September films I’m dying to see
It felt like fall today. The air was cooler, leaves were falling, and sky was gray with pockets of blue sky. Sure it may mean that winter is right around the corner, but the changing seasons also mean it’s time to for big people movies. We get our first taste of the bountiful fall harvest this Friday when the new Coen Bros. film Burn After Reading hits theaters. Never underestimate the power of the Coens when they are working in top form. Burn After Reading could be the Big Lebowski to No Country From Old Men‘s Fargo. But Burn After Reading is just the start. This September is just as packed with high-end film fare as was last September, an unusual occurence change considering the dumping grounds that were Septembers past. For someone not living in a Top 10 market, getting Spike Lee’s new...
Read MoreTrailer for Gus Van Sant’s Milk starring Sean Penn
“Can two men reproduce?” “No, but God knows we keep trying.” I’m a non believer when it comes to Milk Academy Award talk. The trailer doesn’t do much to persuade me, Oscar-wise. While it does have the crusader story going for it, Milk still looks like a Gus Van Sant film. The trailer pushes it ever so slightly into art house Van Sant territory and not studio Van Sant. Could it be the perfect bridge between the two that at least gets a screenplay Oscar? Van Sant did direct Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Good Will Hunting screenplay allowing the words “Academy Award winner Ben Affleck” to grace movie ads everywhere. He can’t do worse with a Harvey Milk biopic. Beyond the cynacism displayed above, I must say that I’m freaking excited about the film. Here’s the trailer: [youtube...
Read MoreTwilight stakes out old Potter date
One adaptation of a YA literary sensation moved out of November, and now one has moved in. Looks like Twilight will go head-to-head with Disney’s Bolt on Nov. 21, pitting hordes of families against hordes of tween girls at the multiplex over the Thanksgiving holiday. Call me late to the game, but I wasn’t aware of just how big Twilight and the other Stephenie Meyer vamp romance novels were until I saw the film nab the Entertainment Weekly cover. That was just a few weeks ago. I’m not a big YA reader, but from what I hear around the office, this one has some serious teeth. Twilight doesn’t quite have the same numbers as, say, the Bible or Mao’s writings, but there are more books from the series in print than there are people in the West Coast states. It’s...
Read MoreHarry Potter 6 to 2009
Warner Bros. execs, apparently too exhausted from rolling naked in the loot The Dark Knight loot to market a Potter film, decided to move Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to July 17, 2009. With Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 set for 2010 and Part 2 for 2011, the move will give Potter fans 3 years in a row with movies featuring the Wiz kid. WB certainly has a dearth of blockbusters in ’09, so the move makes sense. I don’t think anyone is fooling themselves into believing Watchmen has blockbuster potential. Where the Wild Things Are may never be finished. And Terminator Salvation? Please. Even if the excuse is the writer’s strike for now, you have to consider it something more strategic. The annual numbers for 2009 will look prettier with a Potter film. Oh, and please consider this confirmation that Superman: Man of...
Read MoreFilm heritage goes up in smoke and hits locally.
On today’s Around Noon, an arts program on Cleveland’s public radio station, Cleveland Cinematheque Director John Ewing discussed the programming problems that resulted from the catastrophic fire at the Universal backlot in June. While Ewing said that he was able to get prints of 4 of the 5 films that went up in smoke, he mentioned that he had to cancel a screening of Abel Gance’s monumental Napoleon. In his monthly Cinema Talk column, Ewing had this to say: Robert Harris, the man who helped restore the movie over 25 years ago, told me that Universal’s Napoleon negative would require $40,000 worth of work before another print could be struck from it. Given the current economic environment, with digital projection of movies looming on the horizon, is that an investment any cost-conscious corporate executive is going to make? That’s a sad and all too truthful...
Read MoreWill The Dark Knight crrrack boff pow WALL•E’s Best Picture Oscar chances?
Remember the good old days when people (me included) were talking about WALL•E being a Best Picture contender? Oh, June. That was a nice month. Now that people are seriously, if prematurely, saying The Dark Knight is the iceberg to Titanic‘s unsinkable box office record, one little robot may lose his spot on Oscar’s shortlist to a comic book adaptation. Bold moves are rare for the Academy, which is why it can be easy to predict some eventual nominees a year in advance. An animated film and a comic book adaptation are hardly Oscar fodder. But rarely can the Academy ignore a cultural phenomenon the likes of The Dark Knight. WALL•E, which is universally acclaimed but struggling to cross the $200 million mark at the domestic box office, may not give voters the motivation that Big Money Bats will...
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