A slight alteration to the Cricket blog: The Tribune is using a new blogging software, which will change the site's look.

The blog's URL is the same as before (just be sure you don't have /index.htm as part of your bookmark) - but if you're getting this via RSS, you will need a new address for the feed: http://blogs.sltrib.com/movies/index.php?tempskin=_rss2.

Were the Cricket writing for a bigger newspaper, or independently wealthy, he would be at the Cannes Film Festival.

More specifically, he would have been in the photo above - taken by Jeffrey Wells for his Hollywood Elsewhere blog - at the first press screening for tonight's opening-night film, Disney/Pixar's "Up."

As you can tell by the eyewear, the movie is in 3D - the first time Pixar has gone for that particular gimmick. It's also the first time Cannes has gone for 3D, and the first time Cannes has opened with an animated film.

Wells, by the way, loved the movie, writing that "it's almost too good for the family market."

Roger Ebert, writing on his blog, missed the press screening at Cannes (he arrives sometime today) - but he saw the movie in 2D and loved it as well. Ebert, who's not sold on the need for 3D, worries with "Up" that "the brightness and delicate shadings of the color palate will become slightly dingy, slightly flattened out, like looking through a window that needs Windex."

Let the Cannes madness begin.

Usually when a movie with star power the size of Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor premieres at the Sundance Film Festival, the distribution deal is inked before everyone checks out of their Park City condos.

But "I Love You, Phillip Morris" had one big variable going against it: The characters played by Carrey and McGregor are gay lovers - and gay themes are a buzzkill for distributors.

Finally, a new distributor - Consolidated Pictures Group, which itself launched at this year's Sundance - has stepped up to pick up the movie's domestic distribution rights. The company plans a release next Valentine's Day, according to Daily Variety.

The movie is written and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the guys who wrote "Bad Santa."

The news that a copy of the script for "New Moon" - the sequel to the sparkly-vampire tale "Twilight" - was found in a St. Louis trash bin is the sort of story that writes its own jokes.

"How could they tell?" or "That's where it belongs!" are two possible responses from non-fans of Stephenie Meyer's teen-bloodsuckers-in-love books.

But the incident also indicates a problem for a blockbuster that - like most big-budget movies - has studios worried about secrets spilled on the Internet.

It may especially be a problem for young actress Anna Kendrick (pictured), who is at the moment the only link between the "Twilight" films and the St. Louis location.

Kendrick, who plays one of Bella's friends at Forks High (and appeared in the teen comedy "Rocket Science"), was staying at the St. Louis hotel where the discarded script was found. Kendrick was there shooting a movie with George Clooney, "Up in the Air."

According to the Associated Press account, Kendrick's spokeswoman "said the actress wouldn't have left scripts lying around."

Hedy Lamarr was more than a great screen beauty. She also was a brainy scientist, who invented a method of changing frequencies - called frequency-hopping - that was a prime component in modern wireless communications.

Actress-turned-director Amy Redford (yes, Robert Redford's daughter) is turning Lamarr's life story - focusing on the screen goddess' off-screen exploits - into a film, and may have found the perfect modern actress to play her.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Rachel Weisz is "loosely attached" to the indie production "Face Value."

Weisz has always conveyed an onscreen image of brains and beauty - think back to her roles in "The Constant Gardener" or "The Shape of Things" or "The Fountain" - so this bit of casting seems inspired.

The script, by Jose Rivera ("The Motorcycle Diaries") and Gretchen Somerfeld, received a TFI Sloan Filmmaker grant at the Sundance Institute last fall.

The Tower Theatre will be bringing back its midnight-movie slate for the summertime.

The Tower's "Summer of 35mm" program kicks off on Saturday, May 30, with the midnight-movie classic "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," complete with live cast.

The series will close on Aug. 29 with "Repo! The Genetic Opera," also with a live show.

The remaining titles will screen Friday and Saturday at midnight, and Sunday at noon. Here's the rest of the line-up:

• June 5-7: "Freaks"
• June 12-14: A selection from Damn These Heels! The LGBT Film Festival.
• June 19-21: "Taxi Driver"
• June 26-28: "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"
• July 3-5: "Wet Hot American Summer"
• July 10-12: "Harold and Maude"
• July 17-19: "Spirited Away"
• July 24-26: "Dark City"
• July 31-August 2: "The Graduate"
• August 7-9: "Beetlejuice"
• August 14-16: "Trainspotting"
• August 21-23: To be determined

Elsewhere on this blog, the Cricket has noted the shrinking ranks of paid professional movie critics writing for print publications in the United States. (At last count, 55 of them have lost their jobs since 2006, through buyouts, layoffs, reassignment, retirement or having their publications die.)

According to John Podhoretz, the neocon commentator (and former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush) who maintains the title "movie critic" at The Weekly Standard, that's OK.

Most movie critics are hacks, Podhoretz argues in this column, "reporters or editors who didn't get another plum assignment and were thrown a bone by a gruff but kindly managing editor."

And while those paid hacks are losing their jobs, a proliferation of movie criticism flourishes on the Internet. "The only difference between them and the professionals is that they don't get paid, except for a few dollars a week from Google ads," Podhoretz writes.

Here's the nut of Podhoretz' argument:

"This deprofessionalization is probably the best thing that could have happened to the field. Film criticism requires nothing but an interesting sensibility. The more self-consciously educated one is in the field - by which I mean the more obscure the storehouse of cinematic knowledge a critic has - the less likely it is that one will have anything interesting to say to an ordinary person who isn't all that interested in the condition of Finnish cinema. Amateurism in the best sense will lead to some very interesting work by people whose primary motivation is simply to express themselves in relation to the work they're seeing - a purer critical impulse than the one that comes with collecting a paycheck along the way."

Yes, you read that correctly: A conservative is arguing against collecting a paycheck. But that's not where Podhoretz' argument is at its faultiest.

Amateurism is a lovely concept - since the root of "amateur" is "amator," the Latin word for "lover" - and there are many interesting and intriguing movie writers who do it simply for the love of the craft. But, with the exception of the golf legend Bobby Jones, it's hard to name an amateur who was markedly better at something than the pros in that field.

Being a paid movie critic means, for starters, that you have the time to watch more movies than someone who reviews as a hobby. Sure, that means the "Finnish cinema" that Podhoretz mocks - but it also means small gems that get overlooked in the din of blockbuster marketing campaigns. Amateur bloggers may have seen "Slumdog Millionaire" at the Toronto film festival last fall, but it took the paid critics to trumpet that discovery for the world to hear it.

With fewer paid professional movie critics working, there are fewer voices championing discoveries like that. And when many of the critics losing their jobs are from regional papers - Denver and Detroit, Seattle and San Antonio (just to name a few recent examples) - the chorus of critics' voices concentrates in places like New York and Los Angeles.

Podhoretz may believe that nobody notices bylines, and wouldn't know who their local movie critic is. But, based on the Cricket's personal experience meeting people, movie fans would miss us if we were gone.

Forget about "Wolverine" - "Star Trek," opening today, is the real kickoff to the summer blockbuster season.

Director J.J. Abrams creates a science-fiction adventure that's fast-paced, energetic and sleekly designed. It's also true to the spirit of the original, providing a continuum to the classic series while also allowing the Enterprise crew to go off in new directions. And the familiar characters are well cast, particularly Chris Pine as the swaggering James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto as the cerebral Mr. Spock.

(Most critics, based on the 96-percent Rotten Tomatoes score, agrees with the Cricket's opinion. But not everyone does: The Tribune's TV critic Vince Horiuchi, whose "Trek" devotion could be described best as "ultra-orthodox," was not pleased.)

By the way, read up on the Utah connection to this "Star Trek" - the background footage of Vulcan was shot in Emery County's San Rafael Swell.

Oh, there are a few other movies opening in Utah this weekend.

The documentary "In a Dream" is a fascinating profile of Philadelphia Isaiah Zagar and his supportive but long-suffering wife Julia. Director Jeremiah Zagar captures intimate moments with his parents, and elegantly explores his dad's art. (Jeremiah Zagar, interviewed here, will be in town for tonight's 7 p.m. screening at the Tower Theatre - and is scouting possible locations for one of his father's murals.)

The romantic dance movie "Love N' Dancing" is better at the dancing than the love. Set in the world of competitive swing-dancing, the choreography (performed by champion dance couples) is strong. But the plot, about a deaf dance champ (Tom Malloy, who wrote it) who gives lessons to an English teacher (Amy Smart), is paint-by-numbers and riddled with obnoxious side characters.

"Is Anybody There?," about a boy (Bill Milner from "Son of Rambow") in '80s England growing up in a nursing home run by his parents, is a straightforward coming-of-age story enlivened by Michael Caine's performance as a cantankerous resident.

"Paris 36" is a glossy but lackluster French comedy-drama about music-hall workers struggling through the Depression.

"Fire Creek," about a G.I. who returns from Afghanistan questioning why he survived while his comrade died, is a four-year class project from a group of Brigham Young University students. Opening at a handful of theaters along the Wasatch Front, it's only the second class-produced movie to get a theatrical run. (The movie was not screened for critics, but here's an account of how the movie was made.)

One more studio movie, the urban comedy-drama "Next Day Air," was not screened for critics.

Usually the Cricket hears about movie critics who have lost their jobs from second-hand sources. This one comes from the critic himself.

"I've been reassigned to GA on the Metro desk. They're not replacing the position," read the e-mail the Cricket received this afternoon from Phil Villareal, movie critic for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson.

Villareal's reassignment was "particularly disturbing," opined Movie City News editor David Poland on his Hot Blog, because "Phil has been one of the most net-forward print critics in adding a New Media edge to his work, with video before video got cool, but also with reach-outs to aggregators, always concious of delivering content that was more than 'just another review.' "

Villareal is the 55th movie critic who has lost his or her job - to reassignment, buyout, layoffs, retirement or publication failure - since January 2006. He's also the 11th this year. Here's the full list:

1. Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times, buyout, 2006
2. Steve Ramos, Cincinnati CityBeat, position eliminated, April 2006
3. Margaret A. McGurk, Cincinnati Enquirer, reassigned, spring 2006
4. Jami Bernard, New York Daily News, contract not renewed, May 2006
5. Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News, buyout, fall 2006
6. Bonnie Britton, Indianapolis Star, reassigned, fall 2006
7. Dennis Lim, Village Voice, laid off, October 2006
8. Michael Atkinson, Village Voice, laid off, October 2006
9. Mark Burger, Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal, laid off, November 2006

10. Barbara Lester, CityLink (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.), position eliminated, early 2007
11. Bob Ross, Tampa Tribune, laid off, April 2007
12. Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News, buyout, May 2007
13. Phoebe Flowers, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, reassigned, May 2007
14. Dave Gathman, Elgin (Ill.) Courier-News, staff reorganization, May 2007
15. Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, buyout, summer 2007
16. Jack Garner, Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle, retired, June 2007
17. Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune, quit, July 2007
18. Rob Nelson, City Pages (Minneapolis-St. Paul), position eliminated, August 2007
19. Matt Soergel, Florida Times-Union, reassigned, October 2007
20. Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle, buyout, October 2007
21. Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press, buyout, December 2007
22. Jack Mathews, New York Daily News, retired, December 2007
23. Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader, retired, December 2007

24. Ed Bradley, Flint (Mich.) Journal, buyout, January 2008
25. David Elliott, San Diego Union-Tribune, laid off, January 2008
26. Jan Stuart, Newsday, buyout, March 2008
27. Gene Seymour, Newsday, buyout, March 2008
28. Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News, reassigned, March 2008
29. Mary F. Pols, Contra Costa Times/Oakland Tribune, buyout, March 2008
30. Nathan Lee, Village Voice, laid off, March 2008
31. David Ansen, Newsweek, buyout, March 2008
32. Kevin Crust, The Los Angeles Times, buyout, March 2008
33. Glenn Kenny, Premiere, terminated, May 2008
34. Stephen Hunter, The Washington Post, buyout, May 2008
35. Desson Thomson, The Washington Post, buyout, May 2008
36. Hap Erstein, The Palm Beach Post, buyout, July 2008
37. Lance Goldenberg, Creative Loafing (Tampa Bay), laid off, August 2008
38. Bruce Bennett, New York Sun, paper ceases publication, October 2008
39. S. James Snyder, New York Sun, paper ceases publication, October 2008
40. Craig Outhier, East Valley Tribune (Mesa, Ariz.), laid off, October 2008 (effective January 2009)
41. Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle, buyout, October 2008
42. Carina Chocano, The Los Angeles Times, laid off, October 2008
43. Betsy Pickle, Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel, laid off, November 2008
44: Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Daily News, laid off, December 2008

45: Ella Taylor, LA Weekly, laid off, January 2009
46: Andy Klein, LA CityBeat, laid off, January 2009
47: Melissa Anderson, Time Out New York, laid off, January 2009
48: Larry Ratliff, San Antonio Express-News, laid off, January 2009
49: Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News, reassigned, February 2009
50: William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, laid off (paper folded to online only), March 2009
51: Soren Andersen, The News-Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.), buyout, March 2009
52: Daniel Neman, Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, laid off, April 2009
53: Lawrence Toppman, Charlotte Observer, reassigned, April 2009
54: Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle, buyout, April 2009
55: Phil Villareal, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), reassigned, May 2009

Labels: disappearing critics

Poor Mandy Lane. All the boys may love her, but she's not getting any love from distributors.

According to /film (or SlashFilm, if you prefer), fledgling distributor Senator Entertainment has pulled Jonathan Levine's horror movie "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane" off its summer release slate.

This /film post reports Senator is smarting from the critical drubbing and box-office tanking of its first release - the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation "The Informers" - and is clearing its entire summer schedule.

"All the Boys Love Mandy Lane" gained strong buzz when it played the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006, and the Weinstein Company was set to release it in 2007. Then "Grindhouse" was a financial failure, and Weinstein sold off "Mandy Lane."

In the interim, Levine made a splash at Sundance 2008 with his second movie, "The Wackness," starring Josh Peck as a high-school marijuana dealer who starts seeing a shrink (Ben Kingsley). And Amber Heard, who plays Mandy, has made a name for herself as a Maxim pin-up and actress - notably as Seth Rogen's high-school girlfriend in "Pineapple Express."

The Lone Ranger had Tonto, Batman had Robin, Johnny Carson had Ed McMahon - and John Cooper has Trevor Groth.

Cooper, installed in March as director of the Sundance Film Festival, has chosen Groth (pictured above, on the red carpet at CineVegas) to fill Cooper's old job as the festival's director of programming.

Cooper and Groth essentially have grown up together in the Sundance hierarchy. Cooper has been with the institute for 20 years, while Groth has been on the programming staff for 16 - and volunteered for the Filmmakers' Labs before that.

Groth, a Salt Lake City native, has been a senior programmer since 2003, one of the select few who picks both narrative and documentary films for the festival. He's also led the festival's short-film selection.

Groth also is the artistic director of Cinevegas, an indie film festival held every June in Las Vegas.

Cooper and Groth lead a strong team of programmers: Caroline Libresco, David Courier, Shari Frilot and John Nein - as well as shorts programmers Jon Korn, Todd Luoto, Shane Smith, Hebe Tabachnik and Kimberly Yutani.

Cooper and Groth will make one of their first public appearances together next week at the Cannes Film Festival. They will be the subject of a panel discussion on Sunday, May 17, at the American Pavilion at Cannes.

Labels: Sundance

Two worthwhile movies that debuted at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival have, finally, scored distribution deals.

"Big Fan" stars comic Patton Oswalt as a parking-lot attendant with only one source of joy in his life: Rooting for the New York Giants. But when he encounters one of his heroes, things go strangely wrong in this drama, the directorial debut of Robert Siegel, who wrote "The Wrestler." First Independent Pictures has picked up the film.

Joe Berlinger's documentary "Crude" chronicles the longest environmental class-action lawsuit ever, in which 30,000 Ecuadorans sued the oil giant Chevron over decades of pollution in that country's rainforests. First Run Features has bought the North American rights to the film.

Dom DeLuise, who died Monday at the age of 75, was part of a long Hollywood line - stretching from Oliver Hardy and Lou Costello to John Belushi and Chris Farley - of funny fat guys.

But unlike Belushi and Farley (or even Hardy), there was nothing arch in Deluise's humor - just good fun.

DeLuise benefitted from two great working partnerships. One was with director Mel Brooks, for who DeLuise starred in "The Twelve Chairs," "Blazing Saddles" (as a gay film director), "Silent Movie," "Spaceballs" (as Pizza the Hutt) and "History of the World, Part I" (hilariously spoofing Marlon Brando in "The Godfather").

The other was with his pal Burt Reynolds. DeLuise backed up Reynolds in both "Cannonball Run" movies, the second "Smokey and the Bandit" film, and "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas."

One of his first screen appearances, strangely, was in a dramatic role: As a conflicted soldier in Sidney Lumet's nuclear-war drama "Fail-Safe."

And, in one of the Cricket's personal favorites, he was the Hollywood agent who discovered Kermit the Frog in "The Muppet Movie."

Who would have these movies - "Slumdog Millionaire," "Twilight," "High School Musical 3: Senior Year," "Iron Man" and "The Dark Knight" - together on their DVD shelf? An art-house loving, musically inclined, death-obsessed comic-book geek?

Or a voter in the MTV Movie Awards. Those five movies are duking it out for Best Movie.

This year, for the first time, fans chose the nominees - and the fans gave the teen-vampire drama "Twilight" seven nominations, and the Oscar-winning "Slumdog Millionaire" six.

What makes the MTV Movie Awards fun - besides the presenters endlessly shilling for their summer blockbusters - are the offbeat categories. For example, Best Kiss has two male-male pairings (Sean Penn and James Franco in "Milk," and Paul Rudd and Thomas Lennon in "I Love You, Man") among the six nominees (the others are James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie in "Wanted," Freida Pinto and Dev Patel in "Slumdog Millionaire," Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in "Twilight" and Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens in "High School Musical 3").

The wild-card category this year is Best WTF Moment. The nominees are: "Baby Mama" (Amy Poehler peeing in the sink); "Wanted" (Angelina Jolie curving the bullet); "Slumdog Millionaire" (the young Jamal jumping into the poop pile); "Tropic Thunder" (Ben Stiller tasting blood from a freshly decapitated Steve Coogan); and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (Jason Segel's full-frontal break-up scene).

The MTV Movie Awards air on May 31. Andy Samburg is the host.