A Christmas Carol (Bob Zemeckis)

[Watashi]

http://www.slashfilm.com/wp/wp-content/images/achristmascarolfirstscrooge-440x272.jpg


DISNEY’S A CHRISTMAS CAROL, a multi-sensory thrill ride re-envisioned by Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, captures the fantastical essence of the classic Dickens tale in a groundbreaking 3D motion picture event. Ebenezer Scrooge (JIM CARREY) begins the Christmas holiday with his usual miserly contempt, barking at his faithful clerk (GARY OLDMAN) and his cheery nephew (COLIN FIRTH). But when the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come take him on an eye-opening journey revealing truths Old Scrooge is reluctant to face, he must open his heart to undo years of ill will before it’s too late.

The movie opens nationwide November 6, 2009.

Footage (http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/05/18/first-photo-and-video-footage-from-robert-zemeckis-a-christmas-carol/)

Whether you like Zemeckis's mo-cap technology, it looks to be his future output from now on. I thought Beowulf was really fun, and if the technology keeps getting better, I don't mind it.

[Watashi]

It looks better than Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

[BuffaloWilder]

I wish Zemeckis would stop doing full-body motion capture. Faces never translate correctly, and they end up looking like corpse-marionettes.

[chrisnu]

Do not want.

[EvilShoe]

Where was this technology when Carrey needed to look like a proper love interest for Zooey Deschanel in Yes Man?

[number8]

So this was terrible.

[murphandslurph]

Is it just me or does the CG look gawd awful? I think it would be honestly hard for me to take any of this movie seriously when it looks like a video game.

[MadMan]

So this was terrible.Judging by the trailer, I'm not surprised. The only point of this movie is to make tons of money by featuring Jim Carey animated, with his usual wisecracks. Only it won't be funny. I'm still waiting for Carey to once again make a comedy I actually want to see; he had the right idea with going the dramatic route aka Bill Murray back when he made Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

[number8]

Well, he doesn't wisecrack. I mean, he's Scrooge.

The one nice thing is that the dialogue is verbatim Dickens.

[Sycophant]

I saw a preview for this recently that made it look like balls. Pass.

[Dukefrukem]

I bet I'm in the minority here when I say Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind sucked.

[Sycophant]

I bet I'm in the minority here when I say Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind sucked.

OH HO HO, you sassy lass!!

If you actually have something to say about ESotSM, go into the FDT (or somewhere we've discussed it before) and say it. It's irrelevant here, unless you're saying that Jim Carrey's performance in Eternal Sunshine sucked and he ought to stick to wacky family roles like this.

[[ETM]]

Heh, Ebert absolutely loved it, and he HATES HATES HATES 3D.

[Ivan Drago]

Is it just me or does the CG look gawd awful? I think it would be honestly hard for me to take any of this movie seriously when it looks like a video game.

Tell me what your avatar is of is not happening.

Because I don't want to double dip.

[Dukefrukem]

;215698']Heh, Ebert absolutely loved it, and he HATES HATES HATES 3D.

Globe loved it too.

[B-side]

Was I the only one really impressed by the trailer's visuals?

The visuals are amazing. Not sure how that's even up for dispute.

[Qrazy]

The visuals look like crap to me. There's your dispute right there.

I'm not talking about the rendering of the CGI which looks fine although there's certainly still some uncanny valley going on. But the way Zemeckis is utilizing space and motion in the frame is not good.

[number8]

Once again, this sucked. (http://www.justpressplay.net/movie-reviews/40-reviews/6134-a-christmas-carol.html)

[KK2.0]

It opened today here, i guess i'll wait to see if my company decides to make a private screening so i won't pay for it. They do it sometimes for CGI movies.

[Sxottlan]

A pretty rote adaptation.

And this motion capture technology just isn't working.

[Watashi]

Gary Oldman looked creepy as fuck.

[Adam]

So just out of robo-curiosity, what's the thought process behind releasing this thing at the beginning of November? Wouldn't it do even a little bit better round Christmastime? Are they worried they can't compete with Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 or something? This seems to happen all the time, too, like every year there's a Christmas with the Kranks or a Fred Claus or some such shit being released in the middle of November and by the time Christmas rolls around, its forgotten

[Ezee E]

So just out of robo-curiosity, what's the thought process behind releasing this thing at the beginning of November? Wouldn't it do even a little bit better round Christmastime? Are they worried they can't compete with Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 or something? This seems to happen all the time, too, like every year there's a Christmas with the Kranks or a Fred Claus or some such shit being released in the middle of November and by the time Christmas rolls around, its forgotten
I would assume it's in hopes that it picks up some money now, but continues to hang around after Thanksgiving because people are like, "Well, now I'm in the Christmas spirit. Let's see that movie about it."

[Sxottlan]

From the AP Wire:

LOS ANGELES (AP) Ä Another
executive at The Walt Disney Co.'s
movie studio is exiting hurriedly as
the company's troubles
continue at the box office with a weak
opening for ``A Christmas
Carol.''

Mark Zoradi, president of Walt
Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Group and the head of worldwide
marketing for all Disney, Pixar,
Touchstone and Disneynature movies,
said Monday he is stepping down
immediately.

No successor was named.

Zoradi's move came after the 3-D
remake of the classic Christmas
tale starring Jim Carrey opened to
$30.1 million at the weekend box
office in the U.S. and Canada.

With an estimated $175 million
production budget and a marketing
campaign that involved a 40-city train
tour, Cowen & Co. analyst
Doug Creutz says he expects it to lose
$50 million to $100 million.

[number8]

Heh. Found this old essay.

http://mises.org/daily/110


So let's look without preconceptions at Scrooge's allegedly underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit. The fact is, if Cratchit's skills were worth more to anyone than the fifteen shillings Scrooge pays him weekly, there would be someone glad to offer it to him. Since no one has, and since Cratchit's profit-maximizing boss is hardly a man to pay for nothing, Cratchit must be worth exactly his present wages.

No doubt Cratchit needs—i.e., wants—more, to support his family and care for Tiny Tim. But Scrooge did not force Cratchit to father children he is having difficulty supporting. If Cratchit had children while suspecting he would be unable to afford them, he, not Scrooge, is responsible for their plight. And if Cratchit didn't know how expensive they would be, why must Scrooge assume the burden of Cratchit's misjudgment?

[Mysterious Dude]

Heh. Found this old essay.

http://mises.org/daily/110

*vomit*

[Henry Gale]

So... this was way darker than I ever expected a PG-Disney adaptation of this to be. Especially considering it's from Robert Zemeckis, who made Polar Express just five years before, it didn't seem too likely. But despite that sort of off-guard reaction, I actually liked it a fair bit.

Something about the facial animation and even the shading on things like Marley's ghost always looked off to me, like it was rushed to its release date, and the sort of case where I wouldn't have minded Zemeckis pulling a Lucas and re-rendering it in the year this took to be on home video. And I had a problem of feeling a weird lifelessness many people seemed to have with his last two mo-cap films here. To me, this previous two were far less distracting. Though, there are reasons I could actually see Zemeckis wanting to use this technology, despite the fact that people like Bob Hoskins and Colin Firth just look like action-figure versions of themselves.

The thing I was maybe most impressed with was the entire Ghost of Christmas Past sequence designed as one virtual camera movement, lasting a good 10 minutes or so. It achieves just the right sort of dream-like quality a story like . It's things like that that justify why Zemeckis went with this animation technique, by showing something that couldn't have been done the same way in a typical film. Though, I do think Polar Express (which honestly, upon repeat viewings, I actual find to be a uniquely atmospheric, moving film) found a similarly dream-y mystique in a Christmas story, achieved with more typical digital cinematography and editing.

Other standouts for me are the performances, which sadly seem to be suffocated by the technology more times than not, but thanks to the strength of the performers behind them, effective moments still come through regardless, though maybe more from their vocal delivery than the visual side. Then there's the aformentioned lack of shying away from the most grim elements of the story, even keeping most of the dialogue very true to the source and not warming it to the cater to the easy Jim Carrey/Grinch potential audience. The only time it seems to do this is in the section where Scrooge is shrunk down to a few inches with a high-pitched voice, being bump and swung around, seemingly just for laughs and marketability (as it's one of the few parts I remember seeing in every TV spot last yeat). It's definitely the weakest stretch of the film.

If it had just had more carefully realized animation and a few strangely comedic moments removed, I actually think this could have been great. As it is, it's a merely good, but not definitive version of the story that I wouldn't mind revisiting every now and then.

But I'd also say: Beowulf > The Polar Express > This. So take that recommendation as you will.

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