Cinematical

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is going to pull a Sir Mix-A-Lot and "Uh! Double up, uh uh!" the Best Picture category next year with ten nominees instead of the usual five. That's twice as many nominations as before, although it seems to only be limited to the Best Picture category, which is a shame because opening up at least the major categories could make things a lot more interesting.

The announcement on Variety today was extremely short, but the Academy has a press release up already stating that they're hearkening back to Oscars roots when the Best Picture category sometimes contained ten films (or more -- 12 in 1934 and 1935), although that hasn't been the case since 1943. Despite the doubling, Academy president Sid Ganis wants to remind you, "The final outcome, of course, will be the same -– one Best Picture winner."

Gee, thanks Sid. For a minute there we thought you'd really just decided to shoot for the moon and feature three Best Picture winners in a publicity stunt. Now how about you guys get to work on the show for next year and get Stephen Colbert to host? That's worth doubling up for.

Which films do you think will now make the cut? Pixar's Up is a definite contender ... what else?

Pixar's much-ballyhooed feature Up opens this weekend, and the theaters will be chock full of families with little ones ready for some colorful eye-candy and delightful storytelling. But how are those little ones going to act when they see not one, but two separate instances of bright, red blood on the screen? I'm sure no one is going to need therapy after seeing this, but it's interesting that Pixar is breaking down the blood / screen barrier.

Disney films have long been sanitized, and although we've seen death in Disney's animated movies before (Bambi's mother, Simba's dad, Nemo's mother, countless goons in The Incredibles and so on), they really never feature blood, despite the violent nature of many of the plots. Usually the characters die off-screen, and the audience is spared any actual shots of the red stuff.

In The Lion King there's a brief spray of blood in the battle between Mufasa and Scar, but otherwise you get red scratches on the characters, which look cartoonish (well, it's a cartoon) and not very realistic. They did the same "scratches for wounds" thing in Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, and even with Sleeping Beauty there's only a tiny trickle of blood as Phillip slays Maleficent. A bit surprising given the fact that she has a huge sword buried through her massive heart.

Remember Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote project? It was so vexed by setbacks that they eventually had to kill the film, and it became the subject of the excellent (and tragic) documentary Lost In La Mancha. It's impossible to watch and not feel loads of sympathy for Gilliam. If you're a Gilliam buff, or want to be, you need to watch that and also read Andrew Yule's Losing the Light about The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, another GIlliam debacle, although that one actually made it to the screen (and despite it's crazy history, is one of my favorite movies).

Well, according to Variety, Quixote may actually see the light of day again. Gilliam has restarted the project with a rewritten script, and is in talks with Johnny Depp to play the lead role, this time a filmmaker who becomes a stand-in for Sancho Panza. The role of Don Quixote hasn't been cast yet, but last year Monty Python member Michael Palin was in talks with Gilliam to take the role.

Will it actually happen this time around? Oh, to dream the impossible dream.

Talk about timely, Samuel L. Jackson is going to be playing a negotiator yet again. Only this time he'll be talking to pirates and ship owners in order to broker a deal that probably won't have anything to do with whether or not her murdered his partner, Nate. Also, these aren't pirates of the "Arrrrrrrrrr!" and "Polly wanna cracker?" variety, but instead are the Somali variety that have been in the news lately.

Variety reports that Jackson will be producing this film along with Andras Hamori. The two previously produced Formula 51 back in 2002 which featured Jackson in a kilt. Jackson will portray real-life pirate negotiator and freelance journalist Andrew Mwangura who has successfully worked out deals between pirates and ship owners before. Deals that often involve a lot of money, say to the tune of $3.4 million dollars. However, that's money paid to the pirates as a ransom, not Mwangura's take. It's unclear if the company gave him a finder's fee for the safe return of their cargo, but apparently he makes a living as a freelance journalist.

Dang, I don't know any of us at Cinematical who negotiate with pirates in their spare time. Although I did talk down the price of some furniture at a garage sale recently.

Imagine an alternate universe where American Gladiators never came to your television set. Instead it was showing at every multiplex across the country. That was the original dream of show creator Johnny Ferraro, and now it might actually happen. I feel a bit like Egon from Ghostbusters passing this information along from Tobin's Spirit Guide.

Variety reports that indeed an American Gladiators movie is in the works, and that the "goal is to create an action story that takes place inside the world Ferraro has created." You mean like, a gym where people take swings at each other with giant padded q-tips? Stranger things have probably happened in the movie world, but I'm scratching my head to come up with one that's gone down this route.

The film will be produced by Scott Mednick, formerly of Legendary Pictures, with Martin Guigui of Sunset Pictures, Joe Allegro, and Johnny Ferraro serving as executive producers. Sunset is also picking up the tab on this one, which will surely include enormous bills for spandex and "performance enhancing drugs."

Crank: High Voltage comes out this weekend, which sends Jason Statham back into a frenzied pinball movie world that has his sweaty bald head running at top speed to keep himself alive ... again. So if you want to keep your levels pegged at 11 this weekend, you might want to consider one of these other movies that have pure Russian racehorse levels of adrenaline pumping through their veins. When we say adrenaline fueled, we don't just mean hyperkinetic, no-attention-span-editing and lots of boring action sequences. That might even qualify Hannah Montana: The Movie for this list.

No, we mean you're on the edge of your seat, neck and shoulders tense, and eyeballs propped open like Malco McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. Cinematical urges you to try this at your own risk, and does not recommend any artery-clogging snacks in the midst of your movie madness. You'll need those suckers wide open to keep the heartpump chugging away, and you can consider yourself exercised for the month of April if you make it through at least three of these movies by Sunday.

Crank

Before writer-directors Neveldine and Taylor concocted another way to brutalize Jason Statham onscreen, they originally did it in this underrated film from 2006. I went into Crank with zero knowledge of the movie, other than the fact that the guy from the Transporter movies, Snatch, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was in it. I'd hated the Transporter series, but loved the other two so I thought I'd give this a shot. 87 minutes later, I peeled my sweat-soaked back from the theater seat and staggered out to the car. This is non-stop, pure over the top action, and it's well worth seeing. Just take your meds before watching.

The digital ink on the J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot isn't even dry yet, but nevermind the furthermore: Variety reports they're already accelerating from impulse power to warp speed on a sequel. The writing duo of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman will be back, this time with producer Damon Lindelof joining in on writing duties. What was it they said about three cooks spoiling the soup? Anyhow, Lindelof is megaenthusiastic for the project, saying "We're so excited about the first one that we wanted to proceed." Let's hope he doesn't bring the Black Smoke from Lost into the world of Trek.

If the first movie tanks in April (which could happen, Trekkies can be fickle folks), then the skids will be put on this sequel faster than all those ambitious plans that Cloverfield had back in the day. Remember? It was going to be a prequel, a sequel, and a breakfast cereal. What happened to all that jazz? Still, they're aiming to have a sequel in theaters by 2011, so you could see a new Trek franchise film every two years. No word on whether we'll get to see mirror universe versions of Spock or Kirk ... and I've just outed myself as a Trek geek.

Taking into account the fact that we haven't seen the new film yet, what sort of instructions would you give for sequels moving forward?

Did you like Quantum of Solace? Neither did I. Despite all the bombast and the film being billed as "The first direct James Bond sequel EVAR!" I just found myself bored throughout it, except maybe during that opening car chase. Otherwise, it was snoozeville. I lay part of that blame on the fact that we didn't get a decent Bond girl to go with it. Olga Kurylenko bored me to tears with her monotonal portrayal of a daughter seeking revenge, and I would have much rather seen more of the redhead who is all-too-briefly seen as another MI6 agent sent to guard Bond. So, with that in mind, here are seven women who I'd like to see fill the Bond cups, er... shoes.

Alright, this list is partly SXSW-influenced, and that's because of the sheer amount of hotties shown onscreen in Sebastian Gutierrez's Women In Trouble. Carla Gugino spends a good amount of time in nothing more than a bra and panty set, and you could practically see the humidity steaming off the screen because of it. Yes, she's seriously that hot, don't let her middle-aged turn in the recent Watchmen fool you. But lined up right behind her is even more hotness from the film, and you'll have to read on to see how it plays out.

Carla Gugino
I'll be honest here, and Ms. Gugino I sure hope you aren't reading this. But ... I just didn't think you had the chops. However, I loved your powerful (and all-too-brief) turn in Sin City, and enjoyed your portrayal of Vincent Chase's agent Amanda in Entourage, and now I realized that you have the curves a Bond girl needs, but you really deliver on the icy cold ball-busting looks that a Bond villain thrives on. Let's give Bond a good villainess to do battle with, and one that stands on equal footing with him in the smouldering looks department. When you appear as aging boozehound Sally Jupiter and pornstar extraordinaire Elektra Luxx a few weeks apart, it's bound to pop a few eyes out. Thanks for proving to us that you've got both the acting ability and the jigglewatts to pull this off.