Thompson on Hollywood

Watching 2012 in China

On opposite sides of the world, my 20-year-old college student daughter Nora and I both enjoyed 2012, which was more fun than I was expecting. Director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) crafted a truly global movie, starting off in a mine shaft in India and proceeding to blow up Yellowstone National Park and destroy the world's most revered monuments, from the White House and The Vatican's Sistine Chapel to Brazil's Christ The Redeemer. (Critics were mixed.) After its second weekend, the utterly implausible disaster E-ride has already racked up $268-million worldwide. "#1 Movie in the World!" reads the LATimes ad headline.

By Nora Chute
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November 22, 2009 9:47 AM
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Oscar Talk Episode Eleven: Governors Awards, Tarantino, Holbrook, Docs

In the eleventh installment of Oscar Talk, In Contention's Kris Tapley and I have a go at last weekend's Governors Awards, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, the documentary short list and Hal Holbrook's performance in That Evening Sun. Over at Awards Daily, Sasha Stone assembles a bigger group to grapple with some of these and other questions.

By Anne Thompson
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November 20, 2009 9:31 AM
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Twilight Saga: New Moon Breaks Harry Potter Midnight Ticket Sales Record

Based on the torrid rate of Fandango and MovieTickets.com advance online ticket sales, it's not a huge surprise that The Twilight Saga: New Moon broke the midnight ticket sales record set last summer by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince , reports the LAT:

By Anne Thompson
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November 20, 2009 5:59 AM
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Bendinger Launches Screenwriting Contest

Screenwriter Jessica Bendinger (Bring it On) is going interactive to promote the November 24 release of her Simon & Schuster novel The Seven Rays. She's inviting aspiring screenwriters to adapt any portion of the book into a 2-5 page screenplay in order to win an in-depth consultation with her.

By Anne Thompson
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November 20, 2009 3:58 AM
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Avatar Featurette Hypes Hardware

This Avatar international featurette invites viewers to engage with the exotic planet Pandora and the human hardware that James Cameron and Co. designed for this movie. We see Sam Worthington arriving on the hostile planet where scientist Sigourney Weaver and pilot Michelle Rodriguez do their rounds, under the watchful eye of tough-talking macho-security chief Stephen Lang.

By Anne Thompson
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November 20, 2009 2:49 AM
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Sixteen Questions for A Single Man's Tom Ford

Ex-Gucci designer Tom Ford, 48, has David Geffen to thank not only for his old office complex on Sunset, but for advising him to invest in himself. That he did, with his remarkably assured $7-million film debut, A Single Man. It's not surprising that the film has style to spare. But it also boasts the strongest performance of Colin Firth's career. His role as a 1962 college professor grieving the loss of his lover of 16 years won him best actor at Venice and has pushed the British veteran into the Oscar race for the first time. The hottest acquisition title on the fall festival circuit, A Single Man was scooped up by The Weinstein Co., which opens the film December 11.

By Anne Thompson
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November 20, 2009 2:14 AM
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Hillcoat Talks The Road

It's been a long haul for the film adaptation of the 2006 Cormac McCarthy bestseller The Road, which producer Nick Wechsler acquired before it was published. With backing from 2929 Entertainment and distributor The Weinstein Co., he approached Australian director John Hillcoat after he had made the much-admired 2005 western The Proposition, a stylishly gritty take on the genre written by Nick Cave and starring Guy Pearce and Danny Huston as estranged brothers.

By Anne Thompson
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November 19, 2009 9:23 AM
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Kevin Smith vs. Bruce Willis: "A Lion in Winter"

Kevin Smith has been open about his difficulties directing Bruce Willis on the set of his new comedy co-starring Tracy Morgan, A Couple of Cops. "He's undirectable," he said. At the New Moon premiere Smith kidded producer James Jacks, saying, "Dude, why didn't you tell me!" The movie may have turned out okay (here's an early AICN review), but point is, Smith and I agreed, the glory days for stars are over.

By Anne Thompson
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November 19, 2009 7:44 AM
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Oscar Watch: Documentary Branch Snubs Capitalism: A Love Story

The Academy documentary branch has named their short list of fifteen films (full list on jump), which will be narrowed down to five on Oscar nominations morning February 2.

By Anne Thompson
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November 19, 2009 12:14 AM
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The Twilight Saga: New Moon Disappoints

When new distributor Summit left behind Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke in its rush to push through the second film in their windfall franchise, they took a calculated risk. Abandoning a silly Twilight script that had been passed on by Paramount, Hardwicke and writer Melissa Rosenberg went back to the heart-pounding first-person intensity of the Stephenie Meyer original, which wound up selling 70 million copies worldwide. The dream that inspired Meyer--chapter thirteen in the first book--is a scene in a rain forest between a lovelorn young girl and a sparkling 109-year-old vampire who is restraining himself from biting and killing her. That tension is the heart and soul of the Twilight series.