The News: Legend-ary Manhattan Explained

(Photo: Warner Bros. via NYM))

By S.T. VanAirsdale

Some of today's movie news of note from around New York:

--I'm quite looking forward to checking out the wasted city of I Am Legend, of which Logan Hill has a glimpse in this week's New York Magazine. "A virus hits in 2009, infecting everyone but Will Smith," Hill writes, walking readers through the scanning, art directing and rendering of Legend's opening scene. "Creating the illusion of a verdant, depopulated Manhattan took $40 million of the film’s $150 million budget." $40 million -- for a location. I think I hear Toronto laughing at us.

--OMG! "Are you ready for the first precursor that truly matters?" asks Johnny Alba at the Oscar Igloo Blog. "Share your National Board of Review predictions!" No and no, Johnny, and keep your spittle off my face. More narcolepsy here and here.

--Man, is Scott Foundas ever on a roll. The LA Weekly critic and Almighty Hammer of the Village Voice syndicate follows last week's Diving Bell and the Butterfly takedown with a review befitting the title of its target: "[Filmmaker James] Strouse devised Grace Is Gone to work on our sentiments the way a porn movie works on our libidos, only he delays the money shot with 80-odd minutes of emotional foreplay en route to the inevitable, orgiastic climax where Stanley finally spills the beans and the girls spill forth the entire contents of their tear ducts. ... Strouse drowns out the dialogue of that crucial scene with music -- a reminder that, as in all pornography, talk is expendable." Perhaps, then, with the Oscars out of reach, Harvey Weinstein can position John Cusack for an AVN Award?

--Speaking of gratuitous overreaching: "Is there domestic strife in Cody-ville? And what is the toll of constant campaigning for a couple on the awards circuit?" Here, just read the rest while I go wash my hands. (H/T: Lou Lumenick)

Posted at December 5, 2007 10:05 AM