Welcome to Movie Musings with Laremy, a weekly feature that dives into the weekly happenings around the cinematic landscape.
Of what do I speak? The Hurt Locker will vanquish Avatar in the Best Picture (Drama) category with The Hollywood Foreign Press. Then, come Oscar night, James Cameron’s Avatar will win Best Picture as his former wife Kathryn Bigelow takes Best Director. It’s an exes two-step!
Bonus Random Thought: I’m really considereding getting t-shirts made with that slogan. It could be at least as big with “you’re fired!”
2. Avatar Takes Box-Office Crown Number Five.
The last film to pull that off? Haley Joel Osment’s The Sixth Sense. If Avatar can take a sixth crown it will be the first movie to pull that off since, wait for it, Titanic. My research indicates that one was also by James Cameron, modern master of the box-office.
Bonus Random Thought:
3. Spider-Man 4 Becomes Spider-Man Jr.
Tobey Maguire is out. Sam Raimi is out. The whole franchise has gone kaput, as the creative minds involved couldn’t get together on the script. Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) is reportedly at the top of Sony’s wishlist to direct the reboot. The news is coming fast and furious, with some prominent netizens left angry while others were looking on the bright side. My take? I’ve always been a “let’s wait and see before we judge” sort of guy. I’m the same on this topic. I thought Spider-Man 2 was the best of the bunch, but the franchise as a whole, while wildly profitable, isn’t something I’d consider an artistic or entertainment success.
Bonus Random Thought: Marc Webb seems like a great guy. And 500 Days of Summer was a delight. But remember the key scene in that film, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt singing and dancing? Now remember back to Spider-Man 3, when Raimi destroyed all hope of being taken seriously by recreating Saturday Night Fever with Maguire’s Spidey? Yeah, one was a great scene while the other was a disaster. But let’s just start some sort of “No dancing in Superhero movies movement.” Just to be safe. I’ve embedded the videos below, just in case you’ve repressed the cheese factor of Spider-Man 3 or forgotten the excellence of 500 Days of Summer.
4. Steven Soderbergh Throws a Punch.
Buried within the Che commentary was the following quote: “movies, I think, have become so disposable… There aren’t many opportunities for them to be taken seriously, the way they were in the late ’60s and ’70s here in the United States.” Yikes. That sounds like a broken man. Plus, and more importantly, he’s probably incorrect in this assessment.
Yes, the ’60s and ’70s were the halcyon days for “movies that mattered” but it was also a time of massive societal upheaval, overt discrimination, and rampant sexism. Movies might have mattered, but the access to make movies was extremely limited. Now? We get entertaining movies with a message snuck in. The Dark Knight was about terrorism. The Lord of the Rings was about faith and the moral highground. Up was about grief and aging. Sure, we still get the occasional Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but no era is perfect.
Bonus Random Thought: We’re getting close to the time when a guy with Wes Anderson’s mind has access to James Cameron’s tools. Am I the only one out there who thinks the future’s so bright we gotta wear shades?
I was ruminating the other day that Jurassic Park finally feels dated. The dinosaurs can’t compete with having just seen Na’Vi on the big screen. Back in 1993 though, the first one was massive, you couldn’t excape it. The film was in the top 20 all-time for domestic grosses, and we’re getting closer to making the science a reality.
The plot could go any number of directions, the first edition gave a wink at the morality of the situation before pivoting hard towards mind-boggling action. It was effective, but by the time this hits production you could expand the universe tenfold. What about dinosaurs as military weapons? Or genertically modified mini-dino pets unleashed upon the suburbs? Would you pay to see a movie about a T-Rex mother wreaking havoc to find her baby T-Rex? Or heck, just Roland Emmerich this thing, and do all three in one movie. The possibilities are endless with the budget no longer weighed down by the special effects budget. Put me down for “excited” about the potential here.
Checkout last week’s Movie Musings here
Laremy is the lead critic and senior producer for a website named Film.com. He’s also available on Twitter, also soon to be rebooted.
