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Under discussion:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull  (2008)

• Roger Ebert, who underwent his third cancer-related surgery in January, has posted a letter on his web site announcing his intention to return to reviewing films for the Chicago Sun-Times after the 2008 installment of his Overlooked Film Festival. Ebert says that another operation would be required in order to restore his ability to speak, but he’s holding off for the time being. “I am still cancer-free, and not ready to think about more surgery at this time,” he writes, “I should be content with the abundance I have.”
• According to TimeOut London, Pedro Almodovar will be blogging throughout the production of his next film, Broken Hugs. The blog will allegedly live here, but when I go to the page all I get is a sea of blackness.
• Chris Thilk approves of the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull SuperPoke Facebook application, and he explains why:  “I would be willing to bet there were more than a few people saying the studio needed to build their own “Whip Your Friends” application. But instead they decided to add functionality to an existing one, one that has a decent adoption rate already.”
• At Twitch, Peter Martin offers a list that looks like it has the potential to become a giant meme: his Top 5 Experiences with New Cinema, or “the initial excursions into unexplored territory, the tentative expanding of boundaries and possibilities and new ways of looking at the world, all things that came about only when I broke down barriers I had set for myself and sampled various types of new cinema.”

Under discussion:

Wild Wild West  (1999)

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian  (2008)

Kung Fu Panda  (2008)

Step Brothers  (2008)

Hancock  (2008)

Meet Dave  (2008)

Speed Racer  (2008)

Wall-E  (2008)

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull  (2008)

The Love Guru  (2008)

Tropic Thunder  (2008)

You Don't Mess With the Zohan  (2008)

Sex and the City  (2008)

Of the few thousand moviegoers polled for Fandango’s report on the ten most anticipated summer movies of 2008, I wonder if any were children. Missing from the list, which named Indiana Jones the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as highest and Sex and the City as lowest (though tied percent-wise with Speed Racer), are such animated tentpoles as DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda and Pixar’s Wall-E. The latter is even more shockingly absent due to the consideration that most Pixar films are enjoyed by adults as much as children. It’s definitely one of my top five movies to see this summer, and I’d bet its box office that it outperforms all of the movies listed below the Chronicles of Narnia sequel, Prince Caspian. The only dark horse I can see in there is Speed Racer, which could also be a huge hit with kids. The fact that it’s so far down on Fandango’s list either means really bad things for the Wachowskis or it’s just more reason to believe the poll is ignoring the significance of youth in the market of movie tickets.

Also excluded, though a bit more appropriately so, are less-blockbuster comedian comedies like You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, The Love Guru, Meet Dave, Step Brothers, Tropic Thunder and, surprisingly, Hancock, which is the latest in the traditional July 4th-weekend-released sci-fi/action comedies from Will Smith. Is this a sign that people think it looks like Smith’s worst summer movie since Wild Wild West? Or were those moviegoers that were polled even allowed to make selections other than the ten listed?

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An NYC apartment listing was posted to Craigslist last week exploiting the vicinity of said 1BR to the site of Heath Ledger’s death. Obviously the posting has been removed, but the real-estate blog Curbed has a screenshot. While it seems like a sick thing to do, it’s clear the apartment’s owner (or broker) was simply conscious of the Ledger death cult and was merely targeting a certain demo. After all, as we learned from last week’s AP article, the people just want to pay tribute to a fallen actor. And what better way to do that than to pay $2750 a month for a place in that actor’s neighborhood? With new solid wood cabinetry in which to store your Joker action figures!

What, too soon? It’s okay to advertise hotels near Paul Revere’s house, just because he’s been dead for 190 years as opposed to two months? It’s not like the posting said it was were Ledger died. It says “used to live“. Remember last week when I differentiated between those people who recognize Ledger as being a dead guy and those who mean to honor his life? This is related to the latter, which is clearly the more sensitive and virtuous.

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