Category: Movies (Page 298 of 498)

Blu Tuesday: Earth, Heroes and State of Play

September 1, 2009 /

There are quite a few big Blu-ray releases in the month of September, and two of them (“Braveheart” and “Gladiator”) are headlining the rollout of Paramount’s new Sapphire Series premium label. Unfortunately, I didn’t receive either one in time to review for this week’s column, which is too bad, because I’m hearing that the subpar transfer on the “Gladiator” disc is going to cause a major ruckus in the Blu-ray community. There are still a few cool releases coming out today, but nothing that absolutely demands your attention… or your money.

“Earth” (Walt Disney)

I wasn’t very fond of nature documentaries before seeing BBC’s “Planet Earth,” but now that I have, I can’t imagine seeing one even remotely as good again. The people at Disney must feel the same way, because instead of going out and trying to make their own nature doc, they decided to just reuse footage from the award-winning miniseries to create a feature-length version. Simply titled “Earth,” the 90-minute film is narrated by James Earl Jones and plays out like a Greatest Hits of the documentary’s best moments – from the more narrative-driven stories about families of polar bears, elephants and humpback whales to an amazing look at caribou migration and the birds of paradise. Fans of “Planet Earth” probably won’t be interested in the more ADD-friendly edition, but at least Disney has included some cool extras for those thinking about buying “Earth” for their kids, like a pop-up trivia track and a new Blu-ray feature (Living Menu) that offers nature facts and video clips every month.

“Heroes: Season Three” (Universal)

The third season of “Heroes” was supposed to be a return to form for the superhero drama, but despite an excellent season premiere, it turned out even worse than its harshly criticized sophomore year. The meaningless deaths of a few fan favorites certainly didn’t help the situation, but there were a few positives to be drawn from what could effectively be called a train wreck of a season. For starters, Zachary Quinto proved that he could play a good guy just as well as a baddie, while guest stars Robert Forster and Zeljko Ivanek delivered memorable performances as the show’s marquee villains. Season Three may not have lived up to its promises, but the Blu-ray release of the show continues to deliver with picture-in-picture audio commentaries, a slew of production featurettes, and more. The HD edition also includes additional behind-the-scenes footage and a sneak peek of Season Four. It doesn’t make up for the disappointing string of episodes, but if the show really does get back to its roots this year, you’ll want Season Three to complete your collection.

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Action Movies, External Movie DVDs, Heroes, Movie Dramas, Movie DVDs, Movies, TV, TV Dramas, TV DVDs, TV Sci-Fi

The post-Disney/Marvel merger world…

August 31, 2009 /

Is starting to look a lot like the one we knew before it.

* We’ll start with the good news. It’s been a very good summer, money wise, at the movies. In fact, the best ever…well, skyrocketing ticket prices help, but still.

* Nikki Finke might have had 11 updates to her initial post about the purchase, but she’s already moved on to bad blood in the Writers’ Guild election and, of course, her latest snit. This time, she’s furious about a new system of Oscar voting in which voters will name list the films in order of preference, so that a film with a huge number of second choices could beat a nominee with most first choices, if you follow. Typically, Anne Thompson‘s view is more sanguine. Personally, I think it will just underline the Academy’s inherent conservatism in choosing winners. Those of you hoping for “Inglourious Basterds” to be Best Picture were just dealt a serious blow. Since when was being the year’s Best Picture had that much to do with actually winning it?

* Of course, even as a good chunk of L.A. burns — a summertime tradition around these parts — and even our TV and radio transmitters, and the historic Mt. Wilson observatory are threatened, there’s no stopping the fannish speculation from the both the comic book/movie fan crossover world and more established bloggers. Christopher Campbell chronicles both today. Personally, I’m having some second thoughts on my own politically-based negativity about it this morning, though overall media consolidation is a real problem in terms of limiting the “marketplace of ideas.” This is just far from the worst example.

* And, on the heels of this comes talk of another early franchise reboot, this time of the Fantastic Four. Okay, but if they’re really like to save some money and offer mainstream audiences something that will really surprise and delight them, I believe a finished film is still sitting in the can, all ready to go.

Action Movies, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

Are we excited about “The Descent: Part 2”?

August 31, 2009 /

The Descent

Here’s the synopsis taken from the movie’s IMDB page:

The sequel will continue the story of Sarah, who as the only survivor of an all-female caving expedition gone horrifically wrong, suffers severe psychological trauma. Unable to speak, she accompanies a rescue team back to the cave, but events once again take a sinister turn.

THE DESCENT 2 picks up immediately after the events depicted in THE DESCENT Sarah (MacDonald), emerges alone from a cave system following an expedition with her five friends in the Appalachian mountains. Distraught, injured and covered in the blood of her missing companions, Sarah is incoherent and half-wild with fear. Skeptical about her account of events and convinced Sarah’s psychosis hides far darker secrets, Sheriff Vaines forces her back into the caves to help locate the rest of the group. Trapped by falling rocks, the rescue party are driven deep into the caverns, and as one by one the fate of the missing girls is revealed, Sarah is forced to confront her deepest fears.

By the look of the trailer below, the sequel appears to be much more like your standard thriller than the character-driven original. What made the original so great was the underlying tension between the characters of Sarah and Juno. The scares and violent scenes didn’t just shock you, but they each actually contributed to the plot because of the subtext that existed. The original’s writer/director Neil Marshall didn’t have his hand in the creative process of “The Descent: Part 2”, and it shows. I’ll still check it out, but I’m not expecting much. To this day, “The Descent” is only the movie I’ve seen where a good portion of the audience walked out of the theater because of how frightened they were.

Horror Movies, Movies, News, Trailers, Video

Disney buying Marvel! World as we know it ends! (Updated)

August 31, 2009 /

Okay, only the first part is true, but it’s pretty weird as it is — the House of Ideas and the Mouse House are likely to become one. It’s still quite early here on the West coast  and all we have right now are mostly still the raw public facts as reported in the press release which is being carried this morning by Comic Book Resources (CBR), Variety and Nikki Finke.

Unless I’m missing something, the deal involves a massive buy-out of Marvel stockholders to the tune of $4 billion and it still may have to clear some antitrust hurdles. This is obviously my bias talking, but I hope the Obama administration’s regulators take a good look at this deal before allowing it to go through. In my opinion, Disney is already far, far larger than any single media company should be allowed to be. On the other hand, the deal with Marvel is obviously not on the scale of Disney’s past deal with ABC in terms of its size and scope and they aren’t a direct competitor.

Marvel’s real strength is the wealth of characters mostly created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and others. If it makes Marvel a healthier enterprise, perhaps it’s not such a bad thing. Finke is entirely bullish on the deal and praises Disney head Robert Iger for it, but I’m not sure we share the same exact priorities. We do both wonder if the association with Disney will somehow lower Marvel’s cool-factor among the young geeks. As for antitrust, I’m waiting to hear what the people who actually understand this stuff have to say, but I guess if we allowed the ABC deal to go through, this is nothing.

The word at this point is that Disney will allow it’s currrent licensing and third party deals — including fimmaking ones with the big studios it’s been working with up to now — to stand pat for the time being. It sounds to me, however, like the Mouse House might well be stepping in there at some point and a more recent item from Marketwatch definitely allows for that possibility. It also says that some lesser known Marvel characters might also be hitting silver screen. So, I guess Ant Man and Millie the Model might finally see their name in lights.

All I know for sure is that it’s feels almost like a sign of the geek apocalypse (the “geekalypse”?) to have Spiderman, the X-Men, Iron Man, and the Mighty Thor under the same roof as Mickey, Donald and Winnie the Pooh.  On the other hand, the distance between the Mickey Mouse Club and the Merry Marvel Marching Society might not be all that great in some ways.

UPDATE: Thanks to BKS for sending this NY Times article with more info. A couple of quick lifts: Marvel characters will start popping up at some Disney-owned theme parks fairly soon and Paramount may have the most to lose as Disney gradually brings the Marvel film franchises in-house.

External Entertainment, External Movies, Movies, News

A “Woodstock” movie moment

August 30, 2009 /

Even though Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock” isn’t exactly taking the movie world by storm, I thought I’d take the opportunity to present one of the most famed moments from Michael Wadleigh’s documentary, “Woodstock.”

Even though I’m not a fan of lengthy guitar solos in my pop music, there are exceptions — and most of them probably come courtesy of Jimi Hendrix. I’m not sure the appeal here is entirely musical by its nature, but its definitely powerful and historic. Whatever “soul” is, I don’t think any conventional guitar hero ever had half as much as Hendrix did.

Documentaries, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movies

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