The Oscars attempt (emphasis on the word, “attempt”) to recognize cinemas greatest achievements each year. The Razzies, on the other hand,  recognize cinema’s greatest underachievements each year.

After seeing the nominees for this year’s Razzie Awards, I’m beginning to think that the Razzie judges need to be given jobs on the Oscar selection committee. Maybe then the Oscar noms would be a little bit more spot-on.

Here are the 2008 Razzie Award nominees for your viewing displeasure.

It’s Wednesday so it’s time for our weekly open discussion, but as it happens this one is hitting on the last day of 2008! Can you believe this year is over already?

And what an incredible year it’s been for movies… 2008 was a banner year for superhero movie fans with the likes of The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Hellboy 2, and yes – even Hancock and Punisher: War Zone.

Other great genre films included Rambo, Cloverfield (do you even remember that opened this year?!), Tropic Thunder, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Kung Fu Panda and more.

It’s Sunday and therefore it’s Weekend Movie News Wrap Up time.

This week:

Baz Luhrmann gets Gatsby; Brian Helgeland adds Salt; Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise believe that four times is a charm and Parmount Pictures finally get to know Jack!

Screen Rant’s The Day the Earth Stood Still DVD contest is now closed, and here are the winners!:

• Eric Tomlinson -Morgantown, WV
  
• Tyler Hayes -Plymouth, MN
  

Congratulations and thanks to everyone for entering. There’s another contest RIGHT around the corner!

Short version: If all you ask from a movie is cool CGI effects, The Day the Earth Stood Still is for you. Look for any more than that and you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Screen Rant reviews The Day the Earth Stood Still

You know, I can understand the desire to remake The Day the Earth Stood Still… I really can. The original film had a great concept, it’s stood the test of time, and the temptation to revisit it with today’s visual effects must have been overwhelming.

But one of the first rules of remakes is: You don’t remake classic films.

Come on folks, you know the drill! It’s the Mid Week Movie News Wrap Up.

This week:

Affleck goes to Arizona, Warner Bros, figure out Beetle The Bard; The Wolfman howls at a different time; Keanu Reeves has 47 Ronin and own a piece of Hollywood – cheap!

Movie fans have a special love/hate relationship with sequels. We love it when sequels to our favorite movies go into production – but we are the first to point the finger when the studio gets it wrong.

Now it looks like 20th Century Fox wants to pillage even more of their back-catalog and it appears that Speed may have zoomed into pole position on the studio’s list. Not only that – but Jack Traven, the character played by Keanu Reeves in the original is apparently in the scriptment that is making the rounds over at Fox.

So… will we really see another Speed film?

Or the more important question: “Does anybody really want to watch Speed 3?”

This week, Fox released yet another trailer for next month’s The Day the Earth Stood Still remake (is it already only a month away?). It feels like I’ve seen the entire movie now and this newest trailer seems to spoil some of it for me. In this one we see much more of Gort and we finally see Klaatu (Keanu Reeve’s character) hanging out with Helen (Jennifer Connelly).

The last trailer from just two weeks ago was a lengthy five minutes and revealed Gort in full form for the first time – and the month before that we got a huge seven minute preview that aired with the Fringe pilot.

I really dug the very first trailer for this film, as it was mysterious and cryptic – but since then I’ve not been impressed with the follow-up promotional material. I get the feeling that Fox is heavily marketing this to force a good opening weekend as it will drop huge once word-of-mouth gets out about it.

Here we have yet another trailer for The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly. Screen Rant has quite a history for this up coming sci-fi remake of the 1951 classic of the same name so check out our previous posts on this film if you’re interested.

If you want to see the earlier trailers before watching this new one, check out the very first trailer which I really dug. You’ll see alot of repeat scenes but each trailer shows off some new footage. Next, from one of the first articles I wrote here, we have a full 7-minute preview which debuted mid-September alongside the encore broadcast of the Fringe premiere. That second video completely changed my mind and expectations on the film from good to bad.

On Sunday night, prior to the encore broadcast of the Fringe premiere, Fox debuted this extended 7-minute preview for The Day the Earth Stood Still. This trailer extends and completes some of the scenes shown in the first trailer.

This post will be updated continuously during the panel.

For the Fox panel Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connolly and director Scott Derrickson are on hand to talk about The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Derrickson directed the most excellent Emily Rose. He touched on the concerns over remaking a classic film and how much he enjoys and respects the original. He thinks it’s a good idea to revisit the concept using modern day issues.

Dark Horizons scored some hi-res posters from Comic-Con for Max Payne and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Based on the Max Payne trailer, it’s too soon to draw any conclusions on whether the film will be good or not, although after his performance in The Happening, I’m not exactly excited to see Mark Whalberg in a leading role again.

Ok, ok, fine.

Here’s the first trailer to the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves.

If you don’t know, this version puts a Greenpeace spin on the classic film from 1951. Here’s a quote from the trailer:

“If you die, Earth survives.”

Within the context of the film, I presume Keanu/Klaatu means mankind and not Jennifer Connely, to whom he is saying the line. So there ya go – in the big picture, the Earth is more important than the survival of mankind.

I’m not putting up the poster for Fox Studios’ The Day The Earth Stood Still for two reasons:

1. They might decide to threaten me with lawyers for some retarded reason, like they did after my previous post about the movie.

2. I think this film will be such a monstrous suck-fest that there is a danger it will act as a black hole and destroy the Earth. Ironic considering its “green” message.

If you’re interested anyway, click here.

UPDATE 2: Despite the email below from Fox, I cannot see how commenting on a review of a script and mentioning items from that review without directly quoting a screenplay is a copyright violation. Therefore I’m putting my article back online.

UPDATE 1: I’ve been contacted by Fox Studios’ legal department with the following email:

“To Whom It May Concern:

We have recently learned that SCREENRANT.com (hereinafter “You” or “Your”) posted a review purportedly from the Twentieth Century Fox feature film screenplay titled “The Day The Earth Stood Still” on your website at [this page]. Your review contains elements protected by copyright and, as such, we must request that you remove the review from the website and cease and desist from all other activities associated with this material.”

Now personally, I don’t know how commenting here on a review of a script on another website entails copyright infringement, but I’m also not going to get in a legal battle with a studio. At the time I’m writing this, the review is still up at Aintitcool.com at the link at the end of this post.

A couple of weeks ago I commented on how my expectations for the new version of The Day the Earth Stood Still couldn’t get any worse. Well it turns out I was wrong: it’s even worse than I thought.

Over at Ain’t It Cool News they seem to have a new contributor and apparently he’s gotten his hands on a copy of the script for the unnecessary remake.

IF this report is accurate man oh man oh MAN does it sound awful.

According to the report (and there are BIG spoilers below, so be warned!):

I know I haven’t posted much lately (thanks to my hearty band of writers!) but I just HAD to chime in on this one.

I don’t know how familiar you are with the original (and classic) version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, but it was borne out of fears of the Atomic Age and the initial stirrings of the Cold War. Today it may seem quaint and dated but at the time it was a very relevant theme to be tackled from a sci-fi angle.

Over at MTV.com they’ve quoted Keanu Reeves in an interview and while he admits that yes, there is a huge threat posed by the staggering number of international conflicts…

“The version [of 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'] I was just working on, instead of being man against man, it’s more about man against nature. My Klaatu says that if the Earth dies, you die. If you die, the earth survives. I’m a friend to the earth.”

Ok, all together now: Awwwwwwwwwww…..

If you’re a regular reader of Screen Rant you know what a huge fan I am of remakes (not). A while back it was announced that a remake of the classic Sci Fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still was being planned. Today we have further details from Variety, among them the announcement of the lead actor who will be playing the lone alien Klaatu who came to Earth to evaluate humanity:

Keanu Reeves.