When the late filmmaker Ken Russell passed away last week at the age of 84, he'd been planning to remake the infamous 1976 X-rated Alice in Wonderland musical in which Alice is taken on a tour of Wonderland by a randy White Rabbit. Ahem. And who had Russell hoped to bring along on his naughty trip down the rabbit hole? Lady Gaga, of course!
Set photos of an armored Kristen Stewart and the star's own description of Snow White and the Huntsman's bloody edge had me thinking this could be the more transgressive of the two Snow White projects in the works (the other being Tarsem's newly titled Mirror, Mirror, starring Lily Collins and Armie Hammer). The first official SWATH banner art, however, suggests something a bit more kid-friendly, even Alice in Wonderland-esque. Or am I reading too much into the fantastical, Photoshopped flora and fauna swirling around Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, and the disembodied head of evil queen Charlize Theron?
Perhaps in response to all those people left stymied by Hereafter's Oscar nomination for visual effects (especially when Tron: Legacy got shut out of the category, poor thing), Warner Bros. have released a shot-by-shot reel showing how VFX supervisor Michael Owens and Scanline VFX put together that nine-minute opening tsunami sequence. And when you see how the live-action parts came together combining CG, green screen, water tanks, and on-location photography -- well, "Oscar-nominated Hereafter" doesn't sound so silly anymore.
The gold standard for bad movies getting Oscar love has to be 2007's multiple Razzie-winning Norbit, which earned an Oscar nod for Best Make-up, and from that moment forward demanded to be called by its rightful name: "The Academy Award-Nominated Norbit." (Shudder.) This year's crop of Oscar-nominated critical duds are cinematic masterworks by comparison -- and most of them can thank the thankless effects, costume, and sound mixing technicians for the profile-boost -- but still... who'da thunk these 8 films would have come this far?
FILM NEWS 
