Jim Carrey will play Ebenezer Scrooge — as well as the three ghosts that haunt him — in a new big-screen adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, to be written and directed for Disney by Robert Zemeckis, says Variety. Zemeckis will shoot the film using "performance capture/Disney digital 3-D" animation, a technique he introduced in Tom Hanks' Polar Express and fine-tuned for Beowulf (an upcoming film starring Angelina Jolie), a bit of live action and a dash of Monster House-esque computer graphics. And just like that, The Grinch looks art-house.
read more
Question: What was the first Christmas movie?
Answer: Oh, how I love a "first" question! While I know better than to definitively declare any film the first of anything, there have been Christmas-themed movies for almost as long as there have been movies. Early films on a holiday theme include the shorts Christmas Eve, Christmas Morning and The Christmas Tree Party (all 1897). Jolly old St. Nick takes center stage in Santa Claus and Visit of St. Nicholas (both 1897); Santa Claus (1899); Georges Melies' Le Rêve de Noël (The Christmas Dream, 1900); Edwin S. Porter's 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1905); D.W. Griffith's A Trap for Santa (1909); the comic myste
read more
Question: Any scoop on Smallville?
Answer: Tomorrow night's holiday-themed episode takes a page from A Christmas Carol and shows Lex what his future could be like should he decide to take the good, honorable path. (Translation: No cheating on AA "contests.") This alternate reality is set seven years into the future with Lex happily married (with children) to Lana and free from daddy's iron grip. (Clark is with Chloe, although it's not clear whether they're married or living in sin.) I don't want to give away the whole enchilada, but TV Guide's resident Smallville junkie Rich Sands wanted me to tell AA readers "not to miss the last five minutes" as it "represents a major turning point for Lex." That Rich Sands is sounding more like a network promo exec every frakkin' day.
read more
