Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Thomas Hayden Church to Star in Spider-Man 3

Today it was reported by the Hollywood Reporter that Thomas Hayden Church, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar this year for Sideways, will be starring in Spider-Man 3 as the villain. It was not revealed who that villain will be however, sending the fan community into a flurry of speculation. The top 2 names being thrown around right now are Venom and the Sandman. Director, Sam Raimi has said before that he didn't want to do Venom, but an effects supervisor from the film has recently been quoted as saying they've done preliminary work on Venom effects. Tobey Maguire has also been quoted several times as wanting to see the Sandman in a future movie. Previously, the most rumored villains were Hobgoblin and the Lizard, but there are already actors in both of those characters' alter-egos' roles in the first two films, making Church an unlikely candidate for either of those 2. Personally I really like Church, but I'll reserve my judgement on how appropriate he is until I hear who he will be playing.

Saturday, March 19, 2005

The Island Trailer

The trailer for director, Michael Bay's new sci-fi action movie, The Island is now online at Apple Trailers. I think it looks really cool, even though I usually hate Michael Bay movies (but I LOVE Scarlett Johansson). One thing I will give him is that his films usually make for cool trailers, so hopefully there's more to this one than that. This summer's packed with high profile movies, so we'll see how The Island stacks up against the sure to be stiff competition then. If nothing else, I'll be happy to stare at Scarlett for two hours.

Friday, March 18, 2005

War of the Worlds Trailer and Batman Begins Poster


Batman Begins poster
Originally uploaded by waggy182.
Today I have news on my two most anticipated movies of the summer.

War of the Worlds: The new teaser is up at Apple Trailers and can be viewed here. I am so psyched for this film. You don't see too much in this trailer besides a lot of character moments with Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. The end has some great action shots, but just barely enough to whet your appetite. This looks like it could easily be Speilberg's best film since Saving Private Ryan, and should mark the return to his crazy spectacle film-making that AI and Minority Report fell short of.

Batman Begins: Pictured above is the new Batman one-sheet (click here for a larger version). Very cool shot. So far the costume has always looked great to me in context, and not so good out of context (like set photos and stuff). Hopefully it will look great in the film. They're starting the series over with this one, so everyone that hated the more recent Batman movies can come back. All the script reviews I've read so far have been through the roof, and you can't beat that cast. I could not be more excited for this movie to hit.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Joss Whedon to Write and Direct Wonder Woman


Wonder Woman teaser poster
Originally uploaded by waggy182.
Today the official announcement was made on a rumor that's been flying around the web for a while now. The Wonder Woman feature film will be written and directed by none other than Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and writer of the Astonishing X-men comic book series. Whedon also did some limited work on the script for the first X-Men movie. This is great news. I love Whedon's take on superheroes and I'm sure he'll do great with Wonder Woman. WW can be a tough character to nail down. She is probably the third most well known superhero in the world after Superman and Batman, but has never had a feature film or a truly defining storyline. This should give Whedon plenty of room to play around, since people recognize the character but don't have as many preconceived ideas on what a Wonder Woman movie should be, as they did with Batman or Spider-man. Now they just have to sign Catherine Zeta Jones to star and I'll be overjoyed. Click the image above to see a bigger version of the teaser poster by fan-favorite artist, Adam Hughes, and go here for more info on the movie.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Paul Greengrass Talks Watchmen

Chud.com has a very good interview up with Paul Greengrass, the director of the upcoming Watchmen movie. You can read the first half of that here. I think the author of the article really sums up the fan community's feelings on the film well. We're excited about it, but we also fear it. Watchmen is largely considered the greatest comic series of all time and personally is my favorite book ever (yes I describe it as a "book"), so we are all more than a little worried they'll screw it up. I like the way Greengrass comes off here though. He seems very reverant of the material, but he comes at it from a film perspective instead of a comic perspective, which should help him figure out what works in a movie and what doesn't, whereas most comic fans would try to jam everything in there. I'm still a little unsure of how this would work set today, as opposed to being a 1980's period piece. I understand that it has to be done, but I hope bringing the story to 2005 doesn't harm the material. Can't wait till they start announcing some casting decisions on this one. Watchmen can be purchased at Amazon.com for the bargain price of $13.57.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Matthew Vaughn to Direct X3

Late last night it was reported at Ain't It Cool News that the third movie in the X-Men series will be helmed by Matthew Vaughn, the director of Layer Cake, a British crime movie that is set to come to the United States soon. Vaughn also produced Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch. Rumors have been flying about who would direct the film ever since Bryan Singer left the franchise to restart Superman, usually hovering around Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator, Joss Whedon, who is currently writing the Astonishing X-Men comic series (my favorite comic on the shelves right now). While I would have loved to see Joss do it, I am very pleased with this news. I've heard nothing but good things about Layer Cake, and I find it interesting that they've gone with another crime director with a visual flair, much like they did with Singer who had just come off the Usual Suspects. It is widely believed that this next film would cover the "Dark Phoenix" plotline, which is generally considered the greatest X-Men storyline ever.

In other news, rumors of Quentin Tarantino directing a Friday the 13th movie have been debunked by the man himself. He says he'd love to do a horror movie but not one in that particular series. At the moment he is still planning to film Inglorious Bastards next.

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Star Wars trailer reactions, Fantastic Four poster, and Zathura trailer


Fantastic Four Poster
Originally uploaded by waggy182.
Lots of stuff to talk about today, so let's get started.

Star Wars: Hopefully everyone caught the Star Wars trailer on thursday night. If you missed it, you can view it through a couple of links here. It's funny the way I went through the series of emotions during this trailer that I've had about the first two prequels so far, albeit in a different order. The first minute or so is the boring politics and bad dialogue that has been the prequel trilogy's biggest criticism so far. I remember thinking "Wow did they drop the ball on this one". Then the action starts.... HOLY CRAP, this movie is gonna be ridiculous. There were SO many cool shots in the montage that takes up pretty much the whole second half of the trailer (some of which I actually considered to be significant spoiler material, so consider yourselves warned). Then we come to the "money shot". That final image of Darth Vader and the emperor.... Wow, I'm speechless. If the movie itself gets me excited the way the latter half of this preview did, then I'd definitely have to take back all the harsh comments I've made about George Lucas over the last few years (well, most of them at least).

Fantastic Four: The new Fantastic Four one-sheet (or poster for non-movie geeks) is pictured above. Click it for a larger version. Pretty cool shot. Basically the same poster that we saw before except they added some "power" effects. I still haven't been really wowed by anything I've seen from this one, which really disappoints me because I am a huge fan of the Fantastic Four comics. Right now I'm just hoping this turns out to be one of those movies that completely blows away expectations, like 2000's X-Men did.

Zathura: I'm sure very few people reading this have heard of this movie. It's a new sci-fi/fantasy picture from Jon Favreau, who directed Elf. He also wrote and starred in one of my favorite movies, Swingers which brought the world Vince Vaughn (trust me, it's money). The teaser trailer was just released and can be viewed here. You don't see too much here, but I liked what I saw. If the premise seems a little like Jumanji, that's not a coincidence. It's based on a novel from the same author. This looks like it could be a really fun kids' movie that adults could enjoy too, much like Elf was.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Star Wars Episode 3 poster and trailer

Here is the new Star Wars Episode 3 poster (if it's not coming up, go here). The original Star Wars trilogy are 3 of my favorite movies ever, but I haven't been too big on the Star Wars prequels. I love that poster though. It's about a million times better than the first one they released which looked like a bad photoshop job. The full trailer will be on TV Thursday night during The OC which is on Fox at 8 PM. Yeah, I hate that show too (how can everyone in that county be so hot?), but I'll have to suck it up for 2 minutes of Star Wars goodness. I'll be back Friday morning with my thoughts.

Monday, March 07, 2005

Final Sin City Trailer Online

Wow, lots of news this week. Moviefone has the final Sin City trailer up for viewing in quicktime format. This movie looks more incredible every time I see something new from it. Less than a month left before this one opens. I can't wait! Check out the official site for more info.

Tarantino to write and direct new Friday the 13th?

IGN Filmforce is reporting that my favorite director, Quentin Tarantino is in talks to write and direct the next movie in the Friday the 13th series which is being referred to as the "Ultimate Jason Vorhees Movie". Right now I'd take this with a huge grain of salt, as QT likes to throw his name in the hat for movies all the time that he really has no intention of making (most of you probably don't know this but he was rumored a few months ago to be directing the next James Bond movie). I personally hope this doesn't happen. I've never seen a Jason movie (not all the way through at least) and I don't particularly like the genre of slasher films, with the exception of Halloween and Scream. I think QT's talents would be much better put to use on either his WW2 epic, Inglorious Bastards or his as-yet-untitled Mandarin samurai film. But we'll see what happens. If this does turn out to be his next film, I guess it'll be the first time I'm first in line for a horror flick.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

V For Vendetta press conference

The press conference for the V For Vendetta movie was held on friday with producers Joel Silver and Grant Hill, stars Natalie Portman and James Purefoy, and director James McTeigue. For those unfamiliar with the book (probably the vast majority), it's about a freedom fighter dressed as Guy Fawkes in a totalitarian version the United Kingdom who uses terrorism to stand up against the oppressive government. For a full report on the conference you can go here. I'm definitely looking forward to this movie. With the team behind the Matrix trilogy: Joel Silver and the Wachowskis producing, this will definitely be a high profile release, and from the way the interviews sounded, it seems like this will be much more character driven than those movies were. Natalie Portman is perfect for the role of Evey, and this will definitely be her most disturbing performance yet. I'm also very happy that they didn't cast a "star" for the part of V and the fact that he will in fact be masked for the whole movie is very encouraging. The jury's still out on director James McTeigue who is making his directorial debut with this movie, but he was the first assistant director on all three Matrix movies (Matrices?), and love them or hate them, you have to admit they were wonderfully shot. There are still a few things however that leave me unsure about this film. For one, if they did in fact change the backstory so that it takes place in a world where Germany won World War 2 (as was reported by Rich Johnston here), then I think that takes a lot of the satirical teeth out of the picture. I agree with the stance that a big part of the weight of the story comes from the fact that the people essentially brought this government on themselves. This change might make the film a little less controversial, especially at a time like this where artists are forced to look over their shoulders so much. When making a film like this though, shying away from any controversy is essentially admitting defeat. I'm also a little concerned with Silver's remarks about visual effects and CGI. It's been a long time since I read the book but I don't remember too much that would warrant an expensive effects budget or any CGI at all. For the most part though, I am cautiously optimistic at this point. There has still not yet been a movie adapted from works by Alan Moore that has even come close to the source material. Constantine was the best one yet, but miles away from Moore's brilliance. I guess we'll find out within the next year if V For Vendetta is the one.

Oh and I'd be remiss if I did not point you toward Amazon.com where you can pick up a copy of the book. Right now you can get it together with Moore's greatest work, Watchmen (also currently in pre-production at Paramount) for just $27.14.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Oscar results

Just a quick post this time. I figure I oughta comment on the how things went at the Oscars Sunday. If you have been living under a rock (or just aren't that into movies), you can check out the results here. 8 for 10 ain't too bad, but I missed the 2 big ones. I would've preferred to see the Aviator or Sideways win over Million Dollar Baby, but I'm very happy about Charlie Kaufman and Morgan Freeman's wins for best original screenplay and best supporting actor respectively. Oh and I'd also like to give huge props to Zach Braff for winning best first feature for Garden State at the Independent Spirit Awards the other night. Well, that's it for my boring commentary for a little while. This blog should be straight news until Sin City comes out next month.