She has a name. Her name is Sharon Carter! On the way we discuss actresses and female characters in genre fare.

One of the big would-be stories yesterday was the announcement of five actresses apparently on the 'short list' to play Sharon Carter in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Such stories are always big news in the blogsphere, mainly because it allows bloggers to write a handful of sentences and then decorate their site with various pictures of attractive women.  What's amusing/disconcerting about these stories is how pretty much every single website describes this role as 'the love interest' or 'the romantic interest'.  Most of the sites can't even muster a token 'female lead', opting to describe the role as Steve Roger's "arm candy".  Look, barring some inexplicable surprise, we all know that one of the five actresses in the running (Emilia Clarke, Jessica Brown-Findlay Teresa Palmer, Imogen Poots, and Alison Brie) is likely playing Shield agent Sharon Carter, distant relative (grand-daughter/great-niece, etc.) of Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter in the last Captain America film.  She has a name, she has a character and a history that can be referred to when discussing this casting news.  How about we use some of that information instead of just referring to her as Steve Roger's newest sexy time partner?  

Random thoughts on that Drive trailer lawsuit...

As sometimes happens, I commented on someone else's blog (in this case, David Poland's The Hot Blog) and what was supposed to be a random bit or two turned into a mini-essay.  So for those so inclined, here is my 'official essay on the Drive lawsuit'.  Oh, here is the actual complaint for those who want details that I don't feel like repeating.  And try not to laugh when attorney Martin H. Leaf calls Nikki Finke a "respected film critic and “Hollywood insider”.  Anyway, I do have some reviews up later this week, so apologies for the somewhat second-hand content.  Enjoy.

It’s no secret I kinda hated Drive (review 01 and 02), but I did not even watch the trailer before seeing it, so one cannot conclude that the low (and highly unscientific) Cinemascore grade is directly related to the marketing (IE – majority opinion aside for the moment, it could just be that it’s not a good movie). I didn’t watch the trailer before seeing the movie (I had correctly heard that it was spoiler-filled), but if I had and thought the movie looked good based on the trailer, would I have a cause of action? Most trailers technically make the movie ‘look good’. If the studios have a bad movie, is merely advertising that film in a way that makes it look good a case for fraud?

A place at the table: Patty Jenkins (Monster) to direct Thor 2. Why it matters.

Variety has apparently confirmed that Marvel Studios is indeed in talks with Patty Jenkins to replace departing Kenneth Branagh in directing Thor 2, which is due for release on July 26th, 2013.  I generally don't comment on news about who is 'in talks' or who is 'on the wish-list', but Patty Jenkins inclusion on this specific wishlist is worth commenting on.  Jenkins is best known for having helmed Monster, which won Charlize Theron a Best Actress Oscar in 2003 for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos.  Since that triumph, she has unfortunately been relegated to directing occasional episodes of television, most recently helming the pilot for the AMC series The Killing.  This is a pleasantly out-of-left field choice that plays to Marvel's greatest strength as a studio, picking talented filmmakers who aren't necessarily known for comic book spectacle and/or aren't 'the hip new flavor of the month'.  While much of the coverage will focus on 'YAY, Marvel is possibly hiring the first-ever woman to direct one of its superhero movies!', there are two things worth noting.  First of all, Lexi Aexander, who directed Punisher: War Zone in 2008 (review) is also of the female persuasion.  Second of all, the lack of credits on Jenkins's IMDB page brings up a troubling double-standard.  Had a male, arguably any male, directed a critically-acclaimed and Oscar-winning drama like Monster, they surely would have been on every studio's wishlist for every major project (see Hopper, Tom or Forrester, Marc).  But, Jenkins has barely worked in the last eight years.

One to represent all? How The Help is being punished for a lack of minority-driven films, rather than its own merits as a movie.

I'm not going to get into a point-by-point rundown of why I think many of the criticisms being hurled at The Help are just-plain wrong.  First of all, Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman already did just that, so I'll merely link to his piece.  Second of all, much of the outcry over The Help comes not from what is in the movie itself, but rather what isn't in the film, and (more importantly) what isn't in the marketplace.  It is a clear case of film critics (and social commentators) reviewing not the movie itself, but everything outside the film.  As a stand-alone film, it works as a solid, if not awe-inspiring character piece involving a number of women (black and white) who exist in an employer/employee relationship during the middle of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.  If the picture were one of a dozen films being released by a major studio that centered around African-America actors, its flaws would be less of an issue, merely reasons for calling the film good rather than great.  There may be a dearth of African-American-centered major studio releases.  But it is silly to condemn the one 'shining' example and punish it for the non-existence of other pictures like it.

How to save the Green Lantern film franchise WITHOUT a reboot...

Word has come down from Warner Bros. that the studio is indeed considering 'rebooting' the Green Lantern franchise after one whiff.  The buzz words are 'dark and edgy', as if every comic book adaptation needs to be as grim as The Dark Knight and/or The Crow.  There is in fact an easy way to keep the franchise alive without the dreaded reboot, without scrapping what's already come.  See, the Green Lantern franchise is unique, and it is precicely that uniqueness that can allow it to start from scratch without actually starting from scratch.  There is only one Superman, a young man from Krypton named Clark Kent.  And, as far as film fans know, there is only one Spider-Man, Peter Parker (apologies to Miles Morales, who may yet do the mantle proud).  But there are about 7,200 different Green Lanterns who patrol the various quadrants of the galaxy.  There is no law saying that a new Green Lantern adventure has to focus on Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds).  By simply telling the story of a different Green Lantern, Warner and DC Comics has the freedom to tell any kind of Green Lantern tale they wish without tossing out the first film.

I'm sorry about the 3D mess, but Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg is full of sh*t. 2011 is easily one of the best years for movies in a very long time.

Jeffrey Katzenberg is understandably upset that other studios have been diluting the value of 3D movies, something he has championed long before Avatar and believed would be the savior of the theatrical experience.  But that's no reason for Katzenberg to outlandishly whine about how much this year's movies 'suck'.  "They suck," Katzenberg states in an interview with Fortune.  "It's unbelievable how bad movies have been, right?"  He's wrong.  Very wrong.  Without question, 2011 is one of the best movie going years in recent history.  Ironically, my favorite film thus far this year is Katzenberg's Kung Fu Panda 2.  Since Katzenberg didn't specify which movies he disliked (in fact, like a lazy grade school message board commentator, he cited not a single example), I can only assume he includes his own movie in this ranking, I humbly apologize for giving his Dreamworks animated film a rave review.  I was obviously entirely off the mark, since apparently all movies released in 2011 were terrible.

Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy is one of the best comic book films ever made. But even I have no need for Dick Tracy 2.

Warren Beatty set tongues wagging last night with offhand comments regarding the oft-promised Dick Tracy 2.  After speaking on the subject at an LA Times Hero Complex Film Festival screening of the original 1990 Dick Tracy, the various film sites were treating the off-the-cuff discussion as if the film were already green-lit.  It's not, and it probably never will be.  Warren Beatty has been threatening to make a sequel to his much-debated comic book adaptation ever since the original film became the world's first $100 million-grossing box office disappointment in the summer of 1990.  As you may recall, the Disney film cost around $50 million and was expected to be the PG-rated, Mouse-House answer to Batman.  But the film opened to $21 million (less than R-rated films from that summer such as Total Recall and Die Hard 2) and limped to $100 million.  It became the vocal point for Jeffrey Katzenberg's famous 'expensive and mindless movies are going to kill Hollywood' memo that rocked the industry in 1990 and is all the more relevant today.  It is ironic that the film that once stood as an example of Hollywood's excess remains a finely-aged comic book adventure that plays today more like a bitter and dark adult drama that happens to be shot in primary colors.

3D isn't dying, it's just leveling out. Why consumers choosing 2D is a good for the 3D format and good for the industry.

The sky is not falling in the realm of 3D films.  There has been much handwringing over the last couple weeks as moviegoers have embraced their right to choose to see the latest summer tentpoles in 2D over the higher-priced 3D venues.  For the record, over the last two weekends, audiences purchased tickets to Kung Fu Panda 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in their respective 2D formats at a rate of 55/45.  So, despite those films playing in majority 3D theaters (around 65%), 3D ticket sales made up only 45% of the box office for their respective opening weekends.  This is not a new issue and it is not cause for panic or rebuttal.  Rather, it is a healthy sign that audiences are making an informed choice and that studios are offering a wide swath of moviegoers a genuine option when it comes to their 3D franchise pictures.

Yay! Relativity plans needless reboot of The Crow, just in time to exploit the 20th anniversary of Brandon Lee's death!

There have been rumblings for years, but rumor became official news yesterday, as Relativity announced they were indeed planning a reboot of The Crow and that 28 Weeks Later director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was on board to direct. Um, yay? We have a bleak and relentlessly violent comic book that was already adapted into a bleak and relentlessly violent film. So unless they are going to redo The Crow with a tone similar to The Phantom (slam evil!), I really don't see the point in rehashing the same story yet again. Yes, this is a perfect example of the 'must reboot everything that someone liked from the last 30 years' meme that has gripped the industry over the last couple years, but there is another uglier undertone to this particular reboot. Guess what famous Hollywood death is approaching its 20th anniversary?

Yesterday's News Today: Will Smith teams with M. Night Shyamalan. How they can help each other...

The news is brief and relatively vague. But Will Smith and Jaden Smith are apparently headlining an original science-fiction adventure film for none-other than M. Night Shyamalan. The Sony picture is untitled and the plot details are sparse ("Set 1,000 years into the future, a young boy navigates an abandoned and sometimes scary Earth to save himself and his estranged father after their ship crashes."), but the idea of the biggest star on Earth teaming with one of the more iconic filmmakers in the modern age remains an interesting one. Point being, it may well be a mutually-beneficial relationship for both of them.

The Shot Heard Round the Industry... Studios announce pre-DVD Video on Demand for major theatrical releases, and why it's doomed..

Fox, Warner Bros, Sony, and Universal have announced today that they will begin offering 'first-run' theatrical features on Video On Demand through DirectTV just sixty days after their theatrical release. Other outlets, such as Comcast and Vudo, will eventually join the fray in a limited capacity, but for now the first shot has been fired. Ironically, the two studios which will likely have the heartiest summer, Disney and Paramount, have for the moment abstained. Disney has Cars 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides just at the start of the summer. Paramount has an uber-strong slate the entire season, with Thor, Kung Fu Panda 2, Super 8, Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, and Captain America. Point being, they'll be counting money from May to August, so there really was no incentive to piss off the exhibitors. And the theater chains are indeed mighty pissed.

Never bet on breaking records: Why I wouldn't have greenlit Guillermo Del Toro's R-rated, $150m version of HP Lovecraft's At the Mountain of Madness.

Let's be honest for a second. Under normal circumstances, Inception likely would not have been greenlit in its current form at Warner Bros. While Warner Bros. until recently had a reputation for giving lots of money to notable filmmakers and more-or-less staying out of their way, even they had their limits. Had Christopher Nolan not just delivered a $1 billion-grossing and critically-acclaimed superhero sequel, and had not Warner Bros. desperately wanted to guarantee that Nolan would return for what would become The Dark Knight Rises, Inception would have been a very different movie, if it even would have existed at all. On paper, would you green-light a $200 million science-fiction film based on an original screenplay that was full of complex ideas, difficult-to-explain story elements and a distinct lack of bright colors and conventional sex appeal? There are but a handful of filmmakers who could have made Inception as it was. Chris Nolan, coming off The Dark Knight, was one of them. Other than perhaps James Cameron and Steven Spielberg (George Lucas would have just funded the thing out of his own back-pocket), I cannot think of anyone else who could have gotten the greenlight without severely slashing the budget. Guillermo del Toro isn't one of those directors either.

Explaining the allegedly slow start to 2011 box office: A fluke is not a trend.

It's the movies stupid. Stephen Zeitchick is proclaiming that a somewhat slow start to 2011 is a sign of doom to come for the box office. I can make this one really easy for you. January/February 2009 had perhaps the mightiest block of new releases for the first two months of the year in recent memory, if ever. January/February 2010 was boosted by the biggest movie of all-time, plus some awfully strong holdovers from 2009. Would you like to know more? brief look back:

How Kevin Smith's Red State could have been the new face of Video On Demand.

There are people with stronger feelings one way or another about Kevin Smith than I. I loved Clerks II and Dogma, hated Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, liked Clerks and Chasing Amy, and I have yet to see Mallrats, Zack and Miri Make A Porno, Jersey Girl or Cop Out. So I'm not going to get terribly worked up over the hurt feelings allegedly inspired by Smith's decision to distribute Red State in the classic Road Show style (sometimes called 'four-walling'), taking the film around the country as if it were a traveling circus attraction. It would seem that Smith is, if anything, guilty of announcing a perfectly-okay personal choice in a manner that put him in a most negative light. Similar to James's press-conference last summer, Smith basically failed at that whole 'tact' thing. James had every right to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers after seven years, but the self-aggrandizing press-conference probably wasn't the best way to go about it. Same thing here: if Smith wanted to turn his film into some kind of sideshow exhibit, then more power to him. But perhaps the Sundance Film Festival wasn't the best place to criticize the various means of distribution for smaller films (while showing a token amount of ignorance about how smaller films are marketed), especially after (allegedly) implying that the film was going to be put up for sale following the first screening last night. More importantly, even if much of the fanboy criticism of Smith was truly overblown, Kevin Smith doesn't realize that he missed out on the chance to truly be a pioneer.

The 24 Hour News Cycle of Movie-News part I: Reporting the Rumor as Fact.

For the second time in just under a week, film studios basically revealed that they had duped the entire Internet for a period of several months. The first blow came last Friday, when Fox announced that Ridley Scott's Alien prequel was being dumped and reconfigured into an original project entitled Prometheus. It was revealed that Scott and writer Damon Lindelof had been constructing this original story for at least the last couple months. That means that movie news sites spend the last two months breathlessly speculating about the project that did not exist. But the biggest con was still to come... Did you hear that rumor about Tom Hardy playing Dr. Hugo Strange in the next Batman picture?

Summit commissions a script for a Red sequel. Who should be added to the cast?

Collider is reporting that Summit Entertainment has hired Jon and Erich Hoeber to pen a sequel to their hit comic book adaptation Red. As you recall, the film opened to around $22 million in mid-October and stuck around seemingly forever, ending up with $90 million in domestic grosses and $164 million worldwide. In an age where every film seems targeted younger and younger, Red was a diamond in the rough, a spy-comedy that was all about the older generation. It was, at its core, an action comedy/romantic caper starring Bruce Willis and Mary Louise-Parker, but it had scene-stealing supporting turns for Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, Morgan Freeman, Richard Dreyfuss, and Earnest Borgnine. It's easily the studio's biggest hit outside of the Twilight Saga and ripe for sequel potential as most of the main cast members are still alive by the time the credits roll. Alas, news of this sequel makes it all the more unfortunate that a certain major actor was killed off around the halfway mark, as he was shockingly underused considering his genuine popularity and star power (no spoilers, but Space Cowboys). Still, one of the key pleasures of Red was the sheer delight of seeing one beloved character actor after another pop up. On that note, the best thing a sequel can accomplish (aside from giving Mary Louise-Parker more to do this time around) is bring another set of beloved vets a chance to play in the action-comedy sandbox. A few random picks:

What may keep me out of theaters in 2011? Instant 'Extended' DVD versions.

The Wolfman, Salt, Knight and Day, The A-Team, and The Town. What do these films have in common? Not too much, except I saw all of them in theaters, all on my own dime and (more importantly) on my own time. I enjoyed The A-Team and kinda-sorta liked Knight and Day and Salt. But the one constant is that they all came to DVD/Blu Ray with extensive 'Extended Edition/Director's Cut' versions. The whole 'unrated/extended cut' thing has been around since the beginning of DVD. Usually it amounts to an R-rated comedy (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, The Hangover, Role Models, etc) or horror film (every single Saw picture) tossing in three minutes of 'extreme' material that could have allegedly gotten the film an NC-17. But this recent wave is different. These are old-fashioned action pictures and star-vehicles, the kind that are allegedly struggling to find an audience, yet they are consistently mocking their theatrical audiences by unleashing more substantial versions on the home video platform just months after theatrical release.

Yesterday's News Today: Jon Favreau off Iron Man 3.

We all saw this coming from as far back as mid-summer 2008, when Marvel basically played hardball with Jon Favreau in regards to financial compensation for Iron Man 2. Favreau wanted more money and a 3-year gap between films. He got the raise, but he only got two years between films. By all accounts, Marvel micromanaged the sequel into the aimless, pointless, glorified backdoor pilot that it now remains (Mickey Rourke allegedly acting like Marlon Brando on set probably didn't help either). So with Favreau having enjoyed general creative freedom with Cowboys and Aliens and now all set to tackle a fantasy film based on the Disney World theme park entitled The Magic Kingdom, it was only a matter of time before it was confirmed that yes, Favreau would not be finishing up his would-be Iron Man trilogy. What does it mean? Does it mean anything at all?

David Schwimmer's Trust to appeal R-rating, wants kids to see sensationalist view of online predators.

Millennium Entertainment has announced today that they are appealing the R-rating that was handed down to the David Schwimmer-directed thriller Trust. The film was rated R for 'the assault of a teenage girl, language, sexual content and some violence'. The gist of the appeal is that the film, which concerns parents (Clive Owen and Catherine Keener) reactions when their teenage daughter is sexually assaulted by someone she met online, should serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers of kids playing around online. First of all, if this is the kind of film that kids should see and discuss with their parents, would the film not benefit from an 'R' rating, which would in fact require parents to see it with their kids? More importantly, we should be asking if the film (which of course none of us have seen) or at least the prior marketing of said film (from Millennium Films, not Millennium Entertainment) was perhaps overstating the case. Point being, it's easy to imagine your kid being tricked online into meeting a stranger at the mall and getting attacked. But how often does that actually happen? Not as much as you think.

Weinstein Company, Miramax team up to pillage their past glories.

It's not a little sad and a lot ironic. Say what you will about Bob and Harvey Weinsten and Miramax, but they made their fortune and glory in the 1990s by making or distributing quirky and offbeat material, original stories with often original ideas. They gave us The Crying Game, Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love, From Dusk Till Dawn, Clerks, The English Patient, and many more. And they sold them to a mass audience, earning genuine box office returns and a parade of awards in the bargain. But the Weinsteins are now but a shadow of their former selves, and Miramax is now just another distribution arm of Disney. So, in an attempt to return to past glory, to once again put the Weinstein brothers at the top of the film world, they are teaming up with Miramax to... loot their library for sequels, sequels, and more sequels. Nice.