The Veronica Mars effect: Pushing Daisies's Bryan Fuller and Zachary Levi of Chuck are hmmm-ing about Kickstarting movie projects based on VM's recent success. Joss Whedon, on the other hand, is kinda bizzay: "I'm booked up by Marvel for the next three years, and [...] I haven't even been able to get Dr. Horrible 2 off the ground because of that. So I don't even entertain the notion of entertaining the notion of doing this, and won't. Couple years from now, when Nathan [Fillion]'s no longer [on] Castle and I'm no longer the Tom Hagen of the Marvel Universe and making a giant movie, we might look and see where the market is then. But right now, it's a complete non-Kickstarter for me."
The Academy Awards are now behind us (for another 11 months or so, anyway), but On Demand is doing us all a solid by giving us a chance to catch up on yet another Best Picture nominee: This week, it's Life Of Pi.
Though Silver Linings Playbook was based on the book of the same name, and Les Misérables was based on a musical based on a book, Life of Pi is the most literary (you have to read it with an English accent) of this year's Best Picture nominees, having been adapted from Yann Martel's Booker Prize–winning novel, in which Pi Patel watches his whole family, and most of their zoo animals, die in a shipwreck, only to survive along with an unlikely companion: a tiger. Some of the film's impact may be lost in your home theater — even people who hate 3-D loved the 3-D Life of Pi — but it should still be evident why Ang Lee was this year's Best Director Oscar winner.
Silver: Item no. 17 in my work in progress, Guidelines to Successful Movie Consumption: Theatrical Edition, reads as follows:
“Relatively unheard of, quaint-feeling, and seemingly silly science fiction films should never be disregarded outright. That said, they can, more often than not, be accurately judged by their trailers. Don’t let a solid cast fool you. Look specifically to see if the high-concept conceit appears to live organically in or get swallowed up by overly stylized visuals. Sometimes you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised with a film like Equilibrium. But more often than not you’re going to be sitting through a film like Ultraviolet or Paycheck. So look at the trailer carefully.”
With this in mind, Upside Down’s trailer leads me to believe this film is going to be a disaster. The visuals are trying way too hard to make up for a story device that would have been better suited for a short film. And even though I like both Jim Sturgess and Mary Jane Watson; they’re simply not enough to get me into a theater. Pass.
Browne: I really prefer movies that don't have half the characters walking on the ceiling for two hours. Beyond the plot, this just seems like an unpleasant viewing experience, unless somehow I can lie on my side at the theaters, which usually isn't a thing.
