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Cinematical Seven: Best Mayhem of 2008
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Foreign Language, Horror, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Mystery & Suspense, Disney, Lionsgate Films, Magnolia, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Brothers, Fandom, Focus Features, 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, Family Films, Dreamworks, Cinematical Seven, Comic/Superhero/Geek
When we were kicking around ideas for year-end superlative Cinematical Sevens, I was proudly tasked with chronicling the year's finest in big-screen mayhem, violence, destruction and other such shenanigans. When I was kicking around ideas for said feature between me, myself, and I, there were too many titles to leave off the list, so instead of highlighting only a mere couple of movies, I've opted to sort these puppies out by specific manner of cinematic excess.
So there.
1. Most pervasive destruction - The Joker may have terrorized Gotham to the tune of a destroyed hospital, a wrecked helicopter, a sunken SWAT truck, a toasty fire engine, and a golden district attorney, but even he can't top the Cloverfield monster's swath of destruction across the real-life Gotham. Statue of Liberty? Gone. Brooklyn Bridge? History. Central Park? Adios. And that's not including all the Hollister stores that our protagonists might've fled to. (On a smaller scale, though, Inside's lady in black terrorizes a pregnant woman on Christmas Eve to the point of all but painting every last wall in her house with the blood of her victims. Gotta love the French!)
'Eagle Eye' and Its Majestically Moronic Alternate Ending
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Mystery & Suspense, Dreamworks, Trailers and Clips
Seemingly needless to say, spoilers for the Shia LaBeouf techno-thriller Eagle Eye will soon follow.Seriously, I don't want to hear any complaints. I done warned ya.
Alright then. So, as much as the film tested my suspension of disbelief in theaters -- which it did, in no small frequency -- I pretty much went with it and enjoyed it, though nothing says studio ex machina like the rah-rah happy ending in which Shia takes several bullets while thwarting an evil computer's elaborate assassination attempt on the President of the United States and his entire Cabinet, but magically manages to make it to Michelle Monaghan's son's birthday party after all,
Well, according to the video after the jump,
So ... which ending is sillier?
Review: Revolutionary Road
Filed under: Drama, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, New in Theaters, Dreamworks, Oscar Watch, Paramount Vantage
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It's hard to ignore the Oscar polish involved in Revolutionary Road; an Oscar-winning director, Sam Mendes, reunites the stars of the Oscar-gobbling Titanic. To that end, Mendes does his best to make the film look serious and prestigious. And if you give it a cursory glance it's possible to come away with the impression that it is indeed a great and important film. But in truth, it's both relentlessly grim and nearly pointless.
It's "nearly" pointless because the subject matter -- that the suburbs have mutated and destroyed the American spirit -- has already been covered, many, many times in far better films, ranging from scary (Blue Velvet) to romantic (Far from Heaven) to funny (Edward Scissorhands). In a way, those outside genre elements helped keep the material from becoming overbearing. For Revolutionary Road, Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe have adapted a novel by Richard Yates, which was groundbreaking for its time; Yates wrote it in 1961 when polite society just didn't discuss such things as infidelity, ennui, drugs and booze and insanity. But Mendes creates a period picture and thus fails to justify why the material is still relevant in 2008, especially when this stuff has by now become its own movie subgenre. (Click on "Suburban Dysfunction" at allmovie.com.) The main factor for Mendes is that it's an "important novel." Never mind why -- or when.
Paul Rudd Woos Jason Segel in Trailer for 'I Love You, Man'
Filed under: Comedy, SXSW, Dreamworks, Trailers and Clips
Just days after it played BNAT and was announced as the opening night film for SXSW 2009, I Love You, Man has a new trailer over at Yahoo! Movies, and as much of an admitted man-crush as I have on Paul Rudd, I'm not entirely sold on his fledgling bromance with potential best man Jason Segel. Talented riffers though they may be, the script is formally credited to director John Hamburg, whose Along Came Polly came to mind with this trailer's flatulence observation.Eh, we both know I'd give a cast that included those two, SNL's Andy Samberg, and The Office's Rashida Jones the benefit of the doubt and about ninety or so of my minutes. For what it's worth, a pal in Austin caught a recent test screening and somewhat shared Scott's sentiments on the film, among them: "This affable farce has next to nothing in the plot department, and much of the material (both good and not-so-good) feels improvised rather than written, but (like Rudd's previous flick, Role Models) there's certainly enough to enjoy."
I Love You, Man opens SXSW on March 13th before going wide a week later.
New Poster for 'The Unborn' - Great Poster or the Greatest?
Filed under: Horror, Thrillers, Mystery & Suspense, Focus Features, Dreamworks, Posters
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A pal of mine passed along this new international poster for David S. Goyer's supernatural thriller, The Unborn, which Empire Magazine recently premiered. The Unborn stars Odette Yustman (Cloverfield), who finds herself haunted by one freaky little spirit if the freaky little trailer is to be believed.In the most petty terms, I give this one the benefit of the doubt over next month's other PG-13 horror flick, The Uninvited. This one was rated PG-13 for "intense sequences of violence and terror, disturbing images, thematic material and language including some sexual references"; that one can only boast "violent and disturbing images, thematic material, sexual content, language and teen drinking". Try and tell me you wouldn't rather see the former based on that assessment alone.
Other than that, I really just wanted to share this nifty poster with you and yours this holiday season. Co-starring Gary Oldman, Cam Gigandet, and Odette Yustman's Sweet Booty (also of Cloverfield), The Unborn opens on January 9th.
Geek Daily: 'Wimpy' Gets a Director, 'Atlantis' a Writer, 'Kick-Ass' a Set Report
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Deals, Warner Brothers, Fandom, Scripts, 20th Century Fox, Family Films, Newsstand, Dreamworks, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek
AICN's Moriarty has Part One of his visit to the Kick-Ass set online -- and it's such a long, enjoyable read that I honestly can't figure out what to cut and paste ... but I settled on his description of the character I once dubbed my future daughter, aka Chloe Moretz's Hit Girl. "Hit Girl's the coolest of the bunch. Her outfit's a variation on a schoolgirl outfit, but with body armor, leather-wrapped. She's got a purple wig and a small black mask, and Chloe's got a sneer that would make Elvis Presley proud, like if Batman adopted a tiny female Billy Idol as his sidekick." Check out the image they debuted below, and in a larger size over at AICN.
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Back in February, Fox optioned Jeff Kenney's graphic novel, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Well, it now has a director in Thor Freudenthal, who's the hottest name for young adult fare thanks to the hotly-anticipated Hotel for Dogs. I'm sorry to say that in the intervening months, I never did purchase and read Wimpy Kid. Any fans out there who can shed some light? (By the way, Mr. Freudenthal -- with that awesome name, I hope you direct a Marvel film someday.) [THR ]
Last week, Len Wiseman signed on to direct Atlantis Rising, and now the project has a writer. Joby Harold is in negotiations to pen the adaptation. Producer Roberto Orci describes the project's appeal for those of us who didn't get sucked in by the comics: "In all the classic versions of this kind of movie, the threat is always from the stars. The idea that it's somehow our cousins who went off in a different path of evolution who have been here, literally, underneath our oceans ... That's fascinating, the idea of secrets right under your nose."[ [THR]
Continued after the jump ...
Geek Daily: Bryan Singer & Superman, Punisher's Future, and More
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Deals, Noir, Lionsgate Films, Warner Brothers, RumorMonger, Fandom, Scripts, The Weinstein Co., Newsstand, Dreamworks, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
- Thanks to the Valkyrie junkets, Bryan Singer is having to talk about the Superman reboot. UGO pinned him down, and the answers were noncommittal to say the least. At this point, he is not "officially involved" but is not divorced from Superman. "You know, I have relationships with Warner Brothers and with the character and, and, and, and it's just the way things work out. " Doesn't sound hopeful, does it?
- If Punisher: War Zone does well, you'll see a return of Ray Stevenson in the title role -- and Stevenson, who was unfamiliar with Frank Castle and comics in general, already has his favorite stories picked out. "I'm signed up. We'll have to see if this works, but we'd all love to see the franchise continue, and there's certainly stories to tell. There's a storyline about white slavers and prostitution that I loved. There was also a series where he gets out of the States and goes to Afghanistan. The Man of Stone sequence in connection with the SAS guy. There's a great character who's a law enforcement agent, the wife of a double agent. She's a fantastic character --very in your face -- and I'd love to do something with her. We'll see what happens with this one." [Mania.com]
- Speaking of sequels, both Frank Miller and Mickey Rourke are, like most of the world, ready for Sin City 2. Miller told IGN.uk that the script is finished, that it's a matter of working out production details -- but they could start shooting as early as April. Rourke merely told MTV that he was ready. Way back in July, Robert Rodriguez smiled coyly and said he was "reassessing," being focused on a fall project that never was revealed. Anyone else think Sin City is as finished as our Thanksgiving turkey? Then again, with Miller having director cred now, he might just take it over altogether.
Cinematical Seven: Favorite Will Ferrell Man-Children
Filed under: Comedy, New Line, Sony, Dreamworks, Cinematical Seven
At some point this past summer, between all but consecutive viewings of The Dark Knight, I slipped into a screening of Step Brothers with the same tempered expectations with which I had greeted Blades of Glory and Semi-Pro -- and found myself equally surprised in the coming days and weeks and months by just how admittedly tickled I was by any of them (quoting lines was moderate on all counts). Mind you, I'm saying this as the guy who chuckled during Anchorman, sure, but not really enough to keep it on my shelf or call myself thankful for it.
That's nothing against our Eric D. Snider, and nothing against the star of each film mentioned, Will Ferrell (yes, he was actually Batman). In fact, with Step Brothers hitting shelves today (with reports of a wholly sung commentary track), it only seemed fitting that we go over his most amusing roles as overgrown man-children (Ferrell's, not Snider's). Because they're there, and they always will be, and the sooner that I admit to being vulnerable to his shtick, a better world this very well may be.
Review: Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
Filed under: Animation, Comedy, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, Dreamworks, Remakes and Sequels
I didn't think much of Madagascar, which had an unfocused story, no internal logic, and only a few laughs, scattered mostly among the minor characters. It relied too much on pop-culture references, too, a common problem these days in animation. So I'm glad to report that the sequel, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, is an improvement. The story has a clear protagonist (instead of the lion and zebra battling for screen time), it's a bit more straightforward, and the movie references are all but gone. It's still primarily the supporting cast that's funny, not the leads -- but hey, if Dreamworks were capable of doing everything right it would have to change its name to Pixar.
The sequel, again directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath, finds our heroes having repaired a dilapidated airplane and now preparing to fly themselves back to New York. But instead, they crash-land not far from the island of Madagascar: on the continent of Africa, in fact, and in the very animal preserve where Alex the lion (voice of Ben Stiller) was born. He is joyfully reunited with his parents (Bernie Mac and Sherri Shepherd), and his friends are thrilled with their ancestral homeland, too. Marty the zebra (Chris Rock) is able to run with a herd for the first time, Melman (David Schwimmer) finds his hypochondria to be a hit with his fellow giraffes, and Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith) loves that with hippos, fat equals attractive.
'Tintin' Getting Only Two Films?
Filed under: Classics, Foreign Language, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Deals, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Celebrities and Controversy, Distribution, Family Films, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Dreamworks, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek
You might remember that at the end of September, word came that Steven Spielberg was having trouble financing his Tintin trilogy. Universal Studios had passed on the film, leaving Spielberg and co-director Peter Jackson without a major backer. According to Variety, they've found one. Sony and Paramount Studios are in talks to co-finance the franchise, with Sony handling the foreign release, and Paramount overseeing the domestic. DreamWorks will have no association with the film whatsoever.The news that Tintin will still go ahead is good for fans -- but as always, there's a catch. Under the deal currently being negotiated, it looks as though there will only be two Tintin films. Considering that a director was never assigned, or a script written, this may have been decided long before the financing fell through. Perhaps a third film hinges on the success of the first two installments, and its a project Spielberg and Jackson plan to return to. It's going to be a hard sell here in North America, where Tintin is largely unknown, and I wouldn't be surprised if Sony and Paramount are hedging their bets a little.
It's also unclear when this film will ever start shooting. When the deal fell apart with Universal, Spielberg lost the participation of his lead actor, Thomas Sangster. They're going to need another Tintin -- and fast, as the first film is still expected to make its 2010 release.
This is a passion project for Spielberg and Jackson -- and at this point, it's going to take every ounce of that enthusiasm to ever get a motion-capture Tintin on the big screen.
