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| 'Spider Man' filming rumoured to be delayed There have been rumours this week about delays in production of the next 'Spider Man' film - but its star insists it is business as usual. breakingnews.ie |
McGlynn lands Shameless role She was more likely to bake cakes than show her buns as dowdy Mrs Doyle in 'Father Ted', but now Pauline McLynn takes on a most unholy role in TV’s 'Shameless'. breakingnews.ie |
The Spy Next Door: Jackie Chan, Babysitter When Hollywood wants to extend the life of one of its movie tough guys and give him a dose of humiliation, it pairs him with a kid. Now it's Jackie Chan's turn. feedproxy.google.com |
Week in geek: Transformers with fewer explosions: a bang-out-of-order suggestion? | Ben Child Michael Bay has hinted the third film in his crashy robot franchise might be subtler than its predecessors. Is this really the time for him to come over all classy?The oeuvre of Michael Bay is not a mysterious thing. This is a man who likes big toys and even bigger bangs. A man who coined the phrase "fucking the frame" to describe his aesthetic; a director whose cinematic style is as nuanced as his political proclamations.But all of that may just be about to change, according to a new interview with Bay in the LA Times, in which the director talks about his plans for the next instalment in the Transformers series. Apparently, Transformers 3 won't be nearly as robot-heavy as the first two films in the series, and there will be fewer explosions."There will be a nice crescendo ending," Bay added. "It gets much more into the robot character. The last time you kind of met a few of the robots; this time you're gonna get a much cooler landscape."Transformers 2 managed the impressive feat of noisily battering its audience around the face while simultaneously boring them almost to sleep. Personally, I couldn't tell what was going on for around 90% of the movie, such was the proliferation of giant robots on screen - so perhaps Bay feels he needs to focus more on his creations' personalities in order to help viewers make some sort of sense of the next movie. In principle, it's not a bad idea.The problem of course, is that we are talking here about a man whose idea of "characterisation" includes introducing a pair of jive-talking, "African American" robots (one even had a gold tooth) into Transformers 2 - "for the kids", Bay explained. Their arrival apparently came as something of a shock to screenwriters Alex Kurtsmann and Roberto Orci, who delivered a script devoid of racial stereotyping, only to see it transformed into a Bay-friendly mould at the production stage.Plus, one has to assume that given the film's extremely healthy box office take (it currently stands second to Avatar in the 2009 global chart) people who go and see Michael Bay movies are the kind of people who rather like movies plenty of hard-to-identify metal crashing around the screen. Remove these things from Bay's movies, and there would not be an awful lot left to plug the near three-hour running time to which the director has grown accustomed. There is, after all, only so many times that Megan Fox can be called upon to look hot-yet-vapid.I suspect Bay fans probably do not need to panic overly. When Transformers 3 eventually arrives in multiplexes, it will most likely be more of the same. But perhaps I'm underestimating the film-maker's fortitude: perhaps the next instalment in the series will be his Wild Strawberries, filled with quirky recursive sections, fantasy sequences and plenty of breaking the fourth wall. Are you looking forward to the prospect of a more intelligent take on the Transformers formula? Or would you rather poke your own eyes out with a sharp stick than sit through 160 minutes of Michael Bay attempting to be understated?Action and adventureMichael BayBen Childguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
It's official: Avatar sinks Titanic's record James Cameron trumps James Cameron for the title of king of the all-time box-office recordIn the end, the only man capable of defeating James Cameron was James Cameron. Titanic, the film-maker's epic 1997 romance set on the doomed ocean liner, yesterday lost its crown as the top grossing movie of all time to Avatar, an epic 3D romance set on an Earth-like moon orbiting a distant star.The science-fiction saga almost overtook its predecessor's record of $1.843bn at the weekend, after six weeks topping box-office charts around the globe. Twentieth Century Fox confirmed yesterday that the record had finally been broken.Many pundits had predicted Titanic's record would never be beaten. Yet, early in Avatar's run it was clear it was repeating the pattern of multiple repeat viewings that had been the making of Cameron's previous film. Avatar also benefited from the higher price of tickets for 3D screenings, which have accounted for more than 80% of US earnings and 65% of those elsewhere. The film was so successfully hyped as the first must-see stereoscopic experience that few wanted to compromise with a 2D viewing. In addition, its record-breaking success in China and Russia, markets harder to crack back in 1997, certainly helped to lift its bottom line.Avatar's box-office victory was, however, won without adjustment for inflation. Figures that do so show how far it's eclipsed by the likes of 1939's Gone With the Wind – that film grossed $400m worldwide, which equates to at least $6bn in today's money, more than three times Avatar's figure.James CameronScience fiction and fantasy3DFilm industryBen Childguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |