So goes a heap of criticism hurled at Edgar Wright’s hipster-drenched comic book adaptation, “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.”  Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), a mousy, disinterested, sarcastic early twenty-something hipster, is the bassist for the self-aware and self-proclaimed awful garage band, Sex Bob-omb.  He represents the shifting romantic zeitgeist from macho, leather jacket-wearing, beer can-crushing types to sensitive, artistic, pseudo-intellectuals who know a thing or two about fashion — or at least live close enough to an American Apparel to keep up with the latest indie trends.

Cera, who would’ve been laughed at as a romantic lead as recently as a decade ago, plays something of a heartthrob.  There is scarcely a shoe-gazing damsel in his extended social network who hasn’t felt the power of Scott Pilgrim’s irresistible dry wit and boyish charm.  After his most recent breakup he’s even resorted to tapping the high school dating pool, hooking up with a hopelessly naive 17-year-old, Knives, who worships the ground he walks on.  This type of devotion from a too-young rebound girlfriend is a bore.  It takes the withdrawn gaze of Ramona Flowers, the new kid in town and possibly the coolest girl in the world, to get Pilgrim’s amorous juices flowing.  But before these two can commence their too-cool-for-school courtship, Scott must fight and defeat Ramona’s seven evil exes in fantastical, video game-style mortal combat.

Why?  A symbology detailing the seemingly insurmountable obstacles facing modern, post-sexual revolution relationships seems to be the common interpretation of these well-choreographed, often hilarious battles.  That may very well have been the intention, but I think the film is a helluva lot more fun without the psycho-analytical subtext.  Whether these prolonged fights to the death are meant to be going on in Pilgrim’s mind or in the new reality of the video game age is irrelevant, as far I’m concerned.  They’re funny.  Very funny.

“Scott Pilgrim” may just be the movie to convert Michael Cera skeptics.  The 22-year-old actor is despised by some for his over-reliance on blank stares and barely audible mumbles.  His loose association with indie culture enrages others.  But his performance here, while not as wildly different from his previous roles, a la Daniel Day-Lewis, is still recognizably a unique and separate characterization.  Compared to roles like he had in “Juno” Michael Cera has grown leaps and bounds as an actor.

Ubiquitous video game references, including music directly from popular titles, 8-bit sight gags, villains transforming into coins upon defeat and even the use of an extra life when the going gets a little too tough, would have normally annoyed this critic to no end.  When Uwe Boll cut away to actual video game screen shots in “House of the Dead” (2003), giving up on film altogether didn’t seem like such a bad option.  But the way Wright unabashedly, skillfully and quite sincerely incorporates the general culture of gaming and comics into film just works.  It’s exciting, funny — even graceful.

No, today’s youth culture doesn’t stand fast and defiant for any particular cause, but is that such a bad thing?

The premise of the film is straightforward: a farmer decides to commit suicide so that  the government will compensate his family, thus enabling them to retain their ancestral land which is in danger of being auctioned off to pay a debt. One of the most igneous issues in India in the past 20 years has been that of farmer suicides, a phenomenon wherein thousands of desperate farmers have been pushed to kill themselves under pressure to return money they’ve borrowed at ridiculous interest rates from unscrupulous moneylenders or barely-any-better banks. Crops fail, fertilizers, pesticides and myriad other chemicals are necessary, irrigation is a bitch, foreign corporations are raping them all while the State twiddles her thumbs. Bottomline: in a country where more than 65 percent of the economy depends on agriculture, most of its workforce is driven to off itself because it seems like the legitimately best option. This movie seeks to headline its satire of India’s most troubling issues with this basic plot, which is a good idea because two decades worth of problems can be summed up in the foreground of this suicidal wave wreaking havoc across the nation.

As the farmer’s decision breaks in the news, the titillated media descends onto his small, nondescript village to get a piece of the action.  And that’s the chief conflict that clasps the film’s many stories. The way the powerful urban, educated middle-class encounters the impotent rural heartland, declining to learn its language. The bravado of the free market, bombast of the federal government and the spiels of the media are constituted by a lexicon controlled by, and created for, the bourgeois elite who have nothing in common with their basement-dwelling agricultural compatriots, invisible and ignored like servants in an aristocratic household, their identity subsumed by the food they put on the national dinner table.

All the players in this ongoing drama are lampooned and lambasted in “Peepli Live” — the suits, the politicos, the ministries, the hacks — and there is a good description of the complicated tensions that the story is built around. There are subtle nods to all the attendant issues of socioeconomic power games and the mutual discomfort that city and village, State and citizen, producer and consumer and object of information and its subject all have with each other. As an intellectual project, “Peepli Live” has many merits and its deadpan delivery of the truth, done up in just the right shades of humor, is the sort of political film that needs to be made for mainstream audiences and certainly provides fodder for watercoolers and college campuses. These are all admirable corollaries to making a smart, smirking and honest account of a real problem. It’s as level-headed and entertaining a cinematic comment on such a huge crisis as one is likely to get, and certainly warrants at least a watch.

The trouble is that most of the time, the film feels like a documentary. The development of character, narrative and emotional texture is mostly absent, cheating the viewer of the experience he or she signed up for when expecting a feature film. The lack of these elements does not so detract from involvement with the events on screen that one loses complete interest, but the film does feel longer than it is because the pace is mismanaged by the tent-pins of storytelling. It feels more like a brainteaser than a heart-warmer.  I’m not saying that’s necessarily an awful thing, but as a viewer, I was anticipating a different film from the one I got, and I suspect a different film from the one the filmmaker intended to produce. There is an aesthetic mismatch that leaves the viewer interested in the issue but unmoved by the story. I want to read up on farmer’s suicides but I struggled to invest myself in this particular farmer’s comic tale of woe; I laughed hard at the parts that tickled the cerebral points of my funny bone, even as the poignant hilarity of such a miserable situation never touched my heart.

At times, the satire seems to tire in its assault and the climax seems rushed and forced, if realistic at all. There is a sincerity to crusade that is compromised by the need to entertain and this ultimately makes “Peepli Live” a stiff if sporadically amusing yarn. Even some of the sequences are a little too handheld-video for comfort and while this grounds the film in the real world, it also takes away from the fictive vehicle used to explore this real world that must be as evocative as the bigger picture is provocative. The moral indignation which impelled the directors to take on this topic persists too strongly throughout and sometimes veers into a slightly condescending shoulder-shaking territory, lessening the impact of the tale.

The acting is very good all round and Raghubir Yadav heads a solid cast of virtual unknowns, except for Naseeruddin Shah. Omkar Das’s protagonist is appropriately browbeaten and slow, egged on by his resourceful older brother (Yadav) and henpecked by his foulmouthed wife and mother. The euphonious ensemble does a great job as a unit but without any single stand-out performance. The cinematographic palette is imbued with the bright, vivid colors of Indian public life, drawn from painted trucks and village women’s sunny costumes, and offset by the more monochromatic spaces of newsrooms and government offices, which is a thoughtful contrast to have sustained throughout the movie. As with all Indian films, the soundtrack is a character in its own right and Indian Ocean’s rustic ragas are pleasant companions on the journey, especially the loving lament of “Desh Mera.”

An earnest change of scene from usual Bollywood fare with a very healthy sense of satire but dimmed by a vague sense of overbred righteousness, I nevertheless urge people to watch the film. It is a rare Hindi movie that takes stands and breaks down the status quo. This one does. “Peepli Live” may not be big on heart, what it does have is in exactly the right place.

“It’s been an incredible year as we saw the Pixar team bring Buzz and Woody back to the big screen and watched Tim Burton’s vision for ‘Alice in Wonderland’ take the world by storm,” said Rich Ross, Chairman, The Walt Disney Studios. “These box office triumphs prove that creative storytelling brought to life by imaginative, inspired and talented professionals is something audiences respond to the world over.”

As of Thursday (8/26/10), “Toy Story 3″ tallied more than $592.9 million internationally, Disney’s largest international animated release. Latin American audiences have contributed $138 million making Toy Story 3 the highest grossing Disney film ever released in the region. “Toy Story 3″ is the most successful UK release in Disney history and currently stands as the fourth biggest title in territory history with $102.4 million in box office receipts so far. In Japan, the film has taken in $111.2 million and spent five consecutive weeks as the #1 movie. “Toy Story 3″ currently ranks as the #7 film in global box office history and domestically ranks #9 with $404.6 million in receipts to date.

“Alice in Wonderland” began setting records during its opening weekend (March 5-7), becoming the biggest March opening in industry history, the highest 3D opening ever and The Walt Disney Studios’ biggest opening for a non-sequel film. Internationally, the film went on to tally more than $690 million, becoming Disney’s biggest overseas release of all time and the fourth biggest title ever released overseas. Worldwide, the film took in $1.0243 billion, ranking it as the #5 film in global box office history.

Deadline reports that Renner won’t replace, but rather star alongside, Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible 4,” which will be directed by Brad Bird (“Ratatouille,” “The Incredibles”) and produced by Cruise and the prolific J.J. Abrams.

“Mission” marks the second major leading role for the 39-year-old star who was recently cast as the superhero Hawkeye in Marvel Studios’ giant ensemble event picture, “The Avengers” (2012), to be directed by Joss Whedon.

Renner’s casting fills the last prominent piece in Paramount’s development of the film, and gives the studio a reliable and respected option to continue the franchise in the future, should Cruise bequeath his primary protagonist status in future films (though Cruise is expected to be back at least for no. 5).

Other top contenders for the role were rising star, Tom Hardy (“Bronson”) and “Star Trek’s” Chris Pine.  Kevin Zegers, Christopher Egan and Anthony Mackie (Renner’s “Hurt Locker” co-star) were also considered.

The script was penned by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec.

Filming will take place in the U.S., Vancouver, Prague and Dubai.

Some of his duties will include the creation of artwork to serve as the official image of the 24th annual event, as well as the creation of a sidebar program composed of films that have influenced and inspired him. His film choices for the program will be released in October.

“I said yes to being the Guest Artistic Director of AFI FEST 2010 because I love the AFI,” Lynch said in a statement. “AFI can do for others what it did for me. AFI gave me an opportunity and money to make a short film, ‘The Grandmother’, and my first feature film, ‘Eraserhead.’ AFI put me on the map.”

Lynch was one of the first fellows of the famed AFI Conservatory (previously known as AFI’s Center for Advanced Film Studies).

“David Lynch is AFI,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI president and CEO. “He’s an artist who embodies the institute’s national mandate to both educate the next generation and to honor the masters. As a master himself, his leadership will catalyze a global conversation to bring attention to him and others who deserve a proper bow.”

The festival takes place Nov. 4-11 at Grauman’s Chinese, the Mann Chinese 6, the Egyptian Theater and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

His impressive box office run includes blockbusters “Terminator Salvation,” “Clash of the Titans” and the most profitable movie ever made, “Avatar.”

Whether it’s loyalty to his motherland or his love of surfing, Worthington has decided his next project will be, by his standards, a quaint little indie film — a surfing drama called “Drift” set in Margaret River, Western Australia.

The West Australian newspaper reports that “Drift” has acquired an $11 million budget, and is slated to begin shooting next fall when the biggest waves and prettiest sunsets color the seascape, and if possible, to coincide with the Margaret River Pro surfing event.

“I’m a WA boy at heart and to go back there and put something back into my home town is something I am really looking forward to,” Worthington told the paper.  ”There’s something pure and true about surfing, and there is something pure and true about this script.”

“Drift” is based on surfing’s dramatic evolution from a pastime to a globally recognized sport, culture and industry.  Worthington’s character is a photo-journalist who had a hand in that transformation.

Tim Duffy and Myles Pollard will produce, and Morgan O’Neill and Ben Nott will direct.

Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Danny Boyle
Studio: Fox Searchlight
Cast: James Franco, Amber Tamblyn, Kate Mara
Release: November 5, 2010

The director announced on Dutch television that he is currently working on an adaptation of the Louis Couperus novel “De stille kracht” (“The Hidden Force”) with writing partner Gerard Soeteman.

Set in the Dutch East Indies the 110-year-old novel centers on a colonial official who meets fierce resistance after attempting to employ Western reason and logic to a culture so steeped in myth and tradition.

“[The movie is about] rebellion against colonial rule, the emergence of fundamentalist Islam, the behavior between people, adultery and psychic powers. It is a story about things that we do not understand but it does happen,” Verhoeven said.

A passion project for the 72-year-old director, “The Hidden Force” is something he has wanted to make for 40 years but could never put all the pieces together at the right time, particularly the big budget the film would require.  The fact that Verhoeven plans to make it in Dutch probably hasn’t helped either.