TheEye Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Among my favorite film books is Michael J. Weldon's two-volume "Psychotronic" film guide. The first was published in 1983 and the second in 1996 (Michael hopes to publish a third at some point). Unlike Leonard Maltin's annual book, Weldon doesn't update an existing guide; each new guide is an entirely new volume. If you want to read about Halloween, you need Vol. 1 and if you want to read about Halloween 4, you need Vol. 2. A "Psychotronic" movie can be fairly easy to define. It's basically any of the "lower" film genres, dealing with the more questionable elements of society: horror, sci-fi, bikers, strippers, superheroes, zombies, kung-fu, vampires, comic books, drugs, sex, action heroes, rock 'n' roll, midnight movies, monsters, witches, cults, serial killers, magic, time travel, robberies, heists, contract killers, gladiators, Spaghetti Westerns, mad scientists, murder mysteries, pimps, voyeurs, etc.

Not many people care to admit it, but Hollywood is run by fear. Fear is an emotion generated by things that are not known or understood, and in the movie business, no one ever knows what's going to happen. (William Goldman was right when he said, "Nobody Knows Anything.") All those accountants, producers, publicists, entertainment TV shows, ad campaigns, etc. are all an attempt to get a handle on the unknown, an attempt to control the uncontrollable. Anything can happen. The world's biggest movie star can jump up and down on a couch and suddenly become a weirdo outcast. Or the star of a dismal turkey like Showgirls can turn around and find herself cast in a Woody Allen film. This fear, in essence, is why so many movies are so bad. The more investors and business people try to control their investment, the more they clamp down on it, and the more it gets smothered.

See, movies can live and breathe like an organic life form, but they have to have a chance. If brave producers step back and let the movie come to life in the hands of a genuine artist, they could wind up with something extraordinary like Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men (229 screens), a film that somehow pleased critics both highbrow and middlebrow, won a handful of Oscars and has nearly grossed $75 million. This film has already entered the cultural canon as a classic of cinema. More or less the same can be said of Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (224 screens), which, having lost the Oscar for Best Picture, is now in a position of being an underrated underdog. But those are exceptions to the rule. No one is immune to the fear: a few years back the Coen Brothers teamed up with sleazy producer Brian Grazer, of all people, and came up with their first dud, Intolerable Cruelty.

Today, as millions of (mostly) men are watching the Super Bowl, possibly witnessing the Patriots make history (sorry Erik), millions of (mostly) girls are watching Miley Cyrus (aka "Hannah Montana") make history of her own. As you read this, across the country the 3D concert film Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour is selling out its show times for the day. Actually, it's more likely that at many theaters show times have long been sold out.

On Friday, when the Disney release opened, I took a look at the status of the weekend show times in the tri-state area on Moviefone, Movietickets.com and Fandango. Most times were already unavailable. But I had no way of knowing how recently those times had sold out, because tickets went on sale back on December 1, and many people (our own Kim Voynar and her daughter included) bought theirs way in advance. As Kim mentioned last week, Fandango announced that more than 1,000 show times had already been sold out and that theaters were trying to squeeze in more screenings. The online ticketing company also announced that since December 1, the film has been one of its top selling titles and that this past week the film accounted for 91% of all the company's online ticket sales (compared to 1% each for Rambo, 27 Dresses and Cloverfield).

The original version of The Eye was a solid ghost picture, steeped in local culture and grounded in reality. It wasn't a classic, but it was effective, cycling through familiar rounds of slowly building tension followed by inevitable release. The overall atmosphere was gloomy, with only the faintest glimmer of hope. The new version of The Eye is a patchwork quilt that doesn't hold together with the same degree of focus (apologies in advance: it's difficult to avoid ocular references). There are suggestions of ambition, of a desire to infuse the heroine with greater control of her own destiny, but in the end the new version is neither better nor worse than the original -- just different.

Blind since the age of five, concert violinist Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba) undergoes a double cornea transplant and immediately begins seeing things she ought not. Her concerns are quickly waved away as normal, both by her eye surgeon and by Dr. Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola), a specialist in helping cornea transplant patients adjust to their new vision. As Dr. Paul explains, Sydney has to teach her brain how to interpret all the images associated with things she has only heard, smelled, or tasted before.

The directing team of David Moreau and Xavier Palud handle the early scenes with a restrained flourish, making it clear with a montage the practical challenges Sydney faces in navigating through her "new world." A blurry party scene, in which Sydney "meets" her friends and co-workers for the first time, their faces bobbing up in a well-intentioned but confusing melange, also scores points in setting up Sydney's point of view.

If you had told be last week that we'd be seeing Meet the Spartans at the top of this week's list I'd have laughed heartily and perhaps have made a rude gesture or two. Judging by most of the entries in last week's box office competition I'm not the only one surprised. Rambo came in a close second and Cloverfield, which I predicted would hold the top spot for another week, dropped a surprising 68% after a $40 million opening weekend. Here are the final numbers:

1. Meet the Spartans: 18.7 million
2. Rambo: $18.2 million
3. 27 Dresses: $13.6 million
4. Cloverfield: $12.7 million
5. Untraceable: $11.2 million

This week sees the release of two new comedies (one for the boys and one for the girls) a scare flick and a concert movie for an act whose demographic is so far removed from me they might as well be appealing to extraterrestrials.

The Eye
What's It All About: This remake of a Japanese Chinese horror film stars Jessica Alba as the recipient of a cornea transplant who begins having horrific visions and premonitions of deadly events which spur her to find out just whose eyes she been given.
Why It Might Do Well: If you're looking for a good creep-fest, this may fit the bill.
Why It Might Not Do Well: While I've enjoyed a handful of the Asian horror remakes, most of them leave me cold.
Number of Theaters: 2,200
Prediction: $14 million

Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour
What's It All About: The young pop star and her character from her successful Disney Channel series appear in a concert film shot during a 69-city U.S. tour and shown in 3-D.
Why It Might Do Well: Not destined for the top five, but given the ridiculous prices Hanna Montana concert tickets are fetching, this should do brisk business within its niche market.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Only if every kid in America between 10 and 14 is grounded this weekend.
Number of Theaters: 680
Prediction: $5 million

If creative media is to be believed, transplants are very risky business -- and we haven't even been hit with the wave of genetic repossession yet! I'm not sure if anything will ever beat Lindsay's evil hand on Angel, but we're about to get a taste of something even more creepy -- Jessica Alba's evil eye. In October, there was a weird, silent trailer for her upcoming horror film, The Eye. (Remake of the Hong Kong horror film, also known as The Eye, but translated literally -- Seeing Ghosts.) Now MySpace is hosting the exclusive full trailer, with voices and all!

Alba plays Sydney Wells, a blind concert violinist who finally gets the gift of sight when she gets some cornea transplants. That is, after she gets over the initial blur. She gets an unnerving surprise party, and then starts to see dead people. But this isn't some Sixth Sense sort of sight -- these dead guys are creepy, and they're not just moping around. People are falling out of closed windows, hovering above the ground, and even popping up in her peephole. This, in turn, makes her a bit crazy, demanding to know where her eyes came from as she runs around, smashes a mirror, and somehow loses the ability to properly select a floor in an elevator. The trailer is alright -- not especially creep-inducing, but necessarily bad either. I think this will be one of those films that we'll have to wait and see. It'll hit theaters February 1, 2008.

After watching the new trailer for Awake, I can't say I'm any more likely to shell out my hard-earned dollars to go see this movie. But, I will give writer-director Joby Harold credit for coming up with a premise that is pretty disturbing if you think about it. I should tell you though, this is one of those trailers that makes the creative decision right up front to show you as much of the plot as possible -- I can't be alone in thinking it's a bad idea to give away any of your surprises if you can help it.

Awake stars Hayden Christensen as an affluent young man who has the unfortunate luck of being one in 700 people who stays 'awake' during a surgical procedure. As if that isn't bad enough, while paralyzed under the knife, he overhears his doctors discussing a conspiracy involving his own murder. Jessica Alba stars as his somewhat 'dazed' fiancée. I'm not really sure why she spends most of the trailer staring blankly. All I do know is that it probably won't help Christensen out in the chemistry department. Rounding out the cast are Terrance Howard as Christensen's friend and surgeon, and Lena Olin as his mother.

Both Alba and Christensen enjoyed other trailer releases this month with the US remake of The Eye and Doug Liman's Jumper. This is Harold's first feature film, although he had been attached to a Zack Snyder sequel to Dawn of The Dead. Snyder already has his hands full with his big screen version of The Watchmen, so it's doubtful we'll hear about the Dead project any time soon. Awake opens November 30th.

[via ComingSoon.net]

Halloween is on the way, as if you hadn't noticed with all the cool Halloween related content here on Cinematical (and if you really haven't, check it out right here), and it's got me hankering for trailers that complement this weirdest of holidays. In honor of the Halloween season, we're getting weird...

The Eye
We've been hearing about Jessica Alba's remake of the Hong Kong horror flick Jian Gui for awhile now, and the trailer is finally out. Alba plays a woman who can see the supernatural world after she is given an eye transplant to restore her sight. There's no dialogue, only a collection of scenes set to music, so it's hard to get a read on this one. Alba has a certain cool quotient for her role in Sin City, but she also appeared in Good Luck Chuck, proving her taste in projects is not flawless, and the fact that The Eye was scripted by the same guy who gave us Gothika disturbs me deeply. I'm always game for something creepy, but I'll have to see more before deciding if this is worth the ticket price. Here's Patrick's take on the trailer.

Gabriel
An Australian flick in which angels in the service of light battle fallen angels for control of purgatory, and apparently they do so with martial arts and guns. Hmmm. Apparently they left this part out when I attended Sunday school. Purgatory is portrayed as a contemporary city and the forces of darkness are currently in control. Gabriel is an archangel seeking to regain control of the city This is more than a little reminiscent of The Prophecy in which Christopher Walken played the archangel Gabriel, and the influence of Underworld is pretty obvious. Still, this looks like it could be pretty cool.

Jessica Alba's latest, The Eye, is about a blind woman who has an eye transplant that enables her to see into the supernatural world. It's a remake of twin brothers' Oxide Pang Chung and Danny Pang's 2002 Hong Kong horror film Gin Gwai. The new film was directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud, with re-shoots (uh-oh) by Patrick Lussier. It was written by Sebastian Gutierrez, who scripted Gothika and Snakes on a Plane (uh-oh again). The trailer is up online over at Yahoo Movies, and you've probably got some questions. Will this one be any better than the average crappy horror flick? Are we talking more The Ring or more The Grudge 2? If Jessica Alba were really blind, could she learn to love a monster like me? Maybe you should take your pretty little eyes over there and check out that trailer, Mogambo!

The trailer feels like more of a long teaser. There is no dialogue, just some pulsing music, and quick flashes telling the story in images. It's nicely done but not mind-blowing. A few moments stood out, like the floating feet and the nice little jump at the end. I also like the bit where she appears to be painfully squeezing fluid out of her eye. It reminded me of trying to put in my contact lenses while hung over. The Eye co-stars Alessandro Nivola (Junebug) and the always delightful Parker Posey. I saw Posey for a half second in the trailer, and no Nivola, but I guess when you've got one of the most beautiful women in the world in your movie, you want to put her front and center. Cinematical visited the set of The Eye back in April, and if you'd like to read a discussion with Miss Alba regarding the film, you can find it here. The Eye is due in theaters on February 1st, 2008.

The first two photos from The Eye have hit Bloody Disgusting, and the first thought that popped into my head was: "Why is Jessica Alba so angry at her oven?" Yup, that's the beautiful Alba to the right of your screen (click on the pic for a larger version), and as you can see the cupcakes clearly aren't f**king done yet! When we last checked in on The Eye, Cinematical's Kevin Kelly was visiting the set; watching all those production people dress up a scene that was to be shot in the rain. Said scene was also the first shot of Alba's character in the film, and so lots and lots of work was going into making the thing sail.

The Eye has been around for quite some time now. First off, it's a remake of the 2002 film directed by the Pang Bros., and I know that this American version has been in the works for a few years. I remember watching about 40 minutes of the original and not liking it for some reason. Perhaps it just hit me at the wrong time (as some films often do), but I've always loved the story. Essentially, Alba plays a blind violinist who gets a cornea transplant that allows her to see for the first time since childhood. However, when she begins to experience visions of death dragging souls of of this world and into the next -- not only does it drive her crazy -- but she also looks to find out who owned the eyes originally. It's definitely one of Alba's most ambitious roles, and it will be nice to see her in a film where her outstanding figure is not the main focus. Not that there's anything wrong with Alba and/or her figure, but I'd like to see the girl show a little bit more range, instead of ass. I believe she has it in her; she just needs the right material. French helmers David Moreau and Xavier Palud are directing the remake off the original 2002 screenplay and a new one penned by a bunch of different people, with Sebastian Gutierrez (Snakes on a Plane) getting top billing. February 1, 2008 is when they're dropping this one. Watch out for it.