James Cameron’s Avatar is supposed to be like nothing we’ve ever seen before. So why does it look so familiar? One of the most disappointing things about the film’s promotion so far is how derivative the film looks in the trailer that (eventually) debuted online today. And much of what we’re reminded of wasn’t even that great to begin with. To help illustrate our feeling of déjà vu, we’ve captured a few screenshots from the trailer and, where available, put them next to their older visual counterparts.
…Read more

Get your introduction to the future of cinema in little more than a weeks time, if you’re lucky. Apparently, as the LA Times reported yesterday, “Avatar Day” will consist of a mere two screenings of the 16-minute sneak preview of James Cameron’s Avatar next Friday, one at 6pm and one at 6:30pm, only in IMAX theaters. And the only way to get in is to acquire one of the first-come, first-serve tickets made available this Monday via the film’s website.

I’ve never been very good at getting tickets for high-demand concerts and events, so I’m going to assume I’ll be missing this special promotion. Which is fine by me. I’m pretty much over the entire idea of being teased by movie marketing. Besides, the current hype circling this “groundbreaking” 3D sci-fi movie has me expecting to be disappointed. And judging by some of the comments posted around the blogosphere, there are many people not interested in making the effort Monday.

Seriously, let’s just wait until the whole thing arrives in theaters this December. And in the meantime, go see another, more modest harbinger of the future of science fiction cinema this weekend: District 9.

Also, check out a sampling of film blog commentary on and commenter responses to the details of “Avatar Day,” and whether it’s really that anticipated, after the jump:
…Read more

It’s an appropriate week for Universal to announce they’re making an adaptation of the classic Atari game Asteroids, because chances are the thing will end up opening on a 4th of July weekend. Just like Independence Day and Armageddon. Actually, as far as I can tell a movie of that arcade game could very well be a sequel to Armageddon. Except that Universal won the four-studio bidding war, and Disney did not (I’m unsure if Disney was even one of the bidders, which also included Fox and Sony). But Disney should go ahead with Armageddon 2 anyway in order to give us another summer like that of ‘98. DreamWorks can also get in the game with a Deep Impact sequel, but it’d probably have to be distributed by Disney, so that might be an issue.

I have to concentrate on when this thing will be, because focusing on what this thing will be is futile. And that’s the primary reaction to the news today: what the hell will an Asteroids movie be about that will fill up a feature-length running time? And why did four studios fight over such a simple property? Check out some of these reactions from the film blogs after the jump:

…Read more

Now that Star Trek has opened, broken some records and delighted an apparent majority of critics and moviegoers, it’s time for the backlash to begin. The complaints are not tremendous, but they have popped up here and there on the web today, and it’s worth taking a look at some of them, especially for those of us who haven’t yet gotten around to watching the thing. I’ve already learned, courtesy of actor/comedian Aziz Ansari that I should be careful in choosing where I see J.J. Abrams’ reboot if I want to see it in IMAX. What else might I be wary of before I go into the movie, in general? Let’s see what negativity is coming out of the blogosphere after the jump:

…Read more

Though the third Fast and the Furious installment, Tokyo Drift, wasn’t a huge box office disappointment with its $63 million domestic gross, it was significantly less successful than its predecessors, The Fast and the Furious ($145 million) and 2 Fast 2 Furious ($127 million). A fourth film would normally see an even bigger drop in box office receipts, but next week’s Fast & Furious has a good chance of actually being the highest-grossing film in the series yet, due to the return of original cast members Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordanna Brewster and, most importantly, Vin Diesel.

With the expectation that Fast & Furious will be enough of a hit to save the franchise, we take a look at ten other films that similarly kept their respective series going, either because of an increase in profits or a surprising increase in quality, following one or many disappointing installments.
…Read more

One thing you have to love about the fanboys, they’re always a glass-half-full kind of people. Whenever one of their beloved movies gets ripped apart by critics, they point to the box office results with pride. Critics are meaningless, they remind us, because Transformers and the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and the Star Wars prequels made so much money. And now, with their Watchmen having received both mixed reviews and a relatively disappointing opening weekend, they’re still defending its success to the end. Drew McWeeny of HitFix said it best in a Tweet this morning: “Box-office talk is absolute death to me. I just don’t care. It got made. I liked it. I win.”

McWeeny may not exactly be the king of the geeks, but he does inadvertently represent them today. Because whether or not Watchmen has technically underperformed (or “failed” in any way) should not be their concern any more than the negative reviews (or our list of reasons claiming the comic adaptation is unnecessary). But if they are going to use the defense that the box office doesn’t matter, they aren’t allowed to celebrate grosses this summer when Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen receives bad reviews yet still has a strong opening.

More on the debate on the topic of Watchmen’s success or failure after the jump.

…Read more

Many smart cinephiles and comic book geeks will avoid watching Watchmen this weekend. Not to avoid the crowds of opening weekend, and not to patiently await word of mouth from friends and reactions from critics. No, these bright few will ignore the out-of-season blockbuster event because there is absolutely no reason to see this movie. They recognize that any Watchmen adaptation (particularly this one that’s been made) is completely unnecessary. Well, for anyone not out to profit from it, anyway. Of course, even Warner Bros. might have been better off not producing the thing, since the studio won’t be making as much money as it had initially envisioned thanks to that profit-participation settlement with Fox.

The point of this post is not to call Watchmen watchers stupid. Rather, our list of five reasons the film is unnecessary is to help moviegoers get smart. After reading this, though, if any of you are still determined to waste your time sitting through almost 3 hours of redundant, rehashed, irrelevant, ridiculous and inescapably disappointing superhero cinema, we’ll be left with no choice but to consider you mindless sheep, the kind that deserve to be duped. And if Dr. Manhattan chooses to vaporize us (or fans choose to curse us out in the comments section) for exposing the truth about this enterprise of excess, then so be it. We believe we’ve served justice here.
…Read more

Should special effects only be used to service a film’s story, or is it perfectly fine for movies to feature extraneous spectacle? That’s a debate that comes up often among cineastes, but ultimately there’s room for both functions. Sometimes, in cases like Jurassic Park and The Matrix, both categories of effects may even faultlessly coexist in the same film. Yet there is one kind of effects employment that’s intolerable to all film-loving parties: the gratuitous exploitation for the sole purpose of brazen gimmickry. It’s this kind of effects work that goes beyond spectacle. It’s not so much a show as a show off.

For one example of this cinematic sin check out Karina’s review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in which she references a scene featuring an inessential and irrelevant rocket launch in the background of an otherwise intimate moment between two lovers on a sailboat. Actually, that’s apparently only a minor citation in a “a film about the feat of its own whiz-bang, Frankensteinian digital imagery, drunk on its own accomplishment to an extent that feels quasi-ethical.” Hardly the first movie to commit such a crime, sure, but Benjamin Button seems to be the most thoroughly guilty exploiter since Forrest Gump (both films, incidentally, were scripted by Eric Roth).

So, in (dis)honor of Roth’s repeat offense, let’s take a short look at the worst exploitations of special effects in the last 15 years:
…Read more

The latest film-centric trend on YouTube is apparently making fun of the new Star Trek trailer. And it goes way beyond the Smallville and 90210 recuts I showcased last week. TrekMovie.com is collecting all the parodies, which also include a reverse recut featuring scenes from Smallville, another recut acknowleding the parallels to the Star Wars prequels, a weak clip using music from Top Gun and a hilarious recut employing the opening theme and credits style from The A-Team. Unfortunately, there’s still no Muppet Babies version, but I’m going to keep on checking back with my fingers crossed.

The best video included, though, is not quite a recut in the same class as the others. This one instead composites young Kirk footage into a scene from the original Star Trek TV show. It would be great even if William Shatner hadn’t already been publicly complaining about the film, but it’s even better knowing that Shatner likely had this exact reaction today. If he’s a good sport, he’ll even film a recreation of this clever YouTube clip.

[via Topless Robot]

Editor’s Note: The “official” AOL release of the trailer is not embeddable, and the MTV player isn’t working for us, so we’ve embedded a lesser quality version above with the first couple of shots missing. Watch the trailer full quality here.

After watching the new teaser for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I personally had no comment. Having stopped reading the series somewhere in the center of the previous book, I didn’t feel I had any authority on the matter. The only thing I thought while watching the clip was that it seemed more like one of those annoying prequels that comes after a series to humanize that series’ villain with an origin story (y’know, like the Star Wars prequels and Young Hott Hannibal (wait, that’s not what it was titled?). And until I read an interesting trailer analysis on MTV Movies Blog this morning, I thought that couldn’t actually be the case.

Actually, MTV’s look at the teaser began last night with a frame by frame analysis, in which Shawn Adler reveals his expert knowledge of J.K. Rowling’s text by pointing out the myriad ways that David Yates’ film is different from the book, from a previously reported added-in scene to little changes within adapted sequences. My favorite observation:

0:43: Our first glimpse at young Tom Riddle, the boy wizard who would grow up to be Voldemort. Surprisingly, I’m more interested here in Dumbledore, who is costumed differently than in the novel, where he was described as wearing “flamboyantly plum velvet.”

…Read more

Sci-Fi Scanner points to The People vs. George Lucas, a documentary-in-progress about “the unique, ambivalent and sometimes conflicted relationship” between Star Wars fanboys and the franchise’s creator. The basic thrust seems to be that even people who really loved the original three films take so much issue with the Special Editions and/or the prequel trilogy, that their love is equally balanced by hate, thus turning each and every Star Wars fanboy into a tortured soul, struggling to reconcile the pleasure with the pain, etc. Which is HILARIOUS, right?

Anyway. The makers of People are looking for “Star Wars aficionados and/or notorious detractors” who are willing to unload their passion on video tape for possible inclusion in the film. More details here.