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Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Katzenberg says "Panda" box office "heartbreaking"

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - After being mired in a stock slump in recent months, DreamWorks Animation announced a stronger than expected second quarter.

Revenues at DreamWorks Animation climbed 38 percent to $218.3 million during the second quarter on the strength of the worldwide box office performance of "Kung Fu Panda 2," the company announced Tuesday.

Profits for the company also increased, rising 42 percent to $34.1 million, or $0.40 per share.

Revenues for the Glendale-based animation studio beat analysts' projections, while profits met their benchmark. A poll of analysts by Thomson Reuters anticipated earnings of 40 cents per share on revenue of $198.2 million.

Shares rose nearly 5 percent in after-hours trading.

"Kung Fu Panda 2," which was released on May 26, 2011, contributed $55.8 million of revenue in the quarter, generated by its worldwide box office performance as well as merchandising and licensing.

The animated sequel's $440 million gross at the international box office was impressive, but on a conference call with investors after the earnings announcement, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg described the film's $160 million take at the domestic box office as "heartbreaking."

Katzenberg said that the studio miscalculated by positioning "Kung Fu Panda 2" as family friendly counter-programing to "Hangover Part 2."

"I think we had a terrible, terrible calamity in the US and it's heartbreaking because there's no recovering from it," Katzenberg said.

Read More

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/27/industry-us-dreamworks-idUSTRE76Q04A20110727

Amy Winehouse sales spike after her death

Thousands of Amy Winehouse fans went to "Rehab" in the United States for a fresh listen to the British songstress who died late last week, according to figures released on Tuesday.

Record sales tracker Nielsen SoundScan said fans of the soul singer snapped up 50,000 copies of her CDs in the week ended July 24, compared to 44,000 units that were purchased in all other weeks of 2011.

Her 2006 smash hit album, "Back to Black," which includes the song "Rehab," accounted for 37,000 of those units sold in the United States, which was the highest weekly total since March 2008. Winehouse's debut album, 2003's "Frank," chalked up 7,600 unit sales, Nielsen SoundScan said.

Of the totals, more than 95 percent were digital downloads.

"Rehab," in which the singer with the beehive hairdo belted out the famous lyrics, "They tried to make me go to rehab. I said 'no, no no'," was the most downloaded single with 34,000 digital sales in the United States.

Fans purchased a total 111,000 Winehouse digital tracks via downloads, an increase of 2,000 percent over the previous week, Nielsen SoundScan said.

Winehouse died at her London home on July 24, at age 27, so it's likely the sales figures will spike even higher for the week ending Saturday, July 31, because fans were just learning of her death on the final day of the weekly tally.

Throughout much of her career, the singer struggled with drinking and drug problems, but on Tuesday, her father said she had been exercising every day and doing yoga recently.

Read More

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/27/us-britain-winehouse-sales-idUSTRE76Q08R20110727

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Two More Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 TV Spots

Warner Bros released two more trailers for the upcoming film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2″ by director David Yates (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) stars Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone), Emma Watson, Helena Bonham Carter (Alice in Wonderland), Alan Rickman (The Villa Golitsyn) and Rupert Grint.

Little does Harry know that his future has already been decided by his past when, on that fateful day, he became “the Boy Who Lived.” No longer just a boy, Harry Potter is drawing ever closer to the task for which he has been preparing since the day he first stepped into Hogwarts: the ultimate battle with Voldemort.

Read More

http://www.shockya.com/news/2011/06/21/two-more-harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-2-tv-spots/

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Green Lantern

AT A RECENT PROMO screening of "Green Lantern," a few hundred avid comic book fans flawlessy answered the most obscure questions radio DJs could throw at them.

There was no stumping these people. They knew everything about every iteration of Hal Jordan, every narrative evolution of the DC character, the name of every illustrator, every writer.

You don't get that deeply into the Green Lantern without an obvious passion for the subject.

Almost none of that passion is on display in the workmanlike "Lantern" movie - a by-the-book Hollywood tentpole that exhibits competent blockbuster craftsmanship, but no special feel for the material at hand.

Making superhero movies is a tough gig right now. The more comic book franchises that hit the screen, the harder it becomes for any one of them to make an impression.

The most recent to do so was "X-Men: First Class," given a new cast and groovy '60s makeover by UK hipster Matthew Vaughn. He was able to summon some of the creative energy that Chris Nolan brought to "The Dark Night," or Jon Favreau (in a comic way) to "Iron Man."

The "Green Lantern" director is Martin Campbell, a talented journeymen, but a guy with no obvious affinity for the superhero genre, or for this particular character.

Nobody involved seems to know how seriously to take the story - that of a hotshot pilot, Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), nominated by a dying alien to join a galactic force of heroes (powered by will) who fight interstellar evil (powered by fear).

Reynolds has always excelled at slightly facetious line readings and he's best suited to comedy. He's most comfortable in half-serious scenes, played for slapstick laughs as Jordan adjusts to his superpowers, his new body suit.

The thin strip of green meant to mask his true identity is an old-fashioned farce, so "Lantern" turns it into a joke - Jordan's love interest (Blake Lively) sees right through it.

Moments that require soul-stirring conviction from Reynolds play less well, but you have to feel for him - in almost every big, serious scene, he's acting in an empty room against a green screen.

My personal rule of thumb is the more green screen and animation a superhero movie needs, the less interesting that movie becomes.

All Kevin Bacon needed to carve out a memorable villain in "First Class" was an ascot and a martini. "Green Lantern" doesn't even have a villain - just a gaseous cloud of fear with the head of Mr. Magoo.

Peter Sarsgaard tries to fill the void, in a smallish role as a scientist who gets fear goo on his finger and turns into an angry elephant man, but he's undone by goofball dialogue.

In one scene, he explains his new telepathic abilities to Angela Bassett.

"Physical contact allows access to mnemonic data."

Blank stare.

"I can see your memories."

A paraphrase, no doubt, of what he said to Blake Lively after viewing her online photos.

Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/movies/124028574.html#ixzz1PVuvNF8b

Friday, May 6, 2011

Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt Join Steven Spielberg's 'Lincoln' (Exclusive)

Hal Holbrook, James Spader, John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill and Joseph Cross also are among those in negotiations to join the Abraham Lincoln biopic.

Steven Spielberg is rounding out the large cast of his Abraham Lincoln biopic, DreamWorks' Lincoln.

Tommy Lee Jones and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, along with Hal Holbrook, James Spader, John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill and Joseph Cross are in negotiations to join the pic.

David Costabile, Byron Jennings, Dakin Matthews, Boris McGiver, Gloria Reuben, Jeremy Strong and David Warshofsky are also in negotiations to board the movie.

Lincoln, which sees Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president of the United States and Sally Field as his wife, Mary Todd, is based on Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin and adapted by Tony Kushner.

Jones will play Thaddeus Stevens, a Republican leader and congressman from Pennsylvania. Stevens was a staunch supporter of abolishing slavery and was critical to writing the legislation that funded the American Civil War.

Gordon-Levitt will take on the role of Robert Todd Lincoln, eldest son of President Lincoln and the only one to live past his teenage years.

The other actors will make up the supporting roles in this telling of Lincoln's journey to abolish slavery and end the Civil War.

The project, which will shoot this fall in Virginia, is eyeing a late 2012 release via Disney's Touchstone label.

Jones will be seen in July release Captain America: First Avenger, while Gordon-Levitt will shoot The Dark Knight Rises this summer.

'Thor' Eyes $60 Mil U.S. Debut at Weekend Box Office

Paramount summer tentpole Thor lands in North America this weekend, hoping to spawn a superhero franchise for Marvel Studios. The pic is expected to open more in the range of Marvel's X-Men or Fantastic Four and not in the neighborhood of Iron Man or Spider-Man.

According to tracking, Thor -- which has already grossed $125 million overseas -- has a strong shot at nearing $60 million or more in its domestic debut.

Also opening this weekend to mark the official start of the summer box office season are two comedies: Warner Bros.' Something Borrowed and Screen Gems' Jumping the Broom, which targets African-American audiences. Launching in a limited run is Jodie Foster's high-profile indie drama The Beaver, starring Mel Gibson.

Thor is expected to win the domestic race, since Universal's box office hit Fast Five will be in its second weekend. Observers expect Fast Five to still do substantial business, grossing as much as $35 million to $40 million.

Read More

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/thor-eyes-60-mil-us-185844

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Lady Gaga grows horns and claims she's channelling Alexander McQueen

Bony femme ... Lady Gaga's hyperactive skeleton on the cover of Born This Way

She may be renowned for her fanciful soundbites, but Lady Gaga has now gone full-fledged silly, claiming she has magical bony protrusions which "come out when I'm inspired". Oh yes, and she is channelling the ghost of Alexander McQueen.

Lady Gaga has shown off her skin-bumps in a few places so far, including on the cover of latest single Born This Way and in a new photo-shoot for Harper's Bazaar. "Gaga emerged from make-up at our shoot with pointy shoulders and sharp protrusions on her forehead and cheekbones," explained Bazaar editor Laura Brown. It's a look more Klingon than Björk, but when writer Derek Blasberg asked Gaga about the get-up, she insisted that they are all natural.

"First of all, they're not prosthetics," she said. "They're my bones ... They've always been inside of me, but I have been waiting for the right time to reveal to the universe who I truly am." The singer said the ridges rise up when inspiration strikes – and that she's not alone. "We all have these bones! They're the light from inside of us."

Interrogated more firmly, Gaga did admit the facial horns are part of a "performance-art piece", with "body modification" being "part of the overarching analysis of Born This Way". But she denied the use of any plastic surgery, and made no mention of subdermal implants. "I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me," she said.

Gaga also claims that the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen is the composer of her latest single, released on 11 February. "Right after he died, I wrote Born This Way." She was particularly struck when the release date for the song turned out to be the anniversary of McQueen's death. "When I heard that, I knew: I didn't even write the fucking song! He did!"

"I think he planned the whole thing," she continued. "He's up in heaven with fashion strings in his hands, marionetting away."

• Born This Way, Lady Gaga's second album, is out on 23 May.

Read More

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/14/lady-gaga-horns-alexander-mcqueen

James Bond distribution deal agreed with Sony Pictures

The next Bond movie will be distributed by Sony Pictures, the studio that put out the last two 007 films.

Sony will co-finance and distribute the 23rd Bond film - directed by Sam Mendes and due for release on 9 November 2012 - after striking a deal with MGM.

In January it was confirmed Daniel Craig - star of 2006's Casino Royale and 2008's Quantum of Solace - would return in the as yet untitled new film.

The franchise had been on hold because of MGM's financial troubles.

The studio, which will retain distribution rights in some overseas territories, has since emerged from bankruptcy under new ownership.

Casino Royale made $594m (£364m) at the international box office, while Quantum of Solace took $586m (£359m).

Read More

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13077851

Jamie Campbell-Bower and Bonnie Wright: Engaged!

The Twilight Sage and the Harry Potter franchise have done more than entertain millions around the world.

They have helped Jamie Campbell Bower and find true love!

E! News was the first to confirm that Campbell-Bower, who portray a Volturi member and also stars on Camelot, and Wright - best known as Ginny Weasely on the big screen - are engaged.

"I'm very happy," said the actor of the development. "It's a wonderful, wonderful time."

The couple started dating in 2009 and we couldn't be happier for them.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

'Britney Spears: I Am the Femme Fatale' Trailer Premieres Tonight!

All day, Britney Spears is taking over MTV. That takeover includes a trailer for MTV's upcoming special about the pop star, "Britney Spears: I Am the Femme Fatale," which will take fans inside Britney's life to see what it's like to release a highly anticipated album.

Before the trailer premieres tonight at 7:58 p.m., teasers will air throughout the day. In the sneak peeks, fans get to see Spears work on the just-released Femme Fatale, including going over final production with will.i.am on their collabo. "I did some tweaking to 'Big Fat Bass,' " the Black Eyed Peas mastermind tells Spears as she gives the song another listen.

While on the way to rehearsals for her pre-album performances — including her set this past Friday at the Palms in Las Vegas, which will be included in "Britney Spears: I Am the Femme Fatale" — Spears admits to having some "jitterbugs." It is, after all, her first time back onstage since the Circus Tour.

In another intimate look at the singer's life, fans get to see Spears and her assistant as they go to Starbucks to take a minute for themselves in the hustle-and-bustle of a hectic schedule. "It's nice to have a peaceful moment just to sit down," Spears says. "It's nice to relax before the chaos."

That chaos included getting fans excited for her album release. On top of taking the stage in Vegas for a set full of pyro, shimmering bodysuits and flirty dance moves, Spears also pre-taped today's "Good Morning America" performance in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood. "I totally loved how her bustier was lit up," fan Corina Andrati excitedly told MTV News moments after Spears wrapped her three-song set. "I'm so blessed to be here."

Read More

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1660830/britney-spears-femme-fatale-previews.jhtml

Friday, March 18, 2011

Nostalgia for the Light

There is no escaping the past in the Atacama Desert in Chile, where rain in some areas comes every 400 years. There is no humidity. No insects or plant life. Human remains are mummified, frozen in time. And the air is so thin astronomers can reach back millions of years.

Here, our strongest telescopes turn wheeling galaxies into spectacular light shows that trivialize the fantasies of Lucas and Spielberg. Distant planets seem close as apples on a backyard tree.

Not far from the desert’s gleaming white observatories, beautiful against blue sky, Chilean mothers till parched red soil with their arms and feet, looking for a reaching hand, a once useful leg – remains of a son or daughter who “disappeared” during Pinochet’s regime.

Patricio Guzmán’s documentary, Nostalgia for the Light, pays equal attention to the astronomers and searchers, regarding their quest as the same – a search for life.

The film is gorgeous, purposefully slow, almost a meditation. Guzmán tells us life in the Atacama Desert is an eternal book of memories. And he lingers on every page, capturing shots of constellations with the care of a master photographer. Imagine Ansel Adams, working in colour, let loose in the Milky Way.

At the same time, the filmmaker turns memories of desert victims into religious ceremony. An architect, one of 80,000 socialists imprisoned in the mid-1970s after General Augusto Pinochet led a coup d’état, tells how he paced the Chacabuco concentration camp, memorizing room sizes. Afterwards, alone in a cell, he translated the numbers into blueprints that might bear witness to the horror of Pinochet.

Another political prisoner remembers how he and friends would steal out at night, studying the sky with a makeshift telescope. How they felt drawn into heaven.

Just as astronomers’ telescopes go beyond our galaxy, filmmaker Guzmán’s gaze extends past the 20th century. Pinochet did not have to build Chacabuco. A hundred years earlier, workers were enslaved in desert camps and died mining salt that covered the soil like crusts of snow. The concentration camp where lawyers, doctors and writers were sent once housed Aymara and Mapuche Indians.

Although Nostalgia for the Light’s field of vision is deep, it’s also curiously narrow. Guzmán specializes in Chile’s recent history. His most famous efforts are The Battle of Chile and Salvador Allende. And he presumes the audience for his new film has seen those works. No effort is made to explain Pinochet’s overthrow of Allende’s democratically elected government.

Still, what he has done here is amazing to look at and important to consider. Guzmán’s message is simple: Vision is a gift that must be honoured with study and practice. He leaves us contemplating the words of a Chilean mother who continues to search for lost children. “I just wish the telescope didn’t just look at the sky, but could also see through the earth so that we could find them.”

Read More

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/nostalgia_for_the_light/#!reviews=all

Video: Black Eyed Peas Pay Tribute to Japan on 'American Idol'

Black Eyed Peas visited "American Idol" on the result-show night on March 17, performing their latest single "Just Can't Get Enough". "This song is about love and strength and is dedicated to our friends in Japan," will.i.am said from his seat behind a white grand piano.

Stacy Ferguson aka Fergie sat on top of the piano, kicking in the first verses of the dance track. She and will.i.am then proceeded to move to the center stage and were joined by Taboo and apl.de.ap halfway through the set.

Another musical guest that night was Lee DeWyze, 2010 winner of "American Idol". The 24-year-old singer strummed a guitar and delivered his second single "Beautiful Like Me". He said to Ryan Seacrest, "It's great to be back."

The host asked Lee what advice he could give to the remaining contestants. "Just remember why you tried out in the first place," he answered. "You guys are fine, no matter what happens." Sitting among the audience were Jennifer Lopez's hubby Marc Anthony and her "On the Floor" collaborator Pitbull.

Read More

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00039104.html

Friday, March 4, 2011

Rango Movie Review

Johnny Depp is wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

He seems to have mislaid his pants.

He has the head of a green lizard and is wandering, lost, in the sunbaked wasteland of the Nevada desert.

Just another day with Hunter S. Thompson.

Except this is not a scene from the life of Dr. Gonzo, or an outtake from Depp’s own tripping tribute, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” It is, instead, from “Rango.” A new cartoon. For children.

Yes, when the going gets weird, Johnny Depp gets weirder.

Because, at a time when so many animated features take the safe, cuddly, Happy Meal approach, “Rango” proudly hitches its covered wagon to the mangy, bug-eyed look of Tex Avery, Big Daddy Roth, Basil Wolverton and long-gone underground “comix.”

Watch Rango Movie Trailer

The slightly surreal animated story begins when a pet chameleon’s terrarium crashes in the desert — marooning him with a paper umbrella, a nude and headless Barbie and a wind-up fish.

So the little fellow starts walking, accompanied by an all-owl mariachi band — and finds himself in a town straight out of a Sergio Leone Western, complete with scrofulous villagers and low-life hired guns.

The Leone references soon start piling up (along with the Ennio Morricone musical cues). But there’s also a big nod to “Chinatown” (in its own way, a modern Western). And some odd, purely original touches — like a mystic armadillo — that come out of nowhere.

The originality may be deep in the DNA — Depp sometimes makes mistakes, but he never makes anything you’d expect him to, and director Gore Verbinski (who worked with him on the first few “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies) is making his first cartoon.

Even better, the movie uses animators from Industrial Light and Magic who are also new to extended feature-film work.

So what’s here doesn’t look like the perfect, spit-and-polish work we’re used to.

It’s its own thing — and sometimes, admitted, it gets lost in its own wanderings. The story easily could have been sped up by five or 10 minutes. And although the late appearance of one movie icon is fine, an invocation of “Apocalypse Now” is both old and off-track.

But Depp, happily disembodied, has a fine time with Rango, who — being a chameleon — is constantly assuming different identities, and he’s nicely partnered by the work of Isla Fisher, voicing his plucky pioneer love.

Adults and slightly older children should have a great time.

Will the movie appeal to the youngest toddlers? Probably not. Its rattlesnake villain is a little too scary and even its nicest characters are so ugly they’re likely to disgust small tots (and some of the indulgent adults who accompany them).

So as a safe, preschool matinee — yeah, it’s a little iffy.

But as a midnight movie, it’s going to have a long, long life.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Lady Gaga Explains Pod Arrival at Grammy Awards: 'Collaboration With Hussein Chalayan and House of Mugler'

Lady Gaga, known for her out-there fashion choices, didn't disappoint at Sunday's Grammy Awards.

The singer, who wore a meat dress to September's Video Music Awards, showed up on the red carpet in downtown Los Angeles encased in a giant egg carried by four half-naked attendees -- including model Anne Vyalitsyna, girlfriend of Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine (she appeared in the band's video for "Misery").

Before her arrival on the red carpet, Gaga's Twitter followers got this message: "This is Nicola, Haus of Gaga: Gaga is in incubation. Tonight's performance is in collaboration with Hussein Chalayan and House of Mugler. X"

Ensuring that Gaga didn't suffocate, the pod contained an oxygen tank.

Gaga's longtime producer RedOne says he knew about the stunt for two months.

"No idea of Gaga's would surprise me," he told on Sunday at the show.

Upon her arrival, celebrities and others took to Twitter to comment on the "outfit."

"@ladygaga incubating in her egg!!!" tweeted Rose McGowan.

Kelly Osbourne tweeted a photo of the singer in her getup.

"You will not believe your eyes when you see how @ladygaga showed up to the Grammys," the reality star wrote.

Even the Grammy organization chimed in about the star's via Twitter, saying "Lady Gaga just arrived in an egg!" That message was retweeted by several others.

Meanwhile, Piers Morgan saw it as an opportunity to make a quip -- and promote his own CNN show: "Think I might host tomorrow's @PiersTonight in same outfit that @ladygaga wore to #Grammys."

Morgan and other also were labeling their Gaga-related tweets with the tag "#eggstraordinary."

Still, not everyone was excited about the stunt. Some red-carpet photographers were miffed as to why they had to shoot an egg with a faint shadow of Gaga inside.

Said one red carpet shutterbug: "It's like a theater of the absurd. Everyone was just waiitng for the egg to hatch. We were all screaming open it up! She pushed her face against it but you could barely see her."

Word is that the singer will return to the carpet and actually exit the egg at some point.

Read More

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lady-gaga-explains-pod-arrival-99106

Jennifer Lopez: Watching Myself on 'American Idol' Is 'Overwhelming'

"We were having such a good time in our little bubble before it aired," she tells Ryan Seacrest at the Grammys.

How is American Idol going for Jennifer Lopez?

"We were having such a good time in our little bubble before it aired," Lopez told Ryan Seacrest during E!'s preshow Sunday. "And now it's overwhelming."

"I just enjoy watching the show as if I wasn't on it, as I did last year," says Lopez, who wore Pucci. "I'm loving it."

Husband Marc Anthony said he thinks Lopez is "spot on" as a judge.

"In the past couple of weeks and last week, coming into Hollywood week, her initial gut was right on: some of the people weren't there," added Anthony.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Jennifer Love Hewitt to Robert Pattinson: OMG! Bite Me!

Jennifer Love Hewitt has taken time out of her engagement ring shopping to express her undying devotion to Robert Pattinson.

"I love him," the actress told Access Hollywood this week, prior to delving into a story that left her heartbroken:

“I actually waited in line to take a picture with him after the very first premiere for like an hour and 15 minutes and as I got up to take my picture, they were like, ‘Rob are you tired?’ and he’s like, ‘Yes,’ and he left. And I was standing there like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ Forty women from Milwaukee got their photo, but not me.”

In response to Hewitt's feelings for Pattinson, Billy Bush tells her in the interview that she can cover the Breaking Dawn red carpet for his show. JLH's reaction?

“Are you kidding? Are you kidding? Really? Shut up! Are you kidding? Oh my God! It’s like getting a rose on The Bachelor right now, this is amazing. Oh my gosh, I’m gonna get teeth. I’m gonna wear teeth, I’m gonna be like ‘Bite me!’

"I’m gonna get him to sit on my lap. That’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna be like, ‘Tell me everything, please sit.’ I am so excited!”

Wait... Hewitt's reaction to joyful news is to compare herself to a contestant on The Bachelor?!? She may have a few issues.

Sanctum Movie Review

"What could possibly go wrong diving in caves?" asks one of the newer members of an underwater expedition through one of the world's most breathtaking but least accessible cave systems.

She's about to find out the hard way, along with the rest of her ill-fated team, when a violent South Pacific storm cuts off their only known exit in the subterranean 3D adventure, Sanctum.

Watch Sanctum Movie Trailer

Despite being presented by James Cameron and inspired by a real-life incident experienced by caver and co-scripter Andrew Wight, the thriller proves to be a considerably less harrowing experience than it might have been.

Banal dialogue, over-modulated performances and melodramatic scoring combine forces to sink the stirringly photographed proceedings quicker than that treacherous flash flood.

While Cameron's name and the mid-winter promise of an exotic 3D locale could give the $30 million production an initial boost, the only blue characters to be found here are the ones with hypothermia.

Set in the South Pacific's Esa'ala caves but actually filmed off Queenland's Gold Coast as well as in South Australian caves, the picture concerns the not necessarily unified efforts of the assembled crew, led by seasoned, headstrong master diver Frank (Richard Roxburgh), to find an alternate escape route.

Among those who aren't so great at taking orders are Frank's estranged 17-year-old son, Josh (Rhys Wakefield), an obnoxious American financier (Ioan Gruffudd) and his inexperienced girlfriend (Alice Parkinson).

With time quickly running out in their water-logged labyrinth, the dwindling crew members must either follow Frank's lead or come up with their own survival plan.

It's admittedly hard not to think of 127 Hours while watching Sanctum unfold.

But where the Danny Boyle film created unbearable tension through an economy of dialogue and skilled filmmaking, Alister Grierson's second feature effort (after 2006's fact-based war story, Kokoda) suffers from a talky script and thematics that play out more like The Poseidon Adventure minus the camp guilty pleasure aspect.

The film does best in its quieter sequences, where there's an undeniable ethereal beauty in Jules O'Loughlin's underwater photography, especially when the occasional shaft of light is pressed into stirring high relief by the same Cameron/Pace Fusion 3D Camera System utilized for Avatar.

Unfortunately that spell is constantly being broken by either the forced dialogue (credited to Wight and John Garvin) or composer David Hirschfelder's heavy symphonics, which are just too outsized for those tight, claustrophobic spaces.

Read More

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/sanctum-film-review-95667

Read More Reviews For Sanctum Movie:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sanctum/

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Monday, January 31, 2011

The Green Hornet Review

During the 1930s families would gather round their crackling wireless to hear the radio adventures of a playboy billionaire turned crime fighter, but this was no Dark Knight rising. Battling bad guys and ne’er-do-wells with a trusty sidekick and introducing a gadget laden car well before the Batmobile, The Green Hornet was the costumed crime fighter of choice. As alter ego Britt Reid, publisher of The Daily Sentinel, he was in the loop long before Clarke Kent on The Daily Planet or Peter Parker on The Daily Bugle. So where has he been since?

While Superman and Spider-Man went on to become icons, The Hornet became somewhat anonymous, a second tier everyman with few remembering he was actually the grand-nephew of The Lone Ranger. The Green Hornet was even second fiddle in his own show, regularly upstaged by his right hand man, Kato. The role was immortalised by Bruce Lee in the 60s TV series which saw his legend begin, whereas Van Williams, who took the lead, never graduated past TV guest spots

Over the last decade a big screen version of The Green Hornet lacked one thing, a green light. Filtering through the hands of directors such as Kevin Smith and with A-list actors like George Clooney briefly attached, the script finally landed in the unlikely hands of Seth Rogen and his Superbad writing partner Evan Goldberg. In the director’s chair, meanwhile, was rogue eccentric Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Be Kind Rewind), a man not unfamiliar with The Hornet as the project had circled past him several years previously. This superhero film was never going to be by the book.

Proceedings seemingly begin with a classic origin story as the party boy slacker, Reid (a lean Rogen), must sober up upon the death of his media mogul father (Tom Wilkinson). Quickly introduced to his coffee making man-about-house Kato (Jay Chou), who has sideline expertise in martial arts and Q-like weapons augmentations, the pair bond over their disaffection for the departed and an accidental crime intervention sees the birth of a new dynamic duo. There is no grand sense of justice or even vengeance driving The Green Hornet; it is just that kicking ass might be fun, and it turns out it is.

This is a knowing look at the superhero genre, with a fine line between itself and reality. Reid is a man out of his depth, but Rogen is a man in his element, his bumbling frat house humour and off screen asides delivering a comedy turn of the highest calibre. The chemistry with his straight talking sidekick provides a stable core to the movie as the two cruise the streets looking for trouble with no real sense of direction, haphazardly arriving upon crime – mainly as the result of research by Reid’s newspaper.

The introduction of Cameron Diaz as secretary and shared object of affection is unfortunately a sad regression in her career, showing little evolution from her eye candy debut in The Mask. Christoph Waltz, however, as the unmemorably named neurotic villain Chudnofsky, cruises effortlessly as the insecure crime boss delivering his musings of self doubt with a reversal of the gravitas he carried in Inglorious Basterds. Although almost everyone is schooled by a sublime opening cameo by the blisteringly on form James Franco as upstart villain ‘Crystal’ Clear.

The Green Hornet delivers a comic revamp a million miles from the ‘darker’ edge of today’s heroes. Gondry has a clear affection for the crime fighter, bringing his flaws and offbeat charm to the forefront, and by the end of the film it’s hard not to be enamoured with our eponymous hero.

Watch The Green Hornet Trailer

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Another ‘Exorcist’ remake? Yeah, ‘Rite’

Father Karras, meet Father Hannibal Lecter. He likes to cap his exorcisms with a dinner of liver, fava beans and nice Chianti. Whose bright idea was it to make an “Exorcist” knockoff with Anthony Hopkins as the Vatican’s exorcist-in-chief?

“The Rite” is purportedly based on “true events” and tells the tale of Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue), a young man whose immigrant father, Istvan (Rutger Hauer), a bizarre mortician, talks to dead people and even forced his young son to say goodbye to the corpse of his dead mother.

As a young man, Michael decides to enter the seminary, even though he’s a stud, has no plans to become a priest and only wants to earn a degree at the church’s expense. It’s not nice to fool the Holy See.

Before you can say, “Your mother trucks rocks in hell,” Michael has been persuaded by his teacher, Father Matthew (Toby Jones, best known as the house elf Dobby in the “Harry Potter [website]” films) to go to the Vatican to study under exorcism authority Father Xavier (Ciaran Hinds). Father Xavier takes a liking to the tall, dark and handsome priest-in-training and sends him off to learn at the feet of Jesuit exorcist Father Lucas Trevant (Hopkins, speaking a lot of Italian).

Like Hannibal Lecter, Trevant is also a medical doctor. He is currently treating a beautiful, young Italian girl named Rosaria (a very good Marta Gastini). Aside from being extremely pregnant and possibly raped by her father, 16-year-old Rosaria has a bare spot on her head where she scratches herself and a tendency to go into a trance-like state in which she begins to sound suspiciously like Mercedes McCambridge.

One of the most important things an exorcist can do, Father Lucas tells Michael, is to find out the name of the demon possessing the person possessed.

That will give you power over the entity. Michael also meets the meaningfully named Angeline (Alice Braga of “I Am Legend”), a beautiful journalist who wants to write about the church and its secrets regarding the ancient practice of exorcism.

Some may wonder what so many fine actors are doing in this lousy movie or try to guess who will pronounce the name Xavier correctly or if and when Michael and Angeline get it on.

Others may ask themselves how many versions can we take of the great 1973 William Friedkin movie with Max Von Sydow in a career-definitive role as Catholic exorcist Father Merrin, an old priest who, along with the doubting Father Karras, famously took on Linda Blair and a demon named Pazuzu, Sumerian god of plagues.

“What did you expect?” Father Lucas asks Michael, “Spinning heads and pea soup?” Well, yeah, Father, I kind of did — or at least something more than a heavy-breathing, red-eyed mule demon.

Director Mikael Håfström (“1408”) makes excellent use of the art and architecture of Rome and the Vatican, giving this otherwise inconsequential effort a weight it does not have. Was there nothing Håfström could do to get Hopkins to stop doing Lecter? Can we get the actor an exorcist?

“I am Baal,” someone screams near the end. Yeah, well, I am bored.

(“The Rite” contains a PG-13 demon, disturbing thematic material, violence, frightening images and language that includes sexual references.)