Thursday, December 31, 2009

Hollywood highs in Bollywood bazaar

Till a little over a year ago, Hollywood films contributed to merely four to five per cent of box office collections across India. But in 2009, business doubled. Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince, Hangover, X-Men Origins – Wolverine, 2012 and Avatar, to name a few have set the cash registers ringing.

In comparison, apna Bollywood is lagging behind with only Raaz – The Mystery Continues, New York, Love Aaj Kal, Wanted, All The Best, Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, Paa and 3 Idiots getting the thumbs up at the ticket windows.

One reason for the turnaround could be the second season of the Indian Premiere League followed by the multiplex strike earlier this year, informs Vinod Mirani, managing editor, Box Office India, a weekly trade magazine.

He points out that with big films on hold, small budget Hindi movies and Hollywood films made merry at the ‘plexes. “The demand for English films, including those dubbed in Hindi, has gone up considerably,” he adds. “At one time, there would be only one print for Mumbai and one for Delhi. But recently, Avatar released with over 450 prints and grossed Rs 20 crore in the first week itself.”

Hemant Panchammiya, managing director, E-Square, attributes Hollywood’s success to big banners and marketing strategy. “Only a big film promoted well works,” he reasons. “2012 has done fantastic business all over. Avatar, in comparison, hasn’t cracked with a section of the audience and its business is restricted to 3D screens in the multiplexes. Many English films still don’t get a good chain of cinemas that still give precedence to Bollywood.” According to a trade source, Hollywood distributors aren’t half as aggressive as their Bollywood counterparts and go with whichever theatres and show timings they get. Panchammiya agrees, “Hollywood continues to have a niche audience in limited pockets. For it to extend its reach, it will have to go digital. That will also combat the menace of piracy.”

Devang Sampat, vice-president, Cinemax, argues that there’s no competition per se from Hollywood. “If a Hangover packed in full houses during the weekends, it was largely due to the lesser number of shows as compared to a Kambakkht Ishq that was playing as many as 28 shows at our multiplex daily. More occupancy doesn’t necessarily mean more numbers. Collections for such films are still largely under 10 per cent of the national gross figures,” he asserts. But Shyam Shroff of Shringar Films is optimistic that the future is bright for the western imports. “With good theatres are coming up across the country, there’s a growing market for such films. People in smaller towns have developed a taste for good action and a gripping storyline,” he says. Vishek Chauhan, owner of Roopbani theatre in Purnia, Bihar, endorses Shroff’s opinion: “Though it’s not doing as well as 2012, Avatar has found a market in territories like Bihar, UP and Bengal and is working better than some of our so-called Bollywood biggies. Five years ago, audiences here didn’t care for James Bond but the last Bond movie, Casino Royale, found plenty of takers. And Twilight drew full houses for the first three days even though people in Bihar don’t understand the concept of vampires and werewolves.” Mirani attributes the success of these Hollywood films to the hype it generated in the media. “Television has created more awareness of the world around us. Even parents in small towns want to send their children to English medium schools and somewhere, that has contributed to the growth of an audience for Hollywood movies,” he elaborates.

Chauhan agrees, “Distributors were offering Minimum Guarantee for 2012 at a time when most Hindi movies didn’t get MG. I’ve already started getting enquiries for Spiderman 4 and the next Iron Man movie. In the coming years, I see Hollywood emerging as a strong competitor for Bollywood. Romances and arty films like Inglourious Basterds won’t pull in the crowds though. It’ll be the disaster and superhero flicks with exciting visual effects that will hit bukll’s eye. Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible series will, any day, work better than a Valkyrie.”
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Saturday, December 19, 2009

Cinema rolls big-budget dice on 3-D

After months of anticipation – and a rumoured $300-million (U.S.) – the lithe, glittering blue creatures of James Cameron's Avatar will finally take over the silver screen.

It took a director of Mr. Cameron's clout to raise the money to construct the lush world of his newest, most extravagant epic, which opens in theatres this weekend.

But the entertainment industry is also hoping he'll be able to deliver not just a box-office winner but a significant boost to a burgeoning movie trend: 3-D.

Avatar is not the first major release to bank on the growing popularity of 3-D technology. Releases like Up and Ice Age capitalized on its appeal with younger audiences. Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chief executive officer of DreamWorks SKG, which made such kids' hits as Shrek and Kung Fu Panda , is so convinced of the marketability of 3-D for children's movies that he said last year his studio's future animation releases would all be in 3-D.

But with Avatar , Mr. Cameron hopes to elevate the technology beyond family fare and the occasional horror movie and bring it to the mainstream. The Canadian director has sent a message: 3-D is not a niche technology, it's the future of film.

Mr. Cameron and his backers have bet a lot on this claim. If the rumoured price tag is accurate, Avatar is the most expensive movie ever made. Theatres have been spending too, ramping up their capacity to show 3-D movies in preparation for Mr. Cameron's latest behemoth and in response to the growing number of releases the industry has already been rolling out. That's a major investment by the theatres, and a big bet on 3-D production as a way to counter increased competition from the Internet and other sources.

To show 3-D movies, those theatres need digital screens. Canada's dominant theatre chain, Cineplex, has installed 190 digital screens so far; 149 of those are equipped for 3-D showings. It's a small number compared to the 1,329 screens Cineplex owns across the country, but this year alone, the company has tripled the number of 3-D screens, and there is at least one 3-D screen at nearly 70 per cent of its locations.

There's also a major payout. This has been a record year for attendance, said Pat Marshall of Cineplex Entertainment LP. In the third quarter of 2009, box office revenue reached $155.9-million at parent Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund, (CGX.UN-T18.000.201.12%) the highest quarterly revenue since its inception.

The more customers Cineplex can draw into its 3-D theatres, the better. The chain charges $3 more per ticket over the regular two-dimensional offerings. A movie like Avatar, which is tailored specifically for 3-D, could be a big windfall for the chain if viewers are willing to pay more for the full experience.

“The reviews have all been very, very positive. This is the sort of movie that's just going to continue to build over time,” Ms. Marshall said. “So I think you'll see good numbers coming out of the opening, but you'll continue to see really good numbers over the next several weeks – which is a little more atypical for the way movies traditionally open.”

The TV industry is also trying to latch on to the momentum Avatar could generate for the industry. On Wednesday, just ahead of opening weekend, Sony Corp. announced an agreement to license some of the 3-D technology and equipment made by RealD, which provides the 3-D systems for Cineplex and in most other movie theatres.

It's easy to see why a 3-D expansion in theatres would trickle down to the TV business: a typical movie takes in only about 20 per cent of its revenue at the box office while consumers purchasing DVDs to bring that movie home can account for as much as 65 per cent.

Those revenues will give studios a compelling reason to push their 3-D releases on DVD. If consumers follow suit, TV manufacturers will need to make their products compatible with the trend, or be left behind. Sony had already announced it wanted to put 3-D systems on its popular PlayStation game console and the Bravia TV. This week's deal takes the company one step closer – with the possible bonus of enticing some consumers to upgrade their home theatre systems.

The LCD panel on Sony's Bravia television “will work in sync with new 3-D eyewear based on RealD's technology,” said Sony executive Hiroshi Yoshioka in a statement. “We are excited to work with RealD in bringing 3-D to the home.”

It will be a while before viewers can bring Avatar home. Industry executives are hoping for a long run in theatres. How long the excitement lasts will help to show how big the audience is for 3-D movies among teens and adults. It will most likely also determine if studios invest more in making films that use the technology to tell stories – or if it's a novelty that works for animated romps and slasher flicks, and not much else.

If the conversations that Cineplex CEO Ellis Jacob has been having with the players in Hollywood are any indication, the pocketbooks are already out, Ms. Marshall said. “There are a lot of industry folks looking at this film and looking to see what they should be doing in the 3-D genre moving forward. I would imagine it will only continue to grow.”
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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Bambi meets Alien in a failure of nerve

AMONG its vast ambitions, Avatar is partly about colour. It is James Cameron's first movie since Titanic went down 12 years ago, so you can bet he has a lot to say, but the primary directive might be to make a film so beautiful in its use of colour that it restores our faith in movies.

He wants us all to emerge thinking ''I've never seen that before''. He's trying both to invent new technologies and tame them as he goes - avoiding the George Lucas syndrome, where the technology swamped the stories in the later Star Wars movies.

Cameron has made Avatar in 3D because he wants to show the future of action cinema. Along with colour, he wants depth, so that the experience is enveloping. Fifty years ago, 3D was a new way to achieve cheesy thrills - the spear was coming right at you. Avatar has few of these directional gags. It is now possible to make movies that feel as if you have a virtual-reality module on your head. Sound and vision come from all around - almost (even in 3D, the screen still has a limit).

That does mean that Avatar is an overwhelming sensory experience. The colours are extraordinary, the depth breathtaking. More important, the range of emotions in the CG characters is more subtle and surprising than has been possible. The only limit is Cameron's imagination, which is fertile but finite. He seems incapable of really challenging the audience, in case they won't part with their 20 bucks. He wants to be Kubrick but he hasn't the cojones.

Sam Worthington gives a strong performance - unlike some of his co-stars - as Jake Sully, an ex-marine. He is sent to the verdant planet Pandora with a mining team from Earth, almost 150 years in the future. The trees here can reach a kilometre into the sky; the landscape is like a Chinese painting - all mountains and rivers, mist and pinnacles. Beneath are deposits of ''unobtainium'', that old sci-fi term for some fabulous material we don't have.

The problem is the forest is inhabited by stubborn indigenes, the Na'vi. They are twice our size, lithe and gorgeous with blue skin, a tail and ears that twitch as they talk. They don't like us knocking down their forests. The mining trucks return with arrows in their tyres. Pandora's atmosphere is poisonous to humans, so the miners have developed a hybrid life form to try to pacify the Na'vi.
These avatars - grown from a mixture of human and Na'vi DNA - must be ''driven'' by a human in a state of deep sleep. Sigourney Weaver plays Dr Augustine, the chain-smoking scientist running the avatar program, and Sully is her newest driver.

Secretly, he is also reporting to Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) the military head, who wants to know about the Na'vi's weaknesses, so he can blast them out like they used to do with the ''gooks''.

Jake's early scenes in the forest are magical. In the body of his avatar, he marvels at the giant orange-glowing spiral ferns, the iridescent blue plants, the purple birds that look like flamingoes with teeth. He has a face-off with a hammerhead elephant that has two sets of eyes, and is chased by the ravening dogs of night. He is rescued by a beautiful Na'vi woman warrior, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who introduces him to the tribe. Visiting this 3D Garden of Eden is lovely; it's like a forest painted by Van Gogh or Gauguin, or the bastard child of Salvador Dali. But is it fascinating surrealism or just overblown design - a big technicolour yawn?

The key point in any science-fiction story is not to cross the line of ridiculousness, which is to say it must retain a hold on our emotions. That point is different for everyone, but some people reached it early at the preview screening. Some will go with the film's overall message about conserving our forests; others will collapse into giggles at the sometimes strained and campy world of forest nymphs battling a military commander straight from a GI Joe comic. If the first part is all idyllic and Amazonian, the second half is all army and Armageddon.

For all his command of the dynamics of action, Cameron has a conventional sense of story, a desire to keep us comfortable. His script is numbingly derivative. Its execution may be glorious, taking us no place we've ever been, but the story takes us every place we've ever been. The sources include the adventure stories of H. Rider Haggard and James Fenimore Cooper, particularly The Last of The Mohicans; the Disney cartoon utopias of Pocahontas and Bambi; the dystopian space worlds of the Aliens series that Cameron helped to create; the internal narrative intimacy of films such as Apocalypse Now and Dances with Wolves, where the narrator is a lonely soldier far from home. If Cameron were more prepared to challenge our expectations, Avatar might have been what he intended. Instead, it's a beautiful folly, a technical wonder that represents a failure of nerve.
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Family movie review - The Princess and the Frog

Took the kids to see Disney’s latest release, "The Princess and the Frog," this weekend and all of us — Dad, Mom, the kindergartner and the toddler — gave it two webbed thumbs up.

The story, of course, is a retelling of the fairy tale in which a prince is turned into a frog and can’t be released from the enchantment until he is kissed by a princess. Disney cranks up the fun factor by setting the story in 1920s New Orleans watch for references to Packard cars, flapper fashion, Art Deco and, of course, to jazz. (Randy Newman composed the music.)

While the prince is genuine, our heroine, Tiana — who makes history as Disney’s first black princess — is not royalty at all but the daughter of a laborer and a seamstress. She grows into a waitress who cheerfully takes on two jobs to save money toward her dream of opening a restaurant. At a costume ball, she’s mistaken for a princess, a plot twist that becomes key to the ending.

Here’s how our family rated the film: Dad: He joked afterward, “Is Disney doing what FEMA couldn’t?” At times, the film could be an ad for the New Orleans visitors bureau. My husband particularly enjoyed the voodoo subplot. But he noted that Disney just seems unable to wean itself completely off cultural stereotypes the caricaturing was especially notable in the Cajun bayou characters.

Mom: I was thrilled to see that, unlike so many other Disney moms, Tiana’s mother not only survives the plot but also gets to savor her daughter’s happy ending. (To which my husband countered, “Yeah, they killed off the dad instead.”)

There’s some violent slapstick involving the Cajun bayou characters, but it’s over pretty quickly. The film’s probably a bit young for anyone who’s already a fan of Hannah Montana or “High School Musical.” Kindergartner: He's sensitive to scary scenes and characters, but he loved the voodoo doctor known as Shadow Man and the sinister spirit sidekicks. He laughed out loud at the Cajuns’ slapstick.

Toddler: He got restless in the last 10 minutes the film runs 97 minutes but otherwise sat raptly. When asked what his favorite part was, he replied, “The pirates,” meaning the Cajuns.
If you’ve seen “The Princess and the Frog,” what did your family think?
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Monday, December 14, 2009

Best classic Christmas movies ever!

Much like my update on best Christmas albums and songs, here's a revamp of my annual take on the best classic Christmas movies. I say "classic" Christmas movies because there's no "Elf" on there and no "Polar Express" or tons of other more modern entries that might, in time, make this list.

I'm not really concerned about them since the primary function of this list is nostalgia. Say what you will, but most people who love Christmas are trying to re-enact or reconnect with a feeling they had at some time in their life about Christmas. People with kids are often trying to start new traditions - particularly if they didn't have them when they were younger or if those, uh, "traditions" were lame or painful.

There's nothing wrong with seeking happiness in the holidays. Here's hoping you find it. And here's the revamped post: I'm a sucker for Christmas. And not a Cranky Christmas, either, though I do love Grinch as much as Rudolph. Christmas is my favorite holiday. I have no interest whatsoever in anyone's rant about the merchandising of Christmas or the War on Christmas or who's birthday it is or how expensive the trees are, the greed, the loneliness, the religion or the sorrowful parts of it. Not interested.

Those are your issues. If it makes you feel any better (and I live on the Berkeley border, so I know this all too well), then yes, there is charitable giving involved. Sometimes even candle lighting and chats with The God (or Eastern Religious Figure) Of My Choice regarding the less fortunate. But I grew up with a crappy fake Christmas tree with not a whole lot under it so you'll just have to get off the cross (we need the wood) over the fact that I like 9-foot Christmas trees and an unholy amount of presents. Beyond all of that, it wouldn't be Christmas in my house without watching, almost endlessly, a ton of Christmas movies and specials (on DVD of course - who wants to watch commercials about what to buy for Christmas? As a consumer, I have an updated list of Things I Want on my iPhone at all times. I don't need ads to guide me.) Those DVDs get watched and rewatched right up until Christmas Day, then they are restocked on the shelf, never to be seen again until Dec. 1.

Hit the link for more::

1. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." It's what I loved as a kid. It's always the leadoff hitter for me come December. Once you get past the nostalgia, however, there's some pretty funny elements. Like the fact that Santa and Donner are total jerks. And every time Santa talks, he sounds - to my mind - like Bill Walton. Still, there's more than enough here to enthrall, from Yukon Cornelius to Hermey and the Abominable Snowman's crazy eyes.

2. "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas." Brilliant. You've got the Boris Karloff element, the great songs, the weirdly enchanting Dr. Suess rhymes - the roast beast. And unlike "Rudolph" it comes in a tidy half hour package that promotes repeated viewings.

3. "It's A Wonderful Life." Yeah, I know. And I don't care. It's a killer for me. Even though the emotional manipulation is transparent, it fells me every time. That said, one of my favorite parts is when George loses his mind with anger. The house, the kids, the incessant piano playing. Too funny.

4. "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Note perfect. Charles Schulz sold the country some real melancholia here. And it's delicious. Charlie Brown being bummed about the commercialization of Christmas. Linus understanding the real meaning. Snoopy going insane with the lights and glitter. Sally's classic letter to Santa that includes the line "just send tens and twenties...All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share." Add in the Vince Guaraldi soundtrack and this is a gem never to be topped.

5. "The Year Without A Santa Claus." Heat Miser. That's all you need to know. Snow Miser, too. Oh, and a bunch of other weird Rankin/Bass stuff.

6. "A Christmas Story." It's so hard to make a modern classic - it needs to stand up through time and overcome our youthful memories to even secure a place. This 1983 film did just that. Jean Shepherd knew how to place modern snark and the onrush of oddball families and their failures (hey, Christmas is hard) against hope, joy and true belief. Break out the Red Ryder and take a shot at happiness.

7. "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town." One word: Sombertown. OK, two words: "Burgermeister Meisterburger." Let's burn some toys in Sombertown!

8. "Olive, the Other Reindeer." Huge fan of San Francisco's own J. Otto Siebold. And when this came out in 1999, it had a twisted sense of humor to back up the cool graphics and more than enough sweetness (via Drew Barrymore - making up for the meanness of Old Man Potter, no doubt) to make it Christmasy. Gotta like a character named Martini, too. (Martini: "How'd you get away?" Olive: "It's kind of hard to explain. Have you heard of deus ex machina?")

9. "Robbie the Reindeer" (Hooves of Fire/Legend of the Lost Tribe). Deliciously weird and modern. Along with "Olive, the Other Reindeer" it contends as a contemporary classic (emphasis on strange, of course).

I'm going to leave the 10th spot open so I can change my mind, make additions, etc. I will say that I'm quite fond of the Penguins from "Madagascar" and their little Christmas ditty that comes with the movie. Same goes for the brilliant "Creature Comforts: Merry Christmas, Everybody" from Nick Park and Aardman studios. (Love how "The Great British Public" is listed as the stars...).

The rest? Well, let's just say that Rankin/Bass never let an opportunity to cash in on the next potential "classic" evade them and there's a lot of dreck out there. I know my daughter once liked "Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey" but it never gets me. And I loathe the stupidity (but admire the kitchen-sink greed) of "Rudolph's Shiny New Year," which may be the single worst Christmastime movie ever.

I'm told that at some point I may have liked "Frosty the Snowman," but no more (I prefer the stop-motion animation), and certainly not "Frosty Returns." I keep avoiding "The Little Drummer Boy" though it's on the DVDs I've got. What I've learned from sorting through the dreck is that classics are still classic and spin-offs, revisions, updates and sequels of any kind are woeful. Having said that, I can't remember much about "It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown," so I'll have to pop that in for an update.

And yes I love the cable marathon of "A Christmas Story" and the legacy of the televised yule log. Any number (or all) of these will guide me into the New Year.
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Thursday, December 10, 2009

G-Force DVD Review

Versatility and originality are two things with which Jerry Bruckheimer isn't often credited. The mega-producer's filmography is heavy on sequels and derivative works, especially in the past 15 years he's spent almost exclusively at the Walt Disney Company.

But, in 2009, as franchises continued to dominate the box office, Bruckheimer actually released two very different non-sequels, neither of which comfortably fit into the high-octane spectacle genre he usually calls home. First came Confessions of a Shopaholic, a small chick-lit-adapted Touchstone chick flick that garnered little notice. Then summer brought G-Force, a bigger film with some of the year's smallest stars.

G-Force centers on a team of four highly-trained, high-tech commandoes working for the United States government. There is Darwin the brave leader (Sam Rockwell), Blaster the wisecracking goofball (Tracy Morgan), Juarez the feisty Latina (Penelope Cruz), and goggled tech guy Speckles (Nicolas Cage). Oh, did I mention that they're guinea pigs? They all are, except for Speckles, who's a mole! The talking critters are part of an experimental animal communication unit headed by a nice scientist named Ben Kendall (Zach Galifianakis).

When the film opens, the rodents, mammal, and their ally Mooch the fly (Dee Bradley Baker) are hard and stealthily at work to uncover the secret plans of rich, influential entrepreneur Leonard Saber (Bill Nighy). To an excited audience, Saber announces that all of the company's existing household appliances have been covertly fitted with computer chips. When activated, the devices will be able to connect, communicate, and revolutionize the way we live.

Casually adopting the name G-Force, the tiny spies try to steal Saber's encrypted data and assess the true threat of the unmanned weapons initiative that's apparently only posing as a commercial enterprise. Doing so without a warrant and proper authorization, however, the guinea pigs invite heat on Ben's department from the FBI, particularly skeptical special agent Kip Killian (Will Arnett).

On the run from the law, the fearless foursome winds up in a Los Angeles pet shop. There, they encounter boorish guinea pig Hurley (Jon Favreau), who haphazardly becomes a part of the mission. The gang is divided when Blaster and Juarez are purchased by a couple of unthoughtful kids. Can they reunite, ward off the feds, and prevent the impending Clusterstorm launch that just might bring global extermination? For the answers to these questions, you'll have to see this movie.

Though marketed partly as a comedy, G-Force is as packed with action as just about any Jerry Bruckheimer film. Chases, gadgetry, and explosions are all supplied in abundance. In assuming the perspective of computer-animated rodents, the humor skews younger, the action tamer, and the colors more natural. But this isn't otherwise a far cry from the Bruckheimer oeuvre, delivering fast pacing, visceral emphasis, and snuck-in character development. Were our leads humans instead of animals, this may have qualified as competent popcorn entertainment. That they're not applies a thick coat of stupidity to the proceedings, one that teens and adults are much more likely to mind than the kids primarily targeted.

The movie plays out fairly seriously, finding more time for peril and suspense than lingering on the goofy driving conceit. One obvious drawback lays in the design; as commercials enforced, G-Force was tailor-made for 3-D theatrical exhibition, Disney/Bruckheimer's amusing first live-actionish selection for such treatment. Watching it on DVD, viewers will notice the ongoing obsession with objects moving towards them. However, with no 3-D option offered, they'll miss the payoff, which must have been significant (at least in theory) based on the way the film serves up such illusions with nearly the regularity of gimmick-based theme park attractions like Honey, I Shrunk the Audience and Muppet*Vision 3D. That technique will limit the movie's value long after the industry's current 3-D fascination wears off, even if TV technology can recreate the polarized theatrical experience and consumers genuinely care.

Beyond that, G-Force plays out about as predictably and comfortably as any big commercial family film. There are a slew of one-liners for kids ("Poop in his hand! Poop in his hand!") and adults ("Yippie-ki-yay, coffeemaker!") alike. There are brief snippets of songs in today's pop electronic hip-hop stylings clearly selected for the mutually beneficial exposure of music videos (surprisingly, a soundtrack wasn't even made to download).

The live actors -- hip comedians like Galifianakis, Arnett, Nighy, and Loudon Wainwright III -- are merely there to attract fans who would otherwise stay far away. It may be excessive to consider such performers neutered here, but they aren't even asked to be funny. Galifianakis, the most entertaining thing about one of the year's most entertaining movies (The Hangover), manages to mildly amuse in one throwaway gag. He's more readily utilized to elicit sympathy and decency as the chubby hero who believes in the chatty creatures.

G-Force marks the feature directorial debut of veteran visual effects artist Hoyt H. Yeatman, Jr., who also receives story credit with fellow effects man David P.I. James. (Husband-wife National Treasure scribes Cormac and Marianne Wibberley are billed for the screenplay.) It's an inauspicious first for Yeatman, who won an Oscar for his work on James Cameron's The Abyss and has supervised VFX on a number of Bruckheimer's adult-oriented action flicks. Disney fans might be interested to know that the company bought Yeatman's effects house Dream Quest in the mid-1990s and turned it into The Secret Lab, the ambitious unit that worked on Dinosaur and was closed two years later. With the dream of a Disney visual effects company never again realized, the fine character animation on G-Force is the work of Sony Pictures Imageworks.

With a domestic gross of nearly $120 million and an over-$200 M worldwide tally, G-Force would appear to be one of Disney's bigger hits of all-time. In fact, though, those numbers only narrowly cleared the film's $150 M production budget and no doubt kept the film in deficit when the hefty marketing costs are considered. (By comparison, Alvin and the Chipmunks cost less than half and earned nearly double.) Based on those results, I would guess there is as much chance of a G-Force sequel as there is of Touchstone making more Shopaholic movies.

But don't worry about Bruckheimer or Disney's faith in him. There's sequel potential in each of next summer's live-action tentpoles (especially Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), a third National Treasure and fourth Pirates of the Caribbean adventure are planned for 2011, and beyond that, there is The Lone Ranger to star Johnny Depp as Tonto.
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Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Opening Pandora's box

Eleven years ago James Cameron's Titanic premiered in China and was the country's highest-grossing film, until Transformers 2 this summer. Now, a month before his 3-D extravaganza Avatar debuts in theaters here, the director is talking up his latest creation.

"The Chinese economy is growing so rapidly (and) is beginning to face the same problems that we've had in America and Europe, such as the degradation of our natural environment and resources," says Cameron in a telephone interview.

"I think that for anybody that loves nature, for anybody that feels that their life is being changed by living in a technological society or civilization, Avatar has something to say. "The theme is going to have relevance for Chinese people the same way it has in all the places that is dealing with this issue about industrialization."

In the $230 million fantasy film, Cameron creates a new alien world named Pandora, where Avatars, or hybrid creatures that are a mix of the DNA of humans and the local species Na'vi, fight with pure Na'vi - tall, blue aliens - for a precious mineral on the planet.

Cameron's other smash hit, The Terminator, is widely known as being inspired by a feverish dream in 1981, in which he saw a chrome, metallic and skeletal robot came out of a fire. Avatar, he says, was inspired by all his dreams. "I call it my dream project, or pinch-me project. It pinches me and lets me know I am actually awake now," he says.

Cameron, whose parents were an electrical engineer and an artist, was keen on futurology even as a kid. He read science fiction during the day and painted the subjects at night. The University of Toronto dropout did various jobs, such as truck driver and machinist, while writing and illustrating science fiction stories. In 1977 he decided to start his film career after seeing Star Wars, which stunned him and made him obsessed about how George Lucas had done it.

"For me, Avatar is the opportunity to do the kind of movie I've always dreamed of making, in which you create an environment, plants, landscapes and creatures," he says. "I guess I've been working toward it for all this time."To make the flick, which according to Wired Magazine could change the way people watch films, Cameron has worked hard in the 12 years since making Titanic, even though he directed no feature films.

He partnered underwater camera specialist Vincent Pace and deep-sea explorer Andrew Wight to make four documentaries on the deep ocean, two in 3-D, while perfecting what he visions as "the holy grail of cameras" - a high-definition rig that is maneuverable, digital, high-resolution, 3-D and will not give viewers a headache.

He let other directors, such as Robert Rodriguez, test his system to demonstrate demand for more 3-D movies, while talking directly to theater owners to persuade them digital 3-D is the new trend in cinema and they should invest in new-generation projection systems right away.

In 2002, when Peter Jackson's Weta Digital in New Zealand created the stunningly believable computer-generated character Gollum in The Lord of the Rings films, Cameron found the special effects technology was ready, too.

After four years of production, Avatar turned from being an idea in his mind for 15 years to be the first action movie shot entirely in digital 3-D. The characters and objects appear to leap from the screen. Around two-thirds of the film is computer-generated, one-third real. Cameron deliberately blurs the distinction between the two so it is hard to tell where reality ends and fantasy begins. The film features more than 3,000 effects shots, and Cameron has redone many of them up to 20 times.

"We have accomplished a lot," he says. "We figured out how to create a photo-realistic world, plants and characters. But what we didn't figure out is how to do it faster, so my next goal is to figure out how to do a film like Avatar, maybe in two years instead of four." Known as a genius for the way he seamlessly combines technology and storyline, Cameron is alert to the epic's emotional appeal.

The hero Jake Sully, an Avatar played by Sam Worthington, falls in love with Neytiri, a Na'vi princess played by Zoe Saldana. Their emotional bond, as Cameron elaborates, is at the center of the film. "I learned the lesson on The Terminator 2 that if a movie doesn't have heart, doesn't make you feel the emotion, it has no purpose," he says.

"The film is a little bit overwhelming from a technical stand point, but I think the audience cares more about what they see on the screen, they care about the people, the relationship." In Titanic, Cameron found the balance between technology and emotion was one of the biggest challenges for a filmmaker. Fortunately he made it, by putting the visual effects, giant sets and thousands of actors, in balance with small intimate moments, to make the film really resonate for the audience.

"You will see the same balance and blend in Avatar," he promises. "It costs a million dollars a minute to do computer-generated characters in Avatar, so it's a very difficult thing to stop for those extra few seconds, the extra bit of time to let the characters have an intimate moment together, maybe just a look, a glimpse, or just a line of dialogue, but you have to do it, that's really critical."

In a time when blockbusters need to be "pre-sold", by comic books (Batman), bestsellers (Harry Potter) or toys (Transformers), Avatar does not have these advantages and is a brand new thing to audiences, globally and in China alike. Yet Cameron, who proclaimed, "I am the king of the world", at the 1998 Academy Award ceremony, which he swept with 11 wins, sees it as a legitimate concern.

"It is not a limitation that I ever believed in because Titanic was not pre-sold, True Lies was not pre-sold, and when I made the first Terminator film, nobody ever heard of that," he says. "I don't think Hollywood should accept that limitation, Hollywood should have the courage to make films. I am sure in the Chinese film industry you have the same issue. People need to have the courage to make new things, even at a blockbuster level of budget."

Blockbusters with a mega budget have become a norm for Cameron. The 55-year-old earned a record $1.8 billion globally for Titanic, which cost $200 million, at the time the most expensive film ever made. When he made The Abyss in 1989, it was also dubbed the most expensive movie ever made, though that was not true. The Terminator 2 was also the most expensive movie made, at the time.

"I do like to make big, expensive and visually spectacular films," he says. "I think the way people should look at this is, you spend the same amount for a ticket, no matter what the movie costs. So if a film costs more and brings more pleasure, more visual enjoyment, more spectacle, that's the best entertainment bargain you can get. As long as my films make money, people should feel good about what they cost." The film is expected for a theatrical release on Dec 18 in North America and around Jan 2 in China, in both 2-D and 3-D.
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Monday, December 7, 2009

Movie Review - Old Dogs

Millions of years from now, when humans have left this planet for a better one and left nothing behind but our garbage, one imagines that our great works of art will be taken with us. Films like “Old Dogs” will stay behind, rotting in the massive landfill. Aliens will come to our former residence, exploring and poking through our remains, trying to figure out the type of society we were.

They will bring the DVD to their spaceship and watch with perplexed expressions as John Travolta and Robin Williams fight for camera time and race to see who can lose their dignity the fastest. When it’s all over, there will be silence and then, one little alien will mutter, “Let’s just go home.”

Simply put, there just aren’t enough negative adjectives available when it comes to describing “Old Dogs” — not enough suitable to print, anyway. The film’s concept is the typical dime-a-dozen concept: Hot-shot executives thrown into caring for children they didn’t know existed, and supposed hilarity ensues as poop jokes abound and lessons about the importance of family are learned. The plot is threadbare, and director Walt Becker seems to have no idea what he’s doing.

The movie doesn’t just lack comedic timing; it lacks a sense of simple cinematic pacing. The movie stumbles all over the place, with no beginning, middle or end to most scenes. Just as something starts going, the film cuts to another establishing shot marking a new scene. It’s as if the editor got drunk the night before and accidentally trashed a third of the dailies, forcing him to work with the remains.

The “comedy” at hand is a failure across the board, often going for cheap gags like nut-shots, fart jokes and obvious, easy punch lines. The saying goes, “It’s funny because it’s true,” and there isn’t a single moment of truth here. These characters and situations are absurd. These characters do and say things that don’t make sense. At times I wondered if a twist was coming and the “old dogs” would be revealed as clinically insane.

“Lighten up,” you may say. “It’s just a harmless family comedy.” Well, imaginary disgruntled reader, I argue it isn’t harmless. The film’s message is that the worst thing you can possibly do is to strive for something. Instead of working for a living, earning money and contributing to society, you should stay home and play with your kids. With your kid’s love and a pocket full of dreams, everything you ever hoped for will fall into your lap. I have news for you

As wonderful as that would be, it isn’t how it really is. Dreams should be followed through with work, and a joy earned is much more powerful than a joy stumbled upon. Any film proposing the opposite is harmful to the impressionable minds watching.

“Old Dogs” is inept in every possible way; a movie that makes me wish there was a grade lower than an F to give it. But that would require some creativity, and I’d rather not waste another moment thinking about this pathetic excuse for a movie.
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Saturday, December 5, 2009

Star of Where The Wild Things Are braves rain at London premiere

The 12-year-old , who plays mischievous young Max in the film, said: ''London seems pretty great, honestly. It's so rainy, it's awesome. I live in Portland, Oregon, and it's like this a lot.'' However, fans both young and old braved the winter weather on Wednesday to see the star and director of the feature length adaptation of Maurice Sendak's much-loved children's book.

Looking comfortable in the limelight, the young actor even stopped to sign autographs for some of his equally young fans. He responded to a journalist's question about what it was like acting alongside monsters with: ''Pretty much like working with a guy wearing a monster suit.''

Spike Jonze, the film's director, explained the London premiere was something of a home coming for many of the team who worked on the film. He said: ''We were doing visual effects here for the last year, so we've been here so much and every day on the way to work we'd walk through Leicester Square and see a premiere here, so it's exciting that we're actually able to come to our premiere here.''

The show's producer Vince Landay confessed the biggest problem they faced making the film was turning a handful of short sentences of prose into a one-and-a-half hour long feature.

Landay also paid tribute to his young star's efforts during the filming.

''He worked harder than any other actor we've ever worked with,'' he said. ''Really, he's in every scene of the movie.''

Max replied: ''I didn't realise how hard I was working... I was too busy falling asleep to do that. The only time I ever had to think about it was when I was at home, and when I was at home I was sleeping.''

Landay joked: ''Shhh! Don't tell the child labour laws about that.''

Kate Nash, the singer, Miquita Oliver, the television presenter, and the model Daisy Lowe - carrying two stuffed wild tigers - arrived at the premiere in London's Leicester Square. Where The Wild Things Are is released in UK cinemas on December 11.
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Friday, December 4, 2009

Movie review- Brothers

There's no shortage of film talent on hand in the new war-themed Brothers. The film stars Spider-Man himself, Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Natalie Portman, is written by acclaimed screenwriter David Benioff (25th Hour, The Kite Runner), and is directed by Jim Sheridan, who's earned Oscar nominations for his work on such films as My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, and In America.

Given the strength of the material (the film is based on the Swedish film Brødre, which garnered a slew of awards/nominations in 2004/2005), it's no wonder so many big people jumped on board. Maguire plays Capt. Sam Cahill, an Army officer sent to Afghanistan for another tour of duty.

His being shipped overseas just so happens to coincide with his brother, Tommy (Gyllenhaal), being released from prison. The lives of the two couldn't be any different, with Sam, married with two kids to the beautiful Grace (Portman), viewed as the clean-cut hero and Tommy seen as the no-account screw-up, especially by their father (Sam Shepard).

Things start to shift dramatically when Sam is reported dead after a helicopter crash. Tommy begins to feel protective of Grace and her daughters, taking time to visit with them every day and offer his services as a contractor to fix up their kitchen. Meanwhile, Sam is actually alive (why would the Army tell his family he was dead if they had no proof?), suffering unspeakable torture at the hands of his Afghan captors.

Brothers has many of the right elements in it for it to succeed – the story is set up to be gut-wrenching, it has tons of talent (heck, even U2 contributed a new song for the soundtrack) – but for some reason, all of that is not able to add up to a great film. Part of that is the feeling of inevitability over much of the story. Many of the plot turns are preordained, so there are no real surprises in store. And what surprises there are seem blunted by poor choices.

For one, Maguire and Portman are much too young-looking to convincingly pull off their roles. Sam is supposed to be Tommy's older brother, and while Maguire does have five years on Gyllenhaal in real life, the opposite appears to be true when looking at them. While Portman has played a mother before, she falters when it comes time to show off her maternal skills here (strange, since she handles the other aspects of the role just fine).

But the biggest misstep is the acting of Maguire. Whether it's his boyish face, his semi-squeaky voice, or something ineffable, he was entirely the wrong choice to portray the anguished Army captain (it also doesn't help that Gyllenhaal played a similar role much better in Jarhead).

Not enough background is provided for his character to be trusted as a military higher-up. Also, he is given multiple opportunities to scream in torment (mental and/or physical), but his pain is never truly believable. He feels more like a kid acting out than someone who has experienced things no one should ever have to go through.

Brothers fits all the right criteria for an end-of-the-year, Oscar-baiting war/family drama, but it never fully lives up to that promise. There's a good movie in there somewhere, but it's obscured by a rote plot and some uninspired acting.
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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Carol re-telling takes a darker spin

Disney’s 3D retelling of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” focuses more on social commentary than on pure holiday movie fun, highlighting disparities in wealth and good fortune among social classes. The movie is a dark one, both visually and in tone, in order to express the difficulty of Victorian life and the darkness of Ebenezer Scrooge’s hardened attitude and outlook. Some scenes were so eerie and surreal yet magical that one might think Tim Burton had directed the film.

Indeed, the movie is not well-suited for young children, as one screaming child in the theater found the scene in which the ghost of Scrooge’s business partner Jacob Marley appears particularly frightful. That said, the three-dimensional animation of this classic movie remake delights and amazes. Director Robert Zemeckis and his several hundred person staff clearly devoted huge amounts of time and effort to the production of the movie. The artfully crafted characters seem part human, part doll.

This characterization expressed the childlike, pure nature of many of the characters, particularly Bob Cratchit (Gary Oldman), while also conveying in them an almost cartoonish exhaustion from the difficulties of everyday life in the Victorian era.

Playing a multitude of roles, Jim Carrey is the star of the show. Playing Scrooge at five different times of his life as well as the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, Carrey, in his ghostly roles, coaxes Scrooge out of his “bah-humbug” attitude and into a full appreciation of the people around him and the holiday season.

Some deviations from Dickens’ book are made during the ghost of Christmas future portion of the movie, but through this artistic license, Carrey conveys a nearly universal fear of death and regret for past actions. As always, the moral of the classic tale is to appreciate relationships with others and to share good fortune and a joyful attitude with all humankind.

Robin Penn Wright, who plays Belle, Scrooge’s former love, described the realism of the creative technique used for the film.

“It’s like watching a 2D performance, but you feel like you can reach out and grab Jim’s hand and feel the snow falling at the same time,” she told Rick DeMott in his Nov. 6 article for Animation World Network. “You’re actually in the environment. That’s what’s so incredible about it.”

With such realistic 3D effects, one might wonder how the film was created. According to the movie’s official Web site, “The film is the first film developed by ImageMovers Digital, which was created by Robert Semeckis, Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke to develop 3D performance capture films exclusively for The Walt Disney Studios.”

So, what exactly is the creative process for making performance capture films?

“In performance capture technology, sensors attached to an actor’s body digitally capture their performance and create a life-based animated character in the computer,” Duane Dudek, Journal Sentinel film critic, wrote in his Nov. 15 2007 blog entry.

“A Christmas Carol” is not the first performance capture film, but it is Disney’s first. Zemeckis used the technique in “Beowulf,” and “Sony Pictures Imageworks pioneered the technique with ‘The Polar Express’ and ‘Monster House,’” according to a July 26, 2007 article in Variety.

“A Christmas Carol,” a delightful yet dark holiday classic, pleases audiences with amazing 3D effects and fantastic performances by Jim Carrey. It also foretells the future of Disney movies — a bright and interesting future indeed. Four of five stars.
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