mario February 8th, 2009

Geoff, Kyle and I took another trek to the ol’ dependable local San Mateo theater last night for a screening of Coraline, presented in three dimensions! As mentioned in the previous HUR, I had been looking forward to this particular film for some time now, and it was a wonderful moviegoing experience. The 3D visuals were jaw-droppingly gorgeous; unlike Bloody Valentine, it was clear that this film was made for the stereoscopic projection system. I don’t even know how much justice my brief glowing description can give this movie, but in short: please go see Coraline right away, and watch it in 3D. This is the rare film where the glasses are not pure gimmick, but serve to add (forgive the pun) extra depth to the visuals. Go see it now!

New 3D movie means: new 3D trailers! We were all honestly surprised that so many 3D films are on the horizon. Always happy to get more trailers to analyze, but on the other hand, most of them are kid’s movies I’ll probably never see. Onward!

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–Up
I was a little concerned about not seeing the next Pixar film teaser after watching WALL•E awhile back, so it was quite pleasing to see that not only do we get a full-fledged trailer of Up, but that the film is also being presented with 3D projection! I can only imagine it’s a relatively simple matter to re-run RenderMan with two virtual cameras instead of one, and the image looked clean and crisp through the Real D glasses. And come on, it’s Pixar, which means the film will no doubt be charming, amusing for all ages, and of course ORIGINAL.

–Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Ugh! Of course, where there’s a new Pixar summer flick, a new Ice Age entry can’t be far behind. I’m really not a fan of this franchise, but they must be popular with the kids because they keep making more despite my (admittedly non-verbal) protests. The weirdest thing about Ice Age trailers is that they don’t actually show any of the main cast or events, opting instead to devote the entirety of the trailer time to the misadventures of saber-toothed squirrel Scrat. I’ll admit that there is great logic to this, as I always though Scrat’s comic stylings were the only funny part of the series, but I would never pay $13 just for Scrat’s sake. Even if the acorns look like THEY’RE COMIN’ RIGHT FOR US! SEQUEL, and if they don’t actually show the movie, what is anyone supposed to get hyped up for? Ray Romano and John Leguizamo?

–Monsters VS Aliens
Kinda cute-looking ensemble kid’s movie I guess. Really don’t have much to say about it, though I’m always happy to see Dwight Schrute doing other projects (when they aren’t The Rocker). And though the Indestructible Gelatinous Mass will probably be a kind of irritating character, I liked the quick Blob shot. ORIGINAL in only the technical sense.

TOTAL: 33.33% 1/3

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As of a February 7th screening of Coraline 3D at Century 12 Downtown in San Mateo, CA, the 3D branch of Hollywood shot for the moon with a mere 33.33% unoriginality! Like I said before, it’s a total gimmick, but there’s something really charming about putting on silly glasses and watching things pop out of the screen. It only saddens me that there will be no way to pick up Coraline in a home media format in 3D, as the old-fashioned 2D way of presenting movies just couldn’t look quite as good. But of course, this is exactly the point. Theaters want to compete directly against the home theater experience, and unreproducible gimmicks fit the bill perfectly. Can’t wait ’til we get new Smell-O-Vision movies!

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