New 3-D ‘Tron’ film wows Comic-Con with footage

SAN DIEGO — The follow-up film to 1982′s “Tron” wowed the high-tech crowd at Comic-Con. The cast and creators of “Tron: Legacy” discussed the new film and shared about eight minutes of 3-D footage with some 6,000 fans at the annual pop-culture convention Thursday. The clip centered on the character of Sam Flynn, played by Garrett Hedlund, entering the digital world where his dad disappeared decades earlier. Hedlund is shown being whisked away from the real world, ...

Review: ‘The Kids Are All Right’ a vivid, truthful film about the power of family

One of the ideal scenes of any film this year takes place in “The Kids Are All Right.” The setting is a small dinner party at which Annette Bening, as a lesbian with a longtime partner (Julianne Moore), seems on the verge of some kind of breakdown. She is speaking nonstop. She is being excessively ingratiating. Every word out of her mouth suddenly sounds strangely inauthentic, and you wonder what is happening to her. She’s wondering, too. The scene ...

Which 2010 movies have a shot at the huge awards?

Everybody wants to live in boom times, and just about everybody would like to live in an inspired period for movies, but those two things rarely go hand in hand. The Great Depression gave us a golden age, and so did the Vietnam-Watergate-malaise era of the late 1960s and the 1970s. By contrast, the economy was humming along for most the ’80s and ’90s, while those motion picture years were just average, with only the usual number of good and ...

‘Winnebago Man’ tells touching story behind famous YouTube clip

There’s something about the way Jack Rebney swears. He drops the F-bomb like Michael Jordan drains a game-winner, like a seasoned politician works a campaign crowd. It just comes naturally. Maybe that is why more than 20 million people have watched the collection of outtakes he made filming a video for Winnebago motor homes in the summer of 1988. The clip has been referenced in movies, TV shows, and drawn spin-offs from Internet junkies. Last month, Conan O’Brien ...

‘Winnebago Man’ tells touching story behind famous YouTube clip

There’s something about the way Jack Rebney swears. He drops the F-bomb like Michael Jordan drains a game-winner, like a seasoned politician works a campaign crowd. It just comes naturally. Maybe that is why more than 20 million people have watched the collection of outtakes he made filming a video for Winnebago motor homes in the summer of 1988. The clip has been referenced in movies, TV shows, and drawn spin-offs from Internet junkies. Last month, Conan O’Brien ...

Russell Crowe’s ‘Robin Hood’ is far from a merry man

Russell Crowe is a different kind of Robin Hood, and Ridley’s Scott’s “Robin Hood” is a very different distillation of the old legend. Crowe is not merry. He’s not impish, and he has no green suit. He doesn’t put his hands on his waist and throw back his head laughing, and he doesn’t even steal from the rich to give to the poor. Rather, he fights against the rich to protect the rights of the upper middle class. And the ...

‘Mission: Impossible’ star Peter Graves dies in LA

LOS ANGELES — Peter Graves, the tall, stalwart actor likely ideal known for his portrayal of Jim Phelps, leader of a gang of special agents who battled evil conspirators in the long-running tv series “Mission: Impossible,” died Sunday. Graves died of an apparent heart attack outside his Los Angeles home, publicist Sandy Brokaw said. He would have been 84 this week. Graves had just returned from brunch with his wife and children and collapsed before he made it into ...

Bothell boy makes it huge as a ‘Wimpy Kid’

The well-known book “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” is now a Hollywood motion picture — and one of the stars lives right here in our area. More from KOMONews.com · Feds: Kirkland investment adviser stole millions · World Vision: ‘Brutal, senseless’ killings were unprovoked · Senate passes jobless aid; sales tax deduction bill · Deputy shoots man driving stolen truck The motion picture opens March 19 in theaters.

In star-studded ‘Late Autumn,’ Seattle plays starring role

A motion picture star may have spotted you at Northgate Mall these past couple months. But you probably did not notice. Chinese actress Tang Wei is in Seattle filming “Late Autumn,” a drama also starring South Korean heartthrob Hyun Bin that is set to wrap Monday. Like her co-star, Wei could not step on the streets of Hong Kong without being mobbed. So when she is not filming or sneaking into Asian restaurants, she likes to sit in and ...

Winter of our content: Fun Olympic movies

Here are some movies to get you into the mood for the Winter Olympics, which start Friday in Vancouver, B.C. Cool Runnings (1993): Based on the true story of the Jamaican Bobsled team in the 1988 Calgary Games. Jamaicans are known for their summer runners, so this story about how they put together a team is the perfect way to chill out. Miracle (2004): “Do you believe in miracles?” So uttered Al Michaels in 1980 at Lake Placid, N.Y., ...

‘Avatar,’ ‘The Hurt Locker’ lead Oscar nominations

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The science-fiction sensation “Avatar” and the war-on-terror thriller “The Hurt Locker” lead the Academy Awards with nine nominations each, including best picture and director for James Cameron and ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow. For the first time the Oscars feature 10 best-picture contenders instead of the usual five. Also nominated for best-picture Tuesday: “District 9″; the animated comedy “Up”; the World War II saga “Inglourious Basterds”; the football drama “The Blind Side”; the recession tale “Up ...

There’s an art to translating books into movies

The Lovely Bones arrives in movie theaters Friday. Fans of Alice Sebold’s book will see it in a new light: as part of an old Hollywood tradition that turns beloved books into major motion pictures. It’s a tradition with mixed results. “When we deal with adaptation movies, we always compare the movie to the book,” says Karen Fang, who teaches film studies and literature at the University of Houston. “But that’s not the way the film industry thinks ...

Forecast 2010: movies

It’s apparent at this time of the year why they call it “the movie business.” Just as most folks are beginning to think about what films might score Oscar nominations, the industry has already moved on to its new product. A perusal of 2010 films reveals the return of Demi Moore, Mel Gibson and Gordon Gekko and the release of “Shutter Island” and “The Wolfman,” both of which were to come out last year. Some fascinating-sounding indie and foreign ...

Brittany Murphy made a vivid impression

Watch enough movies over a period of many years and cinema begins to seem like a land of the dead. Actors and actresses visit that land over the course of their careers and exist, for a time, in two worldsreal and cinematic. But sooner or later they go over completely into the land of the movies and remain there forever, acting out the same dramas and playing out the same emotions, all the time looking just a bit more innocent ...

Plenty of Ritchie on decade’s worst list

Time flies when you’re having fun but has a way of slowing down when you’re getting pins stuck in your eyes. Vacations blur into a pleasant memory, and it’s even possible to have an entire romance without remembering, years later, what the two of you ever talked about. But the trauma of seeing something like “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” never quite goes away. Like toxic waste, those 151 minutes don’t degrade, don’t get reabsorbed into the soil ...

Murphy’s husband doesn’t want autopsy

ACTRESS Brittany Murphy’s husband has reportedly asked that officials do not conduct an autopsy on his wife.

Actress Brittany Murphy Dies At Age 32

The actress got her start in the sleeper hit Clueless and rose to stardom in 8 Mile.