Thompson On Hollywood

Poster Watch: Bright Star Heads Into Awards Season

2009-07-17T14:53:02-07:00

Here's the new poster for Jane Campion's Bright Star, which will follow its strong Cannes debut with likely September fest appearances in Telluride and Toronto. Bob Berney's soon-to-be-named new combine with River Road's Bill Pohlad will launch with this high-brow literary romance. The poster seems designed to showcase the film's gorgeous young lovers (Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw play Fannie Brawne and John Keats) in a contemporary way, without the usual ivy trellised period look. What do you think?

This critic-friendly film is a soft lob down the middle for Academy voters, methinks--as long as Berney & Co. tread carefully, deliver a modest hit, and don't make any mistakes. That's a tall order for such an austere, tragic, intelligent, gorgeously crafted British period piece. But if anyone can do it...

Vanity Fair Ledger Story Must-Read

2009-07-17T14:13:47-07:00

I scarfed up Peter Biskind's Vanity Fair cover story on Heath Ledger (which is finally online). It all makes (tragic) sense. Ledger was yet another gifted performer (from Judy Garland on) who was far happier in the zone in front of the camera than anywhere else. He pushed himself too hard. And he sought comfort (and sleep) from drugs.

The people who knew Ledger well loved him. And he had a special bond with director Terry Gilliam. Biskind's story makes me really regret that I missed The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, which played late in the Cannes festival after I left. Gilliam sent me an invite to a screening---in London. The movie still doesn't have a domestic distributor. It sounds like the quintessential Gilliam movie. Gilliam was my first published Q & A in Film Comment in 1981, at the time of Time Bandits.

So I will have to settle for selected footage at Comic-Con next week, and maybe some Gilliam access. And hope that someone steps up to release the movie.

Pitt Chased Wired Cover

2009-07-16T16:39:59-07:00

Brad Pitt graces the cover of Wired Magazine's August issue, which just arrived in my morning mail. (The mag hits newstands July 21, and will post on Wired.com Thursday night after E.T.'s broadcast break.) He's frowning at wearing a bluetooth headset, and the coverline reads "With advice from Inglourious Basterd Brad Pitt"---about all the mention his new movie receives in the magazine.

That's because Wired doesn't tend to sell magazines with movie stars. Truth is, with Premiere gone, there aren't many classy monthly magazine covers left for male stars of Pitt's stature. And he's already done the good ones. Tabloids like People, Us and In Touch have taken over the supermarket racks. Old media moguls like Tina Brown and Bonnie Fuller are jumping into the online fray. (Tabloid queen Fuller is joining Mail.com owner Jay Penske's HollywoodLife.com.) Gone are the days when uber-press agents like Pat Kingsley batted off cover requests like flies while demanding deal terms like photographer and writer approval. Pitt doesn't even pay a PR rep anymore.

So what's a matinee idol to do? Several months ago, Pitt had his agency CAA call Wired--Conde Nast's tech-savvy mag with a growing circulation of about 700,000 readers, predominantly male--and suggest him for the cover. Neil Patrick Harris had just turned the magazine down. After much back and forth, Wired confirmed that Pitt really did want to be on their August cover.

The magazine was interested in fitting him into their August package "New Rules for Digital Gentlemen and Other Highly Evolved Humans," but he had to meet their specific needs. In the end, he did it their way. Pitt turned up at L.A.'s Smashbox Studios alone, sans entourage, for a photo shoot with Dan Winters. He was interviewed for the cover story about bathroom text and phone etiquette and offered some advice to Twitter King Ashton Kutcher about posting pictures of his wife's butt, among other things. His cover pull quote is delicious: "Who cares if your Warcraft wife is really a dude. If it's good, don't check under the hood."

This change in star behavior is indicative of an overall sea change in Hollywood. Talking about her plans for Hollywood Life, Fuller told the NYT that celebrity is "not just about movie stars any more." As studios slash budgets, they are reevaluating what stars are worth. That measurement used to be about opening movies: you paid a major star $20 million to put audience butts in seats. All that is clearly not working any more, as robots, reboots and animated characters are selling better this summer than the likes of Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell and Christian Bale. I see smart star Pitt, 45, recognizing that a cool cover on a cool magazine might sell some tickets to his Quentin Tarantino World War II flick this August. Therefore it was worth chasing--and then going with the flow.

Meanwhile, Wired discovered the advantages of publicizing a cover--in this celeb-crazed internet age--with a star of Pitt's caliber. Besides People and E.T., they nabbed coverage from Perez Hilton, MTV: Hollywood Crush, Us Magazine, PopSugar, X17 Online, The Post Chronicle, Hampton Roads, The Frisky, Towleroad and Kansas City Star.

Filmmaker's 25 New Faces of Indie Cinema

2009-07-15T21:06:58-07:00

Scott Macaulay introduces Filmmaker Magazine's annual new faces of indie film, circa 2009. Here they are. The young and the restless.

#SDCC: Directors Visit Comic-Con for First Time

2009-07-15T20:32:00-07:00

Comic-Con 2009 is front-loaded. Most of the key movie stuff happens on the first day, Thursday July 23, and Friday, with Iron Man 2 the main play on Saturday. (Here's the EW Iron Man 2 cover-preview.) The trick is to balance the crowded Hall H panels, trawling the exhibition floor, backstage interviews, screenings and parties with actual blogging. Yikes.

Last year I took the Fox City of Ember train down to San Diego, which worked great, actually. I loved not having to worry about a car, but I was staying at the Omni, right across from the Convention Center, so I was spoiled. This year I'm farther away, so I'll drive down at the crack of dawn Thursday to get my pass in time (!) to start off the day with the 11 AM Disney 3-D panel. Tim Burton (Alice in Wonderland) returns to the Con for the first time since college, while Bob Zemeckis (A Christmas Carol ) is coming for the first time. Burton will stay to do some press, Zemeckis will not.

The combo of Disney's 3-D animation panel and James Cameron's Avatar pushed the Comic-Con folks to install 3-D in the 65,000-square-foot Hall H. The Titanic director will attend the Con for the first time to show the first U.S. 3-D footage of Avatar, along with stars Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang. (Exhibs in L.A. screen the 20 minutes already shown in Amsterdam at Cinema Expo on Thursday July 16.) Sam Worthington, who debuted at The Con last year with Terminator: Salvation, is stuck in Wales playing Perseus in Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans. (Check out the photo: Gerard Butler, watch your back.) Fox will also promote off-site Diablo Cody and Karyn Kusama's horror comedy Jennifer’s Body , starring Megan Fox.

Cameron is participating in another Thursday panel on The Future of Filmmaking with Avatar's VFX czar, Weta chief Peter Jackson, who is also coming for the first time--he usually beams video to Hall H from Wellywood. Attendees are expecting to see Adventures of Tin-Tin footage. Jackson is also pushing his production of the sci-fi thriller District 9 on Friday. He's not involved in LOTR fan site Onering.net's side panel on pre-production of Guillermo del Toro's The Hobbit, which Jackson is also supervising in Wellywood. UPDATE: Word from Jackson's people: it's way too early for a Bilbo announcement.

Another Comic-Con virgin is Disney/Pixar animation czar John Lasseter, who will host an animation panel Friday with Japanese master Hayeo Miyazaki (must-see Ponyo screens Wednesday night), Disney's John Musker and Ron Clements (2-D The Princess and the Frog), and Kirk Wise (Toy Story 3). This is my idea of Heaven.

Thursday's crazy madness will be the Twilight: New Moon panel. Heartthrob Rob Pattinson will appear (reminder: must pack earplugs) with co-stars Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner and director Chris Weitz, but lovelorn vampire Edward Cullen isn't the main character in the movie, so Pattinson won't participate in any backstage interviews. Summit is screening Twilight for the fans with cast members on hand. Summit is scheduled to film the third installment of the Twilight Saga, Eclipse, from August 17 through October 31 in Vancouver with David Slade (30 Days of Night) directing Melissa Rosenberg's screenplay.

To promote Park Chan-wook's vampire movie Thirst (which played well in May's Cannes competition), Focus Features mailed the press a pouch of blood in advance of the Thursday panel, and will screen the intense horror film Friday night.

Some films won't be rating panels at this year's Con, although they may have some viral or off-site happenings or displays on the exhibition floor. Universal, for one, is skipping Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood. Disney is ignoring the live action Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and Surrogates. Cash-strapped The Weinstein Co. passed on promoting Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Rob Zombie's Halloween II, The Road (starring Viggo Mortensen), Youth in Revolt (starring Con-friendly Michael Cera), and Piranha 3-D.

Warner Bros. probably isn't bringing Joel Silver's long-delayed screen adaptation of the graphic novel Whiteout because it was promoed last year. Also missing are Ninja Assassin and Zack Snyder’s animated 3D Guardians of Ga’Hoole. It's early days yet for MGM to promote the Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard horror comedy The Cabin in the Wood, but Whedon fans can catch the first three webisodes of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Thursday night.

Brian Lowry vets Comic-Con on the TV side.

I was going to leave Saturday, but David Tennant is showing up for a Dr. Who panel on Sunday morning. I may have to stay on.

Trailer Watch: An Education

2009-07-15T19:01:00-07:00

Those of us who saw Lone Scherfig and Nick Hornby's An Education at Sundance witnessed a remarkable debut: Carey Mulligan was an instant star. With Audrey Hepburn-style class, charisma and smarts, she's well-cast as a brainy and sexy high school kid in 60s Britain aching to break out into the bigger world. Peter Sarsgaard (with a plummy British accent) is the older sophisticate who takes away her innocence and shows her what she's missing. With Sony Pictures Classics at the helm, this movie should go all the way to some major awards:

Recession Hits Movies

2009-07-15T18:34:09-07:00

Hollywood's war on rising budgets continues, as Denzel Washington stepped out of Fox's runaway train picture Unstoppable. In this case, it makes sense the star would have cold feet after his last teaming with Tony Scott, The Taking of Pelham 123, which featured a commandeered subway train and plenty of VFX, was a summer b.o. dud. If he wasn't going to get his $20 million, Washington preferred to move on.

While the studios will continue to spend $250 million on sure bets like the Harry Potter franchise, they are cutting back everywhere else. The town is feeling the pinch, as production starts decline, budgets are slashed and risks are not being taken. Ask Steven Soderbergh, who sounds depressed indeed in this Guardian interview on Che. (That four-hour Spanish-language money-loser for French financier Wild Bunch is the main source of Soderbergh's Moneyball woes.) For the moment he may direct a play for Cate Blanchett's theatre company in Sydney. Luckily, his Matt Damon whistleblower comedy The Informant! could score at September's Toronto Film Fest.

Here's the line-up for the Toronto Fest, which opens September 10 with Jon Amiel's Charles Darwin biopic, Creation.

Media Watch: Doppelt Joins Daily Beast

2009-07-15T18:23:24-07:00

Tina Brown can be a demanding boss. So it makes sense that she wanted to import Gabe Doppelt as L.A. bureau chief of The Daily Beast. Doppelt started as Brown's assistant at Tatler and went on to blaze a media career of her own, spending the last 8 years as W's west coast editor.

Hollywood Wiretap founder Tom Tapp put in a brief stint as an L.A.-based editor/blogger for The Beast, but Brown eventually brought in ex-NPR correspondent Kim Masters to cover Hollywood from the business side. The editor wants to increase the Beast's celebrity presence as she builds the entertainment vertical of her Barry Diller-backed site, which has leaned heavily toward politics. Michael Solomon will continue to assign and edit entertainment features out of New York.

Google Voice: App Is Moving Slow

2009-07-15T12:44:29-07:00

I want a Google phone number! I've been patiently waiting. As a user of Google search, images, alert, reader, map, sync, gmail and calendar, I have gotten several emails counseling me that an invitation is in the mail, as it were. I want my Google Voice app now! Basically, Google gives you one number--and all your phones and devices feed into that number. No more leaving messages on cell or home or work or BlackBerry--you get all your calls. And they get answered too.

USA Today explains it all, as does the video below:

Daily Read: Movie Mom, New Freddy, Celluloid Closet

2009-07-14T18:10:00-07:00

Showing the growing power of frank blog-talk, Movie Mom is a movie reviewer with a huge following.

New Line was looking for a new unknown to cast as Freddie in their relaunch of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, until they found Jackie Earle Haley. Twitter has a Friday thing where you confess movies you haven't seen. I've never seen a Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw , Saw or Hostel movie. I do love John Carpenter's Halloween, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, Robert Wise's The Haunting, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and Brian DePalma's Carrie. It's about style for me.

As LA's Outfest draws crowds and TV's Neil Patrick Harris is confirmed to host The Emmys, The LA Weekly prints a controversial story about why gay talent should stay in the closet.

Media Watch: USA Today Aggregates, New Media Follows Old Media, Film Journo Advice

2009-07-14T17:48:00-07:00

USA Today launches a headline aggregator. Wave of the future? I rely on Wopular.

Fast Company reports that old media is followed by new media. But new media is catching up on posting original content.

Time doesn't like the idea of subsidized bloggers being paid to cover certain topics. Negotiating access, junkets, review embargoes--those I can navigate if necessary. Being paid to blog about something is not acceptable under any circumstances. One publicist invited me to be part of an early screening program which pays writers to give their opinion on indie films seeking distribution. That was a no-can-do.

It's tough out there for a film writer. Filmmaker Magazine editor Scott Macaulay tells journos to update and modernize and get with the new media program.

Summer Swimsuit Movies

2009-07-13T15:10:46-07:00

Vote for your iconic swimsuit movie moments. Here are the women--led by Phoebe Cates--while Daniel Craig as James Bond leads the men.

I concur on Craig; but my vote for best wet swimsuit in a movie goes to Jacqueline Bisset in The Deep, video below.

Whip It: Angry Women Make Potent Box Office

2009-07-13T14:33:00-07:00

On its surface, Drew Barrymore's directorial debut Whip It looks like a Fast & Furious-style look at an exotic world we don't know much about: roller blade contests. The film opens in October and stars Barrymore and Juno star Ellen Page as a rebellious, angry teen rollerblader.

What every studio wants is a movie with at least one guaranteed target market, plus crossover potential to two or three more quadrants. This movie got made because of its potential appeal to several niches. It's also an action movie with babes attached (think Charlie's Angels, Blue Crush). Some men might even show up.

Mainly, it's an angry woman movie.

And that can be a mighty demo. Hollywood is often taken aback by how well angry women movies can do, pictures like Nine to Five, Fatal Attraction, Thelma & Louise, First Wives Club and Waiting to Exhale. Add Diablo Cody's upcoming Jennifer's Body to the list. Not that any of us identify with ~~Jennifer~~ Megan Fox. That's why Amanda Seyfried is in the picture.

UPDATE: Here's the trailer:

Lists: 50 Best Movies of All Time, Again

2009-07-13T13:53:55-07:00

It's a list that keeps on giving: the 50 best movies of all time. With this global critics list at The One-Line Review, at least, the more things change, the more they stay the same. There's Citizen Kane at number one, and having shown the movie to my USC film criticism class, I get why the movie holds on to that top spot, decade after decade. The damn thing holds up. Pauline Kael said it was a comedy and she was right. It's entertaining, funny, unique, utterly timely and resonant today. Kids understand it perfectly. It doesn't age, even in black-and-white.

Much as I admire Vertigo, I prefer several other Hitchcocks: Notorious, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds among them. How telling that there are three Hitchcocks in the top thirteen and two Stanley Kubricks in the top ten.

The other top ten selections are fine, but I would want a Buster Keaton (The General, 33) or Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, 17) or John Ford (The Searchers, 12) or or Howard Hawks (Bringing Up Baby) in there. And Hawks is so out of favor that he didn't make the top 50 at all.

The full list is on the jump.

The 50 Greatest Films

Films receiving the same number of votes have been separated by their ranking on individual lists.

Citizen Kane (1941) .. Orson Welles
Vertigo (1958) .. Alfred Hitchcock
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) .. Stanley Kubrick
The Godfather (1972) .. Francis Ford Coppola
Casablanca (1942) .. Michael Curtiz
The Third Man (1949) .. Carol Reed
Taxi Driver (1976) .. Martin Scorsese
Seven Samurai (1954) .. Akira Kurosawa
Psycho (1960) .. Alfred Hitchcock
Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) .. Stanley Kubrick
The Godfather: Part II (1974) .. Francis Ford Coppola
The Searchers (1956) .. John Ford
Rear Window (1954) .. Alfred Hitchcock
Singin' in the Rain (1952) .. Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
Persona (1966) .. Ingmar Bergman
Chinatown (1974) .. Roman Polanski
Sunset Boulevard (1950) .. Billy Wilder
Sunrise (1927) .. F.W. Murnau
Tokyo Story (1953) .. Yasujiro Ozu
Pulp Fiction (1994) .. Quentin Tarantino
La Règle du Jeu (1939) .. Jean Renoir
8½ (1963) .. Federico Fellini
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) .. David Lean
The Night of the Hunter (1955) .. Charles Laughton
Apocalypse Now (1979) .. Francis Ford Coppola
City Lights (1931) .. Charles Chaplin
Bicycle Thieves (1948) .. Vittorio De Sica
Annie Hall (1977) .. Woody Allen
Touch of Evil (1958) .. Orson Welles
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) .. Carl Theodor Dreyer
Blade Runner (1982) .. Ridley Scott
M (1931) .. Fritz Lang
The General (1927) .. Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton
Some Like It Hot (1959) .. Billy Wilder
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) .. Sergio Leone
The Four Hundred Blows (1959) .. Franτois Truffaut
Duck Soup (1933) .. Leo McCarey
Double Indemnity (1944) .. Billy Wilder
Raging Bull (1980) .. Martin Scorsese
All About Eve (1950) .. Joseph L. Mankiewicz
A Clockwork Orange (1971) .. Stanley Kubrick
The Apartment (1960) .. Billy Wilder
La Grande Illusion (1937) .. Jean Renoir
Ikiru (1952) .. Akira Kurosawa
It's a Wonderful Life (1946) .. Frank Capra
Rashomon (1950) .. Akira Kurosawa
The Wizard of Oz (1939) .. Victor Fleming
Do the Right Thing (1989) .. Spike Lee
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) .. Sergio Leone
L'Avventura (1960) .. Michelangelo Antonioni

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Will Open Huge

2009-07-13T13:21:05-07:00

It's no surprise that as of Monday AM in advance of a Wednesday opening, MovieTickets.com is reporting over 1,300 sold out showings for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince worldwide, including over 950 stateside midnight sellouts.

By 1:30 PM Eastern Time Monday, 93 % of all tickets sold at MovieTickets.com were Half-Blood Prince, which is currently outpacing seven of the Top 10 Total Ticket Sellers of All-Time, only coming in behind No. 1, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, No. 2, The Dark Knight and No. 4, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

· No. 3 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King · No. 5 The Passion of the Christ · No. 6 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest · No. 7 Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers · No. 8 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix · No. 9 Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones · No. 10 Matrix Reloaded

I do recommend seeing Half-Blood Prince on IMAX, because it is so impeccably made that it will withstand that level of scrutiny. In this week's Movietickets poll, among 3516 people voting, 57% will see the movie before it opens on IMAX July 29; 29% plan to see it in both theaters and IMAX, and 14% will wait for the IMAX debut.

Oscar Watch: Summer Crop Could Go All the Way

2009-07-13T11:14:35-07:00

With the field for the best picture Oscar broadened to ten, a batch of summer movies are now positioned for possible inclusion. Yes, year-end movies still have the advantage. It used to be that a summer movie had to be strong and the late-season weak for it to make the top five (think Sea Biscuit, Apollo 13, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator). But this year, five summer movies could score a top ten slot, from crowd-pleasers Up, Star Trek and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to higher-end fare such as Public Enemies and Hurt Locker.

The good news for Public Enemies is that the Academy screening this weekend was packed, probably the best-attended so far this year. But it didn't earn a rousing reaction. Michael Mann, Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard and director of photography Dante Spinotti did nab a smattering of applause. My guess: it will rack up some nominations by year's end, especially in the acting and tech categories--Marion Cotillard is a front-runner for supporting--but might not go all the way. By then, the $100-million period epic may look like a picture that didn't make its money back. The Hurt Locker, on the other hand, could have long legs indeed, and will look like a movie that overcame considerable obstacles en route to inevitably landing on many critics' ten best lists.

A surprisingly robust Academy possibility is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. While so far the series has been overlooked for best picture, that will work in this film's favor. Half-Blood Prince, while costly ($250 million), is just about the best-made picture I've seen in many a moon. This Potter is as elegantly designed as a Pixar movie.Its tech credits are outstanding: period production design and costumes, cinematography, and visual effects (the quidditch matches are stunning).

What about the actors' branch? Well, admittedly, like the Lord of the Rings ensemble, Potter's gang of kids won't score any noms, but Michael Gambon as Dumbledore could land a supporting nod, as Ian McKellan did as Gandalf in 2001's Fellowship of the Ring. In this film, Gambon gets plenty of screen time and is aged and beloved, as opposed to charmingly villainous Alan Rickman as Severus Snape.

Harry Potter has similar factors going for it as the third Lord of the Rings installment, The Return of the King (2003). Both films boast complex scale and scope, and period always helps. The Fellowship of the Ring earned 13 nominations including best picture, and won four. The Two Towers was nominated for six and won two. Then The Return of the King swept all eleven Oscars for which it was nominated, including best picture. Finally, it was time for the Academy to overlook the fantasy blockbuster ensemble side of the equation and reward the quality of the filmmaking. Besides, while genre films have long suffered with Oscar voters, those prejudices have been subsiding ever since 1991's The Silence of the Lambs.

Conventional wisdom deems the Harry Potter series as too popular to score with Oscar. So far five films have generated $7.2 billion worldwide in box office and DVD sales. While David Yates may not be Peter Jackson, the Brit director has kept this franchise on track through installments five and six, and brought Half-Blood Prince's craftsmanship to an extraordinary level. He's also set to direct the last two films covering J.K. Rowling's final book, The Deathly Hallows. Warners expects to open the first in November 2010 and the second in July 2011. Academy voters may choose to hold off--The Return of the King was the ultimate LOTR movie. But what if Half-Blood Prince--my daughter's favorite of the lot--marks the series' peak?

If as many as five summer movies make it to the Oscar Ten, the Academy Governors will be very very happy. That's just what they wanted.

Bruno: Good Opening, Bad Buzz; Harry Potter Clips

2009-07-13T08:46:10-07:00

It was utterly predictable. On the strength of audience curiosity stoked by Universal's mammoth (and expensive) global marketing campaign, Bruno opened to a solid opening day, followed by a dramatic drop-off due to catastrophic word-of-mouth.

Reviews were mixed (55% on Metacritic). Some critics appreciated Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles' confrontative shock tactics that pushed moviegoer buttons. The Voice's J. Hoberman addresses both Bruno and Lynn Shelton's micro-budget indie flick Humpday. The Guardian analyzes Baron Cohen's sexual neuroses, while the NYT checks out his costume designer. But At the Movies' mainstream Two Bens were typical: neither recommended that audiences "see" the film.

Anyone who has ever been to an exhibitors' convention like ShoWest knows that while American moviegers have a huge appetite for raunchy comedies, they are made extremely uncomfortable about sex unless it is really really funny in a way that relieves anxiety. Americans tend to be skittish about explicit sex (Showgirls, Striptease). Up-close man-on-man sex, real-life swingers and sado-masochism don't fall inside their comfort zone. Finally, the Puritan ethic lives on.

Unfortunately for Bruno, its opening weekend was its one shot--the fall from grace will continue. Besides, audiences will be distracted by some very pleasant summer nights at the movies. With just-about universal appeal, Wednesday opener Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (see clips below) could dethrone the mighty Transformers:ROTF (although that is tall order) and on the specialty front, Fox Searchlight's anti-romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer will score, pushing Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt into the rising stars category.

Weekend Read: Green Lantern 3, Moneyball 2, NYT Charges, Sarris Speaks, Gawker Thrives

2009-07-10T20:10:00-07:00

As the week came to an end, the pressing entertainment story seemed to be: which rising star was going to land the title role in the DC comics movie The Green Lantern? Three contestants were vying for the job: Ryan Reynolds, Bradley Cooper and Justin Timberlake. Clearly, Wolverine's Reynolds is the strongest, most versatile actor. And Warner Bros. and director Martin Campbell chose him. My problem is I don't care. The studios are digging into second tier comics properties that don't have the wide popular recognition enjoyed by Batman and Superman. Iron Man worked out though, by hitting the zeitgeist just right. Will Reynolds be their Robert Downey, Jr.? Only if they do everything right.

The Moneyball story won't go away. With Steven Soderbergh out of the picture, Sony's Amy Pascal brought in West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin and producer Scott Rudin to set things to rights.

As film critics lose their staff jobs, 80-year-old eminence grise Andrew Sarris (recently laid off from The New York Observer) tells the NYT about the Golden Days of film criticism. New York freelance journalist/critic Anthony Kaufman admits that he's hurting during the recession. Mike Jones wonders how film writers are making a living.

In media news, the NYT wants to charge a $5 monthly access fee. I'd pay it in a heartbeat.

And during a recession, Gawker Media's canny Nick Denton sees his ad revenues rise by 35 %. At least someone knows what they're doing.

#SDCC Comic-Con Separates Top Draws Avatar and Twilight: New Moon

2009-07-10T17:40:29-07:00

Last year, I remember a few diehard fanboys mocking me when I flagged Twilight as a big deal at Comic-Con. The power of Twilight fans became clear as thousands of girls screamed their lungs out for emerging star Rob Pattinson. Helping to avert certain traffic gridlock, Comic-Con organizers pushed apart back-to-back Thursday panels for Twilight: New Moon and James Cameron's Avatar, by far the most anticipated two panels of the Con. Many were concerned that the threatened tsunami of fans surging toward Hall H Thursday morning (many of them female, in this very male-dominated universe) would make it tough to also cover Disney's 11 AM 3-D panel (Zemeckis's A Christmas Carol, Burton's Alice in Wonderland) and James Cameron's Avatar on the same day. Now New Moon is at 1:45 pm and Avatar is at 3:00 pm. Covering media may have a tough time getting into New Moon without some kind of press pass.

As THR covers how the studio marketers are harnessing the rising power of the online fansites--many of whom will participate in Comic-Con's annual Masters of the Web panel on Thursday at 2 PM--The Wrap examines the countering impact of Twitter on movie openings. As the studios try to use Twitter to disseminate information, word-of-mouth is taking on a whole new meaning in the Twitter universe. The Wrap also posts a handy short-form entertainment sked (the full Comic-Con schedule is packed with cool but not movie-centric graphics and comics panels). Here's Marvel's collection of panels, including Hall H's intro to Iron Man 2.

HitFix is also tracking Comic-Con. Stay tuned. I'm covering. I'm looking forward to seeing Hayao Miyazaki and Pixar's John Lasseter for one of my fave movies of the year so far, Ponyo, and seeing Terry Gilliam again, who is showing some footage but not the entire Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassas, starring Heath Ledger, who made the cover of Vanity Fair this month, a must-read. And for the first time ever, New Zealander Peter Jackson is appearing at the Con in person, to introduce District 9.