Time to place your less-cared-about category Oscar bets! The Academy has announced the shortlist of seven films still in contention for the Best Visual Effects award, and they are:
Alice in Wonderland (for all its 3-Ds)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 (for its CGI magick)
Inception (for its convincing upside-down hallways)
Iron Man 2 (for its realistic Iron Men)
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (all those hearts)
Tron Legacy (good use of neon, most nearly-convincing young Jeff Bridges)
and Hereafter (for the stylish design of Matt Damon character's psychic website)
No Social Network, for its impressive douche-doubling? Surprising.
The final five nominees will be announced January 25, at which point the visual effects team behind Hereafter will be pretty let down.
Did you see Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World yet? Good boy/girl. Then you know that some of the highlights were the few glimpses we were shown of skateboarder-turned-action star Lucas Lee's (Chris Evans) film career (spoiler: that guy is in some terrible movies). Want to see more? Great, because Empire has posters for Lee's entire catalog, so now you can.
These movies not actually existing is a mistake you need to stop making, Hollywood Mogul:
Presenting all the newly-released films I could be bothered to write:
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World Director: Edgar Wright Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jason Schwartzman Good if you want to see: Bryan Lee O'Malley's heavily-video-game-referencing nerd comic translated to screens by the near-infallible Edgar Wright; Michael Cera get punched a lot.
The Expendables Director: Sylvester Stallone Starring: pretty much every action guy besides Van Damme and Seagal Good if you want to see:pretty much every action guy besides Van Damme and Seagal shoot guns and blow stuff up and shit.
Eat, Pray, Love Director:Ryan Murphy Starring: Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, James Franco Good if you want to see: Julia Roberts travel the globe to kiss hunks and eat pasta (i.e. sadlady porn).
Animal Kingdom (limited) Director: David Michôd Starring: Guy Pearce, Ben Mendelsohn, James Frecheville Good if you want to see: a sharp crime film from Australia--and just when we started considering them more than a criminal state.
Tales from the Earthsea (limited) Director: Goro Miyazaki Starring: Timothy Dalton, Willem Dafoe, Law & Order: SVU Lady Good if you want to see:beloved director Hayao Miyazaki's son try to live up to both his father's reputation and Ursula Le Guin's novel. Good luck.
Days still remain before you can see Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World on screens, but the good news is you can wet your ear-beaks with the full soundtrack and score right now streaming at Spinner (via). New songs from a pseudonymed Beck, Broken Social Scene, Metric, and more await your judgment. Or, if you prefer to remain sonically unspoiled, here's Jason Schwartzman and Michael Cera doing the weather for an Atlanta Fox affiliate, which I guess also functions as a teaser of sorts:
At last, I'm rewarded for arbitrarily clicking all over the screen all the time. Yahoo has put up the same old trailer for Scott Pilgrim, but this time they're calling it "interactive" because madly clicking on it gives you director commentary, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and relevant Pop-Up Video factoids--and at the end, you get some sort of reward, like a wallpaper or something. It's just like your grandparents' vague notion of what a video game is!
This Scott Pilgrim movie is going to be the next Watchmen, guys! Not in terms of being extremely grueling to watch and interrupted by a bizarre sex scene; in terms of producing fancy supplementary animated content to fill in some parts from the comic they couldn't squeeze into the film! For Pilgrim, Universal, director Edgar Wright, and comic creator Bryan Lee O'Malley have teamed up with AdultSwim to make a two-part animated flashback sequence set to air during commercial breaks Thursday, August 12th, between midnight and 12:30, and /Film has a preview. The short will describe the formation of the friendship between Scott Pilgrim and Kim Pine, so know this: if you don't watch it before seeing the film, you're just going to have to assume the two became friends somehow. Good luck with that leap.
If you're not yet indoctrinated to the comic book world of Scott Pilgrim (why must you resist the nerdy appeal?), perhaps this new featurette detailing the story and surreal feel of Edgar Wright's upcoming film will get you on board. Or perhaps the blatant inclusion of a Dance Dance Revolution scene will have you running as far away as possible, as it did with so many potential friends whenever I'd pull that arrow-decorated pad out from under my bed. Either way, here's something with new footage:
