One of the most puzzling features of the current unstoppable wave of political punditry that is flooding all channels and outlets at the moment (including this one of course) is the peculiar propensity of commentators to feel qualified to extrapolate from the election results the Manifest Will of Britain. “The people have voted for change”, “The people have told Gordon Brown that he has got to go” , “The people are saying that they don’t really trust any one party”, “The people have said that they want Parliament reformed, the tea room in the House of Commons redecorated, new carpeting in the women’s lavatory of the House of Lords and a vegetarian option in the canteen.”
Well, I think I can officially say that director Christopher Nolan is off his rocker. Just take a look at the below and see if you don’t agree with me.
Here’s a more detailed synopsis of what you just saw:
Acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan directs an international cast in an original sci-fi actioner that travels around the globe and into the intimate and infinite world of dreams. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb’s rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible—inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming. This summer, your mind is the scene of the crime.
I have to say that now that we know a little more about Inception, I really wish that we didn’t. I groaned the instant I heard Leonardo DiCaprio’s character say that he was doing “one last job,” and I also may have gagged a little when it flashed to a scene of him being emotional while cradling Marion Cotillard, presumably an ex-wife or a former lover.
At the same time, though, the visuals look amazing and I think I’m in love with the idea of being able to use your dreams against you. We’ve already seen in Minority Report how the future can be manipulated, now your subconscious? Really chilling.
Starring DiCaprio, Cotillard, Ellen Page, and Cillian Murphy, Inception will be in theaters in the U.S. on July 16.
Just in case you weren’t convinced that New Zealand’s WETA Digital was the go-to SFX house these days, 20th Century Fox will be using them to produce all of the genetically altered-primates in CGI for their film Rise of the Apes, a prequel to the classic sci-fi movie series which was begun by 1968’s Planet of the Apes. The movie will be directed by Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist) from a script by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (The Relic), and will be released in the U.S. on June 24, 2011. (Source: The Hollywood Reporter)
Dashing my hopes for a female-powered view on Captain America, British actor Toby Jones has entered the final round of negotiations to become the movie’s second villain, Arnim Zola. He’ll join Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull as Chris Evans’ antagonists, and I think I’m starting to see how the storyline’s shaping up and will end with Cap on ice and Zola in a robot suit. (Source: The Hollywood Reporter‘s Heat Vision blog)
Finally, if you’ve ever wanted to see all of Metropolis, the sci-fi silent film by Fritz Lang that inspired Blade Runner amongst others, head on over to the Film Forum in New York City today where they will be showing the film in its original complete version for the first time to audiences since its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 1927. Hidden away in a private film archive in Buenos Aires, we have Argentine film archivists Fernando Peña and Paula Félix-Didier to thank for rescuing the movie from the bureaucratic red tape. The most interesting quote from the story?
“It’s no longer a science-fiction film,” said Martin Koerber, a German film archivist and historian who supervised the latest restoration and the earlier one in 2001. “The balance of the story has been given back. It’s now a film that encompasses many genres, an epic about conflicts that are ages old. The science-fiction disguise is now very, very thin.”
Additional screenings in other cities and a DVD will follow later this year. (Source: The New York Times)
Boosted from the fine folks at Ain’t It Cool News.com comes what Machete director Robert Rodriguez is calling his “illegal” trailer, and is the first official look at the plot to the film.
I love, love, love the casting of this movie because in addition to Danny Trejo being just badass in general, Michelle Rodriguez gets to kick ass with dual pistols, Jessica Alba gets to be Hispanic, Cheech Marin dual wields shotguns in a priest’s frock, and then you’ve got the “evil” white guys played by none other than Robert DeNiro, Jeff Fahey, and Lindsay Lohan…
God, if loving “Mexsploitation” is bad, then tie me up and call me a piñata!
Well, at least according to this YouTube vid-maker, they are:
Normally I wouldn’t take such a piece of video from an account that was created just days before a video is uploaded as truth, but just as I had to click on the April Fools’ Day “black Star Wars” video, I had to check out this story about the World of Warcraft actors because I’ve been a voice actor fan ever since I was a young geek in Southern California.
Living that close to the Hollywood movie and TV machine, I got to attend a lot of voice acting panels when I went to anime conventions and actually got to know some of them better as people rather than “celebrities.” When I moved to New York City, I found that though the scene was a little different, the people were the same: hard workers who had a talent for sounding like something other than what they appeared to be.
And to be perfectly honest, I ended up working with many voice actors from both coasts and Texas in my roles as a journalist and as a guest coordinator for two anime conventions, so my perspective when I see a video like this may be a little different from any other person’s.
The thing that struck me was vid-creator Mr Oilsoap‘s claim that all of the Hollywood voice actors are professional actors who work within a union while actors in New York and Toronto, Canada are not. I can definitely tell you that over a decade of attending anime voice over panels has taught me that even Hollywood has had its variances regarding the employment of union actors versus non-union actors in a production; try getting California voice actors Steve Blum (Spike Spiegel from “Cowboy Bebop”) and David Lucas (Onizuka from “Great Teacher Onizuka”) in the same room at one time.
The other claim was that the Hollywood actors were “recognizable to anyone who watches films or TV,” and I have to add that it’s probably only a voice actor fan or geek like me who would know or care that the voice of Prince Kael’thas Sunstrider in Warcraft III and The Burning Crusade expansion is none other than Quinton Flynn, the voice of Iruka in “Naruto” and “Naruto Shippuden” or that Debi Mae West is not only Maiev Shadowsong in Warcraft III and The Burning Crusade but more importantly, is Meryl Silverburgh from the Metal Gear Solid games.
Still, it was an interesting vid, so I showed it to an old contact of mine… and the response I got surprised me.
My source within the industry wasn’t surprised that I’d seen the vid because it was something that had come to his/her attention as well along with a Playbill.com notice from a reputable casting firm in New York looking for:
Actors ages 25-55 years old to voice various roles for World of Warcraft video game. Actors must be skilled in accents — especially British and New York — among others.
“We’re not entirely sure of the details ourselves, but it just looks like a general WoW casting call. WoW adds content all the time. Everyone has been attempting to reach their various counterparts for confirmation,” my source said, adding, “To be fair, It’s not unusual for the actors to be the last to know.”
Why such a claim would surface when prominent WoW blogs like WoW.com and MMO-Champion.com haven’t picked up this story smacks of something fishy, and you can be assured that I’m going to try and get to the bottom of this.
Special thanks go out to Mattias, a human paladin, and Korixa, a gnome warlock, from the Guardians of Fire on the Elune U.S. server for additional research and support for this article.
If you’re a geek of a certain age, then you definitely remember the movie your parents may have taken you to where someone who sounded like Gonzo attacked an elf. (Whoops, spoilers?)
That movie was called The Dark Crystal, and as a young girl, I was confused by it because some of the voices I loved on “The Muppet Show” were coming out of bodies that were hunched over, vulture-shaped, and decidedly not silly or chicken-loving.
It wasn’t until I began my “geek awakening” in my teens that I learned that the Jim Henson Co. created the movie in 1982 to showcase their talents as puppeteers and legitimate storytellers, and would do again in 1986 with Labyrinth, and again in 1999 with “Farscape.”
It’s enough to make me wonder why puppeteers are so darn touchy about their craft.
Anyhow, the folks at the Jim Henson Co. are at it again, for Pip Bulbeck at The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the news that Daybreakers directors Peter and Michael Speirig will be heading up a sequel to that original 1980s film to be called Power of the Dark Crystal.
Partnered in the production will be Australian company Omnilab Media who have had their hands and wallets into such productions as Where the Wild Things Are and the upcoming Tomorrow, When the War Began. They’re bringing their own special effects house Illoura to the party, and giving them the control of the CGI elements.
The plot of the story, written by Australian Craig Pearce (Moulin Rouge!, Charlie St. Cloud) from an original script by Annette Duffy and David Odell, will go like this:
Set hundreds of years after the events of the first movie when the world has once again fallen into darkness, Power of the Dark Crystal follows the adventures of a mysterious girl made of fire who, together with a Gelfling outcast, steals a shard of the legendary crystal in an attempt to reignite the dying sun that exists at the center of the planet.
That kinda has me confused, because my quick refresher trip to Wikipedia noted that there were three suns which while in conjunction created the event which restored peace and harmony to the Crystal planet; now there’s a fourth sun inside the middle of the planet? I guess it’s just something I’ll have to overlook if I want to see Gelflings again (and I do).
No word yet on exactly when production will commence.
I’ve got more than a few friends who are photography geeks and one of the things they share in common on their Flickr sets are some pictures dedicated to urban exploration, that wonderful past-time where hiking, history, research, the unknown, possible paranormal activity, and the threat of being arrested due to tresspassing combine to showcase places and sights that almost no one gets to see on a daily basis.
Brought to us by the folks at Tugster, their photographers were able to get close to these rusty and broken old ships and boats by kayak; I wonder what someone with a dive master’s certificate and a camera could do?
In an exclusive report on The Hollywood Reporter‘s Heat Vision blog, Borys Kit revealed that Sam Rockwell will be playing a beefed up role in the live-action adaptation of Cowboys and Aliens, directed by Jon Favreau.
The story about the part he’s going to be playing is pretty interesting, too. See, Favreau also directed a little movie called Iron Man 2, in which Rockwell is playing one of the antagonists. The instant that he and the Cowboys writers learned that Rockwell was interested in playing the barkeep Doc, they instantly changed the role from being a big heavy-set dude to being someone a little more Rockwell-shaped and changed the character’s personality and motivation a little bit as well.
Already cast in the movie are Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde and Harrison Ford; filming starts in June.
According to Gregg Kilday at The Hollywood Reporter, the latest buy was for a film called The Impossible, which will star Watts and Ewan McGregor in a story that’s based on some real-life events that took place during the 2004 tsunami that hit Thailand. The film will be directed by Juan Antonio Bayona from a script by Sergio G. Sánchez for two Spanish companies, Apaches Entertainment and Telecino Cinema, who are acting as co-producers.
Looking around at the various websites who also reported on this news, it doesn’t look like anyone from Summit, Apaches, or Telecino wants anyone to know exactly what the film will be about because there isn’t a more detailed synopsis available, not even over at Deadline Hollywood.
Filming will begin in August in Alicante, Spain before moving to Thailand in October; hopefully, we’ll have more concrete news by then.
You know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s that feeling you get when you see, hear, or read about something cool, turn to your friends and say, “Did you see that?!”
Or it’s that feeling you get the instant you step into your favorite convention or log onto your favorite online game or go to a meetup and know that you are amongst people who not only understand the things that excite you, they grok them.
It’s what the Internet was built upon, this idea of sharing links and information and then talking about it. And thanks to people like Bill Gates, George Lucas, and Steve Jobs, the idea of not just being a geek but “geeking out” in general isn’t something to be sneered at anymore, but embraced and reveled in.
Along with some of my friends and colleagues across the globe, we hope to showcase what’s interesting, new, and exciting about the world in the fields of the arts, science, fashion, pop culture and more—with a geeky flavor.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from my Australian friends, the most important of all is that it’s a country that does have its own ideas and ideals, and has a unique identity and cultural touchstones that I will only begin to understand.
My friends’ ensuing glee over this trailer is proof-positive of this:
Australian teenager Ellie and six of her friends return from a winter break camping trip to find their homes burned or deserted, their families imprisoned, and their country occupied by a foreign military force in league with a band of disaffected Australians. As their shock wears off, the seven decide they must stick together if they are to survive.
The film was adapted by Stuart Beattie (Collateral, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) who will also be making his debut as a director. The lead character in the book, Ellie Linton, will be played by Caitlin Stasey who is best-known for a long-running role in “Neighbours,” an Australian soap opera.
Now, before all of you readers in the U.S. start screaming, “This is a Red Dawn rip-off!” I do have to point out that there are 9 novels in what’s known as the Tomorrow series and its spinoff The Ellie Chronicles, and that an entire generation of young adults who devoured the books have been waiting almost two decades for this adaptation. Besides, Beattie already addressed this concern back in June 2009 when his involvement was first-announced:
“I don’t want to make Red Dawn, ” said Beattie, though he admits to liking the movie that MGM is in the process of remaking. “Do you remember when The Full Monty and Striptease were coming out together? They came out within months as the exact same premise—the parent strips for money so they can see their kid. But completely different. One was all flash and rockin’ body, and the other was completely the opposite, of total insecurity about getting up onstage. We’re more like the Full Monty version.”
Tomorrow will be released on September 2 in Australia and New Zealand; no word yet on any other foreign distribution dates.
When I was a little girl, one of my favorite shows was “The Dukes of Hazzard.” Like any good “Dukes” fan, I’ve gleefully repressed the Coy and Vance years, mostly to focus on the good clean fun of watching Bo and Luke Duke foil the corrupt mayor and become the secret justice-seekers in their county.
It’s no surprise, then, that I’d follow the post-Hazzard careers of the actors with some interest, which makes this news about John Schneider’s next feature film most unusual.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Schneider who left the show “Smallville” after its 100th episode will be starring in a movie called Doonby; the plot goes like this:
In the feature film, John Schneider stars as Sam Doonby, a happy-go-lucky drifter who takes up residence in a small Texas town but seems suspiciously immune to the misfortunes that beset the other townsfolk.
Reporter Paul Bond adds that the film will take elements from It’s a Wonderful Life and Crazy Heart to create something new; however, what it really sounds like to me what they’re doing is more in line with Being There.
Doonby will be directed by British filmmaker Peter Mackenzie, who also wrote the script, and Robert Davi will be playing the town’s sherrif. A quick search to see what other films Mackenzie had worked on brought me to the film’s website and I have to admit that based on its unsophistication, I wonder exactly how low-budget this production will be (or if that’s even the movie’s real website).
Filming will take place at Spiderwood Studios near Austin, Texas.
Ever since the Cold War broke out between the U.S. and Russia, Hollywood has had a fascination with international espionage and the CIA, a government agency whom conspiracy theorists love because they can blame them for almost everything.
New York Times magazine investigative journalist Peter Landesman is no exception, and his latest venture into film making is proof-positive of this. According to an exclusive from Jay A. Fernandez at The Hollywood Reporter, Landesman and producer Brad Weston (Bad Santa, Patriot Down) have sold a pitch to Graham King who will produce under his GK Films banner.
And even though Fernandez wasn’t able to get a logline out of them, I’m still fascinated by the idea behind the story:
“As someone who glanced against the world of spies as a journalist, I wanted to be surprised again,” Landesman said. “The operative and intelligence world is a layer cake: the deeper you go, the more covert, the more dangerous.
“The spy genre has tapped most layers, but as an investigative journalist, I began to get wind of one that remained elusive: a layer of operative and intelligence gathering that is virtually without oversight, directed by a small handful, who do things no one will hear of, occasionally at cross-purposes with agencies like the CIA. The DNA of this film is pulled from that world.”
Advising Landesman on the production as a consultant is former CIA officer Robert Grenier who during his career was assistant deputy director of the CIA for counterterrorism and an undercover field agent in Pakistan and Afghanistan, adding that extra layer of verisimilitude.
There’s just something about spies that sparks the romantic imagination because of the secret nature of their work. There’s also the fact that the work is mostly nationalistic in nature, because almost everything a spy does is done largely to promote one nation’s interests over another’s.
I remember one afternoon while I was hanging with one of the future staff writers to this blog where we had a two hour conversation/debate over how the the fictional intelligence community in “Burn Notice” works, thanks to our having finally watched the Season 3 finale (beware of possible spoilers). My point was that it didn’t make sense to me that for someone like Michael Weston who was so dedicated to their work for so long to have been so easily set up by Management and that the rest of the intelligence community truly believed that he was a bad guy just didn’t make sense at all.
To hear that an upcoming film is going to feature details about how real intelligence works and to showcase something new in a spy movie? That just makes me giddy with glee.
No word yet on whether Landesman will be writing his very first script or if they’ll tap someone else to do it.
Ever since he stepped away from the Footloose adaptation,High School Musical graduate Zac Efron hasn’t been on my radar much because I’m a grown woman whose fictional crushes aren’t on guys who are 10 years younger than I am (mostly). However, the news of what Efron has decided his first self-produced movie will be has got me very intrigued.
From The Hollywood Reporter‘s Heat Vision blog comes the exclusive news that Warner Bros. picked up the rights to the remake of a Swedish film called Snabba cash—which translates into “easy money”—as a vehicle for Efron and the production house he’s gotten set up with them. Based on the original novel by Jens Lapidus, Efron would play Johan Westlund, a young financial wiz who looks to maintain his free-wheeling lifestyle by becoming a drug runner for a coke dealer.
The best part of this deal can be found here:
The deal, in the high six figures, has a progress to production, or “short fuse” clause, which means that if Warners sits on it for too long, the rights revert back to the producers.
I can only imagine how great that would feel for someone who’s selling their remake rights to know that if they take too long to do something with your property, you’ll get the rights back sooner rather than later.
Unlike the bloggers at the L.A. Times, I’m not convinced that the quick pick-up of Snabba‘s remake rights is a harbinger of a slew of Swedish crime films waiting to wing their way over to the states. I am then quickly reminded of the fact that after The Ring hit the U.S. shores like a tsunami, studios rushed to remake and/or re-release scores of Japanese horror films because they were just that different enough from what we’ve seen to be new (to us) again.
When I was recently out on the town and killing time before a midnight screening of The Neverending Story with two of my future writers for this blog, we were killing time in a Best Buy when we passed a guy who was wearing a “Joss Whedon is my Master Now” T-shirt. He was duly fist-bumped as we turned for the double-take, and my geek heart grew one size larger.
Now, I fear that my Whedon-loving heart is exploding—and not entirely from boundless excitement. While I was toiling away in the trenches yesterday, Variety confirmed an April Fool’s Day IESB.net exclusive report that the Serenity director and Wonder Woman screenwriter would be directing The Avengers for Marvel Studios.
Marc Graser at the paper trade noted that part of the negotiations included Whedon taking a pass at the script which was previously written by Zak Penn. The core cast is set with Chris Evans taking on the Captain America role, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Chris Hemsworth as Thor.
There’s no word yet on who will be taking on the Hulk role or if any of the many women who have been Avengers over the years will be in the movie, but considering that Whedon’s muses have mostly been female, I’d be surprised if the Scarlet Witch didn’t at least make the cut.
I will be perfectly honest and say that my love for Whedon’s work peaked with “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” and foundered with “Dollhouse.” Like the guys at Penny Arcade, I only found bits and pieces of the TV series fascinating but didn’t like it enough to continue watching after the sixth episode.
Just as most newly announced these days, I’m being cautiously optimistic that it will be good—and bracing myself for a reality where a Whedon-helmed Avengers won’t be good.
When I was a little girl, one of my favorite shows was “The Dukes of Hazzard.” Like any good “Dukes” fan, I’ve gleefully repressed the Coy and Vance years, mostly to focus on the good clean fun of watching Bo and Luke Duke foil the corrupt mayor and become the secret justice-seekers in their county.
Ever since the Cold War broke out between the U.S. and Russia, Hollywood has had a fascination with international espionage and the 
Ever since 
When I was recently out on the town and killing time before a midnight screening of The Neverending Story with two of my future writers for this blog, we were killing time in a Best Buy when we passed a guy who was wearing a