The Buzz: James Cameron, Pacific Rim, and Theater Ninjas
Dan Koelsch
The Buzz is a feature in which we round up the Top 3 most-buzzed-about movie/TV stories of the week (in more-or-less chronological order). Why go through pages of blogs just to find out what everyone is talking about? We’ve got it all right here in The Buzz.
1) James Cameron Bonanza
This week saw a ton of stories about director James Cameron, mostly because his megahit Titanic came out on Blu-Ray on September 10th. It’s not surprising that these stories spark discussion, since he wrote and directed the two highest grossing movies of all time in Titanic and Avatar. Cameron talked about the third biggest movie of all time, The Avengers, saying he liked it and wants other movies to do well (which Avengers’ director Whedon has said as well). Check out that link for Kate Winslet’s Titanic screen test with Jeremy Sisto in Leonardo DiCaprio’s role. Cameron also gave his review of Prometheus and talked about how he tried to buy the rights to Jurassic Park. Of course, Cameron also gave updates to the Avatar sequels, saying that Avatar 4 will be a prequel, and that the sequels won’t fall into the same traps as the Matrix sequels. Finally, the Mythbusters will apparently tackle the claim that in Titanic, (spoiler alert) Jack and Rose could have both survived while in the water.
2) Warner Bros. Forces “Pacific Rim” To Be 3D
In one of the sadder stories of the week, studio greed wins out over creative preference. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim comes out next time, which its studio Warner Bros. decided was plenty of time to convert the movie into 3D. While studios deciding after the fact to convert to 3D isn’t new, it was surprising in this case. Del Toro has said that he specifically didn’t want to make the movie 3D for creative reasons (read the details on why here). Those anticipating the film have become upset, as expected, at the studio’s greed and going against the wishes of a visionary filmmaker like Del Toro. However, at the end of the day, filmmaking is a business, and 3D sells well overseas.
3) Theater Ninjas Stop People From Texting
I am a bit of a movie theater snob, and I hate when people disrespect the movie and others around them by using their cell phone to text or talk. The Prince Charles Cinema in London have found a unique solution to the problem. They have volunteers wear black morphsuits (which cover your entire body) and wait in the theater until they find someone using their phone, then tell them to stop. It’s apparently pretty effective, though I can imagine it quickly turning ugly when an audience member gets scared. The volunteers get free movies, so I can imagine it being pretty easy to find wiling people. One response I’ve seen about this is that theaters should just have more ushers or have ushers do more rounds, but having worked at the movie theater that did regular rounds, it’s still not enough. What do you think?
