Joe Johnston‘s The Wolf Man (Universal, 2.10.10) looks like just another growling howling saliva-spewing bullshit CG wolfman movie, except it’s in period with bearded Anthony Hopkins chewing the supporting scenery. Love me some Hopkins! The fact that it’s set in what looks like 1890s England or thereabouts makes the casting of Benicio del Toro seem odd. He plays an American but let’s face it — he looks like a dressed-up Tijuana narcotics detective.

The Avatar trailer has been up for a little less than two hours, and if HE reader reactions so far are any indication of how sophisticated cineastes and elite geekboys are going to respond to James Cameron‘s super-fantasy CG epic when it opens on 12.18, Cameron and 20th Century Fox have reason to be concerned. Maybe only a little; more more than that. You tell me.

People are reacting only to the look and style of the the thing (the trailer has no dialogue and the emotional/thematic impact is unknown), but no one seems to be genuinely blown away. Or even medium blown-away. No one is saying it looks like a game-changer. I realize that HE talk-backers can sometimes be negative to a fault, but the vibe doesn’t feel very good at all.

I mean, consider these comments: (a) “Looks an awful lot like a videogame cut scene”‘ (b) “The Battle for Terra II”; (c) “Obviously CG…really killed my my anticipation of anything groundbreaking”; (d) “a glorified cartoon“; (e) “The blue guys are somehow reminiscent of Thundercats”‘ (f) “Ferngully/Delgo…Ferngully plays Halo”; (g) “Nightcrawler and Mystique from X-Men“; (h) “that CGI beastie [in the jungle] was straight out of Attack of the Clones“; (i) “pretty underwhelming”‘ (h) “I hate how those blue-skinned creatures look”; (j) “who woulda thunk that Neill Blomkamp would deliver something more visually impressive than James Cameron?” (k) “Looks like the artwork of 100 covers of sci-fi books strung together”; (l) “some of the imagery was downright corny”; (m) “it all goes downhill after Sam Worthington is transformed into that Nightcrawlerish figure…the fantasy planet looks terrible…I’m not so excited anymore”; (n) “maybe 3D is the missing piece but this doesn’t have the ‘something you’ve never seen before’ quality that I was expecting”; (o) “this has a Lord of the Rings quality, meaning that instead of a couple of excellent FX elements in a real world it’s an entirely aritificial world that’s not entirely convincing…my first impression is pretty subdued“; (p) “The Abyss meets Return of the Jedi meets Peter Jackson‘s Rings trilogy.”

And I didn’t cherry-pick the negative comments. This is pretty much all of it with the fat cut out.

I’m going to re-post what I just posted in the comments section, which was a reposting of what I wrote from San Diego/ComicCon a few weeks back:

The difference between what you’re seeing here on your computer monitors and what Avatar looks like in 3-D is that the CG/animated parts aren’t really “animation” but a much higher and more visually precise synthesis. There’s truly something “extra” about it. The 3-D means a hell of a lot…it really does. You need to see it at one of the special 3D showings on Friday to get what I’m saying.

That said, I hear what some of you are saying. But it’s important to see Avatar as it’s meanto be seen. Here’s how I put it in my report from ComicCon:

“I was transported, blown away, melted down, reduced to adolescence, etc. I mean, I saw some truly great stuff.

“But I need to share one thing. As drop-dead awesome and mind-blowing as Avatar is in terms of super-sophisticated CG animation — a realm that looks as real as anything sitting outside your window or on the next block or next continent — the bulk of it does appear to be happening in an all-animated world.

“Which means that after the first-act, live-human footage (i.e., laying out the plot basics, preparation for the Na’vi transformation, etc.) the film seems to basically be a top-of-the-line animated action-thriller.

“Which means that once the visual climate and atmosphere of animation begins to settle in, we’ll be watching something that’s cool but one step removed from a ‘real’ world. Which means that for people like me, Avatar, beginning with the portion of the film in which the animation pretty much takes over, may not finally feel like a really solid and true-blue high-throttle experience because — yes, I realize this dates me — it lacks a certain biological completeness and therefore a certain trustworthiness.

“To put it another way the visual dazzle element will be wondrous, but the trust element (a reference to Werner Herzog‘s statement about things have gotten to a point at which audiences don’t trust their eyes any more) will be on constant hold.

“I’m saying this knowing, of course, that Avatar appears to do a truly amazing job of bridging the gulf between CG and reality, but for me hard-drive compositions will always be hard-drive compositions — they aren’t what God created on His/ Her own. And never the twain shall meet.”

AICN reader comment #1: “Epic Fail. Jar Jar Avatar. $400 million dollar FURRY CARTOON.”

AICN reader comment #2: “These can’t be the actual, finished, fully rendered shots…right? Because if they are, I gotta tell you this looks like any other CGI movie I’ve seen [over] the past 5 or 6 years. This is NOT anything game-changing.”

AICN reader comment #3: “Something about the Na’avi’s faces looks ridiculous, adding to the cartoonishness.”

Second-to-last HE reader comment: “The blue people have mullets, or least the same kind of neck-do that Dog the Bounty Hunter’s son wears. They also sort of look like they just wandered off the cover of a Journey album. And [the movie] looks like the sem odl Cameron coillection of scrapping, disshevelled rock ‘n’ roll good guys vs. the evil, psychotic military guys. Peace and love win out in the end, man.”

Final HE reader comment: “Tomorrow’s preview will seal or break it.”

The Avatar trailer on the Apple website as well as French MSN website is up and running. Dialogue-free and just over two minutes long, it doesn’t provide anything close to the 3D, super-vivid, here-we-go impact I got from the 24-minute ComicCon reel (which had plenty of dialogue), but it’s an intriguing taste. So…first impressions? Considered reactions?

Sam Worthington’s hybrid Na’vi in a frame grab from James Cameron’s Avatar.

The fine fellow who proofed the Apple website copy needs to taken outside, tied to a fence post and Marlon Brando bull-whipped (a la One-Eyed Jacks). As HE reader “maxfm” has pointed out, the top line reads “FROM THE DIRECTOR OF THE ‘TITANIC’.” Mind-numbing, unbelievable.

Toronto Film Festival’s “Masters” slate will include Lars von Trier‘s absurd and ghastly Antichrist (the TIFF p.r. notes say that Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe give “courageous” performances…hah!), Amos Gitai‘s Carmel (not about Gitai becoming a U.S. citizen, moving to Carmel, California, and running for mayor), Goran Paskaljevic‘s Honeymoons (not a companion piece to Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau‘s Couples Retreat), Suzana Amaral‘s Hotel Atlantico, Mira Muratova‘s Melody for a Street Organ, Francois Ozon‘s Le Refuge, Marco Bellocchio‘s Vincere (young dashing Mussolini), Margarethe von Trotta‘s Vision (nun movies scare me …sorry), Claire Denis‘ White Material, Michael Haneke‘s The White Ribbon, and Buddhadeb Dasgupta‘s The Window.

Werner Herzog‘s My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? is, in my mind, a major Toronto Film Festival attraction. Has there ever been a Herzog film that didn’t haunt and mesmerize on some level? How can this latest be an exception, I’m asking myself, with Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny, Brad Dourif and Michael Pena in the lead roles? Well, I guess it could. Anyone and anything can disappoint. To be off your game is human. (What was that gung-ho finale in Rescue Dawn about?)

I just have one question — what’s with the “Ye” in the title? The movie doesn’t take place in a Quaker or Amish community. (It was shot in LA, San Diego, Tijuana and Peru.) Is the title taken from a line from some noteworthy poem? It seems arch and pretentious and precious. Frankly? The more I think about it the more worried I am about the film as a whole. It has to be explained by Herzog now, or certainly before Toronto — that’s the only way out of this.

It costs $25 bills for two people to see The Cove at the Angelika. Movies are too damn pricey — prices have really gone over the top. Plus I had to run upstairs to tell the manager to bump up the sound, which was audible but “too soft,” as I put it

Wednesday, 8.19 issue, which I hadn’t seen until I got into town yesterday around 5:45. My first thought was that this fairly vicious headline may be one of the tabloid headline classics along with BRIDE OF JACKOSTEIN (a 1996 N.Y. Daily News headline), HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR, SAM SLEEPS, etc.

Plus an NSFW drawing pasted on the base of a lamppost near the Angelika entrance on Houston. Sorry but it’s funny.

Last Friday I ran a story about how Spoutblog‘s Karina Longworth, Movieline‘s Stu VanAirsdale, In Contention‘s Kris Tapley, Cinemablend‘s Katey Rich and The Playlist‘s Rodrigo Perez were kind of clearing their throats and wondering if the upcoming Toronto Film Festival would give them a press badge or not. Well, I heard today that VanAirsdale and Longworth are good to go.

In a current but undated N.Y. Times “Take 5” fashion spread/q &a piece by Lynn Hirschberg, An Education‘s Carey Mulligan is described in now-familiar terms. Her “bravura turn has landed her center stage,” “the movie was a sensation at Sundance largely because of [her] performance,” and that she was “suddenly…being compared to Audrey Hepburn,” etc. There’s also a “Screen Test” video piece.

(l.) An Education‘s Carey Mulligan; David Janseen as Harry O.

The Times doesn’t let you copy the photos but Mulligan makes an amazing admission midway through the discussion. She doesn’t drive so when she decided to park it in LA she stayed in Century City and took the Santa Monica Boulevard bus.

“I have an unusual perception of L.A.,” she explains. “I can’t drive, so I take the bus. I stay in Century City, which is centrally located, and there’s a brilliant bus that goes straight up Santa Monica Boulevard. The people riding on the bus are unbelievable. Completely insane. I quite like it. When you have three meetings a day, it’s quite pleasant to take the bus from place to place.”

Mulligan taking a bus to the Kodak theatre on Oscar night would be the hands-down coolest thing imaginable.

Hirschberg asks Mulligan if she’s been offered rides during her stay. “I had a meeting with Warren Beatty,” the actress replies, “which was surreal because I couldn’t believe I was speaking with him at all. And he couldn’t believe I was taking the bus. He drove me to my next meeting. I thought, I rather like Los Angeles. People are very kind.”

The David Janseen connection is that the last vaguely-Hollywood-associated person known for using the L.A. bus system was Janseen’s private-eye character in Harry O, the ’70s TV series.

In an article posted this morning on Splice Today about the Roger Ebert-Armond White brouhaha called “Why Are Movie Fans So Sensitive?”, John Lingan criticizes Ebert for defending White and then recanting his defense, and especially for “perpetuating the ridiculous idea that film critics’ likes and dislikes matter more than their knowledge of movies.” Here’s the final paragraph:

“Only in film criticism will people with a purported interest in the art demean the opinion of an expert because he dares to disagree with them. The path to greater knowledge and appreciation of movies seems pretty obvious to me: watch as many as possible, and read widely about them, specifically the work of people who know more than you. If you disagree, fantastic; it means you’re developing your own opinions and values. But there’s no room in this equation for being as easily offended as contemporary moviegoers — including Roger Ebert, disappointingly — seem to be.”

Fair enough, but another way to look at the occasional practice of ripping into this or that critic in personal terms is that it’s analagous to hockey-game fights. Are they embarassing? If you’re a purist for the sport and in love with the art of great hockey-playing, yes. Are punch-outs reminders of our coarse tendencies and our low position on the evolutionary totem pole? Yes. Are they occasionally fun to watch anyway? Yeah, they are.

Watch George Roy Hill‘s Slapshot again and consider the crowd reactions to the Hansen brothers. Consider how attendance quadrupled after the Charlestown Chiefs started thugging down and demeaning the sport. Consider the look on Paul Newman‘s face when he realizes his team has tapped into something primal.

Readers of film blogs respect intelligent, impassioned discourse. You’re a dead man if you can’t honorably compete in this realm. But they also enjoy a good dust-up now and then. If everyone minded their manners to Lingan’s satisfaction online disputes would be more elevating and informative, but they’d also be less fun. Just sayin’.

Ronald Reagan recorded this visionary statement in 1961, five years before his election as California governor. What a reptile. I mentioned this last month but last fall’s economic collapse has, I think, in the eyes of history, sealed Reagan’s reputation as the godfather of the greedhead funny-money economy that kicked off in the early ’80s. N.Y. Times columnist Paul Krugman explained it all on 5.31, in a piece called “Reagan Did It.”

60 Minutes creator and longtime CBS newsman Don Hewitt, who was on the job until ’04, died this morning of pancreatic cancer at age 86. He should and would be regarded as a blemish-free journalist of the highest order. He was involved in the documentary news show See It Now, directed the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates, and exec produced the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. His crowning achievement was launching 60 Minutes in 1968 and staying with it for three-plus decades. Except, sadly, there is a blemish, and a prominent one at that.

Hewitt’s reputation isn’t 100% sterling due to the depiction of his actions during the Jeffrey Wigand/Brown & Williamson/tortious interference debacle in Michael Mann‘s The Insider. Fairly or unfairly, he was portrayed by Phillip Baker Hall as a corporate-deferring go-alonger who allowed the reputation of 60 Minutes to be tarnished in what is now regarded as a classic case of corporate interests undermining journalistic integrity. Many heartfelt tributes will be heard over the next few days, but The Insider will live on for decades if not centuries. Tough deal, but there’s no erasing it.

I had never IMDB-checked the European locations where Inglourious Basterds was filmed before this morning, but watching this Quentin Tarantino-on-Late Night with David Letterman video made me laugh. All right, chuckle. Because he says that they shot a bit of it in Paris and…hello?…the two “Paris” locations in the film (i.e., Shosanna’s movie theatre and a cafe) look like sets built on a Los Angeles sound stage.

It seems to me that the point of Inglourious Basterds, in keeping with the idea that it’s all happening in Quentin’s head, is to not portray the various European locales with any recognizable realism (let alone period realism) except for the Nazi uniforms and such. Locale-wise this movie is so completely unto itself that it could have been shot in the Washington/Oregon region. One of the elements that work, in a way, is QT’s near-flaunting of the idea that the film isn’t really happening in 1940s Europe.