9 articles from 2009
Christmas and new year cinema releases
18 December 2009 4:05 PM, PST
| The Guardian - Film News
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Out This Week
Avatar (12A)
(James Cameron, 2009, Us) Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver. 163 mins
The King Of The World returns with an awesomely expensive epic that makes everything else out there look cheap. It really is a visit to a strange new world: part-prog rock album cover, part-Japanese anime come to life. The mix of real action and animation is flawless, the 3D is unobtrusively immersive, and Cameron has lost none of his gift for gripping, purposeful action. It's a shame the story is so un-revolutionary: a formulaic mix of A Man Called Horse, other Cameron movies, The Matrix Sequels, and Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, all washed down with an eco message that's at odds with the technological spectacle served up. But you'd be churlish not to be carried away by the experience. Come on, this is amazing!
Nine (12A)
(Rob Marshall, 2009, Us) Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz.
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- Steve Rose
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Review: Avatar World Premiere outshines movie?
11 December 2009 7:18 AM, PST
| t5m.com
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As I walked down the blue carpet, herded away from the celebrities and stars and hustled into the Empire cinema at Leicester Square, I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps the choice of carpet colour was a little inappropriate. It would be like going to see a film about a group of bananas with brains* and arriving by walking over a carpet made out of fruit. To be fair, I was probably alone in missing the fact that the carpet was blue in honour of the skin colour of the alien race at the heart of James Cameron’s Avatar, not because it was made out of said skin.
Inside the cinema we were treated to a live broadcast from a breathlessly excited Alex Zane who was working the blue carpet, chatting with various celebrities as they strolled past. This line-up included Simon Pegg, two member of popular music group The Saturdays,
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- Joe West
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Avatar: review of reviews of James Cameron's 3D space opera
11 December 2009 1:50 AM, PST
| The Guardian - Film News
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Avatar, James Cameron's 3D spectacular, had its world premiere in London last night. Stand by for the official verdict from the Guardian, but the shock of the night is that everyone else seems to have loved it
A fortnight ago it all looked so different. An early review of selected footage from James Cameron's space opera, posted anonymously on Gawker, comprehensively panned what had been hailed as a game-changingly ambitious and successful foray into the world of 3D. Avatar, said the writer, apparently an industry insider, was "literally vomit inducing". Despite some "beautiful moments", concluded the review, "overall it's a horrible piece of shit".
This morning, the first official reviews are in, and the anticipated sneers, jeers and retches have been gazumped by notices that will afford the poster designers an embarrassment of riches. "Bottom Line: A titanic entertainment – movie magic is back!" ran the first line of the Hollywood Reporter's rave.
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- Catherine Shoard
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Avatar Review
10 December 2009 6:26 PM, PST
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[Big thanks to Mike Sizemore for the following review.]
I just got back home from the world premiere of Avatar here in London. It's safe to keep reading. You are entering a spoiler-free zone.
I wasn't expecting much. I attended the 15 minute IMAX preview a few months back and out of context what I saw was pretty. Very pretty. The immersive technology was an obvious step up, but the scenes with the marines came across as just weird on the eye and the sequences with all the alien fauna gave me flashbacks to James Mason clambering through mushrooms forests in Journey to the Centre of the Earth. But what really had me worried was the story.
There's a lot of that same worry online. Avatar is often mentioned in the same breath as Ferngully: The Last Rainforest and Dances with Wolves, and then there was *that* South Park episode. I arrived this evening to a blue carpet event (I
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Fox To Inundate Sunday Sports With ‘Avatar’
31 October 2009 1:22 PM, PDT
| ScreenRant.com
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What’s that? You’re one of the two people (Gary Busey is the other) on the face of the planet that doesn’t know what this little indie film called Avatar from this up and coming production company, Fox, is all about? Well, fear not weary moviegoer for on November 1st, 20th Century Fox proves just how important media dominance is by going for the “world’s largest live trailer viewing” on “one of the biggest sports days of the year.”
Fox Sports will take the entire country viewing Fox NFL Sunday, America’s No. 1 NFL pre-game show, to Arlington, Texas and the new Cowboys Stadium, where the three minute and thirty second trailer will play live from the enormous Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision screen. The crowd attending the Cowboys-Seattle Seahawks game will experience the Avatar trailer live just minutes prior to the noon (Central) kickoff between the Cowboys and Seahawks,
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- Anthony Ocasio
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“Avatar” Hit By Viral Video
31 August 2009 3:09 AM, PDT
| Studio Briefing - Film News
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James Cameron's risky move to show preview footage of Avatar to fans months before the movie's release in December might well backfire -- thanks to a spoof video posted last week on YouTube, titled "Hitler learns that the Avatar trailer sucks." The video, which has been viewed more than 168,000 times since it went online (it’s one of numerous such movie parodies), employs a clip from the 2004 film Downfall showing Hitler in an explosive rant in front of his generals. In the altered subtitles, Hitler condemns Cameron for producing a lame trailer. "The trailer has disappointed the fans to the point of indifference," he remarks sadly at first. His voice rising, he later screams, "He should have left the remake of Ferngully: The Last Rainforest to Lucas! (He also refers to it as The Land Before Time 3. "I wait ten years for f***ing Captain Planet with cats! ... Who the hell wants Clone Wars: Thundercats?") He rails that "Cameron has spent too much time underwater and has taken the Hollywood opiate of putting technology before story." Finally, Hitler remarks forlornly, "Maybe the video game is good."
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Watch This: Hitler Hates 'Avatar'
28 August 2009 9:02 AM, PDT
| Cinematical
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It's not exactly original for someone to use this clip from the 2004 film Downfall and change around the dialogue. We've seen it countless times before, with the most recent being Hitler's reaction to the death of Michael Jackson. But the videos are only as good as the person writing the dialogue, and I'm sorry if you don't agree with me here -- but this one just cracked me the hell up.
In the video after the jump, watch as Hitler freaks out over the failure of James Cameron's Avatar trailer, comparing it to The Land Before Time 3 (among other things) with lines like, "He should have left the remake of Ferngully: The Last Rainforest to Lucas!" Thankfully not everyone is hating on Avatar as much as Hitler, and as our own William Goss and Jessica Barnes recently reported, the sneak preview footage in 3D was pretty fantastic to watch.
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- Erik Davis
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Studio may sue Avatar over 'visual similarities' to Delgo
26 August 2009 7:24 PM, PDT
| The Geek Files
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Oh Dear. James Cameron's sci-fi flick Avatar has been marketed on its thrilling 3D CGI visuals and hailed as the future of filmmaking, but it looks like another movie did it all before.
In 2008, the animated fantasy Delgo bombed at the box office with the worst opening weekend on record. The $40million movie opened with just $512,000. It was pulled from cinemas after only a week on release, making a total of just $695,000 in the USA. Flop-a-doodle-do.
But Cameron's much-anticipated Avatar bears a remarkable resemblance to the movie, so much so that Delgo's makers Fathom Studios are considering a lawsuit.
"From what we have seen, we are amazed by the visual similarities between the two films," Atlanta-based Fathom Studios said in a statement. "We are considering what legal options may be available to us."
Cameron has claimed his film has been in the planning stages since the late 90s, although
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- David Bentley
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2009 Comic-Con "Astro Boy" interview with David Bowers, director.
29 July 2009 6:01 AM, PDT
| Movie Jungle
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Comic-Con, July 23rd, 2009.
Annie Award nominee David Bowers (“Flushed Away”) takes a seat. The helmer of “Astro Boy” has vast experience in animation which goes way back to the lovely “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” as well as “An American Tail: Fievel Goes West,” “Ferngully: The Last Rainforest,” “The Prince of Egypt” as well as the most recent “Shark Tale” starring Will Smith.
We introduce ourselves to the friendly Mr. Bowers who has a great calmness about him.
A comment is made on the look of the film being more western.
Bowers talks about the visual style “You gotta remember in the original Astro Boy…Manga is not that hard anime look. It’s very cartoony. It’s actually further away from whatever you call hardcore Manga anime than the things that we’ve done. I think when you see the movie, the city for example is very Japanese. Metro City
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9 articles from 2009
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