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Pay attention, kids

With XMas having passed, the web now turns to it's yearly job of try to "top" the famous "Nintendo 64 Kid" video from a few years back. I've seen a bunch already this year, and I was noticing a depressing trend: It's not "cute" with current-gen gaming systems.

Call it nostalgiac projection (i.e. 30something geeks like me liked N64 Kid because "that was us") but, well... seeing this year's crop of kids flipping their shit about an XBox 360 mainly made me think more on the lines of "Great. Dollars-to-donuts that kid is going be cheap-sniping and/or hurling unspecific xenophobic insults at me on Live within a week." Humbug.

But this... this is something else. Take a look:

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1926915





The "hook" here, if you haven't already seen it, is that the kid gets a 360 (for his birthday, though this is being called an xmas vid all over the web) and what looks like a mega-super-edition of Halo3 and reacts, well... gratefully. As in, instead of losing his shit in a giant joygasm, he's completely overcome with gratitude to his parents for the gift. You kinda have to wait for the last few moments for a bit of info that puts it all in context as to what might've helped shape his Tiny Tim-esque outlook on life, but the main thing is that the kid seems both TOTALLY surprised and accutely aware of what a lavish expense it is for mom and dad - he's got quite the vocabulary for a young kid, but the word "entitled" doesn't seem to be among them.

Kids, watch careful: THIS is what your parents are looking to see when you tear into the "big" gift.

Escape to the Movies: "Sherlock Holmes"

What, you were expecting me to take the day off?



And here's INTERMISSION, in which I do the year-end top-ten thing:\
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/6940-MovieBobs-Best-Of-2009

Merry Christmas! (Or holiday of your choosing, of course.)

Ornaments

Just in time for the Holidays, here's some fun nonsense courtesy Christopher Knight and the L.A. Times: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/12/a-warhol-christmas-at-the-white-house.html

Short version: The kids over at Andrew Breitbart's twin conservative-entertainment-professional wildlife preserves, "Big Hollywood" and "Big Government," (which politically saavy people, liberals especially, should be checking at least once a day; because it's basically a one-stop source for tomorrow's crazy today) were in a snit about the White House Christmas Tree. Specifically, that newly-minted official-decorator Simon Doohan (an underground-art type, apparently) had included some collage-art ornaments made from image-scraps including a photoshop of Obama on Mt. Rushmore (okay, a little tacky) and transvestite performer Hedda Lettuce (I have no idea.) The worst offense, though, was a fragment of a Chairman Mao pic - further evidence, y'see, of Obama's hidden communism...

...except for the detail that the image in question was actually Andy Warhol's PARODY painting of Mao - the one wherein he defaced the dictator's famous portrait with lipstick and mascara.

Oops.

Scroll down through the comments on Knight's article for Breitbart (who, all kidding aside, strikes me as far too sharp to keep getting caught in this shit - dude needs to crack the whip on his people) making an utter fool of himself defending the "reporting" (best to take the LOW bet on how long it takes for Reducto ad Hiterlium to rear it's head.)

Karate (?) Kid

Comingsoon has the new trailer for the "Karate Kid" remake, which for those who hadn't heard takes a pretty radical story-deviation from the original: Instead of the titular "kid" (Jaden Smith, son of Will and Jada) moving to a new town, he moves to a new COUNTRY - to China, specifically. Beyond that, the main beats look similar with the kid taking shit from bullies and fighting back by learning martial-arts from Mr. Miyagi - played in this version by Jackie Chan. Yes, Jackie Chan.

Trailer looks like about what you'd expect, right down to that awful song that was overused in every sneaker commercial and highlight reel of the last two years, but it's got my interest for two reasons. Firstly: There looks to be A LOT of location shooting in this, so it's going to be interesting to learn how much (and what kind) of input the Chinese government had over the portrayal of, well... anything. Secondly: It's a little shocking to see Jackie Chan seemingly acting his ass off in the role. You'd think this would be the definition of a "paycheck" part, and Chan has been alarmingly candid about how little regard he has for his English language films, but in the footage here he's playing Miyagi straight and serious with a "patrician hardass" vibe that's worlds away from the fun-loving regular joe guy he plays in... well, pretty-much everything.




For what it's worth, Chan learned HIS craft in the infamously-punishing children's program of the Peking Opera School, meaning he's had lots of experience with rough-hewn, unforgiving instructors of young students; so maybe that's where this surprising-looking spin on Miyagi is coming from.

Oh, and just to get started early on what will easily be the most annoying (yet true) bit of fanboy-bitching of the year right off the bat: WHY is it still called "The Karate Kid" when it no longer has any connection to Japan and they clearly AREN'T using Karate? (I imagine that the filmmakers are smart enough to know this but don't want to lose the title, and furthermore I'd bet that there'll be a running gag about it on the lines of The Kid calling it "Karate" and having to be corrected.)

Brittany Murphy, RIP

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=26568

What. The. Fuck?

Not much to say about this save that it sucks. She worked so intermittently (save for a decade of playing Luanne on "King of The Hill") and often in such forgettable projects, people generally overlooked how talented she was.

Escape to the Movies: "Avatar"

You were expecting, maybe, "Did You Hear About The Morgans?"


http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/1333-Avatar

And, as always, here's this week's "Intermission" column, which is also (mostly) about "Avatar."

2 steps forward, 1 step back?

When you're a movie geek, some days look like this:

ITEM: After departing the "X-Men" series to make a perhaps-too-introspective "Superman" movie that me and like five other people still like and, in doing so, freeing up the combined efforts of Tom Rothman and McG to steer the franchise into one of the most spectacular protracted artistic-suicides in memory (seriously, at least the original "Batman" movies ENDED after the fourth one... they made a whole OTHER MOVIE after "X3!!!"); Bryan Singer will apparently RETURN to direct "X-Men: First Class," a prequel (reboot?) with Cyclops, Jean, Storm etc. in their student-age days at the Xavier School. So, "Harry Potter" but with the X-Men. SOLD! Best of all, this almost-certainly means no Wolverine, so the other characters might actually get to DO something for a change.
http://www.joblo.com/singer-back-for-x-men

But then...

ITEM: "Spider-Man 4" is apparently officially "stalled" (as in, not moving forward) because - surprise surprise! - Sony and Sam Raimi are fighting over the villain. Raimi wants Silver Age mainstay "The Vulture," Sony wants... NOT The Vulture. If true, this is exactly what happened with #3: Raimi wanted Sandman and Vulture to continue his preferred trend of using the classic Spidey enemies, Sony (and Marvel) forced his hand for the more marketable Venom. Amazingly, damn near EVERYONE - even non-geeks - is aware that this went down last time, yet they're possibly at it AGAIN? I wonder who the studio-preferred nemesis would be... they wouldn't REALLY try and make him go with the (amazingly even MORE worthless than Venom "Carnage," would they??)
http://iesb.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7951:spider-man-4-production-on-indefinite-hold&catid=43:exclusive-features&Itemid=73

UPDATE: AICN is reporting that the Spider-Man story isn't true, or rather that the work-stoppage isn't true, since the "arguing over the bad guy" thing has been out there for a few weeks now: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43405

ALSO, apparently it's called "Spider-M4N" now.

Iron Man 2

Apple (and now everyone else) has the Iron Man 2 trailer, already up:


http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/ironman/

Not much that hasn't been seen if you poked around for the Comic-Con footage, but looks pretty good. "New" money-shot is Iron Man and War Machine teamed up fighting what looks to be a bunch of other armored enemies (or are these full-on ROBOTS now? THAT would be pretty great.)

Obviously, hardcore geeks like myself are watching stuff like this looking for different stuff than most of the audience, who're likely just glad for the "yes, there's an Iron Man 2" factor. What might we be "looking for?" Why, "Avengers" crossover-clues, of course! So what's going through MY mind? Well...

First good listen to Mickey Rourke's Russian-accented dialogue for Whiplash. Digging the juxtaposition of the self-made hardcase baddie with the sleek, high-end good guy. More noteworthy, to me at least: Whiplash makes it clear he has a mad-on not just for Stark, but the Stark "family line." For the record: IMDB lists actor John Slattery as playing Howard Stark and also a role for "Young Tony Stark," so... flashbacks?

That's interesting, since the previous film also took time to mention that the elder Stark had been big in the morally-dubious military/weapons field, too; AND Stark's appearance in "The Incredible Hulk" indicated that he's been aware for some time of the WWII-era Super-Soldier program, i.e. the source of that serum that turns Tim Roth into The Abomination... which, for those without a devoted nerd in your life to point such things out, was marked with a scientist's name that "confirmed" that this is supposed to be the same stuff that gave Captain America his powers. So, I'm thinking: Is THIS (Stark Industries going back to WWII and possible involvement with Cap and/or the forerunners of S.H.I.E.L.D.) a big part of how they'll tie all this together? (Dear lord... if some fragment of Captain America turns up as the "tie-in tease" for this, I'll shit a solid gold brick.)

Also: No good look at Sam Rockwell as (apparently) the main bad guy, Justin Hammer. In the comics, Hammer is one of the Marvel Universe's endlessly-useful "weapon-making-bad-guys," an evil counterpart to Stark who's made gear for something like 70-80% of the supervillains. He also figures prominently in both the "Armor Wars" and "Demon In A Bottle" story-arcs, the two most-prominent ongoing stories in Iron Man prior to "Civil War." "Armor Wars," incidentally, involved Stark fighting bad/corrupted robots and robo-suits made by the army and others using his tech, which would make sense given the Senate scenes and the other robots/armors in the trailer. (I won't say what it is and advise you not to look, but the reliably-sloppy IMDB lists another specific Marvel character in the roster, though the listed-casting a certain scenes from this trailer lead me to conclude that someone has a wire crossed somewhere.)


Nice to see Nick Fury getting some trailer-love, and in addition Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow looks even better than I'd hoped for.

Alice in Thunderdome

Sometimes, it's helpful to remember that all the GOOD points of the Hollywood "blockbuster machine" having been taken over by the general mindset of a 13 year-old boy (see: Marvel Films' "Avengers" master-plan) come with their price - namely that 13 year-old boys can be pretty daft a lot of the time.

For example, around that age, it's customary to arrive at the assumption that EVERYTHING can be improved by turning it into some kind of Epic Battle - especially if the Epic Battle is also Grim n' Gritty - up to and including otherwise-good-natured superheroes and whimsical fairytales. It's this kind of thinking among 13 year-olds during my time as such that was largely responsible for Image Comics, and right now it seems to be responsible for re-imagining every movie property in the context of a Boris Vallejo/Julie Bell tableau (or, in studio-speak, "we're goin' for a "Pirates of the Carribean" angle."

To that end, here's the new-er trailer for Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" dealie, which despite what you're brain may be telling you he HASN'T already made seven or eight times...
http://wdmp-wdsmp.rd.llnw.net/wdsmp/AIW/Trailer5/AIW_Trailer5_480.mov

Gotta give `em credit, at least, for seemingly hitting every damn mark of this type of "reimagining:" Pseudo-sequelism? Check. Hero-as-vaugely-chosen? Check. Most-prominent baddie as world-conquest supervillain? Check. Massing armies of storm-troopers? Check. And dig what appears to be Alice striding out into the midst of a Braveheart-fight in full battle armor, or Depp's Mad Hatter wielding a broadsword. Or maybe it's kidding, and this is all out of context...

Kingdom of Gladiator Hood

COMING SOON has the first actual trailer (an "international" sizzle-reel type thing) for Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood" movie:



...yeah. This is another one of those teasers, like the early ones for "Sherlock Holmes." that're so concerned with reminding you of other recent movies the target-demo may have liked (in this case: 300, Gladiator, King Arthur, LOTR and so on) that there's really no way to tell what the hell it is until the title comes up - before that, this might as well be the trailer for "Untitled Medieval Russel Crowe Actioner #5." That it doesn't look especially different "aesthetically" from "Prince of Thieves" over a decade ago is... not a good sign. Still, one must remember that this is Ridley Scott, who's movies are usually better than their trailers (or, in some cases, the version that actually opened - if you've not seen the director's cut of "Kingdom of Heaven," DO SO: It's one of the best films of his career.)

The history of this production has been ridiculous - assuming that ANY of it has been true: Depending on who you ask, this may or may not have started as a project called "Nottingham," which would've been a revisionist version of the story with Robin as an illegitimately-lionized thug with a flair for self-promotion and the Sherriff as the put-upon good guy trying to bring him down even with "the people" against him. Sounds cool, right? Well, whether or not that was ever the case, it wasn't for long: The next anyone heard of it, no one could confirm which of the two roles Crowe would be playing, and a NEW rumor surfaced that he'd actually be BOTH - either as some kind of "meta" casting or another "revisionist" take in which "Robin" is actually Nottingham's secret-identity, which he creates in order to subvert The Crown himself. Also a nifty take, also apparently not-happening.


There's also been some unsubstantiated talk that the people paying for the production more-or-less "demanded" that Scott/Crowe deliver a straight-ahead "unofficial-sequel-to-Gladiator" style take; resulting in this film which Universal is describing as another "real history behind the legend" go-round of the familair outline - i.e. Robin as disillusioned Crusades veteran who forms a woodland guerilla posse to fight unfair taxation.

Damn The Gods

CHUD points the way to a new, longer trailer for the "Clash of the Titans" remake. It's basically a longer, smoother version of the first teaser so most of it you've already seen, and it's also still cutting to that heavy metal track everybody but me pissed and moaned about (drumming scorpion = win) but definately worth checking out for our first official glimpses/confirmations of Pegasus, Mount Olympus and The Kraken - which looks like a fairly elegant solution between the traditional giant-octopus and Harryhausen's four-armed mer-whatsit.


http://chud.com/articles/articles/21854/1/THE-KRAKEN-RELEASED/Page1.html

More importantly, the much-maligned "Titans Will Clash" tagline has been replaced by the newer, inifitely more awesome "Damn The Gods"... which now solidifies my earlier inkling that this remake is taking it's cues from "Jason & The Argonauts" in addition to it's official progenitor.
"Damn The Gods." I love that. I LOVE that.

The moment?

The critics are starting to see "Avatar," (no, I haven't yet) and the early world is damn-near through the roof... EXACTLY the kind of feedback this particular movie needed to hopefully turn around all the "Dances With Smurfs" negativity that's been building around it since people first got a look at the plot. So... is this when it happens? Is this "Titanic" all over again, where everyone was sure it was a disaster in the making and then everything comes together when it finally shows?

I dunno... but thus far the most important report I've been waiting for was from Jeff Wells, who's probably the most stridently anti-fanboy, anti-genre-blockbuster guy doing movie-blogging right now - the epitome of someone who's just NOT looking to show kindness to a $300 Million mostly-CGI tentpole about blue aliens and marines in mecha-suits. Well, as of this morning... he's calling it a masterpiece:
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/12/a_fine_madness.php

In fact, I don't think I've ever seen Wells react this way to this sort of movie. Overnight, he's gone from one it's cheif nay-sayers to proclaiming that it will get (and deserves to get) a Best Picture nomination:
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/12/avatar_in_the_r.php

What does this mean? I dunno, but it's unexpected and definately gives me a good feeling.

Escape to the Movies: "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans"


http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/1219-Bad-Lieutenant

And here's this week's "Intermission," which is all about the film's director/adventurer/superhero Werner Herzog:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/6866-Kneel-Before-Zog

New "OverThinker" at ScrewAttack

FYI guys, the new 30th episode of "Game OverThinker," a side-by-side of "Modern Warfare 2" and "New Super Mario Bros. Wii," is up NOW at ScrewAttack:
http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-A-Tale-of-Two-Games

Sorceror's Apprentice

So, folks... what do we make of this trailer for Disney/Bruckheimer's new fantasy-actioner "The Sorceror's Apprentice," another of the growingly-common subset of genre films attaching a 'name title' to what appears to be an original story in order to look more like a franchise blockbuster?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h_fMAV7jXc

The basic idea seems to be a bare-outline "Harry Potter" reworked from a classical British "special boy" structure to an American one - i.e. instead of admittance to a prestigious elite academy being the seemingly-ordinary "Chosen One's" passage to skill-honing and higher destiny (the Dickensian/British model) he'll be schooled in badass-lonerhood by an older badass-loner, "Karate Kid"/"Rocky"-style. All told, doesn't look half-bad - gotta love the dragon and the animated Empire State eagle. Though, yes, the presence of Nicolas Cage means at least a 50/50 chance of otherworldly brilliance or out-of-place awkwardness.

Finally, GOOD NEWS about "The Wolf Man."

Universal's remake of "The Wolf Man," with Benicio Del Toro as the title monster, has had easily the most (publically) problematic production of any film in recent memory: The first director was fired/quit just as it was gearing up, there were public spats about practical-vs-CGI FX between creature-maker Rick Baker and the production, and recently new editors were hired to "punch up" the finished footage. All signs pointed to the usual trouble: A potentially-cool genre film getting watered-down by a studio afraid to make something awesome and maybe even a little dangerous. It also, even from it's trailers, looked A LOT "bigger" and thus more expensive than many might have been expecting, which could only ADD to the concern if you follow these things: Even if your movie is about a monster who's only real ability is tearing people limb-from-limb, a studio spending big money usually wants a "safe" PG13 rating to garauntee maximum profit.



So, then, it comes as not just good news but potentially SPECTACULAR news that "The Wolf Man" has been rated R for "bloody horror, violence and gore." Now, that DOESN'T necessarily mean all the problems haven't resulted in a less-than-great film, but it IS a strong indicator that things might be going in the right direction. An R-rating, at it's fundamental level, usually means that the film was made "uncompromised" to a certain degree; it also possibly tells us that Universal might think they have something pretty good on their hands, since a "bad" genre film would absolutely get saddled with a PG13 in order to increase it's earning capacity.

If it's "that" good, I'm interested to see what it's reception does for journeyman director Joe Johnston, who's been making solid films without becoming much of a "name" for DECADES now. If this works out, it could end up a big secondary buzz-point for the "Captain America" movie he's set to make for Marvel (if that's still happening, there hasn't been WORD ONE about it since they announced they were making it.)

Spider-Man 4 to get it half right?

File this under "probably strange enough to be semi-true," but Movieline says they know who the new people are in "Spider-Man 4": http://www.movieline.com/2009/12/exclusive-spider-man-4-circling-john-malkovich-anne-hathaway.php?page=1

Sez them, Sony Pictures vetoed "The Lizard" for being too strange; so the main enemy will be "The Vulture" - possibly to be played by John Malkovich. Sez them also: The story about Felicia Hardy ("The Black Cat") turning up is also true, as is rumored casting of Anne Hathaway, except instead of Cat she'll become a female counterpart to Vulture. (Vulture has wings, for the record. That's pretty much the whole idea.)

Some of this sounds like bullshit, some of it doesn't. Vulture is 100% plausible. He's part of the "main cast" of 60s Spider-Man enemies that Raimi prefers to draw from (Rhino, Mysterio, Shocker, Electro and Beetle are most of the others) and he fits in nicely with the general theme of main bad guys from the better-recieved (than #3) first films - i.e. an inventor using his technology to go on a crime/revenge spree. It's also true that Raimi has been trying like hell to get him into the series for a long time - he was supposed to be "co-baddie" in Part 3 before Marvel/Sony insisted on Venom. If you're wondering why Lizard is apparently too strange for the screen but alien-goo-monster Venom wasn't, simple: Money. Venom is one of Marvel's most consistently-marketable properties on the toy/shirt side (he's never been able to carry a book, though.)

The "made-up" part, if there is one, is probably Hathaway-as-Hardy-as-"Vulteress;" but not enough to be dissmissed outright. A recurring theme (THE recurring theme?) in Vulture stories is that he's an old man, and his flying-suit technology is always getting stolen by younger, more ambitious wannabes. If so, it's likely that this was in the script from the beginning and someone had the idea to borrow the name of an existing supporting-player for her civilian identity. Unfortunately for them, as always happens with these things, a casting sheet got to the fans before the announcement did, and now instead of going "heh, thats a reference" they'll be all bent out of shape at the character not being in it's original form (doubly true here, since let's face it - LOT'S of people wanted to see a flesh-and-blood actress in that outfit.)

Movieline isn't a "fanboy" site, so if this is either close to or very far away from truth, there'll be word from Sony soon enough.

Escape to the Movies: "Ninja Assassin"

The Blind Side

Alright, enough is enough.

I didn't write anything at first after seeing "The Blind Side" because it left my largely unaffected save for the same general annoyance given off by it's trailer, which I'd already covered. But seeing it blossom into some kind of real success, and now people are talking an OSCAR for Sandra Bullock (Sandra Bullock!!??) I'm compelled to get into this.

"The Blind Side" is fucking horrible. At first seemingly forgettable, but it HANGS there like a sore... I find myself coming back to it in my head, realizing just how awful certain aspects of it are. It's worse than worthless - it's an "anti-good" film; it's existance lessens the world around it.

It's based loosely on a sports book of the same name from the author "Moneyball," which details the rise to prominence of the Left Tackle position in professional football. The "human interest" aspect of the story focused on Michael Oher, an NFL pro who started out as a near-homeless teenager who's life turned around after a local rich family more-or-less adopted him. He's black, they're white, is the "hook." The film gives lip service to the sports-history context, but it opts to focus mainly on Oher's story... without actually focusing on him. Instead, it reworks itself into a star-vehicle for Bullock as the tuff-love matriarch who takes him in.

And that's the main problem - all "Blind Side's" other sins... the unoriginal structure, the formula "big" scenes, the treacly sentiment and the overall "feel-good-movie-matic" aura of the whole enterprise - might be forgivable if it weren't also such a smug, self-satisfied piece of white-guilt-reassurance. Oher is a specter in his own story: A one-dimensional "big lug with a heart" caricature who's only function is helping his benefactor's feel better about themselves. The plot is about how Oher escaped the dead-end of the ghetto with help from these people, but the STORY is about how encountering Michael and his world has made his adoptive mother a more enlightened, socially-aware human being. Fuck that shit.

And that's not even taking into account all the out-of-nowhere "the HELL!?" scenes. At one point, Oher gets to tear a bunch of his old-neighborhood crack dealers apart with his bare hands even though they've all got guns. No, really, and it's cut like something out of a Jason Statham movie. Later on, Bullock goes all Erin Brokovich on the same dealers, apparently able to cow them with sheer force of word. Please. The film also manages to sidestep the main note of moral-gray from the real events - there was some eyebrow-raising about Oher's adopted family, and tutor, and others involved in his redemption being financially-connected to the college he ended up signing with, do the math - by the old standby of placing the only dialogue questioning it into the mouths of a "mean" character. Earlier on, one of Bullock's "bitchy" friends asks her "is this some kind of white guilt thing?," which is meant to make curmudgeon's like me feel bad about mentioning the fact that it kinda IS.

It's a piece of shit, and the idea that it has any kind "momentum" right now is incredibly disturbing.
 
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