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Under discussion:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind  (1978)

The Goonies  (1985)

The Wiz  (1978)

The Wizard  (1989)

The Wizard of Oz  (1939)

What Dreams May Come  (1998)

Amélie  (2001)

Why We Fight [Film Series]  (1943)

Junebug  (2005)

Enchanted  (2007)

• Mick LaSalle asked us last week what movie we would like to be inside (instead of Beowulf, which we can sort of feel like we’re in). Personally, I think being inside The Wizard of Oz would be awful. I might even prefer The Wiz, and I’d hate to be in The Wiz. I’d even prefer to hang out with Fred Savage in The Wizard, and I don’t play video games. My answers: anything Capra (well, almost anything — no Why We Fight docs); anything Marx Brothers; anything Muppets; anything Miyazaki; Amelie; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; The Goonies (why not?); and What Dreams May Come (the movie was bad; the setting was beautiful).
• In honor of me writing more about Enchanted than Karina ever would dream of, I present Rob’s review from his I don’t like Renee Zellweger blog, to show I’m not the only blogger addressing such mainstream fare. Like me, Rob found the movie to be “uninspired,” though he was apparently “disappointed” (I had a low expectation to begin with) and even notes that Amy Adams might have another chance at an Oscar (she’s cute, but ultimately annoying — though differently than she was in Junebug). Anyway, shockingly, the movie currently has a 100% approval on Rotten Tomatoes. We’ll see if that lasts. If only more of us bloggers were writing about it …
• Apparently if you have a video clip of yourself negatively reviewing a 20th Century Fox release, the studio will have it removed, despite it being neither illegal nor their place to do so.
• Are long movie titles bad for box office? Only when they’re abbreviated as diseases. “Cholera” = bad. “Pirates”; “Narnia”; “Harry Potter” = good.
• I love t-shirts, and I love this design, but weren’t there movie adaptations before 1920?

Under discussion:

Beowulf  (2007)

Enchanted  (2007)

While I should have been a good cineaste and watched some Oscar-worthy documentaries or some Sundance-originating indies, I saw two mainstream movies this week. One was this past weekend’s box office winner, Beowulf; the other was Enchanted, which will surely be the Thanksgiving weekend champion. I found neither of them to be very remarkable in terms of storytelling, but each does have some significance to cinema, and each is noteworthy for its respective blurring of animation and live-action.

Obviously, Beowulf is animated. It is so far considered eligible for the Animated Feature Oscar, and aside from its few bits of photorealism, it looks like a cartoon (or a video game). But because the movie was made with real-life actors, who were “performance-captured”, there is still that link to live-action filmmaking. And there was hardly much reason, in my opinion, why it necessarily had to be made as an animated film. Meanwhile, Enchanted is primarily live-action, but it does have some bookending animated sequences, which figure into the gimmicky plot of a 2-D Disney Princess who magically finds herself in the 3-dimensional world of New York City. But it probably could have been fine as a completely animated film — maybe it could have been the Wizard of Oz of computer animation (as in 2-D to 3-D animation rather than black and white to color film). As it is, the “real-life” parts of Enchanted seem too artificial anyway.

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Under discussion:

8 1/2  (1963)

Shantaram  (2008)

Angels and Demons  (2009)

Nine  (2009)

G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra  (2009)

Pinkville  (2008)

• Suddenly, G.I. Joe became the Summer 2009 movie to avoid — not intentionally, of course, but we all know Sienna Miller, like her ex- Jude Law, is a bit of a box office kiss of death. Yet, Paramount has cast her as “the female lead” anyway. Don’t think she’ll be playing good-girl “Scarlett”, either; Miller’s character is apparently Baroness, the black-leather-clad femme fatale who works for COBRA.
• Two more high-profile films have been delayed thanks to the WGA strike. This time it’s Mira Nair’s Shantaram, which is being produced by and is to star Johnny Depp, and the next Rob Marshall musical, Nine, which is partially based on Fellini’s 8 1/2. These films join previously postponed Angels & Demons and Pinkville. At least strike talks are set to take place next week.
• John Singleton will never get another shot at Oscar with this kind of thinking, but at least he’ll have the honor of giving us yet another alien-invades-a-small-town movie.
• I may be the only one, but I am indeed looking forward to Final Destination 4, which is a little late in being the 3-D installment. Typically, and obviously, they make more sense as the third in a series. Whatever, as long as they have cooler kills than #3, and not just because they look neat with the technology. Yeah, I’m probably thinking too highly of the franchise. I don’t care.