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
Yes, even historical costume dramas have sequels — so behold the trailer for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Click here if the video file above doesn’t play properly. The film is a sequel to Elizabeth (1998; my review), which was one of two Oscar-nominated Elizabethan period pieces co-starring Joseph Fiennes and Geoffrey Rush that year — the other being the ultimate Best Picture winner Shakespeare in Love (1998). More fun trivia:... Read more
Narnia fans — especially those who quibbled with the recent film’s emphasis on pseudo-Spielbergian and pseudo-Jacksonian battle scenes and other gratuitous action setpieces at the expense of character, tone, and thematic significance — might want to note the last paragraph in this story from Variety the other day: Also given a big push was “The Chronicles of Narnia” sequel. Helmer Andrew Adamson delivered a taped message saying that, unlike the original, “Prince Caspian” will feature “battles all the way through.”... Read more
This article in yesterday’s New York Observer about the upcoming Yale University shoot mostly talks to giddy extras about their costumes and so forth, but it does offer these plot details: Filming of the four-quel, tentatively titled Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods and directed by Steven Spielberg, begins June 28. “It’s the opening scene of the movie,” Ms. Dunn burbled excitedly. “[Harrison Ford] is teaching a class and he hears some noise outside, which turns out to... Read more
Some friends of mine live near a park in New Westminster, where the mini-series Tin Man is currently being filmed. So they sent me these pictures — and of course, I was immediately envious, because, as I have said here before, I adore Zooey Deschanel. Deschanel is playing DG, the Dorothy surrogate, and that’s Raoul Trujillo as Raw, the Cowardly Lion surrogate, next to her. My friends also posed for another picture with Alan Cumming, who plays Glitch, the strikingly... Read more
If you’re the kind of person who enjoys parsing the meaning and significance of words and catchphrases, and if you’re the kind of person who likes to ponder the relationship across time and space between the individual and community, and if you’re the kind of person who enjoys getting academic about matters profane, then you may find Eric Lichtenfeld’s tribute to the Die Hard franchise‘s most famous one-liner just as stirring and moving as I did: Most one-liners articulate the... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In