300 courtesy Warner Home Video
DVD Tuesday 300 divided critics and united moviegoers with its stylized vision of free men standing down monstersSend your movie questions to FlickChickSee Maitland McDonagh and Ken Fox review this weeks new flicks on the Movie Talk vodcastHear Maitland on the weekly podcast TV Guide Talk300 was exhibit A when Variety editor Peter Bart launched a spiteful screed against elitist critics earlier this year Critics lambasted 300 and audiences flocked to see it Bart concluded filmgoers seem to be having a great time at the multiplexes critics by contrast may be shopping around for a new line of work Please popular isnt always good But its not always bad either -- I loved 300 and its this weeks DVD Tuesday pick So thereA highly stylized blend of CGI and live action 300 is based on graphic novelist Frank Millers bloody visceral retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC during which vastly outnumbered troops from a coalition of Greek city states --
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Question: Since motion-capture performances are becoming more and more common, what are the chances of someone getting an acting nomination for a role like King Kong or Yoda in the new Star Wars movie?
Answer: With moviemaking technology changing at an ever-increasing pace, the Academy has been reviewing a number of its policies, and I've heard it suggested that over the next few years they'll wind up doing their biggest overhaul since the introduction of sound in the 1920s. I have to wonder, for example, whether the conspicuous absence of Frank Miller's Sin City – by any objective standard one of the most visually stunning films released in 2005 – in any category is because members of the various branches didn't know what to nominate it for, given that the photography was extensively digitally overhauled and the production was almost entirely computer generated.
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Cast of characters: Jude Law and Gwyneth Platrow in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (above); Shrek 2
Question: Can you explain what an animated film director does? What I really what to know is whether directors like Shrek 's Andrew Adamson have the same kind of impact on the way the movie turns out as, say, Clint Eastwood, who won the Best Director Oscar last year, had on Million Dollar Baby. Answer: An interesting question. Clearly the director of an animated film doesn't do one of the things we most associate with movie directors, which is working with actors. Though that said, the director of an animated film does work with the voice actors, and more and more the actors doing voice work on major animated films are the same performers who appear in major live-action films. The cast of
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