I just went through a list of movies coming out in 2012 and made a list of the ones I’d like to see. It’s pretty short, though. Anyway, here it is:

The Avengers - which is already out. I’ve just been too busy with school to go see it. Might do it tomorrow if I feel up to it since I have no class tomorrow (I’m in finals week right now).

Snow White and the Huntsman - if for no other reason than to see if Kristen Stewart can act when she’s NOT playing Bella Swan. (Come to think of it, I never did go see the other Snow White film that came out this year, Mirror, Mirror. I wanted to too. Fudge). This comes out June 1st.

Brave - I’m a Pixar fan as it is, but other than that this looks like an awesome movie based on the trailers and clips I’ve seen. Hoping it’s as good as the last animated film I saw about Vikings (Dreamworks’s How to Train Your Dragon). This comes out June 22.

Sparkle - I just heard about this film. It stars Jordin Sparks (winner of American Idol season 6) as well as, eerily enough, WHITNEY HOUSTON. Yeah, you read that right. Apparently before her sudden and terrible death, Whitney filmed a movie, her first since The Preacher’s Wife over a decade ago. It sounds really good from the description. This doesn’t come out till August though (August 17th to be precise). CeeLo Green, famous currently as a judge on The Voice, is also in it, for those of you Voice fans out there.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - otherwise known as “The Hobbit: Part 1.” (The second part is entitled The Hobbit: There and Back Again and is set to be released in December 2013, a year after Part 1 - that is, unless that Mayan prophecy is true and the world will end this December, though to be honest I’m pretty sure that whole thing is total bunk). Peter Jackson is directing and producing both parts of this 2-part film, just like with the LOTR trilogy, and apparently a number of the LOTR actors are returning for this film. I knew Ian McKellen was returning as Gandalf, and was hoping Hugo Weaving would reprise his role as Elrond (he is). Andy Serkis is also back as Gollum (I couldn’t imagine them using anyone else for that part). But apparently we’re also getting Orlando Bloom back as Legolas, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Christopher Lee as Saruman, Ian Holm as Bilbo (playing the older counterpart to star Martin Freeman’s younger Bilbo), and - rather inexplicably - Elijah Wood as Frodo. Galadriel, Legolas, and Saruman don’t appear in the book - though Saruman may have been referenced, though not by name - so I don’t know where they’ll fit in (I guess we might see Legolas when the dwarves and Bilbo get locked up in his dad Thranduil’s castle). Ian Holm, who played Bilbo in Jackson’s LOTR trilogy, is a logical choice for Bilbo, but in the end they made him just be the older Bilbo, since at his age (80!) he can’t do anything too physically demanding. As for Frodo, I haven’t the slightest idea how he fits in (Bilbo’s journey happened 27 years before Frodo was even born, based on the dates on this calendar at the Encyclopedia of Arda; the Wikipedia article for this film only states that the inclusion of Frodo suggests that parts of the movie will take place shortly before the events of LOTR. Maybe - and this is my theory now - he will appear in a sort of frame narrative of Bilbo telling the story to Frodo, which would make sense since Ian Holm is playing an “older Bilbo.” So far, only major LOTR fansite TheOneRing.net has any details on the inclusion of Frodo).

Also, according to this article (which cites a Warner Bros press release as its source), the two films will be split somewhere around the famous Bilbo-meets-Gollum scene. Before Smaug anyway. Interesting. We’ll have to wait till December 14th to find out.

Les Misérables - comes out the same day as The Hobbit, December 14th. Now, this is hardly the first film adaptation of Les Mis (I saw the 1998 one with Liam Neeson as Jean Valjean, which was pretty good). Still it interests me. (I still haven’t read the book, even though it is one of the great classics of French literature…but you should see how long it is unabridged). And the cast looks good…Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe in the lead roles of Valjean and Inspector Javert (more or less the bad guy of Les Mis) respectively. Anne Hathaway is also in it (as the female lead, Fantine), and generally I’m not a huge fan of her, but that wouldn’t stop me from seeing this. The very odd Sasha Baren Cohen is also in it apparently (oh dear), playing the innkeeper Thénardier, and Helena Bonham Carter plays his wife.

I think another big draw for me to this Les Mis in particular is that it is directed by Tom Hooper, who also directed another movie I loved, The King’s Speech (which Bonham Carter was also in, btw, as the wife of Colin Firth’s character). So that should make the movie great in and of itself. At any rate, with nearly six months till the movie’s release, maybe I’ll have time to read the book.

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away - I saw a Cirque du Soleil show once, and man it is something else. Though I suppose if you were, say, a theater worker in Vegas who has to watch the same Cirque show for nights on end, you might lose your sense of wonder about it. Still, the chance to see one in the theaters would be nice. And I think it’s in 3D as well. Ironically, it’s about exploring other worlds, and it comes out on that infamous “world’s gonna end” day, December 21st. Hmm.

And lastly, The Great Gatsby. For some reason, this movie comes out on Christmas Day. I don’t know whose idea that was, as it is clearly not a Christmas story by any stretch of the imagination. Anyway, I want to see this primarily because I love the original book (and am probably in the minority - most people read it in high school and then never want to see it ever again, as I witnessed when we read it in my U.S. Lit II class in college), and not because of the movie itself so much. The casting is just odd (Leo DiCaprio as Gatsby - REALLY? You couldn’t find a better actor than that? But then I’m just not a DiCaprio fan). Plus Baz Luhrmann is directing it, which could make for a very odd film, if Moulin Rouge (a good film - I like the music a lot, if not the plot as much…at least that had a decent cast) and the absolutely horrid William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (the worst Shakespeare adaptation I’ve ever seen) are any indication.

I’ll see you at the movies then, I guess…

Was just catching up on Grimm and noticed that pretty much every character uses an iPhone. Or what looks like one anyway, since we don’t see the screen of every phone. Are these intentional product placements for Apple, or is it just a coincidence? 

(One exception is the phone Captain Renard changes the SIM card in in “Love Sick.” The screen for that phone is seen briefly and looks like the Windows load screen on my phone, which means it’s probably a Windows Phone). 

Well, it looks like I’ll have to update my Pan Am fanlisting - or maybe not even keep it up - because Pan Am has officially been cancelled, as many bloggers predicted it would be.

Many shows have been cancelled this season it seems, from new shows like Pan Amto the 8-year-long running House (though I think we all expected that for a while). Someone I follow on Twitter freaked out because Ringer and The Secret Circle just got cancelled. (And I’m surprised to learn that Extreme Makeover Home Edition got canceled! I liked that show. I was also really into ABC’s remake of Charlie’s Angels, but that got axed back in October 2011).

On the bright side, several of the shows I like have been renewed - Once Upon a Time, Smash, The Amazing Race(for its 21st season!!), and Grimm (which I do like, though not as much asOnce Upon a Time - let’s just say crime dramas aren’t really my thing…but I like the fantasy elements).

This “report card” from TVLine is a nice reference for what’s been axed, what’s been renewed, and what is still “on the bubble” (meaning its fate has not been officially announced).

Maybe I should be a TV blogger. That could be fun…

mentalflossr:

It comes from the French “venez m’aider,” meaning “come help me!”