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Downey and director Guy Ritchie inject some passion into cold-blooded rationalist Holmes with their Victorian-era crime tale inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's detective stories, featuring Jude Law as sidekick Watson.
Holmes "is a weirdo by any standards," Downey said. "He has dedicated the entirety of his adult life to this one purpose, which is being a consulting detective and knowing things that other people don't take the time to make it their business to know.
"That said, there's something kind of bohemian about him. He also has made no effort to cultivate friendships with anybody, because that would be to the exclusion of his prime mover. So he's trippy."
James Cameron's "Avatar" leads a rush of films featuring humans in phony forms, including Bruce Willis' "Surrogates," a murder thriller in a world where people live vicariously through robot replicas, and Gerard Butler's "Gamer," where mind-control allows puppetmaster players to toy with real people in lethal games.
"Avatar" stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Cameron's "Aliens" hero Sigourney Weaver in a 3-D saga in which human explorers embody clones of an alien race to explore their planet's fantastic environment. Cameron's ocean explorations for the documentary "Aliens of the Deep" helped spark his imagination for the life forms of "Avatar."
"I've seen some pretty amazing things at the bottom of the ocean. I've seen in some cases things that have never been seen or described by science before. So I know there are wonders out there and I know that nature is infinitely more inventive not only than we imagined, but than we can imagine," Cameron said.
Ricky Gervais directs, co-writes and stars as the world's first fibber in "The Invention of Lying," featuring Jennifer Garner and Tina Fey in a comedy about an alternate reality where everyone tells the truth — until one man discovers the benefits of dishonesty.
Matt Damon and Steven Soderbergh, collaborators on the "Ocean's Eleven" romps, reunite for the whistleblower tale "The Informant!", based on Kurt Eichenwald's book about Archers Daniel Midland executive Mark Whitacre, who turned FBI mole in a price-fixing scheme at the agriculture-processing company.
The film plays as dark comedy, Soderbergh centering on the absurdity of Whitacre's deceitful, vainglorious cooperation with his FBI handlers.
"Steven really kind of set on this idea of him being the most unreliable narrator. There's information in the book that's just kind of doled out slowly, where you go, 'Wait a minute, something's not quite right,'" Damon said. "It's sort of the liar who keeps saying, 'OK, now I'm telling you everything.'"
"Greed is good," robber baron Gordon Gecko declared in "Wall Street." As the world reels over thegreat recession resulting from that philosophy, Hollywood is selling tickets for some moralizing over the price of greed, led by Jim Carrey in a new incarnation of Charles Dickens' great skinflint, Ebenezer Scrooge.
Crafted through the same motion-capture techniques and computer animation used on "The Polar Express" and "Beowulf," Robert Zemeckis' "A Christmas Carol" features Carrey as Scrooge and the three holiday ghosts who show him the error of his miserly ways.
Documentary firebrand Michael Moore weighs in with "Capitalism: A Love Story," expanding the humor-and-heartbreak approach of his General Motors tale "Roger&Me" for an assault on the practices of corporations and financial speculators.
Cameron Diaz and James Marsden are forced into some serious money moralizing in "The Box," about a couple given a contraption that will deliver $1 million with the press of a button — at the cost of a stranger's life.
Would people give in to the temptation?
"The answer has to be, I think, no. Because you might really regret it one day," Diaz said. "I would hope that I would find another way to solve my problems other than having to kill somebody."
Hollywood's prestige season includes entries from Academy Award winners Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank as real-life role models.
Swank stars as Amelia Earhart in director Mira Nair's "Amelia," co-starring Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor in the life story of the aviation pioneer who vanished on her around-the-world flight in 1937.
"Invictus" reunites Freeman with "Million Dollar Baby" and "Unforgiven" director Clint Eastwood for the story of Nelson Mandela's partnership with a rugby star (Matt Damon) who helped unify their country as South Africa's team makes an underdog dash through the 1995 World Cup.
Joel and Ethan Coen return to their Minnesota roots with "A Serious Man," about a physics professor in the late 1960s abandoned by his wife as he struggles with a layabout brother, two problem children and blackmail and career sabotage on campus.
Jim Sheridan's "Brothers" stars Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal in a drama about a U.S. Marine captain who returns from the dead to find that his black-sheep brother has stepped in as man of the house for his wife and kids.
Peter Jackson adapts Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones," featuring Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg and Susan Sarandon in the saga of a murdered girl (Saoirse Ronan) watching over her grieving family — as well as her killer — from beyond the grave.
"I read the book and I cried," Jackson said. "If you've lost somebody and somebody close to you has passed away, that book is a terrific tonic, because it affirms the afterlife and it gives you hope. And it gives you an understanding that so long as you remember people and so long as you honor their memory, they're never going to go away."
Singing rodents return in "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel," with Alvin, Simon and Theodore in a battle-of-the-bands showdown with three female chipmunks.
Food falls from the sky in an animated adaptation of the children's book "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," the story of a town where plenty eventually becomes too much.
Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are back as Woody and Buzz in 3-D versions of "Toy Story," the first computer-animated feature film, and "Toy Story 2," which play as a double-feature in advance of next year's "Toy Story 3."
Disney bucks the computer-animation trend with a throwback to its hand-drawn cartoon roots on "The Princess and the Frog," updating the fairy tale about a girl and her slimy prince.
The animatedadventure "Planet 51" features the voices of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Jessica Biel in the tale of an astronaut who discovers a world of tiny green aliens living the "Ozzie and Harriet" life of 1950s America.
George Clooney puts his silver tongue to use in a screen version of Roald Dahl's storybook "Fantastic Mr. Fox," about a chicken thief whose wily ways land him and his animal pals in a battle against nasty farmers.
With a voice cast including James Gandolfini, Forest Whitaker and Catherine O'Hara, "Where the Wild Things Are" casts an adventurous boy onto an island where he rules over an assortment of cuddly but unpredictable beasts.
Rather than relying on digital effects to bring Maurice Sendak's exotic world to life, director Spike Jonze stuffed performers into bulky suits on real sets to adapt the picture book.
"When he goes to this place, it's a real place," Jonze said. "Its creatures, you can walk up and touch them. They can bump into him and shove him, hug him and pet him. There's a real forest, real beaches, real sand and real dirt and real wind. Doing it that way, I thought it would feel the most visceral and the most dangerous."
Michael Jackson's 50-night concert stand in London never came to pass. But rehearsal footage for his comeback shows offer what's sure to be one of the biggest music documentaries ever as "Michael Jackson: This Is It" hits theaters for a limited two-week run.
"Chicago" director Rob Marshall presents his next movie musical with "Nine," featuring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Kate Hudson, Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench and Sophia Loren in an adaptation of Federico Fellini's "8 1/2."
A new gang of young wannabes sharpen their talents in "Fame," an update of the 1980s film set at a high school for the performing arts, with a faculty cast thatincludes Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullally and Debbie Allen, who co-starred in the original.
Just when you thought hard times were bottoming out, the apocalypse hits in "The Road," adapted from Cormac McCarthy's novel about a man (Viggo Mortensen) trying to fend for his young son across a bleak America struck by catastrophe.
John Cusack heads the cast of "2012" as survivors of worldwide cataclysms struggle on in the action tale from Roland Emmerich ("The Day After Tomorrow").
Hollywood spreads the love with a rush of romantic comedies, including "Did You Hear About the Morgans?", with Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant as a couple whose failing marriage may get a second chance after they're sent into witness protection; "All About Steve," starring Sandra Bullock stalking the man she thinks is her true love; "Couple's Retreat," featuring Vince Vaughn, Kristin Davis, Jon Favreau and Kristen Bell working out relationship kinks on a therapy vacation; and "It's Complicated," about a woman (Meryl Streep) pursued by two men (Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin).
George Clooney takes to the skies in "Juno" director Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air," playing a corporate-downsizing specialist whose nomadic life is put in jeopardy just as he nears an epic milestone in his frequent-flyer mileage account.
"Old Dogs" features Robin Williams as a single guy forced to care for young twins he never knew he had, enlisting the help of his womanizing business partner (John Travolta) to raise them.
Travolta's character "starts using them as bait for women, as cougar bait," Williams said. "He's like, 'Chicks dig kids,' and he's using them to kind of gather around older, sexier women."
PLAY IT NOW: Dish Of Salt: What Dirt Does Dustin Milligan Have On Kristen Stewart?
Opening in theaters on June 10th is the latest mysterious film from Star Trek director, and Cloverfield producer J.J. Abrams called Super 8. The movie stars Kyle Chandler (TV's Friday Night Lights), Ron Eldard (Black Hawk Down), and Noah Emmerich (Fair Game), as well as child actors Elle Fanning (Babel), Joel Courtney, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee, and Zach Mills (Changeling). IAR's Managing Editor Jami Philbrick recently had a chance to sit down exclusively with the film's child-star Joel Courtney, as well as director J.J. Abrams to discuss the film, the director's vision for the movie, Abrams' fear of having too many similarities to Cloverfield, and what it was like for him to collaborate with producer Steven Spielberg.
To watch our exclusive interview with Joel Courtney and J.J. Abrams about Super 8, please click on the video player above.
In 1979 in the fictional town of Lillian, Ohio, a group of teenagers are making a movie with a Super 8 mm film camera when they witness a train crash. They suspect it was not an accident. There are disappearances and unexplained events around town, and the local deputy investigates the cause of the events leading to the discovery of something inhuman which had escaped from the wreckage of the train.
Super 8 opens in theaters on June 10th.
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BEAUTIFUL HOME AT BAY HILL SUBDIVISION. GREAT BACKYARD WITH POOL, SPORT COURT, FIRE PIT & GAZEBO.
Need some ideas for pumpkin carving this Halloween?
Nonprofit worker Noel Dickover is a master pumpkin carver that has been featured by numerous media organizations.
He began carving in 1997 and since has learned how to make increasingly elaborate carvings of everything from a Death Star to scenes from Game of Thrones.
His pumpkins are likely the most intricate jack-o'-lanterns you will see this Halloween season.
When Counterpart International project director Noel Dickover isn't working on initiatives to get people more involved in social change, he carves pumpkins.
He's become well known as a master pumpkin carver and has been featured on NPR, Wired, and a number of local news organizations.
In years past, he's created a to-scale replica of R2-D2 and the Death Star, which was named Wired's Geekiest Pumpkin in 2007.
It all began when his brother found a pumpkin carving guide in 1997. Intrigued, Dickover decided to make his own patterns and begin carving. His kids went crazy for it, especially when he carved a pumpkin with Star Wars' Darth Maul on it. Since then, it's become a family tradition and, over time, his carvings have become more elaborate.
On his website Fantasy Pumpkins, Dickover and his entire family post incredible and detailed carvings of everything from superheroes to horror monsters. Dickover may be the ringleader of Fantasy Pumpkins (and the only one doing pumpkins weighing more than 150 lbs), but his family members sure can hold their own when it comes to carving.
Every year, a few thousand people come to see the pumpkin carvings in front of Dickover's house. He does a Death Star pumpkin every year.
Dickover and his family often like to do current pop culture carvings like this one of Daenerys Targaryen from "Game of Thrones."
To make a carving, Dickover usually starts by making a pattern on Photoshop. To do that, he takes an image and converts it to three colors.
The image must be three colors because there are only three ways to carve —cutting all the way through, taking the pumpkin skin off, and leaving the skin on.
Sometimes the process of converting an image to a pattern that Dickover can take more than ten hours.
Once he has the pattern, he transfers it to the face of the pumpkin and begins carving.
Dickover adds texture to his carving by using a variety of wood carving tools, like chisels, gouges, v-tools.
Larger, more elaborate carvings like this "Star Wars" battle can take between 15 and 30 hours to carve.
This zombie carving took Dickover 12 hours because of the difficulty in making the pattern in the background and carving the three separate zombies.
For this carving, Dickover didn't use a pattern. Instead he traced only the outside of the Cerberus dog and free-handed the details.
Dickover free-handed this orc jack-o-lantern, which he says was more of a sculpture than a carving.
Dickover also free-handed this carving of a dragon and castle, using the natural grooves in the pumpkin as guides.
The Dickovers like to do a collection of horror-themed jack-o-lanterns every year. It is Halloween after all.
Dickover's son Justin carved this pumpkin of Freddy Kruger. Justin has been carving since he was seven years old.
Justin also carved this zombie pumpkin. Justin and his sister Sarah usually combine to carve around 30 pumpkins.
Dickover and his family often carve as many as 50 pumpkins a year.
If you have a dog, don’d do this! Just. Don’t.
Recently, photos have been floating around of dogs that have been groomed into geometric-headed creatures. The original photos date from, at least, last December.
The look is supposed to be cute. Some pics show dogs with the fur on their heads trimmed into circles. Others have their fur trimmed into squares. Like these pooches.
As noted on website Hachima, people online in Japan (and elsewhere) were quick to point out the obvious: These critters look like the dogs in Minecraft. Most likely, it’s unintentional, but man, it’s uncanny.
Here are dogs in Minecraft.
Again, a square-groomed dog. See what I mean?
And via Twitter user RavenTofu, we’re now full circle.
If you have a dog, please don’t turn him or her into a Minecraft character.
Open and honest conversation is at the heart of performance accountability.
“Accountability” is among the top two or three concerns of senior executives.
Accountability has various definitions, but the word is usually used to denote personal responsibility for getting desired results. It's an admirable idea, and all good managers and leaders want their people to be "accountable."
Of course accountability doesn't apply only to rank and file employees. Managers and leaders should be accountable for holding others accountable. After all, isn't getting good results with and through other people the very reason we have managers and leaders?
I once visited a client organization that employed about 1,300 people. By some standards, an employee population of only 1,300 isn’t a big company. But in this particular highly specialized, highly technical industry, 1,300 is about average.
He went on to describe his organization as similar to Garrison Keeler’s mythical Lake Wobegone community where all the men are handsome, all the women are beautiful, and all the children are above average.
My friend’s assessment of his organization was right on target. And it underscored the common need (1) to define what accountability really means and then (2) to engage people in ways that win their hearts, minds and commitment.
The higher you are on the ladder, the more accountable (and productive) you are.
Some of my clients address the matter with something called the Ladder of Accountability.
At the lowest rung on the ladder, people are simply “Unaware” or “Unconscious.” They don’t even know there’s a situation that needs attention.
The next rung on the ladder is the “Blame Others” level. Here’s where we see a lot of finger pointing. When something goes wrong, or fails to go right, people at this level are quick to censure their colleagues. This is the behavior we frequently saw on “The Apprentice,” Donald Trump’s television show in which young professionals fought it out for a big job opportunity. Rather than fixing problems, most of the contestants invested their energy in fixing blame.
Just above the “Blame Others” rung on the Ladder of Accountability are the “Personal Excuses” and “I Can’t” levels. The behavior we see here is sort of an adult version of “the dog ate my homework” syndrome. People talk themselves into believing, for a wide range of imaginative reasons, that they are simply unable to accomplish the task at hand. It’s never their fault, of course, because (they genuinely believe) they are controlled by circumstances.
Next we have the “Wait and Hope” level. Although waiting and hoping are better than blaming and making excuses, this is still a mindset that places the obligation for results on someone else. In fact, all the behaviors on these lower rungs on the Ladder of Accountability are victim behaviors. People who languish at these levels of performance (or non-performance) seem to believe that things happen to them.
At the “Acknowledge Reality” level, people at least have their heads out of the sand. They see the situation for what it is, sort the facts from the fiction, and accept the certainty that something needs to be changed.
An even higher rung on the ladder is the “Embrace It!” level. People operating at this level admit their own role in the problem, then accept ownership of the situation. People who psychologically “own” a problem are much more likely to solve it than people who merely acknowledge that a problem exists. The symptoms of psychological ownership are intense interest, passion, determination, and the persistent investment of energy. Psychological ownership reminds us of the old joke about ham and eggs. The chicken is merely involved, the pig is truly committed.
Just above the “Embrace It!” level is the “Find a Solution!” rung on the Ladder of Accountability. Solutions are spawned by commitment to results.
These “Make It Happen!” people sometimes make the hand-wringers uncomfortable. They not only tend to think outside the box, they often refuse to accept the notion that “the box” even exists. They don’t take no for an answer. They gain special satisfaction in solving problems that others regard as impossible or just too difficult. They’re worth their weight in gold because they know that things happen because of them, not to them.
This is not to suggest that “Make It Happen!” people are renegades or organizational vigilantes. They not only feel accountable for results, they feel accountability to their colleagues. Good “Make It Happen!” people are very big on mutual respect and mutual purpose.
Of course with mutual respect and mutual purpose comes a willingness to account for one’s own performance. This includes accepting responsibility for personal performance shortfalls as well as accepting credit for personal performance triumphs.