It's Jim Henson's birthday today -- he would have been 73 -- and to celebrate the Supreme Creator of that most sensational, Muppetational universe, we thought we'd pull together five things you may not have known about his beloved Muppets. They're after the jump.
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Patrick Swayze, who passed away yesterday after a 20-month bout with pancreatic cancer at age 57, had an electric, sincere screen presence that was aware of itself. While some of Swayze's best on-screen moments have been satirized many times over, the actor himself never teetered into self-parody, overly confident and sweat-dappled though his characters often were. His three most iconic TV and film moments speak for themselves, and we honor them after the jump.
For better or worse, I consider myself something of a Delgo connoisseur -- a fascinated observer and loyal fan of perhaps the most misconceived animated film and biggest box-office debacle in the history of movies. But maybe Delgo's creators were on to something when they undertook their story of two races battling it out for the soul of a planet, with some wicked fantasy adventure and a tender love story tossed in for good measure. After all, James Cameron seems to have been influenced by some oddly similar visuals and themes you'll find threaded throughout his new trailer for Avatar.
Or was he? Can two films on opposite ends of the Hollywood spectrum actually be kindred spirits of creativity -- and/or too close for comfort? See some of the uncanniest parallels after the jump, and judge for yourself.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday announced the election of Tom Sherak as its new president, replacing the termed-out Sid Ganis. A few other notables settled into new roles behind him -- including Tom Hanks and Kathleen Kennedy as vice presidents and Pixar genius John Lasseter as secretary -- but 40-year Hollywood veteran Sherak is just enough of a behind-the-scenes insider that he requires a proper introduction. Learn a few things and say hi after the jump!
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Zooey Deschanel has long been something of an emo-dork wet dream for more than just her striking features, lilting voice and commanding screen presence. Since her 2003 breakthrough All the Real Girls, she has emerged as one of cinema's preeminent man-child foils -- an idealized romantic counterpoint to a roster of young, mopey, quirky, vulnerable men whose paths to self-actualization travel directly through her (and, usually, her character's vagina). This week's (500) Days of Summer is only slightly different, featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a slight twist on the boy-meets-Zooey folklore.
Considering how difficult it can often be to parse this phenomenon -- with its emotionally stunted love interests, sidekicks, family and other variables of masculine inertia -- Movieline offers the following aid to help learn how we got here and determine where we (and Miss Deschanel) might be headed next:
Star Trek didn't need its box-office windfall last weekend to have a sequel on the way. And unless I missed something about the properties of black holes, the only cast member unlikely to return for the next one would be Eric Bana's vengeful Romulan villain, Nero. With a legacy this rich to draw from, how will J.J. Abrams choose to replace him? And more importantly, with whom? A few friendly suggestions follow the jump.
For the second consecutive year, a C-grade animated film has taken up residency at the bottom of Hollywood's box-office pool. And look who Battle For Terra took with it: Evan Rachel Wood, Luke Wilson, Justin Long, Brian Cox and others, from whom I think we all expected much more of a fight before they succumbed to Terra's spectacularly bad $1.1 million opening on nearly 1,200 screens. But a glance at the bigger picture reveals plenty of blame to go around -- and it goes back further than you think.
In today's Hollywood Ink ... Stephen Dorff stretches ... WMA and Endeavor rut ... Joseph Gordon-Levitt fills a James Franco-shaped hole in Chris Nolan's next movie ...
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