Paramount Pictures Dominates 2012 Saturn Awards with 46 Nominations

Hugo and Harry Potter Cast Their Spells and Lead Film Nominations for 38th Saturn Awards

Breaking Bad and American Horror Story Scare Up Most TV Nominations in Banner Year for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror; Winners to be Announced June 20

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hugo and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 each received 10 nominations as the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films today announced nominations for the 38th Annual Saturn Awards, which will be presented on Wednesday, June 20.

Other leading titles in the Academy’s film category were Super 8 (eight nominations); Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger (seven); The Adventures of Tintin and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (six each); and Rise of the Planet of the Apes (five).

In TV categories, AMC’s Breaking Bad cooked up six nominations, while F/X’s first foray into a genre series, American Horror Story, scored five nominations. TV series with four nominations each are: Fringe (Fox), Dexter (Showtime), Leverage (TNT), Game of Thrones (HBO), The Killing (AMC) and Torchwood: Miracle Day (Starz). Once Upon a Time (ABC), TNT’s The Closer and Falling Skies, and The Walking Dead (AMC) each earned two nominations.

The 2012 Saturn Award nominees for Best Science Fiction film are The Adjustment Bureau, Captain America: The First Avenger, Limitless, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Super 8 and X-Men: First Class. Best Fantasy film nominees are Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Hugo, Immortals, Midnight in Paris, The Muppets and Thor. Best Horror/Thriller film nominees are Contagion, The Devil’s Double, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Grey, Take Shelter and The Thing. Best Action/Adventure film nominees are Fast Five, The Lincoln Lawyer, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Red Tails, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and War Horse.

In addition to the competitive Saturn Awards, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films announced that filmmaker Martin Scorsese will receive its prestigious George Pal Memorial Award.

“This was a phenomenal year for genre films and TV series, which broadened the horizons of storytelling and technology, bringing audiences new ways to dream,” said Robert Holguin, president of the Academy, which this year marks its 40th anniversary. The Academy was founded in 1972 by noted film historian Dr. Donald A. Reed to honor and recognize films often overlooked by mainstream awards. Over the years, the Academy has expanded its reach to include recognizing excellence in television and home entertainment, as well as other genres, including adventure, thriller and action.

The organization’s qualifying period for the 38th annual Saturn Awards was Feb. 1, 2011, to Jan. 31, 2012. This year’s Saturn Awards will be presented on Wednesday, June 20, in Burbank. For a complete list of nominations and more information about the Academy, visit http://www.saturnawards.org/.

Review: "The Illusionist" Casts a Spell (Happy B'day, Jessica Biel)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 36 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Illusionist (2006)
Running time: 110 minutes (1 hour, 50 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some sexual and violent content
DIRECTOR: Neil Burger
WRITER: Neil Burger (based upon the short story “Eisenheim the Illusionist” by Steven Millhauser)
PRODUCERS: Michael London, Brian Koppelman, David Levien, and Bob Yari & Cathy Schulman
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Dick Pope, BSC
EDITOR: Naomi Geraghty
2007 Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/FANTASY/MYSTERY/ROMANCE

Starring: Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell, Eddie Marson, Jake Wood, Tom Fisher, Karl Johnson, Eleanor Tomlinson, and Aaron Johnson

The subject of this movie review is The Illusionist, a 2006 period drama written and directed by Neil Burger. Burger loosely bases his screenplay on “Eisenheim the Illusionist,” a 1989 short story by Pulitzer Prize-winner, Steven Millhauser.

When he was a boy, Eduard Abramovicz (Aaron Johnson) fell in love with the Duchess Sophie von Teschen (Eleanor Tomlinson) an aristocrat well above his social standing. Her parents kept them apart, so Eduard left his home and traveled the world. Early 1900’s, Eduard returns to Vienna as Eisenheim the Illusionist (Edward Norton), an extraordinary conjurer and master magician. During one of his performances, Eisenheim fatefully encounters the Duchess (Jessica Biel), now a beautiful young woman engaged to marry Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell). Eisenheim employs his powers to win back her love, which is not necessary, as she never stopped loving him.

While Sophie is smitten with Eisenheim, Leopold feels threatened by the stage magician’s strange tricks, and attempts to apply cold logic to expose what he sees as Eisenheim’s scams. Leopold, however, has a history of abusing his female companions, and his apparent assault of Sophie during a jealous rage pits him against the illusionist extraordinaire in a duel of authority and stage magic. Caught in the middle of Eisenheim and Leopold’s feud is Chief Inspector Walter Uhl (Paul Giamatti), who deeply admires Eisenheim’s skills, but must serve Leopold if he wishes to advance socially and politically.

In his film, The Illusionist, director Neil Burger uses a mesmerizing performance by two-time Oscar nominee Edward Norton (Primal Fear, American History X) to deliver an enchanting supernatural mystery tale full of forbidden romance, imperial politics, and dazzling magic. Burger and cinematographer Dick Pope use autochrome photography to take the recognizable world and transfer it to the realm of mystery where everything is beautiful, but also has a disturbing undertone. Director and cinematographer saturate the world of The Illusionist in gold and green and then, allow the shadows to play ever so slightly on the edges of the picture’s frame. It’s a unique look that heightens the sense of magic, mystery, dreams, and that feeling of an otherness – the paranormal.

Not only did Burger build an enthralling world with his creative staff, but he also allowed his actors to play, guiding their considerable talents into selling this narrative. Paul Giamatti is excellent as the Chief Inspector Uhl, who admires Eisenheim, but is trapped between a rock and a hard place as Leopold’s strong-arm man. Giamatti wears his emotions on his face quite well – obvious, but with subtlety and grace, so he lets us see the struggle. Uhl admires Eisenheim even as he must control him. Sewell is super intense as Leopold, and he also allows to the audience to see the brilliant mind behind the face of a man with control issues. Jessica Biel is tolerable, but even her best moments seem weak compared to everyone else.

Still, this movie’s star is Edward Norton. Intelligent and intense, Norton always brings an air of elegance to his performances. Truthfully, he’s just too damn talented, and the fire of his abilities can burn through a weekly structured film. Here, there is no such problem. Norton’s Eisenheim is dark and mysterious, and we are drawn to this handsome creature who seems to have dark forces at play behind his placid face and his genial smile. Norton never lets us truly know Eisenheim, but he draws us to the character like moths to the magician’s exquisite flame. In the end, The Illusionist leaves so many questions unanswered, and it is indeed a great film that makes the viewer love the magic, mystery, and the great unknown of that which is supernatural. Neither The Illusionist nor its star character will let us know how a magician does “it,” but that won’t stop the audience from being spellbound and loving both.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2007 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Achievement in Cinematography” (Dick Pope)

Friday, February 16, 2007

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Review: "The Thing" 2011 Suffers Next to "The Thing" 1982

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 17 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Thing (2011)
Running time: 103 minutes; MPAA – R for strong creature violence and gore, disturbing images, and language
DIRECTOR: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
WRITER: Eric Heisserer (based upon the story “Who Goes There” by John W. Campbell, Jr.)
PRODUCERS: Marc Abraham and Eric Newman
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Michel Abramowicz
EDITORS: Peter Boyle, Julian Clarke, and Jono Griffith
COMPOSER: Marco Beltrami

SCI-FI/HORROR/THRILLER/MYSTERY

Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Eric Christian Olsen, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Paul Braumstein, Trond Espen Seim, Kim Bubbs, Jørgen Langhelle, Jan Gunnar Røise, and Stig Henrik Hoff

One thing that becomes clearer to a budding writer as he or she develops writing skills is the importance of conflict. Sometimes horror movies are less about conflict than they are about cheap scares.

Who Goes There? is a novella written by John W. Campbell, Jr. under the pen name Don A. Stuart. It was first published in the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The story is about group of scientific researchers in Antarctica and their encounter with an alien that assumes the shape, memories, and personality of any living thing it devours. The Howard Hawks/Christian Nyby film, The Thing from Another World (1951), is a loose adaptation of the Who Goes There? The 1982 John Carpenter movie, The Thing, was a remake of the 1951 film, but Carpenter’s version (written by Bill Lancaster) was more faithful to Campbell’s novella. There is a third film adaptation of Who Goes There?

The Thing is a 2011 science fiction horror film that acts as a prequel to the events depicted in Carpenter’s 1982 film. Not only are the Hawks and Carpenter films among my favorite movies, but I also consider them two of the great science fiction and horror movies of all time. The Thing 2011 pits scientists against a sneaky alien menace, but much of the movie lacks conflict or struggle.

The Thing 2011 is set in and around Thule Station, a Norwegian research station in Antarctica. The scientists and researchers at the station have just discovered a spacecraft buried deep beneath the ice. One of the scientists recruits American paleontologist, Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), to come to Thule, where Kate learns that the scientists have also discovered a survivor from the spacecraft buried in the ice. The scientists return the alien to the station in a block of ice, but they soon learn that the alien is still alive. Now, it is consuming and replicating people in the station, and Kate seems to be the only one who truly understands the situation. But will she be able to tell the difference between the real humans and the copies?

The Thing 2011, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., is loving and respectful of John Carpenter’s 1982 film. In some ways, Heijningen’s film is as much a remake of Carpenter’s film as it is a prequel, but I think that’s why the new film comes out being a fairly average science fiction horror film. The first hour of this movie seems like nothing more than procedure, as if the director and screenwriter were more determined to set up a scenario rather than tell a story. I could feel the weight of Carpenter’s classic film weighing down the narrative of this new movie. Perhaps, Universal Pictures would have been better off remaking Carpenter’s movie or making (dare I say) the more daring choice and producing a sequel to the 1982 movie.

It doesn’t help that the characters are not interesting. They seem like a bunch of dull people standing around a boring party hoping that something will happen to liven up things. That “something” is the alien, and when it finally starts attacking like a mad-monster big dog, Kate and a few other characters suddenly seem interesting. That’s because the story finally embraces conflict and struggle. The human/alien conflict creates a struggle to live, and when human characters struggle to live in fiction, we pretty much always pull for them. The alien’s struggle to survive (which means killing humans) certainly makes the story more interesting.

When there is no conflict, the movie is a bust, but for about 20 minutes during this movie’s second half, it is actually first-rate science fiction-horror. Then, it starts to misfire again, alternating ridiculous and cool. The Thing has such cheap scares as what’s-around-the-corner, the monster attacks, and the ambiguous shadows, etc. There is potential here, but most of it is wasted. The Thing 2011 is mostly just an awkward love letter to a better movie, so please watch John Carpenter’s The Thing, if you haven’t seen it already. Or if you have, see it again; it’s always a pleasure to watch.

5 of 10
C+

Thursday, March 01, 2012

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Shyamalan Begins Shooting "After Earth" with New Camera System

"After Earth" Is First Motion Picture to Be Shot with Sony's F65 Camera

Sony Pictures Entertainment's Upcoming Science Fiction Epic Gets True 4K Production Treatment Using Groundbreaking New Camera System

PARK RIDGE, N.J., Feb. 29, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The latest film from the production company Overbrook Entertainment and acclaimed director M. Night Shyamalan, "After Earth," scheduled for release next year by Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia Pictures, is the first major motion picture to be shot using Sony's groundbreaking F65 CineAlta(TM) digital production camera.

Shyamalan commented, "I couldn't be any happier with the F65, which is amazing since I'm a 'film guy' and I thought I'd die a 'film guy.' It's a digital media that's warm and has humanity in it which is obviously the most important thing to me."

"The F65 is like a great leap forward," said director of photography, Peter Suschitzky. "As soon as I did testing of the F65, I was immensely impressed by the amount of detail it captures, by its incredible flexibility, from low lights to high lights, and its great contrast range. It really is a camera for the future and I'm going to use it again on a number of films."

In January 2012, Sony began worldwide deliveries of the F65 camera to meet the incredibly high demand from production professionals. Approximately 400 units were pre-ordered, and several other high-profile productions are also planned to be shot with the F65.

"This movie is the perfect first project for the F65," said Alec Shapiro, senior vice president at Sony Electronics. "The combination of an innovative moviemaker and a script with incredibly high production values will test the limits of this camera and its powerful feature set. The result is sure to be a unique and visually immersive entertainment experience for the movie-going consumer."

The F65 camera's unprecedented 8K image sensor, with approximately 20 total megapixels, offers higher image fidelity than any other digital cinema production camera. With 16-bit Linear RAW file output capability, the F65 creates the gateway to an end-to-end 4K file-based mastering workflow.

In response to the strong interest in Sony's new F65 CineAlta(TM) camera from the filmmaking community, Sony Pictures Studios plans to host workshops on digital workflows supporting the F65. The workshops, beginning in March, are designed to educate qualified directors, cinematographers and other film industry professionals.

Review: "Lady in the Water" is a Beautiful Storybook Fantasy (Happy B'day, Bryce Dallas Howard)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 163 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Lady in the Water (2006)
Running time: 110 minutes; MPAA – PG-13 for some frightening sequences
WRITER/DIRECTOR: M. Night Shyamalan
PRODUCERS: Sam Mercer and M. Night Shyamalan
CINEMATORGRAPHER: Christopher Doyle, H.K.S.C
EDITOR: Barbara Tulliver, A.C.E.

FANTASY/DRAMA/MYSTERY/THRILLER

Starring: Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeffrey Wright, Bob Balaban, Sarita Choudhury, Cindy Cheung, Freddy Rodriguez, Bill Irwin, Jared Harris, M. Night Shyamalan, June Kyoto Lu, Mary Beth Hurt, and Noah Gray-Cabey

M. Night Shyamalan’s films have been thoughtful and profound. His characters fight pitched battles with their inner demons as they wage war with the outside forces that would destroy or enslave them. We’ve seen that in everything from the heart-rending ghost story, The Sixth Sense, to the story of a lapsed minister who finds his way back to his faith while battling an alien invasion in the 2002 hit film, Signs. Shyamalan’s films are also known for their twist endings – surprising finales that not only change the tone of the film, but also frustrate audiences who bought into one kind of story and find a shock ending ruins their expectations – Unbreakable (2000) and The Village (2004) being the best (or worst) examples.

In his new film, Lady in the Water, Shyamalan eschews the twist ending for a yarn that can be taken figuratively as a fairytale or literally as a tale of people who find their destiny in a fairytale made real. Or maybe the viewer can see it as both figurative and literal. Regardless of how one views it, Lady in the Water is one of the most lovely and heartfelt tales told in recent years – a thing as beautiful as its sparkling blue movie poster.

Modest and humble, Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti, in a performance that solidifies his place as a great American actor), manages an apartment building named “The Cove.” One night Cleveland is investigating the noises from the apartment’s swimming pool when he falls in by accident. He awakens to find that a pale, young woman with deep blue eyes, who says her name is Story (Bryce Dallas Howard), has rescued him from drowning. Cleveland discovers that Story is a “narf,” a creature from an old bedtime story, and she is trying to make the treacherous journey from our world back to her own, the “Blue World.” Cleveland and the rest of The Cove’s collection of oddball tenants realize that they have suddenly been drawn into Story’s fable. Young Soon (Cindy Cheung), a go-getter college student, Mr. Dury (Jeffrey Wright), a serene crossword puzzle fanatic and his son, Joey (Noah Gray-Cabey), Mr. Leeds (Bill Irwin), a housebound TV watcher, and Vick (M. Night Shyamalan), a writer and Anna Ran (Sarita Choudhury), his talkative sister, among many others, accept this strange story of which they are a part. With their help, Cleveland must protect this fragile young woman from a deadly creature hell-bent on keeping Story from returning home.

By now, many reviewers and audiences have turned on Shyamalan for this picture. However, where others see Lady in the Water as boring or mystifying, I see it has a simple fairytale. Yes, Shyamalan’s script is a bit artsy and pretentious at times, and the story (based upon a bedtime tale he wrote for his children) is stretched to the breaking point and challenges credibility. Still, for all that we might take it literally, much of the story is symbolic The characters, setting, and incidents are meant to remind us of a bedtime story, or to put it bluntly – “Once upon a time... Lady in the Water is a metaphor about people taking up their place in destiny, of the difficulty in taking up the journey to get to one’s place, and that each person does indeed have a purpose.

While the subject matter and characters might not make sense on the surface, they and the tale in which they exist have a deeper meaning. We’re supposed to see past the trappings and see the core – lives driven by purpose for the good of humanity. In Lady in the Water, the title character, but especially Cleveland Heep, have to break out of the protective shells they’ve made for themselves using their own fears, grief, and insecurities as building material. Thus, it’s no wonder that the other characters were so quick to embrace their part in this bedtime story – they’ve also hungered for a life of meaning. An enchanting fairytale filled with magical characters and dark fantasy, Lady in the Water is the most meaningful fable mainstream Hollywood has given us in a very long time.

8 of 10
A

Monday, July 31, 2006

NOTES:
2007 Razzie Awards: 2 wins: “Worst Director” (M. Night Shyamalan) and “Worst Supporting Actor” (M. Night Shyamalan); 2 nominations: “Worst Picture” ((Warner Bros.) and “Worst Screenplay” (M. Night Shyamalan)

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Happy Birthday, Phil

Since 50+ candles might anger a fire marshal, I'll just wish you the best and hope you have many more high-numbered birthdays.

The Ides of Negromancer

Welcome to Negromancer, the rebirth of my former movie review website as a movie review and movie news blog.  This is the blog version's third March, and I didn't think I'd get this far.

I’m Leroy Douresseaux, and I also blog at http://ireadsyou.blogspot.com/ and write for the Comic Book Bin (which has smart phones apps and comics).

All images and text appearing on this blog are © copyright and/or trademark their respective owners.