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'Avatar's' 'I See You' and Other Earworms
47 minutes ago
This year's Golden Globes had some surprises and let-downs for everyone, but one of the stranger picks (in my opinion, anyway) was a nod for the Avatar theme by Leona Lewis, "I See You." Like it or not, this pop confection has become quite the ear worm and even has worn some fans of the film down to the point where they like it. (Maybe it's Stockholm syndrome?)
Coincidentally, James Cameron's Titanic also served up a seriously damaging, and perhaps more potent, ear worm in the form of Céline Dion's Oscar-winning song "My Heart Will Go On," written by James Horner and Will Jennings. Like it or not, Dion's soaring vocals stuck with you long after leaving the theater, probably because it was being played everywhere.
Others include "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston from The Bodyguard, which she also starred in with Kevin Costner, "The …
- Jenni Miller
Discuss: Films That Would Work Better on the Stage
1 hour ago
For many years I never quite understood, or rather agreed with, the sentiment that some films would work better on the stage. It seemed silly. Nothing was wrong with simple film sets that didn't have much bearing on the plot, that weren't dynamic, engaging, or moving. While a movie like The House of Yes might be wonderful as a play, I always found that watching the volleying banter on the big screen gave it life that a live production could never reach. Likewise, there was something magical about Richard Linklater taping an entire film (Tape) in one room with only three actors. Why should it be shackled to the stage?
And then I sat down to watch Woody Allen's Whatever Works and the light clicked on. I have never seen a movie so utterly terrible on the big screen that would be so entirely apt on the stage. Each set was irrelevant. …
- Monika Bartyzel
Watch This: High School Recreates '500 Days' Musical Number
2 hours ago
The kids today! With their video games and their texting and their Twilight and their Adderall! Am I right, folks? But every now and then the kids do something fantastic like this and make elderly people such as myself jealous that we never did anything this fun when we were in high school.
If you've seen 500 Days of Summer (out on DVD next week!), you will recall the celebratory musical number in the middle of the film. (You can watch it here.) In response to a challenge from their rival school, the students at Shorewood High School, in Shoreline, Wash., recreated the 500 Days number with a bit of a twist: They did it in one unbroken take. Oh, and they did it backwards. That is to say, the main performers had to listen to the song played in reverse and learn how to lip-sync it that way, so that it …
- Eric D. Snider
Excellent Genre Writer Dan O'Bannon, Dead at 63
3 hours ago
If you're of my approximate generation and you enjoy pretty much the same flicks I do, then I'm sorry to say you've lost a hero this week. Dan O'Bannon, a multi-talented filmmaker with a strong affection for science fiction and horror films, passed away yesterday at the age of 63. The man will always hold a special place in my heart for one simple reason: He wrote A L I E N, which (as you probably know) is my favorite movie of all time. Mr. O'Bannon also penned a very fine Philip K. Dick adaptation of Total Recall; a kooky remake of Invaders from Mars; the high-tech helicopter thriller Blue Thunder; the adorably insane Lifeforce; John Carpenter's debut film Dark Star; the quietly creepy Dead & Buried; and the zombie classic The Return of the Living Dead (which was also his directorial debut.)
Any movie geek who grew up in the '80s knew O'Bannon's work, …
- Scott Weinberg
Teens are the New Target for 'The Lovely Bones'
4 hours ago
So far, Paramount's The Lovely Bones hasn't quite gotten the critical response expected from a film directed and written by a team of Oscar winners. Alice Sebold's dramatic novel about a raped and murdered teen watching from a sort of limbo as her family and friends wrestle with the unsolved crime while the culprit roams free was itself in limbo for several years. But despite the tumult, it seemed that Bones could still make the Oscar race, especially with Peter Jackson and his frequent collaborators Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh behind the screenplay, and a star-studded cast that includes Oscar-winner Saoirse Ronan as the narrator Susie Salmon.
However, Bones didn't quite satisfy critics; it's at 38% over at Rotten Tomatoes, and Cinematical's own Elisabeth Rappe wrote in her review, "It's neither a faithful adaptation nor a daring reinvention of the material, and it's truly baffling why Jackson wanted to adapt it at all. …
- Jenni Miller
Sony Options English-Language Rights to 'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'
4 hours ago
I'm honestly a little surprised it has taken this long for an American studio to buy the rights to Stieg Larrson's thriller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It's hard to walk into most book stores - and impossible if it happens to be an airport bookstore you've strolled into - and not notice the yellow cover shouting at you in its vibrant ways. I guess someone at Sony finally got tired of having friends recommend the book to them, as they've begun locking down the legal that will allow them to move forward with an English-language film adaptation.
That last bit of qualification is important to pay attention to, as the Swedish studio Yellow Bird has already produced and released film adaptations of Larrson's the Millennium trilogy; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (or as it is known in its homeland, The Men Who Hate Women), The Girl Who Played With Fire, …
- Peter Hall
Review: The Young Victoria
5 hours ago
We know Queen Victoria as the stern, round-faced widow who ruled Britain -- the woman who became Queen at the age of 18 and reigned for an impressive 63 years. Peeling that image away, French-Canadian filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallee shows us a wholly different side of the Queen in The Young Victoria. Choosing to linger on Victoria's early years rife with isolation and manipulation, Vallee reveals the young woman who came to rise above her environment to become one of the most notable figures in the British monarchy. It's an angle that almost works beautifully, but ultimately falls victim to poor framing and the throes of dramatic romance.
Emily Blunt's Victoria rests at the center of a pulsing web of power struggles. Her mother (the Duchess of Kent, played by Miranda Richardson) is the puppet of her companion, Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong). Together, they struggle to keep control over the young girl, …
- Monika Bartyzel
The Highest-Grossing Female Star of the Decade Is ... Emma Watson?
6 hours ago
Emma Watson earned her place in the latest edition of The Guinness Book of World Records by becoming the biggest-grossing female actress of the last decade. While she may not be headlining her own films in the same way as Julia Roberts or Angelina Jolie, Watson's appearances as Hermione Granger in six Harry Potter installments have grossed an amazing $5.4 billion worldwide.
This doesn't exactly prove that Watson is a bankable movie star, only that she was cast in just the right role in just the right franchise at just the right time. It will be interesting to see how the Potter cast fares post-Potter, as the last two films in the series see release in the next two years. Watson has speculated in the past that she might even leave acting behind forever after Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 wraps.
Rounding out second-place is Watson's Harry Potter co-star Dame Maggie Smith …
- John Gholson
Watch This: Another Great 2009 Movie Montage
7 hours ago
We're at that point in the year where folks will start throwing together movie montages looking back at all the films that have crossed our paths over the past 12 months. We've already brought you one such montage, and now Cinematical reader Zack Y. points us toward another one that he created set to what was perhaps the catchiest and most inspiring movie-related tune of 2009: "Wake Up" from Arcade Fire for Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. And while just about anyone can throw together a bunch of movie clips set to music, it definitely takes some skill to edit them in a way that flows magnificently -- and, in my opinion, Zack totally succeeds in that respect.
Sure, you won't see clips from every single film that came out this year, but more like clips from the films that actually mattered in some way, shape or form …
- Erik Davis
When Variety Gives Critics A Bad Name
7 hours ago
It's a shame that with all the year-end awards being dished out by critics, awards where groups of individuals do their best to do the cinema world proud by honoring greatness, that one can't be devised to recognize articles that make us all look bad. Case in point: Iain Blair's Wednesday article in Variety about the disconnect between audiences and film critics, particularly where Oscar is concerned. His next article on tap is supposedly entitled "Water's Wet, Sky's Blue, Women Have Secrets." Every now and then some film journalist decides to write such an article, which is basically the same as the last one only with changed titles and tries to remind us how we occasionally don't approve of a film we deem poorly made to be smattered with an embarrassment of riches. Nothing we haven't heard before. Rarely though does one of the first sentences smack of the …
- Erik Childress
'The Bounty Hunter' Handcuffs a Trailer
8 hours ago
The Bounty Hunter, a movie that sparked a million "Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston Sitting in a Tree!" tabloid covers now has a trailer. It debuted on Yahoo! Movies and wants desperately to be noticed among Iron Man 2, Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans. So let's notice it!
I have to say this for The Bounty Hunter -- it's not The Ugly Truth. Hunter has guns! Guns that are being fired at people! Such glimpses of semi-automatic bliss are a promise of action beyond "Oh my God, I can't believe I ever married You" histrionics. The fact that people are waving guns and crashing cars hints that once upon a time, this may have been a script where the heroine had actually committed a crime (a "cool" crime like stealing cars or robbing banks), skipped bail, and crossed paths with a bounty hunter. Love ensued between two sleazy characters. …
- Elisabeth Rappe
Iowa Woman Jailed for Not Returning DVDs on Time
9 hours ago
Hardened criminal or rabid movie-watcher? Saira Virginia Denny-Cline sits in an Iowa City jail cell for not returning a stack of movies checked out from the local library in a timely manner. 53 titles were due back to the library on October 2nd and Denny-Cline made no apparent attempt to return the films, valued at $1,360.
First of all, 53 movies? Every library I've ever been to places a cap on how many things you can have checked out at once. Seems to me like the Iowa City Public Library should really think about executing a similar program. Yes, Denny-Cline didn't return them in time, but they could've prevented some of this by not loaning over fifty films to a single person. I wouldn't even do that with my own collection.
Secondly, I've got to know what's in that stack. I need to know what films Denny-Cline deemed so important that she'd risk …
- John Gholson
Taylor Lautner Runs to Summit's 'Cancun'
10 hours ago
Taylor Lautner is one step closer to taking over the world. When The Twilight Saga started to gear up, it was obvious that Lautner was right where he wanted to be. While his co-stars shrunk from fame and griped about the neverending Big Brother eyes of Twi-hards, Lautner slid into his role, eager to chat up his film wherever he could and, subsequently, do whatever he needed to do to stay in the series. (Like go from wee, tiny li'l thing to Mr. Six-Pack Werewolf abs.) And now he's looking to save more ladies in Cancun.
The Hollywood Reporter posts that Lautner will star in a new action flick Summit has picked up from Eric Champnella and Grant Thompson. A gig meant to show off his mad martial arts skills, the film focuses on "an out-of-place college kid who travels with a girl to Cancun on break. While there, …
- Monika Bartyzel
Review: Did You Hear About the Morgans?
10 hours ago
The makers of Did You Hear About the Morgans? probably would not consider this much of an endorsement, but here it is: It's not That bad. There isn't too much in the plot that's aggressively stupid, it produces a few chuckles here and there, and the cast is likable. It's not worth recommending, mind you, unless you're at the theater and you've seen everything else and a screening of this starts in 10 minutes -- and even then you should consider re-watching something else -- but it doesn't sink to the level of badness that you'd expect, given the premise. It's a mere mediocrity, snatched from the jaws of awfulness.
This is the third film written and directed by Marc Lawrence, and the others, Two Weeks Notice and Music and Lyrics, also starred Hugh Grant. That seems like an odd partnership, but hey, whatever works. This time, Grant plays Paul Morgan, …
- Eric D. Snider
Cinematical Seven: Worst Genre-Swapping Remakes
21 hours ago
It's hard to believe anyone thought it was a good idea to turn 8½ into a musical, let alone Federico Fellini. But apparently the filmmaker was happy to see his best work adapted for the stage back in 1982. I guess it had worked well enough for Nights of Cabiria, though the film version of that musical, Sweet Charity, was a tremendous box office flop. I imagine the new film of Nine will have a similar fate. Yet even if it's somehow a hit, that won't excuse the fact that it's a choppy, stagy, soulless simplification of one of the most personal and expressionistic pieces of cinematic art ever produced.
Not all drama-turned-musical remakes are so awful, though the concept of redoing a movie in another genre is pretty funny ever since people started playing with the idea on YouTube. With Zhang Yimou's action-comedy take on the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple …
- Christopher Campbell
Review: Avatar
22 hours ago
Note: The following review originally ran on SciFi Squad, and is being reprinted tonight on Cinematical ahead of the film's theatrical release tomorrow.
The buzz and buzzkill leading up to Avatar, it turns out, found inadequate purchase now that the world has finally glimpsed the fabled film. The echo chamber of hype that believed it would drastically alter the landscape of filmmaking forever, the virulent, vitriolic cries of Dances with Smurfs, the total indifference...all misplaced.
You are not prepared for Avatar. Roll your eyes at that; laugh it off, you've heard that pitch before. It's not hyperbole, though, it's bald truth. Whether it's your most anticipated movie of the year or your least, it is not precisely what you think it is. How could it be? Avatar is a motion picture precedent, after all. It's fair to say that the core conflict is less than revolutionary and that parts of the narrative are broad, …
- Peter Hall
Indie Roundup: 'Welcome,' 'Visioneers,' 'Crawford,' 'Single'
23 hours ago
(Clockwise from upper left: Welcome, Visioneers, Crawford, A Single Man.)
Deals. Catching up on news from the past week: Contemporary drama Welcome deals with illegal immigration and "covert border crossings." Directed by Philippe Lioret, Welcome focuses on a teenager (Firat Ayverdi) and a middle-aged swimming instructor (Vincent Lindon) who develop a strong bond, in part because they are both dealing with being separated from the women they love. Film Movement plans to release Welcome in the second quarter of 2010, according to indieWIRE. Check out the trailer after the jump.
Online / On Demand Viewing. It may be cold outside, but you don't have to go outside to watch Visioneers, which "feels fresh and invigorating," wrote Eric D. Snider in his Cinematical review. "It's a high-concept comedy, but it's down-to-earth and accessible, even a little touching." The comedy is about a man's "search for meaning in his life, and comedian Zach Galifianakis …
- Peter Martin
Blu-ray Review: Inglourious Basterds
23 hours ago
Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is one of my favorite films of the year, and now it's also one of my favorite Blu-rays. Other than Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, which technically was released in theaters last year, there's no movie released to home video in 2009 that will more satisfyingly appreciate in its charms upon multiple viewings. Part of the reason for this, of course, is that Tarantino's movies are almost always a reservoir (no pun intended) of references, in-jokes and influences, many of which only "appear" once you've absorbed their characterizations and stories, and part of this is simply because most filmmakers are content to offer immediate gratification and fail to consider the possibility of true cinematic longevity.
But Basterds is different, surprisingly, on both counts: it's a Tarantinoesque postmodern pastiche, to be sure, and an instant charmer as well, but its emotional and intellectual value is not …
- Todd Gilchrist
Directors We Love: Monte Hellman
17 December 2009 4:15 PM, PST
I have seen nearly every Christmas movie ever made, but there was one I couldn't wait to see that kept eluding me: Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! (1989). Why, you're wondering, would I waste my time on this crappy, sub-par horror series whose only claim to fame was irritating a group of parents back in the 1980s? Because this third part of a five-film series was the "comeback" feature for one of the greatest American directors of the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, Lionsgate has released the film on DVD for the first time, in a three-disc box set, no less, that also contains Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation (1990) and Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker (1991, starring Mickey Rooney!). I finally got to see it. But more on that later.
Like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme and others, Monte Hellman (born 1932) started working for Roger Corman. …
- Jeffrey M. Anderson
'Beautiful Boy' Covers School Shootings from a Different Perspective
17 December 2009 3:32 PM, PST
There's a new indie on the way that I have a feeling you might want to see. It tackles a modern and relevant subject matter -- mass killings at educational institutions -- and it also boasts a cast that you probably never would have dreamed of. Variety reports that Maria Bello and Michael Sheen have wrapped production on an upcoming film called Beautiful Boy. But they're not the only ones attached to this feature. They star alongside Moon Bloodgood, Alan Tudyk, Kyle Gallner, Austin Nichols, and Meat Loaf.
Whether you love epic, karaoke-adored rock songs, dodgeballing pirates, geeky teen killers trying to axe Veronica Mars, Blair Williams, or a dude who can be a werewolf or a vampire, this indie definitely has the bases covered. Written by director Shawn Ku and Michael Armbruster, the film focuses on a married couple (Sheen and Bello) who are about to get separated when …
- Monika Bartyzel
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