Time to stop stockpiling these items.<\/span><\/p>\n 1.<\/a> John Granger has redesigned his Hogwarts Professor<\/a> site, and he has already posted lots and lots (and lots and lots\u2026) of thoughts on the possible meaning<\/a> of the recently-announced title of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows<\/a><\/i>, the last of the books.<\/p>\n 2.<\/a> If there is one thing I learned from my days as a video-store clerk, it is that horror movies get some of the most brilliant marketing gimmicks. Now comes this Hollywood Reporter<\/a><\/i> story:<\/p>\n To promote the upcoming supernatural thriller \u201cThe Messengers<\/a>,\u201d Sony Pictures has included in its dossier of digital-marketing tools a ringtone only young consumers can hear.<\/p>\n Ultrasonic ringtones \u2014 ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not adults \u2014 are a featured aspect of the film\u2019s promotional campaign, which is geared toward a teen audience and inspired by the movie\u2019s story line about a young female protagonist insisting she hears voices that her parents cannot hear.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that only kids can hear it winds up being a thematic fit with the notion in the film that her parents don\u2019t believe her,\u201d said Joe Epstein, executive director, worldwide digital marketing strategy, Columbia TriStar Marketing Group. \u201cWe wanted it to be really relatable to teens conveying to this target audience that this is a character a lot like them along with this sense that kids and young adults are better conduits to the paranormal.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n The theory behind the original creation of such ringtones is that as people get older, their hearing normally worsens. Ultrasonic ringtones are thought to be inaudible to people over the age of 25.<\/p>\n Adult-proof ringtones first got attention in the form of \u201cTeen Buzz,\u201d a popular ring tone adapted from a sonar-based security system used in Europe to keep teenagers from loitering at retail outlets.<\/p>\n According to Epstein, who also cited the early use of such high-pitched intonations as a security deterrent by shop owners in Britain against hoodlum teens, it\u2019s the first time they have been tied promotionally to a film\u2019s theatrical release.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 3.<\/a> Variety<\/a><\/i> reviews The Monastery: Mr. Vig & the Nun<\/a><\/i>:<\/p>\n A curmudgeonly octogenarian offers his crumbling Danish castle to the Russian Orthodox Church, but then clashes with the new nun-in-chief about how to run the place in accomplished docu \u201cThe Monastery.\u201d Using material shot sporadically over six years, TV-experienced helmer Pernille Rose Gronkjaer builds an affectionate but admirably unsentimental portrait of her eccentric, headstrong protagonists. Pic, which won first prize at top-tier docu fest IDFA, could win hymns of praise from auds and TV buyers when it screens at Sundance<\/a> next month. However, theatrical distribs might justifiably be more cautious given film\u2019s offbeat subject matter. . . .<\/p>\n Despite Amvrosya and Vig\u2019s cultural and personality clashes, Gronkjaer captures moments that illustrate their growing affection for one another, even a kind of platonic love that grows out of their shared pursuit of a spiritual way of life. Scenes of the nuns\u2019 long, mesmeric, music-suffused services are juxtaposed with ones showing Vig and Amvrosya bickering comically over domestic chores. The combined effect brings to mind last year\u2019s award-winning docu on monastic life, \u201cInto Great Silence<\/a>,\u201d crossed with some jocular television DIY makeover show with a touch of \u201cBig Brother.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 4.<\/a> Variety<\/a><\/i> reports that there are two<\/i> remakes of the classic \u201960s cult show The Prisoner<\/a><\/i> in the works \u2014 one for film, one for TV:<\/p>\n AMC is remaking 1960s sci-fi cult fave \u201cThe Prisoner.\u201d<\/p>\n Cabler has come aboard to co-produce at least six episodes \u2014 billed as a modern-day reimagining of the TV series classic \u2014 with U.K.\u2019s Sky One. Granada Intl. also produces.<\/p>\n AMC\u2019s is the second adaptation in the works. Universal Pictures has set helmer Christopher Nolan<\/a> to direct a feature version that Janet and David Peoples<\/a> are scripting (Daily Variety<\/i>, Aug. 11).<\/p>\n U has the film rights to the skein, while Granada has separate television rights. Like the planned skein, bigscreen pic is said to be a contemporized take on the 1967 thriller.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 5.<\/a> The Hollywood Reporter<\/i>, via Reuters<\/a>, reports that El Crimen Perfecto<\/i> director \u00c1lex de la Iglesia<\/a> is now developing the English-language feature Think About Disney<\/i>:<\/p>\n This will bring him back to the more familiar territory of demons, pacts with the devil, infidelity and insanity \u2014 but ramped up to the 10th power and in English.<\/p>\n Budgeted at about $15 million, \u201cDisney\u201d tells of a man who goes insane because he discovers the true essence of the world around him and lives a hell of his own creation. The only salvation he finds comes through thinking about cartoon characters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ah yes, I\u2019ve had days like that. Very Sullivan\u2019s Travels<\/a><\/i>, too.<\/p>\n 6.<\/a> Speaking of Disney, Jim Hill<\/a> reports that the studio<\/a> is reverting to traditional 2-D animation under new animation chief John Lasseter<\/a>, who wants to keep 3-D CGI for his Pixar crew.<\/p>\n 7.<\/a> Mark Steyn surveys classic Christmas movies<\/a> \u2014 especially those with some sort of war theme \u2014 and New Year\u2019s Eve movies<\/a>.<\/p>\n 8.<\/a> Variety<\/a><\/i> mentions in passing that Atlantic Overseas Pictures and EuroCo Prods. are \u201cdeveloping a $30 million action film, \u2018Hunyadi: The Sword of God,\u2019 centered on the 15th century general who protected Europe from invasion of Ottoman Turks.\u201d One wonders what angle the film will take, given the current international scene and given the way Hollywood movies like Kingdom of Heaven<\/a><\/i> (2005) have taken great pains to avoid offending Muslims.<\/p>\n 9.<\/a> Luther at the Movies<\/a> is excited that Miramax is adapting<\/a> John Patrick Shanley<\/a>\u2018s play Doubt<\/i>, which is set in a Catholic school.<\/p>\n 10.<\/a> The Hollywood Reporter<\/a><\/i> looks at the rise in subtitled movies like Babel<\/a><\/i>, Borat<\/a><\/i>, Apocalypto<\/a><\/i> and Letters from Iwo Jima<\/i>:<\/p>\n Technological advances have made subtitles more palatable. As more theaters offer stadium seating, the old problem of the moviegoer in front of you blocking your view of the subtitles is eliminated. Filmmakers also are adopting an array of typefaces and colors that make subtitles easier to read; gone are the old days when shaky white lettering disappeared altogether whenever the color white dominated a scene.<\/p>\n Ultimately, movies probably have to thank TV for domesticating the subtitle. \u201cLost\u201d and \u201cHeroes,\u201d two of the hottest series of the past few years, boast proudly multicultural casts, and both shows have featured extensive scenes in which their non-English-speaking characters converse in their native tongues. Similarly, the postapocalyptic drama \u201cJericho\u201d features a deaf character, played by Shoshannah Stern, and when she argues with her brother Stan (Brad Beyer) in forceful American Sign Language, their dialogue is subtitled.<\/p>\n \u201cHeroes\u201d even has served up a twist on the traditional, bottom-of-the-screen placement of subtitles. When Japanese office workers Hiro and Ando are onscreen together, the show moves around the subtitles so they appear either below or beside the character who has just spoken. Suddenly, subtitles don\u2019t look so foreign \u2014 they\u2019re more like the dialogue bubbles in comic books. No wonder audiences don\u2019t seem to fear them anymore.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For an example of moving subtitles, look also at the version of the Russian fantasy Night Watch<\/a><\/i> released in English territories.<\/p>\n 11.<\/a> David Poland<\/a> at The Hot Blog has some thoughts on the changing fortunes of movie musicals, such as Dreamgirls<\/a><\/i>. He also looks at the film\u2019s unusually large opening-day figures<\/a>.<\/p>\n 12.<\/a> Two more items on Children of Men<\/a><\/i>. First, the New York Times<\/a><\/i> compares and contrasts the novel \u2014 and perhaps not surprisingly, the Times<\/i> almost completely ignores the religious revisions:<\/p>\n No one should have to choose between Clive Owen and P. D. James. As an alcoholic, unshaven hero in a totalitarian near-future, Mr. Owen holds together the ominous yet vibrant new film \u201cChildren of Men,\u201d adding to his list of brooding, darkly handsome characters (notably in \u201cCloser\u201d). But while this Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n film is inspired by the 1992 James novel, the movie is so purely cinematic, and its plot departs so widely from the book\u2019s, that the screen version may obscure how wonderfully rich and unlikely that novel is. . . .<\/p>\n When the film loses its energy for politics and its taste for ambiguity, that makes the difference between a good movie and an exceptional one. (There are lesser reasons; was it necessary for two characters actually to say, \u201cJesus Christ\u201d when learning of the near-miraculous pregnancy and birth?)<\/p>\n The ending of the novel is brilliantly ambiguous and entirely different from the film\u2019s, as the potential for the \u201cintoxication of power\u201d falls into unexpected hands. As Ms. James said in an interview when the book came out: \u201cThe detective novel affirms our belief in a rational universe because, at the end, the mystery is solved. In \u2018The Children of Men\u2019 there is no such comforting resolution.\u201d It is comforting for both moviegoers and readers, though, to have Clive and P. D. as the season\u2019s best odd couple.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n