Been a while since I\u2019ve done this. Time for some quickies!<\/span><\/p>\n 1.<\/a> Reuters<\/a> reports that Cars<\/a><\/i> \u2014 the first Pixar<\/a> film to be directed by John Lasseter since 1999\u2019s Toy Story 2<\/a><\/i> \u2014 is a hit with exhibitors, who saw the new film at a convention in Las Vegas yesterday:<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was a great movie,\u201d said Kevin MacLeod, executive vice president of Empire Co Ltd\u2019s Empire Theatres, a Nova Scotia-based chain with 380 screens. MacLeod said he believed the film would have the same broad appeal as Pixar\u2019s biggest hit \u201cFinding Nemo.\u201d<\/p>\n Theater owners have a vested interest in the success of the movie, since their business is selling movie tickets, but Sanders Morris Harris financial analyst David Miller was in the audience and called it \u201coutstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf there is any film you know is going to be a hit, it\u2019s this one,\u201d he said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Another attendee, who asked not to be named, described the film\u2019s race-car-themed story line and folksy soundtrack, featuring songs by Sheryl Crow and Brad Paisley, as \u201cthe perfect antidote to (gay cowboy movie) \u2018Brokeback Mountain\u201d\u2018 for more conservative red-state audiences.<\/p>\n Mark Walukevich, vice president of international films for National Amusements, which operates 1,425 screens in the United States, Britain, Latin America and Russia, said \u201cCars\u201d was \u201cfantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn a scale of one to 10, it was an 11,\u201d he said. \u201cThe digital presentation was excellent, the sound track was great. I think internationally it will be a huge hit.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Associated Press<\/a> adds that Cars<\/i> is a very personal project for its creator:<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always loved cars,\u201d Lasseter, 49, told The Associated Press. \u201cI\u2019m a gear-head and wanted to do a film about cars, like putting the two sides of my life, my two loves, together.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCars\u201d also is a reflection of the real-life lessons he learned about making time for family and friends amid his professional success, which includes an Academy Award for best short animated film and an honorary Oscar for creating the first feature-length computer-animated tale with \u201cToy Story.\u201d<\/p>\n After a hectic run making \u201cToy Story,\u201d \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life\u201d and \u201cToy Story 2,\u201d a time when he and his wife also had four sons, Lasseter decided to pull over for a rest stop.<\/p>\n Lasseter\u2019s wife warned him that if he kept up the work pace, he would wake up one day realizing their boys had all gone off to college and he had missed their childhood. So Lasseter figured it was time for a summer road trip, just him and the family.<\/p>\n \u201cWe bought a used motorhome, put our feet in the Pacific Ocean and turned east,\u201d Lasseter said. \u201cWe had two months to drive across country and explore it and get lost and end up at the Atlantic, put our feet in the Atlantic and come back. Everybody said, `You\u2019re nuts, you\u2019re going to be at each others\u2019 throats stuck together for two months.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cBut actually, the opposite happened. We got so close as a family. We loved every single minute of it, and I came back from that journey and I knew what I wanted this movie to be about. It\u2019s about a character that learns the journey in life is the reward,\u201d said Lasseter, the key creative force behind Pixar Animation, which is being acquired by its longtime distribution partner Disney.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 2.<\/a> I can\u2019t remember the last time I\u2019ve seen rival filmmakers and artists bash an Oscar winner<\/a> so soon after its victory. Annie Proulx, who wrote the short story that Brokeback Mountain<\/a><\/i> was based on, has a wonderfully nasty item on the Oscar ceremonies in the Guardian<\/a><\/i> (hmm, is her reference to Scientology at the end a dig at Crash<\/a><\/i> director Paul Haggis\u2019s beliefs?), while the Toronto Star<\/a><\/i> profiles A History of Violence<\/a><\/i> director David Cronenberg:<\/p>\n David Cronenberg says his critically acclaimed A History of Violence<\/i> was snubbed for major Oscar glory because Hollywood\u2019s \u201canti-Bush, anti-conservative\u201d elements felt the film\u2019s message was too subtle.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also upset with fellow Canadian filmmaker Paul Haggis for using the title Crash<\/i> for the movie that won Best Picture on Sunday night, since that was the title of Cronenberg\u2019s award-winning 1996 movie.<\/p>\n Opening up yesterday for the first time about his frustrations with the Oscar nominations and awards process, the veteran Toronto director said he believes politics were at play. Any film that didn\u2019t directly challenge the policies of President George W. Bush wasn\u2019t going to gain Academy favour this year.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a feeling there is a lot of `anti-Bushness\u2019 in those nominations, for which I can blame nobody because I would be that way, too,\u201d Cronenberg told the Star<\/i>.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd those movies that were nominated in many ways had a much more obvious anti-Bush, anti-conservative bent to them. Maybe my movie was too ambiguous and disturbing in terms of accepting the sort of exhilaration aspect of violence that is there in us as well. It\u2019s hard for me to feel that they didn\u2019t get it. Maybe they did get it and they didn\u2019t like what they got, you know?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n FWIW, as Mark Steyn<\/a> says, referring to the 1996 film, \u201cIt\u2019s rather sad to think a film once so notorious can be so forgotten nobody even notices the Best Picture of the year has borrowed its title.\u201d<\/p>\n 3.<\/a> Cinematical<\/a> reports that Ronald Harwood<\/a>, who wrote Norman Jewison\u2019s The Statement<\/a><\/i> (2003) and Roman Polanski\u2019s Oliver Twist<\/a><\/i> (2005), is working on a movie about Intelligent Design:<\/p>\n According to Variety<\/i>, the studio just hired Ronald Harwood to write a screenplay based on last year\u2019s court decision ruling that a Pennsylvania school board didn\u2019t have the right to force teachers to teach intelligent design. (Interestingly, the film\u2019s producer was thinking \u201cmovie\u201d from the very start, so much so that she actually sent someone to watch and take notes on the trial \u2013 does that show clever foresight or a disturbing tendency to turn every major news story into tomorrow\u2019s blockbuster? Both?) In Harwood\u2019s eyes, his benchmark is Inherit the Wind<\/i>, the play and film that told the story of the famous Scopes trial, which allowed evolution into (Tennessee) classrooms in the first place. \u201cOur aspiration is to make a film that powerful\u2026We have a highly emotional case that divided a town right down the middle, and a judge whose summary was spectacular.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of course, Inherit the Wind<\/a><\/i>, first filmed in 1960, is notorious for taking liberties with the facts, so its value as a \u201cbenchmark\u201d is debatable. (Thanks to Jeffrey Overstreet<\/a> for the link.)<\/p>\n 4.<\/a> Variety<\/a><\/i> says Benicio Del Toro will star in a remake of The Wolf Man<\/a><\/i> (1941; my comments<\/a>), to be written by Andrew Kevin Walker (1995\u2019s Se7en<\/a><\/i>). With luck, this just may be the first Universal monster revival that doesn\u2019t involve Stephen Sommers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Been a while since I\u2019ve done this. Time for some quickies! 1. Reuters reports that Cars \u2014 the first Pixar film to be directed by John Lasseter since 1999\u2019s Toy Story 2 \u2014 is a hit with exhibitors, who saw the new film at a convention in Las Vegas yesterday: \u201cI thought it was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n