Cinematical

As an opinionated cinephile, Roger Ebert has every right to dislike 3-D movies. And recently, on his blog, Roger Ebert's Journal, he wrote about such disfavor. Basically, in response to accidentally missing the press screening for the new animated 3-D flick Fly Me to the Moon, he admits that, because of a certain prejudice against the format, he likely wouldn't have enjoyed the movie anyway.

My issue here is not to attack Ebert's opinion or his belief that after half a century of dissatisfaction with the format he's never going to change his mind about it. He's free to express both. And while I disagree and am disappointed, I would never claim that Ebert doesn't know what he's talking about. He's certainly smarter about film than I'll ever be, and his opinions are far more respected than my own.

However, Ebert is also one of the most widely read film critics in the world, and therefore he is a pretty influential person when it comes to the subject of movies. And I would hate for moviegoers to dismiss the new wave of 3-D movies simply because of Ebert's stance on the format. So, I merely intend to respond to his opinion with an opinion of my own, as apparently one of the wider read gushers on the topic of digital 3-D.

New York City's Film Forum will be screening both The Godfather and The Godfather Part II during a special three week engagement beginning September 12. And yes, it's a big deal. The first two installments of Francis Ford Coppola's trilogy are often featured in repertory houses, sure, but Film Forum's presentation is of newly restored 35mm prints, which were produced under the direction of Coppola and cinematographer Gordon Willis and the supervision of film historian and master preservationist Robert A. Harris. The Godfather will run solo from September 12 through September 18, then The Goffather Part II will run solo from September 19 through September 25, and finally, back-to-back screenings will be featured from September 26 through October 2 (the double feature does, unfortunately, require separate admissions). As far as I can tell, neither of these digitally restored classics includes new computer-generated characters or backgrounds, and obviously the guns are likely to still be guns rather than walkie talkies.

If you can't make it to NYC for any of these shows, Paramount is apparently also releasing the restored films in other select cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. Or, you can check out the new versions as part of "The Godfather, the Coppola Restoration collection," which also includes a remastered Godfather Part III, on DVD or Blu-Ray beginning September 26 23 (the DVDs may be purchased in a 5-disc box set, which includes two discs of special features, or separately, in case you like to forget about Part III; the Blu-Ray versions seem to be only offered together in a 4-disc set).

If you squint your eyes just right and look at a photo of the late comedian Bill Hicks, he kind of resembles a young Russell Crowe (or vice versa). So, it would have been really cool if the Australian actor had played Hicks around ten years ago, when he was still in his 30s. But if we've learned anything from Kevin Spacey and Mike Myers (respectively, star of the Bobby Darin biopic Beyond the Sea and star of an upcoming Keith Moon biopic titled See Me Feel Me), you're never too old to play an icon who died young, and therefore we must accept the fact that at close to 50 years old, Crowe is likely to portray Hicks, who died from cancer at age 32. Fortunately for Crowe, he's good enough that it shouldn't be too hard to believe such a portrayal.

The Oscar-winning actor is quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald saying he's involved with a Hicks bio, "which is going from treatment to draft stage with Kiwi writer Mark Staufer." Never mind that the quote doesn't sound like it was actually spoken by anyone, let alone Crowe, the article is mostly about how the actor is spending time with his family now that Ridley Scott's Nottingham has been postponed. Crowe also references other projects, including an unnamed documentary and the surfing gang movie My Brother's Keeper, based on the documentary Bra Boys, which Crowe narrated. Stuart Beattie, who co-wrote the doc, is currently working on a second draft of its adaptation.

How do you follow-up a broad comedy starring the biggest names in Hollywood, George Clooney and Brad Pitt? If you're the Coen brothers, you apparently hit the car in reverse and make your next effort a darker story and cast relative unknowns. Variety reports that the newly minted Oscar winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen have cast Tony-nominated stage actor Michael Stuhlbarg (The Pillowman) and TV's Richard Kind (Mad About You; Spin City) for the two lead roles in A Serious Man, their next film after this fall's Burn After Reading. The actors will play brothers in the 1967-set black comedy, which returns the Coens to Fargo territory by placing the story in their home turf of Minneapolis.

In fact, when we first learned of A Serious Man, more than a year ago (and almost a year before the Coens each won 3 Academy Awards, for writing, directing and producing No Country for Old Men), the script was described as being "in the vein of Fargo." Now we get a little inkling more about the plot of Serious: Stuhlberg will play a professor named Larry Gopnik, whose wife is leaving him and whose "socially inept" brother (Kind) won't leave the house. Hopefully, to further repeat the analogy to their double-Oscar-winning 1996 film, the Coens can cast Frances McDormand as the wife, she can then win another Academy Award and Kind (pictured above) can, like William H. Macy before him, finally go from near-obscurity to well-known, well-respected supporting actor within the next decade.

If you've ever seen a film by Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien, you might not initially think of him to direct an action movie, even of the slower, more poetic wuxia genre that includes films like Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou's Hero and other recent works. But the master director has long confessed in interviews that he'd like to make a martial arts picture, and even as far back as 2002, Hou was attached to helm an adaptation of Pei Xing's 9th century fantasy novel "Nie Yin Niang," about a female assassin, which was then reportedly titled Xia Nü.

Six years later, following his first non-Taiwanese film (the Ozu tribute Café Lumiere), the triptych Three Times and his first Western project (Flight of the Red Balloon), Hou seems to finally be on track to making his wuxia dreams come true. Variety reports that his adaptation of "Nie Yin Niang," now titled The Assassin (or maybe The Hidden Heroine, or simply Nie Yin Niang), has received funding from the Taiwanese government's National Development Fund and is therefore moving forward with a pre-production start date of October 1 and shooting expected to begin in early 2009.

Week after week, I focus on the good and/or bad concerning moviegoing and the movie theatre industry. But as passionate as I am about the subjects of this column, I've never really felt strongly enough to label any one person either a hero or a villain to moviegoers. Perhaps the closest I've come to calling someone a hero was when I finally had my first experience with an Alamo Drafthouse cinema. On the other hand, I've certainly wanted to call a lot of people villains, including whoever was responsible for my worst moviegoing experience in years and whoever came up with the awful idea to produce scented pre-show ads.

So, it was by some sort of coincidence that last week actually brought news of both a remarkably heroic moviegoer and a terribly villainous theatre owner. Of course, you're welcome to disagree with me as I celebrate the former and castigate the latter. The interesting thing about these two individuals is that some of you may see my hero as a villain, and vice versa. In fact the law has deemed the former a criminal, and meanwhile tons of moviegoers in the UK are championing the actions of the latter. No wonder film exhibition is in such dire straits when there's such disagreement about how to improve the moviegoing experience.

Last weekend we lost two great stars, actor/comedian Bernie Mac (1957-2008) and Oscar-winning songwriter/actor Isaac Hayes (1942-2008), who both appear in the upcoming Soul Men (pictured above), out this November. For more on their respective deaths, see Erik's and William's posts.

Actor and playwright George Furth (1932-2008) died August 11 in Santa Monica, California. I'll always remember him best as the anti-Cannonballer spoilsport Arthur J. Foyt in The Cannonball Run. He also appears memorably in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Blazing Saddles and Shampoo. (AP)

Where would the montage sequence be without Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"? And what about the movie that borrowed the title, Girls Just Want to Have Fun? Robert Hazard (1948-2008), who wrote the tune, died August 5 in Boston. (Variety)

"Love means never having to say you're sorry." This famous line came to us partly by way of Howard G. Minsky (1914-2008) who received an Oscar nomination for producing Love Story. He died August 10 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Variety)

Bernie Brillstein (1931-2008), formerly half of production team Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, executive produced Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, The Blues Brothers, Spies Like Us, The Cable Guy, Bulletproof, Happy Gilmore, Summer Rental, Dragnet, Up the Academy, Neighbors, Doctor Detroit, Continental Divide, The Celluloid Closet, What Planet Are You From? and Run Ronnie Run and produced The Replacement Killers and Jiminy Glick in Lalawood. He died of chronic pulmonary disease August 7, in New York City. (NY Times)

Oscar-nominated record producer Jerry Wexler (1917-2008), who was portrayed by Richard Schiff in the movie Ray, died of congenital heart disease August 15, in Sarasota, Florida. He also worked on soundtracks for The Wiz, The Cotton Club and Pretty Baby (for which he received the Academy Award nom) and co-wrote the Aretha Franklin tune "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman". (AP)

You may not be as attractive as Penélope Cruz or Javier Bardem, but apparently you too can experience a threesome with Scarlett Johansson. On the actress' website (ScarlettJohansson.com) there's an announcement (seen above) for a contest that begins, "Hey dude(tte) are you UP for a THREESOME WITH SCARLETT!!!?" Obviously it's part of a promotion for Woody Allen's new movie, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, in which Johansson plays a character apparently involved in a ménage à trois with characters played by Cruz and Bardem. Oh, and obviously the prize of this contest doesn't involve sex; you merely get to be the third wheel on a movie date, or something. However, if Johansson's beau, Ryan Reynolds, is the other person, it might be still be interesting. Unfortunately, it's more likely a handler, assistant or otherwise some sort of legally bound chaperon (or is the other person a second winner? I can't make heads or tails of this crazy announcement).

Then again, if Reynolds isn't there, and you're somehow more charming and somehow have sexier abs, this could be your chance to steal Johansson away before she walks down the altar and becomes Mrs. Van Wilder. Actually, you don't even have to wait for the "date" in order to begin the wooing. To win the contest, you have to send an email detailing "your most personal and most creative response as to why YOU WISH to be included in such an awesome treat." Be tactful, though, kids. I know how some of our readers think, and I don't want to hear about any creepy dudes threatening to kidnap Ms. Johansson and bring her to Walt Disney World for a few days together.



[via Best Week Ever]

Some people may consider the New York Film Festival a simple "Best Of" sort of event, but the fact that it compiles selections from earlier film fests and merely showcases them in a competition-free program is what I love about it. For those of us New Yorkers who can't always make it to the highlands of Utah and Colorado or the exotic seaside locales of Italy and Southern France, it's nice to know that major festival highlights will likely make their way to Lincoln Center in late September, early October.

This year, the lineup for the 46th NYFF is being noted for its inclusion of films that previously screened at Cannes back in May. Even Steven Soderbergh's four-hour Che (aka The Argentine and Guerilla), which played to mixed reactions in France, even while picking up a best actor prize for star Benicio Del Toro, has been given a spot. Also featured are Cannes leftovers Waltz With Bashir, Wendy and Lucy, Grand Prix-winner Gomorrah and Clint Eastwood's Changeling, which stars Angelina Jolie and has the honor of being NYFF's centerpiece film. Opening the festival is the Palm d'Or winner The Class, while the closing film is Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, which premieres a few weeks prior at the Venice Film Festival.

Other exciting big name films include Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time: Redux, Lucretia Martel's The Headless Woman and Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours. Surprisingly, Charlie Kaufman's Synechdoche, New York, which screened at Cannes, is New York appropriate and is scheduled to open in October, is missing from the lineup.

The complete list of NYFF selections, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, can be found after the jump:

I recall reading about real-life experiments with invisibility a couple years back, and I could have sworn I blogged about them here on Cinematical. But I must have decided to keep Harry Potter fans from getting their hopes up, despite the fact that the original article I read had specifically mentioned Potter's invisibility cloak. Plus, I must have been hesitant to attempt to explain the science behind it.

Well, now that more news has come out about the development of materials that may be able to render people and other three-dimensional objects invisible, I figure it's time to get excited. Now we can definitely wander around Hogwarts after dark without being spotted by Argus Filch. Or, for the grown up kids, you can potentially sneak into the girls' locker room. Just beware that these real-life cloaks probably don't work so well in such foggy conditions.