Adult fairy tales are the latest Hollywood movie trend

By Sarah Sluis

Hollywood's search for familiar characters and stories has led it to create movies from toys (Transformers), board games (Battleship) and self-help books (He's Just Not That Into You). Now it seems studios are going back to basics, with many getting on board amped-up fairy tale adaptations. A rundown, from the normal to the peculiar:

Beastly: This Beauty and the Beast remake is all about cashing in on Twilight. Former "High School Musical" star Vanessa Hudgens falls in love with pretty-boy-turned-cursed-beast Alex Pettyfer (a rumored troublemaker), in what appears to be an unimaginative update. Verdict: The Clueless/Sense and Sensibility route of teen adaptations.

Red Riding Hood: This adaptation comes from the actual director of Twilight, Catherine Hardwicke, and stars Amanda Seyfried in a striking red caplet. A werewolf is terrorizing the Medieval-esque town, and she thinks she might know who the handsome predator is. No shrinking violet, she carries a knife for protection. This adaptation appears to take some liberties in its fleshing-out of the fairy tale, but it still reserves catchphrases like "What big eyes you have!" for key moments. I predict the movie will be much more appealing to those in need of a Twilight fix. Verdict: I feel like I've seen this movie before, but without such sexual overtones. Could this be like the Demi Moore adaptation of The Scarlet Letter?

Snow White and the Huntman: Kristen Stewart is in talks to play the princess, and Julia Roberts the evil queen in this "modern" adaptation of Snow White. While Internet plot reports are scattered, it seems the story centers on the bond created between the huntsman and Snow White when the woodsman refuses to obey the evil queen's orders to kill her. Verdict: With a tentpole release for summer 2012, I predict an Alice in Wonderland-type experience, with big budgets and an expanded take on a classic tale.

Maleficent, Tink: Each of these movies takes a supporting character from the Disney empire and gives her a chance in the spotlight. Maleficent will take the same strategy with Sleeping Beauty that Wicked did with The Wizard of Oz: Cast the villain as a misunderstood victim with her own reasons for her actions. Tim Burton's directing, but this film may give him an opportunity to go darker than Alice in Wonderland. Tink will take more of a romantic comedy route, with Elizabeth Banks reported to be playing the "mischevious" fairy. Verdict: Disney doesn't like to mess with its characters, so this shows the studio's more adventurous side. The iconic status of these characters is a big draw.

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters: The title really says it all, doesn't it? Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton play survivors of the gingerbread house oven who parlay their witch-killing smarts into a full-time position as bounty hunters. Verdict: Weird. A fractured fairy tale in the vein of Shrek, but with promises of more action violence.

Early preview of 'Rio' reveals charming avian adventure

By Sarah Sluis

A running plot point in talking animal movies seems to be captivity--either being thrust into it or escaping from its clutches. In Finding Nemo, for example, it was utterly bizarre to see Nemo in a dentist's aquarium after spending most of the movie at sea: the two worlds were so at odds with each other. I'm told that Madagascar tackles a similar theme, and in a way aren't the toys in Toy Story captive to their owners? Rio, the latest from Blue Sky Studios (which was behind the Ice Age films), also takes on the theme of captivity, pairing up one captive blue macaw with another raised in the wild.

Director Carlos Saldahna, who had directed or co-directed the three Ice Age films, as well as Robots, introduced short clips of the 3D animal adventure, which comes out on April 15, at a New York preview event. The movie centers on Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg, showing off his knack for speedy dialogue), a rare bird who was captured before he learned how to fly, and grew up with a loving bookstore owner in Minnesota (Leslie Mann). When it's discovered he's one of the last blue macaws on earth, Blu is transported to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, to mate with a rare female, the recently captured Jewel (Anne Hathaway).

As expected in an adventure tale, there are plenty of twists and turns and encounters with characters both dastardly and kind. The action sequences had a nice dash of comedy in them that has a surprisingly universal appeal. I also predict a run on pet stores (bet on macaw futures!) due to an opening sequence that shows the symbiotic morning routine of bird and owner (think Doc's breakfast machine in Back to the Future).

Then there's the below-the-equator setting. Saldahna, a native of Brazil, talked up how the film makes use of Rio's landmarks, music, national pastime (football) and famous festival, Carnaval. For example, the film's opening dance number involving hundreds of birds is set to a samba beat and the lyrics were originally recorded in Portuguese. The birds' movements had the feel of Carnaval performers (a bit ironic given that these performers are often clad in feathers themselves).

CG Animation has flourished under Pixar and now DreamWorks Animation, which released the Oscar-nominated How to Train Your Dragon in 2010. What I saw of Rio doesn't have quite the visual twinkle, complicated lighting, and extra polish that I've seen in Disney, Pixar, or DreamWorks Animation--but it also doesn't have their kind of budgets or manpower, a fact pointed out to me by Saldahna, who also counts Dragon as one of his favorites last year. What Rio has, from what I saw, is an adventure tale with compelling characters, plot, and clear (not groundbreaking--again, that goes to those with the big budgets) visuals. And really, if you're a kid, you're going to notice the fact that a bird bounces off a woman's bikini bottom, not the texture of the fabric or the shadow reflected in the sand. With its Spring Break/pre-Easter time slot, Rio has the kind of time slot that demands blockbuster results. Food for thought: Each of the Ice Age films approached, but didn't top, $200 million domestically, but foreign grosses went up $200 million with each sequel ($206 milion, $460 million, $690 million).

Top bunk goes to 'The Roommate'

By Sarah Sluis

You have to hand it to The Roommate, which earned $15.6 million from gullible young audiences who hadn't been around for Single White Female. Dismal reviews, like that from The Hollywood Reporter, described the movie as a "made-for-television thriller that will appeal only to younger audiences." But though these high schoolers' ticket purchases may have been an act of youthful inexperience, they knew better than to pay attention. "In the theater where I saw it," Movieline critic Elvis Mitchell comments,"the tedium was broken only by the sound of Angry Birds being played on iPhones."

The Super Bowl caused most films to drop in the 60-70% range from Saturday to Sunday, and Sanctum, which fell 71%, was one of the sporting event's victims. The trapped-in-a-cave movie tallied up just $9.2 million, even with ticket surcharges for 3D and IMAX. Ouch. With a reported budget of $30 million, this is one film that's going to be in the hole for awhile.

The films that fell the least during Super Bowl Sunday were The King's Speech (50% drop) and Yogi Bear (44.9% drop). Though films targeted towards young females have dominated Super Bowl counterprogramming, it appears that families and those seeking specialty fare were more inclined to catch a movie instead of the game. After all, The Roommate fell 65% on Sunday, in line with most of the other top ten films.

Portland-set mumblecore crime thriller (really) Cold Weather brought in $15,000 for IFC Films, a decent one-screen debut. Waiting For Forever, however, earned just $3,000 per screen on three screens. At one point, leading lady Rachel Bilson ("The O.C.") had the cachet of Roommate star Leighton Meester ("Gossip Girl"), but this movie's lackluster performance shows how quickly one can rise and fall.

This Friday will be a crowded one, with four wide releases hitting theatres: Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, romantic comedy Just Go With It, 3D animated pick Gnomeo and Juliet, and historic action film The Eagle.

'The Roommate' and 'Sanctum' battle Super Bowl Sunday

By Sarah Sluis

Super Bowl Sunday is this weekend, which has historically led to box-office doldrums. Many studios don't want to release a big film because they know Sunday will see a steep decline in ticket sales, but recently some movies, like the Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds concert movie and romance Dear John, have hopped into the time slot as counterprogramming for a young, female audience.

This year's "Miley Cyrus" counterprogramming pick is The Roommate (2,534 theatres), which should attract medium-sized hordes of young women (this demographic is already a big consumer of the horror genre, though this movie is more of a thriller). Leighton Meester ("Gossip Girl") stars as a creepy roommate in the style of Single White Female, whose possessiveness and copycat behavior quickly turn for the worse. With no advance screenings, a two-thumbs-up review is unlikely, though the lack of competing films should bring it over $10 million.

The 3D/IMAX, cave exploration movie Sanctum (2,789 theatres) will also drop into theatres. Despite the fact that the movie used the same 3D techniques as Avatar and bears the executive producer stamp of James Cameron, I was not impressed. Critic Maitland McDonagh called out the "one-dimensional characters" and added this observation: "Anyone who can't predict the order in which the bruised and battered survivors will fall prey to the implacable forces of nature and human error doesn't spend much time at the movies." I myself became distracted from the story, debating which character would be the next addition to the body count. A $10 million plus debut should also be in order for this suspense tale.

Natalie Portman's the new owner of a Golden Globe, and her prominence in both Black Swan and No Strings Attached undoubtedly motivated IFC Films to release The Other Woman (2 theatres), which stars the actress. In fact, "Portman is the only real reason to see the film," critic David Noh proclaims, faulting its "overt complexities and heavy obviousness."

On Monday, with the battle of the Steelers and Packers over, I'll give a play-by-play of this weekend's winners and losers.

Foursquare provides another tool to track moviegoers

By Sarah Sluis

Foursquare takes Facebook status updates and Twitter musings to the next level. Users with smartphones "check in" to nearby locations. Why sacrifice their privacy? For the possibility of accruing badges, showing off that they're in the next hot restaurant, the cool new film, or to see if any of their friends have checked in to nearby bars.

The nascent company recently posted a clever infographic revealing their stats for the year--including movie check-ins.

Oh, the potential! Much has been made of Twitter's ability to reflect word-of-mouth on a movie, but Foursquare reveals something simpler: admissions. Currently, Foursquare stats aren't available in aggregate to pick apart statistically, but the movie check-in data does offer some insights if you consider why people "check in" on Foursquare.

"Checking in" is an option, not a requirement. While some people check in indiscriminately, others may do so for select movies, or ones that they're proud of the fact they're seeing.

Take, for example, the spike for Iron Man 2 versus the spike for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Eclipse opened just about 20% higher than Iron Man 2, yet the spike goes twice as high. More people wanted to advertise that they were seeing Eclipse.

Foursquare also offers an insight into the moviegoing habits of a specific cross-section of viewers: Conclusions can be made about the kind of people that not only can afford smartphones, but belong to crowds where GPS broadcasting of whereabouts is a cool thing to do. Foursquare hasn't really been monetized yet, but when it does it will offer the kind of specific targeting that makes advertisers drool. Studios or theatre chains would be able to advertise a sub-section of people who have attended a movie (GPS verified!) and encourage them to come back for more.

Promising 'Bridesmaids' shows Apatow-style comedy can work for females

By Sarah Sluis

Another female-led movie about weddings? Oh dear. Though 27 Dresses had some redeeming moments, the horrible, ridiculous cat fighting that was Bride Wars (at least the trailer, I certainly wasn't going to see the movie after such an offensive preview) was enough to make me call it quits on the wedding genre. But Bridesmaids may be different.

Yesterday, the trailer for Bridesmaids hit the Internet. To sum up: This is a Judd Apatow-produced movie, and it shows. Kristen Wiig stars as a single gal whose best friend is getting married, giving her all the chores of a maid of honor. From the trailer, it seems like she's less unhappy about being single, and more unhappy about the fact that other people seem distressed about her relationship status (and the fact that they keep on mistaking the men standing next to her, however incompatible, as her beaux).

Unlike the vindictive hair dying and open fighting that was Bride Wars, Bridesmaids offers a more realistic take on how women bring each other down: Take the undermining comment about a fellow bridesmaid's outfit at a fancy party: "Did you come from work?" This is the kind of thing that "Sex and the City" was known for before it jumped the shark with SATC 2. The series succeeded because of its lightly caricatured, but hilarious, versions of people we already know (like snobby underminers).

Wigg kills it in Paul (trailer), a sci-fi comedy coming out in March, and I have similar faith in her in Bridesmaids. Wiig has more of a regular girl feel to her, much like fellow "SNL" alum Tina Fey. Wiig's co-stars include Maya Rudolph (also "SNL"), Ellie Kemper (the new secretary on "The Office"), Rose Byrne ("Damages") and Melissa McCarthy (starring in the "plus size" sitcom "Mike & Molly"). Notice something? None of these women have made careers as leading ladies, but in comedy and television, some in roles that prefer more down-to-earth looks.

I'm not expecting something on the level of The Hangover, and there were some stupid moments (e.g. a fart joke) that made it into the trailer. However, female buddy comedies are rare beasts, even as male-driven ones in the style of Judd Apatow have proliferated. As the spate of bad romantic comedies shows, Hollywood wants to create films that appeal to women, but it doesn't seem to know how. Bridesmaids has come up with one solution: Take the romance out of the comedy.

It finally happened to me: 3D sickness

By Sarah Sluis

When the house lights come down and the opening music swells, I'm normally filled with the excitement and anticipation of settling into a movie. I'm not frantically rubbing my 3D glasses and squinting, trying to figure out if there's something wrong with the image, or something wrong with me.

Yesterday I caught a screening of Sanctum 3D at the AMC at 34th Street in Manhattan, on one of the "smaller" IMAX screens. The executive producer is James Cameron, whose Avatar wowed me, so I was expecting a technically awesome 3D experience. Instead, I felt like I was rehashing the reviews I read of Clash of the Titans. It was not a pleasant experience, but, thankfully, the worst subsided (or my eyes adjusted) within the first twenty minutes.

Scratched glasses. IMAX recycles their glasses, which is a good thing in theory, but can also lead to scratches that impair viewing and lead to that manual polishing, a particularly difficult thing to do during sweater season, when a scratchy wool garment simply isn't an option for polishing. I had a couple of vertical scratches that would leak color/light upwards and downwards. If I looked offscreen at the ubiquitous EXIT lamp, for example, I would see red below and above the text, and it was the same onscreen as well. Some of the "extra" image I saw, however, wasn't because of the scratched glasses, but because of "ghosting."

As described in my article about 3D conversion companies, stereoscopic 3D can lead to ghosting in high-contrast areas. 3D involves combining a left-eye and right-eye image, and high-contrast images often leave a ghostly artifact of the separate images. This happened to me noticeably during one shot that occurred within the first five minutes. I could see a white outline to the left of the object that should have rendered completely to the right. I had the same problem with the white text on the black background, which blurred upwards and downwards--though I suspect this had more to do with the scratches in my glasses than ghosting.

Vertigo/queasiness with sweeping horizontal shots. Sanctum is a thriller set in a massive cave, and the movie opens with some sweeping aerial shots of the jungle and the cave. These gave me a fleeting sense of vertigo, and, at other points in the movie, a bit of stomach unease. Quick pans are a no-no for 3D movies, so either I was extra-sensitive to this shot or the filmmakers tried to move the camera too fast.

So what caused my bad experience? 3D problems can originate with 1) the glasses 2) the theatre's projection 3) the film not working within the limits of stereoscopic 3D 4) being part of the 5-10% (though I've heard as high as 30%) of people that just can't take 3D.

1) My glasses did feel off, and I've successfully seen films with IMAX glasses before as well as Dolby and RealD. I switched glasses with my viewing companion (they didn't bother him) and this seemed to help a bit, but it can't explain all the problems I had.

2) The theatre's projection. Hard to tell. I would have to see this movie again at another theatre in order to speculate, and I really think only an expert could identify exactly what's going on (e.g. if there are syncing issues).

3) The filmmakers. Again, this movie was executive produced by James Cameron so I would expect the technical details to be top-notch. I suspect the filmmakers may have put in some shots that they knew would be challenging to an above-average portion of the audience, but I don't want to indict them for more than that.

4) Me. I've successfully seen close to a dozen 3D movies, and I've overwhelmingly had a positive experience, with a few minor issues. I did feel like I was way too close to the screen, something I've never felt before (and I'm pretty sure I always pick a similar middle spot), and in the future I think I'll sit another five rows back out of caution. I ended up with a dull headache that lasted some time after the credits ended, along with a feeling of having to focus and concentrate way more than normal--it felt as if I had to "squint" the whole movie.

My consensus? I left more puzzled than totally turned off by 3D. Since it's hard to diagnose exactly what happened, I'll do what I can: double-check my glasses for scratches and sit an extra five rows back from the screen. I'm also newly grateful for the fact that movies release in both 2D and 3D for those that have problems with the images, because bad 3D can, literally, give you a headache.