Category: Comic-Con (Page 7 of 14)

Some travelling music…

July 22, 2009 /

Just a few quick thoughts to keep you busy as I make my way on the long, long journey from Orange County to San Diego for Comic-Con (well, it can feel long).

* Lars von Trier is enjoying the hub-bub around “Antichrist” (soon to have it’s second coming). What part of “provocateur” didn’t we understand?

* Karina has only one thing she’ll miss about the con. (Warning — don’t click while eating unless you find a fake ultra-bloodied Lloyd Kaufman palatable.)

* Also from THR: Michael Jackson’s flirtations with filmmaking. The big surprise — it could have been weirder. Even his meeting with Mel Gibson was apparently not incredibly strange, though Mel hugged a pillow.

* I’ve been reading articles like this for decades. The fact that they’re more or less true doesn’t make them less their inaccuracies/shallowness less annoying. Women have been getting more interested in geek stuff for a very long time. That’s a good thing. Personally, I didn’t notice a humongous “Twilight” contingent last year, but perhaps I’m sheltered.

* And now a clip that will be running through my mind as I approach the convention center.

I’ve never been good at avoiding silly places, obviously.

Comic-Con, External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movies, News

Today in geek film second guessing (updated)

July 21, 2009 /

Something is in the air right now that’s just making movie people a bit whiny, maybe it’s pre-Comic Con jitters impacting today’s perhaps over geekified (even for me) film world. To wit:

— Via Screenrant comes word of Todd Gilchrist‘s post on producer Joel Silver’s reminiscences on the “Watchmen” script he spent years developing, which for a time was attached to San Fernando Valley-bred American Python and genuine auteur Terry Gilliam. Basically, he argues that his version was better and more audience friendly. That’s easy to say now and, especially based on Joel Silver’s legendary rep, one expects exaggeration. Though I had seriously mixed feelings about the Zack Snyder’s version, it’s important to remember that Gilliam abandoned the project as unfilmable at any reasonable movie-length. My feeling is that the recent film, despite some truly brilliant visuals, a clever rewrite of the problematic ending of the original, and a number of really terrific flourishes, largely bears this out, though I’m looking forward to seeing the expanded version. (I kind of hated “300” by the way, but that’s probably less Snyder’s fault than his source material, I’m guessing.)

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Action Movies, Comic-Con, External Movie DVDs, External Movies, Movie DVDs, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

The geek overload continues! (updated)

July 20, 2009 /

With the completely and utterly sold-out Comic-Con starting mid-week, Hollywood publicists seem to be working overtime to fulfill your no doubt insatiable need for geek news. I could probably write seven or eight posts catering to nerd proclivities. But you’re getting just one today, (and, with the help of few snafus, this one took much longer than it should have). A few highlights

* Leonardo DiCaprio’s company has signed writer Rand Ravich (“The Astronaut’s Wife,” the TV series “Life”) to do a new film somehow tied to Rod Serling’s classic anthology science-fiction/fantasy TV series, “The Twilight Zone.” Many of you will remember the 1983 film, which utilized multiple writers and directors and consisted of three adaptations of well known episodes from the original series, one tale loosely drawn from a pair of episodes (sadly infamous due to the accident which killed actor Vic Morrow and two illegally hired children, very nearly ending the career of director John Landis), and a framing story featuring Albert Brooks and Dan Aykroyd. No word on what form this new film would take — a single tale would be missing the entire point of “The Twilight Zone,” IMO — and I’m unfamiliar with Ravich’s work. So, it’ll be interesting to watch this one move further along the pipeline.

[Update: Apparently, one year ago at least, the idea was to make a single film drawn from an episode of the series. Why, I have no idea. I learned this via Monika Bartyzel, you can read her post and my messed up comments here.

* The word on the overseas grosses for “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” are in and they’re a new worldwide five day record of $297 million. Blimey.

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Action Movies, Actors, Comic-Con, External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

And the geek overload begins in earnest…

July 16, 2009 /

And why would that be? Well, next Wednesday night is the kick-off of San Diego’s now humongous Comic-Con, an event I’ve been attending off and on, but mostly on, since I was a barely pubescent geekling, and both me and the con have changed a little over the years.

The con has grown into something truly enormous and become less fun, and I’ve definitely grown (a little) bigger. I’ll leave the “fun” judgment to others. Like the con also, I’ve also definitely grown less comics-obsessed and more exclusively film/television focused — partly as a function of cost and partly of time. I’m not sure what the con’s excuse is.

In any case, I find myself unable to focus on any one topic right now and am fretting about things like whether or not there will be free wi-fi again this year, but as the event I call “Cannes for geeks” grows ever closer, we’ll be visiting with our old family friends, the Asterisks.

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Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, Comic-Con, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

Expansions

June 5, 2009 /

Just a couple of items where some more information might be of interest.

* I linked yesterday to a Variety story reporting that James Cameron had signed with mega-agency CAA. Last night, however, ace gadfly muckraker Nikki Finke reported that it was merely a new camera technology developed for Cameron’s upcoming “Avatar” 3-D extravaganza, not Cameron himself, that the agency will be repping. In true Finkean style, she can’t resist taking a swipe at Variety in the process, though I guess it might be earned in this case.

Sigourney Weaver* On a more pleasant and actually interesting note, we have some news about Sigourney Weaver‘s upcoming projects, after discussing her — well, actually, Ellen Ripley — topping Total Sci-Fi’s list of female science fiction icons yesterday. For one thing, I didn’t realize until now Ms. Weaver is one of the stars of the aforementioned “Avatar” (as is Will Harris’s talented Facebook buddy Dileep Rao).

But that’s far from all, JA at The Film Experience is waxing enthusiastic over her possible casting (it’s not truly confirmed yet, I gather) in another sci-fi film, of sorts. “Paul” is to be directed by Greg Mottola of “Superbad” and “Adventureland” and written by and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost of “Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz,” and “Spaced” fame. Apparently the film has something to do with a couple of British comic book geeks (Pegg and Frost) traveling cross-country from Comic-Con who meet up with Seth Rogen — I gather possibly animated or CGI’d or something — as an alien named, naturally, Paul at Nevada’s Area 51 (at least that’s how SlashFilm’s Paul Sciretta has it). It will also feature Bill Hader, Jane Lynch, Jason Bateman and Kristen Wiig.

Sounds pretty good, but JA was also good enough to mention another comedy casting for Ms. Weaver, this in “You Again,” which will star Kristin Bell, a particular favorite over here. As JA points out, it will re-team the high talented, geek-friendly Bell with director Andy Fickman, who elicited one of her most interesting performances in “Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical” back in 2005. At the risk of going off on a bit of tangent (and, by the way, just happening to mention my lengthy 2007 blog post on Fickman’s entertaining, though highly imperfect, movie), did you know that the former Veronica Mars can, as the Western codgers say, sing purty?

Don’t worry, she gets a lot less wholesome later on…

Actors, Actresses, Comic-Con, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies, TV Comedies

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