Club Jade

Much ado about Wolverine. May 1 brings us the next big X-Movie… Can it save the franchise after the hot mess that was X-Men: The Last Stand? Magneto’s celluloid life depends on it.

Still, despite the movie’s hell-raising early leak, buzz remains strong. (Besides, how hard can be be to go wrong with a big dumb spring franchise action movie? Don’t answer that.) Need a taste? Check out these character spots.

• Daily Mail squees through Star Trek review. Well, I suppose someone has to be first. If you’re looking for for something a tad less exuberant, SciFi Wire talks to ILM’s Trek team about the film’s new/old Enterprise.

• Deathly Hallows adaption will split at cliffhanger. The only surprise is that anyone would be surprised. In more exciting (and perhaps disturbing) news, the original cast will be playing their characters in the epilogue. And if you’re dying for pics, head over to Leaky where they have some shots from filming going down in London.
• More shocking news of shockness. The Hobbit to be two movies. Well hey, that’s a lot of lingering glances and weapon-caressing to be contained in just one movie.
• Perhaps shirtless men will make Twilight slightly more bearable. New Moon’s wolf pack takes it off for USA Today. In related news, David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night) will direct the adaption of the third book, Eclipse.

Per usual, not too much for genre fans to get excited about. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I suppose could classify as fantasy, sort of, had the most nods this year, including Best Picture and Actor. Heath Ledger is up for Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight, but the movie failed to get any other major nominations. It is up for the usual throw-them-a-bone categories of Cinematography, Film Editing, Makeup, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing.

Wall-E did pretty good – it failed to get a Best Picture nod as many were hoping for, but it is up for Animated Film (duh,) Original Screenplay, Original Song, and several technical awards.

The Visual Effects category puts Benjamin Button up against The Dark Knight and ILM’s Iron Man.

UPDATE: StarWars.com has a full listing of all ILM and Skywalker Sound Oscar nominations, as well as BAFTA and VES nods.

Den of Geek’s top fifty movie special effects shots is a hell of a list. It willingly embraces all eras, movies that you might not expect (Hitchcock?!?) and hell, I think I learned a thing or two. (And all the scenes have a video. That’s some serious dedication.) It probably goes without saying that A New Hope and Return of the Jedi get entries.

Plus I’ll take any excuse to lead off with Harryhausen.

They also have a list of the 24 worst special effects of all time, which includes that horrible Special Edition Jabba scene. (Which I still hold is worse than Han shooting first.)

The interactive map ‘How Star Wars Changed the World’ was published by Wired during the Revenge of the Sith madness back in 2005, but it’s new to me! I think.

UPDATE: Kottke has the chart as single GIF, much easier to read.

StarWars.com posts all of the Star Wars events at San Diego Comic Con: Mostly on Friday, mostly The Clone Wars, with some Indiana Jones thrown in for good measure.

Yesterday, George Lucas spoke up for educational broadband at a Congressional hearing in his guise as chairman of the George Lucas Educational Foundation:

“Telecommunications provides the new learning platform of this century and is replacing the textbook as the medium through which a modern education is provided,” he said. “The world’s knowledge is now available online, far beyond what books and materials can provide in schools and libraries themselves.”

• Red Tails: Rick McCallum tells the AP that they hope to start shooting George’s Tuskegee Airmen flick by early 2009. Lucas is not directing it, but since he’s only been talking about producing I can’t say that’s a surprise.

• Industrial design: The San Francisco Chronicle looks into the urban legend that Port of Oakland container cranes inspired the design of ESB’s AT-AT walkers.
• ILM: The New York Daily News has reported that ILM may be heading to Broadway on effects duty for a musical starring Whoopi Goldberg. Wait, what?

• People: Emmy-winning comedic actor Harvey Korman, who died on Thursday, is probably best known for his work on The Carol Burnett Show… But he also had a role in The Star Wars Holiday Special as the four-armed chef Gormaanda. Over at StarWars.com, Bonnie Burton pays tribute.

• Technology: Yahoo’s Ben Patterson ponders when Star Wars and Indiana Jones will make it to Blu-ray. He’s way more optimistic than I am, not that I even own a Blu-ray player.
• Disney: An article on ILMer Hayden Landis’ work on Indy IV confirms that a Star Tours makeover is underway. (via)
• Jediism: Time interviews Jedi Church co-founder Daniel Jones.
• Music: Nerdcore in The Guardian.

Boing Boing’s Mark Frauenfelder blogged briefly from a presentation the ILM VFX Supervisor gave at the TED conference yesterday in California. (via)

The Golden Compass took the VFX Oscar. Sorry, ILM. Needless to say, that was pretty much the only genre win of the night, but you can check out the rest of the winners at Oscar.com.

Industrial Light & Magic was the big winner at the Visual Effects Society awards Sunday. They received six awards: Four for Transformers and two for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.

Transformers got Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Motion Picture, Best Single Visual Effect of the Year (for the Desert Highway Sequence,) Outstanding Models or Miniatures in a Motion Picture, and Outstanding Compositing in a Motion Picture. At World’s End took Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Motion Picture (for Davy Jones) and Outstanding Created Environment in a Live Action Motion Picture (for the Maelstrom.)

Other genre winners included Battlestar Galactica – Razor (Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Miniseries, Movie or Special) and Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix (Outstanding Special Effects in a Motion Picture.)