Tagged: film

First Real ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ Pic Surfaces

  • News
  • February 14, 2008

Recently, a picture hit the net that many reported was Hugh Jackman as Wolverine from the upcoming film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. For whatever reason, that image turned out not to be the real deal. Fortunately, we’ve now got an actual pic from the film to show you, courtesy of the folks at 20th Century Fox (via USA Today).

wolverine2-1289714

In addition to this cool new pic, Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman, offers some choice words in the article on his character and why he thinks the X-Men are so popular.

"I think one of the reasons the X-Men took off is that it connected in a way nobody saw," Jackman says. "They’re mutants with powers. But they’re also outcasts for being, and everyone connects with that on some level. And who wouldn’t want the power to get back at the people who ostracized you?"

The film will reveal Wolverine’s past as he discovers the world of mutants and, ultimately, the Weapon X program. Jackman, of course, doesn’t reveal many plot details in the article but does manage to reveal that the story will be about more than one mutant.

According to Jackman, Sabretooth "is going to play a big part in it. And there will be a good bit of cameos. But you can’t give too much away, because fans are pretty hard-core. Their expectations go up a level every time you come out with a new film."

X-Men Origins: Wolverine hits theaters on May 1, 2009.

‘Transformers 2’ to Feature New Species?

  • News
  • February 12, 2008

Now that the first "Transformers" film has returned to the spotlight due to all of the effects-related awards it’s received, speculation about the film’s sequel is running rampant once again.

In a video interview with "Transformers" director Michael Bay, Bay hints at the introduction of a new "species" in the sequel. Bay said the first film was just "the tip of the iceberg" and that fans would be treated to "new characters, new species" in the sequel.

 

Fox Sues Warner Bros. Over ‘Watchmen’

  • News
  • February 12, 2008

Yesterday we reported that a lawsuit filed by J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate and publisher HarperCollins against New Line Cinema could impede production of "The Hobbit" films, and now another much anticipated film could become mired in legal limbo.

20th Century Fox filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. over "Watchmen," the big-screen adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novel currently in production. According to Fox, Warner Bros. does not own the rights to produce such a film, with Fox citing a complicated string of ownership conditions that the studio alledges were never secured by Warner Bros.

According to the Hollywood Reporter:

Fox seeks to enjoin Warners from going forward with the project, saying in the lawsuit that it seeks to "restrain (Warner Bros. Pictures) from taking actions that violate Fox’s copyrights and which stand to forever impair Fox’s rights to control the distribution and development of this unique work."

 

Alex Cox on ‘Repo Man’ Sequel: ‘Waldo’s Hawaiian Holiday’

  • News
  • February 11, 2008

Alex Cox, the man behind the cult-classic film "Repo Man", is planning a sequel. And yes, that strange feeling you just experienced was the world becoming significantly weirder.

Waldo’s Hawaiian Holiday is the graphic novel that will serve as the sequel to Cox’ bizarre-beyond-words 1984 film, and it’s scheduled to hit shelves on March 31. The story is set a decade after the end of "Repo Man" and features the return of the film’s main character, Otto, who has no idea where he’s been for the past ten years and insists upon everyone calling him Waldo.

That’s about as much sense as I can make of the plot, but EW has an interview with Cox about Waldo’s Hawaiian Holiday that might clear things up.

ALEX COX: He’s been away on a journey in a car for 10 years and just returned. He thinks he’s only been gone for the evening. Now, he may indeed be Otto. He may have been transmogrified on the way back into Waldo. Or that may have happened to several people at the same time. Like, how Lee Harvey Oswald and all these other U.S. Marines defected to Russia at the same time. And then they all came back a couple of years later. So, maybe a whole bunch of people were picked up by aliens in a similar way and made prisoners on Mars, and then released 10 years later when they were of no further use.

Okay, maybe not.

Well, they also have a five-page preview of Waldo’s Hawaiian Holiday, featuring the art of Chris Bones. You can check it out while you’re waiting for your head to stop hurting.

 

New ‘Iron Man’ Images Released

  • News
  • February 11, 2008

Gizmodo has posted a new gallery of images from the "Iron Man" film featuring, among other things, a few more shots of the Iron Man armor in action, as well as a few of the suit in a state that’s probably best described as "out of action."

There are also a few more shots of the film’s cast, including (of course) Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark), Terrence Howard (Jim Rhodes), Gwyneth Paltrow (Virginia "Pepper" Potts), a bald and bearded Jeff Bridges (Obadiah Stane), and a barely clothed Leslie Bibb (Christine Everhart).

"Iron Man" opens May 2, 2008.

Turok: Son of Stanley Kramer, by Ric Meyers

  • News
  • February 10, 2008

 

Unarguably, one of the things DVD has way over VHS is its compression. Far more discs fit in any given space than cassettes – allowing producers to create compact yet extensive homages to filmmakers or genres. A welcome addition to this group arrives this week in the form of the Stanley Kramer Film Collection. We’ll now take a moment for average film-goers to say “who?” and film-lovers to go “ahhhhh!”
 
For the a.f.g.’s amongst you, Kramer was a true maverick-altruist among those about whom the great comedian Fred Allen once said: “You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer’s heart.” Kramer’s filmography was chock-ablock with socially-conscious challenges which were as ground-breaking as they were entertaining. As producer and/or director, he constantly strove to do both the right and best thing, including breaking the iron rule of the blacklist and rampant racism.
 
Amongst his classics not in this six-DVD set are The Defiant Ones, Death of a Salesman, High Noon, Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Caine Mutiny, and (arguably) It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. This collection, however, features some of his rarer (The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T), most influential (The Wild One), heartfelt (The Member of the Wedding, and ambitious [Ship of Fools)] efforts — culminating with the 40th Anniversary release of his last great masterpiece Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. 
 
The latter film has a special edition disc of its own, featuring deserved kow-tows from Steven Spielberg, Quincy Jones, Tom Brokaw, Alec Baldwin, and many others. It also has a two-part “making of:” one for the daring interracial romantic comedy-drama itself, and one just on its final pairing of Katherine Hepburn and the dying Spencer Tracy (when the cast and crew recount his final day on the set, delivering the film’s final speech just a fortnight before he passed away, I’ll defy you not to be as misty-eyed as they are).

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Worst Movie Dialogue Ever?

  • News
  • February 4, 2008

EW.com recently ranked the "15 Nominees For Worst Movie Dialogue Ever," and a trio of films near and dear to science-fiction and comics fans made the list.

Among the 15 lines of dialogue, the much-maligned piece of dialogue offered up by Storm (Halle Berry) in "X-Men" to Toad (Ray Park):

‘You know what happens when a toad gets struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else.”

Also on the list are two lines of dialogue that were meant to be romantic, but ended up just sounding silly: One of the many ill-scripted romantic moments between Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and Amidala (Natalie Portman) during "Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith", and a moment shared between two violence-prone lovers in the big-screen adaptation of Frank Miller’s Sin City.

Personally, I’m shocked by the absence of MY choice for worst line of dialogue in film history.

Does anyone remember the brilliant observation made by vampire-killer Blade (Wesley Snipes) upon vanquishing the villain of the first film? In case you subconsciously willed yourself to forget it, here it is:

"Some motherf*ckers is always trying to iceskate uphill."

Beat THAT, EW.com.

 

Roger Corman’s ‘Fantastic Four’ Movie Climax

  • News
  • February 4, 2008

Science-fiction fan site io9 has posted a video clip in their "Found Footage" section featuring the climax of 1994’s live-action "Fantastic Four" film, which Roger Corman produced and Marvel Comics spent heaps of money to hide from the public.

Okay, I’ve never seen the full film, but I’m quite certain its depiction of Ben Grimm, The Thing, will live on in my nightmares. Oh, and check out the animation used in the "Johnny Storm flying off to stop the Destructo Ray" sequence – it’s wonderfully cheesy.

io9 has more on the background of the film’s production, as well as some of its more questionable plot choices (an angry space leprechaun, anyone?):

How did this disaster happen? A German production company owned the rights to make a Fantastic Four movie, but was unable to raise the $40 million it needed before the rights were due to expire. So the company turned to Roger Corman, who said he could make the movie cheap and quick. … At $1.4 million, this movie had a huge budget compared to a usual Corman spectacle. After the film was completed, Marvel paid a few million to suppress it. The team worked in secret to complete post-production on it, but then Marvel ordered all prints destroyed. So it’s a minor miracle that you’re able to suffer through this clip.

 

Across the Midnight Express Universe, by Ric Meyers

  • News
  • February 3, 2008
 
This week I watched two DVDs that considered the same turbulent period, but from two wildly divergent vantage points. 
 
First, the divider. Reviewers were almost totally at odds over Across the Universe, director Julie Taymor’s “homage” to The Beatles. Homage is in quotation marks because half the critics thought its liberties and excesses were trumped by its imagination, while the other half thought it was simply, cringingly, awful. 
 
I doubt the 2-Disc Deluxe Edition that’s showing up next Tuesday will do anything to dispel the opposites. It’s obvious that Taymor – best known as the director of Broadway’s The Lion King — was aiming for the same sort of cinematic success as The Who’s Tommy or Pink Floyd’s The Wall, but the nay-sayers pushed it toward 1978’s campy bomb, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band starring the Bee Gees. 
 
The talented Taymor dodged that bullet, but couldn’t Matrix them all. The Beatles are a creative touchstone, all right, but not always for the best. Just as it’s more difficult to adapt a great book to film (The Kite Runner, Love in the Time of Cholera, etc.) than it is a pulpy one (Jaws, Psycho, The Godfather), it’s also extremely problematic to create a new musical from iconic music. And there’s hardly anything more iconic than The Beatles. The new, obviously far less talented, interpreters will always come out the short end.
 
To her credit, Taymor doesn’t try to overwhelm the music with vocal gymnastics (save for one exception) or distract audiences with stunt casting (save for the welcome inclusion of Bono and Joe Cocker in the supporting cast). But, apparently she can’t resist hurling buckets of creative energy all over the Frankenstein-stitched, wedged-in soundtrack. There are two kinds of directors: those who say “I” and those who say “you”: you’ll feel this, you’ll think this. Guess which one Taymor is.
 

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‘Hellboy 2’ Roundup: ‘Hellboy 3’ a Possibility?

  • News
  • February 1, 2008

Well, it looks like embargoes were lifted today for on-location coverage of "Hellboy 2: the Golden Army," as there’s a flurry of interviews, set visits and other material hitting the ‘Net.

SuperHeroHype has posted interviews with Selma Blair (Liz Sherman),  Anna Walton (Princess Nuala) and Luke Goss (Prince Nuada). While you’re there, check out their visit to the set of the film, too.

One of the highlights from their interviews is this bit from Blair, who hints at director Guillermo del Toro’s plans for a third "Hellboy" film:

SHH!: Guillermo has said he has an idea for the next film. Has he talked with you about it?

Blair: Yeah, I mean, he has shared it with me. I’m just praying that he’ll do it. I mean, I’m praying the third one will come, because for me that would be the strongest one for my character. So selfishly I want that. But I also think the story of the third one will be so haunting and just such a major story that I think it would be such a shame to cheat it and just end with the second.

 

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