Film Junk

This Week on DVD: A Serious Man, Couples Retreat, Midgets vs. Mascots

Sean — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:37:54 +0000

Not a ton of exciting stuff in stores this week aside from The Coen Brothers' Oscar-nominated film A Serious Man, but if you're looking for a date movie to watch on Valentine's Day you can take your pick from Couples Retreat, The Time Traveler's Wife, I Hate Valentine's Day, Peter and Vandy, My One and Only and many more! If you prefer something a little more violent and gruesome, on the other hand, you might look at Nicolas Winding Refn's Bronson or The Stepfather. Also out this week is the underrated HBO animated series The Life and Times of Tim: The Complete First Season, the Halo Legends anime collection, and Midgets vs. Mascots featuring Gary Coleman and Scottie Pippen (don't ask).

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Christopher Nolan to Oversee Superman Reboot for Warner Bros

Sean — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:56:53 +0000

Well, well, well. After yesterday's update on the next Batman film, which is currently being written by Jonah Nolan and David S. Goyer, it seems that Nikki Finke may have uncovered yet another reason why Chris Nolan could be too busy to write the script himself (aside from finishing up Inception, that is). It seems that Warner Brothers have asked him to oversee production on a comic book movie that will bring back DC's other marquee superhero. That's right, a brand new Superman film! According to her source, the project is being dubbed Superman 3.0, and is in the very early stages of development. It is expected to be a franchise reboot, with no connection to Bryan Singer's Superman Returns. It seems unlikely that Nolan would direct the film; instead, he is being asked to simply mentor the process as the studio tries to figure out how they want to move forward. As exciting as this news might sound, I'm not sure I like the idea of Christopher Nolan having his hands in multiple superhero movies. He clearly was a great choice for Batman because he knows crime flicks and thrillers, but what would he bring to a Superman movie that they couldn't get somewhere else? It doesn't really seem like his style. I like my Superman fantastical and somewhat campy, not dark and realistic. Then again, maybe Warner Brothers just want to have his name associated with it, to give fans some confidence in the project. What do you think? Is Christopher Nolan's involvement in a new Superman movie a good thing? How would you like to see this franchise rebooted?

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24 Feature Film Gets a Writer

Sean — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:56:30 +0000

Fox has hired acclaimed writer Billy Ray (State of Play, Breach, Flightplan) to bring Jack Bauer to the big screen. Not a bad first step.

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Valentine’s Day Half-Sequel Already Planned

Jonathan Sullivan — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:26:33 +0000

Valentine's Day, the ensemble romantic comedy starring Bradley Cooper, Taylor Swift, and a whole bunch of other people, is four days away from being released, but New Line is already planning a follow-up. Titled New Years Eve, the movie will undoubtedly encompass a whole bunch of different stories set around New Year's Eve and will probably end with the ball dropping. These are not spoilers mind you, that's just human logic being put into place. With the success of Love Actually, and more recently He's Just Not That Into You, these type of ensemble films are starting to pop up more and more, in an attempt to grab at what's left of the theater-going public. Is this a good idea? Time will tell, but let's see just how well Valentine's Day ends up doing/being before any of us make a snap judgment.

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Film Junk Podcast Episode #256: Frozen

Sean — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:02:08 +0000

0:00 - Intro / In-House Stuff 04:55 - Headlines: - Avatar Passes Titanic and Gets Beat By Dear John, Oscar Nominees, Up Wins at the Annie Awards, Taylor Lautner is Stretch Armstrong, Percy Jackson Could Be Spider-Man, Danny Bride in L.A.P.I., The Thing Prequel May Not Be a Prequel, MacGyver Creator Trying to Shut Down MacGruber, David Goyer Writing Batman 3 37:05 - Review: Frozen 58:40 - Trailer Trash: The Last Airbender, Cop Out 1:06:48 - Other Stuff We Watched: Prom Night in Mississippi, Good Hair, Dirty Work, Tommy Boy, Billy Madison, More Than a Game, District B13: Ultimatum, Lost 1:29:36 - Junk Mail: Film Junk Diagnoses Diabetes / Jay's Medical Update, Are Movies Getting Shorter?, Relationship with Reed, Jay's Last Driving Test, Movies Shot on the Red Camera, Buying Used DVDs, Kids Movies from the '80s, From Burger It Came 2:19:20 - This Week's DVD Releases 2:23:00 - Outro » Download the MP3 (70 MB) » View the show notes » Vote for us on Podcast Alley! Subscribe to the podcast feed:

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Bad News for Batman: David Goyer’s Co-Writing the Next Movie

Sean — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:38:59 +0000

I'm sure we've all been dying to know what's going on with the next Batman movie, but as you might expect, Christopher Nolan hasn't been in any hurry to dive in to his follow-up to The Dark Knight. Last we heard, Nolan and Warner Brothers were planning to make some sort of announcement in January, but here we are in February and that obviously didn't happen. With post-production work on Inception still ongoing, Nolan is probably tied up with that, however, in the meantime it sounds like his brother Jonah may be starting to work on a third Batman script. He's not writing it alone, however; we've just learned that Batman Begins co-writer David S. Goyer is returning to collaborate once again. Uh oh. According to Nikki Finke, Goyer has left the ABC show FlashForward after acting as the showrunner for most of the first season in order to dedicate more time to his big screen projects. One of those projects will be the third Batman film. Now, let's be clear here: Goyer did get a story credit on The Dark Knight, but it was Christopher and Jonah Nolan who wrote the screenplay. Personally I don't have a ton of confidence in Goyer's writing, as I felt the script was one of the weakest parts of Batman Begins, and by contrast, one of the strongest parts of The Dark Knight. It's possible that he will only be helping to shape the story for part 3 again, and I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but I have to say that I'm a little worried about having him back in the mix. I was hoping that The Dark Knight proved that the Nolan brothers could tackle it alone. Goyer's other features in development include Ghost Rider 2, Super Max, a Scanners remake, and X-Men Origins: Magneto. What do you think, are you glad to have him back working on the next Batman film?

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Pixar’s Up Takes Home Gold at the 37th Annual Annie Awards

Sean — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:55:19 +0000

Last year the Annie Awards caused quite a stir when Kung Fu Panda swept Wall-E in every category. Of course, Wall-E still went on to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but it's interesting to note that this year, with so many great animated movies to choose from, the Annies decided to go back and honour Pixar's Up with their top prize. Needless to say, Up is now a heavy favourite at the Oscars (if it wasn't already), but how did the other categories shake down for the Annie Awards? Pete Docter also received the award for Directing, but it was The Princess and the Frog and Coraline that split many of the other categories. Personally I was just pleased to see Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach pick up the Writing award for Fantastic Mr. Fox. After the jump, you can see all of the feature film categories with the winners denoted in bold. For a full list of nominees, including television productions, visit the Annie Awards official website.

Best Animated Feature

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Up

Best Home Entertainment Production

Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas
Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder
Green Latern: First Flight
Open Season 2
SpongeBob vs. The Big One

Best Animated Short Subject

Pups of Liberty
Robot Chicken: Star Wars 2.5
Santa, The Fascist Years
The Rooster, The Crocodile and The Night Sky
The Story of Walls

Animated Effects

Scott Cegielski -- “Monsters vs. Aliens”
Alexander -- Feigin “9”
Eric Froemling -- “Up”
Tom Kluyskens -- “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs”
James Mansfield -- “The Princess and the Frog”

Character Animation in a Feature Production

Andreas Deja -- “The Princess and the Frog”
Eric Goldberg -- “The Princess and the Frog”
Travis Knight -- “Coraline”
Daniel Nguyen -- “Up”
Bruce Smith -- “The Princess and the Frog”

Character Design in a Feature Production

Daniel Lopez Munoz -- “Up”
Shane Prigmore -- “Coraline”
Shannon Tindle -- “Coraline”

Directing in a Feature Production

Wes Anderson -- “Fantastic Mr. Fox”
Pete Docter -- “Up”
Christopher Miller, Phil Lord -- “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs”
Hayao Miyazaki -- “Ponyo”
Henry Selick -- “Coraline”

Music in a Feature Production

Bruno Coulais -- “Coraline”
Michael Giacchino -- “Up”
Joe Hisaishi -- “Ponyo”
John Powell -- “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”

Production Design in a Feature Production

Christopher Appelhans -- “Coraline”
Ian Gooding -- “The Princess and the Frog”
Tadahiro Uesugi -- “Coraline”
Christophe Vacher -- “9”

Storyboarding in a Feature Production

Sharon Bridgeman -- “Astro Boy”
Chris Butler -- “Coraline”
Ronnie Del Carmen -- “Up”
Tom Owens -- “Monsters vs. Aliens”
Peter Sohn -- “Up”

Voice Acting in a Feature Production

Jen Cody - Voice of Charlotte - “The Princess and the Frog”
Dawn French - Voice of Miss Forcible - “Coraline”
Hugh Laurie - Voice of Dr. Cockroach Ph.D. - “Monsters vs. Aliens”
John Leguizamo - Voice of Sid - “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”
Jenifer Lewis - Voice of Mama Odie - “The Princess and the Frog”

Writing in a Feature Production

Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach - “Fantastic Mr. Fox”
Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy - “Up”
Timothy Hyde Harris and David Bowers - “Astro Boy”
Christopher Miller and Phil Lord - “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs”

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The Griswolds Return for HomeAway’s Hotel Hell Vacation Ad

Sean — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:51:36 +0000

If you've been holding out hope for another National Lampoon's Vacation movie featuring the Griswolds, well here's more proof that Super Bowl advertising money can make anything happen! HomeAway have created a sequel in the form of an a 14-minute "mini-movie" entitled Hotel Hell Vacation starring Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo. Cool idea, right? Or maybe it's just plain sad. Either way, with Chase making his comeback on Community, and D'Angelo's recurring role on Entourage, perhaps this will be enough momentum to finally get that rumoured big screen sequel off the ground. In the meantime, you can watch all 14 minutes of Hotel Hell Vacation embedded after the jump.

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The Thing Prequel Gets a Cast

Sean — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:32:26 +0000

After a couple of years of sitting on the shelf, it looks like cameras are finally about ready to roll on Ron Moore's prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing. Last year the movie received a script rewrite from Eric Heisserer (A Nightmare on Elm Street), and now the film's two leads have been cast in anticipation of a March 15th start date. The movie will star Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a Ph.D researcher stationed in Antarctica and Joel Edgerton as a mercenary helicopter pilot. Winstead is best known for her roles in Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof and Live Free or Die Hard (as John McClane's daughter), while Edgerton is an up and coming Australian actor who played a young Uncle Owen in the Star Wars prequels. Matthijs Van Heijningen will direct, a young Dutch filmmaker who is also working on Army of the Dead with Zack Snyder. The weird thing is that although the movie has been called a prequel all along, the title they appear to be going with is simply... The Thing. Does this mean that it's really just a remake in disguise? I guess if they don't make any reference to the time period or what comes after, it might as well be one anyway. Thoughts?

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More Super Bowl Trailers: Prince of Persia, Shutter Island, The Back-Up Plan

Sean — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:17:48 +0000

All in all, I think we can agree that it was a pretty weak showing for Hollywood at the Super Bowl this year. Aside from the new trailers for The Last Airbender and Robin Hood, which were released online early, there was nothing for movie fans to get excited about, and very little in the way of new footage. Last year people were drooling over the cutting edge TV spots for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. This year we got a lot of 30-second spots for movies that are coming out in the next month that have already been advertised to death (plus The Back-Up Plan starring Jennifer Lopez). Did any of this year's commercials impress you? Check out the rest of the Super Bowl ads after the jump and see what you think.

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Taylor Lautner to Star in Stretch Armstrong

Sean — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:05:01 +0000

First Max Steel, now Stretch Armstrong... I'm glad he's not starring in anything I care about, but I do feel bad that these are the roles this guy has to choose from.

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