Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett star in 'The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button,' now available as a Criterion BluRay

Credit: Paramount Home Video

I'm amazed at how many people I know who not only do not have BluRay in their homes yet, they've never even watched a movie on BluRay.  And they don't see any real reason to do so.  And while I understand that not everyone is as uber-nerdy about sound and picture presentation as I am, I have to believe that if people were able to sit down and check out a great presentation of a great transfer, they'd realize just how much it can enhance the viewing experience.

And right now, if I were going to use any live-action film to demo my system for someone, it would probably be "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button."  No surprise for anyone who saw Paramount's amazing transfer of "Zodiac" on BluRay, and logical if you consider that Fincher shoots with the Viper camera, so you're looking at a high-def transfer of high-def material, with no film involved in the process at all.  It makes a huge difference, and it allows you to really marvel at how much texture and color and warmth Fincher and his photographers manage to wring out of these cameras.  He's a pioneer in terms of how far he pushes HD photography right now... there's no one else shooting films like this right now, with the possible exception of Michael Mann, and even he hasn't really pushed the HD towards the same sort of lush and dreamy film look that Fincher has.  I think Mann actually likes the video qualities of HD, where Fincher seems determined to prove that it doesn't matter what camera you use... you can accomplish the same look, and that's all a matter of how your photographer approaches his job.

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Dean Stockwell and Jeff Bridges in one of the strangest moments in Francis Ford Coppola's wonderful 'Tucker: The Man and His Dream'

Credit: Paramount Home Video

I'm not sure how you can honestly say you're a fan of Francis Ford Coppola's work if you don't rank this right alongside the very best of his '70s work.  It's easily the most personal film he ever made, and it's also one of the most beautiful.  Maybe part of the problem is that the film he made is simply too much for home video to handle.  When the film came out, I worked at a theater that played it, and I saw it seven or eight times in the two weeks it played.  That print was gorgeous, lush, like it was printed on candy.  And on VHS, it looked terrible.  On laserdisc, it looked better, but it wasn't as vivid as that film print.  On DVD, it's a mess.  A huge mess.  I'm sort of amazed as I revisit the disc that it is a DVD print.  It's soft and the colors sort of bleed, and it just doesn't look very good at all.  It's noisy.  Here's a film just begging for a gorgeous BluRay restoration and release, and maybe if the right person at Paramount Home Video reads this and realizes just what a gem they're sitting on, it might get coughed up at some point.  After all, the Warner Archives just made "Freebie and the Bean" available, so anything is possible.

Preston Tucker was an inventor, a salesman, a huckster, a family man, a crackpot, a criminal, and an inspiration, depending on who you talked to, and from the moment the film begins, it's obvious that Coppola sees himself in this guy who is willing to risk everything, over and over and over again, in order to follow his dreams.  This is the Coppola who hadn't yet settled into the financial stability that he now finally deservedly enjoys.  Coppola has gone bankrupt something like 347 times.  I may be exaggerating, but not by much.  And it's because he bet on his art.  I think Coppola's a goddamn hero by example, and even if I don't love everything he's ever made, I love him.  I love the way he talks about his own films and other people's films and the way his passions plays out in his filmmaking.  Jeff Bridges is playing about as far from Coppola as is physically possible, tall and chiseled and golden-hued, with the Norman Rockwell family spilling out of his Norman Rockwell house, but in terms of the way he pursues his dreams, they seem to be cut from identical cloth.

Michael Cera is currently starring as Scott Pilgrim in Edgar Wright's adaptation of the cult hit comic by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Credit: Universal Pictures

Welcome to The Morning Read.

Between last night's weekend read and this morning's piece on Bale, I'm getting a late start on today's Morning Read, and I think this one's all about some of the big stuff I haven't commented on over the last three or four days.

Ole Bornedahl has been rocking it pretty hard for the last couple of films.  Both "The Substitute" and "Just Another Love Story" deliver in unexpected ways, and they suggest that he's really hit his stride as a storyteller.  Now Twitch has an English-language version of the trailer for "Deliver Us From Evil," his latest.

And they wonder why people are abandoning newspapers.

You want to know what I'm afraid of, more than almost anything else, in regards to working on the internet?  This.  One of the last things I did at Ain't It Cool was start putting together an archive of my work over there, and I made decent progress on it before I left.  One of the reasons that was so important to me was because I've lost plenty of material over the years as we've switched servers.  I would estimate that 90% of the first three years of contributions I made to AICN are gone forever, and an entire blog of mine is gone, too, because of me dicking around with it at TypePad.  I work hard to generate online content, and the idea of it simply disappearing gives me the sweats.

Mr. T remains just as weird today as he's ever been, and I love it.

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Christian Bale plays John Connor in 'Terminator: Salvation'

Credit: Warner Bros.

I've been at this now for going on 15 years, and even before I was doing it online, I chased rumors down for my own curiosity.  Living and working in Los Angeles, you hear things from the strangest of sources, hints dropped in passing, a piece of info from one person leading you to make some connection that allows you to coax another piece of info from another person until suddenly something snaps into vivid focus.  And sometimes, even when I feel like I've got the puzzle pieces all laid out, I can't quite make them fit together the way I think they should.

Over the last three weeks, I've had three random encounters with people, and each one gave me a different hint towards something that I've been curious about for a while now:  who will be playing John Carter for director Andrew Stanton in "John Carter Of Mars," the long-in-development adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp classic.  It's a great role, and if the first film works, it could easily be the cornerstone for a new franchise.  And with Stanton at the helm, I can't imagine this will be anything less than amazing.

So who's the lucky guy tapped for the lead?  Well, my initial source told me point blank that it was Christian Bale.  And then a secondary source disputed that directly.  Still... that first source sounded incredibly confident about it.  I would imagine many of the usual suspects are in the running.  And although Stanton's been Tweeting lately about casting being underway, things have been fairly quiet.  And then, like I said, a flurry of hints and innuendo, leading me to try to piece things together.  And based on the clues I'd gotten, I was fairly confident walking into the "Terminator: Salvation" press day, thinking I was going to be able to drop the question directly on the guy who had emerged as the most likely John Carter.  Even the people who were talking around the name of the actor, giving me very vague hints, seemed to be all pointing at the same guy, so I felt confident enough to bring it up.

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If you were Tom Hanks, you'd be the middle of a Charlize Theron/Julia Roberts sammich, too

Credit: AP Photo/Dave Allocca, StarPix

Welcome to The Morning Read, your special weekend edition.

At this point, it's almost Sunday evening, and I assume many of you have already seen "Star Trek".  Curious what you think now that you've laid eyes on it.  I've heard such great word of mouth that it's starting to look like this year's "Iron Man," the movie that just gets out in front and is so much fun that people end up comparing everything else during the summer to it, to its advantage.

I'm going to use this afternoon to clean out a ton of links I've bookmarked for the Morning Read that fell between the cracks, a sort of clearing house of cool or strange stuff that didn't quite fit into any of the regular columns.  I know some of these links are ten or twelve days old... but why not finally put them all together?  They were worth my attention in the first place, right?

For example, I bookmarked this review on Twitch because I've never heard of the film, and that always interests me.  There are so many movies that have managed to fall off the radar completely since they were made, and the age of video has mainly helped to preserve new crap.  Things that were already forgotten before the VHS or DVD age are probably still forgotten, so when I get a heads-up on a film like "Jigsaw," I try to make note of it.  I love when this is the sort of thing my peers focus on, instead of nine thousand voices at once on the same new movie.

My kids are growing up in the science fiction movies I watched as a kid, and I love it.  I can only imagine what their world's going to be like when they're my age now.

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Peter O'Toole, Anthony Quinn, and a whole mess of extras in David Lean's remarkable epic "Lawrence of Arabia"

Credit: SPHE

When I started the Motion/Captured Must-See Project, I published "The List Of Duh," which was meant as a sort of short-cut.  That list of films, by no means complete, represents everything from the first 900 discs in my collection that I consider the basics, the givens, the movies that I would assume everyone has seen.

I'm wrong, of course.  There's no such thing as a movie everyone's seen, no matter how famous, no matter how basic to the history of film.  And the proof of that is another Internet webmaster, Alex Billington, who runs the First Showing blog.  Now, I wasn't familiar with Alex until last year when Devin Faraci of CHUD zeroed in on Alex as a subject of scorn.  Devin's issues with Alex seem to be rich and varied, but one of the big ones is that "Alex hasn't seen anything."  Someone's even gone out of their way to create a "Fake Alex Billington" on Twitter, and I've seen other webmasters and bloggers slam the guy fairly hard.

But one of the reasons I have spent the last 14 years writing about movies online is because I think those of us who have this voracious appetite for movies, who have gone out of our way to mainline thousands and thousands of films, good and bad, big and small, mainstream and obscure... it's our obligation to pass on to others why we do that, what makes those films worth that sort of investment of time and energy, and to steer people to the things that we think are most essential.  In a world where you have as many options as we do now for entertainment, where you can constantly swim in the new without ever looking backwards, it seems to me more essential than ever to communicate our enthusiasm for the greats, the films that we hold dear.

So I called Alex.  And instead of just lambasting him about what he hasn't seen, I suggested a different approach to this, one that acknowledges that there are probably far more people out there whose relationship to movies is like his than like mine.  Or Devin's.  Or Harry's.  One of the reasons I've had this long friendship with some of these other film writers is because they speak the same language I do.  They have the same vocabulary.  If I reference a movie, they'll understand it, and they understand why I draw a comparison.  And so if we're going to treat this... all of it... like a conversation, then we have to acknowledge that if we want people to take part in that conversation, we have to invite them in, not attack them for something they haven't experienced yet.

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William Holden and Larry Hagman are just two of the many stars who burned Hollywood to the ground in the wicked Blake Edwards comedy 'S.O.B.'

Credit: Warner Home Video

The other night, I had drinks with a hardcore film geek buddy of mine, and as we talked, we touched on any number of topics and ideas.  At one point, we were discussing how to shoot film comedy, and I think we agreed that the best comedy directors are very similar to the best musical directors, guys who could stage and pace and shoot a scene so it could all play in a master shot.  The more wacky camera angles and wacky montage cutting that a director throws at something, the less confident it seems to me.  And I love directors who have the balls to shoot comedy in wide wide widescreen.  If you want a great example of what I'm talking about, check out the work of Blake Edwards.  And as much as I prefer some of Blake's other films ("The Party" is pretty much a perfect film), as a fan, there's something particularly interesting about the strange and angry cocktail of "S.O.B."

Part of my attraction to the film is due to Richard Mulligan's work in the lead.  I'm a huge rabid fan of the '70s TV series "Soap," and Mulligan's work is one of the main reasons.  It's mad genius.  He didn't play many leads in many movies, sort of like Christopher Lloyd, so when he did, it was special.  Here, he's been given a role that plays to his many strengths, and he runs with it to tremendous effect.  He's Felix Farmer, a distinctly Blake Edwards-esque Hollywood movie director who has just released his latest giant-budget epic movie musical "Night Wind," starring his wife, beloved icon of purity Sally Miles, played by the real-life wife of Blake Edwards, beloved icon of purity Julie Andrews.  The film has opened to catastrophic reviews, and no one is going.  It's a bomb of unheard of proportion.  People are bailing out of responsibility for the movie, and Felix?  Felix is suicidal.

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Jim Carrey plays Ebenezer Scrooge and six other characters in a new version of 'A Christmas Carol'

Credit: Walt Disney Pictures

So far, Disney's managed to keep everything about their upcoming "A Christmas Carol" adaptation very closely guarded in regards to style and design.  I'm curious, and I have to say, I really love the idea of one actor playing Scrooge and all of the ghosts... thematically, I think that pays off in a lot of ways, and I'm surprised I've never seen anyone do it before.

Now it looks like they're about to kick off a 40-city promotion that will give people a chance to see the first footage from the film presented in the best possible format.  I'm wondering if they'll have a trailer for the movie in front of "Up," at least in the 3D venues.  It would make sense.  Regardless, if you're interested, here's the press release on how you can participate in this free sneak peek that sounds like a fairly unique way of taking the message to the public:

"Disney is pulling out all the whistle stops and taking its show on the road with a spectacular immersive and interactive 40-city train tour including a 3D sneak peek of film footage from the upcoming movie "Disney's A Christmas Carol," it was announced today (05/08/09) by Dick Cook, chairman, The Walt Disney Studios. Set amidst a snowy backdrop-complete with all of the sights and sounds of Christmas including carolers, decorations, giveaways and many more surprises in each of the 40 cities-the Train Tour is being launched with HP on board as the title and technology sponsor and driven by Amtrak. This family event is for guests of all ages and is free to the public.

Starring Jim Carrey and directed by Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, "Disney's A Christmas Carol" opens in theatres November 6 in Disney Digital 3D^TM and in IMAX 3D®.

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Robert Downey Jr. stops for donuts in 'Iron Man 2,' currently filming around Los Angeles

Credit: Paramount Pictures

Welcome to The Morning Read.

Rupert Murdoch is obviously a very successful and smart man, so when I say that the old man's off his meds, I mean that with the utmost respect.  If he really believes that he's going to swing the internet around to a model where everyone's paying for access to sites, I'd like to introduce him to 1996, where he'll be very happy.  Check out what Murdoch had to say just before they served him applesauce and happy pills.

I know filmmakers who seem rabidly interested in audience response, and I know filmmakers who profess not to care what anyone thinks as long as they are happy with their film.  I think it has to be some middle ground between those attitudes for a film to really work, but it's an interesting question, and Kim Voynar digs into it today.

Wanna see a new picture of Robert Downey Jr. in a partial Iron Man suit?  People is happy to oblige you.  It's cool not only as a first look at the sequel, but also as a look at how much of the suit is practical and how much is an effect in some shots.

An equally interesting question is "What movie most affected you, and how?"  It's a great way of learning who someone is.  The movies you love, the movies you internalize... they say a lot about your character and your values, even if you don't realize it.  The more passionate you are about a film, the more revealing it is.  Alice Jones of The Independent asked filmmakers and authors and politicians to talk about the films that defined them, and she got some great answers.

There are many, many, many reasons you should read Vern's summer movie preview, but I can best sum it up with one reason in particular:  Jim Jarmusch Slurpee cups.

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Jeff Katz was one of the key players in bringing "Wolverine" to the screen

Credit: 20th Century Fox

Talk about a company name designed to look good in headlines.  I've always loved Terry Gilliam's infantile urge to name his production company Poo Poo Productions, just so lawyers would have to have serious conversations about Poo Poo, but I think most sane people want a name that conveys an attitude and suggests what you should expect.  I like it when people bite off more than they can chew right out of the gate.  If you name your company "Bad-Ass Ninja Robot Shark Productions," and you've got a logo that's four and a half minutes long and cost $2 million, you are making an inherent promise to your customer.  I always laugh at the way people try to either go vague or "aha!" cute.  And I wonder if there are people who regret their company name after living with it for a while.

All things I pondered as I opened the press release for Jeff Katz's new entertainment company, American Original.  I met Jeff many years ago at New Line, as a junior executive there.  He was incredibly young at the time... I think 13 or 14... and he had already had this wild other earlier career in the world of professional wrestling.  And talking to him, I was amazed not that New Line had him meeting with people to discuss genre movies, but more that they would even let him in the building.  He was way too real, too unpolished, too in love with movies and genre fare and comic books and pop culture to be anyone who any corporation would let make any degree of decision.  It does not surprise me at all that he would announce his new company today as a "nerd machine."  It does not surprise me at all that he's only 30 and he's not only worked for two studios (he had a good run at New Line before making the jump to Fox, where he was hired specifically to be the House Nerd.  It does not surprise me at all that he's a really good comic book writer (his Booster Gold stuff is, yes, gold), since he seems to ingest comics and video games and pretty much everything nerd on a steady IV drip.

It just surprises me when something like this actually happens to people who should be making these choices.  It's rare.

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