Recently in Taste the Reading Rainbow Category

5 Big Reveals at Disney's D23 Convention

Look out, San Diego Comic-Con -- this past weekend, Disney held their own convention in Anaheim, and it had more Disney-related celebrity panels and announcements than you could shake a stick at. While a lot of the show was simply fan service -- merchandise, collectible pins, a look at new theme parks and attractions in the works, a Miley Cyrus concert -- there were actually a lot of great announcements about upcoming movies, and we thought we'd run down some of the bigger ones below.

Julie & Julia: Amy Adams Makes Everything Better

Man we love Amy Adams. Is there nothing she can't do? No role she can't play? Enchanted princess, reserved nun, Amelia Earhart? It sure doesn't seem like it. We bet she could have even played chef Julia Child in Julie and Julia, but the casting of Meryl Streep is just too perfect. And we're just as happy to see Adams as Julie, the modern-day woman who tries to cook her way through the entire Julia Child cookbook. To see the other movies that Adams has made better through her presence, check out our highly scientific Guide to Amy Adams Being Awesome.

Twilight: We Re-Cast the Whole Darn Thing for Eclipse

It's official -- Rachelle Lefevre is out as Victoria in the third Twilight movie, Eclipse, and Bryce Dallas Howard (Terminator Salvation, The Village) is in. Supposedly, it's due to a "scheduling conflict," but could it simply be that the producers wanted a better, more famous actress in the role? They're not alone. We think that a lot of actors in the cast could stand to be upgraded, so we went through and re-cast the entire thing in our Re-Casting Wish List. Click the link, and tell us you don't think that would be a better movie.

After The Lorax, What Dr. Seuss Books are Left to Turn Into Movies?

Movies based on children's books by Dr. Seuss have done very well in Hollywood. How the Grinch Stole Christmas was a Jim Carrey blockbuster in 2000, as was the animated Horton Hears a Who in 2008. Mike Myers' The Cat in the Hat, on the other hand... well, two successful movies out of three ain't bad. But now that the news has broken that Universal will be releasing a 3D animated movie based on ecological parable The Lorax in 2012, one has to wonder how many movies ol' Theodor Geisel's oeuvre has left to give us. We looked over his body of work and called out some of the most marketable titles. Expect to see one or more of these in theatres by 2015.

If They Can Remake NIMH, Why Not These Classic Cartoons?

Fans of the classic children's book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH were treated to animated version in 1982, retitled The Secret of NIMH. Except in the movie, there were some significant changes, like the addition of magic and mysticism, and a lot more deaths. Well, that may be rectified, since a new film adaptation of the book is in the works, one that will likely be a combination of live-action and computer-generated animation. If that had been an option back in 1982, they probably would have just done that the first time, as they would have with every other talking-animal movie made in that decade. We made a list of the animated classics that need an updated go-around, either because they didn't do the book justice or because a new version would make them that much cooler.

Make it a Mockbuster Night: An Interview with The Asylum's David Michael Latt

You've seen them on DVD store shelves, and they've made you do a double-take: The Da Vinci Treasure. Sunday School Musical. Snakes on a Train. They certainly look and sound familiar, and that's the point. They're all movies by The Asylum, a production company that made low-budget horror movies until they realized that their sales spiked whenever they themed, timed and named their releases to coincide with mainstream theatrical films. Four years later, they're turning out at least one tie-in film, or "mockbuster," per month in addition to films with no tie-in, but usually some crazy premise all its own. This week, their newest movie, The Land That Time Forgot, hits rental stores and Redboxes near you, so we talked to producer and Asylum co-founder David Michael Latt about their business model, the C. Thomas Howell connection and how Mega Shark met Giant Octopus.

Hail to the King: Five Stephen King Movies to Re-Make

Stephen King is not only one of the most prolific, best-selling and -- in this writer's opinion -- most talented authors of our time, he's probably the author who's had the most movies based on his work, right up there with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and whoever writes all of the books those Lifetime movies are based on. Beginning with Carrie in 1976, nearly all of King's books, novellas and short stories have been adapted for the screen or for TV miniseries, and now we've received word that one of his earlier adaptations, the franchise-spawning horror film Children of the Corn, will be re-made. And that got us thinking -- as great a writer as King is, a lot of the movies based on his work are terrible, or at the very least wildly inaccurate. King doesn't seem to mind the latter ones, but we certainly do. Here are a selection of King films, good and bad, that need do-overs.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is Only Half There, but It's the Good Half

After two years of waiting, I have finally seen the latest installment in the Harry Potter series, and it is good. I mean, really good. I laughed, I cried, I was on the edge of my seat. And considering that it was only rated PG, rather than PG-13 like the last two, there was still plenty of gore and violence and scary stuff. There's also a lot of snogging (British for making out), because, in case you weren't aware, this chapter of the Potter saga is all about sex.

10 Most Effed-Up Harry Potter Moments (pre-Half-Blood)

While the latest Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the first installment in a while to be rated PG, that doesn't mean it's any less messed-up. Sure, there's less blood (even though it's the first to put the word "blood" right in the title), but Harry still receives a nasty beating, there are teen make-out parties galore and at least one person gets murdered. Oh, and there are also zombies. Fricking zombies! In celebration of the scariest PG film we've seen in a while, we thought we'd run down the most effed-up moments in the franchise's first five films. No spoilers for Half-Blood, unless you count us mentioning zombies earlier. Too late!

Harry Potter and the Handy Character Database

Can you believe it's been two years since the last Harry Potter film came out? ...You can? Yeah, it does feel like a long time, doesn't it. Well, it's time to refresh your memory about what happened last time, and who everybody is, so you can go into the new film and know what the hell's going on. Because there are a lot of characters in these films. Between the students and the teachers and the parents and the Death-Eaters, nobody gets more than five minutes of screentime, and it's hard to keep their stories straight. Luckily, we've created a handy-dandy Harry Potter Character Guide with pictures of all of the old characters and a few new ones, plus info on what happened last time and what their status is at the start of this one. It's non-spoilery, so don't worry about us giving away the extremely shocking ending of the movie which everyone already knows about anyway. Still, if you don't want to know how it ends, you should probably leave the Internet.

<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...

BLOG ARCHIVES

The Moviefile

October 2009

18 Entries

September 2009

30 Entries

August 2009

28 Entries

July 2009

34 Entries

June 2009

27 Entries

May 2009

24 Entries

April 2009

23 Entries

March 2009

18 Entries

February 2009

30 Entries

January 2009

56 Entries

December 2008

51 Entries

November 2008

61 Entries

October 2008

102 Entries

September 2008

86 Entries

August 2008

99 Entries

July 2008

116 Entries

June 2008

95 Entries

May 2008

86 Entries

April 2008

67 Entries

March 2008

14 Entries