In an effort to keep things out of the hands of those who made the characters popular, major studios such as Sony, and now Regency and Fox, are rebooting their recent Marvel films in order to retain the rights so they don’t default back to Disney owned Marvel. Sony is doing so with the reboot of Spider-Man, while Regency and Fox have recently announced that they’re doing the same with Daredevil.

Originally made in 2003, and starring Ben Affleck and Colin Farrell, the film isn’t even a decade old and it’s getting a complete revamp. This time, the writer behind 2008′s The Day The Earth Stood Still, David Scarpa, will be penning a script, and the story will more than likely scrub the previous films’ continuity.

It’s unfortunate that studios resort to these childish ways. If the franchise eventually ends up in the hands of Marvel and Marvel Studios, this could mean great film cameos from some of our favorite heroes. A perfect example is what Favreau, Brannagh, and Joe Johnston are doing with the Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America films, and it’s all like a fanboy’s greatest dream.

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I’m a sucker for movies about country singers. Despite the fact that listening to country music makes my ears bleed, I never pass up on a good country drama. The genre traditionally leans toward biopics (Coal Miner’s Daughter, Sweet Dreams, Pure Country, Walk the Line) and Crazy Heart is no exception.

Jeff Bridges plays Bad Blake, a washed up Country/Blues musician who has been relegated to performing in bowling alleys and other undignified venues. Blake is a raging alcoholic who stumbles off the stage mid-performance to go puke, then returns to finish a set.  He drives his pick-up from town to town and beds middle age women who still remember him from his golden days.

He tersely thrusts his show notes to whatever band he happens to be playing with that night, and  can’t be bothered to rehearse. It’s a gamble as to whether he will even show up on a given night, and to what condition he’ll be in.

To make matters worse, his former protégé, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), has become a country music superstar, and regularly plays to packed stadiums. There is clearly some bad blood between the two, because anytime Sweet’s name is brought up, Blake bristles.

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In the 1990′s, a pair of French directors brought us two fantastical movies unlike anything I had ever seen before. Delicatessen (1991) and La cité des enfants perdus (The City of Lost Children, 1995) were wildly imaginative, twisted, and haunting, but they were also quite beautiful. Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet packed their movies with so many visual delights that repeated viewings were necessary to absorb even a fraction of them. I forgot how much I loved those films. . . until now.

Watching Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, I experienced the same awe and wonderment that those French films evoked in me. Imaginarium is like a grown up version of The Wizard of Oz, painted liberally by the storytelling brush of  the Grimm brothers. It’s dark and twisty, colorful and lovely all at the same time.

Mainstream audiences might recognize some of Gilliam’s work (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Twelve Monkeys, Brazil, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), but this film will probably not garner him any new fans, it is just too bizarre. The Gilliam loyalist, however, will be richly rewarded by this visual masterpiece. Before I continue, just a warning that this review contains mild spoilers.

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