are pioneering advances in CG effects and performance capture, as well as my 22 year relationship with Fox, since only with great trust can you operate so close to the cutting edge..."

On the technological side of things:

The film's new image-based process of facial performance capture will get all the subtle nuances of the actors' performances. The virtual camera system will allow Cameron to work intimately with the cast while seeing in real-time, as each scene evolves, the computer generated worlds and characters. This revolutionary approach allows Cameron to direct scenes with CG characters and environments exactly as he would on a live action set.

The edited performances and scenes, incorporating Cameron's hands-on camera moves, will be turned over to Peter Jackson's Oscar-winning visual effects house Weta Digital ("The Lord of the Rings" trilogy). Weta's artists will incorporate new intuitive CGI technologies to transform the environments and characters into photorealistic 3D imagery that will transport the audience into the alien world rich with imaginative vistas, creatures and characters. Avatar is produced by Cameron and Jon Landau for Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment. Principal photography will take place in and around Los Angeles, and in New Zealand.

...

Saying the production process is similar to creating an animated film, Cameron estimated that the finished film will be 60% CG elements and 40% live action. He is aiming for the sort of photo-realism achieved by the CG sequences in "Kong" and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. "We had a number of processes we wanted to bring to maturation," he said. "We wanted to kick up to the next level of cinematographic precision the 3-D live-action photography we had been using on the documentary films. We refined the second generation of the Fusion camera." The proprietary Fusion digital 3-D camera system was developed by Cameron and Vince Pace. The performance-capture side took longer, Cameron said, "because as mature as performance capture is for gross body motion, facial performance capture is still a nascent art." The competitive race among four VFX houses for the assignment to supervise the film's visual effects was won by Peter Jackson's Oscar-winning Weta Digital, which worked on "Rings." "Any one of them could have handled the volume of shots, the scale of the project, and handled the technology," Cameron said. "Joe Lettieri and his team had a history of translating facial performance capture to really good photo-real characters. The culture there is imbued from the head down with a passion for fantasy filmmaking. And they met us halfway on the price."

And yes, it does sound kind of like Dances With Wolves in space. Shooting starts in April, and the film will be released in 2009, two years on. This is despite the fact that live-action shooting will last for just 30-40 days, giving an indication of the level of post-production going into this monster I guess. I, for one, am pumped.

Pigs On The Wing 1

The Prestige
In short? A how-to of set-up and pay-off. Hyphen-hyphen. One of those movies where there were little clues and things said by characters that were significant but which I didn't pick up on the relevance of until a good few minutes after the credits rolled, like Bale telling Jackman about the Chinese guy pulling a Keyser Soze with his cripple-ness and the parallel with his own charade. Looking forward to a second viewing on DVD someday to gather the clues like some forager in the Hollywood bushes.

Pigs (Three Different Ones)
These last couple of weeks I've felt as though my passion for filmmaking has been reignited, having previously let my interest wane (without realising it) through prolonged inactivity. I feel like getting out there and working on every damn project I can get my hands on (assuming they don't resemble the 15 Minutes Of Fame shorts).

And I finally think I have "the idea" that I want to apply all the best ideas I can steal from my discarded scripts and notes over the years to. I've already taken a creepy sinister scene that was the highlight from the hour-long surreal semi-noir drama Paris and am planning to apply it to the new movie's more comical B-movie context, which solves the problem of the scene simply being too dull perhaps, if nevertheless devillishly dark and delightfully disgusting, before. Which means buh-bye to Paris for now, even though it was the best largely-complete thing I've written outside of the bear movie (incidentally, Paris was set in the same fictional city as the bear project and featured two of that film's characters, so it may still see the light of day eventually).

Anyways, this new project could be good. And if not, I'm sure it'll be a fun journey along the way and a good learning experience.

Ice Caps Are Stupid
You ever hear that joke about the blonde falling out of an aircraft and surviving or something because she has to stop and ask for directions on the way down? If not, I ruined the punchline so take out your deneuraliser, remove your RayBans and anticipate enjoying the joke proper someday should you and it cross paths.

Well my point here isn't the joke, it's the parallel between the blonde and nature's own blonde, Ice Caps. As you may be able to see in the tagboard to the right of this post (unless you're randomly reading this post months later and the discussion has since been displaced by more of those penis-enhancing-medicine spam messages that plague this blog from time to time) while Ice Age 2 was still poorly plotted, lazily resolved, featured too many uninteresting and in many cases pointless new characters and also suffered from whatever else I ranted about I may have, in my general disinterest, missed the bit when some annoying character explained that the apparent sea of water extending far beyond the ice wall was in fact the (deeply) melted surface of an ice cap, as opposed to the ocean. My assumption I guess was that ice would never melt like that, so such an explanation never crossed my mind as I marvelled at the only good thing about the film (greatly improved CG textures) and ignored much of the babble.

If the movie was suggesting such a pattern of ice-melting, it seems even worse then the non-sensicle ocean. Now we'd be assuming ice melts from the inside, and that the top-surface is melting faster than the wall-surface. But according to David, who I'll never argue with over such matters because - as I learned at Macleans - he knows obscure stuff like this, this is a rare exception in the movie: of all the stupid things the creators of Ice Age 2 did, they weren't entirely responsible for this one. It is in fact a fuck up of nature. It actually happens. Inexplicably.

Drop a cube of ice in a glass like so.











If it melts like this (below), that's because your glass and block of ice are not Greenlandish fuckups:











If your ice melts like this (below), you are in fact a Giant looking at an Ice Cap. Perhaps you could use your big loud booming voice to tell nature's blonde to stop melting like a freak and start making sense, because this doesn't: