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I'm always holding out for good sci-fi fare, and as you can see below, I found my happiness in the new Abrams Star Trek. But the buck doesn't stop there. I gave it a go with Babylon AD, which in its defense was a perfectly good action movie til the bizarre last few minutes, and Children of Men, recall, was a masterpiece.
So where will District 9 fit in? Between speculation that it is just a HALO viral/testrun itself-- as far as I can tell, not true-- and the intensive marketing campaign it's undergoing, District 9 will either be as intriguing as the "blurred-face" TRAILER makes it look, or it will be the disaster that most sci-fi movies are nowadays.
The viral campaign is oriented around the Multi-National United website, which purports to be a corporate website representing the alien tech-using overseers of the movie's alien slums. The website has all the expected features, though anyone looking for jobs right now can tell you that the careers page is rarely so prominently featured (or maybe we all need to move to the alt-future Joberg?) This campaign brings to mind both the details of the Fido (Billy Connolly, Carrie-Anne Moss) campaign, which also had a corporation website (worth your time: ZomCom, campy 50s zombie production service); and the Dark Knight campaign, where the online campaign bled into the real world, not just with the famous Long Halloween component but also with the newspapers they actually distributed around cities, which included a society page with a headline bemoaning bazzilionare Bruce Wayne's antics.
Do these things help? It's a great way to waste a few minutes online, and each successive addition generates news items in entertainment sources. In the end, it is about the all-vital the hype, and it is the fact that each time the public is reminded about the film, the name gets out there yet again and to more people. Which is what is happening here.
So the movie. (And a further question, what happens when the hype is so undefined that the movie is lost and nobody knows what to expect when it hits theaters-- for example, the speculation that District 9 is just a viral for Halo? Or is the name still enough to suffice until reviews and word-of-mouth starts generating harder, more informational buzz?) Anyway, the plot is that aliens, it seems, landed on earth to repair their ship and were herded into refuge camps in South Africa.
An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly find a kindred spirit in a government agent that is exposed to their biotechnology. ( imdb.com)
Heavy-handed political message? Maybe. But an intriguing premise none the less; it seems that the closer sci-fi films are to reality (ie, again, Children of Men) the more intense and impressive they are. Even the Batman franchise has realized this by focusing on non-metahuman villains like Joker and Ras; speculation about the next installment is following this guideline, and most of Bats' more extreme rogues gallery has been ruled out. Of course, you could go the complete opposite way with vaguely familiar worlds. . . Ultraviolet.
Sci-fi films are famously disturbing for their near-future settings. Both Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep address to some extent the issue of familiarity in the face of complete alienness. It's the ambivalence of of the uncanny valley; you can't stop staring. I would argue that this is what makes the second wave of trailers, released with the alien's face blurred that much creepier.
Hopefully it won't become an allegorical mess about international refuge camp politics; I'm interested to see if they keep the format used in the trailer, though the plot doesn't sound like it will mesh terribly well with the documentary format. Still, it's exciting to see that the filmmakers are operating in a world is being realized to such a degree that corporation websites can be made to such a stunning extent of realism. We'll find out August 14th.
For some, it's all in black and white.
Brooks Barnes has written over at the New York Times a very thoughtful piece looking at the controversy over Disney's upcoming return to their traditional animated feature, The Princess and the Frog.
The debate surrounding “The Princess and the Frog” illustrates how difficult it is to deal with race in animation, experts say. Cartoons by their nature trade in caricatures.
In light of Disney's background in portraying racial stereotypes (ie, they existed throughout the 20th century with their finger on the pulse of the nation and thus reflected its attitudes; a crime), certain interest groups and associations have been voicing their displeasure and disapproval of Disney's choices. Casting the first black princess created problems from the start, including a name change for the heroine from Maddy to Tania because Maddy sounded too much like Mammy. . . (Apparently Tania doesn't echo certain African-American stereotypes.)
Many of the complaints are ludicrous, made by people who bruise far too easily and who recreationally grasp at straws.
“Disney obviously doesn’t think a black man is worthy of the title of prince,” Angela Bronner Helm wrote March 19 on the site. “His hair and features are decidedly non-black. This has left many in the community shaking their head in befuddlement and even rage.”
Others see insensitivity in the locale.
“Disney should be ashamed,” William Blackburn, a former columnist at The Charlotte Observer, told London’s Daily Telegraph. “This princess story is set in New Orleans, the setting of one of the most devastating tragedies to beset a black community.”
. . . A rumor surfaced on the Internet that an early script called for her to be a chambermaid to a white woman, a historically correct profession. Too much like slavery.
And wait: We finally get a black princess and she spends the majority of her time on screen as a frog?
Helm's complaint is burdened with the same problems that affirmative action-- from an objective point of view--suffers and also indicates an aversion to miscegenation, despite the recent election of the nation's first biracial president. Blackburn's complaints are thoughtless and eespecially offensive to anyone who even tries to consider both sides of a situation; it is the equivalent of someone bemoaning a movie about Cambodians set in Cambodia, set pre-1970s. He is also denying the opportunity to celebrate the city in art and music.
Donna Farmer, interviewed in the article, says, "I don’t know how important having a black princess is to little girls — my daughter loves Ariel and I see nothing wrong with that — but I think it’s important to moms." This is an observation that is refreshing because people often forget to find out how the target audience-- kids-- feel. And to color-blind kids, these are princesses, regardless of what or who they are. Anyone who allows their world view-- or allow their children's worldview-- to be influenced by especially Disney characters is not approaching life or even logic from the right direction; imagine if Donna Farmer or her equivalent didn't let her kids watch the Little Mermaid for various reasons. Frankly, if we should bemoan portrayals in Disney that could have an effect on young children, particular girls, it should be the spectacular proportions of Ariel & Co. (She also has an exceedingly large head. . .)
Barnes provides an insightful quote from a Youtuber: "“This is one of those situations where I am ashamed of the black community,” Levi Roberts said in a YouTube video. “Are we being racist ourselves by saying this movie shouldn’t have a white prince?”" Barnes calls this "backlash to the backlash," and I'm certainly joining the ranks. I am excited to see if Disney can return to their traditional style as anticipated, and just looking at the concept art for the films (linked) promises a richly colored, highly developed world. It's up to Disney to make a good movie, and not let bitching and whining from the usual suspects to obscure that goal. They should go complain about the obvious colonial conquest allegory that was the third Pirates movie (British woman minorities covet takes over Oriental pirate ship. . . becomes their queen. . . hmmm. . . of course that necessitates taking that movie seriously). . . or maybe just go keep complaining about the Jazz Singer.
Related: Read thoughts from Floyd Norman, an old school Disney animator and one of the first blacks to work in the studio.
Related: Watch the trailer.
All quotations are found in Brook Barnes' "Does Tiana, Disney's First Black Princess, Conquer Stereotypes?"
Pixar has previewed the new Toy Story 3 trailer. The film is due out June 2010; while the trailer doesn't reveal much (or anything), the usual suspects are back (including the Woody's Roundup gang and the three adopted squeezy aliens), and the trailer shows in a light-up title-sign showdown that the character dynamics that make the personalty of the first two films are back in force.
Pixar has never made a bad movie, as far as memory serves, and I have very high expectations for the third installment. The bar was raised to impossible heights by the first film and surpassed by the second to the degree that Toy Story 2 was declared the "perfect" formula movie. Sue Clayton devised the formula for Diet Coke; the company was looking for a way to gauge the most lucrative movie sponsorships.
The perfect film would be made up of: action 30%, comedy 17%, good v evil 13%, love/sex/romance 12%, special effects 10%, plot 10% and music 8%, suggests Sue Clayton, a director and screenwriting lecturer for the University of London and the British Film Council.
The study was based on a cross-section of the most successful films in the UK in the past decade, including Titanic, Die Another Day and Notting Hill.
Toy Story 2, which took £44m at the UK box office in 1999, was deemed to be the closest match to the formula.
And (perhaps) in spite of this cut-and-dried determination, Toy Story 2 still remains one of the most unique and enjoyable movie-watching experiences. You won't find the humor, characters, or visuals anywhere else.
Watch the trailer in HD at Apple.com. Check out the homepage.
The Big Three
HBO's Churchill biopic premiers tomorrow at 9PM ET. Brendan Gleason (Breakfast on Pluto, In Bruges, Harry Potter) plays the former Prime Minister who, on vacation in France, looks back at his work during the Second World War
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I've had the good fortune to take over this blog from my predecessors, all of who seem to, as I do, have names that start with BR.
Fate
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It's Ian Fleming's birthday- you know, the guy who wrote Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang. . . and James Bond.
Whether or not you saw that coming, there's no denying the man's influence on the spy novel genre and on film. The James Bond franchise has generated more money than some small countries possess, and Fleming's creation has inspired everything from watches to Toy Dolls' songs
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I like Harry Potter; they are my booky soaps, or my literary Lost, if I watched Lost, which I am told will devour entire weekends. The last three books I stayed up all night reading the first day I started them-- which is probably why I don't remember most of what happens. (I do remember that Dumbledore does an epic Olympic swim at the end of the book. And then dies, right. And the most awkward puberty phases on paper continue to get more and more awkward.) While I will never trumpet Rowling as a great writer of prose, she is a good storyteller and masterfully creative world builder, which is exactly what these books require.
So the Half-Blood Prince is coming out soon, after more than a half-year delay from the original late 2008 goal, as you may remember. David Yates, who did a perfectly fine job with the last film, will be returning, though I would love to see Alfonso Cuaron, who has expressed interest in returning. (Azkaban remains, in my mind, that best of the series; did you know he did A Little Princess? Remember that movie?!) The same cast is back, which has always been stellar in terms of the adult actors (Gambon, Rickman, Maggie Smith, Gary Oldman.) The kids, on the other hand, seem to be coming around, though Emma Watson could at least try a little; she remains the weak link of the trio while the other two have developed some acting chops over the course of the last five movies. My friend once pointed out that the casting directors have had to face the challenge of making a casting choice for a character who, though seemingly minor, could suddenly, as the books were written, become a major player, Ginny Weasley. Which leads to some problems when those kids aren't ready or good enough for an expanded role. This remains to be seem, Ginny Weasley, but it can't possibly be as bad as Katie Leung's Cho Chang. On the other hand, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, lucky relations aside, has a great presence in the trailers
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Here's a fun way to spend a few minutes. What's My Line? ran from 1950 to 1975. If you're of my generation, you probably know about it at least in passing; it's the television show the puppies are watching in the original animated 101 Dalmatians.
The third portion of the show was the Mystery Guest Round. Twenty-five years running racked up an impressive list of stars, which you can see here. The blindfolded panelists would guess the identity of the mystery guest through a series of YES/NO questions. As you'll see, the guest usually did their best to disguise their voice; some like Paul Newman ended up being somewhat incomprehensible while Walter Brennan, as expected, stumped the panel right off the bat
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42 Posts dating from March 2008
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