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://www.viddler.com/player/c14eafa9/
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More importantly, the much-maligned “Titans Will Clash” tagline has been replaced by the newer, inifitely more awesome “Damn The Gods”… which now solidifies my earlier inkling that this remake is taking it’s cues from “Jason & The Argonauts” in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 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.

http://cdn2.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.1.5.swf
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

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

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.

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.)

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.

http://static.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.1.5.swf
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/1155-Ninja-Assassin

And here’s this week’s “Intermission,” which is about “Blind Side.” Because why not?
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/6858-The-Bland-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.