I warned everyone, but the reality shows are about to get REALLY painful.

Movies NOT worth $10

I thought I’d give some of our loyal readers a heads up on what NOT to do this holiday season.

Alvin and the Chipmunks (release, December 14, 2007; click here for preview) – You might as well flush your money down the toilet. In fact I would rather do the following things with my $10 than go see this movie: staple the bill to my hand as a martyr who refuses to buy Hollywood shit, give my eye a papercut, go skydiving with a $10 parachute. Does anyone really care what the movie is about? Even if you did, you probably could not figure out much considering the preview amounts to just showing the chipmunks and Jason Lee. Jason Lee, wow. He keeps trying SO SO hard to ruin his movie career. Not to be left out is Justin Long, who can’t even cash in on the I’m-a-cheaper-version-of-Shia-LeBeuf-and-the-kids-can-pronounce-my-name deal he has going on. Poor kid, he will learn so much from Jason Lee on how to drive your career into the ground. I guess the big question is, are these guys such a bustling commodity that someone took a chance on this movie?

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (release, December 25, 2007; click here for preview) – Hmm…I wonder what this movie is going to be about. Real surprise – this movie about the birth of the Loch Ness monster and old Nessie’s touching relationship with a young boy (gags). Even for a kids movie, how did this get made? Oh yeah, and the movie is by the guy who made that children’s movie powerhouse My Dog Skip (dead silence).

Movies that WILL BE worth $10

Here are some good movies that won’t come out for awhile, so try to remember them.

Vantage Point (release, February 22, 2007; click here for preview) – this movie follows Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, and Forest Whitaker as five people who experience the attempted assassination of the President (William Hurt), from different angles. Sure, the multiple storylines that all come together has been so overdone (I totally hated Babel), but this movie actually looks like it could pull it off, and that it has a reason to tell the story as such. It looks exciting, and puts an interesting group of actors together.

Wanted (release, June 27, 2008; click here for preview) – If there was something close to a sequel to Mr. & Mrs. Smith, I think this would be it. Yes, I know James McAvoy doesn’t have that same, you know, as Brad Pitt, but the movie will still be awesome. It follows a pretty ridiculous storyline of a guy who finds out the father he never knew was the world’s greatest assassin, and now he has to learn how to kill people to follow in his father’s footsteps. Who else to train him (and maybe throw in some narration) but Morgan Freeman. And I wouldn’t be able to compare the movie to Smith if it didn’t have Angelina Jolie. I’ll take a step back and admit that this movie could also be an abysmal failure, but it could also be awesome. At the very least, Angelina makes the movie worth $10.

TV Buzz

The strike is upon us. Run for cover. There isn’t much else to say – most shows are saving their two shows for January and the reality shows are about to pile on. Hopefully this thing will be over soon.

A touch of nostalgia

I saw Planes, Trains, and Automobiles the other day with Steve Martin and John Candy. While I thought that Steve Martin was pretty much never funny, I still appreciated the fact that he made “real” movies. Now he just pops out Pink Panther movies and Cheaper by the Dozen flicks like there is no tomorrow. He is cashing in, but it is so so sad.

What the papers say

As the last edition of The Buzz showed, I wind up going through those EW picture slideshows when I’m bored. For the mindless they had a pretty “good” one on Jessica Alba’s roles. Seems fitting to ogle her now before she pops a little Alba out. Along those same lines, and appealing to those same folk who eagerly clicked the link above, they also have one of actresses who “played” strippers. They DO have their clothes on, so don’t get too excited. And one more for the road, they also had a slideshow of their ultimate hotties from the 90’s to 2007. Seems kind of a weird list to create. Maybe next time they will do one from 1970 to May of 1982.


Maybe one more for the road was the wrong phrase. I guess I did move from EW to Empire Online (great site by the way) where I found their list of the 100 sexiest movie stars. This includes men and women (I know guys, give me a break) and has lots of interesting fun facts. Did you know McQueen was going to be Rambo? Did you know Orlando Bloom wanted for be Faramir? There’s more – just read the article here.

Now, some substance. And perhaps, let’s move in the completely opposite patriarchal chauvinistic direction of the picture fest I just heaped on above. This article is about how Juno is Knocked Up from a women’s perspective. I was the first to say that I thought Knocked Up really tried to be a comedy that was not just for men. I thought the flick did a good job of that, but apparently some people like Heigl think the movie is really chauvinistic. So this article talks about how Juno is Knocked Up from women’s perspective because it focuses more on Ellen Page’s feelings about pregnancy than the cliché reality of marriage from an unexpected pregnancy. But people are going to see the movie because of the script and the direction from the guy who brought you Thank You For Smoking.

Um…really???

I found this list of the Top 25 under 25 a week or so ago. It has some REALLY surprising choices and omissions. Screw it, I’ll admit it – it was a pretty boring week for me – nothing really stupid/funny happened on the net that I came across. But that list is interesting, and surprising.

-- Written by Aaron --

Could “Avatar” Win Best Picture?

By Brett Hogan

 

Last week, the trailer for James Cameron’s sci-fi experiment “Avatar” debuted. While initially unimpressed with the teaser, I began to wonder: Could this film win best picture? 

 

Buzz has been generating for this movie for years. Years. The technology to make this movie didn’t exist when Cameron conceived it, so he invented it. When is the last time you heard of a director spearheading the invention of anything? The casting started in 2005. Most movies these days, even epics, are done in half that time. I could go on. 

 

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that people are saying this will be the future of movies. Now, I don’t agree with the idea that CGI will become more prevalent than it already is. But I do believe that this will set the bar miles higher for sci-fi. I mean, that is what Titanic did. And that won some awards if memory serves.

 

I’ll bet you’re asking yourself, how can you even suggest that a film like this will win Best Picture when the initial trailer was nothing better than visual stimulation? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, the Academy has expanded Best Picture to ten films. This doesn’t guarantee anything other than improved chances for most films on the cusp.

 

Second, after last year’s Oscars debacle, which saw the best film of the year, “The Dark Knight,” not only get shafted in awards but nominations as well, the Academy is pulling out all the stops to appease those with the loudest voices in the film industry, the fanboys. Now, the Academy probably didn’t lose anything because of that other than some viewers of the award show. Perhaps if people are again outraged with the winners or nominees, the heads of the Academy would lose their jobs. So this is all about the Academy protecting itself, which is not so outrageous.  

 

 

Third, there is an economic motive here. I’ve heard this film will cost $190 million, not counting the R&D costs associated with Cameron’s inventions or the cost of getting 3-D cameras into every theater in the country. The Academy will do everything in its power to get people into the seats and make this the next “Titanic” or “The Dark Knight.” But the Academy doesn’t have much power, besides nominating and awarding, so they will slap the “Nominated for Best Picture” moniker onto every commercial and print ad to get the people who didn’t believe the critics to relent and see this movie.

 

Of course, all of this is pure conjecture, and no revolutionary film (Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, etc.) has ever won the Best Picture category because it changed the game. Except maybe Titanic. But still, could this movie actually win? My answer is no but a nomination is certain and who knows what could happen from there. We’ll know more come February 2010.