I am still shell shocked about Heath Ledger

 

Movie buzz

The Band’s Visit (release February 8, 2008: click here for preview) – This one is definitely one I want to see – about an Egyptian Police Officer Band plans on playing at the Arab Cultural Center in Israel and takes the wrong bus, ending up in a forgotten town in the Israeli desert. The movie looks like it will be kind of slow, but could pay off in the end as the preview shows it to have that same off-beat humor most great foreign films do.

Jumper (release February 14, 2008; click here for preview) – Can cool carry a whole movie? The concept of seamless teleportation is one of the coolest “mutant” abilities – remember how cool Nightcrawler was before he was kicked out of X3? But the effects and the actions are a fanboys dream – but after that, can an eclectic cast of Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Rachel Bilson, and Diane Lane keep it alive? The movie follows a young man (Hayden) who lives the high life by abusing his teleportation powers until he discovers that there have always been teleporters, and he now finds himself in the middle of a thousand year war between “jumpers” and their sworn enemies. Yeah, that whole Underworld type plot didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense to me either. And can Anakin pull off the leading man routine a movie?

My Blueberry Nights (release February 14, 2008; click here for preview) – Lets go through the reasons to see this film: Norah Jones, Natalie Portman, and Rachel Weiz. Oh yeah, Jude Law and David Straithairn are in it too. The film looks like extremely visually appealing, and despite the alarm bells of clichéd romantic comedy that might be going off in your head, imdb indicates there’s some poker in it. Portman and Weisz and Poker!? I’m there. This film, by rising directing star Wong Kar Wai follows, “a young woman (Jones) takes a soul-searching journey across America to resolve her questions about love while encountering a series of offbeat characters along the way.” Well that’s what imdb says – the preview indicates that Jones is in fact the main female protagonist. We shall see!

Movie fuzz

The Spiderwick Chronicles (release February 14, 2008: click here for preview) – Two monkeys were struggling to write a script and decided to literally combine Jumanji and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. After about five minutes of mashing it together they spent another five writing “new” dialogue. Then Nickelodeon came in and took the script from them and turned it into a movie. The end. To make things worse, the trailer tries to make it look scary – but the movie is rated PG – COME ON. It follows a young boy who reads a forbidden book and then trolls start chasing him down. Of course he needs to plunge into their magical world full of dragons and swords and magic to defeat them and protect his home. Hey, I might end up seeing it anyways.

TV buzz

My love of the new Sarah Connor Chronicles should be obvious by now. If it isn’t, I hope it is now. The show continues to get better, laying the seeds for more and more plotlines that are sure to reap great results. And finally, House is coming back at the end of this week. It has been way too long without Hugh Laurie.

What do you think about…

Atonement. I think that this movie is not getting ANY attention. Sure, Blood has a ridiculous performance from Daniel Day-Lewis, sure Country had an intensity and suspense that only the Coens could deliver, and sure, Michael Clayton is the hip dark horse and even I want Juno to pull a huge upset. But Atonement was still GREAT!

On the web

10 terrifying women - you wont find your mom on here. Unless you are Jennifer Love Hewitt’s kid. This list has an amusing group of pretty scary women across a wide range of films. It’s worth checking out, and these are scary characters, not scary as in bad performances (Julia Roberts in Charlie Wilson’s War), nor scary in the why are you making movies sort of way (JLO in Gigli).

Oscar’s biggest mistakes - I love these articles – where people sound off on why awards shows missed the boat. This article focuses in on some of the best ones. It even predicts the biggest error the academy could commit: not giving Ellen Page an Oscar for Juno. Actually, the article doesn’t say that last part at all. But you all know that’s what I think.

Real movies with porn titles - this will lighten up your day – unless you REALLY wanted to relax and had to sit through “two long boob-free hours” as Peter Griffin would say. Some of these are pretty good, and this one even has a tie in to the Oscar piece above.

Um…really???

HEATH LEDGER! I was SHOCKED. Am shocked. I got a text from Brett saying “Heath Ledger died drugs.” Which I assumed to mean “Heath Ledger did drugs.” I thought, wouldn’t have thought it, but, no big deal. The next thing I know, I’m having a conversation about how he overdosed. Crushing. I thought he was a great actor with a great career ahead of him. Heath Ledger, you will be missed.

Who am I?

From Verona, to the Mountains, to the city.
Send your reply to saltystixtrivia@gmail.com.
Last week’s answer was Johnny Depp.

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.