Someone commented on my list of Avatar comparisons last week noting that such a practice could be done with any movie. He/She is correct, though it doesn’t really matter since the point of that exercise was to respond to the certain expectation that came with that film’s hype that it would be unlike anything we’ve seen before. With the teaser for Christopher Nolan’s Inception, however, the similar claims of derivation are simply a normal thing we film bloggers to do trailers, particularly those that give us little clue as to what their movie is about.
But deep in our hearts, we all trust Nolan, right? We don’t think he’d make a movie that people would say is just like The Matrix or Identity or Fight Club or Jurassic Parkor whatever. Just like the illusionists in The Prestige and also like Batman, I guess, Nolan has a lot up his sleeve. The fact that nobody knows anything about the plot of Inception makes its trailer even more cryptic than it would seem otherwise to just the regular moviegoer who doesn’t follow script reviews and production developments. I wish I knew so little about Avatar — and about pretty much any upcoming movie, for that matter.
Check out what the film blogs are saying about the new Inception trailer after the jump.
We’ve been teased about it for so long, but finally The Hollywood Reporter has confirmation that an Arrested Development movie is seriously happening. Series creator Mitch Hurwitz will write the screenplay and direct the film apparently with help from Ron Howard, who will also produce through Imagine Entertainment. Fox Searchlight will distribute. Here is SpoutBlog’s suggested plotlines for the film, originally published a year ago, in case Hurwitz is stumped for ideas.
Also moving forward is the DC Comics adaptation Captain Marvel, which is now at Warner Bros. with Get Smart’s Peter Segal still directing as part of a new first-look deal with the studio. Before we get to hear shouts of “Shazam!” on the big screen, though, Segal will be helming a faux biopic titled Liam McBain: International Tennis Star and Proper English Geezer.
Twilight supporting player Anna Kendrick reportedly beat out many young actresses, including Ellen Page, for the female lead role opposite George Clooney in Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air. Hopefully there are no hard feelings in case Reitman ever wants to reteam with Page for Juno 2.
John Malkovich, who made his feature directorial debut six years ago with The Dancer Upstairs, announced he’s making a documentary about the plight of migrant children titled Triple Crossing. Mexican actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna are producing.
Unfortunately, Fox is not making an X-Babies movie. Yet. Instead, the studio is continuing the franchise with X-Men: First Class, a kind of New Mutants or Generation X-likespinoff that will probably capitalize on the risen stardom of Ellen Page, who played Shadowcat in X-Men: The Last Stand, rather than a reboot/origin story a la the First Class comic book. And with Josh Schwartz writing the screenplay, it should be like The O.C. and Gossip Girl, only with mutant superheroes.
No wonder Hollywood likes familiarity when the most original movie announced today is about “aliens invading Earth by traveling backwards through time and wiping out humanity — yesterday by yesterday — while one man stays a yesterday ahead of them, trying to convince the world that the end is coming again.” The Days Before might just have the most confusing sci-fi synopsis of all time.
I was reading Diablo Cody’s recent article in Entertainment Weekly about her love for Judy Blume, and started wondering why there haven’t been any movies made from anything she’s written. Earlier this summer my friend Jen Jones published a biography of Judy Blume, and when I rang her up about any Judy Blume films, she confirmed my fears: she’d been relegated to the world of made-for-TV movies and development hell.
Blume signed a multi-picture contract with Disney way back in March of 2004 (The New York Times talks about why it took so long), and since then we’ve neither seen nor heard a glimmer about the Deenie movie that was supposedly in development, nor anything about her other books. So in an effort to prime the pump, we’re going to present our top five dream casts for five of our favorite Judy Blume books. Check them out after the break.
As far as Hollywood is concerned, the best way to lose one’s virginity is on the road. Whether driving cross-country for a sure thing or making a weekend trip to the state university in an attempt to get laid, teens are always taking sex-seeking trips in the movies. Already this year, there was College, which featured some high school kids having sex on a campus far from home, and now this week sees the release of Sex Drive, a movie about a guy traveling 500 miles in order to hook up a girl he met online, just so he doesn’t begin college a virgin.
Though it may be wrong to celebrate movies that could possibly be encouragement for online predators and purveyors of sex tourism, we present some of our favorite cinematic virgins who lost it on a road trip:
I’ve been tracking the odd pop cultural situation that awaits this month’s release of The Tracey Fragmentsfor awhile now. The film, which I’ve written about before, stars Juno phenom Ellen Page; it premiered at Berlin in 2007 and played tons of festivals, but by year’s end had failed to secure U.S. theatrical distribution. Then, in February of this year, when Page was at the peak of her powers as a precocious Oscar nominee and face of one of the biggest “surprise” hits in recent memory, Tracey was picked up by ThinkFilm for domestic distribution.
This is a film which, despite positive reviews and an award from Berlin, went almost completely unnoticed when it screened at Toronto in September, largely because it didn’t have a distributor that could afford to hire track suited boys to pass out branded Tic Tacs on its behalf. And yet, as soon as ThinkFilm put out a new trailer for the film, it promptly attracted a bunch of negativeblog attention, ranging from unfair to inaccurate.
Lionsgate has moved up the release of Frank Miller’s The Spirit, from January 2009 to Christmas Day. It’s a huge, and not entirely explicable, show of confidence for the comic book movie, which will now compete against family holiday films and Oscar bait instead of having a January graveyard weekend to itself.
Ellen Page will prove her range by strapping on a corset to play the title role in a BBC Films adaptation of Jane Eyre.
Sony Classics has acquired Atom Egoyan’s Adoration, which will premiere in competition later this month at Cannes. The film stars Rachel Blanchard, who also appeared in Egoyan’s last Cannes entry, the widely-reviled Where the Truth Lies.
Discussion of this summer’s heroine lack is in full throttle. Last friday, New York’s Vulture blog asked, “Where are the Roles for Superwomen?; Stu at Defamer jumped off from there, ultimately suggesting an X-Menspin-off for Ellen Page; John at The Movie Blog listed reasons “Why Most Female Lead Action Films Don’t Succeed” (shocker: men can’t identify with or believe in strong — and strong — female characters). Now, adding to the conversation in the least noble way possible, USA Weekendpresents the appropriately titled “Girls Want to Have Fun, Too”, a cover story (with the least flattering photos I’ve ever seen) from its summer movie preview that spotlights Gwyneth Paltrow, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Liv Tyler as the “leading ladies” of the season’s three big comic book adaptations.
Of course, each of these three actresses are only secondary figures to their superhero counterparts (in Iron Man, The Dark Knightand The Incredible Hulk, respectively). But that’s not the worst of it: the women are asked what kind of super powers they would like to have in real life (how about in movie life, as in what superheroine they’d like to play?), and when questioned on the subject of women’s roles in superhero movies, each suggests that we’ve seen great progress:
The New Line Fallout continues: Sex and the City: The Movie (we can link to the trailer now! But we can’t embed it! Because the intern responsible for uploading trailers to YouTube has probably already been fired!) and Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay are amongst the upcoming films facing release limbo in the wake of news that 75% of the former standalone studio’s staff is expected to be fired. Variety says Warner Brothers’ consolidation plan in the months ahead is “reminiscent of what happened to Disney’s Miramax arm after the Weinstein brothers departed in 2005,” which doesn’t bode well for the fate of the films: in the fall of 2005, Disney dumped 10 Miramax films in 10 weeks with little fanfare, and even star-propelled projects like Proof and The Libertine couldn’t recover from the insult.
Semi-Pro managed to come in at number one at the box office this weekend with just $15 million. The Other Boleyn Girl debuted on a third of the screens but made over $2k more on each of them, proving that, even in the darkest economic times, there’s always a market for implied lesbianism.
Speaking of implied lesbianism: Ellen Page has dropped out of Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell, which will begin shooting two weeks later than expected.
indieWIRE reports that the Tribeca Film Institute and funding organization Renew Media are merging “to create one institution dedicated to innovation in film and media, the enrichment of audiences and the promotion of education, understanding and creativity through the media arts.” The new org will be headed by Renew’s Brian Newman.
Oscar producers are worried that the alleged inaccessibility of this year’s major nominees will have a negative impact on the telecast’s ratings. But how could that be, when the Best Picture nominees are so full of memorable catchprases? “I drink your milkshake!” “Homeskillet doodle blog!” “I am putting my scruples aside in order to blackmail you in the name of the greater good,” or whatever George Clooney says at the end of Michael Clayton!
Speaking of bad means and good ends, the Juno phenomena is spilling over to benefit an actual indie film. Bruce McDonald’s The Tracey Fragments, which played the Berlin, Toronto and Denver film festivals last year, and which stars Ellen Page, has secured U.S. theatrical distribution via ThinkFilm. Page’s current hotness notwithstanding, the pick-up is something of a surprise, considering that it’s coming three months after McDonald posted raw footage of the film online as part of a contest for its DVD release.
Owen Wilson will start shooting his first film since his recent breakdown on March 10. Marley and Me, co-starring Jennifer Aniston, is an apparent science fiction film set in an alternate universe in which 40 year-old women can procreate on demand, but chose to purchase dogs instead.
If you were even slightly irritated by Ellen Page’s too-precocious performance in Juno, then you might want to avoid the trailer for Noam Murro’s Smart People. In the movie, which screened at Sundance last week, Page plays yet another teen who seems too smart for her own good. In fact, it is obvious that the trailer is trying to make this character appear similar to her Oscar-nominated role. Now, I’m not one of the many Juno haters, and I think Page has talent, but doesn’t it take away from her performance in Juno to show us that she’s doing the exact same thing in her follow-up? Never mind the fact that Smart People seems like The Squid and the Whalemeets The Ballad of Jack and Rose — I’ve heard that it is pretty funny and smart despite its familiar territories — I’m more turned off by the fact that it’s like Juno II without our favorite Juno I actors (Cera, Bateman and Simmons, of course).
Not that you can go wrong with Thomas Haden Church, with or without a catfish mustache (I just watched Spider-Man 3for the first time, and he’s the only good thing about it). Here he plays the adopted brother of a pompous Carnegie Mellon professor played by Dennis Quaid. Page plays Quaid’s Young Republican daughter; Ashton Holmes (A History of Violence) plays his son; and Sarah Jessica Parker is his former student-turned-doctor who becomes his love interest. Apparently Church’s character is more free spirited than the rest, and he probably teaches them all to have more fun in life. This sounds pretty unoriginal, but from what I’ve read the film as a whole works as a satire of academia and specialized knowledge. Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re going to enjoy any of those too-intelligent characters while waiting for them to relax.
This is the true hallmark of a word-of-mouth hit: when single lines of dialogue take on a life of their own. “’I drink your milkshake’ has such Dickensian grandeur that its miniaturization in the mouths of SportsCenter anchors, scab gag writers, bloggers, and their ilk is practically a national tragedy,” writes food blogger extraordinaire Josh Ozersky. “Nonetheless, if somebody is going to do it, it’s going to be us.”
David Carr comments on the surprises at this morning’s Director’s Guild of America nominations; his commenters comment on everything from racism in America to whether or not the Coen Brothers are lazy, or if they want “the audience to just assume people are just born evil?”
Marc Bernadin ponders how the strike will impact ComicCon, while his colleague Annie Barrett joins me in appreciation of Conan O’Brien’s strike beard.
Speaking of my stupid crushes on stupid stars: Michael Cera’s iTunes celebrity playlist is just ehn. I’m much more impressed with Ellen Page’s shout-out to Erik Satie.
Over the weekend, a few critic groups united in naming No Country for Old Menthe best movie of 2007. St. Louis, Utah and Florida all love the Coen Bros. movie, as well as Ellen Page, Amy Ryan, Daniel Day-Lewis and Ratatouille. They managed to mix it up a little bit, though, so as not to be completely identical/redundant/unnecessary. I’d give the most hugs to the gang in Utah for honoring The King of Kongif only they hadn’t disappointed me with their choice for best actress runner-up: Amy Adams. If I was booked to attend that little film festival of theirs next month, I’d totally change my mind and boycott. People just don’t know the lengths I’ll go to complain about this Enchantedkudos crap.
Not surprisingly, National Treasure: Book of Secretstopped the holiday weekend box office with $65 million. I would have gone to see it, but instead I hung out at JFK airport for hours on end Sunday night and watched parts of Con Air on my iPod. I’ve decided that Nic Cage is a lot better suited for the small-small screen. Too bad such a strong opening means he won’t be making direct-to-iPod movies any time soon.
Perhaps this is a sign that studios will stop trying to find “the next Harry Potter franchise” and begin trying to find “the next I Am Legend.”: Potter actor Robert Pattinson (”Cedric Diggory”) will star opposite Kristen Stewart in Catherine Hardwicke’s teen vampire flick, Twilight. Too bad the Hollywood Reporter already gave us this story two weeks ago; too bad vampire movies have already been a monstrous trend in Hollywood; and too bad studios will never stop looking for “the next Harry Potter franchise.”
Not that I should be worried about any speculation found in Entertainment Weekly, but I was annoyed this past weekend when I saw the magazine’s “Oscar Buzz-O-Meter”, which is only the latest place to find Amy Adams listed as a highly potential Oscar nominee for Enchanted. The piece notes that, “glowing reviews for her regal turn in Enchanted — and the $70 million it grossed in its first 12 days — could earn Adams her second Oscar nomination.”
In what appears to be more of an honest accident than a work of cunning marketing strategy, two films about the inner lives and social stumbling blocks of precocious, “outsider” teenagers are set to hit theaters tomorrow. Jason Reitman’s Juno has been widely praised for its flashy script (which marries bloggish snark to the kind of mawkish morality melodrama that’s been in short supply since the demise of The O.C.), and for the work of lead actress Ellen Page (whose proficient puppeting of Diablo Cody’s detached slanguage Looks Like Acting).
Though hardly the revelation some of the rapturous reviews have made it out to be, Juno is the rare mainstream film that might allow a teenage girl to feel as though her desires have been recognized, and for that alone, it deserves praise. But anyone who tries to defend it against charges of overwritten, over-embellishment hasn’t seen Jennifer Venditti’s Billy the Kid, which begins its official theatrical run tomorrow with an exclusive engagement at the IFC Center in New York.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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I’ve been tracking the odd pop cultural situation that awaits this month’s release of 
The New Line Fallout 
Oscar producers are worried
This is the true hallmark of a word-of-mouth hit: when single lines of dialogue take on a life of their own. “’I drink your milkshake’ has such Dickensian grandeur that its miniaturization in the mouths of SportsCenter anchors, scab gag writers, bloggers, and their ilk is practically a national tragedy,” writes food blogger extraordinaire 
Over the weekend, a few critic groups united in naming 
