Movies – Page 5 – Geeking Out About…

Trailer Watch: Inception first official trailer

2010-05-09 Trisha Lynn1 Comment

Well, I think I can officially say that director Christopher Nolan is off his rocker. Just take a look at the below and see if you don’t agree with me.

Here’s a more detailed synopsis of what you just saw:

Acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan directs an international cast in an original sci-fi actioner that travels around the globe and into the intimate and infinite world of dreams. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb’s rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible—inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming. This summer, your mind is the scene of the crime.

I have to say that now that we know a little more about Inception, I really wish that we didn’t. I groaned the instant I heard Leonardo DiCaprio’s character say that he was doing “one last job,” and I also may have gagged a little when it flashed to a scene of him being emotional while cradling Marion Cotillard, presumably an ex-wife or a former lover.

At the same time, though, the visuals look amazing and I think I’m in love with the idea of being able to use your dreams against you. We’ve already seen in Minority Report how the future can be manipulated, now your subconscious? Really chilling.

Starring DiCaprio, Cotillard, Ellen Page, and Cillian Murphy, Inception will be in theaters in the U.S. on July 16.

Quick Cuts: 20th Century Fox to make prequel about “damn dirty” Apes, and other stories

2010-05-07 Trisha Lynn

Just in case you weren’t convinced that New Zealand’s WETA Digital was the go-to SFX house these days, 20th Century Fox will be using them to produce all of the genetically altered-primates in CGI for their film Rise of the Apes, a prequel to the classic sci-fi movie series which was begun by 1968’s Planet of the Apes. The movie will be directed by Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist) from a script by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (The Relic), and will be released in the U.S. on June 24, 2011. (Source: The Hollywood Reporter)
Dashing my hopes for a female-powered view on Captain America, British actor Toby Jones has entered the final round of negotiations to become the movie’s second villain, Arnim Zola. He’ll join Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull as Chris Evans’ antagonists, and I think I’m starting to see how the storyline’s shaping up and will end with Cap on ice and Zola in a robot suit. (Source: The Hollywood Reporter‘s Heat Vision blog)
Finally, if you’ve ever wanted to see all of Metropolis, the sci-fi silent film by Fritz Lang that inspired Blade Runner amongst others, head on over to the Film Forum in New York City today where they will be showing the film in its original complete version for the first time to audiences since its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 1927. Hidden away in a private film archive in Buenos Aires, we have Argentine film archivists Fernando Peña and Paula Félix-Didier to thank for rescuing the movie from the bureaucratic red tape. The most interesting quote from the story?

“It’s no longer a science-fiction film,” said Martin Koerber, a German film archivist and historian who supervised the latest restoration and the earlier one in 2001. “The balance of the story has been given back. It’s now a film that encompasses many genres, an epic about conflicts that are ages old. The science-fiction disguise is now very, very thin.”

Additional screenings in other cities and a DVD will follow later this year. (Source: The New York Times)

Trailer Watch: “Illegal” Machete first trailer

2010-05-06 Trisha Lynn4 Comments

Boosted from the fine folks at Ain’t It Cool News.com comes what Machete director Robert Rodriguez is calling his “illegal” trailer, and is the first official look at the plot to the film.

I love, love, love the casting of this movie because in addition to Danny Trejo being just badass in general, Michelle Rodriguez gets to kick ass with dual pistols, Jessica Alba gets to be Hispanic, Cheech Marin dual wields shotguns in a priest’s frock, and then you’ve got the “evil” white guys played by none other than Robert DeNiro, Jeff Fahey, and Lindsay Lohan…

God, if loving “Mexsploitation” is bad, then tie me up and call me a piñata!

Jim Henson Co. to return to the world of the Gelflings in sequel to Dark Crystal

2010-05-05 Trisha Lynn3 Comments

If you’re a geek of a certain age, then you definitely remember the movie your parents may have taken you to where someone who sounded like Gonzo attacked an elf. (Whoops, spoilers?)

That movie was called The Dark Crystal, and as a young girl, I was confused by it because some of the voices I loved on “The Muppet Show” were coming out of bodies that were hunched over, vulture-shaped, and decidedly not silly or chicken-loving.

It wasn’t until I began my “geek awakening” in my teens that I learned that the Jim Henson Co. created the movie in 1982 to showcase their talents as puppeteers and legitimate storytellers, and would do again in 1986 with Labyrinth, and again in 1999 with “Farscape.”

It’s enough to make me wonder why puppeteers are so darn touchy about their craft.

Anyhow, the folks at the Jim Henson Co. are at it again, for Pip Bulbeck at The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the news that Daybreakers directors Peter and Michael Speirig will be heading up a sequel to that original 1980s film to be called Power of the Dark Crystal.

Partnered in the production will be Australian company Omnilab Media who have had their hands and wallets into such productions as Where the Wild Things Are and the upcoming Tomorrow, When the War Began. They’re bringing their own special effects house Illoura to the party, and giving them the control of the CGI elements.

The plot of the story, written by Australian Craig Pearce (Moulin Rouge!, Charlie St. Cloud) from an original script by Annette Duffy and David Odell, will go like this:

Set hundreds of years after the events of the first movie when the world has once again fallen into darkness, Power of the Dark Crystal follows the adventures of a mysterious girl made of fire who, together with a Gelfling outcast, steals a shard of the legendary crystal in an attempt to reignite the dying sun that exists at the center of the planet.

That kinda has me confused, because my quick refresher trip to Wikipedia noted that there were three suns which while in conjunction created the event which restored peace and harmony to the Crystal planet; now there’s a fourth sun inside the middle of the planet? I guess it’s just something I’ll have to overlook if I want to see Gelflings again (and I do).

No word yet on exactly when production will commence.

Sam Rockwell joins cast of Cowboys and Aliens

2010-05-04 Trisha Lynn

In an exclusive report on The Hollywood Reporter‘s Heat Vision blog, Borys Kit revealed that Sam Rockwell will be playing a beefed up role in the live-action adaptation of Cowboys and Aliens, directed by Jon Favreau.

The story about the part he’s going to be playing is pretty interesting, too. See, Favreau also directed a little movie called Iron Man 2, in which Rockwell is playing one of the antagonists. The instant that he and the Cowboys writers learned that Rockwell was interested in playing the barkeep Doc, they instantly changed the role from being a big heavy-set dude to being someone a little more Rockwell-shaped and changed the character’s personality and motivation a little bit as well.

Already cast in the movie are Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde and Harrison Ford; filming starts in June.

Summit Entertainment to manage The Impossible with Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor

2010-05-03 Trisha Lynn

It seems as if Summit Entertainment has a lot of faith in Naomi Watts these days, for not long after it purchased the rights to one film with with her in it, the studio decided to pick up another.

According to Gregg Kilday at The Hollywood Reporter, the latest buy was for a film called The Impossible, which will star Watts and Ewan McGregor in a story that’s based on some real-life events that took place during the 2004 tsunami that hit Thailand. The film will be directed by Juan Antonio Bayona from a script by Sergio G. Sánchez for two Spanish companies, Apaches Entertainment and Telecino Cinema, who are acting as co-producers.

Looking around at the various websites who also reported on this news, it doesn’t look like anyone from Summit, Apaches, or Telecino wants anyone to know exactly what the film will be about because there isn’t a more detailed synopsis available, not even over at Deadline Hollywood.

Filming will begin in August in Alicante, Spain before moving to Thailand in October; hopefully, we’ll have more concrete news by then.