I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–Adam Shankman is a busy, busy man. Already a judge for So You Think You Can Dance, Shankman just signed on to direct the upcoming film adaptation of the Broadway smash Rock of Ages.

Now, the Hollywood jack-of-all-trades (Shankman is a choreographer, producer, and director) has had one more project dropped in his lap.

Shankman has been chosen, along with former chairman and CEO of Twentieth Century Fox, Bill Mechanic, by The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ board of directors to produce this spring’s Oscars telecast.

Although not the Academy’s first choice for the awards show’s production (the board went first to last year’s producers, Laurence Mark and Bill Condon), Shankman and Mechanic are expected to give Hollywood and home audiences a worthwhile show.

Between Mechanic’s close relationships with many Hollywood heavyweights, and Shankman’s background as choreographer and director, we can likely look forward to a very well put together, entertaining Oscars packed with A-list presenters.

Despite having a film already lined up, Shankman won’t have to worry about scheduling conflicts. The 82nd Academy Awards air on March 7th, and production on Rock of Love isn’t set to start until next summer.

Shankman’s name may have only started warranting household recognition in the last couple of years, but if he keeps bringing in projects like he has been, I think we’re going to see him take Hollywood by storm.

“Cloverfield”, the high-profile monster movie produced by Master of Mystery J.J. Abrahms, has been on DVD for a few months now.  And if you were one of the many who caught the film in theaters back at the beginning of the year, then more likely it’s already in your DVD library.  However, for those of you who haven’t caught it on home video yet, then here’s the rundown on how the film itself looks on the small screen and how good the extras are.

The film takes place over the course of one terrifying night, when Manhattan is abruptly attacked by an enormous creature that looks like a cross between a praying mantis and a spider.  We follow a group of twenty-somethings who happened to be throwing a “Going Away” party for their best friend Rob as they embark upon a rescue mission to save Rob’s true love, Beth.  Of course, everybody knows that the movie was filmed in a unique way, namely from the perspective of the viewfinder of an extremely jiggly video camera, one being manned by Hud.  It’s obvious that this idea was inspired by “The Blair Witch Project”, which was another revolutionary thriller during its time because it too employed the use of of the shaky cam.

There were many complaints from people who saw “Cloverfield” during its theatrical run about how the film’s constant camera movements caused uneasiness where their stomachs were concerned, but I personally didn’t have that problem, so I can’t really say if watching the movie on a regular T.V. screen makes a difference where that issue is concerned.  “Cloverfield” is presented in its original theatrical exhibition of the 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio, and the transfer is pretty well-handled.  However, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a guy who pays attention to the sharpness of a movie’s digital transfer, so suffice it to say that for the most part the picture looks good.

The extras on the disc include a feature commentary by director Matt Reeves, deleted scenes and alternate endings, multiple “making of” featurettes, and looks into how the film’s visual effects were done.  The deleted scenes aren’t really that special; just extra fluff that easily leant itself to editing.  The two alternate endings aren’t any better, as they just include the same ending in terms of what happens to the characters, but here the very last scene before the credits is changed.  However, the making of features are particularly interesting, as they show exactly how the monster was conceived and constructed, in addition to how the movie itself was filmed.  Believe it or not, the filmmakers actually let the actor portraying Hud hold the camera as they filmed everything.  Also included is a link to a website called www.cloverfieldfiles.com, which contains some extra secrets about the film.

All in all, I’d say the “Cloverfield” DVD is definitely worth buying for those who liked the movie.  It’s certainly interesting to see how such a unique monster movie was pieced together, and the glimpse of all the behind-the-scenes magic makes you appreciate just how creative this chilling film really is.

Movie Rating: 3.5 stars

DVD Rating: 3 stars

So, if you are one of the many who enjoyed the comedy hit “Tropic Thunder”, then here’s some interesting news.  A documentary entitled “Rain of Madness”, which details the making of the movie-within-a-movie “Tropic Thunder” will be made available on iTunes for download.

Here’s the official press release:

“Rain of Madness,” starring Jay Baruchel, Jack Black, Steve Coogan, Robert Downey Jr., Bill Hader, Nick Nolte and Ben Stiller is a companion piece to the hit comedy “Tropic Thunder,” which debuted in theaters nationwide on August 13, and serves as a documentary of the making-of the feature film.  It was shot on location in Hawaii , at the same locations used in the feature film, and details the demise of the fictitious cast & crew of “Tropic Thunder”, as they struggle to finish shooting their film despite numerous shooting, budgeting and casting problems.

“We wanted to do a fake documentary about the making of the movie within the movie which is called “Tropic Thunder” — not the actual movie “Tropic Thunder”. The fake documentary focuses on the real movie’s fake director, and what happens to the fake cast before they go into the real jungle. It’s pretty straightforward”, says Ben Stiller, one of the stars of the documentary and the director/star/producer and co-writer of “Tropic Thunder.”

“Original material for web consumption is a growing area for us, and ‘Rain of Madness,’ dovetails perfectly with the theatrical release of ‘Tropic Thunder.’  They complement and reinforce one another, while staying true to the comedic sensibility that Ben and his team brought to ‘Tropic Thunder’.  We hope fans will appreciate this exclusive digital content and continue the experience at www.rainofmadness.com” says Amy Powell, Senior Vice President, Interactive Marketing, Paramount Pictures.

Let me clear the air by saying that I was unwillingly dragged to see “Mamma Mia!”, the latest Hollywood interpretation of a stage musical.

Clearly, I’m not the type of person the people behind the film adaptation of “Mamma Mia!” were trying to please.  People like me, who are generally against musicals can and should find a better way to spend their time at the movies and leave the people who are actually interested in this film to see it.  However, I truly feel bad for anybody dragged to this incessantly corny and nearly insufferable movie musical that is so bad, even the presence of Meryl Streep can’t save it.

So, if I normally resist big, lavish movie musicals such as this, am I really the right person to review “Mamma Mia!”?  Well, I’d say no, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.  I’m not reviewing this movie for the fans of the musical, because I know that they’ll be pleased with what they get; I’m reviewing it for everyone else.  Now, that’s not to say that I automatically give every single musical I see a negative review.  I really enjoyed 2005′s “The Producers” as well as “Chicago” from 2002, and last year’s “Sweeney Todd” was my pick for the second-best film of 2007.  What ultimately made me not like “Mamma Mia!”, I guess you could say, was the simple fact that the film seriously missed every single mark it was trying to hit.  This movie is meant to be a fun, breezy hour and forty-eight minutes at the theater, but I thought there wasn’t any fun to be had and due to its dragged-out songs, there was nothing breezy about it.  Whereas “Sweeney Todd” played like a smooth flowing and hauntingly beautiful opera, and rather successfully at that, “Mamma Mia!” instead plays out like karaoke night in Greece.

Well, let’s face it.  Musicals aren’t meant to have elaborate or intricately crafted plots and that’s the case here (which invites another comparison to “Sweeney Todd” that I’ll make later).  The plot for “Mamma Mia!” is paper-thin and it always comes to a complete halt whenever the next musical number starts up.  So, the light and bright Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) is about to get married to stud muffin Sky (Dominic Cooper), who incidentally has cloudy eyes.  Sophia’s one wish, though, is to have her father attend her wedding and give her away to her McDreamy.  The only problem is that her catamite of a mother named Donna (Meryl Streep) slept with three different men around the time Sophia would have been conceived.  That means that there are three possible candidates for the title of ‘Dear Old Dad’: Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), Sam (Pierce Brosnan) and Harry (Colin Firth).  And yet another problem is that Donna doesn’t want any of them at the wedding.  But as we all know, they’ll inevitably stay and that will cause serious romantic decisions to be made in one weekend that would normally take more than a weekend to decide to be made in, well, one weekend.

The plot’s only true purpose is to act as an engine to get us from one musical to the next, and that’s one of the biggest problems I’ve always had with musicals.  I can understand the necessity for an uncomplicated plot, but still, why can’t the writers at least try to bring more to the storyline so that the movie doesn’t feel like it can simply end at any given moment if one of the three men just came up and revealed that they are the father of Sophie?  Plus, I think it’s safe to say that you can pretty much guess who the father is by the way the camera lingers on each individual bachelor.  Now, I will admit that “Sweeney Todd”  does have a similarly thin plot, but the difference there is that the songs of that movie essentially were part of the plot.  It avoided that choppy style because the songs actually moved everything forward.  Here, the songs seem to be there just for the heck of it and while they may be mildly enjoyable, the choreography that accompanies them just makes everything feel like an overdone production of Riverdance.  And I’ll say this: if I had to sit through one more musical number where men and/or teenage boys tried to imitate professional dancers on a pier, I’d have been ready to throw my bag of popcorn at the screen.

For a musical meant to have purposefully bland performances made even more bland by professional actors such as Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan, then there’s something wrong in the acting department.  Meryl Streep has always been a terrific actress, but she’s given virtually nothing to work with here.  Oh, she can sing just fine and is definitely capable of holding her own whenever she bursts  into song, but it’s the in-between stuff that had me scratching my head in wonderment, trying to discern how Streep couldn’t be up to her own standards.  Also, her two shallow, giggly girlfriends portrayed by Julie Walters and Christine Baranski are the character equivalents of nails on a chalkboard.  And the serious overacting of Amanda Seyfried as Sophie doesn’t help much, either.

I think the best thing about “Mamma Mia!”, though, is the scenery of Greece.  Every outside scene carries vibrant sunshine, aqua-blue ocean and lime-green trees that at least give the movie points for eye candy.  And if I had to say something good about the cast, it would be that Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard do pretty decent work and are the most interesting to watch.

However, when a musical is iffy on the music and very noticeably at that in addition to being a challenge to sit through, then something went wrong somewhere.  I think it’s safe to say that the people who want to see “Mamma Mia!” will probably end up liking it, but me personally, I prefer my musicals to lay off the annoying choreography and make the songs pieces of the plot, rather than roadblocks to it.

Rating: ★½☆☆☆