Ronin Gossip

BY SEAN O’CONNELL

HollywoodNews.com stays on top of the latest DVD and Blu-ray releases so you know which films are worth your time and money. This week, we recommend:

‘Amelia’
Once believed to be an Oscar contender, Mira Nair’s biopic of pioneering female pilot Amelia Earhart met critical resistance and failed to get off the ground with audiences. (It took in a domestic gross of $14.2 million last fall.)

The presence of two-time Academy Award wined Hilary Swank in the title role couldn’t jumpstart Nair’s soapy, subdued account of the pilot’s ill-fated attempt to circumnavigate the globe after successful jaunts across the Atlantic. Richard Gere lends support as Earhart’s lifelong love, George Putnam, and Ewan McGregor temporarily rocks the boat as Earhart’s secret lover, Gene Vidal. But the whole endeavor is too polite, too chaste to stir much passion. The aerial footage translates beautifully to your home theater screen. Sadly, so too does the restrained and unresponsive writing.

Look for deleted scenes, a “Making of” featurette and seven vintage newsreels on the new “Amelia” DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

The movie – ** out of 4
The DVD – *** out of 4

‘Moscow, Belgium’
Sometimes the accolades convince you to take a chance on a film. So when the press release for Christophe van Rompaey’s “Moscow, Belgium” boasted its selection at the Cannes International Film Festival and “Critic’s Pick” nominations from The New York Time and the Los Angeles Times, I requested a copy and discovered a treasure.

The monotony of middle-class living is etched into the face of Matty (Barbara Sarafian), an unhappy wife and mother of three who enters an intriguing relationship with Johnny (Jurgen Delnaet), a much younger truck driver, after a fender bender. Van Rompaey’s “Belgium” finds unexpected laughs in the blue-collar tragedies of the film’s central love triangle, yet is grounded by Sarafian’s fantastic performance as a woman long neglected in the game of love who suddenly finds herself caught between two eccentric suitors.

Extra features on the “Belgium” DVD include an audio commentary track, a Cannes featurette from the film’s appearance at the 2008 fest, a picture gallery and two trailers.

The movie – *** out of 4
The DVD – *** out of 4

BY BOB FISHER

An exhibition of still photography by Steven Poster, ASC is on display at Wisconsin Union Galleries at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, Wisconsin. The exhibition is a retrospective of 40 years of what Poster describes as “street photography.” The still photography exhibit has traveled from Los Angeles to New York, Oklahoma, Illinois and Georgia. It will be on display in Madison until March 9.

Poster was born and raised in Chicago. When he was 10 years old, the father of one of his friends had a dark room, including a home-made enlarger, in their home.

Poster was fascinated. Was it a happy accident or destiny calling? “I don’t know if that is what turned me into a photo enthusiast, but it made a deep impression,” he recalls. “My parents gave a little Brownie camera, and by the time I was 12, I decided that photography was going to be my life. I saved enough money to buy a Rolliflex. It was always with me, and I was always taking pictures. My high school principal called me Flash.”

When Poster was 14 years old, Morrie Bleckman, a CBS television news cameraman, became his next door neighbor. That sparked his interest in telling stories with moving images. Poster honed his talent while studying at Southern Illinois University, the Chicago Institute of Design and the Art Center of Design in Pasadena.

He has earned some 50 long form narrative credits, including such memorable films as The Boy Who Could Fly, Someone to Watch Over Me, Big Top Pee Wee, Rocky 5, Stuart Little 2, Donnie Darko, Southland Tales and The Box. Next on the agenda is the upcoming release of Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore in 3-D. Poster was president of the American Society of Cinematographers in 2003-04, and he currently serves as president of the International Guild of Cinematographers. Stay tuned for news about his future photography exhibits.

Since Michael Jackson is a huge influence on today’s music, I was just wondering how different music, especially pop music, would be if Michael Jackson had never entered the music scene. What do you think? Would pop music be very different from what it is today?

On the latest episode of America’s Best Dance Crew, it was an illusion challenge. Beat Freaks made a silver ball levitate in the air while doing their dance. how did they do it?

I have the Sims 1 Deluxe Edition and I’m tryign to be a movie star, but everytime I try to act they make fun of me! lol How do I become a star?

BY ROBERT W. WELKOS

Tom Sherak chuckles as he recalls the story.

One day last year, he walked into his favorite restaurant, The Palm, where he knows everyone and everyone knows him, and suddenly noticed his friends were booing him.

“What did you do?!” they exclaimed. “How could you do this?!” screamed a long-time pal and famous producer, who will go unnamed.

They were reacting to a controversial decision by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to scrap the decades-old practice of selecting five best picture nominees and go back to an earlier period when the Oscars listed 10 best picture nominees.

Fast-forward to last week and Sherak said he walked into the same restaurant only this time his friends applauded him.

They were responding to mostly favorable reviews after the list of 10 pictures was announced by Sherak and actress Anne Hathaway before a worldwide television audience.

Since being named president of the Academy in August, Sherak said he has learned one lesson: “I’ve learned that you need to be a good listener,” he said. “You listen to all the good stuff and the complaints.” It’s especially important to listen to the complaints, he added, “because you learn to make stuff even better.”

Sherak, a former partner at Joe Roth’s Revolution Studios and a one-time distribution chief at 20th Century Fox, said the expanded list of best picture nominees has had its desired effect: “Jack Black said to me, ‘Any publicity is good publicity.’ People are now debating (the best pictures). Is it good? Is it bad? Is it stupid? Is it crazy.”

Had the Academy not taken action, Sherak said, it risked becoming a “dinosaur.”

Sherak believes that boosting the Academy Awards TV ratings is vital if the Academy is to keep generating money from the show to pay for its various nonprofit film efforts.

“Ratings are always a concern,” he said. “Ratings are a big thing.” He noted that the night of the Oscars there are really two events taking place on the TV screen: the awards themselves, where the best filmmakers and actors are honored, and the Oscar show itself.

This year’s show, which airs March 7 on ABC, is being produced by Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic.

“They came up with a line which we put on our Oscar poster: ‘Expect the unexpected,’” Sherak said.

The show will be co-hosted by Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.

Sherak said that unlike some past years, the Oscar campaigns being waged by the studios and independents seem less frenzied. In prior years, the Academy cracked down when it felt that marketing departments went too far in trying to woo Oscar voters with ornate mailings and dinners that were, in reality, like political campaign stops.

“I don’t think it’s as crazy this year,” Sherak said, noting that perhaps the studios are spending less on Oscar campaigns because of the current economic crunch.

He said one of the benefits of his new job is getting to announce the nominations alongside Hathaway, who he said is one of the nicest people he has ever met in Hollywood.

He noted that his grandkids watched “Saturday Night Live” over the weekend and saw their grandpa and Hathaway spoofed in a skit about the Oscar nominations. In the SNL skit, “Sherak” and “Hathaway” announced the 10 best picture nominees and then went far beyond that, also naming films like “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” “Hannah Montana: The Movie,” “Old Dogs,” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” among the year’s best pictures. Then things really got crazy when the SNL comedians named “Jersey Shore” as a best picture nominee.

“It’s so much fun for the grandchildren to look at this stuff,” said Sherak, unable to suppress his glee.

“I’m like a kid in a candy store,” he added.

Photo Credit: Reed Saxon

BY SCOTT FEINBERG

HollywoodNews.com’s Scott Feinberg discusses the oscar nominations and how they might affect the outcome of the awards. In this episode we review how “The Blind Side” nomination for Best Picture could help Sandra Bullock’s chances to win Best Actress over Meryl Streep. We also compare the chances of “The Hurt Locker” winning over “Avatar” for best picture.

BY SEAN O’CONNELL

You might have seen an ad for “Dante’s Inferno” during last night’s Super Bowl telecast. Electronic Arts and Visceral Games have timed the release of their third-person action game to hit as gamers patiently away next month’s new “God of War” title. But how is the new video game being received?

So far, reviewers are noticing similarities between “Inferno” and “War.” In the former, players assume the role of Dante, a veteran of the Third Crusade who chases his blonde-haired, beloved princess, Beatrice, into the depths of Hell to free her from the clutches of Lucifer. The game, obviously, is loosely based on the first chapters of Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” and it features the nine circles of Hell as individual levels that must be conquered.

GamePro gave “Inferno” one of its highest grades, rewarding it with a score of 80 (out of 100) and praising its level architecture and combat. But the critic did chastise “Inferno” for the elements it clearly borrowed from other games.

1Up.com, however, took “Inferno” to task for cloning previous games. Reviewer Matt Leone claimed “Inferno” was “as complete a forgery as games come” before claiming that the game “comes up short of creating the grand adventure that it seems to be trying for.” Leone gave the game a C+ grade.

GamesRadar seems to sum it up best when it calls “Dante’s Inferno” a “competent God of War clone.” So if you can’t wait for “God of War III,” which streets on March 16, test drive “Dante’s Inferno.” It hits stands Tuesday, Feb. 9.

BY SEAN O’CONNELL

Bethesda Game Studio’s post-apocalyptic role-playing shooter “Fallout 3” is the gift that keeps on giving.

The video game designer announced recently that a new chapter in the award-winning “Fallout” series – set in Las Vegas and titled “New Vegas” – will be released by the end of the year. A teaser for the added-on adventure was posted to Bethesda’s official Web site, http://fallout.bethsoft.com.

This is not the first “sequel” to the original “Fallout 3,” which won Game of the Year honors upon its release in 2008. The adventure, which has players tracking their missing father through a nuclear-devastated Washington, D.C., spawned five downloadable levels that continued the game’s action. The most popular, “Broken Steel,” actually changed the ending of the original game by resurrecting the main hero, thereby allowing players to continue the adventure beyond the initial stopping point.

Stay tuned to HollywoodNews.com for more on “Fallout: New Vegas” as the game develops.

BY LINELLE SCHULTZ

Alkaline Trio have released their new music video for “This Addiction” off their album “This Addiction” in stores February 23. The video shows a very emo looking Matt Skiba and shows kids playing out a metaphorical skit of what the song has to say. The lyrics, “this addiction, cant seem to live without you / this addiction, now going clean / this addiction, i go through withdrawal without your… /sick with this addiction in me,” pretty much sum up what the song is about as the kids show the duality within a person. While the video isn’t the most creative thing we’ve seen, it is simple, and the feather visual effects are entertaining for a short stint.

View the video below: