RIP Lorenzo Semple Jr. (1919-2014)

Hollywood screenwriting legend Lorenzo Semple Jr. has died at 91.

This guy had a career any industry pro would envy, penning classics like "The Parallax View" and "3 Days of The Condor," along with cult-classics like "Flash Gordon." But he's probably best remembered today as the creator/mastermind of the Adam West "Batman" series; through which he was either directly or partially responsible for the "Bat-____" device-naming convention, the Barbara Gordon version of Batgirl, the creation of Mr. Freeze and the rehabilitation of what were then largely-forgotten DC characters like Penguin, Riddler and Catwoman. In recent years he was part of the team behind the "Reel Geezers" YouTube series.



Semple lived a full life, certainly. We should all be so lucky. But I do think it's kind of a shame that he didn't live to see "Batman's" long-awaited DVD release later this year. I've maintained for awhile now that fandom, which unpleasantly turned Semple and that series into a rhetorical punching-bag in the Dark Age 90s, was due to turn around on that once all of the episodes were more widely available (a lot of people have really only seen the movie, which is missing a lot of the smart/sharp satire the episodic series brought) and I imagine it might've been nice for him to see that.

Escape to The Movies: "NOAH"

Here's something you don't hear every day: "Damn, that Bible Movie kicked a lot of ass!"

ALSO: "10 Bible Movies Even Weirder Than "NOAH."

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Noah - Brave, Bold, Bizarre and Kind Of Brilliant

March Expiration Watch: More Musical Chairs (2014)

I'm hard-pressed to find any rhyme or reason in the licensing agreements between Netflix and the studios and distributors who provide its content. You'd think that if you're going to pay for the rights to stream, say, an all-time classic like Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, you'd want it to stick around for more than a couple of months, right? And yet, after debuting in February, this brilliant Hollywood satire is now returning from whence it came (to some virtual equivalent of a studio vault?). The same goes for Play It Again, Sam (review) and Breakfast at Tiffany's, both of which reappeared in January after expiring last year and are once again exiting stage left. Finishing equally brief stays are the underappreciated Racing with the Moon and Catch-22�bringing to mind those on-again/off-again Coppola films last seen in January.

Olivia D'abo, Josh Hamilton

At least Darren Aronofsky's Pi (review) got to stick around for a full year before it gets the axe on the 31st [update: it's been renewed], which is more than can be said for 1995's Kicking and Screaming, which showed up less than 30 days ago and is already getting its pink slip. It's hard to believe the streaming rights to such a small film cost all that much, so why not pay for a longer-term license? Else why bother? After all, despite its many charms, Noah Baumbach's first feature is hardly the kind of prestige flick that will get people signing up for Netflix in droves. Such a brief visit seems far more appropriate (if cynical) for a recent blockbuster, no? Netflix could even build a marketing campaign around it: "Now, for one month only, catch up on all the X-Men movies before the new sequel's premiere!" Heck, do that several times a year prior to big summer and holiday releases, and it would boost business for all concerned (and Netflix might even be able to score a licensing discount in exchange for the joint publicity).

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I'm Sad Now

So... this looks really underwhelming. And surprisingly cheap, too. Say what you will about Michael Bay (who only produced this one), He's at least got style, whereas Johnathan Liebsman really is sort of a rote point-and-shoot guy, at best:



Animators? Look, I get that deadlines and budgets are a thing and that studios want you to use facial-tracking algorithms instead of taking the time to animate a character's expressions independently... but this thing (a direct result of that approach prevailing) where otherwise inhuman characters have overly-humanoid eyes, noses and (especially) lips? It just never looks good. Uncanny Valley and all that. Please, trust me: No plurality of filmgoers have ever expressed the following sentiment: "I was totally onboard with the premise of six-foot tall amphibians trained in ancient Japanese martial-arts until I noticed they're mouths shouldn't be capable of producing human-sounding syllables!"

Look. New origin for the TMNT? I can dig it - they aren't exactly Superman in terms of modern mythmaking. But man, they really did just lift the (already shitty) "your father was a scientist working with the bad guy to create this" psuedo-predestination wankery from "Amazing Spider-Man," eh? I'll have more to say on that front in the near future, but until then enjoy freeze-framing that one shot where Leonardo actually looks sort-of cool.

JUPITER ASCENDING Trailer 2

A bigger look at "JUPITER ASCENDING," The Wachowski's first stab at big-scale space-opera, due out later this Summer:

Big Picture: SCARLET UNITY

Also, here's a thing about <i>"BOB'S BURGERS"</i> from my new TV column, HI-DEFINITION.

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Scarlet Unity - What Assassin's Creed and Batman Have in Common

Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch look... okay, I guess?

"AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON" is location-shooting in earnest right now, which means we'll be seeing set pics out the wazoo. Today, that means we're getting a look at Wanda and Pietro in costume... but without the extensive special-effects work thats apparently set to be laid-over both of them in post-production. They look... alright. CBM has a decent collection of snaps, which also include guys wearing what look like props/stand-in suits for Ultron himself...
Quicksilver, at least, looks like an admirable attempt to make his comic look work in reality - lightning-bolts and all. Scarlet Witch, on the other hand... gotta be honest, I don't love it. I guess maybe it'll be visually interesting to have one Avenger doing the "street clothes plus glowy FX = superhero" look next to an otherwise all-costumes team, I just don't know that I needed it to be this character. Yes, I know, they weren't going to have her fighting in what typically amounts to lingerie - though I wouldn't have complained if they had...

Of course, Quicksilver gets to benefit from how spectacularly awful the version of him in "X-MEN: DOFP" looks, whereas Scarlet Witch just sort of looks like she's cosplaying Jane Lane. We'll see.

X-MEN: DOFP Finally Starts Looking Good

Bryan Singer's "X-MEN" movies will always get a certain amount of credit for being good enough. When that first film hit, we were still in post-"BATMAN & ROBIN" fallout and Raimi's "SPIDER-MAN" was still a year away. So despite Singer being at best a modestly competent stylist who can't really direct action, the first one gets to be remembered as pretty-good while the sequel (also pretty-good) coasts by on the residual "whoa!" of seeing that Phoenix tease just before the credits rolled. Plus, the third one was so spectacularly terrible it made everything else look that much better until "ORIGINS: WOLVERINE" came out.

But none of that changes what an oddly underwhelming series this is, overall, and I imagine the consensus on it would be worse still if Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart hadn't continued to be such beloved movie-nerd icons today. "FIRST CLASS" is still the only entry in the franchise that's legitimately great, and unsurprisingly it was 99.9% free of any connection to the rest of the series and the only entry to have been helmed by a truly great filmmaker in Matthew Vaughn. Everything wrong with the whole series can be summed-up by the cheezy new poster (on the right,) wherein everything else is just a tiny detail within a sooooo serious brooding Wolverine, while Jennifer Lawrence stares blankly as though she'd rather be doing anything else.

BUT! Credit where do, even though I'm still pretty certain that Singer coming back is a step backwards... the new trailer for "DAYS OF FUTURE PAST" looks pretty damn great. It's still hurt by the lingering presence of everything still being carried-over from the inferior earlier movies (all the damn black rubber, Singer's dreary po-faced gloom, Halle Berry) but yeah - it looks big-scale and cool and the Sentinels look great and it looks like Iceman gets to do his surfing thing so that'll be fun to see; and it looks like Mystique has an appropriately big role... which is interesting, since it's kind of an open-secret that she, Fassbender and others from "FIRST CLASS" had basically had to be contract-bullied into doing another one of these (Fassbender is apparently looking for "ASSASSIN'S CREED" to be his franchise ticket, not this.)



There's supposedly a lot still being held back from this or deliberately edited-around by the trailers. If you look close, it feels like everything involving the "future" is from one or two scenes in the same basic setting, which would jibe with the pre-production word that the majority of the film is a 70s-set deal with the "FIRST CLASS" crew. What I'd really like to see is for the "change the future" part of this plot leading to a near-complete reboot: Use the "changed timeline" as an excuse to re-cast the "A-list" X-Men and re-start for the "present" carrying-over the best stuff from the FC timeline but abandoning any pretense of lining-up with the "Look, this is the best we were able to manage at the time" original Singer-timeline.

Escape to The Movies: "MUPPETS: MOST WANTED"

Good enough.

"DIVERGENT," not so much.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Muppets Most Wanted - Not Easy Being Green

Glenn Beck Slams "NOAH" Sight-Unseen

There are two kinds of people in the world: Thinkers and Believers.

"Big Picture" this past Tuesday was about "NOAH" (which I still haven't seen, damn it), specifically regarding the amusing ironic of reflexively-irreligious film geeks turning up their noses at the feature without noting that it's rather openly not fighting on the side they assume it is.

Case in point: Here's Glenn Beck and company pissing and moaning about the potential of Darren Aronofsky's film to undermine Biblical literalism. Perish the thought.

2014 Swiss Film Award Winners

In less than an hour the award ceremony live stream will start. Official site is here.  Nice short award ceremony with very enjoyable long clips of all films with nomination. 

Winners are in *BLUE. To learn winners in the 11 categories go here.

---///---
2/17/14
The contenders for the 2014 Swiss Film Award have been revealed. The official announcement was made during “Nominations Night” in Solothurn concert hall. Some 600 invited guests from the Swiss film industry attended the gala evening.

Around 240 members of the Swiss Film Academy viewed and rated the 118 film entries that were deemed eligible for the competition. The results of the anonymous vote serve as a recommendation for the Swiss Film Award jury whose task it is to select the final award nominees. This year, the awards are divided into 11 categories and come with prize money totalling CHF 435,000. The key role of editors in the filmmaking process will be officially recognized, with the introduction of the new “Best Film Editing” Award. In addition, the 2014 Swiss Film Award will be the first time that the “Best Animated Film” Award will be bestowed annually instead of every two years.

The 17th Swiss Film Award ceremony will take place on 21 March 2014 at the Schiffbau, Zurich. This gala event, which officially recognizes the work of the Swiss film industry, is co-produced by the Federal Office of Culture and its official partners, SRG SSR and the Association "Quartz" Genève Zürich, and is organized in collaboration with SWISS FILMS, the Swiss Film Academy and the Solothurn Film Festival.

Best Fiction Film
*Der Goalie bin ig, Sabine Boss
Left Foot Right Foot, Germinal Roaux
Les grandes ondes (à l'ouest) (Longwave), Lionel Baier
Mary Queen Of Scots, Thomas Imbach
Traumland, Petra Volpe

Best Animated Film
Hasta Santiago, Mauro Carraro
*The Kiosk, Anete Melece
Vigia, Marcel Barelli

Best Documentary Film
Der Imker, Mano Khalil
L'escale, Kaveh Bakhtiari
L'expérience Blocher, Jean-Stéphane Bron
Neuland, Anna Thommen
*Vaters Garten - die Liebe meiner Eltern, Peter Liechti

Best Actress
*Ursina Lardi in Traumland
Sonja Riese in, Der Goalie bin ig
Bettina Stucky in Traumland

Best Actor
Stefan Kurt in Akte Grüninger
Patrick Lap in Les grandes ondes (à l’ouest)
*Marcus Signe in Der Goalie bin ig

Best Performance in a Supporting Role
Leonardo Nigro in Die Schwarzen Brüder
Pascal Ulli in Der Goalie bin ig
*Dimitri Stapfer in Left Foot Right Foot

To check nominees in all 11 categories please go here.  Seems I'll have to catch-up my Swiss film viewing as all films are "new" for me and there is a couple that seem to be worth-watching.

"THE GIVER" Teaser Trailer

Below, the first teaser for the movie of "THE GIVER," based on a book you may have been forced to read in middle-school about (all together now) a tween hero with a special destiny bracing against a dystopian future where free-will has been suppressed.

In fairness to Lois Lowry, this was written in 1993 when only most of it's component parts were tedious cliches. Either way, I'm not sure how this premise is going to work in 2014 - but that involves SPOILERS so hit the jump for those...



SPOILERS:

Okay, so if you either don't remember or don't care about spoilers, the book of "THE GIVER" was pretty-much the main thing "EQUILIBRIUM" borrowed it's setup from: A dystopian future society that enforces an emotionally-numbed "sameness" largely by excising the population's collective memories of the past up to and including what color, music, emotion, etc "were." Our hero is a 12 year-old who's next in line to become "The Giver," i.e. a guy who gets to be a human backup-drive whose mind will contain all those "lost" memories in case the leadership ever needs to look something up. He befriends the current Giver, and the two of them start thinking about kicking off a revolution against The System.

Here's what I want to know (apart from why it doesn't look like they're doing it in black-and-white gradually transitioning to color when that's pretty-much how the hero's development is layed out in the book and also damn near the only way to make any of this look visually dynamic): Are they still working from the premise that this is the future of our world? Because if so, they're going to have to change what the big inciting "Must Fight The System" issue is.

Short version: Every dystopia needs a big central horror underlying it in order to prevent the audience from asking "yeah but" questions about liberty vs security, and in "The Giver" it's that The Community practices Spartan-style population control by euthanizing "aberrant" babies in infancy (example of aberration: identical twins). Problem: In the time between the writing of the book and now, the existence of prenatal genetic testing has made the basic premise of that (apart from being barbaric) wholly obsolete... or does The Giver remember everything about the earlier world except that particular technology?

From the looks of the teaser, it would appear that "save that baby!" is still the big Act III suspense-kickoff; but I'm given to think they might've been better acknowledging that the world has moved on and a new angle was necessary overall: Now, however good the movie is, they're going to get swept up in a bunch of media nonsense about whether it's a "pro-life metaphor" (which won't be helped by the presence of Walden Media, which has connections to right-wing Christian activist Philip Anschutz, as producers.)

PULP CATHOLICISM #060

CUTAWAYS: HOT ROD HERMAN

My latest review over at Aleteia was for the latest video game adaptation to hit the big screen, Need For Speed. It’s probably the dumbest movie I’ve seen in theaters this year (and I’ve seen Pompeii), but I’ll admit, it’s got its fun parts as well. Still, if I’m must going to have to watch something with custom modified racing cars, I’d probably prefer it to be this…

The Munster Koach and Drag-u-la! Now those are some kustom kars I could go for. As it turns out, the Munster’s rides were built by the legendary George Barris and his crew, the same folks who cooked up other well known TV tanks such as the Green Hornet’s Black Beauty, Adam West’s Batmobile, & KITT from Nightrider, as well as notable B-Movie beaters such as The Car and Supervan.

Thinking about how iconic some of Barris’ designs are, it makes you wonder what he could do with something like the Popemobile. You know, there have been a lot of Popemobiles over the years, most of them made by Mercedes-Benz, starting in 1930 with a stretch version of the Nürburg 460…

…all the way to the current iteration, a modified M-Class SUV.

The latest version of the Popemobile is a true kustom kar, outfitted as it is with removable roofs, a throne-like backseat, a modified transmission designed especially for slow driving, full armor plating, and bullet-proof glass. With all that, I’m not really sure what Barris or any of the other kustomizers could do to improve the Popemobile. Maybe something like… well, tune in tomorrow and I might just have an idea or two.

The Big Picture: "WATERWORKS"

A thing about "NOAH."

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Waterworks - Darren Aronofsky's Noah

Good Grief

So they finally went ahead and did it.



Sooooooo many mixed emotions about this. The whole concept of doing PEANUTS in 3D sounds abhorrent on it's face, but look of this is... not bad. If nothing else, there's obviously been a lot of work/thought put into the style here that's coming from the right place: They've used the "dropped keyframes" animation trick from WRECK-IT RALPH and LEGO MOVIE to preserve the instant-shift from static to motion of traditional animation, and the programming physics behind the faux-linework for the details and faces (which makes them look like "embossed" 2D-paintings rather than fully-3D figures) would probably make my head spin. Blue Sky is a consistently under-appreciated studio.

So it looks right and sounds right, but what I want to know about is TONE: A 3D PEANUTS is terrifying because 3D animation's current "default" is dizzying, movement-centered showcases for 3D projection - all chases and pratfalls and elaborate visual gags - all of which are anathema to these characters and their world. Part of the reason Charlie Brown etc. look the way they do is because they were designed, deliberately, to occupy space and grouse to one another... and that's about it.

...except it just occured to me that a Snoopy "Red Baron" sequence would be the most-logical place for this to jump-out into a bigger-scale "wheeee!" showcase moment apart from the rest of the film, and now I want to see what that looks like. Huh.

This Is Your New GREEN GOBLIN

...I got nothing.

Oh well, appearances aren't everything - a lot of people hated the Tokusatsu-esque Goblin armor in the original, and I liked that just fine, so who really knows?

I'm just glad that Harry Osborn was such an important presence in the first "AMAZING SPIDER-MAN", so that his transformation in this one will be informed by the weight of that well-established relationship with Peter and the other characters. I mean, can you imagine how awkward it'd be if there hadn't even been any indication that this person existed before now and they had to stuff the origin and the narrative of Peter and Harry's friendship - the only thing that makes him compelling as an eventual nemesis - and Harry becoming a Goblin into one movie that's already built around at least two other villains and the continuing plot threads of Peter's missing parents, his relationship with Gwen, whatever is going on with Norman Osborn and that guy with the hat???

That would be nutty...

Here's The GoPro Fan-Film That'll Make You Love SUPERMAN Again:

Things you're probably sick of on The Internet: FX-demo reels playing out in Southern California, "_____ With a GoPro," bitter thirtysomething nerd movie-critics telling you how some fan-film nails this or that licensed property better than it's most recent movie did. Well, tough - watch this SUPERMAN short anyway, and be amazed:



Perfect. Basically perfect. I can't even bring myself to hate the dubstep (I assume unapproved "With John Williams Theme" versions will be all over the place in a few hours, for good or ill.)

Incredibly, it's looks like they accomplished 90% of this using a remote-controlled quadcopter and lot of clever editing. Impressive as all hell. If I'm Zack Snyder, I'm quietly tossing these guys a bunch of money not to raise a fuss when I borrow a bunch of these shots for "MAN OF STEEL 2."

THE B-LIST: QUESTIONABLE MUSICAL MOMENTS #16 – JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET

Okay, so when you see a one sheet that looks like this…

…and you watch a trailer that goes like this…

…there’s a better than average chance you’re going to expect Journey To The Seventh Planet to be a good old fashioned late 50s/early 60s sci-fi flick, one with stiff-necked heroes, toy spaceships, and dubious looking aliens. And you’d be right, Journey To The Seventh Planet is all of those things. What you might not expect is that once the credits begin to roll, this is what you’re going to get for a theme song…

Doesn’t really scream sci-fi epic does it? Of course, once you watch the whole movie, you’ll get it. After seventy-six minutes of rubber monsters, questionable green screen effects, and endless displays of 1950’s machismo (in other words, all that fun stuff you watch these films for), the film takes something of a bittersweet turn in the last sixty seconds as one character realizes he’s lost forever the woman of his dreams. Sure, the tune is undeniably hokey, but the sentiment still manages to work because we all know what’s it like to feel abandoned by someone we loved, whether it because the relationship didn’t work out for some reason had to end or simply because they just plain didn’t like us anymore and dumped us over the phone like a stinking coward (or so I’ve heard that such things happen from time to time, not that I would know from personal experience, so… let’s just move on).

Of course, we all know what to do when something like that happens, don’t we? Favorites include putting on a sad song (it’s scientifically proven to make you feel better) or watching a good tearjerker (ditto) while scarfing down some chocolate. But after that, Father Steven Jones over at Catholic Answers suggests that you need to discuss it with someone. “You need to talk. Tell your parents. Speak it! Go do a Holy Hour and tell Jesus. Find a Catholic Church that is usually empty during the day and go talk it to Jesus, in front of the Tabernacle, for one hour. He heals!… Just tell Him. God understands. Especially tell Him the parts you are ashamed of. Talk it through with Him, and He will bring you peace, and healing. But go to the Church. He is there, in that tabernacle. When you sit down there, let the tears come, and speak it out. You will feel His presence.”

Talking to God about your feelings in such a situation may seem strange, especially since in those moments it mat feel like there’s no God anyway, but keep in mind what season we’re in. One of the last things Jesus did while he was hanging on the cross was to cry out, “My God, my God, Why hast thou forsaken me?” In part, Jesus’ words represented a theological statement on his divine nature, referencing as they did the messianic tinged Psalm 22. But the fully human dimension of those words can’t be overlooked either. In that moment, with the weight of our sins on his shoulders, Jesus was allowed to feel as if God had deserted him, just as we often do in our worst moments. And if Jesus experienced that, then so too did God. That’s why, when that person we thought we would be with forever lets us down hard one day and then goes out with somebody new the very next day after (which, again, I’ve heard rumored has happened to some people), we should feel free to talk to God about it because He knows exactly what it’s like to feel abandoned. And that’s a strangely comforting thought.

Escape to The Movies: "NEED FOR SPEED"

There was no need for this.

Also, "THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL."

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Need for Speed - More Boring Than Nascar

2016: Batman VS. Superman VS. Captain America

Check out the big-ass BALLS on Marvel Studios, eh?

It's been a story for about a year now that Disney was adamant about NOT moving a May 6 2016 date they'd set up for "Untitled Marvel Studios Feature" even though the delayed "BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN" slid into the same date. Most assumed that this was a publicity thing - namely that the date had been put aside for one of the new post-"AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON" franchise characters and that the announcment of who the film was actually about would provide "cover" for the secondary news that they were backing down in the face of a stronger competitor for the date: "Hey kids, look! DOCTOR STRANGE MOVIE!!! Oh and by the way we're moving him out of Batman and Superman's way..."

But it turns out exactly none of that is correct: THR Reports that Disney/Marvel will drop "CAPTAIN AMERICA 3" as their early-May release for 2016... and they have no intention of moving - they want to open against "BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN."

The substory here is that Disney/Marvel is NUTS about "CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER." The early reviews are beyond ecstatic - it's being called the best Marvel movie, period, with comparisons being drawn to "THE DARK KNIGHT" and other bigger-deal sequels. They signed the writer/director team to helm the third one while the movie was still in post-production. Chris Evans has been signed for six more films, and Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier) for nine. They believe they've got one of the biggest hits of the Summer, and maybe the movie that puts Captain America somewhere near Iron Man/Spider-Man/Batman levels of individual market-value.

The other substory? A gamble that the still not officially titled "MAN OF STEEL" sequel may want to move it's date again before 2016 hits. The film has moved slowly into shooting, but they still don't have a finished script and production is supposedly still very much in flux.

If you were betting money, obviously, the smart bet would be that one of the studios will blink and that "CAPTAIN AMERICA 3" will move; but I'm not 100% sure. This is, unquestionably, peacock-posturing on Marvel and Kevin Feige's part: "We aren't afraid of Batman OR Superman!" ...but what interests me is that they've got a lot less to actually lose. Opening in second place is what people would expect of them in this scenario, so if they do it's not much of a "defeat." "BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN," on the other hand, needs to make a shitload of money to justify what they're pouring into it, and having another same-genre movie out at the same time would unavoidably eat into their boxoffice. It might actually be smarter for Warner Bros. to jump ahead a week or more and garauntee a big open (and limit Marvel's repeat-business) but they'd have to suffer every single website and industry trade running with "Captain America Singlehandedly Defeats The World's Finest!" as a headline.

Plenty of time for this to change, but you just don't see public "Come at me, bro!" moves like this as much anymore.

WubWubWubWub

I lost count, but when I was still counting we were on our seventh or eighth "AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2" trailer, so you can be forgiven for feeling like you've now seen pretty-much every minute of the actual film. I mean, geez... I know Sony Pictures is in a bad spot right now and if this thing underperforms (the original was already the lowest-grossing of the "SPIDER-MAN" movies) it's armageddon for a whole bunch of people at that studio, but still...

)

Anyway, here's one more minute of the film, which appears to be an early-ish encounter between Spidey and Hoodie Smurf. I gotta say... Electro's look still isn't doing it for me (and we've already seen that his "final look" doesn't get much better, so the "it's early in the story" thing doesn't work) and whoever is mixing the sound really needs to bring Garfield's vocals forward, but I like almost everything else about this - well shot, good sense of scope, and I dig the music right up until that fucking dubstep beat comes in at the very end (is this a piece of music or part of the score?)

PULP CATHOLICISM #059

SHORT FEATURE: THE MIGHTY HERCULES

For Aleteia last week I had the dubious pleasure of taking in 300: Rise of an Empire. Between that, Son of God and Pompeii, it feels like I’ve spent most of the last month sitting back in sword and sandal times. I haven’t been around this many people in togas since Latin club in high school. I don’t mind, though, as Greek & Roman myths were always a favorite of mine as a child. Maybe that’s why I developed a soft spot for The Mighty Hercules even though it’s generally considered one of the cheapest animated features to ever hit television. Take this episode, for instance, in which Herc tangles with a giant bug monster so sorry looking that Roger Corman wouldn’t even be caught dead using it (that’s a lie). And just for the heck of it, let’s watch it in glorious black and white, just like I first saw it…

How about that Daedalus, Sea Witch, and Mask of Vulcan, huh? No final impenitence on their part, was there? What’s that? Final impenitence? Oh, that’s just one of those old school Catholic phrases that refers to a person’s resisting of God’s grace all the way to their last breath. The Catechism tells us that “there are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss.” No such tragedy existed on the part of the three villains in this episode, however. Like an atheist in a foxhole, as soon as the giant bug turned their way, they were crying out for their god to save them with all their hearts. Oh well, anytime the call comes, it’s music to God’s ears.

Speaking of music, just in case you can’t live without it, here’s the show’s original opening theme sung by Johnny Nash, the same guy who would go on to record that perennial staple of oldies radio, I Can See Clearly Now. Go on, you know you want to hear it…

BIG PICTURE: "Orphan, Black"

Why yes, I am proud of the headline:

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Orphan, Black? - A Look At The New Annie

OUTTAKES #048

Just so you don’t have to ask, the stills are taken from the criminally out of print I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957).

2014 Cannes Film Festival Wish List

Know is very early but today was reading a magazine article with Cannes rumors and got really excited as the article included some movies by great directors and whether or not make it to the fest, it is absolutely necessary to have these movies recorded here for future viewing. Hope we all enjoy some if not ALL of the following films. Sorry for the French summaries posted when no English ones are available and me too lazy to translate (lol).

From French Directors

Bird People by Pascale Ferran with -the voice of- Mathieu Amalric plus Josh Charles, Anaïs Demoustier
An American arrives in Paris, checks into a hotel, turns off his cell phone and starts his life anew.

La Chambre Bleue by and with Mathiew Amalric
Un homme et une femme s’aiment en secret dans une chambre, se désirent, se veulent, se mordent même. Puis s’échangent quelques mots anodins après l’amour. Du moins l’homme le croit-il...
A man and woman who make love in secret in a bedroom. They desire and long for each other, even bite each other. Then they exchange a few banalities after making love. Or at least that’s what the man believes. Adaptation of Georges Simenon's novel with the same name (1964).

Clouds of Sils Maria, Olivier Assayas with Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart (OMG!)
At the peak of her international career, Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years ago. But back then she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young girl who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena. She departs with her assistant (Kristen Stewart) to rehearse in Sils Maria; a remote region of the Alps. A young Hollywood starlet with a penchant for scandal (Chloë Grace Moretz) is to take on the role of Sigrid, and Maria finds herself on the other side of the mirror, face to face with an ambiguously charming woman who is, in essence, an unsettling reflection of herself.

Trois cœurs by Benoit Jacquot with Benoit Poelvoorde, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Léa Seydoux et Catherine Deneuve (WOW!)
Comme le titre le laisse supposer, il s'agit d'une histoire d'amour mettant en scène trois personnages, interprétés par Benoît Poelvoorde, Charlotte Gainsbourg et Léa Seydoux. Selon nos informatons, ces dernières incarnent deux soeurs dont la mère sera interprétée par Catherine Deneuve.

La Rançon de la gloire by Xavier Beauvois with Nadine Labaki, Chiara Mastroianni, Benoît Poelvoorde and Roschdy Zem
To steal Charlie Chaplin's coffin and demand a ransom from his family. Such is the plan at the heart of the plot for Xavier Beauvois's sixth feature, La rançon de la gloire (lit. "The ransom of glory", meaning "The price of fame").

Bande de filles by Céline Sciamma
Screenplay focuses on Marieme, 16, who lives her life as a succession of prohibitions. The censorship exercised by the neighborhood, the law laid down by boys, the dead end of school... But her encounter with a group of girls who have claimed their freedom changes everything. She embraces the codes of the street, violence, friendship, to live her youth.

Géronimo by Tony Gatlif with Céline Sallette
Géronimo est une jeune fille élevée par des gitans. Elle est appelée en urgence pour tenter de calmer l'embrasement d'un quartier dans lequel deux clans s'affrontent : la communauté turque à laquelle appartient Nil, une adolescente amoureuse de Luky, un garçon de l'autre camp, celui des gitans. Géronimo va faire appel à son ancien amant, Orange, animateur de quartier.

L'homme que l'on aimait trop by André Téchiné with Catherine Deneuve, Guillaume Canet, Adèle Haenel
Inspired by a news item which still receives attention, the screenplay begins in Nice in 1976. Agnès Le Roux, the daughter of the owner of the Palais de la Méditerranée, falls in love with a successful lawyer, ten years older than her: Maurice Agnelet. He has other affairs, she is madly in love with him. With casino warfare as a backdrop, he puts her in touch with Fratoni, a dangerous man and a rival to her mother, who offers her 3 million francs to take control of the casino. Agnès accepts but feels very badly about her betrayal. Maurice distances himself from her. After a suicide attempt, the young woman disappears.

Métamorphoses by Christophe Honoré
Une adolescente se laisse séduire par un homme devant son lycée, et se faire enlever par lui. Il commence à lui raconter des histoires étranges de jeunes gens qui se sont vus métamorphosés en animaux après l’avoir rencontré. L’adolescente ne s’effraie pas de ces récits, au contraire, elle s’en amuse, et, curieuse, pénètre peu à peu dans un monde de légendes où la frontière entre les mortels et les dieux n’existe plus. Adaptation libre des Métamorphoses d'Ovide.

Tiens-toi droite (French Dolls) by Katia Lewkowicz with Marina Foïs, Noémie Lvovsky, Laura Smet
In the beginning, there were three women – Lili, Sam and Louise. Three women trapped in roles of their own making. There’s Lili – ‘Miss French-speaking World’ – whose raw sensuality and voluptuous beauty will turn her into a media icon. There’s Sam – in love with Damien, and the mother of three girls. Pregnant once again, she tells Damien that this time it’s a boy. In fact, it’s twins... twin girls. And there’s Louise – devoted to the ailing family business. She adopts an old strategy - sleeping her way to the top - and it works. Then they join forces - three women united on the same mission - to overcome their fears, escape their cages, and change their lives forever...

Le Fil d'Ariane by Robert Guédiguian
Ariane est plus seule que jamais dans sa jolie maison. C'est le jour de son anniversaire ; les bougies sont allumées sur le gâteau. Mais les invités se sont excusés... Ils ne viendront pas. Alors elle prend sa jolie voiture et s'enfuit.

Probably will not be ready for Cannes
Saint Laurent by Bertrand Bonello
Eden by Mia Hansen-Love

From European Directors

Deux Jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night) by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne with Marion Cotillard
Already sold to Sundance Selects for US distribution.
The film follows 30-year old Sandra (Cotillard) and her husband (Rongione) on their hunt across the city for colleagues prepared to sacrifice their bonuses so she can keep her job. -

Mr. Turner by Mike Leigh
Jimmy's Hall by Ken Loach (Likely Loach's last film)
On The Milky Road by Emir Kusturica with Monica Bellucci
Kış Uykusu (Winter Sleep) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
The Cut by Fatih Akin
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence by Roy Andesson
1001 Grames by Bent Hamer
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Vinterberg
Serena by Susanne Bier with Jenifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper
The Salvation by Kristian Levring with Mads Mikkelsen
Leviafan by Andreï Zvyagintsev
Francofonia: Le Louvre Under German Occupation by Aleksandr Sokurov
Im Keller by Ulrich Seidl

From Asian Directors
Still the Water by Noimi Kawase
Coming Home by Zhang Yimou with Gong Li (Obviously "dying" to see)
The Charming Rose by Eric Khoo
The Golden Era by Ann Hui
The Assassin by Hou Hsiao-hsien
Cementary of Kings by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2, Johnnie To

From North American Directors
Jersey Boys by Clint Eastwood
Magic in the Moonlight by Woody Allen
Maps to the Stars by David Cronenberg
Vice caché by Paul Thomas Anderson
Le Règne de la beauté by Denys Arcand
Welcome to New York by Abel Ferrara

From Latin American Directors
The Birdman by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Untitled Drama by Lisandro Alonso with Viggo Mortensen
Six Suspects by Pablo Trapero
Tarde para morir joven (Late to die Young), Dominga Sotomayor

Escape to The Movies: "300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE"

Not bad!

And there's also that robot trailer!

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : 300: Rise of an Empire

"SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR" Trailer Hits

Aw yeah!

Let's just get it out of the way: Frank Miller, in 2014, is a walking punchline - a guy who hasn't turned in unironically good work in decades and has aged into a profoundly unpleasant human presence on the pop-culture radar. BUT! The "SIN CITY" books were good, and remain probably the perfect manifestation of his undeniably unique creative voice: all of his hangups, fetishes and fixations, cobbled together at the peak of his actual talent and laquered by enough style to keep the more problematic stuff boiling under the surface in proper check.

"SIN CITY" is Miller's perfect creation, and - in case you've managed to forget - Robert Rodriguez's "SIN CITY" movie was fucking awesome. So yeah, finally getting a look at the sequel? Welcome back, old friend:

PULP CATHOLICISM #058

86th Academy Awards Winners

Will comment in a separate post about the ceremony plus whatever else. But regarding the winners NONE of the awards upset me more than the documentary that won as doc is truly badly done, so bad that the okay story was lost to me and had to stop watching as style was not pleasant to watch for me at all. Most upsetting are those that compare 20 feet from stardom with Searching for Sugar Man; only those that do not understand about moving images could compare one with the other as they are two very different documentaries. Searching for Sugar Man has an engaging story, outstanding editing, puzzling cinematography and a director with a fantastic eye and storytelling style. None of those key ingredients was in the documentary that won this year. Sigh. Know that because controversies probably many voters did not watch The Act of Killing but all of us that saw the extraordinary documentary know that by far was the best of the nominated pack and deserved the honor.

Knew that Gravity was going to get the tech awards plus one top award (director) so did not surprised me that was the quantity winner of the night and the moment Lupita Nyong'o won Supporting Role I knew that 12 Years a Slave was going to win Screenplay and Best Picture.

Had no idea that Happy by Pharrell Williams was so GOOD as when watching movie did not notice song that much BUT everything changed for me after watching Williams' performance, song still is in my head -in a positive way and yes already bought song!!! Maybe if Academy voters saw Williams performing the song outside the movie, then maybe he would have won the Oscar, as his song truly deserves the honor. Sigh.

In general, after all the fuzz, winners were the front runners and of course my predictions accuracy this year is terrible (!!!) as trying to guess what voters could do forgot a bit about what I liked. Most true is for the two short film categories, live and animated, where the ones that really touched me won but I predicted what i thought could please American audiences. I was wrong. Second, never imagined that American Hustle was going to get 0 Oscars, I gave the movie at least 1 and was wrong as movie won nothing.

Winners are in *BLUE. If you wish to see winners at official site go here.

1/16/14
Today actor Chris Hemsworth and Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced the 2014 Oscar Nominations and there are more surprises than what I expected or could imagine after the regular process when Academy members from each of the branches vote to determine the nominees in their respective categories – actors nominate actors, film editors nominate film editors, etc. In the Animated Feature Film and Foreign Language Film categories, nominees are selected by a vote of multi-branch screening committees. All voting members are eligible to select the Best Picture nominees.

Now active members of the Academy are eligible to vote for the winners in ALL categories and hopefully maybe this year Academy members will watch movies before voting as official screenings of all motion pictures with one or more nominations will begin on Saturday, January 25; not being sarcastic just sharing with you some public info that crowded the waves a few weeks back when an unnamed Academy member gave an interview to tell the "truth" about Oscar voting.

As we know the awards show was moved to Sunday, March 2 thanks to the Winter Olympics (grr) and -now I am being sarcastic- show will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide. See first paragraph after list to find why I'm sarcastic.

American Hustle and Gravity lead with 10 nominations each followed close by 12 Years a Slave with nine and yes, the HUGE surprise for me was Nebraska having so many nods as got six, the same as Dallas Buyers Club and Captain Phillips.

There are nine (9) films nominated for Best Picture and maybe later we will find why there weren't ten, which is the maximum as there are several critic acclaimed movies that could have made the list like Inside Llewyn Davis, Saving Mr. Banks, All Is Lost -a bit tiresome but very tense movie- and we can forget August: Osage County and/or Blue Jasmine.

Great positive surprise is to have France/Belgium Ernest & Celestine and Japan The Wind Rises in the Animated category and Wong Kar Wai opus The Grandmasters getting two tech categories nominations.

Huge negative surprise is Emma Thompson not being nominated even do I'm glad Amy Adams was, but Adam's performance is NOT as good as Thompson and that slot belonged to her. Also, what is Christian Bale getting a nod for Actor? His performance is inferior to Joaquin Phoenix in Her, Robert Redford in All is Lost and even Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis (very unpleasant character but his performance is ok). Then in Actor supporting role can't understand why Jonah Hill got a nomination that slot was for highly superior performance by Daniel Bruhl in Rush or even James Gandolfini in romcom Enough Said. But perhaps the greatest negative surprise is excellent Stories We Tell not having a nomination in documentary category.

Anyway, check at post bottom some fun stat/facts about these nominations.

Best Picture
*12 Years a Slave
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Philomena
The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Animated Feature Film
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Ernest & Celestine
*Frozen
The Wind Rises

Foreign Language
The Broken Circle Breakdown, Felix van Groeningen, Belgium
Jagten (The Hunt), Thomas Vinterberg, Denmark
*La Grande Belleza (The Great Beauty), Paolo Sorrentino, Italy
L'image manquante (The Missing Picture), Rithy Panh, Cambodia
Omar, Hany Abu-Assad Palestine

Directing
David O. Russell for American Hustle
*Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity
Alexander Payne for Nebraska
Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave
Martin Scorsese for The Wolf of Wall Street

Actress in a Leading Role
Amy Adams in American Hustle
*Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock in Gravity
Judi Dench in Philomena
Meryl Streep in August: Osage County

Actress in a Supporting Role
Sally Hawkins in Blue Jasmine
Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle
*Lupita Nyong’o in 12 Years a Slave
Julia Roberts in August: Osage County
June Squibb in Nebraska

Actor in a Leading Role
Christian Bale in American Hustle
Bruce Dern in Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street
Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave
*Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club

Actor in a Supporting Role
Barkhad Abdi in Captain Phillips
Bradley Cooper in American Hustle
Michael Fassbender in 12 Years a Slave
Jonah Hill in The Wolf of Wall Street
*Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club

Cinematography
Roger A. Deakins for Prisoners
Bruno Delbonnel for Inside Llewyn Davis
Philippe Le Sourd for The Grandmaster
*Emmanuel Lubezki for Gravity
Phedon Papamichael for Nebraska

Original Screenplay
Woody Allen for Blue Jasmine
Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack for Dallas Buyers Club
*Spike Jonze for Her
Bob Nelson for Nebraska
Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell for American Hustle

Adapted Screenplay
Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope for Philomena
Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke for Before Midnight
Billy Ray for Captain Phillips
*John Ridley for 12 Years a Slave
Terence Winter for The Wolf of Wall Street

Film Editing
Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers and Alan Baumgarten for American Hustle
*Alfonso Cuarón and Mark Sanger for Gravity
John Mac McMurphy and Martin Pensa for Dallas Buyers Club
Christopher Rouse for Captain Phillips
Joe Walker for 12 Years a Slave

Production Design
K.K. Barrett and Gene Serdena for Her
Judy Becker and Heather Loeffler for American Hustle
*Catherine Martin and Beverley Dunn for The Great Gatsby
Andy Nicholson, Rosie Goodwin and Joanne Woollard for Gravity
Adam Stockhausen and Alice Baker for 12 Years a Slave

Visual Effects
Tim Alexander, Gary Brozenich, Edson Williams and John Frazier for The Lone Ranger
Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Ben Grossmann and Burt Dalton for Star Trek Into Darkness
Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and Eric Reynolds for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Erik Nash and Dan Sudick for Iron Man 3
*Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk and Neil Corbould for Gravity

Sound Editing
Steve Boeddeker and Richard Hymns for All Is Lost
Brent Burge for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
*Glenn Freemantle for Gravity
Wylie Stateman for Lone Survivor
Oliver Tarney for Captain Phillips

Sound Mixing
Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor, Mike Prestwood Smith and Chris Munro for Captain Phillips
*Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead and Chris Munro for Gravity
Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges, Michael Semanick and Tony Johnson for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Skip Lievsay, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland for Inside Llewyn Davis
Andy Koyama, Beau Borders and David Brownlow for Lone Survivor

Costume Design
William Chang Suk Ping for The Grandmaster
*Catherine Martin for The Great Gatsby
Patricia Norris for 12 Years a Slave
Michael O’Connor for The Invisible Woman
Michael Wilkinson for American Hustle

Makeup and Hairstyling
Joel Harlow and Gloria Pasqua-Casny for The Lone Ranger
*Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews for Dallas Buyers Club
Stephen Prouty for Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

Music - Original Score
John Williams for The Book Thief
*Steven Price for Gravity
William Butler and Owen Pallett for Her
Alexandre Desplat for Philomena
Thomas Newman for Saving Mr. Banks

Music - Original Song
Alone Yet Not Alone from Alone Yet Not Alone, Music by Bruce Broughton and Lyric by Dennis Spiegel
Happy from Despicable Me 2, Music and Lyric by Pharrell Williams
*Let It Go from Frozen, Music and Lyric by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
The Moon Song from Her, Music by Karen O and Lyric by Karen O and Spike Jonze
Ordinary Love from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Music by Paul Hewson, Dave Evans, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen and Lyric by Paul Hewson

Documentary
The Act of Killing
Cutie and the Boxer
Dirty Wars
The Square
*20 Feet from Stardom

Short Films

Live Action
Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me), Esteban Crespo, Spain
Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just before Losing Everything), Xavier Legrand, France
*Helium, Anders Walter, Denmark
Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?), Selma Vilhunen, Finland
The Voorman Problem, Mark Gill, UK

Animated
Feral, Daniel Sousa, USA
Get a Horse!, Lauren MacMullan, USA
*Mr. Hublot, Laurent Witz and Alexandre Espigares, France and Luxembourg
Room on the Broom, Max Lang and Jan Lachauer, UK
Tsukumo (Possessions), Shuhei Morita, Japan

Documentary
Cavedigger, Jeffrey Karoff, USA
Facing Fear, Jason Cohen, USA
Karama Has No Walls, Sara Ishaq, United Arab Emirates, UK and Yemen
*The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life, Malcolm Clarke, Canada, USA and UK
Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall, Edgar Barens, USA

To check info for each film go here but be aware that videos at this site will NOT WORK outside USA, which is a TRUE SHAME as for the first time in a clear way the Academy is NOT sharing with the World. See the problem is that the Academy is referring every video to the US Network, ABC, which obviously DOES NOT allow IP's outside USA to view videos. Hope the Academy and/or ABC consider the money they make selling show rights and OPEN the videos for those world inhabitants that are interested in watching.

Scorecard - Motion Picture Nominations Feature Films With Two or More Nominations
10- American Hustle, Sony Pictures Releasing
10 -Gravity, Warner Bros.
9 -12 Years a Slave, Fox Searchlight
6 - Captain Phillips, Sony Pictures Releasing
6 - Dallas Buyers Club, Focus Features
6 - Nebraska, Paramount
5 - Her, Warner Bros.
5 - The Wolf of Wall Street, Paramount
4 -Philomena, The Weinstein Company
3 - Blue Jasmine, Sony Pictures Classics
3 - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Warner Bros.
2 - August: Osage County” The Weinstein Company
2 - Despicable Me 2, Universal
2 - Frozen, Walt Disney
2 - The Grandmaster, The Weinstein Company
2 - The Great Gatsby, Warner Bros.
2 - Inside Llewyn Davis, CBS Films
2 -The Lone Ranger, Walt Disney
2 -Lone Survivor, Universal

Fun Stats and Facts

• Last year, Silver Linings Playbook became the first film to receive nominations for Best Picture, Directing, Writing and all four acting categories since Reds (1981). American Hustle repeats that feat this year.
• Jennifer Lawrence is again the youngest performer nominee and is her first nod for supporting role.
• Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper are the only three acting nominees this year who were also nominated last year; all were nominated in different categories to this year.
• Meryl Streep extends her lead as the most nominated performer with her 18th nomination.
• Woody Allen extends his record for most nominations by a screenwriter to 16.
• John Williams scores his 49th nomination and 44th in original score to become category's record holder; he becomes the first living person with more nods and the second after Walt Disney (59).
• Of the 10 films nominated for a PGA Award, two were nominated and got no Oscar nod (Blue Jasmine and Saving Mr. Banks) and one PGA did not nominate and got an Oscar nod (Philomena).

If you wish to read more facts go here and here.

The Nominations video

New March Titles: Exiles' Return (2014)

So many new and returning titles this month! Whether by accident or design, Netflix seems to be making up for some of its recent deletions. Already back from the January 1 "great purge" are a number of classics including Easy Rider (1969), Roman Holiday (1953), Serpico (1973), and True Grit (1969), along with popular favorites The Bad News Bears (1976), Dirty Dancing (1987), and As Good As It Gets (1997). Fans of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman will also be pleased to see Capote (2005) return to the fold.

Also returning: a veritable slew of Robert Altman films, from the good to the great to the misguided, bringing the director's total number of streaming titles to an impressive nine. No telling how long they'll stick around this time, but must-sees are The Long Goodbye (1973) and Thieves Like Us (1974); should-sees are Streamers (1983), a stark, underappreciated adaptation of David Rabe's play, and the Tim Roth tour de force, Vincent & Theo (1990). In the "misguided but rarely seen" category is O.C. & Stiggs (1985), Altman's satirical attempt at a teen comedy that remains fascinating despite its flaws. This intermittently funny oddity is worth watching for Dennis Hopper alone, who seems to be reprising his stoner-photographer character from Apocalypse Now, complete with a "Ride of the Valkyries" attack. Martin Mull, Ray Walston, and Jane Curtin also join the fun. Bizarre? Entertaining? Misunderstood? I can guarantee you at least two.

Read more �

"...I think we just found a Transformer!"

There was a moment, back "BAD BOYS II" had already happened and the first "TRANSFORMERS" had not, that I imagined that Michael Bay might be the guy to make a singularly great live-action Transformers movie. The movie I was imagining... looked like this.



Comprehensible action? Flag-draped Americana (LITTLE RED WAGON!!!!)? Ultra-earnest/sincere Mark Whalberg?? Plot seeming to imply The Autobots fighting the military/government and (maybe?) evil man-made Transformers? Optimus Prime being revived in a rural garage? (maybe) Galvatron/Unicron? Dinobots? STATIONARY SHOT-COMPOSITION????

This... might actually work...

BIG PICTURE: "King Of The Meh-Sters?"

Why the hell can't I get more excited about "GODZILLA?"

The Escapist : The Big Picture : The King of Meh-Sters?

THE B-LIST: 5 CATEGORIES THE OSCARS OVERLOOKED

Sure, I’m watching the Academy Awards. Since I’m an official movie reviewer these days (at least until Aleteia figures out they made a huge mistake), I feel like it kind of comes with the territory. Thank God the RiffTrax guys are watching it too, otherwise I don’t think I could make it through the whole thing. As you can probably guess, one of my problems with the show is that they tend to ignore the types of movies we watch around these parts on a daily basis. Well, let’s correct that, shall we? Here are awards in five categories that the Oscars overlooked this year.

BEST OLD SCHOOL CREATURE FEATURE YOU WOULD HAVE RENTED BASED SOLEY ON THE VHS COVER ART ALONE

FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY

This was by no means the best low budget sci-fi/horror movie to come out in 2013, but Frankenstein’s Army absolutely had the most imaginative monster suits we’ve seen in a long time. This was the kind of movie you’d see on the cover of Fangoria and then haunt your local mom and pop video store until it came in. And then your ancient VCR would eat the tape. But that would be the next guy’s problem, because you were definitely gonna wind that thing back up and keep watching so you didn’t miss a minute of those cool monsters.

BEST DOCUMENTARY ABOUT A TOPIC WITH ABSOLUTELY NO SOCIO-POLITICAL IMPORTANCE WHATSOEVER

GLOW: THE STORY OF THE GORGEOUS LADIES OF WRESTLING

Truthfully, I didn’t watch G.L.O.W. a lot back in the day, but it was occasionally on in the background. Still, I could probably tick off a handful of the wrestler’s names if I had a chance to win a game show doing so. But for a enterprise that was basically a mash-up of the WWF, Hee Haw, and good girl art, this look back on the show’s heyday turns out to be surprisingly touching in parts. Plus it’s got body slams in it, so that helps too.

BEST ALTERNATIVE TO PAYING TO SEE GRAVITY

EUROPA REPORT

As I noted in the comments section of my review of Gravity, it’s a film you definitely want to see on the big screen. And I can say that with full confidence because I got to see it for free. Given that the majority of my readers are Catholic, I imagine it could be a bit of a monetary challenge for them and their 17 kids to go to the theater, especially if it’s to see a movie in IMAX. We’re talking second mortgage time. Because of that, let me recommend Europa Report, a fairly smart space disaster flick made for the same amount of money it probably cost to feed George Clooney’s ego. About the only dumb thing the movie did was try to come out the same year as Gravity.

BEST WORST GODLESS MOVIE

THE LORDS OF SALEM

Rob Zombie’s latest is probably his best movie to date. Of course, considering all his other movies were big ol’ piles of crap, feel free to take that any way you want to. Snarkiness aside, what Zombie actually does do well is channel the movies he loved growing up. In Lords of Salem, Zombie draws on such classic devil-flicks as Rosemary’s Baby, Ken Russell’s The Devils, and just about every movie made about Satan in Italy during the 1970s. Like those movies, The Lords of Salem presents a world in which the Devil is unstoppable and God is silent, if not plain dead. Does that make the movie evil? Only if it convinces you all that stuff is true.

BEST USE OF STEREOTYPES IN A LOW BUDGET HORROR MOVIE

GRABBERS

When bloodthirsty aliens invade an island off the coast of Ireland, it turns out there’s only one thing for the locals to do. Get drunk. No, seriously. The aliens won’t attack anyone with too much alcohol in their blood stream. Too bad they didn’t go after Salt Lake City, huh? You now, our parish once had a faith formation director fresh off the boat from Ireland who told me this joke: How can you tell if an Irishman has had too much to drink? If he falls down and can’t get back up, he’s only good for about one more. So, yeah, the drunken Irishman is a stereotype, but that’s who made the movie, so it kind of works. Basically, Grabbers is Tremors with barely understandable dialog, and there’s nothing wrong with that for those Saturday nights when SyFy isn’t showing anything new.

Well, the awards are nearing their end (please, God), so I think that’s all the categories I’ll do this time around. For all those folks who didn’t take home a statue this year (and for those who did, as well), just keep in mind what the Catechism says, “In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere ‘to the end’ and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God's eternal reward.” Win that, and you won’t even think twice about those little hunks of gold.