"The secret impresses no one," Michael Caine's character reminds his proteges in The Prestige. In other words, you better have something else up your sleeve besides actual "magic" because magic is lousy entertainment. It's cold and impersonal and usually has no dramatic heft. Most magic tricks are performed at a quick pace because the whole thing depends on a moment's misdirection and because if it didn't go by quickly, no one would ever sit for it. Even when it's successful, a magic trick earns nothing but a polite clap. Christopher Nolan should have thought harder about this, because his film has the same deficiencies. All of its energy goes into structure and the concealment of hollow secrets. The film's backbone is an elaborate timeline that moves backwards, splits into two threads and then wobbles forward again, leaving the actors without a leg to stand on. Nolan's much-enjoyed puzzleboard picture Memento had a reason for its structural acrobatics, but The Prestige just wants to challenge the memory and attention of the audience. This isn't a movie, it's a game of Concentration.

Turn of the century London is the setting for a friendly rivalry between two up-and-coming magicians, played by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale. Jackman sports a west-of-the-Rockies American patter while Bale puts on an Eastend Cockney brogue that probably earned him high-fives from Michael Caine. Jackman's wife, played by where-are-they-now actress Piper Perabo, is killed early on in a scary water-tank trick that goes wrong. When Jackman blames Bale, the rivalry gets un-friendly. Jackman turns up at Bale's bullet-catching show and replaces a stage charge in his pistol with a real bullet. He becomes even more irate when Bale makes a great leap forward in the magic world by coming up with that rarest of things -- an interesting trick. It's a little something called The Transporting Man. He steps into a box on one side of a stage and then instantly re-emerges from an identical box on the other side of the stage. Hmmm...how does he do that? It's not a spoiler to tell you that there's no satisfying answer.

It's fairly easy to get psyched up about a project written by the dude who kicked off his career by penning episodes of Beavis and Butthead, Daria and The Simpsons. Larry Doyle's first feature attempt (Duplex), however, fell way short of the funny. Chalk up another spectacular starring role for Ben Stiller. After returning to the animated world with Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Doyle just recently sold his latest comedy, Me2, to Disney. Currently, the plot is being kept under wraps (although they did let slip something about time travel), and we're not sure whether it will be animated. However, Mark Waters (Mean Girls) has signed on to direct, so chances are this one will go the live action route.

And speaking of top secret plots, Universal snatched up Gerald Olsen's comedy pitch One Dave at a Time for Mary Parent and Scott Stuber (is it just me, or does it seem these two are in on literally every single deal?) to produce. Usually, when they don't feel like giving us a basic plot description, that means the idea is very high concept and, therefore, they're probably afraid of two or three similar projects suddenly popping up. Based on the title alone (and since I'm a pro at figuring out storylines with little to no information), I'm going to take a wild guess and say this one involves cloning, possibly along the lines of Multiplicity. But what do I know ... I just work here.

Odds and ends from Thursday:

• If the BBC is correct, it looks like Brad Pitt's "interest" has turned into an official casting as far as that big-screen Americanized version of the BBC miniseries State of Play goes. Jim Abbott (writer and exec producer) confirmed Pitt's involvement after receiving a surprise phone call from the actor. Pitt will play a journalist named Cal McCaffrey who finds himself wrapped up in a murder conspiracy involving his former boss. [via Dark Horizons]
• What the hell is wrong with Tonight, He Comes? After going through THREE directors (Michael Mann, Jonathan Mostow, Gabriele Muccino), a new name is surfacing and we're praying this one actually sticks. According to Production Weekly, Peter Berg is close to helming the pic which finds Will Smith playing a superhero suffering through a mid-life crisis. If this is supposedly one of the "best unproduced scripts in town," then how come no one wants to direct it? Inquiring minds definitely want to know.
• Hey, remember how we told you that Orlando Bloom's character may not survive through a fourth Pirates installment? Well, Moviehole spoke with a rep for Disney who denied everything saying, "We are working closely with Disney and want you to know that while we cannot comment on specific plot points, such rumors are completely unfounded." Even if these rumors were true, it's not like Disney is going to come out and go, "That's it, you got us!" Personally, I say they kill off everyone except Captain Jack, then bring him back for a spin-off TV series on Cartoon Network called, The Adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow Jr. Whaddya think?

Disney has once again unlocked its seven-year vault and the platinum reissue of The Little Mermaid has sold over four million units in one week, despite the recent downturn in animated feature films at the box office. That's also ahead of the lucrative holiday shopping that will start picking up steam in the coming weeks, meaning this little fish will be jumping its way upstream to spawn and possibly sell more then ten million units by Christmas. That's a whopper on any scale.

This release marks the second visit to DVD for Ariel and friends, which isn't counting the direct-to-video sequel The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, and it won't be the last since we will definitely see a high-definition release sometime in the near future. The movie had also been released on VHS, and recently appears as an online download through Disney's exclusive arrangement with Apple's iTunes service. It has managed to gross more than $211 million worldwide in theaters alone, with home video rentals and sales continuing to milk money from that cash cow.

Have you noticed how many animated movies have been in the theater over the past few months? There have been Monster House, Open Season, The Wild, Over the Hedge, Barnyard, Cars, and The Ant Bully to name a few, which doesn't even cover the glut of sequels and straight-to -video DVDs that have been released and re-released, including last week's The Little Mermaid: Ultimate Line Our Pockets Disney Adamantium Edition. Of those, only Monster House doesn't focus on talking animals, insects or vehicles. As a result, the novelty of both animated films, and the concepts they bring with them are making audiences weary, according to The New York Times.

Popular animated movies used to belong only to Disney, and they released them sparingly, not wanting to step on the toes of their own product. However, once Disney/Pixar became a force to reckon with, Disney was releasing CGI films on top of its own traditionally animated films, and began crowding the schedule with more films each year. These days, animated films crowd theaters with offerings from Disney/Pixar, Sony Imageworks, Dreamworks Animation, Warner Bros., and Paramount/Nickelodeon. It's a jungle out there -- or a forest, or a farmyard, or ... well, you get the idea.

This is typical of the Hollywood "me too!" syndrome that hits when something works well and starts making tons of money for a studio. Everyone else wants in on it. Horror films started making money, so now everyone is putting out a lot of horror movies. The Lord of the Rings opened the door for more fantasy films like The Chronicles of Narnia, and Eragon, and the popularity of X-Men gave rise to a slew of comic book movies including Spider-Man, Superman Returns and the upcoming Ghost Rider.

Animated films have always been a treasure for younger and older audiences alike, and are part of a dwindling part of the theater experience that people can still enjoy as a family. Are you still going to see animated movies?


Other animation on Cinematical:

The Demise of Hand-Drawn Animation

Studios Still Don't Get Animation

Dreamworks Choosing Quantity over Quality

Golden Globes Adds Animation Award

Orlando Bloom's character in the now-juggernaut Pirates of the Caribbean series will not survive through the inevitable fourth installment -- so says a Disney insider who spoke to the British paper Daily Star. According to the source, the script for the fourth film is currently being written, and Disney bean counters are already examining ways to cut its massive costs. They have concluded that although both Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley are essential to the continued success of the series, Orlando's character is human NyQuil and "not necessary" to maintain the gravy train (I could have told them that). Whether or not he will be killed in the third movie, due next summer, or be bumped off early in the fourth is not specified.

The report also states that the films' minor characters, who were faithfully brought back for the first sequel, are also on the chopping block. Given that both Kingdom of Heaven and Elizabethtown -- the only films you could credibly call "Bloom vehicles" -- underperformed at the box office, this report sounds credible to me. There's almost certainly a parity clause in Bloom's contract that assures him a salary in the same league as the other two leads, which will make him cost-prohibitive the longer the series goes on.

I enjoyed the first Pirates film, but thought the second one stunk of doubloons. I doubt I'll be standing in line for the third, let alone the fourth.

More on Pirates of the Caribbean:

About Those Deathly Orlando Bloom Rumors

Depp Wants POTC 4-6?

Pirates 3 Lands an Official Title

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The new iTunes movie store has been open a few weeks now, and still no other studios besides Disney are offering titles via the service. Why? Because Wal-Mart rules the world, of course. Over the summer, the retail giant gave a warning to Hollywood that it will not stand by and watch the studios concentrate on movie downloads while DVD sales are decreasing. Because Wal-Mart depends on DVDs to draw in customers and Hollywood has depended on the stores for a major share of their revenue (Wal-Mart is the leading seller of DVDs, which is Hollywood's biggest source of income), the studios would rather not offend the relationship. Sure, studios have partnered with other download services, but it wasn't until Apple decided to get in on the market with iTunes movies, that movie downloading had enough promise to scare the retail businesses.

So, what can Wal-Mart do? Well, first it can put a stronghold on the studios. After Disney's plan to partner with iTunes, Wal-Mart threatened to decrease its order of Disney DVDs, specifically the very popular seller, High School Musical. But that simply ignores the fact that downloads are the future, while also hurting their customers. So, in order to support progress and reap the rewards, it needs to get in on the download market. How? By pressuring Apple into giving the chain some of the profits. Wal-Mart is currently in discussions with Apple to start selling iTunes gift cards or coupons in stores, the proceeds of which will be divided between the companies.

My guess is that this kind of deal will keep iTunes from being able to lower their price on movies, though the Wal-Mart coupons will probably have an advantageous discount potential. So, if you want to let Wal-Mart continue bullying the world, make sure to give your lunch money to them by purchasing iTunes through their stores.

As the cynics no doubt expected, there are a lot of problem with The Guardian. So, let's address those right up front. First, at nearly 140 minutes, it's way too long, a flaw made even more galling by the fact that the movie blows by a perfect, melancholy close about 20 minutes from its ultimate ending. Second, most of the effects are awful. Since at this point CGI technology remains unable to convincingly portray mass, giant open-ocean waves are not terrifying, but distractingly awkward. Third, the movie is lousy with cliches. From the rookie with a troubled past who rises to greatness to the grizzled veteran with problems of his own who gives the kid a hard time to force him to grow, we've seen all these characters before and we know them very, very well. Apart from the movie's Coast Guard setting, there's very little original to be found inside it. Got all that? Good. Because despite these obvious, sometimes major flaws, The Guardian is a winning, well-made film, the quality and pace of which come as a great relief in the sea of violent, cynical, explosion-laden nonsense that big studios generally sell.

The Guardian's troubled youngster is Jake Fischer, furiously played by Ashton Kutcher. As you might expect, the details of his past are not revealed until late in the film, but the questions are there from the outset: A highly recruited swimmer when he left high school, Fischer refused every prestigious scholarship offer and disappeared, only to surface at a Coast Guard training facility. Not lacking in confidence, Fischer nevertheless shrugs off questions about his past, preferring to focus on proving himself in this new world, and living up to the impossibly high standards set by Master Chief Ben Randall (Kevin Costner), the man tasked with turning the (vaguely diverse, appropriately motley) group of enlistees into elite rescue swimmers.

Considering his new three-year production deal over at Universal/Focus, Fernando Meirelles still hasn't been linked to any projects associated with that studio. His next film, Blindness, which will be adapted by Don McKellar from the novel by José Saramago, is so far not set up with any distributor (as far as I can tell), and now the sequel to his breakout hit City of God (co-directed by Kátia Lund), which he did not direct but produced, has just been picked up by Miramax. This latter deal is not that surprising since Miramax also distributed the original, but it would not have been impossible to get the follow-up going at Focus.

The sequel, titled City of Men, which is also the name of the television series spun-off from the first film, was directed by Paulo Morelli and is currently in post-production. From the synopsis that I've seen, it basically looks like either a continuation or remake of the show, as it follows its main characters, Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha) and Acerola (Douglas Silva), both of whom were also the focus of Meirelles' and Lund's short film Golden Gate (Palace II).

So for those doing the math, it seems that City of Men is actually based on a show that was based on a feature film that was based on a short film. Except, maybe we should actually eliminate the feature film part of that equation. Since Cunha and Silva (and other actors from the show) didn't play the same characters in City of God, that film has nothing to do with the rest of these things, and is possibly only related for marketing purposes.

So here I am, down in beautiful (yet horribly humid) Austin, Texas, enjoying my "vacation festival" after the arduous "work festival" that was Toronto '06. I'm flipping through the pages of the festival guide, wondering what I'm going to see on Saturday afternoon when someone informs me that there will be a "super secret" screening later in the day. I rattle off the possibilities in my brain. Since Fantastic Fest is a genre festival, I immediately assume that the "secret" screening will be The Grudge 2 or Saw 3. The FF website indicates that the screening will run 130 minutes, so my next guess is Zack Snyder's 300 -- which would have been awesome. But then while I was outside grabbing a smoke, I hear the gossip:

The "super secret" screening will be Mel Gibson's Apocalypto -- and the director would be on hand to hold a Q&A session when the movie ends. Hey, cool. Aside from a promo clip I saw about four months ago, I knew next to nothing about Apocalypto except that: A) It takes place in 1502, B) the dialogue would be in ancient Maya, and C) it was a pretty violent flick. Needless to say, I was intrigued. So I got in line ... with about 400 other curious movie nuts.

I wouldn't feel comfortable penning a full-bore review of Apocalypto, as the cut we saw was a workprint: It had "temp track" music, unfinished sound effects, incomplete special effects, and a few sequences that were bound for the cutting room floor. But the meat of the movie was still there, so I suppose it's cool to share a few early reactions...

It has now been one week since Apple started selling movies through its iTunes service, and, with only one studio participating (Disney, which includes Miramax, Pixar and Touchstone), the company has already sold 125,000 downloads, earning $1 million. While this may not be much in comparison to a single movie's weekly DVD earnings, it's a pretty good debut for a product that has far fewer benefits. However, the initial numbers could be a sign of people's curiosity, with the possibility that disappointment with the service could decrease returns as time goes by. I doubt that any more studios will announce a jump-on as soon as this week, but if the movies sell another million by this time next Tuesday, the rest of Hollywood should be quick to get in on the profits.

Disney is expecting their total earnings to reach $50 million within one year.

A few years back I wanted to do some coverage of the L.A. Screamfest, but was unable to fly out west to attend the outpouring of genre goodness ... so one of the (very cool) festival reps sent me a handful of screener discs! It worked out great: the festival got a little extra coverage, and I got to see some pretty cool horror-type flicks. The best of the batch was easily Den Osynlige (aka The Invisible), a Swedish thriller about a young man who gets killed, but comes back as a ghost (the very next morning) and tries to determine who murdered him.

As with many fine genre films from around the world, Den Osynlige was quickly commissioned for an American remake. David S. Goyer (Blade: Trinity) is the man behind the camera this time out. The new version was written by Christine Roum and Mick Davis, the guy who wrote the original flick. (And to be fair, both movies are actually based on a novel by Mats Wahl, so I'll let you argue as to what a "remake" truly is.)

The new Invisible comes baring a lot of newcomer-type faces, although I did notice a few names like Marcia Gay Harden, Callum Keith Rennie and Chris Marquette in the cast list. Disney's Touchstone is planning to unveil The Invisible on January 26th. Oh, and here's that trailer I promised you.

Not only do movie pirates ruin things for the studios and the cinemas, but now they're hurting the innocent citizens with no connection to the business, too. Thanks to such heavy piracy in all of Asia, there will be no iTunes movie store for billions of people living in that part of the world. Apple, who just announced their new movie downloads Tuesday, has said their new services are not available in Asia, and there's a good chance it will not be available anytime soon, if ever. Currently the music-only iTunes software has versions in Japan and Australia, but it isn't clear whether they will be given access to the new movies.

It's important to remember that before Apple introduced iTunes to the U.S., we had a huge problem with illegal music downloading, which, subsequently, was curbed significantly after its arrival. So, for Apple (or could it be the MPAA?) to deny nations with rampant piracy a service that may actually be beneficial to them and their anti-piracy campaigns is pretty stupid.

Normally the big studios would let the MPAA deal with international pirates, and the MPAA would work with individual governments on the arrests and punishments of these criminals. But in a rare case, the five majors are investing in an actual trial in order to sue a Chinese bootlegger. The difference this time is that the pirate in question is not an individual or part of an illegal group, but a company. The Beijing Shiji Haihong Commerce and Trade Company, to be exact.

The studios are seeking 2.5 million yuan ($312,000) in damages for the company's copying and distributing of titles including The 40-Year Old Virgin and The War of the Worlds to their subsidiary video stores. The amount may seem pretty small considering the trouble that Hollywood will encounter while following through with the suit, but I guess, to the studios, money is money, and the message that it sends to other Asian companies should be significant, too.

Say what you want about Mel Gibson and his recent run in with the law, the Jews and the bottle, but the dude definitely knows how to paint a pretty picture up on the big screen. Visually, the guy is a genius -- I mean, Braveheart will forever rank high up on my "fun flicks to watch when you feel like kicking the crap out of someone, but can't" list. Same goes for The Passion of the Christ, though, being Jewish, I wouldn't consider myself a member of the Jesus fan club, however Gibson certainly knows how to garner a reaction from an audience through the power of the moving image.

Case in point: The first theatrical trailer for Gibson's upcoming Apocalypto is now available online and, let me tell you -- the thing looks pretty fricking sweet. Set during the downfall of the Mayan Empire, the story revolves around one man's decision to flee his home after he's chosen to become a human sacrifice. While the pic probably won't do a ton of business for Disney (partly due to the whole drunk-driving episode, and also because the film's characters speak in an ancient Mayan dialect), I've decided to check it out based solely on the beautiful, yet awe-inspiring images included in this trailer. Apocalypto's release date was recently moved to December 8 (a day Disney insists will stick), and so we'll soon find out what the world really thinks of Mel. Will you shell out ten bucks for this?