Posted Nov 23rd 2009 5:15PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Fan Rant
*There are spoilers here.*
I've been meaning to write this for a while, but wanted to wait until I could give
The X-Files: I Want to Believe a second viewing, which I finally did yesterday, on beautiful Blu-Ray. I am a long-time X-Phile; the show, which I started watching around age 13, is one of my formative viewing experiences; I trace my current love for things ambiguous, fantastic and otherworldly squarely back to Chris Carter's brilliant creation. And I dissent in a big way from both the layman and fan consensus on
I Want to Believe. I still think, as I did in the summer of 2008, that the movie is a fantastic
X-Files episode. But more importantly, I still think it is a genuinely moving farewell to two beloved characters, and one of the most satisfying pieces of closure that
any long-running series or franchise has ever given us.
One thing that I suspect threw people off was the movie's snowbound melancholy, replacing the apocalyptic terror of
The X-Files' last big-screen outing, 1998's
Fight the Future. There's some excitement here, and a few laughs, but the overall tone is more akin to "Beyond the Sea," the beloved, somber first-season episode that was more concerned with personal demons than actual ones. It's hard to fault moviegoers for expecting something bigger and louder out of what was, after all, pitched as the popular series' triumphant return. But it's also hard -- or at any rate it should be -- to fault Chris Carter and his team for wanting to take the movie in a different direction. Rather than have Mulder and Scully go out with a bang, they chose to put them to bed, give them a hug, and tuck in the covers.
Continue reading In Defense Of: 'The X-Files: I Want to Believe'
Posted Nov 23rd 2009 12:43PM by Jenni Miller
Filed under: Action, Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, New Releases, Trailers and Clips
"Team Jacob!" roars a trio of dudes in a bar. Drinks are flowing fast. "A typical horrible Monday just became amazing," gushes a woman who's about to go see a private screening of
Twilight: New Moon. The crowd moves from the bar to what looks suspiciously like a high school theater to get amped up for some muscle-bound shirtless werewolf action.
"C'mon, get out of your seats! Are you ready?" The fans, who are all most certainly of drinking age, are definitely out of their seats and screaming. They're so ready!
"Too bad!" cackles the emcee, and the curtains part to show a young comedian named
Skyler Stone who's there to stage an intervention, via
FunnyorDie.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you are not going to see
Twilight: New Moon tonight." For some reason (I think it has to do with alcohol), the audience is still cheering, but this statement brings a solitary "NO!" Stone continues, "This is a vampire intervention because you clearly don't know what the f*ck a vampire is!" Is that male laughter in the background? Wooing begins. Is this real or is it fake? Stone berates the audience and insults Rpatz with aplomb. Still, the cheering continues!
"Why are you cheering?!" he yells at them. "Do you understand you're not seeing
Twilight tonight?"
Will there be a riot? Bloodshed? Will Stone leave the theater intact? Find out what happens after the jump.
Continue reading Watch This: A 'Twilight' Intervention
Posted Nov 23rd 2009 10:33AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, New Line, Celebrities and Controversy, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Religious, Fan Rant
Now rolling in
New Moon millions,
Chris Weitz is being more open about his troubles with New Line and
The Golden Compass, a film that sank one studio and sent him into a tailspin. Rumors abounded as to what went wrong on that film, and as recently as last week, New York's
Page Six was claiming that residual stress was causing him to leave the industry.
Weitz denied any such thing to
Variety, and announced he was leaving the world of the supernatural behind with his next film,
The Gardener. The film centers around a hard working Mexican gardener and his efforts to protect his son, and Weitz will be making it alongside his new best friends forever, Summit Entertainment. His new friendship enabled him to take a parting shot at New Line. Weitz praises Summit and Stephenie Meyer for trusting him with
New Moon, an experience that was the polar opposite of the debacle that was
The Golden Compass.
Weitz claims that New Line didn't trust him to handle the content of the book, that the film was taken from him in editing. Heavy-handed hacking resulted in losing nearly 30 minutes of footage from the film, and neatly exercised the edgy thrust of Phillip Pullman's book. "It was an utter violation of my status as a director and the worst thing that has happened to me professionally ... I was treated badly, it was almost like they never read the books. They seemed frightened of offending the right." Out of loyalty to the cast and crew, Weitz said he "bit through my tongue" when
Compass was released.
As a fan of Pullman's
His Dark Materials series, I'd love to see all that missing footage to see if it could salvage Weitz's film, and if New Line really neutered it.
Go below the jump for the rest
Continue reading Chris Weitz Blames New Line For 'The Golden Compass' -- Do You?
Posted Nov 23rd 2009 9:45AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
There seems to be a slow and steady drive towards remaking everything that ever appeared on British television. I suppose that's all right (they do have fantastic shows and made-for-television movies in the United Kingdom) but what happens on that dark day when Hollywood runs out of British productions? Yikes. Let's not think about that, and turn instead to the dark version of 1980 that's being remade for the modern viewer, as
Variety reports that British favorite
UFO is being re-imagined for the big screen.
UFO will be helmed by Matthew Gratzner, and will star Joshua Jackson.
The British premise for
UFO was set in the near future (ten years in their case -- the show aired in 1970 and took place in 1980) where aliens had conquered Earth. Naturally, they didn't do so with altruistic means, but to use us as an organ harvesting ground. Humanity's future lay with SHADO, (Supreme Headquarters Aliens Defense Organization), a covert organization pretending to be a movie studio, who defend against the alien horde. Many have tried to remake UFO and failed, the last evolved into Space: 1999. (I can't find any reference as to
V took any inspiration from it. The timing screams that it wasn't a coincidence.)
Jackson will play Paul Foster, a test pilot who joins SHADO. Foster is one of the original characters, and had an interesting little conflict after he became involved with the enemy. Since Gratzner praises his ability to show Foster's "inner conflict," the movie will undoubtedly take that and run with it. The movie is aiming to begin filming in the spring.
Posted Nov 21st 2009 1:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom, 20th Century Fox, Newsstand
Though early rumors suggested the film was going to clock in at over three hours, 20th Century Fox claims James Cameron's
Avatar will instead clock in at 150 minutes (or 2.5 hours), or about 156 minutes if you count the credits. The main reason why the film will run under three hours is because of the IMAX showings.
Avatar will open in about 180 domestic IMAX theaters on December 18th, and because of the way the IMAX system is set up, the theaters that aren't converted over to digital projection can only hold about 170 minutes worth of film. But while Cameron's final edit came in significantly under 170 minutes, there's no saying whether there will be a cut on the DVD that will run over 170 minutes. According to
The Hollywood Reporter,
Avatar will open on a minimum of 5,500 screens, with almost half of those screens equipped to show the film in 3D.
In other
Avatar news, two new featurettes were released online toward the latter part of the week. IGN UK unveiled one behind-the-scenes video focused primarily on the realistic sci-fi equipment created for the film, and Coke Zero released a video that introduces Stephen Ling's character, Col. Quaritch, and reveals a whole bunch of new footage. You can watch both videos over at
SciFi Squad.
Posted Nov 21st 2009 10:55AM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Box Office, Fandom, Newsstand
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According to
ERC,
The Twilight Saga: New Moon sold roughly $71 million (
Variety is reporting $72.7 million) worth of tickets on its opening day -- a number that, if correct, far surpasses the current opening day box office record of $67 million set by
The Dark Knight back in 2008. With its $26 million take in midnight showings, that gives the second installment in the
Twilight franchise two pretty giant records: Best Midnight Opening and Best Single Day Opening. Next up for the franchise is the three-day opening weekend record, also held by
The Dark Knight with $158 million.
So what does this say about us? Well, while it's not as critically acclaimed as, say,
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (previous midnight opening record holder) or
The Dark Knight, these numbers do show just how much of an impact the female audience can have on a box office take. Sure, when
The Dark Knight broke records everyone wanted to single out the teenage male audience as having won that film its titles, but polls showed females were responsible for upwards of 50% of that film's opening box office too. And now, with
New Moon breaking records attracting a younger female audience, here's hoping studios wake up and realize that, yeah, the female audience is a damn powerful force.
So kudos to all you Twi-hards for showing up to support the property you love. Is the film truly worthy of its new records? Probably not. Will another film break those records within the next year? Yeah, most likely. But dammit if the folks at Summit Entertainment aren't partying their asses off this weekend. They just won the World Series at the box office. Congrats!
Posted Nov 20th 2009 7:32PM by William Goss
Filed under: Action, Animation, Comedy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Sony, Theatrical Reviews
As voiced by Dwayne "the artist formerly known as The Rock" Johnson, astronaut Chuck Baker is the paragon of all-American achievement -- that is, until he conquers a far off world with an unexpected population, one inexplicably steeped in our '50s-era culture and terrified by the prospect of an alien invader in human form. More unfortunately for us, Chuck has landed smack-dab in the middle of
Planet 51, a short-sighted assembly of sci-fi references and scatalogical humor that should nonetheless placate undemanding tots and, by extension, their undiscerning parents for ninety minutes or so.
Continue reading Review: Planet 51
Posted Nov 20th 2009 1:32PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Casting, Deals, Noir, Scripts, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek
Few of us have had the chance to read Rick Remender's upcoming series,
The Last Days of American Crime, but it's already tapped for the big-screen treatment. To sweeten the deal,
American Crime already has a face. An Australian one.
Mania is reporting that
Sam Worthington has signed on to play the series' star criminal, Graham Brick.
American Crime is set in a near-future where the government has found a way to kill the criminal impulse in its citizens. That's good for everyone but the criminals, and chaos erupts as the unsavory element goes mad trying to get in one last job. One of these men is Graham Brick, who is in the midst of planning a big heist, and gets to watch all his best laid plans fall apart in a bloody fashion. I read the preview Radical handed out at Comic-Con this year, and like all previews, it was too short to really get a handle on the story. But the art was incredible, it was ridiculously violent, and it had that slimy feeling of
Sin City. You can check out
three pages here, and Radical has
15 pages up on MySpace. The first issue is scheduled to hit stands in December.
Remender will be penning the screenplay himself, and Radical will be producing it under their film shingle. We'll supposedly be getting a studio, a director, and more cast-members very soon, but it's tough to get excited without having read issue #1. Still, if this is really the mix of James Ellroy and David Mamet's
Heist that Remender promises,
Crime will be something to look out for.
Posted Nov 20th 2009 11:15AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom, 20th Century Fox, Movie Marketing, Fan Rant
I'm pretty easygoing when it comes to marketing and product placement. It's so ubiquitous that I tune it out, or laugh along when it shows up on
30 Rock. I can never really muster up the rage some viewers do when Pizza Hut, Ford, or the iPhone is prominently placed in a movie or television show. The most I'll do is roll my eyes and joke about it later on ("Did you notice that? Lame!"), because I find the big picture to be more important than some high-priced props. That is, I didn't care until Fox proudly announced that
Bones will return in two weeks with an
Avatar themed episode. (The promo is embedded below the jump for the curious and eager.)
Look, I get why Fox would think this was a slamdunk. It's on their network, and one of
Bones' recurring cast members,
Joel Moore, is actually in
Avatar. I understand that the combination makes the December 3 episode of
Bones prime advertising real estate. But come on! Can't you just run some flashy commercials, a new trailer, or "a special behind-the-scenes look" like you did with films back during the good old days? Doesn't anyone at 20th Century Fox wonder if it doesn't look a little desperate to coerce an entire show into the PR game? After all,
Avatar was supposed to sell itself purely on the photo-real effects, the world of Pandora, and the name of James Cameron. Why do they need
Bones?
Continue reading Fun or Lame: Fox's 'Bones' Becomes One Big 'Avatar' Promo
Posted Nov 19th 2009 10:02PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Horror, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, New Releases, Cinematical Seven
I've been meaning to purchase and wear
this t-shirt since I learned of its existence a couple of months ago, but I figured I'd better let the
Twilight: New Moon hysteria die down first. It would appear, after all, that openly declaring one's hostility toward the
Twilight franchise on one's person, even with a statement as unquestionably correct as "Vampires Don't Sparkle," is just asking for trouble. You do not want to mess with a gaggle of rabid Robert Pattinson fans.
I do not hate the
Twilight franchise, actually, though I would like to suggest that the
Twilighteers may live to regret sinking so much time and emotion into something so utterly banal. But I seem to be one of the few who occupy the middle ground.
Twilight might be the most divisive love-it-or-hate-it phenomenon of the last few years. Not everyone adores
Harry Potter, but most people have at least a grudging respect for it;
Twilight has as many haters as fawning admirers.
You gotta admit that if you can use a movie to start an argument, it's at least good for
something. Here are seven other movies that seem to disproportionately divide the moviegoing population into adoring fans and angry detractors.
1.
Titanic - To get the obvious out of the way. It's amazing to me how often people make offhand derisive mentions of
Titanic, as if its awfulness were well-established and self-evident. As with
Twilight, of course, the surprisingly widespread disdain of this movie is a backlash against its army of obsessive partisans (and from a similar demographic to boot) -- the folks who showed up on local news shows in 1997 bragging about having seen it 16 times in the theater, etc. The fact that
Titanic is a fantastic film -- and not really (or at least not only) for the reasons many of its fans think -- tends to get lost in the shuffle, sadly.
Continue reading Cinematical Seven: Movies That Start Fights
Posted Nov 19th 2009 8:32PM by Peter Hall
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, 20th Century Fox, Trailers and Clips
There is a
new trailer out for
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, 20th Century Fox' bid to get in on the financial treasures to be mined from film adaptation of young-adult fantasy novels, and for most people it should serve as the first real glimpse into what kind of an imaginary world Chris Columbus, after having ushered in the first two Harry Potter films, is bringing to life on the big screen. I know little about the series of fantasy-adventure novels by
Rick Riordan, so it's nice to now have some clarification beyond the film's early teasers, which were merely announcing the title.
In this feature trailer you'll actually get a cursory look into the life of the titular Percy Jackson (
Logan Lerman, who played Christian Bale's eldest son in
3:10 to Yuma), a teen who is unknowingly a descendant of the Greek God Poseidon, as well as glimpses of the film's nice array of adult actors countering the mostly young cast. We've got a look at
Pierce Brosnan as Percy's guide to Greek mythology, as well as glimpses of
Rosario Dawson as Persephone and
Uma Thurman sporting an unhealthy amount of snakes around her head as Medusa, one of the several antagonists Percy will have to cross in order to recover a lightning bolt he is accused of having stolen from Zeus.
The film will be making its bow on February 10th, which means that between this and
Clash of the Titans, Greek mythology is going to be undergoing a welcome, mini-resurgence in the first quarter of next year. So if you thought the trailer for the latter, which features plenty of big budget action and CGI beasties wasn't up your fantasy alley, give this trailer, embedded below, for Percy Jackson & the Olympians a try.
Continue reading New 'Percy Jackson' Trailer Reveals Uma Thurman's Snake Head
Posted Nov 19th 2009 2:40PM by Scott Weinberg
Filed under: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Games and Game Movies
A guy like Brad Pitt can do anything he likes. He's handsome, he's talented, he's rich, he's funny and outspoken ... and apparently he gets to play sci-fi-action-type video games long before the rest of us. (Bastard!)
Variety reports that Mr. Pitt and his Plan B production company have snagged the rights to an upcoming Capcom game called
Dark Void. Their report indicates that the game is about "a pilot who crash lands in the Bermuda Triangle following a routine mission and wakes up to find himself in an alternate world."
You can learn more about
Dark Void at its
Wikipedia page. For example, I just learned that the awesome Bear McCreary is doing the music for the game. (I say keep that guy around for the movie version.) You can also see a bunch of nifty
Dark Void artwork over at
Capcom's blog. Could this be the beginning of a swanky new action franchise for Brad Pitt? I say the guy has earned one by now.
More information on this project as it becomes available. At this point I just want to check this game out. It looks pretty cool. (Game trailer after the jump!)
Continue reading Brad Pitt Prepares to Enter the 'Dark Void'
Posted Nov 19th 2009 12:02PM by Todd Gilchrist
Filed under: Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews
Even the most egocentric or self-important film critic realizes that his opinions and insights aren't going to be agreed with or respected by everyone, but movies like
New Moon offer a special challenge in both honesty and humility. Like with any other beloved literary franchise brought to the silver screen, there's already an impassioned fan base eager to see it realized regardless of its quality, and there's also an inherent distrust among them of nonfans who will eventually be analyzing the object of their affection. In which case, a critic must not only manage his own response to the film, perhaps filtering it through some designated demographic or specific audience that's potentially different than him, but gauge the reaction he'll get when he puts pen to paper, if only to be aware of the relevance of his reaction to what the filmmakers were trying to achieve and what those fans really want. Even if he's also got to be completely honest and unmerciful, too.
By virtually all technical measures,
The Twilight Saga: New Moon is a superior effort to its predecessor – well-shot, efficiently told, and by all accounts faithful in tone and execution to its source material. But what filmmaker
Chris Weitz makes up for in directorial proficiency he lacks in conveying emotional authenticity, which is why it fulfills the expectations of fans and followers of the franchise but nevertheless still falls short of forming something transcendent and meaningful to everyone else.
Continue reading Review: The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Posted Nov 18th 2009 6:33PM by Peter Hall
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Universal
Carl Rinsch is a name perhaps best known to those in the advertisement world, but the commercial director has been poised to break into the feature film world for some time now. His name had been attached to direct Fox's reboot/prequel to Ridley Scott's
Alien, until it became apparent that Scott wanted to direct as well as produce. All is not lost, however, as now Rinsch has been tapped to turn Keanu Reeves into a Samurai in
47 Ronin.
The project is being set up at Universal with a script from
Chris Morgan, who has been earning the studio hand over fist lately with his scripts for the last two
Fast & Furious movies as well as
Wanted. Currently the
immortal Keanu Reeves is the only actor attached to the project, meaning he's most likely to command the presumably effects-heavy film, something Reeves hasn't really done since 2005's Constantine. It's unclear precisely who he'll be playing in the story, but
The Hollywood Reporter explains the script "centers on a group of 18th century samurai who set out to avenge the death of their master."
Aside from the above, details are rather vague, as always, in these early stages, but in my experience, samurai make everything better, so news on
47 Ronin is worth keeping an eye out for on their focal inclusion alone. Plus, it's nice to see Rinsch have a firm project to be attached to. You may not recognize his name, but you've probably seen a few of his commercials. His most visible job was probably creating the robotic Heineken keg commercial, but his most impressive is a brilliant Evolution of Technology spot. Check them both out below (plus another of his); and believe me, you'll want to see the Evolution of Tech one, it's a stunner.
Continue reading Carl Rinsch to Direct Keanu in the Samurai Film '47 Ronin'
Posted Nov 17th 2009 5:32PM by Peter Hall
Filed under: Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom, Lists
Are your pitchforks nice and sharp? Torches soaked in kerosene, ready to burn my house down? If not, I'll wait. Ready? Good, because I'm about to give you five reasons why you should see
New Moon, which you may not be aware is the the latest entry in the
Twilight Saga. Some background, so you know where my allegiances lay.
I've never read a single word of any of the
Twilight books. I found the first film to be a rote exercise in appealing to a demographic that was (and still is) in every quantifiable factor not me. I don't care about supernatural romance novels, and unless it's Jeff Goldblum and Gena Davis in
The Fly, I don't much care for supernatural romances on film, either.
Twilight exists and I exist, but we have little to do with each other outside of sharing the same planet.
I am, however, genuinely enthused to see
New Moon. I'm as shocked as you. Let me explain.
Catherine Hardwicke is Gone.
Attack the source material and the fans all you want, but the biggest problem with
Twilight is that it just was not an interesting film. Plenty of blame for that has been tossed around, but ultimately it lands on the shoulders of the director.
Catherine Hardwicke is not an inherently bad filmmaker (
Lords of Dogtown is a fine film) but she couldn't have taken a less enthusiastic approach to a story about the fantastic (note the order of words, as
Twilight is not, I feel, a fantastic story). Exhibit A, the baseball scene.
Vampires using thunderclaps to cover up their baseball games isn't all that interesting to begin with, but I guarantee you that if Kathryn Bigelow had done it in
Near Dark, it'd be a staple scene in vampire films. Hardwicke, however, either didn't have the vision or drive to elevate the film above the material, which is unfortunate. But now she's been replaced.
Continue reading The Top Five Reasons to See 'New Moon'
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