Thread: Movie News ( Cinema Releases, Movie Ratings & Reviews )

As the title clearly says this will be an area of the Forum dedicated to Movie News.

Before i begin there are some basic rules that you need to follow :

--- since is a info topic, there will be no commenting on the threads

--- every user is entitled to come and add news, movie reviews, trailers

--- there will be no flaming, chaotic discussions or any other comments to the threads posted, only but the news themselves
--- posts should have the date on top.




01/12/2010


Thor Begins Swinging His Hammer




Marvel Studios announced today that Thor has begun principal photography.Here’s the full, official press release from Marvel announcing the start of most marginally anticipated upcoming superhero movie:

Marvel Studios has commenced principal photography on the highly anticipated feature film THOR directed by Kenneth Branagh. In THOR, Chris Hemsworth portrays the title character with Tom Hiddleston in the role of Thor’s brother Loki, and Natalie Portman as Jane Foster. Additionally, the studio has cast Academy Award® winning actor Anthony Hopkins as Odin, Renee Russo as Frigga, Ray Stevenson as Volstagg, Tadanobu Asano as Hogun, Josh Dallas as Fandral, Jaimie Alexander as Sif, Idris Elba as Heimdall, as well as Colm Feore, Kat Dennings and award-winning actor Stellan Skarsgård. The film is slated for release in theatres domestically on May 6, 2011 via Paramount Pictures which will also release the film on a worldwide basis.

The epic adventure THOR spans the Marvel Universe from present day Earth to the realm of Asgard. At the center of the story is The Mighty Thor, a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans as punishment. Once here, Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.

The screenplay for THOR was penned by Mark Protosevich as well as Ashley Miller & Zack Stentz, and Don Payne. Marvel Studios’ President Kevin Feige will produce the film. Alan Fine, Stan Lee, David Maisel, and Marvel Studio’s Co-President, Louis D'Esposito, will executive produce.



Spider-Man 4 Cancelled, Reboot Planned Without Raimi Or Maguire



For weeks we've been covering the ongoing fight between Sam Raimi and Sony over the fate of Spider-Man 4, and now it's all been decided thanks to a stunning move on Sony's part: they've scrapped the movie entirely. Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Sam Raimi told the studio today he wouldn't be able to complete the film on their terms, and rather than replacing Raimi, the studio decided to cancel the project outright.

Instead they'll be moving forward with a reboot of the franchise, based on a script by Jamie Vanderbilt, who wrote the screenplay for David Fincher's Zodiac, oddly enough. The entire original cast, including Tobey Maguire, is out, and apparently Maguire isn't that upset to see the franchise go: "He's made 3 great Spider-Man movies. He's done really well. But he's the kind of guy who, if Sam wanted to go forward, would have been there for Sam and the studio. Absolutely."

There's no official word from Sony beyond one very short tweet: "Spider-Man: Summer 2012: Peter Parker is going back to high school when the next Spider-Man hits theaters in the summer of 2012."

It's stunning to see a project this gigantic fall apart this way, especially after weeks of very public negotiations about the franchise's future and what seemed to be Sam Raimi's continued passion for the project. There's no telling how good an idea Spider-Man 4 really would have been, but I'm really not sure about a full franchise reboot. I'm sure we'll be writing about this plenty in the weeks to come, but right off the bat, the notion of rebooting a hugely successful franchise not even 10 years after the first film debuted is, uh, questionable at best. We'll bring you more news as it comes in.



First Look at The Eagle of the Ninth





Yahoo! Movies has debuted the first photos from Focus Features' The Eagle of the Ninth, coming to theaters in the fall of 2010. The adventure film, directed by Kevin Macdonald, stars Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell, Donald Sutherland, Mark Strong and Tahar Rahim.

The Eagle of the Ninth is set in the dangerous world of second-century Britain. In 140 AD, twenty years after the unexplained disappearance of the entire Ninth Legion in the mountains of Scotland, young centurion Marcus Aquila (Tatum) arrives from Rome to solve the mystery and restore the reputation of his father, the commander of the Ninth. Accompanied only by his British slave Esca (Bell), Marcus sets out across Hadrian's Wall into the uncharted highlands of Caledonia - to confront its savage tribes, make peace with his father's memory, and retrieve the lost legion's golden emblem, the Eagle of the Ninth.

This summer might be an exciting time to live in New York City, home of the Ghostbusters, especially if the production decides to set up shop there. Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky are penning the third film.



Gibson May Appear In Mad Max After All





Now this is deep speculation based on the tiniest bit of information dropped by Clint over at MovieHole, but Mel Gibson may still show up in Mad Max: Fury Road despite recent announcements that he wouldn’t.

The latest news from the Ozploitation remake is that Gibson’s production company, Icon Entertainment
, has decided they’d like to co-produce the film
. What does this mean for Mad Max? Probably nothing beyond getting a bit more money and representation, but it puts Gibson close to the set in time for shooting. Could we see a cameo from Gibson? Will he be the bad guy? Or, like Clint suggests, will he narrate? Nothing like that has been confirmed, I’m just stretching my rumor muscles.

Either way, Mad Max is trucking towards production with Bronson star Tom Hardy in the leading role, and based on his performance there, we’re going to be in for a treat. More on this as it unfolds.



Watch It: The Most Anticipated Movies Of 2010



Flip over your calendar in just a few hours we kick off a new year of movie-going. The economy may be in shambles, you may be unemployed, but Hollywood’s making more money than ever and that means a 2010 packed to the limit with big blockbusters and explosive entertainment. The poorer you are, the more you need the kind of escapism only they can provide. Maybe it’ll be the quiet little indie movie no one has heard of that we all end up liking best, but standing here right now, on the precipice of a new decade, these are the movies you should be on the lookout for. Click the titles for detailed information on each film.





The Book of Eli

Why you should care: Post-apocalyptic Denzel Washington kicking unholy amounts of ass can't be a bad thing, can it?


Legion

Why you should care: Paul Bettany continues his quest to piss off the Pope by making a movie in which he's a fallen Angel out to shoot god's minions in the head. Who'd have thought Angels were so susceptible to shotgun blasts?

When in Rome

Why you should care: Kristen Bell is uncommonly cute and deserves a shot at being one of those highly paid, romantic leads… even if we'd rather see her in superhero spandex.

From Paris with love

Why you should care: Isn't it about time John Travolta decided to shoot… everything?

Edge of Darkness

Why you should care: Last year it was Liam Neeson in Taken, this time it's Mel Gibson's turn to beat the hell out of the entire planet. What we know is that it's ok to kill as many people as you want, as long as you're doing it for your family.

The Wolfman

Why you should care: Universal's pushing to make this seem like a classic, old school monster movie and after years of glittering vampires and sweaty man-boy werewolves, old school is the right antidote.

Valentine's Day

Why you should care: This could be the new Love Actually, with a star-studded cast unmatched by any other film being released this year. Taylor Lautner, Bradley Cooper , Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel , Julia Roberts, Jennifer Garner, Emma Roberts, Taylor Swift, Topher Grace, Jamie Foxx, Patrick Dempsey, Queen Latifah, Shirley MacLaine, and George Lopez all in one movie.


Shutter Island

Why you should care: Scorsese and DiCaprio are together again, this time for a twisted psychological thriller set in an insane asylum. What could possibly go wrong?


Cop Out


Why you should care: It's Kevin Smith's first blockbuster, studio picture and it's also his first attempt at directing something he had no hand in writing. Pairing Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis could be genius, but I'd feel better if they'd hired Kevin's pen along with his lens.






Alice in Wonderland


Why you should care: Tim Burton's take on Wonderland is as colorful and lush as it is potentially weird. This grown up, darker Alice could be a lot of fun. Or, since Johnny Depp's involved again, it could be all creepy like Willy Wonka.



Hot Tub Time Machine


Why you should care: Sure John Cusack is in this movie and so is Rob Corddry and Chevy Chase and even, believe it or not, Crispin Glover. But I'm excited for Craig Robinson who at any given moment is always the funniest person in any scene. Plus there's a hot tub. And it's a time machine.


How to Train Your Dragon


Why you should care: It's the new animated movie from DreamWorks and the trailers hint that maybe, just maybe, it could be more Kung Fu Panda than Shrek the Third. Fingers crossed. Vikings riding dragons should be awesome.



Clash of the Titans


Why you should care: Sam Worthington flexes his muscles to cut the head off of every mythical beast imaginable. Granted this was more fun when it was stop-motion instead of CGI, but as long as Medusa gets stabbed we should be on board.


Kick-Ass


Why you should care: Director Matthew Vaughn made Stardust, quietly one of the best fantasy movies ever made. I say quietly because no one saw it. Kick-Ass is his twisted take on the superhero genre and looks to be every bit as incredible. This time, it might be nice if people showed up to watch it.


A Nightmare on Elm Street


Why you should care: Sure it's a remake but you have to be interested to see what Jackie Earle Haley will do as Freddy. He was the best thing about Watchmen as the growling psychopath Rorschach and now they're giving him claws and sending him after teenagers.

01/13/2010



Transformers 3 Five Months From Production?



As much as I'd love for Michael Bay to feed us internet-sharks a new high grossing piece of garbage for us to pan relentlessly, I don't believe they'll be ready to shoot Transformers 3 in five months, despite what the bottom line of this Deadline Hollywood article about Shia LaBeouf sort of claims.

The article is mainly for people who care about all the agency mumbo jumbo that goes on WAY behind the scenes of Hollywood, but there's a line at the bottom of it that could be legit, or could just be there to get people linking back to this article. Ad revenue baby! Apparently Transformers 3 is rolling into production in the next few months and Shia is on board behind his new agency, CAA. The way it's worded is what seems a little fishy.

“He'll likely start work in May on Transformers 3.”

Just like Sam Raimi was “likely” to start work on Spider-Man 4 this year? Transformers is a bit more of a sure thing, but with no official schedule announced, don't count on the guaranteed blockbuster getting here that quickly.



Sherlock Holmes Sequel Starts Shooting In June




We guessed this might be the case when Robert Downey Jr. bailed on Cowboys & Aliens yesterday, and now Entertainment Weekly confirmed that it's true-- Downey Jr. abandoned Cowboys & Aliens because Sherlock Holmes 2 will be filming this summer.

The movie hasn't been officially greenlit by Warner Bros., but as its global box office creeps toward $300 million, screenwriters Kieran and Michele Mulroney are completing the script and the cast is being rounded up for a June start date. Unfortunately for Downey Jr., that's exactly when Cowboys & Aliens planned to start production, so his pal Jon Favreau will have to find someone other than Tony Stark to fill in the lead role.

I completely loved Sherlock Holmes and was perfectly happy when the last five minutes of the movie were essentially a bid for a sequel. I'll be looking forward to this one in two years just as much as I'm feverishly anticipating Iron Man 2.



Chris Rock Thinks Black People Can't Ski





It’s ironic that while Chris Rock’s standup is fresh, original, and utterly unique; his movie career is probably best described as hackey. And it just keeps getting worse. Now he’s gone from simply using cliché ideas to remaking things whole cloth. He’s top-lining that unnecessary Death at a Funeral remake and for his next trick he’s remaking a French comedy called La premiere etoile (which translates to The First Star). And none of them will be funny because Chris Rock isn’t funny in movies. He may be the funniest standup ever, but when it comes to comedic actor he’s always wildly out of his depth.

So here’s the skinny on The First Star, the next thing he plans to ruin. Variety says he’s writing the screenplay, which should be easy since it was already written once, while at the same time being impossible unless he’s recently learned to read French. He’ll also produce, just to make the whole thing seem more like a passion project instead of yet another Chris Rock cinematic cash-in.

The original movie was released in 2009 and told the story of a black family who leaves the hood and ends up on the ski slopes. See it’s funny because black people don’t like to be cold! Worse, they don’t ski and everyone at the ski resort is a stuffy, uptight white person who can’t dance! Hilarious! I bet Chris Rock won’t fit in at all.

This First Star remake should make a great double feature with the equally outdated script I’m pitching to Dane Cook in which he plays a white guy from high-society who travels back in time to rural Georgia where he’s forced to work in a cotton field. See it’s funny because white people burn really easy in the hot sun! Worse, they don’t pick cotton and everyone else in the field is black and there against their will! Hilarious! I bet Dane Cook won’t fit in at all.



Star Wars Burlesque Makes Stormtroopers Sexy

" I’ve been to a burlesque show and believe me when I tell you very few of the girls resembled slave Leia. But in a perfect world, any good burlesque show should be more slave Leia than Jabba the Hut, and that’s what happened in LA this past weekend when someone had the brilliant idea to do Star Wars themed burlesque. Well it’s sort of what happened. Jabba was actually there, but he put on something sexy. "
The pictures below come from the LA Weekly where they have tons more. Some of them are erotic, some of them are awesome or amazingly creative, and some are just plain creepy. I like C3PO, but I’ve never really thought of him as a naked gold stripper wearing pasties. So that’s ruined for me. On the other hand, Stormtroopers just got a lot more fun.










source Josh Tyler for Cinema Blend - Reviews, news, and opinions on entertainment.



Tooth Fairy Clips: Julie Andrews Gets Punny





The Rock has willingly become a family-friendly buffoon. Good luck to him, I've moved on. At least he’s good at it. Instead I’ve decided to be depressed about the current state of Julie Andrews who, apparently, has been reduced to reciting a series of bad fairy-related puns.

You can see it all in the six exciting Tooth Fairy clips below. The Rock is kind of funny, Julie Andrews is extremely punny, and Disney makes another hundred million on a family comedy.


Exclusive Tooth Fairy Clip and Photos - ComingSoon.net



Exclusive: Producer Mike De Luca Says It’s Game Over for a METAL GEAR SOLID Movie




With video game movies finally taking off in Hollywood, you’d think a Metal Gear Solid movie would be a no-brainer. In fact, almost two years ago, I spoke to producer Mike De Luca about the MGS movie and at that time he was developing the project at Sony and things sounded like they were moving forward at a “solid” pace.

The first thing you need to know before going any further is things change all the time in Hollywood. While De Luca told me, “I don’t think it’s going to move forward because I got the sense that there may not be enough of a coordinated will at this point on the side of certain parties to see a movie get made,” that doesn’t mean it’s dead forever. Perhaps if Prince of Persia does extremely well for Walt Disney, Sony and Konami might sit back down and try to get this movie made one more time. But for now, it isn’t happening. The way De Luca spoke, it seems like Sony tried extremely hard to get this project off the ground, but the video game makers might have been the culprit. He says:

“[T]he video game companies are very protective of their property and there are certain things a studio requires freedom-wise to market and distribute a movie effectively in a global marketplace and sometimes getting those two things to match up is really hard. And in the case of Metal Gear Solid, the agendas just….not because the parties weren’t amicable, it was just kind of impossible to get the agendas to match up.”

Again, I think if the upcoming video game movies make huge money, every studio and video game company are going to reexamine their properties to see what they can turn into box office gold.
Here’s the full transcript of our conversation regarding Metal Gear Solid. Look for more of my conversation with De Luca tomorrow night.


source Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub for www.collider.com



What to watch in 2010 - Part 2




Iron Man 2


Why you should care: If you saw the first one you know what's up. Robert Downey Jr. is back in the iron underwear and Jon Favreau is behind the camera. War Machine may look a little different but otherwise expect more of what worked before, except maybe even better.



Robin Hood


Why you should care: This was a better idea back when it was called Nottingham, but any time Russell Crowe teams up with Ridley Scott to swing a sword it's a good idea to be there.


Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Why you should care: Jake Gyllenhaal gets topless and saves a beautiful woman from sand. Could be fun. It's a better alternative than another Indiana Jones or another one of those played out Mummy movie.



A-Team


Why you should care: It's a translation of the popular 80s television show and while it's hard to imagine the A-Team without Mr. T, they've assembled an admirable replacement cast, bought a black van, and promise to blow a lot of things up. I love it when a plan comes together.


Toy Story 3


Why you should care: The trailer alone was almost enough to make me tear up. Anything Pixar is a must see, but with Toy Story that's doubly so.


Grown Ups

Why you should care: Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, David Spade, Chris Rock, Norm MacDonald, Colin Quinn, Maya Rudolph, Tim Meadows, and Kevin James filling in for Chris Farley. It's a classic SNL reunion and who cares what it's about, I'm in.


The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Why you should care: You're either excited because you're a fan, or you're terrified because you're not. Mark this date on your calendar and make plans to either pop in fangs and cover yourself in glitter or stay far, far away from any movie theater.

Despicable Me

Why you should care: For anyone who ever thought the Austin Powers should ditch Austin and simply focus on Dr. Evil, here's your answer in animated form. Steve Carell stars as the voice of the world's number 2 super-villain, a bald-headed oddball with a penchant for evil.

Predators

Why you should care: It's a real Predator movie, not one of those Alien team-up pretenders. Arnold's still running California but they've brought in an assortment of equally acceptable badasses to tangle with cinema's most well-known outerspace killer in the form of Danny Trejo and Laurence Fishburne.

Inception

Why you should care: Chris Nolan, that guy who did those Batman movies, is back and even though he's not bringing Bruce Wayne with him he's ready to blow your mind. No one's entirely sure what his new sci-fi movie is about, but Leo DiCaprio is involved and the trailers make it look like a slick, cerebral take on Dark City.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Why you should care: Nic Cage in weird hair is always a dicey proposition but the trailer's fun and Jay Baruchel is the perfect choice to play a befuddled apprentice forced to deal with computer generated oddities.

Salt


Why you should care: Angelina Jolie tries to recapture her spy movie mojo with the story of a CIA operative accused of defecting and being forced to go on the run. It's kind of like Burn Notice except with boobs and without Bruce Campbell. They really should have hired Bruce Campbell.

Dinner for Smchucks

Why you should care: Paul Rudd, Steve Carell and Zach Galifiankis team up for a movie with this plot synopsis - An extraordinarily (i'm a bad dinosaur) man possesses the ability to ruin the life of anyone who spends more than a few minutes in his company.

The Other Guys

Why you should care: Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg team up for a buddy cop movie directed by Anchorman's Adam McKay. Also involved somehow are Eva Mendes, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Michael Keaton, Steve Coogan, Anne Heche, Paris Hilton, and Craig Robinson.

The Expendables

Why you should care: It's an action fan's wet dream. Jet Li, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, Bruce Willis, and Steve Austin all kicking ass in one, explosion filled movie. Who care what it's about, as long as they punch somebody.

01/14/2010


Paramount Inexplicably Wants A Four Brothers Sequel





Let's go ahead and put this news into the same file that we put all of the Italian Job sequel news in. That is, the file that holds ideas for sequels to movies that involve Mark Wahlberg and that people kind of like but really have no reason to want to see another. The next flick that will be going in this file is apparently John Singleton's Four Brothers.

According to THR, Paramount is developing a sequel to Singleton's Four Brothers, which had Mark Wahlberg playing one of, well, four brothers who look to avenge their mother's murder. The film also starred Tyrese Gibson and Andre Benjamin (better known as Andre 3000 from Outkast). The sequel would be called Five Brothers, which makes no sense whatsoever, especially in context of the movie. Wahlberg plans to return, but it's unclear who will join him.

Maybe it's because we're early in the year and not much is going on, but the people sitting at their desks at Paramount must be pretty bored if this is what they've decided to work on. They could be working on franchise reboots, adaptations, or even sequels, as long as they're better ideas than this. Or better yet, maybe they could stop checking their Facebook pages and get to work on some original ideas! That'll be the day.


Australia Bans R-Rated Movies Without Banning Them




ere in America we tend to think of Australia as our cooler, more free-wheeling, anything goes cousin. We’re utterly wrong. In fact, in recent years, Australia has become anything but free. Instead, they always seem to be the first country to jump on the censorship band wagon. They’ve been only too happy to invent laws which restrict and filter the internet, or lobby to keep out movies which aren’t intended for children by claiming they need to protect their kids from them anyway (hello Kick-Ass). Today they took another step towards becoming the democratic equivalent of communist China when South Australia passed a law which will treat R-rated movies like porn.

This latest batch of Australian restrictions was reported by Gizmodo where they say the region’s newest anti-freedom law will make it illegal to display R-rated movies alongside other movies. Or alternatively, if it is displayed, the movie’s cover must bear no markings other than the name of the film and this extremely lame warning:

R 18+ FILMS AREA—THE PUBLIC ARE WARNED THAT MATERIAL DISPLAYED IN THIS AREA MAY CAUSE OFFENCE.

In simple terms, this means if you’re a Blockbuster, you can’t put an R-rated movie on the shelf next to a PG-13 movie unless you want to make it look boring. If you’ve ever been in a video store in which there’s a creepy back room with a curtain drawn across the entrance, then you know where this is going. In America that creepy back room is where retailers keep the porn. In Australia, that’s where they’ll keep Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

The law will also affect theatrical releases. Theaters will no longer be able to show trailers of any kind for R-rated movies. Nor will they be able to display posters or other advertisements for them. I guess this also means they won’t be able to put R-rated movies on the marquee, since that would mean displaying them next to other movies. Should a theater break the law, the government has granted the police “new powers of entry, seizure and forfeiture.”

There is one small, silver lining here. This law isn’t quite as heinous as it seems at first glance. In Australia, the R-rating is actually more closely equivalent to our NC-17. For instance The Hangover gets an MA15+ there, which is the next rating up from R. Or perhaps more properly stated their R lies somewhere in the middle ground between our R and our NC-17. Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which in the United States only got an R after a direct appeal from its director, is the kind of movie that gets an R18+. Apparently Australia thinks you must be a creep if you want to see Jason Mewes naked. Maybe they aren’t wrong there.

Still, here in America, even our NC-17s aren’t this restricted. You can show them, you can sell them, most theaters simply choose not to. In Australia it’s no longer a choice, it’s a law which, in a strange way makes this even worse than censorship. It’s censorship on the fringe, it’s censorship without the stigma of using the word. It’s even more insidious because they're not calling it what it is. Essentially, what’s really happened here is a rather large portion of Australia has just banned hard-R movies. Technically they can still be shown, but what theater will run an R-rated movie when they can’t advertise that they’re playing it? None of them will. And while some video stores may still carry R-rated DVDs, now they’ll have to build a separate room and buy a beaded curtain, or cover them with creepy, non-descript packaging, effectively attaching a thick sheen of shame to the process of renting them. Want to watch American Psycho? It’s sitting next to the dildos. You’re probably better off just giving up and renting Jingle all the Way.



Joe Johnston Opens Up About Captain America And Says New Jurassic Park Is On The Way





With the Iron Man 2 trailer exploding online in December, shooting for Thor starting up on Tuesday and Louis Leterrier beginning his campaign for the helm, the idea of The Avengers is becoming more and more of a reality, with the exception of one major component - Captain America. While filming for Cap's solo film, The First Avenger: Captain America, isn't scheduled to start until the summer, director Joe Johnston and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have been attached for quite a while now without a single casting announcement or any real plot hints. Fortunately for Marvel fans, Johnson has a film coming out next month, The Wolfman, meaning he will be open and available to the media. Guess what they're going to ask him about?

In an interview with BoxOffice.com (albeit abbreviated for now), Johnston was asked point blank to give some details about First Avenger that we haven't already heard. Rather than simply dole out a boring block quote, here are some nice, neatly organized bullet points for you to peruse:

• "It's not going to be a Captain America that you expect." - As faithful as some film adaptations of comic books have been, there has yet to be a completely faithful one in the bunch. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man had organic webbing. Jon Favreau's Iron Man went from the Vietnam War to the War on Terror in Afghanistan. Bryan Singer's X-Men became homosexuals. This isn't really new and certainly no reason to get riled up.
• "It's the origin story of Captain America. It's mostly period—there are modern, present-day bookends on it" - We have actually known for awhile now that Cap would be kept back during World War II, but the bookends are interesting. My assumption is that the end will feature our hero being unfrozen, but I now wonder how the film will open.
• "The great thing about Captain America is he's a super hero without any super powers... He's an every man who's been given this amazing gift of transformation into the perfect specimen—the pinnacle of human perfection." - Batman on steroids. Nothing to complain about here.
• "But at the heart of it, it's a story about this kid who all he wants to do is fit in... And he has to prove himself a hero" - The concept sounds a bit Spider-Man-esque to me, but every comic book movie needs a human element. Otherwise all you have is a Michael Bay film.
• "Well, I figure humans buy tickets to go see the movies. We might as well make stories about humans. After all, robots don't buy tickets." - See previous statement about Michael Bay

But guess who's not done? After all, Johnston isn't just the man bringing us some Captain America action, but could also be the man behind the resurgence of Jurassic Park. In addition to confirming that a script for a fourth installment does in fact exist, Johnston confirmed that not only will the film definitley happen, but would be the start of another trilogy that will break away from what was established in the first three mives. Quite a bit for one interview, no?

While there is very little Johnston could have said to get me less pumped for some Vibranium shield throwing action, I remain on the fence about bringing back the dino park. Jurassic Park III was an incredible disaster that stopped the franchise for a decade and it might not be the greatest idea to bring it all back with the guy who was responsible. Then again, Joe Johnston also did the final designs on Boba Fett, so I think I can forgive him


Frenetic New Trailer For The Crazies




We have a new trailer for The Crazies in which, many scary things fly by really fast. It’s a short little teaser, but generally effective.

The Crazies stars Timothy Olyphant as David Dutton, the sheriff of a small town where, suddenly, everyone quite literally goes crazy. Serial killer crazy. Here’s the tag line: Something is infecting the citizens of Ogden Marsh…with insanity. Dutton finds himself trapped with a group of survivors and they band together to fight off and escape the murderous lunatics who used to be their neighbors. Here’s the trailer:

YouTube - 'The Crazies' Trailer HD



Buzz Buster: Robert Pattinson Is Not The Next Spider-Man





The report usually appears on a British tabloid or some sort of Perez Hilton equivalent which says it like this: “Robert Pattinson has been reported to be the top pick for Tobey Maguire’s replacement in Spider Man 4.” Reported by who? They never say. None of them do. That’s because it’s untrue.

They’re not telling you who reported it, because no one did. The story originated on message boards and in snarky joke posts where people theorized that his casting was the next move. I even saw his name in a few, pretty awful, randomly generated fantasy casting lists. Fantasy casting lists which also, rather horribly, included Michael Cera. Cera is now also being falsely reported as being in the running to play Spider-Man.

I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, I’m not saying it won’t happen. I’m just saying right now, there’s nothing out there to indicate that it will. Besides, Pattinson’s pretty busy. Odds are he’s unavailable even if Sony wanted him, since reports indicate that Pattnson is NBC's top pick to replace Conan O’Brian. Take that Team Conan!


Predictable Family Values Outrage Over Kick-Ass Begins



The only surprising thing about Australian family groups decrying the movie Kick-Ass is that American fundamentalist groups didn't get there sooner. According to Australia's Daily Telegraph, the Australian Family Association has said of the movie, "The language is offensive and the values inappropriate - without the saving grace of the bloodless victory of traditional superheroes."

The article also includes the note that the movie is scheduled for release in April "during school holidays"-- as if distributors specifically planned to release the R-rated movie (or, in Australia, rated MA) in time for impressionable schoolkids to catch it on their breaks. Really, I'm only writing about this because I expect it to be the first shot fired in a long line of debates over a movie in which a young girl shoots people in the head. Let me tell you this one time and one time only: it's not a movie for kids. Now let us all carry on with our lives.



What to watch in 2010 - Part 3






Priest

Why you should care: Part two of Paul Bettany's bid to piss of the Pope has him playing a priest who disobeys church law to hunt vampires and save his niece. You'd think the church would be on board with vampire staking, aren't they demons?

Resident Evil:Afterlife

Why you should care: Milla Jovovich is back and, while it's not exactly the zombie gold standard, the Resident Evil movies usually deliver their own kind of guilty pleasure fun. It'll tide you over until someone wises up and gets Zombieland 2 done.

Your Highness

Why you should care: Danny McBride steps out of the shadows to take on a starring role as the good for nothing brother of a brave knight. Imagine Danny McBride in tights. Now imagine him in tights standing next to James Franco, Natalie Portman, and Zooey Deschanel.

Megamind

Why you should care: If you see only one superhero satire this year, make it Kick-Ass. But if you see two, then consider the DreamWorks animated movie Megamind which utilizes the vocal talents of Tina Fey, Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and Will Ferrell.

Due Date

Why you should care: Robert Downey Jr. is forced to go on a road trip with Zach Galafianakis. Bonus points if Robert Downey Jr. dressed as Iron Man is forced to go on a road trip with Zach Galafianakis.

Rapunzel

Why you should care: Unlike their 2009 effort The Princess and the Frog, Disney's Rapunzel will be made using computer generated animation. But it won't be 3D. The stills they've released make it seem almost as though, for the first time ever, they're using computers to create a hand-drawn look.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Why you should care: You can't see Part 2 unless you've seen Part 1.

Burlesque

Why you should care: Christina Aguilera and Kristen Bell engage in a strip off… or at least a burlesque off.

Red Dawn

Why you should care: It's a remake of a much loved 1984 Patrick Swayze movie. This time it stars, among others, Chris Hemsworth who stole Star Trek this summer as George Kirk. He's shifting from fighting Romulans to Commies.

The Chronicles of Narnia The Voyage of the Dawn Trader

Why you should care: It's based on the best (and most different) book of the Narnia series and with a new production company behind it, the series may get the much needed refresh it seemed to need after the last movie.

Green Hornet

Why you should care: Seth Rogen as a superhero? It's an idea so crazy it just might work. He's teamed up with Jay Chou as Kato and the film promises an equal mix of comedy and over the top superhero action.

Tron:Legacy

Why you should care: The original changed the special effects landscape back in the 80s and the long awaited sequel, while it might not remake the industry, looks pretty amazing. Jeff Bridges is back as Flynn and a whole new cast of computer generated warriors will fight their way through the system with him.

Gulliver's Travels

Why you should care: Jonathan Swift's classic story is ripe for modern Hollywood adaptation and while Jack Black might seem like an odd choice to stomp around Liliput towering over its tiny citizens, he's the right choice if they're turning this into a comedy. Jack Black smash!

Jackass 3D

Why you shouldn't care: Steve-O shoving pre-school toys up his rectum doesn't get more appealing in 3D.

incredible work mate with a great usefull info thanks

02/25/2010


Nic Cage And Ryan Reynolds Playing Cavemen





Nic Cage has played a lot of different characters in his career, but I’ve never really thought of him as the caveman type. Isn’t that why Brendan Fraser is allowed to keep working? You know, just so we have him in case we need a Cro-Magnon man? But Variety says Cage is teaming up with Ryan Reynolds to provide the voices for a DreamWorks animated caveman comedy called The Croods and the Encino Man is nowhere in sight.

The movie has Cage voicing Crug, a cave-family man leading his family on a journey through an unfamiliar world after an earthquake destroys their home. So I guess it’s kind of like a prehistoric 2012? Probably with fewer airplanes. Reynolds is a charming nomad character who woos Crug’s elder daughter with his shockingly modern-minded ways. That’s code for even cavemen know gay people should be allowed to get married, right?

It’s being co-directed by the guy who made Space Chimps (bad) and the guy who created Lilo & Stich (mostly bad), but it’s from DreamWorks, the company that brought you Kung Fu Panda (excellent). Somewhere in that mix there’s bound to be someone who knows how to draw a proper caveman. But I’d feel better about this thing if the plot sounded more Flintstones and less Ice Age meets 2012. Remember that old Flintstones gag with the talking garbage disposal? It’s time someone brought that back.


It's Sci-Fi's Turn: Why District 9 Is Too Real For Oscar To Ignore





Historically, science fiction has been treated like a red-headed step child by Oscar. In 1977, Star Wars broke into the Best Picture category, but its universally-accepted-as-better sequel The Empire Strikes Back got the cold shoulder from the little gold statue in 1980. Two years after that, where was Blade Runner’s nomination? Ridley Scott crafted a sweeping epic, more visually stunning than anything film goers had ever seen, but still the sci-fi staple got no love. How could the Academy shun Rutger Hauer? Since then, science fiction has remained forgotten; forgone in lieu of the nearly 150 dramas which have hogged the nominations for 30 years.

But in 2010, not one but TWO films have kicked their way out of sci-fi purgatory and into the Best Picture category, one of which stands out as the clear winner: District 9. How did a movie about mid-level manager slowly morphing into an alien find itself in the same category with An Education and Precious? Short answer: because it’s god damn awesome. District 9 defines awesome. Story? Awesome. Acting? Awesome. Visual Effects? Double Awesome. The Best Picture category is usually littered with dramas trying so hard to elicit an emotional response that it’s impossible to really sit back and enjoy a great film. Crash for example. Getting a deep or meaningful story out of that mess of blatant racism and open weeping is impossible when you're consistently too shocked by the dialogue to pay attention to the story, or too busy sitting in a puddle of your own tears and wondering why it is you're crying in the first place. Crash was actively emotional to a fault.





The real triumph of District 9 is its ability to be culturally relevant without beating you to death with its ideals. Neill Blomkamp made a film that obviously mirrors his native South Africa’s Apartheid struggles, but never do you feel like you’re gagging on the corollaries. Movies don’t need to leave their audience feeling assaulted when they walk out of the theater in order for there to be an underlying message, and D9 does a perfect job walking that tight rope between subtlety and offensive over-zealousness.

If you need a poster child for what an Oscar film should be, you’ll find it in District 9. With a unique story, spotless acting, and cultural weight, it pushes the envelope visually by raising the bar for all effects driven films that don’t have $550 million dollars to blow on whatever they want. It defines what film making should be, and deserves to take every statue it’s nominated for. We’ve had 30 years of period dramas, epic dramas, based on a true story dramas, war dramas, gangster dramas, and disability dramas. But movies are more than just girls in corsets or guys with Tommy Guns. Isn’t it time science fiction earned a real place at the Oscars?


Zoolander 2 Happening With Jonah Hill As The Villain




Ben Stiller has been talking about his desire to do a sequel to his 2001 cult-hit runway model comedy Zoolander since at least 2008, and now it looks like it’s happening. Deadline claims the movie’s coming together at Paramount, with the movie set to be directed by Tropic Thunder and Iron Man 2 writer Justin Theroux. Theroux is also co-writing the film with Stiller.

No word on who from the original cast might return. Obviously Ben Stiller is a lock and everyone hopes Owen Wilson will return as Hansel, but it’s far from certain. It sounds unlikely, though, that Will Ferrell will reprise his scene-stealing role as the evil Mugatu since word is that Jonah Hill is already in negotiations to play the movie’s villain. Call me crazy, but I have a hard time picturing Jonah in the fashion world or for that matter giving a good account of himself in a break-dance fight. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

In case you missed it, and a lot of people did since the film had the misfortune to hit theaters right after 9/11 when no one was buying tickets, Zoolander starred Stiller as a ridiculously good looking male model named Derek Zoolander. He’s embroiled in a plot to kill the prime minister and also must come to grips with what it means to be ridiculously good looking and aging. Most of these problems are solved with a midget-centric orgy involving Stiller’s real-life wife Christine Taylor. It’s just that kind of movie.


Mickey Rourke May Play Conan The Barbarian's Dad





It was an interesting move on the part of Lionsgate when they cast Jason Momoa, a distinctly non-white actor (he's of native Hawaiian descent), to play Conan the Barbarian, a role originated by white-as-they-come Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was an interesting move toward an actually post-racial America, but now they've gone and made it all confusing again by pursuing Mickey Rourke to play Conan's father.

Yes, Mickey Rourke, who is also pretty dang white despite whatever tan he might be sporting in the Iron Man 2 promo images. Deadline Hollywood reports that Rourke is being wooed for that part in addition to a role in War of the Gods, a movie that director Tarsem Singh (The Fall) probably swears isn't a knockoff of Clash of the Titans, but come on.

Scheduling conflicts may mean that Rourke will have to choose between the parts, though given that Conan's story probably won't linger too much on family drama, he may be able to bop briefly by the Conan set in Bulgaria before moving on to Clash of-- er, I mean War of the Gods. At this point any amount of Mickey Rourke is a good thing, so schedule away I say. Aside from the funky racial politics here, it's hard to see a downside.



Jim From The Office Could Be Captain America?





Deadline, like everyone else, claims to know the names of the actors in contention to play Captain American in Joe Johnston’s upcoming First Avenger movie. Their list is full mostly of unknowns but does, bizarrely, include The Office’s John Krasinski. Jim as a superhero? Sorry Deadline, I’ve got a hard time believing in that possibility. They also Garrett Hedlund, the currently unknown but soon to be famous star of Tron: Legacy. That at least makes sense.

Here’s the list:

Chace Crawford (CW's Gossip Girl)
John Krasinski (NBC's The Office)
Scott Porter (NBC's Friday Night Light)
Mike Vogel (Cloverfield)
Michael Cassidy (CW's Privileged)
Patrick Flueger (Brothers)
Garrett Hedlund (Tron Legacy)


More interesting than that only vaguely believable shortlist is the notion that whoever gets the job will end up signing a deal which includes an option for an eye-popping 9 future films. Those would include sequels, other Avengers movies, and pretty much anything else wants. That’s good news really, proof of Marvel’s commitment to create a superhero universe which has real continuity. Captain America, as the leader of the Avengers, is the lynchpin in all of that. It may not be particularly good news for whoever gets the job though, since word is that the lesser knowns on the list would only make around $300,000 for the first film.


Rhythm Is A Dancer In This Restricted Cop Out Clip





Here’s another restricted clip in Cop Out, in which Tracy Morgan says something insane. This time it results in a fantasy sequence where he imagines the infidelity of his wife, as it must surely play out every morning when she and their neighbor take out the trash. You can’t beat paranoia for sheer entertainment value. The real highlight here though is the soundtrack, which resurrects the 1991 dance hit “Rhythm is a Dancer” from Snap. Yeah, you remember it. Here it is all over again:


video link >>> http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Rhyth...lip-17241.html


Two More Join The Farrellys For Hall Pass





Now that it's moving forward after years of development stalls, Peter and Bobby Farrelly's Hall Pass is gaining cast members at a pretty amazing rate. As THR reports, joining Jenna Fischer, Jason Sudeikis and Owen Wilson will be Nicky Whelan and Derek Waters, who have just signed on to the cast.

Whelan will be playing a pivotal role, as a woman who tempts WIlson's character once he's been given the free pass. Waters, for his part, plays a barista and DJ who somehow gets in the way between Whelan and Wilson. You may recognized Whelan from the newly rebooted Scrubs, in which she pays a medical student. Waters is best known at the moment as a filmmaker; he co-directed the short Drunk History, which starred Will Ferrell and Jack Black and won the Grand Jury Prize for short filmmaking at Sundance.



these and more on >>> http://www.cinemablend.com/news.php

02/26/2010


Transformers 3 Will Destroy Chicago And Moscow





You know what’s really surprising about Transformers, and I suppose in spite of the franchise’s many other flaws, rather admirable? That they actually bother to leave the studio. Michael Bay spends a lot of time shooting these movies in exotic, real life locations; even though most of the characters are just going to be computer generated and, let’s face it, he could probably get away with green screening almost everything. But to his credit, he goes through the trouble to use real settings and, as it always does, it adds an air of reality to what is otherwise unreality.

He’ll do it again with Transformers 3. In an update posted on Bay’s official site it’s been announced that the upcoming sequel will shoot big action sequences in both Chicago and Moscow. What those action sequences will be remains to be seen, but if you’re in Chicago or Moscow, expect your major landmarks to be blown up on screen. This is, after all, a Michael Bay movie.


You're Reading This Right: Monsters Inc. 2 On The Way





Pixar has never been the type of studio to just rush sequels of their hit films in order to make a few extra bucks. Hell, the only sequel they've ever put out was for Toy Story, and that took them four years (and then another 11 to release the third installment.) But now, much to the guaranteed joy of millions of fans now in their mid to late 20s, Monsters Inc. 2 is heading into production.

Latino Review claims to have a man on the inside who has let slip that Sully and Mike are due for another adventure to the big screen. Since this isn't coming directly from the golden mouths of Disney or Pixar executives, take this with a grain of salt. It's happened before that some over-zealous employee hears the higher ups talking by the water cooler and leaks everything they say to the scoop-hungry media only to have said higher ups take it all back in one fell swoop.

But it's worth noting that Pixar recently cancelled a upcoming project called Newt, which may have been a step to clear up their schedule for MI:2. We'll keep you posted on all news Monsters Inc. that comes our way.


New Repo Men Posters: They Encourage You To Drink Irresponsibly













Repo Men, let's face it, looks totally ridiculous-- set in a future in which companies produce replacement organs, and if you can't pay for it, repo men will show up and rip them out of your living body! But somewhere between schlock and genius there's genius schlock, which is where I'm hoping Repo Men will wind up. And the new posters released today by Universal give me some hope. Done like advertising posters for each of the replacement organs, and bearing snarky lines like "Guys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses," they're clever and original. Of course, they don't explain at all which movie they're for-- which I guess is what people like me are for.

Anyway, check out the four new posters below, and click on any of them for a higher-res version. Repo Men stars Forest Whitaker, Jude Law, Liev Schreiber and Alice Braga, and opens March 19.



The Flash May Be Off And Running With A Director





IESB claims to know who Warner Bros. wants to direct The Flash. It’s someone named Greg Berlanti, whose name makes him sound like he should be hosting a low-rent afternoon talkshow following Ellen Degeneres. But he had a hand in writing the upcoming Green Lantern movie and he’s directed a couple of dramedies you’ve never seen. He’s not a complete newbie.

The bigger news here though is that The Flash may actually be happening. A movie version of the famed DC Comics speedster has languished in the lower levels of development hell for years now, with no real movement. Now with the recent rumors that Chris Nolan may have been put in charge of shepherding a new Superman and that David Goyer is involved in writing it, Warner Bros. seems to be getting serious about turning their superhero properties into something, well, super. They’ve seen what Marvel’s doing and hopefully they’ll duplicate it with DC. They’ve got Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern going. The next big DC character is definitely The Flash and it looks like maybe he’s finally, after years of waiting, off and running.


New Nightmare On Elm Street Trailer Brings The Nightmares





It's already been a big week for A Nightmare on Elm Street, with a new poster and new stills all popping up online over the last few days. Now it's all been capped off with the new trailer, debuting today at MySpace and also available for your viewing pleasure below.

It's a little heavier on Jackie Earle Haley's Freddy Krueger performance than the previous ones have been, but given that he's masked under all that latex and makeup, it's kind of hard to get much out of him anyway. Instead there's lots of creepy dream imagery, terrified teenagers, and blade hands scraping against walls-- classic Nightmare stuff, basically. It looks like this one is hewing pretty closely to the stuff that made the original work, with the benefit of better special effects to go with the nightmares. Check it out below. A Nightmare on Elm Street comes out April 30.

Youtube trailer link >>> YouTube - Nightmare on Elm Street Debut Movie Trailer [HD]


Interview: Bruce Willis And Tracy Morgan Talk About Their Bromance





It was a little awkward, I admit, when Tracy Morgan walked into a roundtable interview a few minutes late, and stopped to hug Bruce Willis-- both sitting down-- before answering questions. It seemed like a forced show of affection, a display from the movie's two stars that hey, the chemistry really does exist off-screen!

But the awkwardness of that hug turned out to be a misdirection-- these guys really do like each other, finishing one anothers' sentences and crowing repeatedly about the love on the set. The junket for Cop Out, which opens this Friday, is one of the only ones I've been to where everyone talked unprompted about how excited they would be to make a sequel.

Read below for details on how John McClane and Tracy Jordan came together to begin with, how they got away with filming on the streets of New York, and why Tracy Morgan says he plays the jealous husband character so well. There's lots more where this came from in Cop Out, trust me.





Bruce, did you see this role as a cross between your Die Hard character and 16 Blocks?
Willis: No. I know it's your job to try and find linear connections like that. I've done a lot of cop pictures, other actors have too. Kevin will come in and tell you it's 60% action, it's a throwback to Lethal Weapon, an homage to the action pictures of the 80s. But it's not that. First of all, maybe the first film, the first mixed-race buddy cop film that made the choice to ignore the whole racial issue. We never played it. Never thought about it, it was never written in the script, it was never done. We just played it like friends.

Is it kind of a bromance?
Willis: I hate that word.
Morgan: The love is there!
Willis: That's exactly what I was going to say. The love is there without having to put a label on it. We could talk all day, but you can't put a label on a relationship that two guys have that have to protect each others' lives every night.

There seemed to be a lot of improvisation in this movie.
Morgan: For us it was easy because it was already funny once it was on the paper. me and Bruce, we made it sing. It comes across as improv because before we started shooting, we gave these guys history. That brought us closer to the characters. By the time we started shooting, I was already Paul and he was already Jimmy.

Did you shoot scenes to test the chemistry?
Willis: We just rolled the dice. It was love. We improvved in almost every scene, every day. That doesn't mean that the improvs we did on camera are what the film is comprised of. We would always go back and look at the tape. A lot more thought went into it than just flying through it. Except for that scene with Seann William Scott in the back of the car. No one could write that.
Morgan: You said something yesterday. Had there not been chemistry the very first take, we would be having a different conversation.
Willis: We might not be sitting here. We clicked immediately, on a lot of levels, in a lot of ways. We found that our timing was effortless. There's a lot of overlapping dialogue in the film, a lot of overlapping dialogue between our characters. I've worked with actors who cannot do that, they just get flustered. But we, about five minutes into that first master, I just said, oh, thank God.

There's a line where you make fun of the John McClane character. Were you worried about spoofing yourself? Sometimes audiences don't like that.
Willis: Unless they're laughing so hard they can't get upset with it. Had it not been funny, I would have said maybe we should take this out. But it was funny, it got a laugh. I've been around long enough that I think I've earned the right to make fun of myself.

It's hard to fake chemistry, but you and Cybill Shepard had great chemistry, and supposedly you hated each other.
Willis: That was faked. We had a different kind of chemistry. We had a chemistry that was more man-woman at odds, power-struggle kind of chemistry. We would always find a way to turn the corner and find a joke in it.





You guys are both new Yorkers. Was it difficult to shoot here?
Willis: They welcomed us in every borough with completely open arms. It sometimes got a little carried away, but we still managed to get through and get the shooting done.

Tracy, you seem to really embrace the insecure husband role.
Morgan: I was married for 21 years, man! You know, where I grew up at, jealousy is abundant. I come from the hood, you know. Growing up the way I did, with the abandonment issues, I think that was Paul's whole thing right there.


these and more on >>> http://www.cinemablend.com/news.php

02/29/2010


Jason Isaacs Says Final Harry Potter Films Will Blow Us Away





At yesterday's junket for the upcoming Green Zone, Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon were both asked by journalists the future of the franchise they are best known for: the Jason Bourne films. It has been up in the air for a while now what the status of the fourth film was and if reports regarding disagreement with the studio were true. While this news was the most widespread out of the event, another actor in the film, one Jason Isaacs, who plays one of the film's main antagonists, has a small franchise of his own going on that you may have heard of.

Speaking in a round-table interview, Isaacs was asked about his experience working on the final two films in the franchise (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Parts One and Two), in which he plays the evil Lucius Malfoy.

Well, very sad for me. I was already nostalgic for the history of Harry Potter while I was still making it and I knew the end was coming. It was two films...they made the last book into two films and it was a fantastic experience because everybody's back...everyone who is left alive that is...and even some of the dead people. There is nothing greater than sitting around on a Harry Potter set when you're not filming and listening to the likes of Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Bill Nighy and Jim Broadbent tell stories. And watching everybody crew the scenery up in the few moments you get on screen - trying to out ham each other is magnificent. This big franchise goes out in an epic way. But I was always cognizant of the fact that I'd have to pack up my little furry friend of a wig and stick it in a box and say goodbye to the cane. All the joy was tinged with sadness for me.



Much like the book, the final film will end in an epic battle that pits all of the remaining forces of good against all of the remaining forces of evil. While each Harry Potter film has ended with at least some sort of a battle sequence, none up to this point have attempted anything near the scale of what is expected. According to Isaacs, however, the team has actually managed to go even beyond what you can imagine from J.K. Rowling's work.

I think the end of the films will be a fantastically cinematic and visual feast. It will more than satisfy the readers of the books...but you won't get is the book on screen. You'll get something more and different. Everybody is very savvy to the notion that this is a much-loved franchise and this will be the end of an eighth film, and it needs to have weight and substance and you need to feel drained by the end of it. It's a ten-year roller coaster ride, not a two-hour roller coaster ride, and we all know it and we all felt it, and it was in the air while we were shooting it.



As upset as Isaacs may be to see the the franchise end, fans still have months of anticipation to look forward to, with the first part coming in November and the second in July of next year. Should the film live up to the bar that the actor has set the film on, however, it could be a real treat for both Potter Heads and regular movie goers alike.


New Tron: Legacy Trailer Seen And Recapped





As part of Disney's viral marketing campaign, special events were held in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Syndey this morning for Tron: Legacy, giving ticketed guests their first look at the film since last year's San Diego Comic Con, where the lightcycle test footage was first shown. As many predicted, what was shown this time around was the first full-length trailer for the film, shown in IMAX 3D (and none of that IMAX digital bullshit, mind you), and I'll be damned if it isn't greeted with impressed awe when it is given a wide release (which is supposedly going to be next Friday).

The trailer begins with a voice over by Bruce Boxleitner, reprising his role as Alan Bradley from the first film, saying that he has new "information about your dad." He is then shown speaking to the son of Kevin Flynn, Sam, played by Garrett Hedlund, who we get our first clear look at. The voice-over continues over shots of Sam riding his motorcycle, Alan saying that he received a call from Flynn's Arcade, despite the phone having been disconnected for years.

Sam is then seen entering the arcade, which is now covered in dust and cobwebs, and heads to the Tron machine in the back. He inserts a quarter only to have it fall to the floor, where, when he leans down, he notices grooves in the concrete. Alan continues by saying that Kevin has discovered "something that will change everything." Pulling the game out from against the wall, Sam discovers a door and walks into a room filled with computer monitors, which, while on, are also sheathed in dirt and grime.

Sam asks what to expect when he sees his father, assuming that he will say something along the lines of "I lost track of time." From behind Sam, who is looking at the monitors, the laser that digitized his father slowly rises. The screen goes black. What came next caused everyone in the theater to mutter "holy shit": a giant, beautifully rendered Recognizer that goes so far beyond anything seen in the 1983 film that it makes the original look like a joke.

The audience is then treated an incredible sequence of short cuts, featuring disc battles, more lightcycle racing, an incredible-looking Olivia Wilde in repose on a couch and, of course, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) himself. The trailer ends with another voice over, this time from the first meeting between father and son. Sam says, "It's been a long time," only for Kevin to respond, "You have no idea."

As stunning and truly fantastic the trailer was, where Disney really screwed up was that they had all of these people gather for this huge event, rented out IMAX theaters around the world and had people show up in the bright and early hours of the morning to show a two-and-a-half minute video. And, not only was it only two-and-a-half minutes, but they didn't even have the courtesy to play it twice, despite persistent pleas from the crowd. While I can't say I am linked in with the inner workings of the Disney corporation, perhaps they theought they were excused because they gave out such fashionable t-shirts.




Sigourney Weaver Will Return For Avatar 2





While in Paris to honor Harrison Ford at the Cesar Awards, Sigourney Weaver made a pit stop to have a chat on the French television show, Le Grand Journal. Sure enough, Avatar was a hot topic of conversation and Weaver was asked if she’d be in the sequel. To anyone who has seen this movie (basically the large majority of you), her response is a major surprise: she has spoken to James Cameron and he plans to have her reprise her role of Dr. Grace Augustine in Avatar 2.

SPOILER ALERT

Is Cameron going soap opera on us? Weaver’s character is fatally shot at the end of the film. Perhaps being with Eywa means something different than dying and going to heaven. During the interview, Weaver touches on the concept of how Grace still exists in the Tree of Souls. So is she the tree now? Will they figure out a way to transfer her soul back to her avatar? Or, will she just be a flashback? Weaver adds that she “can’t promise anything, “ but know Cameron some idea “to keep the family together.”

Considering the emphasis placed on the Na’vi connection to their ancestors via Eywa, this whole concept seems sensible. Weaver never mentions that the role would a major one; just that she’ll be involved. Perhaps she’ll offer Jake and Neytiri some sort of guidance via the Tree of Voices. But wait, those were destroyed weren’t they? And so the speculation continues.

link >>> Vidéo "Avatar - Sigourney Weaver parle d'Avatar 2" de cinetvbuzz (Cinéma > Bandes-annonces / Making Of ) - wat.tv


Damon and Greengrass Close The Book On Bourne 4





The world premiere of Paul Greengrass’ Green Zone was held last night in New York, and being the third collaboration between the director and Matt Damon, questions were flying in regards to the future of the Jason Bourne franchise. Back in November, it was reported that Greengrass walked from a possible fourth film over script disagreements, and Damon then followed, saying that without Greengrass, he would not be involved. Since then, Damon has thrown out the possibility of a prequel that would allow the studio to find a new actor for the role. So what is the final verdict on Damon and Greengrass’ future with the franchise? Sorry, fans. It’s not good news.

Speaking with journalists (including yours truly) in separate round table interviews, both the director and the actor confirmed that they would not be involved with Bourne 4. This might leave you asking, “Why is this news?” It’s news because the initial reports weren’t entirely accurate.

When asked about events that led to his leaving the project, Greengrass said that reports about disagreement between himself and the studio were entirely untrue, rather that it was a personal decision that he made, after serious contemplation, to move on with his career.

…Contrary to reports, there was never an argument with the studio of any kind at all. …I did spend some time thinking that I might [take on the project], and sort of getting myself to a place, you know, ‘what would it be,’ and that was really it. It’s only when you do that that you actually find, ‘you know what? I’m sort of gone. I’m on top of things.’ We had a really nice discussion, they were completely understanding, and I said, ‘You know what? We’ll make some other movies.’”


Unfortunately, the news regarding Damon’s unwillingness to commit to a fourth film without Greengrass was accurate. He did, however, divulge details about the prequel idea, comparing it to the way the face of James Bond has changed over the last 38 years.

I think that they have a good way to do a prequel with someone else, and basically make it about the Bourne identity, the actual identity. What any studio is interested in is making it like an evergreen, so it can just go on, and on, and on, and it never will with our character because he’s going to resolve himself and he’s resolved his issues now. He’s got his memory back three times. I don’t think anybody wants to see me say, “I don’t remember” again. But I think what we could do, is like, you know, so you can do some movies with another actor, anyway, whether it’s Ryan Gosling or Russell Crowe or Denzel Washington, and he’s Jason Bourne. And then at the end of his one movie, or two movies, or three movies, you see them getting ready to pass the identity on to me, so it just becomes like a 007, it becomes a name that they give this certain person who’s uniquely positioned. Right? And so then, if Paul and I come back and do a fourth one in 10 years, right, we’ll pass it on to someone else, and then it can kind of go on.


Just because the Bourne series has ended for the two, it does not mean that they are done working together, in fact, quite the opposite. According to Greengrass, when asked about future projects, he mentioned that the two would continue to team up, and Damon expanded on that, saying that they are currently thinking about a film based on the current financial crisis, but they have yet to “figure out what the way in is.”

Though Greengrass has to somewhat share Damon with Steven Soderbergh, the pair have made three dynamic films in the last six years. While it is unfortunate that the franchise will be losing two key components that directly correlated with the films’ success, it is hard to argue with a director who wants the opportunity to spread his wings and a star’s loyalty to a man he believes knows the franchise’s true direction. What can be said is that without the two of them, it stands to be a whole new ballgame.


Green Zone Clips: Matt Damon Can't Find Any WMDs





Even though it’s just a couple of weeks away from release, it feels like Green Zone is still sort of flying under the radar. I get it. We’re all pretty burnt out on Iraq movies and Green Zone, unlike say The Hurt Locker seems zeroed in most specifically on all of the things we’re most tired of. Matt Damon runs around as a soldier in Iraq trying to find weapons of mass destruction, even though there aren’t any, and in the process does a lot of moralizing about bad intelligence. You’re tired of it, I’m tired of it, it makes sense.

But consider this. It’s directed by Paul Greengrass is one of the most brilliant filmmakers working today. His last movie with Matt Damon was The Bourne Ultimatum, one of the best action movies of all time. The last time he tackled US politics and our reaction to terrorism, it was to make United 93, one of the best movies of 2006 and almost unquestionably the definitive 9/11 movie. Greengrass makes great movies. Greengrass and Matt Damon together make great movies.

These Green Zone clips deserve your attention. Make it through the first five and you’ll be rewarded with a Bourne-like, badass action sequence. It’s as close as you’re going to get to a Bourne 4. We’ve also updated our preview section with the completed, full gallery of Green Zone promotional images. See all of those right here


trailer link >>> Vidéo "Avatar - Sigourney Weaver parle d'Avatar 2" de cinetvbuzz (Cinéma > Bandes-annonces / Making Of ) - wat.tv

clip 1 link >>> YouTube - The Green Zone - Miller Attacks His Captor

clip 2 link >>> YouTube - The Green Zone - Miller Questions the Source of the Intelligence During a Briefing

clip 3 link >>> YouTube - The Green Zone - Wilkins Tells Miller That He Can´t Go With Him On This Mission

clip 4 link >>> YouTube - The Green Zone - Miller Splits HisTeam to Attack a Safe House

clip 5 link >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=***PzYhEJ60

clip 6 link >>> YouTube - The Green Zone - Poundstone and Briggs Track Miller


More Football Magic From Remember The Titans Writer Howard





We’ve already seen a slew of stirring football movies like Any Given Sunday, Rudy, Invincible, We Are Marshall and The Blind Side and now THR confirms that there’s another on the way. It’s being written by Gregory Howard, the scribe who penned that other motivational pigskin pic, Remember the Titans.
His new film will be based on the life of quarterback Marlin ‘The Magician’ Briscoe, an athlete who emerged from a childhood of poverty to become a Super Bowl champion. After playing football for Omaha University, Briscoe was drafted into the NFL as a defenseman for the Denver Broncos. When the team’s quarterback was injured, Briscoe assumed the position and became the NFL’s first black quarterback. His dream career took a hard hit when Briscoe became addicted to drugs. He eventually came back ten-fold by starting a youth football camp and becoming a mentor for the Boys and Girls Club.

This project has been in development for quite some time. On the official website there’s a timeline that documents the film’s development from the moment Briscoe released his autobiography, to Chris Pratt penning the first screenplay, to every marketing move made by West Omaha Films all the way up to Howard getting involved.

Howard is well aware of the magical true story that’s fallen into his lap. "To be the first in anything is challenging. To be the first starting black quarterback, the thinking position, has real significance." He added, "I'm going to tell this personal story of Marlin Briscoe and use football as a backdrop.” That sounds great, but it doesn’t insure that The Magician (the film’s tentative title) will be any different from the lot. Yes, it’s a fantastic and moving story, but that doesn’t always mean it must be adapted into a feature film.


International Karate Kid Trailer





As expected, Sony Pictures released a trailer for The Karate Kid just a few days ago, and today released an international trailer to complement it.

For a movie like this, it's hard not to wonder just what it is about the American trailer that can't be shown to the international public, or what we're missing by being here in the States. Mostly both trailers are just shots of kicking and Jaden Smith looking “determined,” so why the two different cuts?

As much as it may hurt your inner child, you might have to accept the fact that this movie looks pretty good. I'll always contest that Jaden Smith doesn't fit the role even a little bit, but he seems to have fully committed himself to the training, and next to this new side of Jackie Chan we're seeing, it could be something quite surprising. Are we in for a remake that might actually be great? Time will tell, but for now they're on the right track.


trailer link >>> YouTube - The Karate Kid - Official Trailer 2 [HD]


It's Expensive To Keep Up With The Joneses Poster





Greed isn’t only good for Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko; it’s a powerful tool for The Joneses too. Demi Moore, David Duchovny, Amber Heard and Ben Hollingsworth star as a seemingly typical suburban family in The Joneses. They get to live in a beautiful gated community, have a magnificent home and enjoy all of life’s luxuries under one condition: they get their wealthy neighbors to want what they have. The Joneses are actually not a real family at all; they’re working for a stealth marketing organization.

Check out the film’s new wonderfully appropriate poster below. Not only does it provide a clear sense of what the movie is about, it does so in a subtle manner. There’s also a number of minor details to examine, encouraging you to do a double take. It’s too bad the poster doesn’t include a release date, because I would have been sold.





The ups and downs of having ten Best Picture nominees are obvious. By doubling the number of films in contention for the grand honor, more mainstream movies have the opportunity to be recognized. More people have a favorite to root for come March 7th and the show will pull in better ratings. Also, since being nominated usually prompts moviegoers to seek out those films, more nominees means more movies grabbing extra attention at the box office. The down side? Those unworthy of finding themselves amongst the year’s top five can sneak in and nab a nomination. The perfect example of this transgression: The Blind Side.

I reviewed the film when it first hit theaters back in November and did so positively. The Blind Side is the epitome of a feel good movie. Once upon a time there was a troubled kid with absolutely no chance of reaching his full potential. Then, his wealthy fairy godmother arrives to give him the finer things in life. He grows up to be a successful pro athlete. The End. You know the saying ‘Don’t let your emotions get the better of you?’ Well, they got the better of the country and apparently the Academy as well. The Blind Side has turned Oscar voters into sentimental mush, brainwashing them into thinking the film is more than just a piece of fluff entertainment and is in fact one of the best films of the year.

You know what else you shouldn’t let get the better of you? Money. Hollywood is obsessed with finances. It’s understandable to a point. Everyone needs to make a living, right? There’s no harm in developing a four-quadrant film to make a quick buck, but trying to pass it off as the best of the best is wrong. The Blind Side is already the surprise hit of the year, it doesn’t need the additional push of an Oscar nomination.





Money rules in Hollywood but the Academy Awards are the one place where it’s not all about money; they’re about excellence in filmmaking and The Blind Side doesn’t qualify. Director John Lee Hancock didn’t strive for distinction, he settled for mediocrity. He kept it safe to ensure that the final product would have the intended effect. Yes, it did achieve its goal of making audiences across the country coo and fawn over generosity of Leigh Anne Tuohy, but since when do we reward movies for being too afraid to color outside the lines? Avatar may be cliché, but James Cameron took a risk by investing a significant amount of time and money into creating a film using a new technology with the power to revolutionize the moviegoing experience. The Blind Side revolutionizes nothing.

By now we know that the primary fault of Avatar is its truism ridden screenplay. Yet Avatar’s script is the most ingenious thing ever written compared to that of The Blind Side. You don’t even need to go beyond the trailer to get a taste of the film’s formulaic dialogue. It’s practically a call-and-response piece. “You’re changing that boy’s life.” Like you didn’t know Sandra Bullock was going to reply, “No, he’s changing mine.” The film’s characters suffer from the same predictability. Quinton Aaron mumbles and sulks his way into your heart making you feel sorry for all of the hardship Michael Oher has to endure, but so did Gabby Sidibe in Precious and she goes way beyond simply making the audience feel sorry for her character. S.J. (Jae Head), Tuohy’s son, is a cute kid and all, but he’s just a male version of Hayden Panettiere in Remember the Titans.





The Blind Side’s offense goes beyond the Best Picture category, it earned Sandra Bullock a nomination as well. This means Bullock earned a Razzie nomination for All About Steve and a Best Actress nomination in the same year. We can’t hold shoddy films over her head for the rest of her career, but her performance in The Blind Side still isn’t Oscar-worthy! Bullock’s fine in the undemanding role of Leigh Anne Tuohy, but her greatest achievement in the role is pulling off a southern accent. At least with the expanded ten-nomination format, The Blind Side’s Best Picture nomination didn’t rob some other deserving picture. The same can’t be said of Bullock’s presence in the Best Actress category, which squeezed out more deserving actresses like Avatar’s Zoe Saldana. Now there’s a performance that dared to achieve something spectacular. Even covered in motion-capture sensors and hidden behind computer-generated wizardry, Saldana out-acts Bullock.

Avatar isn’t the only film that excels over The Blind Side. Every other film nominated for Best Picture deserves the honor. Not all deserve to win, but they’ve earned the right to be recognized by striving for excellence. That’s clearly the word that defines an Oscar nominee: excellence. The definition of excellence? The state, quality, or condition of excelling; superiority. The Blind Side isn’t superior in any facet: acting, writing, directing, nothing. This a movie which strove for mediocrity, and achieved it. We can enjoy it, but we shouldn’t reward it.

Kristen Stewart And Her Mullet Star In The New Runaways Image





Breathe easy, world-- we're almost ready to put Kristen Stewart's Joan Jett mullet behind us. The actress, possibly in an effort to get as far from Bella Swan as possible in-between Twilight movies, chopped off her hair last summer in order to play Jett in the biopic The Runaways, completing her look as a disinterested rebellious teen. Beforehand she'd only looked the part instead of acting it.

But now The Runaways is set for a March release, which means we can finally see the movie that may or may not have inspired thousands of teenage girls to take up the mullet look themselves. If you have no idea what I"m talking about, you can check out the image below, featuring Stewart in her full Runaways gear. To her credit, she looks a whole lot like Jett, and is reportedly pretty good in the first movie to let her actually act since Adventureland.

The Runaways hits theaters March 19. But if you clicked on a story with Kristen Stewart in the title, you probably knew that already.

these and more on >>> http://www.cinemablend.com/news.php

03/02/2010


Bill Murray Addresses Ghostbusters 3 Rumors On Letterman





Bill Murray showed up on Letterman tonight and did what we’ve all been waiting for. He confirmed Ghostbusters 3. Well, sort of.

Actually when asked about the movie he addressed it in a somewhat skeptical tone. With Murray though, it’s hard to tell if he’s joking. Does he really believe it won’t happen or is he simply playing the disinterested celebrity to ham it up for the crowd? Your guess is as good as mine. But what he did do with some degree of certainty is confirm what we’ve been hearing about the plot, if it happens.

Addressing his role in the sequel Murray says, “I told them if they killed me off in the first reel I’d do it. So now they figured out a way to kill me off in the first reel.” Since he said it on national television, I think it’s safe to pull this out of spoiler territory. This confirms the rumors we’ve been hearing for months now that Murray would appear in the film as a ghost. Except it sounds like, for at least some of the film, he’ll still be breathing. Does that mean we’ll see Venkman die on screen? Or does it mean Venkman will simply get killed off and not appear in the film as a ghost as we’d all hoped? Maybe this doesn’t answer as many questions as I’d hoped.


MacGruber Moves Release Dates To Battle Shrek





When a leaked test screening review back in December labeled MacGruber as “the best SNL film since Wayne’s World back in 1992”, I was skeptical. I love the SNL sketches but the trailer really seemed to fall flat. But maybe the reviewer was dead on. Universal Pictures at least, seems to think that MacGruber may have captured something. In what could be a show of confidence, they’ve bumped its release date from the April 23 into the middle of the most hotly contested movie month of the year, on May 21st.

Just to put that in perspective, by moving it to May they’re choosing to go up against Shrek Forever After. Even the previous Shrek movie Shrek the Third, which was widely regarded as a cinematic blight, had an opening weekend of $121 million. Shrek Forever After is bound to open at somewhere around the $100 million mark. And yet Universal has willingly chosen to go toe to toe with it. Does Universal think MacGruber can defeat Shrek? Could MacGruber really be that good? Doesn’t even matter? Even if Shrek 4 sucks it’s going to absolutely destroy it. It’s Shrek. No matter how much we might hate it, no matter how sick we all are of it, that Ogre’s dynamite.

There’s an alternative possibility here, one which is far less rosy. On April 23rd, MacGruber would have been up against The Losers. That film is hardly a juggernaut and it’s easy to envision a fair fight between the two. The big difference here is that as an action movie, The Losers is probably geared towards precisely the same audience as MacGruber. Shrek Forever After on the other hand, is a family movie and caters primarily to a different crowd. So it’s possible that Universal could be hoping for some sort of second place finish against Shrek using counter-programming, rather than winning a contested first place against a weaker movie in The Losers. That might seem like a smart move except for one, small detail: Counter-programming almost never works. MacGruber, you’re no Mamma Mia.


Death Race 2 Relegated To DVD, Shooting In South Africa





Production for Roel Reiné’s Death Race 2 is underway. Please subscribe now. Universal Pictures has just announced that engines are being revved on the sequel’s South Africa set. Luke Goss, Ving Rhames, Sean Bean, Danny Trejo, Frederick Koehler and Lauren Cohan assembled for principal photography on February 13th. Shooting is still in progress but Universal will eventually make the prequel part of its DVD Originals banner, which includes films like the straight-to-DVD Bring It On series and the American Pie franchise.

The screenplay from Tony Giglio brings us back to Death Race pre-Jensen Ames. A few years into the future, the economy is crumbling and increasing violent outbursts send crime rates soaring out of control. To get a handle on all of the new menaces of society, a network of for-profit, private prisons goes into business. When Carl Lucas (Goss) arrives at the most notorious facility of all, Terminal Island, TV personality September Jones launches the lethal reality show, Death Race. With a grand prize of freedom, the offer is just too good to be ignored and Lucas signs up to get behind the wheel.

In a dream world, Universal would have arranged for the original cast to return, but Bean and Goss are excellent replacements. Rhames and Trejo will also make for perfect Terminal Island badasses. Plus, we do get one familiar face, Koehler. He played Lists, the data collector of Frankenstein’s crew in the original. A number of sources are still calling the film Death Race: Frankenstein Lives, but the studio press release makes no mention of the subtitle. It does call the film a chronicle of Frankenstein, so it’s safe to assume the film is still about the first masked driver.


Cameron Doesn't Care About Avatar And Neither Should Oscar


If you discount Piranha 2: The Spawning (and most do anyway), then James Cameron has built one of the most incredible and impressive filmographies in the history of cinema, particularly in the science fiction genre. Between Aliens, The Abyss, and the first two Terminator films, Cameron wrote and directed some of the most innovative science-fiction films of the 1980s and early 1990s, helping the genre reach such an incredible high point that we may very well never see anything like it again.

In addition to being the first feature film he has directed since Titanic in 1997, Avatar represents his return to the science-fiction genre after an 18-year absence. It was the film that, Cameron stated, he waited years to make, only feeling confident that the technology was ready after viewing the motion-capture Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. Waiting for the right time paid off in full, with his newest work shattering the all-time box office record, both in the United States and internationally, and getting a Best Picture nomination at this year’s Academy Awards. The film, however, doesn’t deserve that statue.

Let’s take a look at the last three films to take home the award. The Departed was an incredibly well-crafted crime story about duplicity on both sides of the law, supported by terrific turns from Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio. A return to serious drama for the Coen Brothers, No Country For Old Men, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, analyzes the modern day battle between good and evil in the style of a classic western, only this time the unstoppable force (Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh) has no problems with the unmovable object (Tommy Lee Jones’ Sherriff Ed Tom Bell). In Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle used a game show to frame an incredible love story with compassionate characters who came from nothing. While many might argue that these films are far from the greatest ever made (some more than others), they all possessed qualities that Avatar does not.





Even before its release, people noticed that something was amiss with Avatar’s story. And by “amiss” I mean that the story has already been done 20 times. Take your pick: Dances With Wolves, Fern Gully, Pocahontas, The Last Samurai , etc. Man is given mission to infiltrate native forces to learn their weaknesses and report them. Man follows his objective for awhile but soon begins to identify more with the natives. A battle begins where Man fights with the natives against the people who gave him the original mission. When we look at Cameron as a writer, we are talking about a man who sent robots back in time to insure that machines would win the battle over humans in a future war. He put aliens in a movie about a diving team exploring the remains of a sunken submarine. He created one of the greatest love stories of all time around a horrible tragedy. He crafted movies of complexity and originality. And then there’s Avatar. Look deeper and deeper into Cameron’s career as a screenwriter, and you’ll notice a difference between Avatar and anything he’s ever done before. Look deeper and it becomes readily apparent that when it came to story, he simply didn’t care.

When the news first came out about Avatar’s game-changing technology usage, no one who knows their Cameron films should have been surprised. Ever since he earned a name for himself in 1984 with the premiere of The Terminator, he has repeatedly proven himself to be at the forefront of computerized technology, be it the “water face” in The Abyss, or the first CGI human character with realistic movement in Terminator 2. Yet, it’s hard to imagine that the same writer made all three films. Up until his most recent film, Cameron’s work, while not on the level of Charlie Kaufman or David Mamet, has always been original and compelling.

Who can actually say they felt any type of real emotion when Jake defeated Col. Quaritch? As though there was a chance he’d lose. Yet I know that somewhere out there, there’s a legion of men who still cry when they watch Arnold sink into molten steel and give that thumbs up. Hell, I’m getting teary eyed just thinking about it. But none of that emotion existed in Avatar. Cameron is and was primarily interested in creating entirely CGI characters and putting them into an entirely CGI world; and he needed a platform to showcase his ideas while getting the audience from Point A to Point B.. Everything done early in his career in terms of story and character development was abandoned here, and it seems as though he simply didn’t care.





In spite of that, you have to give the stars of the movie some credit. Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Giovanni Ribisi and Stephen Lang all did what I can assume is the best they could with their characters. Yet despite their heroic efforts, there isn’t an original or sympathetic character in the whole bunch – Avatar is a mass of cardboard cutouts. Jake Sully is the misfit put into a situation way above his pay grade, only to do great things before screwing it up to engage in last minute heroism in which he makes it to everyone he’ss wronged, Neytiri is Pocahontas (they are the exact same person), and Grace Augustine is the bleeding-heart scientist who puts on a tough act to fight against “the man.” These characters are all such stilted tropes that it becomes almost impossible to get behind them. The situation is even more dire with the film’s “bad guys.” Parker Selfridge is basically Michael Douglas in space, being the same corporate yuppie shmuck we’ve seen a thousand times. More than anyone I feel truly sorry for Lang, stuck in the thankless role of Col. Quaritch. There were at least a dozen times where you could imagine the actor turning to Cameron and saying, “Really? You don’t remember seeing this character in every military movie ever made?”

There isn’t a person on Earth who can deny Avatar’s technical achievements. Cameron has created a stunning and beautiful world in Pandora and come Oscar night, those achievements will be rewarded. But Avatar does not deserve Best Picture. Much like Lucas, Roland Emmerich, or Michael Bay before him, Cameron has created a film where visual effects are so highly valued that everything else is pushed aside. And, really, can we blame him? Those are the movies audiences crave. But is what Avatar gives us what we really want to set as the highest standard of cinema? Are we ready to abandon intelligent storytelling and interesting characters in favor of CGI and explosions? Cameron has shown that he doesn’t care. He designed his movie to showcase technology and make money, not tell a good story. If Cameron doesn’t care about his story, then why should Oscar? The Academy needs to send a clear message on Oscar night. Copy/pasting from other movies won’t cut it. Script matters. Consider writing one if you want to win Best Picture.



Parts Of Tron: Legacy Will Be In Full, Glorious IMAX Aspect Ratio





Given how many films have shown up on IMAX screens over the last few yaers, it's surprising more of them haven't taken full advantage of the format the way The Dark Knight did. We all remember that feeling of seeing the blue-flamed Batman logo, and then suddenly being thrust into the screen when it expanded its full 8 stories, panning over Gotham City. Even Avatar, with all its scads of technology, didn't go for the full aspect ratio.

But will Jeff Bridges make it up to us? Slashfilm caught up with Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski after the Los Angeles Tron event (read our write-up of the New York version here), and Kosinski told them that five of Tron: Legacy's action sequences will be shown in the IMAX aspect ratio of 1.7:1.

The scenes weren't shot with IMAX cameras, which may annoy some of the purists, but given the CG-created world that much of the action scenes will take place in, the extra square footage will be covered by computer rendering, not just blown-up film. Still, I like seeing more filmmakers take advantage of the height of the IMAX screen, rather than just extending the widescreen aspect ratio even wider. It's still unclear how pumped we should be about the story of Tron: Legacy itself-- but at least the technical aspects are looking pretty great.



Guillermo del Toro Says The Hobbit Isn't In 3D... Yet





As the pre-production process for The Hobbit drags on and on and on, at least director Guillermo del Toro is doing a good job of keeping the anxious fans up to date. He checked in with the message boards at TheOneRing.net back in January to promise that things were still progressing despite all those delays, and to suggest that several rumors-- Bilbo being a CG character, the film being in 3D-- were nothing but speculation.

But a month has gone by, a month in which virtually every major blockbuster in production has made the switch to 3D or strongly considered it. So responding to fan concerns that The Hobbit would go the same direction, del Toro popped back on to the message boards to say, basically, have patience young grasshopper.

Here's the post in its entirety:

I wouldn't read much on it just yet, but now, after all this time, after AVATAR doing the Box Office it did, we have had enquires from above about The Hobbit being in 3-D.

No impositions or heavy leaning. Just enquires. Just fulfilling my promise to let you all know if discussions ever started.

Cheers

GDT



So, basically, chill out nerds-- no one knows one way or another whether The Hobbit will go 3D, though it's pretty obvious that the suits would prefer it. At this point, I'm not sure if del Toro has any reason to fight it. The Hobbit, as an effects-heavy film that will cost a ton of money, is a logical candidate for 3D, and I can't imagine it losing anything once you put on the special glasses. But then again, I'm not the devoted Hobbit at Cinema Blend, so maybe Josh will be by later to tell me why I'm totally wrong. Any of you guys have an opinion one way or another?


Watch JLo Explain Her Back-Up Plan





Which do you think is more unbelievable: Jennifer Lopez is so unsuccessful in finding a man that she decides to get artificially-inseminated or that the love of her life ends up being some dude she randomly meets in a cab the same exact day as her turkey basting session? I’m going with the former. Even if she hadn’t done away with the “can’t find a man” idea already by dating three-quarters of Hollywood, Jennifer Lopez just doesn’t strike me as the kind of gal sitting home on a Saturday night because the dating/ relationship pool has gone totally dry. But apparently, in The Back-up Plan, this is exactly what has happened.

The Back-Up Plan looks cute enough (or at least Lopez looks cute enough) to get by on some built-in “look at our crazy relationship” laughs. And the premise, while a bit far-fetched, could probably work considering just the shear amount of material they’ve placed just in this little trailer. But I find it hard to believe audiences will be sitting around connecting with Lopez when she actually gets two of her dreams fulfilled at almost, but not quite, the same time.

Take a walk through the making and sheer unbelievability of the whole premise in the new, Back-Up Plan featurette below:


link >>> Watch JLo Explain Her Back-Up Plan


Awesome Or Over-It? Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter





he idea behind all of these “Quirk Classics” novels is to take a wholly boring book from the 1800's which appeals to no one under the age of 45 without a masters in English Literature, and add something awesome to them. The first example, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, was such a hit that it's been picked up by Natalie Portman to be adapted into a feature. If that does well, we can expect Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter to follow the same path.

PPandZ author Seth Grahame-Smith just released another novel of historical horror fiction called Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, touting itself as the TRUE story of our 16th president. With it, a short film was put together to promote the book and if you're not too put off by the cheese factor, it's pretty funny.

My question to you is: is this awesome, or are you over it? I think the idea of boosting classics with something funny like zombies is a great idea. I even have Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on my shelf waiting for me to read. But how many of these will it take before people just say, “Alright enough”? I say this is plenty. On top of this over saturation, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter just doesn't have the same ring as the 2001 Phil Caracas classic Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter.

So, book fans, is this idea still appealing to you, or have you had enough of authors trying to be ironically funny?


link >>> YouTube - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter


these and more at Latest Movie News & Rumor

03/03/2010



Robert Rodriguez Will Bring Predators To SXSW!





Robert Rodriguez has been a fixture at Austin’s increasingly awesome SXSW film festival for years now. Back in 2007 for instance, he set up shop at the Austin Convention Center and conducted a class in Grindhouse 101, before debuting a first look Planet Terror. But nothing he’s ever brought to SXSW has been bigger than this.

He’s bringing Predators.

Directed by Nimrod Antal and produced by Rodriguez, Predators is the next chapter in the 80s alien ass-kicking franchise and promises to turn back the clock to a time before the whole thing turned into a series of team-ups with Ridley Scott’s Alien creatures. The movie won’t be officially released until July 7th, which makes it unlikely that Predators is finished yet. So that begs the question: how much of Predators is he bringing? All we can tell you right now is that SXSW’s announcement phrases it this way: “Austin-based filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and director Nimród Antal will present a “First Look” at their upcoming motion picture Predators, at SXSW on March 12, 2010. “

So where is it? How do you see it? Here’s the details as conveyed to us by SXSW:

The special presentation of Predators will take place at the Alamo Ritz Theater in downtown Austin, at 10:15pm. Doors open at 9:45pm, and the special event is only open to SXSW Badge-holders on a first-come, first-served basis. An audience Q&A follows the unveiling. SXSW Badges are still available for purchase at Attend | SXSW.com.


So let’s be realistic here. You’re in Austin on Friday, March 12th. You want to see Predators. What are your chances of getting in? Truthfully, pretty slim. While some SXSW theater venues like the Paramount Theater hold large numbers of people, the Alamo Ritz’s audience capacity is pretty miniscule and this is about as high-profile as it gets. It’ll be, without question, the most sought after event of the entire festival and odds are if you want to get in, you’ll have to line up hours and hours, maybe even more than a day in advance. Have no life? Want to devote a lot of time to seeing part of a movie a few months early? Then here's your chance. Line up in front of the Alamo Ritz where drunken 6th street partiers will wander past spilling beer on you, and take your shot. I’ll see you there.


Marion Cotillard Is Woody Allen's Next Leading Lady





Last month we found out that Owen Wilson will star in Woody Allen’s next film and now we’ve got another piece to the puzzle, Marion Cotillard. According to Deadline Hollywood, Cotillard will star alongside Wilson in the untitled project. Like the title, the plot is also unknown. The article also addresses France’s First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s involvement, but reports that nothing has been made official.

Minus his most recent release, Whatever Works, Allen is continuing to opt for overseas filming locations for financial reasons. This pic will be financed by Spain’s Mediapro as a part of their three-picture arrangement, the first of which, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, just wrapped in London.

So, Wilson and Cotillard. Now this is an unusual pairing. Perhaps this sentiment stems from the fact that the two tend towards completely different genres, Wilson aiming to tickle your funny bone and Cotillard to make you shed a tear. If Cotillard can manage to shine as much as she did in Nine, she can do anything. As for Wilson, it’ll be interesting to see how Allen utilizes his natural abilities while encouraging him to diversify.



Justin Becomes Mr. Timberlake In Bad Teacher





Justin Timberlake gets an A+ in table reading. According to THR, John Krasinski, Joel McHale, Timothy Olyphant, Guy Pearce, Adam Scott and Cheyenne Jackson all took part in table reads and other tests for the lead role in Bad Teacher, but it was Timberlake who came out on top. He’ll star alongside Cameron Diaz in this Jake Kasdan comedy.

The script comes from Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky and focuses on a seventh grade teacher (Cameron Diaz) with a potty mouth and thing for wealthy guys. When her boyfriend dumps her, she’s determined to court a substitute teacher (Timberlake) who happens to be the heir to a watch fortune. The only thing in her way? His girlfriend (Lucy Punch).

I’m going to pretend like The Love Guru never happened and be thrilled about Timberlake’s involvement thanks to a great performance in Alpha Dog. On top of that, he’ll be surrounded by an impressive comedic cast. Regardless of the quality of the movie, Diaz almost always entertains and Punch is on the up and up in the feature film scene. Then, there’s new additions SNL alum Molly Shannon and Eric Stonestreet of Modern Family.

Timberlake will certainly be in good company when the cast unites to film this month in Los Angeles, but will it be awkward to reunite with his ex, Diaz, in a romantic setting? The two worked together on Shrek the Third post-breakup and have since reunited for Shrek Forever After, but for all we know the voice work didn’t require any human interaction. Diaz seems like a content single lady and Timberlake is living happily ever after with Jessica Beil (or is he?), so perhaps they’ve moved on and find the comedy in the situation.


Johnny Depp Wants Cameo In The 21 Jump Street Movie





Oh 21 Jump Street, how I have missed thee. What teenager didn't watch this show back in the 80s and instantly want to start going undercover in some high school? I wanted to be Officer Tommy Hanson so badly I actually started thinking up my own back stories for when I would start my undercover police officer career. Usually I was just a kid recently transplanted from Arizona.

It appears Johnny Depp wants to go back to being Officer Hanson as well. Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Depp wants to do a cameo in the upcoming, Jonah Hill-starring movie version of 21 Jump Street, which gave him the start of his career back in 1987. “I’m hoping they’ll let me do a cameo,” Depp told EW, maybe a little sarcastically. “Someone will say, ‘Whatever happened to Tom Hanson?’ and they’ll find me somewhere hoarding jars of peanut butter and shaking in my underpants.”

Can he even play a normal person anymore? I say, "Absolutely!" Even this far removed from the original show; Depp might still be the coolest thing about the fictional police unit. And luckily for him, time has treated him kindly. He could most assuredly go undercover in high school again.

Heck, I say, bring the whole cast back. Who wouldn't love to catch up with Penhall, Ioki and the rest of the crew? Just please no Richard Grieco. No one liked Booker anyway.


Today's New Tron: Legacy Image Isn't Worth Your Time


Yesterday we debuted your first ever look at Flynn’s Arcade in Tron: Legacy. The image was part of Disney’s promotion for the trailer, which debuts this weekend. Their plan is to debut one new Tron: Legacy image a day until Friday and our plan was to show you each and every image because, well obviously, Tron: Legacy looks like it could be kind of awesome. Disney’s plan will continue on uninterrupted, but if tomorrow’s Legacy image is as half-assed and lame as the one Disney released today, then don’t expect us to waste your time with it. Frankly the only reason we’re covering this one is because I told you we would yesterday.

So here it is, today’s new Tron: Legacy image which is basically yesterday’s Tron: Legacy image shown from a different angle. Had this been our first look at Flynn’s Arcade it would be a great image. But it’s not. It’s our second look at it and since it shows nothing new except half of Garrett Hedlund’s face in a muddy mirror, great is not a word to describe it. Lame, Disney. Pretty fucking lame. Kind of like sending people in Portland to play a viral game without telling them that the prize will only be given to people in New York and LA. Tomorrow’s image had better make up for it.





In the image Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) reflects upon his father Kevin’s (Jeff Bridges) mysterious disappearance outside of the abandoned arcade, FLYNN’S.


And in case you missed it, here's yesterday's image:






Prince Of Persia Trailer 2: This Movie Actually Has A Plot!





As it turns out, summer is practically right around the corner. Two months from now Iron Man 2 premieres, and from there it's a quick jaunt through May before we get the biggest video game adaptation of the summer, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Disney is committed to making sure you don't forget about Jake Gyllenhaal and his abs, so a new trailer for the film as debuted over at IGN.

Being the second trailer, it's allowed to go a little more into the plot in addition to focusing on the nonstop action. Of course, the plot is preposterous-- it's a movie about a dagger that can turn back time, for Christ's sake-- but I'm at least glad they're bothering to explain it to us. This trailer makes it clearer than ever that Disney is aiming for another Pirates-style franchise with this one, and despite the absence of a Jack Sparrow character, the banter between Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton at least keep the tone Pirates-esque. Prince of Persia is far from overtaking Iron Man 2 as my most anticipated movie of May, but trailer like this one at least pique my interest. Check it out below.


youtube link >>> YouTube - Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time - Official Trailer #2


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