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Thursday 31 July 2008

Watchmen Covers and 4 new photos from Empire



Discuss in the forum.

Eagle Eye Poster

I am liking this poster for the Shia LeBeouf, Eagle Eye, from the recent Comic Con. As a teaser poster it works really well as it doesn't really tell you anything about the movie. It is all about the image. It catches the eye and makes you want to find out what is about. Mind you I did think it was a poster for the Flash movie.

Eagle Eye also stars Michelle Monaghan (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Rosario Dawson (Sin City, Rent, Clerks 2), Billy Bob Thornton (Bad Santa), William Sadler (The Mist, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey) and Michael Chiklis (The Shield, Fantastic Four)

Directed by D J Caruso who also did Disturbia.

IMDB says "Two strangers (LaBeouf and Monaghan) become the pawns of a mysterious woman they have never met, but who seems to know their every move. Realizing they are being used to further her plot for a political assassination, they must work together to outwit the woman before she has them killed."
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Tango & Cash Shot for Shot Remake

This is peachy keen. From Funny or Die is this shot for shot remake of a scene from Tango & Cash but instead of Sly Stallone and Kurt Russell we get Janeane Garofalo and Casey Wilson. Very funny and actually makes me want to watch the original to compare the two.
See more Casey Wilson videos at Funny or Die

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Indiana Jones and X-Men Posters by Eric Tan


Just posting these as I think they are amazing. Lovely pieces of art work by Eric Tan (check out his website - a very talented guy).
The Raiders of the Lost Ark poster is up for sale here. Oh to have lots more money to buy stuff like that!

Discuss in the
forum.

Venom Spin-off

Well the Joker did say things had been changed forever. He was the big sell for The Dark Knight and it looks like Sony want a piece of the action. They are currently trying to get a script together for a Venom spin-off from the Spider-Man franchise according to Hollywood Reporter. Sony had said Spider-Man 4 would be out in 2011, but not sure how this Venom project will effect that.

Good news is Topher Grace is being ditched and they'll be looking for a bigger name to play Eddie Brock (or maybe Mac Gargan - he was the Scorpion in the Spidey universe, but the Symbiote took hold of him and now he eats people and is very nasty).

Now Venom is a pretty cool character but there's only so much you could do with him. Plus Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote have an intense loathing of Spider-Man. Therefore, if Spidey is not in this movie then I'm not sure who he will be fighting.

What do you think about this? What other comic book or movie villians could have their own spin offs?
Discuss in the forum.

Wednesday 30 July 2008

Tovarisch, I am not Dead. (2007) - Movie Review

Director: Stuart Urban
Starring: Noka Kapranova, Anne Applebaum, Garri Urban
Running Time: 83 minutes


Score: 10/10

Garri Urban was a survivor - not a victim - of both the Holocaust and the Gulag. He overcame adversity through a mixture of charm, aggression and chutzpah. His 1980 autobiography took its title from when he was shot during his attempt to swim across an icy river from Soviet territory to Romania. He told the snipers who stooped to lift his apparently lifeless body: "No, tovarisch (comrade), I'm not dead" before striking their officer.
This from info-2276. It's currently showing at the Fact in Liverpool. Spoilers Ahoy!

There is no question that Stuart Urban is a talented filmmaker and a great person. But what inspires a filmmaker is partially due to reality of people's actions, and sometimes reality is much more powerful than fiction.

This is a real story of Garri Urban, a distinguished Russian-Jew who, like many others of the Stalin era, was persecuted by the KGB, but like so few managed to break free from their iron fist. Fifty years after his captivity and escape, his son Stuart Urban does a documentary on his late father's life. They re-visit the harsh places where Garri was a beaten, tortured, and brutalized.

The story reveals Garri as a highly intelligent man who spoke ten languages, was asked to start a career in acting because of his great looks and charisma, but also sought-after by the KGB for his valuable use of German.

This story shows us who this man is by giving details about his personal life, his respect towards women, his love for his mother, and his iron-willed determination not to be intimidated by the tactful KGB officers.

The filmmaker and his father visit Moscow, Tashkent, and Ivana Frankofs, a small town in Ukraine to uncover missing files, and re-visit Garri's old home.

This film has an amazing grasp of Russian, Ukrainian, and Jewish culture. But even more so, it's about an inspiring person who has all the qualities of a great leader and a great man, whom we all can learn from!

Unfortunately, Garri did not live to see the completion of Stuart's documentary, but his life story deserves recognition, and he will continue to live and inspire us in this wonderful work.

Discuss in the forum.

Pineapple Express - Poster and Trailer


I am really looking forward to this one. A couple of stoner dudes witness a cop committing murder and hilarious consequences ensue. Sounds like it could have been a Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor kind of movie. Directed by David Gordon Green, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco. Due out in September 2008.


Discuss in the forum.

The Spirit - New Poster


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The punishment for taking something good and pure and then making it rubbish...


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Sex Drive - Poster and Trailer

Another one from Jinja.
Check this out, a new coming-of-age-teen-sex-com!? Sex Drive, due out US 10/Oct/08, is about a horny teenager bringing his friends along on a road trip from Chicago to Knoxville to lose his virginity with a girl he met online.

James Marsden as the Chet (Weird Science) style older brother is fantastic, just watch him beat up the garage door (around 1:30), especially the kick at the end!

Also stars a Live For Films favourite, Seth Green, as an amish car mechanic!

Taser a donut? When that doesn't work try pepperspray!

Jinja out.
"I'm Chainsaw, and I'm Dave, and we'll see you..at the Movies"


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Superman: Man of Steel - Comic Con Trailer

Thanks to Jinja for this one. Apparantly, this was shown at Comic Con and deals with the trailer for the sequel to Bryan Singer's Superman Returns. Not heard anything else about this. It looks as if it was filmed from a big screen but it has bits of Watchmen and The Day the Earth Stood Still Trailers mixed in so could well be someone showing off their editing skills. What do you think?


Discuss in the forum.

Death Race - Poster

Here is the new poster for Paul W S Anderson's Death Race and can anyone spot the fatal mistake the two heroes have done? If they do that in the final film then it is going to be mighty short. My current thinking on this is that it will suck...although it has got Lovejoy in it!

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Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Trailer


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Tuesday 29 July 2008

Bitch Slap - Photos and Trailer

Thanks to Brundlefly for giving me the heads up on a whole load of photos for Bitch Slap. Head on here for a look see.
It looks like a whole heap of Russ Meyer exploitation mixed in with a Xena / Hercules reunion.




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The Random

Johnny Depp to be the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

Tarantino goes with the Weinsteins and Universal Pictures to make Inglorious Bastards

Darren Aronofsky's Robocop movie to be rated R. Thank God is all I say! It will also be a reimagining of the character similar to Batman Begins

Sam Raimi at the recent comic con said the following, "I would love to work with Bruce again because I’d love to test those limits. I’d love to make another Evil Dead picture. And actually that’s in the wheelhouse. I’d like to work on it with my brother Ivan [Raimi] when he comes up next week.“ Aces as Army of Darkness is one of my all time faves.

James Franco (Spider-Man, Pineapple Express) is to play Allan Ginsberg in a biopic entitled Howl. I know Street Pete will be made up with that.

Discuss in the forum.

Tyrannosaurus Rex - New Poster

Another cracking poster for Rob Zombie's Tyrannosaurus Rex. All we know is that it is about a bad ass wrestler on the run from a biker gang from Hell. That's all we need to know to go and see it.

Discuss in the forum.

Wolverine / Venom Symbiote in new Spidey game

Okay this is not a movie, but Wolvie has been doing the rounds with the trailer and Spider-Man 3 is not too long ago. I just like the idea behind this computer game, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows where Spidey has to fight an infestation of Symbiotes in New York and some of the imagery is quite nice - the symbiote nests amongst the skyscrapers in particular. No doubt the game will be a crushing disappointment as Venom was in Spider-Man 3(you can tell Sam Raimi was forced to use him in place of the Vulture). Still have a look at this game trailer and let me know what you think.



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Wonder Woman - Trailer for animated movie


Find more videos like this on ENewsi.com


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District 9 - What is it? Peter Jackson's Latest Movie

This from Jinja. The short film is particularly good

Here is what I have found so far...

Peter Jackson (King Kong, Lord of the Rings, Brain Dead, Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles) and Neill Blomkamp were due to be making the Halo movie, when that got shelved (apparently temporarily) they decided to work on a new project. I say new, but it the idea seems to have come from a short movie by Blomkamp called 'Alive in Joburg'.

It is about a fictional/parallel world where aliens have become refugees in South Africa.

This all fits in with the info we are given from the d-9.com and multinationalunited.com websites.
It reminds me a little of Alien Nationto be honest, but with Jackson on board and the Weta workshop it should quite an action/effects packed movie.

The US release date for District 9 is 14th August 2009. But, in the meantime you can see the short 'Alive in Joburg' below


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Freakazoid on DVD


Oh yeah! Warner Bros have finally released Freakazoid on DVD. One of the maddest, craziest most wonderful cartoons of recent years that not many people saw.

Now it is my birthday this Saturday (I'll be 35) so if anyone wants to get it for me that would be splendid. Hey if I can't use the internet to get stuff then there is something seriously wrong with the World!

Discuss in the forum.

Asimov's Foundation to be Movified

Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne (ex-New Line) have become producers and have taken on Isaac Asimov's Foundation to be their first project.

Now Asimov did a load of books based in the Foundation series, but the big screen adaption will just be the first book for now. However, if successful it will lead to a trilogy.

Basically the books follow a society in the far future who use a process called psychohistory to predict the future with great accuracy. They set up a Foundation to protect the predictions (Reed Richards mentioned psychohistory in the Marvel Civil Wars storyline).

This is big space opera action with politics, wars, smugglers all mixed in. If done correctly this could be a major sci-fi epic.

Discuss in the forum.

Gears of War Movie gets a step closer


Thanks to Matt for this one.

Legendary Pictures, responsible for Batman Begins and co-financing The Dark Knight, has agreed to put up half the money for the upcoming Gears of War film.

The other half is already being spotted by New Line Cinema, according to Variety, which began the movie adaptation early last year.

Those attached to the project so far are Die Hard 4.0 director Len Wiseman and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift writer Chris Morgan, who will be redrafting the original script by Stuart Beattie (of Collateral and Pirates of the Caribbean fame).

The cast is yet to be revealed, if there indeed is one yet, and the Gears of War film is expected in summer 2010.
Epic, developer of the Gears of War game, has appointed designer Cliff Bleszinski as creative go-between to ensure the film remains as faithful as possible to the original IP. Tom met the man formerly known as "Cliffy B" at E3 recently, and said he was very nice.

Legendary Pictures was also responsible for action film 300 and is behind the helm on upcoming comic-book adaptation Watchmen.

Discuss in the forum.

Terminator Salvation, Friday 13th and District 9 Posters



The Terminator Salvation and Friday the 13th are pretty much standard kind of posters that don't give anything away about the movie in question. Although I do quite like the Friday 13th one for its simplicity and the fact they don't mention the title. Does the Terminator have a bullet hole in its forehead? District 9 is new to me. Having had a quick look at the web it is apparantly a sci-fi film to do with Peter Jackson and effects by WETA. Not had much chance to dig any deeper but the web site looks kind of groovy. If you know anything more about it let me know.

Discuss in the forum.

The Random

Kevin Smith will be scribing a Batman mini-series featuring his character Onomatopoeia that he created for Green Arrow.

Could there be a Scream 4? Apparantly so according to MTV's interview with Wes Craven.

According to Hello magazine Johnny Depp and Terry Gilliam are getting back together to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

Tyrese Gibson says he’s in talks to star in the Thundercats movie. So say Coming Soon.

An I Am Legend Prequel may go ahead according to Francis Lawrence

Radical Publishing has linked up with Bryan Singer, who will produce Freedom Formula, not read it but apparantly it is all about exo-suits. Singer is also producing the Image Comics adaptation, Capeshooters, about two superhero paparazzos who discover that an iconic do-gooder is actually a supervillian.

Discuss in the forum.

Heroes v Watchmen Mash-up

This is great. Some sweet editing of Heroes to the Smashing Pumpkins track used on the Watchmen trailer. Works really well.

Discuss in the forum.

Monday 28 July 2008

The Clone Wars footage

Some footage of the new CGI Clone Wars can be found here. It's looking good but not too sure on the voice acting. Seems a bit strained and cheesy to me.

Discuss in the forum.

Lucas Speak about Indy

George Lucas has been interviewed in the Times Online. There he talks about Indy and the difficulty in getting the fourth one made. It is an interesting read. One paragraph stood out and explains a lot (I wonder what we would have got if Spielberg could have been allowed to stick with the past?):
Really, with the last one, Steven wasn’t that enthusiastic. I was trying to persuade him. But now Steve is more amenable to doing another one. Yet we still have the issues about the direction we’d like to take. I’m in the future; Steven’s in the past. He’s trying to drag it back to the way they were, I’m trying to push it to a whole different place. So, still we have a sort of tension. This recent one came out of that.


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Baby Mama - Movie Review

Director: Michael McCullers
Starring: Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Greg Kinnear, Dax Shepherd, Steve Martin
Running time: 99 minutes

Score: 6 / 10

This review from Babubhaut.

Say what you will about the marketing machine, but I truly think the people behind promoting Baby Mama did a bang up job…even if I believe they did so without trying. They make expectations so low in the trailer that you almost have to enjoy the film. Was it a great comedy? No. However, it was much better than I ever could have hoped as Michael McCullers takes us places you never would expect going in. I thought that it would be a water-downed, overlong SNL skit with one woman asking another to carry her baby, leading to a generic odd couple pairing with hijinks and gags piling on top of each other, collapsing under its own weight. Instead we are treated to a pretty sentimental and touching portrait of two women learning to grow and evolve with help from the other, a person, in both regards, that they never would have thought could teach them anything. Even the pregnancy aspect takes a ton of twists and turns never becoming the straight shot gimmick just bringing everyone together. The surrogate mother here must make some tough decisions as she continues along on her journey, lending a side to the tale that actually brings it to a level of intrigue that no Lorne Michaels film has done in recent memory.

I don't want to ruin the plot points of Angie Ostrowiski's pregnancy, but let's just say it isn't cut and dry. Her motives aren't genuine, something that is obvious from the start, just not quite in the way you anticipate. There are surprises for her and secrets hidden from the other characters as she wrestles within herself. A "white-trash" loser, attached to a man that believes waiting on the phone to be the 132.7 caller is a job, Angie learns a lot while with mom-to-be Kate Holbrook. Kate, being the professional VP of an organic food market, is a very detail orientated woman who is by the books and unafraid to tell others what they should do. It is an oil and water connection, but—like all good relationships of this kind—breeds some real funny and touching moments. Who thought watching Karaoke on the Playstation could be so much fun? Sure many instances feel like skits written separately and plugged in later, (the clubbing while pregnant, the press conference ambush, and the surrogate therapy session—probably the funniest scene without question), but they are surprisingly strung together to make a pretty coherent whole.

The other thing that the trailer hides is the inclusion of two great male roles. Did anyone know that Greg Kinnear and Steve Martin were in this thing? I for one was completely surprised by both, almost chuckling that they would have a small cameo until I realized that both were key roles to the whole. In the best turn of the film, Steve Martin is crazy, hippie genius. His earthy style of living, complete with long ponytail and soft speech, even when angered, is classic, as is everything uttered from his mouth. He is so good that I would be thrilled to have him offer me 5 uninterrupted minutes of staring into his eyes as a reward for a job well done. For Kinnear's part, he plays the usual love interest that is commonplace in films of this ilk. It's not flashy and it's not very original, but Greg is a stalwart and pulls off the good guy persona, even including a little bit of physical humor at the end.

Overall, though, this film is pretty standard fare. It goes into very broad comedy at times and very sappy/overly-sentimental drivel at others. There are some good jokes sprinkled throughout and for the most part keep it fun for the duration. Definitely feeling longer than it is, I never quite felt bored and I did begin to get invested in the story to see how it all would turn out. A lot of that can be credited to the chemistry between Tina Fey and Amy Pohler as Kate and Angie respectively. Both these women do a great job with their roles, fleshing out the psychotic relationship to perfection. One of the successful dynamics is how Fey becomes a mother figure to her surrogate. Even going so far as having temper tantrums and rubber-faced reactions, Pohler is a child.

It's also nice to see some fun moments from the supporting cast, but again nothing really sticks out to vault anything into must see territory. Sigourney Weaver is actually kinda scary in a very weird role; Romany Malco has plenty of great one-liners and facial expressions; and John Hodgeman is a bit odd in a small bit, with laughs coming more from the recognition of his Mac commercials than anything he does in the film. In the end, while nothing over-achieves, it all adds up to a pretty solid comedy worth a view. Is it necessary to see on the big screen? Probably not, but if you were worried that it might be a train-wreck, just know that it never takes any chances to risk derailing, and that's not a bad thing.
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Last Blood - Vampires v Zombies meet Family Guy?


This story from The Hollywood Reporter sounds cool.

It sounds like the kind of bedtime story Stewie Griffin would love."Family Guy" showrunner/executive producer David A. Goodman has been hired to adapt the Blatant Comics horror property "Last Blood" into a feature film screenplay.
Benderspink is producing."Last Blood," created by Bobby Crosby and Chris Crosby, follows the human survivors of a zombie massacre who find themselves protected by a band of vampires who need their blood to survive.Goodman, repped by UTA and Benderspink, has an overall TV deal with 20th Century Fox. The Emmy-nominated
writer-producer also has scripted an in-development remake of the 1978 comedy
"Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?" for producer Eric Gold at Warner Bros. Benderspink has several other comic properties in development, including
"The Ghouly Boys" at Mandate Pictures


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W. - Trailer for Oliver Stone's Latest

This looks interesting. Josh Brolin stars as George W Bush in this Oliver Stone Directed Biopic. Colour me intrigued.

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Wolverine Trailer from Comic Con

Those good people over at Trailer Addict got their hands on some footage of the Wolverine movie trailer that was described below. It's in two parts. Have a look and let me know what you think. I personally think it may be a bit cheesy, but will need to see a bit more footage.


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Yatterman Teaser Trailer





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Watchmen Character Posters


These 8 Watchmen posters arrived from the Comic Con and the people over at Omelete put them up. Things just keep getting better and better for this movie. Not sure which one is my favourite.
UPDATE 01/08/08: High Resolution ones have now been released and can be found here.
Discuss in the forum.