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Hayao Miyazaki Tribute

As part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ three-month celebration of anime, a screening of Hayao Miyazaki’s 2002 Oscar-winning animated feature Spirited Away will take place on Friday, July 17, at 7:30 p.m., at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
Then, on Tuesday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m., Oscar-winning animator and Academy governor John Lasseter will host "A Tribute to Animation Master Hayao Miyazaki" at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Both evenings will include extended gallery hours for the Academy’s ongoing exhibition "ANIME! High Art – Pop Culture."

The quirky Spirited Away is my favorite among the Miyazaki features I’ve seen. The tale of a young girl [...]

LAND OF THE LOST Photos

Will Ferrell, Anna Friel, and Danny McBride star as, respectively, has-been scientist Dr. Rick Marshall, research assistant Holly, and redneck survivalist Will in the big-screen remake of the mid-70s television series Land of the Lost, a campy delight after all these years. (Spunky Cha-Ka to Holly after she messes things up: "Cha-Ka half-monkey. You whole monkey.")
The new Land of the Lost was directed by Brad Silberling, best known for Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and written by Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas.
Land of the Lost opens in the US on June 5.
The original TV series starred Spencer Milligan, Wesley Eure, Kathy Coleman, and Philip Paley (as Cha-Ka).
Photos: © 2009 Universal Studios
Click on the photos [...]

Cannes 2009: Heath Ledger in THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian:
"Heath Ledger takes a poignant final bow in Terry Gilliam’s loopy, sweet-natured but madly self-indulgent fantasia The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, showing here at the Cannes film festival out of competition. Halfway through shooting, Ledger had made a desperately sad early exit, so the director ingeniously re-invented his character as a series of personae. Jude Law, Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp gamely stepped into the breach.
…
"When Gilliam shoots off into his surreal wonderland, his film has a kind of helium-filled jollity and spectacle. … But the film’s convoluted curlicues are tiring, insisting too loudly on how ‘imaginative’ everything is. And when it descends into the real world – Lucy [...]

THE HUNT FOR GOLLUM Trailer

The Hunt for Gollum, a 40-minute film conceived, created and funded by fans of the J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, will be screened exclusively online on Dailymotion on Sunday, May 3. The film will have a simultaneous premiere at SCI-FI LONDON, the 8th Annual London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film, with free tickets available to festivalgoers.
Written, directed, and produced by Chris Bouchard, who was inspired by notes in the appendices from the The Lord of the Rings, The Hunt for Gollum follows Aragorn as he sets out to find the Gollum so as to discover the truth about the Ring.
As quoted in [...]

Hugh Jackman in X MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE Photos

From the Academy Award-winning socially conscious drama Tsotsi to the political melodrama Rendition to X Men Origins: Wolverine. No one can’t say that Gavin Hood isn’t an eclectic filmmaker.
X Men Origins: Wolverine, though leaked online, will probably turn out to be a gigantic hit.
Starring Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, Liev Schreiber, Dominic Monaghan, Lynn Collins, and Danny Huston, X Men Origins: Wolverine opens in the US on May 1.
Photos: © Twentieth Century Fox / James Fisher (Hugh Jackman image below)

 
Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana at STAR TREK Berlin Premiere
Chris Pine, Eric Bana, Zoe Saldana at STAR TREK Berlin Premiere
Reese Witherspoon at MONSTERS VS. ALIENS London Premiere
STAR TREK’s Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto’s Sydney Photo Shoot
Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren, Rachel [...]

Liam Neeson to Star in CLASH OF THE TITANS

Liam Neeson, 56, whose wife Natasha Richardson died last March 18, is set to begin work on a remake of Clash of the Titans.
Neeson will play Zeus, the ancient Greeks’ top god (Zeus is akin to the Latin Deus, God), a role played by Laurence Olivier in the 1981 film.
Louis Leterrier, of The Incredible Hulk, is set to direct the new version, which is scheduled to begin production in the United Kingdom later this month.
Also in the new Clash of the Titans are Ralph Fiennes playing Hades, ruler of the underworld, Luke Treadaway (of Brothers of the Head), Mads Mikkelsen, Sam Worthington, Gemma Arterton, and Alexa Davalos. This will mark Neeson’s and Fiennes’ first film reunion [...]

DRAGONBALL EVOLUTION Revolution

In the Los Angeles Times, Michelle Castillo discusses Dragonball Evolution, which, "for right or wrong, may be the most-hated film of 2009 that hasn’t even been released yet." Fans are reportedly furious because of changes made to the storyline and the characters.
Below is a brief quote from Castillo’s article:
"At 20th Century Fox, the studio behind the Dragonball film, there must be some executives missing the old days when fans just waited for a movie to be released before deciding its fate. The studio leadership watched in horror in recent days as a stolen, near-finished copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine became a torrid sensation on file-sharing sites. The FBI has stepped in but, like a man watching his [...]

THE GOLDEN COMPASS and Catholic Censors

Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter in The Golden Compass

Via Tim Drake’s "U.S. Bishops Withdraw Controversial Movie Review" in the National Catholic Register:
"’The aggressively anti-religious, anti-Christian undercurrent in The Golden Compass is unmistakable and at times undisguised,’ [Denver Archbishop Charles] Chaput wrote in a column in the Dec. 12 issue of the Denver Catholic Register. ‘The wicked Mrs. Coulter alludes approvingly to a fictional version of the doctrine of original sin. When a warrior Ice Bear — one of the heroes of the story — breaks into the local Magisterium headquarters to take back the armor stolen from him, the exterior walls of the evil building are covered with Eastern Christian icons. And for Catholics in our own world, of [...]

THE TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS d: Jean Cocteau

Le Testament d’Orphée, ou ne me demandez pas pourquoi! / The Testament of Orpheus (1960)
Direction and screenplay: Jean Cocteau
Cast: Jean Cocteau, María Casares, François Périer, Henri Crémieux, Edouard Dhermitte, Alice Heyliger, Jean Marais, Françoise Christophe, Claudine Auger, Charles Aznavour, Lucia Bosé, Yul Brynner, Luis Miguel Dominguín, Daniel Gélin, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Jean-Claude Petit, Pablo Picasso, Jacqueline Roque, Françoise Sagan, Annette Vadim, Brigitte Bardot, Roger Vadim, Françoise Arnoul
 

Jean Cocteau in The Testament of Orpheus
 

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
The third film in Jean Cocteau’s "Orphic Trilogy," Le Testament d’Orphée, ou ne me demandez pas pourquoi! / The Testament of Orpheus, is also the third film in The Criterion Collection’s box set release. While it’s the best of the trio, it’s nowhere [...]

LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS – Jim Carrey

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Direction: Brad Silberling
Screenplay: Robert Gordon, from Daniel Handler’s books The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, and The Wide Window
Cast: Jim Carrey, Meryl Streep, Liam Aiken, Emily Browning, Jude Law, Timothy Spall, Catherine O’Hara, Billy Connolly, Dustin Hoffman, Craig Ferguson, Luis Guzmán, Jennifer Coolidge, Jaimie Harris
 

 

Three of Daniel Handler’s Gothic tales about three siblings on the run from a ruthless and greedy relative are given the Hollywood treatment in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Not surprisingly, the US$100,000,000+ film boasts first-rate production values, with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s lenses perfectly capturing (and enhancing) the eerie Gothic-ness of production designer Rick Heinrichs‘ preternatural creations.
On the other hand, as befits most Hollywood fare, both [...]

HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN – Daniel Radcliffe

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Direction: Alfonso Cuarón
Screenplay: Steven Kloves, from J. K. Rowling’s novel
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, Robbie Coltrane, Michael Gambon, Richard Griffiths, Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw, Maggie Smith, Timothy Spall, Emma Thompson, Julie Walters, Julie Christie, Pam Ferris

 

 
Alfonso Cuarón may seem like an odd choice for director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third installment of the Harry Potter series — if one thinks only of Cuarón’s sleeper hit, the Truffaut-esque Y tu mamá también, while ignoring two of his earlier efforts, the critically acclaimed A Little Princess and the moderately respected Great Expectations.
This time around, working with a reported $130 million budget, state-of-the-art [...]

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