Cinema Sideshow

DVD Reviews: 300, Pathfinder, Starter for 10

300: Special Edition

As the capabilities for better, more detailed, more technically intricate computer graphic work are applied to motion pictures, directors are finding a wide range of uses for that technology as they bring their artistic visions to full-motion life. As with any artistic medium, especially one still in its infancy, some of those choices are positively painful to have to sit through. Robert Zemeckis' freakish motion-capture kids' flick The Polar Express, for example, was populated by characters who looked like they'd been embalmed, covered in latex, and then painted by slave laborers in a third-world sweatshop (his upcoming Beowulf  adaptation looks to be more  aesthetically pleasing, although it does beg the question of why he felt the need for hyper-realistically animated versions of Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie when he could have just, you know, filmed the real thing.) But some directors have found that advanced CGI techniques allow them to create worlds that would otherwise be impossible (or financially prohibitive) to film ... (Read more ...)

Pathfinder

Pathfinder (2007) would make a great double bill with  Mel Gibson's Apocalypto (2007). Both are about a dusky-skinned, loincloth-clad fellow running around in the woods and killing the evil white men that want to wipe out his people, and both offer a solid menu of slashing, hacking, stabbing, and gouging. Surprisingly, though, it's Apocalypto that wins when it comes to actual story, since Pathfinder doesn't really have one. At the top of the film, it looks like it might actually be about something — a Native American woman spies a white horse and follows it into the woods, where she comes across a broken-down, abandoned Viking vessel filled with dead bodies. She also finds a young boy, still alive, and she brings him back to her tribal village. Some of the elders don't want to take the boy in, what with all the legends about strangers and betrayal, but the council members ultimately decide to keep the kid around. Flash-forward ten years or so, and the boy, christened "Ghost," has turned into super-hunky Karl Urban ... (Read more ...)

Starter for 10

As a young boy in working-class Essex, England, sweet-faced, good-natured Brian Jackson (James McAvoy of The Last King of Scotland and The Chronicles of Narnia) yearned to be "clever," so he obsessively watched TV quiz shows like the popular "University Challenge" and filled his head with thousands of bits of assorted trivia. When he heads off to college in mid-1980s Bristol, he flounders a bit in an alien environment filled with weird roommates, protest rallies, and snotty grad students, but earns a place as an alternate for the school's University Challenge team.  He quickly makes friends with an opinionated, dark-haired girl with a political bent (Rebecca Hall) but becomes hopelessly smitten with a WASP-y blond who makes the quiz team (Alice Eve), leading to thoroughly predictable (but still delightfully entertaining) results. Produced under Tom Hanks' Playtone banner, Starter for 10 (2007) is very much in the mold of Hanks' That Thing You Do! (1996) — pleasant, funny, smarter than one would expect, and unchallenging in the most relaxing sense of the word ... (Read more ...)

News: Bergman dies, Antonious Porch promoted, 'Iron Man' looks good, and Walken cooks a chicken

The Show Business Trifecta of Death occurred in one fell swoop this time around — director Ingmar Bergman, newsman/talk show host Tom Snyder, and French actor Michel Serrault have all passed away. If there's a celestial waiting room, there's one fascinating conversation going on there right now.

Antonious Porch has been named as the new Senior Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs for Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids, a bit of news that isn't really all that interesting aside from the fact that "Antonious Porch" sounds like a character from one of the Harry Potter books. (Yahoo Finance)

There's no telling how long you'll be able to view them, but thanks to Comic-Con attendees who have no respect for the rules, bootleg camera-phone video is available of the upcoming Incredible Hulk and Iron Man movies. The latter is especially enlightening, as the trailer makes the film look really, really good, and with Robert Downey, Jr. starring and Jon Favreau directing, it could have gone either way. So while Cinema Sideshow in no way endorses these egregious copyright violations, we can't stop you from following the links and looking at them yourselves right now before the lawyers have them yanked.

And finally: Have you ever wanted to watch Christopher Walken cook a chicken? Now you can!

News: Depp to do 'Dark Shadows,' Marion Ravenwood returns, free Dark Horse comics on MySpace

Forgive us if we squeal like little girls, but Warner Bros. has announced that Johnny Depp is set to play Barnabas Collins in a film based on the kitschtastic '60's horror soap "Dark Shadows." We don't want to date ourselves, but as small children (very, very small, like negative-five years old) we obsessively watched DS every afternoon with our babysitter, and cut our literary teeth on novelizations of same. Oh, how we wanted to grow up to be as creepy and as glamorous as Angelique! If only every man had sexy sideburns like Quentin Collins, the angst-ridden werewolf! Every time we see an old movie with Joan Bennett, we think, Ooooh, it's Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the matriarch of Collinwood! Depp has partnered with producer Graham King (The Departed, Traffic, Gangs of New York) to get the project off the ground, securing the rights from the estate of "Dark Shadows" creator Dan Curtis, who died last year. Even if the project goes smoothly, it'll be awhile before it hits theaters -- Depp just finished shooting the Tim Burton-directed Sweeney Todd and is set to star in a Mira Nair adaptation of the novel "Shataram." (Variety)

We're not the first to share this news, but Cinema Sideshow would like to jump on the bandwagon and applaud the return of Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood in the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Osteoporosis of Doom. Allen's casting was officially announced at -- where else? -- Comic-Con, where Paramount execs also previewed exciting still photos of Harrison Ford downing cans of vodka-laced Ensure while propmasters prepped Indy's motorized wheelchair for a big chase scene. (Indiana Jones.com)

MySpace and Dark Horse Comics premiered a free, online comic-book series today, kinda-sorta inspired by the publisher's "Dark Horse Presents" anthologies that ran from 1996 through 2000. First up: "Sugarshock," a new comic from Joss Whedon and artist Fabio Moon, "The Comic-Con Murder Case" by the brilliant Rick Geary, "Samurai Heaven and Earth: The Forest" from  Luke Ross and Ron Marz, and "The Umbrella Academy" by My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way and artist Gabriel Ba. All are quite good but, being longtime Whedon fans, our favorite so far is "Sugarshock," which appears to be about a space-traveling,  all-girl rock band who travel with a male groupie (called "Groupie") and a robot named Phil. We don't want to spoil anything for you, but any comic with the throwaway line, "Dude, GWAR fell on your car" is something we're gonna read to the end. (Dark Horse Presents)

News: Stan Lee ringtones, Double Spocks, Blu-ray sales boost

As Comic-Con continues, with each passing year, to grow as a salesman's paradise for all media interested in sucking cash out of geeks' wallets, we see an increase in corporate announcements by studios, TV networks, comic-book companies and toy manufacturers tied to the event. Among today's Big Important Unveilings was the announcement by Spike TV (a subsidiary of Viacom) that they'll be partnering with well-preserved exploiter of comics Stan Lee to offer a series of ringtones of Lee's voice. The featured ringtones will reportedly include messages about your secret identity, or messages for your arch-nemesis or sidekick.  Presumably, they won't be recording Lee saying, "Ring ring! That's the sound of me lining my pockets with more of your money!" or "Ack! My heart!" (SpikeTV)

In another Comic-Con announcement, Paramount revealed that Zachary Quinto (Sylar from TV's "Heroes") and Leonard Nimoy will both play Spock at different ages in J.J. Abrams "Star Trek" prequel movie. Asked about the announcement, Nimoy quipped: "It is logical." Quinto then used his evil mutant powers to slice open Nimoy's brain, thus becoming the One True Spock. (Variety)

A report by the market research company Parks Associates estimates that Blu-ray and HD DVD players will see significant growth in the coming years, increasing from 4.9 million units sold in 2007 to over 32 million by 2011. How can this possibly be? you ask. Isn't the availablility of online downloads and video filesharing the beginning of the end for the commercial DVD market? That's an excellent question. Well, the fine folks at Parks Associates came up with this number by -- get this -- including estimated sales of game consoles like PlayStation 3, which can play Blu-ray discs, in their equation. In a stunning display of complete ignorance of current market trends, a spokeman for Parks Associates said in a press release, "Purchasing or renting DVDs will continue to be a dominant way for consumers to view content." Perhaps for the next 24 months or so, but an 85 percent increase in sales over the next four years? Not likely, especially with the rapidly growing availability of online content.(Parks Associates)

News: Starz Inside, 'Ultimate Fanboy' contest, Jenna Jameson comics

In an effort to get someone — anyone! — to watch their network, Starz (corporate motto: "The Cable Movie Channel That Comes Packaged with Something Else") will debut "Starz Inside" in September. The monthly series promises to examine the "people, trends and culture in movie entertainment," hosted by Richard Roeper. The first installment, "Fog City Mavericks: The Filmmakers of San Francisco" airs on Sept. 24 at 9 p.m. EST, and looks at George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Chris Columbus and producer Saul Zaentz, as well as a peek at Pixar. Future episodes will focus on vampire flicks, video-game adaptations, and Anime. It sounds promising, but is it enough to attract viewers who don't already get Starz as part of their premium movie package? We predict that Starz Inside will  get far more viewers via illegal downloads ... er, filesharing. Perfect legal filesharing. (Starz)

Speaking of filesharing, Dailymotion.com is partnering with the Weinstein Company this week in a search for "The Ultimate Star Wars Fanboy (or Girl!)" in conjunction with sneak-previews of the film FANBOYS at Comic-Con. You can enter by submitting a video at either www.fanboycontest.com or http://fanboys.dailymotion.com showing why you're the biggest Star Wars geek of all. The entrant exhibiting the most geekitude will win a walk-on part in the finished movie, after which he or she will self-destruct in a nuclear implosion of dorktastic ecstasy. (Ultimate Fanboys Contest)

Porn actress Jenna Jameson will star in a line of comic books for Virgin Comics (yes, you may snicker) that will be released in June 2008. The series, titled "Shadow Hunter," will feature Jameson as a "provocative superheroine who survives a brush with death only to find herself fighting the legions of hell for her very soul." If the series does well, we can only hope for a series starring Ron Jeremy as Lightning Rod, a superhero who uses his belly as a solar panel which draws energy to his gigantic laser penis. (Virgin Comics)

News: Julia Roberts, Neil Gaiman, Lindsay Lohan

American Cinematheque has announced that their 22nd annual award will go to Julia Roberts. While the organization's fancy-pants name may lead one to think they're a prestigious film society, they're really just a business that operates the Egyptian and Aero theaters in Hollywood -- like Harvard's Hasty Pudding club, the AC folks figured out that if they give some sort of an award to somebody famous, then they'll get to hang out with movie stars, and massive doses of free publicity will ensue. The staff of Cinema Sideshow has a similar award in the works, but we can't agree on whether it should go to Alan Rickman, Eddie Izzard, or that guy who plays Sawyer on Lost. (Variety)

Neil Gaiman's so popular that he doesn't have to suck up to fans or the press, so when a writer for The Hollywood Reporter asked him if he would attend Comic-Con if he wasn't promoting something, he answered, "You're saying, "Would you voluntarily go to a gathering of 150,000 people, all of whom want to talk to you and get you to sign stuff?" It's like asking a maggoty log if it would like to go to a woodpecker convention." Another place that Gaiman wouldn't go: A woodpecker convention. (THR)

Lindsay Lohan's still drinking, and was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving and possession of cocaine. In other news, the sun came up this morning, and Soylent Green is made from people. (LA Times)
 

New DVD reviews: Ivan's Childhood, Premonition, The Hills Have Eyes 2

Ivan's Childhood
Andrei Tarkovsky came of age as a filmmaker at what was, perhaps, the single best moment in time to make films in Russia. With Stalin out of power, the Soviets encouraged new opportunities for expression and experimentation in the arts throughout the 1950s and '60s, and young graduates of the VGIK film school entered the invigorated Moscow film industry armed with a creative freedom that had never before been allowed. For his first feature, 29-year-old Andrei Tarkovsky took on an adaptation of Vladamir Bogolov's novella "Ivan," a project that had already been completed by another director but badly mishandled.  (Read the rest of the review ...)

Premonition
Considering how problematic time-travel stories are to concoct, one wonders why screenwriters keep attempting it. Is the challenge — the idea that maybe, this time, it won't be utterly preposterous? Or is it ego on the part of the writer, a deeply held conviction that they can succeed where so many others have failed? For whatever reasons that it made it into production and onto neighborhood movie screens, Premonition (2007) is yet another film about someone unstuck in time which promises a ripping good puzzle and then stumbles over it own illogical plot contrivances. (Read the rest of the review ...)

The Hills Have Eyes 2
In looking for something good to say about The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007), it's tempting to point out that the production values are very good — the film obviously had a decent budget, and there's some real artistry to the camerawork. Unfortunately, when a movie's as soulless, pointless, plotless, and utterly devoid of inspiration as this one, that's the equivalent of saying, "Well, at least it was in focus." Director Martin Weisz' primary experience has been that of making music videos for the likes of Korn, Nickelback, Brandy, and Sisqo (although his previous feature effort, the 2006 cannibal-killer flick Rohtenberg, had the distinction of being banned in Weisz' native Germany thanks to its graphic carnage) so, perhaps, he was unaware that longer-form films actually need plots. (Read the rest of the review ...)

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