MPAA’s Anti-Piracy Fight Contributed To Financial Loss In 2012 While Chris Dodd Collected $3.3M

The Hollywood’s lobby group’s finances took a hit in 2012, a tax filing shows — but CEO Chris Dodd did just fine even as the MPAA licked its wounds from its failed effort to promote tough anti-piracy legislation.  Dodd’s compensation came to $3.3M last year. (The package: $3M base compensation, $250,000 bonus, $41,930 other compensation, $13,753 retirement benefit, and $19,585 non-tax benefit.) That’s up 36.5% but it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison since he worked a partial year in 2011…

Why, why, why? Quick, can you name a franchise that has been driven into the ground worse than the “Die Hard”/John McClane series? You can’t say “Alien” because a mediocre as “Prometheus” was, it’s still a zillion times better than any of the “AVP” series movies. Jack Ryan sure wasn’t looking healthy last time anyone checked, but that’s why there’s a reboot (scheduled for dumping ground season in January). The “Indiana Jones” series only has one outright disaster (‘Kingdom of Crystal Skulls’) and while there was two terrible “Terminator” films in a row, there were two great ones and a reboot…

So this is a clip to go along with the one I posted yesterday. Let me tell you this is looking pretty weird. And I don’t think that’s in a good way.

Who knows how much he really knows or if Hamill is telling the truth. Perhaps he’s been sworn to secrecy and it wouldn’t be the first time that an actor invovled with a JJ Abrams production was contractually obligated to lie about something.

Quite frankly, in a Star Wars galaxy set a few years after the death of good old Palpatine, one where Luke Skywallker is still alive, it will be odd for him to not at least have some small roll. But it’s also odd that he hasn’t been contacted (if true). I find it far less odd that Jackson and McGregor haven’t been contacted. Obi-Wan is dead, and even if…

The following obviously contains spoilers for The Wolverine.

The biggest addition, which accounts for many of the extra twelve minutes in this version, is an extra segment that takes place at the beginning of the ninja encounter that opens the movie’s final sequence. It features a lot of blood, in big washes, thanks to dastardly use of a snow-grinding machine. This sequence seems to have been shot with the knowledge it could end up cut from the final edit, as there are easily discernible “in” and “out” points that don’t tie it too firmly to the action that bookends the fight. I’d also wager…

In this episode, TJ steps back a few weeks to review a film that’s been out a little over a month since the film he wanted to see is in limited release and not playing in Nashville at this time. But Alfonso Cuaron’s ‘Gravity’ is a great film and worthy of a little more attention. So TJ dives in with his thoughts on Sandra Bullock’s performance, the majesty and beauty of the film despite being so CGI heavy, the intensity and more.

This is nothing as big and dramatic as that full theatrical trailer I posted earlier this month, but it should be fun for you hobbit lovers out there. Of course I’m not holding my breath that this film will fix the types of flaws and problems I had with the first Hobbit film, but it should be fun anyway.

So I’ve previously been thinking that this film might possibly work for me on some level — that somehow it might be just strange enough and magical enough and fanciful enough to just work. This clip makes me doubt that a lot. There’s nothing particularly engaging about it, but the worst part is, Keanu Reeves is obviously fighting a CGI monster. That thing looks so fake that I doubt even a four year old would believe it was a real monster.

Who knows, maybe it could still be good and the story could overcome the bad effects. But I’m not counting on it. Frankly, why wouldn’t you show off…

That rumbling you feel is the rising tempers of film fans all over the globe. But the holidays are approaching, and maybe we should learn to forgive. That’s the only way to process the wild news that a sequel to Frank Capra‘s 1946 film It’s A Wonderful Life is now in the works.

The tentatively titled It’s A Wonderful Life: The Rest of the Story, written by Bob Farnsworth and Martha Bolton, follows the angel of George Bailey’s daughter Zuzu (Karolyn Grimes, who’ll reprise the role) as she teaches Bailey’s evil grandson (also named George Bailey) how different the world would have been if…