Anticipating 2010: Part 2

Let's continue on our search for the viable films in the second part of the trilogy posts dealing with the new year.

The A-Team: Remake an 80's Show is as common as the cold. But this one looks actually *GASP* good. Bradley Cooper, Liam Neeson, Quinton Rampage Jackson and Sharlto Copley are in the cast and it looks like a fun combo. Some great action and lines might make this a great action film. (June 11)

Toy Story 3: The most wanted film of the year, this brilliant gem follows two fo the greatet films of all-time. With a sad premise, fun new characters and some secrets yet to be revealed, Toy Story 3 is gonna rule whether you want it to or not. (June 18)

Grown Ups; Adam Sandler is always fun, but pair him with Kevin James and Chris Rock and David Spade AND Rob Sdhneider and you have what looks like the knock-out comedy of the summer like The Hangover was. (June 25)

Despicable Me: I was all ready to say Boo to this...but I can't resist a film that gives Chuck Jones homages and the animation looks clever. I love Steve Carrel so this could be the surprise flick of the summer. (July 9)

Inception: Christopher Nolan follows the matserpiece The Dark Knight with this odd thriller. No one knwos what it is about or even what it may end up being. But I keep getting intrigued by the little things we see and I trust Nolan a lot so I'll give it a try. (July 16)

Guardians of Ga'Hoole: Zach Snyder is a visionay. Watchmen was an abomination story-wise but it's visuals....wow. Whenever I read about this film I think of when Wes Anderson made Fantastic Mr. Fox (another movie ased on an animal book). Zach may have the same impact here when he directs this owl fable. (September 24)

The Social Network: David Fincher is about to bring us the man behind...Facebook! Well put that with Flash of Genuis as another odd inventor film, but I just can't get the film out of my head. I think this might work after all. (October 1)

The final part will be published this weekend.

SYS

Editorial: A Web of Rumors

Ever since Sony announced 4 days ago that Spider-Man was getting the reboot, I have been getting reports after report of rumblings going on about the new franchise. What do I know? Here is what I have now:

* Sam Raimi dropped out because he felt he couldn't match that 2011 date and still be creativley good.

* Sony had been devolping the reboot and Spider-Man 4 side-by-side. The 4th film would be the final part of the Sma Raimi quadology and the reboot would be out the following year in 2012.

* A slew of directors are trying to get into the film. The one that's likely to be chosen is Marc Webb, direcotr of (500) Days of Summer. David Fincher, James Cameron, Wes Anderson and even Neil Blompkamp are also in the running to direct.

* Who is likely to play Peter Parker? None other than Robert Pattison or Tyler Lautner. My spidey-sense is tingling now...for all the wrong reasons.

This disaster could be good if Wes ANderson driected...but I don't know. We'll see come 2012.

SYS

Film Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson isn't exactly Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson or even Mike Judge. He has a following, but it isn't as big as Judge's. And he hasn't made any large films in the recent years that garnered $300 million dollars at the box office. He has made The Life Aquatic with Bill Murray, but it didn't make much cash or Oscars overall. Wes seems to have a fondness for animation if we're to go by some of the sequences in The Life Aquatic that were animated. His friend Henry Sellick directed those (and Coraline and the Nightmare Before Christmas), but here he comes forward as some kind of mad scientist in his lab. The result? A brilliant fare and one much better than expected.

In this film, Mr. Fox is having a mid-life crisis. He really wants to live it up soon. So he moves into a condo (or a tree) and decides to go pilfering, much to his wife's dismay. She figures he has enough troubles at home, like their only son who needs attention. However, when 3 angry farmers try to destroy the forest in search of Mr. Fox, all the critters realize Mr. Fox may be their only hope in surviving the onccoming war.

Now, admit it, that's not some ordinary film. This has to be one of the most mature films ever created, even surpassing Up, I freely admit. That is a plus. Also, the cast gigantic with the likes of George Clooney, Merryl Streep, William Dafoe and Jason Shwartzman in there. They all sound like their having fun and I think filming their voices outside in barns and underground helped get some authenticy in their voice work.



The biggest hurdles is the animation, but you get used to it after a while, tough goodness knows why they couldn't have spent a few bucks more and gotten better stuff.

The whole film feels like you are really in this forest because they all have nice qualities to their voices that makes you know them better. Since the actors are very talented, you get a sense of charisma, power or envy in their voices that makes them feel like realy people, something only Aardman and PIXAR seem to have cornered on the animation market before.

There are a few nitpicks though. For insatance, a few plot holes pop up now and then and it's very anooying that characters can't cuss. They just say cuss like "What the cuss?" You feel like Wes Anderson wants to make this a little more racy, yet the studio told him to stay put where he was.



This is, however, something that makes me realize the lgeacy that Wes Anderson has on cinema. He really makes great films that have real situations and now he's even transversed genre's to get into animation. He's broken barriers that we may not have even known were there.

Fantastic Mr. FOx is one of the year's best and really shows what animation has done this year. I take my hat off to Wes Anderson and Co. for coming thiiiiiiiiiss close to topping PIXAR in quality. Highly reccomended.

Rating: 9.2 out of 10 or A

SYS

A Fox On Your House Sir!!

Just as a note, the biggest per theatre average for an animated film in the 21st Century (So far) has been set by Fantastic Mr. Fox. It has opened in 4 cinema's this past weeekend and made 260,000 overall this weekend and 65,000 at each cinemae it played at. It will be in 5 theatres this weekend and expand to over 2,400 theatres on November 25.

My opinion? Looks ok. The second trailer looks alright. Go here to watch it. Just click on Trailer 2#.

I will have a review up soon, probably next week once we get the 6 other reviews up for this week. Let's hope Wes Anderson can fulfill anything we hoped he could achieve.

SYS