Having hit paydirt less than a year ago with “Midnight in Paris” — which, in case you’ve forgotten, became the highest-grossing film of Woody Allen’s career and nabbed him a fourth Oscar to boot — Sony Pictures Classics is clearly keen to woo the same audience that fell for the film’s romantic European charms to his next effort. Originally dubbed “Nero Fiddled,” Allen’s latest has been granted a new title that couldn’t sound much more cannily focus-grouped if it tried: “To Rome With Love.”

If you loved what Woody did for the City of Lights, one imagines the marketers thinking, just wait until you see him in the Eternal City. And fair play to them: with “Paris” and “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” standing comfortably as Allen’s best-received films of recent years, perhaps including the location in the title has become his lucky charm. (Meanwhile, uninformed viewers could be forgiven for mistaking the film for another entry in the popular recent series of portmanteau films that has given us “Paris Je T’Aime” and “New York, I Love You.”)  

The official explanation given for the switch is that “Nero Fiddled” is “an appropriate and humorous phrase in the US, [but] not a familiar expression overseas.” It’s actually the film’s second title change: Allen originally settled on “The Bop Decameron,” before announcing that the Boccaccio-slash-Pasolini reference was too obscure for most audiences. Perhaps his renewed commercial clout has made him savvier in this regard.

Either way, “To Rome With Love” shouldn’t befuddle any viewers hoping for another light comedy of romantic adventures and misadventures in one of the world’s most beautiful cities — which is, reportedly, exactly what the new film is. Whether it can repeat his last film’s success probably depends on whether critics give it the green light, as many did in Cannes last year. The cast, as ever, doesn’t want for names: Allen stars this time, with Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penelope Cruz,  Judy Davis (yay!), Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig and Ellen Page along for the ride. 

Sony has confirmed a June 22 release date, neatly positioning it as summer counter-programming for older audiences — a trick that, again, worked dandily for “Paris” last year. The timing also fits with a potential Cannes premiere slot: in recent years, “Match Point,” “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” and “Midnight in Paris” all debuted on the Croisette, which bodes well for the director’s third consecutive appearance at the fest.

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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So, what did you see over the weekend? “21 Jump Street,” possibly — though to judge from recent chatter on Twitter and elsewhere, no new release got people more excited over the past two days than the 150-second trailer for Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus,” the possible “Alien” prequel with a dream cast headed up by Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender. Multiplex junkies and critics alike have been drooling over the possibilities since the first teasers debuted months ago; each new scrap that gets released seems only to heighten expectations.

Some readers asked why we haven’t chimed in with our own take on the latest trailer — it’s certainly not because we aren’t psyched for the film, which ranked at #3 in our Most Anticipated of 2012 list. Kris, of course, is on pre-wedding hiatus, though I’m sure he’d have thoughts on it otherwise. I, meanwhile, have no thoughts whatsoever on this or any other “Prometheus” trailer — not least because I have painstakingly avoided seeing the lot. My no-trailers diet is still in effect for the most part, and I’m far too intrigued by this on-paper proposition to spoil my appetite now. 

So, as much as it pains me… I got nothin’. But over at neighboring blog Motion Captured, Drew McWeeny muses on the new trailer, in addition to other marketing bits and bobs. and concludes that, while the publicity has been coy on the matter, there’s no doubting the film’s prequel status. I’ve seen other blogs, meanwhile, pondering the differences between the US and UK trailers — people are truly scutinizing everything they can lay their hands on with this one.

Anyway, some of asked for a space to unload your thoughts on the matter, and here it is. I’ve included both trailers below — geek out to your heart’s content. I’ll be the one in the corner covering my ears and humming loudly.

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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AUSTIN, Texas – After 10 days and seemingly hundreds of films, the 2012 South by Southwest Film Festival closes this weekend. In typical form, I saw almost none of the ones that ended up taking home trophies. Unfortunately, it”s the nature of film festival coverage – you try to be strategic, see things that received good feedback from others, and when possible, stray into auditoriums in your spare time hoping to uncover a gem. But even after six days, I missed the Narrative winner, “Gimme the Loot,” and the Documentary winner, “Beware of Mr. Baker,” as well as the Audience winners for the Narrative (“Eden”) and Documentary (“Bay of All Saints”) categories.

Nevertheless, I saw quite a gauntlet of films programmed to play during the festival, including several that preciously appeared at Sundance, such as Craig Zobel”s transgressive “Compliance” and Joe Berlinger”s “Under African Skies.” But even the wonderful “21 Jump Street” and the thrilling “The Raid: Redemption” were easily among the best films I saw. Both of those appeared essentially as stopovers en route to their theatrical releases, whereas a lot of selections build buzz at festivals like this one, and the fate of many others hung in the balance in a very real way based purely on the response of attendees.

Ironically, the two films I consider my favorites are simultaneously polar opposites and have a strangely – if not obviously – similar message: “God Bless America” and “Brooklyn Castle.” In the former, Bobcat Goldthwait directs Joel Murray and Tara Lynne Barr in a misanthropic revenge tome about an insurance company worker who goes on a killing spree. In the latter, Katie Dellamaggiore documents the amazing achievements of New York junior high students who compete nationally in (literal) master-class chess tournaments. What they share in common is a desire to see people be their best selves; otherwise, it”s true one”s a wish-fulfillment revenge fantasy and the other an inspirational story of hope. But in another similarity, Goldthwait and Dellamaggiore demonstrate an amazing aptitude for capturing raw humanity at its most sublime and mundane, and announce that they”re filmmakers to watch going forward. (Which isn”t meant to undermine Goldthwait”s earlier filmmaking efforts, only to suggest he”s reached a peak that would be interesting to see him rise above.)

The two worst films I probably saw at the festival were “Babymakers” and “The Aggression Scale,” one a comedy for folks who thought that “Knocked Up” was too mature a look at parenthood, the other a home-invasion thriller that manages to avoid being a total whiff only because of one great performance, from “Friday the 13th” star Derek Mears. “Babymakers” is a one-off from the guys in the Broken Lizard comedy troupe, and though it aims to move into more mature waters than beer-drinking competitions and send-ups of slasher movies, their influence is simply too strong for it to function as anything other than farce.

Meanwhile, “Aggression Scale” is most offensive when sexualizing its teenage female lead, who pointlessly luxuriates in a shower before her house is broken into by thugs, but Mears” self-aware and sensitive turn as a thug and a kick-ass opening credits sequence (and soundtrack) rank as the very few things that I could tolerate. Still, others seemed to admire its pulpy intensity, but my favorite moment of the festival was when the filmmaker retweeted my scathing pan and we subsequently engaged in a very respectful conversation via Twitter.

Then of course there were the “missed opportunities,” films that started off with strong ideas but failed to follow through satisfyingly on them. In just an afternoon, I saw both “Electrick Children” and “In Our Nature,” and then two days later, I caught “Funeral Kings,” all three of which feature some really intriguing ideas and compelling characters but peter out before they pay off. Firstly, “Children” shows remarkable promise from its writer-director Rebecca Thomas, who tells the story of a teenage girl who leaves her Mormon homestead for Las Vegas after becoming convinced she was the beneficiary of an immaculate conception that occurred while she was listening to a cover of The Nerves” “Hanging on the Telephone.” But the film falls into indie quirk as it wraps up, undermining what might have been an interesting commentary on religious indoctrination or at the very least a captivating coming-of-age story.

“In Our Nature,” meanwhile, has a real wealth of keenly-observed moments in its chronicle of a father and son who clash over the course of a shared weekend at their family cabin, and great performances from its four leads give the drama real gravitas. But its sense of naturalism never finds a fully comfortable cinematic rhythm, and the end of the film fails to satisfy either more conventional expectations of catharsis, or leave viewers with something more idiosyncratic than “well, that just happened.”

As for “Funeral Kings,” it falls to some extent into the same space as “Electrick Children,” capturing a particularly pivotal moment in adolescents” lives as filtered through the filmmakers” experiences as altar boys. But it never balances movie material with real character development, eventually yielding to cheap audience manipulation and crime-story plot developments that are impossible to care about – especially after we”ve cultivated real concern for the characters.

For locals, the hottest ticket during the festival was “Sinister,” a midnight movie written by Austin native Robert Cargill, and it delivers the goods as a horror-mystery with mythical undertones. But a few muscular music choices and a finale that”s either too specific or not specific enough unfortunately keep it from becoming an instant classic, especially since it fails to have that haunting quality that keeps people awake the night after they”ve seen something truly terrifying.

On the other hand, the premiere of “Cabin in the Woods” essentially reinforced the blogosphere”s early adoption of Drew Goddard”s metatextual horror treatise, but it left me a little cold, at least in the sense that it”s a more pessimistic movie than it might think it is. Nevertheless, it”s downright entertaining and it should be interesting to see the discussions it spawns after being released later in 2012.

Finally, Richard Linklater”s “Bernie” and Stephen Kessler’s “Paul Williams: Still Alive” were both solid films – so solid, in fact, that they sort of exemplified the overall reaction I had to the festival: pretty good, but not quite great. Linklater”s film is funny and engaging even as it deconstructs the true-crime killing of a widow by a beloved funeral director, while Kessler”s finds some truly moving moments as he deconstructs his own fandom while developing a friendship with Williams. But “Bernie” leaves you with less emotional engagement than a brisk sense of being entertained, and “Still Alive” spends a little more time examining Kessler than its supposed subject, so even though they have real and meaningful merits, they”re unspectacular – not quite that mind-blowing enthusiasm that all attendees are so eager to experience.

Instead, there”s only a modest sense of satisfaction, which certainly beats an unhappy or unenjoyable festival. But ultimately, SXSW 2012 didn”t quite live up to previous years, albeit in only a sort of enviable way: productive and entertaining but seldom profound, it preserved audiences” interest in movies, but didn”t push it forward.

For year-round entertainment news and commentary follow @mtgilchrist on Twitter.

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 Well, who’d’a thunk it? The 1980s TV reboot that absolutely no one asked for has rather taken critics by surprise — crass and rough-edged as it is, the sheer unapologetic silliness of Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s film has charmed everyone from Ebert to A.O. Scott. I am also in the fan club, having particularly appreciated its generational flip on the teen-movie formula — and the delightful performance of Channing Tatum. Our HitFix neighbor Drew McWeeny is even more enamored, going so far as to give it an A+ rating. Early box-office numbers suggest audiences are with the critics for once, but what about you? When/if you’ve seen it, don’t forget to give us your take.  

While I expect to maintain a long and happy friendship with all the films in my Top 10 of 2011, there’s one title I’m pretty confident I’ll revisit more often than the others. I’ve already seen Whit Stillman’s deliciously off-kilter campus comedy “Damsels in Distress” twice, and still I’m itching for a revisit when it lands in theaters next month. Verbatim quoting of vast chunks of its hilarious, verbally lacy script seems an inevitability; apologies in advance to those who have to be around me.

I’m intrigued to see how the film plays when it finally surfaces outside the festival ghetto. My two viewings of the film, at the Venice and London fests, couldn’t have been more atmospherically opposed. At Venice, where it premiered as the closing film (my review), it was warmly greeted at the press screening by a riotously cackling crowd of critics who couldn’t have been more game for Stillman’s breezy humor after a festival dominated by grim-faced fare.

In London, however, it was a funky but arguably misguided choice of Surprise Film: wincingly stony silence greeted its barrage of kooky-smart jokes, the majority of the audience presumably unfamiliar with Stillman’s brand, and probably in the mood for something a little less dainty and rarefied. The general sense of bewilderment also seemed to infect some of the critics who caught it there: several London colleagues professed astonishment when I placed it on my year-end list.

The lesson learned here might be that the film isn’t sure to convert vast numbers of fans outside the Stillman faithful: after the writer-director’s 13-year absence since 1998’s “The Last Days of Disco,” however, the question is how large, and how loyal, that club remains. I recently revisited Stillman’s three previous features, and pleased to observe how beautifully they stand up, even as they double as exemplary fodder for a 1990s time capsule.

Around the time of his Oscar-nominated 1990 debut “Metropolitan,” critics reached for Woody Allen comparisons to describe his gently arch, observational takedowns of the East Coast upper classes; those meeting his work for the first time now would possibly make vague Wes Anderson references on the basis of his faintly heightened tone and flannel-soft visuals. Neither is really on the mark: kinder than one, pricklier than the other and more tweedily academic than either, Stillman’s voice was an authentically peculiar one from the start, and only seems more so in the current climate of American independent cinema, dominated as it is by earnest grit and ersatz preciosity. 

All of which is an over-extended introduction to a must-read profile of Stillman in — where else? — the New York Times, which follows the director through the production of “Damsels in Distress” and paints a portrait of a predictably erudite but somewhat elusive figure. His extended hiatus is explained partly by noting that he “doesn’t work very fast” — after first proposing the script idea to producers in 2006, it took him a year to write the first 23 pages — though clearly the sting of “The Last Days of Disco”‘s financial failure lingers. (He sings the praises of “cheap” filmmaking, with the $3 million budget of “Damsels” less than half that of his last feature.)

I particularly like Stillman’s take on his own writing, which fly in the face of so much screenwriting theology and critical instincts: 

“What I like and find liberating in dialogue comedy is that the characters, and what they say, are not me… These are fleeting thoughts and observations and not presented as truths but as something that illuminates the character and the dynamic between the characters. This kind of dialogue is thesis and antithesis – and we never get to a synthesis.”

That cockeyed lack of synthesis is what may have flummoxed so many of the audience members at the London screening of the film I attended; here’s hoping enough people get it next month (take note, AMPAS writers’ branch) to encourage him to take slightly less time over his fifth feature. 

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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I was just talking about Tim Burton. The singular filmmaker’s work has been on a bit of a “meh” slope in recent years, and “Dark Shadows” was really starting to look like just another obvious piece of material for him to play around with before moving on to the next. But judging by the recently released trailer, the film might just have its share of inspired moments.

I never saw the 1960s television series being re-booted and sent up here, so I have not loyalties or expectations, even. But it seems to me a good time for a film like this amid these vampire-obsessed pop culture days, or at least one without the names Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer on it.

Johnny Depp has the starring role as blood-sucker Barnabas Collins. Joining him will be Michelle Pfeiffer (in her first collaboration with Burton since “Batman Returns”), Eva Green, Chloë Grace Moretz, Helena Bonham Carter (of course), Jackie Earle Haley and Christopher Lee, among others.

Meanwhile, Burton has once again tapped a top-notch below-the-line team for the film, with production designer Rick Heinrichs front and center. (Remember the rule about Tim Burton movies nominated for Best Art Direction: They win.) Costume designer Colleen Atwood, who finally won an Oscar for a Burton movie with 2010’s “Alive in Wonderland” will be on threads, of course, but Burton will be working with DP Bruno Delbonnel for the first time, and that’s exciting. It appears they’ve nailed down a striking look. Trusted film editor Chris Lebenzon, etc.

It looks like a blast. “Reveal yourself, tiny songstress” got me big time. Promising. A bit of “Mars Attacks!,” a dash of “Edward Scissorhands,” etc. Genre-blender/author Seth Grahame-Smith wrote the adaptation. His book, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” produced by Burton and directed by Timur Bekmambetov is due out later this summer. Burton himself also has “Frankenweenie” set for Halloween.

Wait, I just noticed Delbonnel is filling in for Coens regular Roger Deakins on “Inside Llewyn Davis.” Interesting.

Anyway, a great trailer for “Dark Shadows,” which hits theaters on May 11. Check out the new trailer in HD at Apple or check out an embed, as well as the new poster, below. And tell us what you think by rating it above.

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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“Fuck ‘Glee,'” Channing Tatum’s hulking undercover cop mutters early on in “21 Jump Street,” having disguised himself as a teenager for a high-school drugs bust, only to discover that his letterman-jacketed jockishness no longer carries the social cachet it did in his youth. It’s a throwaway line that nonetheless unlocks several suspended levels of socio-cultural awareness in Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s enthusiastically goofy spin on the long-buried youth TV series of the same name — a blithe barrage of wildly variable gags that would no more admit to such awareness than have Tatum and his partner in bromance, Jonah Hill, kiss on screen.

“Glee” would, of course, and therein lies the point. Perhaps the most conceptually playful and self-sustaining entry in the recent mini-genre of 1980s TV reboots, “21 Jump Street” employs its dodgy cultural lineage less as nostalgia kick than as conversation starter: amusing (and genuinely flummoxing) Johnny Depp cameo aside, the film is only incidentally interested in its source material, and far more preoccupied with the tension between between past and present adolescent generations.

Tatum’s offhand “Glee” diss may amount to a clever-clever instance of pop eating itself — do contemporary TV shows exist in the postmodern world of period TV spinoffs? — but it also speaks to a less arch, more affecting form of social insecurity: the terrible moment every 20-something faces when he realizes that he just doesn’t get kids anymore.

With Hill and co-writer Michael Bacall’s script swiftly reaching the conclusion that the demographic has done a lot of unwarranted growing up in the last couple of decades, the defiantly R-rated “21 Jump Street” is determined to prove that adults can do reckless immaturity rather better than kids these days. The teenagers here, led by the slippery, tidily groomed Dave Franco, are big on tolerance, eccentricity, environmental issues, insipid pop-folk music and sophisticated designer drugs — all, save the last one or two, ostensibly positive developments that the Generation X-ers behind this weirdly inverted teen movie see as far juicier satirical targets than the floppy haircuts and ill-cut denim of a TV show scarcely anyone has watched or thought about for 20 years. 

All of which, I admit, makes this cheerfully crass, stylistically slipshod and very, very funny film sounds a lot more calculated and self-admiring than it is. Borrowing little more than a logline from the original series — baby-faced cops enrol as high-school students to crack down on youth crime from within — the film asserts its own gently ironic comic tone from the get-go, taking full advantage of the fact that few viewers younger than Hill will know the difference, and few viewers older will care.

Hill and Tatum play Schmidt and Jenko, high-school foes turned policy-academy buddies: equally dunderheaded as patrol cops, they’re shifted to Jump Street duty, masquerading as decidedly overgrown teen brothers to bring down Franco’s smoothly run drug ring. By their own buffoonery, geeky Schmidt is forced into the role designated for Jenko, that of the athletic would-be prom king; Jenko, in turn, has to join the science-fair squad instead. The jokes, from here on out, pretty much write themselves: bald reversals fuel the lean storytelling, with comic beats determined as much by audience expectation and star personae than any writerly manipulation.

The surprise comes when neither fish-out-of-water figure is as awkwardly received as teen-movie lore would dictate: as Hill has little trouble landing the faintly boho blonde (Brie Larson) his Eminem-worshipping 16-year-old self could only dream of, Tatum finds an unexpected kinship with the four-eyed lab geeks, whose minimal social currency has stayed constant since 1999, as his has plummeted to their level. “21 Jump Street” isn’t the first commercial film to observe the 21st-century realignment of adolescent cliques — indeed, the 21st-century realignment of cool — but it’s the first I’ve seen to question it quite so brazenly. 

That the film skirts smugness and condescension (though not some regrettable missteps into incongruous and dissonantly nasty gross-out humor) is partly attributable to the light directorial touch of Lord and Miller, whose last effort was the scrappy animated feature “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.” Treating proceedings as scarcely more credible or gravity-bound than a picture-book fantasy, they set up and shoot down the gags with necessary pace if not too much finesse, coming only temporarily unstuck in the choppy action sequences that dominate the film’s latter half.

It’s the star duo, however, that turn this iffy proposition into something first serviceable and finally a little bit special. Hill, a few pounds lighter but affably roly-poly as ever, is more subdued than his apprentice work in less specialized teen films than “Superbad” might have led us to expect, but is sparked into life by his buoyant and sincerely sweet chemistry with Tatum — who unexpectedly emerges as the comic sensation of this entire dippy enterprise.

After a long spell of quite literal grunt work that required him to act mainly from the abdomen outwards, Tatum seems finally to be waking up to the witty properties of his cartoonishly lantern-jawed hotness, as he wryly deadpans his way through a character that, for a change, isn’t any smarter than he looks, but is winningly comfortable with that. (“Fuck science!” he yells elatedly at the climax of the film’s single most riotous set piece.) With his spacily precise verbal timing and surprisingly animated physique, Tatum proves that off-the-wall comedy may yet be the best place for a lunk like him — which is one feat of reverse-type engineering on which this delightfully silly diversion couldn’t quite have counted.    

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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Part two of the AMPAS”s 30th annual “Contemporary Documentaries” screening series features two of the most talked about docs of the last few years. “Exit Through the Gift Shop” and “Catfish” will screen on Wednesday, March 21, at 7pm at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission is free to the public.

2010 Best Documentary Feature nominee “Exit Through the Gift Shop” inspired the oft asked question, “Who is Banksy?” Its legitimacy as a documentary has also been called into question. Ostensibly, the film follows street artist obsessed Thierry Guetta on his journey to capture some of his heroes in action. In the course of his filming the most elusive of them all, Banksy turns the tables, takes over the director”s role and makes the film about Guetta himself. (Incidentally, it was also Kris’ number one film of 2010.)

Three years prior to “Exit Through the Gift Shop””s release, production began on another film that would spark a plethora of online debate and controversy. In 2007, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost began documenting the life of Ariel”s brother, Nev, and his strange online relationship with a woman he had never met, and clearly, did not know. The film calls the notion of identity (particularly as we understand it in the age the internet) into question. Many also believe that it was an elaborate fabrication on the part of the filmmakers. (And, again, it popped up on Kris’ top 10 that year.)

Interestingly enough, “Exit Through the Gift Shop” producer Andrew Jarecki set out to make a documentary about clowns with his first feature and ended up finding the story of a family of accused child molesters with “Capturing the Friedmans.” It”s certainly not unheard of to discover your story along the way in documentary.

The 30th annual “Contemporary Documentaries” series is a showcase for feature-length and short documentaries drawn from the 2010 Academy Award nominations, including the winners, as well as other important and innovative films considered by the Academy that year.

The screening schedule for Part Two, which runs through May 30, is as follows:

Wednesday, March 21
“Exit through the Gift Shop”
Directed by Banksy
Produced by Jaimie D”Cruz
Academy Award nominee: Documentary Feature

“Catfish”
Directed by Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost
Produced by Andrew Jarecki, Marc Smerling, Joost, Schulman

Wednesday, April 4
“Poster Girl”
Directed by Sara Nesson
Produced by Mitchell W. Block, Nesson
Academy Award nominee: Documentary Short Subject

“Killing in the Name”
Directed by Jed Rothstein
Produced by Liz Garbus, Rory Kennedy, Rothstein
Academy Award nominee: Documentary Short Subject

“Quest for Honor”
Directed by Mary Ann Smothers Bruni
Produced by Bruni, Lawrence Taub

Wednesday, April 18
“Living for 32”
Directed by Kevin Breslin
Produced by Maria Cuomo Cole

“One Thousand Pictures: RFK’s Last Journey”
Directed and produced by Jennifer Stoddart

“This Way of Life”
Directed by Thomas Burstyn
Produced by Barbara Sumner Burstyn

Wednesday, May 2
“The Warriors of Qiugang”
Directed by Ruby Yang
Produced by Thomas Lennon, Yang
Academy Award nominee: Documentary Short Subject

“Gasland”
Directed by Josh Fox
Produced by Trish Adlesic, Fox, Molly Gandour
Academy Award nominee: Documentary Feature

Wednesday, May 16
“Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould”
Directed by Michèle Hozer, Peter Raymont
Produced by Raymont

“William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe”
Directed by Emily Kunstler, Sarah Kunstler
Produced by E. Kunstler, S. Kunstler, Jesse Moss, Susan Korda

Wednesday, May 30
“Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer”
Directed by Alex Gibney
Produced by Gibney, Jedd Wider, Todd Wider, Maiken Baird

“Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work”
Directed by Ricki Stern
Co-directed by Annie Sundberg
Produced by Stern, Seth Keal, Sundberg

For additional information, visit www.oscars.org.

For year-round entertainment news and commentary follow @JRothC on Twitter.

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If it wasn’t obvious, Gary Ross”s adaptation of Suzanne Collins”s dystopic young adult fantasy novel “The Hunger Games” opens worldwide beginning next Wednesday March 21. The book tells the story of an imagined future in which a series of wars and natural disasters have drastically reduced the size of North America, which has become the country of Panem, a polarized collection of 12 “districts” that have very limited contact with one another, each with a specialized trade.

An opulent “Capital,” which is largely hidden and isolated by a mountain range, presides over the districts and their resources. As a reminder of the consequences of a long-ago rebellion, the Capital demands that each district conduct a yearly lottery wherein a boy and a girl will be selected to participate in a televised fight to the death in a manufactured “arena.”

The novel is a YA-palatable political allegory that does not shy away from violence. Indeed, it is, among other things, about violence — not the romanticized violence that so many films depict, however. “The Hunger Games,” the film, represents one of the few true YA phenomena franchises that actually has something to say to the youth that it is reaching, something germane to the world that exists around them, relevant and critical to their present as well as their future.

There is nothing of the gratuitous or gleefully, indulgently brutal in the film. Rather, it is a simple rendering and, in some ways, all the more evocative in its restraint. Why, then, have the distributors been asked to adjust the film in order to receive the 12A classification that would make it available to the very audience for which the source material was created?

To be fair, as the BBC reports, the cuts have been relatively minor, seven seconds including the “digital removal of blood splash.” Having seen the film, I am fairly certain of which scene the The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) took issue with.

According to the organization’s report:

“A number of cuts were made in one scene to reduce an emphasis on blood and injury. An uncut 15 classification was available. These cuts were made in addition to reductions already made following an earlier ‘advice’ viewing of an incomplete version.”

While I doubt that the adjustments have dramatically shifted the overall trajectory of the story, it does seem odd that the request was made. “Reducing the emphasis on blood and injury” in a film about a government-enforced fight to the death seems somewhat counter-intuitive given that, as mentioned, the film is already sparing. I”d love to see which seven seconds were found to be objectionable and how, and if, the shifts softened the impact of said scenes.

The material in “The Hunger Games” is in some ways challenging, to be sure, and I would certainly understand parents of much younger children wanting to vet it a bit. But it is, as always, fascinating to me that cinematic offersings which glorify violence or treat it with a cartoonish disregard for consequence are acceptable and those that treat it with (as in this case) a controlled and subtle sense of realism are deemed threatening.

This, in my opinion, is not a film that needed editing in order to make it appropriate for teens. It is, in fact, one of the few films I have seen that treats said audience with a sense of dignity while still allowing them a measure of protection. The film invites them into a conversation that has far-reaching implications in a way that is both entertaining and digestible.

“The Hunger Games” has a PG-13 rating in the US for “intense violent thematic material and disturbing images – all involving teens.” In this particular instance, the MPAA (which is so often arbitrary) seems to have gotten it right.

For year-round entertainment news and commentary follow @JRothC on Twitter.

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Christopher Plummer’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “Beginners” had been so widely expected for so long — the buzz started at Toronto in 2010, frontrunner status was assumed when the film was released last summer, while most regarded him as a foregone conclusion all through awards season — that I almost forgot to be happy when it finally happened. Chalk that up to the wearying nature of the awards marathon, because Plummer’s win was one of the most satisfyingly deserved of the night: the rare career-achievement trophy for a well-past-due talent that also happens to be for peak-form, field-beating work in its own right. We don’t get too many of those. 

Having finally given the 82-year-old Canadian appropriate recognition, and made him the oldest Oscar-winner of all time in the process, the Academy might have expected not to hear from Plummer again for a while — but there’s a chance he could be troubling them again later this very year. And as with “Beginners,” the film in question is a well-buzzed holdover from last year’s Toronto fest.

“Barrymore,” a filmization of Plummer’s one-man stage show in which he plays the legendary thesp John Barrymore in his twilight days, was briefly heralded last year as a potential awards vehicle for the actor, but it would have been unwise to mount a leading campaign with the focus so squarely on his surefire supporting bid for “Beginners.” Some speculated that “Barrymore” (apparently little more than a stage performance filmed on HD) was better suited for high-end TV, but New York outfit BY Experience, which specializes in live cinema events, has confirmed that it will release the film in theaters this fall.

It’s unclear whether the distributor has the ambition or the wherewithal to mount an awards campaign for this decidedly niche proposition, but the performance has more going for it than meets the eye. Plummer has already won a Tony for his work as the famously troubled and brilliant Barrymore, whose life would be prime fodder for Hollywood biopic treatment. This may be a low-fi alternative, but the Academy isn’t entirely averse to filmed stage turns: James Whitmore earned a Best Actor nod in 1975 for a videotaping of his one-man show “Give ‘Em Hell, Harry!,” in which he played President Harry Truman.    

Plummer’s post-Oscar afterglow will draw more eyeballs to this curio than it would have done otherwise; Toronto reviews may have been indifferent to the film itself, but were unanimously admiring of the actor’s reportedly expansive star turn, which incorporates various performance-within-performance layers and even extends to song-and-dance material. The prospect of Plummer playing Barrymore is baity enough that, if word of mouth is sufficiently positive, certain voters may not even need to see the tiny film to jot down his name. A first Best Actor nod at the age of 83? Let’s see.

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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The Academy has just announced via Twitter key dates in next year’s Oscar season, and it looks like the next batch of Oscar nominees will be spending a little extra time on the circuit than normal.

The nominations announcement will happen on Tuesday, January 15, according to AMPAS. That immediately caught my eye. Given the usual order of things, you’d have expected the announcement to land on 1/22 or even 1/29 instead. The last four years the nominees have been unveiled on 1/24 (2012), 1/25 (2011), 2/2 (2010) and 1/22 (2009, an unusual Thursday announcement).

Why does this matter? Well, given that the Oscars will be held on February 24 of next year, a typical date, that makes for nearly six weeks of phase two action. Usually it’s closer to five.

I don’t know if there’s some programming issue that kept the Academy away from the latter two weeks of January for their announcement, but I almost wonder if there’s some testing going on here, inching things back into January even more, laying the foundation for bringing the ceremony itself closer to the start of the year, etc. But I’m just spit-balling.

Perhaps the Academy wants to provide more time for voters to see all the films? But really, given the great narrowing of contenders that occurs in a given film awards season, more time to see the films in phase two isn’t really necessary. Once everything’s been vetted for them, they pretty much see all the nominees. Or perhaps the Academy is responding to a lower number of ballots making it in on time. Again, just guessing.

Then again, maybe it’s simply to set a wider window to increase exposure for the the ceremony and offer up a nice, healthy build-up to the show. I don’t know. But Sundance press will be happy to hear that the announcement will drop two days before the fest, rather than somewhere in the middle, per usual.

The Oscars moved to late-February beginning with the 2003 season after being embedded in March with a lengthy phase one and two for years. They dipped back into March twice since then, for the 2005 and 2009 seasons (due to the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics, respectively). That extended phase two by two weeks in each case, but this is extra time on the other side of that window, so, interesting.

In any case, mark your calendars. Nominees will be announced January 15, 2013 and the 85th annual Academy Awards will take place at the hopefully-re-named-by-then Theatre formerly known as the Kodak on Sunday, February 24, 2013.

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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It’d be difficult to list every aspect of the recent McG atrocity “This Means War” that killed off a tiny inner part of me: between its creepily candid misogyny, casual xenophobia, apparent miscasting by Magic 8-Ball and every utterance by Chelsea Handler, we’re still only in the introductory stage. But few things about this veritable feast of failure dismayed me quite as much as the appearance (it’d be a stretch to call it a performance) of Angela Bassett as a CIA commander.

Stomping sporadically into the frame to bark orders at Tom Hardy and Chris Pine with her typically impeccable e-nun-ci-a-tion with not so much as an expression or character trait going spare, it’s the kind of thanklessly robotic grunt work any uninformed viewer would be astonished to discover is being delivered by an esteemed, Academy Award-nominated actor — and comes less than a year after she was last spotted in an identically sexless non-role as Stentorian Boss Type in “Green Lantern.” It’s dispiriting to see any decent actor in parts this perfunctory and ill-conceived; for one of the most gifted and beautiful actresses of her generation, it’s positively mortifying.

As I sank further back in my seat and pondered just how we travelled from her electric work in “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” to this, an unwelcome question crossed my mind: what if this is what awaits Viola Davis?

Admittedly, it was the day after the Academy Awards and I was still feeling unduly wounded about Davis’s Best Actress loss. And I’m fully aware of how questionable it is on multiple levels to align the career trajectories of two actresses who share little more than a skin color and an impressively granitic screen presence.

But Hollywood is in the habit of making such baseless pigeon-holing too — and if they never quite figured out how to cast an actress an intellectually and sensually alive as Bassett as a human being, outside the worthy but artistically wobbly urban drama bracket, it’s neither patronizing nor paranoid to worry about how it might take care of Davis in the wake of her mid-career breakthrough. (And lest we suggest this is purely a racial trouble, look what the woman who beat Bassett to the Oscar in 1994 — who happens to be the very same age — has been up to recently. Hollywood, it scarcely needs reiterating, is no country for older women.) 

Happily, Davis is smart and experienced enough to know that, even with all the industry goodwill she has accrued from two Oscar nominations (and presumed runner-up placings) in four years, she had best take care of herself. “The Help” may have been a $170 million smash, but its success was largely founded on it being an anomaly: studios aren’t exactly lining up dozens of racially diverse female ensemble pieces in the hope of lightning striking twice.

So last week’s news that Davis is using her immediate post-Oscar season clout to develop a biopic of pioneering congresswoman Barbara Jordan is pretty thrilling, whether or not the film turns out similarly commendable. Rather than waiting for potentially beefy roles to come to her, Davis is producing the film through her and her husband’s own production company, with Emmy-winning TV director Paris Barclay (also African-American, as it happens) attached to direct. Davis surely knows that the industry’s period of interest in her comes with a timer; she’s striking, with the most ambitious and uncommercial of dream projects, while the iron is hot.

She could scarcely have bitten off more for her first solo lead role: Barbara Jordan, a lawyer turned civil rights leader who became the first African American elected to the Texas Senate and the second black female elected to the US House of Representatives, was also a closeted lesbian whose battle with multiple sclerosis began in the prime of her career.

The cynical might say that, after narrowly losing to Meryl Streep in an Academy-pandering political biopic, Davis is rebounding with as box-ticking a bait vehicle as she could possibly have found. They may or may not be proven right; more important than idle Oscar projections is that a 46-year-old African-American actress is at the point in her career where she can build a project like this pretty much around her name alone, and not as a cable-TV venture either. One can only hope the film’s enough of a success to keep that door ajar.

Now would be a good time, too, for Scott Rudin to make good on his claim to the 2010 Broadway revival of August Wilson’s “Fences,” which won both Davis and Denzel Washington Tony Awards: the project’s never going to seem more cinematically viable. In the meantime, we have the noble if somewhat drippy-sounding “Won’t Back Down,” in which Davis stars opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal as a union-fighting teacher, to look forward to; whether it’s Lifetime fodder or a pop hit in the making, it’ll keep her profile steady. Against all Hollywood precedent, blooming in her late forties is perhaps the best pattern Davis’s career could have taken: an Oscar or two notwithstanding, she’s got nothing to lose.   

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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If there were a film titled “The Curse of the Red Planet” that took place on Mars — or had Martians as central figures — recent endeavors indicate that it would be a financial disaster. Or at the very least, it would have little chance of success. Disney became so convinced of the power the word “Mars” had to repel ticket sales (though in part due to fear of alienating a female audience) that they did a mid-campaign 180 and switched the title “John Carter of Mars” to the equally problematic “John Carter” (which left many people wondering, “Should I know who that is?”)

Indeed, film pundits have (primarily sight unseen) been predicting grand scale disaster for “John Carter” for months now. In truth, the title had a disappointing opening weekend, coming in just behind Universal”s family film “The Lorax” with a $30.6 total. Though, as Gregory Ellwood points out in today”s box office report, “John Carter” earned $70 million internationally in addition to its domestic gross, a figure that may give the financiers at Disney some measure of hope that the $250 million film will not pick up where 2011″s disastrous “Mars Needs Moms” left off (In the red. Yep).

The picture will likely be quite different for both the Dr. Suess and Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations once the Suzanne Collins adaptation, “The Hunger Games,” makes its way into theatres on March 23.

There are a wealth of theories floating around that address the source of the decided lack of interest in “John Carter”: A marketing campaign that left many potential audience members confused, a reliance on the draw of a property that, in truth, had limited and highly specified reach and a cast comprised mostly of respected actors without established “star power” have all been suggested as root causes. And we”d have to agree that each of those factors all played a role in the difficulties that “John Carter” is currently facing. Another issue was, in all likelihood, the aforementioned doomsday predictions which can become self-fulfilling prophesies.

Despite the rather mixed critical reception (one that is pretty much on par with “The Lorax”), the average “man on the street” response (as conducted in my very unscientific survey) seems to be that people are enjoying the film for what it is, and in many cases, more so than they initially believed they would. So, is it possible that the one core issue that prevented “John Carter” from enjoying “first blockbuster of the year” success was, in fact, the curse of the red planet?

“A Princess of Mars,” the first in author Edgar Rice Burroughs”s “Barsoom” (Mars) series, serves as the source material for the film. The tale of the Civil War veteran”s unlikely journey to Mars was initially published in 1917, a time when Mars still held a mythic fascination for the people of Earth. Indeed, the term “Martian” and “alien” may have been synonymous for some.

But, as The Guardian highlights, as science evolved and we learned more about the realities of the planet, said fascination withered into a somewhat flaccid…disappointment. There would be no life on Mars and certainly no mighty civilizations. Our eyes turned elsewhere for imaginative versions of alien life forms, and all that implies further reaches of space and distance in time.

Recent endeavors to reignite our affection for the red planet (particularly offerings that contain the notion of an alien species hailing from Mars) have largely been ignored or rejected by audiences, “Mars Attacks!” (1996), “Mission to Mars” (2000) and “Mars Needs Moms” (2011) to name a key few. Audiences seem to simply find the idea of “life on Mars” to be dated to a degree that not even kitsch can redeem it.

The term science-fiction implies that there is, in fact, at least some small measure of foundation in science. Just enough so that we may suspend our disbelief to the degree that we can not only give over the idea that the events are happening in a fictional world, but also open our minds to the possibility that the story could take place within the realms of our own reality. “John Carter” is far more fantasy than sci-fi. Embracing the fantasy elements and leaving the particulars of our world behind may have served the adaptation. A contemporary audience may have responded better to an “unknown” planet, somewhere well beyond the recesses of our current understanding.

Perhaps equally salient is the fact that the American Civil War, particularly in this context, likely holds very little appeal to the audience the marketing team was after: young men. It is also somewhat problematic that the central character fought on the side of the Confederacy, an issue that is primarily glossed over in the film. Carter is no fan of war and refuses to fight at the outset, and the concept of a just versus unjust battle is touched upon, but, perhaps not fully dealt with.

Director Andrew Stanton was devoted to the original series. As a lifelong fan he was committed to honoring the source material, which is to be commended, of course. But I have to wonder if a few small alterations would have honored the intent, tone and style of the original while making it palatable for a modern audience. Or, perhaps this is simply one that, as influential as it has been, was best left as a beloved volume from a time that has passed.

For year-round entertainment news and commentary follow @JRothC on Twitter.

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I’ve complained before about the Razzie Awards, a goofy institution that long ago had the fun sapped out of it by its voters’ narrowness of focus and constant recycling of the same targets. This year’s awards, curiously shifted to April Fools’ Day, are a case in point: how many times do we need to keep beating up on the “Twilight” franchise when there are more egregious (not to mention original) offenders out there? As if to illustrate how devoid of inspiration the Razzies have become, they nominated the same five films for Worst Picture, Director, Screenplay and Ensemble. Spread the love loathing a little, people.

Evidently, I’m not the only one to feel this way. The folks at Movieline have decided to beat the Razzies at their own game with the inaugural Soily Awards, a self-described “attempt to reconcile the year’s highest-profile Hollywood misfires with their truly uninspired brethren.” 20 critics and journalists were polled, including yours truly, and while the resulting nominations aren’t quite as cutting as they could be, they at least make for more amusing reading than the Razzie list.

Movieline have hedged their bets a little by offering three separate top prizes of sorts: an overall Worst Picture award, the Shit-the-Bed Award for failed prestige fare and the Shart Prize for unpromising films that turned out even worse than their buzz. That “W.E.” doesn’t feature in any of these three categories is disappointing — it’s more worthy of ridicule than the functional third installment in the “Transformers” franchise — but clearly they’re still finding their way.

There are three overlaps, meanwhile, with the Oscar ballot: Best Picture nominees “War Horse” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” are both up for the Shit-the-Bed Award (though there’s at least one fellow Academy favorite I’d rather see there), while Glenn Close can add a final, not terribly flattering, mention to her list of accolades for “Albert Nobbs.”

Here’s the list:

Worst Picture of 2011
“Abduction”
“Conan the Barbarian”
“Green Lantern”
“The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)”
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”

Achievement in Bad Direction
Michael Bay, “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”
Dennis Dugan, “Jack and Jill”
Clint Eastwood, “J. Edgar”
David Gordon Green, “Your Highness” and “The Sitter”
Zack Snyder, “Sucker Punch” 

Achievement in Bad Acting
Russell Brand, “Arthur”
Glenn Close, “Albert Nobbs”
Taylor Lautner, “Abduction” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part I”
Alex Pettyfer, “Beastly” and “I Am Number Four”
Adam Sandler, “Just Go With It” and “Jack and Jill”

Brown Paycheck Achievement in Bad Acting
(most lopsided ratio of salary to quality)
Bradley Cooper, “The Hangover Part II”
Harrison Ford, “Cowboys & Aliens”
Nicole Kidman, “Just Go With It”
Helen Mirren, “Arthur”
Natalie Portman, “Your Highness,” “No Strings Attached” and “Thor”

The Shart Prize
“Arthur”
“Atlas Shrugged: Part I”
“Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star”
“Your Highness”
“Zookeeper”

Shit-the-Bed Award
“Carnage”
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
“The Iron Lady”
“J. Edgar”
“War Horse” 

Of the Worst Picture nominees, only “Green Lantern” made my ballot: I also submitted “W.E.,” “Brighton Rock,” “Incendies” and “The Last Circus.” And while I contributed to Glenn Close’s nomination, I also had hopes for Jim Broadbent, Freida Pinto, January Jones and Henry Hopper. Oh well.

More on the Movieline Soily Awards, as well as a reader vote, here.

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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Oh, you thought awards season was over? Well, it is, but there’s plenty of room to drag out its last throes on late night, like Jonah Hill did to kick of “Saturday Night Live” last night.

The whole thing just reminded me of something that kind of nagged at me last season, even if I didn’t have an issue with it in principle: I still don’t get how Hill got as far into the season as he did. I mean, yeah, he grew up in Beverly Hills and has plenty of friends pulling for him in the industry, but I just never thought his performance in “Moneyball” was much more than serviceable (as I note now, the same word I used to describe the work back in September), and familiar.

But I’m not trying to take anything away from the guy. I’m happy for him and it looks like he’s poised to hit 2012 running with “21 Jump Street.” Still, I don’t think he really moved much beyond his comfort zone for that role.

Anyway, last night’s monologue was a send-up of Hill as a power-tripping, pretentious dolt in the wake of his awards success. And the bit with Tom Hanks at the end got a chuckle out of me. In fact, the whole episode was above average, I’d say.

Check out the monologue below or, if you can, view the full episode at Hulu.

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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So I was out most of the day and had to come into Jay Roach’s “Game Change,” which premiered this evening on HBO, somewhere in the middle. No way I was gonna wait and watch it all in one fell swoop. I’ve been eager to see this and, particularly, Julianne Moore’s performance as Sarah Palin, for some time now. When it was over, I waited an hour, caught the first half and here we are. Full disclosure.

And make no mistake, Moore OWNS this film. But not in the way you’d have expected. Sure, any actress tasked with portraying a lightning rod like Palin is going to get a lot of scrutiny and consideration, and the performance is bound to play up broad elements because, well, Palin can be a broad character.

But Moore hits the deep fissures of fear and mortal terror, emotional overload and, ultimately, unbridled narcissism expertly — at times, profoundly. It’s one of her finest performances. And while I won’t say I was brought too far into empathetic territory, I was happy with the textured consideration that really gives you a reason to maintain issue with who Palin is, deep down: an egomaniac.

And every note of the performance is geared toward accenting that, whether it’s Palin’s panic over looking fat (later buttressed by Woody Harrelson’s Steve Schmidt noting a crash low carb diet), her obsession with how she’s viewed back home via polling in Alaska, the glimmer in her eye when the campaign turns the trick and basically just treats her like an actress with lines to read, thereby ensuring a decent debate performance with Senator Joe Biden (“I SO don’t want to go back to Alaska.”) and, inevitably, her insistence on upsetting the natural and respected order of election night concession speeches. On and on, it’s about Palin the wannabe, the reality TV star. And that’s who she is.

(Hey, take issue and umbrage if you want. John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s book upon which the film was based was vetted and re-vetted. These are the facts. And if you’re tweeting nonsense like, “Retweet if you think that HBO’s #gamechange was biased and completely unfair to Sarah Palin and the McCain campaign,” crack a book for a change and learn a few things.)

So regarding Moore, I have to disagree with HitFix’s Alan Sepinwall, who found the film to be a “superficial” look at Palin and that it’s “a broadside at a very big target.” I mean, can you really broadside something so many refuse to believe as fact? And I most especially disagree with the notion that Moore is doing an “impression” of Palin “as opposed to giving an actual performance.” There’s a lot going on under the surface with this portrayal and I’d argue Moore is way too good an actress to stoop to imitation.

Anyway, others have rightly noted the work from Harrelson, Ed Harris (as McCain) and Sarah Paulson (as McCain-Palin senior adviser Nicolle Wallace). Harrelson in particular finds an intriguing keel, watching with abject terror as the monster to his Frankenstein takes the spotlight, craves it, feeds on it and shifts the atmosphere of the campaign into one of radio talk-show hate speech and riles a moronic but, until then, safely slumbering set of American humanity. But I can’t imagine the takeaway here being anything other than glowing admiration for what Moore has done. She better be in the Emmy conversation later this year. I’m sure she will be.

“Game Change” will air on HBO consistently enough over the next few weeks. Give it a look if you didn’t catch it tonight. On top of being a stellar depiction of an unfortunate watershed moment in American politics, it’s also just a damn fine yarn, a compelling story well-conveyed.

But thematically, it’s rich. “You’re so caught up in winning you start to lose yourself.” That’s a line Harris’s McCain utters in the film’s first scene, at a time when McCain was looking like an also-ran in the race for the 2008 Republican nomination. Those 11 words are the movie. And it’s echoed toward the end of the story, when the idea of the film as “Misery,” Palin as Annie Wilkes crossed my mind. “Game Change” almost tiptoes into horror territory at times. I was afraid, mainly for McCain and his legacy, held hostage by an infant.

#bracesforconservativegooglers

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Disney”s “John Carter” opened this weekend and, thus far, seems to be maintaining a slightly stronger presence at the box office than was originally anticipated. Andrew Stanton’s film won Friday night with $9.8 million, though Universal”s “The Lorax” is predicted to overtake it by today”s end.

Adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “A Princess of Mars” (initially published in 1917), the first in the author’s sci-fi/fantasy series about the planet “Barsoom” (Mars), the film follows an embittered Civil War veteran on his unlikely journey to the planet, where he is, once again, drafted into a conflict not of his making.

Established character actor Willem Dafoe signed on to don a performance capture suit and stilts in order to portray Tars Tarkas (the 9-foot-tall leader of the alien warrior race the Tharks) in the film after having worked with helmer Stanton on “Finding Nemo” and was intrigued by the idea of doing something he had never done, or seen, previously.

Dafoe is no stranger to the awards circuit with two Best Supporting Actor nods (one for “Platoon” in 1986 and a second for “Shadow of the Vampire” in 2000). In the contemporary climate, however, there has been a back-and-forth between those who believe that performance capture specialists (Andy Serkis in particular) ought to receive recognition for their performances alongside actors who have appeared in 100% live action films and those who feel that a separate category is required.

20th Century Fox, you’ll recall, took a stand in favor of the latter by strongly campaigning Serkis’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” performance in the Best Supporting Actor category last year. The actor was also recognized a couple of times along the circuit for his work alongside flesh-and-blood portrayals.

Dafoe spoke about his experience with the technology at a recent Tempe, Arizona press event for the film and reflected a bit on its place in the larger context of awards recognition.

“I think clearly people appreciate what Andy Serkis does, so that”s where the dialog came in,” Dafoe said of the ongoing debate. “I think unless you are a performer you don”t know how a performer contributes to motion capture. It is important, but film is such a collaboration and it”s even harder with motion capture to know what the actor’s contribution is and what the animator’s contribution is and the lighting and the photographers. It”s hard enough to judge what an actor”s contribution is and when it”s removed by so many filters it becomes even more of a challenge.”

The distance that the animation creates between the performer and the final on-screen presentation still creates confusion for the viewer at times. Though there are many who understand the finer points of performance capture and have a respect for the nuance that the actor provides, still others confuse the medium with the limitations associated with traditional voice-over cartoon animation.

“I talked to one journalist that saw the movie (‘John Carter’) and thought I just voiced Tars Tarkus,” Dafoe recalled. “I was like, ‘Man voice schmoiced! I did those scenes! I just had to be stretched to be this green guy because I don”t look like that.” So I think it”s awhile before people have an appreciation of what actors do in this kind of work. I think, popularly, motion capture is going to be seen as a special category.”

Though there are those who feel that a separate category represents an inequity for the performer, a consolation prize of sorts, I wonder if it is perhaps time to consider it as a solution. The question then would become: Should there be one category which the performer and animators would share, or two categories, one for performance and one for animation?

As these technologies advance it is always interesting to note how embedded structures evolve with them, or, in fact, not. Meanwhile, you can see a glimpse of Defoe in aforementioned stilts in the making of “John Carter” video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAzEYw0emNw&w=640&h=360]

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Here’s a box office story antidote to all those depressing sentiments regarding the $100 million write-off that is “John Carter.”

As Austin’s South by Southwest Film Festival forges ahead this week, it’s worth remembering that last month’s Oscar-winning documentary feature, “Undefeated,” started it’s long journey there almost exactly a year ago. Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin’s inspirational look at an embattled high school football program bowed at the fest on March 13 of last year, was later acquired by The Weinstein Company, and finally saw a theatrical release on February 17, just a week before the Academy Awards.

However, it wasn’t until March 2, last weekend, that it finally found its way to Memphis, Tennessee, the film’s setting, as it splashed onto a screen at the Malco Paradiso Theatre. And what a splash it made.

According to Commercial Appeal, “Undefeated” raked in $20,000 of it’s $82,000 gross last weekend on that one screen alone. That’s good for 25%. Of course the home town would come out to take a look and/or be supportive, but that’s a pretty significant percentage.

“It’s very unusual when you have Memphis do better business than New York or Los Angeles,” Weinstein Co. distribution and marketing maven Erik Lomis is quoted as saying in the piece. “It was twice the next-best single theater gross.” And not only that, but the Paradiso’s take for the film was good enough to beat the combined amount earned for the film on two screens in Los Angeles.

The piece also notes that in the wake of the film’s success and impact, subject Bill Courtney — the volunteer coach who whips the team into shape in the film — has signed on to WME and will tour the country as a promotional speaker. Normally I’d chafe at the Hollywood machine gobbling up a guy like that, but Courtney had a huge impact on a lot of lives and if he can be positioned to do the same for more, then that’s hardly a bad thing. On top of which, I’m sure it’s going to be lucrative for him, and he is not the kind of guy I’d begrudge a dollar by any means.

“Undefeated” is currently on just 12 screens nationwide and is clearly expanding slowly to build intrigue. Lomis says the film will “continue to roll out in a meaningful way,” whatever that might mean, but I find myself wondering if this could be a lovely little box office story at the end of the day. Time will tell.

If you haven’t had a chance to see “Undefeated,” do so the first chance you get. It’s an emotional, intimate, expertly crafted story that’s sure to draw out a tear or two, the kind of filmmaking that should be encouraged.

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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