James Franco asks the obvious about “Amazing Spider Man” — “It’s like, why?”

Exactly.

But then again, I’ve made my views of this redundant remake pretty clear.

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Kids remake “Toy Story” — with real toys

It’s not stop motion animation. It’s not sophisticated. It’s just a faithful tribute to a favorite film by fans who love the original too much. Cute. Check out the camera work.

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“Fast & Furious 6” looks more…digital. But can you ID the cars?

These “Fast and Furious” movies seem to be getting further and further away from real car stunts in the action scenes and more into the digital stuff. There’s a bit of stunt driving in this commercial-trailer. But a whole lot of laws-of-physics defying stuff.
I see a Dodge Charger, a newish Alfa Romeo, what looks like an old Superbird (tail wing Richard Petty 1970 era Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge product). A friend IDs that blue and white car in the first moments as an early ’70s Ford Escort — British version. Another even looks like a Jensen Interceptor (probably not, but ’70s vintage rear hatch — the one Michelle R. seems to step out of). This opens May 24.

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“Lone Ranger” Super Bowl commercial — are you sold, yet?

The tone of this TV spot — a long one — for The Super Bowl — is more promising than the earlier “Lone Ranger” commercials.
Let’s just say it — it feels less “Wild Wild West” here. Tom Wilkinson’s voice over, big splashy action beats, a sentimental feel for the characters. Still up in the air on it, myself. But this is the first trailer than made me think “This’ll work.”

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“Hulk” gains new lease on life, thanks to “Avengers”

Since Mark Ruffalo’s sad, weary and witty turn as The Hulk in “The Avengers,” Marvel is making moves to cash in on the latest signs of life in the Big Green Guy.

Latino Review reports there’s a Hulk-centric plot to “Avengers 3,” which would come, of course, after “Avengers 2.”

And there may be a “Hulk” stand-alone film, a third attempt in recent years to make this half-animated hero a viable big screen franchise.

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Renny Harlin — stop laughing — set to direct “Hercules 3D”

The finished Finnish filmmaker — maker of the bloodiest “Die Hard,” once married to Geena Davis, his career long down in the B-movie dumps — has landed the job of directing another sword and sorcery 3D film. “Hercules 3D” feels out of step and a day late, just from its title.

But Renny Harlin will helm the $70 million Millennium/MGM/Paramount project.

Things went truly South for him with “Cutthroat Island,” a misguided pirate movie starring his then-wife, Ms. Davis. Hollywood stopped trusting him with big budgets back in 2001, when the Stallone racing movie “Driven” bombed.  He’s been doing cut-rate horror (“The Covenant”) and WWE actioners (“12 Rounds”) and a lot of TV in recent years.

A comeback? Only if “Immortals” and the “Clash of the Titans” movies haven’t exhausted this genre, once again.

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Movie Review: “A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman”

Image“A Liar’s Autobiography” is such a brilliant conceit that you wish, ever so much, that it had come off. An animated resuscitation of Monty Python’s “Dead One,” the late Graham Chapman, this uneven exercise in animated styles and unbalanced riff on his life and work, it’s the closest fans of the now aged Pythons — Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Carol Cleveland — will get to a genuine reunion of the famed late 60s/early 70s British comedy troupe.

But it feels incomplete, from the bent to the story — Chapman narrates his autobiography for a book on tape a few years before he died of throat cancer in 1989 — to the animation, which seems to have been subcontracted into a lot of hands, only a few of whom were able to match the anarchic feel of Python to the computer-generated imagery they were manipulating.

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Johnny Depp as Boston “maab-stuh” Whitey Bulger?

ImageBarry Levinson will direct Johnny Depp, if this project keeps its footing. “Black Mass” is about notorious Boston mob boss and longtime FBI’s Most Wanted fugitive, the elusive Whitey Bulger. He served as an informant as a means of getting the Feds to leave his various nefarious enterprises alone, went into hiding after media reports surfaced at all the stuff they turned a blind eye to re: Bulger over the decades, and eluded capture for 16 years.

A pretty ambitious part for Mr. Depp. But hey, the “Pirates” movies should have gotten him used to working with parrots.

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Bikinis and bullets and Britney — “Spring Breakers”

You’ve got Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Selena Gomez and others all dolled up and behaving badly.
Hungry, desperate to get to Spring Break. Willing to commit robberies to do it.
And James Franco, in hair and teeth and tats that have to be seen to be believed, as the “bad influence” who takes things to the next level. Pure exploitation. Look for “Spring Breakers” in March. Surprised a major studio didn’t nab this.

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Box Office: Stallone’s “Bullet” bombs, “Warm Bodies” clears $19

“Warm Bodies,” the Zombie “Twilight,” did just under the $20 million it was widely predicted to earn Super Bowl weekend. Decent reviews, decent buzz, a novel reasonably popular with teens, none of that was enough to get it over $20.

“Bullet to the Head,” the much-delayed, recut and miscast (sidekick) New Orleans shoot-em-up starring Sly Stallone, only managed $4.5 million. That’s less than Schwarzenegger’s “The Last Stand,” which lost ALL its audience after three weeks and won’t even hit the $14 million mark at the US box office.

Compare that to Jason Statham in the better (marginally so) “Parker,” which was mishandled and yet will still get in the neighborhood of $20 million.

“Silver Linings Playbook” and “Zero Dark Thirty” continue to enjoy an Oscar bounce — the first is over $80, the latter now at $77.

 

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