"Your movie stinks, see ours instead!" Question of the day: Should movie marketing campaigns bait each other?

It was my first thought walking out of The Bourne Legacy last Monday.  "I bet Sony and MGM wishes they could somehow attach a Skyfall trailer to *the end* of every Bourne Legacy print, purely out of spite."  Obviously that really isn't possible in today's theatrical distribution model, but why wouldn't Sony do the next best thing?  Why wouldn't they cut a new Skyfall trailer explicitly commenting on how mediocre the latest entry in the would-be heir-to-Bond franchise is?  Cue: various underwhelming clips from The Bourne Legacy.  "Wow... that bloody sucked!  That Aaron Cross sure is a wanker!  Let a real professional show you how its done... (cue Bond theme and fade in accordingly)."  Or whatever, you get the idea.  For reasons that may involve actual regulations or may just be a kind of mutual gentlemen's agreement, rival film studios don't generally call each other out like that.  But maybe, just maybe they should.  It may not be polite, but it would make modern film marketing that much more fun.

Kinda neat: IMAX schedules a week of discounted 'old favorites'.

http://www.amctheatres.com/imaxbigmovies/

Since Contagion isn't exactly burning up the IMAX box office and Real Steel still has a week before opening, IMAX is trying something a little different.  For one week, starting tomorrow, various IMAX theaters will be showing a slate of three popular IMAX titles over the last three years.  For just $7 a ticket, you can opt to revisit Star Trek, Inception, and Fast Five on the large-screen format.  Nothing much to add here, but I almost hope this starts an occasional trend.  I'm not sure if my schedule would permit such a thing, but I'd love the opportunity to revisit Batman Begins and The Dark Knight in their IMAX glory before seeing The Dark Knight Rises.  Anyway, click on the link below the big banner ad for tickets and what not, otherwise consider this a plug for what I think is a rather fun and smart idea.  Will you be attending any of next week's bargain rereleases?  What movies would you like the chance to revisit in IMAX, or what older movies would you pay to see reconverted to IMAX (IE - the Lord of the Rings trilogy?).  Share below if so inclined.

Scott Mendelson

A diamond amongst diamonds: How JJ Abrams's Super 8 got screwed by an uncommonly strong summer movie season.

It's not the 'secretive' marketing campaign that Paramount is waging for J.J. Abrams's Super 8 (which I will see in Friday, having had to decline the available IMAX press screenings) that is affecting the want-to-see factor leading into its opening weekend this Friday.  Paramount has been keeping a pretty tight leash on plot details for the various trailers, posters, and TV spots, and for that they should be commended.  But instead, they are being criticized in certain circles because the film's tracking data is pointing towards an opening weekend in the $25-30 million range, which is a bit below the standard blockbuster opening weekend in this day and age.  For the record, if the film indeed only cost $50 million as Paramount is claiming, then the 70s/80s Spielberg homage will be sitting more than pretty with a $25 million opening.  A $25 million opening would, barring complete collapse, give the film $70 million in domestic grosses and it could be expected to do at least that much overseas. So with those figures, you've got a $140 million worldwide take on a $50 million budget, which is a pretty big win even before the DVD/Blu Ray figures pour in.  So before I go any further, let us acknowledge that Super 8 does not have a blockbuster-level budget attached to it, so it does not necessarily have to open to blockbuster levels.

Guest Review: The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

As happens from time to time, a reader and collegue was able to attend an early screening of an upcoming release and was willing to send his thoughts along. This time, Brandon Peters offers a spoiler-free look at The Adjustment Bureau, which opens this Friday.

The Adjustment Bureau
2011
99 minutes
PG-13

by Brandon Peters

The Adjustment Bureau is an adaptation from the Philip K. Dick short The Adjustment Team. A Philip K. Dick fan am I, however I have not read any of his shorts collections. So, I cannot supply comparisons to the source material. While The Adjustment Bureau is not quite a film spawned from Dick’s works like Blade Runner, Total Recall or A Scanner Darkly, it is nowhere close to the likes of Next or Imposter.

The Best Picture nominees: doing the box office math.

By Oscar night, at least five of the ten Best Picture nominees will have crossed $100 million, with The Fighter possibly being the sixth. Ironically, much of The Social Network's momentum was based on how much it had made ($95 million) and how that gross for a purely character-driven drama was a testiment to how well it connected to the public. What will the argument be when it enters Oscar night as the fourth or fifth lowest-grossing nominee in the pack? The ten-nominee thing is new enough to affect the math, and The Hurt Locker was a fluke, as the lowest-grossing Best Picture winner in modern history (had Avatar not been set up by the media as the Goliath of the nominees, The Hurt Locker could not have so easily slid in as the proverbial David). Generally speaking, one of the two highest-grossing nominees amongst the traditional five nominees ends up winning.

Random commentary/analysis on the Oscar nominations.

Is Chris Nolan the new Steven Spielberg? Inception received eight nominations, including Best Picture, but Nolan failed to receive a directing nod this morning. That is arguably the biggest surprise in the otherwise predictable batch of Oscar nominations today. Even as someone who doesn't think it was the greatest genre entry of all-time, it IS a director's picture through-and-through. Of course, since we now have ten Best Picture nominees and only five Best Director slots, there are arguably five other directors who might be a little annoyed this morning. I'm personally saddened (as much as one can be 'saddened' by stuff like this) by the omission of Debra Granik for her direction of Best Picture nominee Winter's Bone. I know we all like the Coen Brothers, but True Grit is a pretty normal western. If True Grit is Oscar-worthy, then so was 3:10 to Yuma and Open Range. There will be much handwringing over Lisa Cholodenko not getting a Best Director nomination for The Kids Are All Right. But since I kinda hate the film, I'm not too personally annoyed by the omission. At least Mark Ruffalo pulled out a Best Supporting Actor nod out of the deal, since he was the best thing about the film (of course, Ruffalo is usually the best thing about every film he's in).

Ridley Scott scraps Alien prequel, goes ahead with original Prometheus.

Fascinating stuff, this is. Just days ago, we heard reports that Fox and Ridley Scott were butting heads over whom to cast as the female lead in the upcoming Alien prequel(s). Ridley Scott wanted Noomi Pace (Elizabeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), while 20th Century Fox wanted that box office dynamo Charlize Theron. Well, nevermind to all of that, because Ridley Scott and writer Damon Lindelof are instead going with an original story instead, apparently based on a script by Jon Spaihts. Prometheus will be released on March 9th, 2012. Little is known about the project, except that it will have bits and pieces of what might have been the Alien prequel at an earlier point in time. Noomi Pace has been cast as the main character, with bigger-name actresses (Charlize Theron, Angelina Jolie, etc) circling around a major supporting role. Fascinating...

2010 in Review: The Overrated.

Let us begin our look back at the year in film with a token acknowledgement of ten films whose reputations did not proceed them. For the record, not all of the films below are bad pictures. But they all generated critical and/or audience esteem that they perhaps did not entirely earn. There is nothing wrong with overpraising a good film. It often emanates from a hunger for quality that often causes we the critics to look at a merely solid and/or competent piece of cinema and hail it as a groundbreaking work of art. The following are in alphabetical order.

The Ghost Writer
The release of this film timed so conveniently with the arrest of director Roman Polanski that the reception of this film seemed to fall into two categories: 'a triumphant thriller from a master artist' and/or 'the new movie by that kiddie-rapist'. Truth be told, the film is a well acted and genuinely old-fashioned would-be thriller. But far too much time is spent on the dull romance between Ewan McGregor and Olivia Williams, at the expense of Pierce Brosnan's terrific turn as 'not Tony Blair'. Furthermore, the climactic revelations are not bone-chilling, but rather silly and comforting. Like most conspiracy theories, it provided a more melodramatic and reassuring explanation behind the last ten years of British politics. Tony Blair wasn't really deceived/tricked/cajoled into following George W. Bush down the post-9/11 rabbit hole, was he? No, there is a far more sinister explanation afoot... right? The ideas offered are far more comforting than the notion that maybe, just maybe, Tony Blair agreed with George W. Bush. If you want a great thriller with Pierce Brosnan, check out The Tailor of Panama.

Blu Ray Review: Inception (2010)

Inception
2010
148 minutes
rated PG-13
Available from WHV on Tuesday, Decmber 7th on DVD, Blu Ray, OnDemand, and Download.

By Scott Mendelson

For the original theatrical review, go HERE.
For thoughts on the second viewing of the film, go HERE.

If it needs to be said, Inception looks and sounds splendid on Blu Ray (and it looks pretty sharp on DVD too, since said Blu Ray package comes with a DVD/Digital Copy third disc). The audio sounded razor-sharp even on my non-existent audio set-up (when you have a three-year old sleeping in the next room over, surround sound is a waste of money and space). So the big question regards the supplemental package. As has been the case with most new releases from Warner Bros. over the last few years, it's a case of 'the least you can do'. There's shockingly little meat to what's on the disc, and shockingly little documentary/behind the scenes material. And, similarly to The Dark Knight Blu Ray, the making-of material plays less like a genuine 'here's how we made the movie' than a glorified 'for your consideration' Oscar highlight reel.

Dreaming a little dream: thoughts on the second viewing of Inception.

Seeing Inception for the second time, the line that keeps coming back to me is the one that caps the trailer, where Tom Hardy admonishes Joseph Gorden-Levitt and tells him "One mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling" before whipping out a rocket launcher. As great as much of Inception is, how I wish that Chris Nolan hadn't been afraid to really explore the nature of dreaming for more than just superior action sequences and overly-complicated heist-film plot mechanics. There is a fantastic documentary on the Blu Ray set, arguably the only feature in the slim supplemental package worth a damn, that deals with the science and speculation of dreams and how they work. Watching this before viewing the second viewing of said feature, one realizes how Nolan barely scratched the surface of the rich storytelling possibilities that the dream world has to offer. It may not be fair to criticize Inception for not being the definitive action-thriller about the dreamworld, but one cannot deny that the dreamworld envisioned by Chris Nolan (car chases, gunfights, explosions!) lacks a certain amount of imagination.

Introducing 'Rumors from the crazy guy on the corner': Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the Riddler in Chris Nolan's Batman 3 (AKA - Shadow of the Bat)?

I've wrestled for sometime with how to discuss news in a timely manner when so much of the relevant movie news begins as rumor. I don't like to discuss rumors as if they are factual, but I also like to discuss stuff when it allegedly breaks. So, this will be the start of a new feature: 'News from the crazy guy on the corner'. To put it simply, anything I discuss here should be considered 100% rumor, and any analysis I offer should be taken as a theoretical 'if it turns out to be true' capacity. So if I find myself discussing something like that relatively debunked 'Indiana Jones goes to the Bermuda Triangle' story from a couple of days ago (I liked Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, so I say go for it), or whether or not Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in talks to play the Riddler in Nolan's third Batman picture (makes sense, Nolan likes to poach actors from project to project), please know that I am not assuming that any of this will turn out to be correct.