First, the bad news: 19 year-old Anton Yelchin (pictured above right) is rumored to be in consideration for the lead part in WB's Green Lantern movie, which is scheduled to come out in 2010. Now, I don't have anything against the kid, but the fact is that he's just that: a kid.
Yelchin is kind of on the rise right now, with major roles in both Star Trek and Terminator Salvation later this year, so I can see why the studios might be buzzing around him. I just can't understand why they would be interested in him for this movie. Hal Jordan is supposed to be a fearless test pilot, not a guy fresh out of high school. Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) is directing, though, so hopefully with his recent blockbuster success he'll have enough clout to be able to convince Warner Bros. not to force someone inappropriate for the role into the movie.
Second, the good news: today Warner Home Video officially announced the straight-to-video animated movie Green Lantern: First Flight. The quality of DC's recent animated DVD movies has been quite high, and Green Lantern is my favorite DC character after Batman, so I find this news pretty exciting. What makes First Flight even more interesting is that it's being produced by Bruce Timm (the man behind the excellent Batman: The Animated Series) and it has a great voice cast, which includes, of all people, Michael Madsen. While this may not have much effect on the production of the live-action movie, it's good to know that someone somewhere is giving Hal the treatment he deserves.
Oh, how I have missed Mel Gibson. His last starring role was in Signs, which came out almost seven years ago now. He's finally returning to the big screen this year though, and he looks to be taking on the role of one of America's greatest pop icons in The Colonel. Take a look at this new trailer:
Looks pretty good, huh?
All right, so if you've watched the video then you know this trailer is just a joke. It premiered on Jimmy Kimmel's show after the Oscars on Sunday night (which explains why a lot of people haven't seen it).
I wasn't kidding about missing Mel, though. The man is one of my favorite actors and I'm really looking forward to Edge of Darkness, the police drama he'll be starring in later this year.
I’ve been pretty down on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for quite a while now. I’ve even made several posts to that effect on this blog. But I have to admit, I was surprised by how well the Oscars turned out this year. The nomination/award system may not be perfect, but watching the ceremony on Sunday night made me realize that it’s not nearly as broken as I thought it was either. In fact, I’m feeling pretty good right now about the way the awards went as well as the state of the Academy Awards in general.
The show itself was definitely better than it has been in the past several years, and Hugh Jackman did a great job as host. His opening number was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while, and set the tone for what ended up being a really good night. I could have done with one or two less song and dance performances, but putting the band on the stage and having the nominees introduced by a panel of former award winners were both excellent touches and more than made up for any of the show’s other shortcomings.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t have liked a handful of things to work out differently, though. While I can get behind Slumdog Millionaire’s win for Best Picture, I was a bit disappointed that two of my favorite movies from 2008 didn’t at least get nominated. The exclusion most obvious to a lot of people was The Dark Knight. Even if they didn’t feel it was the best movie of the year, there are a lot of people who would certainly consider it as being one of the top five.
In fact, when I originally saw the list of nominees a few months ago, I’ll admit that I was a bit annoyed. I had hoped the last two Best Picture wins, for The Departed and No Country for Old Men – two films that are a far cry from the more “traditional” movies the Academy typically likes to give the award – wouldn’t just be anomalies in the larger scheme of Oscar history, and were indicative of a more progressive mentality on the Academy’s part. With The Dark Knight not even being nominated, we can see a clear shift away from the kind of darker, edgier movies the Academy has celebrated for the last few years.
As I’ve come to realize, though, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially considering that the Best Picture award still went to a pretty nontraditional movie. If it had gone to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – a movie I really enjoyed, but one that by its very nature plays much better to a conservative audience than Slumdog – it would have marked a step backward for the Academy. The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes to me that the Oscars aren’t necessarily meant to give the Best Picture award to the most objectively good movie each year. Rather, the movie that wins is the one that best encapsulates the spirit of our society at a certain point in time. In an era of increasing hope and the real possibility of change, Slumdog Millionaire is that movie much more so than The Dark Knight.
So while TDK’s exclusion is understandable on some level, there is one film that I think really should have been included: WALL-E. I had hoped, perhaps naively, that this would be the year the Academy finally recognized that well-done animated movies aren’t just good children’s movies – they’re good movies that happen to be suitable for children to watch.
What bothers me most about its omission from the ballot is that if there were any year that an animated movie actually had a solid chance of being nominated for Best Picture, it was this year. Many people (myself included) thought Ratatouille should have been nominated last year, and with WALL-E being just as well-received by critics this year, it would have been the perfect opportunity for the Academy to change its outlook.
To its credit, Disney tried to play ball with the other studios and mounted a fairly large Best Picture campaign for WALL-E. Still, this basically underscores my main problem with the way the Academy Awards work. Over the past few years, nominee lists have been for the most part determined by which studios are able to run the most effective advertising campaigns. Film companies spend millions of dollars on “For Your Consideration” advertisements in magazines like Variety, sometimes managing to muscle their way into getting nominations for movies that aren’t really deserving of the recognition (such as Robert Downey Jr.’s nomination for Best Supporting Actor in Tropic Thunder).
Perhaps this is a minor quibble on my part, though, since all of the films that ended up being nominated for Best Picture (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire) are good movies in their own right. Whereas in each of the last few years it’s always seemed as though one or two movies nominated for Best Picture weren’t really very good, I think all of this year’s nominees were deserving of recognition. The fact that we’re even able to debate what other movies should have been nominated is a good sign, because it means there were more than just five truly great movies to come out in 2008. That’s something I don’t think we’ve been able to say for a number of years now, and it makes me think that the film world is on more of an upswing than I would have thought just a few months ago.
Overall, I think this year’s Academy Awards are as good an indication as any that we’re entering into a more exciting and adventurous time for movies. Slumdog’s win is significant in that it’s a movie belonging neither to the “old school” of filmmaking the Academy has traditionally honored, nor to the “new school” of dark, gritty films along the lines of The Departed or The Dark Knight. The Academy’s choice of something so unique as its Best Picture means that we’ll likely see more risk-taking on the part of the major studios in the coming years.
In other words, executives will be more likely to give their directors a level of creative control that hasn’t been seen in quite a while, in the hopes that the final product will turn out that much better for it (and thus make more money). The result could be an era of filmmaking as fresh and creative as the 1970s, when independents like Scorsese and Coppola were given the freedom to put just about whatever they wanted on the big screen.
Of course, this is all just speculation on my part. What did you think of the Oscars? Were the awards given to the movies that were most deserving, or do you think your favorites got snubbed? Check out the list of winners HERE, and post your thoughts in the comment section!
I know it's been a while since my last update, but I was hoping you would forgive me if I posted some cool new movie trailers.
Edit: Strangely enough, these videos don't seem to want to play in their correct aspect ratios on this page. I would recommend just clicking directly on the video and watching it in a different window, at least until I can figure out a way to make them display correctly.
Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino's new WWII film coming out later this year. As a huge Tarantino fan myself, I think this movie has the serious potential to return him to the level of greatness he entertained early in his career. Take a look for yourself, and be on the lookout for B.J. Novak of The Office as well as the notorious Eli Roth, best known as the director of the Hostel movies.
Funny People is the third movie by director Judd Apatow, and this trailer was just released on Friday. I thought his second movie, Knocked Up, was a big step back from The 40 Year Old Virgin, although it still had its great comedic moments. Funny People, on the other hand, looks like it could be the perfect blend of comedy and seriousness. I'm especially looking forward to seeing Sandler in a role less mindlessly goofy than the ones we've seen him in recently, and closer to his dramatic work in Punch Drunk Love and Reign Over Me (both great movies you should seek out if you haven't seen them).
The first Night at the Museum was a surprisingly fun and well-made movie, with a universal appeal not too far removed from the National Treasure series. With seemingly the entire cast of the first movie returning for the sequel, along with a few new interesting cast members thrown into the mix, I think Battle of the Smithsonian could be just as good. I'll admit that the amount of computer animation in this trailer seems a bit excessive, but as long as it's all in good fun I doubt it'll be too much of a problem.
Well, that's all for right now, but check back soon for my thoughts on the Oscars before they're handed out on Sunday night. Enjoy the weekend!
First, the bad news: 19 year-old Anton Yelchin (pictured above right) is rumored to be in consideration for the lead part in WB's Green Lantern movie, which is scheduled to come out in 2010. Now, I don't have anything against the kid, but the fact is that he's just that: a kid.
Second, the good news: today Warner Home Video officially announced the straight-to-video animated movie Green Lantern: First Flight. The quality of DC's recent animated DVD movies has been quite high, and Green Lantern is my favorite DC character after Batman, so I find this news pretty exciting. What makes First Flight even more interesting is that it's being produced by Bruce Timm (the man behind the excellent Batman: The Animated Series) and it has a great voice cast, which includes, of all people, Michael Madsen. While this may not have much effect on the production of the live-action movie, it's good to know that someone somewhere is giving Hal the treatment he deserves.
