Category: External Movies (Page 249 of 336)

And the geek overload begins in earnest…

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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And in other movieland news….

* MGM is looking more solvent than before, with the help of its significant library. La Finke toldja.

* Willem Dafoe has been cast as sympathetic Martian Tars Tarkas in Andrew Stanton’s upcoming “John Carter of Mars.” It’s been a very long time since I read the books, but the character description reminds me of his “Platoon” character, just a little.

* Where does an actor for whom the ladies swoon go in the masculinity department after playing the hirsuite badass Wolverine and the heroic Gable-esque lead in “Australia“? Well, if you’re movie star/Oscar host Hugh Jackman, you play an Avon cosmetics sales person. I had an aunt who did that; I got aftershave for my tenth birthday.

* After the news of Harry Potter’s big haul (see the post just below), we’ll be seeing more like this, I’m sure.

* Not coincidentally, the blogger-boy cause celebre del dia boils down to a Hogwartsian architectural design and a suspiciously Potter-esque font, and basic concept, in the trailer for something called “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.” My reaction: Chris Columbus is directing, so I’m not sure why anyone even cares. See for yourself…

Did Twitter kill Brüno?

I was looking forward to seeing “Brüno.” “Borat” was hilarious, and the scenes released by the studio for “Brüno” were funny. Unfortunately, the film fell a little flat. Some scenes were funny, but most were not, and too many of the scenes seemed staged this time around. I just started using Twitter so I sent out a note (I hate the word “Tweet”) about the film. Apparently I wasn’t the only one.

In the old days — like, until yesterday — movie studios judged the success of their big pictures by how much they grossed on the opening weekend. But in the age of Twitter, electronic word-of-mouth is immediate, as early moviegoers tweet their opinions on a film to millions of “followers.” Instant-messaging can make or break a film within 24 hours. Friday is the new weekend.

That appears to be the lesson from the studio estimates issued on July 13 for the weekend box office. Brüno, the Sacha Baron Cohen docu-comedy in which an Austrian fashion journalist shoves his flamboyant gayness in the faces and other body parts of unsuspecting Americans, won the weekend with $30.4 million, a bit above most industry expectations for an R-rated provocation whose star was unknown to the mass audience until his Borat became a surprise hit in 2006, earning more than $260 million at theaters worldwide on an $18 million budget. Yet Brüno’s box-office decline from Friday to Saturday indicates that the film’s brand of outrage was not the sort to please most moviegoers — and that their tut-tutting got around fast. Brüno could be the first movie defeated by the Twitter effect.

Ouch!

If you’ve got a thirst for a new vampire flick…

…this trailer will probably convince you that you could do a lot worse than “Thirst,” directed by Chan-wook Park, who also brought us “Oldboy” and “Lady Vengeance.”

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that the inspiration to post this trailer – which, as you may already have discovered, is a red-band trailer and requires that you enter your birth date before you can view it – came as a result of receiving a package in the mail from the film’s publicists which contained a bag of “blood” and a straw.

Of course, it’s only juice with some seriously red food coloring added, but as it stands right now, I still haven’t dared to take a taste. I definitely will do so in the near future (specifically, when my wife and daughter get home, so they can bear witness to it), but I’m not sure how quickly my fellow Bullz-Eye contributor, Jason Zingale, will be taking a hit off his bag.

“I still haven’t braved drinking it,” he said, “but less because I’m worried what it will taste like and more because it’s just plain creepy.”

Sure, it’s creepy. Isn’t that the point? Drink up, Jason!

More comic book-to-movie stuff

I’ve got a thoroughly crazy day ahead and it’s anyone’s guess whether I’ll be posting about the Wednesday release of the new “Harry Potter” flick or any other important movie-world news tonight or tomorrow. In the meantime, though, a couple of quick links to stuff that’s been going on in the film/geek-sphere of things.

* First of all, just in case you haven’t been reading, say, Cinematical, Variety, or CHUD, as was long ago prognosticated, Natalie Portman will be the love interest in the upcoming film based on Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s “The Mighty Thor.” Indeed, her character will be based on one from the comic’s early days. Christopher Campbell has the blog reaction. I’m cool with it, personally.

* AICN has the (very lengthy) scoop on the comic book film from the highly underrated Matthew Vaughn (who I personally feel is much better filmmaker than his old partner, Guy Ritchie). I’m not familiar with the very odd sounding “Kick-Ass” but I’m willing to give this one a go, though I get the feeling I might wind up closing my eyes a few times as I did during the jail sequence in “Watchmen.” On the other hand, I kind that I kind of like stylish movie violence. Yeah, I’m a walking mass of contradictions.

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