You have to feel at least some sympathy for any filmmaker who would tackle Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Not only is it the longest of the Harry Potter books, and thus one of the most difficult to compress to a single movie, it has also been regarded by many fans as something of a disappointment. Despite its length, and despite the fact that a significant character dies, not a lot seems to have happened by the... Read more
Reuters reports: The upcoming Simpsons movie takes a typically irreverent dig at religion and environmentalists, and features a nude scene involving ‘toon teen Bart that had the audience at a preview show applauding. A 10-minute clip from “The Simpsons Movie,” the first time Homer, Marge, their family and friends have made it to the big screen, was shown in London late on Wednesday ahead of its release worldwide later in July. The clip offered several clues as to the plot,... Read more
To promote The Simpsons Movie, 20th Century Fox and 7-Eleven have changed 12 of the latter company’s convenience stores into Kwik-E-Marts. One of those stores just happens to be in Canada. And the Canadian store just happens to be in nearby Coquitlam. And a friend of mine just happened to work a few shifts in that store during the winter of ’88-’89 — after the Simpsons debuted on The Tracey Ullman Show in ’87, but before they launched their own... Read more
My review of License to Wed is now up at CT Movies. Read more
One of these days, I will get my old videotapes out of storage and post some of my old student films online — not because they’re anything to write home about, but just because it would be handy to have them out there. In the meantime, I recently got back in touch with an old friend of mine who starred in The Great Borscht Kidnapping, a video that I shot back in November 1989 for my introduction-to-film class at UBC.... Read more
The newest issue of BC Christian News is now online, and with it, my film column, which mainly consists of my second junket report on Evan Almighty, but also touches on the latest developments re: Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The paper also has a sidebar on past and future Noah’s Ark movies — including long and short films produced in 1928, 1933, 1936, 1959, 1966, 1994 and 1999 that I have mentioned here before — as... 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. Nitro — CDN $648,138 — N.AM $648,138 — 100%Sicko — CDN $451,726 — N.AM $4,615,000 — 9.8%Knocked Up — CDN $11,060,000 — N.AM $122,407,000 — 9.0%Ocean’s Thirteen — CDN $9,220,000 — N.AM $102,085,000 — 9.0%Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End — CDN $25,000,000 — N.AM $295,758,000 — 8.5%Live Free... Read more
HOLLYWOOD studios are increasingly aware there is a market for religious films. So lately, they have been making a point of creating special video labels, such as Fox Faith, and reissuing classic religious films – in addition to newer efforts. Here are a few such films. A Man Called Peter, Fox, 1955 There is a big, big problem with the cover of this DVD: it shows Peter Marshall (Richard Todd) wearing a suspiciously large clerical collar, even though the... Read more
The unexpected success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ proved that it’s no longer taboo to make faith-based entertainment and that there’s a huge Christian market just waiting to be explored. So it was only a matter of time before major corporations, who already own some of the biggest Christian book and music labels, turned their attention to film. Sony Pictures – the studio that made The Da Vinci Code – also promotes Christian movies through its Provident Films label.... Read more
That’s the question Nikki Finke asks today, in a post at Deadline Hollywood Daily on the disadvantages that Disney has had to deal with as it markets and merchandizes Ratatouille, the only Pixar film that ever went into production without Disney’s approval. And to that, I can only answer: My kids have been playing with a plush toy rat ever since their Auntie M gave them one months ago! Here it is, in a picture with my daughter Elizabeth, who... Read more
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