BLOGS
Recently in The Biz Category
Television Without Pity is a voting member of the New York Film Critics Online, an organization of New York-based online critics, which convened yesterday to hand out their annual awards honoring the best in film for 2011. The silent-film homage The Artist proved to be the big winner, going home with three awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. (We weren't alone in giving that film top honors -- The Artist has also been named Best Picture by the New York Film Critics Circle, Boston Society of Film Critics and the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics. It's also currently the closest to what resembles a frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar.) NYFCO departed from the mainstream consensus with two less expected picks -- Michael Shannon was named Best Actor for his searing work in Take Shelter, while Joe Cornish picked up Debut Director honors for his terrific alien invasion movie, Attack the Block. For a full list of winners, along with links to our original coverage of those films, click below.
Tongues wagged when Disney declined to peddle their upcoming cinematic wares at last month's Comic-Con: International in San Diego. But don't think for a second that the Mouse House was out of the self-promoting game. Far from it: They just opted to keep it all in the family by saving what would have been their Comic Con show reel for their own fan-friendly convention, the D23 Expo. Held this past weekend at Anaheim Convention Center, the event was a three-day celebration of all things Disney, promoting everything from Radio Disney and the Disney Channel to Disney.com and the various Disney theme parks. Not surprisingly, the most buzzed-about panels were the ones devoted to Disney's upcoming feature film slate, which includes such releases as Andrew Stanton's John Carter, Pixar's Brave and a little movie called The Avengers from the company's most recent acquisition, Marvel. Here are the bits of D23-related movie news we found to be the most supercalifragilisticexpialidocious:
In the wake of a lawsuit filed by Mike Tyson's tattoo artist, Warner Brothers has announced that they will likely alter the Tyson-like ink that Ed Helms sports on his face in The Hangover Part II for the movie's DVD release later this year. Which got us thinking -- what other digital alterations would we like to see made to recent films? Thanks to the magic of computer technology, we can fix some key problems and -- who knows? -- maybe make a better movie in the bargain.
As the world mourns the loss of Undercovers on television (not really, nobody's mourning), others are getting ready to celebrate new undercover antics on the big screen. No, it's not the long-awaited sequel to 2002's Undercover Brother, although that would admittedly be awesome. No, it's the newest Miley Cyrus movie, So Undercover, in which she plays a "tough, street-smart private eye" who infiltrates a college sorority. First of all, OMG. Second of all, let's just break down why this is so fantastic.
The resurgence of 3-D as a way to make movies a more immersive experience is all well and good, but we've been tinkering with the same formula since the 1950s, and the only other thing we've come up with since then is Smell-O-Vision. Isn't it time for something new? Something that can make horror movies scarier and other movies far more personal? Well, there is now. Director Chris Milk has made an interactive music video for Arcade Fire called The Wilderness Downtown, which lets you choose the location where it takes place. By entering in your childhood street address, you get to watch the hooded teenager in the film run down the streets where you grew up, thanks to what I can only assume is the magic of Google Earth. If this technology can be perfected, imagine the possibilities -- films could be shot on bluescreens, then the backgrounds could be dropped in based on the renter's mailing address! Special glasses could personalize the locale for everyone in the theater audience! Just think how much better these films would be if they took place in your neighborhood!
Take a classic, family-friendly film property and add a fan-favorite director, an iconic movie star and 3-D glasses, and you've apparently got a smash hit on your hands. Alice in Wonderland, the latest funhouse-mirror remake by director Tim Burton, opened to $116 million at the box office, the sixth biggest opening of all time, helping make it the biggest March opening ever in the U.S. That beats Burton's previous biggest opening, for Planet of the Apes ($68.5 million), and considering how much better this movie is than Apes, we hope it will outgross it in the long run, as well. Another $94 million from overseas placed it at number 14 on the list of biggest worldwide openings, so things are looking good there, too.
The latest slightly-misogynistic-but-not-enough-to-be-unfunny buddy comedy, She's Out of My League, is miraculously not directed by Judd Apatow, but does star one of his discoveries, Jay Baruchel (Undeclared, Knocked Up, etc.). He plays Kirk Kettner, a frumpy-yet-happy airport security agent who catches the eye of a flawless girl and spends the duration of the film struggling to understand why such a perfect creature would be interested in him. In League's most memorable scene, Kirk's friends convince him to "manscape" his crotch, and (spoiler alert!) while we don't get any full frontal action (a la Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Mashall), we do see a shot of Kirk's entire backside. There's also a pretty gnarly scene in which, through a sequence of only-in-a-rom-com events, an enormous dog licks Kirk's (clothed) crotch to no avail. At a press junket this weekend, we spoke with Baruchel about acting in these humiliating scenes, as well as his experience co-starring in the upcoming Nicolas Cage film, The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
There are a lot of terrible movie titles out there, and everyone has their list, but most of these titles are attached to terrible films! It's when bad titles are attached to good movies that there starts to be a problem. For instance, this week, The Men Who Stare at Goats hits theaters, and we thought it was a lot of fun, but that title is a real snoozer. Who's going to go see this movie with that title? Yes, they stare at goats, but they stare at them to make their hearts stop beating! Why not call the movie Goat Killers? Or Heartstoppers? Or The Men Who Kill Goats With Their Minds? We looked at the last decade and found a bunch of film titles we think misrepresent or detract from the films they're attached to, for various reasons.
After Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 was defeated in its opening weekend by The Final Destination in 3-D, the producers of the Halloween franchise revealed that the just-announced Halloween 3 will actually be Halloween 3-D. While unsurprising, given the resurgence in 3-D's popularity, this particular 3-D-ification is a sly homage to the early 1980s, when it seemed like the third installment of a horror franchise -- Jaws 3-D, Amityville 3-D, Friday the 13th Part III -- was legally required to be watched through cardboard glasses. (The original Halloween 3, ironically, passed on the gimmick.) And that got us thinking -- what if all third installments of movies had to be released in 3-D? Some would be awesome, and some just plain ridiculous. Here's some quick takes.
Disney Buys Marvel: The Pros and Cons (from a Fan's Perspective)
Today, the news broke that Disney has bought Marvel Entertainment, lock stock and barrel, for $4 billion. That includes Marvel Comics, with over 5,000 characters, and Marvel Studios, with the successful Iron Man and Hulk film franchises, plus the upcoming Thor, Captain America and The Avengers. It seems like it's a win-win scenario -- Disney gets a boys' brand to bookend the Disney Princesses, and Marvel gets some global multimedia clout -- but what does this really mean for our beloved Marvel superheroes? As fans, these are just a few things we're worried and/or excited about.
BLOG ARCHIVES
The Moviefile
February 2013
11 Entries
January 2013
16 Entries
December 2012
21 Entries
November 2012
19 Entries
October 2012
20 Entries
September 2012
19 Entries
August 2012
19 Entries
July 2012
17 Entries
June 2012
24 Entries
May 2012
21 Entries
April 2012
22 Entries
March 2012
26 Entries
February 2012
24 Entries
January 2012
25 Entries
December 2011
27 Entries
November 2011
22 Entries
October 2011
22 Entries
September 2011
29 Entries
August 2011
27 Entries
July 2011
30 Entries
June 2011
25 Entries
May 2011
13 Entries
April 2011
23 Entries
March 2011
22 Entries
February 2011
33 Entries
January 2011
39 Entries
December 2010
21 Entries
November 2010
29 Entries
October 2010
23 Entries
September 2010
25 Entries
August 2010
26 Entries
July 2010
29 Entries
June 2010
36 Entries
May 2010
22 Entries
April 2010
26 Entries
March 2010
30 Entries
February 2010
19 Entries
January 2010
19 Entries
December 2009
15 Entries
November 2009
21 Entries
October 2009
27 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