AMPAS News: Academy presents Ray Harryhausen movies July 16th

The AMPAS Building

The The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has announced it will present two classic movies created by special effects giant Ray Harryhausen, 20 Million Miles to Earth and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, on Friday, July 16 2010, at 7:30 p.m. PDT at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

The movies are part of the Academy's exhibition called "The Fantastical Worlds of Ray Harryhausen," and there will be special gallery hours from 6 to 7:30 p.m. PDT , and after the screening of the films. Tickets for 20 Million Miles to Earth and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad are just $5, and $3 for Academy members like Adam Sandler and students with a valid ID. You can buy them online at Oscars.org.

Made in 1957, 20 Million Miles to Earth was Ray Harryhausen's last black-and-white movie. According to AMPAS 20 Million Miles to Earth features one Harryhausen's favorite monsters, the Ymir, who survives the crash of a spaceship returning from the first human exploration of Venus, and with unfortunate results for Rome.



(Now aren't you surprised that wasn't remade in 3D?)

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad was one of this blogger's childhood favorites. Sinbad and his fiancée Princess Parisa land on an island in search of provisions while on their way to Baghdad to be married. On the island, they encounter an evil magician, a genie and many Harryhausen creations, including my favorite, the man-eating, one-eyed Cyclops.



"The Fantastical Worlds of Ray Harryhausen" is open to the public for free up to August 22 and in the Academy’s Fourth Floor Gallery at 8949 Wilshire Blvd in Beverly Hills. It's open from 10 AM to 5 PM and from 12 noon to 6 PM on the weekends.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows official movie trailer: the 3D issue

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter and Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort
(photo from DanielRadcliffe.com)

The first, not leaked, official movie trailer for Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows was released Tuesday with much celebration of and anticipation for the film to be released on November 19, 2010. But one issue that would have been overlooked, takes on new importance in the wake of Avatar Director James Cameron's attack on Warner Bros. Clash of The Titans use of 3D in a movie shot as 2D: will Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows have the same problem?

Earlier this year, just after the release of the epic remake of Clash of The Titans , Cameron went on an attack on Clash that could only be called damaging. Cameron said that making 2D films and then reforming them as 3D movies "cheapens" the 3D brand, and called for a board or commission to be formed that would monitor how and when 3D is used.

The one problem from this perspective is there are two kinds of 3D movies: before Avatar and after Avatar. Before Avatar, many movies were made with 2D cameras, then converted to 3D and in a process so common now, you can do it with your movie videos at home.  Sure, there were a few stereoscopic films, but the common process was conversion.

Avatar takes advantage of new 3D processes created from Real D 3D, Dolby 3D, XpanD 3D, MasterImage 3D, and IMAX 3D, and was made from the start as a stereoscopic 3D movie.

The unfortunate reality is many movies were created from a one-camera perspective, and not an in-tandem 2 camera view system that mimics the eye and offers a more exact 3D perspective.

The whole point is to create the illusion of depth perception: the idea that something is in front of or behind another object on screen. But that written, movie makers who are converting 2D to 3D argue that the elements of a 3D movie - where a distant object is desaturated and hazy relative to a closer one - are already in 2D movies and thus continue to advocate 2D to 3D conversion.

Avatar distorts the truth

The problem Avatar causes for movie-makers on a budget is it used special equipment and techniques that were extremely expensive, then the movie goes on to be the largest money-maker in film history. So, because of Avatar, we have blogs like Screenrant claiming James Cameron has successfully ushered in the official “era of 3D cinema" because of its success. But it's not that movies haven't been made using stereoscopic film methods, they just weren't all that successful until Avatar. Now, every movie's judged by Avatar and what James Cameron says about that film versus Avatar.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows is not an "Avatar 3D" movie

From the James Cameron perspective, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows is not an authentic 3D movie. In other words, it was created with a one-camera-lens perspective and has been converted to 3D, much as The Clash of The Titans was, and at a cost estimated at $10 million or "$5 million for movie conversion and $5 million for the glasses" according to Heat Vision Blog.

My take: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows is just fine as 2D

If you want to see what Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows will look like in 2D, just look at the movie trailer above, if you'e not done so. It's a beautiful presentation, with all of the visual depth and character drama you expect from another epic installment in the Harry Potter series. Adding 3D is an excuse to charge higher ticket prices and with the popularity of the Harry Potter brand, assure ticket sales. It's a marketing trick on the heels of Avatar, but an unnecessary one.

Avatar made my eyes strain and I had a tightness from trying to watch it with the glasses. I saw Avatar just once for that reason. Maybe my contact lenses were dirty and that reacted with the 3D glasses, but really, watching real 3D is an adjustment.

If Warner Bros was really serious about making Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows in 3D, they'd have insisted on it in the production process, and even in the making of the videos that go on YouTube.

At a YouTube party I attended and will post today, YouTube engineers presented their experiments with 3D and the new online capability of being able to present 3D videos. It was effective, but takes some adjusting to. Will I use it? Considering they gave me a 3D web cam with which to make 3D videos, yes I will.  The only thing stopping me is the camera doesn't work on a Mac; it's for a PC!

I've not yet seen a movie studio make a 3D movie that includes a 3D YouTube video version. It's a good idea for a studio to do, and gives movie goers a more authentic view of what the 3D movie will look like when it's released. That written, I'm looking forward to Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows in whatever "D" it's presented in.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows dark official movie trailer rocks

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows: Harry Potter grows up

Unlike most of the Harry Potter movies before it, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows is wonderfully dark and the trailer for the Warner Bros. movie reflects not just Harry Potter's coming of age as a wizard and a young man, but the evil Potter is facing. Reflecting the overall mood of the book of the same names, the vast majority of scenes presented in the trailer are dark in their style with muted tones and dark colors. Even the sky above is overcast.

And the introduction - the Warner Bros. logo and Time Warner Company name against a dark, cloudy sky, offers a foreshadowing of the not-so-pleasant World Harry Potter's a part of in The Deathly Hollows.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows is the seventh book in the series by author J.K. Rowing. The Warner Bros. movie, set to be released in two parts: Part I on November 19th 2010, and Part II on July 15th 2011, has endured some minor set backs and speed-bumps along the way to completion.

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter and Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort
(photo from DanielRadcliffe.com)

First, completion of the script was delayed because of the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, then a copy of the script was found under a table in a Suburban London bar after film workers went out for a night of cheer to the Waterside Tavern located near the Leavesden Studios in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, where the film was made, 21 miles north of London.

The patron who found the script read the 118-page document that was marked "Private and Confidential" did not reveal what they saw, but Screencrave.com reported it contains "several drastic changes" from the book.

Since that episode, various aspects of the plot have been leaked online.

A large cast for The Deathly Hollows

The special blog Harry Potter 7 Movie Trailer has an almost complete description of the cast and their characters as well as a history of all of the trailers released,  :

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, who makes a decision to find the remaining Horcruxes, not returning for his seventh year at Hogwarts.
Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, one of Harry's two best friends.
Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, one of Harry's two best friends.
Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Harry's first friend from the magical world.
David Thewlis as Remus Lupin, former Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Lupin is a werewolf and a member of the Order of the Phoenix.
Matthew Lewis as Neville Longbottom, a slightly nerdy friend of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Luna.
Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood, one of Harry's friends and member of Dumbledore's Army
Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange, one of Voldemort's principal Death Eaters, older sister of Narcissa Malfoy, aunt to Draco, and cousin of Sirius Black, whom she murdered in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy. Isaacs considered not returning for the film, before the book was released, as he was worried Malfoy would have very little screentime due to the character's imprisonment in the previous story.
Helen McCrory as Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's mother and younger sister of Bellatrix.
Timothy Spall as Peter Pettigrew, former member of Harry's father James's group of friends, he betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort. Now one of Voldemort's principal Death Eaters.

Obviously missing from this list is the great actor Ralph Fiennes who plays Lord Voldemort pictured above.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows in 3D

Following a trend that started with last year's hit Avatar, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows will be presented in 3D. From the appearance of the trailer, it looks like The Deathly Hollows was originally a 2D movie that will be presented in 3D.

Will James Cameron slam Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows?

The use of 3D as a marketing tool (the Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows Trailer contains promotion as such a film) is a practice panned by Avatar Producer / Director James Cameron, who took a direct shot at another Warner Bros. movie, The Clash of The Titans when he said "They worked against themselves with that film. I've heard people say that they couldn't watch (Clash of the Titans) in 3-D and thought it looked better in 2-D and they enjoyed the film more," in response to the news that Warner Bros. delayed the release of Clash to add 3D effects.

Cameron fears too many movies adding 3D effects to a movie shot as a 2D production will cheapen the 3D brand. That Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows does that remains to be seen.

Stay tuned.

VH1's You're Cut Off: Rehab for Spoiled Brats. By Nikky Raney

You're Cut Off on VH1 is a reality show worth watching. The show premiered Wednesday, June 9 at 9PM ET/PT.

There are so many reality television shows on the air that is can be difficult to sort out the ones worth watching. You're Cut Off can be classified as a mix between I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, The Simple Life, and The Bad Girls' Club.

You're Cut Off is like rehab for "spoiled brats." The nine young women on this show are self proclaimed princesses. They have relied and mooched off their families' money. The surprise comes in the first episode when life coach Laura Baron declines their credit cards and tells them what's really going on. The girls had originally thought they would be appearing on a reality tv show that filmed them shopping.

The nine ladies watch video testimonials from their family members. Each video ends with the phrase, "You're cut off!" This means that instead of living the ritzy lifestyle they are put into a house together (not one of those flashy mansions that most reality tv stars get to live in).

The girls are so surprised that there is not a maid there to wait on them. There is one bedroom with bunk beds that they have to share, and Baron gave each girl one duffle bag to fit all her things in. These women live like Paris Hilton, and now they are living like "middle class" citizens. The girls are given $200 a week for groceries if they follow their life coach.


The life coach hopes to teach some lessons that will instill values and make it known that money is earned. These girls are encouraged to become productive members of society, and Baron has them complete daily chores, among other things.

"Laura Baron is a professional lifestyle and relationship strategist who is regarded as a premier change agent. Laura's clients report greater success using her signature intuitive and customized methods over traditional therapy. Her clients include CEOs, entrepreneurs, celebrities and women in transition," VH1 informs.

In part of an episode the girls were cleaning Omarosa's house. One of the girls, Gia, got in Omarosa's face and refused to clean her house. That must be one of the most disrespectful moments caught on reality TV. That was Gia. Gia has a baby girl at home and refuses to change her diaper. Gia makes it known in the first half hour of the show that she will not cook or clean, ever. She says, "I don't even know what color my kitchen is!"

Gia is a wife and mother from California who also refuses to wake up in the middle of the night to take care of her baby. Her husband hires nannies while Gia smokes on her hookah all day. She claims she could not survive without her hookah, and when listing the most important things in her life she mentioned her family AFTER listening all the material items. Gia divorced her first husband, because he could not keep up with her lifestyle. Her current husband is extremely fed up with it and is cutting her off. He even admits he looks in the mirror some days and wonders what he's doing.

Gia is only one of the divas on this show. It's entertaining to watch, because it's hard to believe that this type of person exists. There rest of the divas include:

Chrissy, the rotten princess from LA. She is the most disrespectful of all the girls. She has the nerve to do her make up and stare at herself in her hand mirror while others are speaking. She does not think that it is rude at all to interrupt others or to constantly stare at herself while having a conversation with another person. Her highest goal in life is to be married THREE times so she can have three fabulous weddings, but she won't say "I DO" unless the ring costs at least $300K. Her grandmother says Chrissy is "acting a fool," and prays that by cutting her off she will learn some responsibility.

Leanne is a diva from California who is supported entirely by her father. She didn't like the color of the Mercedes S-Class her dad bought her, and she decided to buy a $375K Ferrari while he was out of time; she crashed the Ferrari a few weeks later. Leanne will not knave the house without her six bodyguards, a make-up artist, or her best friend. Her father is cutting her off, because he has had enough of her spending all his hard-earned money.

Pamela claims that she worked on Wall-Street. She is a New York girl that says she WAS a princess and now she's a QUEEN. Pamela is really good at spending her family's money. They are cutting her off in hopes she will make something of herself.

Erica is a pampered princess who will never be seen without a tiara. She is from Texas and her father is a plastic surgeon; she spends over half a million dollars of her dad's money ever year. Erica lives at home and consults her personal astrologer for every life decision. She can't imagine life without bottom and lip injections. Her family is cutting her off in hopes she will learn to value money and make something of herself.

Jessica belongs on The Jersey Shore. This girl could have some fun with Snooki and J-WOWW. This girl is a loud Italian, and she doesn't care what people think about her. She doesn't cook, clean or do anything to help society. She does however like to nag, insult others, and spend money. Her mother is cutting her off in hopes Jessica can learn to survive on her own.

Courtnee is the North Carolina "it-girl." This socialite is being cut off by her family, because they don't understand how their "little princess" turned into a demanding diva. Her father is cutting her off so that she stops treating him like an ATM, and she starts putting her people skills to good use.

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip

Amber, the southern belle hails from Georgia and admits that she always judges people by what they are wearing. She took a semester off from college to catch up on her shopping. Her father is cutting her off in hopes that she will take school more seriously, and apply herself.

Jacqueline is the one to pay attention to. She is the daughter of a successful business executive. Her house is 10K square feet, and she has three walk-in closets. She says there's nothing wrong with checking a man's bank account before going out. Jacqueline got her first Chanel bag at age five, and now her parents are cutting her off. They hope their college graduate will stop with the endless partying and reckless spending.


At the end of the season (8-weeks) the girls will be reunited with the people who cut them off, and that will be the test to whether the girls PASS or FAIL. The girls will need to adhere to new guidelines if they want a chance of getting back in good graces with the loved-ones that put them on this show.

Give this show a try. You're Cut Off can be watched online or tonight, Monday, June 28, at 7PM, 8PM, and 9PM. There are three episodes total, and hopefully by the end of the season these unrealistically superficial barbies will become humble and hard working and respectful young ladies. Follow VH1 on Twitter for more updates. Psst. Perez even makes an appearance.

(All images courtesy of VH1 and Starcasm)

X-Posted at Zennie62.com

Tila Tequila: Interview Request From Nikky Raney -- Nikky Raney

This video is my sincere attempt to acquire an interview with Miss Tila Tequila.

Black Eyed Peas Will.i.am (@iamwill) Bentley robbed in Hollywood Hills

Will.i.am

The Black Eyed Peas star and Internet tech conference flavor of the year, Will.i.am (@iamwill) was the unfortunate victim of a successful robbery attempt.

According to TMZ.com, Will.i.am's Bentley was broken into and the robbers made off with "jewelry and several of the singer's personal items."

As of this writing the LAPD is in the process of recovering the stolen items, and have found some of them already. Where or how they were found has not been explained.

Will.i.am and Perez Hilton one year anniversary

This is the week that one year ago saw Will.i.am and Perez Hilton in a dust-up over a rather stupid set of comments the celebrity blogger made to Will.i.am at The Much Music Festival in Toronto, Canada. The result was a video change and a total meltdown by Perez and it may have been a contributing factor in his blog's decline in value. Here it is:



Will.i.am the Tech Star

In the wake of his celebrated battle with blogger Perez Hilton, Will.i.am has massively upped his PR game by first becoming associated with Twitter execs, even being a guest at Twitter Headquarters this year, and giving a speech at the firm's recent confab called "Chirp." Now, Will.i.am is slated to speak at the upcoming Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this November.

With that Will.i.am can be officially called a tech influencer. Will.i.am just needs to make sure he keeps his Bentley in a more secure location in the future.

The Green Hornet Movie Trailer shows promising remake of classic

The Black Beauty

As a kid in the 1960s, The Green Hornet was one of this bloggers favorite television shows. The reason wasn't the character of Britt Reid / The Green Hornet, or Kato, played by Bruce Lee. It was because of the car: The Black Beauty. A cool, lethal vehicle that plays a starring role in the 2011 big screen remake The Green Hornet.

If the recently released trailer is a decent representation of what to expect from the film, it's going to be a hit, and The Black Beauty will be its star.

The Green Hornet stars Seth Rogen, Cameron Diaz, Jay Chao, Tom Wilkinson, and Academy Award-winner Christoph Waltz in what can be described as an "origin" picture which will explain how The Green Hornet came to be. Here's the video trailer:



While the movie is obviously set in modern America, what remains as the connection to its 1960s TV past is the Chrysler Imperial that is converted to become The Black Beauty. It's a car that Chrysler should make for purchase today (without the machine guns, of course); it would turn around that car maker's fortunes overnight.

As was the case when a kid, I'll see The Green Hornet for the car first, then for Cameron Diaz.

Rock the Casbah!