'(500) Days' Director Takes Over 'Spider-Man'

Sony isn't wasting time rebooting Spider-Man, which is ironic, because the studio wasted just about everything else on Spidey 3 and the aborted fourth film. The newest film is now scheduled for 2012 and Sony just hired Marc Webb to direct. Webb has only made one film, but it's a good one: (500) Days of Summer. This, however, is a different kettle of fish.

Prior to Summer, Webb was a music video director (Green Day's "21 Guns," "Move Along" by All-American Rejects), but if you're Sony, it's not exactly a wealth of material on which to base a decision for your biggest franchise. That must mean he's simply "the right guy," which is one of those impossible things to define. And it's certainly a different vibe than Sam Raimi, don't you think? Here's the official announcement from Sony about the hire, which includes quotes from Webb, Stan Lee, and Sony and Marvel higher-ups.

Click to read more ...

WGA Nominees Miss Some of the Year's Best

A few omissions from the Writers Guild of America nominees make you wonder if some rule changes aren't about overdue. For example, Inglourious Basterds and Fantastic Mr. Fox aren't nominees because they're both ineligible, and the same goes for Up, District 9, and An Education.

The Academy Awards won't have these restrictions, although there are still rules that exclude some films there, too. I don't believe any of the ones mentioned above would be out of the running for those reasons, though. So instead, our nominees include Crazy Heart, which is a solid script but nothing too memorable, Julie & Julia, and The Hangover, a surprising but rewarding inclusion. It wouldn't be there if Tarantino were allowed to the party, however.

Click to read more ...

The Big Picture's Top Ten Films of 2009

What makes a great film? Or better yet, what makes one film greater than another? It's impossible to answer although we can all usually agree on a few things: The Godfather is better than Jane Austen's Mafia, Casablanca beats Gigli, and Toy Story is superior to Toys.

There's never one thing that we cling to (although, certainly, in the right or wrong hands, any one thing can shift 180 degrees), but a well-written, well-directed, well-acted film tends to stand out against the average, and there's more average every year in the movies than there is good or bad. But ranking them? That's a thankless task. This list may not be like yours. All I can tell you is that these are the films that resonated loudest with me, and some longer than others, a couple not even upon first viewing. Some of them add technical achievements to that appreciation, but that isn't mandatory unless the film itself can't exist without it. I will say that I didn't love 2009 at the movies as much as I did the previous two years, and I hope to see more of the documentaries and foreign language films that have not yet made it to our shores. Those are usually a staple of my top ten lists (30% last year), but none made the cut in 2009, I'm afraid.

Click to read more ...

Cool Music Video for '(500) Days of Summer'

It's been in theaters for a couple months already, but there's still time to see (500) Days of Summer, and still plenty of reasons to. It's the best example of what we would call a romantic comedy in 2009, even though that's not really a fair description of Marc Webb's film.

It's one of the six or seven best movies of the summer, and while that might not sound like tremendous praise, think of what that list includes - Up, Star Trek, Inglourious Basterds, The Hangover, The Hurt Locker, District 9 - and on its own terms, (500) Days stands up to any of them. It stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel in what I believe are their best performances yet. Perhaps that's because the relationship at the heart of the film doesn't feel phony and contrived to fit around a pre-conceived notion of what audiences expect in movies about love. To help push one of the year's best films, Webb, Deschanel, and Gordon-Levitt have put together a great musical sequence completely independent of the story in the movie. It's a bank heist, back when bank robberies were fun and splashy. It also features one of Zooey's tunes from her band She & Him, "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" So check it out. And then go see the movie in a theater near you.

Click to read more ...

'(500)' Days of Jesus?

Should Universal be seriously considering a remake of Jesus Christ Superstar, they may look to the director of (500) Days of Summer, Marc Webb. One reason not to remake it? As The Hollywood Reporter so hopelessly puts it: "Webb could bring a modern, hipstery take" to the project. "Hipstery"? Someone, please, burn me alive if that word is ever used again.

As for the logic behind hiring Webb, The Reporter says he loves the original film, or perhaps, the original musical, or perhaps, a revival of the original musical. I don't think it follows that because there's a scene where Joseph Gordon-Levitt reenacts a scene common to movie musicals (in which he dances with a crowd of extras) that Webb is somehow perfectly suited for the project, but whatever.

Click to read more ...