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Clash of the Titans Movie Trailer

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

The trailer for the Clash of the Titans remake is getting some heat but I for one think it looks like a fun over the top action fantasy film. Checkout the trailer below which was sent to us by the studio.

In "Clash of the Titans," the ultimate struggle for power pits men against kings and kings against gods. But the war between the gods themselves could destroy the world. Born of a god but raised as a man, Perseus (Sam Worthington) is helpless to save his family from Hades (Ralph Fiennes), vengeful god of the underworld. With nothing left to lose, Perseus volunteers to lead a dangerous mission to defeat Hades before he can seize power from Zeus (Liam Neeson) and unleash hell on earth. Leading a daring band of warriors, Perseus sets off on a perilous journey deep into forbidden worlds. Battling unholy demons and fearsome beasts, he will only survive if he can accept his power as a god, defy his fate and create his own destiny.

Kick Ass Movie Trailer

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Turns out you dont need to wait to see the Kick Ass trailer in 4 days. Its just been leaked online and you can now watch it below.

The film stars Nicolas Cage. Kick-Ass the comic the film is based on is written by Millar and drawn by John Romita Jr., follows a high school dweeb who attempts to reinvent himself as a real-world costumed superhero named Kick-Ass who seems doomed to failure because he’s not athletic or coordinated until he runs into real bad guys with real weapons.

Indie Horror The Corrupted Trailer

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

I love horror movies but I also prefer grass roots horror. The kind that you dont always get to hear about. Below you can checkout the trailer for a new indie horror project called The Corrupted.

I do not have a proper synopsis but I do have a trailer which is even better. Watch it below and leave some thoughts.

Jessica Alba Naked Video Creates Buzz For New Film

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

A brand new video of Jessica Alba half naked getting a spanking in her new film The Killer Inside me is generating a ton of buzz for her new film. Be warned this clip does contain some nudity and is NSFW. Its a really messed up clip and one that has me wondering if the new psychological thriller has something to offer.

The film tells the story of a small town Sherrif who is actually a serial killer. The film stars Jessica Alba, Simon Baker, Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck. It is slated for a 2010 release date.

Boondock Saints 2 Expands Theatrical Release

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

The Boondock Saints 2 Theatrical release has widened in Canada. BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY has been confirmed to open Vancouver and Halifax on November 20th. It will open Toronto this Friday, November 13th. Read the Dudes review of Boondock Saints 2

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day is the much-anticipated sequel to the indie cult classic, The Boondock Saints. The film is the continuation of writer/director Troy Duffy’s tough, stylized cutting edge saga of the MacManus brothers (Norman Reedus, Sean Patrick Flanery).

The two have been in deep hiding with their father, Il Duce (Billy Connolly), in the quiet valleys of Ireland, far removed from their former vigilante lives.

When word comes that a beloved priest has been killed by sinister forces from deep within the mob, the brothers return to Boston to mount a violent and bloody crusade to bring justice to those responsible.

With a new partner in crime (Clifton Collins Jr., Star Trek) and a sexy FBI operative (Julie Benz, TV's “Dexter”) hot on their trailâ€¦the Saints are back

Twilight Star Naked for PETA

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

I am a believer in some of what PETA does but definitely their marketing is very edgy. They have latched onto Twilight to build awareness for their cause and organization by having Twilight Saga star Christian Serratos pose naked in a new PETA ad.. Checkout the photos below and for more on the PETA campaign click on the image.

Clearly this image will help to promote Twilight, Christian Serratos and PETA.

Will Smiths Remake of Old Boy Is Not Happening

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

The last we heard of the remake of Oldboy it was not actually a remake but was going to be based off the MANGA which inspired the original film. The original OLDBOY is one of the greatest movies ever made and the remake could have been good... shame its dead.

LatinoReview is reporting from a reliable source that the Steven Spielberg project which was going to star Will Smith is not happening. It seems that Dreamworks could not come to terms with the people who own the rights and as such its being benched. We will see where this one goes.

Have you seen Oldboy? Would a remake have been worth it? Sound off.

Watch the Kick Ass Movie Trailer in 4 Days

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

The trailer for Kick Ass the upcoming comic-comedy is going to kick the internets ass in 4 days. The trailer will debut online this week in 4 days to wow us all with its awesomenesss. As soon as its released look for it here on our site!

James Camerons Avatar Budget, $500million

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Talk about some staggering numbers. James Camerons Avatar reportedly has a budget of $500million according to ReelComix which brings the question how is the studio ever going to turn a profit? Without a doubt with the buzz for the film they are going to make money but it will not be an easy task when they have to generate $500million just to break even. What do you think? Will it turn a profit in theaters or will it take the dvd release to make money? We interviewed James Cameron at Comic Con be sure to give it a read.

Avatar is the story of an ex-Marine who finds himself thrust into hostilities on an alien planet filled with exotic life forms. As an Avatar, a human mind in an alien body, he finds himself torn between two worlds, in a desperate fight for his own survival and that of the indigenous people. More than ten years in the making, Avatar marks Cameron's return to feature directing since helming 1997's Titanic, the highest grossing film of all time and winner of eleven Oscars® including Best Picture.

Taylor Swift SNL Twilight Spoof

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

SNL did a great spoof of Twilight called firelight which is one of the funniest Twilight Parodies yet. In the Parody Taylor Swift plays Bella and Bill Hader plays the role of Edward.

Its a really funny spoof and one that is sure to make you laugh whether you are a fan of twilight or not. Watch it below! The Twilight Saga: New Moon will hit theaters on November 20.

Olivia Munns New Magazine, Hey Olivia

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Olivia Munn has launched a new magazine called Hey Olivia which seems to focus on lots of photos of her in various stages of sexiness. Olivia Munn is a model and a geek goddess and we can assume her magazine will feature columns on different hot tech topics similar to what she has written in Complex Magazine with a healthy dose of photos of her in various stages of half-attire. Olivia Munn really has made her mark as co-host of Attack of the Show.

Her new Magazine is being sold for $10. Below you can checkout a making of video for her magazine. Buy her new magazine here

Box Office Report November 8th 2009

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Dude here again. Halloween is now officially over, and the Chrismanzakuh holiday season has begun! I know this because the people on my street took down their Halloween decorations and put up Christmas decorations instead. Except for one guy who always leaves the Halloween stuff up until February. I'm sure he's making some sort of political/social statement by doing this.

Or he's even lazier than I am.

This weekend, four major releases duke it out, including our first Christmas movie of the season (which makes sense because it's early November! Let's go to the numbers, shall we? (All in millions, remember, and these are the studio estimates. The actuals will be available on Monday).

1. A Christmas Carol (BV) - $31.0, 3683 screens, week 1, $31.0 total
2. Michael Jackson's This Is It (Sony)- $14.0, 3481 screens, week 2, $57.8 total
3. The Men Who Stare At Goats (Over) - $13.3, 2443 screens, week 1, $13.3 total
4. The Fourth Kind (Uni)- $12.5, 2527 screens, week 1, $12.5 total
5. Paranormal Activity (Par) - $8.6, 2558 screens, week 7, $97.4 total
6. The Box (WB)- $7.8, 2635 screens, week 1, $7.8 total
7. Couples Retreat (Uni) $6.4, 2587 screens, week 5, $95.9 total
8. Law Abiding Citizen (Over)- $6.1, 2474 screens, week 4, $60.8 total
9. Where The Wild Things Are (WB) - $4.2, 2756 screens, week 4, $69.2 total
10. Astro Boy (Sum) - $2.5, 1918 screens, week 3, $15.0 total

So those are the numbers, but what do they mean? Well, it means that Christmas reigns supreme, but again, not nearly as much as money counting people were probably hoping for, given the cost. Next week will be the true test of the film's strength, as it will probably play a lot of theaters until Christmas actually arrives, but this does probably put the kibosh on future Dickens' tales transformed with the magic of 3-D performance capture, which is a shame as I was looking forward to A Tale of Two Cities with Jim Carrey portraying everyone, including the two cities.

Surprising a lot of people is The Men Who Stare At Goats, a tale of goats and George Clooney, which once again proves my theory that Clooney can do no wrong, so long as he continues making interesting movies for adults. Some my say Fantastic Mr Fox, which opens next week, would prove the exception to the rule, but I say those people haven't paid attention to the amount of real estate jokes in the film.

The Fourth Kind opened up to HORRIBLE reviews, but managed to piggy-back on the Paranormal Activity phenomenon to pull in $12 million dollars. I don't know if this makes me happy or sad, but the movie does look ridiculous, which means I sort of can't wait to see it.

And poor Richard Kelly. The director of Donnie Darko and Southland Tales released his first studio effort, and while it made more than his previous films combined, it was still a disappointing first weekend for the film, losing out to the 7th week of Paranormal Activity, and the goats.

Below the radar, Precious: Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire made $1.8 million on 18 screens, which gives it a per screen average of roughly $100,000. Outstanding work for a film that's garnered a lot of buzz for awards, even if it depresses the living hell out of the audience. (Not to mention the grief that long title must give those who change marquees for a living).

There you have my amazing break down. Next week we get another Roland Emmerich world ending spectacle! (Sadly, this one involves no wooly mammoths, but it has John Cusack outrunning global destruction in a limo! And that aforementioned Mr. Fox opens up in limited release.

Until next weekend.......

Twilight New Moon Clip: Never Hurt You

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Its definitely Twilight week as we are posting like mad as tons of new Twilight New Moon content comes in. This go around we have a new TV Spot called Never Hurt You. Watch it below.

The buzz is intense for the second film in the Twilight franchise and even I am quite interested in the new film and I am far from a fan of the Twilight Franchise. It seems the bar has been raised in the second film. Watch the spot!

New Moon Meet The Volturi Video

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

We have a brand new video from Summit which you can checkout below which introduces you to the Volturi from New Moon. In a brief but pivotal appearance, the vampiric Cullen family hosts a birthday party for Bella where a paper cut sets off a dangerous chain reaction, prompting Edward to end the romance. Ashley Greene, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Nikki Reed, Kellan Lutz and Jackson Rathbone all return as the Cullen family. “We’ve turned into a real family,” says Reed. “We are all so passionate about this and my castmates are such smart, interesting people. It’s great to work with them again and we are 9 so fortunate that we get to carry these characters through multiple films. We are all such fans of the books, it’s been extremely gratifying to bring something to life that we love so much.” Alice Cullen, played by Greene, comes into her own in this chapter of the story. Her visions of the future lead directly to Bella’s desperate attempts to rescue Edward from his misguided attempt to kill himself. “Bella is essentially Alice’s best friend,” says Greene. “She wants what is best for Bella. To Alice, the most logical thing is for Bella to become a vampire and stay with the Cullens.

She’s respectful of Edward’s desire to let Bella remain a human for as long as possible, but Alice has seen a different kind of future.” Two elements of Alice particularly delighted Greene—her penchants for beautiful clothes and fast cars. “I got to wear the best costumes,” she says. “Tish Monaghan, the costume designer, found these great jackets—a white silk trench coat, a striped Michael Kors jacket— and paired them with black tights and flat ballet shoes and long red gloves. They were great and so Alice-quirky. I also got to drive this amazing yellow Porsche through these windy streets in Italy. I only had one driving lesson the day before we were supposed to film it. I have to say, I almost nicked a couple buildings!” The Twilight Saga: New Moon marks the first appearance of the Volturi, the closest the vampire world has to royalty and a major force in the future of the saga. Centuries old and unimaginably powerful, they serve as lawmakers and enforcers for the community. The leader of the group is Aro, played by Michael Sheen. Sheen is no stranger to this world, having played a werewolf enslaved by the vampires in the Underworld series.

But Sheen says there was another on the set who embodied both vampire and werewolf. “Chris Weitz looks like a cross between a vampire and a werewolf to me,” says the actor. ‘He’s got the chiseled look of a vampire, and yet he is buff like a werewolf, so he was like a great mythological creature going around the set. “ Sheen developed a distinct vocalization for Aro, higher pitched and more precise than his normal speaking voice. Weitz notes that his intonation perhaps arose from their early talks about the character. “Essentially, the character is 2,000 years old,” says Weitz. “English is not his first language, so he might speak it in a calculated way. He is incredibly gracious and endearing, but also extraordinarily dangerous.” In fact, Sheen says, he unconsciously channeled the scary, psychedelic, music-hating, color-sapping Blue Meanies of Yellow Submarine fame when voicing Aro. “There was a moment where I suddenly thought, ‘Oh, I sound a little bit like the Blue Meanies,’” he says. “I found them really disturbing when I was a kid, so I thought that was a good thing.” 10 While all the Volturi are formidable, perhaps the most fearsome is Jane, a sweet-faced, innocent-looking vampire who can—and does—inflict pain merely by willing it.

She is played by Dakota Fanning. “I’ve never really gotten to play a bad guy before, but in this one, I play a bad girl —or vampire—and it was really fun,” Fanning says. “Plus, I was a really big fan of the books, I read all four of them in about a week, so it was thrilling to be asked to be a part of the film.” Part of that fun came from the physical transformation. “I got to wear red contact lenses, which were cool and changed the whole look of everything, literally,” she says. “And the white make-up—I thought I was pale before, but now I realize, by comparison to a vampire, I’m actually quite tan.” Kristen Stewart, who had met Fanning before her involvement with the film, says, “Dakota is straight-up scary and mean as Jane. She’s one of the most impressive people and actors I’ve ever met. She’s really got a presence that you just don’t mess with. And you wouldn’t expect that, because she’s a little girl. She’s one of the best young actresses around, and I’m excited that I got to work with her.”

New Moon Chris Weitz Interview

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

MoviesOnline sat down recently with director Chris Weitz, screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, and producer Wyck Godfrey to talk about their new movie, “The Twilight Saga: New Moon.”

Director Chris Weitz’s success at adapting books for the screen, including “About A Boy” and “The Golden Compass,” made him an obvious choice for this project, says Wyck Godfrey, who produced both “Twilight” and “New Moon.” “Chris has a history of helming fantasy films with complex effects as well as intimate character studies, and he works well with young actors. But it is his appreciation of Stephenie Meyer’s books and characters that made him the perfect director for “The Twilight Saga: New Moon.”

Melissa Rosenberg is proving to be one of Hollywood’s most versatile and sought-after writers, seamlessly transitioning from television to the silver screen. She wrote the screenplay for the vampire romance phenomenon “Twilight” directed by Catherine Hardwicke based on the best-selling novel by Stephenie Meyer. She also scripted the highly-anticipated “New Moon” as well as the third film, “Eclipse.” Rosenberg is the head writer and executive producer of the popular Showtime original series Dexter.

Here’s what they had to tell us about their collaboration on “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”:

Q: I'm wondering if either you or your brother has ever tried to get your mother (Susan Kohner) to make a cameo in any of your films? She would have been perfect as the grandmother in the first scene of this movie.

CW: How fun. I think it would have been difficult for me to say, "Mom, we'd like you to play a woman who is so old she horrifies Bella when she recognizes herself in the mirror." Well, I'm glad that people still remember my mom. For all who don't know who she is, she was nominated as Best Supporting Actress for Imitation of Life. And I think she's put movies behind her for good, and now she just raises me and my brother.

Q: Putting together the syllabus for the cast, what was your thinking behind that? As far as I know, you hadn't done it before. Why did you feel you needed to this time around?

CW: Well, I knew that I needed to do quite a lot of thinking coming into the movie because I was the new kid. So, all of the actors knew their characters but what often happens with actors, I think, is that they get kind of dropped into a war zone, into a room that they're supposed to have known all their lives, or into a scene with someone they’re supposed to have known all their lives, and they're not quite aware either of where they are, who they're meeting, or indeed what movie they're in. I mean they know that they're in New Moon, but what I really didn't want was a sequelitis or the idea that we're just cranking out a franchise. I wanted everyone to know what sort of movie we wanted to make and what had already been discussed with Javier [Aguirresarobe], our DP, and with David Brisbin, our production designer, what had gone into the script from Melissa, what kind of thinking had gone into where we were, so that it was a holistic experience rather than the somewhat brutal process that making a film can sometimes be.

Q: There are a lot of hunky guy moments in this movie that the girls are going to go crazy for. Even Laurent gets to show up bare-chested. Can you guys talk about constructing those moments and then delivering on them?

MR: I wish I could take credit for the moments of Jacob pulling off his shirt and Edward pulling off his shirt. They are in the book and it seemed unwise to leave them out.

CW: That would be a cut that you would regret. I like to say it's all essentially economics. You see, the Quileutes don't have very high average income and they can't afford the T-shirts they would need, given the amount of times they turn into wolves on short notice and their clothes burst. So, really, they'd have to go to Wal-Mart every 10 minutes. They just go around in shorts for that reason.

Q: Were you trying to get teenagers’ hearts going?

CW: Well, yes. I will say that the last scene especially is constructedâ€¦Melissa and I talked about it and it's constructed in such a way that it's meant to be one of the most scream-inducing moments - and it doesn't even involve abdominal muscles – in recent film history. I think that there's this wonderful audience that appreciates what we do, wants us to do well, and really wants to engage in an emotional experience. And so to me it made sense to be unashamed of the emotionality of the piece. And there's werewolves fighting each other, vampires fighting each other, vampires fighting werewolves, and all sorts of great stuff for boys as well, but the girls needed to be given their due. And we, I think, deliver.

Q: With Twilight having such a young cast and everyone wanting to know everything about the cast, did your work with the young cast in the American Pie days help you adapt to this film in any way?

CW: Strangely not. Not in the way that you'd expect because even though the cast on the film is quite young, they'd all been in quite a lot of stuff before, especially Kristen. Whereas with American Pie, most of them were first-timers. So I didn't feel as though I had to do any hand-holding with our young actors. But there was the fun I'd had on American Pie of casting some unknowns in the parts of the young guys who play the Quileutes. And that's lovely. It's really great to work on a movie where you've got Michael Sheen in a scene, an extraordinary professional, then you've got a guy who was walking around and he saw a line of people waiting for an audition and was like, "What's this?" And they said it's for some movie, and then he decided to stand at the end of the line. And then a few days later I saw the video and said, "That guy's really funny. Let's put him in." That's terribly enjoyable as well.

Q: Melissa, how do you adapt from a book rather than your own personal experiences?

MR: Very carefully because it is a very beloved book. But the objective is you have to take the audience on the same emotional journey they had in the book. That's the primary objective and, in order to take them on that journey, there's certain plot points you have to hit. You have to have, obviously, Edward breaking up with Bella. You have to have Bella discover the wolves. You have to have Edward attempting to kill himself – all the things that are crucial in the book. So you start with those scenes and then you condense and expand on some things.

Q: As I understand it in book 2, Edward disappears for most of the book and because of the popularity of his character, you needed him to be in the movie. Can you talk about how you decided to do what you did and whether you were worried your were being faithful to the book and unfaithful to it in this way was going to make people happy or not?

CW: Yeah. Well, it's tricky. You don't want too much Edward because then you lose the really important sense of missing him. On some level you don't want too little because everyone loves Rob. The fortunate thing about it is reading a book which, I think, takes you about 13 to 17 hours and our film which lasts two hours, actually Rob's not out of the movie for terribly long. I mean, I think the crucial difference between the book and the film is that when Bella hallucinates Edward's voice she also sees him. It's just a nice little flavoring, a little dose of Edward whenever we needed that. But I was very keen that when we presented it visually, it be as subtle as possible. And so it was kind of re-imagining the ghosting effect and trying to come up with something quite special for it. And what we did was, using green screen, we mapped Edward onto the dynamics of a candle flame, so that the way that he moves and flitters in and out is the way that a candle's flame would behave. So it's very subjective to Bella's experience. And I think it's fair to cheat in that because it's one of the powers available to a moviemaker as opposed to a novelist. So it kind of suited the medium.

MR: It's also true that in the book, he's very present in her eyes, every page he's really present, so it makes sense to have him actually appear. It was funny because as I was writing the script I kept on trying to explain what that was, and I'm not a director. I like to give the director something to leap off with, but I had no idea how to write this, other than that kind of Wayne's World do-do-do kind of thing. So I was really grateful we had a visual stylist. I just kind of handed him the thing and said, "All right, it's just she sees him. Go."

WG: We also talked a lot about the overall design of the series, that we really needed Edward's absence to allow Jacob to become a viable option for Bella. And we really had to fight that instinct to be like, "Oh my gosh, everyone loves Edward Cullen. You've got to figure out ways to put him in." But the whole series doesn't work unless he's absent and Jacob enters into it. And I think Taylor really filled that hole amazingly well.

Q: What about the casting? Was there really a possibility that the role would be recast before this movie started?

CW: I'd say there was a big possibility that could happen, but I was always convinced that he was going to be able to do it. I think basically becauseâ€¦ The doubts came up because he had very few scenes in the first movie. Also because he's described as being 6'5" in the second book, some reasonable facts that we had to come to grip with. But I like the sort of sweetness of this character in the first movie and I knew that it was easier to take an actor in the direction of anger and rage than it was to find someone who is kind of a hunk or 6'5" Native American and somehow turn him into that very sweet-natured persona that Taylor brings out so well to boot.

WG: It also became less of an idea once audiences identified with Taylor when they saw Twilight. He's in their minds. He is Jacob, you know? So it became less of an idea to recast once people really identified, once the movie opened and people were like, "Taylor is Jacob." It certainly helped that he had spent the last eight months really working very hard to kind of physically adapt himself to the role.

Q: Could you talk about soundtrack and bringing in more indie artists?

CW: Yeah. Well, first I owe a great deal to two things. One is the success of the first film and Catherine Hardwicke's version, which made for a soundtrack that was so successful that suddenly anyone was conceivably within our reach. And the other person to thank is Alexandra Patsavas, our amazing music supervisor, who knows everything that's out there. She was able to bring me kind of a basket of music that I could choose from with her. I mean my musical education is formed by my daily drive listening to KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, so I am an indie guy, if anything. Mostly, I'm a square. But suddenly there were these incredible pickings on offer: Thom Yorke, The Killers. And I genuinely think it's one of the best soundtrack albums that's ever been done. The reason I will make this outrageous claim is that it's not music that was already completed. You know, you're always dealing with a known quantity when you're doing needle drops. It's kind of easy to do that. But to be able to risk asking somebody to do a track and four weeks later or so a song comes back, to have it work as many times as it did was really extraordinary. And I think that if any one of those artists had done a track for our soundtrack, I would have been really proud. But to have all of them is absolutely extraordinary.

Q: How did you strategize how the wolves transform? Were there movies you turned to for inspiration for that?

CW: Stephenie was very explicit in not wanting it to be a kind of Lon Chaney-esque or Howling-esque American Werewolf in London-esque transformation which takes a long time. Which is good. Her instincts were completely correct, in terms of the movie, because what we had noticed making The Golden Compass was that a lot of the things that you really worry about, like how is one thing going to transform into another, are really solved by doing it very quickly. There was some worry about volume metrics, which was how do you turn a 180-pound guy into a 600-pound wolf? We had to do some early tests on how you might do that. It became much more doable than we thought. We had Phil Tippett who is legendary and a genius in the effects world. And I was fortunate to have both my former visual effects supervisor, Mike Fink, who won the Oscar for Golden Compass, heading Prime Focus – one of our effects houses – and Susan MacLeod, who was our visual effects producer on Golden Compass, working as our producer. So I was working with people I was very, very familiar with, which speed up the R&D process measurably. And you're dealing with an industrial process which takes its own time with visual effects. It's not just about having an inspiration. You have to have the inspiration, but then you have to have the [resources] to actually execute the special effects. And Wyck knows all about this stuff too because he's done several CG-related movies. But, yeah, fortunately we were able to do all of our aesthetic development and get all of the shots out in time. But it's always down to the wire, basically.

Q: Wyck, what are the pitfalls that you have to avoid to continue to make this be successful? And how do you plan to avoid those pitfalls?

WG: I think the pitfalls are that if people feel like the characters and story aren't progressing and aren't surprising them along the way. Catherine set an amazing foundation and a very distinct style to Twilight that brought people to the movie. One of the choices that Summit and we made was to bring in a director with a different visual style who could approach the same characters, the same locations, but with a different eye. I think that's very important. We, you know, got a different director for the third film. So it's been one of the ways we've tackled that. I also think bringing in new, creative people on every film allows the actors and the writer to kind of regenerate their interest by working with new people.

Q: Not since the golden age of 1980s hair metal videos has slo-mo been used as lovingly as it is. Was that something that was written in or was it a stylistic choice? And as a follow-up, with the slo-mo, was there ever a concern about making Jacob too appealing?

CW: I hate slo-mo normally. But, first of all, let's talk about Chariots of Fire. I think that's a better use of slo-mo. You know, we have this issue of vampire speed and how quickly they move, and it was my contention borne out by some early tests that to speed up the footage actually made things look herky-jerky and a bit comical. But to slow down footage and to be able to manipulate the speeds, which is what we can do now, was what was going to be our happy place, in terms of the vampires' speed. You used to have to use something called a Speed Aperture Control which would manually control the speed and shutter setting and iris of the camera. But now you can shoot at 96 frames per second and alter the ramping effect, which is the kind of speed changes within a shot, with computers. And so we were constantly addressing each shot individually in terms of what we wanted it to achieve, and then having special effects do kind of warping time dilution and space distortion effects on top of that. So that's the reason for that.

Making Jacob too appealingâ€¦ It's a balance, isn't it, in terms of how he's written and how Edward's written, and how they're shot. I think that for the diehard Twilight fans nothing will ever beat Edward and so you've got this kind of very strong, simple fact that they know that he is the one, which allows you to push as hard as you possibly can and make Jacob as winning as Taylor has been able to be which gives me a lot of latitude. We didn't have to suddenly have a scene in which Jacob acted like a creep so that we're reminded that we needed to love Edward. It's just a lovefest.

Q: Could you address the recasting of Victoria? There was some back and forth when that was announced. Rachel said her piece online. Did she really break contract with you guys?

WG: It was simply because she wasn't available at the time we were set to make the movie. We found out a little bit too late, in terms of her schedule difficulty, that we couldn't change our schedule. We had a release date for this movie and we had to complete photography by the time we needed to get sort of selling New Moon. Ultimately what we're here to talk about is New Moon, but the truth of the matter is we couldn't move our schedule around to get her in the movie.

Q: But she wouldn't back out of her other thing?

WG: She wasn't able to.

Q: Your grandmother was in the original Spanish language version of Dracula that was in 1931â€¦

CW: You've done your research.

Q: Did you feel this was destiny to do a vampire movie? Did you watch that movie again to make sort of a genuflection within this to that Dracula film?

CW: To be honest, about a week before this was offered to me, I was saying to a friend, "Why are they making so many vampire movies? I just don't get it." I don't feel fated at all to have done this. The vampire thing isn't really what appeals to me about this series of books. It's the characters, and it's Bella especially. And it's the chance to work with these young actors, and to be honest with Kristen especially. She's extraordinary. So, I have actors in my lineage and I respect what they do, but the fact that they've played vampires is simply a strange coincidence.

Q: Why are they making so many vampire movies? Do you get it now?

CW: I still don't understand why. I mean I think I usually end up mumbling something about it being a very adaptable metaphor. In the '80s, it could be about AIDS. In the '90s, it could be about greed. I think now it’s really about the sense that the person that you fall in love with for the first time is something other than you, something higher, something unattainable, transcendent. And also possibly about – I'm going to use this word – sexuality, which is okay to use because really the message of these films is that it's a very important thing. And these are actually quite sort of traditional in their values. And so when Edward is thinking about whether to turn Bella into a vampire or not, he's taking this issue very seriously, the way that you might take sex seriously – or you might ask teenagers to take it seriously.

MR: I completely agree with everything you said and would add also I think really it mainly comes down to writers. Not this writer, but Stephenie. And before her you had television with Joss Whedon. Before Joss it was Anne Rice. When you have this familiar genre but you have a writer like these ladies, and Joss, come in and reinvent it and reinvigorate it, then you have a new young audience being introduced to it. And I think that's true of any genre, whether it be Western or romance. And so initially it is a really creative writer who reinvents the mythology and then it becomes commerce because that's successful. And then people start jumping on the bandwagon and it's sort of overkill when it dies off again, until another creative person comes along and reinvents the mythology. This is why we had so many Westerns at one point.

“New Moon” opens in theaters on November 20th.

New Moon Volturi Interview, Dakota Fanning, Michael Sheen

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

We caught up with all the members of the Volturi and got to talk to them about their new film New Moon. Those who participated in the interview are as follows; Michael Sheen (Aro), Jamie Campbell Bower (Caius), Dakota Fanning (Jane) and Cameron Bright (Alec).

The Twilight Saga: New Moon marks the first appearance of the Volturi, the closest the vampire world has to royalty and a major force in the future of the saga. Centuries old and unimaginably powerful, they serve as lawmakers and enforcers for the community. The leader of the group is Aro, played by Michael Sheen. Sheen is no stranger to this world, having played a werewolf enslaved by the vampires in the Underworld series.

Q: Dakota, as such a fan of the series, you’ve said in many interviews before that you were really excited about this so what were the highlights of playing Jane and do you get to do more in the next movie?

Dakota Fanning: I think the highlight of playing Jane was getting to wear that costume and to have the red contact lenses -- I was really excited about that – and getting to play an evil character. The next movie I already finished doing, Eclipse, and it’s about the same. It’s still not very much in the movie.

Q: What did you think when you saw yourself for the first time with the red lenses in?

Dakota Fanning: I know. It’s really scary. I think it makes anyone look automatically evil. But yeah, it was really fun. You get used to them after a while. You can see pretty good, but it’s still kind of weird.

Q: Michael, I wanted to know what you were saying into that tape recorder, but secondly, I wanted to know about you finding your voice. You mentioned the Blue Meanie. Did it take you a while to come up with that or was that kind of an instant thought when you read the script?

Michael Sheen: No, it was from Stephenie in the book. She describes Aro as having a voice like feathers, so that made me think about what would it sound like if someone had a voice like feathers. And then, as I was starting to play around with it, I reminded myself a little bit of the Blue Meanie. You remember the Blue Meanie in Yellow Submarine and the hand that goes with it? And then I was also thinking about characters from when I was a kid watching stuff that really freaked me out and the Blue Meanie really freaked me out. The Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – you know, “Lollipops” and all that. I liked the idea of a character who on the surface appears to be very friendly and thinks of himself as just being a sentimental old fool, a romantic at heart, and then he wants to eat your eyes. I liked that sort of idea so that was where Aro came from. And what I said into the tape recorder is between me and whoever owns that tape recorder. [Laughter]

Q: Now that you get to play a vampire rather than a werewolf, was it more satisfying?

Michael Sheen: As I said earlier, the tailoring is so much better as a vampire. I’ve been observing vampires for some time now and I finally got to give my own fang, although we don’t have fangs, do we? But no, it was great to be on the other side for a bit.

Q: Dakota, the fourth book hasn’t been written yet, so as a fan, where would you like your character to go?

Dakota Fanning: The last book, the fourth book, has been written so my character – we see all of us in that last one. I think it culminates in the final battle which is a really cool scene to read in the book.

Michael Sheen: Of course, there’s the secret Twilight film which nobody knows about where many, many things happen that you don’t know about. [Laughter]

Q: Jamie, can you tell us and describe what the Volturi are for the group?

Jamie Campbell Bower: We are basically the vampire government, I guess. We’re there to sort of keep all the vampires in check. People keep describing us as evil. I wouldn’t say we’re evil necessarily. We’re the government and not everybody likes the government, which is fine. So, we’re there to keep everybody in check. Without us, like you were saying earlier, it would turn into complete anarchy. It would be vampire anarchy. So we’re there to keep the Cullens in check in particular. There’s me and Michael and Chris Heyerdahl who plays Marcus, Aro and Caius respectively, and we sit on these big thrones and then there’s you (Dakota) and Charlie (Bewley) and Dan (Cudmore). They’re our runners effectively.

Michael Sheen: It’s quite thrilling to have Dakota Fanning calling you “monster”.

Q: Cameron, can you talk about your character and your relationship to Dakota and what kind of powers you have and what your character has to do?

Cameron Bright: Me and Dakota, we’re the henchmen but it’s kind of funny because Dakota is the most feared out of all the Volturi. She’s the one with the worst power and everything – well not worst like worst in a sentence. We’re the henchmen. We kind of do what they say. For me, as Alec, I’m the only one that isn’t quite afraid of her but I still am. Like I’m not afraid to say what I want, where everybody else is always kind of watching their words, as far the henchmen go. Felix and Demetri, they’re always – as soon as they say one thing bad, she just looks at them and they just shut up and don’t say anything. We’re brother and sister. That’s basically about it. That spells it out for you. Luckily, we don’t fight at all or else I’d be in trouble.

Q: Jamie, how would you compare joining the Harry Potter phenomenon with the Twilight phenomenon? It seems like there’s a different set of rules with each.

Jamie Campbell Bower: The Twilight phenomenon cinematically is relatively young so there’s still a lot of growth there to go with the film and there’s still a lot of connections to be made between cast and crew and stuff, whereas with Potter they’ve been going for 10 years now. It’s a machine, Potter. You go in, you do your thing and then you go on, whereas with this, it’s a lot more finding out about everything and a lot more exploration to do in general.

Q: Are you Harry Potter?

Jamie Campbell Bower: I am Harry Potter. [Laughter]

Q: Can each of you talk about your character’s special power and if you had a special power in real life, what would you like it to be? Also, Cameron and Dakota, your characters are brother and sister. Which one is older?

Cameron Bright: I think we’re twins. (to Dakota) Aren’t we?

Q: How many minutes older?

Dakota Fanning: Minutes older?

Cameron Bright: I don’t know.

Dakota Fanning: We’re like thousands of years old, I guess, so it doesn’t really matter anymore, I suppose.

Cameron Bright: Special power – I cut off people’s senses. And the special power I’d want in the real world would be to have any special power I wanted. My special power would be to have every special power in the world. That’s something really -- I don’t know. I can’t talk.

Dakota Fanning: For me, my special power is that I can just look at someone and cause them pain. And, if I could have any power, it would be to read people’s thoughts.

Jamie Campbell Bower: I don’t have a power. Take from that what you will. And if I had a power in real life, probably something like the power of flight would be kind of cool – just to get from A to B much quicker rather than walking everywhere. It’s much faster.

Michael Sheen: My power is to be able to read people’s thoughts by touching them, and in real life, I would like to have the power to always look like I’m 3 centimeters to the right of where I actually am. [Laughter] Mock!

Q: That was very specific and unusual.

Michael Sheen: I’m doing it now. I actually do have that power. More fool you!

Q: So you’re over here then?

Michael Sheen: Yeah.

Q: Is it challenging to play characters that are duplicitous because that’s kind of what you get into whenever it comes to the Cullens and also, is it fun to play characters that are so intimidating?

Dakota Fanning: Yes. [Laughs] Yes, it is fun.

Michael Sheen: We had to tone Dakota down. She was too evil. Her natural personality is too evil and we had to tone the volume down on the evil.

Dakota Fanning: [Laughs] Yeah. It was fun to get to play a feared character, you know, something different than what I’ve done before. And also, she uses her power not for good, which was another thing that was kind of interesting to me.

Q: Since keeping schedules is so important, have you had to turn down any roles or have you seen that you’re getting even more roles thanks to the Twilight films?

Jamie Campbell Bower: I’ll just take what I can get. It’s nice to work. I didn’t have to turn down anything.

Cameron Bright: My schedule definitely filled up with really only the stuff for this movie – like the conventions. I went to Australia and Rome, and Jamie came to Rome, and a couple other people went to Australia and went to Chicago. It was just like doing a bunch of stuff to talk and sign autographs and stuff. To me, that’s amazing. It’s great fun. It gets me out of school. [Laughter] No, it’s great. Like Jamie said, we’re still waiting. Everyday it’s an audition and all that kind of stuff, so just waiting. Hire me. [Laughs]

Q: Let’s just pretend that you could be the vampire government when the cameras stopped rolling also. With you on set, out of the cast would you have to punish any bad pranksters or jokers there?

Jamie Campbell Bower: I’d like to punish Chris Heyerdahl – not sexually. That sounded a bit naughty, didn’t it?

Cameron Bright: The way they talk on set, it would sound like it wasn’t. They talk hilarious to each other. I don’t know. That’s kind of weird – who would we want to punish – one of the random guards standing in the background of the shot.

Michael Sheen: You could punish Chris Weitz for some truly awful jokes now and again. On the whole, not really, no, they’re all a very sweet bunch, very law abiding. They wouldn’t [inaudible].

Q: So now that you’ve entered into this Twihard machine for fans, how has that been for you, and also, were you obsessed with anything when you were growing up as much as fans are obsessed with this?

Michael Sheen: I haven’t really experienced much of the Twilight fan stuff yet. But, I did go into a store in L.A. to buy a pair of jeans and I went into the little cubicle to try my jeans on. It’s always a quite nerve-wracking time when I come out of the cubicle to look in the mirror anyway and I like that to be a private moment. As I came out, there was a woman shaking, going “You’re Aro, aren’t you?!” and I just hid in my cubicle again. Whooo! Anyway, I’m slightly to the right of where you are. [Laughter] That’s been really my only experience with that. Apart from also going into my daughter’s bedroom and seeing -- she’s just got pictures from Twilight and New Moon everywhere -- and seeing my own little picture which I think she did out of pity. [Laughter] Have Dad up there as well. That was quite a ball [bore?].

Q: Is there anything you guys were obsessed with when you were growing up or still are?

Cameron Bright: No, not as much as some of the people I’ve seen with this movie. I like shoes. I guess you could say that, other than that, no, not really.

Dakota Fanning: I’m obsessed with baby names, with what people name their children. Just like friends, anybody. I know a lot of people’s baby names. [Laughs] But I just love names in general.

Q: What’s your favorite?

Dakota Fanning: There’s too many. I’ve been planning my children’s names since I was like four. I have lists of girls, boys, and I have them from all different ages. It’s really fun.

Michael Sheen: I really like inappropriately named animal names – like my daughter is brilliant at naming things, animals that have human names, like she’s got a cat called Clive. I love that.

Dakota Fanning: That’s cute.

Michael Sheen: I love that. And a mouse called Bob.

Q: Dakota, being someone with so much experience, do you get star struck at this point?

Dakota Fanning: Especially going into this movie with a cast that already knew each other really well because they’ve already done a movie together, you’re always kind of like the new kid coming in, the new person coming on the set, but they were just so nice and so welcoming, and just a really great cast so it was kind of hard to be star struck even though you’re such big fans of them and excited to meet them, but they’re just so nice and you become friends pretty quick.

Q: I was curious if any of you guys have gone into Hot Topic and are just shaking your head at the amount of merchandise that you guys are involved with. When you signed on, did you know about the merchandise -- your likeness and figures and posters and toys and all that stuff?

Cameron Bright: It was funny because when I showed up for New Moon, we did the photo session and they were like “Okay, we just want profile shots.” I was like “Alright” and then they were like, “Yeah, they’re going to be for the doll” and I was like “Wait a minute, they’re making a doll of me?” and they’re like “Possibly.” I was like, for me at least, that’s one of the goals to be an actor is to have an action figure with the pull string that says one of your lines. It’s just one of those weird things that I think would be hilarious to have on my bed stand and just have people walk into my room and go, “Seriously, you’ve got a doll of yourself?” and I’m like, “Yeah.” But no, it’s pretty crazy. We don’t have Hot Topic back home but we have a different store called Spences and you walk in there and it’s like “Hey Rob, hey Rob, hey Rob, hey Taylor, how’s it going?” It’s like everywhere all this stuff. I don’t know. It’s pretty crazy.

Michael Sheen: I lose days just with my Lucian figure and my Aro figure fighting. [Laughter] They have their tea parties together. They like to fight and then they come back. I’m losing jobs because of it.

Cameron Bright: It’s a love-hate relationship.

Michael Sheen: And then we haveâ€¦Dakota, what was your doll? Dakota’s doll fromâ€¦?

Dakota Fanning: Oh, Dreamer.

Michael Sheen: Dreamer comes over and we have a little chat. [Laughter] And then we fight.

Q: Volturis playing dolliesâ€¦ Dakota, I heard you were the homecoming queen at your high school? How do you mesh the real school life that a lot of kids don’t have with acting?

Dakota Fanning: Right. Well, I’m a junior so you can’t be the queen, but I was a homecoming princess. I thought it was really important to have the high school experience. It was something that I wanted. I think it’s really great to have that balance of like a completely normal life and then a completely abnormal life. I really didn’t see a reason why I wouldn’t be able to do both and I was lucky that I was able to go to a school that lets me leave and everything. I don’t know if there’s a ‘how to’ guide as to how I balance it. It just kind of has happened and I have really great friends and great family and the best of both.

Q: Dakota, you worked with Kristen again in The Runaways. So having worked together already, was it a little bit easier going into that with her after New Moon?

Dakota Fanning: Yeah, it was really great making The Runaways with her after New Moon. We became really good friends and really close throughout all the experiences we’ve had this year. I couldn’t ask for a better person to do three movies in a row with than her. It was really good to know each other so we weren’t complete strangers when doing The Runaways.

Q: Cameron, you didn’t get to work in Vancouver even though you’re from British Columbia. You went to Italy to work on this, right?

Cameron Bright: Nope. I didn’t go to Italy. I got to work in Vancouver. She was the only one that got to go to Italy out of us four.

Q: So all the interiors were done in Vancouver?

Cameron Bright: Yeah, all the interiors were done in beautiful Vancouver.

Q: So you didn’t get to go to Italy?

Cameron Bright: At least we were inside because I’m pretty sure it was raining half the time. No, it was fun. I mean, it was just a hop over a puddle for me because I’m on Vancouver Island. I don’t mind working there at all. I mean, I go there and see friends and all that kind of stuff. It’s great.

Q: Jamie, I’ve heard that the last two Potter movies were quite different from each other. Did you notice a difference working on Part 1 and Part 2?

Jamie Campbell Bower: They’re still working on it. They’re shooting simultaneously because they’ve obviously got lots of time scheduled and they have to do both side by side. Whenever they can, they will do that I think, but I haven’t noticed a difference.

Q: What is your character in Harry Potter?

Jamie Campbell Bower: Gellert Grindelwald. He’s an old friend of Dumbledore’s, a possible lover.

Q: How much is he in?

Jamie Campbell Bower: At the moment, I’ve only worked on it for about a week. I think I’ve got another week and a bit to go.

Q: Is there more singing in your future?

Jamie Campbell Bower: I play in a band so there’s more music coming out.

Q: Anything on stage or anything like that?

Jamie Campbell Bower: Not at the moment. Nothing at the moment. Maybe one day.

Abducted Girl, New Movie Based on Jaycee Lee Dugard Story

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

It has just been announced that “Abducted Girl, an American sex slave” will begin filming next month and is scheduled to be released as early as Spring 2010.

The film is loosely based on the Jaycee Lee Dugard kidnapping by Phillip and Nancy Garrido. Dugard was held in captivity for 18 years, from 1991 until 2009. Filmmaker Shane Ryan says the film will focus more on the relationship between the victim and the predator than any thing else, his 5th film in a row to use this technique but he says this story is easily the most challenging one yet.

Dugard never tried to escape, even during the months that Phillip Garrido was back in prison due to another crime, leaving his wife Nancy in charge of Jaycee. The Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in abducted hostages, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which they have been placed. Dugard’s story is probably the best example of the Stockholm Syndrome in which case the individual came out alive.

New Moon Kristen Stewart Interview

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

MoviesOnline sat down with Kristen Stewart to talk about her new movie, “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” the second chapter in Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally successful series. In “New Moon,” the romance between mortal and vampire soars to a new level as Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) tests fate for a glimpse of her vampire love, Edward Cullen (Pattinson). As she plumbs deep into the mysteries of the supernatural world that she yearns to become part of, she discovers a pair of ancient secrets that put her at more peril than ever before.

Just after Bella's ill-fated 18th birthday party, Edward decides to leave her behind in an effort to protect her. As the heartbroken Bella sleepwalks through her senior year of high school, numb and alone, she discovers she can summon Edward's image whenever she puts herself in jeopardy. Her desire to be with him at any cost leads her to take greater and greater risks.

With the help of her childhood friend Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), who is a member of the mysterious Quileute tribe, Bella refurbishes an old motorbike to carry her on her adventures. Bella's frozen heart is gradually thawed by her budding relationship with Jacob, who has a supernatural secret of his own. Eventually, Bella learns the secret of the Quileutes and Edward's true motivation for leaving her.

With more of the passion, action and suspense that made Twilight a smash hit, “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” is a spellbinding follow-up to the international box office phenomenon. Here’s what Kristen had to tell us about it:

Q: A year ago when we first talked to you, you seemed to be such a shy, sensitive young actor. How has this past year been for you in terms of this non-stop thing every week on 'New Moon' and on you and Rob Pattinson?

Stewart: I think I've gotten a lot more comfortable with talking about myself and knowing that what you say people are really going to take into consideration and that always intimidated me so much that I minced every word that came out of my mouth. I couldn't finish a sentence because I was so concerned about how it was going to sound. I didn't want to come across insincere about something that I really love to do. And so I’ve realized that, instead of refraining from saying “I've put my heart and soul into this thing and I love it,” that’s what I should've said instead of like the really logical, over analytical reason why I love it. You just do. I've gotten more comfortable with it. The whole rumor, tabloid stuff, it's so obviously false to me. Look, even before I became a part of it, once I was sort of the star of thatâ€¦it's like a show. It's like a ridiculous show.

Q: A soap opera with your name in it?

Stewart: Exactly. With false realism like a soap opera that seems real but you're not quite sure. It doesn't bother me. I don't take it personally. Luckily, because I've had so much experience, it's gotten easier to talk about the work.

Q: What about the work on this one?

Stewart: I had a really good time on this movie. It was intense. Just because of the nature of the story, it goes in a completely different direction. We undermine the first. We establish a very ideological idea of love and basically tell our main character, our main protagonist, that she was wrong. It's like, where's our story going to be left if Edward's not there? What I really love about 'New Moon' is that you see this girl build herself back up, and by the time she makes this sort of rash decision to spend eternity with a vampire, she's in a position where you actually believe her. You're like, “Okay, you're old enough, you’re mature enough to know. You've lived life.” She just grows up.

Q: The scenes with Victoria in this are really harrowing. What has it been like working with Bryce Dallas Howard in that role in Eclipse?

Stewart: Really good. Bryce is scary. She's really oddly sweet as well. So it's funny to see her switch back and forth, but Victoria for Bella is like an ever present fear. Even when Victoria is not around, she's scared that she's coming back. Bryce is such a good actress and it was easy to be scared of her.

Q: Can you talk about breaking in your new director? How did you work with Chris Weitz?

Stewart: Chris has everything. I think to be a good director you have to be a good person and you have to care about people. I don’t know a more compassionate human being. I couldn't have done this unless I had such a believable environment and a comfortable and safe environment to be so vulnerable in. He provided that tenfold. He's one of the coolest guys, one of the smartest and funniest guys I know. He really loves the project as well. He wasn't just jumping on the next big thing. So it wasn't about breaking him in at all. He only helped make everything better. He made everything what it is. He's incredible. I love him.

Q: Did he give you guys any guideposts when he came in? And if so, what were they and how did that work?

Stewart: Chris did a very different thing that I've never had a director do. He put together, it's like a syllabus almost of what we were supposed to achieve and how he was going to make it easier for everyone, sort of an introduction to how he likes to work. It didn't only introduce the idea of collaboration, it was like inviting everyone onto this project and saying, “Please, everyone love it, and please, everyone be invested and work hard because we’re all here to work.” You know what I mean? It was very encouraging. It also had technical aspects of how he was so sorry that so much of the movie was going to be CGI stuff that we were going to have to react to, but that he was always going to make us aware of what we were acting with, that he was never going to leave us high and dry. A lot of the FX movies are hard to do because you don't know what you're reacting to. So he had a full rundown of how he planned on making the movie. Most directors are like, “Have you put together notes for our meeting?” It's like, “No. That's your job.” So he's amazing. I love him.

Q: Taylor Lautner is emerging from this movie as a huge star and obviously the books ordain how the movie will unfold, but if you could wipe the slate clean and make a decision, do you really think that she wouldn't have gone with fine, old Jacob?

Stewart: I know, trust me. I feel you completely.

Q: Can you talk about working with Taylor because there was such controversy going into the movie and he did an incredible job?

Stewart: I think that that controversy has probably been made bigger than it was. We needed to be sure that whoever played Jacob was going to be Jacob in “New Moon.” He's such a different person. He becomes a man. There's an entire [thing]. It's not just a physical transformation. He really becomes an adult. I mean, I always knew that Taylor could do that but we just needed to make sure because it was so important. So once he actually proved himself which wasn't hard to do, even seeing him walk around on set was like a different experience. He's literally become a different person. He's just grown up. He's so confident and the nicest guy that I've ever met. I know that I'm using this grammatically incorrect but he's the ‘funnest’ guy I've ever hung out with. So he's great. I'm so proud of him.

Q: These films have come out so fast, one after the other. Can you talk about the intensity of that and also if you think you'll remember any of it in five years?

Stewart: There's already a lot of stuff that I have to say, “Okay, Kristen, be here. Experience it. Make sure that this isn't just another fleeting situation that you're going to barely remember.” You have to force yourself to sort of be present. But I feel like the fact that I have the opportunity to pick and choose moments that I want to remember and I have to focus on remembering cool moments, that only tells you that I literally have an influx of them. I've had the coolest two years and I'm so lucky.

Q: What's it been like to work in Vancouver since you've been there for a while now? Does it feel like home? Do you have favorite hang outs? What do you like to do there?

Stewart: I love Vancouver. When we're doing the “Twilight” series there, I don’t get to go out as much as I'd like to. I'm also sort of a boring person. I really don't go out to bars and stuff a whole lot unless it's an event. It's a beautiful place to be.

Q: What are your favorite spots in the city?

Stewart: I just like being outside there. I don't have favorite spots. The climate is so different from what I'm used to. I don't really have any favorite spots. I really don't.

Q: Did you actually get to ride the motorcycle, and if so, were you into it and how do you feel about the bike?

Stewart: I'm definitely never going to be a biker. The idea of riding, I mean I'm scared of cars so the idea of riding a motorcycle is just never going to be something that I'm into. I was towed ridiculously. I was on the back of this truck and I probably looked funny doing it. Taylor rode motorcycles really well. There's this one part that's sort of undeniably him. He rides up and skids. I left that to him. I wasn't about to do that. I don't even think that they would let me necessarily. They have more faith in Taylor to do that kind of stuff.

Q: Would you ride on the back with a guy though?

Stewart: Yeah. I did that. I did that and I didn't like it. It's so precarious. I don’t know if you've been on one but it literally feels like you're going to fly off of it. I'm not into that.

Q: What do you find the most rewarding parts of being involved in something so popular and what are some of the challenging parts of that?

Stewart: I think my favorite thing about this is the fact that I can keep it personal. It's still something that if the saga didn't become a franchise and it was literally just a series of movies that I had done, they would mean just as much to me. That's also the best part of whyâ€¦, the fact that it isn't like that, the fact that so many people are affected by it and are invested in it just as much as me if not more, that only makes it more [rewarding]. Like I said about Chris, if you don't like people and you don't want to make movies because you care about people, then you probably just want to be just rich and famous. So the fact that this is so important to so many people makes me so happy. That's it. I think that's it.

Q: Being a celebrity today is so much crazier than it was even 5 or 10 years ago. Having such an avid fan base, where and how do you draw the line between what the public wants to know about your private life? It seems so blurry nowadays. Where does that stop and start?

Stewart: Right. I don’t know. I don't think that anyone can get a handle [on that]. I think as soon as I stopped trying to control everything that came out of my mouth and every picture that came out, that's when I became so much happier and it was so much easier to deal with. It wasn't like it was a turning point. I've just grown into being able to not care so much and to not try to think that I'm going to be able to plan out the way that everyone perceives me. There are no false impressions. Everyone's impression of you is always going to be what it is in that isolated moment. It's people not considering where you are in that moment when you give that impression. I'm fine with that. I'm going to own what I'm going to own and literallyâ€¦I should just stop trying to control what's coming out of my mouth. I'm always going to keep what's important to me mine and I completely understand considering we're playing characters that are so coveted by so many people. I get why they want to know more about us and they want us to be together and all of that. I just have to sort of not think about it.

Q: How did filming in Italy add to the romance of your character?

Stewart: The fact that we didn't have to be on a set and we were really in Italy, it makes it so much easier to immerse yourself in this world. It was so cool that we got to go to Italy and that we didn't have to fake it. I think it really did add – I'm totally taking Chris's words right now – a scope to the film that wouldn't otherwise be there. To go from Forks to Italy is such a stark contrast and romantic just in the idea of it. So then to actually be there and feel it, of course it only helps to have the real environment.

Q: Can you talk about the breakup scene with Edward and how emotional it was to do that? I know a lot of young girls in the audience were crying last night watching that.

Stewart: Oh, that's good. That was the scariest thing. I was almost as worried about messing it up as I was about what I actually should have been thinking about, which was the issues that Bella is dealing with. Reading it, it's so iconic. There's nothing like that moment in reality even. It's not even like a normal breakup scene. I know what it’s like to get broken up with, but I don't know what it's like to get broken up with by a vampire who I've now been physically and
chemically altered by. Suddenly you take an addict, you take whatever they're addicted to away from them, and there's withdrawal. So that was the most intimidating scene in the entire movie. I don't know how to explain how I did it. Chris really helped me out. It was just about talking. I don't know. It was just about talking to him and reading the book and I was so alone. I had no other actors to play off. I mean, the breakup scene that I did with Rob, that's not where it happens yet. That's not what I was intimidated by. That was still, like she doesn't even believe it yet. It's when he goes. It’s the absence of him that I was scared of. It was, “How am I going to, by myself in the woods with a hundred guys standing around me filming me, die?” Basically, literally having the equivalent of like a death scene but stay alive and get up and keep walking. It was hard. It was really intimidating. I still don't know. I've seen the movie. I really like the movie but I don’t know if anyone ever really would've been able to bring that to life the way that Stephenie [Meyer] writes it.

Q: Other than that, were there any other challenging scenes or moments for you?

Stewart: This, for me, is the most difficult. I won't say hardest. I want to define it a little bit more. It’s the most emotionally conflicted. Bella is so sure all the time and this is the one movie where she actually is baffled and totally like, “I don't know.” It's weird to play Bella like that because she's so not like that. That was difficult. I can't think of a particular scene. It was really hard to go back and forth because you don't shoot a movie in sequence, obviously. I had to do stuff with Jacob where I was alive and happy and out of this depression thing, and then, after lunch, go back and scream in my bed for six hours. So that was difficult.

Q: What's the craziest thing that you've had happen to you with fans since starting this?

Stewart: The funniest thing in the world just happened to me in Brazil. I've had a lot of really varying experiences -- some absolutely touching and overwhelming and daunting and some just like crazy. Then sometimes they're really funny. I was in Brazil and me and Taylor went to Latin America this time and Rob was in Japan. That's just how it goes sometimes. We're sent all over and it means nothing who we're with. This guy was chasing after us. There was a huge crowd anyway, but this one very persistent fella was like, “Where is Robert! Where is Robert!” I couldn't stop laughing and I felt really bad because he was distraught and emotional and I was like, “It's just Robert.” It was really funny. I found that funny. Sometimes you get letters that are sort of reassuring when everyone is saying one thing about you. You have one person say, “Look –“ and it's funny when you can actually relate to the fans on a human level and it happens all the time. People assume that's impossible. So when that happens it's the coolest thing.

Q: Anything scary happen?

Stewart: Scary? No. I'm scared of crowds but individually no, of course not. Just personally I'm sort of intimidated by a lot of people.

Q: When it was announced that Chris Weitz was going to direct, Stephenie Meyer was quoted as saying, “Let’s see how a man does with movie.” Did you have any trepidation when Catherine Hardwicke departed? Also, do you see Bella as a role model for young women?

Stewart: I think that Bella is such a good character for girls -- not to look up to because it's not looking up -- it’s the fact that she's normal, and I think the most typically relatable thing is that she's awesome and she doesn't know it and she's very sort of confident but also not arrogant. It's a weird thing to be. I think she also has a lot of really innately female qualities that for a character in literature I
think it's awesome that so many girls can look up to her because she's fickle and unabashedly. It's like, “I'm allowed to make mistakes and I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it right now and I'm not going to be ashamed of it.” Bella is very much like that. I think she is a good example for a young girl. I think the director thing, everyone is different. I'm not smart enough to sit here and analyze whether or not a female would've been more in touch. Both characters that the protagonist deals with are men. Everyone approaches relationships differently and I can't really think of an answer.

Q: Do appreciate it when fans want to relate to you as Bella? How do you handle that?

Stewart: I totally understand why people have a hard time separating ourselves from our characters. It's also just sort of the way our world is going. People are obsessed. There's an incredibly large group of people that spend most of their time considering other people's lives. It's strange to me. Like I said, I can't have anything to do with it or else I step in and mess it up for myself and I can't even
do it in a way that's complete. I just let it sort of fall by the wayside and it doesn't really affect me.

Q: You've talked about trying to live in the moment and enjoying it. Is there a memory from the set that you'll always take with you?

Stewart: The one moment that really [stands out], throughout the filming of “New Moon,” [was when] we wrapped in Italy. The last thing that I did I was running through a square through a bunch of people just around this corner, one little part of that montage where I'm running through there. There were so many people around and there was so much energy. You could feel everyone was expecting the done date, that we were almost finished. I can't turn off. I need to be fully and completely on up until that very last moment. I remember the second that we wrapped. I said at Comic-Con that my favorite moment of “New Moon” was when we wrapped and people took it the wrong way. It wasn't like I was so glad to be done. It was the most memorable moment for me because I literally fell apart. I literally went [gasps]. I almost couldn't handle it. It was the coolest experience that I've had on a movie. One of the coolest experiences I've had on a movie so far. Chris was there and it was something that we had together really. I just felt really good and that's the most memorable experience.

Q: How attached have you become to Bella since starting this project?

Stewart: I'm very protective of her. I feel a shared ownership. It's weird. If you were to talk about the character in a way that was not at all thought out or flippant, I would be right there to say that you didn't know what you were talking about. I'm so defensive of her. So, yeah, I feel like I like her a lot. I think I can just say yes.

Q: Can you talk about any moments that stand out about making the next movie and what is the third director like?

Stewart: Yeah, “Eclipse” is such that, just like “New Moon,” it sort of starts and becomes a completely new movie. So does “Eclipse.” Just as soon as you think you're going to get the same story, all of a sudden it completely changes. Bella is much more back to herself. She's content now. She's again comfortable and self-assured in a way that she wasn't in “New Moon.” I think what I really love about “Eclipse,” what was interesting for me to explore was different levels of love and acknowledging that the ideals that you maybe had a little while ago aren't true. Bella is innately honest. That's something that I feel she is. In “Eclipse,” she lies to herself and she lies to everyone around her about the fact that she's in love with Jacob, just not as much. It's not that extra thing that you can't really even describe. I loved watching the three of them. I loved playing with the three characters together. There's literally a scene where Edward and Jacob who are mortal enemies are in a tent with a sleeping Bella in between them. It's a ridiculous circumstance to find yourself in. We had so much to work with. Then the FX as well were even more. There's a big battle that happens and that was more than we had to deal with on “New Moon.” So it was cool. I've always gotten to do things for really short periods of time. To follow a character this long, it surprises me every time. I can't wait to do the fourth one because I'm sure that I'm going to come in next year and say that everything I said this time was wrong, that I actually know Bella more now. And also, we have such established dynamics. The way that I know Bella deals with Edward, you sort of can't mess with that. I know how she deals with him. I know how she deals with Jacob. I know how she deals with Charlie, her dad, and then to have people come in and help out that process is only cooler. You always get a different perspective. So working with David [Slade] was like, “Okay, let’s see what you've got,” because he came up with a lot of stuff that I would've never thought of and he's quite good at the whole technical aspect of movie making which is so completely over my head. So I got to feel safe that he had that handled and me and Rob and Taylor just sort of did our thing.

Q: Have you heard of a start date on the fourth film and I've heard it rumored that it might be two movies? Is there any truth to that?

Stewart: I don't know.

Q: How do you relate to the idea of being immortal?

Stewart: I can only relate to that as Bella can because she is still human. I think that's an interesting question for any one of the vampires because they actually [deal with that]. The way that I consider immortality from both my perspective as Kristen and my perspective as Bella is that it's so completely unknown, but that given the right motivating factor, I'd be willing to explore it. She's very willing to acknowledge that she doesn't know, but that she's willing to give it a chance because of Edward because she's willing to sacrifice anything for him basically. A big thing for Bella is change. She's so terrified of change because she's been thrust into this world. It's not a necessarily very healthy way of looking at things because nothing is going away. I should be at work right now talking to Chris. This is ridiculous. Basically if you're facing something that is completely unknown but you're willing to take everything that is hard about it because of what you might get, that's hope. That's people. That's why we get up everyday. Immortality is almost more scary in our story than mortality. To live forever seems on the surface like a really cool thing, but in our story it's terrifying and in our story that means taking your soul or at least it does to Edward. Like the lines of personal belief and literally theology and your faith, what you think is going to happen after you die, these are all things that we think about incessantly in the movie and things that Edward and Bella even argue about. I know that was really everywhere, but there you go.

Q: How did you balance playing someone who is so introverted like Bella and then playing a character like Joan Jett?

Stewart: I can only play characters that I feel like are real people in a complete way, and in such a whole way that if I fake any aspect of it, I will have failed them and literally they're slaughtered and they don't getâ€¦it's like these characters, they don't exist anymore unless I do it. So, in terms of approaching parts, thank God I don't have to do that. It just happens. Joan. I got to know Joan, not only as her now but I feel like through footage and just through the script and the story, everything. I feel like I got to know who she was in such a whole way that it's not about imitating, even though I was really concerned about details being right, like gestures and stuff. I really wanted to do a good impersonation but I also didn't want it to be imitation. I wanted it to be natural. Playing Joan Jett had nothing to do with Bella. It was a small period of time that I had to do it but it was an opportunity that I jumped on and it was going to go away [if I hadn't]. I would've liked more time but like I said about walking on set and seeing all the characters and Rob and Taylor, it's instantly easy to get right back into the right mindset. That's vague but what I do is so vague. Literally, what I do is so oddly ambiguous.

Q: You talked about Bella being a good role model for young girls, and yet she seems willing to sacrifice everything for Edward. She gets depressed about a love affair and becomes an adrenaline junkie who's trying to kill herself in a way. Aren’t you worried about twelve or thirteen year old girls watching this and giving a terrible idea to kids?

Stewart: It's a very extreme story. I think people who take to this story need to be a little bit more mature than that. I think the only reason that they take to it is because they are. The only way that I can justify that, and maybe I'm an immature girl as well, I really feel like if you feel like you need to do it, then you need to do it – ‘it’ being anything. Then after you're told that you've made a mistake and that you're wrong, if you're willing to say that you made a mistake and that you were wrong and that you're going to try the next thing, there's nothing to be ashamed of there at all. Be extreme. Go for it. I think that's the point. I know this is a movie about immortality but you live once. I'm also not preaching to anyone. I'm just standing behind the story. That's what I think.

”The Twilight Saga: New Moon” opens in theaters on November 20th.

Bruno Pranks Latoya Jackson... Shes Nuttier Then Bruno

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Seriously I think Latoya Jackson is a bigger nut then Bruno and Bruno isnt even a real person. Below is a deleted scene from the DVD where Latoya Jackson decides to sit on the Mexican Furniture and have some sushi off a naked Mexican piece of Furniture. I thought Paula Abdul was a nut but Latoya takes the cake. The deleted scene is actually quite funny watch it below.

BRUNO will be on DVD & November 17th.

The inimitable prankster Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan) launches another inspired comedy offensive in the boisterous Brüno, coming to Blu-Rayâ„¢ Hi-Def and DVD on November 17, 2009 from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

As in the hugely popular Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen once again creates improvised pandemonium, this time as an Austrian TV host searching for fame and fortune in America, ensnaring everyone he meets in hilariously unpredictable, unscripted and unsuspecting ways.

Featuring an hour of exclusive footage of deleted scenes not shown in theaters and a revealing commentary by Sasha Baron Cohen & director Larry Charles about how some of the film’s unbelievably funny pranks were achieved, Brüno has been hailed even “Funnier than Borat” by Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly and “Uber-hilarity!” by Claudia Puig, USA Today. Hilarious, irreverent, shocking and entertaining, Brüno is the most talked-about comedy of the year.

BONUS FEATURES EXCLUSIVE TO BLU-RAYâ„¢ HI-DEF:

Exclusive Video Commentary with Sacha Baron Cohen and Director Larry Charles
BD-LIVE —Allows viewers to connect to the Internet and access new and exciting exclusive online and interactive features, including My Scenes Sharing and My Chat.

BONUS FEATURES (DVD AND BLU-RAYâ„¢ HI-DEF):

An hour of Alternative, Deleted and Extended Scenes not shown in theaters
Enhanced Commentary – Hear in depth stories for selected scenes from Sacha Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles.
An Interview with Hollywood Agent Lloyd Robinson – Get the story behind Brüno’s real Hollywood agent.

George Romero Reveals Night of the Living Dead Not a Zombie Movie

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100

I am a huge fan of George Romero and his work. I am also the first to admit that Land of the Dead was a big budget attempt at doing Romero which failed even with him at the helm. Diary of the Dead although creative was also a big dissapointment for me.

His new film Survival of the Dead does not appear to offer alot of promise from the trailers I have seen but that does not take away from the fact he is a legendary filmmaker who made the zombie genre what it is. Below you can watch a video interview where he talks about Zombie films and how his first film that broke him into the genre as the King of the Dead... was not even a zombie film as far as he saw it. Its an interesting interview that runs about 8 minutes in length and is very telling.

As always Romero shows off his intellect as well as his deep knowledge of issues in society and how they tie to his films.