The good news: The young generation that consumes all sorts of entertainment via iPods and the internet is doing more than anyone else to keep the big-screen experience alive. Rather than undermine the movie industry, these “third-screen” technologies are actually supporting it. The bad news: Theatres are increasingly catering to this generation by creating “rowdier, text-friendly auditoriums” that encourage this generation to do all sorts of rude but increasingly common things like chatting and sending text messages while the movie... Read more

Jeffrey Wells ponders the similarities between the outfits worn by James Dean in Rebel without a Cause (1955) and by Jesus in King of Kings (1961), both of which were directed by Nicholas Ray. Read more

For the serious Battlestar Galactica fan, a limited-edition toaster that “brands” your toast with an image of a Cylon. And it’s only $65. Sweet. Hat tip to Mark Verheiden. Read more

I’ve been meaning to post something about WALL•E for a while now — and I will post something, I hope, in the near future — but life has been busy and the mountain of WALL•E commentary to sift through has grown impossibly large. In the meantime, however, I commend to you this piece by Noah Millman, who lists many of the flaws with this film that had occurred to me already as well as many that hadn’t, before concluding: I... Read more

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest. Cruising Bar 2 — CDN $1,150,000 — N.AM $1,150,000 — 100%The Love Guru CDN $3,410,000 — N.AM $29,331,000 — 11.6%Sex and the City — CDN $15,450,000 — N.AM $144,864,000 — 10.7%Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — CDN $26,360,000 — N.AM $306,590,000 — 8.6%Wanted — CDN $7,300,000... Read more

Now that the trailer for the new version of The Day the Earth Stood Still is out there, the MTV Movies Blog has posted a fun little interview with director Scott Derrickson. Right off the bat, they talk about Gort, the robot who was at one point rumoured to be missing from the film but can now be seen clearly, if briefly, at the end of the new trailer: The last shot in the trailer is a hero shot, although... Read more

Glad to have these out of my system, at last! 1. MTV Movies Blog notes that Pixar may run into some difficulties on Cars 2, due to the rumoured health problems that may or may not be plaguing Paul Newman, who provided the voice of Doc Hudson in the original film. The blog doesn’t mention it, but the series may also be affected, one way or another, by the recent death of George Carlin, who provided the voice of Fillmore,... Read more

I jest, of course. I’ve got many other news bits stockpiled at the moment, but let’s get these ones out of the way, for now. 1. The Hollywood Reporter says Jesse Bradford, Steven Weber, Bob Odenkirk and Edward Herrmann have joined the cast of Son of Morning, the indie satire starring Joseph Cross as a dissatisfied ad copywriter who, because of some sort of environmental crisis, is somehow mistaken for the Messiah. The Reporter notes that the title has been... Read more

The twins have really fallen in love with The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) over the last few weeks. They sing along to the movie, they raise and lower their arms along with Pooh’s exercise regimen at the beginning of the film, and Thomas in particular even recites the dialogue along with the film, sort of; he doesn’t know most of the words yet, but he does make phonetic sounds that approximate the words spoken by the characters,... Read more

A few months ago, I got to visit the set of the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, which was being shot here in the Vancouver area. Not for the first time, I marvelled at how it took hours and hours to produce maybe a few seconds of actual movie. A few of those seconds — showing military vehicles moving into position, in what I think is supposed to be Central Park — appear in the trailer below,... Read more