People Tell Me I Look Like Han Solo.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Wolverine vs. Pirates!
So apparently a full version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine has leaked onto the Internet (albeit unfinished effects and music) weeks ahead of its May 1 theatrical release, and as anyone who knows even a little bit about the web understands, once this happens it's virtually impossible to get the toothpaste back into the tube (i.e. get it off the 
Internet). I used to work in the music business right as the industry was grappling with the catastrophic impact that illegal online file-sharing had on its decades-old business model; it wasn't pretty (people losing their jobs, companies losing exorbitant amounts of money etc.), and once the boulder starts rolling down the hill pretty much nothing can make it stop. Internet piracy delivered a serious blow to the music industry – ultimately time will tell if it's crippling or even fatal – and now it's the movie industry that's trying to figure out exactly how to deal with the issue.
Bootlegging is a growing problem for the movie and DVD industry – I bought a transit pass the other day at a corner store in my neighbourhood and the wall behind the clerk was filled with DVDs of movies that had just been released theatrically or were due for an official DVD release in the coming weeks – and I think the decision-makers in the film business should look at the mistakes the music industry made in the early days of Napster to see what not to do. (For example, I've never been a big believer in the idea that suing some college kid into destitution because he downloaded a Metallica album or The Dark Knight onto his computer will act as any sort of deterrent for thousands of other people worldwide who do the exact same thing, but mine is not a popular viewpoint in the industry.) I think including digital copies of movies on DVD is a step in the right direction, as one of the reasons (though certainly not the only one) that I've never bothered with downloading movies or buying bootleg DVDs is that the quality is often awful. Apple's iTunes store proved that giving consumers reliably high-quality products, even if they could still ostensibly find an illegal version of the same with minimal effort, can work if implemented correctly.
It'll be very interesting to see if this leak impact's the film's box office success (or, more specifically, in the event that Wolverine is seen to underperform, if it'll be used as an excuse). Personally, I think the movie looks pretty crappy. And I say that not only as a comic book geek, but as a comic book geek for whom the X-Men franchise holds a very special place in my heart, as the first comic book I really got into in my formative comic-reading years. I've been hearing for years that 20th Century Fox is a studio that doesn't treat its "genre" properties (i.e. comic book movies, sci-fi, action, horror, crime, etc.) with any respect – with the exception of the first two X-Men movies, all their comic book movies have been mediocre-to-downright awful – instead viewing them purely as ways to make money with the effects-driven blockbusters that are in vogue, and Wolverine looks pretty damn generic (and talk that director Gavin Hood, who won a damn Oscar in 2006 for Tsotsi, is unhappy with the studio-imposed changes, is not an encouraging sign either).
The bottom line is, if some people want to seek out a crappy version of Wolverine with unfinished special effects and temp music to watch on their computers, I can't see that affecting the movie's bottom line all that seriously; hell, I'd argue that anyone willing to spend the time and energy it takes to find this thing online is probably interested enough in the movie that they'll pay to see it theatrically no matter what they think of the cruddy bootleg they downloaded. But as technology continues to move forward, it presents a myriad of potential problems for the movie industry to navigate. But considering the dozens, often hundreds of people who work on a film's production nowadays, coupled with the fact that the industry relies almost exclusively on easily-uploaded digital files for effects and editing work, and it's actually kind of amazing this sort of thing doesn't happen more often than it does. I guess we'll see how this plays out.
Internet). I used to work in the music business right as the industry was grappling with the catastrophic impact that illegal online file-sharing had on its decades-old business model; it wasn't pretty (people losing their jobs, companies losing exorbitant amounts of money etc.), and once the boulder starts rolling down the hill pretty much nothing can make it stop. Internet piracy delivered a serious blow to the music industry – ultimately time will tell if it's crippling or even fatal – and now it's the movie industry that's trying to figure out exactly how to deal with the issue.Bootlegging is a growing problem for the movie and DVD industry – I bought a transit pass the other day at a corner store in my neighbourhood and the wall behind the clerk was filled with DVDs of movies that had just been released theatrically or were due for an official DVD release in the coming weeks – and I think the decision-makers in the film business should look at the mistakes the music industry made in the early days of Napster to see what not to do. (For example, I've never been a big believer in the idea that suing some college kid into destitution because he downloaded a Metallica album or The Dark Knight onto his computer will act as any sort of deterrent for thousands of other people worldwide who do the exact same thing, but mine is not a popular viewpoint in the industry.) I think including digital copies of movies on DVD is a step in the right direction, as one of the reasons (though certainly not the only one) that I've never bothered with downloading movies or buying bootleg DVDs is that the quality is often awful. Apple's iTunes store proved that giving consumers reliably high-quality products, even if they could still ostensibly find an illegal version of the same with minimal effort, can work if implemented correctly.
It'll be very interesting to see if this leak impact's the film's box office success (or, more specifically, in the event that Wolverine is seen to underperform, if it'll be used as an excuse). Personally, I think the movie looks pretty crappy. And I say that not only as a comic book geek, but as a comic book geek for whom the X-Men franchise holds a very special place in my heart, as the first comic book I really got into in my formative comic-reading years. I've been hearing for years that 20th Century Fox is a studio that doesn't treat its "genre" properties (i.e. comic book movies, sci-fi, action, horror, crime, etc.) with any respect – with the exception of the first two X-Men movies, all their comic book movies have been mediocre-to-downright awful – instead viewing them purely as ways to make money with the effects-driven blockbusters that are in vogue, and Wolverine looks pretty damn generic (and talk that director Gavin Hood, who won a damn Oscar in 2006 for Tsotsi, is unhappy with the studio-imposed changes, is not an encouraging sign either).
The bottom line is, if some people want to seek out a crappy version of Wolverine with unfinished special effects and temp music to watch on their computers, I can't see that affecting the movie's bottom line all that seriously; hell, I'd argue that anyone willing to spend the time and energy it takes to find this thing online is probably interested enough in the movie that they'll pay to see it theatrically no matter what they think of the cruddy bootleg they downloaded. But as technology continues to move forward, it presents a myriad of potential problems for the movie industry to navigate. But considering the dozens, often hundreds of people who work on a film's production nowadays, coupled with the fact that the industry relies almost exclusively on easily-uploaded digital files for effects and editing work, and it's actually kind of amazing this sort of thing doesn't happen more often than it does. I guess we'll see how this plays out.
Labels: Movie news, Random thoughts
¶ 11:07 AM 0 Comments
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Dark Knight double-dip
Like millions of humans, yesterday I picked up my copy of The Dark Knight on DVD. The movie is still amazing (I think it’ll only get better with age as the cringe-inducing hype that still surrounds the film dies away and we can just appreciate it on its own merits – I look forward to a day when Heath Ledger’s death is more of a footnote in the film’s legacy), but I’m pretty underwhelmed by the DVD’s extras.
First of all, this “digital copy included” thing has got to go as a selling point or an excuse to add another disc to a package in order to make it seem like it’s more bang for the customer’s proverbial buck. I’m not interested in watching a two-and-a-half hour c
rime epic on my iPod or my laptop, though I guess I appreciate the option they’re giving me to do so, especially with the growing spectre of online piracy, and I realize that some people do enjoy that sort of thing, but as an excuse to bolt an extra disc onto a release and proclaim it a “special edition” is pretty weak (no commentary and a couple of featurettes and trailers). It’s not that I had a problem with the extras that are on the two-disc Dark Knight DVD – I dug the fake talk-show segments, particularly the one with Eric Roberts, whose presence in the film is a gift that keeps on giving – but it’s pretty obvious that there’s a much more in-depth DVD of The Dark Knight coming down the pipe. Which I’m not necessarily complaining about – I’ve happily done the DVD double-dip for movies like Sin City, which director Robert Rodriguez was pretty up-front about doing more DVD editions of down the line from the get-go, which is either commendably honest or shockingly cynical, I’m not sure which. And I, like millions of others, has been patiently awaiting the long-promised Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, which Quentin Tarantino has been promising for several years now. But the bottom like is, The Dark Knight is a pretty astounding piece of cinema, and I will happily shell out for the even-more-special edition I’m sure is coming some time in 2009 – presumably with another digital copy.
* * *
This week saw the release of complete-series DVD sets for the two best televisions shows I’ve ever seen, HBO’s The Wire and Deadwood. Both are so good I want to punch someone in the face, but I personally prefer The Wire because 1) I prefer cop dramas to westerns and 2) it has an actual ending and is therefore more satisfying on the whole. And for some connective tissue between these three items, Dominic West, who plays the lead character in The Wire, is absolutely phenomenal as the villain Jigsaw in Punisher: War Zone. If Heath Ledger hadn’t changed the game up for comic book movie bad guys in Dark Knight, West would have been my pick as best movie villain of 2008, hands down.
A little bit of movie news: John Stevenson, director of the excellent animated film Kung Fu Panda (read my review here), is attached to adapt the comic book WE3 into a film. WE3 is a three-issue s
eries by probably my two favourite comic creators working today, writer Grant Morrison (to whom I refer as a genius without hesitation) and artist Frank Quitely. The story follows three animals, a dog, a cat and a rabbit, who are the subjects of brutal government experiments aimed at creating living weapons, fusing the animals’ nervous systems with cybernetic weaponry. It’s a remarkable piece of storytelling, both incredibly violent (for a while the film was rumoured to have been “cleaned up” to be more family friendly, which couldn’t miss the point of the source material more) and utterly heartbreaking. I’m not among them but I’ve heard many people who’ve read it admit that WE3 is the only comic that has made them cry. With a talented filmmaker like Stevenson at the helm, and an apparent desire on the part of the producers to keep the material in R-rating territory, WE3 could be something pretty special.
* * *
The last thing I’ve got for today is a fulfillment of my earlier promise in this space to not miss an opportunity to talk about Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen, due in theatres in March. Apple has the three minutes of footage shown at Comicon last summer, which initially set the Internet afire with buzz. Several months (and three to four trailers) later and the footage is officially online courtesy of iTunes. Check it out here, but be warned, you must have iTunes installed on your computer to watch it. Also be warned that this movie looks totally awesome.
First of all, this “digital copy included” thing has got to go as a selling point or an excuse to add another disc to a package in order to make it seem like it’s more bang for the customer’s proverbial buck. I’m not interested in watching a two-and-a-half hour c
rime epic on my iPod or my laptop, though I guess I appreciate the option they’re giving me to do so, especially with the growing spectre of online piracy, and I realize that some people do enjoy that sort of thing, but as an excuse to bolt an extra disc onto a release and proclaim it a “special edition” is pretty weak (no commentary and a couple of featurettes and trailers). It’s not that I had a problem with the extras that are on the two-disc Dark Knight DVD – I dug the fake talk-show segments, particularly the one with Eric Roberts, whose presence in the film is a gift that keeps on giving – but it’s pretty obvious that there’s a much more in-depth DVD of The Dark Knight coming down the pipe. Which I’m not necessarily complaining about – I’ve happily done the DVD double-dip for movies like Sin City, which director Robert Rodriguez was pretty up-front about doing more DVD editions of down the line from the get-go, which is either commendably honest or shockingly cynical, I’m not sure which. And I, like millions of others, has been patiently awaiting the long-promised Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, which Quentin Tarantino has been promising for several years now. But the bottom like is, The Dark Knight is a pretty astounding piece of cinema, and I will happily shell out for the even-more-special edition I’m sure is coming some time in 2009 – presumably with another digital copy. * * *
I mentioned my skepticism about Lionsgate’s new Punisher movie, Punisher: War Zone in this space not too long ago, and I checked it out last weekend. I’m happy to report my skepticism was totally unfounded, as it’s the most fun pure action movie I’ve seen in a very long time. It’s shockingly violent in all the right ways – the rocket launcher/parkour scene alone was worth the price of admission – and manages to capture the tongue-in-cheek black humour of the best recent Punisher comics. It’s too bad the movie opened pretty poorly, barely making $4 million in its first weekend. Hopefully it will find the audience it deserves on DVD (as many Lionsgate films do), because to me, Punisher: War Zone is second only to Iron Man in terms of Marvel movies in 2008. The worst movie Marvel Studios released this year was The Incredible Hulk, and that was a solid B+ in my estimation. So if you want to have a laugh at mobsters getting their faces blown off with shotguns, Punisher: War Zone is the movie for you.
* * *
This week saw the release of complete-series DVD sets for the two best televisions shows I’ve ever seen, HBO’s The Wire and Deadwood. Both are so good I want to punch someone in the face, but I personally prefer The Wire because 1) I prefer cop dramas to westerns and 2) it has an actual ending and is therefore more satisfying on the whole. And for some connective tissue between these three items, Dominic West, who plays the lead character in The Wire, is absolutely phenomenal as the villain Jigsaw in Punisher: War Zone. If Heath Ledger hadn’t changed the game up for comic book movie bad guys in Dark Knight, West would have been my pick as best movie villain of 2008, hands down.
* * *
A little bit of movie news: John Stevenson, director of the excellent animated film Kung Fu Panda (read my review here), is attached to adapt the comic book WE3 into a film. WE3 is a three-issue s
eries by probably my two favourite comic creators working today, writer Grant Morrison (to whom I refer as a genius without hesitation) and artist Frank Quitely. The story follows three animals, a dog, a cat and a rabbit, who are the subjects of brutal government experiments aimed at creating living weapons, fusing the animals’ nervous systems with cybernetic weaponry. It’s a remarkable piece of storytelling, both incredibly violent (for a while the film was rumoured to have been “cleaned up” to be more family friendly, which couldn’t miss the point of the source material more) and utterly heartbreaking. I’m not among them but I’ve heard many people who’ve read it admit that WE3 is the only comic that has made them cry. With a talented filmmaker like Stevenson at the helm, and an apparent desire on the part of the producers to keep the material in R-rating territory, WE3 could be something pretty special. * * *
The last thing I’ve got for today is a fulfillment of my earlier promise in this space to not miss an opportunity to talk about Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen, due in theatres in March. Apple has the three minutes of footage shown at Comicon last summer, which initially set the Internet afire with buzz. Several months (and three to four trailers) later and the footage is officially online courtesy of iTunes. Check it out here, but be warned, you must have iTunes installed on your computer to watch it. Also be warned that this movie looks totally awesome.
Labels: comics, Iron Man, Movie news, Random thoughts, TV on DVD, Watchmen
¶ 11:12 AM 0 Comments
Friday, December 5, 2008
They Live again?
The Hollywood Reporter says John Carpenter's cult classic They Live (seriously, is there another drector who's made more bona fide "cult classics"? I can't think of any) is the latest passenger on the remake train. The 1988 original is a wonderfully angry sci-fi/action flick about class warfare, Reganomics and aliens. Wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper plays a nameless drifter who stumbles across an alien conspiracy to subdue and control the human race throug
h media-based, subliminal mind control after finding special sunglasses that let him see things as the truly are –dollar bills are really just slips of paper that say "THIS IS YOUR GOD" and billboards are emblazoned with the simple order to "OBEY," while the aliens look like the Nazis who get their faces melted at the end ot Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's a really great little movie that manages to follow the legacy of the best science fiction by using its fantastic conceit to comment on society, while also managing to not take itself too seriously. And it also has one of the absolute greatest fight sequences I have ever seen in a movie, a hilariously brutal, dragged out brawl between Piper and kickass character actor Keith David, with a few pro-wrestling moves thrown in for good measure. Who knows if the remake will be any good – the production still doesn't have a writer attached, much less a director or cast – but given the global economic crisis and the fact that the gap between rich and poor continues to widen into a full-on chasm, an upated They Live could be something awesome. We shall see.
In unrelated news, here are a couple of links that I think are worth your time. The first is Roger Ebert blogging about the death of the newspaper film critic as the mainstream media continues to chase the celebrity-gossip dragon. It's not really terribly relevant to what I'm doing here, aside from the fact that Ebert is one of the best film critics out there and anything he has to say about the state of film criticism is, by definition, important (at least it is to me).
The other is considerably lighter. Ever wonder about the lady with the torch in the Columbia Pictures logo? Or what mountain the Paramount symbol is based on? How many lions have roared before the opening credits of an MGM picture? Here are the answers.
Labels: John Carpenter, Movie news, Random thoughts
¶ 10:44 AM 0 Comments
Friday, October 3, 2008
Time to Let the Right One In
I’m not really a huge horror-movie guy. There’s some brilliant stuff in the genre, don’t get me wrong, but slasher flicks and monster movies don’t really turn my crank. (I will explore this some more in my upcoming review of the ridiculously-packed three-disc DVD of Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake, which, if the Internet is any indication, I am in the minority for enjoying quite a bit.) So when I start hearing ridiculously positive buzz around a horror movie, I remain a bit more skeptical than I usually do. But I’ve been reading about a strange little Swedish vampire movie called Let the Right One In for a few months now, and I’m very intrigued. It’s receiving some pretty high praise, and not just from the types who consider torture-porn schlock like Hostel and Saw high water marks of the horror genre.
The premise of Let the Right One In is what immediately grabbed me: it’s about a shy 12-year-old boy who strikes up a friendship with a similarly-aged girl who moves in next door. Except that the girl is actually a centuries-old vampire. The idea of an old vampire who appears to be a child is creepy as hell, and is explored quite well in 1987’s Near Dark, my favourite vampire movie of all time (if you haven’t seen it, check it out, it’s brilliant). In that film the child-vampire is one of the supporting characters, so that concept as the focus of a full movie is a great idea. And in the advance film-festival reviews I’ve been reading online, the word “masterpiece” is being thrown around enough to really pique my curiosity.
As with any awesome foreign movie, Hollywood’s got a hankering to piss all over it with an unnecessary remake, this time apparently directed by Cloverfield director Matt Reeves. (A perfect illustration: the horror flick Quarantine, opening next week, is a quickie remake of an acclaimed Spanish zombie movie called [rec], and the original filmmakers are apparently less than thrilled with the American version.) Thankfully, a potential American remake doesn’t erase the original, and Magnolia pictures will be giving Let the Right One In a limited U.S. release starting Oct. 24, but in the meantime, check out the spiffy new trailer below. I for one can’t wait to see this thing.
The premise of Let the Right One In is what immediately grabbed me: it’s about a shy 12-year-old boy who strikes up a friendship with a similarly-aged girl who moves in next door. Except that the girl is actually a centuries-old vampire. The idea of an old vampire who appears to be a child is creepy as hell, and is explored quite well in 1987’s Near Dark, my favourite vampire movie of all time (if you haven’t seen it, check it out, it’s brilliant). In that film the child-vampire is one of the supporting characters, so that concept as the focus of a full movie is a great idea. And in the advance film-festival reviews I’ve been reading online, the word “masterpiece” is being thrown around enough to really pique my curiosity.
As with any awesome foreign movie, Hollywood’s got a hankering to piss all over it with an unnecessary remake, this time apparently directed by Cloverfield director Matt Reeves. (A perfect illustration: the horror flick Quarantine, opening next week, is a quickie remake of an acclaimed Spanish zombie movie called [rec], and the original filmmakers are apparently less than thrilled with the American version.) Thankfully, a potential American remake doesn’t erase the original, and Magnolia pictures will be giving Let the Right One In a limited U.S. release starting Oct. 24, but in the meantime, check out the spiffy new trailer below. I for one can’t wait to see this thing.
Labels: horror movies, Movie news, Random thoughts, trailers, vampires
¶ 9:51 AM 0 Comments
Monday, September 22, 2008
Green Hornet gets a director
The Hollywood Reporter is, um, reporting that Stephen Chow has signed on to direct the long-rumoured Green Hornet film. It's been known for a while now that Seth Rogen will write the screenplay and star in the title role, and everyone involved has been saying for months that Chow was their ideal choice to play the masked crimefighter's sidekick, Kato (a role made famous by Bruce Lee in the original TV series). Chow’s a massively successful filmmaker in Hong Kong with a long string of box office hits, mostly action-comedies, under his belt there.
I'm very excited by this news. Chow's a great director and the more involved he is in this project the better. His Shaolin Soccer is one of my favourite sports movies ever (the Hong Kong version, not the hacked-down American version; thankfully both are included on the North American DVD), and Kung Fu Hustle is the closest thing I’ve seen to a live-action Bugs Bunny cartoon, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. I haven’t yet seen his latest, the E.T. riff CJ7, largely because I haven’t heard too many good things about it.
I assume that between Rogen’s script and Chow’s direction, The Green Hornet will blend action and comedy like both guys’ best films do (read all about my love for Rogen’s genre-bending Pineapple Express here), and I think at this point in the evolution of superhero movies it’s a good time to start having some fun with the conventions of the genre, something Hancock proved this summer can be quite lucrative. If The Green Hornet was just another straight-ahead action flick about a guy in a mask beating up thugs without bringing much new to the table, I think audiences have seen plenty of that. But with two talented and funny guys like this behind it, I think the chances of The Green Hornet being something special just increased about tenfold.
The news that Chow will make his American directorial debut with The Green Hornet has put the movie on the fast-track for a June 25, 2010 release. (Also, purely for Stephen Chow fans, the Hollywood Reporter article mentions that Chow is currently in the midst of production on Kung Fu Hustle 2. I. Can’t. Wait.)
I'm very excited by this news. Chow's a great director and the more involved he is in this project the better. His Shaolin Soccer is one of my favourite sports movies ever (the Hong Kong version, not the hacked-down American version; thankfully both are included on the North American DVD), and Kung Fu Hustle is the closest thing I’ve seen to a live-action Bugs Bunny cartoon, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. I haven’t yet seen his latest, the E.T. riff CJ7, largely because I haven’t heard too many good things about it.
I assume that between Rogen’s script and Chow’s direction, The Green Hornet will blend action and comedy like both guys’ best films do (read all about my love for Rogen’s genre-bending Pineapple Express here), and I think at this point in the evolution of superhero movies it’s a good time to start having some fun with the conventions of the genre, something Hancock proved this summer can be quite lucrative. If The Green Hornet was just another straight-ahead action flick about a guy in a mask beating up thugs without bringing much new to the table, I think audiences have seen plenty of that. But with two talented and funny guys like this behind it, I think the chances of The Green Hornet being something special just increased about tenfold.
The news that Chow will make his American directorial debut with The Green Hornet has put the movie on the fast-track for a June 25, 2010 release. (Also, purely for Stephen Chow fans, the Hollywood Reporter article mentions that Chow is currently in the midst of production on Kung Fu Hustle 2. I. Can’t. Wait.)
Labels: Asian cinema, Movie news, Random thoughts
¶ 10:50 AM 0 Comments
Friday, September 12, 2008
Iron Man 2 talk
The Internet is afire today with talk of Iron Man 2. Director Jon Favreau’s been doing press to promote the upcoming DVD of Iron Man (out on Sept. 30). Favs (I’ve never met him, but I’ve watched most or all of his audio commentaries, so I feel comfortable calling him that) says he was impressed with Christopher Nolan’s use of IMAX technology in The Dark Knight
, and is open to similarly doing sequences in IMAX and even in IMAX 3D.
While he’s clearly just speculating here (though I’m sure “Iron Man 2 in IMAX and 3D?” headlines are really helping a lot of movie-news sites generate traffic), I think Favreau should tread carefully when it comes to using 3D for just some sequences in the film. I’ve been quite impressed with the IMAX 3D stuff I’ve seen – Beowulf was incredible in 3D and I saw a Tom Hanks-narrated documentary about the moon landing that was pretty cool – but those were films made specifically for IMAX 3D presentation. I also saw a partially-in-3D version of Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, and it was an underwhelming moviegoing experience. How it worked was, certain sequences in the movie were enhanced (seemingly at the last minute; the whole thing reeked of having been hurriedly thrown together a few weeks before release to generate some more buzz) for 3D, and when they started, a little 3D-glasses icon appeared at the bottom of the screen telling the audience to put on their glasses – which we were otherwise just holding in our laps the entire time, though I did notice a few people just left them on for most or all of the movie. The problem with this (well, one of them) is that it completely took me out of the movie. I spent the whole time glancing at the bottom of the screen every few minutes to see if I was supposed to put my glasses on. (“Now? No? Okay. Wait…now? Hang on a sec, why did I need to see him lift a big rock in 3D? This movie f***ing sucks,” etc.)
Not helping matters was the fact that the actual 3D stuff looked pretty weak, presumably because of the last-second nature of it. I’d been following the movie’s decade-long trip to the screen just like most comic geeks (though I've never really been much of a Superman fan), and not until a few weeks before it’s theatrical release did I hear anything about the filmmakers planning to do anything with IMAX technology, which, as I understand it, is quite complicated to use and very different from tradition
al film equipment. One of the main reasons the IMAX stuff worked in The Dark Knight is that Nolan decided before he started filming that he would use the actual IMAX cameras to shoot those scenes, and set them up accordingly; when regular film stock is just blown up on the giant IMAX screen, it tends to look kind of blurry, but the tradeoff is that you get to watch something like 300 on a movie screen the approximate size of a city block.
Now that I’ve gotten that digression about IMAX and Superman Returns out of my system: Iron Man 2. Favreau also apparently met recently with star Robert Downey Jr. and actor/screenwriter Justin Theroux, who co-wrote Downey’s other big hit this summer, Tropic Thunder (check out my review here), to discuss ideas for the next two movies in the planned Iron Man trilogy. And Favreau says he’s interested in making his Iron Man films work as one big, cohesive story, likening it to the Lord of the Rings movies or even a season of a serialized TV show. Between this and the talk that Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk will eventually lead to an Avengers film (which would also include classic Marvel heroes Captain America and Thor), I really couldn’t be more excited for the future of not only the Iron Man franchise, but this larger “Marvel Universe” cinematic world they seem to be building.
, and is open to similarly doing sequences in IMAX and even in IMAX 3D.While he’s clearly just speculating here (though I’m sure “Iron Man 2 in IMAX and 3D?” headlines are really helping a lot of movie-news sites generate traffic), I think Favreau should tread carefully when it comes to using 3D for just some sequences in the film. I’ve been quite impressed with the IMAX 3D stuff I’ve seen – Beowulf was incredible in 3D and I saw a Tom Hanks-narrated documentary about the moon landing that was pretty cool – but those were films made specifically for IMAX 3D presentation. I also saw a partially-in-3D version of Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, and it was an underwhelming moviegoing experience. How it worked was, certain sequences in the movie were enhanced (seemingly at the last minute; the whole thing reeked of having been hurriedly thrown together a few weeks before release to generate some more buzz) for 3D, and when they started, a little 3D-glasses icon appeared at the bottom of the screen telling the audience to put on their glasses – which we were otherwise just holding in our laps the entire time, though I did notice a few people just left them on for most or all of the movie. The problem with this (well, one of them) is that it completely took me out of the movie. I spent the whole time glancing at the bottom of the screen every few minutes to see if I was supposed to put my glasses on. (“Now? No? Okay. Wait…now? Hang on a sec, why did I need to see him lift a big rock in 3D? This movie f***ing sucks,” etc.)
Not helping matters was the fact that the actual 3D stuff looked pretty weak, presumably because of the last-second nature of it. I’d been following the movie’s decade-long trip to the screen just like most comic geeks (though I've never really been much of a Superman fan), and not until a few weeks before it’s theatrical release did I hear anything about the filmmakers planning to do anything with IMAX technology, which, as I understand it, is quite complicated to use and very different from tradition
al film equipment. One of the main reasons the IMAX stuff worked in The Dark Knight is that Nolan decided before he started filming that he would use the actual IMAX cameras to shoot those scenes, and set them up accordingly; when regular film stock is just blown up on the giant IMAX screen, it tends to look kind of blurry, but the tradeoff is that you get to watch something like 300 on a movie screen the approximate size of a city block. Now that I’ve gotten that digression about IMAX and Superman Returns out of my system: Iron Man 2. Favreau also apparently met recently with star Robert Downey Jr. and actor/screenwriter Justin Theroux, who co-wrote Downey’s other big hit this summer, Tropic Thunder (check out my review here), to discuss ideas for the next two movies in the planned Iron Man trilogy. And Favreau says he’s interested in making his Iron Man films work as one big, cohesive story, likening it to the Lord of the Rings movies or even a season of a serialized TV show. Between this and the talk that Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk will eventually lead to an Avengers film (which would also include classic Marvel heroes Captain America and Thor), I really couldn’t be more excited for the future of not only the Iron Man franchise, but this larger “Marvel Universe” cinematic world they seem to be building.
Labels: Iron Man, Random thoughts, superheroes
¶ 9:13 AM 0 Comments
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
My TIFF Not-So-Diary
The Toronto International Film Festival is now in full swing, which means, for me, the annual ritual of kicking myself for not going to see enough (usually this means “any”) movies when one of the world’s biggest film festivals is happening in my hometown. This year I did manage to see JCVD (read my gushing review here), which was my first official TIFF screening – I went to some parties in years past, and saw an unofficial cast-and-crew screening of an excellent movie made by a good buddy of mine called Young People F**king that showed at last year’s TIFF just before the festival opened. But usually I spend a week and a half feeling like a movie-geek poseur because I never seem to be able to make time for any TIFF movies (attending a non-gala screening isn’t really that big of a hassle, but it is more involved than going to see a movie at a regular theatre, and I am notoriously lazy).
While waiting in line to see JCVD, I overheard a couple talking about a friend of theirs who waited in line for six hours to see something. I wish there was anything in the world I wanted so badly I’d be willing to wait in line for six hours for it, but I can’t think of anything that fits that bill right now. And as the smaller, often foreign cult movies that at one time you could ONLY see at a film festival get released on DVD worldwide, I find I can usually see almost anything playing at TIFF (or Cannes or Venice for that matter) within a year, tops, either theatrically or on DVD (my region-free DVD player also helps). I have a whole shelf of DVDs of crazy Japanese movies that, 10 years ago, I would have had to troll “underground” video stores to rent bootleg VHS copies of, but now they’re readily available at most big retailers.
But all that said, every year there’s a handful of movies I almost consider quitting my job to go to see, and given that this year I have a blog, I will tell you about them.
The Wrestler
I’m on record as saying I think Darren Aronofsky is one of the most fiercely talented directors out there right now, and I’ve been reading about this drama about a washed-up pro wrestler for months. I used to be a pretty serious wrestling fan back in the day, and I’m fascinated by the real lives these guys live and the toll it takes (an oftentimes genuinely messed-up existence unfortunately highlighted by the Chris Benoit incident), and I also love Mickey Rourke. It’s always nice when it appears that a film I’ve been interested in for a while turns out to be great, and the buzz around The Wrestler is really starting to build, even Oscar talk for Rourke. The film was just picked up by Fox Searchlight, so hopefully we’ll get a trailer and a release date soon – presumably by the end of the year if they want to capitalize on the Oscar speculation.
Che
Steven Soderbergh is probably my favourite director, period (I sometimes get goosebumps just thinking about how brilliant The Limey is), and his four-hour, biopic of revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara (screened in two parts, à la Kill Bill) obviously sounds pretty ambitious, but it stars Benicio Del Toro, whose last collaboration with Soderbergh, Traffic, landed them both Oscars, so my hopes are high (I’m also quite tolerant of my favourite filmmakers’ more self-indulgent stuff – I’m a big fan of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia) with this one. Che is also the TIFF movie I’m most likely to kick myself for not seeing, as last I heard it still hadn’t been picked up by a distributor, and as a four-hour biopic about a Cuban revolutionary, it’s sort of a tough sell to wider audiences, so it’s still up in the air as to what form this movie will take when it’s eventually released widely. Hopefully one way or another Soderbergh’s full-length version will see the light of day on DVD at least. I know I’ll buy it the day it’s released.
UPDATE: Variety is reporting that IFC Films has picked up Che and will release it in its four-hour form (with an intermission) in New York and L.A. for a week before the end of the year to qualify for the Oscars, and then release the film early next year in two parts, The Argentine (Part 1) and The Guerilla (Part 2). Huzzah!
Ashes of Time Redux
Years before Ang Lee blew the doors off the wuxia genre with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Wong Kar Wai, king of the Hong Kong arthouse scene, took a stab at it with 1994’s Ashes of Time, his only martial arts film. Wong’s fusion of lyrical, cerebral filmmaking and traditional swordplay movies was pretty much ignored critically and commercially, despite its cast of Hong Kong cinema all-stars. I managed to track down a blurry VHS copy in my student days, and I was impressed with it then (it’s virtually impossible to find on DVD except in similarly cruddy quality, and there are apparently several different versions floating around out there), so I was particularly excited when I learned Wong was remastering the film and re-scoring it (with the help of Yo-Yo Ma, no less). I’m not sure when and how this film will eventually be released here in North America, but whenever and however it happens, I’ll be there with bells on. If the new version is half as good as I remember the original being, it’ll be great.
There’s a bunch of bigger movies playing at this year’s festival I’m dying to see that are due for regular theatrical releases in before the year’s out, like the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading, the Ed Harris-directed Western Appaloosa and Borat director Larry Charles’ documentary on religion with Bill Maher, Religulous, all of which I have high expectations for.
I couldn’t get to all the movies I wanted to see this year, but I did manage to see one of the films I really wanted to see. Which is one more than I’ve seen at TIFF before, really, so that one’s going into the “win” column.
While waiting in line to see JCVD, I overheard a couple talking about a friend of theirs who waited in line for six hours to see something. I wish there was anything in the world I wanted so badly I’d be willing to wait in line for six hours for it, but I can’t think of anything that fits that bill right now. And as the smaller, often foreign cult movies that at one time you could ONLY see at a film festival get released on DVD worldwide, I find I can usually see almost anything playing at TIFF (or Cannes or Venice for that matter) within a year, tops, either theatrically or on DVD (my region-free DVD player also helps). I have a whole shelf of DVDs of crazy Japanese movies that, 10 years ago, I would have had to troll “underground” video stores to rent bootleg VHS copies of, but now they’re readily available at most big retailers.
But all that said, every year there’s a handful of movies I almost consider quitting my job to go to see, and given that this year I have a blog, I will tell you about them.
The Wrestler
I’m on record as saying I think Darren Aronofsky is one of the most fiercely talented directors out there right now, and I’ve been reading about this drama about a washed-up pro wrestler for months. I used to be a pretty serious wrestling fan back in the day, and I’m fascinated by the real lives these guys live and the toll it takes (an oftentimes genuinely messed-up existence unfortunately highlighted by the Chris Benoit incident), and I also love Mickey Rourke. It’s always nice when it appears that a film I’ve been interested in for a while turns out to be great, and the buzz around The Wrestler is really starting to build, even Oscar talk for Rourke. The film was just picked up by Fox Searchlight, so hopefully we’ll get a trailer and a release date soon – presumably by the end of the year if they want to capitalize on the Oscar speculation.
Che
Steven Soderbergh is probably my favourite director, period (I sometimes get goosebumps just thinking about how brilliant The Limey is), and his four-hour, biopic of revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara (screened in two parts, à la Kill Bill) obviously sounds pretty ambitious, but it stars Benicio Del Toro, whose last collaboration with Soderbergh, Traffic, landed them both Oscars, so my hopes are high (I’m also quite tolerant of my favourite filmmakers’ more self-indulgent stuff – I’m a big fan of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia) with this one. Che is also the TIFF movie I’m most likely to kick myself for not seeing, as last I heard it still hadn’t been picked up by a distributor, and as a four-hour biopic about a Cuban revolutionary, it’s sort of a tough sell to wider audiences, so it’s still up in the air as to what form this movie will take when it’s eventually released widely. Hopefully one way or another Soderbergh’s full-length version will see the light of day on DVD at least. I know I’ll buy it the day it’s released.
UPDATE: Variety is reporting that IFC Films has picked up Che and will release it in its four-hour form (with an intermission) in New York and L.A. for a week before the end of the year to qualify for the Oscars, and then release the film early next year in two parts, The Argentine (Part 1) and The Guerilla (Part 2). Huzzah!
Ashes of Time Redux
Years before Ang Lee blew the doors off the wuxia genre with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Wong Kar Wai, king of the Hong Kong arthouse scene, took a stab at it with 1994’s Ashes of Time, his only martial arts film. Wong’s fusion of lyrical, cerebral filmmaking and traditional swordplay movies was pretty much ignored critically and commercially, despite its cast of Hong Kong cinema all-stars. I managed to track down a blurry VHS copy in my student days, and I was impressed with it then (it’s virtually impossible to find on DVD except in similarly cruddy quality, and there are apparently several different versions floating around out there), so I was particularly excited when I learned Wong was remastering the film and re-scoring it (with the help of Yo-Yo Ma, no less). I’m not sure when and how this film will eventually be released here in North America, but whenever and however it happens, I’ll be there with bells on. If the new version is half as good as I remember the original being, it’ll be great.
There’s a bunch of bigger movies playing at this year’s festival I’m dying to see that are due for regular theatrical releases in before the year’s out, like the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading, the Ed Harris-directed Western Appaloosa and Borat director Larry Charles’ documentary on religion with Bill Maher, Religulous, all of which I have high expectations for.
I couldn’t get to all the movies I wanted to see this year, but I did manage to see one of the films I really wanted to see. Which is one more than I’ve seen at TIFF before, really, so that one’s going into the “win” column.
Labels: Random thoughts, Toronto Film Festival
¶ 2:09 PM 1 Comments
Friday, August 22, 2008
Feelin' kinda viral
Studios have been using the Internet to market their films for years now, and I don't just mean buying banner ads on movie websites. The web is now the place to go for trailers, to the point where when I see a trailer I've never seen before in an actual movie theatre, it makes me feel faintly nostalgic. But more and more studios are using viral marketing and sly web videos to promote their movies. The Dark Knight had a pretty long and involved web marketing campaign, from a fake Harvey Dent website to an incredibly complex, nationwide scavenger hunt last year. All of this stuff was pretty secondary to the main marketing push; it seemed to be more about generating early buzz with Internet movie geeks like yours truly (most of these sites started popping up more than a year ago), and some of the gags were genuinely clever – a guy from one website I frequent was sent a Joker-themed cake and a phone number, and when he called the number, a cellphone inside the cake started ringing, and I think there was a voicemail from the Joker on it or something. Not really much of a point to it, really, other than it was pretty cool.
A few months back someone forwarded me the following viral video:
It's certainly crazy, and amusing, and it seemed real when I first saw it (I pride myself on having a pretty good BS detector, but I've fallen for more than my share of fishy web videos; I'm also quite good at self-deception), but I later found out, weeks later, that it was apparently a bit of viral marketing to promote Wanted (which features an amusing office freakout as a plot point). It's clever and all, but it's hard to not consider it at least a partial failure, because at no point is the connection between the video and Wanted made clear. As much as it would have wrecked the reality the clip was trying to present, a title card at the end saying "Wanted: In Theatres Soon" would have, you know, actually promoted the film.
The next clip does a much better job of making clear the connection to the film it's promoting, in this case the Vin Diesel sci-fi action flick Babylon A.D., which opens next weekend. I'm actually pretty excited to see it, as I have a big soft spot for stylishly-visualized sci-fi movies (and as a secret fan of Diesel's Riddick movies, I evidently have a big soft spot for stylishly-visualized sci-fi movies starring Vin Diesel). It's also more effective because it seems almost like the clip is making fun of Diesel's tough-guy persona, and while I have no idea if Diesel himself seen the clip or approves of it, the charm of its lightly self-mocking tone (while it not-so-lightly mocks this summer's blockbuster crop) makes up for what the actual jokes lack in cleverness or subtlety:
It's clear Hollywood (well, technically Babylon A.D. is French) is still working out the kinks in using viral web marketing to promote movies. And while I don't think anyone's trying to point to a year-old web campaign as any real contributor to The Dark Knight's insane box-office haul, all the above campaigns show the studios' growing understanding of online fandom since New Line mistook a bunch of geeks ironic anticipation of Snakes On A Plane on Internet message boards based on its silly title as a pop-culture-phenomenon-in-waiting. That's evolution, baby.
A few months back someone forwarded me the following viral video:
It's certainly crazy, and amusing, and it seemed real when I first saw it (I pride myself on having a pretty good BS detector, but I've fallen for more than my share of fishy web videos; I'm also quite good at self-deception), but I later found out, weeks later, that it was apparently a bit of viral marketing to promote Wanted (which features an amusing office freakout as a plot point). It's clever and all, but it's hard to not consider it at least a partial failure, because at no point is the connection between the video and Wanted made clear. As much as it would have wrecked the reality the clip was trying to present, a title card at the end saying "Wanted: In Theatres Soon" would have, you know, actually promoted the film.
The next clip does a much better job of making clear the connection to the film it's promoting, in this case the Vin Diesel sci-fi action flick Babylon A.D., which opens next weekend. I'm actually pretty excited to see it, as I have a big soft spot for stylishly-visualized sci-fi movies (and as a secret fan of Diesel's Riddick movies, I evidently have a big soft spot for stylishly-visualized sci-fi movies starring Vin Diesel). It's also more effective because it seems almost like the clip is making fun of Diesel's tough-guy persona, and while I have no idea if Diesel himself seen the clip or approves of it, the charm of its lightly self-mocking tone (while it not-so-lightly mocks this summer's blockbuster crop) makes up for what the actual jokes lack in cleverness or subtlety:
It's clear Hollywood (well, technically Babylon A.D. is French) is still working out the kinks in using viral web marketing to promote movies. And while I don't think anyone's trying to point to a year-old web campaign as any real contributor to The Dark Knight's insane box-office haul, all the above campaigns show the studios' growing understanding of online fandom since New Line mistook a bunch of geeks ironic anticipation of Snakes On A Plane on Internet message boards based on its silly title as a pop-culture-phenomenon-in-waiting. That's evolution, baby.
Labels: Random thoughts
¶ 8:58 AM 0 Comments
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Random Thoughts: Hulk, Hellboy and Holmes
It occured to me recently that I posted about The Incredible Hulk a few weeks ago before I saw it and never followed up my thoughts as promised, so the two or three of you that regularly read this blog may be kind of disappointed (it was pretty good). Since then I also managed to check out Wanted, which I also really dug (it was loads better than the comic it was based on, which I hated despite the gorgeous art by J.G. Jones), and it got me thinking that, at least in terms of the blockbusters I've bothered to see, they're pretty much all good-to-great. It's the first time I can remember that I got halfway through a summer without any big disappointments (though I haven't seen Hancock yet and, box office aside, the word on that one is not encouraging) Iron Man was excellent, Hulk was solid, Wanted was far better than I was expecting it to be (thank Nightwatch and Daywatch director Timur Bekmambetov for crafting the most fun American action movie I've seen since The Rundown), and I've still got Hellboy II, The Dark Knight, Step Brothers, Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express to look forward to.
Speaking of which, Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens this Friday and I cannot wait to see it. I know The Dark Knight is the better-known property and is getting all the crazy hype and attention -- I'm expecting a top-shelf superhero movie, but this stuff I've been reading about how it's some kind of "cinematic revolution" and a "potent provocation" (what does that even mean?) seems like it's laying it on a bit thick -- but for my money Hellboy II is the one to keep an eye out for, even if it's the movie I think has the best chance of being lost in the proverbial shuffle. But Guillermo del Toro is one of the best directors working today, and I'm expecting something truly special with this movie. I should also probably mention I'm a pretty huge fan of the Hellboy comics as well as the first movie, which is a great little gem of a comic book adaptation, so that could factor in to my excitement. But anyone who was impressed by Pan's Labyrinth (that should be ALL of you, and if you haven't seen it yet you should remedy that situation immediately), even if you don't typically go in for sci-fi/fantasy/superhero stuff, should give it a chance. I think it has the pontential to be the best movie of the summer that not enough people went to see.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention an interesting press release that crossed my desk last week I wanted to mention: apparently Sacha Baron Cohen, the genius behind Borat/Ali G., will play Sherlock Holmes in a new movie opposite Will Ferrell as Dr. Watson, with Judd Apatow producing. As much as it seems like a retread of the minor classic Without A Clue, I've got enough confidence in all involved that it'll be something pretty awesome, even if the reaction to my positive review of Semi-Pro has all but confirmed that I seem to like Will Ferrell more than most. (Anyone interested in my thoughts about a comedy that totally does not work on any level should stay tuned for my Drillbit Taylor review, which I plan to have up some time next week.)
Speaking of which, Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens this Friday and I cannot wait to see it. I know The Dark Knight is the better-known property and is getting all the crazy hype and attention -- I'm expecting a top-shelf superhero movie, but this stuff I've been reading about how it's some kind of "cinematic revolution" and a "potent provocation" (what does that even mean?) seems like it's laying it on a bit thick -- but for my money Hellboy II is the one to keep an eye out for, even if it's the movie I think has the best chance of being lost in the proverbial shuffle. But Guillermo del Toro is one of the best directors working today, and I'm expecting something truly special with this movie. I should also probably mention I'm a pretty huge fan of the Hellboy comics as well as the first movie, which is a great little gem of a comic book adaptation, so that could factor in to my excitement. But anyone who was impressed by Pan's Labyrinth (that should be ALL of you, and if you haven't seen it yet you should remedy that situation immediately), even if you don't typically go in for sci-fi/fantasy/superhero stuff, should give it a chance. I think it has the pontential to be the best movie of the summer that not enough people went to see.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention an interesting press release that crossed my desk last week I wanted to mention: apparently Sacha Baron Cohen, the genius behind Borat/Ali G., will play Sherlock Holmes in a new movie opposite Will Ferrell as Dr. Watson, with Judd Apatow producing. As much as it seems like a retread of the minor classic Without A Clue, I've got enough confidence in all involved that it'll be something pretty awesome, even if the reaction to my positive review of Semi-Pro has all but confirmed that I seem to like Will Ferrell more than most. (Anyone interested in my thoughts about a comedy that totally does not work on any level should stay tuned for my Drillbit Taylor review, which I plan to have up some time next week.)
Labels: comics, Guillermo del Toro, Hellboy, Iron Man, Random thoughts
¶ 10:36 AM 0 Comments
