Filmonic

Japanese G.I. Joe Trailer Reveals Cobra Commander

Dave — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:40:31 PDT

A new Japanese trailer for G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra has hit the ‘nets and actually serves as the best trailer this film has seen. Maybe it’s because they don’t linger too long on the wooden acting or the groan-worthy lines, instead choosing to fade in and out of CGI sequences.

However, one of the opening shots shows Destro (played by Christopher Eccleston) talking to a masked, greasy-haired, nearly unrecognizable Joseph Gordon-Levitt who will be playing The Doctor, also aliased as Cobra Commander.

How Joseph Gordon-Levitt is going to act under all that crap still remains a mystery, since it’s not really a step up from the reflective visor or hood his animated counterpart wore. I’m guessing that eye is going to do so much squinting! Squinting in anger at being thwarted by Dennis Quaid!

The trailer can be seen below!

Early Draft Of Tr2n Gets Reviewed

Dave — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:04:47 PDT

Tron 2, Tr2n, whatever you want to call it, it’s shooting right now up in Canada (for our UK readers: “over in Canada”). Jeff Bridges is back on board, reprising his role as Flynn from the original film and Garrett Hedlund has been cast as Sean Flynn, his son, and for those of you that like House or The OC, you can join me in rejoicing at the involvement of Olivia Wilde. Why? Because the cyber-world of Tron is about skin-tight bodysuits.

Pop-culture website CC2K has posted a review of an early draft of the script, one that lists Richard Jeffries as the lone writer, while production info and IMDB lists Lost-scribe Adam Horowitz sharing the writing duties. Also, the draft doesn’t reference Sean Flynn, rather a character named “Rush” who has since been converted to the younger Flynn.

The review is detailed, geek-nitpicking speculation, but we do get some hints of possibly-great things:

Apple Lisa
The code monkeys in the beginning have to break out an old Apple Lisa – one of Steve Jobs’ biggest boondoggles – to hack into the old mainframe. Awesome.

Flynn as an urban legend
Around Encom, it’s become the stuff of myth that Flynn actually went into the computer. Nice touch.

Hub City
We finally get a close look at a “city” in the cyber-world, where Encom’s operatives are running advertisements everywhere that X-Net is the latest and greatest thing.

Data surfing
While on the run, Rush, Krod, et al, have to surf along waves of data. Could go either way, but it’s a neat idea.

Memory leak
Memory leak, a pretty common problem for programmers, as I understand, is a deadly green sludge in the cyber-world. Cool.

If you think that 2011 and a few script drafts put enough distance between you and the spoilers, CLICK HERE to read the whole she-bang.

Poll: Where do you stand on Blu-Ray?

Liam — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:33:14 PDT

Just over a year ago Blu-Ray disc won the format war against HD-DVD and ever since movie studios and the entertainment industry have been ploughing full steam ahead with the new format. As expected studios have re-released a large amount of their films in Blu-Ray with everything from the recent Spider-Man
and X-Men trilogies to 1984’s Ghostbusters getting the blue seal. According to some reports Blu-Ray sales are expected to double in 2009 compared to last year, and the Blu-ray format is currently on pace to sell 100 million units this year worldwide.

A few months ago I decided it was time to buy a new laptop and I made the decision that I wanted it to have a Blu-Ray player built in so that I could watch Blu-Ray films on my laptop instead of buying a standalone Blu-Ray player and then a HD TV for it to play on. As of today I do not own a Blu-Ray movie, however I did rent all the Harry Potter films on Blu-Ray and I am pleased to announce that Iron Man was my ‘first’ Blu-Ray experience. That night was so special…

It is looking like Blu-Ray is ‘the future’ but it will be a while before it overtakes the DVD as the dominant format. It took around a decade for the DVD to eradicate the VHS, so we could be seeing a similar time scale with this transition.

But where do you stand? There is a poll below (and in the sidebar) for you to cast your opinion, and if you have anything else you’d like to add feel free to use the comments section below!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Jennifer’s Body Gets A Red Band Trailer!

Dave — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:05:45 PDT

Unless you want to plunk down more cash for Transformers, best to put away your Megan Fox obsession until this September, when she play’s the titular body, encasing a demon who eats high school boys.

Yes, this is the Diablo Cody follow-up-feature to Juno, this time lending her snappy witticisms to the horror genre as a rock band somehow leads to Megan Fox possessed as Amanda Seyfried tries to stop her.

Director Karyn Kusama, Cody and producer Jason Reitman gave a Red Band trailer to ShockTillYouDrop.com with the following note (possibly carved into the flesh of the unfortunate messenger):

“Fox is putting a trailer of Jennifer’s Body in front of Bruno this Friday. Great, right? Only problem is it’s not our trailer. It’s kind of a straight horror preview and while we’re sure it’ll appeal to many of you, we wanted to make sure you guys got to see our cut… Lets call it the “filmmaker’s cut”. We think it captures the comedy and scares of the horror films we grew up on – a kind of nostalgia for when horror films were fun. Can’t wait to show you the whole film… In the meantime, here’s the red band trailer we wanted our fans to see.”

CLICK HERE to be taken to the Red Band trailer for Jennifer’s Body!

2012: It’s a Disaster!!!

Liam — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:17:53 PDT

When I saw the trailer for 2012 last month the epic music combined with great shots of burning cities and tidal waves made it look..epic. However, Youtube user JoinROACH has put together his own take on the trailer, and it makes you realise how silly some of the scenes are. Watch below!

M. Night Shyamalan talks Airbender effects

Liam — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:01:27 PDT

M. Night Shyamalan is mostly known for his twist endings and supernatural plots, however with The Last Airbender he has to get a bit more technical and delve deeper into the world of special effects and green screen. VFX World had the chance to visit The Last Airbender set and they spoke to the director about the effects process. He also mentions the recently released teaser trailer which he says they “worked forever on”.

Although The Last Airbender represents his first major CG film, he suggested that he is quickly adapting to the use of high-tech in his process.

“I’m not the most techie guy in the world, so if I can keep coming from character, I can keep it grounded,” Shyamalan chuckled. “When we saw the cartoon, the mythology was so well thought out and had Buddhism, martial arts and CGI, but the kind that is character-based and that’s coming from emotions. So I could tell ILM…and speak in terms of character point of view and be effective in that way.”

Shyamalan admitted that he’s already into the cut of the film so he can provide ILM plates to start their daunting work. “I usually don’t touch editing until I am done shooting. But with a movie of this scale with the level of CGI, they need nine months to do a particular shot of waterbending. So I’m already editing to hand over the shots.”

The first glimpse of what is to come with those vfx debuted with The Last Airbender teaser trailer on June 23rd. Showing an epic water scene with warships blasting flaming missiles at Aang’s cliffside monastery, the director said that’s just a taste of what audiences can expect. “The teaser we worked on forever. I shot it and it was my idea. We did it all ourselves as first unit and it was our big effort to come out and make a big splash.”

They also spoke to producer Frank Marshall who said that The Last Airbender would be like their Star Wars as it is is the first time he has worked on a movie that has a totally made up world. Click here to read the whole article!

Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman and Tobey Maguire get all serious

Liam — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:00:15 PDT

Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, and Tobey Maguire are all in a movie together called Brothers, and it’s the opposite of a romantic comedy. Tobey Maguire plays a guy called Tommy Cahill who dies in Afghanistan. He leaves behind his wife, Natalie Portman, and two children, however his brother Jake Gyllenhaal is there to take care on them. Half way though the trailer you get the feeling that it will be one of those feel good films where they both help each other get over the loss and discover life can go on. However, it turns out Tobey Maguire isn’t dead after all and he returns to find that his brother is penetrating his wife and his children don’t like him anymore.

Tobey isn’t your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man in this film! Some trivia has been floating around the internet for a while that Jake Gyllenhaal would have played Peter Parker in Spider-Man 2 if Maguire’s back problems didn’t improve. I guess sleeping with his on-screen wife is Gyllenhaal’s payback.

Rupert Grint recovering from swine flu

Liam — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:13:26 PDT

According to the BBC Rupert Grint who plays Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films is recovering from a “mild bout” of swine flu.

Grint, who plays Ron Weasley, took a few days off filming but has now returned to the set of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and he is well enough to attend the world premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in London on Tuesday.

“He has now recovered and is looking forward to joining his fellow cast members,” his publicist said. She said that Grint’s doctor had confirmed the 20-year-old actor had recovered and was no longer contagious or at risk of infecting others.

“Other scenes were shot in his absence which did not require his involvement and thus filming was not disrupted,” she added.

It’s good to hear it wasn’t too serious and he is recovering, however Emma Watson appeared on UK TV yesterday and mentioned that she filmed a kissing scene with Grint two weeks ago, so if he had swine flu two weeks earlier he could have passed it on to her via the mouth. Imagine if the whole Harry Potter cast catch it!

Below is the interview with Emma Watson. In the first video she talks about auditioning for Hermione, growing up with the franchise, and going to University/College in the US. In the second video she talks about Half Blood Prince and filming Deathly Hallows.

Review: Public Enemies Delivers…Eventually

Dave — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:36:53 PDT

The day after I saw Michael Mann’s newest crime flick, I went out and bought the non-fiction book it is based on, Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 by Bryan Burrough. Burrough originally pitched the idea of a fictionalized re-telling of the American mythic gangsters as a miniseries to HBO, who was thrilled and hired him on.

Burrough himself wrote a piece about this in Vanity Fair before Mann started filming, and he probably describes the origins of the book more succinctly than I could:

I first stumbled upon the idea of a project tracking John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson and all the major Depression-era bank robbers, I thought the subject was too big to be a single book. Instead, with a friend’s help, I pitched the idea as a miniseries to HBO. To my amazement, they bought it.

With the stroke of a pen, I found myself not only a screenwriter but an executive producer, along with Robert DeNiro’s Tribeca Films, of what was being billed as a major television event. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know the first thing about screenwriting. The only thing I knew about television was that Law & Order aired on Wednesdays at ten. Still, I plunged forward, buying up a stack of screenwriting texts and starting research on Dillinger and Bonnie & Clyde and their peers. About six months in, I realized the subject might indeed fit into one book, so I signed a book contract as well.

Needless to say, the book work went much better than the screenwriting. My scripts, I suspect, were very, very bad. Ishtar bad. HBO and Tribeca, bless their hearts, brought in one screenwriter, then another, to take over the writing, while I dived headlong into book work. It took another year or two, but in time the whole TV project died quietly.

Burrough went on to write the book, HBO gave him the rights to his project back, and Mann picked up the rights, originally for Leonardo DiCaprio to play Dillinger, but we all know that didn’t work out (and instead we get Shutter Island, which I hope to be a blessing).

Let me step aside at the end of this history lesson and say that Public Enemies works the majority of the time. Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, and Billy Crudup are just the beginning of a cast that does a great job of developing all these characters, making moments out of what they are given. When Mann and Cinematographer Dante Spinotti let the digital video of the Sony’s CineAlta F23 soar above flare-illuminated scenes, it’s beautiful and when the finale of the film hits, it feels complete, a bigger film than it actually is.

If you like Michael Mann movies: guys, crime, the girls who love the guys and maybe the crime: this movie will not disappoint.

But that doesn’t mean that the film is some over-arching success.

Issue One: Public Enemies should have been a miniseries. Michael Mann and Johnny Depp both elevate this story to the level of a sweeping romantic/crime drama, but it takes them both awhile to immerse the audience in the world we are supposed to care about. The film could have been called “The Fall Of John Dillinger” and I wouldn’t have expected to mine my own personal knowledge of who these people were and what they were doing.

Mann drops the audience into a jail-break engineered by Dillinger, and some hot-head guy named Charlie causes another guy to get killed. This must be really dramatic for everyone involved because it’s shot that way, but the movie never stops to tell you about anyone that isn’t John Dillinger, Billie Frechette (Cotillard), or Bale’s Melvin Purvis. One of my questions at the end of the movie was: Who was Steven Dorff in this film and when exactly did he die (answers, thanks to the internet: Homer Van Meter/In the woods)?

This is how the first half of the film plays, it starts and never stops to tell you what is going on. Some characters, like Dorff, get mentioned once or twice in hurried dialogue, and with the exception of Dillinger, who is obviously the vault man, and Red Hamilton (Jason Clarke), who drives the getaway car, none of the bank robbers have their specific jobs highlighted. Dillinger was a meticulous planner and members of the crew had their specific job and instructions. The movie doesn’t want to stop to explain this to you; it’s more interested in a love story and the formation of the FBI. If the book was turned into a miniseries, some of the interesting real-life figures relegated to Tommy Gun fodder in the film could have been fleshed out. As it is, as long as Dillinger stays alive, the rest are pretty much expendable.

Point Two: Digital video does not do well with handheld, moving, close-ups and this movie has a lot of those. The film was shot on the CineAlta F23 as opposed to the Thomson Viper Filmstream Camera used on Mann’s Miami Vice and Collateral. When they lock the camera down or allow it to Steadicam and dolly through the space, the depth of field and sharp focus achieved are beyond what’s possible with 35mm, sometimes even pushing it beyond the 16mm threshold (Hurt Locker, shot on 16mm, also has amazing depth of field, but Public Enemies outdoes it).

The problem is that digital video has serious motion blur problems, and together with the challenges of using period-piece lighting and no sweeping establishing shots, the camera frequently creates a kinetic action feeling by going handheld, like a war movie, when the guns are going off. Though Mann and Spinotti are pushing the format, this is not a movie you want to be towards the front of the theater for. I didn’t have any problems with pixilation, but the blurs in the handheld shots made me wish they’d just lock the damn F23 down.

Point Three: I got the distinct feeling that Mann cares more about the development of the FBI than the tragedy of John Dillinger. Luckily, Johnny Depp decided to take a break from playing real-life cartoon characters (the past few years have been Jack Sparrow, Willy Wonka and Sweeney Todd) and reminds us all that Johnny Depp without makeup is still a force to be reckoned with. Marion Cotillard also manages to be completely believable and has that classic depression-era beauty to pull it off. By the time the interrogation of Billie starts taking place, Cotillard has the audience on her side, as they should be.

However, the movie feels more like a Michael Mann masterpiece when it’s sticking to history and showing us the development of what we’d consider modern policing techniques. Christian Bale’s Purvis doesn’t get to do much except watch his men die as J Edgar Hoover rides him for results, but when I had trouble telling the various Fedora-clad gangsters apart, I managed to pick up on the characters of the Officer’s pursuing them.

Dillinger’s character is kind of one-note until Clarke Gable literally gives him permission to die and the film feels complete. It’s all in Depp’s eyes, not in the script, but it feels like an arc. It’s just too bad that the film really pops when Purvis is on the hunt or Dillinger is dealing with the Mob.

The above three points aside, Public Enemies is undoubtedly up there with Heat on my list of awesome Michael Mann movies, but mostly because the good half of the film is the latter half, so everyone will be leaving the theater feeling good (that’s what summer movies are about, you know).

As soon as the film hits its stride with a beautifully shot, action-packed-yet-dramatic shoot out in a forest, it doesn’t let up on you and delivers exactly what it promised. You just have to bear with it for about an hour before you start getting your money’s worth.

Brandon Routh’s Superman contract has expired

Liam — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:32:42 PDT

Nobody knows what’s going on with the Superman franchise. It’s unlikely Bryan Singer will be returning to direct the sequel. There has been talk of a reboot, as well as talk of a direct sequel to Superman Returns, however nothing has been announced. Warner Bros. have taken that long in deciding what the next move will be, that Brandon Routh’s contract to return as Superman has expired.

From Portuguese site Omelete (translated by /Film)

Here are the key quotes from Routh. Firstly, on the small matter of the contract:

The term of the contract expired. But if they call me again, I’ll go back to the character without thinking twice.

On Warners’ plans for the series:

I do not know anything. I’m sure that Warner Bros. is moving there, but everything is still uncertain. Actually, I do not know anything.

On why he thinks Superman Returns may have disappointed:

I think it is missing some beating.

I’ll assume ‘beating’ means action. I liked Brandon as Superman, and off the top of my head I can’t think of anyone else who could play him. If they do reboot/recast they will either have to get another unknown or go the opposite direction and hire a known actor.