Ultimate Avengers is a new Direct-to-DVD release funded by Marvel. With Daredevil, Punisher, Blade, Hulk, F4, and even the X-men franchise heading for disaster, animated movies are the way to go. They still got Spider-Man I guess, but these little animated features have great potential for Marvel since they don’t have to comprimise the source material at all with odd effects or casting.
I’d still pay to see a sweet World War 2 era Captain America movie. Toss in a Hugh Jackman/Logan cameo for fun…

The original King Kong is finally available on DVD, and was also run on TCM this past week.
Having never seen this movie with the appreciation I have for cult cinema and special effects as an adult, I was shocked. I mean, this was pretty graphic, and once the action started rolling with Kong’s introduction it really didn’t stop. I have no idea whether Peter Jackson’s fondness for storytelling or fondness for Kong fights will win out in the remake, but even in 1933 with stop motion effects, its all giant ape attacks until the very end, and its all great to watch.
I was astounded by how many people were crushed, eaten, or just chewed up and let go. Between Kong and all the dinosaurs, this had to be the biggest body count of any film of that era.
Performances were good for their time, and certainly the concept carried the picture, but this movie is quite a bit like The Wizard of Oz. Its a classic that can’t really be improved upon or modernized in any fashion without losing something. PJ’s remake really has more to fear from stepping out of Kong’s shadow than the Rings trilogy.

Never buy your DVDs at a supermarket.

I didn’t realize that there was a third installment of this series until the week before it was scheduled to be released. This volume focuses mainly on newer artists, particulary in the south and the midwest. It features Bone vs Twista, Nelly vs Chingy, TI vs Lil Flip, Game vs 50 cent, and more. THis volume is somewhat lacking compared to the other two, but there are a bit more extras, including a featurette on Armored cars, commentaries from Stat QUo and David Banner, and a second disc featuring an interview from Lil Flip and the Clover Street Gees. I hope they follow this up with more volumes, becuase there have been several major beefs left out of all 3 volumes such as Snoop and Dre vs Death Row, Mc Eiht vs DJ Quik, and No Limit vs Cash Money. Pick this up, and if you haven’t already, grab th eother 2 versions.

Superman Returns teaser trailer is finally available. But is this really a teaser for the new movie? It uses music from the original movie as well as Marlon Brando’s voice for Jor-El. The clips are clearly the new movie, but its a kinda confusing deal.
For the first time I’m wondering if Singer’s boyish love of the Donner original might be more detrimental than helpful. Bah, nothing can keep me away from this movie…

There’s a point about a half hour into Walk The Line where Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Johnny Cash crosses over and becomes fully convincing. And for me, it was the exact moment between him stepping up to the microphone and saying “hello, I’m Johnny Cash”, which didn’t quite ring true to my ears, and him beginning to sing “Get Rhythm” in a near perfect Cash tone. And through the whole movie, my suspension of belief came and went, and for every shot where he struck the right pose and his voice had the right pitch, there were two where I just saw Joaquin Phoenix playing a role not unlike several he’s played before. But that third of the time that he hits the mark really is something.

These days, we get glossy but lovingly detailed biopics about pop culture icons of the 20th century at least once or twice a year, and even if they’re all amazing stories about incredible people, they’re not all well told. Walk The Line just about does the job, but is carried far more by the acting than the storytelling. The direction of James Mangold, whose resume includes the middling mystery Identity and fucking Kate & Leopold, tells us about Cash’s unique and eventful life in a fairly dull way, but it lets Phoenix’s occasionally brilliant depiction of Cash lead the way and keep it interesting.

Phoenix’s world class Cash is occasionally cheapened by the number of scenes featuring lesser impressions of other musical legends, like Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. Jerry Lee Lewis aside, none of Cash’s tourmates were depicted convincingly or had any memorable scenes. And having them in every other scene for a large chunk of the movie dragged it down and made it feel a little like those horrible made for TV movies about Jimi Hendrix or The Temptations that they rerun on VH1 all the time. Even the stunt casted Shooter Jennings barely resembled Waylon Jennings.

I’m alright with the fact that they had to Hollywood up the plot a little bit for the movie to work, but I was pretty annoyed with how they reduced Cash’s life story to a love story. June Carter was, of course, a huge part of Johnny Cash’s live, but I’m sure he did and said things that weren’t 100% motivated by their relationship, though you wouldn’t know it from watching Walk The Line. Reese Witherspoon had nearly as much screen time as Joaquin Phoenix. And as soon as she agreed to marry him and their conflicts were resolved, the damn movie was over. I do respect that choice, though, because I’m glad they didn’t bother to do a heavy make-up job on Phoenix for him to portray Cash in his later years, collecting awards and recording alt-rock cover albums with Rick Rubin.

Anytime an actor portrays a singer, the question arises: let them sing or dub the original voice? Ray played it safe and let Jamie Foxx lip sync to the voice of the real Ray Charles, but in retrospect, especially after his uncanny Ray impression on Kanye West’s “Gold Digger”, I wish they’d let him give it a try. And I’m glad Walk The Line let Phoenix give it a try. It’s clear he doesn’t possess Cash’s deep range naturally, but he does an admirable job anyway, and I’m sure it would’ve taken me out of the movie a lot more for the voice and the face not to match up than for the voice not to match up with my memory of the real Cash. And I stayed with the movie just enough to feel like I really got a feel for his life that I wouldn’t have gotten from just watching the A&E Biography.

Back in June, I wrote an article for the Baltimore City Paper about the first five chapters of R. Kelly’s “Trapped In The Closet,” shortly after the 5th chapter had been leaked on the eve of the release of the otherwise underwhelming TP3: Reloaded album, which also included a DVD of the video for all five chapters. At the time, there had been no official word about any future chapters, and I was pretty unsatisfied with the apparent final chapter’s conclusion. But of course, the week the article ran, the news was announced that the R. was working on a whole bunch of new chapters, and while I had a little egg on my face, I was mainly excited about the continuation of the whole pulpy saga.

Earlier this month, a DVD of the first 12 chapters of “Trapped In The Closet” was released in stores, including 7 new chapters, a behind the scenes featurette, and a bizarre commentary track by a cigar-chomping R. In recent years, much of the praise for R. Kelly’s music has been either ironic or squeamishly tentative, hanging on the question of whether, by enjoying his over-the-top music and public persona, we are laughing at or with him. If nothing else, this DVD should firmly establish the answer to that question as the latter. Throughout the behind the scenes footage, he’s grinning and laughing at the bizarre plot twists of his own creation, and even singing upbeat party versions of “Trapped In The Closet” to himself.

And then, there’s the new chapters 6-12, which (SPOILERS AHEAD) feature: a midget, a spatula, and a white woman voiced with a ridiculous trailer trash accent by R. himself. The genuine tension and drama of the early chapters was what drew me in to begin with, and I was initially a little turned off as the cliffhangers became sillier and more contrived. But by the later chapters, the dude is clearly just having a lot of fun with it, and I’m along for the ride. The seemingly arbitrary coincidences that are revealed at the end of Chapter 5 deepen and begin to add up to their own circular logic. As he continues to add characters to the story, he keeps coming back to the other ones and tying them together in ways you’d never anticipate. When he returns to Rufus, Chuck and Cathy in Chapter 12, it’s a jarring but perfect capper to the insanity that takes place among the other characters. It’s also, strangely, completely different from the chapter that R. performed at this year’s MTV VMA’s, which concluded with Rufus dumping Chuck and going back to his wife, although it remains to be seen whether that chapter does occur somewhere after 12. But I’ll keep looking forward to every new installment that he sends our way.

The Fellowship is everywhere! Look at the cast list for return of the king and click on any of their names. Pretty much all of them are working. In the past month I’ve seen Boromir, Frodo, and even Aragorn himself in movies. Samwise and Merry seem to be doing pretty well on TV too. And Of course demand for esteemed Gandalf and Gimli hasn’t dwindled yet either.
This is the biggest troop of actors to spill onto the silver screen from a single project since Boogie Nights when Don Cheadle, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, and John C Reilly started popping up in every goddamn movie you saw.
Now I won’t dismiss the cinematic contributions of Zoolander and Old School, lending the Wilson Brothers, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, and Ben Stiller to a seemingly endless parade of screwball comedies… but the Fellowship Of The Ring are hitting thrillers, dramas, horror, and comedy. Doesn’t Viggo have a band too? They’ll end up in musicals before long too.