Family Films »

It's been so long since we heard anything about Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are that you would be forgiven if you thought it had been shelved indefinitely. But no! The poster has arrived, courtesy of the Spike Jonze Fan Blog who scanned it from Nick Magazine. You can see it in our tiny Wild Things gallery below.

I have to say, I love that all the promotional materials are keeping to a misty, mysterious theme -- in an age where everything is spoiled the moment it starts filming, I love when a studio can keep some suspense going.

However, we'll get our first look at the monsters and Max in action very, very soon. CHUD is reporting that the first trailer (no teaser this time, it'll apparently be a full three-minute trailer set to the Arcade Fire's Wake Up) will be attached to Monsters Vs Aliens, so you have a mere nine days to wait! But just to tease you, here's what CHUD's scooper described: Try as I might, I can't verbalize how I felt about the trailer beyond the most grandiose superlatives: 'beautiful' and 'gorgeous' and 'breathtaking', making me sound like Pete Hammond. The environments in particular (there's a sequence of cutting between 4 shots of Max running through different environments that is absolutely magical) are a work of incredible vision, especially in light of the production methods Spike opted for. It does feel like a 'kids movie' (not pejorative): the trailer repeatedly made me about eight years old, over and over again. Unless I'm an idiot, and you'll see yourself in a week or two, the finalized monsters are some kind of incredible technical achievement.

Anything that sends a person into superlatives has to be worth seeing. Can't wait.

In fulfillment of the prophecy that Disney will eventually remake every single one of its live-action movies, here is Race to Witch Mountain. It bears a passing resemblance to 1975's Escape to Witch Mountain, but it's more reminiscent of a tiresome carnival ride whose operator abandoned it and left it to run for 90 minutes. Whatever fun there is in it quickly gives way to tedium.

Appropriately, it's set in loud, gaudy Las Vegas, where Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson) works as a cab driver. In the past he has freelanced his services for one Mr. Wolf, a shady underworld figure whose goons regularly visit Jack trying to re-enlist him. Maybe I shouldn't bother mentioning that, though, because it ultimately has nothing to do with the story. For that reason, I'm also not going to mention Jack's lifelong desire to own a particular Ford Mustang, since that detail was clearly added only after someone read a screenwriting book and paused at the chapter that talked about giving your characters hopes and dreams. It's extraneous.

But back to the actual story. Jack encounters two strange preteens, a brother and sister named Seth (Alexander Ludwig) and Sara (AnnaSophia Robb). They are extraterrestrials whose spaceship crashed in the desert when they came to Earth in search of a MacGuffin, and now they must get the item and return to the ship -- which is problematic, because the U.S. government, led by heartless Henry Burke (Ciarán Hinds), has recovered the craft and hidden it away somewhere. There's also an alien assassin pursuing the kids, though that's another thing that's ultimately not particularly relevant.

I was on my way home from seeing the nasty new Last House on the Left movie when I got a call from a friend, to whom I quickly explained that I was on my way to get a shiny new Pinocchio DVD. She paused for a second and said "From rape-revenge horror to old-school Disney sweetness? You're a strange one, Scott." And then she told me how gorgeous I am and hung up weeping.

But yes, it's true: If it's not a nasty-ass horror flick you're showing me, my second choice would be something like Toy Story 2, Flushed Away, or The Iron Giant. Call me childish if you like, but I don't know many children who could use the word "parsimonious" in a sentence. And, um, I just did. No, I don't exactly clap like a toddler as the animated features fly by, but I simply love this medium and (more pertinently) I adore most of the Disney Classics. To me they're some of the sweetest, "funnest," and most accessible form of classic cinema there is, and I'll live to be 143 before I apologize for admiring the artistry that goes into this stuff.

Anyway (as if the art of animation needs a defense from me), it's Walt Disney's second feature film, 1940's Pinocchio, that is now getting the full-bore deluxe two-disc 70th Anniversary DVD (and Blu-Ray) treatment. Couldn't come at a better time, too, because my Disney shelf (pictured below) was rrrrrreally missing this title. I'll spare you the plot synopsis (puppet becomes boy, gets into mischief, learns valuable lessons, becomes whale food, etc.) and the endless peals of laudatory adulation directed toward the old-school Disney filmmakers, and just focus on the DVD itself...

In a move that comes as little surprise to anyone who saw the opening weekend grosses for You Guys Are No Hannah Montana: The 3D Concert Experience, it appears that most 3D-equipped screens will be bringing back the critically acclaimed and fairly successful Coraline as a proper theatrical experience starting this Friday. (Make that one less excuse for the animation-savvy likes of Mr. Weinberg. Guy lurves the stuff.)

According to Box Office Mojo, seventy percent of Coraline's $17 million opening weekend was from 3D venues, and the film managed to gross nearly $54 million as a whole before the Jonas Brothers landed three weeks later. However, their $12.5 million opening weekend (compared to Miley Cyrus' twice-as-high opening on half as many screens) and subsequent 77% drop in attendance last weekend suggests that the remaining fortnight before Monsters vs. Aliens lands would be best suited to a film that might still draw a crowd, one of a significantly broader demographic appeal.

Okay, so all numbers aside, families who haven't seen it yet should find it considerably more inventive than the likes of Race to Witch Mountain (though I still wouldn't take the youngest tykes), and anyone else interested now has a chance to catch it proper before it's replaced by another 3D offering that I can only presently assure you will be equally worth your while and dollar.

Who watches the Watchmen? Quite a few people apparently. The R-rated super hero epic was last week's only new release, beating out its nearest contender by about $47 million. Here's the top five:
1. Watchmen: $55.2 million
2. Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail: $8.5 million
3. Taken: $7.3 million
4. Slumdog Millionaire: $6.8 million
5. Paul Blart: Mall Cop: $4.1 million

Three new releases this week:

The Last House on the Left
What's It All About: Remake of Wes Craven's disturbing sleaze-fest from 1972 which borrowed its plot from Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring. Two young women are brutally assaulted by a prison escapee and his gang. The criminals take refuge in what turns out to be the home of one of their victims and find themselves on the receiving end of her parents' revenge.
Why It Might Do Well: 2008's home invasion horror flick The Strangers struck me as very similar to Craven's original Last House, so there may be a market for this kind of movie.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The original was a dark and disturbing product of its time. How much will the story have to be de-fanged for a major release today?
Number of Theaters: 2,300
Prediction: $17 million

I'm sure Johnny Depp causes audible gasps where ever he appears, but these particular sounds of delight made it onto The New York Times' Carpetbagger blog. They occurred at an annual Disney board meeting, where attendees were treated to a video montage that featured the first glimpse of Depp as the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's trippy Alice in Wonderland.

The description given confirms that photo that was floating around last year which we had to take down, but still can be found all over the place: "Victorian top hat, crimped hair that sticks straight out, and swirl of brightly colored make-up on his eyes, cheeks and lips that resembled the blur of a pinwheel blowing in the breeze." So, it wasn't Photoshopped ... and that means we all saw something before the Disney board of executives did. Don't you feel special?

Despite that it's leaked out all over the place, Disney isn't interested in releasing an official photo in order to keep it an exclusive for their new quarterly Disney Twenty-Three magazine. Will anyone consider that first look, an interview with Burton and a look at some concept art worth $15.99? I think someone forgot to tell Disney about the Internet ... yet they did yank our copy of the photo, so someone in the Magic Kingdom knows we're out here.

Follow me on Twitter! I won't make you audibly gasp but we'll have fun anyway.

Granted, British comedian Russell Brand isn't for everyone, and I think there are some people at the BBC who would agree. But, I just love the guy to bits. Sure he's strange and a little bit of a lecher, but damn is he funny. When rumors first started to surface that Brand was being considered to take over for Johnny Depp in the next Pirates of the Caribbean installment, it seemed to be the perfect fit. But, in a recent interview with Access Hollywood, Brand told Billy Bush, "There's been some talk of doing a 'Pirates' movie, but, I've got eight other things to do [including] 'Get Him To The Greek' with Judd Apatow... So I don't know if there'll be time to be a pirate, I've got enough of that in me private life." If you follow the UK gossip rags, then you probably know that he isn't kidding about that last part.

Eugene brought us the news back in April that Brand would be reviving his character of Aldous Snow from Forgetting Sarah Marshall with Jonah Hill for Greek. The comedy centers on a young insurance adjuster (Hill) assigned to get a wild rock star (Brand) from London to LA's Greek Theater (I wonder if Hill is reprising his loyal fan character from Marshall as well). But, Brand didn't rule out Pirates completely; the comedian was quoted as saying that Pirates was still, "A possibility," -- which, as you know in Hollywood, is enough to keep a rumor going indefinitely.

Last November, around the time that Bolt came out, I was offered with a night's notice a phone interview with Miley Cyrus. Despite my completist habit of seeing pretty much all theatrical releases in a given year, I decided to make an exception with Miley's 3D concert movie, an exception which had now come to haunt me in the most unexpected of ways. To my luck, the film happened to be instantly available through Netflix, and so I sat at my computer for 75 minutes, confirming all that I had been told the previous spring: it was a fine flick for her fans, and equally harmless and pointless to anyone else.

Anyhow, Ms. Cyrus stood me up, but I bring up that story for two reasons: one, to pad my word count, and two, to assure you that I know I am not the ideal audience for Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, that I know that you know this, and that you know already whether or not you're interested, pumped, and/or psyched -- and chances are that if you are any of those things, then you won't be disappointed.

I think every actress and their mother may become attached to New Moon or Eclipse in the months ahead. (Really, though -- what can top the Madonna rumors?)

The latest rumor comes courtesy of Entertainment Weekly. Supposedly, Drew Barrymore is in talks to direct Eclipse, the third installment of the Twilight series. It's difficult to say if Barrymore would be a good pick or not, as she's just completed her directorial debut, Whip It! But she's run her production company with a lot of savvy, so why not? Too many actors have managed to be a success behind the camera for anyone to sneer, and it would be nice if an actress was actually among those successful ranks.

If you were wondering "So, what happened to Chris Weitz?" well, he's not coming back. The film and its release date were just announced in the trades, but they failed to mention that Weitz wouldn't be returning. According to EW, the production schedule will be so crunched that Weitz will be in post production on New Moon as Eclipse begins shooting, so it will be impossible for him to be behind the camera. (There are directors who manage that kind of multi-tasking, but they're probably crazy or have Starbucks for blood.)

I have to say -- I feel for you, Twilight fans. It's never fun when your franchise turns on itself.