A Wednesday clip show, with "Harry Potter," "Torchwood" and more

OK, a lot of clips to get through today and not a lot of time to do it, so let's just jump right into it, and where better to start (at least in my book) then with the first trailer I've seen for "Gainsbourg"?

Based on the life of the legendary French pop singer Serge Gainsbourg, whose love life was at least as colorful as his musical one, it's directed by Joann Sfar, who also adapted the screenplay from her own graphic novel about the singer. Any movie about his rather wild life would both have to make Gainsbourg out to be more than a bit of a gangster, and also have some flights of fancy to fit his persona, and it looks like this will have both. Enjoy the trailer, and keep an eye out for this in at least some American markets on Aug. 31.



Next up, though I really couldn't stand John Sayles' last movie, "Honeydripper," that was the first one of his I didn't enjoy pretty much unconditionally, so I'm certainly looking forward to whatever he comes up with next. Well, it's apparently something called "Amigo," which as you'll see below, gets him back to rightly serious material to work with, the U.S. occupation of the Philippines in 1900. The flick starring Garret Dillahunt, D.J. Qualls and Chris Cooper, among many others, opens in at least limited release on Aug. 20. Enjoy the first trailer I've come across.



I was very late coming to the "Torchwood" game, but thanks to the head's up from my fellow cubicle slave Renee Corwine, I'm now finally catching on and up. I'm only on episode three of the second season right now from Netflix streaming, and at the rate of one episode per night, there's no way I'll be able to catch up in time for the season 4 premiere on Starz on July 8. If, as I believe, however, Starz (which I don't get) puts its new stuff up on Netflix almost immediately, I soon will be all caught up, and you should too.

If you've never seen the "Doctor Who" spinoff, it's a nifty little show that sort of crosses "X-Files" with a good police procedural. And as you'll see from the season 4 preview below, only Captain Jack and Gwen are left from the original cast as they embark on the new season, "Miracle Day." Enjoy.



I got a bucket of swag at work to try and lure me to see "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" in Imax 3D, but I don't think I'm going to take the bait. While I'm glad we finally have the Imax technology here in Macon, I wish a) it weren't coupled with 3D (and I don't know if it always has to be, which would be rather limiting), and b) there were a better movie to check it out with. Well, I just might take the chance with the second half of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," which will finally bring the young wizard's saga to a close on July 15. If, like me, you don't quite remember exactly where part I left things, you'll enjoy this handy assist courtesy of Comingsoon.net, which offers a quick refresher course. Enjoy, and then stick around finally for a free movie, and one I dearly love.



And what better way to close a Wednesday morning post than with a free movie, and with one of my favorites of recent years, too? I first saw "Moon" at the Atlanta Film Festival a few years back, and was instantly hooked. Sam Rockwell was clearly robbed at Oscar time for his work in this flick about a man who gets stranded at his work outpost on the moon. Enjoy the movie, and have a perfectly endurable Wednesday. Peace out.

Is 3-D finally dying? The signs increasingly say yes

Change never comes easy.

And, I suppose, there are certainly more pressing issues today than the soul-sapping power of 3-D in movies, but if you're a fan of them (like me, of course), it's at least a real problem, especially during the height of the movie summer.

For movie fans, though, this summer's developments may actually be key in bringing about the insidious gimmick's demise, and for that Hollywood would have no one to blame but itself.

Quick, think, when was the last time that the addition of 3-D to a movie really dazzled, much less even mattered? For me, you have to go all the way back to Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland," and there have been a whole lot of 3-D movies released since then (for which many I refused to put on those silly glasses on top of the ones I need simply to see what's in front of me.)

And beyond the sheer glut of 3-D movies (16 of them between May and September of this year, with two big, upcoming titles being "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" and "Transformers: Dark of the Moon"), there's the fact that (for me at least) it just adds nothing to the movie-watching experience, instead just draining the screen of color and often energy, too.

The problem is particularly galling with animated movies, which are now almost universally released in 3-D. In this, if I can exaggerate what I really think is only slightly, movie studios reveal themselves to be little more than pusher men, getting kids hooked on this shiny trick before they can figure out just how little they really get out of it. Luckily, however, unlike drug addicts who are truly too far gone, moviegoers do still have a choice, and the signs, according to numbers from the New York Times (and pointed out to me by always-welcome reader Jeremy Jirik), are finally starting to point to us just saying no to unnecessary 3-D.

One 3-D flop this summer was "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," which made just 47 percent of its domestic box office take from 3-D ticket sales in week one (as a rule, successful 3-D blockbusters are expected to make about 60 percent of their first-week take from 3-D sales). Add to that last week's debut of "Kung Fu Panda 2," which made only 43 percent of its long Memorial Day weekend, $53 million take from 3-D ticket sales, and got absolutely trounced by "The Hangover: Part II," which pulled in about $118 million from Thursday-Monday.

But nothing this well entrenched will die easily, and the 3-D pushers have to take heart in its overseas performance, where fans flocked to the latest "Pirates" movie in 3-D in huge numbers. Is it, to be blunt, because they're simply dumber than we are? Of course not. It's just because 3-D hasn't been around as long or been as prevalent in some parts of the world as it has here, so there's still the thrill of the new. Eventually (I hope), everyone will see this emperor's clothing of movie gimmicks for exactly what it is.

Do I want movies to die? Certainly not. I just want them to stop leaning on this crutch which has by now much more than worn out its welcome. But what can we do aid in its demise? Well, when they're good, go see genuine, old-fashioned 2-D movies, be they big (like this week's "X-Men: First Class") or small (if you're here in Macon, check out the simply sublime "Of Gods and Men" with the Macon Film Guild on June 12.)

And in the meantime, just keep hope alive that 3-D will soon be something we can look back on with disgust. Peace out.