![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
The appearance of realism in a superhero costume made from real materials is generally recognized to be difficult to pull off, and many such costumes do not even bother to simulate the presumable effect on the eye and the spirit of the beholder were Black Bolt to stride, trailing a positronic lace of Kirby crackle, into a ballroom of the Overland Park Marriott. (Read more ...)
The Golden Globe nominations were announced today and ... Atonement is nominated for best drama? Seriously?
I mean, did they actually watch it? It's not just bad, it's excruciating.
On the other hand, hooray for nominations for Michael Clayton and No Country for Old Men. The "comedy or musical" category, on the other hand, is very, very weak. Across the Universe? Is it because, other than Hairspray, it was the only musical available?
Anyway. If you'll excuse us, we're still trying to get over that Atonement nomination. Ummm ... yeah.
We won't spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it, but unless you live under a rock you've undoubtedly heard that the ending is a downer. And it is -- delightfully enough. It's a refreshing throwback to a time before studios "tested" every film before release, insisting that any ending that doesn't leave the test audience in a happy, toe-tapping mood has to be lightened up. Cinema Sideshow approves of this ending, depressing though it may be. Or, perhaps, because it's depressing. We're funny that way. (Read more ...)
Here at Cinema Sideshow Central, we've received gratas copies of Reservation Road, Talk to Me, A Mighty Heart, Hairspray, Into the Wild, Margot at the Wedding, Music Within, Knocked Up, Eastern Promises, and a few more that we can't be bothered to remember ... (Read more)
Grauman's Chinese Theater, home to the hand- and footprints of such stellar screen legends as Douglas Fairbanks, Marilyn Monroe and Adam Sandler, will enshrine the paws of acclaimed thespian Will Smith on Dec. 10. By sheer coincidence, Smith's new film I Am Legend will premiere just four days later, on Dec. 14. Interestingly, the premiere of Smith's last-guy-in-New-York-oops-there's-a-mons
Harry Potter producer David Heyman has announced plans for a feature-film adaptation of the Paddington Bear books. The screenwriter is Hamish McColl (Mr. Bean's Holiday) so expect many hilarious bits of slapstick involving Paddington falling face first into the loo, getting his necktie caught in turnstiles, and spilling marmalade on the crotches of unsuspecting old ladies. (Read more ...)
Owen Wilson is in the hospital, reportedly after cutting his wrist and taking "an undetermined amount of pills." He's been stitched up and will "be detoxed" according to press reports. Not to trivialize the man's pain, but if this was a suicide attempt, it certainly puts the rest of our lives in stark perspective — after all, if Owen Wilson isn't enjoying the hell out of his life, what chance is there for the rest of us? (read more ...)
As we slog through the thin late-summer movie season, we can keep our love alive by focusing on the bright, shiny things glittering on the horizon:
Exiled (Aug. 31)
3:10 to Yuma (Sept. 7)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (September 21)
Shoot 'Em Up (Sept. 7)
The Darjeeling Limited (Sept. 29) (Read more ...)
The thing about reviewing movies professionally that civilians don't understand is this: When you see every movie (or, at least, a much higher percentage than the average film-goer) and you watch with a critical eye, it erodes your ability to enjoy movies as mindless entertainment. You start to discern that 99 percent of Hollywood's output is created to an established template. All the constructs become transparent -- the three-act structure, the major plot point that comes every 20 minutes, the cute-meets and the predictable happy endings and the tertiary character who'll (surprise!) turn out to be the bad guy. You've already seen it all hundreds of times already, and this version is just more of the same. The Emperor is buck-ass nekkid, and your job is to point and laugh. (Read more...)
A $50 million, live-action screen adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book" is in the planning stages, to be directed by "BBC natural-history filmmaker" (description courtesy of the BBC's press release) John Downer. His previous film, Pride, used CGI animation to make real-life lions look like they were talking. In a related story, government workers were called to Westminster Abbey, where Kipling's rapidly whirling corpse bore a hole through his own casket and into that of neighbor Charles Dickens. (Read more ...)
300: Special Edition
As the capabilities for better, more detailed, more technically intricate computer graphic work are applied to motion pictures, directors are finding a wide range of uses for that technology as they bring their artistic visions to full-motion life. As with any artistic medium, especially one still in its infancy, some of those choices are positively painful to have to sit through. Robert Zemeckis' freakish motion-capture kids' flick The Polar Express, for example, was populated by characters who looked like they'd been embalmed, covered in latex, and then painted by slave laborers in a third-world sweatshop (his upcoming Beowulf adaptation looks to be more aesthetically pleasing, although it does beg the question of why he felt the need for hyper-realistically animated versions of Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie when he could have just, you know, filmed the real thing.) But
some directors have found that advanced CGI techniques allow them to create worlds that would otherwise be impossible (or financially prohibitive) to film ... (Read more ...)
