Every hour on the hour until 7:00pm today, Walt Disney Pictures is screening a pair of scenes from Robert Zemeckis’s upcoming “A Christmas Carol” over at the Universal City IMAX theater as part of the excited, long-winded publicity build-up for the film. Currently a cross-country train tour is parked in Sacramento, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the making of process as well as the scenes exhibited today. Next weekend it’ll be on to Oakland and will continue through its five-to-six month odyssey until it pulls into New York’s Grand Central station just days prior to the film’s November 6 release.
For details on when the exhibition will be in your neck of the woods, check out the tour’s schedule.
As for the footage itself, the scenes are strikingly different. The first is something of a character initiation for Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey), in case you’re somehow unaware of his place in literary lore. It isn’t the best scene for showing off the film’s 3D particulars but it is, however, a great indication of the detail and textured artistic direction of the film. The sets are rendered as beautifully as Zemeckis’s “Beowulf,” though there is more of a glimmer of existence in the “lifeless eyes” that many were so loathe to observe in “The Polar Express.” We also get a look at Bob Cratchit in this scene, one of actor Gary Oldman’s three gigs on the production.
I really don’t know what to say about this. I understand Christopher Nolan is a progressive artist, a guy who understands both the necessity of shunning convention and the idea that what one may expect isn’t always the best solution. He’s proven it time and again with the films in his re-booted Batman franchise, starting at the top with a story that involved a villain largely unknown to the masses. He brought in Heath Ledger in a move some thought a bit too outside-the-box, and boy 
Almost all critics and bloggers are guilty of it at some time or another — when one is suitably impressed by a particular film or performance, they often express their approval in Oscar-related terms. “So-and-so is Oscar-worthy,” “Start the Oscar buzz now for such-and-such,” and so on. It’s a lazy and fate-tempting practice, and I confess I fall into the trap occasionally myself.
In 2000 I remember reading a post on Ain’t It Cool News by Harry Knowles. Having seen an unfinished cut of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” the Ron Howard film based on the beloved Dr. Suess story and animated program, Knowles believed that the film would redefine Howard as a filmmkaer, elevate him to a higher level and be the film he would be remembered for.
The first still for “I Love You Phillip Morris” 
I’m no fan of Will Ferrell’s comedic sensibilities in the slightest, but “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” is probably the best film of his typical mold to hit screens yet. I know “Anchorman” has its devoted, and “Old School” was apparently good enough in the eyes of Bravo to make it to an obscenely high position on their recent (awful) list of the best comedies of all time.