With Comic-Con beginning tomorrow, there’s so much movie stuff being talked about today that I almost didn’t know what the biggest topic was/is. And really, the most discussed film-related news of the day was the Sam Raimi/World of Warcraft movie announcement. But WOW fans have apparently gone back to playing the game and aren’t hanging out on the web so much anymore, so it appears the teaser trailer for Alice in Wonderland has taken over as the most exciting thing for movie geeks to drool over right now. Even more than the hot photos of Freddy Krueger, Jeff Bridges on the set of Tron 2.0 and the Megan Fox Fangoria cover.

All I can say is that if you told me 15 years ago that I’d ever be this disinterested in something involving either Tim Burton or Lewis Carroll, let alone both, I would have called you a liar and then beat you with my Edward Scissorhands DVD (see, the joke is that I was such a big fan back then that I had the DVD before it ever existed). It doesn’t look as bad as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I guess, but it looks a whole lot duller than I expected. Maybe this is just too perfect and obvious a pairing that there’s no need for it, in the same way we don’t really need a Terry Gilliam-directed Good Omens or a Chris Columbus-directed Percy Jackson (doh!). I guess that’s the main reason I have no desire to see this movie, but the fact that it somehow looks both murky and meretricious has me turned off completely.

Let’s see what the rest of the film blogosphere thinks of the teaser, after the jump:

…Read more

My maternal grandmother passed away over the weekend, so I’d like to pay her tribute with a movie list. I’m not sure how big a fan of movies she was, having not grown up very close to her, physically, but Grandma Gloria can be credited with introducing me to movie hopping, at least. One of the few summers I was able to visit her was in 1992, and I mainly recall the year due to the movie we snuck into, Sister Act. And the movie we legally watched before it, Death Becomes Her. I probably would have forgotten both of these lame films in any other circumstance, but the significance of the event has kept the specific time and place of their viewing in my memory probably forever.

Grandma Gloria certainly wasn’t the most free-spirited grandmother to ever live, but a few things, such as the introduction to movie hopping, always made me think she was a bit cooler than other kids’ grandmas. Then there was the fact that she’d been married four times, which my friends found shocking. Grandmas aren’t supposed to go through husbands like that, apparently. Did it make her cool, though? My cousin would refer to her as “Grandma Get-Around,” and supposedly Grandma Gloria took the nickname as a compliment. I guess that made her a little cooler, proudly acknowledging this decidedly un-grandmotherly trait.

A list of coolest grandmothers in movies may not be the greatest way of honoring Grandma Get-Around, but in a way the fact that most of the following characters aren’t really that cool shows me just how hip my grandma really was. While grandfathers are often portrayed as fun and wise and as great storytellers, grandmothers tend to fall to one of two uncool extremes, traditionally grandmotherly or youthfully lewd. The latter category doesn’t necessarily only consist of unlovable characters, and I hope one day there’s a Who’s the Boss movie so that “Mona” can take the top spot on this list. Until then, here are the ten coolest grandmas I could think of. If you know any that are cooler, please let me know by commenting below.
…Read more

Earlier this week we got our first look at Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, including character portraits of the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) and Tweedledee and Tweedledum (both played by Matt Lucas). And like most people who saw the images, we believe that this version of the Lewis Carroll classic may end up being too creepy for moviegoers in general, let alone for children.

In response to the promotional pics, a number of people (and blogs) began discussions of disturbing and scarring kids’ movies. So, to join in the fun we’ve compiled a list of our own picks for creepiest flicks made for children. It took a lot for us to be freaked out by a film when we were young (most horror movies didn’t phase us), but each of these titles gives us nightmares still.
…Read more

USA Today has really been at the forefront of hot-topic movie publicity lately. After recently premiering pics of Mickey Rourke in Iron Man 2 and Michael Moore in his own untitled upcoming documentary, the national news rag brings us our first official look at Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. The candy-colorful images include Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. Also, there are some great new concept art images of Alice, the White Rabbit, the talking flowers and Tweedledee and Tweedledum (for a fresh look at Matt Lucas as these brothers, head over to Movies.ie).

A lot of people are talking today about how creepy this movie looks. We agree that it will likely give some children nightmares, but that’s merely to be expected of any movie featuring Bonham Carter, who scares the crap out of me even in non-fantasy films like A Room with a View and Mighty Aphrodite. In this, looking like an older version of those big-head Steve Madden ads, she’s especially frightening, but I’m actually more worried that this bright-palette 3-D fantasy is more like Burton’s crappy Charlie and the Chocolate Factory adaptation than the brilliant take on Lewis Carroll’s classic we’ve been hoping for. After all, Depp is almost wearing the same top hat as he had in that movie. His hairdo is just more Carrot Top than Emo Philips now.

Check out what the other blogs are saying about these new images after the jump:

…Read more

I always thought that nobody liked Drop Dead Fred. Even as a kid, when I liked everything, I knew this movie was terrible. It stars Phoebe Cates way past her pinup days, prominently features Rik Mayall, who is so obnoxious he almost ruins The Young Ones at times, and it involves some of the most childish slapstick ever put on film. It pretty much tanked at the box office, opening in sixth place (though it at least had a better per-screen average than both third-place Hudson Hawk and fourth-place Only the Lonely). Its Rotten Tomatoes score is 9%, and its IMDb rating is less than 5. Yet, as with any movie Hollywood decides to remake, people are whining. Really? At this rate, I believe that even if someone announced a remake of SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 we’d see complaints about it online.

All I can say is that Universal has picked the perfect person to fill Mayall’s shoes, because Russell Brand is definitely this generation’s most annoying British comedian. What they shouldn’t do, though, is say this new version is going to be more like Beetlejuice. It’s going to be very easy for them to outdo the original DDF, and I applaud Hollywood for trying to improve on a failure for once, especially when it fits with a quote from the film (”You see when something’s not working right, the best thing to do is tear it apart to make it better.”). But there’s no sense comparing this to Tim Burton’s masterpiece. That’s absolutely the wrong way to pitch this thing.

Read what others are saying about this latest remake announcement after the jump.

…Read more

Even if you love the original Escape to Witch Mountain, you have to welcome a remake. The 1975 sci-fi Disney film has some very dated special effects — though the visible wires used to “levitate” a handgun and a harmonica give it a campy charm — and it’s not exactly the well-respected classic that The Black Hole or Old Yeller is, anyway. So, better a remake (or “modern re-imagining”) of a slightly beloved movie, which has already been redone once, to give The Rock another fulfillment of his Disney contract and utilize all the “perfect” digital effects now available.

While it seems that eventually all Disney live-action classics will be remade, potentially rendering obsolete the careers of Dean Jones, Kevin Corcoran and those ugly kids from Mary Poppins, there are some that may, like Witch Mountain, deserve to be recycled. Disney has previously erred in reworking films like The Absent-Minded Professor (Robin Williams is no Fred MacMurray) and The Shaggy Dog (Tim Allen is no MacMurray, either, nor even is he Tommy Kirk), and it’s mistakenly producing new versions of Swiss Family Robinson and 20,000 Leauges Under the Sea. But there are so many other films, most forgotten, that would better lend themselves to remakes.

Here we’ve selected 10 such classics, all but one live-action features, and we welcome you to suggest any others you may wish to see updated and/or re-imagined.
…Read more

Today’s video is a brilliantly simple mash-up: The Nightmare Before Christmas meets the song “Halloween”, by everyone’s favorite goth-punkers, The Misfits. The attempts to sync the lyrics with characters’ mouth movements are only so-so. But what makes the clip really work is how the tempo of the song highlights the kinetic energy of the film.

The Nightmare Before Christmas, while being a widely-loved family film, never betrays its spooky aesthetic. “Halloween” by The Misfits is decidedly less kid-friendly, with lines like, “This day anything goes / Burning bodies hanging from poles / I remember Halloween.” But there is an undeniable kick to the beat that makes it feel celebratory.

For more upbeat Misfits fun, check out the video for their cover of The Cryptkickers’ classic The Monster Mash. It’s cut together with stop-motion animation from the 1969 Halloween special Mad Monster Party.

• Johnny Depp has officially confirmed he’ll be returning as Captain Jack in a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean installment. Additionally, at a special Disney event, in which the studio showcased it’s slate for exhibitors, Depp confirmed his role as the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s 3-D performance capture Alice in Wonderland and announced that he’ll play Tonto in Disney/Bruckheimer’s The Lone Ranger. Hopefully he’ll still have some room for more mature roles throughout his commitment to the Mouse House.
• Other announcements at the Disney event included the moving up of Cars 2 from 2012 to 2011, at which time “Cars Land” will open in part of Disney’s California Adventure amusement park. Also, Nic Cage is on board for National Treasure 3 and Oprah Winfrey is voicing the mother of “the first black Disney princess” in The Princess and the Frog.
• More returning franchises: Warner Bros. has officially announced the I Am Legend prequel, which will detail the “last days of humanity” section that you wished had just been in the first film.
• I’m beginning to think Guillermo Del Toro has cloned himself. In additon to having literally a million film projects on his slate, he’s also found time to co-write a trilogy of vampire novels for HarperCollins.
• At least Del Toro’s not also signed on to write and direct the remake of Tomas Alfredson’s new Swedish vampire pic Let the Right One In for returning horror producers Hammer Films. That would be Cloverfield’s Matt Reeves. By the way, Hollywood: can we take a break from the bloodsuckers soon? Vampires are starting to seem more over-employed than superheroes.
• Oh, and finally, speaking of overdoing things, Steven Spielberg will possibly direct another movie about a boy and his alien friend. This one will be based on the 1968 sci-fi novel Chocky and sounds more Drop Dead Fred than E.T.

This article is filled with sour notes about the state of Batman video games, but if you want some pure audio delight, click here to listen to Frank Gorshin (he played The Riddler on the Adam West Batman TV show) sing “The Riddler.” Awesome.

Batman is known for vanishing into the night in order to instill fear into his foes, and to confound Commissioner Gordon who always wonders how he disappears so quickly. However, his video games are also known for leaving store shelves just as quickly and quietly. Is that why there’s no Dark Knight video game? Commission Gordon himself, looking a bit like Garth from Wayne’s World, was shown a tiny bit of the game, as you can see in this clip… so where is it?

It’s no secret that video games based on the Batman franchise have been anything less than lackluster. …Read more

Bloody-Disgusting calls Plan 9 From Outer Space “arguable one of [Ed Wood's] only ‘good’ films” [sic], but the general consensus is that it’s one of the worst films of all time. But, um, maybe the remake will be better! Motivated by no logical reason other than the fact that they could have it ready in time of a 09/09/09 release date (well, okay––it is the original’s 50th anniversary, and since the film has lapsed into the public domain a remake can be done for cheap, cheap, cheap), Darkwave Entertainment is planning “a serious-minded retelling of the original story, paying homage to the spirit of Wood’s film without resorting to camp or parody.”

As BD points out, you can watch the original Plan 9 on Google Video, but we think the only way to possibly make sense of this is to watch the above scene from Tim Burton’s masterpiece, Ed Wood. Let’s shoot this fucker!

Apparently there is a new trailer for The Dark Knight premiering online tonight. But I’m not so good at playing those viral marketing games, plus I’m a relatively patient guy, so I’ll just wait until it hits YouTube and watch it tomorrow.

In the meantime, while you wait for the secret time that the trailer goes live (I hear 5:30 PM PST), here’s a video submitted to College Humor that compares the previous trailer for The Dark Knight with that of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman.

…Read more

News hit the web late Friday that Maila Nurmi, the actress, model and TV host best known as Vampira, died last week at the age of 86. As always, David Hudson at GreenCine has the most comprehensive round-up of obits; I thought I’d do my part by rounding up a few video clips that demonstrate the original Goth queen’s impact on pop culture. Above, you’ll find a short clip of Vampira’s memorable appearance in Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space. Click through the jump for Vampira minutia courtesy of Tim Burton, Glenn Danzig and more.

…Read more

At the Kansas City Star, Robert W. Butler brings up an issue that I’ve been thinking about a lot: with music minimized in the massive TV campaign behind Sweeney Todd (see a totally music-free spot above), aren’t they worried that that millions of Jack Sparrow fans will swarm the theaters, only march out angrily when the star breaks into song? According to Butler, we’d be naive to expect anything else:

Today’s kids are crazy about Johnny Depp and horror, and the Warner marketing folk have played to those strengths, emphasizing that in the R-rated Sweeney Todd Depp plays a bleakly amusing killer, a nut job with a straight razor. At the same time the ads de-emphasize the film’s musical origins…Lest I come off as terribly cynical about this, let me state right now that I approve of the Warner ad campaign. That’s because I think Sweeney Todd is a brilliant accomplishment that deserves to be seen by as many people as possible. And if you’ve got to con the kiddies into buying a ticket, that’s fine with me.

“Con the kiddies,” huh? Without even broaching the topic of a studio blatantly trying to sell an R-rated film to the under 17s (not to mention Butler’s presumption of knowledge about “today’s kids”), the real dishonesty here goes beyond the fact that the distributors are not being totally forthcoming about the fact that 90 percent of this story is told in song. The real lie: Sweeney Todd is not just a musical. It’s very literally your parents’ musical.
…Read more

Much has been made of the gore in Tim Burton’s film version of Sweeney Todd, which seems to me to be a bit hysteric. If you’ve seen one contemporary cinematic blood bath, you’ve seen them all, and if you produced mathematical proof that there’s more blood here per minute of running time than in, say, Hostel II (from which Burton, actually rather worryingly, borrows the device of spurting corpse-as-shower), I’d be surprised. In fact, blood doesn’t make an appearance until fairly far into the film, and at least initially, the focus is not on the wounds of the victim, but on the assailant’s rage.

Like Atonement, this season’s other high-profile adaptation of a highbrow contemporary text once thought to be unadaptable, Burton’s crack at Sweeney Todd works best when it serves to support the inherent perversity of its source. The director’s mashup of Steven Sondheim’s musical with his own, patented, teenage Goth sketchbook aesthetic may play like German Expressionists-do-Torture Porn, but the brutality is mostly farce. As in Sondheim, Burton’s Sweeney Todd is most disturbing when it’s talking about love.

…Read more