A cute little animated short called Paperman played in front of Wreck-It-Ralph back when it was in theatres and now Disney Animation has released the six-and-a-half minute black-and-white clip for all the world to see. If you haven’t seen it yet, set aside that short amount of time and literally get swept away by this romantic tale that doesn’t require dialogue to get its whimsical and charming point across.
Category Archives: Movies
Movie trailer round-up: ‘Spring Breakers’, ‘Upside Down’, ‘JOBS’, ‘Oz: The Great and the Powerful’ & ‘Pacific Rim’
A groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow today and you know what that means–spring comes early. And when it does there’s a scandalous movie coming out to celebrate the occasion. Disney girls Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens are all grown up in director Harmony Korine’s upcoming flick Spring Breakers, also starring Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, and James Franco with dreads and a grill. Basically it’s about four college girls who party too hard, land in jail, and get springed free by a local drug dealer. The trailer promises sex and drugs and money and girls. If that’s your speed, March 22 is the day to remember.
Jump after the break to view more trailers. Continue reading Movie trailer round-up: ‘Spring Breakers’, ‘Upside Down’, ‘JOBS’, ‘Oz: The Great and the Powerful’ & ‘Pacific Rim’
J.J. Abrams will direct ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’
The Force is strong with this one. Today news spread like wildfire that J.J. Abrams–the same man who resurrected Star Trek for the big screen–will do the same for the other massively popular set-in-space franchise Star Wars. The Wrap broke it first.
This fall George Lucas sold his Lucasfilms to Disney for $4 billion and his partner Kathleen Kennedy signed on to ensure the making of a new Star Wars movie. Shortly thereafter Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3) agreed to pen the script and now the immense project has a star director in Abrams. Star Wars: Episode VII aims for a 2015 release.
Neither Abrams nor Disney has commented on the story yet. What’s interesting, however, is that just a couple months ago Abrams told Entertainment Weekly that he wasn’t interested in taking on Lucas’ lucrative franchise. He admitted that he had “original stuff” he was hoping to do next. He went on to say how much Star Wars influenced him at a young age and that it ignited his passion for visually epic storytelling. “As a kid I was always a fan of special effects,” he said. “Watching movies I was constantly trying to figure out how they did it, whatever the effect was. Star Wars was the first movie that blew my mind in that way; it didn’t matter how they did any of it because it was all so overwhelmingly and entirely great. It was funny and romantic and scary and compelling and the visual effects just served the characters and story. It galvanized for me; not for what was exciting about how movies were made, but rather for what movies were capable of.”
In a two–part interview with Hero Complex conducted in 2009, Abrams talked about the challenge of reimagining Star Trek in a post-George Lucas Star Wars world. “I’m just a fan of Star Wars,” he said. “As a kid, Star Wars was much more my thing than Star Trek was. If you look at the last three Star Wars films and what technology allowed them to do, they covered so much terrain in terms of design, locations, characters, aliens, ships — so much of the spectacle has been done and it seems like every aspect has been covered, whether it’s geography or design of culture or weather system or character or ship type. Everything has been tapped in those movies. The challenge of doing Star Trek — despite the fact that it existed before Star Wars — is that we are clearly in the shadow of what George Lucas has done.”
It is definitely going to be interesting to see exactly how J.J. Abrams plans to bring Star Wars back into the fold compared to the way he did it with Star Trek. He’s a powerful player in the sci-fi arena, and personally I have no doubt he’ll get it right. What say you?
Update (1/25): Disney has made the news official in a press release. Check out some choice quotes from Kathleen Kennedy, George Lucas, and J.J. Abrams after the break. Continue reading J.J. Abrams will direct ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’
‘Toy Story’ gets a live-action, shot-for-shot treatment that was made to impress
You know that saying? If you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything. Well, here’s proof. Jesse Perrotta, 21, and Jonason Pauley, 19, created a live-action, shot-for-shot remake of the original Toy Story. After two years of hard work with real toys, marionette strings and wires and stop-motion skill, the boys uploaded to YouTube an 80 minute recreation of the classic Pixar animated film. To add authenticity they incorporated Randy Newman’s unforgettable soundtrack and they edited in the characters’ real voices from the movie.
If you don’t have an hour and twenty minutes to take it all in, you can still appreciate their inspired effort by scrubbing around the clip that has amassed over 3.6 million views since hitting the ‘Net just three days ago. The Toy Story junkies brought a DVD copy of their movie to Pixar and although the company hasn’t offered any official comments, Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich tweeted a link to the video and called the creators “VERY dedicated guys.”
Take a trip down memory lane and watch in awe as Toy Story comes to (real) life.
2013 Golden Globe Awards: ‘Argo’, ‘Django’, ‘Les Mis’, ‘Game Change’, ‘Homeland’ & ‘Girls’ big winners
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler proved to be phenomenal hosts of the 70th Annual Golden Globe awards. If you missed it, you can watch their laugh-out-loud opening monologue at YouTube. The only disappoint was that they weren’t on stage doing their schtick long enough. The most entertaining presenters (by a long shot) had to be Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig; you can tell they are both from the same SNL family. Watch their banter at YouTube, too.
Now let’s get to what you came here for: the night’s big winners. Let’s switch things up and look at the movie categories first. Argo, which took home two statues, won Best Motion Picture Drama and Ben Affleck was named Best Director. (Surprisingly he was not nominated for an Oscar so it’s nice to see him being recognized here.) Django Unchained also collected two trophies; Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor (beating castmate Leonardo DiCaprio who also wasn’t nominated for an Oscar) and Quentin Tarantino nabbed a Globe for Best Screenplay. Les Misérables was the winningest film of the bunch taking home three Globes for Best Motion Picture Comedy/Musical, Best Actor (Hugh Jackman), and Best Supporting Actress (Anne Hathaway). As expected Daniel Day-Lewis and Jessica Chastain won Best Actor and Actress for the roles in Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty, respectively. And to round things out Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) won Best Actress Comedy/Musical, Michael Danna won for Best Original Score for his in work in Life of Pi, Adele’s “Skyfall” was named Best Original Song, and, Brave was crowned Best Animated Film.
Moving on to the television categories next. HBO movie Game Change and Showtime’s Homeland swept gathering three Globes each. Game Change took home Best Miniseries/Motion Picture for TV, Best Actress (Julianne Moore), and Best Supporting Actor (Ed Harris). Homeland beat Breaking Bad to be named Best Drama and stars Damian Lewis and Claire Danes were recognized for their lead acting roles. Another HBO program Girls fared well winning two Globes for Best Comedy/Musical and star Lena Dunham won Best Actress. Elsewhere Kevin Costnerwon Best Actor in a Miniseries for his turn in Hatfields and McCoys, Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey) won Best Supporting Actress, and Don Cheadle (House of Lies) surprised almost everyone and beat Louis C.K. and Jim Parsons to nab the Globe for Best Actor in a TV Series Comedy/Musical.
Jump after the break to view a more digestible list of all the night’s winners. Continue reading 2013 Golden Globe Awards: ‘Argo’, ‘Django’, ‘Les Mis’, ‘Game Change’, ‘Homeland’ & ‘Girls’ big winners
2013 Oscar nods are in!
As we inch closer to the 85th Academy Awards the nominations tallied by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were announced today. Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln received the most nominations, 12 of them in fact. The period piece is up for Best Picture, Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), Best Supporting Actor (Tommy Lee Jones), Best Supporting Actress (Sally Field), Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Adapted Screenplay (Tony Kushner), Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Original Score, Production Design, and Sound Mixing. Life of Pi is close behind with 11 nods including Best Picture, Best Director (Ang Lee), and Best Adapted Screenplay (David Magee). The remaining Best Picture contenders are Amour (5 nods total), Argo (7), Beasts of the Southern Wild (4), Django Unchained (5), Les Miserables (8), Silver Linings Playbook (8), and Zero Dark Thirty (5). Daniel Day-Lewis is up against Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook), Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), and Denzel Washington (Flight) for Best Actor. Clawing for Best Actress are Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), Emmanuelle Riva (Amour), Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild), and Naomi Watts (The Impossible). The movies up for Best Animated Feature are Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Pirates!, Band of Misfits, and Wreck-It Ralph.
Who got snubbed? The biggest shockers are those who were not nominated for Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), Tom Hooper (Les Miserables), Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained), Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), and Ben Affleck (Argo; he also wasn’t nominated for Best Actor). Big acting snubs include Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained) and John Hawkes (The Sessions). No technical nominations for Flight or Prometheus. Not a single nod for Rian Johnson’s Looper, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, and the Wachowskis’ Cloud Atlas. And blockbuster The Avengers only managed to land a single nod for Visual Effects.
Jump after the break to see all the nominations. The 85th Annual Academy Awards, hosted by Family Guy‘s Seth MacFarlane, airs live Sunday, February 24 on ABC. Watch some of MacFarlane’s latest promos below.
Continue reading 2013 Oscar nods are in!
New ‘Evil Dead’ red-band trailer is goretastic, ups the ante again
WARNING: If you scare easily turn away now.
This new look at Fede Alvarez’s remake of Sam Raimi’s 1981 cult classic horror film Evil Dead is scarier, gorier, more disturbing and disgusting than the teaser trailer that came before it. Suburgatory‘s Jane Levy stars as a young girl possessed by a demon that comes out of the woods. Raimi and the original movie’s star Bruce Campbell serve as executive producers.
Fans of the original have been mostly split about whether or not it needs a modern remake. After watching this nearly two-and-a-half minute clip, though, the tide will shift with excitement and pure adrenaline as we head toward Evil Dead‘s April 12 release.
This year in movies, as told by 310 of them in seven minutes
Gen Ip, aka @genrocks on Twitter, is back to help us celebrate our favorite cinematic experiences in 2012. This time her annual look back features “great movies that inspired us and the bad ones that made us feel better about our lives.” Her first video in 2010 mashed together 270 films, last year’s dealt with 230 of them, and her latest pieces together a whopping 310 clips. Click over to her Tumblr page to view lists of all the songs and movies used in the grand retrospective.
Movie trailer round-up: ‘Pain & Gain’, ‘The Great Gatsby’ & ‘The Smurfs 2’ [Update: ‘This Is The End’ & ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’]
Before he could move onto the next Transformers movie, director Michael Bay called up Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to star in his upcoming action (comedy?) film Pain & Gain. In typical Michael Bay fashion you can expect lots of explosions and gags. A quick synopsis: “Based on the unbelievable true story of three personal trainers in 1990s Miami who, in pursuit of the American Dream, get caught up in a criminal enterprise that goes horribly wrong.” The movie also stars Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, and Ed Harris. It opens April 26, 2013.
Jump after the break for more trailers.
Continue reading Movie trailer round-up: ‘Pain & Gain’, ‘The Great Gatsby’ & ‘The Smurfs 2’ [Update: ‘This Is The End’ & ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’]
New ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ teaser trailer, plus Benedict Cumberbatch villain is “named”
Two weeks ago Paramount gave us a first look at J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek sequel Into Darkness with a grim poster and an announcement trailer that introduced us to the film’s big baddie played by the one and only Benedict Cumberbatch. Today the studio provides a new teaser trailer, the one that’s attached to screenings of The Hobbit. New footage is mixed with brief glimpses we’ve seen before, including that special moment between Kirk and Spock that was originally added to the ending of the Japanese version of the announcement trailer. In this go around, Bruce Greenwood’s Captain Pike takes over most of the narration duties in a plea to his Enterprise successor Captain Kirk. “There’s greatness in you. But there’s not an ounce of humility,” he says. “You think that you can’t make mistakes. But there’s going to come a moment when you realize you’re wrong about that and you’re going to get yourself and everyone under your command killed.”
To learn the film’s antagonist’s name, jump after the break. Continue reading New ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ teaser trailer, plus Benedict Cumberbatch villain is “named”
THE HOBBIT: my thoughts
–Spoiler-free– (and yes that’s me)
Just got out of the THE HOBBIT. In a word, it was FANTASTIC. The story so far is really exciting and filled with the best characters. I can’t imagine anyone but Martin Freeman playing young Bilbo Baggins. Ian McKellen is back as Gandolf and he’s better than ever. And all 13 dwarves have their own distinct ways about themselves that I appreciate. The little men are led by Thorin Oakenshield, played by Richard Armitage, and he’s already a favorite. It was great seeing old characters return as well–Ian Holm (old Baggins), Elijah Wood (Frodo), Hugo Weaving (Elrond), Cate Blanchett (Galadriel), Christopher Lee (Saruman), Bret McKenzie (Lindir). And who can forget Gollum; Andy Serkis has perfected the once-human creature here. He looks incredible (especially his giant blue eyes and sharp mouth) and the scene in which he encounters Bilbo has to be my favorite one. It’s a mix of fear, humor, and curiosity. An honorable mention goes to composer Howard Shore whose original score for the film borrows classic sounds from LOTR but also adds a new layer of epic proportions (if you don’t have the dwarf song “Misty Mountains” stuck in your head when you’re walking out then something’s wrong). In the end I felt fully satisfied (I never thought I’d be returning to Tolkien and Jackson’s Middle Earth) and yet I was left with a wanting feeling for more. One down, two to go. Bilbo is going on an adventure, and I’m all in.
I saw the movie in 3D in 48 frames per second, or what Peter Jackson is calling High Frame Rate (HFR). First off, 3D was effective on all accounts: the depth it added to the picture had me immersed the entire time. The HFR took some getting used to. When the film starts right off the bat you notice that something is, well, “off” with the picture. One, it’s as if you’re watching a super HDTV–the sharpness and crispness and vividness of the picture is starkly different than anything I’ve ever experienced before in theatres. But in a good way. There are many scenes in the film that take a birds-eye view of vast landscapes all around Middle Earth and the HFR injects a sense of hyper-realism into these shots. My jaw dropped more than once upon witnessing such beautiful scenes. However, this new technology can be jarring at times in a not-so-good way. In the opening scene, when old Bilbo is in his hole in the ground writing his book for Frodo, his movements are fluid but the 48 frames make it seem as if he’s speeding through the process. It’s as if someone pressed the “fast-forward” button on the remote. And this is noticable throughout the film, especially during fast-paced action sequences. When things slow down (or during the aforementioned birds-eye shots) this is not as noticable. Some critics argue that the 48 frames takes away from the mistique of the movie. THE HOBBIT is a fantasy and the hyper-realism removes the layer of mystery by attempting to make things that aren’t real (i.e. orcs, trolls, giant flying birds), look real. Friends of mine compared it to how video game cut scenes look. I’m not sure if I totally agree with that, however. All in all, I say if you have the opportunity to visit a theatre that’s playing the movie in 48FPS you should absolutely experience it for yourself. Though I never really got used to the effect–which has its advantages (super HD crystal clear picture) and disadvantages (the “fast-forward” effect)–I was truly mesmorized and found myself lost in Middle Earth until the credits rolled at the end. Is 48FPS the future of movies like Jackson predicts? It’s too early to tell. Is the effect too much for a movie with fantasy roots? Perhaps. But in the end it’s worth it because it’s always fun to try new things.
In the words of Mr. Ebert, THE HOBBIT gets two big thumbs up and I highly recommend you go on the wonderfully crafted journey.
Motion poster: Hugh Jackman is ‘The Wolverine’
Here’s something you don’t see everyday. A motion poster for a motion picture. It bears no title or release date or any words or numbers for that matter. It’s simply a muscular mutant wielding a samurai sword with retractable bone claws. Hugh Jackman reprises his role as The Wolverine in yet another upcoming X-Men film (X-Men: Days of Future Past is on the way, too). The Wolverine, directed by James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma), is in fact not serving as a sequel to the 2009 spinoff X-Men Origins: Wolverine. “We’ve deliberately not called it Wolverine 2 because we want it to be placed and feel like a standalone picture,” Jackman told reporters. “With an all new cast and setting it in Japan, it’s going to give us a whole new visual aesthetic.” Yes, that is the Land of the Rising Sun all lit up in the poster’s background. Why the sudden contemplation, Logan? “The approach to character means [the movie] won’t be overloaded with mutants and teams and the like, so it’ll be more character-based,” adds Jackson. “I think in many ways it will feel like a completely different X-Men film.”
The official synopsis reads like this: “Based on the celebrated comic book arc, ‘The Wolverine’ finds Logan, the eternal warrior and outsider, in Japan. There, samurai steel will clash with adamantium claw as Logan confronts a mysterious figure from his past in an epic battle that will leave him forever changed.”
The Wolverine releases July 26, 2013. Look in the gallery below to see a more traditional poster and a first look at Hugh Jackman jacked up for the role.
