Category Archives: Movies/TV

Star Wars Uncut: Director’s Cut

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This is beyond words.  Looks like somebody took all the fan made films and compiled them all together into one large movie reenacting the entire movie of Star Wars: A New Hope.  Take a look down below (it is 2 hours in length).

According to the YouTube description: “Finally, the crowd-sourced project has been stitched together and put online for your streaming pleasure. The “Director’s Cut” is a feature-length film that contains hand-picked scenes from the entire StarWarsUncut.com collection.”

“In 2009, thousands of Internet users were asked to remake “Star Wars: A New Hope” into a fan film, 15 seconds at a time. Contributors were allowed to recreate scenes from Star Wars however they wanted. Within just a few months SWU grew into a wild success. The creativity that poured into the project was unimaginable.”

For more information go to http://StarWarsUncut.com

The “The Friends With Kids” Cast Looks Very Familiar

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As a trailer addict, I couldn’t help but notice a new trailer for Friends With Kids. As a man in his early 30’s, the title hit close to home, so I decided to take a gander in hope for an appealing premise or great cast ensemble. Luckily, I scored 2 for 2.

The trailer begins with a dinner table scene among two couples discussing a third couple’s whereabouts. We see Maya Rudolph (Leslie), Chris O’Dowd (Alex), Adam Scott (Jason), and a relatively unknown Jennifer Westfeldt (Julie). Jon Hamm (Ben) and Kristen Wiig (Missy) then enter the room trying to cover up the obvious scandalous act that held them up.  Next we see Jason and Julie talking about having a baby out of wedlock. In fact, they’re not even a couple. They’re just platonic friends. It’s like “Knocked Up” minus the accident factor. Later, the story introduces Edward Burns and Megan Fox, who appear to be love interests of Julie and Jason.

Curious about Jennifer Westfeldt, I decided to do some research and discovered some interesting facts about her. Her role in the Friends With Kids is actually quite significant. She stars, directed, and wrote it. She’s quite the triple threat! Just in case you weren’t jealous of her yet, she’s also Jon Hamm’s main squeeze.

It’s like someone decided everyone in Bridesmaids worked so well together, they had to do another movie and I’m totally okay with that. Sadly, Chris O’Dowd left behind his Irish accent. Since he isn’t playing a historical figure, I don’t agree with that decision but hopefully I’ll be proven wrong.

I was one of the last people to watch Bridesmaids but still found it to be a very enjoyable movie. Nope, none of the hype phased me. I just adore Kristin Wiig and LOVED Jon Hamm‘s bizarro Don Draper character, Ted.

Friends With Kids will be distributed by Lionsgate and is scheduled to arrive in theaters March 9, 2012.

War Horse

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I saw War Horse last night, I didn’t get to see this movie before last year ended, but I did get around to it.  It’s about a horse in England who’s bought by a rather poor farmer, but his son Albert Narracott (played by Jeremy Irvine) trains and bonds with this horse, Joey.  Then World War I hits and they have to sell the horse to the army to help pay for their farm.  The story follows Joey through this war.

The good; the horse, I’m sure they used multiple horses, but you care for this character.  That can be said for the other characters in the film as well.  From Albert and his family, you just get drawn in to their struggle and their family structure, it’s almost as if you’re growing up with Alby, even though you don’t see him for a good portion of the film.  Then there are the other characters, from the Captain that buys Joey to the young German Soldiers who find Joey, to Emilie and her Grandfather who also find Joey.  Every time Joey meets someone new you’re drawn in to their world and honestly care for what happens to them.

John Williams scores this film, among others in Spielberg’s normal crew, and it’s great.  I just enjoy how the music carries you through the scenes and punctuates the grandness of things.

Janusz Kamiński does the cinematography, and boy are the images beautiful.  Almost everything looks like photo, but ya know, it’s moving in the frame.

Another good thing about this film is that there aren’t very many names in it, the casting was mostly unknowns, which really helped.

The bad; I have to put something here.  War Horse is based on a children’s book, and then based on a play, then adapted in to a film.  The movie feels like a play, granted it’s about two and a half hours long, but there are definite scene/act breaks.  The use of dissolves doesn’t help this feeling any, there’s just a very present sense that this was a play.  It makes me want to read the book to see where scenes where expanded upon.

Overall, an excellent movie.  Only Spielberg can put out two movies in the same month, this is also Spielberg’s first digitally edited movie.  Go see this in the theatres, it’s one of those movies that was meant to be viewed on the big screen.

 

Netflix’s First Original Series Is Lilyhammer

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February is going to a special month for Netflix. We’ll see the end of the dreadful standard definition Starz releases and the birth of  its first original series, Lilyhammer.

The show stars the multi-talented Steven Van Zandt, aka Little Steven/Miami Steve, who is known for his guitar/mandolin work in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and his Sopranos character, Silvio Dante. As you might have guessed, Van Zandt reprises a wiseguy role as Frank Tagliano, a former gangster who moves to Norway and tries to make the best of his new life in a witness protection program.

The show is tagged Dark, Quirky, and Understated, which suggests a considerable gamble for Netflix to appeal to a less mainstream audience. Check out the trailer below. We see Van Zandt’s character, Frank Tagliano, in both three piece suits and Nordic sweaters. There’s also plenty of bleeps, a good sign for any fans who love gritty gangster dialog. And for those that doubt the show’s indie credibility, take a look at the credits and confirm names clearly native to Norway. Frank Tagliano’s role is genuinely fish-out-of-water both on and off camera.

Lilyhammer is poised to give great exposure to Norway, those in supporting roles, and mainly Steven Van Zandt, who is not only acting, but also a writer and executive producer of the show.

The trailer also happens to be the first video in Netflix’s YouTube channel.

Source: Netflix

The Adventures of Tin Tin

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I saw The Adventures of Tin Tin, the short of it; Tin Tin’s a reporter in Europe and he stumbles upon a quest for the Unicorn, a ship.  In the process he meets Captain Haddock whose ship has been hijacked/shanghai’ed by the villainous Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine.  Tin Tin must play catch up to Sakharine in a globe trotting quest for a family secret of Haddock’s.

The good; the animation is amazing.  There are a lot of shots where it looks so photo-realistic, then you have the characters walk in, which I love by the way.  They look like the comic book that they’re based on, which is a great way to adapt it to the feature film realm.  The characters’ renderings look almost real, but then there’s the touch of the cartoony nature of their facial features.

The tone is very balanced between the life or death situations to the comedy relief supplied by the bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson.  And only in the animated world can you bring about such over the top, almost slapstick, action sequences.

The film really reminded me of an Indiana Jones movie, it also being a period piece adds to that.  Tin Tin was surrounded by thugs wielding German weapons, another giveaway that they’re baddies, also like Indiana Jones, yet he hardly had a weapon to him, he used his wits.

The bad; the story.  In all honesty, as much as I enjoyed the film, it was a little off.  The action was so over the top that there wasn’t escalating action, if everything is life threatening an outlandingish, then there’s nothing to really outdo one another.  I would rather the film had started with smaller, tamer, action and built up to larger more fanciful sequences.

Another problem I have is the climax of the movie, *SPOILER* it’s between Haddock and Sakharine.  Tin Tin almost had nothing to do in this scene, which I get… but he is the main character, he should help Haddock somehow.  The fight could’ve still been left to the men, but Tin Tin should’ve had more of a role in the climax *END SPOILER*.  Another reason that the climax felt so anti-climactic was of all the action, as mentioned above, if they would’ve saved the most over the top sequence and lessened the others, the ending wouldn’t have been so tame.  Moffat contributing early as one of the writers actually does scream out at me, maybe because I know him from Doctor Who, but in this case he had to leave the project early because he became head writer for Doctor Who.  His essence of fast talky scenes remained though.  Makes me wonder why I don’t sense Edgar Wright’s (Shaun of the Dead)  style bleeding through the film?  He and Joe Cornish (Attack The Block) took over the writing tasks whens Moffat left.

Overall, very enjoyable.  Visual eye candy if nothing else.  I hope to see more in this animation style.  It felt like a good old film that brought us on a journey, Spielberg being behind the helm doesn’t hurt this vibe at all, and this is his first animated feature.   Well done sir!

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is the sequel to the 2009 film.  Again we join Sherlock and Watson on an eve of mystery and intrigue, this time with the infamous Professor Moriarty as the antagonist.  The short of it; the newly married Watson has to cut his honeymoon short to help Holmes stop Professor Moriarty from inciting a war, simple enough?

The good; I love Guy Ritchie’s use of slow motion, it works well with how Sherlock Holmes’ mind works.  There’s some beautiful shots while they’re running in a forest.

I’m unfamiliar with the Sherlock Holmes books, but this film seems to be on its own, which is something I’m totally ok with.  And to add a little bit of history with the Germans being pitted against the French is great.  There’s even a bit of an almost World War I there with the peace summit, loved it.

Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are once again great.  They’re joined by Jared Harris playing Moriarty, and he doesn’t disappoint either.

The bad; the slow motion, I know I mentioned this above, but there were some scenes that I didn’t think deserved the slow motion treatment.  It was more of Ritchie showing us what he could do.  There were also a couple of times where the lighting was too dark, a good portion of this movie does take place at night, but still, that couldv’e been fixed.

Then there’s the plot, this time around the powers of deduction with Holmes felt too easy, they weren’t peppered in throughout the movie like before, instead we just get things explained to us rather than allowed to figure it with him.  It’s a small thing really, but it felt like a Family Guy cutaway, rather than part of the story.

Overall, I enjoyed the first film more, but this sequel is very entertaining.  Go check it out.

 

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

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I saw Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol at the Irvine Spectrum in true IMAX.  The reason for this, was to see the prologue to The Dark Knight Rises.  It’s quite the experience, mostly to showcase Tom Hardy as Bane.  I won’t go too much in to it, but it involves two planes in flight and amazing use of the IMAX camera.

On to Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, it’s about Tom Cruise in pretty much his only well to draw from these days.  He again dons the guise of Ethan Hunt on an impossible mission.  This time it directly follows MI:3, but now the team faces the threat of nuclear war, a premise long since defrosted.  Throw in some great action, BMW cars, spy espionage, and Cruise’s trademark running, then add Brad Bird taking the director duties (live action) and you get a pleasant action movie.

The good; action, action, action.  The action is very well executed.  Modern action films should take a page from Ghost Protocol in that we can see things, there’s a sense of direction and coverage to avoid any confusion or nausea.  In no way are any actions scenes shot in a way that leads you to believe that they are hiding the lack of physical dexterity of the actors on screen.  I guess what I really like is that there are wide shoots, lovely lovely wide shots.

The story is placed in to the continuity of the film franchise, after the third one, but you can also jump directly in to Ghost Protocol with no problem.  In addition, there’s a real sense of urgency and danger, I care for their mission and if they succeed or fail.  That may seem like a no brainer, but you’d be surprised how some movies miss this.

The hardware, they gave us what we expect, tons of gadgets.  Especially in the skyscraper climbing scene, no words can describe it.  From cameras in contacts, to the magnets, right down to the cars… it delivers what I want and expected.

The bad; Ethan Hunt seems a bit too smart.  This can probably be attributed to the fact that it’s Tom Cruise’s character.  Don’t get me wrong, he does get physically beat, but he always comes out of it glowing.  The other team members do get their moments to shine though.  Tom Cruise runs, and he runs well, there’s even a shot with what appears to be a specially built “run cam” that keeps up with his strides at a low angle.

Oh and they all have tailored suits, it’s ridiculously sickening and covetous at the same time, I don’t know whether to applaud or shake my fist.

Overall, definitely worth watching in the theatre.  Good job Brad Bird on your first departure from the animated medium.  I can’t say more without spoiling, but go see it for the action, stay for the espionage.

 

A Year is Such a Long Wait for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

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A new trailer has come out for the much anticipated movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  The movie is about Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit, journeys to the Lonely Mountain accompanied by a group of dwarves to reclaim a treasure taken from them by the dragon Smaug.

I got to say, it looks impressive and makes the wait that much harder.

Official The Dark Knight Rises Trailer!

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If you didn’t catch it with the new Mission Impossible movie this past weekend, then here is the new The Dark Knight Rises trailer!

It shows a lot more than the teaser trailer did. There’s more Anne Hathaway screen time, as well as the main villain Bane. And…a new Bat vehicle.

Summer 2012 can’t come any sooner!

Mirror Mirror versus Snow White and the Huntsman

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It’s the end of 2011, which means we’re starting to see trailers for movies in 2012. Spring and summer are traditionally great times for studios to release big budget blockbusters. 2012 is going to be an interesting year for fans of the Snow White story. They’ll get two servings of this tale re-envisioned by Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman) and Tarsem Singh (Mirror Mirror). Trailers for both are now available for viewers to decide which they’ll see. Let’s compare both and decide which is for you. Is it possible you’ll end up watching both?

Tone

Snow White and the Hunstman embraces a dark tone using stunning visual effects to convey the deeply sinister nature of Queen Ravenna. She’s constructed using the same recipe of the White Witch from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. There’s no mistaking she’s the protagonist and we WILL see her take lives without batting an eye. The trailer is chalk full of CG and I for one never get sick of giant flocks of ravens or exploding glass in slow motion.

I’d be shocked if Mirror Mirror was rated anything higher than PG. Queen Ravenna is once again the star of the story, but this version adds a heavy dose of comedy dialog. Rather than being disgusted at Ravenna, audience members will likely fall in love with her and perhaps hope to see how far she’ll go, although we all know she won’t win. The 7 Dwarfs also appear to play a much more involved role and all seem to have distinct personalities.

Actors

Let’s start off with Queen Ravenna since she obviously has the most dialog in both trailers.

We saw Charlize Theron masterfully portray a serial killer in Monster, so we know she’s capable of playing the bad guy. The difference in this role, however, is that Queen Ravenna is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to looks. Sure, she’s almost always wearing black to remind us of how dead she is inside, but from her shoulders up, she’s absolutely gorgeous, just as you’d expect whenever she’s brought up, which is critical as beauty is the source of Queen Ravenna’s power.

In Mirror Mirror, Queen Ravenna is played by Julia Roberts, who is commonly perceived as America’s sweetheart and that doesn’t change here despite her intentions being evil. As hinted earlier, there are lots of laughs of to be had. Her first line in the trailer ends with a punchline and we see lots of cheeky attitude later with rolling eyes and other cute lines.

The next comparison is more against male leads since the two take different approaches.

Chris Hemsworth gained attention as an action male lead in Thor. He’s a good looking Aussie with tons of muscle definition, but we’re all waiting to see how much depth and emotional range he’s able to deliver. His character’s name is in the title of the movie, but with few words in the trailer, we’re left wondering how involved Eric, the Hunstman is in the plot. Regardless of the trailer’s limitations in showcasing his role, I’d expect to see Hemsworth bring some bone crushing, blood spitting action to the screen.

Armie Hammer did a great job fooling some people into thinking the twins of “Social Network” were two different actors and he’s received some good buzz for his role in J. Edgar. It doesn’t seem like his role Mirror Mirror is as heavy on action as it is on dialog, although he does hold a sword in one scene  of the trailer. He plays a character born into royalty, Prince Alcott, which may also suggest he’s not the fighter type as any privileged person can usually find others to do his dirty work.

Looking at the two Snow White posters is the most obvious way to draw a conclusion between one of the two movies biggest difference.

Kristen Stewart plays Snow White and without any dialog in the trailer, we can only guess how engaging her role will be in Ruper Sanders’ story. Rather than being a helpless damsel in distress, this Snow White carries a sword and shield, ready to fight until death. Will Kristen Stewart embrace the Snow White role or will fans simply buy a ticket just to see another movie with Bella Swan? I dug her as Joan Jett in the Runaways and look forward to this role for her.

Lily Collins may not have the following Kristen Stewart has, but she does have a nice set of Frida-like eyebrows that catch one’s attention. She sprinkles in a few lines here and there within the trailer and I get the impression her character is, in one word, adorable. Unlike the aforementioned version, I’m not expecting to see any crying, screaming, or blood from this Snow White.

The 7 Dwarfs

There’s not much of a comparison here. We get zero insight into the personality of the 7 Dwarfs in Snow White and the Huntsman. They’re illustrated in one of the movie posters, but we aren’t sure how integral they are in the story. In contrast, Mirror Mirror’s trailer shows the 7 Dwarfs taking up additional comedic relief roles.

Visuals

When it comes to visuals, it looks like a tossup between the two movies. Serious attention to detail was spent on action scenes and wardrobe. While Snow White and the Huntsman’s trailer shows plenty of intense battle scenes, Mirror Mirror looks like a grand fashion show starring Snow White and Queen Ravenna.

Bottomline

This isn’t the first time movies touching the same story have come out so close in release dates. A few years back, we saw Philip Seymore Hoffman portraying Truman Capote and thought we had deja vu when the role was later played by Toby Jones.

I see Snow White and the Huntsman targeted towards fans of Lord of the Rings. It has a villain that embodies everything evil, epic battle sequences, and lots of great CG. Mirror Mirror seems to fall under the same category as Enchanted. You can bring the kids and not worry they’ll have nightmares afterwards.

Source:
Snow White and the Huntsman
Mirror Mirror

 

Karine Vanasse Scares Fans Into Thinking Pan Am Is Canceled

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Star of ABC’s Pan Am, Karine Vanesse, tweeted earlier today:

Well, we received THE call, #PanAm is only coming back for one more episode after Christmas. But up to the end, we’ll give it our all !

A few hours after sending fans in a daze, she later followed up:

Sorry for the confusion #PanAm fans; we still have 5 new episodes to air until February! 🙂

It’s uncertain where the misinformation was rooted or if fans should be worried about the show’s future beyond 1 season. Charlie’s Angels has already been given the axe after only 4 episodes, seemingly making Pan Am the winner in our previous comparison.

Source

Pixar’s Brave Full Trailer Released

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Looks like Pixar has just released a new trailer for Brave. 

Brave is a story about Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald), a skilled archer and impetuous daughter of King Fergus and Queen Elinor. Determined to carve her own path in life, Merida defies an age-old custom sacred to the uproarious lords of the land: massive Lord MacGuffin, surly Lord Macintosh and cantankerous Lord Dingwall. Merida’s actions inadvertently unleash chaos and fury in the kingdom, and when she turns to an eccentric old Witch for help, she is granted an ill-fated wish. The ensuing peril forces Merida to discover the meaning of true bravery in order to undo a beastly curse before it’s too late.

The film is scheduled for release on June 22, 2012.