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.
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If you need to rest your eyes at any point during the 146 min. comedy epic Funny People, your best bet is to do it early during a sequence in which Adam Sandler’s character has back to back sex with a couple of female fans. The second of these scenes is mildly amusing, but there’s just no need to put the images in your head of either Sandler with a face full of breasts or the actor taking a girl from behind.

There are some actors we don’t need to see in a sex scene, humorous or otherwise, and Adam Sandler is one of them. He’s of a generation of comedic actors who starred in movies where they get the girl but where there’s no need for gratuitous sex and nudity. Unlike most of his successors, including Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Paul Rudd and Dane Cook, he was never a pin-up in addition to being a funnyman. Even if he was better looking than some of his brethren, such as David Spade, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Rob Schneider.

Still, Adam Sandler isn’t the last male actor we’d want to see in a sex scene. He’s not even in the bottom ten, which we present in a list below:
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All comparisons between Dick Cheney and Darth Vader were rendered moot recently when George Lucas told Maureen Dowd, of The New York Times, “George Bush is Darth Vader. Cheney is the emperor.” In response to that clarification, David Edelstein wrote a piece in this week’s New York magazine in which he attempts to find another movie villain who Cheney resembles even more than any character in Star Wars. Ultimately, though, he settles on the former vice president being something of a villainous mutt: “Cheney is Palpatine with a soupçon of Sauron, a pinch of Voldemort, a dash of Mabuse, a jigger of Fu, with some Elmer Fudd and Richard Nixon folded in.”

That’s an interesting conclusion, but do we really need to soil our memories of these cinematic evildoers by likening Cheney to them, and worse, vice versa? It’s bad enough the guy has shown up in a lot of contemporary movies, both officially (W.) and unofficially. In Jim Jarmusch’s new film, The Limits of Control, which opens this week, a certain character is an obvious, albeit somewhat veiled, stand-in for Cheney. And at least seven other recent films similarly feature a character who is a dead-ringer for the old VP. We count them down, in order of most intentionally Cheney-like, below.
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It’s been a long time since I paid attention to any promotional materials related to a Harry Potter movie. After awhile, it had seemed the movies all look the same, at least in trailers, posters and other marketing tools. And since I stopped caring about both the books and the movies after Goblet of Fire (though Order of the Phoenix has admittedly been floating around the bottom of my Netflix queue since it was released to DVD), there really was no reason for me to bother with ads for whatever installment Warner Bros. is currently attempting to ram down my movie-blogging throat.

However, due to my job of keeping abreast of all that’s super-hot in the world of film (according to film blogs, at least), I was obligated to watch the latest trailer for this summer’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. And I have to admit that it makes the new movie look incredibly epic. I feel like even if I had never seen a Harry Potter movie before, I’d still go see this, whether I went back and acquainted myself with the predecessors or not. Even more than exciting me with its percussion-heavy music and its promise of kissing scenes (aka “mild sensuality”), the trailer really impressed me with its turn-face on the usual trailer-pause technique, in which the cliche “It has begun” is replaced with “It’s over.”

After the jump, read what other bloggers are saying about this new spot:
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I wish I were more familiar with the cartoon Thundercats so that I could properly appreciate this new fan-made trailer. And yet it’s such a well-done video that it’s hard to even think I could appreciate it more than I already do. Someone clearly put way too much time into this thing, picking out appropriate segments from Troy, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and other films, and digitally painting the faces of Brad Pitt, Vin Diesel and Hugh Jackman (and an actress nobody seems to be able to identify). It’s so terrific that the real Thundercats movie (potentially arriving in 2010) will no doubt be a disappointment in comparison (perhaps as bad as this old fake Thundercats movie trailer). In fact, this version’s awkward CG-rendered Snarf is likely better than what Warner Bros. will give us (the actual film is reportedly going to be entirely computer-animated).

I was going to initially say that this is the best fake trailer I’ve ever seen, but I probably say that too often. Plus, I’m going to stick with the Where’s Waldo parody of The Bourne Identity for that honor. Still, this is one of the best I’ve seen in terms of technical achievement.

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The fanboys are so serious about The Dark Knight being the best film of 2008 that if the Academy snubs the comic-book adaptation for a Best Picture nomination, they’re liable to storm the Kodak Theatre on February 22 in protest. But why should anyone be worried that it won’t get the nomination? It wouldn’t be much of a coup for the year’s top-grossing blockbuster to be named one of the five Best Picture candidates. In fact, since the very first Academy Awards, the top award has often been handed out to films that were #1 at the box office in their respective year. And the last time it happened was as recent as 2003, with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Thanks to popular and talented filmmakers like D.W. Griffith, Walt Disney, David Lean and Steven Spielberg, it’s hardly uncommon for films to make money and earn critical respect. But this isn’t an opportunity to spotlight overrated top-grossing Best Pictures like Titanic, Rain Man and Rocky, which were decidedly not their year’s best films. Rather, this is a chance to ease the minds of fanboys just in case The Dark Knight doesn’t get the nod. Some of these blockbusters were indeed nominated for Best Picture, and a few even won the award, but some of them were both their year’s biggest moneymaker (in the U.S.) and best film (from the U.S.) without gaining proper Academy recognition.

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Last week, Entertainment Weekly confirmed with Warner Bros. that the studio would be campaigning for a nomination for Heath Ledger specifically in the supporting actor category, putting to rest all the speculation and suggestions that he could contend for the Best Actor Oscar. Now all the awards pundits seem to agree that Ledger is a definite lock for a posthumous nomination. As for The Dark Knight’s hopes for other categories, though, it’s still up in the air as to how many nominations the comic book movie might garner.

While its predecessor, Batman Begins, only received one Oscar nomination, for Wally Pfister’s cinematography, there’s at least some likelihood that The Dark Knight could be recognized in as many as a dozen categories. That’s about as many as it’s legitimately eligible for, anyway, and in a year that keeps looking slimmer and slimmer in terms of Oscar-worthy pictures, there’s no reason to completely deny The Dark Knight’s full capability. Unfortunately, it’s a popular genre picture, so regardless of how critically acclaimed it is, and regardless of how the Academy has historically lauded similar titles, there will be a lot of doubt and debate concerning this movie’s prospects all the way up until January 22, when the nominations are announced.

Yesterday, John Foote of In Contention, commented on the increasing chances of The Dark Knight in such a lackluster Oscar season. In some ways, though, it’s not just about onetime Oscar hopefuls turning out to be hopeless; it’s also the constant problem of so much Oscar bait being held away from viewers and voters until the last possible second. Even those films that end up being fairly good can be disappointments after so much premature awards season hype. Sure, audiences have short attention spans and typically a film released midyear is easily forgotten by voting time, but a movie as memorable, as successful and as well-made as The Dark Knight can come out in the summer and easily be in the forefront of voters’ minds as an easy and deserving fallback. Therefore so many Oscar bloggers shouldn’t suddenly be surprised to see that The Dark Knight’s hopes for multiple Oscar nominations is “brightening” or “shaping up.” It’s always been a contender. Let’s break down its chances, category by category, after the jump:

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I never knew it was so easy to add lightsaber effects to any YouTube clip. Earlier this week, when I wrote about the new Clone Wars lightsaber game for the Nintendo Wii, I saw it done with the infamous “Star Wars Kid” video (see it here). And now, thanks again to Fark.com, I see it done with a clip from The Princess Bride (above).

Apparently, this is only the latest in a trend; people have been changing swords to lightsabers in nearly every movie featuring swashbuckling, including the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (see here and here), the Lord of the Rings movies (here), the recent Zorro movies (here), Kill Bill (here), Gladiator (here) and 300 (here). Someone even recently added the effect to the end of Boogie Nights (here).
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Over the weekend, Wanted had a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.com. It’s since gone down to 81% (at the time of this writing — and with top critics it’s down to 67%), though that’s still pretty good for a movie that initially looked like just another Matrix knockoff.

But will the good reviews make for great box office? Last night, while viewing the latest trailer in a theater with some friends, I mentioned that Wanted was receiving great reviews. Nobody believed me at first, and then they didn’t care; they still thought it looked terrible.

Good reviews rarely help an action movie, and bad reviews rarely deter audiences from seeing them. However, if we look at the top 5 most critically acclaimed action movies, it’s clear that people do often prefer a good action film to a bad one. The next 5, on the other hand…

1. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)
   Rotten Tomatoes’ “T-Meter” score: 94% (top critics: 98%)
   All Time Domestic Box Office Rank: #9 ($377 million)
   Sample Critic Quote: “The film event of the millennium.” (Richard Corliss, Time)
   My Analysis: In terms of both reviews and gross, it is possible that, yes, this final LOTR film was the film event of the millennium only three years in. It even won the Oscar for Best Picture, as well as ten other Academy Awards. However, we do have a few hundred years left, and Corliss’ assessment is likely to be challenged one of these centuries.
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It’s been three months since the trades reported Guillermo Del Toro was in talks to direct The Hobbit (as two separate films). So why has it taken this long for the deal to be set in stone? Over at The Movie Blog, John thinks some of it had to do with Del Toro wanting to make sure he would have enough creative control, considering he’ll be working for producer Peter Jackson.

How much control will Guillermo del Toro have? I’ll be willing to bet this was one of the big issues delaying the official announcement of his agreeing to direct the projects. Peter Jackson helmed The Lord of the Rings… will he allow del Toro (a better director over all in my opinion… although both are insanely gifted) the freedom to make these films as he sees fit with modestly limited interference? Clearly del Toro should listen to the studio and to Jackson in particular… but these are HIS movies now, not Jacksons, and for the most part he needs to be the man in charge now. Will they let that happen?

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Two of this year’s Oscar winning films were sequels. And only two Oscar-nominated films are officially slated for sequels. But only one film fits both of these truths. The Bourne Ultimatum, which was a bit of an upset in its winning of three Academy Awards, including the shocker of Best Editing (which Christopher Rouse certainly deserved), will definitely be getting a follow-up, if this Variety article from Friday is correct (via Cinematical and Empire). The possibility of a fourth Bourne installment has been floating around for awhile now, despite the fact that Ultimatum so nicely tied up the series’ storyline and despite implications from Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass that continuing the franchise is unnecessary. But considering Ultimatum was a box office hit, and a critical favorite (it was one of the best mainstream films of the year) and has now won three Oscars, it seems like a no-brainer that Universal should want to keep Jason Bourne running.

The same can’t be said for that other Oscar-winning sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Although director Shekhar Kapur has said he wants Elizabeth to be a trilogy, it’s unlikely that the third film will be greenlit anytime soon. Of course, the plan is to revisit the story after another decade and things could well be different in ten years. Even if it weren’t likely to be a box office or critical success, it could be worth making just for the Oscar glory. I know that Alexandra Byrne wasn’t the first costume designer to receive Oscar nominations for work on two different films in the same series (Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor were both nominated for two LOTR films), but if she suited Cate up again for a third film, she might be the first to have that honor of making it three. Meanwhile, Cate could also be the first actor or actress to be nominated three times for playing the same character.

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I’m sure you heard about the announcement heard round Middle Earth the world yesterday: Peter Jackson has settled his differences with New Line and has come on board as executive producer of the studio’s two Lord of the Rings prequels. It wasn’t mentioned in the press release, but Jackson has decided not to direct either of the installments in New Line’s adaptation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, though the news that he’s involved should be enough. Clearly, the studio simply needed to get some good news, any good news, out there — likely more for Time Warner shareholders than Tolkien or Jackson fans.

I wasn’t the only person to immediately assume the settlement between Jackson and New Line had something to do with the latter’s disappointment with the box office of The Golden Compass. Both bloggers and blog comments were quick to claim that, “The Golden Compass’s low box office was the best thing that could have happened for LotR fans” (said “E” on Cinematical) and pat themselves on the back, as if it was all planned: “Well done everyone for not turning up for Compass!!” (from “wildphantom07″ on AICN). The real question, then, is how much more in Jackson’s favor was the settlement? We’ll probably never know, but we can imagine. After a very bad year, New Line was possibly pretty desperate.

Of course, nobody at the studio would ever admit to such a suggestion. Entertainment Weekly has the denial:

New Line is quick to point out that The Hobbit resolution is in no way a reaction to disappointing domestic box office numbers for their most recent release, The Golden Compass, which they had hoped would launch a new franchise. “Absolutely not,” said Lynne. “This has been in the works for a while now. Golden Compass, by the way, overseas, is performing spectacularly. Obviously, we have been disappointed with its performance here, but I think overall it will do quite well.”

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