The ‘Hobbit’ to tower over ‘Madea’

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas will go head-to-head at the box office this weekend, although the matchup is not exactly a nail-biter. As the second prequel in the incredibly popular and successful Lord of the Rings franchise, Hobbit is pretty much guaranteed a stronger bow. Last year, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Smaug’s predecessor, earned $300 million domestically and an unearthly $1 billion worldwide. Critics, however, didn’t love it, and even fan reactions were mixed, certainly in comparison with the kind of accolades heaped upon director Peter Jackson’s Rings trilogy. Journey’s success was largely due to its ability to leverage the popularity of these films, while Smaug has a more difficult road ahead of it as it works to prove it’s better (more fun, less dragging) than its predecessor. Luckily, critics seem to think it is. The Desolation of Smaug will probably earn $15 million less than Journey and open to around $70 million or so. The fact that such a staggering gross would still be considered a qualified success speaks to the ridiculous earning potential of – and ridiculous expectations surrounding – these movies.

Though it isn’t expected to trump The Hobbit, Madea’s box-office odds are still looking pretty merry. Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas is the director’s 14th movie in the past eight years. Eight of Perry’s 13 movies have opened to $20 million or more. A more fun fact: The only other directors to have had as many $20 million openings are Robert Zemeckis, who has had nine, and Steven Spielberg, who can boast 11. In total, Perry’s oeuvre has earned $674 million domestically, with his top three films all featuring his Madea character, or Perry dressed up as a smart-mouthed granny. Odds are Madea will chuckle up a little less than $30 million.

Frozen and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire are still going strong and will probably land at nos. three and four, respectively. Specialty enthusiasts and Academy Awards speculators, though, are more concerned with Disney and Jennifer Lawrence’s other movies opening in limited release this weekend: Saving Mr. Banks and American Hustle. Viewers are expected to be drawn in like moths to the Oscar-gold flame surrounding these two. Awards buzz is thick around Lawrence, who plays a broadly cockamamie housewife in Hustle, and Emma Thompson as the persnickety Mary Poppins author, P.L. Travers, in Banks. The latter film is opening in 15 locations ahead of its wide release next weekend, while Hustle will screen in six theatres.

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas make surprising predictions about the future of exhibition

Is the future of the exhibition industry a return to the past, when fewer movies released, and they played for a year at a time? At the opening of a new building at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg offered predictions about the future of the industry that may be surprising even for those tuned into the business. Spielberg predicted that several high-profile flops could dramatically transform the production and distribution plans of the major studios. Fewer big

films would release. Those that made the cut would play longer in theatres, with a tiered pricing structure. Films like Spielberg's Lincoln would cost less to see than a big-budget blockbuster. In the current climate, both Lucas and Spielberg said it's harder even for titans like themselves to get movies made. Meanwhile, most ideas from emerging filmmakers are too niche to catch the attention of major studios. The movie environment stands in stark contrast to cable offerings, which have turned niche-targeted programs into big money. When it comes to the movies, marketing is still about content that will hit all four quadrants of viewers.

From where Spielberg and Lucas are standing, that may be the future of exhibition, but they don't say much about what's happening on the other end of the market, where indie theatrical releases have been proliferating. In actuality, more movies are releasing in theatres than ever. Here at Film Journal, we often review fifteen movies a week. That's a lot of movies that are at least getting a cursory theatrical release. Lower-budget movies have the advantage of affordable digital cameras and tools like Final Cut Pro that truly make filmmaking affordable to more people. Before digital, the cost of film was exorbitant for even indie filmmakers, but now the cost of buying stock and post-processing has virtually disappeared. For many of these movies, a short theatrical release is used to make these projects more viable in the aftermarket. VOD, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon can be great places for a small indie to find an audience. Spielberg did praise Netflix in his remarks, but didn't offer more details about the growth in that sector. As surprising as Spielberg and Lucas' predictions are, there is likely truth to their statements: change is afoot. With all of the change going on in the indie markets, it may just be a matter of those changes trickling up to the studios. Indies don't have the heft to stay the course even in strong winds, while studios do. But eventually, the studios will be sailing in the same trade winds as everyone else.

The twist in Steven Spielberg's 'American Sniper'

In early May, Steven Spielberg signed on to direct American Sniper, despite talk just two months earlier that the director's next DreamWorks project would be about the border conflict in Kashmir. Decorated SEAL and sniper Chris Kyle wrote the book of the same name based on his experiences over multiple deployments to combat zones, including Iraq. With over 150 confirmed kills, he became the military's most deadly sniper. Bradley Cooper had picked up the film rights to the bestseller, which takes a sometimes flippant tone about the job of killing. Sounds like a straightforward military movie, right? No.

In this week's New Yorker, a feature elaborates on the full story and tragic ending to Kyle's life. After leaving active duty in 2009, Kyle struggled with PTSD and maladaptive behaviors connected to his stress, like heavy drinking. He started organizing activities like antelope hunts with other veterans to help them transition to life at home. A desperate woman at his kids' school heard about Kyle, and begged him to help her son, Eddie Ray Routh, who was also struggling with PTSD. In early February, Kyle and another man took him to a shooting range. There, Routh turned the gun on them and killed Kyle and his friend. Now Kyle's story has a sad epilogue that wasn't present in the original property acquired by Cooper.

There's another twist in the New Yorker story that could call into question Kyle's book. He told a number of stories, like of a time he killed two carjackers and was let off by the police, that have since been called into question. Kyle may have been a teller of tall tales. Will Spielberg accept these embellishments, or film a movie that's more in line with the confirmed facts?

Before director Kathryn Bigelow's successes with Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, military movies tended to bomb at the box office, and few received outstanding reviews from critics. Now, with the war wrapping up, the tide is changing, and Spielberg's film could be part of that shift. Stylistically and thematically, I picture the movie having shades of Munich and the post-invasion scenes in Saving Private Ryan, but I also see him injecting some of the melancholy home life present in E.T. In order for this movie to work, I think the screenplay (currently being penned by Paranoia's Jason Dean Hall) will have to alternate between combat sequences and those on the homefront, to better set up what will happen to Kyle at the end. But is there even a lesson or order to the madness of his death?

The story reminded me of the senseless killing of Robin Williams' character by a patient in Patch Adams. After Kyle's murder, his wife Taya has aligned herself with the NRA, maintaining her support for guns. The New Yorker piece hints that the severity of Routh's delusions indicate that he may not have even had PTSD, but perhaps been bipolar or schizophrenic. But then again, many people with diagnoses of PTSD have murdered people, often spouses, after returning home. Spielberg has a complex story on his hands, with no happy ending. But for this veteran director to abandon another project, he must feel he has the key to unlock this story and bring it to the big screen.

Oscar rivals Steven Spielberg and Ang Lee share the love at Cannes

Correspondent J. Sperling Reich reports on the mutual admiration society of two recent Oscar rivals on the Cannes 2013 jury.

One could easily mistake directors Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg as competitors rather than colleagues. After all, just a few short months ago Lee and Spielberg were both vying for one of the most coveted awards a filmmaker can receive: an Academy Award for Best Director. Though many Oscar prognosticators had picked Spielberg to win the award for his film Lincoln, it was Lee who walked off with the trophy for Life of Pi. For the next two weeks, however, the two auteurs will be collaborating with seven other noteworthy members of the movie industry as judges at the 66th annual Cannes Film Festival.

Spielberg is no stranger to Cannes. His first feature film, The Sugarland Express, appeared in competition at the festival and won him the award for best screenplay. He returned in 1982 with E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, in 1986 with The Color Purple, and again in 2008 with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, all of which appeared out of competition. Now Spielberg has been charged with presiding over the Cannes jury as president, an honor he has not been able to accept previously because, as he explained to members of the press, he is usually busy shooting a film each May.

Lee is no Cannes slouch either. His 1994 film Eat Drink Man Woman appeared at the festival, as did The Ice Storm three years later. In 2000, Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was the talk of the festival. His last film to appear in competition was Taking Woodstock in 2009.

The announcement that Lee would be joining Spielberg on this year's Cannes jury raised a few eyebrows. Can two big-league filmmakers such as Spielberg and Lee work on the same jury with opinionated filmmakers such as Romania's Cristian Mungiu as well as Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Christoph Waltz? On the first day of the festival, Spielberg assured the public the idea of any rivalry between Lee and himself was completely false.

"Ang and I have known each other for a long time and we have never been competitors, we have always been colleagues," Spielberg declared. "That will just continue. I worship Life of Pi, therefore I worship Ang Lee as well. I admire all of Ang's movies."

Sitting quietly a few feet away, Lee confirmed, "Steven and I, we're good friends. I worship him. I don't think any result will change how I feel about him."

Both filmmakers seemed to want to put the recent Academy Awards issue behind them and get on with the business at hand in Cannes. "Cannes is a prestigious film festival. It's full of opinions. It's artistically driven. More highbrow," Lee explained. "Oscar is kind of a competition of a particular group of 6,000 Academy members. It has the element of popularity. It's sort of work and business and popularity and societal. You don't know how the wind blows that year politically."

Spielberg picked up on Lee's reference to politics in discussing the difference between the Oscars and the awards presented at the end of each Cannes Film Festival. "The nice thing about this is there is no campaigning," said Spielberg. "It's such a relief that we're going to be seeing movies and we're going to be caucusing and we're going to be deliberating final results and we don't have to go through the campaigning, which as you know follows awards season in America like a political cycle. We had campaigning for the 2012 election and there's always campaigning for the Oscar election and there' no campaigning here and that is a breath of fresh air for me."

Spielberg was well-prepared to answer questions about whether he could get the eight other jurors to come to agreement when deciding which of this year's films should receive the festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or. "I'm going to have to look at the Sidney Lumet film 12 Angry Men again as a tutorial for the final day of deliberation," he said jokingly.

Besides those already mentioned, rounding out this year's Cannes Film Festival jury are director Lynne Ramsay, writer Naomi Kawase, and actors Daniel Auteuil and Vidya Balan.

Please also check out FJI correspondent Jon Frosch's reports from Cannes by visiting his blog.

Teaser 'War Horse' trailer quintessential Spielberg

By Sarah Sluis

Steven Spielberg hasn't directed a film since the meh sequel Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. His next film, War Horse, is coming out this Christmas, intent on grabbing audiences during what's often a sentimental, entertainment-heavy time of year. The teaser trailer for the movie just came out, but I wasn't immediately impressed.

The movie is based on the novel and play War Horse. I have heard nothing but raves for the play, so I was expecting the trailer to pull me in. It didn't. One key difference: The play received the most word-of-mouth praise from its incredibly life-like horse puppets. The movie uses a real-life horse, so it's hard to compare. The only hint of how the movie might give the horse humanizing attributes is at :50, when we see a close-up of a girl's reflection in the horse's eye. Gorgeous.

The trailer doesn't reveal the plot, just the settting and a loose sense of the emotional register. Since movies have been giving way too much away lately in trailers, I'm pleased that there's some mystery about the story, but at this point all we're seeing are shots of WWI and a horse. The actual story involves a boy who goes on a journey to find his horse, which is fighting in the battlefields of Europe in WWI. It's the kind of rescue mission that's implausible and melodramatic, but wasn't Saving Private Ryan founded on the same premise?

For a trailer that's based entirely on looks, it doesn't do a whole lot to draw you in. It took me a couple of viewings before I could appreciate the visuals of the trailer, my favorite being when a group of soldiers hiding in a wheat field collectively mount their horses. It made me reflect on Spielberg himself, who's always been nearly invisible in terms of style. People talk about Spielberg's frequent themes, like children of divorced parents and friendly aliens, but can't put a finger on his style. Spielberg's always followed the tenets of classical Hollywood style, as this discussion of his cutting style drives home.

Even when there are explosions (:10, 1:00), beautiful sunsets (1:35), and epic battle sequences (1:32), Spielberg has our eyes trained on the boy or the horse. It's pretty incredible. I put Spielberg with James Cameron in the category of filmmakers who are true masters of invisible filmmaking. In fact, it's enough to make me pull out my nerd hat and offer you this example, thanks to Hulu. In the T-Rex scene in his 1993 film Jurassic Park, look how clearly Spielberg establishes the space, opening with a wide shot and then moving in. Also notice how he pans to connect places. This short sequence has a half-dozen pans. Modern directors would just cut all over the place, and would also do some lame cut-ins, as if we wanted to see a close-up of a hand holding a flare when there's a T-Rex around. I'm being harsh on War Horse, but seeing the movie is a given. Even with tons of war scenes, the focus will be on the boy and the horse. It's directed by Steven Spielberg, the king of classical Hollywood style.

'Super 8' may actually live up to the hype

By Sarah Sluis

Since its teaser trailer first hit in May of last year, Super 8 has been high on the anticipation list for movie bloggers like myself. Last night, Paramount hosted a preview of twenty-odd minutes of Super 8 footage at the Walter Reade Theater in New York City. Paramount CEO Brad Grey gave an enthusiastic introduction for J.J. Abrams, the writer/director, identifying him as an important member of the talent stable the studio has assembled.

Set in 1979, Super 8 has a pleasant, nostalgic feel. Hallmarks of Steven Spielberg (who teamed with Abrams as a producer and collaborator) abound, but when I spoke to Abrams afterwards he said he wasn't trying to create a homage or imitation, but a "recreation" of how he felt as a kid and the movies that were important to him. In fact, Abrams was thirteen in 1979, right around the age of the group of kids in his film. What I liked most about the preview footage was how Abrams creates a world that feels very familiar, from a cinematic perspective, without being derivative. His characters feel real and sweet, and Elle Fanning (who I took a liking to in Somewhere) is a standout.

The footage fills in some of the gaps created by the trailer. (Spoiler alert). The first scene we saw, about twelve minutes into the movie, sets up the night of the film's momentous train crash. Fanning steals her Dad's car and agrees to star in the kids' amateur monster movie. First-time actor Joel Courtney is the son of the sheriff whose mother just died in a mill accident. He's the group's makeup artist and harbors a huge crush on Fanning. As they're filming a scene at the train station, Joel witnesses a pickup truck drive into an oncoming freight train, derailing it and unleashing the unseen monster. The kids escape with nothing more than sooty faces and scratches. White Rubik's cube-like things spill out from the wreckage, and Joel leaves with one. The crashing part of the scene went on a little too long, and Abrams confirmed that the scene will be cut shorter.

The second scene, later on in the movie, confirms Abrams as a master movie-maker. When it comes to monster encounters, this man knows what he's doing. The concealment and suspense come not from cutting away (though there's some of that), but some really satisfying auditory wizardry. A sheriff drives into a gas station to fill up, but has trouble getting the attention of the zit-faced gas station attendant, who has the volume up on his new-fangled Walkman. When he goes back outside, his lights and radio turn on and start flashing. The gas meter, which has been steadily clicking out the dollars and cents, goes progressively faster and faster, turning into one long tone by the climax. The Walkman boy can't hear any of it, so his eventual realization has a satisfying punch to it. Without the use of the Walkman and the gas station meter, this scene would be completely run-of-the-mill. This kind of sleight-of-hand suspense replaces the usual: gory play-by-plays or exhausting flagellation of a character by a monster. We even get a peek at the monster in a reflection from pooling gas, but I won't say what I see.

I'll make a reckless, premature guess: Super 8 will be the Inception of summer 2011. The June 10th release will probably have a PG-13 rating, making it a teen and family-friendly outing. There are also (gasp) characters. This monster feels like a means for a small town to band together and a group of friends to grow closer and grow up. There's also a strong undercurrent of innocence. The trailer shows more cars flashing their headlights, and one of the first signs that something is amiss are the town's missing pets. Missing pets! You can't get more small town than that. The tinkling, chiming score brings to mind vintage John Williams scores for Spielberg. There's also an interesting theme running through the movie that will feel familiar to fans of Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.: That of a small town and its authority being overrun by outsiders (be they media or military) after something terrible is unleashed there. Super 8 may be the nostalgic, just-scary-enough monster movie that takes place in the small town we all wish we lived in and could protect.

Back-to-back Spielberg in December 2011

By Sarah Sluis

Steven Spielberg hasn't directed anything for over two years. His last film, in case you can't remember, was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a taut throwback to his earlier work but greeted rather tepidly by critics--and myself. He now has two films coming out: The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, which he's been working on for years, and War Horse, which only started production. Both films, it turns out, will release within five days of each other during December 2011.

Why so close?

-DreamWorks, which only has a financial stake in War Horse, made the decision to move the Disney release. They don't care about Tintin as much. But Spielberg probably does, and they also don't want to upset Sony and Paramount, the distributors of Tintin. The fact that Tintin will release first, followed by War Horse, seems like a concession of sorts. Tintin will be first out of the gate, and that can make a difference at the box office.

-War Horse "felt like a holiday movie," according to DreamWorks executive Stacey Snider. The movie centers on a young WWI soldier trying to find his horse, which is a rather Spielberg-y project; wars, young boys all alone, etc. The material is rather dark, especially if you look at the pictures of the stage production, so it makes sense that the movie will release during the holiday movie season, and not the more popcorn-y summer season. In fact, it makes me wonder if that was the plan all along.

In other news, literary adaptation The Help was moved to the spot vacated by War Horse, August 25th. Plans are to market this as an event film along the lines of Eat Pray Love or Julie & Julia. I enjoyed this novel, which was popular among book clubs. The premise has some similarities to the Fox Searchlight movie The Secret Life of Bees--a movie that opened to $10 million but made $37 million on an $11 million production budget. Both books center on white characters in black worlds in the South. Emma Stone, Viola Davis and Bryce Dallas Howard lead the cast, and I have high hopes for the film.

DreamWorks has an impressive slate planned, which includes other films like Real Steel (from Night of the Museum's Shawn Levy). I look forward to seeing the studio step up and turn out more of the "elevated genre" pictures (their wording) they plan on producing.

Thinking about what makes a good performance

By Sarah Sluis

When an actor is doing a good job, or even a so-so job, their work can be invisible. It can be hard to figure out just what they're doing that makes them so believable, funny, or completely embody the character. Add that to the fact that the Oscars tend to reward the more salient difficulties of the profession, such as gaining weight, looking ugly, or crying/dying/singing/being abused, and acting can seem like even more of a mystery.

That's why it was so interesting to watch THR's video of Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly. Five weeks into production, he was replaced by Michael J. Fox because director Robert Zemeckis felt that, according to executive producer Steven Spielberg, the actor's performance "wasn't getting as many laughs as I hoped."

Watching the footage, you can see that the facial expressiveness just isn't there. The scene at (:28) is the perfect example--McFly leans over the diner counter and sees his (young) father next to him. This is a slapstick-type moment, where you expect an exaggerated, panicked, wide-eyed expression on the lead actor's face. Stoltz totally underacts it. He adds some eye movements toward the end, which struck me as him trying to incorporate some notes from the director unsuccessfully. In general, he has a pretty blank expression on his face, a little too Buster Keaton for the movie's sensibilities, which require McFly to react and be flustered.

I'm sure that the inadequacies of Stoltz were even more apparent on set. I've only been on set in a student film capacity, but even then you can sort the people with acting ability from the people who don't have it. If you say, "Act angry," some people just can't do it. Sure, they can do it in a superficial way but they won't be able to calibrate the tone or intensity correctly--because acting's hard! If there's a shot that requires a simple eye movement or expression, they can't create that feeling with their body. I can see that in Back to the Future--it seems like it's actually quite difficult for Stoltz to be that expressive. His failure is that much more apparent because Fox nailed the scenes so well. Of course, it's important to point out that Stoltz isn't a bad actor, and in fact was nominated for a Golden Globe, among other awards, but he was miscast in the Back to the Future role--that type of comedy simply wasn't within his range.

The journey of a scare: 'Paranormal Activity'

By Sarah Sluis

There are a couple of interviews of Oren Peli, who went from being a software programmer to the director of Paranormal Activity, circulating the blogosphere. The movie has taken a non-traditional path to the theatres, from production, to distribution, to exhibition, and Peli helps fill in the blanks.

According to his interview with Cinematical, DreamWorks bought the project after Slamdance 2008 with the intent of having him remake it on a bigger budget--because you can't release a film that was made in seven days for $14,000--or could you?

The studio scheduled screenings for potential screenwriters, but the overwhelmingly positive reception led them to decide to release the movie nearly as is. Pacing and editing were changed to make it more fast-paced--though some reviews have still faulted the film for being too slow. The ending, which apparently "makes" the film, was also changed based on the input of none other than Steven Spielberg (DreamWorks and Paramount had ownership of the project before their split).

Peli sounds like a very organized, analytical person. He planned the production for a year, sprucing up his house to prepare for the shoot, and looked at hundreds of people before finding his two actors (how many low-budget films would look at that many people for their casting calls?). He spent ten months editing, and thanks to his technical background, he did the visual effects and audio mixing himself. His hours of work was probably worth several times more than the film's budget.

Oren Peli already has his next project lined up, Area 51, which will use the same home-video camera techniques to document a group of teenagers who decide to poke around the famed UFO grounds.

Now that the studio knows it has a hit on its hands, Paramount has announced plans to expand the release to 2,000 theatres two Fridays from now, putting it head to head with Saw VI. While there are certainly many horror fans who will have already seen Paranormal Activity (at least $8 million worth), its positive word-of-mouth could encourage more casual viewers to put the movie on their must-see list. Last weekend, the movie ended up being more successful than early tracking figures indicated. It actually earned $7.9 million, not $7 million, bringing its per-screen total to almost $50,000 per screen, a truly astonishing number (there must be some big theatres showing this movie--and a lot of sellouts)

So why has the movie been such a big success? The "found footage" style has been used in films from The Blair Witch Project to Cloverfield, but there is something to be said for the fact that the camera is often fixed in the same spot in front of thehaunted couple's bed, giving the movie a more "security camera"-type look. Also, not many horror movies have the benefit of having Steven Spielberg come in and fix your ending, nor the dedicated marketing team at Paramount, which appears to have risen to the challenge of marketing a non-traditional film. I, for one, wouldn't have expected college towns to be the jumping-off point for a horror film, though the midnight-only screenings fit perfectly into a college student's late-night schedule. Now that Paramount has thrown down the gauntlet by pitting their film against Saw VI--a move that, at the very least, will generate publicity--we'll be waiting to see who will emerge the winner in the battle of Saw VI vs. Paranormal Activity.

'Tintin' casting decisions revealed

By Sarah Sluis

I can see why Tintin was greenlighted: it's a comic book series already being planned as a trilogy, and

it's really, really big in France (just like Mickey Rourke!), ensuring a sizable foreign box office. As someone cursorily introduced to the series in French class, I never really understood the appeal, although I'm sure I'll be eating my words once the film releases in 2011. Still, I think Steven Spielberg has a real challenge in adapting this series: the characters are a beloved part of pop culture for one segment of your audience, but totally unknown to another. Thankfully, the problem isn't as bad as if Spielberg had chosen a similarly popular French comic series like Astrix (which culls its cast from French historical and mythological figures), but it's still there nevertheless. Instead of creating a memorable character, like Indiana Jones, he will have to both introduce the character to those unfamiliar with him, as well as provide satisfying details to fans. Films like these (I include Harry Potter) never end up as satisfying as the books, although I am sure non-Tintin fans like myself will enjoy them.

The fully-titled The Adventures of Tintin: Secrets of the Unicorn went into production yesterday, prompting the secretive production to finally reveal the titular performer. Jamie Bell, the lead in Billy Elliot and currently playing a supporting role in

Defiance, will star as the crime-solving comic book adventurer. As some may note, Tintin has a distinctive, cowlick-y haircut. Unfortunately, details of Bell's hairstyle were not released, although it appears from press photos that he can work the unruly lock look. One can only hope they take the Tintin "flip" as seriously as the Chigurh bowl/blunt cut in No Country For Old Men, the best characterization-by-haircut ever seen on film.

Also cast in Tintin is another Defiance star, Daniel Craig (you may know him as James Bond), who will play Red Rackham. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (who appeared together in Shaun of the Dead) will play the Thompson twins, and Andy Serkis (the voice of Gollum/Smeagel in Lord of the Rings) will play Captain Haddock. The Brit-heavy cast adds to the international appeal of the film, already complemented by the globetrotting plots in Tintin comic books. One aspect of the movie I'm not sold on is performance capture. Seeing the performance-captured face of Tom Hanks in Polar Express drained my excitement about the medium, but if anyone can make it work, it's Steven Spielberg. Or Peter Jackson, the producer of this film who has said he will direct the second installment.