Dec 31, 2011

View the entire Blade Runner sketchbook online

For me hi-tech is a double edged sword. On the one hand it is an indispensable tool in the struggle to democratize and disseminate knowledge. On the other hand it is an indispensable tool of oppression as every online shuffle you make is tracked, recorded and analyzed, every email read and you can't go out for a walk in the park without google watching you either from space or from one of their roaming spy cars.

Every once in  a while though something comes along that makes me forgive and forget and when I discovered that the entire out-of-print "Blade Runner Sketchbook" from 1982 was now online for all to see free, well, I just wanted to give a big hug to all those computer geeks who've done so much to rob us of our privacy while providing us with unlimited free porn.

The book is comprised of 99 pages of concept art from Syd Mead, Mentor Huebner, Ridley Scott himself and others and would be the kind of coffee table book I'd shell out for. Until it comes back into print though this will more than suffice.

Here's a couple of samples with a link to the entire online edition below the pictures. Enjoy.


See the entire online edition here.

Dec 30, 2011

Arnold as Angel

Sly tells Arnold he's way too paunchy to be an angel.
The Governator's quest for relevance continues unabated. Arnold's been pursuing movie projects as though they were house cleaners though his most recently announced film "Black Sands" is apparently being given something of a makeover. Originally intended to be a kind of "good guy against a bad world" kind of story it's now being given a supernatural slant with the big Austrian playing a kind of avenging 'angel' (his word). Uh okay. Oh yeah, the film has also been given a new name: "Black Sunday". I guess you've got to have the whole Sunday thing going on if you're playing an angel and all that. This one's going to have to go straight into the 'wait and see' basket.

Top 10 box office hits of the year 2011

All in all business at the domestic box office was the lowest since 1995. Something tells me it had a lot to do with virtually no big movies being produced that weren't followed by a number. Just to drive that point home it should be noted that 8 of the top 10 worldwide box office hits of the year were sequels and it's a trend that doesn't show any signs of letting up. On the bright side global box office hit an all time high this year so somebody is going out to the theater and that's all that really counts.

1) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 $1.32 Billion
2) Transformers: Dark of the Moon $1.12 Billion
3) Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides $1.02 Billion
4) Kung Fu Panda 2 $665.7 Million
5) Twilight: Breaking Dawn Pt 1 $653.7 Million
6) Fast Five $626.1 Million
7) The Hangover Part 2 $581.5 Million
8) The Smurfs $562.5 Million
9) Cars 2 $551.9 Million
10) Rio $484.6 Million

Dec 29, 2011

New Russian trailer for "The Avengers"

So what's so special about a Russian language trailer for a movie whose English language trailer has been out for some time? Two words: new footage.

First Trailer for "The Impossible"

Juan Antonio Bayona's "The Impossible" is the story of a family whose lives were forever changed by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The trailer is in Spanish but the imagery is fairly compelling and I'm told the actual movie will be in English. Bayona made his name with the sleeper hit "The Orphanage" a few years back and it will be interesting to see how he handles the pressure that comes with recognition.

Dec 28, 2011

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Dec 23 - Dec 25, 2011

1) Mission Impossible 4 $29.5 Million
2) Sherlock Holmes 2 $20.2 Million
3) Girl w/the Dragon Tattoo $12.7 Million
4) The Chipmunks 3 $12.5 Million
5) The Adventures of Tintin $9.7 Million
6) We Bought A Zoo $9.3 Million
7) War Horse $7.5 Million
8) New Years Eve $3.3 Million
9) The Darkest Hour $3 Million
10) The Muppets $2.1 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Universal's "Little Fockers"
which debuted in the top spot with a $30.8 million haul.

New photos from "The Amazing Spider Man"

The Hollywood Reporter has acquired a new set of images from the set of the Spidey reboot, including this one. Click here to see the whole set.

Dec 26, 2011

Worst Hit Movies of the 21st century Part II

Since this is such and excruciatingly slow time for movie news I've decided to expand my list of the worst hit movies of the 21st century (so far) with numbers 6 - 10 done in descending order. So here we go. (You can see numbers 1 thru 5 here.)

10) Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
I sat through this entire movie stone-cold sober but I don't remember it.

9) The Hangover Part II
There's a difference between being edgy and being mean-spirited. Someone should tell the makers of this piece of crap.

8) Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Hayden Christansen does perhaps the worst acting job in a major motion picture ever. No small feat that.

7) 2012
2 hours of narrow escapes and not a Mayan to be found.

6) The Da Vinci Code
The secret order of the Bad White Guys has conspired for centuries to hide from us the fact that Leonardo was a drag queen who hid in his paintings detailed orders for the destruction of the World Trade Center using a plane filled with Jesus' kids and piloted by JFK's real killer; Boutros Boutros Ghali.

Dec 24, 2011

"Hobbit" production never sleeps

It's a really slow time of year for movie news. Just about everyone is on vacation or gone home for the holidays. Everyone it seems except Peter Jackson and the folks making The Hobbit.

So here's a bit of Christmas candy for you, the hot off the presses fifth "behind the scenes" video from the gargantuan Hobbit production. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Off the beaten track trailer of the day - "Tokyo Species"

What do you get when you mix a Japanese soft core strumpet with a dollar thirty five worth of special effects? Why Tokyo Species of course and here's the trailer courtesy of the good folks at Twitchfilm.com

THIS TRAILER IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK. NSFW.

It's not real porn or anything but there are several boob shots and some hilarious "acting" that is, I think, supposed to resemble sex. But don't take my word for it, check it out and decide for yourself.


Dec 23, 2011

Wachowskis wrap on "Cloud Atlas"

After the disaster of Speed Racer the Wachowski's (formerly Larry and Andy, now Lanna and Andy) laid low for quite a while. Well now they're back with their adaptation of Tom Twyker's "Cloud Atlas" about a group of people separated by time who somehow "hear each other's echoes down the corridor of history". Principal photography has just wrapped with it's high profile cast of Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Susan Sarandon and Jim Broadbent among others.

Cloud Atlas is tentatively set for release next October.

"Prometheus" trailer released!

It's been a very good week for trailers to say the least. Just when Chris and I were thinking it couldn't get any better when Peter Jackson released the trailer for "The Hobbit" along comes Ridley Scott with the first trailer for "Prometheus". Chris is still in shock and unable to type so I'm posting this one.

While Scott has been insistent in his press releases that Prometheus will only contain some Alien "DNA" this trailer seems to contradict him pretty profoundly. Maybe he's just been playing his cards close to his vest to keep us guessing but it seems the guessing game is over. The trailer not only uses some of the audio from the original "Alien" trailer from 1979 it also prominently parades the "space jockey" cockpit along with a slightly altered version of Giger's original derelict spaceship design and utilizes the same graphic style as Alien to introduce the title. If that's just a bit of Alien "DNA" then I'm Santa Claus.

So here it is. Enjoy.

Dec 21, 2011

"The Hobbit" trailer is here!

Unbelievable. In two days we've had the second trailer for The Dark Knight Rises (which looks awesome), the first trailer for "Wrath of the Titans" and now the best of them all: the first trailer for "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey". If you're like us you've been waiting since around 2004 for this. Woohoo!



The movie arrives in theaters December 2012. (Can I buy tickets now?)

JJ Abrams Talks Star Trek 2

In a conversation with MTV News JJ Abrams talked about the upcoming Star Trek sequel. He mentioned that sets were nearly complete and that the film would start shooting "next month". He also said that the movie would be shot "on film" in 2D and then converted in post to 3D. A big part of me just wishes they'd skip that process and leave it 2D. Still with a substantial amount of time to do the conversion (the film isn't released until mid-13) they might have time to do a decent job. We'll see.

Dec 20, 2011

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Dec 16 - Dec 18, 2011

1) Sherlock Holmes 2 $39.6 Million
2) Chipmunks 3 $23.2 Million
3) Mission Impossible 4 $12.7 Million
4) New Year's Eve $7.3 Million
5) The Sitter $4.6 Million
6) Twilight: Breaking Dawn 1 $4.1 Million
7) Hugo $3.7 Million
8) Arthur Christmas $3.5 Million
9) The Muppets $3.5 Million
10) Young Adult $3.4 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Buena Vista's "Tron Legacy" which debuted in the top spot with a $44 million haul.

First trailer for "Wrath of the Titans"

If you're a trailer freak like me days don't get much better than this. New Dark Knight trailer and finally the first trailer for "Wrath of the Titans".

New trailer for "The Dark Knight Rises"

 The second HD trailer for The Dark Knight Rises has just been released and here it is.

Dec 19, 2011

Christian Bale exposes the truth about China

 After being roughed up by Chinese "security" thugs when he attempted to speak to a Chinese dissident Bale went on CNN to talk about his experience and share some video. He learned first hand what happens when you ruffle the feathers of the unelected. Being that they have no right to govern they're a little sensitive about outsiders exposing the methods by which they retain their illegitimate grip on power.

Dec 17, 2011

Palm Springs Film Festival set to honor Gary Oldman

The 23rd Palm Springs International Film Festival will present their "International Star Award" January 7 to one of my all time favorite actors, Gary Oldman. In announcing the award festival chairman Harold Matzner said of Oldman:

“Gary Oldman is a performer whose ability to portray the most extreme of characters is a testament to the enormity of his talent. In "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", as the embodiment of John le Carré’s classic spymaster George Smiley, he combines cunning, pathos, and cold determination when he is brought out of retirement to ferret out a double agent during the Cold War. To this consummate talent who consistently challenges audiences to anticipate the unexpected when he performs, the Palm Springs International Film Festival is honored to present the 2012 International Star Award to Gary Oldman.”

Dec 16, 2011

New "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" trailer

Johnny Blaze is back and this time he's really p***ed off! From Brian Neveldine and Mark Taylor, who teamed up to bring us "Crank" and "Crank 2: High Voltage".



"Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" is due to hit theaters February 17th.

Preview clip from Sherlock Holmes 2

Here's a preview clip from "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" which hits theaters on Friday and will hopefully breath some life back into the box office, which has been way down the past couple of weeks.

Dec 15, 2011

New Prometheus poster

The painfully slow trickle of preview imagery from Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" continues with the release of this new poster. It's the same ginormous head from the images released a couple of weeks ago but from a different angle. Both Chris and I have such high expectations for this project. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

Expendables 2 teaser trailer

New Expendables 2 trailer teaser trailer. Pass the Geritol and keep the maid locked up 'cause Arnold's back baby!


Dec 14, 2011

Off the beaten track trailer of the day - "Kill List"

Here's an interesting trailer for the upcoming IFC Channel production called "Kill List". It's the story of a former British soldier who becomes a hit man.

Kill List is due to hit theaters February 3rd.

GI Joe 2 trailer

Here's the just released "GI Joe Retaliation" trailer. Once again the guardians of all that is worth fighting for find something to fight about and once again there seem to be some evil civilians involved. It's a damn good thing we have the Joes to keep our cliffs safe for militaristic democracy!

P.S. Who is that fossil at the end?

"Men in Black 3" teaser trailer

MIB 3 teaser finally released. I was never a big fan of the original but this looks kinda fun!

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Dec 9 - Dec 9, 2011

1) New Year's Eve $13 Million
2) The Sitter $9.8 Million
3) Twilight - Breaking Dawn $7.8 Million
4) The Muppets $6.9 Million
5) Arthur Christmas $6.5 Million
6) Hugo $6 Million
7) The Descendants $4.3 Million
8) Happy Feet 2 $3.6 Million
9) Jack and Jill $3 Million
10) Immortals $2.4 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Fox's "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"
which debuted in the top spot with a $24 million haul.

Dec 11, 2011

"Rosa" to become live action feature

Jesus Orellana has apparently landed a deal with 20th Century Fox to turn his 10 minute short "Rosa" into a feature length, live action film. Pretty amazing considering that not long ago he was just a young guy with an idea he was willing to put a year of work into. That year of work resulted in the 10 minute short and now he's on his way to the big table. Good luck Jesus!

To see the original short which I posted a month ago click here.

New Poster for The Dark Knight Rises

Seems like Christopher Nolan is trying to make it clear that he's not doing any more Batman films after this, though for some reason I doubt that the bad guy will ultimately prevail.

"Inception" - 2010

"Inception" is Christopher Nolan's second unsuccessful BIG film in as many years. Not unsuccessful financially of course, but conceptually. Coming hot on the heels of his boring Batman sequel "The Dark Knight" Nolan seemed to want to prove to himself that he really was a 'visionary'. I can almost see him going down his 'visionary' check list before shooting started on Inception: "Let's see... $200 million budget: check, A-list actors: check, IMAX cameras: check, 50 million fanboys following me day and night on the internet: check, wicked-cool idea: check."

The wicked cool idea of course is that Nolan's team of hi-tech mind engineers are able to create and plant within an unsuspecting target's consciousness a dream architecture which they can then inhabit along with the target. The goal is to learn things about the target or otherwise manipulate them by planting ideas in their mind during the controlled dream. The latter a process called inception.

The problem with Inception as a movie, the thing that makes it labored and ultimately unsuccessful as a film is that it has the whole dream thing backwards. Dreams are primarily emotional in nature. The brain summons unresolved or unhappily resolved emotional situations to review and provides a visual forum to play them out in, with both the narrative and the stage being created on the fly. Sometimes the feelings get ahead of the images and the images shift abruptly in an attempt to compensate. Sometimes the imagery gets out in front of the feelings and the feelings shift gears. All this shifting around can be jarring and is one of the reasons dreams are so difficult to remember. While its been proven that you can 'direct' your dreaming; that is, guide your mind into its initial dream state once you fall asleep, fact is that there's no way to dictate how long this directed dream will hold together. When the mind wishes to move on to something else it just does.

In his film Nolan proposes a kind of directed dreaming on steroids. One where you can not only instruct the mind where to go when you fall asleep, but one where the visual context is also provided down to the last rivet as well as the ability to force the dreamer to stay within the provided dream context until something wakes them up. How do you impose such a rigid and vivid architecture on the mind and force it to play out? How do you prevent the mind from tiring of the dream you've presented it and simply moving on to something else? To his credit Nolan tries to address this issue and his answer is a kind of white blood cell response: when the mind detects the presence of "others" who shouldn't be there it attacks them and the dream falls apart (literally).

Okay Mr Nolan. Lets say for a moment that I simply accept your character's ability to provide the brain with a set of pre-defined dream parameters, as well as the ability to force the dreamer to stay within the dream of your choosing, as well as your explanation of what happens should the mind of the dreamer rebel, I'm still left with the nagging fact that your dreams simply don't look or, more importantly, feel like dreams. Not at all. Not a bit. Not 1%. Nada. Just because I've accepted (for the sake of argument here) that you can provide the contextual framework for someone else's dream it doesn't mean you're off the hook regarding the look and feel of said dream world. Even leaving aside the fact that dreams occur from a first person POV and Inception slavishly maintains its third person perspective throughout, dreams are not the clean, static visual experiences depicted here; even the most vivid ones. If a dream is vivid its because the feelings it brought up were spot on. A place 'felt' right. The feelings stirred up by the presence of a lost loved one were exactly the same feelings the dreamer used to experience in that person's presence, and so on. The visual context is window dressing. A late loved one may appear with an entirely nebulous face that tells me little about who I'm talking to, but the feelings surrounding this apparition tell me without a doubt who it is. In Inception Nolan has it backwards. All the attention goes into the visuals, which look plenty expensive but which in reality have only a secondary connection to the experience of dreaming.

Emotions are how dreams maintain their stability, not visuals. A hotel can go through 20 or 30 different looks in a dream and still remain the same hotel as long as it feels like the same hotel. So Nolan's insistence on the rigid visual architecture as the glue that holds the whole mess together is meaningless since it's the feelings not the visual details of place that maintain dream continuity. To be sure there are moments sprinkled within the film where the narrative makes mention of the importance of feelings but these seem mere afterthoughts or nods to a conceptual truth the film maker seems unable to address.

Because of this I believe it's pointless to go into detail about the movie, it's plot, it's characters, the acting etc. It fails from the start by addressing its fundamental conceptual premise in an upside down fashion so everything else is just expensive furniture going down with the Titanic.

All of this may seem like just so much Christopher Nolan bashing to some but I'm not the one that set the table here, he is. He decided he was going to take $200 million and bring his big dream idea to the silver screen. While the film made some $800 million around the world my guess is that if it were the product of some relatively unknown director instead of the latest "visionary" effort by the hot director du jour the box office would have been tepid at best and it would have been met with a chorus of reviews that commented on it as a kind of noble failure, which is exactly what it is.

I give Nolan credit for trying, though. At least someone out there is willing to attempt to find something interesting to do with the new technology. Unfortunately he chose perhaps the most difficult landscape to capture convincingly as the stage for his narrative and his idea either wasn't very well thought out or was taken over early on in the process by studio types who wanted to prevent him from creating a David Lynch type product that would be hard to mass market. As a result what we wind up with is a series of well crafted cinematic images that purport to depict the emotion-based inner world but do so in a cold, emotionally neutral manner that left me walking out of the theater thinking not about lofty questions of reality and inner-world conflict but about whether I was going to go straight home or pick up something to eat first.


Dec 9, 2011

New Poster for "The Amazing Spider Man"

Here's the new promotional poster for next years Spiderman reboot featuring Andrew Garfield in the title role.

New "Battleship" trailer

You know when I first heard someone was going to make a movie called "Battleship" I thought "Hmmmm, there's no way they're going to take the world's most boring board game and try and turn it into an action movie, right? Right?" Well here it is some time later and "Battleship" (the action movie based on the static the board game) draws ever closer to release. Who says Hollywood is out of good ideas? On the upside Michael Bay is not directing.

Seems from this new trailer that they should rename it "Transbattleformaship".

Dec 8, 2011

"Dark Knight Rises" viral or hoax?

Either "The Dark Knight Rises" continues its quest to achieve the most opaque viral marketing campaign in history or somebody is playing the Batman lovin' community for a bunch of fools. Either way it'll be interesting to find out.

The below images are part of identical packages sent to Wired and Empire magazines allegedly from the CIA dealing with one Dr. Leonid Pavel who's apparently gone missing and is of some special interest to the agency.

Some alert fan apparently has identified the "scientist" as actor Alon Aboutboul who, surprise surprise, just happens to be a member of the DKR cast. What's it all mean? Does it actually have something to do with the caped crusader's swan song? I have no idea.

For what it's worth here are the images for your consideration.


Harry Morgan dies at age 96

Harry Morgan, best known to those born after about 1960 as Col. Sherman Potter on M*A*S*H, died Wednesday from pneumonia at the formidable age of 96.

Before he joined the Korean War effort (TV version) Morgan was well known to an earlier generation of TV viewers as Joe Friday's trusty sidekick Bill Gannon on the original "Dragnet" series. He also had a long and distinguished movie career appearing in more than 50 films including the classics "High Noon" and "Inherit the Wind".

Dec 7, 2011

Thor 2 left at the altar once again

After being jilted by a second would be director Thor 2 is picking itself up and putting itself back out there. According to The Hollywood Reporter "Monster" director Patty Jenkins has abruptly exited the sequel citing "creative differences". Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps strangely Kenneth Branaugh who helmed the first installment also declined to direct Thor 2 citing "creative differences".

Oh well. They say the third time's the charm big guy.

Dec 6, 2011

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Dec 2 - Dec 4, 2011

1) Twilight - Breaking Dawn $16.5 Million
2) The Muppets $11 Million
3) Hugo $7.5 Million
4) Arthur Christmas $7.4 Million
5) Happy Feet Two $5.9 Million
6) Jack and Jill $5.3 Million
7) The Descendants $4.7 Million
8) Immortals $4.4 Million
9) Tower Heist $3.9 Million
10) Puss in Boots $3 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Buena Vista's "Tangled" which overtook "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1" for the top spot in it's second week of release with a $21.6 million haul.

Star Trek sequel casting; the sequel

If you've been following the goings on over at the Star Trek sequel you've probably heard that Benicio Del Toro was being courted to take an unnamed major role in JJ Abrams production that begins shooting next month. The hot rumor had it that he was going to play arch villain Khan. Well, forget it. Abrams has quashed the Khan rumor and now it appears Del Toro is out too. Apparently Abrams didn't want to pay him what he wanted so that's the end of that.

The new rumor is that Abrams has signed Peter Weller (aka Robocop) for yet another as yet unspecified role. I guess we can only wait and see if that report has legs.

"The Cabin In The Woods" trailer

A trailer is finally online for the long-delayed release of the Drew Goddard directed, Joss Whedon penned "The Cabin In The Woods". Chris Hemsworth, aka Thor, stars. The film is set for release in April of 2012.

Dec 5, 2011

"Wish You Were Here" - Opinion and trailer

A movie that's been getting some buzz lately is the upcoming independent film "Wish You Were Here". I have to say, as much as I like to see movies being made that don't rely on 1700 special effects shots, I can live without a movie like this just fine. What the world definitely doesn't need is another movie about consumer-youths on vacation acting out their little "I broke my fingernail" dramas  with a healthy dose of have-nots (in this case Cambodians) providing suitable destitution for the background. Yawn.

In the spirit of fairness though if I'm going to trash a movie I'll at least include the trailer so you can draw your own conclusions.

"Wish You Were Here" is set for release early 2012


Dec 3, 2011

New US trailer for "Sinners and Saints"

"Sinners and Saints" director William Kaufman's latest action flick is, after many a delay, allegedly due to arrive in US theaters soon. Starring Tom Berenger and a bunch of guys I never heard of it seems like it might be worth the price of admission simply on the strength of the way Kaufman utilizes the desolation of post-Katrina New Orleans.

Dec 2, 2011

New extended trailer for "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

David Fincher's "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" has a new extended trailer. The Sony Pictures release is due in theaters December 21; just in time for the holidays! Have to admit, it looks pretty interesting.


Dec 1, 2011

Fox exec on "Prometheus" leak

Tom Rothman, head of Fox Filmed Entertainment is not at all happy that someone managed to leak some incredibly low quality footage of the upcoming Ridley Scott blockbuster "Prometheus" over the Thanksgiving weekend. The so-called "trailer" which saw a few hours of life on the net before Fox managed to get it pulled offended Rothman not simply because it represented a breach in what had been air tight security surrounding the film but because the quality of the bootleg was so appalling. In his words "It's heartbreakingly unfair, because ... the quality of the visuals is as spectacularly beautiful, shot in 3-D compositionally the way only a master could do it," and the bootleg footage did not reflect that.

Official still from Ridley Scott's upcoming "Prometheus"

"The Darkest Hour" TV spot

There's a new TV spot for the soon to be released alien invasion flick "The Darkest Hour". The film follows 5 young people trapped in Moscow in the aftermath of an overwhelming alien invasion and looks pretty good if the trailer is any indication.

New Trailer for "John Carter"

Disney has released a new trailer for their upcoming movie "Ava..." oh wait, I mean "Cowboy vs. Al..." uh, I mean "John Carter". The film about a man in the 1800s who finds himself on an alien planet leading a race of indigenous people in their fight for survival is due out in March of next year.

Nov 29, 2011

Daniel Radcliff to star as beat poet Allen Ginsburg

"Harry who?"
Daniel Radcliff's radical reinvention of himself in the wake of the Potter phenomenon continues unabated as it was announced that he's taken on the role of beat poet extraordinaire Allen Ginsberg in the upcoming John Krokidas film "Kill Your Darlings". It's the story of a murder that occured within the fledgeling inner circle of "beat" poets during the 40s.

No release date has yet been set for the pic.

Nov 28, 2011

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Nov 25 - Nov 27, 2011

1) Twilight - Breaking Dawn $41 Million
2) The Muppets $29.2 Million
3) Happy Feet 2 $13.3 Million
4) Arthur Christmas $12 Million
5) Hugo $11.3 Million
6) Jack and Jill $10 Million
7) Immortals $8.8 Million
8) Puss in Boots $7.5 Million
9) The Descendants $7.3 Million
10) Tower Heist $7.1 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 which held on to the top spot for a second week with a $49 million haul.

Nov 27, 2011

Ben Whinshaw signs on for "Skyfall"

"Our market research shows he's got a high RP quotient!"
In a move undoubtedly dictated by the marketing department the new Bond film "Skyfall" has cast Ben Whishaw as tech master "Q" breaking tradition by making the character younger than the agent he's outfitting for the first time.

The film makers, having already burdened the project with the clumsiest movie title since "Quantum of Solace", have now seemingly set their sights on the Twilight crowd and in doing so risk alienating 007's long time fans. Bond movies are guy movies first. Date movies second. What they're not is teenage girl movies. It'll be interesting to see if the move backfires.

Nov 26, 2011

New clips from "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" starring Gary Oldman

A couple of clips from the upcoming remake of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" starring Gary Oldman in the role of George Smiley, originally made famous by Alec Guinness.

In the first clip Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) is recounting what happened after a contact he'd made in Hungary told him there was a Soviet mole in the British intelligence establishment.

In the second Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) is dispatched to MI6 headquarters to steal documents for Smiley that are key to his investigation.

For me the original 1979 BBC production is one of the great TV mini-series ever made. It'll be interesting to see if a considerably shorter feature film can stand on its own next to that. Everything I've seen and nearly all the reviews from overseas (where the film is already playing) that I've read look promising. And what a cast! Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Mark Strong and many others.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy opens December 9th in the US.



Nov 25, 2011

A Thanksgiving treat for one and all!

Here's a little piece to celebrate the spirit of our most important holiday. Part of Quentin Tarantino's "Grindhouse" extravaganza this faux trailer was directed by Eli Roth. All I can say is that's one pissed off Pilgrim!

Warning: Bare boobs ahead!

Oh the pain!

"I bleed for my work."
Hollywoodreporter.com has an interesting slideshow/story about on-set accidents. Seems there might be a pretty good reason why most big name actors use stunt doubles after all.

Nov 24, 2011

"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" - 2001

"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" is one of the great movies of the 21st century. The best by far of the three movies that make up The Lord of the Rings trilogy it hits all the right notes, achieves just the right balance between being faithful to the source material and doing what needs to be done to bring that saga to the screen and boasts a solid cast who flesh out their roles effectively.

Directed with confidence and imagination by Peter Jackson - who was little known by the general movie going public at the time - it transcends it genre limitations; an accomplishment that can be laid squarely at the feet of screen writers Fran Walsh, Philipa Boyens and Jackson himself. The characters are given room to breath, time to make themselves known and plenty of opportunities to showcase their various strengths and weaknesses before the story actually gets underway. None of it seems in the least bit contrived however because they are not only illuminating who they are, but who their people are, their place in the world and their relationship to it. All this setup will work marvelously to underpin the events that follow.

Though I'm not going to waste time and words recounting details of the story in the most general terms it goes like this: the Dark Lord Sauron was defeated by an alliance of men and Elves thousands of years ago. The ring from which he drew his power passed to the human King Isuldur who defeated him. Isuldur was corrupted by the ring and ultimately lost it. It was found 2,500 years later by a Hobbit named Smeagol, who was turned into the gruesome creature Gollum by the ring. After having his life extended by the ring's power for 500 years Gollum lost it to the Hobbit Bilbo, who because of his purity of spirit, was able to carry it around in his pocket for decades largely unmoved by the ring's corrupting powers. All of this is told over the course of a seven minute or so prologue.

We then jump to the "present" where Sauron is recomposing himself (though it's never really made clear how he's able to do that) and seeking the ring in order to complete his return. He's sent out agents to scour the landscape looking for it. Bilbo has turned the ring over to Frodo at the Wizard Gandalf's request and gone off to write a book. Frodo then as heir to the ring also becomes heir to its fate and must travel across the known world to destroy it by depositing it into the lava flows of Mount Doom which lies in Sauron's back yard of Mordor. In order to complete his task eight others (Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, the humans Aragorn and Borimir as well as Gandalf the wizard and three other Hobbits; Merry, Pippin and Sam) join him in what is christened The Fellowship of the Ring and the film follows them through the first stages of their adventure.

It all sounds very Wizard of Oz-y and to a degree it is. What separates it from your standard fantasy fare however is the emphasis on character development, the creative facility of everyone involved and the lavish (though never intrusive) art direction and special effects. Special mention must also go to the unreal New Zealand landscape where much of the movie was shot as well as to Howard Shore's score which sets just the right tone throughout.

I was reluctant to see this movie when it first came out thinking there was no way anyone could do justice to the story, which takes place during an earth epoch that never was, tells the tale of imaginary creatures great and small and spans well over a decade but I was talked into it by a friend and by the time the prologue ended I was sold, 100%. The setup was so powerful in fact that it effectively blinded me to the films shortcomings, and there are several. Some, like the fact that the timeline is dramatically compressed and Frodo is way to young, were things that mostly bothered those who believed the books to be Holy Writ. Others, like Jackson's appalling disregard for continuity, were things that revealed themselves to me on repeated viewings after the glow of the spectacle had worn off sufficiently. Still, as a whole the film achieves magnificently its goal of establishing place and time, character and circumstance and, though it lacks a "proper" ending (being only one third of the overall tale after all) still manages to end on melancholy yet hopeful note that leaves you feeling both satisfied and wanting more.

In subsequent installments of the trilogy the Hobbits would become somewhat lost in the ever expanding landscape of creatures and events but in The Fellowship of the Ring they are right up front where they belong. Tolkien's tale is after all a story of ordinary men ("ordinary" and "men" being relative terms) being called upon to undertake extraordinary tasks and handling them with a courage and fortitude that often elude their high-born "betters". This first installment of the trilogy never forgets that and because of that it achieves a poignancy which allows it to take its place among the great cinematic epics ever made.

Nov 23, 2011

New images from Ridley Scott's "Prometheus"

At long last new images have emerged from Ridley Scott's "Prometheus". Bloody Disgusting has scanned images that will appear in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly and they look very interesting. Definitely can see "Alien" DNA in the images provided here. Let's keep our fingers crossed that a trailer is in the works.


Prologue for "The Dark Knight Rises" set to screen in December

Heck, if he's not going to need it anymore...
Director Christopher Nolan revealed in an interview with Empire magazine in the UK that a prologue for "The Dark Knight Rises" will screen before IMAX showings of "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" which hits theaters on Dec 21. "It's basically the first six, seven minutes of the film," says the director. The intent is to introduce "Bane" and wet the audience's appetite for the film in general (and anyone hoping this film picks up where TDK left off is in for a rude awakening). Nolan did a similar thing for "The Dark Knight" back in '09. Nolan also reveals that his intention for TDKR is to "finish" the Batman story. Hollywood being Hollywood however I'd bet a substantial amount of your money that somehow, someday the caped crusader will find a way to rise again. (Does that mean I'm cynical?)

Nov 21, 2011

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Nov 18 - Nov 20, 2011

1) Twilight - Breaking Dawn $138 Million
2) Happy Feet 2 $21 Million
3) Immortals $12.3 Million
4) Jack and Jill $11.7 Million
5) Puss in Boots $10.8 Million
6) Tower Heist $7.1 Million
7) J. Edgar $5.9 Million
8) Harold and Kumar Christmas $2.9 Million
9) In Time $1.7 Million
10) The Descendants $1.1 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1" which debuted with an impressive $125 million haul.

Nov 20, 2011

Photos from Spidey set

Comingsoon has some interesting photos from the set of the forthcoming web-slinger reboot "The Amazing Spiderman". One thing I haven't figured out though and it's this: why does a film franchise less than a decade old need a reboot? It's not like the previous installment tanked or the characters were being updated for a new generation. The generation that made I, II and III so popular are still here and plenty young enough to keep things going at the Spidey box office. While this is undoubtedly a question that's been asked a million times before I haven't seen or heard any satisfactory answer from anyone involved. Only thinly veiled rationalizations for keeping the gravy train running.

Anyway now that I've had my little rant you can see the photos here.

New trailer for "The Grey"

The Ridley and Tony Scott produced wolves-gone-wild tale "The Grey" starring Liam Neeson has a new full length trailer and it looks pretty good. The film is due to hit theaters January 27th.

Off the beaten track trailer of the day - "Strippers vs Werewolves" trailer

While Hollywood takes a couple of days off to bask in the inexplicable box office glow of the latest Twilight yawner (my opinion) I went searching around for something a little off the beaten path and came up with this nugget. It's not hard to imagine that if it makes any coin at all we're going to see copycats down the line: maybe "Webcam Hos vs Vampires" or "Porn Stars vs Alien" or even "Cowboys vs Aliens". How wacked would that be? Oh, wait...

Nov 18, 2011

The Governator cracks up

Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to tinsel town took a turn down injury road yesterday. Arnold tweeted a picture of himself with an enormous gash down the middle of his forehead. He claimed to have gotten injured on the set of his new film "The Last Stand" though he was not forthcoming with details (ghost of Maria maybe?) and said he was back to work in an hour.

Trailer for new Woody Harrelson movie "Rampart"

Woody Harrelson's new flick "Rampart" finally has a trailer. The film about a corrupt LA cop also stars Sigourney Weaver, Ned Beatty and Robin Wright (formerly Penn) among others and was written by "LA Confidential" writer James Ellroy. Harrelson has been getting a lot of early buzz about his performance with some predicting the former "Cheers" star could break through with an Oscar win next spring.

Rampart is due in US theaters in January 2012.

Nov 17, 2011

That's a wrap! Dark Knight Rises finishes filming

JGL and CB on the set of TDKR
After spanning the globe in what seemed like an endless schedule to nail down footage for the third and final Christopher Nolan-helmed Batman movie Joseph Gordon-Levitt revealed to E! that filming for "The Dark Knight Rises" concluded this past weekend after shooting on New York City's Queensboro bridge.

Said the actor: "We just finished. I finished day before yesterday, and the movie finished yesterday, and it's been a seven-month shoot. It went really, really well,"

The Dark Knight Rises opens in theaters July 20, 2012.

Woody Allen on "American Masters"


Deadline.com has a nice article on PBS's upcoming "American Masters" documentary on Woody Allen. Some have seen the timing of this documentary as part of a campaign to rehabilitate Allen's public image leading up to the Oscar's where his most recent film "Midnight in Paris" in potentially in line for some serious hardware.

Read the whole article here.

Nov 16, 2011

Bill Nighy weighs Frankenstein role

"Give my creation, life!"
Cineblend (via Variety) reports that "Pirates of the Caribbean", "Underworld" and "Harry Potter" veteran Bill Nighy is in discussions about taking the title role in Sutart Beattie's upcoming monster flick "I, Frankenstein". Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) is signed on to play the mad scientist's monster.

Michael Jackson Biopic?

Variety is reporting that the estate of Michael Jackson is in talks to develop a film about the late superstar which will focus on selected periods in the singer's life. No contracts have been signed at this point but the Jackson estate's executor has reportedly approached Ivan Reitman about the project. Stay tuned.

Nov 15, 2011

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Nov 11 - Nov 13, 2011

1) Immortals $32 Million
2) Jack and Jill $25 Million
3) Puss in Boots $24.7 Million
4) Tower Heist $12.7 Million
5) J. Edgar $11.2 Million
6) Harold and Kumar Christmas $5.9 Million
7) In Time $4 Million
8) Paranormal Activity 3 $3.6 Million
9) Footloose $2.7 Million
10) Real Steel $1.8 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Megamind which held on to the top spot for a second week with a $29
million haul.

Brad Pitt nearly ready to call it quits

"Take a good look guys 'cause I'm outa here."
Say it isn't so!

In an interview with Australian 60 Minutes Brad Pitt was asked how much longer he intended to continue acting in films, to which he replied "Three years." Three more years would take him to age 50 at which time he apparently intends to move behind the scenes and focus on film development.

In the interview Pitt is his usual guarded self, deflecting personal questions, giving a lot of non-answers but its as close as anyone has come in recent years to actually getting the father of six to open up for an interview and if your a big BP fan it's certainly worth a look.

"Hobbit" trailer on the way?

Andy Serkis has given an interview over at IGN where he talks a bit about the highly anticipated film "The Hobbit" due out in December 2012. When asked directly about when we might see the first teaser trailer Serkis replied: "There will be a trailer fairly soon, actually. Around Christmas time, I believe."

Given how close Serkis has become to Hobbit overlord Peter Jackson (Jackson actually has Serkis directing some of the second unit work for The Hobbit) its probably safe to say Serkis's prediction is based on pretty reliable information. I for one will be keeping my fingers crossed.

Nov 13, 2011

Off the beaten track trailer of the day - "Little Appliances"

Because its such an incredibly slow time for movie news I've decided to have some fun and post one of the stranger trailers I've seen in a while. This is for a film by Manuel Arija called "Little Appliances". What's it all about? You tell me but it looks fun.

Nov 12, 2011

"Unknown" - 2011

An American emerges from a coma in Europe to find his life doesn't add up. He then sets out to construct a picture of himself using the ill-fitting pieces presented to him. Along the way he picks up a wandering Euro-gal who, though reluctant to help anyone, (she's had a hard life you see), nevertheless goes to extraordinary lengths to help him. What they discover sets them on a collision course with powers beyond their imagination and causes him to renounce his pre-coma life in its entirety.

You could lift that paragraph and use it to summarize "The Bourne Identity" without changing a word. The stories are so similar you could probably replace scenes from "Unknown" with scenes from The Bourne Identity and not change the movie at all. Check that. You'd have a better movie if you did that because TBI was a complete (if somewhat far fetched) movie. Unknown relies way too heavily in its second half on characters standing still and explaining everything the film makers couldn't figure out how to explain using moving pictures. It's painful to watch. In theory I don't mind a film scamming on another films storyline. It's done all the time and when it's done well I'm able to better appreciate aspects of the original movie I may have missed. But in this case the only thing that's accomplished by Unknown's glumming onto TBI's narrative is a no-holds-barred demonstration of the difference between film makers who know what they're doing and those that don't. 

Director Jaume Collet-Serra is positioning himself perfectly for a career in B-movies, territory the screenwriters know only too well and where, hopefully, they'll stay until they learn their craft. The chase sequences are lame in the extreme when compared to their Bourne brethren. The supporting characters are little more than cardboard cutouts whose mouths move and all that but whose real purpose is to fill space within the boundaries of the screen and look 'realistic' without behaving or speaking thus. The special effects look like they paid about $20 for them. Really. I don't know exactly what was said by the studio types who okayed these visual travesties, but I have an idea: "Sure it looks like crap. But it's Liam people are coming to see. Just hit render and get on with it!"

I really don't want to spend any more of my one and only life thinking or writing about this film so I'm not going to. Let's just say that at the end of the reel Unknown is a complete waste of time and money. I'll be watching for the release date of the sequel so I can plan on doing something else that night.

2nd trailer for Luc Besson's "The Lady"

New trailer for the Luc Besson biopic "The Lady" is out. This one focuses more on the relationship between Aung San Suu Kyi and her husband as events in Burma disintegrate around her.







Artwork from "The Crow" remake

The remake of "The Crow" has found its way to development limbo but that doesn't stop the leaks! If you ever wondered what Bradley Cooper would look like as a rock star turned avenging angel shocktillyoudrop.com has some intriguing conceptual artwork that was produced by Diego Latorre before the production ran into difficulties. Take a look here.

Bradley Cooper as The Crow. Needs more cowbell.

Nov 11, 2011

New trailer for upcoming Jason Statham flick "Safe"

The upcoming Jason Statham film "Safe" has a new trailer. While it looks predictably formulaic who says that's a bad thing when it comes to JS action flicks? "Safe" is due in theaters in March of 2012.

Nov 10, 2011

"Rosa" - An animated short by Jesus Orellana

While this blog focuses on major studio releases and related news every so often something will catch our eye from an independent film maker that deserves attention. Such is the case with Jesus Orellana's "cyberpunk" animated short film "Rosa". Created during a single year by Orellana, a young comic artist, Rosa depicts events that take place immediately after the cyborg Rosa awakens in a post-apocalyptic future (is there any other kind these days?) to discover she is not alone. While the short is completely devoid of dialogue and makes no attempt to explain who created Rosa or her pursuers or exactly what sort of apocalypse befell the planet the short is remarkable for its detail and tone. It's been a major hit a film festivals around the world and is allegedly being developed into a live action full length Hollywood feature.

Here's the complete short.

ROSA from
Jesús Orellana on Vimeo.

Nov 9, 2011

Mickey Rourke exits "Seven Psychopaths"

Is Mickey Rourke returning down the path of burnt bridges? After being on the outs in Hollywood for the better part of a decade Rourke has been on his best behavior (more or less) since his career revival started a few years back. Several sources are now reporting however that Rourke has cut ties with the upcoming "Seven Psychopaths" and it's director Martin McDonagh quoting the mercurial star as saying, "The director was a jerkoff. He wanted a whole lot for nothing. He can go play with himself." Whether or not this indicates Mickey has begun to wear out his welcome in Tinseltown a second time remains to be seen. He next appears in theaters in the 300 inspired "Immortals" which opens stateside this weekend.

Nov 8, 2011

Luke Grimes "Taken" for sequel

Luke Grimes headed for "Taken 2"
Variety is reporting that Luke Grimes of "Brothers and Sisters" notability has signed on to appear in Luc Besson's "Taken 2". In the sequel Liam Neeson's character Bryan Mills and his ex (Famke Janssen) will reportedly be taken hostage by the avenging father of one of the men Mills killed in the original. Grime's is to be the love interest of Mill's daughter, played by Maggie Grace. "Taken 2" is due out next fall.

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Nov 4 - Nov 6, 2011

1) Puss in Boots $33 Million
2) Tower Heist $24 Million
3) A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas $12.9 Million
4) Paranormal Activity 3 $8.3 Million
5) In Time $7.4 Million
6) Footloose $4.4 Million
7) Real Steel $3.4 Million
8) The Rum Diary $2.9 Million
9) The Ides of March $1.9 Million
10) Moneyball $1.7 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Megamind which debuted in the top spot with a $46 million haul.

Nov 7, 2011

Sewell and Belle to join Proyas' "Paradise Lost"

Alex Proyas, who is a favorite of both Chris and myself, is busy stocking the lineup for his upcoming adaptation of Milton's "Paradise Lost". Bradley Cooper, Djimon Hounsou and Casey Affleck are already on board and now Variety is reporting that Rufus Sewell, Diego Boneta and Camilla Belle have signed on. Sewell worked with Proyas previously on 1998's oft-overlooked marvel "Dark City". Filming begins early next year.

Rufus Sewell and Camilla Belle join the cast of "Paradise Lost"

Ridley Scott talks Prometheus

Even though Ridley Scott opened up a little recently when he confirmed he'll be directing a Blade Runner sequel, he continues his cat and mouse game concerning his upcoming "Prometheus". In an interview with Speakeasy the director spoke in vague, mythological terms about his new film, shot in 3D and due to hit theaters in June. Here's an excerpt;

The central metaphor of “Prometheus” is about a “higher being” (Scott’s words) who challenges the gods, and the gods don’t want to give him fire. “Fire is our first form of technology,” Scott says, and so by taking fire, the higher being is punished “in perpetuity in a horrible fashion.”

Uh, okay. He also stated that the last 8 minutes of the film contain "a pretty good DNA of (Alien)". Funny but I don't recall Alien having any gods in it. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Casino Royale - 2006

Casino Royale is one of the best action flicks of the (admittedly young) 21st century. A bold updating of the Bond brand it takes all that was noteworthy from its many predecessors (exotic locales, latest technology, bodacious babes), adds an edgier new star and tilts the proceedings in a much more realistic direction (though, to be sure, realism is a relative term in Hollywood). Undoubtedly influenced by the success of The Bourne franchise the film makers have upped the action and frayed the edges of Bond's formerly silky smooth persona. Daniel Craig's Bond is a street kid whose been given the license to kill and, as would be expected of such a situation, it takes him some time to get comfortable with the idea that killing is not the primary goal of espionage. When we are first introduced to this new Bond it's in a flashback before the opening credits where he recounts his recent and brutal dispatch of an unnamed foreign intelligence operative. The man he's telling his tale to is an MI6 traitor who doesn't get to finish his statement about how the second kill is easier than the first before Bond pumps a bullet into his chest, calmly remarking: "Yes. Considerably." It's a powerful opening scene that tosses sand into the face of 007 history while at the same time tipping it's hat to its forebearers.

Daniel Craig was a controversial choice to play James Bond. Many complained he lacked the sophisticated patina of earlier Bonds like Sean Connery and Roger Moore. He was too brutish, too ordinary, too (gulp) blonde! But while all those adjectives can be rightly laid at his feet the fact is his brutish, ordinary, blonde nature make him perfect for this gritty re-booting of the franchise. This Bond is an action star, not a martini sipping dilettante with a gun. There are no end-of-the-world stakes here, no cartoon super villains with diabolical laughs and no winking at the camera. This Bond lives more or less in the real world and the action sequences, technology and even the Bond/Bond-girl relationships reflect that.

After the credits and a short detour to Africa to introduce us to the bad guys - Mr White, the shadowy facilitator and Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), "banker to the worlds terrorist" and weeper of blood - the film gets right down to business with one of the most outstanding action/chase sequences of recent memory. Bond is on assignment in Madagascar tracking a mercenary bomber when his assistant blows their cover and Bond must pursue. The scene is a marvel of stunt work. From knife edge, vertigo inducing heights to bone crushing hand to hand combat and an embassy shootout the action is relentless, convincing and superbly choreographed. By the time the scene ends Bond has made himself a pariah by shooting his prey in front of the embassy's surveillance cameras and he's banished to the Bahamas to lay low while M (Judi Dench) picks up the diplomatic pieces. Bond being Bond though (even this new Bond) he can't let sleeping dogs lie and while in the Bahamas he hacks into the MI6 server and digs around trying to find out who was behind the bomber he killed. He research dredges up the name of Le Chiffre and the real chase is on.

After inadvertently causing Le Chiffre to lose $100 million of an African Tyrant's money Bond is entered into a high-stakes poker game that the banker has arranged (in the fictional country of Montenegro at the Casino Royale of the title) in a desperate attempt to make the money back before said tyrant comes looking for it. En route Bond meets the money person from MI6 Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) and their verbal jousting establishes that she's no ordinary bimbo waiting to ruffle the linen with ol' JB. She's not the bodacious babe referred to above (that role falls to the astonishing Caterina Murino) she's a complex woman complete with complex secrets and she calls to the part of Bond that's been waiting for a 'real' relationship; even if he didn't know he had such a part within.

The poker game itself is both a chance for the audience to relax a bit and a platform for director Martin Campbell to spend some time expanding on the established characters and introduce a new one. Though it is a long scene it doesn't seem like it because of the care given to creating tension and the superb acting by all involved. By the time the film reaches it's climax in Venice we care about these characters and what happens to them. When Bond discovers he may have been betrayed by someone close to him Craig shifts emotional gears with devastating effect and his dissolution becomes terra firma on which to develop this new Bond as the series moves forward.

Casino Royale isn't a perfect film, but for my money it's the best Bond film I've seen to date. While taking its lead from the Bourne franchise it doesn't make the mistake of aping Bourne's hyperactive editing style and proves without a doubt that one need not go down that over-caffeinated road in order to create world class action. My biggest gripe with the film is the shameless product placement. There's a 30 second or so scene involving an automobile that could be lifted verbatim from the movie and used as a TV commercial. That aside, Casino Royale was one of the best movies of 2006. It both surpassed my expectations and reset them so high that subsequent chapters in the 007 saga may never quite measure up.


Nov 5, 2011

Benicio Del Toro in Star Trek sequel?

B Del T ponders the final frontier
Variety is reporting that Benicio Del Toro has been talking to JJ Abrams about taking on an as-yet-unidentified bad guy role in the upcoming Star Trek sequel. Though nothing has been signed and no details given by the ever secretive Abrams the story says that he may receive a formal offer as early as this weekend. Stay tuned.

Nov 4, 2011

Underworld Awakening 3D

New Underworld Awakening trailer released. Look for it in theaters January 20, 2012 (in 3D of course).

Nov 3, 2011

New Bond Girl Revealed

What's Bond without a Bond-girl? The newest installment in that proud tradition was revealed Thursday to be French actress Bérénice Marlohe. Folks in the UK and US can be excused for asking "Berenice who?" as the sultry Marlohe has never appeared before in an English language film. "Skyfall" will have Daniel Craig return as 007 with Javier Bardem as the requisite super-baddie and Marlohe as "a glamorous, enigmatic character called Severine". The 23rd installment in the adventures of JB is currently in production with a release date of November 9, 2012.

Bérénice Marlohe and Daniel Craig share a quiet moment

The Animatrix - 2003

"The Animatrix" is, for my money, the true successor to the Wachowski's uber-influential 1999 hit The Matrix. It carries the spirit of that groundbreaking film forward in a way the two 'official' sequels did not. Comprised of 9 short films created by leading Japanese animators The Animatrix serves to expand upon the ideas, concepts and characters of The Matrix while paying homage to the anime that helped spawn the original movie. After four of its component parts premiered on the internet the entire collection of 9 shorts was released to DVD on June 3, 2003.

The Wachowski's actually had a limited hand in the creation of the Animatrix and that seems to have served to rein in their more pretentious and boring philosophical tendencies, the kind that ran amok in Reloaded and Revolutions. As a result The Animatrix bristles with the kind of tension, mood and belief in the value of asking questions that have no easy answers that made the first Matrix movie such an unexpected and welcome surprise. The Animatrix expands on the original film's question "What is reality?" by delving deeper into the underlying question "What is life?" which is, after all, the question that spawned the human/machine conflict that resulted in the matrix program to begin with.

Each short has its own look and feel (with the exception of "The Second Renaissance" which is basically one film split into two parts) with each Japanese writer/animator/director taking their own stab at the material. Some, like "Final Flight of the Osiris" and "Kids Story", were based on material the Wachowski's had developed previously and lay the groundwork for things to come in Reloaded and Revolutions. The luscious "A Detective Story" (written and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe) can be seen as a direct prequel to The Matrix itself while my personal favorite "Beyond" (written and directed by Koji Morimoto) was created out of whole cloth and follows a group of kids plugged into the matrix who encounter an anomalous region within what they believe to be the real world where the laws of physics seem to break down. "Matriculated" (written and directed by Peter Chung) goes so far as to wonder how humans might react if machines could actually be reprogrammed to see and (more importantly) feel the world the way we do. Would we accept them? Or would it be a case of "you better be careful what you ask for because you might get it"? To the credit of nearly everyone involved the answers are left up to the viewer.

If I have a quibble with The Animatrix it is in the titling of the collection's two "Second Renaissance" pieces. The Renaissance (or 'rebirth') was so named because it represented a rediscovery of long lost stores of knowledge from the period of the Roman Empire that had been squirreled away in abbeys or simply buried (in the cast of classical Roman sculptures) for centuries. The Second Renaissance of The Animatrix is not a rediscovery but the emergence of what may or may not be a new form of life and that possible life form's struggle for recognition. But this is a minor issue to be sure.

On the whole The Animatrix is tremendous achievement. Varied in tone and viewpoint, intellectually engaging, restrained, visually arresting and never boring it's a testament to the imagination and craftsmanship of those involved. The best thing that can be said about the Wachowski's role in it's creation (and this is no small thing) is that, after providing the inspiration, they had the courage to stay out of the way.

Nov 1, 2011

Amanda Seyfried to replace Kate Hudson in Lovelace Biopic

Everybody's favorite historical porn figure (Is there such a thing? hmmmm...) Linda Susan Boreman (known to pornophiles as Linda Lovelace) is the subject of not one but two upcoming psuedo-biopics. Matthew Wilder is directing a film called "Inferno" said to be based on Lovelace's autobiography "Ordeal". The film was originally slated to have Lindsey Lohan play the reluctant porn legend but Lohan being what she is she had to be replaced with Malin Ackerman answering the call. Matt Dillon will play her allegedly abusive husband/pimp Chuck Traynor. The second film simply called "Lovelace" also had casting issues when Kate Hudson had to pull out due to pregnancy and James Franco followed her out the door. Multiple sources now report that Amanda Seyfried is apparently in talks to take over the lead role.


"Inferno" is currently in production and "Lovelace" is said to start shooting next spring. Boreman herself will not be around to see either effort make it to the screen having died following a traffic accident in 2002.

How Hagrid Survived the Hallows

Hagrid pleads his case
According to ew.com one of the extras to the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II Blu-ray edition is a lively exchange between creator J.K. Rowling and Harry himself Daniel Radcliff during which Rowling discusses the story's character arcs. At one point while discussing Hagrid she mentions that the thing that saved him from being killed off was a vision she had of the story's end with Hagrid carrying an apparently dead Harry out of the Forbidden Forest. To her this image created a perfect symmetry with the story's beginning where Hagrid carried the baby wizard to the doorstep of the Dursleys. Rowling states: "That image kept him safe". Whew!

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Oct 28 - Oct 30 2011

1) Puss in Boots $34 Million
2) Paranormal Activity 3 $18.1 Million
3) In Time $12 Million
4) Footloose $5.5 Million
5) The Run Diary $5.1 Million
6) Real Steel $4.7 Million
7) The Three Musketeers $3.5 Million
8) The Ides of March $2.8 Million
9) Moneyball $2.3 Million
10) Courageous $1.8 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Saw 3D which debuted at number 1 with a $22.5 million haul.

Oct 31, 2011

Where Have All the Trailers Gone?

Am I the only one who thinks its pretty weird that there's no trailer yet for Clash of the Titans 2 (Wrath of the Titans)? The movie is set to be released March 30 but not even a teaser trailer. What kind of way is that to promote your blockbuster? And speaking of blockbusters without trailers, where's the trailer for Ridley Scott's "Prometheus"? This is one of the most anticipated sci-fi films of the last 10 years yet here we are only 7 months from release and nothing, not even a teaser. Weird.

All we currently have from Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" due out on June 8 2012

Beetlejuice sequel

A couple of personal thoughts on the momentum that's apparently building around the idea of a "Beetlejuice" sequel.

First, while Seth Grahame-Smith and David (son of Jeffrey) Katzenberg state that their proposed film would be a true sequel and not just a remake of Tim Burton's classic and that they'll only do it if Michael Keaton agrees to reprise his role as the used car salesman from hell, getting him to agree to it 23 years on would seem to be something of a challenge. Still, who knows? Maybe they'll make him an offer he can't refuse. And secondly, Burton himself would apparently not be helming the sequel which to me sounds like a good enough reason to give it a pass. What would the original have been without him? Nothing is the short answer. Burton and Beetlejuice were as much a part of each other as any director/film pairing in history. Putting someone else behind the camera to "extend" what was essentially a personal vision seems like a recipe for disaster, or at best, mediocrity. Guess we'll just have to stay tuned and see how it plays out.

Oct 29, 2011

Death on the "Expendables 2" Set

One stuntman has died and another is in serious condition in the hospital after a staged explosion on the Expendables 2 set in Bulgaria went terribly wrong. The film's production company released the following statement:

"It is with great regret that we confirm this unfortunate accident. Our hearts go out to the families and those on the production affected by this tragedy. The filmmakers are working closely with the authorities in responding to and investigating this accident."

None of the film's action stars were present on the set at the time of the accident.

Jackson' Talks "Hobbit" premiere

To absolutely no one's surprise Peter Jackson announced that the world premiere of "The Hobbit; an Unexpected Journey" will be held in New Zealand. After emerging from a sit down with Prime Minister John Key Jackson was effusive in his praise for Kiwi devotion to his little film projects stating that the over-the-top turnout for his "Return of the King" some 8 years ago (is it really that long!?) was a major reason for the studio's decision to stage the world premiere in Wellington. No firm date has been set though it's expected to be in late November 2012.

Jackson also revealed a tidbit of production news. While speaking to reporters outside a Hobbit hole about the set's future as a tourist attraction he mentioned that filming for both Middle Earth prequels was only a few days from wrapping on the Hobbiton set.

You can read the complete article on Jackson's press conference with PM Key here.

New Zealand PM John Key (left) and Hobbit director Peter Jackson (right) talk tourism and world premieres.