3-D goes big time in 2009; otherwise it's business as usual

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/movies/394315_moviepreview02.html

By WILLIAM ARNOLD
P-I MOVIE CRITIC

As Hollywood unveils its 2009 schedule, the big trend can be summed up in one word: 3-D. The movie industry is jumping on that bandwagon like no time since 1953, the famous movie year in which virtually every major studio embraced stereoscopic technology then promptly abandoned it as a gimmick.

This time it's expected to take. DreamWorks animation boss Jeffrey Katzenberg (whose '09 3-D movie is March's "Monsters vs. Aliens") argues in a recent issue of Variety that the floodgate is now open and that digital 3-D is the wave of the future. "Eventually," he says, "I believe that all films will be shot in this remarkable medium."

What may be the year's most highly anticipated film, James Cameron's "Avatar," will be a wide 3-D release. The hugely ambitious, $200 million-plus sci-fi epic -- about a human hero "thrust into hostilities on an alien planet" -- has obsessed the "Titanic" director for more than a decade and finally will hit multiplexes on Dec. 18.

Meanwhile, Disney is releasing more than a third of its films this year in 3-D, including a Jonas Brothers concert film; the Pixar-animated "Up"; Jerry Bruckheimer's cute-guinea-pig comedy "G-Force"; a reissue of "Toy Story"; and a new version of "A Christmas Carol," with Jim Carrey as Scrooge.

Carrey also will narrate the February Imax release "Under the Sea 3D," and the process will be the selling point of this month's "My Bloody Valentine 3-D"; the latest installment of the "Final Destination" series (subtitled "Death Trip 3D") in August; and the kids movie "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" in September.

Other than 3-D mania, however, the '09 movie year looks like a carbon copy of the past few years -- a ton of horror movies, animated fantasies and comedies (romantic and gross-out); a summer of tent-pole sequels anchoring every weekend; and a year-end slate dominated by serious dramas hoping to be Oscar contenders.

There are more than a dozen franchise installments, including a new "Star Trek," with younger incarnations of the original crew; "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," which was delayed from last year; "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"; a new episode of the "Terminator" series; and "Angels & Demons," a prequel to "The Da Vinci Code."

The remakes include Universal's expensive new take on its 1941 horror classic, "The Wolf Man"; retreads of the slasher movies "Friday the 13th" and "The Last House on the Left"; Denzel Washington in an update of the '70s thriller "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three"; and Robert Downey Jr. as "Sherlock Holmes."

Comedy will be more plentiful than ever in '09 as stars Seth Rogen ("Observe and Report"), Eddie Murphy (with a yet-to-be-titled project), Will Ferrell ("Land of the Lost"), Adam Sandler ("Funny People"), Jack Black ("The Year One") and Brendan Fraser ("Inkheart") all find gainful employment.

The list of star-vehicle thrillers in '09 includes Julia Roberts as a CIA agent in Tony Gilroy's "Duplicity"; Russell Crowe as a D.C. reporter in "State of Play"; Clive Owen as an Interpol agent in "The International"; and Matt Damon as a U.S. soldier in Iraq in Paul Greengrass' "Green Zone."

Among the offerings from auteurs are Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island," with Leonardo DiCaprio; Peter Jackson's "The Lovely Bones," an adaptation of the book phenomenon; Ang Lee's '60s nostalgia piece "Taking Woodstock"; the Coen brothers' '60s comedy "A Serious Man"; and Jim Jarmusch's Spanish-set drama "The Limits of Control."

For biopics, we have "Amelia," with Hilary Swank as '30s aviatrix Amelia Earhart; Clint Eastwood's "The Human Factor," with Morgan Freeman as South Africa's Nelson Mandela; "Notorious," with Jamal Woolard as rapper Notorious B.I.G.; and Nora Ephron's "Julie & Julia," with Meryl Streep as Julia Child.

Family fare includes Henry Selick's new stop-motion animated feature "Coraline"; Spike Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are"; Wes Anderson's version of Roald Dahl's "The Fantastic Mr. Fox"; and Disney's Christmas-timed animated musical, "The Princess and the Frog."

For tweens, look for "New Moon," the sequel to "Twilight," and "Hannah Montana: The Movie"; graphic-novel enthusiasts have film adaptations of "The Surrogates" and "Watchmen"; manga and video-game junkies have, respectively, celluloid versions of "Dragonball" and "Street Fighter"; and '80s-TV fans have a big-screen homage to "The A-Team."

Besides these wide-release studio films, Seattle moviegoers also will have a full slate of indie and foreign films (many of which will jump out of Sundance, Cannes and the Seattle International Film Festival) and hundreds of limited runs and revivals at the SIFF Cinema, Varsity and Northwest Film Forum.

There's something, it would seem, for everyone.