soulscape

Sometimes the ol’ movie buff in me wakes up. I used to obsessively follow the progress of movies in production. In recent years, I haven’t been as interested in the development of movies, and have also really slowed down the rate at which I watch movies.

In 2008, which is already almost halfway over, I’ve only watched three movies: Cloverfield, Planet B-Boy, and Prince Caspian. (All three were pretty good, with Planet B-Boy being my favorite). Compared to my friend Rob Cowell, three is probably a lot, considering he’s probably watched less than three movies in the last three YEARS, but it’s not a lot for me, considering I have been interested in other movies such as the recent Iron Man, Forbidden Kingdom, and … er … well … I guess the pickings have been slim so far this year.

Last year was a turn-off for me because of all the dark movies that were coming out. At this point, I don’t desire to come out of a movie depressed and gloomy.

Anyway, all that to say there are a few movies I’m very excited to for in the coming years. Here’s just a few that comes to mind:

3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Yes, I’m a big fan of the seven books. None of the movies have really stood up to the quality of the books, but I thought the fifth one was the best effort yet. I guess the producers agree, because the director of the fifth movie, David Yates, has been asked to come back to not just direct Half-Blood Prince, but the seventh and eighth movies also (they are splitting the seventh book into two movies). This is exciting news because the sixth and seventh books are amazing, and I’m very excited for the November 2008 release of Half-Blood Prince.

2. The Watchmen: Unlike Harry Potter, I have not read the source material of this movie. But, I did buy it online, so I do have a copy of the Watchmen graphic novel, which is hailed as one of the greatest pieces of work in this genre. Before the movie comes out, I will read it, since Time Magazine did name it one of the “100 Best English-Language Novels since 1923,” calling it, “A work of ruthless psychological realism, it’s a landmark in the graphic novel medium.” Better yet, the movie is directed by Zach Snyder, who also brought us 300. It’s slated for a March 2009 release.

1. Avatar: It’s been over a decade since James Cameron’s last narrative movie, a little pic called Titanic. You go further back, and you find that Cameron’s done great sci-fi epics such as Aliens, Terminator I, and Terminator II. And since I’ve always been into sci-fi, he’s one of my favorite director. He’s also an incredibly intelligent man and every interview I read of him I enjoy. His latest work has been long in the making and utilizes the most advanced 3-D digital technology available. Yes, so with Avatar, we will sit in a movie theater and watch it in glorious 3-D. There will be a ton of CGI also, but he promises they will be “photoreal animation,” unlike a lot of the standard CGI you see in today’s movies. I won’t even go into the story of Avatar, though I’m sure it will be entertaining. Regardless of how good this movie turns out, it will be a technical break-through for movies, and an evolutionary event in entertainment. Unfortunately, my number one anticipated movie won’t be out until December 2009. He’s actually has wrapped principal photography, and is already editing, but it’s such a complex project that it will be another year and a half before it’s released.

Well, I’m a pretty big James Cameron fan. Just in case you’re not familiar with him, he was director of Titanic, and before that, The Terminator, Terminator II, Aliens, True Lies, and the Abyss. Not only does he directs but he writes most, if not all his projects, as well as projects he doesn’t end up directing.

I think people mostly remember him for Titanic, for better or for worse, but the rest of his filmography is pretty impressive too, at least for those of us who like sci-fi. And after Titanic came out in 1997/1998, he was on top of the movie world. Just like Peter Jackson is on top now after his Lord of the Rings trilogy and can do whatever he wants (he chose to do a remake of King Kong), James Cameron was there back in the late ’90s. So what did he do? Nothing.

Nothing as far as directing a feature film at least. Instead, he chose to pursue other projects like creating the Dark Angel series for television, and after that, doing a string of deep-ocean documentaries destined for IMAX, like the recently released Aliens of the Deep.

For years now, I’ve checked up on him, but unlike my other favorite directors such as Spielberg or Ridley Scott, who always had something lined up and in the works, Cameron had effectively disappeared from the world of movies.

Seven years later, there’s finally word. Cameron himself is talking about his next project. When is it due? 2007, nearly 10 years after his last movie. What is it? Battle Angel Alita. Okay, now many of you have probably never even heard of it, but it’s a Japanese manga (sort of like a comic book) by Yukito Kishiro. I haven’t read/seen this manga, but the story seems to have a lot of the elements that Japanese entertainment seem to love: a post-apocalyptic world, set in the far future, with the heroine being a cyborg. He plans for it to be live-action with CGI — in fact, the heroine is planned as a CGI character BASED on an actual actress (like how Gollum was done).

For sci-fi fans like myself, or anime/manga fans in general, this is exciting news. But there’s more, and that’s where Michael Jackson comes in. I don’t know if they still have it at Disneyland, but remember that 3D show they had starring Michael Jackson as Captain EO? I remember watching it a long time ago, putting on the 3D glasses and being pretty dazzled by the 3D effect. It was only 17 minutes or so but it was pretty entertaining, if for nothing else than for the 3D effect. Well, Cameron developed a 3D camera system, I believe for one of his deep-ocean documentaries, and now he says he can’t imagine going back to a regular camera. He also says that by 2007, many theaters will be equipped with digital projectors, which will allow him to release a 3D feature film to the public. Yes, a feature-length film where you put on 3D glasses and watch the entire thing in 3D. Brilliant!

George Lucas pushed the cinema world into the digital domain, and now Cameron is taking things to the next level. Cinema has come a long way in the last century, from silent to sound, from black and white to color, currently from film to digital, and perhaps over the next decade it will turn 3D, taking one more step toward the promise of virtual reality, a subject matter that Cameron explored in Strange Days, one of the movies he wrote but did not direct.

I for one am pretty excited about it.