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retro trailer: ‘Meet John Doe’
10 hours ago
Eighteen months to film? “Magnificently” shot entirely on a backlot? I do love this movie, but I think I love how they sold it way back when even more. Gary Cooper: definitely a selling point. Cast of 5,000 others? I guess that -- and the 18 months to film thing -- worked the way that “$350 million budget!” works today. Not a one of those 5,000 were CGI constructs, though, I’m guessing. How can we trust that they’re worth watching if teams of computer nerds didn’t slave over them for six months getting their hair just right? Where’s the craftsmanship? »
- MaryAnn Johanson
‘Doctor Who’: “The End of Time: Part One” -- Omg
26 December 2009 10:01 AM, PST
Well, you can’t ever really have too much John Simm, can you? That ending? Yes, my head exploded, but not quite in a good way. I was afraid something like this was in the offing, and I don’t think it’s a direction the show should be going in. (In the same way that I wish the show would move on from the Daleks and invent some new villains, I wish it would cope with the universe it invented for itself and extrapolate from there. Move forward, that is, instead of moving back.) In the words of Mrs. Fox, if what I think is going on here is going on here, it better not be. »
- MaryAnn Johanson
all I want for Christmas is whuffie
25 December 2009 12:35 PM, PST
If you’ve read Cory Doctorow’s awesome near-future science fiction novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom [Amazon U.S.] [Amazon U.K.], then you know what whuffie is. If you haven’t, here’s the gist: The novel takes place in a “post-scarcity” world, where the basic needs of life and lots of its luxuries are freely available to all. There’s still an economy, however: it runs on whuffie, or reputation. Do something nice or good or interesting or fun, and others grant you whuffie points. Do something mean or stupid or boring, and others can take away your whuffie points. (Get " target="_blank">a more detailed explanation at Wikipedia, or read Down and Out -- it’s really good.) »
- MaryAnn Johanson
question of the day: Is ‘It’s Complicated’’s R rating unfair?
25 December 2009 7:24 AM, PST
Time to complain again about how ridiculously out of whack the MPAA is. And it’s The New York Times highlighting it: The romantic comedy “It’s Complicated” arrived at the multiplex on Friday complete with an R rating, ranking it in the same category as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Basic Instinct” in the eyes of the Motion Picture Association of America. But there is no violence in “It’s Complicated,” and the bedroom scenes are decidedly tame by contemporary standards. Instead, the R rating — which experts say could limit the box-office potential of the Universal Pictures film — comes largely from a sequence in which Steve Martin and Meryl Streep smoke marijuana. »
- MaryAnn Johanson
U.K. box office: ‘Avatar’ opens big
24 December 2009 7:32 PM, PST
Avatar enjoyed the third biggest opening of 2009 in the U.K, according to Charles Gant at the Guardian Film blog, after Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and New Moon... which are, of course, sequels. For a better opening by a film with no preexisting source material, we have to go back to July 2008, when Hancock opened with £9.59m. Apparently (also according to Gant), the 3D situation with Avatar was reversed what it was in North America, where 3D screens outnumbered 2D ones. So many in the U.K. who may have wanted to see Avatar in 3D -- and really, there’s no other way to see it -- were likely locked out. Which means that the film may hold very strong as British moviegoers catch up with 3D showings over the next few weekends. »
- MaryAnn Johanson
‘Doctor Who’ blogging: “The Waters of Mars”
24 December 2009 4:07 PM, PST
Holy shit, the Doctor has gone bye-bye. As in crazy. As in the megapowerful godlike potential that has always been held in check mostly by his conscience and a little bit by the Time Lords has been unleashed, and he is off the reservation. As in crazy. I’ve watched this episode three times now, and every time, it’s the same thing: I tell him -- I tell him -- to leave, to get away from there, to remove himself from the equation. And does he ever listen? No. This is the Doctor’s pathology: he cannot help from interfering, even when it would be better to leave. That’s always been his downfall: he is constitutionally incapable of not being a busybody. Except it never really felt so much like a downfall before, at least not before Russell Davies came along. Russell Davies, who knows the Doctor like we know him, »
- MaryAnn Johanson
bias update: December 24
24 December 2009 11:52 AM, PST
obsession: Doctor Who (David Tennant’s almost gone!) boyfriend: Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes (sexiest Holmes ever) psyched: Daybreakers (because the Spierig Brothers made the awesome Undead a few years back) girl crush: Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air (because she’s too cool) dreading: Leap Year (launching a new decade of rom-com crap) enemy: director Rob Marshall for Nine (because it’s McArt) »
- MaryAnn Johanson
December 23-25: DVD alternatives to this weekend’s multiplex offerings
24 December 2009 8:16 AM, PST
We know how it is: You’d like to go to the movies this weekend, but... prezzies! toys! candy canes! snowball fights! big holiday dinner! But you can have a multiplex-like experience at home with a collection of the right DVDs. And when someone asks you on Monday, “Hey, did you see Sherlock Holmes this weekend?” you can reply, “No, I took a couple other trips to Victorian London instead.” Instead Of: Sherlock Holmes, Guy Ritchie’s take on the world’s first consulting detective, featuring Robert Downey Jr. as a more physical Holmes than we’re used to (though not one unfaithful to the source material) and Jude Law as his sidekick, Dr. Watson... Watch: 1985’s Young Sherlock Holmes, in which teenaged Holmes (Nicholas Rowe) and Watson (Alan Cox) battle a seemingly supernatural foe, just like the grownup criminal investigators do in Ritchie’s film. For more Victorian crimefighting, »
- MaryAnn Johanson
question of the day: What’s your favorite Christmas movie?
24 December 2009 7:18 AM, PST
The Online Film Critics Society, in our weekly survey, this week picked our favorite Christmas movies. It’s a Wonderful Life came out on top -- as some of you may know, I am not a fan of It's a Wonderful Life. My top five Christmas favorites, as I voted the Ofcs survey: A Christmas Story Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas Scrooged Meet John Doe It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie »
- MaryAnn Johanson
It’s Complicated (review)
23 December 2009 1:57 PM, PST
And now, for the woman who already has absolutely everything, some more. Christ, but I hate Nancy Meyers’ movies. Nancy Meyers, whose every movie looks like Pottery Barn orgasming. When magazines are like this -- most especially “women’s” magazines -- they get called “aspirational,” in that they are explicitly aimed at people who cannot possibly afford the lifestyle or the fake “reality” they depict but like to imagine themselves living like that anyway. They are selling extreme fantasies in the full knowledge that are fully unrealistic and unattainable and yet -- completely unlike actual fantasy movies, everything from the likes of Indiana Jones to Batman to href="http://www.flickfilosopher.com/flickfilos/archive/2003/lotrreturn.shtml">The Lord of the Rings -- hold out tantalyzing hopes, however remote, that they are within reach for the viewer. And then they also smack you for harboring such hopes. »
- MaryAnn Johanson
Sherlock Holmes (review)
23 December 2009 12:06 PM, PST
Sherlock Holmes is one of the great characters: impossibly Byronic, what with his superior intelligence and (apparent) imperviousness to the fairer sex; impossibly misanthropic, what with his disdain for almost everyone in the world but his amanuensis, Watson; impossibly brilliant, what with his near-psychic ability to pin down the past, present, and sometimes future of total strangers based merely on the state of their wardrobe. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle couldn’t have known it, but the chilly remove and observational distance he embedded in Holmes’ literary DNA makes him the perfect wireframe over which almost any story can be overlain... and created, with his serial stories, the first action franchise. »
- MaryAnn Johanson
giveaway: set of 4 Sherlock Holmes books
23 December 2009 10:33 AM, PST
Rules: You’re eligible to win if 1) You have not won anything from me in 2009; 2) You have a U.S., Canadian, or U.K. mailing address; 3) You enter once and only once. Just in time for Guy Ritchie’s new Sherlock Holmes film, Titan Books is releasing new editions of four fantastic pastiches of Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary consulting detective. The series The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes includes the titles War of the Worlds, by Manly and Wade Wellman and first published in 1975, which throws Holmes into the mix of H.G. Wells’s classic story of Martian invasion; The Veiled Detective, author David Stuart Davies’ controversial 2004 take on the Holmes mythology; The Ectoplasmic Man, by Daniel Stashower and first published in 1985, in which Holmes encounters Harry Houdini; and The Scroll of the Dead, also by David Stuart Davies and first published in 1998, about a disaster surrounding an ancient Egyptian papyrus. »
- MaryAnn Johanson
question of the day: What’s your favorite movie-related iPod/iPhone app?
23 December 2009 7:09 AM, PST
I recently downloaded the IMDb iPod/iPhone app, and it’s fantastic, and absolutely perfect for settling arguments -- Who was that guy in that movie? -- when you’re in a bar or restaurant, where such questions most often seem to arise. But apart from iRentMovie -- which lets me update my Netflix queue from my iPod Touch -- I’m not aware of really cool movie-related apps. Oh, sure, there are lots of games and promotional apps tied in to new movie releases, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m looking for apps that help me as a movie lover. Help me out: What’s your favorite movie-related iPod/iPhone app? As a bonus, here’s another question to consider: What would your dream movie app do? »
- MaryAnn Johanson
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (review)
22 December 2009 9:54 PM, PST
When a paralyzed Marine takes part in a daring biological experiment on another planet, he encounters a remarkable alien civilization-- No, wait: that’s Avatar. This movie is about singing cartoon rodents. Crippling injuries abound, however: Poor Jason Lee, as Dave Seville, the owner/manager/guardian of the little pop star hamsters, is just about dispatched as Squeakquel opens, when Alvin, Simon, and Theodore -- rocking out to a Van Halen cover in concert -- cause a horrendously Three Stooges-esque accident that lands Dave in a full body cast. Well, actually, it’s just Alvin who causes it, which causes Dave to scream, “Alllll-viiiin!!” But you knew that already. »
- MaryAnn Johanson
North American box office: ‘Avatar’ is king of the world
22 December 2009 6:34 PM, PST
Did Avatar live up to expectations? Depends on how you frame it. It wasn’t the biggest opening ever in the history of cinema, though it was the biggest opening ever for a nonsequel, or for a movie with an original story (original as in “not based on a comic book or a novel, or remade from an older film,” that is, not as in “gee, we haven’t seen this plot at all before, have we?”). On the other hand, the inflation in ticket prices in recent years, not to mention the premium prices paid by most Avatar attendees to see the film in 3D or 3D IMAX, meant that attendance was not record-breaking. Then again, the snowstorm on the East Coast appears not to have depressed attendance as it looked like it might do: Avatar’s final numbers on Monday were up $4 million over the Sunday estimates, which means that on Sunday, »
- MaryAnn Johanson
watch it: “Ataque de Pánico! (Panic Attack!) 2009”
22 December 2009 4:48 PM, PST
It’s gonna be Neill Blomkamp and District 9 all over again, or at least that’s the hope. Sez Ben Child at the Guardian Film blog: [I]t's pretty hard to ignore someone like Federico Alvarez, who has just been picked up by Sam Raimi's production company Ghost House, for a $1m deal. The Uruguayan film-maker's short film, Panic Attack!... was shot for a staggering $200, despite featuring the kind of stupendous special effects work which Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay would be proud of. Nobody seems quite sure whether this will be a feature-length version of the shorter film, or something new, but one can imagine the Hollywood money men rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of an explosive blockbuster about giant robot invaders from outer space shot for a couple of peanuts and a bit of old rope. »
- MaryAnn Johanson
Up in the Air (review)
22 December 2009 3:18 PM, PST
Why, you’d almost think that Tyler Durden hadn’t gone off on those rants of his ten years ago. How did the anti-pointless-bullshit cautionary tale of Fight Club become the actual freakin’ blueprint for the past decade instead of the, you know, how-not-to-live anti-plan? If there is a thrill of recognition to Up in the Air -- and a horror of recognition, too -- it may be because this funny and smart and bitter and gently shocking film so perfectly encapulates the self-delusion we’ve subjected ourselves to through the 2000s, and the quiet desperation we’ve lived with while living with that self-delusion. Not all of us as individuals, of course, but all of us in the aggregate, as a culture: we’ve collectively created a society that inserts artificial distance between people (jobs that keep us occupied 24/7, for instance), and we’ve called it Good (gotta make a living, »
- MaryAnn Johanson
trailer break: ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel’
22 December 2009 10:10 AM, PST
When will everyone learn that small household rodents and kitchen appliances simply do not mix? I knew a hamster once, name of Vlad. As in Vlad the Impaler. Because even when you gave him a treat, he’d bite you. Of course, he was a hamster, so it was kinda hilarious, because it was like being nibbled to death. But the point is: Vlad never once kissed my hand. And I never felt any urge to scream and swoon in his presence. Granted, he did not sing pop songs, either. But still: Humans and chipmunks aren’t really compatible, so why are all those girls sighing over Alvin? Weird. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel opened in the U.K. on December 21; it opens in the U.S. on December 23. »
- MaryAnn Johanson
question of the day: What non-hit of the 00s will be an acclaimed favorite by 2020?
22 December 2009 7:26 AM, PST
Today’s question comes from reader Patrick, who writes: In the 80's it was "A Christmas Story"; in the 90's it was "The Shawshank Redemption"--both films developed into monstrous hits after their initial box office failure in the next decade. So, I must ask: what do you predict will be the film of the 00's that didn't do all that well in its theatrical run but will be given its long overdue accolades as a classic in the 10's? (Basically a film that TNT will play endlessly--not that's there's anything wrong with that!) In other words: What non-hit of the 00s will be an acclaimed favorite by 2020? I’ve got a few possibles: »
- MaryAnn Johanson
how to find a real IMAX theater, and avoid the fake ones
21 December 2009 3:32 PM, PST
Earlier this year, I wrote about the growing fan outrage over the retrofitted 35mm screens that now bear the label IMAX but aren’t anything like what we’ve come to expect from the format. I also wrote, earlier today, about how I saw very little difference between Avatar in IMAX 3D and Avatar in non-imax 3D. If you really do want to indulge in the extra cost for IMAX -- for Avatar or for any other film -- then I implore you to be sure that you’re paying for a genuine IMAX experience. The independent trade journal of large-format cinema Lf Examiner has put together these Google Maps that give you all the details of every screen labeled IMAX in the United States or Canada... with an explanation of why some screens are better than others. »
- MaryAnn Johanson
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