Love him or hate him, director James Cameron has never been one to play it safe. But Cameron just announced that he is not open to developing any projects, original or otherwise, in the near future. Instead he will focus entirely on directing sequels to his groundbreaking 3D epic Avatar. This is cause for concern. In the past, some directors opted to coast off huge successes and ended up irrevocably damaging their reputations. The most notable of these being George Lucas with his Star Wars franchise. Will James Cameron follow in his path?

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Seems to be a steady “eye” theme going on at this years Fantastic Fest. Odd and creepy — it works! Just released were seven new posters for Let Me In, Red, White and Blue, Nevermore… An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe, Rubber, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, the Roger Corman Lifetime Achievement Award and the festival as a whole were just released before opening night!

Check out the posters and information from all six films/events below…

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The Oscar goes to actress Lauren Bacall, producer-director Roger Corman and cinematographer Gordon Willis. That’s right, it’s only September, but three people in the world of movie-making have been honored with the first Oscars of the season. According to the Associated Press, the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Thursday that all three individuals will receive honorary Oscar statuettes at the Academy’s inaugural Governors Awards gala event on November 14th in Hollywood.

Bacall, best known for her appearance in classics like The Big Sleep and Key Largo, made her debut back in 1944 with her former husband Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not. Corman has directed over 50 films and produced more than 300, during his long career. He is a well known independent talent, who played an integral role in jump starting the careers of such legendary directors as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and James Cameron. Gordon Willis has been previously nominated for his camera work on both Zelig and The Godfather, Part III.

This goes to show you that hard work does pay off, and all three legendary artists are more than deserving of their awards.

What do you think of this year’s recipients of the honorary Oscar?

Depending on how militant one is about their definition of “indie,” be it a budgetary classification or a faux-genre product of silent studio partners, Rachel Getting Married will either come across as scathingly honest or morbidly engineered. It’s an unsympathetic drama shot on video, chronicling a massive wedding weekend that’s just short enough on magic and emotional stability to feel true to life.

Its banquet tables are also packed to the walls with showbiz legends (Roger Corman lurks in certain scenes as a camera-wielding guest and Fab Five Freddy makes a toast), brought together by a veteran Hollywood player (director Jonathan Demme), with the whole act resting on a sordidly unflattering performance by a tabloid camera magnet (Anne Hathaway – read interview here).

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The Academy (Linwood Dunn Theatre):

• Fri 3 at 7.30 : Yojimbo (1961)
• Sat 4 at 7.30: Dersu Uzala (1975)

The Academy’s three-month tribute to Kurosawa Akira has of course been tremendous, but has hardly delved deep into his filmography (confining itself to those films the academy nominated in some category). Yojimbo was up for best black and white costume design, but the film has yet greater attractions. Kurosawa’s story of a wandering samurai arriving in town and playing the warring factions off against one another was lifted by Leone for A Fistful of Dollars but was itself ripped off Dashell Hammet’s The Glass Key. The set-up is ripe for Kurosawa’s dispassionate dissection of self-serving human behaviour in the almost abstracted village setting, but is served with plenty of humour, black and otherwise. Mifune Toshiro is magnetic as the yojimbo (somewhere between body-guard and hired gun) running lazy rings around the local gangs with a disgruntled shrug of the shoulders, a lightening sword and an existential equanimity.

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