1) The Earl holds the U.S. Air Guitar Regional Championships.
2) The Robert C. Williams Paper Museum hosts an opening reception for El Papel del Chileno.
3) Patti Callahan Henry discusses her book, Driftwood Summer, at Decatur Library.
4) Pixar’s Up continues in area theaters.
5) Black Tusk plays Lenny’s Bar.
BURIED TREASURE: "This Way Up" stands out among Oscar-nominated short films.
The nominees for Best Animated and Live Action Short Film tend to be the most obscure entries on Oscar night, not counting the documentary categories, of course. The relative obscurity of short subjects makes the Oscar Nominated Short Films 2009 program, divided into animated and live-action segments, so handy.
I guarantee, however, that most of you have already seen one of the animated shorts. Pixar’s “Presto,” about a pompous stage magician and his hungry bunny. It was attached to last summer’s WALL-E and received a bigger showcase than its competitors could have dreamed of. Although it’s one of Pixar’s best shorts, and a delightful tribute to the slapstick cartoons of past generations, “Presto” has garnered more than enough approbation, so it’d be nice if one of the other nominees won the statuette.
Looking over the films scheduled for 2009 release, the thing that most strikes me (apart from worries that a studio lawsuit could delay the March 6 release of Watchmen) is the omnipresence of 3-D. A theatrical gimmick that has proliferated over the past few years, 3-D exhibition and the funny glasses look to be inescapable in the upcoming year. More theaters will have the capacity to show films in digital 3-D thanks to the increased conversion to digital projection, and Hollywood clearly believe the gimmick to be worth the investment.
3-D can turn a lousy movie into a fun experience: I vividly remember having a blast seeing Friday the 13th Part III when I was in high school. The New York Times suggests that 3-D could revitalize the horror genre. This summer’s bloody thrillers include Piranha 3-D and a sequel with possibly the best title in movie history — Final Destination: Death Trip 3-D. The trailer for next week’s My Bloody Valentine 3-D (a remake of the 1981 slasher flick) makes its “date movie” value its major selling point:
Putting aside the schlock, at least three of the most potentially stunning films of 2009, including the latest from Pixar and the director of the highest-grossing film in history, will employ 3-D effects.
Every year Comic-Con steals some of the thunder of Atlanta’s Dragon*Con (this year held Aug. 29-Sep. 1). The San Diego comic book, fantasy and all around geek showbiz convention has gradually become Hollywood’s unofficial venue for hyping genre projects. That neat-0 Iron Man trailer from last year, for instance, debuted at Comic-Con. A friend of mine who lives in Los Angeles and frequently attends Comic-Con said that the studio hype is getting a little out of hand: “This is the year that Hollywood Officially Ruined Everything.” I wasn’t there, but here are a few apparent highlights. (Any of you who did attend Comic-Con, please let us know what else looked cool.)
Pixar presented an extremely short teaser trailer for next year’s Up — which, based on the company’s track record, could be one of next year’s best movies. Up stars the voice of Ed Asner and has been called “”a Pixar-meets-Miyazaki art film version of About Schmidt,” so it could be the studio’s riskiest venture yet:
