I Am Legend

So no action movie is ever going to take science seriously in its plotting. But I Am Legend, this weekend's top Manhattan movie, sparks some interesting ethical and scientific research issues.

Popular Mechanics decided to take on Will Smith head on: "Between a highly regimented schedule hunting deer in Times Square with his dog, Sam, and swinging a five-iron from atop a naval cruiser, Neville tries to find a way to reverse the virus using his own immune blood even as the Infected are closing in, setting traps and hunting him. But how much of this sure-to-be blockbuster Hollywood film (based on a famous sci-fi novel) is fact, and how much is fiction?  read more »

The lethal combination of Will Smith in the tentpole apocalypse-drama I Am Legend (No. 1), the nasty weather enveloping the Northeast, and nothing good happening on TV (which translates to nothing good saved for weekend DVR watching) created one of the healthiest weekends for Hollywood in some time. In Manhattan, who didn’t go to the movies? Each movie, save one, Enchanted (No. 8), averaged over the all-important $10,000 waterline, not to mention the behemoth $1 million-plus take of Legend, which broke the national box office record for a December opening with $76 million in receipts. Yowza!  read more »

Rumors suggesting that Will Smith is a Scientologist have been swirling and growing as he is seen in public more and more with Tom Cruise, a well-known member of the organization. There was even an item about it on Page Six today. But now, the likelihood that the I Am Legend star is in fact an L. Ron Hubbard disciple seems a bit greater. It turns out the Will Smith Foundation, which gives away hundreds of thousands of dollars to various causes, donated $20,000 to the Church of Scientology’s home-schooling program, called the Hollywood Education and Literacy Program. Recently on Access Hollywood, Mr. Smith reiterated what he told Men’s Vogue, saying, “I was introduced [to] it by Tom and I’m a student of world religion.”

About 10 minutes into the new Will Smith movie I Am Legend, which opens in Manhattan theaters on Friday, my heart rate went up to about 200 and stayed there for the next hour and a half.

Staggering back out into Times Square's holiday crush from the screening room it seemed we'd just been through an aerobic workout before even facing the crowds of tourists and commuters--surprisingly not zombies.

And the lingering questions were weird ones. Would corn naturally grow in Madison Square Park if humanity were wiped out, or did Will Smith have to plant it there himself? Should I get a German shepherd?

But what really stuck was this: why is Hollywood (and, it sometimes seems, much of the rest of the world the world) so keen to see New York City obliterated?  read more »

We all know how powerful China is becoming, but powerful enough to deflate the ego of one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading men? This morning brought the news that China has yet to green-light Will Smith’s latest blockbusting effort, I Am Legend, which opens here on December 14. The apparent snub comes loosely attached to a report that the nation of 1,321,851,888 citizens plans to block all American movies, hoping to boost its own budding film industry. (Let’s also not forget that I Am Legend basically equates populous areas with violence and death; the only haven of solace is found in pastoral Vermont.) “We struggled very, very hard to try to get it to work out, but there are only a certain amount of foreign films that are allowed in,” Mr. Smith told reporters in Hong Kong today.

Poor guy can’t get a break. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Mr. Smith, 39, admits to being insecure. When he was 15, his first girlfriend broke his heart. “[I]t destroyed my concept of myself,” he told the Wenner music book, adding: “I [thought I] wasn’t good enough.” He then recalls a certain look his grandmother once gave him, the look of someone who’s proud. It affected him to such a degree that he now needs to find it in the faces of all the women in his life—namely, in that of his lovely wife, Jada Pinkett. “Every singe day Jada must have the look. I can’t function if she doesn’t have that look in her eyes.” Ms. Pinkett’s proud-look is probably awesome, but we’d most like to see the look on his first girlfriend’s face when she saw The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for the first time.  read more »