WonderCon 2012: LOOPER Panel Recap; Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Writer/Director Rian Johnson Premiere the First Trailer

With all the massive movies coming out this year (The Amazing Spider-Man, The Hunger Games, The Avengers, Prometheus, Resident Evil: Retribution, etc), you might have lost track of Rian Johnson’s (Brick) Looper in the mix. That’s about to change. As part of Sony’s presentation at WonderCon 2012, the first trailer from the time-traveling sci-fi flick was shown. While you can get a look at some still images from the film here (including Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s awesome make-up), the trailer hasn’t released just yet. You’ll just have to trust me when I say that this is definitely a film to keep an eye on, even if coverage of other movies attempt to drown it out. The question you have to ask yourself is this: if faced with the order to assassinate your future self, could you pull the trigger?

Looper, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt, opens on September 28th. Hit the jump to check out our recap.

Let’s start off with a walk-through of the trailer for Looper. It opens with a narration by Gordon-Levitt explaining to us what it’s like to live the life of a Looper, assassins hired by the mob to execute criminals sent 30 years in the past. While Gordon-Levitt talks about how rewarding the profession is, the image on the screen shows him standing in the dirt next to a corn field with a white sheet laid out on the ground about twenty feet in front of him. Out of thin air, a man appears on his knees with his hands bound behind his back and a hood drawn over his face. Gordon-Levitt’s character wastes no time in blowing the target away with a modified “Looper gun.” Back at whatever time-jumping station he works out of, Gordon-Levitt drop the gun off in a conveniently labeled bin that reads “Looper Guns Here.”

The trailer goes on to show a group of young Loopers alternately living the high life and executing their marks; all in a day’s work. Things go swimmingly until Gordon-Levitt’s future self (Willis) shows up on the edge of a corn field on his knees with his hands bound. Gordon-Levitt hesitates and that’s all Willis needs. He spins around and Gordon-Levitt fires his gun, hitting nothing but a make-shift vest of gold bars strapped to Willis’ back. Willis hefts a gold brick in Gordon-Levitt’s direction, distracting the younger assassin long enough to escape. Then, the chase is on! Gordon-Levitt attempts to track down and assassinate his future self before his fellow Loopers can put them both out of commission for good.

While the trailer moved too quickly to get a good look at Gordon-Levitt’s make-up, the still images do a fantastic job of letting us see what the Younger Willis will look like. Then, director Rian Johnson and Gordon-Levitt himself took the stage to talk about the film. Their comments follow below:

Johnson spoke about the long-germinating project, one he’s wanted to write for a while. He had Gordon-Levitt in mind when he wrote the part.As for the huge cast (Looper also stars Paul Dano, Piper Perabo, Garret Dillahunt and Jeff Daniels), Johnson praised the lot of them and specifically called out Blunt who “really kicks ass.”When asked how he liked working with Willis in the film, Gordon-Levitt replied, “He’s Bruce-fuckin’ Willis! That’s all I have to say!”Gordon-Levitt had to sit through three hours of make-up to be transformed into the younger version of Willis.Gordon-Levitt was thrilled to take on this role, especially because he was able to transform into someone he really wanted to match. He stripped audio from Willis’ films (specifically Sin City) and listened to them on his iPod.The film shot in New Orleans and in China.The aforementioned Daniels had a great line in the trailer, something akin to, “This time travel stuff will fry your brain.”For Johnson, the biggest challenge on the shoot was reigning in the time travel aspect of it, calling it the “secret ingredient from Iron Chef.”Hard to believe, but Gordon-Levitt has been acting for 25 years now. He considers himself privileged to work with people he loves (and whose work he loves) on meaningful projects. He said, “maximizing box office potential doesn’t necessarily lead to a good movie; in fact, it rarely does.”Gordon-Levitt compared Johnson to a young Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg. Johnson spoke to the influence of a lot of different elements in the film, saying “part of the fun is the way it surprises you.”As Johnson and Gordon-Levitt worked together in Brick, Johnson says he feels like he learned a lot on that film and knew more of what he was doing on Looper. Gordon-Levitt said that he was being humble and that Johnson knew exactly what he was doing on Brick. He compares their working relationship to the early years of high school vs your senior year, where things are similar but you know each other better.Johnson reveals that Looper will deal with all sorts of moral quandaries involved with time travel, especially the basic questions around finding yourself standing across the way from your future self.For fans of Breaking Bad, Johnson will be directing another episode.Gordon-Levitt expressed interest in doing a musical if a good enough project came along.Johnson expressed a desire to be lucky enough to work with Gordon-Levitt for the rest of his career.As a big fan of sci-fi, Gordon-Levitt is most excited for fans to see Looper, even though he has The Dark Knight Rises, Premium Rush, Lincoln and Django Unchained opening this year!Johnson brought in Shane Carruth, the writer/director/star of time-travel flick, Primer, as a consultant on time-traveling.Gordon-Levitt’s make-up was so convincing that his own mother and best friend were freaked out because he acted like himself but appeared completely different.

While we have the entire summer to get through before we can see Looper, which opens September 28th. Luckily for the film, the heavy hitters will have come and gone by then (even Resident Evil: Retribution opens a full two weeks beforehand). With the excellent caliber of filmmakers both in front of and behind the cameras coupled with the always-entertaining mash-up of mob movie and time traveling, Looper is already on my list for most anticipated films of the year.

Get caught up with all of our WonderCon coverage here and check out the synopsis for Looper below:

In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented – but it will be illegal and only available on the black market.  When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a “looper” – a hired gun, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – is waiting to mop up.  Joe is getting rich and life is good… until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination.  The film is written and directed by Rian Johnson and also stars Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, and Jeff Daniels.  Ram Bergman and James D. Stern produce.

View the original article here

THE WALKING DEAD Season Finale Recap: “Beside the Dying Fire”

Well, folks, here we are:  another season of The Walking Dead (this time a full 13 episodes, even if it was divided up over the holidays) has come to an end.  After a season that ran the gamut from “infuriatingly tedious” and “holy crap that was so awesome”, things came to an explosive close tonight in a season finale that might’ve been on par with this year’s mid-season finale…and one that was certainly better than last season’s final episode.  What happened tonight, who lived, and who died?  Find out in our Walking Dead recap, after the jump.

So, before we get into this double-shot of recapping goodness, let’s get something out of the way:  two weeks ago, I hammered out my normal Walking Dead recap, sent it along to Collider HQ, and was informed shortly thereafter that the fake-out opening I’d attached to the piece (wherein I claimed that Shane, who may very well be the most popular character on AMC’s series) wasn’t exactly going over well with the masses.  Upon going back and reading what I’d written, it was immediately clear that the irreverent tone and “Gotcha!” punchline I’d been going for didn’t work.  Like, at all.  It was the very definition of ill-advised, and I couldn’t help but agree with the reaction this piece generated–  it sucked.

And so, while I’ve got your ear, allow me to apologize for the lame-ass gag that opened our previous recap.  Sometimes—and I know this is going to be hard to believe—but even I make really stupid decisions.  You should go ahead and assume that all Walking Dead recaps will (by their very nature) be spoiler-fueled, but you can also rest assured that we’d never spoil something serious in the opening paragraph…nor will I ever work a faux-spoiler into said paragraph.

Now!  With that out of the way, let’s first address what happened on last week’s Walking Dead.

I was shoulder-deep in the SXSW Film Festival when last week’s episode aired, and—perhaps in a bit of karmic irony—I had the episode’s “big moment” spoiled for me by some of my loose-lipped Twitter friends long before I had a chance to sit down and watch the episode myself (in fact, I caught up with last week’s episode in the hour before tonight’s season finale aired):  Shane was killed, turned into a zombie, and was then promptly shot by Rick’s son, Carl.

Even though most of us assumed that Jon Bernthal’s character wouldn’t live to see season three, I think it’d be fair to say that most people expected Shane to get killed off in an explosive season finale, not in the season’s next-to-last episode.  We’d been given any number of clues that this was coming (from the storyline as it originally appeared in the comics to the fact that Bernthal has signed on for a new acting gig over on TNT, in Frank Darabont’s L.A. Noir), but still, the moment was shocking when it finally happened.

Shane’s death inspired an interesting discussion amongst my Walking Dead-watching friends, specifically the moment where Carl shot zombie-Shane.  This was similar to what happens in the Kirkman comic series, yes, but not quite the same, and it’ll be interesting to see why the show’s writers decided to factor Carl into this sequence.  As readers of the comics will be happy to tell you, Carl killing Shane is just the first step down a very dark path for the Carl character, and I’ve been wondering since the very beginning of AMC’s series if the show’s writers were planning on doing the same thing with the show.  Having Carl shoot a human Shane would’ve set him on that same path very clearly, but having him shoot zombie Shane seems to mean something else entirely.  Some of my viewing-buddies believed that this was Carl’s retribution for having failed to kill the zombie that ended up killing Dale, while others pointed out that the show’s writers could’ve done that with virtually any zombie-kill.  I remain undecided on the significance (if any) of this sequence, but—for what it’s worth—I’m hoping that the show’s writers take Carl on the same twisted journey that the comics-version of the character has taken (more on this later, specifically my concerns about Chandler Riggs’ ability to handle such material).

The rest of last week’s episode, by the way, was excellent.  For me, the episode perfectly captured what The Walking Dead should be on a week-to-week basis:  very little sermonizing, high drama, a few great zombie kills, a bunch of blood, and a few genuine-feeling character beats (I loved the scene with Andrea and Glenn, while the latter’s fixing Dale’s RV).  It’s funny:  before tonight, the best episodes of season two were the premiere, the mid-season finale, and last week’s next-to-last episode.  The same sort of thing happened in season one, if I’m not mistaken, with the writers really rising to the challenge for the premiere and the finale, but the stuff in-between falling a little shorter than I would’ve liked (narratively, anyway).  And so, headed into tonight’s season finale, I had my fingers crossed for a truly kick-ass episode, something that would build upon the goodwill that the show’s writers earned last week and that would honor the show’s own tradition of delivering great endings and beginnings.

So, did it live up to that expectation?

In a word, yes.  The episode’s opening showed us how the zombies that we all knew would descend upon Hershel’s farm got there, traveling from the city, through the countryside, into the forest, and—finally—ending up right near the farm just about the time that Rick and Shane got into their little Mexican standoff.   A friend who was watching the episode with me said, “Did we really need the backstory of the zombies here?”, but I think we probably did:  had we not seen how that particular group of walkers ended up near the farm, we would all very likely have called BS on the show:  “Oh, what, now the woods is packed to the rafters with the undead, the week after characters were traipsing around the forest without encountering…well, pretty much anything?”  I liked this opening, and like what followed even more.

From there, the episode turned into a full-blown siege of Hershel’s property.  Rick and Carl set the infamous barn on fire after luring a number of zombies inside, while most of the women (Carol, Lori, Hershel’s family) holed up inside the farm house.  T-Dawg and Darryl set to work slaughtering as many of the undead as possible (with Darryl making motorcycle-based zombie killing look like a helluva lot of fun), which Hershel’s son—who had something like three lines over the course of this season—ended up getting eaten in the RV.  He wasn’t the only one:  while Hershel entered the “Unlimited Ammo” code before opening up on a group of walkers, his daughters (minus Maggie, of course) ended up chewed to bits while making a run for it outside the house.  Through all of this, it should be noted, no one realized that Rick had killed Shane.  To my eyes, this added an extra layer of suspense on top of an already-suspenseful scene:  how were characters like Andrea, Lori, and Darryl going to react upon hearing that Rick had killed off one of the group’s best badasses?

Eventually, everyone managed to climb into one of the half-dozen-or-so vehicles scattered around the farm, put the zombies at their back, and hightail it the eff out of there.  The farm gets destroyed during their escape (the shots of the collapsing barn, engulfed in flames, were pretty damn impressive), and a few of the show’s lesser characters (though none of the original survivors) perished during the exodus, but for the most part the Survivors got outta there unscathed.  In the moment, I was shocked that Hershel made it out of there—he seemed destined to die with the farm—but it’ll be interesting to see what they do with the character going forward.

After driving for a long, long time (it’s apparently late at night when they escape the farm, morning—at the very least—when they finally get outta the car), Hershel, Carl, and Rick stop to try and regroup with the others.  Here’s as good a point as any to bring up something else that’s been bugging me across these past few episodes:  Chandler Riggs (who plays Carl) really needs to step up his game between this season and the next.  On both tonight’s finale and last week’s penultimate episode, Riggs set off some truly cringe-inducing line readings, and one can’t help but wonder how bad things really are if these are the takes that the show’s editors decided to use.  Riggs isn’t a complete disaster in the role, but if this show is going to take Carl to some of the places that The Walking Dead has taken Carl in the comics, he’s going to have to shoulder some pretty heavy material.  I simply don’t see Riggs—in his current state—being able to pull that off.  Am I crazy, or are you guys feeling the same way?

Anyway, Hershel, Carl, and Rick end up on a stretch of highway unsure where the rest of the Survivors are (Hershel, in fact, still thinks his daughters are all alive…or, at least, that’s what his dialogue seems to indicate), and just when they’re about to pull up stakes and head off without any clue of where the others might be, Lori, Darryl, Carol, and the rest roll on up.  It was impossible not to remember the season opener during this sequence:  here we are again, with all the characters on a crowded (yet deserted) highway, unsure of where to go from here, mourning the disaster they’ve just come from and trying to decide what their next step is.  It all looked really familiar, and then—right at the end of the scene—it was revealed that they actually were in the spot where the season began.  I liked that.  A lot.

During this sequence, the characters took stock of who survived and who didn’t (Shane was conspicuously absent, for instance), and—for the most part—everyone handles things pretty well.  Well, at first they do.  Soon enough, they realize that they’re missing Andrea, so everyone heads back out to track her down.  As it turns out, Andrea’s out in the woods with a pocketful of bullets and a pack of zombies nipping at her heels.  Though the odds are stacked against her, we got a few great zombie kills here that proved Andrea’s more than capable of handling things on her own (while we’re talking zombie kills, by the way, let’s take a moment to give this series’ special effects and makeup work a much-deserved shout-out:  you guys kick serious ass).

Still, though, she can only run for so long, and sooner or later those bullets are going to run out.  The Survivors set up shop alongside a stretch of highway, decide they’re going to head into the woods to track her down (“Oh, great,” I found myself thinking, “The Survivors are going to search for a missing female in the woods again;  we haven’t had enough of that this season”), and during this scene a conversation ensues that might have a bearing on the direction these characters are going to head in season three:  the point’s made that the farm—however safe it might’ve seemed—wasn’t really the haven it seemed to be at the end of the day, and anywhere these Survivors go is likely to be safe only for a limited time.  Does this point to the likelihood that the comics’ prison setting will make an appearance next season?  The episode’s final shot indicates that, yes, that’s where they’re headed.

More importantly, though, this conversation leads to Rick telling the rest of the Survivors what he learned at the end of last season:  everyone’s infected.   While it usually seems to take hours for a person to make the transformation from “dead human” to “thriving zombie”, Shane turned almost instantly.  Maybe that’s a bit of shortcutting on the part of the show’s writers, or maybe it’s just there to indicate how singular each case of zombie-ism is:  I remain unsure.  But in any event, Rick’s spooked enough to tell everyone else what he knows, and—as you might expect—the rest of the Survivors aren’t thrilled to learn this information.  Me, I don’t see what difference it makes (it’s kind of like worrying about whether or not you’re going to end up buried or cremated after death:  I guess it’s fair to have a preference, but—at the end of the day—does it really matter?), but to each his own, I suppose.

In the episode’s final moments, we got a truly massive surprise, one that left my viewing party applauding and cheering the screen:  while running through the woods, Andrea is suddenly overwhelmed by an undead menace, and then—just as she’s about to get all chewed up—a samurai sword whipped through the air, saving her life.  The sight of that sword was a huge deal to anyone watching that’s also read the comics, because it means that Michonne has finally entered the picture.

And, sure enough, we got an amazingly kick-ass money-shot of Michonne standing there with her two zombie-pets.  For those of you who haven’t read the comics, I’ll say no more about this character, but know this:  we may have lost Shane this season—and that’s worth mourning—but Michonne is going to add some much-needed badassery to this show, and I can’t wait to see who they’ve got playing her, how she’s going to handle the role, and what adventures lay in store for the Survivors now that she’s entered the picture.

All in all, The Walking Dead’s second season seemed pretty strong, but I’m also probably saying that because the last few episodes were so strong.  If we were to go back and watch the entire thing all the way through—which I plan on doing as soon as the season arrives on Blu-ray—I wonder how it’d play?  That first batch of episodes started strong, ended stronger, but there seemed to be a helluva lot of water-treading there in the middle.  The second-half of the season, on the other hand, seemed far more intense, more interesting, better written.  It really does seem like the show’s writers are fine-tuning their craft as they go along, and if the rumors I’ve heard about season three turn out to be correct, I think we might have something really special in store for us when the show picks up again….what, later this year?  Next year?  Stay tuned to find out, folks, and—after checking my entirely useless grade below (this is an episode grade, not a grade for the season)—feel free to sound off with your thoughts, predictions, and feelings about tonight’s episode in the comments section.

My grade?  A-

View the original article here

WonderCon 2012: RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION Panel Recap; Milla Jovovich and Writer/Director Paul W.S. Anderson Host a Preview and a Q&A

Today at WonderCon 2012, Sony Screen Gems presented footage from their big fall release, Resident Evil: Retribution. Good move on their part as there was a huge burst of crowd support when the panel was announced. The fifth film in the series by director Paul W. S. Anderson and star Milla Jovovich features Alice’s return to the fight against the Umbrella Corporation. Also returning are some fan-favorites from Resident Evils past. Anderson and Jovovich were on hand to screen the trailer and an action sequence from the film, which promises to be the biggest yet as Resident Evil goes global. You can get caught up on all of our previous coverage of Resident Evil: Retribution here.

Resident Evil: Retribution, also starring Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, Oded Fehr, Boris Kodjoe, Johann Urb, Kevin Durand and Bingbing Li opens on September 14th. Hit the jump to see our coverage from the event.

I’ll be honest up front, I was a huge fan of the first Resident Evil film but the movie franchise quickly lost favor with me with the atrocious handling of the Nemesis character in the sequel, Resident Evil: Apocalypse. That being said, it’s still impressive what the filmmakers have been able to do with the property, making Jovovich the first female action hero to star in give installments of the same franchise and maintaining (even growing) a huge fan base over the years. But I digress.

Anderson was on hand first to introduce the film and his lovely wife, Jovovich. Per Anderson, Retribution is a direct continuation of Resident Evil: Afterlife, in which an epic battle was promised from aboard the ship, Arcadia. Soon after, the film goes in an unusual and unexpected direction as audiences are taken back in time to see the world before the T-virus outbreak and get to revisit some favorite characters. Anderson also stressed the global scale of the fifth film, as they shot in Tokyo, Moscow, New York, Washington, D.C. and even the Arctic Circle. With that introduction finished, Jovovich took the stage to great enthusiasm from the masses. Soon after she took the stage, the duo debuted an action sequence from the movie as follows.

Without context, the clip played out as a simple demonstration of Alice’s (Jovovich) zombie-killing skills. She was donned from head to toe in tight black leather with an Umbrella Corporation symbol clearly evident. It looked like a training sequence from a Resident Evil videogame, as Alice runs down a brightly lit hallway that is almost completely white, contrasting against her all-black outfit and the colorful attire of a hoard of individually attacking zombies. Armed with a chain whip, a handgun and her kick-ass boots, Alice takes out all comers in a variety of ways in order to highlight her martial arts skills and Anderson’s 3D shooting. The 3D gimmicks are obvious and are to be expected.

After the clip, Anderson and Jovovich led into a panel discussion. Their comments follow below:

Anderson commented on the number of returning cast members (Rodriguez, Fehr, Guillory) and was especially happy to be bringing Rodriguez back. In hindsight, he regrets killing her off in the first film as he would have liked to keep her and her character around for the series.Jovovich remarked on the difficulty in filming fighting scenes in 3D, as the margin for error is much smaller and the point of contact must be much closer or the believability will be lost.Anderson talked about the symbiotic relationship between the Resident Evil video games and movies, saying they “feed off one another.” He also says that that this movie will set up a spectacular finale with “lots of blood and death.” When asked which video game franchise he’d like to direct next, Anderson joked “Donkey Kong,” with Jovovich throwing the barrels. Jovovich suggested Zelda and Halo, both of which got a good crowd response.Jovovich commented on tearing up while watching a trailer that pieced together scenes from past films; she got caught up in the nostalgia of the moment, especially due to working with Rodriguez again.Anderson believes that their crew is best at shooting a movie in 3D as they’ve done it for three movies now. Because of it, they’re able to concentrate on pushing the boundaries of 3D rather than getting caught up in the the difficulties of it. His director of photography built a custom rig to allow Anderson more freedom in 3D shooting. Anderson guarantees that Retribution will be above and beyond any other 3D film this summer.Jovovich talked about the freedom of making the Resident Evil movies organically rather than on a studio’s forced schedule.Anderson quipped that the most difficult part of the shoot was pulling Rodriguez away from her “Call of Duty” game.

As I said above, I’m a huge fan of the games but have more of a luke-warm attraction to the films. However, for fans of the rest of the series, Retribution is a must see.

Follow along with our continuing WonderCon coverage here.

Here’s the official synopsis for Resident Evil: Retribution:

The wildly successful film franchise adaptation that has grossed nearly $700 million worldwide to the popular video game series, “Resident Evil,” returns in its highly anticipated fifth installment, “Re5ident Evil: Retribution” in state-of-the art 3D.

The Umbrella Corporation’s deadly T-virus continues to ravage the Earth, transforming the global population into legions of the flesh eating Undead. The human race’s last and only hope, Alice (Milla Jovovich), awakens in the heart of Umbrella’s most clandestine operations facility and unveils more of her mysterious past as she delves further into the complex. Without a safe haven, Alice continues to hunt those responsible for the outbreak; a chase that takes her from Tokyo to New York, Washington, D.C. and Moscow, culminating in a mind-blowing revelation that will force her to rethink everything that she once thought to be true. Aided by newfound allies and familiar friends, Alice must fight to survive long enough to escape a hostile world on the brink of oblivion. The countdown has begun.

View the original article here

WonderCon 2012: LOCKOUT Panel Recap; Maggie Grace Screens First Footage

Featuring producer Luc Besson (the writer behind Taken) and Maggie Grace (the daughter who was Taken), the high-octane outer space thriller Lockout made an appearance at WonderCon 2012 today. This time, the man with a particular set of skills is no longer Liam Neeson, but Guy Pearce (Memento), playing Snow, a man wrongly accused of conspiracy to commit espionage. His one chance at a pardon comes when he is tasked with rescuing the president’s daughter from a maximum security outer space prison facility when the inmates take control. Lockout also stars Peter Stormare (Constantine) and is the feature directorial debut of James Mather and Stephen St. Leger. The film opens April 13th. Hit the jump to check out our WonderCon panel recap.

The Lockout panel started off with the trailer that was previously released by Open Road and Film District. It doesn’t highlight Snow’s (Pearce) charisma and sarcasm as much as other trailers, which I find to be a strong selling point to the movie. The addition of Besson lends some gravity (pardon the pun) to the project and his influence is readily apparent. The panel also screened five minutes of footage from Lockout which focused on Snow’s entry into the facility, a nice anti-gravity fight between Snow and a random prisoner and his daring rescue of Emilie Warnock (Grace). It also touched on a bit of the madness and personality of the prisoners involved as they force a prison engineer to open a locked door standing between them and the president’s daughter. While Pearce’s wise-cracks were welcome, some of the plotting was simply inane, as in [SPOILER] Emilie’s bodyguard blowing his own brains out to preserve the remaining oxygen in the room or Snow jabbing a “self-directing” needle into Emilie’s eye in order to jump-start her brain functions.

Grace was present for an intimate Q&A after screening the footage. I’ve posted her comments below:

Flying into town, Grace hadn’t quite cleaned all of the blood off the back of her neck from the shoot, having just wrapped on Taken 2. She quipped about the prudence of Homeland Security and their ability to spot it.Grace commented on the sequence in Lockout where she has to cut her hair, dye it (with “horrible things from the men’s bathroom and grease) and appear to be a young male prisoner in an attempt to escape.Grace said that Lockout “doesn’t take itself too seriously,” calling it a fun and funny action movie.For fans of Maggie Grace, you might be interested to know that she is a closet Jane Austen fan who even had period costumes growing up.On seeing the rough cut of Lockout, her mom and little sister were a bit shocked at the fellatio joke between her and Pearce as seen in the trailer and footage.

Overall, the film does look fun and funny with a little bit of crazy thrown it. It seemed like a combination of a lot of Escape from New York, with some The Fifth Element and Die Hard for good measure. If any or all of those films appeal to you, do yourself a favor and check out Lockout on April 13th.

For all of our continuing coverage on WonderCon click here.

Here’s the synopsis for Lockout:

Starring Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace and set in the near future, LOCKOUT follows a falsely convicted ex- government agent (Pearce), whose one chance at obtaining freedom lies in the dangerous mission of rescuing the President’s daughter (Grace) from rioting convicts at an outer space maximum security prison.

View the original article here

WonderCon 2012: SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN Panel Recap; Rupert Sanders Screens New Footage, Hosts Q&A with Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart

As part of Universal’s promotion at this year’s WonderCon, they showed off some new footage of their upcoming spin on an old fairy tale, Snow White and the Huntsman. Some of it you can see in a series of featurettes we’ve posted here and here. Some of it will undoubtedly only be shown when the movie hits theaters early this summer. The picture may sound like a simple fairy tale, but after seeing this new footage there is no question in my mind that Snow White and the Huntsman is an action-packed, visual marvel that is positively brimming with emotion. While Chris Hemsworth’s Huntsman and Sam Claflin’s Prince William may be the requisite brawn of the movie, Snow White and the Huntsman is all about the showdown between Charlize Theron’s frigid Queen Ravenna and Kristen Stewart’s defiant Snow White. Forget Return of the King, this is “Return of the Queen.” 

Rupert Sanders’ Snow White and the Huntsman, starring Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Nick Frost, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Ian McShane, and Charlize Theron opens June 1st. Hit the jump for more.

In an exclusively cut sequence for WonderCon, director Rupert Sanders presented us with a five-minute compilation from Snow White and the Huntsman. It began with a cavalry charge, the daring knights of King Magnus’ (Noah Huntley) forces literally smashing through the Queen’s Shadow Army. Next, we see Snow White (Stewart) making a daring escape from the Queen’s dungeons. It’s out of the frying pan and into the Dark Forest for Snow White, who encounters the evil and nightmarish creatures in the woodland’s depths. Enter The Huntsman, in a familiar scene in which the Queen demands his assistance in returning the fair Snow White.

In a bit of new footage, we’re introduced to the dwarves when they capture The Huntsman and Snow White and string them up. Frost, Hoskins, Winstone, Jones, Marsan, McShane, Brendan Gleeson, and Johnny Harris all look remarkable as digitally-shrunken warriors. In a nice twist of storytelling, they bend their knees in allegiance to Snow White once they learn that she is the daughter of King Magnus. In another bit of new footage, the group leaves the dying wasteland of the Dark Forest for a verdant place of life and color known as the Sanctuary. This was a fantastic scene in which the fantasy of the story is allowed to come out and play, lending an overall expert balance to the action, fantasy and character development of, at least, the small section of footage shown.

I’ll admit, I was sold once I saw the footage, but there were more surprises in store as both Theron and Stewart came on stage for a panel discussion with Sanders. I’ve outlined their comments below:

Sanders commented on staying true to the original Grimm Brothers fairy tale in making the film resemble the source material more so than a fantasy story.Stewart mentioned that Snow White is a character that she’s the most proud of and was especially thankful for Sanders’ efforts, saying that “everything she wanted her character to be is there.”Theron confessed to having fun with the Evil Queen. In regards to the character being previously portrayed as a wicked stepmother or witch, Theron said there was “something nice about fucking with that idea.”In regards to Hemsworth, Sanders spoke to the actor’s “great intuitive emotional sense [who is] emotionally grounded [and gave a] great performance, not just physically.” Sanders said that most people wouldn’t be expecting to cry upon watching Snow White and the Huntsman, but they might be surprised and find that Hemsworth’s character evokes it.Stewart talked about what drew her to the project, specifically the physicality of it, the fact that the material delves in the gray areas (not black and white absolutes) and the fact that it’s a badass role for her to play. Sanders mentioned that Stewart gets to knock more men out in the film than the other way around. (It was obvious that Stewart was anxious to put her Twilight persona behind her, but was careful not to outright say it with the final film, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 coming out later this year.)When asked why he didn’t cast little people in the role of the dwarves, Sanders commented that he had always wanted to work with British actors famous for their gangster roles and, although initially he had them in mind for another movie of his, they all happened to be available for Snow White and the Huntsman.

The footage shown at the panel was more than enough to convince me to check this movie out this summer. If you’re a fan of Lord of the Rings, I think you’ll find the aesthetics and the themes to be to your liking. This just so happens to be a tale told with a defiant female protagonist (which I’m sure is a nice change for Stewart) and an equally imposing female villain in Theron’s Queen Ravenna.

Here’s the official synopsis for Snow White and the Huntsman:

In the epic action-adventure Snow White and the Huntsman, Kristen Stewart plays the only person in the land fairer than the evil queen (Charlize Theron) who is out to destroy her. But what the wicked ruler never imagined is that the young woman threatening her reign has been training in the art of war with a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) who was dispatched to kill her. Sam Claflin joins the cast as the prince long enchanted by Snow White’s beauty and power.

The breathtaking new vision of the legendary tale is from Joe Roth, the producer of Alice in Wonderland, producer Sam Mercer and acclaimed commercial director and state-of-the-art visualist Rupert Sanders.

View the original article here

WonderCon 2012: BATTLESHIP Panel Recap; Alexander Skarsgard, Brooklyn Decker and Peter Berg Debut Two New Clips and Host a Q&A

Here at Wonder-Con 2011, Universal Pictures was kind enough to stop by with some new footage from their upcoming action film, Battleship. The recently released new trailer was just the tip of the iceberg as director Peter Berg came loaded with two new clips highlighting drastically different tones of the film. We got to see another side of Taylor Kitsch’s character as well as a good look at the alien menace in Battleship known as the Regents. We also got a very fine look at Brooklyn Decker and man how I’ve been waiting for that (she’s a supermodel, for God’s sake. Use her in your marketing!) Alexander Skarsgard also told a funny story about being shot in the face with a 25-foot-long air cannon. Just another day at WonderCon.

Director Peter Berg’s Battleship, starring Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgard, Brooklyn Decker and Rihanna opens May 18th. Hit the jump for more.

Let’s start off with the clips as they gave a pretty good indication of the level of action and humor we can except to see in this summer’s Battleship. The first one, surprisingly, highlighted the relationship between the Hopper brothers, Alex (Kitsch) and Stone (Skarsgard). They’re out at a local bar for Alex’s birthday with big brother Stone buying drinks and doling out unwanted life advice. Alex is apparently on hard times and is unemployed, while Stone is in the Navy, following in their late father’s footsteps (which is why Stone feels the need to look out for Alex).

The chemistry is pretty good here and you can tell a portion of it is improvised (Berg commented on actors’ performances on Friday Night Lights being half improvisation.) Then we get the glory shot of Samantha (Decker) walking into the bar, at which point Alex does his best to impress her. Without ruining a pretty funny scene (it resembled an outtake from The Hangover), let’s just say that Alex goes to great lengths to get the lady a microwaveable chicken burrito.

Cut to five years later: Stone is high-up in the Naval command, Alex is a trouble-maker in the Navy and is preparing to propose to Samantha, who just so happens to be the Admiral’s (Neeson) daughter. Putting the kibosh on his marriage plan is an alien race, who have dispatched five ships that were sent to Earth to answer our interstellar radio signal. The scene opens with one of the aliens laid out in the hold of the ship with the crew standing around it. Alex, now a Captain, removes the helmet from the alien, revealing a humanoid creature with sharp, bristly hairs on his chin. Then, in a scene reminiscent of the Area 51 autopsy from Independence Day, the alien springs to life. A mind-meld of sorts occurs between Alex and the alien with images of extraterrestrial warfare, just before the alien is rescued by his cohorts. Chaos ensues, as is usually the case, and Alex and the other officers scour the ship in search of an alien that remains on board.

There are some cool highlights to the alien here, which Berg calls “Thug.” They seem to have a Swiss Army knife-like appendage on their suits that can flip and rotate into a variety of tools including guns, knives and a weird scanner-type apparatus (from the footage, it looked like “Thug” was scanning one of the ship’s engines or weapons; it was difficult to tell out of context). More fighting breaks out with the alien clearly winning the upper-hand until…[SPOILER] Alex leads him up onto the deck where Raikes (Rihanna) shoots the thing point blank with a 5-inch deck gun. The build-up to that money-shot was well worth the execution. What was disappointing was Kitsch’s terrible one-liners (he actually said, “I have a bad feeling about this.”)

In between the clips, Berg, Skarsgard and Decker participated in a panel discussion. I’ve outlined their responses below:

Berg’s father was a Marine and a Naval war historian. He used to take Berg and his sister on tours of military bases were he would interrupt the tour guide and correct them on their historical inaccuracies.Originally, Berg wanted to make a movie about the Essex, a whaling ship that sank in 1820 and stranded its crew on an island; the crew resorted to cannibalism to survive. Berg quipped that “cannibalism was not popular with the studio.” (This was the same whaling ship that inspired Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick.”When asked, “Why Battleship?” Berg was candid with the fact that “it didn’t initially lend itself to the most logical interpretation to film,” but he found inspiration in the fact that once you’ve scored a hit in Battleship, you “try to kill your opponent as brutally as possible.”Berg commented that, although Battleship has an attractive cast, they’re “smart, complicated actors.” He especially raved about Decker and Rihanna.Skarsgard commented on the physicality required for the action scenes in the film. He told a story about a scene in which Berg wanted to film Skarsgard’s reaction to being hit by an incoming soundwave, which resulted in Skarsgard taking a blast to the face from a 25-foot-long air cannon.Decker also talked about her action scenes saying, “I got to shoot guns. I was a happy camper.” She said that Berg makes everything feel very real, mentioning a time when the director hid in a nearby bush with a machine-gun during a shot in which she stumbles onto a terrifying scene of carnage.The aliens, known as Regents, come from what is known as a Goldilocks planet (neither too hot, nor too cold and having similar conditions to Earth); they were designed by ILM.Berg says that Battleship may not be the biggest movie of the summer, but they have the biggest guns.

After viewing the footage, there looks to be a lot more humor and heart invested in the characters than I would have guessed at first blush. While the setup scene came off a bit goofy, it did round out the characters a bit more. Battleship still looks like, as Berg called it, “a fun, kick-ass, intense, emotional-at-times, summer popcorn madness” movie. With this summer being as over-loaded with action movies as it is, Battleship might end up sinking below the rest.

Here’s the synopsis for Battleship:

Peter Berg (Hancock) produces and directs Battleship, an epic-scaled action-adventure that unfolds across the seas, in the skies and over land as our planet fights for survival against a superior force. Inspired by Hasbro’s classic naval combat game, Battleship stars Taylor Kitsch as Lt. Alex Hopper, a Naval officer assigned to the USS John Paul Jones; Brooklyn Decker as Sam Shane, a physical therapist and Hopper’s fiancée; Alexander Skarsgård as Hopper’s older brother, Stone, Commanding Officer of the USS Sampson; Rihanna as Petty Officer Raikes, Hopper’s crewmate and a weapons specialist on the USS John Paul Jones; and international superstar Liam Neeson as Hopper and Stone’s superior (and Sam’s father), Admiral Shane.

Berg directs this epic action-adventure also produced by Scott Stuber (Couples Retreat), Sarah Aubrey (The Kingdom), Brian Goldner and Bennett Schneir of Hasbro (the Transformers franchise), along with Duncan Henderson (Master and Commander) and Jeffrey Silver (300). The film is written by Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber (Red).

The battle for Earth begins at sea.

View the original article here

WonderCon 2012: ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER Panel Recap; Timur Bekmambetov and Benjamin Walker Screen Special Footage

In addition to showing off their footage (and a new trailer!) for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, 20th Century Fox also premiered some new footage for producer Tim Burton and director Timur Bekmambetov’s (Wanted) Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Part of the new footage was this recently released trailer (Mr. Lincoln, you had me at “gun-axe”). But they also showed an extended section of a big action set piece that featured all the principal cast, Bekmambetov’s signature action style and a helluva good fight. Unfortunately, Burton could not be present because he was gravely ill, but did check-in via satellite in a delightfully Burtonesque clip. Details after the jump.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, starring Benjamin Walker, Rufus Sewell, and Anthony Mackie opens in 3D on June 22nd. Hit the jump for more from the presentation.

The panel kicked off with a very bizarre clip featuring a dessicated (and obviously fake) corpse speaking from a hospital bed. Apparently, this was meant to be a very ill Tim Burton, who was presided over by two attractive nurses and a doctor who preached holistic medicine. After a very strange sequence of events which tried to revive Mr. Burton (and failed), we got on with the show. Author/screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith moderated the panel which included Bekmambetov and Walker. While the previous trailers hadn’t entirely convinced me to see the film, the following action sequence definitely did, but skip the next paragraph if you’d like to avoid spoilers.

The big action sequence in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter follows our titular hero (Walker) and Will Johnson (Mackie) as they’re defending a speeding train from attacking vampires. Any fan of Bekmambetov’s Night Watch and/or Wanted will instantly recognize the director’s signature style as there is a lot of it on display in this sequence. There is also a lot of axe-play (yes, axe-play) in this scene as not only Lincoln uses it to dispatch the undead, but Johnson does as well. The duo works together to put down vamp after vamp until the big bad shows up: Adam (Sewell), Chief of the Vampires. As the train is steaming towards a bridge set ablaze, Adam appears to be too much for our heroes, who jump from the falling train.

Yeah, that definitely made me want to go see this flick, which is promising to be heavy on action and axe-play. Walker looks completely badass when he’s swinging the two-hander around, lopping off undead heads left and right. It makes me want to see a revisionist write-up of American history with this Lincoln in place of the historically accurate one. Although, as the lights come back up and the panel discussion begins, Walker and Grahame-Smith do comment on the surprising accuracy of the film. I’ve outlined their responses below:

When asked about how Grahame-Smith, who wrote the source novel, came up with the idea of combining Abraham Lincoln and vampire hunting, he commented that he just gets really drunk by himself and throws darts at a wall until he hits two words that are completely unrelated. In actuality, he said that the idea came from a book tour he was on for his novel, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” Since it was during Lincoln’s 200th birthday, book stores had Lincoln biographies on display…right next to displays of the Twilight novels. This led him to research Lincoln and discovered the man’s actual “superheroic” origins.Walker commented on the Gothic tone of the film, which was strangely historically accurate (mentioning the unexplained death of Lincoln’s mother), calling it a “period Lincoln movie that just happens to have vampires in it.” In a great quote from Walker regarding playing Lincoln, he called it “badass; it’s an honor as an American. I want to know that my leaders are strong and can make tough decisions…and cut some heads off.”Bekmambetov, Grahame-Smith and Walker all talked about Burton’s support in wanting to take an aggressive, all-out approach on the film. Bekmambetov also said that while they changed some things from the book, the tone of the novel and the structure around Lincoln’s life is still present.Grahame-Smith did extensive research into Lincoln’s life and a lot of his book is in the movie. Some things they added were Adam, the Chief of all Vampires (Sewell); William Johnson (Mackie), who was an actual aide of Lincoln’s who traveled with him to Washington, D.C.; and the kick-ass train sequence mentioned above.On vampire comparisons, Grahame-Smith said the following: “I’m not a Twilight-hater, but I’ll say this…our vampires don’t sparkle.” He also guaranteed that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter will be the only movie this summer to feature a president killing vampires.Bekmambetov also joked that it’s important to note they’re releasing this movie on the shortest night of the year. They worked hard to ground the vampires in reality, noting that the vampires could be seen outside since sunscreen was invented in the 19th century.When asked if President Obama would make a good vampire slayer, Grahame-Smith responded coyly that “he’s tall, he’s athletic” and could be okay. Walker had the best answer when asked what Obama’s weapon of choice against vampires would be: “Diplomacy. Maybe email.”

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter looks like an awesome action movie with a Gothic horror slant and a touch of history thrown in. Walker looks absolutely imposing as our 16th president and is entirely believable in the fight sequences. While it’s important not to take this movie too seriously (obviously), it could easily be the biggest surprise of the summer. I’ll say it again: gun-axe.

Here’s the official synopsis for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter:

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter explores the secret life of our greatest President, and the untold story that shaped our nation. Visionary filmmakers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (director of Wanted) bring a fresh and visceral voice to the blood-thirsty lore of the vampire, imagining Lincoln as history’s greatest hunter of the undead.

View the original article here

WonderCon 2012: PROMETHEUS Panel Recap Featuring Sir Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof

20th Century Fox showed up to WonderCon 2012 ready to unveil some footage for their heavy hitters this summer. The studio led off with director Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, the loosely-tied prequel to that Alien franchise you may have heard about. We’ve already brought you the new trailer and the viral site featuring Michael Fassbender’s character, David. While they didn’t screen any additional footage beyond the trailer, Damon Lindelof was on hand to moderate a panel discussion that included Sir Ridley Scott, Fassbender and Charlize Theron.

Prometheus, starring Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba and Guy Pearce. Prometheus opens in IMAX 3D on June 8th. Hit the jump for our recap on the panel discussion .

After Lindelof had his own special fan-boy moment in introducing Scott (after sharing a funny story about watching Alien for the first time as a kid), Scott talked for a moment about his return to sci-fi. He said it’s been too long since he’s done a sci-fi project because, frankly, nothing was of interest to him lately. He also mentioned that Prometheus came about as a genesis of a very small idea that hadn’t yet been examined and confirmed that he liked the idea of the film having the “DNA of Alien.” Scott also alluded to the possibility of a sequel or continuation of this film, saying that Prometheus has “enough big, open questions at the end.” After that comment, they debuted the new trailer for the audience. Since you can now simply watch it for yourself, I’ll continue to the panel discussion.

Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender both commented on the fact that Scott sent them the script and only gave them two hours to read it. Theron said hers would self-destruct while Fassbender confessed that there was a man standing beside him with a gun to his head (and admitted to being a slow reader).

Scott, always the straight man, pointed to two things for Prometheus’ success: the strength of the script and the strength of the ensemble cast. He also mentioned that he prefers working with an ensemble cast as they have better interactions on and off camera which results in better performances.

As previously mentioned [POSSIBLE SPOILER], Fassbender’s character is David, an android. He acts as a butler of sorts for the crew and for the ship itself. Fassbender said that he was inspired by the “funny walk and economy of movement” of Olympic diver, Greg Louganis for David’s movements. Regarding the character, he also wondered, “How much would a program program itself? Could it develop ego, insecurities, etc?”

In regards to shooting in 3D, Scott called the results “absolutely beautiful.” He made sure to give credit to “a very talented group of people” including his cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, production designer Arthur Max, costume design by Janty Yates and the entire special effects team. Scott also quipped that he is primarily concerned with the visual aesthetic and often forgets to talk to the actors on the first day.

Since special effects have evolved since Scott’s first Alien movie, he mentioned the fact that the first monster was played by the seven-footer, Bolaji Badejo. While computer effects allow the ability to do more, they’re still more expensive; however, Scott mentioned that the cost benefit to all the effects work is to do more films and that it would be a pleasure to come back to a sci-fi film as soon as possible.

The trailer, as you probably know by now, looks absolutely fantastic and I wish this film was coming out tomorrow. The cast is phenomenal, the visuals are stunning, the story has added dramatic weight to it already because we know its inevitable conclusion and the return of Scott behind the camera is just the icing on the cake.

Here’s the official synopsis for Prometheus:

Visionary filmmaker Ridley Scott returns to the genre he helped define, creating an original science fiction epic set in the most dangerous corners of the universe. The film takes a team of scientists and explorers on a thrilling journey that will test their physical and mental limits and strand them on a distant world, where they will discover the answers to our most profound questions and to life’s ultimate mystery.

Click here for all our previous coverage on Prometheus.

View the original article here

WonderCon 2012: SOUND OF MY VOICE Panel Recap; Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling Screen the First 12 Minutes of the Film, Recruit Us Into Their Cult

Outside of the Sundance Film Festival, you may not have heard of Sound of My Voice, the cult drama from writers Brit Marling (Another Earth) and Zal Batmanglij. Directed by Batmanglij and starring Marling, Sound of My Voice follows a journalist (Christopher Denham) and his girlfriend (Nicole Vicius) as they investigate a cult lead by a supposed time-traveler and end up drinking the Kool-Aid. In the lead-off presentation at WonderCon today, the filmmakers screened the first 12 minutes of the movie. Much like the actors on screen themselves, I found myself being pulled into the mystery of it while wanting to take a step back to due the film’s thinly veiled sense of menace. After watching a screening of the new trailer, it’s clear that the menace is not only present throughout Sound of My Voice, it escalates dramatically.

Sound of My Voice, also starring Richard Wharton and Christy Meyers, opens April 27th. Hit the jump to check out our recap of the panel.

If you’ve watched the first 12 minutes of Sound of My Voice before, you won’t be surprised to learn that the cult leader, Maggie (Marling) claims to be a visitor from the future. Specifically, she is from the year 2054, denoted by an anchor tattoo with the number 54 that is found on her ankle. In a discussion with the filmmakers, they chose to use the symbol of the anchor to represent time travelers because they use water as a medium, while the number simply marked the year they were from. Before we get into the Q&A with Batmanglij and Marling, cult-members Klaus (Wharton) and Mel (Meyers) came on stage to explain a little bit about their group and invite us like-minded individuals to join them. You can check out their message over at the film’s viral site.

An exclusive WonderCon trailer was then screened, which showed both the back story of the investigative couple, Peter and Lorna, from their planning stages, as well as the escalating tension between the two, catalyzed by the manipulative Maggie. The feeling of dread mounts as Maggie gathers more and more devoted followers, makes plans to move them out of the basement to more of a permanent campsite and starts asking them to do increasingly questionable things. At the risk of ruining any more of the story, I’ll stop there, as I’ve been told that this is definitely a film to see knowing as little as possible going into it.

After that, Batmanglij and Marling took the stage to field questions about Sound of My Voice. I’ve listed their responses in bullet points below:

The idea for the film came from an interest in the number of fringe groups in and around Los Angeles. Sound of My Voice started from the idea of a group (they didn’t want to call them cults) that was led by a time-traveler who couldn’t leave her basement (due to our time’s microorganisms that affected her immune system.)They wanted to explore the dichotomy between an actual legitimate time traveler  who was unable to relate or exist comfortably in our time versus a skilled con-artist who could convince people that her story was true. Marling played on the fact that her character Maggie both chain-smoked and took lots of vitamins habitually.For the project, they researched historical cults (like Jonestown) and their leaders, many of whom were predominantly former actors or preachers. They also wanted to explore how a female cult leader would act. Marling’s “Maggie” was a combination of maternal presence as well as a seductress.When asked about what would make people want to join a cult like this, Batmanglij responded that “we’re all looking for meaning in our lives, the promise of something extraordinary.”As far as the cast and budget for Sound of My Voice, nearly everyone worked for free to make the film, which was shot on two 7D series SLRs, mostly out of Marling’s apartment. There was a great story about having to film a scene on a plane, so they purchased a $25 flight to San Francisco, shot the scenes in the air, grabbed some french fries when they landed and finished the shoot on the way back. As they were filming, a flight attendant asked if they wanted her to take the picture so that director Batmanglij could be in the shot.When asked about finding substantial and meaningful roles in Hollywood as a young actress, Marling confessed that she turned to writing in order to create those types of roles for herself.Following up on the exclusive cut of the trailer, Marling revealed Maggie as “kind, gentle and sympathetic, but also vicious, snake-like and possessing scorpion energy.” Marling herself commented that a friend of hers didn’t realize she possessed such “capacity for cruelty.” When asked about what goes down in the basement, Batmanglij replied, “Shit happens in that basement,” referring to the escalation of menace.

While the film has already screened at a previous Sundance festival, it definitely looks like one to check out if it happens to be playing a theater near you when it releases on April 27th. Check out the official synopsis and poster below:

Synopsis:

Following much preparation, Peter and Lorna are given an address. In the dead of night, they pull off the lonely road and await further instructions. Soon they part with their clothes and belongings. After they shower and clean themselves thoroughly, they are blindfolded and whisked to an undisclosed location, where they descend into a basement. Once downstairs, they perform the complicated handshake and are able to gain entry into the group. With that, the young couple, who have been posing as believers, successfully infiltrate the cult’s inner sanctum and meet enigmatic leader Maggie, portrayed by the promising Brit Marling (also cowriter and producer). What follows is a delicately paced and riveting plunge into a psychological maelstrom of uncertainty and danger. Filmmaker Zal Batmanglij’s feature debut crackles with a mesmerizing command of form, offering no easy answers to the elusive search for truth.

View the original article here

Los Angeles Animation Festival Recap – IRON GIANT, TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE, GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES, and More

This week, the Regent Showcase hosted the 3rd Annual Los Angeles Animation Film Festival. The four-day fest boasted 35mm screenings of The Iron Giant, Gulliver’s Travels, Team America, Grave of the Fireflies and A Cat in Paris, amongst many others. For a full rundown of just what screened and when check out the festival’s website. For select highlights from days two through four of the fest, hit the jump. For further coverage of the fest – see here.

The Iron Giant

“I am not a gun.” The simple motto perfectly encapsulates Brad Bird’s seminal masterpiece The Iron Giant. Critically adored upon release, The Iron Giant has only grown in repute since 1999. As presenter/Animation Director Tom Sito noted pre-screening “Iron Giant may be the only film that when the lights come up it’s all the guys in tears.” Even star Eli Marienthal (only thirteen when he voiced Hogarth Hughes) waxed nostalgia – describing the film as the “proudest thing he’s ever done” and a “cry for peace” every bit as relevant today as it was thirteen years ago.

Highlights from The Iron Giant Post Screening Q&A

Participants: Director Brad Bird, Star Eli Marienthal, Production Designer Mark Whiting, Art Director Alan Bodner, Story Board Artist Steve Markowski, CGI Animator Brad Booker, Animator Eddie Rosas, and CG Supervisor Tad Gielow

The Development of The Iron Giant

Bird was stuck in a development deal at Turner that was proving less than fruitful (he jokingly referred to his time there as ‘Turner Suspended Animation’). When Warner swallowed up Turner – they also took up the remaining years of Bird’s contract and gave him the pick of forty or so projects in the earliest stages of development. Of the offers, the book The Iron Giant stood out. The book opens with a young boy discovering an interstellar being made of metal. Over time a friendship grows between the two; however the book veers off from that initial relationship making way for a rival alien dragon that the Giant must defeat. Bird said these developments in the book didn’t interest him as much as the basic interpersonal story of a boy and his best friend: the Iron Man.

When pitching The Iron Giant to Warner executives, Bird summarized the film thusly ‘what if a gun had a soul and didn’t want to be a gun anymore.’ This simple logline/what-if-scenario piqued the executive’s interest. Bird, so energized by the material, actually pitched the entire film to the room – the 1950’s setting, the CIA baddies, the single mother, the scrapyard art, etc.…

Bird regaled that midway through the pitch one of the executives demanded he stop so someone could take notes on the remainder of the story. He took this to be indicative of a successful meeting. Later Bird confided – he discovered that these pitch notes were being used to formulate a script behind his back. Thankfully Bird had already registered the pitch with the WGA and this ‘alternative take’ was quickly squashed.

Designing the Giant

The earliest designs of The Iron Giant, per Bird, had the Giant with human characteristics – lips and a tongue, for instance. Bird asked his friend Joe Johnston to come up with a more metallic and industrial looking being. These earliest drawings proved to be the blueprint for The Iron Giant. From here, Mark Whiting came on board – and hammered in the “nuances” of the creature, roughening up its facial features and body. Whiting stated he wanted the Giant to look “clunky and lived in – Ape-like”. And so the final iteration of the Iron Giant was born – dented forehead, protruding nails, rawboned body and all.

Controversy/Interference on the Film

Bird stated that initially there was hesitation on the studio’s part to whether an animated film could have a child get chloroformed; but the main source of trepidation concerned the film’s ending. At the climax of Iron Giant, a bomb threatens to destroy the town of Rockwell. Bird remembered a meeting – wherein executives questioned whether the bomb was atomic and if it was an atomic bomb would that be appropriate for a children’s film. Bird maintained that it was not an atomic bomb but a ballistic missile. For some odd reason, his semantics fooled the room. An atomic bomb = Not OK for a kid’s film. A Ballistic Missile = Ehhh… whatever. Bird joked that he just tried to make the film as quickly as possible “before they figured out what [he was] doing”.

On Traditional 2D Animation

As CG Supervisor Ted Gielow informed: The Iron Giant is actually a “marriage between 2D and 3D animation” The trick was to make the 3D animation look like “pencil work when it was done.”

Bird said that he would love to work within the template of 2D traditional animation again, but lamented that no one’s “putting big bucks into it”. He drew the comparison of jazz to classical music – and that all forms of music (read animation) are of equal use.

Gulliver’s Travels

The 2nd US animated feature*, Dave Fleischer’s Gulliver’s Travels (1939) feels a little stuffy and outdated in the modern light. The picture, barely seventy-five minutes, feels a whole lot longer than its runtime. This can perhaps be accounted to the film’s odd structure – for the first thirty or so minutes Gulliver remains unconscious as little tiny people attempt to tie him up. The whole thing seems to play in real time – as we watch the tiny peoples of Lilliput rope up the giant’s legs, his arms, his torso – then put him onto a stretcher, then wheel him to the city. After awhile it becomes more than tiresome. But the animation itself remains positively beautiful. The 2D cells look exceptional especially projected up on the big screen from a 35mm print. And the music – “We’re All Together Now” and “It’s a Hap-Hap-Happy Day” are more than hummable. If content wise Gulliver’s Travels hasn’t aged well, then at least aesthetically it remains as breathtaking (if not more) today as it was on release. It’s a nice reminder to the power of traditional hand drawn animation – a thing, which has become increasingly neglected and rare nowadays.

*…Or 3rd as noted by animation historian Jerry Beck. Snow White is often thought of as the first animated film – but a year prior Disney released a collection of short animations as a feature, making Snow White actually the 2nd animated movie. This, of course, does not account for the numerous foreign animated films made prior to Snow White and Gulliver’s Travels.

Team America

Yep – still pretty funny.

A number of the voice cast and puppeteers were on hand to discuss their experiences on the crazy set. Bullet point highlights below:

Participants: Phil Hendrie (voice of I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E.), Daran Norris (Spottswoode), puppeteers Steve & Ed ChiodoNorris stated that he only auditioned for the voice of Spottswoode while Hendrie countered that he was asked to audition for multiple voices but ended up only doing I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E (+ a couple of terrorists). Parker did most of the voices on set with the intention of getting someone else to replace them later. But after hearing himself doing the voices whilst editing, Parker decided just to keep his own “shitty interpretations”.Hendrie stated the movie was pitched to him as a “serious puppet film”. Per Stone/Parker (who although not present were talked of frequently and in the highest esteem) – “puppets doing funny stuff isn’t funny; but puppets doing serious things is HILLARIOUS.The genesis of Team America: “What if we shot the script to Armageddon… but with puppets?”On the infamous sex scene: Steve Chiodo confided that one of the puppeteers refused to participate in the golden shower/shit scene – so he gleefully volunteered to do it. Chiodo also revealed that the shit was a mashed up tootsie roll.On why there aren’t more puppet films: the Chiodo brothers relented that puppets are actually much more expensive than just hiring actors – so the puppet-film market will always be niche. Norrie chimed in that originally Parker/Stone wanted to do a film with only puppets because they hate actors and don’t ever want to work with them; but after their experience on Team America – they stated they would never work with puppets ever again.There will never be a sequel – per the cast.Making Team America was highly improvisational. The script was constantly changing and being rewritten on a day-by-day basis.  For example: Ed Chiodo noted that the design of the Matt Damon puppet didn’t look particularly good and didn’t resemble the actor in the slightest. Upon seeing the puppet, Parker noted how fucking retarded the puppet looked – which gave him the idea to play Matt Damon full retard. And so “Matt Damon” was born on the spot.

Grave of the Fireflies

Well known as being possibly the saddest animated film of all time, Isao Takahata’s World War II set tragedy opens with a young boy starving to death on a train platform whilst commuters pass him by – and then somehow gets even more depressing from there.  The film flashes back to the middle of War World II, as the same boy (14 year old Seita) and his 4-year old sister Setsuko flee to an underground bomb shelter with their mother in tow. However – the mother dies in the confusion, leaving the two kids on their own. From there the two attempt to survive – at first with a negligent and manipulative aunt and then on their own in the extensive backyard of an unoccupied home. Things do not go well. Ostensibly  – Grave of the Fireflies depicts two kids slowly starving to death; but the film doesn’t wallow in such depressing subject matter. In fact (and maybe this is why the picture is so effective) Grave of The Fireflies is downright beautiful to look at. Up on the big screen, the 2D animation has never looked as crisp and clean, shot as if it were a rose-tinted memory; that what’s actually happening is horrifying juxtaposes nicely with the nostalgic aesthetic. A must see for all animation enthusiasts.

A Cat in Paris

Sporadically amusing but tonally confused, the 2011 Animated Film Oscar nominee doesn’t live up to the pedigree. The titular cat is pretty awesome though – as is the initial premise: a lazy cat of a police officer’s daughter doubles at night as a “cat burglar” (I couldn’t resist). Unfortunately the movie doesn’t stick with the cat robber angle – instead substituting it for a bunch of bumbling gangsters and a kidnapping/girl-in-peril/rescue plotline. The cat becomes a side character in his own film, more time being spent with the young girl and her police officer mother and the gangsters and a human male thief accomplice. Also the movie can’t quite settle on a tone – the stuff with the cat and the bumbling gangsters is fairly light hearted – but a subplot involving the policewoman avenging the murder of her husband feels dark especially in light of all these comedic beats. A disappointing misfire.

Special mention must be given to Keichi Tanaami’s great “flower” shorts, which preceded many of the animated films (his shorts were selected by artistic director Sean Lennon). Here’s a clip from his Fetish Doll:

I’ll close out my coverage of The 3rd Annual Los Angeles Animation Film Festival – with a look at quite possibly my favorite in-competition animated short from the fest – Zombie Dragonfly Discotheque:

View the original article here