In the last week you’ve probably been hearing nonstop from every critic out there about all the reasons that Avatar is amazing and stupendous and game-changing and whatever other adjective you can apply to it. And if there’s any consensus about the movie, it’s that this is a movie that must be seen, and on the biggest screen possible.

But there are a lot of reviews to comb through before you can really get the gist, so below I’ve listed out the top 5 reasons that Avatar simply must be seen. Whether you’re in it for the love story or the action or the chance to be transported to a far-off world, Avatar has it all. lt’s hard to express my enthusiasm for this movie beyond just “Holy shit it’s incredible!” but for you, dear reader, I’ve done my best to be eloquent. Read the rest of this entry

A dozen years later, James Cameron has proven his point: He is king of the world.As commander-in-chief of an army of visual-effects technicians, creature designers, motion-capture mavens, stunt performers, dancers, actors, music and sound magicians, he brings science-fiction movies into the 21st century with the jaw-dropping wonder that is “Avatar.” And he did it almost from scratch.

There is no underlining novel or myth to generate his story. He certainly draws deeply on Westerns, going back to “The Vanishing American” and, in particular, “Dances With Wolves.” And the American tragedy in Vietnam informs much of his story. But then all great stories build on the past. Read the rest of this entry

Roland Emmerich destroys the world again and this time, there’s no place to hide! If you believe the Mayans than the end of the world is less than 3 years away. Doesn’t that sound like something that should be exploited in theaters? If you’re a fan of these types of movies, then chances are, you know Roland and you exactly what you’re paying to see when you walk into that theater. The film is a triumph for its genre and will not disappoint those looking for to see some major destruction.

Disaster movie maven Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) crafts this apocalyptic sci-fi thriller following an academic researcher who opens a portal into a parallel universe, making contact with his double in an effort to prevent the catastrophic prophecies of the ancient Mayan calendar from coming to pass. Read the rest of this entry

A movie clearly done for Michael Jackson fans who will thrill to his every move and gesture, but also an unprecedented and candid look behind the curtain at the amount of hard work and sweat that goes into staging such an enormous stage spectacle.

Story:

On June 25, 2009, singer/songwriter Michael Jackson died, leaving behind a musical legacy as well as many questions about the shows he was about to perform just weeks later. Culled from hundreds of hours of rehearsal footage, “This Is It” tries to recreate the experience Jackson was trying to bring to his fans along with his talented crew and creative team. Read the rest of this entry

More than 200 million of us are active Facebook users, but will that social networking addiction convert to a blockbuster movie? Columbia Pictures sure hopes so, as it advances its plan to bring Facebook’s founding story to the big screen.

The movie, titled “The Social Network”, is scheduled to start production later this year, and Columbia is in advanced talks to put David Fincher, director of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in the director’s chair, reports Variety. “Scott Rudin and Michael De Luca are producing with Trigger Street’s Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti”, adds the industry mag, and Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The American President, Malice, Charlie Wilson’s War) wrote the script.

The film will tell the story of Facebook (Facebook) founder Mark Zuckerberg as he scaled the site from a Harvard dorm room to the world’s most popular social network. Read the rest of this entry

The 2009 summer movie season ended, with a record-breaking box office. But 2009 will also go down as the year with the most movies that cost $200 million or more. We’ve compiled the most expensive movies of the past decade.

Here’s a list of all the movies with production budgets of $170 million and over, for the past ten years. (We chose the threshold of $170 million because there were a ton of movies clustered around the $150 million-$160 million mark.) Movies that failed to make back their budget at the U.S. box office are underlined.

Note : All figures are in 2009 dollars, adjusted for inflation. These figures are just production budgets, and are based on the most accurate figures we could find. They don’t include marketing budgets. And of course, many of the films which failed to break even at the U.S. box office did make a profit when you factor in international box office. Read the rest of this entry

At 19, British actress Emma Watson has already made more money that other stars probably get to make in their entire career, and is enjoying the support of a fanbase so large it probably knows no match. Thanks to the highly successful “Harry Potter” film franchise, Emma also has a very promising future ahead of her, but that’s not to say she’s not afraid to leap towards it, as she reveals in a recent interview with the Daily Mail. Read the rest of this entry