Tag: Robert Zemeckis (Page 2 of 3)

Midnight at the movies

March 13, 2010 /

Not quite a movie news dump, more of a movie news sampler…

* The various Deadline folks have a lot of reporting going on tonight, starting with the news from Mike Fleming that Robert Downey Jr. is negotiating to possibly star in a new science fiction film Alfonso Cuaron wrote with his son. He also reports on the somewhat delayed sale of a hot Sundance feature staring “Twilight” fave Kristen Stewart, James Gandolfini, and Melissa Leo. In addition, there’s word from the London office that 72 year-old Dustin Hoffman is finally graduating to directing with an upcoming project with BBC Films.

* Todd Gilchrist has the closest thing yet to an official review I’ve seen of “Kick-Ass” and it’s…mixed. Could the film already be a victim of its already amazingly effective hype? Or is it that Gilchrist is, after all, just one guy? Of course, there’s always the possibility that it’s simply not as good as we all seem to be expecting. If so, shoot me now, I say!

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* The Red Skull has always been one of my favorite supervillians — just pure evil and nothing but. I think casting  Hugo Weaving to play him in the upcoming Captain America flick is probably about as good a choice as they could make. If anyone can act without skin, it’s Weaving.

* Quentin Tarantino will not be smurfing around, after all. He did, however, accept an award at SXSW, which is just getting started and where our own Mr. Jason Zingale is hanging out.

* Patrick Goldstein doesn’t approve when Tom Hanks has the temerity to voice a strong opinion because it annoys rightwingers and that’s just the worst thing ever.  Yes, it’s a celebrity’s job to play it safe at all times. Good to know. I wonder if he’ll hold rightwing actors to the same standard when they say something controversial. It’s a true fact that many journos who probably themselves vote Democrat wind up carrying the water of the far-right through their obsession with being even-handed at all costs at all times and regardless of the merits. The American rightwing really did a number on the press during the late 20th century, and it doesn’t look like they’ll ever recover.

* I hate to see any creative person lose their job, especially in this economy, but I hope this item means there’ll be some kind of shift in the creative direction of Robert Zemeckis’s future animated/motion-capture projects. How anyone can think that style of animation is  anything other than creepy — and not in a good way — is beyond me.

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(500) days of Spidey news?; all together now in the uncanny valley…and a whole lot more

January 14, 2010 /

Yes, we ‘ve got movie news…

Peter Parker/Spiderman* Nikki Finke’s new best friend, Mike Fleming (or someone, it’s written in the third person), writes tonight that director Marc Webb of the very popular indie relationship comedy, “(500) Days of Summer” is right now the most likely director for the just announced “Spiderman” reboot.  Fleming, or whomever, writes that  Webb has “no superhero experience,” which is not really the issue. The issue is that, while he’s quite capable of making an okay indie comedy (I’m not the movie’s biggest fan), he has no action experience and Sam Raimi had obviously quite a bit before attempting “Spiderman.” Still, the choice of Webb wouldn’t be half so strange as another one mentioned by Fleming (or whomever) apparently in all seriousness: Wes Anderson.

I wish we lived in a universe where studio executives would be so weirdly brave. And, hey, if Anderson’s not available, they could try David Lynch. I don’t know about the masses, but I’d definitely pay to see either movie.

Fleming (or whomever), however, is absolutely correct that, if he were just a bit younger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt would be the guy to play the new Peter Parker. Oh, well.

* Fleming also has it that Daniel Craig is “in talks” to replace a vacating Robert Downey, Jr. on the comic book adaptation, “Cowboys and Aliens.” Interesting transition. Downey seems more alien than cowboy; Craig is definitely more cowboy than alien.

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Post-Turkey Day film news bites

November 30, 2009 /

A few items as Hollywood finishes digesting its turkey and stuffing.

* Paramount has picked up “Area 51,” the science fiction follow-up to the ridiculously profitable “Paranormal Activity” from writer-director Oren Peli. Somewhat to my disappointment, this one will also use the “found footage” gimmick, though I guess we can assume that with an exponentially larger budget — $5 million (about enough to pay for craft services on some films) as opposed to $15,000 — Peli will at least attempt to spread his wings creatively. One reason to give him props, however, is that the film has already wrapped principal photography. We can’t accuse the Israel-born former video game designer of failing to strike while the iron’s hot!

Matt Damon and Julia Styles in * It appears that The Playlist broke the story that it appears that the very talented Paul Greengrass has left the helm of “Bourne 4” and if he goes, Matt Damon may not be far behind. Still, at this point it’s a tale without an ending in more ways than one

* Kim Masters considers “Avatar” and Robert Zemeckis’s motion capture and 3-D work as featured currently in “A Christmas Carol.” To me, they’re creatively too different beasts in that James Cameron‘s creations aren’t trying so hard to be realistic, which I think is the real reason for the “ugly” problem with the creator of Roger Rabbit’s more recent work. As for the “Avatar” characters, I’m not sure I’m going to love them yet, either, but we’ll see when the movie’s out. I’m also not at all sure that movies need to be revolutionized in quite this way.

* Over at Film Threat, Gary Morris of the highbrowish Bright Lights Film Journal is interviewed. Among the topics: interviews like this one. Don’t fear the meta. (H/t The Auteurs on Twitter.)

* It technically ended yesterday, but the Boris Karloff Blogathon, hosted where else but at Frankensteinia, lives on with tons of material still coming in submitted by innumerable bloggers about the late, great character actor who originated the role of Frankenstein’s monster in 1931. Definitely worth many looks.

The vocal there is quite obviously reconstructed using the original recording by Bobby “Boris” Pickett. If you want to hear the actual vocal from the 1965 episode of “Shindig” featuring the real Boris Karloff, you may hear it here.

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It’s the end of the world as we know it; Sony feels fine

November 15, 2009 /

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I’m sure Roland Emmerich who, according to Nikki Finke, is receiving 25 percent of the grosses for his $200 million budgeted “2012,” is also feeling pretty good. Of course, now he has to figure out if he about to earn enough money for his own end-of-world-blocking fortress of solitude in case all those prophesies he used to come up with his critically dismissed thriller come true.

Emmerich’s latest multi-star epic earned an estimated $65 million, at the very highest end of the most optimistic projections put forth by Jolly Carl DiOrio that I mentioned on Thursday night. If you throw in the worldwide figures going back to the film’s international release last Wednesday, then you get to a figure of around $225 million so far. As per Variety‘s Pamela McClintock, assuming there are no surprises, this puts Sony’s PG-13 epic in the #9 spot on the top 10 for international opening weekends.

Disney's At #2 spot this weekend is the Disney/Jim Carrey/Robert Zemeckis CGI-3D revisit of “A Christmas Carol,” which, despite character designs that embody the unpleasant after effects of a visit to the uncanny valley, is holding up extremely well after what was deemed a disappointing opening last weekend. Charles Dickens’ unkillable holiday perennial only dropped about 25-26% or so, about half of what many films do, and collected a very respectable estimated $22.3 million. After it’s a truly steep fiscal drop all the way down to an estimated $6.2 million for “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” It seems to me there’s nothing more problematic at the box office than a prestige picture with a critical/online buzz response that amounts to “meh” — or in this case “meeeahhhh.” That’s an apparent 52% “many films” drop from last week.

Indeed, this week brings us the spectacle of a goat herd of A-listers being upstaged by an abused, severely overweight teen as the critically lauded by overtitled “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” shot up to #4 spot despite being in only 174 theaters. That means it earned it roughly $6.1 million on 2,279 less screens that “Goats” needed to earn an additional $0.1 million.

However, as good as the $35,000 per screen average for “Precious” was, taking a look at the Box Office Mojo weekend chart, the highest per screen went to Fox’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” The old-school puppet animation comedy earned a very nice estimated average of $65,000 on four screens and is, weeks before its wide release, already going a long way toward burnishing the reputation of writer-director Wes Anderson who, as far as this writer is concerned, has never shot an uninteresting foot of film.

Still, it wasn’t all hearts and flowers for the indies this weekend. Despite some outstanding coverage by Mr. Will Harris at our fabulous sister site, “Pirate Radio” failed to receive the Bullz-Eye bump. The ensemble comedy, inspired by illegal British broadcasting outfits of the sixties and seventies that competed with the BBC by blasting out the latest in rowdy beat music, earned a very non-rocking  estimated $2.9 million, slipping just below Richard Kelly’s $3.2 million 10th place thriller, “The Box.”  On the other hand, that does mean that “Pirate Radio” went to 11.

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Xmas ghosts, a dead popster, goat starers, aliens, a box, and some demons

November 5, 2009 /

Yes, it’s a real mishmash this weekend at the box office and I’ve got less time than usual — but let’s just see how it goes.

A Christmas Carol

Anyhow, the clear winner over the next few days will almost certainly be yet another version of Charles Dicken’s constantly remade and revisited holiday perennial, this time from Disney, “A Christmas Carol.” Jim Carrey stars as Scrooge, who won’t hurt at the box office and Robert Zemeckis, in his “Polar Express” mode, is at the helm. Personally, while I found the earlier motion-capture movie a fun visceral thrill ride in Imax 3-D, despite a story that was the very definition of treacle, I personally find this style of animation extremely ugly; it’s as if it’s always stuck in the armpit of the Uncanny Valley. Moreover critics, including our own David Medsker, complain that Zemeckis gets carried away with the effects and makes things a bit too visceral and scary for the film’s own good. Still, if it worked even for Mr. Magoo, there’s no reason to think it won’t work well enough for some fiscal redemption. THR‘s Carl DiOrio, whose nearly as jolly as an way-too-early St. Nick, is guessing it’ll grab about $40 million in premature yuletide cheer. A split decision by critics is, I suppose, neither here nor there.

After that, we have four films that will be duking it out with two extant strong releases, Michael Jackson’s ghostly final bow, “This Is It,” which may benefit from better than expected word of mouth and, of course, the horrifyingly profitable “Paranormal Activity.” Intriguingly, all these new major releases have a slightly spooky and/or “paranormal” spin and trying to guess which will do best is probably about as wise as playing with a Ouija board at a demon-infested San Diego townhome.

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