PIRATES DOWNLOAD FLOPS, IGNORE HITS
If Hollywood despised child rapists and terrorists as much as they do the 99%-ers who steal from movies and music from the 1%, the world would be a much better place.
PAGING ARMOND WHITE: ‘GROWN UPS’ SEQUEL PLANNED
This makes Armond White and me very happy. And if you’re looking for Armond these days, he’s writing over at City Arts. His “Week With Marilyn” review is a must-read: “A Giant Played By a Midget.”
[Michelle] Williams lacks the personality and lush physicality for successful prurience; she’s more Renée Zellweger than Monroe.
I don’t know what “prurience” means, but I sure wish I’d written that.
Anyway, “Grown Ups” made $271 million thanks to an amusing, easygoing story and a cast that blended together perfectly thanks to a chemistry that should serve a sequel quite well.
SO WHAT DOES DISNEY HAVE IN STORE FOR THE MUPPETS IN 2012?
Well, they’ve already attacked Big Oil and told us Newt Gingrich is “from the swamp,” so I’m guessing it will have something to do with helping to reelect President FailureTeleprompter.
THE 15 BEST SHOWS ON NETFLIX INSTANT
Doesn’t anyone write about popular culture anymore who was born before 1989? There are some perfectly fine choices on this list but the oldest listed is probably “Scrubs.” Where are “Gunsmoke,” “Columbo,” “Andy Griffith,” and “Mission: Impossible”? Where are “Wagon Train,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” and “Thriller”? One of the pleasures of writing about Hollywood is having the opportunity to introduce or re-introduce the classics. And I’m not that old. I’m only 45, and many of these shows that I’ve managed to discover were well before my time.
As a teenager, I used to get up at six a.m. every Sunday morning because a local PBS station aired a two-hour block of “George Burns and Gracie Allen,” “Jack Benny,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” and “Our Miss Brooks.” I remember all the tin foil I wasted trying to get “The Honeymooners” off of WGN in Chicago. What attracted me to these shows is what attracted audiences decades earlier. They were and are marvelously entertaining, well acted, and clever. That hasn’t changed.
This isn’t a knock in any way on modern television. As I’ve said many times, television is currently enjoying a new golden age. But one of the glories of the age in which we currently live is access to almost everything.
Everything’s so hip, so cool, so now… Which is fine, but there still needs to be a sense and knowledge of history. I see this same problem in those who complain about the lack of content on Netflix Streaming. What in the world are they talking about? You could lose yourself in that library for a decade… if you can manage to live without season 29 of “The Simpsons” or “The Hangover II.”
And now I need all of you need to get off my lawn.
RIDLEY SCOTT SAYS BLU-RAY HERE TO STAY
Not sure I buy this:
Short of that, the technically sophisticated Blu-ray disc, of which I’ve been a supporter since its inception, is the closest we’ve come to replicating the best theatrical viewing experience I’ve ever seen. It allows us to present in a person’s living room films in their original form with proper colors, aspect ratio, sound quality, and, perhaps most importantly, startling clarity.
Which is why it has never made sense to me that those preoccupied with how movies are delivered have for years written off “physical media” (i.e., movies on discs) as “dead” even though the evidence shows it isn’t happening and won’t for years to come. Technology will need to make many more huge leaps before one can ever view films with the level of picture and sound quality many film lovers demand without having to slide a disc into a player, especially with the technical requirements of today’s 3D movies.
It’s been three decades since the CD was first introduced and you can still buy vinyl, so there’s no doubt that Blu-ray is likely to always be with us in some form, especially for those who obsess over “proper colors” and packaging and the like. But the picture delivered through streaming is pretty damn good, as is the sound, and I think Scott is under-estimating how enamored most of us are with the miracle of having a library of movies and television shows just a click away. And then there’s the cost.
And is 3D really going to become such a big deal at home that it will save Blu-ray? According to the box office, 3D is far from the savior it was predicted to be there.
20 NEVER-SEEN PHOTOS OF STEVE MCQUEEN
Fantastic.
For years I’ve called McQueen the last true movie star, and as you’ll see from the photographs, he was no skinny-jeaned, pierced, pasty-white metrosexual.
McQueen was also a rock-ribbed Republican.
If I make it to Heaven, one of the top one hundred things I’m going to is thank the Good Lord for is DVD. Can you imagine living in a world where your only choices were George Clooney, Ashton Kutcher and Nicole Kidman? I’d have to kill myself or get a life.
ANGELINA JOLIE ON BEING SUED, ‘IT ALWAYS HAPPENS’
Jolie’s correct. One of the pitfalls of the film business is that a copyright suit against a high-profile film is more likely to happen than not. Someone’s going to claim the idea was their idea first or that years ago they pitched the story. Sometimes someone really does get cheated, but most of these suits are frivolous.
GARY OLDMAN ON ‘DARK KNIGHT RISES’
So where, then, do things pick up for Gordon this time around? Well, “when we meet him, things are calmer in Gotham. It’s reminiscent of the Gordon that we met in the first one”, says Oldman, adding that “even though things on the surface are now calmer, he’s cleaned up Gotham with the Harvey Dent Act, it’s seething underneath”.
Appreciating that there’s only so much he could say about the film, Oldman did note that “It’s a terrific conclusion to the trilogy. Nolan rounds if off: he brings in a bit of the first one, from Batman Begins, and he does some really surprising things with it”.
Promising “the fans won’t be disappointed”, he said there’s “a relief and it’s mixed with [some sadness]” that his Batman adventures have come to an end.
Not many sequels have so much to live up to. We expect most sequels to suck, especially the third, but since Christopher Nolan is apparently incapable of making a bad film, expectations couldn’t be higher.
More here.
IS KHAN ‘STAR TREK 2’S VILLAIN?
Vulture thinks so, but would Benicio Del Toro be your first choice in casting that role? Maybe.
On Friday, the site Latino Review claimed to have confirmed that choice of villain, though Abrams promptly replied to Hitfix that the report was “not true.” Still, the famously secretive director was probably trying to keep the cat in the interstellar bag for a little while longer, as Vulture hears from a highly placed source that Khan is indeed the film’s baddie.
Another sequel much is riding on. Let’s hope there are more lens flares.
TOP 10 MEMORABLE BLAXPLOITATION FILMS
Not a single flick anchored by Pam Grier. Blasphemy.
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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING
Hoping to review this later today.
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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR
DEAL OF THE DAY: 35 EASTWOOD FILMS FOR $77
MARTIN SCORSESE TO DIRECT ‘SILENCE’, BASED ON THE BOOK BY SHUSAKU ENDO
THE NEXT STEP FOR THE ‘EVIL DEAD’ REMAKE
MICHAEL BAY WANTS MARK WAHLBERG AND DWAYNE JOHNSON FOR HIS NEXT FILM, ‘PAIN AND GAIN‘
NEW PICTURES FROM ‘SHERLOCK’ SERIES 2
TEASER TRAILER FOR SCI-FI THRILLER ‘LOCKOUT,’ PRODUCED BY LUC BESSON
R.I.P. LEGENDARY CASTING DIRECTOR MARION DOUGHERTY
EW’S ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR IS…
SETH GREEN LAUNCHES A NEW STOP-MOTION ANIMATION STUDIO
‘MYTHBUSTERS’ MISHAP SENDS A CANNONBALL FLYING… THROUGH A HOUSE
10 HORROR CLICHES IN ‘AMERICAN HORROR STORY‘
BRADLEY COOPER TALKS ‘PARADISE LOST’ & WHY HE LEFT ‘THE CROW’ REMAKE
PANAVISION CAMERA USED TO SHOOT ‘STAR WARS’ SELLS FOR $625,000 AT AUCTION
‘AMERICAN CHOPPER: THE BUILD-OFF’ WINNER REVEALED!
RUMOR: UNIVERSAL ORLANDO’S ‘JAWS’ RIDE BEING SCRAPPED FOR HARRY POTTER EXPANSION?
A. O. SCOTT ON ‘THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE’
9 NERDY FILM LOCATIONS YOU MUST VISIT IN YOUR LIFETIME
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CLASSIC PICK FOR THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8
11:30 PM EST: My Man Godfrey (1936) — A zany heiress tries to help a tramp by making him the family butler. Dir: Gregory La Cava Cast: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady. BW-94 mins, TV-G, CC.
Depression-era classic. Hopefully TCM’s print is better than the public domain DVDs we’ve been saddled with for years.
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