There's also a missed business opportunity here thanks to lackluster implementation of software potential. Foreign film lovers still on standard def TVs would buy Blu-ray players for this feature. They know they want the big expensive TV and the fancy Blu player, but they're waiting to get the player with the TV. For that matter, more people overall would buy Blu players if they had WIFI built in as well. Who has an ethernet plug next to their TV?

http://www.cinematical.com/2009/03/18/rome-movie-moves-from-rumor-to-reality/

This post was written by Ashley Hazlewood, who is helping me cover the vast amount of ground at SXSW Film. The scheduling of the festival this year has necessitated a great deal of movie watching, coupled only with enough time to sleep, eat, and race back and forth across town. Here I've got a capsule rundown of about half of what I've seen thus far so that I can get going with full posts throughout the day tomorrow. I Love You, Man Full review here. The Snake No-budget indie pimped by Patton Oswalt. It's about a thoroughly unlikeable, morally-challenged guy who follows a bulimic to her support group and proceeds to stalk and manipulate her. It doesn't sound like a comedy, or that the premise could be anything but a psychological horror film, but it's a champ of a calling card movie. The filmmakers don't fall into any of the common indie film traps, which make this a great deal more interesting than most of the grainy, low-budget, pretentious as hell stuff people pass off as edgy. Ong Bak 2 What a magnificent disaster. Director/star Tony Jaa's on-set breakdown was extremely well-reported in East Asia. They shut down production and weren't certain the movie would be completed. After the Thai studio conceded to some of his demands, he returned to the film, but based on the ending, I don't know how much additional shooting was actually done. A third movie is currently rolling. Team Texas lost a Boat Race drinking challenge before this screening. Moises was the anchor leg, but it was lost before it got to him. Video and an explanation of what the hell I'm talking about will be included in the full review by Moises. Canadian pal Jason Whyte has challenged him to a one-on-one rematch. Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo Okie Noodling director Brad Beesley takes a look at female Oklahoma inmates who stay on best behavior all year to compete in a rodeo. Affecting stories from young women with long sentences, more related to drugs than anything else. It deserves better than going direct to cable or something like that. It's easily my favorite movie of the festival so far. Objectified The director of Helvetica has done a brilliant job of finding topics he finds fascinating that no one has covered (or covered memorably well) in the doc field. First footage I'm aware of taken inside Apple's design lab. Moon Sci-fi done right, or as Janet Pierson put it, "without CGI explosions." Less gloomy than Solaris, but with similar themes of isolation. Letters to the President A terrifying look at the Ahmadinejad regime in Iran. No V.O. narrator, just first-hand accounts from actual Iranian citizens. When people voluntarily offer their criticisms in the face of certain death, you really can't manage any overt manipulation. Everyone is encouraged to write letters to him and his advisors, but few actually get a response. Sin Nombre Another Sundance hit first feature that handles border-jumping immigration more realistically than I've seen previously. That they recruited most of the actors off the street in South America says something about how pretentious and over-processed an industry that Hollywood has become. Women in Trouble I figured going in that I wouldn't love the movie, but I like what they're doing here. I overheard plenty of male bloggers who skipped this for the Bruno footage commenting they heard there were "no boobs" in it. The large female cast did this movie because they wanted to do something "in between real jobs" that gave these talented female actresses something to chew on. They get the "let's see some tits" crowd in with the temptation of sexy naked women and trick them into watching women do more than just be the stock Lover, Mother, or Whore.

With the gun massacre in Alabama and the homicide here in Austin, the news has turned pretty grim of late. For non-locals coming in from out of town, I want to add some context to the above-linked local story so you don't go fearing for your life walking down 6th Street to the Alamo Ritz. Austin is still one of the safest cities in the country as long as you don't do something stupid. Fat Tuesday, this girl was out partying and drinking on 6th Street, Austin's version of Calle Ocho in Miami. Every college town has a doppelganger of this place downtown. She was out with friends, one of whom is the daughter of a woman who works in my wife's office. The persons of interest appear to be a Mexican woman and her husband. Christy Espinoza, the victim, for yet-unknown reasons, apparently got into a car with them. My wife's coworker says her daughter said Christy "went to the bathroom" and never came back. There's no reporting about drugging or kidnapping as yet. She was apparently suffocated using plastic wrap and then her body was dumped and burned with gasoline that the man was seen on surveillance cameras purchasing at a local gas station. If the incident were a movie, it would be a mixture flashback/howdunnit murder film combined with the survival horror "everything goes to hell" plot. When I watch those movies, I think as I do about this thing, "who thought any part of either person's plan was a good idea?" The girl drinking her head off beyond the point she could reasonably make decisions for herself and the alleged killers deciding that killing her or burning her body would do anything but make things worse. The binge-drinking, carefree-partying lifestyle that is in the mutant DNA of college towns is an absolute aberration. By no means am I saying that Christy got what she had coming to her, not at all. This is a horrendous tragedy, the full details of which are not yet known. We don't know if there was rohypnol or another drug used, or what the motive was. Regardless, there's a lot of societal blame to go around. It's been endorsed and repeatedly reinforced, this notion that going out and getting stupid drunk is fine and great fun and completely safe. Even when with a group, people do things like take drinks from strangers, wander off alone, and comport themselves as if their actions are selectively eligible for deletion from the collective unconscious. Everyone be careful and sensible this week. It's not that you need to be worried being in Austin, but everyone could use a "don't let your guard down" now and then.

Spout has summarized the last couple days of this chatter better than I have, but one observation missing is that Watchmen's $55 mill opening says something about the future of the theatrical movie business. A great deal of the people who went and made the opening that big were die-hard fans, whether on standard or more-expensive IMAX admissions. The rest came from people the marketing worked on who went in oblivious to what it was they were about to see. People still do and will continue to want the theatrical experience. People have given Warners props for funding and producing a big, violent, expensive R-rated comic book movie. The only ballsier thing they could have done was release it day-and-date to VOD. One of these days, a major studio will try it, and it'll work. Purely speculatively, I think we would not have seen a first weekend drop even had it gone day-and-date to VOD. Had VOD been in play, I am confident the overall total would have been much higher thanks to one demographic specifically: parents of young children. I am, of course, talking about only the parents of toddlers who can't get babysitters or who don't take their two year old to Hostel II. I walked into the office yesterday morning and started polling coworkers as I often do after a major opening. Those who were unburdened by little kids went and saw it, had mixed feelings, "didn't get it," or said it didn't make them feel good like Iron Man or X-Men did. The refrain was the same as it's been weekend after weekend with the moms and dads, "I'll catch it on DVD. Was it good? I really wanted to see it." VOD day-and-date may work a lot better than people think in specific implementation. Why think of it as every single title when you could do just R movies opening week? Do arthouse movies a couple weeks out from opening since they're limited in terms of markets. Keep those multiple admission-generating families packing the houses for Shrek and the 7 Orcs. Hollywood hedges its bets and doesn't take risks. It just isn't the business model out there, but I want to say someone will try this eventually. By no means am I recommending VOD as the new black when it comes to exhibition. Those who are dismissing it are viewing it as some sort of big bad thing to avoid, but it really could be a greater ancillary profit line than hindrance to first weekend receipts.

Waiting for the press screening of this film to start at Fantastic Fest, a friend asked what I'd heard about it, and all I could recall was something about vampires and that it was European. I recommend you not read much more about the plot or the movie's major setpieces than that, or you risk ruining one of the most accessible, carefully-crafted genre films I've seen in years. The Movie Sweden, 1982. Oskar is an outcast at school, bullied and socially awkward. Eli and her father move into Oskar's apartment complex, and his life changes soon after. Eli only comes out at night. It's adapted from a novel (allegedly quite well). The interesting implementation of the vampire myth here is that vampirism becomes a more morally ambiguous thing than usual. Traditionally, there's always some sort of good/bad dynamic where all the vamps are good, all the vamps are bad, or there are a few "good ones." Here they're treated like any other species, with no explicit sympathy conferred to them. Let the Right One In asks you to wonder just how different from humanity they are, taking the allegory back to its roots. I much prefer this to their treatment as pseudo-superheroes as they have been many times of late. This is nothing like Twilight. They both feature vampires, but there is no undercurrent of chastity or merchandise-pushing. They play with dominant/submissive themes and adolescent sexuality, so I have no idea how this material is going to reasonably translate in the remake that starts rolling this spring under the direction of Matt Reeves (Cloverfield). I'm of the opinion that the remake (Let Me In) is happening solely due to the presence of a foreign language and subtitles, but I'll still watch it regardless. My greatest concern is that the studio may intend to make the Let Me In something of a Twilight for Middle Schoolers. If you know someone uncomfortable with watching it due to the "bloody violence and disturbing images" advertised on the box, they have nothing to worry about. The "R"-ness of the film is as palatable as the violence in The Dark Knight. Let the Right One In was one of the best-made films of 2008. If you don't like steak, you don't like steak, but this movie is grilled to perfection tenderloin. Video & Audio If possible, the transfer looks cleaner than I remember the print looking last fall. If you want a great disc to test your contrast settings with, this is the one. That said, they used a single layer BD-25. There's a great deal of stark black & white mixed with a muted color palette that could have benefitted from the other 25GB of space. This is especially noticeable in scenes that feature lots of black. Detail is great, but the deep, deep black levels the format is capable of aren't absolutely perfect. We're not likely to see a double dip, so it would have been nice to have the second layer of data, especially since the extras are pretty minimal. The lossless audio track is crisp, clean, and an excellent mix. You shouldn't have to do any volume adjustment after putting the disc in so long as your audio setup is well-calibrated. The only thing I have to complain about in this department is that the disc defaults to the English dubbed audio rather than the native Swedish. This is a battle foreign film enthusiasts may never win, but it should be said that doing this does not help make a foreign genre film more appealing to anyone's "I don't feel like reading" relatives. Extras Deleted Scenes (4) These are mostly minor snips that take nothing away from the final product. Extended scenes and a couple additional short vignettes. Behind the Scenes with director Tomas Alfredson (7 min.) This is the biggest tease on the disc, and I'd rather it been 70 minutes long rather than 7. It's interesting what they get away with packing into 420 seconds, from a bit of Alfredson directing the kids to a couple practical effects shots. Photo Gallery Poster Gallery The photos are mostly promo shots, but the posters are worth looking at if you're into design. European posters haven't quite fallen victim completely to the disease that has come to most US genre posters. They're into subtlety and iconography more than serving as torture pin-ups. Final Thoughts Magnolia's Magnet Releasing label made a hell of a debut last year with this title, Timecrimes, and Chocolate. Magnet has set the bar very (but not impossibly) high for themselves as a genre specialty label. If the next year is half as good as their "Six Shooter" slate has been to this point, they may prove that you don't have to be a franchise title to make money in horror/sci-fi. If you don't trust me enough to buy it outright, rent it and then find yourself buying it. Let the Right One In has won over everyone I've shown it to, whether a gorehound horror fan or a gore-averse cinephile. You can find it online for 20 bucks last I checked, and this title is more than worth it.

In the wake of awards season, there are a number of titles one doesn't catch that you tell yourself you'll watch on DVD. I've Loved You So Long wasn't nominated for any Oscars. Like other overlooked films, the remarkable craft on display ensures it will be remembered moreso than a number of 2009 Academy Award nominees (Wanted, for example). If you're looking for an arthouse reprieve from Watchmen weekend, this is the perfect alternative. The Movie Juliette (Kristin Scott-Thomas) has recently been released from prison after serving a fifteen year sentence. What for is left a mystery for for a while, and the circumstances of the crime are only revealed even later on. She stays with her sister Lea (Elsa Zylberstein) and family while she acclimates to the outside world again. Juliette is as frequently reluctant to share and open up as Lea is to confide and share. The story proceeds holding all cards to its chest, culminating in a final scene that is as rewarding as the journey there. The greatest injustice perpetrated by the Academy this year was omitting Scott-Thomas from the list of Best Actress nominees. Here she gives us an unvarnished and unsentimental portrayal of this woman, and as an actress gives not a stray thought to adding a plea for likability. I can count on one hand the number of actors working today who you can see in their eyes don't give a shit if you think their character is likable or not. Ten, twenty, or more years from now, the sharpest acting teachers will direct their students to take in the performances of Scott-Thomas and Zylberstein in this film. Their relationship is so richly textured and expressed that it lends truth to the theory that it's all in the casting. First-time and aspiring directors should study Philippe Claudel's clean, no-bullshit approach in framing his story and shots in his debut feature. Not a single beat in the telling of the film could be accused of being superfluous. Claudel directs his own script and in each choice, he appears to have thought only of the concise needs of the story and the audience. Video & Audio The movie was shot on video, but that doesn't detract from the story. Upconverting the DVD is not a bad alternative to the Blu-ray, since the source isn't super hi-res in the first place. An English dub track is included in addition to a standard 5.1 stereo mix. It should go without saying that the dub track is terrible, but it is worth noting that Scott-Thomas does her own dubbing. Supplemental Features The extras are limited to a selection of deleted scenes that include optional commentary (translated via subtitle). An interesting watch more than deleted scenes on other releases thanks to Claudel's comments. I would have very much enjoyed a subtitled commentary track or a behind the scenes featurette, but these select scenes are more than you usually find on a Sony Pictures Classics foreign language release. Final Thoughts In these lean economic times, if you can more easily afford the DVD, you lose no features by saving some scratch. Additionally, as mentioned above, the source video was not so rich as to make upconversion look grainy in the least. If you're Netflixing or price is no barrier, unquestionably go with the Blu-ray. The movie is worth owning and revisiting due to the nuance inherent in the performances and craft of the production as a whole. This one should be filed on the shelf where you keep movies that friends have likely not seen. The night people are over and asking to be surprised, this is just the right pick.

Modernizing Damn Yankees does not work conceptually. Maybe there was more inferred from "inject a contemporary feel" than was intended, but I doubt that. Let's re-imagine some other musicals from 50+ years ago, shall we? How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying could use more iPhones and Blackberries, or maybe the secretaries could be Twitter fiends who check Perez Hilton non-stop. Let's spice up that Coffee Break song, "If I can't take--my MySpace break--something with-in me DIES...Lies down and something with-in me...DIES." Cross-media tie-ins, folks! Guys and Dolls should probably ditch commie-infested Havana for Cancun or somewhere The Real World has taken place. It'd have to still be a period piece, set in...1993? The presence of cell phones and text messages would make it hard to largely copy and paste the whole thing. Let's drop the name South Pacific (sounds too war-like) and re-set it in Iraq...Middle East, or maybe something jazzy like Enlisted!. Keep the guy French, but not quite so old. Add in an attempted rape subplot (to stay edgy and "real"). For god's sake, make the girl Lieutenant Cable romances exactly 18 and a wannabe-convert Muslim. On a serious note, it wouldn't be crazy to remake Damn Yankees, How to Succeed..., South Pacific, or Guys and Dolls. If you alter these too much in terms of setting and content, you might as well throw out the entire musical score and start over. Re-setting any of these in the here and now is an idea a college theatre department should explore, but not a studio. Don't send the Musical packing just as Hugh Jackman has declared it "back." Speaking of, if someone's backing remakes, go ahead and do Carousel with Hugh Jackman. The general public will buy in to Wolverine singing now, he did it on TV. Pair him with Anne Hathaway. The Oscar opening was the best public audition you could ask for, and maybe that's just what it was intended to be. Musical fans have been chomping at the bit for Carousel, give the people what they want.

I posted my full review earlier, but I wanted to take a moment to comment on things posted in other places that you may have read or heard about the film. First, a timeline of events thus far (sure to be added to once WonderCon attendees in San Francisco see the film in the next 24 hours or so). Yesterday morning, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter posted their reviews. The day before yesterday Variety reported on the embargo-breaking that has already gone on, where Matt Selman posted something on his TIME-hosted blog in the middle of February, then some random guy no one has heard of posted an unreadable mess on Huffington Post, and then CHUD's Devin Faraci went live with his. I should point out here that Variety needs to get its facts straight on that last item. CHUD did not break embargo. Devin had express consent from WB before he posted anything. The only place I've seen that information printed is on Twitter, and I thought it bore mentioning here since the Variety writer has refused to correct or retract the implication against Devin. An accusation of unprofessionalism is almost as bad as the repeated instances of Variety doing copy/paste jobs on online articles they claim as their own "exclusives." The reason Devin got the go-ahead early is that Paramount, who are distributing the movie in the UK, gave /Film permission to run a video review, effectively lifting the embargo in one fell swoop without much WB could do about it. Hot on CHUD's heels were Drew McWeeny at HitFix and then Harry & Quint at AICN. In the middle of all these things happening, Jeff posted a half dozen anonymous reviews here on Hollywood Elsewhere that have all bothered me in some respect, some more than others. It felt like most of the reviewers had ulterior motives hidden in their anonymity. I can understand a reviewer not liking the movie, but what puzzles me is when they go on a takedown crusade when it seems like they may not have paid much attention to the movie in the first place or watched nothing but the trailer, as seems to be the case with Kirk Honeycutt. I'm not calling him a bad guy or anything, but his review reads like he walked into it finding a reason to shit on it more than watch the movie and be open to it. In his review, he refers multiple times to a superhero team called The Masks...this is never mentioned as a proper name in the film (in fact both "teams" do have specific names that are nothing like that). The character of Rorschach mentions something along the lines of "someone's killing masks," using it as slang for masked superheroes. I just think this movie is not his kind of thing, he knew it going in, and he shut off at a certain point. He gets into what I think has become all the rage of the fanboy fears in the lead-up to release, questioning the pea-brained, cromagnon general audience's ability to make sense of the damn thing. Yes, the masses like shutting their brains off when they go see the Mall Cop flavor of movie, that's true, but that does not mean they exclusively want to show up to the theater and shut their brains off every time. Variety's Justin Chang flat-out calls the movie a whodunnit, and I have to disagree. To read the movie as just some superhero murder mystery would require you to nap throughout. If that's all it were, it'd be boring indeed. It starts out with that procedural vibe to it, but Watchmen blossoms out into something much more philosophical. The "big reveal" of the killer is nothing of the kind. To use my wife as an example (not of a shut off brain, but of someone unfamiliar with the source book), after we got in the car, she said she was glad it didn't continue as it started out, because we watch enough Law and Order already. The movie is much more philosophical than that, addressing the concept of humanity and the meaning of existence, and how the most complex sociopolitical systems can be in place and not really matter at the end of the day. Whether you think it's well-done or not, the focus of most of Justin's writing is in telegraphing the plot and giving most of the characters' exposition away rather than talking about why it's so complex. Unlike the movie, I finished his review thinking "that's it?" I don't think it's fair to assume he has no vested history with the material either, as I think some have. His review, in fact, reads like one of my friends talking about how none of the "morons" who don't read comics or haven't read Watchmen won't "get it" and there's no way it'll make any money after its first weekend. Harry and Quint have a very deep appreciation for the source material and a very protective emotional reaction going on that I think will cover most of geekdom. The in-pre-production (as I understand it) screenwriter Quint and former producer Harry confirm what is abundantly clear to anyone who goes in without an agenda: it works. Would they make changes had they the magic words, yes. Drew, formerly Moriarty at AICN, offers an interesting perspective comparing how the comic book elevated its medium and how the movie did the same for him. Devin's review is best read with the spoilers after you've seen the movie, because it's an honest to god cinematic literary analysis, and I think he's dead-on. The problem the last four guys run in to is that they fall into the "geek" category and their a lot of their perspectives honestly may not mean much to anyone outside the source material's fanbase. That's a fair if limp assessment, but it's the Hatfield vs. McCoy argument that plenty of people will be yelling at the internet about over the next week. The thing that I find most interesting in the mix of all these reviews that have come through is that it seems the harshest potential critics, the fans, are admitting their misgivings about the film but evaluating it on its merits, whereas the other end of the equation is with a wave of its arm declaring the movie something of or a complete fiasco and that only nerds will get it. At this point, the second weekend to third weekend dropoffs are the only thing you can trust as to Watchmen's success. Here just as I'm ready to post this article, I find that the esteemed Anne Thompson dropped some comments over on her blog that I find interesting as well, as she comments on the female demographic response based on her viewing a couple days ago. The thing I'm curious about is if she is inferring the violence and blood (which my wife said she "knew when to close [her] eyes for) will turn women off a repeat go because it's to the same degree as the violence in Saw and Hostel -type films. It's nowhere near that bad, but that does bear mentioning. What The Dark Knight cut away from, Watchmen shows. More as the reviews flood the internet over the next few days.

If you do not go to see Watchmen its first or second weekend, you will be missing out on a cinematic event. It'll keep the water cooler talk abuzz very much like The Dark Knight or 300 both did. You'll be playing catch-up. Whether people loved, liked or hated it, you'll be behind the curve having not seen it. The "geek crowd" went live with their stuff a couple weeks ago when Matt Selman posted on his TIME-hosted blog. The sentiments of others are a mix of effusive praise and "I would have done a couple things different." Other reviews (Variety, THR) are from people who either aren't into comics or who obscure their familiarity with Watchmen and comics intentionally. They're doing this so they don't get lumped in with the geeks and risk their "general audience" credibility. I saw Watchmen on Monday night and have finally sifted through my thoughts and had some time to digest it. A great deal of people have already weighed in on this movie, so what's left to be said? The predominant perspective at play right this moment is that to properly review this movie, you must be either predisposed against it due to its legendary status among the geeks, or a raving fan who can never be pleased. What's needed at this point is context and some distance from knee-jerk reactions that'll start pouring in over the coming days. So you know where I sit, I've read the serial it's based on, and read comics regularly for some time. I'm not religious in my devotion to the text as are others who've written about it. There's a lot that just carries over from page to screen, but a number of things are changed that work much better as adapted. You could write a dissertation on deviations from the comic, but I won't. I'll discuss that stuff with friends. Frankly, that's something you will or won't do yourself, so best to not waste your time here. To dispel a couple few notions I've seen dominate current coverage: The theatrical cut did not need to be longer. If it had been 35 minutes longer (as the Director's Cut is alleged to be), my friend Gy and I would have stuck with it, but my wife would've checked out. Yes, the big blue tiger thing shows up out of nowhere late in the film with no substantive explanation. Yes, the heroes seem to have some super-strength that doesn't really jive with the rest of the world they've been set up in. There is some speed ramping done, but nothing to the extent of 300, and I think only so that you don't feel dizzy from trying to keep up. These issues do not in any way sink the film. We're taking for granted that there's an omnipotent blue nuclear man walking around blowing things up. Malin Akerman is the victim of her character becoming overly-sympathetic in translation, not some deficit in her acting ability. I welcome the more rubbery, caricature Nixon too, especially in the wake of Frost/Nixon. Bloggers and commenters have been speculating from all sides of the internet, insisting "the general audience will not know what to think!" and I disagree vehemently. People said this about The Matrix, which had a similarly high-concept thing going on. The people who knew what 300 was in advance of the movie's first weekend said the same thing. This cautious criticism was wrong before and is wrong again. David Mamet recently came to the University of Texas to give a talk before a screening of The Spanish Prisoner, and the thing he said that is most relevant here is that "you start calling the audience stupid...I've met a lot of stupid people in my life, but never a stupid audience. The audience knows." There is no Dune-like glossary needed. You need not have read the graphic novel. Come ready for a movie that is a spectacle to watch and worth digesting over the hours following as well as over the next few days. What I find most lacking in the reviews that are out there is that they all seem to be focused squarely on the adaptation and how that harms or helps things rather than how 2009's Americans are actually going to react to this movie. The sociopolitical commentary struck me as especially relevant in parallel to where we are currently, especially since the next evening after I saw Watchmen, President Obama addressed Congress about his plans for the next year. All the stodgy old men can't be bothered to care about the future of the country in Watchmen, shrugging their shoulders and continuing their nuclear pissing match. In D.C. on Wednesday night, the same crowd shrugged their shoulders and sat motionless, indifferent to the working classes beneath them. The Republicans are stuck in the "us vs. them" Cold War mentality that permeates the 1985 world of Watchmen. Who give a shit about the rest of the world if I don't win? This is the most academic, uncomfortable thing Watchmen hits at: the futility of the individual. Most human beings are generally averse to any sort of real criticism, no matter how thick their skin. It's really a feature-length examination of the Cuckoo Clock speech in The Third Man, asking how much any one of us really matters in the grand scheme of things. Zack Snyder has done interesting work previously, but this is the first time he's absolutely floored me. Some have said that the "slavish" dedication to the original material does the movie a disservice, but I disagree. Had they watered it down and made Watchmen less challenging, then this would just be another superhero action event film. Watchmen gives credence to the idea that the audience is not as hungry for junk food as everyone is telling us they are. The film has already divided critics and will continue to, but that will only drive more people to see for themselves.

Today is the last day you can likely catch Coraline in 3D before the Jonas Brothers concert film steals all their screens. As you approach the end of your work day, reflect upon whether you would rather have seen it or missed it. Presumably, the 3D-ization of Pixar's UP will look great and be worth it, but until later in the year, there isn't much that grabs me as worth the 3D price. The pieces I saw of Monsters vs. Aliens 3D didn't rock me out of my chair at ButtNumbaThon, and I don't expect even Stephen Colbert voicing the President of the US will compel me to see it theatrically on my own dime. Avatar is a can't miss, but the rest of the year in 3D is less clear. I have a followup in the making that covers the 3D landscape this year that'll go up in the next few days.

What I can mention without breaking my embargo is that the line wrapping around the Alamo Drafthouse went on forever and they turned away tons of people. The Dark Knight was a warmup for the comic book crowd, and I expect this movie to outperform whatever they expect at this point based on the rabid demand I saw last night. Again, that's based on what I saw before the movie started. Now that I've seen it, that opinion stays the same. As soon as I can share my thoughts, believe you me, I will.

By way of Drew McWeeny at HitFix comes this Variety article wherein Peter Bogdanovich drops the news that we could see Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind screen this summer at Cannes. Going hypothetical here, how would a film like this potentially qualify for awards consideration, taking for granted that it's illuminating and a definite spectacle to be seen? There are posthumous awards given every so often, but this is an entirely different thing altogether. Since the film will not have been edited and completed until 2009 (again, assuming), it's a 2009 film that was shot in the 1970s. Will a furore erupt from the west coast when the film's title is mentioned for awards consideration, since the principal participants are mostly dead, and therefore in no need of ego or career boosts? Hell, I just want to see this film. The fact it could be finished, edited, and seen reignites the hope that somewhere in someone's vault exists the negative for The Magnificent Ambersons, or at least the pre-test screening cut.