In Contention

Tag: James Cameron

  • James Cameron says circle your calendars, August 21 is “‘Avatar’ Day”

    I’ll get to my reaction to the 25 minutes of absolutely mind-blowing “Avatar” Comic-Con footage in a few minutes, but for now, it’s worth announcing that James Cameron dropped a bit of news at today’s big Fox panel for the film.  If you weren’t able to be in Comic-Con for the big unveiling, you won’t have to wait until December to get a glimpse of the film:

    We’re going to do something unprecedented.  It’s a social marketing experiment.  We’re going to take over as many IMAX 3D theaters and other select 3D theaters worldwide on August 21 and we’re going to let an international global audience come see 15 minutes of “Avatar” for free.  It’s going to be “Avatar” day.

    There you have it.  Circle your calendars.

  • 3D presentations ready for their close ups at Comic-Con

    Jim Carrey in A Christmas CarolAs I look out my 29th floor window I can see the Hall H line, peppered with air matresses and tents, is already at epicly ridiculous proportions, but most of those nutcases are “Twilight” obsessives hoping to a secure a spot for Summit’s panel later today.  The big stuff, however, will revolve around the 3D presentations of Disney’s “A Christmas Carol” and James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

    Over at the LA Times, John Horn has previewed today’s festivities, coming at it from the angle of 3D being perhaps a last ditch effort to cash in for a business that sees profits slipping yearly.  The buzz studios and filmmakers are aiming to drum up here in San Diego is crucial.  Horn talked to a number of artists involved with today’s unveilings, among them, “Christmas Carol” director Robert Zemeckis.

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  • 7/16 Web Round-up

    Emma Watson• Emmy nominations unleashed, Denis Leary robbed again. [Emmys.tv]

    • Xan Brooks and the “Antichrist” debate.  One more time around. [The Guardian]

    • Jonathan Romney, meanwhile, tries to break down the mind of Lars Von Trier. [The Independent]

    • 25 new faces of independent film. [Filmmaker Magazine]

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  • ‘Antichrist’ vs ‘True Lies’

    Jamie Lee Curtis in True LiesOver at the Guardian, Michael Hann is rehashing an argument that, over the last two months, has become a very tired one indeed: that Lars von Trier hates women, that “Antichrist” is his most overtly misogynistic expression yet of said hate, shock, outrage, blah blah blah.

    As you know, the “misogyny” complaint is not one I have any time for, given that a) Von Trier is one of the few auteurs out there evincing a clear fascination with women in his work, b) the sympathies of “Antichrist” lie more with its emotionally riven female protagonist than her passive-aggressive husband, and c) the film’s gender politics serve principally to reinvigorate horror-film tropes.

    It’s something I discussed at greater length in my review of the film last month, but you can expect to hear the “m” word bandied about a lot more as the film bows in the UK next week.

    That said, even as he calls it “an expression of fear about female sexuality, with no greater purpose than the “Saw” or “Hostel” films,” Hann allows that greater offenders exist within the Hollywood system, with James Cameron’s 1994 actioner “True Lies” as his prime example.

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  • Bigelow and Cameron on ‘The Hurt Locker’

    Kathryn Bigelow on the set of The Hurt LockerIn this weekend’s Sunday New York Times, film critic Manohla Dargis falls in love with director Kathryn Bigelow all over again.  I wouldn’t necessarily say the astutely written profile fawns over the “Hurt Locker” director, but it’s a more passionately open and admiring piece than one typically expects from the usually biting and removed Dargis.

    As you would expect, much of the piece concentrates on Bigelow’s unlikely career in an industry dominated by men.  But for Dargis, the fascination of the subject, of course, lies in Bigelow’s artistic attraction with the concerns of men.  That attraction is rendered with penetrating character strokes in “The Hurt Locker,” which Guy recently reviewed out of Edinburgh.  The film is a meditation on war as an addiction, packed with some of the year’s finest performances and calculated in its delivery.  In that way it is actually intriguing that the film will share multiplexes with Michael Mann’s similarly measured “Public Enemies” in a few short weeks.

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  • 6/5 Web Round-up

    James Cameron on the set of Avatar• Carmike Cinemas honcho S. David Passman III gets back to basics, like cleaning the bathrooms. (This story hits home with me because I grew up going to a shoddy Carmike theater.) [Company Town]

    • Headline of the month.  Not film related, but necessary for your morning LOL dose. [MyFoxBoston.com]

    • Drew McWeeny dives head-long into the tank for Ubisoft’s “Avatar” video game with a detailed description of what must have been a breath-taking E3 demonstration. [Motion/Captured]

    • Why Cannes awards mean squat for Oscar. [The Playlist]

    • How “Slumdog Millionaire” is changing filmmaking in India. [The Guardian]

    • Dumb list du jour… [Premiere]

    • Paul Dano, “prince regent of independent film,” rides the subway.  Just, you know, FYI. [The Times]

    • Sam Mendes drew on Hal Ashby for “Away We Go” (he just missed the poignancy). [The Hollywood Interview]

    • Searching for the Berkeley home that inspired Carl’s “Up” abode. [San Francisco Chronicle]

    • CAA reaches out to James Cameron to represent the director’s new Fusion Camera System technology. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

  • James Cameron talks ‘Avatar’ at E3

    As mentioned in this morning’s round-up, the first look we’re all getting at James Cameron’s “Avatar” comes in the form of screen shots from the accompanying video game.  Quite silly, of course, but anyway, Cameron talked briefly about the film and at length about the game at the on-going Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) yesterday.

    Cameron talked at length about the film’s plot, which I’ve steered clear from elsewhere but if you’re like me, it’s a gold mine of information.  When he begins discussing the “mother of all battles” that closes the film, the geek hairs stood up on the back of my neck.

    You can read a full transcript of Cameron’s lead-in address, right up until he begins discussing the Ubisoft video game, after the jump.  Here’s a video of the presentation, from G4:

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  • Concept art from Cameron’s ‘Avatar’

    All of this, I imagine, will be appearing in “The Art of Avatar: James Cameron’s Epic Adventure,” which will feature a foreward written by Peter Jackson.  Click the images for higher res:

    Concept art from Avatar

    Concept art from Avatar

    (Courtesy: Marketsaw, via /Film)

  • SHORT TAKE: “Terminator Salvation” (*1/2)

    Terminator SalvationI knew five minutes into McG’s cumbersome, misguided, lifeless “Terminator Salvation” that I would be writing a short take rather than a full review.  The film sucks inspiration out of the viewer in a staggering fashion.  It disavows intriguing ideas explored in the franchise to date and renders a potentially exciting re-launch of the material impotent and meaningless.  It is frankly difficult to give the film a whole lot of thought.

    This glossy new installment is splintered with the shrapnel of smart and at times visionary ideas, both narratively and visually.  But it has no idea which way is up.  It is a video game, not a piece of cinema.  It is the accomplishment of a filmmaker smitten with the work of people far more talented and far more dedicated to realizing something that endures, rather than something that capitalizes on pre-existing framework.  And it is a nightmare to anyone who cherished James Cameron’s now 25-year-old creation.

    And that might be a key statement.  Not everyone holds that creation dear.  And for them, a compelling film might be in store.  But I wanted more.  I certainly wiped my brow with relief in the summer of 2003 when Jonathan Mostow’s largely misunderstood “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” managed to bridge two philosophies under the same umbrella, but I knew something bigger and more thematically powerful was needed to recharge the dimming light on the “Terminator” series.  Something with a particular blend of creative ingenuity and allegiance was necessary.  “Terminator Salvation” substitutes confused storytelling for the former and eye-rolling winks and nudges for the latter.

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  • The Film Experience’s ‘Terminator’ retrospective

    Arnold Schwarzenegger in The TerminatorBefore I tear into McG’s “Terminator Salvation” in T-minus 10 minutes, I thought I’d offer one last sliver of positivity for those who, like me, love this franchise.  The always intrepid Nathaniel Rogers over at The Film Experience has been writing up a retrospective on the three entries in the series to date, with extended looks at the first and second films already up.  He’ll be getting to “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” in due time, though I don’t know if he’ll be including “The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ or not.

    Here’s his intro on 1984’s “The Terminator”:

    In March of 1984 when The Terminator began filming, the director James Cameron and the producer Gale Ann Hurd were no Hollywood heavyweights. Cameron was no one’s idea of a visionary (except for perhaps his own) and had only one feature under his belt, Piranha 2: The Spawning — auspicious beginnings! Hurd had learned the production ropes on B movies for Roger Corman. Cameron and Hurd intended for the dark, fast and cheaply made robot movie to be their calling card. Seven months later in October the movie premiered with only its deceptively simple premise (killer machine hunts woman) and Conan the Barbarian (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to sell it. The Terminator was an immediate hit, though not quite a blockbuster. It earned a Conan-like $38 million gross in its initial run (which I believe is something roughly in the ballpark of $90 million in 2009 ticket sales).

    As a franchise it was a slow starter but as a stand alone movie The Terminator was anything but.

    And on the 1991 follow-up:

    The Terminator cost 6 million to make, Terminator 2: Judgment Day would cost 100 million plus. The budget wasn’t the only thing exploding: salaries, visual effects, setpieces, ambition, and public reaction were all supersized. Yet for all of this exponential external growth, Cameron smartly kept his focus tight and intimate.

    Sarah Connor’s opening narration and the imagery of post-apocalyptic LA it plays over, both review the first movie and download Cameron’s game plan for the sequel…

    In other words, it’s more of the same… only bigger (we notice immediately by way of shinier effects and massive fireball explosions). This repeat template is familiar but it won’t be comfortable. We’re also going deeper. The story structure is varied only enough to reflect the passage of time. But what has that passage of time wrought?

    Check out each of the in-depth pieces over at The Film Experience.

  • 5/20 Web Round-up

    (from left) James Cameron and Sam Worthington on the set of Avatar• Peter Sciretta asks for your most hated uses of CGI in movie history. [/Film]

    • Charlie Kaufman talks “Synecdoche, New York,” his “mutant horro film,” across the pond. [Daily Telegraph]

    • IMAX plans to cozy up next to James Cameron’s “Avatar” for an extended run. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Donna Freydkin chats up “Terminator Salvation” star Christian Bale. [USA Today]

    • Matt Bradshaw remembers the movie summer of 1980. [Cinematical]

    • Christopher Campbell puts together a casting call for Steven Spielberg’s recently announce Martin Luther King biopic. [Spout Blog]

    • Richard Corliss picks the top 10 Cannes films ever. [Time]

  • Soderbergh offers up expletives in response to ‘Avatar’ footage

    Steven SoderberghI’m a bit behind the curve on getting to this item so apologies if you’ve already read about it.  Back in February, Total Film magazine put together a great feature on James Cameron’s “Avatar,” an anticipated “game changer” set for release later this year and probably the industry’s most anticipated film since, well, Cameron’s last effort, 1997’s “Titanic.”  One of the people interviewed in the piece was filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, who, at the time, couldn’t contain his excitement at the footage he’d seen:

    “Yeah, I went to the set…I can tell you that shit was mindblowing. The shit I saw was crazy. Like, craaaazy. I I think it’s gonna be gigantic. It’s gonna be another one of those benchmarks. There’s gonna be Before that movie and After.”

    Well in a recent interview for “The Girlfriend Experience” with Coming Soon’s Ed Douglas, Soderbergh still had it on his mind:

    We were asking why [Soderbergh] thought recent films didn’t have quite the impact or longevity as the classics, and he gave us a great response about how the volume of movies being made and seen made it hard for anything to have the cultural impact of a movie like The Godfather or be remembered. He was disappointed there weren’t those sorts of benchmarks in the movies being made today, but he surprised us by adding that he thought James Cameron’s Avatar would be one of those benchmarks:

    “I’ve seen some stuff and holy sh*t. It’s the craziest sh*t ever. That could negate everything I just said,” he told us.

    There we are.  The sh*ts have it.  Can any film live up tho this kind of expectation?

  • Cameron to showcase making of ‘Avatar’ at upcoming PGA conference

    James Cameron on the set of AvatarI’m not entirely sure, but I think this is a gigantic ruse to get me to shell out at least 250 bucks for “Produced By” registration.  Not gonna happen.  But in all seriousness, “Avatar” is certainly one of the industry’s most anticipated films in a number of years.  It seems any info, any morsel of information, continues to be devoured, analyzed and spit back out as we await the main course in December.

    From the press release, in part:

    If sinking the Titanic was a filmmaking and storytelling marvel that led to the largest grossing film of all time, then Jim Cameron’s Avatar has the industry buzzing about what the maestro of mega-films has up his sleeve with his next hotly-anticipated holiday season blockbuster.  Attendees at the PGA’s inaugural Produced By Conference will get to hear first-hand from Cameron when he makes a rare appearance to discourse on “Seeing the Future in 3D,” June 6 at Sony Pictures Studios.

    Cameron, a pioneer of digital 3D filmmaking, will unveil the craft behind the making of Avatar with its combination of live action 3D and computer-generated, photo-real visual effects.  Avatar, to be released by 20th Century Fox in December of this year, is one of the most highly-anticipated films ever and is Cameron’s first narrative film since Titanic, the biggest box office hit of all time.

    James Cameron noted, “This is the perfect opportunity for me to share what I’ve learned from making AVATAR about the cutting edge 3-D technology that is re-shaping how people make and view movies.”

    (Full press release after the jump.)

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  • SANTA BARBARA: ‘Truth,’ Winslet light up the town

    Kate Winslet receives the Montecito Award at the 24th Annual Santa Barbara International Film FestivalI’ll dig into individual film reviews in due time.  It’s been a slow start up here in Santa Barbara but the first two nights have been charming enough.

    Rod Lurie’s “Nothing But the Truth” gets better and better each time I see it, particularly where Lurie’s work as a writer is concerned.  Some beats are on the nose, perhaps too much for some people’s tastes, but I think he’s really developing as a filmmaker.  And the flick went over like gangbusters with the crowd at the packed Arlington Theatre opening night gala yesterday.  All the clever jokes found a home.  The performances caught their stride with the viewers, it seemed, and everyone seemed to be in tune with the film’s tight rhythm.  Most of all, the message seemed to settle (not surprising in a town this left of center), and that’s encouraging.

    Jeff Bridges and James Cromwell were among the A-listers who came out to celebrate the film, which has been all but smothered by an untimely Yari Film Group bankruptcy.  And the after-party at Paseo Nuevo up the street was slammed — too slammed.  But, as always, upstairs in a V.I.P. setting is the place to be, and that’s where Lurie and his sharp college-bound son yukked it up with Bridges and “Truth” star Noah Wyle, among others.

    Here’s my brief one-off on the film from back in September when it was playing Toronto.

    Tonight, Kate Winslet was in town to accept the Montecito award, becoming the first person in the history of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival to be awarded twice.  With that in mind, festival director Roger Durling took playful umbrage on stage with her remarks at the Golden Globe ceremony a week ago when she claimed she never wins anything.

    Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin sat down with Winslet for a two-hour conversation through her career that I frankly expected to be a bore, but it was a lively and candid chat.  Clips from her wide ranging portfolio were peppered in here and there, but the cutest moment came when the actress couldn’t stop chuckling at the “Titanic” clip.  “It’s so funny because I don’t see me and Leo playing Jack and Rose,” she said.  “It’s just me and Leo.  What are we doing there?  It’s so funny to me that we were in ‘Titanic,’ I don’t know how to explain it.”

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  • 12/13 Oscarweb Round-up

    Michelle Williams in Wendy and Lucy• Rod Lurie wants to steer comparisons of “Nothing But the Truth” away from Judith Miller, evokes Susan McDougal. [Los Angeles Times]

    • The company behind releasing his film, meanwhile, goes into chapter 11. [Variety]

    • Is the Academy ready to award digital performances? [Variety]

    • Sasha Stone spotlights the seasons actor reunions. [Awards Daily]

    • 10 best Christmas bits from non-Christmas movies. [Cinema Blend]

    • Theater (er, theatre) chains across the pond plan to invest in digital technology to capitalize on upcoming releases from Steven Spielberg and James Cameron. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Iranians don’t seem to understand the correllation of the Ayatollah in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” to The Iron Shiek of 20 years ago. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Gaby Wood talks to “Revolutionary Road” helmer Sam Mendes. [The Guardian]

    • Clint Eastwood digs into his star and its purpose with Bruce Headlam. [New York Times]

    • Mark Olsen chats with Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams about “Wendy and Lucy.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • Kind of difficult not to take stabs at Fox lately. [The Big Picture]

    • Erica Abeel talks “I’ve Loved You So Long” with director Philippe Claudel. [indieWIRE]

    • A couple of talking points with John {atrick Shanley, Meryl Streep and Viola Davis on “Doubt.” [Newsweek]

  • Sigourney Weaver + who in ‘Alien 5?’

    Sigourney Weaver and Carrie Henn in AliensMeredith Woerner at io9 is wondering this week whether sci-fi/action writers will finally bone up and produce a sidekick to our modern cinema heroes and heroines worth the price of a ticket.

    She’s rightly spotlighting recent examples in “Live Free or Die Hard” and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” as reason to change the tide in the wimpy second fiddle circuit.

    Woerner brings the scuttlebutt regarding Sigourney Weaver supposedly being game for a fifth “Alien” installment in to fuel the fire even more, adding that Newt (from “Aliens”) and Winona Ryder’s Annalee Call (“Alien: Resurrection”) didn’t exactly pan out as they should have for badass, woah-man E.T. brawler Ellen Ripley in the past.

    Personally — I liked Newt — but I dig this topic, so let’s discuss.

    Weaver managed the impossible in 1986 when she actually landed an Oscar nomiantion for her role in James Cameron’s “Aliens.”  Sure, people are talking up Heath Ledger for a supporting actor mention in this year’s “The Dark Knight,” but Weaver was banging alien heads and walking away with a LEAD actress nod over two decades prior (giving ammunition to many who had hoped for a similar trick to be turned by Uma Thurman in 2003’s “Kill Bill: Vol. 1”).

    We must protect the Ripley legacy!  And I actually think giving her one fiesty, ferocious co-star would do just that.  And if Ridley Scott is indeed “enthusiastic” about going there again, it could be (could be) something special.

    Anyway, I say put Ripley up there with someone able to take the throne.  Like Vera Farmiga.  Anything but another “AVP” massacre.  ANYTHING.

  • As Cannes winds down, TIFF looms…

    With Cannes on the downswing, it becomes time to to start making preparations for the annual Toronto International Film Festival, for which screening announcements begin next month. I have been covering Toronto for more than 15 years and can safely say it is Christmas to a film critic.

    Each September I move into the Delta Chelsea Hotel for the duration of the festival — it makes no sense to make the 90 minute drive home each night as the days begin at dawn and often tie into the following morning. My wife and girls make the drive into the the city for the weekend and swim while I screen. And if time permits, I take Sherri to a Gala screening at Roty Thomson Hall.

    Over the course of each festival I see between 30 and 50 films (50 being my personal high, in fact) and though it sounds like tons of fun, and I would not miss it for the world, it is exhausting to say the least.

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