Tagged: film

The Comancheros

At a time when movie stars were truly larger-than-life and iconic, few stood taller and were more memorable than John Wayne. The Duke more or less played himself, the tall, laconic keeper of the moral code regardless of era or genre. He’s best remembered for his work in Westerns, ultimately earning his one Oscar for True Grit, a tribute to a career spent along the dusty trails of a bygone America.

Bit by bit, Wayne’s oeuvre is being preserved on DVD and now Blu-ray, with [[[The Comancheros]]] being the most recent offering. In time for the perfect Father’s Day gift, the deluxe package from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment offers up one of Wayne’s last big Westerns just as interest in the genre was beginning to wane. The movie is well regarded by many Western fans and Elmer Bernstein’s score has lived on, well beyond the film itself, used elsewhere ever since (including The Simpsons). It also has the historical footnote of being the final film from director Michael Curtiz, beloved for his earlier work on The Adventures of Robin Hood and Casablanca. He was laid low early on by cancer and Wayne himself took over much of the directing but refused credit. Second unit action sequences were handled by Cliff Lyons. The unfortunate many hands approach probably led to the film feeling incredibly uneven, talky without much punch to the dialogue sequences, and sluggishly paced for the first third. (more…)

‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Begins Shooting

christian-bale-batman11-300x212-6842725Here’s the release with all the current information, reminding us of how much we’re looking to seeing how this wraps up:

BURBANK, CA, May 19, 2011 – Principal photography has begun on Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ The Dark Knight Rises, the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s [[[Batman]]] trilogy.

Leading an all-star international cast, Oscar® winner Christian Bale (The Fighter) again plays the dual role of Bruce Wayne/Batman.

The film also stars Anne Hathaway, as Selina Kyle; Tom Hardy, as Bane; Oscar® winner Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), as Miranda Tate; and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as John Blake.

Returning to the main cast, Oscar® winner Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules) plays Alfred; Gary Oldman is Commissioner Gordon; and Oscar® winner Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby) reprises the role of Lucius Fox.

In helming The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan is utilizing IMAX® cameras even more extensively than he did on The Dark Knight, which had marked the first time that a major feature film was partially shot with IMAX® cameras.  The results were so spectacular that the director wanted to expand the use of the large-format cameras for this film.

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Gregory Noveck Leaves DC, Takes Helm at Syfy Films

noveck-300x265-8632672The press release came out late yesterday:

Gregory Noveck has been named to the newly created position of Senior Vice President, Production, Syfy Films, charged with launching projects for the new film company which the two companies announced in December. Noveck will report jointly to Mark Stern, President of Original Content, Syfy and Co-Head of Content for Universal Cable Productions, and Co-Chairman, Universal Pictures, Donna Langley. Noveck will work closely with the Universal and Syfy creative teams to find projects to develop by leveraging Syfy’s experience in developing genre content.

Noveck most recently served as Senior Vice President, Creative Affairs and Executive Producer for DC Comics where he established a new Film and TV division to help deliver quality content by mining the extensive DC Comics library. Feature projects included Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Watchmen, Red (for Summit Entertainment), and the upcoming Green Lantern, with television projects ranging from Smallville and Human Target to over ten animated DTV features. Prior to that he was Senior Vice President of Silver Pictures Television, developing and producing series and pilots for producer Joel Silver. Noveck previously served as Senior Vice President, Creative Affairs and Producer at Platinum Studios, where he established and grew the Creative Affairs department for Film and Television, overseeing all aspects of production and development. Projects included Cowboys & Aliens (Universal/DreamWorks) and Jeremiah (Showtime).

Syfy Ventures and Universal Pictures joined forces in December 2010 to create Syfy Films, a new film company that will develop and produce Syfy branded theatrical motion pictures to be distributed by Universal. The new entity will leverage Syfy’s genre expertise to produce human and relatable theatrical releases from the worlds of science fiction, fantasy, supernatural and horror. Beginning in 2012, Syfy Films will distribute one to two films a year through Universal Pictures. Mark Stern and Donna Langley jointly oversee the operation.

Very interesting. Diane Nelson is consolidating her position.

As for Gregory, he’s certainly shown the ability to do a lot with limited budgets, which will serve him well at his new job, as Syfy, and Universal’s new owner Comcast, have a reputation for keeping a tight control on purse strings. We wish him the best of luck.

Mayday, Mayday! It’s The Wilhelm Scream Compendium!

Cover of "Distant Drums"

Distant Drums, a film almost forgotten except for one scream

The Wilhelm Scream is a film and television stock sound effect first used in 1951 for the film Distant Drums. The effect gained new popularity (its use often becoming an in-joke) after it was used in Star Wars and many other blockbuster films as well as television programs and video games. The scream is often used when someone gets shot, falls from a great height, or is thrown from an explosion.

The sound is named for Private Wilhelm, a character in The Charge at Feather River, a 1953 western where the character was shot with an arrow. The scream shows up in hundreds of films– see (or rather hear) what we mean.

Twitter Updates for 2011-04-07

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  • April 7, 2011

Zack Snyder Throws A Punch


This weekend, Zack Snyder‘s eye-blasting SUCKER PUNCH hits the screen., We sat down with the cast, starting today with Emily (“Babydoll”) Browning, for a look at just what you can expect. Plus Roger Corman talks about that one film that gave him a headache (and guess wh0 was in it!)

Seeing SUCKER PUNCH this weekend? Drop us a comment below!

Don’t forget – Pop Culture never sleeps (and neither do we). Catch the latest 24/7 on The Point Radio.

Review: ‘Machete’

macheteblurayart1-1345380Movies and television shows have been created after something has caught the public’s imaginations be it a Twitter feed, a commercial, or a persona. Perhaps the best of the lot, though, is [[[Machete]]], inspired by a fake movie trailer. The film, now out on DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, came about when director Robert Rodríguez fashioned a B-film trailer as part of [[[Grindhouse]]], the homage to trashy films of the past, made with Quentin Tarantino. Machete, with Danny Trejo in the lead, captured imaginations so Rodriguez and his brother Alvaro wrote a film to do the trailer justice.

I cannot tell you the last time I saw such an entertaining B film, which made me laugh out loud more than once. The thing is, beyond the gratuitous nudity and over-the-top violence, the film actually addresses a few of the day’s hot button issues giving it more heft than the films it emulates.

Once a Federale in Mexico, Machete watched his wife be killed by a drug lord (Steven Segal) and was left for dead. Three years later, he resurfaces in Texas as a day laborer just trying to get along. As luck would have it, corrupt political operative Jeff Fahey hires him to assassinate Senator Robert DeNiro. Before he can fire, though, someone else shoots the senator and frames Machete, igniting racial tensions throughout the city. At the same time, an independent militia, led by Don Johnson, is in cahoots with the senator and both want to shut down an operation called The Network, which has been helping illegals cross the border and begin a new life. It’s led by one woman, Michelle Rodriguez, and is hunted by another, ICE officer Jessica Alba. The rest of the movie is filled with action and mayhem with a script that barely holds the threads together but has more gaping holes than the border between countries.

Alba looks great and handles her official role well but does so without the requisite gravitas. Rodriguez, though, shines and has never looked hotter, especially during the climactic action sequence. Still, the film is all Trejo’s and he does it with a grim faced countenance that shows he’s taking no joy in doing his job or enacting long-awaited vengeance.

The rest of the cast generally is playing against type and most don’t have a chance to play anything but two-dimension figures but boy are they having fun. Noteworthy is how understated Cheech Marin is as Trejo’s brother and how welcome it was to see FX makeup genius Tom Savini on screen again (although a quick glance at IMDB shows me how many films of his I’ve missed). Lindsay Lohan is here as Fahey’s daughter and she looks fabulous in everything from a nun’s habit to her birthday suit but her character is so poorly written that she has nothing to play and comes across more clueless than calculated.

There’s plenty of blood as Machete fights his way in and out of trouble but there’s one time when he escapes from a hospital that has him use the most imaginative device I’ve seen in years. It’s also been a while since a film was just so pure entertaining and a great way to pass a cold winter’s night.

The Blu-ray transfer looks and sounds just fine. The film comes with a small number of extras but most missed is a commentary track from Rodriguez. We do get the green and red-band trailers, 10 minutes of deleted scenes, and an audience reaction track that is fun but unnecessary. Interestingly, an entirely Alba-centric sub-plot has been excised from the film but preserved through these deletions and you understand why the thread was removed.

The film ends with a promise of Machete returning for two sequels and trust me, I’ll be among the first to line up to see them.

Review: ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’

Let me start by telling you right off that I enjoyed watching [[[Scott Pilgrim vs.the World]]] because it was a visual delight with an appealing collection of performers. As other reviewers have noted, this film was the best feature to adapt the video game playing experience to the screen. Universal Pictures gets credit for giving the production crew the freedom to play with everything from their opening titles through the graphics and sound effects.

The movie, despite an aggressive and pervasive marketing campaign, crashed and burned in August and the answer to that disconnect may well be in the story and characters. At its core, Scott Pilgrim is a love story or a series of love stories but you are left to wonder what the attraction is.

Scott (Michael Cera) is a 22 year old slacker with no apparent profession, about to be tossed from the dingy apartment he shares with his best pal, the very gay Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin). Whenever he’s not aimlessly wandering about, he plays bass in the band Sex Bob-omb and is said to have gone through numerous girlfriends during his high school years but it’s been a year since his last major breakup. To compensate, he’s been chastely dating Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), a 17 year old high school student.  That is, until he spots the pink-haired Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) at a party.

Before even exchanging a hello, he has learned that the pretty girl has a powerful and somewhat awe-inspiring reputation. But here she is, living in Toronto and seemingly employed as a delivery person. He falls for her and she seems to blithely accept this and then comes the price to be paid for dating this woman. Scott must defeat Ramona’s seven deadly exes which forms the spine of the film set against a Battle of the Bands competition.

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Review: ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ 35th Anniversary Edition

rocky-horror-picture-show1-8243298I had heard about [[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]], that it was this amazing off-the-wall show that had become a midnight phenomenon and people even began interacting with it. Obviously, this was something I had to see but being away from New York City, attending college at Binghamton made that problematic. That is, until my roommate booked it as an offering during the school’s weekly free film program. We kept a 16 mm film projector in the dorm room and several times a week, we’d knock off studying, order a Domino’s pizza (because we had no other choice) and screen a film.

John insisted Deb and I had to see the film in our room to appreciate the story and song before we attended a full-fledged screening so we understood when to scream out or throw toast or duck from the rain. I’m glad he insisted because I could see it as a movie before I saw it as a pop culture icon.

I’m therefore delighted to now recommend the 35th anniversary Blu-ray edition of the movie, now out from 20th Century Home Fox Entertainment. First of all, owning it is just cool. The care in restoring and transferring the film to high definition shows in the brilliant look on screen. Yeah, it was shot on the cheap and now the flaws are glaringly obvious, but so are the inventive sets, costumes and dance moves. It’s the best the film has looked since 1975 when the prints were still pristine. The sound is equally luscious so you can sing along with gusto.

It’s certainly fun to join Brad and Janet on that dark and stormy night, revisiting the house of Dr. Frank N. Furter and his oddball servants. The performances are over-the-top and never fail to entertain. Richard O’Brien’s madcap tribute to the science fiction movies of his youth has aged quite nicely.

The film is available in this two-disc set that contains all the existing extra features and then some new ones for the anniversary celebration. You get commentary from O’Brien and Patricia Quinn (Magenta); a track offering you audience participation prompts; a piece on the late night performances that have endured nearly as long as the film itself, plus a trivia game, a story building game, a screen saver, cast and crew bios, and web links. The participation track, Rocky-Oke: Sing It! is great so you can host your own event or prepare for a more public event.

The second disc offers up two deleted songs: “Superheroes” and “Once in a While”, with one of them remastered from the UK so appears in HD while the other is in standard definition. There are also “A Few From the Vault”, outtakes, clips from the VH1 special, a short documentary on the film and its cult following, a misprint ending and an ending featuring “The Time Warp” instead of “Science Fiction Double Feature,” the film’s original trailers, and the VH-1 Pop-Up Video version of “Hot Patootie”. [[[The Midnight Experience]]] offers you multiple options on exploring the cult phenomenon, so you can use the Trivia Track, Vintage Callback track from the 1983 audience Par-tic-i-pation album, a virtual Prop Box to hurl items at the screen using your remote, and The Late Night, Double Feature, Picture-in-Picture.

All told, this is one of those cultural Must Haves and it’s about time we had it looking this good.

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’

beautyandthebeastdiamondeddvdcombo2-8817811The climb back to not only respectability but creativity was a long painful one for Walt Disney Studios but you could see bits and pieces of improvement throughout the 1980s. [[[The Little Mermaid]]] in 1989 was the first serious indication that the animators found their mojo. As a result, audiences were primed and ready for 1991’s Beauty and the Beast. What they didn’t anticipate was just how magical and wonderful the film would be.

Clearly, one of the crown jewels, the studio has polished their gem to a bright luster in the just-released Diamond Edition. There are a variety of formats including the combo pack which has the movie on standard DVD plus two Blu-ray discs chuck full of goodness.

First of all, you get three versions of the movie: the original theatrical release, the extended edition (containing the number “Being Human”) and the work-in-progress print which was screened in New York a year prior to release that gave everyone a hint at how special this film would be. While the animation shines in DVD, it’s glorious in Blu-ray, complete with spectacular sound. If anything, the high definition images are too clear so you actually see animation flaws here and there. Watching the film lets you lose yourself in the finely crafted story with lush visuals and lovely tunes.

The classic tale was reimagined in England under a different creative director and when the first 18 minutes of storyboards were presented, the Disney executives, including Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, didn’t think it was quite right. They trashed six months of work and reassigned roles. At that point, it was also decided to add music and that is when the creative problems plaguing the story got solved.

Fortunately, the team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken were fresh off The Little Mermaid and stepped in. Ashman was ill, dying before Beauty was released, but did some of his finest work. The finished results had all the Disney magic generations had come to expect and added at least one new generation to its collection of believers. The story of Belle and the Beast is dramatic, emotional, humorous and touching. There are wonderful supporting characters, memorable songs, bits of business for adults and plenty of action for all. No wonder it received a Golden Globe and was nominated for Best Picture, forcing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to create a separate category.

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