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There was once a time when Roger Ebert could say the dullest of words and everyone still listened. As a film critic, he was always intent in seeing a film far from the hype. The result was a bad grade for films that people would wanna watch, and good reviews for those we’d all probably sleep over.

Such things aren’t unheard of today; there still are people talking about movies that hurt the fan’s feelings. I, for one, referred to Twilight as a ‘teeny bopper’ flick earlier and was called out. Roger Ebert would’ve probably shrugged such comments off; he was more into the art form rather than the fans. And in a time when piracy is rampant, when more films are made that have less and less substance, when technology makes films more of a business than an art, now more than ever I think the art form of film need to be recognized.

But where are the film activists? Who are the ones puking over Zac Efron and Shia LaBeouf films? Who’s making the next indie blockbuster movie? These are things that need to be spoken in my world and yet this is also the time when film editorials have become a space filler in the corners of our newspapers; shoved into magazines and websites solely for their devout artsy-fartsy crowd. Film editorials are dead and we are left only with Simon Cowell ego-mongers who lavish at that word - critic - without even knowing what it means.

As of today, the only thing we know about the Thor movie is that it’s set for release in June 4, 2010. We also know that Thor will figure in the Avengers movie that’s also being produced by Marvel, set for release in 2011. All the rest remains to be speculation.

Who will play Thor in the movie
There had been rumors earlier that Brad Pitt would grab the role of Thor, but when Stan Lee said that he’d like Leonardo di Caprio to be Marvel’s next superhero, the talk became a little more spiced up - was Stan Lee talking about di Caprio as Thor or Captain America.

What would be the plot all about
“Screenwriter Mark Protosevich has been hired to write a script for a live-action Thor film. In December 2007, he described his plans for it “to be like a superhero origin story, but not one about a human gaining super powers, but of a god realizing his true potential.” [Source]

I had said earlier that a Thor movie might not work if he came down from Heaven in true god-like fashion. It might also not work with the Avengers movie since both Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk were pretty much based on present-day realities. For the thunder god to even need a team means:

1. Thor has vulnerabilities, which is fine if he were man-turned-superhero but not if he is “The Soooon of Ooodiinnn”
2. The Avengers movie villain is too powerful for him to handle by himself… and I hope it’s not Hulk.

However we do find a story of Thor that is quite realistic. A guy named Donald Blake finds Thor’s hammer, the Mjolnir, and becomes the superhero. This is quite a safe assumption since it coincides with the comics, allows him to act schizophrenic god-like, and bridge the existence of other fictional figures in the comics such as Odin and Loki. The question is if he finds it in New York city or somewhere else in the world, how he goes about becoming Thor, and just how much power does he wield.

Who would be the Thor movie villain
Loki is probably the first one in anybody’s mind to be Thor’s nemesis in the movie. And honestly, I think he’s the only one who would make this movie interesting. The problem though, aside from who’s gonna play the role and if they’re gonna go with the hideous yellow-and-green costume, is how Loki’s story would originate itself. I mean, you wouldn’t want Thor to be a superhero with an alien on his tail.

Fritzified’s display of awesome photography/photo-editing skills inspired me to rip movie pictures off the internet to create wonderfully sarcastic mashups in hopes that whatever creative genes I have make one more regular BackLineMedia reader. After this try, I probably wont do it again.

If only for the purpose of getting readers into this site, I can probably just make random references to Zac Efron, Miley Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers and grab would-be searchers to my blog than kill my wrist trying to make the sponge tool work like it should.

Oh well.. the newsreel had The Dark Knight again today, saying the movie’s already grossed $400million. And even if it’s still 200 million dollars shy of Titanic’s world record ($600million domestic), the controversy savvy mainstream media had already raised the comparison.

Now, I’m not entirely sure if I like Leonardo di Caprio’s “Jack! ..Rose!” exchange with Kate Winslet more than Joker’s “You..complete..me” quip (in pink and white nurse clothing) but a 200 million dollar gap isn’t anywhere near talk-worthy to me.

So NO! Batman does not have a place in the Titanic.. YET! And if I’m being very frank, since I already turned this post into a no-hold-barred article, I am actually more amused with the way titles regarding this topic have been thrown by mainstream media:

1. Could ‘Knight’ Catch ‘Titanic’ Wave Herald Dispatch
2. Another Titanic Weekend for Dark Knight E! Online
3. Dark Knight Wont Sink Titanic’s Record MSNBC
4. Dark Knight Enters Titanic Territory Los Angeles Times
5. Can Dark Knight Sink Titanic Newsday.com
6. Titanic’s Been Unsikable.. Until the Dark Knight E! Online
7. Dark Knight Closes in on Titanic Telegraph.co.uk

LOLZ!

What’s common about the reviews I’ve seen regarding The Echo so far have been that it’s slow-paced (which could be positive or negative depending on your preference), beautifully shot, that Jesse Bradford gives a good performance, and that it’s scary.

The Echo movie trailer is also already available on the net though I am yet to know of an official release date. September or October… I think.

Since being presented at Fantasia, we’ve started seeing some write-ups regarding the film. Respectable though not free of criticism. I hope it gives you an idea of what to expect:

DreadCentral.com:
While the story and its resolution do have some issues, The Echo is deeper than just the plot, thanks to the way it was designed and executed… As an entire package The Echo is a very solid movie and hopefully only the beginning of what Mr. Laranas has to show us.

eFilmCritic.com:
It’s all anchored by a surprisingly good performance by Jesse Bradford… He gets the job done as Bobby, capturing how worn down he is despite his youth, trying to keep his head down even though that’s not really in his nature, and literally haunted… The rest of the cast is good too, decent actors well-suited to their roles, but Bradford is the one that grabs the audience whenever he’s on-screen.

The Cine Files, The Montreal Gazette
Director Yam Laranas’ remake, however, is significantly more frightening. Though it, too, gets silly at times, there are some admittedly tense moments. Bradford is convincing in his role, and Laranas crafts some solid scares. But the film doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from the pack of Asian horror remakes.

I’ve been following movie updates for Mutant Chronicles for about a month but all I’ve been seeing had been an awesome Russian trailer and a mediocre english version of it. And I figured nobody was really paying attention to this movie even if it’s got John Malkovich’s kick-ass-ness in it (copyrights for that word).

However, I should probably add that the movie is already being shown in other places in the world and some scenes have already made it to the Youtubes.

So I saw this trailer. It had Robert de Niro, Sean Penn and Bruce Willis in it. But it’s no action movie. I probably shouldn’t like it but the artsy-fartsy in me says with all the super hero movies coming out, I could use one that makes me think.

“What Just Happened? is a Hollywood satirical comedy-drama starring Robert De Niro as a fading Hollywood producer trying to survive the humiliations of Hollywood, while struggling to get his new movie made during two weeks of hell, meanwhile going through his second divorce.

What Just Happened? is an independent film, produced by 2929 Productions, Art Linson Productions and Tribeca Productions with an expected 2008 release.” [source]

Based on the story by Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux tells of an unusual hero, a mouse with large ears, who falls in love with the human Princess Pea.

Awwwwe

The film, due to hit theaters on December 19, 2008, is narrated by Sigourney Weaver and stars Matthew Broderick and Emma Watson. If you’d like to see a higher resolution of the trailer, which is more fun but a bit slower to download, I posted the high-def version in Vedio.me

Forgive me for the long title, I wanted to give you a feel for what I had to say in this hohumm about the Dark Knight being too dark and haunting for kids. It seems to me all the glory that people gave in the passed week is taking a little bit of a curve with parents saying they should have been advised not to bring their 8 yr old to watch the PG-13 movie.

A PG-13 rating already suggests that some scenes from the movie may not suitable for kids, so if people are complaining that the Joker stuck a pencil in another man’s eye, that’s not really the rating board’s fault isn’t it? If anything, it’s the parent’s fault for bringing the kid into the cinema, and the parent’s responsibility to tell them not to do that in school.

Honestly, I dont know what was haunting about the Dark Knight. In a time where kids play Resident Evil and Grand Theft Auto, what’s so bad about seeing Two Face’s half-burnt face and left eyeball? And since I already wrote it down, Hancock stuck a man’s head in another man’s ass and that wasn’t gross - oh what morals have we!?! Lolz! Seems to me that all this flak thrown to the Dark Knight is just media’s way of grabbing itself some audience by making news-worthy the same piece they praised during the premiere.

Tell you what, it would’ve been nice to have heard the advisory then…

Christopher Nolan’s version of the Dark Knight had been kept a buzz for more than a year, and for good reason - it cost 180 million dollars to make. That’s a particularly high number when you think that the Lord of the Rings Trilogy was made only for $300 million. Warner Brothers must have lots of money.

Over the weekend, Dark Knight had already reached $155 million bucks making it a record weekend opening. And as the weekend isn’t over yet as of this writing, the movie is definitely gonna gross further. Some even hinting it could get its way onto the $200 million mark.

As for it’s other records..

• It was released in over 4360 cinemas, more than any other movie to date.
• Dark Knight had already set a midnight preview record of 18 million beating Star Wars III Revenge of the Sith which previously held the record at 16.9 million.
• With $155m currently in tow, this is also the best Batman film yet. Previous Batman movies only averaged 47million in the box office. Batman Begins grossed 205million domestically.
• It is the biggest movie of the year so far. Beating Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and, yes, Iron Man.
• Speaking of another Marvel record Batman smashed, Spiderman no longer holds weekend boy office record at 151million. Though there is argument that inflation helped Batman in this regard since Spiderman 3 sold more tickets at what was then 6.50 compared to the 8 bucks I had to pay for to see the Dark Knight.

For my review of the movie, please check out Dark Knight Review: All About the Joker

I wish more artists would act like Heath Ledger - that’s what occurred to me after watching the Dark Knight movie. For someone who plays a villain disgusted for the past 40-50 years, Ledger gave us a great performance and a different perception of Joker’s persona.

There was a sense of nobility to Heath’s portrayal - the false kind, of course. Joker as an anarch sold on the idea that the world is made up of rules governed by a higher evil, that the world swallows the weak and that every “Mr Goody Two-Shoes” would lean to self-serving decisions when the tides have turned on them.

No, the Joker does not have moral fiber - he is wicked, ruthless, and downright psychotic, and I would not glorify him even if he has such a morbidly awesome sense of humor, but he makes quite a case. Where Batman stands up for good, Joker maintains that there is no such thing as good. Hence he is evil. Now that, my friends, is a sense of purpose. ROFL!

Harvey Dent serves as the euphemism for both Batman’s and Joker’s philosophies. Where Batman believes that Gotham has found a “white knight” in Dent to rid the city of criminals, Joker makes of him a trophy in this tug of war and paves the way for him becoming Two Face.

I take this movie away from Batman because, while he rocked the Lamborghini and turned his motorcycle 180 like “Whoah!,” that stupid, husky voice and delayed fighting made me cringe a little. I also think he was a little short (What’s Christian Bale’s height anyway). And to Mr. Gordon - you sly man you - you had me fooled on whether you’re dead, or alive, or if you’re gonna die again. I didn’t know it was gonna be Rachel. Morgan Freeman is subtle as Lucius Fox - he’s always subtle. He makes a point along with Alfred (and the people in the boat) that good and evil is a choice for all of us, even for billionaire Bruce Wayne who plays nonchalant about the city he deeply cares for. That’s why he’s the Dark Knight.

Ok. That covers everything.

As for Ledger, I wasn’t sold on him being Oscar-worthy and I somehow felt that the clamor for him to be nominated was a sympathy prize. He was an admittedly talented actor but I thought it mediocre to give him an award he did not deserve. After seeing this portrayal, I say give him the bald dude and a tribute.