"Resident Evil: Retribution" hits theaters this September.
Jun 15, 2012
"Resident Evil: Retribution" - trailer
The full Resident Evil: Retribution trailer is here and it looks like the film was tailor made for a good old fashioned 3D experience with all kinds of things projecting toward the screen/audience. At the outset Milla looks to be having a normal family-style suburban existence until a squid faced zombie bursts into the room and ruins everything (I hate when that happens!). One is soon followed by more and more and more and... next thing you know a zombie in the kitchen has turned into the end of the world as we know it.
"Resident Evil: Retribution" hits theaters this September.
"Resident Evil: Retribution" hits theaters this September.
Jun 14, 2012
"Sinister" - trailer
Here's the creepy first trailer for Ethan Hawk's upcoming film "Sinister" directed by Scott Derrickson. Hawk plays a writer searching for inspiration for his upcoming book who stumbles upon a box of old home movies in the attic of his house. The films are more than just a record of the family life of the people that used to live in the house, they're a record of pure evil; a Pandora's box that Hawk has opened and now must find a way to close.
"Sinister" opens October 5th.
"Sinister" opens October 5th.
"The Dark Knight Rises" soundtrack preview
Christopher Nolan and co. have released a 7:30 preview of the soundtrack music for "The Dark Knight Rises". I hope the film is as good as this music. Hans Zimmer of course is the composer.
Jun 13, 2012
"The Woman in Black" sequel moving forward
While I don't live for sequels (there's nothing wrong with the standalone movie event in my book) I was happy to hear that Hammer would be going back to the marsh again for "The Woman in Black: Angels of Death" and now shocktillyoudrop has got their hands on what they're calling an official synopsis and here it is.
Seized by the government and converted into a military mental hospital during World War II, the sudden arrival of disturbed soldiers to Eel Marsh Harsh has awoken its darkest inhabitant. Eve, a beautiful young nurse, is sent to the house to care for the patients but soon realizes she must save them from more than their own demons. Despite Eve’s efforts to stop her, one by one they fall victim to the Woman in Black.
Jun 12, 2012
Beowulf going biblical?
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| "What do you mean there's 2 of them?" |
Aronofsky apparently wanted someone to play opposite lead actor Russell Crowe that would be able to match both Crowe's size and his screen presence. Winstone would be playing the "villain" (though I have to admit I don't remember any villain in the story of the Ark but maybe it's just been too long since I've read it). Harry Potter alum Emma Watson has also signed on for the project so the cast is shaping up. Filming is set to begin next month with March 24, 2014 set as the opening date as of this writing.
New TV spots for "The Amazing SpiderMan"
3 new spots have hit the airwaves and here they are all together in one tidy video.
The Amazing SpiderMan opens stateside July 3rd.
The Amazing SpiderMan opens stateside July 3rd.
Jun 11, 2012
The top 10 movies for the weekend of June 8 - June 10, 2012
| 1) Madagascar 3 | $60.3 Million |
| 2) Prometheus | $51 Million |
| 3) Snow White and the Huntsman | $23 Million |
| 4) Men in Black III | $13.8 Million |
| 5) The Avengers | $11.2 Million |
| 6) The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel | $3.2 Million |
| 7) What to Expect... | $2.7 Million |
| 8) Battleship | $2.27 Million |
| 9) The Dictator | $2.24 Million |
| 10) Moonrise Kingdom | $1.5 Million |
Jun 10, 2012
"Prometheus" - 2012 - movie review
Ridley Scott's long-awaited "Prometheus" aims high from the outset with
the premise that the ultimate alien invasion occured millions of years
ago when the earth was still a largely barren landscape and that said invasion consisted of extraterrestrials "seeding" the earth with
their DNA. The result? Us.
Fast forward several eons to 2089 and archeologists Elizabeth Shaw (the marvelous Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (newcomer Logan Marshall-Green) discover a recurring motif in cave art worldwide. Somebody or something communicated with ancient civilizations and apparently left invitations for us to read when we were technologically advanced enough. Invitations pointing the way "home". Shaw and Holloway convince Weyland corporation to spend a trillion dollars to fund an expidition to accept this invitation and everbody's off to see the wizard.
The setup while effective seems overly simplistic/too matter of fact in its delivery, going from cave paintings to the depths of space to finding the alien habitat and effortlessly touching down without missing a beat. Personally I wanted to see some of the world of 2089 and learn more about how these 2 scientists convinced Weyland corp to finance their field trip. (Viral videos don't count as part of the movie.)
However, all is not lost during the setup as Scott uses all the empty narrative space to introduce David (Michael Fassbender), the expedition's resident android and arguably the film's central character. David is fascinated with "Lawrence of Arabia" and quotes from it at strategic points throughout Prometheus. If you're at all familiar with David Lean's masterpiece you'll probably get these references. If you don't you'll be missing a big piece of the David puzzle. David seems to use Peter O'Toole's extraordinary performance as a way to create a subtext for his own actions. Like Lawrence he's got a secret agenda, one he knows will result in harm to his hosts. This creates conflict within him which he neutralizes using Lawrence's trick; "The trick... is not minding that it hurts." Some other quotes from Lawrence of Arabia include "Big things have small beginnings", "Mortal after all" and "There's nothing in the desert, and no man needs nothing." As these references spill out of him you can see David internally imposing the Lawrence narrative on the unfolding events to provide himself context and again if you are familiar with "Lawrence" you'll know that this is not necessarily a good thing because hard lessons are waiting on the road to Damascus.
While David and Shaw are characters that shine there are others that don't work at all. Charleze Theron's mission overlord "Merideth Vickers" is a wood cutout of a character and its not all the writer's fault. Theron seems to think that "cold" equals "authoritative" when actually it means just the opposite. The way she's played here Vickers wouldn't last more than a few hours before being subjected to interstellar fragging. They are, after all, light years from home with no police force around, and the crew would have plenty of time to concoct a story about what happened to her. The other character that doesn't even begin to work is Fifield, a mohawked, crybaby coward with a nasty disposition who would never in a million years be allowed on a prolonged expedition of any kind in the real world.
Happily Prometheus gets most of its issues out of the way in the first act and once the alien worm-critters make their debut things shift into another gear. The scientists, in their rush to investigate what they're faced with upon landing, are unaware they've got a renegade android on their hands and David does his passive/agressive best to undermine the proceedings. In short order his actions begin to endanger the mission and its members and things go from bad to much worse when he sneeks some alien protoplasm on board and then sets about to "engineer" a way to get it home. And speaking of engineers, those humungous creatures who created us (and it seems the aliens as well) and are supposed to be the ones with the answers seem to have all perished some 2,000 years before Shaw and her colleagues land to interview them. Or have they?
Prometheus is loaded with big questions. None bigger than that old standby "Where did we come from?" In the best scientific tradition it doesn't really answer any of them. Instead it handles the immediate issues and leaves the bigger questions for the proverbial 'later day' (read 'sequel') where the answers will again no doubt be left dangling just out of reach.
It's stumbles are never enough to land it on its face yet are significant enough to make me wonder if Ridley wasn't paying attention here and there or if I just missed something. Personally I'm chaulking most of Prometheus' problems up to the presence of David Lindelof. His TV-shaped fingerprints are all over the films weaknesses (inexplicable characters, crappy TV-show musical theme and serial fetish) and it's my sincere hope that he's not allowed anywhere near the sequel, once it gets underway.
The atmosphere Scott creates is never dark enough for Prometheus to be considered a true horror film ala "Alien". What it is is a hybrid of sorts. Part house of horrors, part character study, part history lesson and part franchise reboot. It's visually breathtaking first frame to last, never less than engaging and often exciting with some truly "horrific" scenes. It's well paced, ambitious, imaginative and thought provoking and is Scott's best film in years. For the reasons mentioned above, however, it comes up just short of being a great film and I was left feeling a bit like Lawrence, staring off into space, wondering what might have been.
Fast forward several eons to 2089 and archeologists Elizabeth Shaw (the marvelous Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (newcomer Logan Marshall-Green) discover a recurring motif in cave art worldwide. Somebody or something communicated with ancient civilizations and apparently left invitations for us to read when we were technologically advanced enough. Invitations pointing the way "home". Shaw and Holloway convince Weyland corporation to spend a trillion dollars to fund an expidition to accept this invitation and everbody's off to see the wizard.
The setup while effective seems overly simplistic/too matter of fact in its delivery, going from cave paintings to the depths of space to finding the alien habitat and effortlessly touching down without missing a beat. Personally I wanted to see some of the world of 2089 and learn more about how these 2 scientists convinced Weyland corp to finance their field trip. (Viral videos don't count as part of the movie.)
However, all is not lost during the setup as Scott uses all the empty narrative space to introduce David (Michael Fassbender), the expedition's resident android and arguably the film's central character. David is fascinated with "Lawrence of Arabia" and quotes from it at strategic points throughout Prometheus. If you're at all familiar with David Lean's masterpiece you'll probably get these references. If you don't you'll be missing a big piece of the David puzzle. David seems to use Peter O'Toole's extraordinary performance as a way to create a subtext for his own actions. Like Lawrence he's got a secret agenda, one he knows will result in harm to his hosts. This creates conflict within him which he neutralizes using Lawrence's trick; "The trick... is not minding that it hurts." Some other quotes from Lawrence of Arabia include "Big things have small beginnings", "Mortal after all" and "There's nothing in the desert, and no man needs nothing." As these references spill out of him you can see David internally imposing the Lawrence narrative on the unfolding events to provide himself context and again if you are familiar with "Lawrence" you'll know that this is not necessarily a good thing because hard lessons are waiting on the road to Damascus.
While David and Shaw are characters that shine there are others that don't work at all. Charleze Theron's mission overlord "Merideth Vickers" is a wood cutout of a character and its not all the writer's fault. Theron seems to think that "cold" equals "authoritative" when actually it means just the opposite. The way she's played here Vickers wouldn't last more than a few hours before being subjected to interstellar fragging. They are, after all, light years from home with no police force around, and the crew would have plenty of time to concoct a story about what happened to her. The other character that doesn't even begin to work is Fifield, a mohawked, crybaby coward with a nasty disposition who would never in a million years be allowed on a prolonged expedition of any kind in the real world.
Happily Prometheus gets most of its issues out of the way in the first act and once the alien worm-critters make their debut things shift into another gear. The scientists, in their rush to investigate what they're faced with upon landing, are unaware they've got a renegade android on their hands and David does his passive/agressive best to undermine the proceedings. In short order his actions begin to endanger the mission and its members and things go from bad to much worse when he sneeks some alien protoplasm on board and then sets about to "engineer" a way to get it home. And speaking of engineers, those humungous creatures who created us (and it seems the aliens as well) and are supposed to be the ones with the answers seem to have all perished some 2,000 years before Shaw and her colleagues land to interview them. Or have they?
Prometheus is loaded with big questions. None bigger than that old standby "Where did we come from?" In the best scientific tradition it doesn't really answer any of them. Instead it handles the immediate issues and leaves the bigger questions for the proverbial 'later day' (read 'sequel') where the answers will again no doubt be left dangling just out of reach.
It's stumbles are never enough to land it on its face yet are significant enough to make me wonder if Ridley wasn't paying attention here and there or if I just missed something. Personally I'm chaulking most of Prometheus' problems up to the presence of David Lindelof. His TV-shaped fingerprints are all over the films weaknesses (inexplicable characters, crappy TV-show musical theme and serial fetish) and it's my sincere hope that he's not allowed anywhere near the sequel, once it gets underway.
The atmosphere Scott creates is never dark enough for Prometheus to be considered a true horror film ala "Alien". What it is is a hybrid of sorts. Part house of horrors, part character study, part history lesson and part franchise reboot. It's visually breathtaking first frame to last, never less than engaging and often exciting with some truly "horrific" scenes. It's well paced, ambitious, imaginative and thought provoking and is Scott's best film in years. For the reasons mentioned above, however, it comes up just short of being a great film and I was left feeling a bit like Lawrence, staring off into space, wondering what might have been.
Jun 8, 2012
New poster for "Resident Evil: Retribution"
In keeping with today's (unofficial) Spanish language theme here's the new Span-Lan poster for the upcoming "Resident Evil: Retribution". Seems like it's come down to Milla's perfectly proportioned posterior against the world. I know where my money's going.
"Resident Evil: Retribution" opens September 14th.
"Resident Evil: Retribution" opens September 14th.
Off the beaten track trailer of the day - "Everybody Has a Plan"
Whatever happened to Viggo Mortensen anyway? Well, nothing really happened to him, he just hasn't worked much in the last five years or so. But here he is in the trailer for the new Ana Piterbarg, Spanish-language thriller "Everybody Has a Plan". You'd think that maybe Viggo had to put in long hours perfecting his Spanish for the role but he actually spent much of his youth living in South America so the language comes naturally to him.
Sorry but there are no English subtitles for this one and no US release is scheduled; at this point anyway.
Sorry but there are no English subtitles for this one and no US release is scheduled; at this point anyway.
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