Links...of....Interest!

Its been a pretty slow news day. And yesterday was so hectic, I have no new reviews to give. Forgive me.

I'm probably going to be seeing The Other Guys tonight (I'm a sucker for Will Ferrell, so sue me), and I hoping that I'll get a review up either tonight or sometime tomorrow. I've heard some rather surprisingly good things about it, and from respectable critics too, not just my college friends. But honestly, I'm much more excited about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World next weekend. I love Edgar Wright, and Michael Cera has carved himself a lovely niche as an unlikely teen hero in the vein of John Cusack and Matthew Broderick. The film's hyper-stylized video-game aesthetic is also insanely appealing (and we get a double dose of that this year, with Tron: Legacy coming out in December) to me; I'm just a nerd. And speaking of Tron, the more I see about this movie, the more excited I am about it. When it was first announced, I honestly couldn't have cared less, but now with every new trailer I see the more I think it could be a fun sci-fi adventure. And newcomer Joseph Kosinski (seriously, this is his first film!) is already being heralded as a visionary; however, they said the same about Kerry Conran, so we'll see how his career ends up (for the record: I loved Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and I hate that Conran hasn't found work since).

- The Wrap takes a look at the track record for 3D films this year, and its not the "3D will change everything! All movies should be in 3D!" kind of numbers the studio bigwigs were touting around Avatar's release. If Comic-Con reactions were any indication, the general public doesn't want everything to be in 3D. These numbers agree with that assumption. I don't necessarily think 3D is going away, but I think Hollywood is starting to realize that maybe, just maybe, everything shouldn't be in 3D, just the big event films that were shot in the format (i.e. Avatar, Tron: Legacy, and such, not retrofitted films like Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans or middle-release films like Step Up 3D and Cats and Dogs: Why Was This Sequel Even Made?)

- NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd and author Sam Wasson, who recently published 5th Avenue, 5 am, a look back at Audrey Hepburn's classic Breakfast at Tiffany's, commiserate (read: bitch) about the current state of the romantic comedy. There are some pretty good points here, but the times, they are a-changin', and its not necessarily for the best.

- Panjiba is reporting that Quentin Tarantino may be directing an update of The Shadow, the classic comics serial of the 1940s. Of course, this film has reportedly changed hands several times this year alone, starting as a Sam Raimi project before being handed over to David Slade (30 Days of Night, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse). I highly doubt that Tarantino will do this, namely because he's not one for adaptations (Jackie Brown is the only one on his resume). I'm also just holding out hope that he won't because Tarantino is one of the last remaining auteurs that has avoided taking studio jobs, having pretty much complete creative freedom to make whatever kind of movie his film-geek heart desires and still have it earn a major release. But Pixar's moved into the sequel business (Cars 2? Really?), so I'm braced for disappointment here too.

- Deadline New York has an article about studio pressure to keep some film scripts secret, in which they discuss the Wachowski Brothers' new film Cobalt Neutral 9, their futuristic homosexual romantic/war drama about two soldiers - one American, one Iraqi - who fall in love. I can understand why agents would want to keep this one under wraps, because its one of those premises that can result in one of two films: a brilliant masterpiece or an absolute train-wreck. It piques my interest, so we'll see what happens.

- The third episode of the "Some Cast it Hot" podcast is now online, featuring Alex from Film Forager, Caitlin from 1,416 and Counting and my personal friend Allison from Nerdvampire (Sacha from The Final Girl Project was not in this episode, but is on the other two). Its a great podcast, and here they review Man on Wire and recommend some great documentaries, so check it out!