Sir Ian McKellen cast in del Toro’s “The Hobbit”

As if anyone else could have played the part.

(image from Yahoo!)

clipped from movies.yahoo.com Ian McKellen will again take up the robes of Gandalf the Wizard in the cinematic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy classic “The Hobbit” a British film magazine reported Wednesday. But McKellen’s publicist warned that final arrangements were yet to be made. McKellen’s sonorous interpretation of Gandalf in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy delighted fans and critics, earning him an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. The 68-year-old British actor previously told The Associated Press that he would hate to see anyone else play the role. “The Hobbit” is being produced by Peter Jackson, the director of the “Rings” movies, and is likely to be filmed in his home country of New Zealand next year.

New ‘Dark Knight’ posters

These look sweet.

(images from Yahoo!)

Review: Harold and Kumar – Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Harold & Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay is probably one of the best titles for a movie I’ve ever heard. I think everyone was expecting the sequel to 2004’s Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle to be called Harold & Kumar Go To Amsterdam, but I much prefer this new title. As the name suggests, our two favorite Asians end up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba after being mistaken for terrorists on a plane bound of Amsterdam. The rest of the film follows the typical buddy-road-movie comedy formula, similar to the first movie.

There really isn’t that much difference between this and its predecessor, but the filmmakers do take the racism jokes a step further, sometimes with hilarious effect. The movie starts literally right after the first one ends, with Harold daydreaming about his crush Maria (Paula Garces). He and Kumar then start packing for their flight to Amsterdam, where Harold hopes to meet Maria. On the plane, Kumar brings a homemade bong onboard, which is mistaken for a bomb, then the two are tackled by a couple of meathead-type Federal Air Marshals, followed by an interrogation by Ron Fox (Rob Corddry), an agent for the Department of Homeland Security, then a brief stint at Guantanamo Bay.

The Guantanamo Bay sequence is actually pretty short, and a little disgusting. The pair do meet a couple of actual terrorists, who are pretty much the angry Middle Eastern stereotypes that the average American thinks of when someone says the word ‘terrorist’. What follows after the escape is basically sequence after sequence that plays on most stereotypes.

The scenes in Alabama are actually pretty funny. Harold and Kumar meet a backwards redneck, who offers to let them stay the night in his trailer. Upon entering the trailer (which is much nicer on the inside than the outside), they meet the farmer’s beautiful wife, and have a run-in with their son. Meanwhile, Fox is on their trail, interviewing members of a predominantly black neighborhood who saw Harold and Kumar as they fled into the woods. While not giving too much away, the scene with Fox talking to the witnesses was one of the funniest scenes in the whole movie.

The pair then continue to move westward as they try to get to one of their friends who has some pull with the government, in hopes of clearing their names. And, yes, they run into Neil Patrick Harris, who takes them to a whore house. The scenes with NPH is short, and only mildly funny. Then there’s the scene with George W. Bush (James Adomian). Surprisingly, W has some wise things to say about government and taking charge of your own life. After being wrongfully thrown into a military prison for POW’s and suspected terrorists, Harold and Kumar aren’t really too keen on the American government. Kumar tells W that he doesn’t know if he can trust it anymore. W, however, tells him that basically you don’t need to trust the government, just have trust in your country. Not to make things political or anything, but, that kind of makes a lot of sense. We can be angry at our government, but the way the USA is set up, we can trust in ourselves to fix things (which is one of the reasons we have elections in the first place). Wise words, indeed.

Overall, fans of the first won’t be dissapointed with this one. While some have said the first was better, I honestly say they’re both equally as entertaining. I think that some of the race jokes are funnier here, but the first had more ‘unique’ moments that didn’t have to rely on the same schtick (racism). Running at about 1 hour and 45 minutes, I think it’s about 10 minutes too long, but it’s not like Knocked Up which ran about 20 minutes too long.

7.5/10

(images from Yahoo!)

Director Officially Chosen for “The Hobbit” Films

I’m lining up now…right after I see Pan’s Labyrinth.

(image from Yahoo!)

clipped from news.yahoo.com LOS ANGELES – Guillermo del Toro is directing “The Hobbit” and its sequel, New Line Cinema announced Thursday. The 43-year-old filmmaker will move to New Zealand for four years to make the films back-to-back with executive producer Peter Jackson. “I am indeed blessed to become a part of the filmmaking community that Peter, Fran and their extraordinary team of collaborators have created in New Zealand,” del Toro said in a statement. “Contributing to the ‘Lord of the Rings’ legacy is an absolute dream come true.” Jackson and Walsh called del Toro “a cinematic magician who has never lost his childlike sense of wonder.” “We have long admired Guillermo’s work and cannot think of a more inspired filmmaker to take the journey back to Middle-Earth,” they said in a statement. Jackson co-wrote, co-produced and directed the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which won 17 Oscar and 30 nominations.

Nintendo’s Secret Stash of Money

Holy crap, that’s a lot of money. There’s an urban legend in the games industry that Nintendo has this secret stash of money that they pull from in case something happens and they find themselves in financial trouble. I personally never believed that, since they’ve always been a success. Even during the ‘dark days’ of the Nintendo 64 and the GameCube, the company still managed to make money from every system sold, plus their first-party titles.

Now, with the success of, what I call, the ‘generation of experimentation’, I think that Nintendo has so much money that they might as well make a ’secret stash of cash’ since they can’t possibly be spending all of it. I’m glad to see more third-party developers opening up, specifically with the DS. Square Enix’s The World Ends With You has been getting rave reviews, and there’s mounting anticipation for Activision’s Guitar Hero: On Tour.

The Wii is still lagging, but I believe things will get better. I just listened to the EGM Live podcast, and they had nothing but good things to say about a new third-party skiing game using the WiiFit balance board. And there’s no denying the power of Nintendo’s big franchises like Super Smash Bros. (2 million in sales so far!), Mario, and Pokemon.

So, congrats, Nintendo. Maybe you can use all this money to make an HD system next generation.

clipped from www.gamespot.com The company has reported that net sales for the year ending March 31, 2008, were �1.672 trillion ($16.2 billion), up 73 percent on the previous year. This resulted in a net income (or profit) of �257 billion ($2.5 billion) for its 2008 fiscal year ended March 31, up 47 percent on the previous year. Both hardware and software have served up results that are bound to please Nintendo’s accountants. The Wii console sold 18.61 million units worldwide during the last fiscal year, which amounts to 24.5 million units since its release. In its forecasts for April 2008 to March 2009, Nintendo says it will sell 25 million further Wii consoles worldwide. Wii software sales were bolstered by the success of Wii Fit in Japan, where the fitness training programme shifted 1.85 million copies. Super Smash Bros. Brawl sold 4.85 million units in the US and Japan, with Super Mario Galaxy and Mario Party 8 also highlighted as major successes.

GTA vs The City of Chicago

Honestly, I think that Fox News is making a bigger deal of this than it really is. I can understand why Chicago’s transit authority pulled the ads. There has been a significant spike in violent crime and the GTA series has always been associated with violent crime.

Am I one of those people who think GTA is evil because of the violence? Absoulutely not, I’ve owned several GTA games and I enjoy them, but I can understand that there are a select few people in the world that can’t see the difference between a game and reality, and it’s these people that will commit violence acts in real life. It’s also these same people that may play GTA IV and get the wrong impression.

To me, it’s no different than if they pulled posters for an action movie in which they brandish various guns and seemed to ‘glorify violence’. The comment, though, from the Fox anchor pretty much shows their bias.

clipped from www.gamespot.com The local Fox affiliate is reporting that the Chicago Transit Authority plans to pull an advertising campaign for the latest criminal action game from Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive. The Fox report–available as a video clip on the station’s Web site–begins by noting this past weekend was “an especially violent” one for Chicago, which left dozens of people shot and six dead. “And what did we spot on CTA buses and platforms,” anchor Andy Roesgen asked. “Advertisements for the unapologetically violent video game Grand Theft Auto.” Roesgen then recaps a 2004 stir over CTA ads for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the PlayStation 2. In that incident, Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (whose game restriction legislation was declared unconstitutional, much to the expense of the state’s taxpayers) criticized the CTA for accepting the $90,000 ad campaign, but the ads were set to come down anyway by the time the issue drew attention.

11-inch lcd FOR $2,500 and an Armani TV

Consumer Reports just published their take on Sony’s XEL-1 LCD. Yep, it’s 11-inch and it costs $2,500. Will it sell well? I doubt, but just like most other consumer electronics companies, they do this thing just to prove they can, much like a concept car. I expect these new wafer-thin TV’s to hit a more reasonable price in about 2 years. I believe Hitachi had a much larger TV that was also pretty thin.

Samsung has partnered with Armani again, this time to make HDTV’s. I don’t see anything special about the TV, other than it’s Armani. It does, however, have a refresh rate of 120hz, which is pretty speedy. It will start selling in parts of Europe and Asia soon.

Technorati Tags: Samsung, Armani, OLED, Sony, HDTV, plasma, LCD, flat-panel, television, high definition, hi-def, blu-ray, HD-DVD, XEL-1

(images from Yahoo! and consumerreports.org)

Streamlining the Academy Awards

I was watching AMC’s “Shootout” hosted by Hollywood gurus Peter Bart (Variety Magazine) and Peter Guber (film executive), and their opening segment mentioned something interesting. Guber was talking about how this year’s Academy Awards telecast drew 25% fewer votes than last year, prompting the question: How can we get people to watch the show?

He suggested that the show become more ’streamlined’ in order to keep people tuned in (or to tune in at all). With the plethora of awards shows that lead up to the Oscars, it’s hard to get the general public excited about the big one. What Guber said was that the show needs to be cut form nearly 3 1/2 hours to around 2, and move some of the more technical awards to another night. Then he said that the awards themselves should cater more towards the general audience, like introducing a “viewers’ choice” where the home audience can text in their picks, and create new categories like “Best Comedy” or “Best Action Movie”.

And that’s when I nearly threw something at the TV.

I like Peter Guber, and Peter Bart. I’ve read some of their books. I find “Shootout” very entertaining and I try not to miss an episode. However, I find myself agreeing a little more with Peter Bart than with Peter Guber, even though they share similar backgrounds and experiences in Hollywood.

What the problem with Peter Guber’s suggestion is that there’s already an awards show like that. It’s called the MTV Movie Awards and it’s held during the summer. That’s when Hollywood can let its hair down, relax, and just goof off for an evening. Although the MTV Movie Awards is not a serious awards show, it is voted on by the public and it’s an opportunity for ’serious’ films to mix it up with ‘not so serious film’ in similar categories. I know there are also other awards shows like the People’s Choice Awards, but the MTV Movie Awards is just more fun. It’s the only venue where a quirky indie comedy can compete with a huge summer blockbuster and a serious Hollywood drama for the Best Movie of the Year category. In the Oscars, usually serious dramas get nominated for the big awards, while summer tentpole movies get relegated to technical wards like Best Visual Effects or Editing or something. Not that there’s anything wrong with those awards, but those aren’t the ones the general audience cares about.

If the Academy follows Guber’s advice, I feel it would demean the Oscars and turn it into a show for the average Joe Sixpack who sees film as less art, more entertainment. I want an awards show that is voted on only by professionals, as a celebration of the medium as an art form rather than just a business or popularity contest. If it was a viewers’ choice show, then I’m sure Ellen Page would have won over Marion Cotillard for Best Actress, thereby picking a movie that everyone saw over a foreign film. I’m not saying that Cotillard didn’t deserve the award, I’m just saying that the general audience would have picked Page because they saw her movie and don’t have any other reference to compare her to the competition. Academy members have more opportunities via screener DVD’s and special showings to watch all the year’s nominees.

What I suggest is this:

1.) Trim the show down to no more than 2 1/2 hours. That means moving some of the awards to a different night. They already hold a separate dinner for the really technical awards that isn’t televised, so they can either expand that dinner or make the Oscars a week-long event and hold the technical awards over a period of nights leading up to the big telecast. These ‘lead up’ dinners could also be televised on a smaller network like Bravo or AMC.

The main telecast should feature the Big 4: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress; while also honoring Best Original or Adapted Screenplay, Costume Design, Music, visual effects, animated, short film, etc. Also, if they really really want to do an audience choice, they can do so, but leave it to just one award, like New Performer or something like that.

2.) The audience should be able to vote on who the host would be. Say, the people like Billy Crystal over Jon Stewart, so hire Crystal to host. I think I like him better as host anyway. The poll could be conducted online or at movie theatres or something.

3.) There needs to be some variety in the Best Original Song category. This year was pretty dull, with Enchanted dominating the category. I remember the year Moulin Rouge! was nominated for some awards, but not for Best Original Song. I thought “Come What May” was a great song and it was the only original song written for the movie. But it wasn’t nominated, and I was a little surprised by that. I’m sure there were other original songs for other movies that could have been nominated. What if there’s a great song written for an action movie, but the song doesn’t get nominated because the movie wasn’t a musical or a drama. Also, they really need to get the actual performers of the song to perform the song. Last year I think they had Beyonce perform all the songs. Nothing against Beyonce or anything, but that was a terrible idea. Why? Because the song wasn’t nominated because she sang it, so why is she performing it? Popular artist or not, I think it’s a little insulting to the original performers.

Off the top of my head, that’s what I can come up with to help change the Oscars for the better. I don’t believe I’ve missed a single Academy Awards show since 1997, and I really do enjoy them. I know there are a lot of elitist film brats that think accepting an award is for sellouts, but I view the Oscars a a time for the professionals to congratulate each other in a more formal setting. I also see the show as a celebration of the art form, a night to say, “Here’s how far we’ve come in these categories as compared to last year.” I don’t see anything wrong with that.

Are there other problems with the Oscars? Absolutely. Getting nominated is as much a political game as it is a talent show. Did the low-budget indie film Juno get nominated for Best Picture because it’s actually worthy, or because it generated a whole lot of buzz? Maybe, maybe not. Is their favoritism in certain categories? Sure, especially of the nominee is a well-liked individual. If a person is nominated in two categories, does he/she win both? Usually no. Ask George Clooney. OK, granted I don’t think he should have won that year for Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck, but it was pretty obvious that they don’t want one person to dominate.

So, I think Peter Guber has his heart in the right place, and I would absolutely hate it if the Academy Awards was stopped being televised. The Academy just needs to find a new way to present the show to the masses, while at the same time preserving the traditions and all the pomp that goes along with it. I just don’t want to see another MTV Movie Awards (we only need one), and I really don’t want to watch a 3 1/2 hour-long award show.

(images from amc.com, oscar.com)

More Faster and way more, um…Furiouser

So it takes three more Fast and the Furious movies to brink Vin Diesel and Paul Walker together. Well, I didn’t like the second one so much, but Tokyo Drift (in which Diesel has a very small cameo) was actually pretty good. This new one should also be pretty good since Justin Lin (Tokyo Drift, Better Luck Tomorrow) is returning to direct.

clipped from www.darkhorizons.com “Vin Diesel and Paul Walker reteam for the ultimate chapter of the franchise built on speed — “Fast and Furious.” Heading back to the streets where it all began, they rejoin Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster to blast muscle, tuner and exotic cars across Los Angeles and floor through the Mexican desert in the new high-octane action-thriller. When a crime brings them back to L.A., fugitive ex-con Dom Toretto (Diesel) reignites his feud with agent Brian O’Conner (Walker). But as they are forced to confront a shared enemy, Dom and Brian must give in to an uncertain new trust if they hope to outmanuever him. And from convoy heists to precision tunnel crawls across international lines, two men will find the best way to get revenge: push the limits of what’s possible behind the wheel.” John Ortiz, Laz Alonso, Shea Whigham and Tego Calderon also star in the Justin Lin-directed sequel scheduled to open June 5th 2009.

Review: Forgetting Sarah Marshall (no spoilers)

One word: HILARIOUS. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. First-time director Nicholas Stoller directs a great comedy starring first-time leading man (and screenwriter) Jason Segel as Peter, a music composer for a TV show, starring his girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). The premise is simple: Sarah breaks up with Peter, and at the suggestion of his step-brother Brian (Bill Hader), Peter goes to Hawaii to get his mind off things. Surprise, surprise, Sarah is staying at the same hotel with her new boyfriend, musician Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). And the hilarity ensues.

What follows is typical of a Judd Apatow-produced movie: lonely, yet lovable schmuck falls in love with a girl. However, it is Segel’s writing that keeps the movie from being anything but dull. Everyone in the movie is likeable, and there really isn’t a villain. The guys at the Filmspotting podcast (check it out here) mentioned that the leading lady in the movie, Rachel (Mila Kunis), is different from the leading ladies from 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up in that she is basically one of the guys, but in hot girl form. I can see what they’re saying here, she holds her own in her scenes with Segel, and she feels right at home interacting with everyone. It feels different when watching Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up, where she’s the successful career woman hanging around Seth Rogen’s slacker character, Ben. Not that Peter isn’t a slacker in Sarah Marshall (the opening montage clearly shows this), but Rachel feels truly part of the world, along with Peter and Sarah and Aldous.

The jokes here are, again, pretty much what you’d expect from an Apatow production. Funny sex jokes, a little nudity, occasional fart joke, making fun of someone’s loneliness, etc. Apatow regulars Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd also appear, and their respective scenes are also pretty funny. I’m not a huge Paul Rudd fan, I think he’s funny sometimes. But here, he’s funny most of the time, a marked improvement. I guess it’s Rudd’s line delivery that doesn’t seem to mesh too well with everything else, but here, he’s fine and gives one of the biggest laughs (in my opinion) of the film. Russell Brand also deserves mention for being an absolute riot. Normally, the new boyfriend of the ex-girlfriend should be the rival to our hero, but Aldous is great and the audience really warms up to him. He’s a bit of a ditz and an airhead, but he’s a nice guy and he isn’t rude to anyone at all; a bit odd since he is supposed to be some famous rock star. Definitely not a stereotype.

Also worth mentioning is the show that Sarah Marshall stars in. Titled Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime, it’s basically a rip-off of CSI (and all the spinoffs) and NCIS. William Baldwin plays himself playing a parody of David Caruso from CSI: Miami and those short segments are great. Also, stay a bit after the end credits start to catch another show Sarah Marshall is working on. And Jack MacBrayer from 30 Rock appears as a newlywed who’s having some…trouble with his new wife. His scenes seem to come completely out of nowhere, but they had me laughing my head off.

There’s definitely going to be some comparison to Knocked Up, 40-Year-Old Virgin, Superbad, and other movies produced and/or directed by Judd Apatow. Virgin really hit the right note in terms of attaching some weight to a character and his plight, and Knocked Up offered a surprisingly ‘conservative’ viewpoint of unwanted pregnancy and treated it with humor and maturity. Sarah Marshall, however, is still just a slightly more adult version of Superbad, a pretty tame story with some great characters. Also, the movie isn’t too long either, unlike Knocked Up. The movie moves along at a nice pace and definitely gives the actors time to explore their characters and their situations. I had a better time watching this than I did Knocked Up. For those that loved that movie, plus Superbad and 40-Year-Old Virgin, Forgetting Sarah Marshall should be a guaranteed a good time.

8.5/10

On a side note, Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis are smokin’ hot in this movie. I saw Bell’s pictorial spread in Complex magazine, and she looked so fine. When I first saw her in a full shot wearing her bikini, I nearly dropped my jaw. And I also won’t be able to watch Family Guy the same again, because everytime I hear the voice of Meg Griffin, I’ll think of Mila Kunis. She is drop-dead gorgeous in this movie.  Can’t wait to see her as Mona Sax in the Max Payne movie.

(images from Yahoo!)