While most fanboys have no doubt already watched the new “Incredible Hulk” trailer several times (check it out here if you haven’t seen it yet), Empire Online has released an informative deconstruction of the two-minute spot by director Louis Leterrier.
Surely you have your reservations about the film (personally, I think The Hulk looks a little too rubbery), but after reading through Leterrier’s discussion, I’m definitely a more interested in seeing the final product than I was after watching the trailer. Along with a detailed reasoning for the Abomination’s look, Leterrier also discusses the film’s climactic (26 minute!) battle and why the trailer took so long to release.
Check it out here, and then come on back to discuss.
Although he’s been bouncing around Hollywood as far back as 1987, when he played Kolya ‘Nikolai’ Rostov on the “Dynasty” spin-off, “The Colbys,” it’s fair to say that Adrian Paul is more often remembered for his role as Duncan McLeod in the “Highlander” saga. After quite a few episodes of the TV series and a feature film, Paul took a break from the “Highlander” universe for several years, but he returned at long last for last year’s “Highlander: The Source,” which turned up on the Sci-Fi Channel and has recently seen DVD release. We spoken to Paul about his experiences in making the film (and whether there’ll be any more), his thoughts on longtime “Highlander” producer Bill Panzer, why his other sci-fi series, “Tracker,” never really took off, and what he’s been working on recently.
Adrian Paul: Hi Will.
Bullz-Eye: Hey Adrian, how’s it going?
AP: Good, good.
BE: So how hard was it to step back into the shoes of Duncan MacLeod after a few years?
AP: It was interesting. It was a different time, too, you know, and they wanted a slightly different type of character; you know, a little darker. But, you know, it’s fine, and you can do that because you know the values of the character; you kind of step back into it and try and find new stuff. So what with the old and the new stuff, you hopefully have a character with some new twists.
BE: Was it painful to lose your katana after all these years?
AP: (Laughs) No. The thing was, I think nothing’s lost, y’know? I mean, we know where it’s buried! But I love the katana. I love tai chi and working with the katana; I find it a very malleable type of weapon. But I do like using other weapons, too, and we wanted to sort of give it a whole different type of flavor. So we tried it, and even though a lot of the fights were sped up…which wasn’t my idea…we had some really interesting fights. The thing was that we actually tried a whole bunch of different types of weapons and stuff so that we’d have a roundabout look on it, but we didn’t know what we were facing when it comes to visual effects. That was an unknown quantity to us, so all we could do was choreograph it and hope for the best.
Will Ferrell’s never been one to show much concern for his questionable script selection. He pretty much does whatever he wants – from streaking in his tighty whites to wrestling bears (twice) – and gets away with it. Since breaking in to the business in 1998 with the “SNL” sketch-turned-feature film “Night at the Roxbury,” Ferrell has been all about quantity over quality. Over the course of the last decade, the actor has appeared in no less than 25 different projects, and for every career highlight like “Anchorman,” there’s been a box office flop like “Bewitched” to balance it out. Surprisingly, Ferrell’s been able to escape such disasters virtually unscathed, but just because Hollywood is willing to forgive him doesn’t mean we are as well.
In honor of his latest film, Bullz-Eye.com revisited the actor’s best and worst cinematic performances of his career. Check out the list here, and then be sure to come back and discuss.
I was having a chat with Film School Reject and Fat Guys at the Movies co-host Kevin Carr last Friday about the Academy Awards. I naively thought that, because of the writers’ strike, this year’s show should be pretty brisk because they won’t have time to prepare any elaborate bits. But Kevin set me straight: he said, because the producers are doing the majority of heavy lifting, the show will be filled with self-congratulatory, back-slapping puff pieces.
Smart guy, that Kevin Carr.
I had an All-Star lineup of writers at my house last night, including Carr, fellow BE critic Jason Zingale, Film School Rejects editor in chief Neil Miller, Nights and Weekends EIC Kristin Dreyer Kramer, and From the Balcony EIC Bill Clark. About 20 minutes into the broadcast, all of us were singing Trey Parker’s “We Need a Montage” song. Holy cow, are the members of the academy proud of themselves. Here are some wacky moments from Oscars past. Here are a bunch of Best Actress winners. Here are a bunch of Best Actor winners. Here are ALL of the Best Picture winners. Thank goodness, then, for Jon Stewart’s tribute to periscopes and binoculars.
As for the awards themselves, there were some pleasant surprises and some pleasant non-surprises. I was thrilled to see Brad Bird get an Oscar for “Ratatouille,” likewise Javier Bardem getting the Supporting Actor award for “No Country for Old Men.” Marion Cotillard snagging Best Actress was a nice shocker too, as was “Falling Slowly” beating three songs from “Enchanted” for Best Song. Mega-bonus points to Stewart for bringing Marketa Irglova back out on stage to say her thank-yous after the orchestra drowned her out.
Something must be done, though, about the academy’s tendency to vote for someone in a category just because they liked the movie and want to make sure it gets some kind of recognition, even if the person in question doesn’t exactly deserve it.
Tilda Swinton, I’m looking at you.
My jaw hit the floor when Entertainment Weekly listed her as the favorite to win. Did they see the movie? She wasn’t all that memorable. Not that she was awful or anything, but between her, Clooney and Tom Wilkinson, she was easily the weakest link in “Michael Clayton,” and she sure as hell was no Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There.” This isn’t grade school, people; if someone doesn’t deserve an award, you don’t give them one just because you don’t want the movie to get shut out. Really, Swinton winning is a joke. It’s like Votefortheworst.com took over Price Waterhouse for a day. I would rather have seen Ruby Dee win than Swinton, and Dee had no business even being nominated. How many lines did she even have in “American Gangster,” six?
By the way, the group and I casted three biopics last night. Casey Affleck should play David Byrne, Amy Adams is the perfect person to play Kirsty MacColl, and Tilda Swinton as…David Bowie. Admit it, you were thinking it too when you saw her fiery red hair.
The producers of the Academy Awards know that their show has a reputation for being unnecessarily long. The strike gave them the perfect opportunity to correct that. They didn’t take it. They made montages. Lots and lots of montages. And in their “honor,” I present them with “The Montage Song.” Boneheads.
Get ready for a future letdown of Anime fans everywhere; Leonardo DiCaprio has signed on to produce a live-action version of the classic Anime hit “Akira.” It has apparently been a project DiCaprio has ben wanting to tackle a long time now, with the usual rights to the licenses being tied up. Of course, changes will be made, the first of which will feature the story being set in New York City and not Tokyo. Yeah. You know, the nice thing about Anime is that it is distinctly Japanese, even when Western pop culture is incorporated into the stories. In this writer’s opinion, it shouldn’t be tinkered with (let alone made into a live action movie). Fans would go to see it, yet undountedly the fear that the majority of American movie goers not “getting” it if it wasn’t tweaked and set in their homeland is the engine pulling the train here. Too bad.
