Krak Attack!

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JA from MNPP here. Who else released the Kraken this weekend? Somebody did since it's made 64 million since Thursday night. Raise your scorpion shield if you're guilty! It's okay, there's no judgment here. (Until the comments, of course.) I wrote up some very brief thoughts over at MNPP earlier but I'll just lay it out here - I didn't hate it.

Points deducted for a pretty crappy digital Medusa scene that lacked any of the eerie power Ray Harryhausen wrung from a fistful of clay (and am I alone in finding Medusa's story and her fate in this tale immeasurably sad? I wish Perseus felt worse about what he had to do to her. It's not her fault she's a monster! The gods screwed her over too!), but the remake's Kraken attack did give me that good jaw-droppy feeling a few times that you go to these big dumb blockbusters for in the first place. I'd call it even in the annals of crappiness between the original and the remake - a not entirely horrible place to reign.

I should let it be known that my opinion on this matter is entirely suspect, as I am easily hypnotized by the sheen of Sam Worthington's thighs, and I will say whatever they tell me to.

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poll by twiigs.com

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Blog Wars VI: The Return of the Link

I've illustrated this post with the new Toy Story 3 character, Ken. Because... I just can't get over it. What?! There's also a new trailer.

And Your Little Blog, Too has a fine piece on one of my favorites, A Place in the Sun
Dear Jesus skewers one of my least favorites, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers
Film Doctor thoughtful notes on Bright Star
Low Resolution finally sees that Jane Campion effort too. Why did it take people so long to get behind it. Argh. Maybe it should have opened in the Spring/ Summer and worked the Away From Her/Erin Brockovich/La Vie En Rose/Moulin Rouge! type of Oscar track?
Empire Untitled Spider-Man Reboot will be in 3-D. Look, I loved Avatar but every film does not need to be in 3D. How long will this craze last? Until a couple of mega flops arrive I guess.

/Film Waking Sleeping Beauty sounds like a fascinating documentary. Me want
/Film Remember when I told you that Clueless director Amy Heckerling wanted Pfeiffer for her new comedy Vamps? Well, apparently she wants "Cher" too... as in Alicia Silverstone rather than Cher proper.
I'm Not Obsessed Sam Worthington for Dracula Year Zero. Uh oh. Is he going to do anything other than big franchise pics? Now might be the time to prove you can act Sam. Now, while everyone is watching: quick detour into drama. Do it!
The Advocate Portia de Rossi does Mia Farrow's classic People cover (see previous post)
by Ken Levine Julianne Moore (and other movie stars) moving to television, from the tv writer's perspective

A Must Read
Have you read the Mark Harris piece on Oscar politics yet? If you haven't you must carve out the time. It's long but it's so well observed, smart and funny. Harris also wrote my favorite Oscar book -- other than Inside Oscar which is basically my Bible. They should have it in the bedstand of every hotel room -- called Pictures at a Revolution which I'm assuming you've read by now. It's just excellent.
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The Magnificent Seven ?

"Bake offs" sounds like something the Academy would have asked 1950s candidates for Best Actress to do. But no, it's a term for the winnowing of contestants in various Oscar races prior to the nominations themselves. They almost never go for visual effects that aren't solely computer generated which is why (we presume) that Where the Wild Things Are's fantastic blend of puppets, stunts, sets, makeup effects and CGI didn't place. The seven finalists for Oscar's Best CGI competition also known as best visual effects are:

• Avatar
  flying dragons, 3D, actors as statuesque blue aliens, spaceships and exo-skeletons
• District 9
  prawn-like aliens, grotesque transformations, and badass weaponry
• Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
  sinewy sinister black clouds, frequent apparating, and the usual
• Star Trek
  world destruction, space drilling, and boldly going where 9 other films had gone before
• Terminator Salvation
  heavy metal, resurrecting Ahnuld, aerial craziness and a brand new cyborg
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
  giant f***ing robots... again
• 2012
  mass global destruction imagined by sadistic computer artists

Sam Worthington -- the unofficial new mascot of the category!

My predictions for the Oscar nominees are in red. For those of you who've already forgotten what the semi-finalists were, know that those 7 films above were found worthier of effects honors than these eight: Where the Wild Things Are, Sherlock Holmes, GI Joe Rise of Cobra, Watchmen, Angels and Demons and animated pictures Coraline, G-Force and Disney's A Christmas Carol. Do you agree or think this branch need their eyes checked (or their minds opened) before they do any more baking?

Oscar Trivia: Should Avatar win the Oscar for visual effects it will be the 5th James Cameron film to do so: Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2 and Titanic were all winners. And he's only made 8 features. His only film to be nominated that did not win this category was True Lies.

Cat Fights From Another Planet

There was reason to worry. What on earth was taking James Cameron so long anyway? It's been twelve years since Titanic, weighted down with Oscars and cash, sank into the ocean. For nearly a decade it looked like the reliable blockbuster director might never come back up for air. Was Titanic just too daunting to follow up? But, just as the negative buzz prior to Titanic's release evaporated when people actually saw the great big movie, Avatar dispels any doubts within minutes. The old saying "if you rest, you rust" does not apply to James Cameron. He may have spent years geekily perfecting yet more groundbreaking cinematic technology but thankfully he didn't lose his love of fierce women, action sequences laced with emotion or his storytelling instincts in the process.



Avatar bombards you with backstory in its opening scenes but it's never weighed down by all the fantastical exposition (for a director so fond of lengthy movies -- this one clocks in at 162 rousing minutes -- his movies sure fly). With a series of quick scenes we get the basics: Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is an ex-marine who has lost the use of his legs, he's been recruited by bossy plant-loving Dr Grace Augustine (Cameron stand-in and Aliens survivor Sigourney Weaver) for an elaborate scientific and diplomatic mission to the planet Pandora. There, he'll be animating an alien body created specifically to be compatible with his own genetic code.

Read the rest of my Avatar review in my weekly column at Towleroad

Click on any label below for more on these topics. I've been a Cameron fan for a long time. I recently reexamined and detailed the greatness of both Terminator and T2: Judgment Day
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Titans! Will! Clash!

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JA from MNPP here, taking us on a journey into the Mythical land of Perseus and his bros. (Or is it Brahs? I can never keep my frat-boy-speak up to date.) Anyway I assume by now we all have witnessed the thigh-thundering glory that is the trailer for the remake of Clash of the Titans?

If not, ye shall behold!

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I took some big pretty screen-grabs over at MNPP if you're interested (with special attention paid to Sam Worthington's skimpy skirt, naturally).

I personally am super-stupid-psyched for this movie. Emphasis on stupid. I love the 1981 original deeply for it's epic cheesiness. Ray Harryhausen's creatures nurtured me to the deranged adulthood I now occupy. Indeed, here's the original film's trailer. Compare, contrast.

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But I can completely see the place for a big be-spectacled CG-palooza remake of this sort. Just stir in a couple hundred million dollars, replace Sir Laurence Olivier with Liam Neeson (I do wish they'd gotten dear Dame Maggie Smith back though) and Harry Hamlin's nipples with Sam Worthington's gleaming gams, and voila! Insta-hit.

If they keep this light and silly and big big BIG then this could be a ton of Summer fun next year. Well, March fun. It's out on March 26th. Summer just keeps steamrolling in sooner each year, eh?
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Any Sam, Myth or Harry.

Jose here with some guys in skirts and feuding gods.

Images have began to circle the web announcing the remake of Clash of the Titans (is it just me or does it feel like it was announced about a month ago? Movie production sure is fast nowadays...). The movie based on the 1981 classic is being directed by Louis Leterrier and stars Sam Worthington (who's yet to prove his worth with James Cameron's upcoming Avatar) as the mythical demigod Perseus.

The original was a favorite of mine as a kid. I used to be enchanted by Ray Harryhausen's stop motion effects (I covered my eyes whenever Medusa appeared and was terrified by the Stygian Witches) and the plot got me interested in Greek myths.

Once I became film conscious however, the movie proved to be worthy because of several other things. That cast for starters! With Sir Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Burgess Meredith and Flora Robson among others, the film is an example of how great actors make even campy fantasy seem relevant. Not to mention Harryhausen's breathtaking effects (how he was snubbed for an Oscar is insulting).

Now, next year's remake has people like Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Mads Mikkelsen, but I wonder, just how much of the wonder that fuels the original one, will be recreated with CGI?
Few people are remake advocates, but with this one in particular just how much charm will be lost with the, increasingly, generic look of computer animated effects?

Maybe You Watched The Avatar Trailer?

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JA from MNPP here again, interjecting once more while Nat's making like a worker-bee doing the things a worker-bee does (i.e. work). I just thought y'all might wanna chat here about that Avatar trailer that everybody's buzzing about today, so if ya do, make with the comments. I took a slew of screen-grabs from it over here if you wanna see it in still form. But what do we think?



The reactions I'm hearing are all over the map, from let-down to ebullient. Yes, ebullient. Don't get to use that word often enough, ebullient. Anyway. You?
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Random Tidbits

My latest column at Towleroad is up. I continue to geek out over Sam Worthington (I promise to stop shortly) and there's also bits on Make Me a Supermodel, Liz Taylor's home viewing (the earth is doomed) and more.

In other news... screened Pixar's UP tonight. One of cinema's all time hottest streaks continues. It's beautiful, moving, funny and thematically sound. But perhaps the best praise one can give it is that it's a totally worthy follow up to WALL•E.

With Spring You Get Blockbuster

I know that technically (er... emotionally?) the summer movie season began with X-Men Origins: Wolverine this past Friday but since I was out of town, it begins for me today. As you read this (I've timed it to publish) I am about halfway through Terminator Salvation.


Sam Worthington is already my favorite new movie star (projecting forward through Salvation, Last Night and Avatar. He's going supernova in '09). Sometimes hype sinks in and predetermines enthusiasms. You know how Hollywood do.

So yeah, I been spun. My head spins.

Which May movie are you most impatient for: Terminator Salvation, The Girlfriend Experience, Up, Easy Virtue, Star Trek ...other? And how do you fill your time whilst quivering with anticipation?
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We Can't Wait #4 Avatar

Directed by The King Of The World
Starring Sigourney effn' Weaver, and who the eff cares else. Okay, Sam Worthington is the star, and Zoe "Uhura" Saldana and Michelle Rodriguez are there too, in unknown quantities. Plus... aliens? Thingamajigs? Something.
Synopsis Something about a marine in the distant future recruited to lead an alien race... I'm purposefully keeping myself vague, yo. I don't wanna know more than I have to.
Expected Release Date December 18th, 2009


JA: Unknown is the buzzword. Most of us "plugged-in" types have probably seen the blurry images here and there of what these alien figures look like, and I've been keeping up with it myself despite my better intentions of keeping myself as pure as possible for what Mr. Cameron has in store for us... what can I say, the man is torturing me with the vacuum of information. Too secret, Jim! Too secret! I'm like a drug addict here just begging for something, anything, to keep me from scouring for more and spoiling it all for myself here.

The man has a legacy of blowing ur effing minds to live up too, and he really seems to be trying to do just that. He'd reinvent the wheel if he could. He'd teach us all to walk again! He wants to impress, and so far his record stands. I'm dyin here.

Whitney: And isn't Avatar supposed to change the face of cinema forever? Some kind of 3D-extravaganza that we'll never recover from?

Fox: OK. So, this is getting grittier as hit the final five. First I shrugged at Nathaniel & Whitney's beloved Jane Campion in the # 5 slot, and now I gag at seeing Sigourney Weaver's name (I can't "eff"ing stand her) ...

Nathaniel: Who are you? Sigweavie and Cameron make sacred pair! Do not diss.

JA: Who hates Sigourney Weaver? How is that even possible? That isn't even possible. You're just trying to get a rise out of me now Fox, with your crazy words and nonsense riddles. Ho ho ho, I just laugh heartily at such shenanigans and move along.

Fox: Still, I admit to buying into the hype over Avatar. JA is right that Cameron is one of those directors who can actually shoulder the expectations of a million blockbuster seeking maniacs. Who would want that? Who could succeed under that pressure? I can't think of many, but if I had to bet on someone, I would give James Cameron the best odds.

Joe: Cameron comes off like such an a-hole that I tend to want him to fail (bizarre considering all the other a-holes who I want to succeed), and I can't imagine how Avatar possibly lives up to the hype, but that's the same thing everybody was saying about Titanic only louder, and he shoved that one back in our faces too.

--- > Cameron with actor Sam Worthington, who will probably be a household name by the end of 2009. He's a crucial figure in would be summer blockbuster Terminator Salvation, the lead in sci-fi epic Avatar and Keira Knightley's husband in the romantic drama Last Night. And they all emerge this year.

Nathaniel: Have you bought into the hype yet, or are you to jaded to care? And do you think Cameron can unite the movie trifecta again: public/critics/Academy?

In case you missed any entries they went like so...
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We Can't Wait:
#1 Inglourious Basterds, #2 Where the Wild Things Are, #3 Fantastic Mr. Fox,
#4 Avatar, #5 Bright Star, #6 Shutter Island, #7 Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
#8 Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, #9 Nailed, #10 Taking Woodstock,
#11 Watchmen, #12 The Hurt Locker, #13 The Road, #14 The Tree of Life
#15 Away We Go, #16 500 Days of Summer, #17 Drag Me To Hell,
#18 Whatever Works, #19 Broken Embraces, #20 Nine (the musical)
intro (orphans -didn't make group list)
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