Posts

Reaction: ‘The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty’ Footage Sparks Early Oscar Buzz By Peter Sciretta/April 18, 2013 3:00 pm EST After the jump you can read my thoughts on the footage screened from Mitty, or watch a video blog I recorded with Alex from Firstshowing talking about presentations of footage from The Wolverine, Epic, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Walking With Dinosaurs: The Movie. I must admit, I have never seen the old Danny Kaye movie or read the book The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is based on, so pardon my ignorance to this film....

Reese Witherspoon And Sofia Vergara Team Up For Summer 2015 Buddy Comedy By Germain Lussier/May 9, 2014 6:00 am EST For a long time, the buddy action comedy was almost exclusively a male thing. Then, last summer, Paul Feig made The Heat and proved to Hollywood that a team of two women could be just as awesome and profitable. Next Summer we’re getting a similar movie. Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara are set to co-star in a buddy action comedy formerly called Don’t Mess With Texas....

Simon Pegg On The American Remake Of Spaced By Peter Sciretta/March 2, 2008 1:12 pm EST If you’re a huge fan of Edgar Wright, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg (you know, the guys who brought us Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), than you’ve might have seen their now cult classic British television show Spaced. The original series, which ran on Channel 4 in the U.K. for two seasons, was written by Pegg and Jessica Hynes, and was directed by Wright....

Star Wars Bits: Battlefront, Comic-Con, Celebration, Alternate Titles, Rebels, George Lucas Museum By Germain Lussier/May 9, 2014 1:30 pm EST One of the bigger pieces of Star Wars news this week was Ain’t It Cool News’ declaration a potential working title for Star Wars Episode VII was An Ancient Fear. It spawned lots of debate online, as well as a few other potential titles Abrams is using during filming. (In Star Wars history, and subsequently in movie history, an alternate title is used during filming to throw fans off the scent....

Studio Ghibli Clarifies Future Plans (Slightly) By Russ Fischer/Aug. 8, 2014 7:00 am EST The internet nearly exploded a few days ago when a poor translation of quotes from Toshio Suzuki of Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli suggested the company would cease production of new animation. The situation is a bit different than that, as Ghibli is looking at “housecleaning” or “restructuring” as it moves forward. While the company’s animated features are work-intensive and very expensive to create, Studio Ghibli isn’t necessarily giving up just yet....

Superhero Bits: X-Men Days Of Future Past, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Sin City 2, Ghost Rider, Dr. Strange By Germain Lussier/May 26, 2014 11:10 am EST Want to read about the consequences of the ending of X-Men: Days of Future Past? How much money did the film make in its opening weekend? Where can you get a bunch of hi-res screencaps from the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer? Did Simon Kinberg change his tune about a Fantastic Four/X-Men crossover?...

THX App Calibrates Home Theaters With Your Phone By Germain Lussier/Jan. 31, 2013 3:00 pm EST Moviegoers know they’re in good hands when a speaker-shattering THX promo plays before a film. It means the theater lives up to the standards of the LucasFilm-created company that specializes in sound and picture quality. Home theaters claim to be able to produce those crisp images and perfect sound too, but for most of us, it’s hard to tell if our systems are calibrated correctly....

TV Bits: ‘SNL’, ‘Downton Abbey’, ‘Hannibal’, ‘Arrested Development’, ‘HIMYM’, ‘Zombieland’, Mike Judge, The CW By Angie Han/May 17, 2013 8:00 am EST Saturday Night Live will look quite a bit different when it returns this fall. Bill Hader has announced that he’ll be exiting the series following this weekend’s season finale, and a separate unconfirmed report indicates that Jason Sudeikis and Fred Armisen may be on their way out as well....

VOTD: How Industrial Light & Magic Created The Hulk In ‘The Avengers’ By Angie Han/March 1, 2013 10:00 am EST Though three different actors have played Bruce Banner on the big screen in the past decade, only one can really say he also played the Hulk. When Mark Ruffalo appeared as the iconic character in last summer’s The Avengers, he was the first actor to actually portray the Hulk half of the character in motion-capture....

Watch A Video Essay On The Invisible Style Of Steven Spielberg’s Long Takes By Russ Fischer/May 14, 2014 9:00 am EST The long take is a celebrated aspect of filmmaking; we love the long take because it combines showmanship, storytelling, and technical skill. Some filmmakers use long takes audaciously, while others use them as a way to immerse the viewer in the action of a scene. Another aspect of filmmaking technique that was once prized in Hollywood and is now rarely discussed with respect to modern filmmakers is invisible style....

Why Isn’t Ivan Reitman Directing Ghostbusters 3? By Peter Sciretta/Aug. 18, 2014 7:00 am EST Ghostbusters 3 has been trying to make its way to the big screen for years now, but for whatever reason Sony has yet to give the threequel a greenlight. Following the passing of Harold Ramis, Ghostbusters series director Ivan Reitman stepped down for the prospective directorial duties, instead stepping into a producer role. But why isn’t Ivan Retiman going to direct Ghostbusters 3?...

‘Downton Abbey’ Star Dan Stevens To Play Lancelot In ‘Night At The Museum 3’ By Angie Han/Nov. 11, 2013 9:21 am EST Stevens rose to fame playing handsome heir Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey, but broke hearts the world over when he departed the costume drama at the end of last season. Since then, he’s cropped up in the Edwardian romance Summer in February and the underperforming WikiLeaks biopic The Fifth Estate....

‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ Movie Toy Set Features Iron Man And Nova By Germain Lussier/April 2, 2014 12:30 pm EST In the Marvel Comics, Iron Man and Nova are well-known allies of the Guardians of the Galaxy. So if those characters happened to appear in a Guardians of the Galaxy toy set, it wouldn’t be that big of a surprise. What would be a surprise is if those two appeared with Guardians toys from the movie, with the costumes and likenesses of Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista and Zoe Saldana....

‘Identity Thief’ Trailer: The Dangers Of Taking The Law Into Your Own Hands By Russ Fischer/Dec. 18, 2012 10:47 am EST The first trailer for Identity Thief, from Horrible Bosses director Seth Gordon, set up a pretty simple situation where Melissa McCarthy plays a woman who steals the identity of Jason Bateman, and is living the good life with his money. He tracks her down, and finds that the Hobbit-like woman is tougher and more determined than she seems....

‘Jupiter Ascending’ Trailer 2: Channing Tatum And Mila Kunis Expand Your Universe By Germain Lussier/March 26, 2014 4:30 pm EST The second full Jupiter Ascending trailer is now online. It’s the latest sci-fi spectacle from Lana and Andy Wachowski, the writer and director siblings who previously tackled the genre in The Matrix Trilogy, Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas. This time they’ve got Channing Tatum protecting a princess played by Mila Kunis in what seems to be one of the most unique looking sci-fi films in recent memory....

‘Planes: Fire And Rescue’ Trailer: Dusty Goes From Racing To Saving By Germain Lussier/Feb. 5, 2014 10:30 am EST Removing racing from Disney’s Planes could be a risk, but the trailer for the sequel Planes: Fire and Rescue suggests it might have paid off. The new story picks up after the events of the first film, and Dusty (Dane Cook) realizes he might not be able to race again. He tries to turn his racing skills into a more noble cause, hoping to join a team of planes who put out forest fires....

‘The Hobbit: There And Back Again’ Moved Back To December 2014 By Germain Lussier/Feb. 28, 2013 6:37 pm EST Briefly: For a moment, after Peter Jackson revealed The Hobbit would be three films, the series’ third installment was scheduled to be the first of his Middle-Earth films released in summer. That moment has passed. Warner Bros. has moved the conclusion to The Hobbit trilogy, The Hobbit: There And Back Again, to winter....

‘Trance’ Review: Danny Boyle’s Latest Dazzles Then Fizzles By Germain Lussier/April 3, 2013 6:00 pm EST Danny Boyle’s latest film, Trance, is a victim of its own ingenuity. It’s a film about memory and how a person is defined by their memories. These memories can be tampered with, removed, replaced, even changed ever so slightly to make reality seem different than it actually is. To bolster those ideas, Boyle gives the film a lurid feel....

Alfonso Cuarón May Direct Harry Potter Spin-Off ‘Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them’ By Russ Fischer/May 19, 2014 9:10 am EST We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. There’s nothing official yet, but fans of the film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban may have a big reason to anticipate the new Harry Potter spin-off film, Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them. Reports this morning say that Alfonso Cuarón, fresh off the triumph of Gravity, is readying a return to the Potter franchise....

Ang Lee Turns “Unfilmable” ‘Life Of Pi’ Into A Demonstration Of The Power Of Cinema [NYFF Review] By Angie Han/Sept. 29, 2012 2:20 pm EST After receiving strong early buzz thanks to some alluring clips and teasers, Life of Pi had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival this week. Lee cautioned us ahead of time that he was still putting the final touches on the movie, so the version that hits theaters may differ slightly from the one we saw....