11.11.09 ROBERT ZEMECKIS CAN’T QUIT YOU, MO-CRAP

After three movies, Robert Zemeckis is still dead set on this motion-capture stuff even though no one besides him seems to like it.  I don’t hate it, I just don’t really get it.  If you want the characters to look sort of like the actors but stylized, use makeup.  It looks better.  If you want them to look nothing like reality, just animate them altogether.  Mo-cap is a weird, off-putting hybrid, like John Travolta in drag (as opposed to an awesome hybrid, like bearsharktopus). Anyway, the jury’s still out on whether A Christmas Carol will be a success or a bomb, but Zemeckis is already doubling down on the mo-crap with an adaptation of The Nutcracker.  From Pajiba:

To be sure, this is not an adaptation of the popular Tchaikovsky ballet (fathers everywhere can breath a sigh of relief) but an adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original novel, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Zemeckis’ The Nutcracker will be a faithful adaptation, as well. It’ll be a period piece, set in 19th century Russia, which will explore how the cursed Nutcracker character came to be and the battle between the dolls and the mice.

You catch that?  The Nutcracker, it’s about rich, 19th century kids’ toys that come to life, not what your mom used to eat at frat parties.  Though if you ask me, the idea still sounds a little, shall we say, jacked off on.