Cinematical

This week Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles is finally making its way to the big screen. It's not a big buzzed-about film, but it is, indeed, one worthy of your time. The movie offers a peek at Efron's possible future (which the abysmal 17 Again completely failed to do), a delightful look into creating art in the '30s, and it recreates the nuances of theater on the big screen. And hey, it's a Linklater film, which seems to be painfully rare these days.

But none of those reasons are why I urge you to see it. It all rests on the shoulders of actor Christian McKay, who plays Orson Welles. I missed the film at TIFF, and spent the next year listening to raves over McKay's performance before I finally got the chance to make it to a screening. Even with the rave reviews and raised expectations, it was quite easy to get mesmerized by McKay, who not only bears an uncanny resemblance to the iconic actor and filmmaker, but also adeptly embodies the man's larger-than-life ways.

To get the full experience, you must be familiar with Welles, and if you're not, well, good lord, now's the time to change that. What follows are some of Welles' essential work, as well as glimpses into the man's real life so you can see just how good McKay's performance is.

The first reviews for Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones are beginning to pour in, and, naturally (for a popular, fan-friendly director like Jackson), there are the raves (Harry Knowles from AICN) and the pans (Todd McCarthy from Variety). Just posted this evening over at Variety, McCarthy's review is perhaps the hardest one to swallow. Essentially his biggest problem with the movie were the effects, claiming Jackson uses them way too much (and too often) for a film (and story) that doesn't really require them. He calls it "show-offy" and says the film "rates as a significant artistic disappointment." It's an unfortunate review for a film that was a shoe-in (and still may be, especially for Stanley Tucci) for multiple Oscar nods on almost everyone's list.

Some other quotes (no spoilers):

-- "This is an incredibly lovely film. From the visuals to the performances to the story-telling and film work... it all goes to capture a very powerful story in a way that makes you want to hug those close to you." -- Harry Knowles, AICN

-- "It's not that The Lovely Bones is a bad movie, exactly. It is handsomely made and strongly acted, while its woozy, lullaby ambience recalls Jackson's work on the brilliant Heavenly Creatures, before he set forth on his epic voyage through The Lord of the Rings." -- Xan Brooks, Guardian

-- "Peter Jackson's eagerly awaited film version of Alice Sebold's bestselling novel is sometimes exquisitely realised, sometimes frustratingly uneven. ... While The Lovely Bones is as dark as it gets thematically, it will still be an event movie for the adult audience." -- Mike Goodridge, Screen Daily

-- This was never going to be an easy story to film. Using the same characters and many events, Jackson and his team tell a fundamentally different story. It's one that is not without its tension, humor and compelling details. But it's also a simpler, more button-pushing tale that misses the joy and heartbreak of the original." -- Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter

The Lovely Bones hits theaters on December 11th.

After nominating For a Few Dollars More and The Good the Bad and the Ugly for Free Flick of the Day, I'm going to sound like a very old and tired drum by nominating Hang 'Em High. But hey, you need something to watch today and it's just sitting there, waiting for someone to notice it.

Hang 'Em High isn't a great film by any means, and it's not a very remarkable Western. It's full of missed opportunities, and the end hints that there may have been plans for a franchise centered around Marshall Jed Cooper. It's notable because it was the first film Clint Eastwood produced with his Malpaso shingle, which he would obviously go onto do great things with. (Would there be an Unforgiven without Hang 'Em High? Probably, but who knows!) It's also his first post-Sergio Leone Western, and one of the first attempts to bring Leone's style to America. It doesn't succeed in doing that very well, though a lot of the Man with No Name's trademarks remained. I think Eastwood sold himself a bit short by relying on that cigar so much, particularly since this is a character who is miles away from the cold bounty hunter of the Leone flicks. Jed Cooper is a man who is genuinely trying to do the right thing in life, and gets screwed over again and again.

However, this film entertaining enough, and is worth watching just for the whole hanging sequence. I've already mentioned this film as the probable inspiration for Lt. Aldo Raine's hanging scar and while I'm still not sure if that's true or not, you can watch it and pretend Cooper is Raine's grandfather.

Watch Hang 'Em High for free on SlashControl

A mere month ago, it seemed like Michael Connelly's The Lincoln Lawyer was set for a top notch adaptation thanks to the arrival of Tommy Lee Jones. Jones was interested in directing and costarring in the film, which gave us all hope that he could help makeover Matthew McConaughey into something serious and shirt wearing. But alas, it's not to be. Variety reports that Jones has departed The Lincoln Lawyer, leaving it idling and spitting fumes.

Jones departed for that vague and all-encompassing reason "creative differences." Variety reports that he had issues with John Romano's script, and neither Jones nor Lakeshore Entertainment were willing to budge. The studio is currently on the hunt for a new director, and hopes to be shooting by spring.

So, feel free to speculate on just what script issues there might have been. I know we have some Connelly fans who were looking forward to this, and who know more about the book than I do. Given that it is a star vehicle for McConaughey, and the character is a bit of a legal freewheeler, I wonder if the script is more of a comedic departure from the book. We've cracked a lot of jokes about bongo drums and shirtlessness, but could that actually have been what Jones departed over? It's sleazy and easy to jump to that conclusion, and I can't really believe a Connelly book could be adapted into Fool's Gold. But this is Hollywood. Stranger things have happened.

If you still haven't seen Paranormal Activity, I don't know what you've been waiting for. Seeing the horror flick in theaters is one of those great moviegoing experiences -- the more people in the theater to scream and laugh with the better. Besides, I can only imagine that watching the thing at home would be so frightening you'll never be able to sleep soundly again. Oh, that probably appeals to many of you scary movie fans, in which case you'll be glad to know you have to wait only a little over a month more to pick up the DVD or Blu-ray of this little movie that could.

Paramount will release Paranormal Activity to home video on December 29, just in time to give you something to purchase with the gift card you got over the holidays. Both the DVD and Blu-ray come with the theatrical version of the film as well as an unrated cut that includes an alternate ending (presumably the original one). And the Blu-ray includes a digital copy of the theatrical version, so you can play the movie on your iPod and watch it while hiding underneath your covers.

Gotta love the book tour Stephen King is currently on to promote Under the Dome. First he tells a crowd in Maryland that he has written a draft of the television screenplay for Cell, that HBO wants to do an Under the Dome miniseries, and that he is working on new Talisman and The Dark Tower novels. And now an even bigger bombshell comes: he's got a book plan for a sequel to The Shining brewing in the back of his always-working mind.

But before getting to the news, I'd like to address the means by which it leaked out, which is equally interesting. While in Toronto, King followed up a 15-minute reading from Under the Dome with an hour long Q&A in a packed theater. The interviewer? David Cronenberg. Thinking about that taking place makes my heart hurt. My favorite director interviewing my favorite writer? What kind of cruel world hides such an event from me?

Fortunately the books portion of the Torontoist was there to cover the event and they've got all the details surrounding The Shining sequel Cronenberg and King talked about, tentatively titled Doctor Sleep. King explained that he had spent the last summer wondering what Danny Torrance would be like as a grown up and how the emotional scars carved into his psyche by the Overlook Hotel would have impacted the path of his otherwise happy life. The author charts the basic premise thusly:

Read the rest over at Horror Squad.

Everyone loves the brooding, over-bearing look of Darth Vader; clad all in black, draped in a cape, wearing an almost featureless mask. We're given no glimpse of any speck of his flesh, forcing us to speculate what kind of person the embodiment of evil actually looks like, and when we're finally given a look at the man under the mask in Return of the Jedi, we understand the reason for his full-body suit: Vader is horribly disfigured, his body severely withered for reasons yet to be revealed.

However, protecting his crippled frame is not the real reason behind Darth Vader's helmet and breathing mask. The following may be common knowledge for die hard Star Wars trivia masters, but for those of us casually in love with the original trilogy, it should come as an amusing bit of insight into the design of one of cinemas most iconic characters. SCI-FI Wire recently interviewed Ralph McQuarrie, George Lucas' conceptual designer responsible for the look of much of what ended up in Star Wars, including Vader's appearance, and the reason he gave is more mundane than menacing:

Today brings good news and bad news for fans eagerly awaiting The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, the first film in a proposed trilogy of new, motion-capture animated 3D films co-produced by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson (among others) based on the comic book series created by Georges "Hergé" Remi. Spielberg took up directorial duties on the first in the series, which was supposed to begin filming in 2008 for a 2010 release, but Universal, burned by the under-performance of Beowulf and Monster House at the box office, decided to pull out in the pre-production process, halting progress until Paramount could partner with Sony in order to grease the gears financially.

Not much has popped up in the news department since then, however at the London premiere of Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, the Lord of the Rings director told reporters that filming had finally been completed on Spielberg's Tintin entry. However, it's still no where close to release. Jackson went on to say that it is going to take another two years to actually animate the film, meaning fans are most likely looking at a late 2011 release date for The Secret of the Unicorn.

Our good friend and EIC Erik Davis had a very thoughtful idea for the holiday season: Why not scan the early flyers for the Black Friday sales, and report back to you -- the ravenous movie junkie -- to let you know where to find the best treats on the day after Thanksgiving?

The next big brick and mortar retail stores we'll be scouring for Black Friday deals are Kmart and Sears (here are the deals for Best Buy, Target, and Walmart). Neither have a particularly large selection of sales going on in the movie department, but if you're heading to either store for other pick-ups, you might want to keep your eye out for some of the following.

Oh, and the Kmart sale is from 6am to 11am while Sears' runs from 4am to noon.