When word came down that the movie version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last book in J.K. Rowling’s seven-book Harry Potter series, was going to be split into two parts, fans wondered: how? The book itself, conceived as one story, doesn’t really lend itself to any obvious “breaking” points — not if you want any kind of “conclusion” to the first movie.

More curious still was the news that the project was written and filmed as one long screenplay, and that the decision on where to split the film(s) would be made after-the-fact.

Well, it’s now after-the-fact.

Early “test” screenings, which producers use to gauge the audiences’ response to a film, have indicated that the producers have chosen a cut-off point — though, depending on the reaction to these screenings, that could still be changed prior to the movie’s November 19th release date.

In short, we don’t yet know where the story will be split. But here at TheTorchOnline.com, we have an opinion on where it definitely shouldn’t be split.

Here are the top ten worst possibilities:

10. After the opening title credit, but before any of the actors’ names are listed. This would make the first movie about ten seconds long.

9. Right after Harry Potter drops trou at the edge of the forest pool, but before he goes into the water to retrieve Godric Gryffindor’s Sword, leaving us with the image of Daniel Radcliffe’s bare ass for the next six months, until the second half of the movie is released.

8. In the middle of an establishing shot for the village of Godric’s Hollow.

7. At the start of a scene at the house of Bathilda Bagshot where Hermione stops to use the bathroom and ends up snooping in the medicine cabinet.

6. During “The Tale of the Three Brothers,” the tale told by Xenophilius Lovegood, right in the middle of a sentence.

5. An establishing close-up shot on the “King’s Cross Station” sign at the beginning of Harry’s first “dream” encounter with Dumbledore.

4. A pick-up shot of Bellatrix Lestrange casually scratching her ass in the middle of torturing Hermione.

3. Mid-pensieve, right before Harry learns that he has to die in order for Voldemort to die, at the moment when actor Daniel Radcliffe accidentally choked on some of the dry ice fumes.

2. The moment right after Voldemort tries to kill Harry, but before we learn he ends up killing himself. Never read the book? Here’s where you pay.

1. In the epilogue, as Harry, Ron, and Hermione are sending their kids off to Hogwarts, but before Harry can offer Albus any advice, and Ron stops to spit phlegm into a trash can.

George Lucas and M. Night Shyamalan are both filmmakers who know a thing or two about the rollercoaster that is public opinion of your work.

Both have lounged on the apex of the Hollywood pyramid, lauded from all sides for their magnificent works of astounding imagination and invention. Lucas was the King of Movies for two decades due to his original Star Wars trilogy, and Shyamalan created the most celebrated twist ending in recent memory with The Sixth Sense, a twist often emulated but whose impact has never been duplicated.

But then something happened to both of them. A few missteps, a few calculated moves gone awry — okay, maybe more than a few — and now both directors have found themselves on the receiving end of a slew of venomous critiques.

For Lucas, it was, of course, his second wave of Star Wars films that famously alienated a great deal of his fanbase. Gone were the charmingly clunky set pieces, the vehicles that looked perpeturally on the brink of breaking down, the wildly diverse puppets … all of them replaced by a slick, sleek CGI that rendered the entire Star Wars universe oddly flat and soulless.

The first set of films felt physical and real, like they occupied actual space. The new trilogy looked like a very expensive videogame, with about the same quality of acting. Even normally reliable actors like Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor felt stiff and uncomfortable in their roles.

And we haven’t even gotten to the screenplays yet.

In Shyamalan’s case, the nails on his coffin were, well … every movie except The Sixth Sense. It’s actually rather astounding that he’s been given so many chances to prove he’s more than a one-trick pony, and yet releases flop after flop.

Obviously this is a matter of opinion, but I believe Shyamalan is a phenomenal talent, but as a director, not a writer. For this article, I rewatched two of his relatively poorly-received films — Signs and The Village — as well as his sophomore effort, Unbreakable.

Shyamalan has a fantastic eye - his use of color, particularly the way he subtly juxtaposes bright colors in one scene with a drab, washed-out pallette in the next — is superb. Every frame looks teriffic, with even the most minute detail perfectly placed. He’s the kind of director who can create a sense of dread in a scene as innocuous as a family eating breakfast, not by using creepy music (a mediocre director’s go-to trick) but simply by the way he composes the shots.

But once again, it comes down to the screenplays: it’s the actual story where his movies fall flat. Shyamalan is an unapologetic fan of genre films, and I admire him for that. I respect his mission statement to take B-movie plots and craft them into A-movie cinematic journeys.

But the problem with B-movies is that their plots are often too simple to work as anything more, and that’s usually where Shayamalan stumbles.

And let’s not even talk about Lady in the Water.

So who’s earned more vitriol in their time?

Even though Shyamalan is currently getting dragged through the mud thanks to his latest film The Last Airbender, my vote would be Lucas, for the sheer reason his star burned brighter and longer than Shyamalan’s. Shyamalan’s been a household name for roughly a decade, but the first Star Wars film came out in 1977. Because Lucas was so beloved for so long, it stands to reason that the flip side of all that adulation — a turn to the dark side, if you will — would be a greater burden to bear.

But that’s what I think. What about you? Vote in our poll and add your comments below.

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Remember when we only used to get movie blockbusters during the late spring and summer, and the Christmas holiday?

Not anymore. Now they’re (more or less) a year-long affair.

Here’s this fall’s line-up of fantasy and fantasy-esque movies:

(Sept. 3) Machete: Since when does a fake trailer in a previous movie end up becoming an actual movie? When the director in question is Robert Rodriguez. The violent Machete, first “seen” in Grindhouse, centers on the character of Machete Cortez, first seen in Rodriquez’ family franchise Spy Kids, making the whole thing about as meta as movies come.

(Sept. 10) Resident Evil: Afterlife: The 3-D trend continues with this film, which picks up right where the third film ended, with Milla Jovovich back and determined to bring the Umbrella Corporation to its knees — and also coming face-to-face with her nemesis Albert Wesker for the first time.

(Sept. 17) Devil: Five people are stuck in an elevator, and they think one is — who else? — the Devil. But the scariest thing about this film may be that M. Night Shyamalan is back after the disaster that was The Last Airbender. But at least it’s only as producer (and story writer), not  director.

(Sept. 17) Alpha and Omega: Get it? “Alpha” and “omega” wolves? In this animated movie, two wolves from opposite ends of their pack’s social order must somehow work together to save themselves and their pack. Here’s betting they just might also fall in love.

(Sept. 24) Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole: A silly name and some odd-looking trailers has some folks snickering, but this animated movie has at least two things going for it: the entertaining young adult novels upon which it is based, and Watchman’s Zack Synder, who is directing. Because it sounds so silly, we think it’ll be great.

(Oct. 1) Let Me In: Cloverfield director Matt Reeves directs this remake of a Swedish movie about a vampire in the body of a 12-year-old girl. But because it’s yet another project about vampires, which we’re totally sick of, TheTorchOnline.com doesn’t care.

(Oct. 22) Paranormal Activity 2: How do you make a sequel to movie that was made for $10,000 (but ended up grossing almost $200 million) and whose claim to fame was its anti-Hollywood, unpredictable nature? You can go slick, like the producers of Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows did (to their chagrin), or you can go for the same seemingly “real” feel as the first movie, as they’re doing here. The trailer is certainly scary. Katie Featherston (”Katie”) returns.

(Oct. 22) Saw 3-D: Oh, please. Just stop, okay? On the “plus” side, Cary Elwes (from the first movie) returns.

(Nov. 5) Megamind: An animated superhero movie tells the story from the point-of-view of the villain, Megamind, voiced by Will Ferrell. But what happens when Megamind finally succeeds in killing his nemesis, Metro Man (Brad Pitt)? Does life have any meaning?

(Nov. 12) Skyline: Why are we watching the skyline? Because there’s a light that’s attracting Los Angelinos — and there just might be scary aliens on the other end! Unfortunately, the Brothers Strause (Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem) direct.

(Nov. 19) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1: It’s finally here, and we’ll be there with bells on. Director David Yates says he used lots of hand-held cameras, so expect things to be shaken up both figuratively and literally. But this is only part one, so also expect to be frustrated at the end.

Nov. 24 Tangled: Yet another animated movie (this one from Disney), based on the classic fairy tale about Rapunzel. Interestingly, the movie is CGI, but the film is made to look like oil on canvas. The Princess and the Frog didn’t quite bring Disney animation back from the dead — could this be the film to finally do it?

There are many things I love in life. I love my parents. I love my friends. I love playing online Tetris for free. I love a tall, ice-cold pint of beer. I love that the space bar will pause Youtube, Hulu, and Netflix Instant viewing.

I love all of these things and never have to defend that. But one thing I occasionally do find myself defending is my love of fantasy.

In a way, I get it. Fantasy is, on its surface, a genre packed to the gills with elves, dragons, and wizards — not exactly grown-up fair. How can a story with magic spells and dashing princes compare to the very realistic plays of Tennessee Williams, the written works of Jack Kerouac, or the films of Gus Van Sant? What makes fantasy so great?

In a word: metaphor.

For those not too proud to explore a work of fantasy and not too dense to look beneath its surface, the fantasy genre is a rich addition to the literary, film, and television canon because it explores very real human problems and desires by creating allegories through which to explore them.

Name any fantasy work that has withstood the test of time, and you will find in it a fable full of lessons of all too real applicability.

Michael Ende’s landmark novel, The Neverending Story, which was turned into a decent movie in the ’80s, is about a young boy named Bastian Balthazar Bux, who is neglected by his father and bullied by his schoolmates. He finds a book that transports him into another world called Fantasia, a world that is the embodiment of all the dreams and fantasies of the real world, which is being destroyed by an enemy called the Nothing.

The story is moving and absorbing not due to its host of magical creatures, but because it taps in all of us that longing to be a child again, to be able to lose yourself in worlds of your own creation, before the dark, unimaginative specter of adulthood falls upon us.

This theme of the wonder of a child’s imagination is explored many times over in fantasy, from The Wizard of Oz to The Chronicles of Narnia to Labyrinth.

While passionate, romantic love is a theme explored in virtually every genre imaginable, has there ever been a better representation of the honest, pure love between friends as there was in The Lord of the Rings? The entire sprawling epic that is Tolkien’s masterpiece essentially hangs on a single conceit: that we as an audience accept that Sam will do anything for Frodo.

This is a hard sell for some, because the notion of the power and beauty of platonic love is not a prevalent idea in our culture. Their relationship isn’t romantic so there’s no promise of sex. Frodo is hardly royalty so there’s no allure of vast treasures. Sam is committed to Frodo, with no reward expected, because that’s just the kind of person he is, and who wouldn’t want a friend like Sam? Who wouldn’t want to be a friend like Sam?

Toss in the fact that it’s two lowly hobbits, humble and small in stature, who succeed in saving the world, and you have a classic for the ages. It takes a story about hobbits to make us see the wonder in our fellow man.

This past year, the high fantasy television show Legend of the Seeker came into its own when episodes began appearing that were not necessarily part of the larger plot, but instead focused on characters by throwing them into fantastical situations that mirrored real life problems.

Kahlan, a young woman who was torn between her sense of duty and her love for her companion, Richard, was in one episode magically split into two people, and through this spell we came to learn much about her and how difficult her burden really was.

Another episode featured Cara, a woman who was abducted and brainwashed and turned into a killer. As she attempted to regain her humanity, she was turned into a Baneling (basically a sentient zombie), thus making her metaphorical fight to be a regular person quite literal.

The point is that we could have simply watched biopics of Margaret Thatcher or Patty Hearst, and I’m sure some would be content to do just that, but those projects are limited to the real and mundane. By steeping a story in allegory, you have a much larger canvas on which to paint.

I suppose the fantasy genre will always be overlooked by those who wish to appear highbrow. After all, magic and flights of fancy are a hard sell to the academic.

But for those of us in the know, fantasy has a way of engaging our suspension of disbelief by accessing the emotional truths in stories about hobbits and goblins, and reflecting the realities of our world through a supernatural lens. Like opera and musical theater, which engage our emotions through music rather than realism, fantasy will forever be a step removed from reality, but never so far that we can’t recognize it. And it’s because of that very distance from reality that the genre is able to remark on it so keenly.

Two Torches (Out of Five)

Look, I can tell when a movie is arriving with a lot of buzz, and the buzz around Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World is like that of a hive of killer bees. I also know that the preview audiences I saw the movie with — all fans of the graphic novels that the movie is based on — came totally pumped to see it, and their enthusiasm never flagged: they loved it to the very end.

I, on the other hand, hated it.

I wish I could say otherwise, not just because I know most people are probably going to disagree with me, but also because there is much about the movie that is genuinely new and different. The gimmick of the movie (and the graphic novel) is that Scott Pilgrim life’s is an unacknowledged cross between reality and a video game.

The look and feel of the movie perfectly mimics the look and feel of the graphic novel, but that makes it sound like I’m not giving the movie enough credit. There are a thousand ways they could’ve screwed this up, but they really didn’t.

The movie also captures the graphic novel’s zeitgeist-y sense of omnipresent irony. This is about, and for, a generation that has seen it all and done it all. As a result, just about every line in the movie is a droll meta-reference to something else — some video game element or movie cliche.

In that respect, the movie felt very contemporary.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie just plain didn’t work. Part of the problem is that while the look of the movie is very faithful to the graphic novel, the story itself is too faithful. A movie is not the same thing as a graphic novel, and this thing takes too long to get going.

The story (as everyone who’s read the graphic novel knows) is that diffident, self-conscious Scott wants to date beautiful, above-it-all Ramona — but to do so, he has to defeat her “seven evil exes,” superhero-style.

But it takes too long to get to this main story — all of the many secondary characters have to be showily introduced first.

And when the story finally does get underway, it becomes very, very repetitive and uninvolving: each battle is just an extended fight scene with no unexpected twists, and no real lesson learned — not until the final scene where Scott has a realization so obvious and trite that I couldn’t believe that a movie this ironic and self-aware didn’t immediately mock it.

Maybe this has something to do with the movie’s sense of omnipresent irony, but I also never had the feeling that there was anything serious at stake, and I never really cared about any of the characters. The movie seemed to be relying heavily on the goodwill for the characters generated by the graphic novels — and maybe that will be enough for most people.

But being only a very casual reader of the novels, it wasn’t enough for me.

It didn’t help that Michael Cera seemed completely miscast. I know he’s become the “go-to” guy for hip, edgy teen and 20something movies, but I found him to be just too much of a dork to be anything approaching a romantic lead, which Scott is also supposed to be. I have nothing against dorks — some of my best friends are dorks, and I’m pretty dorky myself.

But I didn’t buy for a minute that any of the three women interested in him would even be interested in him, not with all his neurotic tics and ironic asides. These are obviously Cera’s normal acting tendencies, but I thought he went way over-the-top here, and if it was supposed to be charming, it didn’t work for me.

Fans of the graphic novels will probably love this movie. But everyone else … well, they might very well like it too.

But I really didn’t. Enjoy your cruise, folks — this is one cultural ship that’ll be sailing without me on board.

Some fantasy films are made and immediately become a part of the cultural zeitgeist, integrating themselves into pop culture and slang, so that every movie-goer worth his or her salt understands a reference to Middle Earth, or can tell you what happens when you flick and swish your wand, chanting “Wingardium Leviosa.”

But not every film can be a Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Some films are made and, through no fault of their own, never manage to find the enormous mainstream success that is so coveted. When this happens, these movies are banished to an ethereal storage dimension called the Cave of Forgotten Tales, and become lost to time.

But here in the offices of TheTorchOnline.com, we have a portal to this mysterious dimension, and from time to time, we venture into this cave, looking for the blockbusters that might, could, or should have been.

And then we review them.

Trick ‘r Treat

Five Torches (Out of Five)

This film first became known to many by the online buzz that surrounded its initial screenings, and inexplicably it never received a mass commercial release before going to DVD. Inexplicably, you see, because Trick ‘r Treat is hands down one of the best Halloween movies to come out in years.

The cast is stellar, and as a full-fledged geek, I was excited to discover both Anna Paquin and Brian Cox were starring, as they both starred in one of my favorite superhero films, X2: X-Men United.(Not coincidentally, the film is “presented” by Bryan Singer, the director X2, and written and directed by Michael Dougherty, who cowrote the screenplay for X2.)

Of course, these days Paquin is much better known for her role as Sookie in True Blood, and that is much closer in theme and feel to Trick ‘r Treat.

One of the elements that make the movie so great is it simultaneous feels very current, yet is also something of a refreshing throwback, largely due to its anthology nature.

Writer/director Michael Dougherty crafts four interweaving stories involving a couple who are wrapping up their Halloween celebrations, a psychotic school principle, a group of oversexed coeds, and five young teens playing a dangerous prank. Dougherty plays a bit with the timeline so that dead characters can reappear very much alive, but never so much so that it becomes confusing, and indeed that extra tweak pushes the screenplay from clever to masterful.

In an era overrun with dismal, disgusting horror movies like the Saw and Hostel films, which require absolutely no imagination to make or enjoy, Trick ‘r Treat is a visual feast, with a lush, colorful palette that makes the tamer scenes feel like a safe oasis. Of course, this feat just makes the scary moments downright terrifying, and all of this adds to the effect that the movie accomplishes so well: it’s fun. Scary, yes, but fun.

While there isn’t a single weak like in the cast, the standout performance of the film would have to be Dylan Baker as the psycho principal/serial killer, who is at times chilling, engrossing, and often very funny. At one point, he even garners sympathy. And that’s after we saw him murder a child.

Trick ‘r Treat, if there is any justice in the world, will become a staple of Halloween viewing, and at a slim 82 minutes, it’s a good length for party-viewing. I know what I’ll be watching at my party come October.

July Releases:

Clash of the Titans, based on the 1981 Ray Harryhausen classic, is a terrible movie. If you weren’t duped into seeing it in theaters, Netflix it at your peril.

Repo Men, about a future world that trades in artificial organs, was blasted by critics and audiences alike. It stars Jude Law and Forest Whitaker.

Clash of the Titans

Bitten, starring Jason Mewes and Erica Cox, was a poorly received vampire movie that aired last year on the Syfy Channel. A  paramedic finds a woman he believes is a drug addict going through withdrawal — but she’s addicted to blood, not drugs.

Tin Man (mini-series), starring Zooey Deschanel, Neal McDonough, Alan Cumming, and Raoul Trujillo, is a dark retelling of The Wizard of Oz. It has its fans, but we weren’t among them.

Being Human: Season 1 is a UK series about a ghost, a vampire, and a werewolf who become roommates. We liked it a lot.

Stargate Universe 1.5, stars Robert Carlyle, Louis Ferriera, Alaina Huffman, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Christopher McDonald.

Battlestar Galactica: Season 3 is one of TV’s best sci-fi show’s ever. Then they added Lucy Lawless to the cast, and it got even better.

Life After People: Season 2 is a History Channel series that reveals what it would be like on Earth without people.

August Releases:

Furry Vengeance, starring Brendan Fraser and Brooke Shields, was uniformly reviled.

Lost: Season 6. This is the show’s last season, including the finale. Don’t get us started.

Heroes: Season 4 also had its fans, but once again, we weren’t among them.

The Vampire Diaries: Season 1 suffered from the buzz that it was a Twilight rip-off. Who knew? The first season of this CW show was surprisingly good — one of the rare TV shows where something important happens every episode.

Four Torches (Out of Five)

Sick of silly, brain-dead summer sci-fi movies? Boy, is Inception the movie for you.

In a world where drugs exist that allow one person to enter the dreams and subconscious of another person, Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a dream-explorer on the lam, is made an offer: implant a motivation (or “inception”) in the mind of a business tycoon. If the idea takes, the world will be transformed — and Cobb is promised that he’ll finally be able to return to the life and kids he was forced to leave behind.

Can implanting a motivation in the mind of another even be done? It’s one thing to explore another’s subconscious, but to actually implant suggestions there requires going deep, deep into the mind.

Cobb assembles his team (which includes two enormously appealing actors, Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and off they go.

Whaddaya bet that things don’t go exactly as planned? A big part of the problem is that even though they’re in the subconscious of another person, dark demons from Cobb’s own subconscious keep inserting themselves into the action.

This is very much a Christopher Nolan movie (the director of Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight, who wrote, produced, and directed here). And while I absolutely loved Memento and Insomnia, I confess to being frustrated by some of the clunky plot contrivances in Batman Begins and even The Dark Knight.

That’s a problem here too. So much of the movie’s plot depends on a loooooong list of “rules” that govern the subconscious. It’s not that it doesn’t all hang together — it does, at least if you squint. It’s just that after a while, you get tired of trying to keep it all straight. Whose subconscious are we in exactly?

Then there’s the question of coincidences. I believe a filmmaker gets one major coincidence and three minor ones per movie. But Inception is riddled with timing coincidences. And while everyone’s mind is guarded by our subconscious, which sends evil guardians to confront invaders, these “guardians” are apparently absolutely, completely worthless. They couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a cannon from ten feet away (except when the plot calls for it, and even then it takes hours for the person to die).  Seriously, the henchmen in the original 1960s TV series Batman were more competent than these guys.

Yes, yes, I know this is all the kind of thing you immediately forgive (or don’t even notice) if a movie speaks to you on some larger level. Maybe it’s an indication that, for all its “mind-blowing” ideas and admittedly cool special “dream” effects, I thought this movie meandered at times. And for all its psychological mumbo-jumbo, this movie thinks it’s smarter than it actually is.

This I will say: there are two great plot-twists in the movie (neither of which, thank God, is the now-hackneyed, “Oh, wait, the whole movie was a dream!” which, frankly, was the big “reveal” of one of DiCaprio’s most recent other films).

Speaking of DiCaprio, he’s a reliable “main character” actor, and he’s fine here on one level. But something is revealed about him midway through the movie (he’s described as an “old soul”), and I didn’t see it at all. Frankly, I’m wondering if the whole movie would’ve been more successful with an actor with much more gravitas.

It feels strange to spend so long criticizing a movie that, on the whole, is successful and that, even apart from its “success,” aims to be sooooo much more than the typical stupid summer blockbuster.

But basically, this is a movie that’s worth criticizing. There is much to think about and argue over here — and much fun to be had too.

Still, as much as fans of The Matrix (and most geeks in general) will go nuts for this movie, for me, it just isn’t a classic.

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• Don’t let the title fool you — the upcoming Archangels has nothing to do with archangels and is not in the vein of the recent warrior-angel flick, Legion. Instead, it’s all about aliens. Cool, right?

• Over at Aint it Cool News, columnist Quint started a pretty cool new column called Behind the Scenes Pic of the Day, and their most recent edition has an awesome pic of Heath Ledger’s Joker.

• This isn’t that new, but I thought this list was pretty cool: the Top 10 Fictional Male Charmers, which includes a few fantasy characters in there, like Lancelot and Han Solo.

• I’m going to get carpal tunnel syndrome from reporting all the news about The Hobbit, including this tidbit that Peter Jackson is reportedly meeting with actors to join the cast.

• Of all the millions of superheroes in the world, my absolute favorites are the X-Men, and io9 has a list of the 5 most tear-jerking X-Men deaths. I bet you’ll just never guess who’s number one.

• In other superhero news, Slashfilm has some casting news for the upcoming Spider-man and Superman reboots.

• And finally, since M. Night Shyamalan’s quality of work is just so high right now — yeah, ouch — here’s a trailer for a movie he did NOT write or direct, but did come up with the story for, called Devil.

Those who were hoping for a kick-ass female action hero hacking and slashing her way through the big screen have a giant battle-axe to grind.

In the very first article I wrote for TheTorchOnline.com, I discussed how the role of women has changed significantly in fantasy-action movies, and how a new era of action-oriented female characters was upon us. In the wake of the small-screen successes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess, women were no longer damsels in distress, but full-fledged heroes.

I ended the article mentioning that in the future, while it’s nice that women are finally being given more active parts, it would be great if they could do so and not be so transparently used for sexual objectification. And I capped it off with, “We’re all looking at you, Red Sonja remake.”

So what happened?

A year ago, it looked like the Red Sonja project, produced by Robert Rodriguez and starring Rose McGowan, was moving ahead at full speed. Both Rodriguez and McGowan spoke of the tone of the film, claiming a dark and gritty aesthetic, and a teaser poster with McGowan atop a mountain of skulls was even released.

But then, something happened. In April of this year, McGowan announced via a tweet that she left the project for another remake of an 80s barbarian film, Conan. Some sources claimed the studio that was producing Red Sonja had financial problems. Some say it was originally delayed because McGowan was injured on the set of Grindhouse.

No matter what the truth is, the fact remains that those who were hoping to see a female action hero playing the lead in her own sword-and-sandals film will have to wait.

Studios always seem nervous about financing female-driven action movies, unless they’re by Quentin Tarantino. Our own Heather Hogan wrote about this recently, discussing the paucity of female superhero films. One of the points that Heather made, which I agree with 100%, is that studios will point to movies like Elektra and Catwoman as evidence that such movies don’t do well with audiences. What they’re ignoring is the fact that those films had awful scripts, poor effects, and essentially played out like a series of missed opportunities.

This past season I had the misfortune of sitting through the dreck that was Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Clash of the Titans. Do I think they’re proof that Hollywood should avoid Greek mythology material? Of course not. They’re only proof that those specific movies sucked.

While, at least according to the cast lists, there is an action-oriented woman in the Conan script, she’ll still be playing second fiddle to the titular hero, and our hopes for a headlining heroine on par with Xena are dashed for now.

But I’m hopeful for the future. If Conan is really well-made and does well in the box office, maybe history will repeat itself and a Red Sonja film will be released in its wake.

We’re all looking at you, Conan remake.

M. Night Shyamalan has his fans. I’m not one of them, but they’re out there somewhere.

But he may not be winning over many new fans with The Last Airbender, the fantasy epic that he directed opening this Friday, at least according to the early reviews.

Over at RottenTomatoes.com, the review aggregation site, the film currently scores a 9% “fresh”: two positive reviews out of 23 reviews total.

And the two “fresh” reviews? The one from USA Today says that some of the “action” in the film works, but says the script is “wooden” and the movie is “simple,” basically for pre-teens.

The other “positive” review says, “The Last Airbender is a movie of exquisite beauty and, in its best moments, sublime visual clarity. It also contains some of the worst dialogue ever allowed on screen.”

The rest of the reviews? Pretty much outright pans along the lines of, “The Last Airbender is dreadful, an incomprehensible fantasy-action epic that makes the 2007 film The Golden Compass, a similarly botched adaptation of a beloved property from another medium, look like a four-star classic.”

Will this be the final nail in Shyamalan’s coffin (after the unmitigated disasters of The Village, Lady in the Water, The Happening, and Signs)?

We should all be so lucky.

Gilliver’s Travels is coming! The adventure movie starring Jack Black and Emily Blunt will hit theaters in December.

But, of course,  Gulliver’s Travels is also already here. The classic 1725 novel by Jonathan Swift is the story of Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon-turned sailor who travels to many remote (and fictional) places in the world, including Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and Glubbdubdrib.

I think I spelled all those correctly.

Many people remember Lilliput, the land of the little people, but that’s really just one part of the story.

The people of Lilliput, Lilliputians, are very, very little people standing up to only six inches high. The people of Brobdingnag, meanwhile, are very, very tall, standing up to 72 feet high.

In other words, Lilliputians are one-twelfth the size of humans, and Brobdingnags are twelve times the size of humans. Swift’s world has a nice synchronicity, no?

Gulliver’s Travels is a classic tale of satirical jokes about human nature and parodies of the “travelers’ tales.” It is an easy-to-read book, but difficult to understand because social mores are so different now than the century in which it was written in.

The new words Swift creates for his characters and worlds don’t help either.

Swift splits Gulliver’s travels into four parts: “A Voyage to Lilliput,” “A Voyage to Brobdingnag,” “A Voyage to Laputa, Glubbdubdrib, Balnibarbi, Japan,” and “A Voyage to the Country of Houyhnhnms.”

It’s during Gulliver’s travel to Lilliput that he encounters the famous little people, the Lilliputians. He falls asleep onshore after his ship wrecks and wakes up, yes, roped to the ground by the tiny people. Once the Lilliputians realize he is harmless (and after Gulliver realizes he must show good behavior), he becomes a resident of Lilliput. He then helps the King and the court of Lilliput by stealing the fleet of their rival neighbors from Blefuscu. However, Gulliver refuses to do another task against Blefuscu, so he is charged with treason, but he escapes to Blefuscu, finds a boat, and sets sail for home.

Lots of action, but hey, we’re just getting started. This is an epic, after all.

Gulliver takes another ship out to sea and is abandoned by his companions after a storm. He is found by a farmer of Brobdingnag (the land of giants, remember), and the farmer’s daughter cares for Gulliver. Exploiting the local’s curiosity for Gulliver, the farmer turns him into an exhibit. The Queen of Brobdingnag hears of this and wishes to see Gulliver, whom she falls in love with (sort of — it’s complicated).

The Queen has a “traveling box” created for Gulliver because he is too small for all of their chairs and beds. An eagle takes his “home” and drops it in the sea where he is found and returned home again.

Gulliver sets sail yet again, but is attacked by pirates this time and is saved by the people of Laputa, a flying island. Gulliver then takes a detour to Glubbdubdrib where he encounters struldbrugs — immortal people that will be forever old. He is then taken to Balnibarbi and waits for a Dutch trader to take him to Japan. After talking with the Emperor, he returns home.

Whew! Lots going on, but like I said, it’s an epic tale.

For one last time, Gulliver sets sail again, now as the captain of the ship. His crew turns against him and abandons him in a boat. He lands in the country of Houyhnhnms where he first comes upon a race of deformed creatures who take a “human” form called Yahoos. He later meets the country’s rulers, the Houyhnhnms (meaning “the perfection of nature”), all of whom are horses. Gulliver comes to enjoy the Houyhnhnms lifestyle and rejects humans as merely Yahoos.

But eventually, the Houyhnhnms begin to realize Gulliver’s similarities to the Yahoos so ban him from their country. He returns home, becomes a recluse, and begins to talk to his stable horses for support.

How’s that for an ending? Wouldn’t quite fly in a Tom Cruise movie, would it?

How much of the book’s plot will the movie actually contain? We know the movie is “loosely” based on the book and seems to concentrate, not surprisingly, on the books most famous sequences, those in Lilliput, which, frankly, seems like a lost opportunity.

Swift wrote his book as a social satire, lampooning the mores and attitudes of his day. Might this be part of the upcoming movie?

If not, it seems like another opportunity lost.