You might have seen it elsewhere by now, but in case you haven’t, here’s a very cool little clip from “Iron Man 2” entitled “Making an Entrance.” (H/t Darren Franch.) It definitely makes the second film look like it will be as much fun as the first.
Any how, since dramatic entrances are always fun, I’ve got a couple more that weren’t so bad, right after the jump.
Conspicuously red-headed, twenty-something “Flame” (Thure Lindhart, “Angels and Demons“) is both a tortured romantic and an efficient killer and anti-Nazi patriot. Whether the target is a Gestapo officer or a pro-Nazi journalist, he’s efficient and not too concerned with moral fine-points — except, perhaps, when it comes to women. Former automotive saboteur “Citron” (Mads Mikkelson, the evil Le Chiffre of “Casino Royale“), however, is overtly troubled by the job, and even more so by his deteriorating marriage. Things become torturous for the pair, comrades but perhaps not quite friends, when a series of events involving questionable leadership, traitors within the resistance, and Flame’s emotional attachment to a sexy and sympathetic resistance spy (Stine Stengade) makes them wonder just how many of right and wrong people they’ve been killing, and why the local Gestapo head (Christian Berkel) isn’t one of them.
“Flame and Citron” attempts to blend the blunt realism of an anti-Nazi resistance thriller like Jean-Pierre Melville’s recently rediscovered “Army of Shadows” with a contemporary action film. Initially, director/co-writer Ole Christian Madsen’s bombast and an overlong first act partially derail matters in this 2008 Danish language production, but once it gets going, the film achieves its goal and becomes an honest look at the real cost of killing. A genuinely affecting, complex story kept remarkably clear by Madsen, strong acting (sometimes too strong), and some painfully effective action sequences makes this film a bitterly poignant reminder of the real cost of World War II.
If Easter is your bag, here’s hoping you’re enjoying the day with your peeps. However, be extremely wary if too many of them suddenly appear…
Via Roger Ebert’s Twitter feed. And, yeah, “f–k–g GREAT” is an apt descriptor.
Performing completely as expected and discussed previously here, Warner Brothers’ “Clash of the Titans” earned a technically record-breaking estimated $61.4 million over this Easter holiday weekend as recorded by Box Office Mojo. I say “technically” of course because ticket prices have been skyrocketing for sometime now. So, while it says something that audiences are still willing to pay the increasing freight in the face of a not so great, but perhaps gradually improving, economy, I personally get a bit irritated with this constant trumpeting of broken records.
Still, as much as this reminds of me of ultra-geek baseball stats, I can’t ignore that the past Easter weekend record holder was, as per Anne Thompson’s resident box office guru, Anthony D’Alessandro, 2006’s “Scary Movie 4” at $40.2 million. I’m no math whiz, but I don’t think ticket prices have gone up by quite a third since then. So, it’s definitely a strong performance for the critic-proof, mythological monster-heavy sword & sandals fantasy remake. However, executives who will use the performance to bolster arguments for retrofitting yet more movies to 3-D might want to examine the trends a bit more closely. D’Allesandro remarks:
In a last-minute post-production business move that paid off, Warner Bros. decided to 3D-ify Titans, stirring debate among critics and fans that retrofitted visual fare just doesn’t cut it. No matter if you agree with Zeus or Hades on the dimensional debate, Titans played fine with all audiences, earning 52% of its B.O. from 1,800 3D huts.
Well, yes, but it appears to me that all that discussion about the relative quality of 3-D processes filtered out to the general public. 52% isn’t bad, of course, especially considering the brutal competition for screens. However, compare that to the numbers provided last week by the L.A. Times‘ Ben Fritz. 80% of the grosses for the technologically game-changing “Avatar” made using 3-D cameras, have come from 3-D and 70% for another 3-D film shot with conventional cameras, “Alice in Wonderland,” which got less criticism for its after-the-fact 3-D. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m guessing that Tim Burton‘s visuals are generally pretty stunning however you slice them and, though some have been certainly been critical, it probably helped that he at least knew the film would be presented that way while he was making the film, unlike “Titans” director Louis Leterrier.
Rob Bricken wasn’t sure why the trailer for “The Expendables” excited him more than this new trailer for the A-Team movie. I’ve got two words for him: obvious, unlovely CGI. Also, the jokes aren’t funny.
Still, even though I never watched the original series, this still has my moderate interest. Maybe.
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