Paradise Reel

Alright, I started this post a little while ago but the newsbites just keep on pouring in! More actors have joined the cast in terms of supporting roles and the façade of the Joker has appeared and been disproved. Drama! Fires broke out on the set! More Drama! In between Christopher Nolan attaching Oscar winners and nominees to his film like one would collect happy meal toys and the apparent hijinxs that has plagued the set, we have managed to compile morsels of info for you to munch on till 2008 rolls by!

- District Attorney and personal friend of Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent is included in the film but it has not been said if his villainous alter ego, “Two Face” will make an appearance. Supplying Dent’s façade would be none other than “Thank you for Smoking” and “The Core” star, Aaron Eckhart.

- Maggie Gyllenhaal (“Mona Lisa Smile” and “World Trade Center”) will be replacing the House of Cruise Baby Factory, Katie Holmes (“Dawson’s Creek” and “Teaching Mrs. Tingle”) as D.A. Rachel Daws.

- Christian Bale is definitely on board and Sir Michael Caine will be reprising his role as Alfred Pennyworth, Morgan Freeman as CEO of Wayne Enterprises, Lucious Foxx and my personal favourite, Gary Oldman as Lieutenant Gordon.

- According to resident Batman info expert, Batman-on-Film, there will be a new and improved Batsuit and a redesigned Tumbler for this sequel.

- The Clown Prince of Crime may sport a new look that we are not familiar with. Gone is the ashen face, green hair and purple tux but a grey skinned, scarred and dress style that borders on the eclectic. Although it was stressed that this design for the Joker is a ‘work in progress’ it would be interesting to see how Nolan blends the Joker persona into the gritty Gotham world he has created in “Begins”.

- Bruckheimer alumni William Fichtner (“Prison Break” and “Invasion”) has joined the cast simply as “Bank Manager”. It hasn’t been expanded on how extensive his role is but it would be such a terribly waste of his acting talent if he was relegated to just dishing out dough over a marble counter.

-Eric Roberts (“Heroes” and “D.O.A.”), Julia’s not quite as famous brother, has landed a role in the form of Sal Maroni, mafia kingpin and rival to Tom Wilkinson’s Carmine Falcone.

Potter-verse rejoice today as the International Trailer for Harry Pot-head V is finally up on the internet and streaming to a desktop near you. Director David Yates translates the latest and touted to be the most boring installment of the Potter franchise into visual spectacle. And what a job he does. The trailer looks absolutely fabulous. I’d even go out on a limb and say this is the most exciting Potter trailer ever. Hopefully this will equate to an equally awesome movie come July 13th and not mimic the overladen clutter that was “Goblet”.

Voldemort is back and resurrecting his alumni of fiends and all manner of ugly to give taking over the known world another shot. Standing in his way is the remnants of the previous Order of the Phoenix and Harry’s little band of merry men and women. Wands drawn, spells cast and people die. Recipe for heartache and hankies.

Click here or on the nostalgic piece of parchment depicting the previous Order of the Phoenix to view the spanking new trailer!

*Update: Yahoo! movies has released a Quicktime version of the trailer! Click HERE to check it out!

Its been a busy day for movie related news and tidbits. A couple of friends have sent me this that I couldn’t pass up!

I just love movie related games (of course, since movies are my life!). Here is another one that not only tests your movie knowledge but your visual perception as well! M&Ms made a flash based game to tie in with their “Dark Chocolate” launch that lets you hunt for horror movie references within a set mural. There are 50 of them in all! I only managed to find 33 so far. How many can you spot? Hint: Not all of them are ‘full-on’ horror movies! Thanks to Michelle and Derek who alerted me to this lovely office pastime. Haha.

Click here or the picture to get to the game!

Early on during the inception of this blog, I featured something called “Trailer Remixes” where all you fan boys at home, with a copy of “Windows Movie Maker” and little too much time on their hands, cooked up fake trailers for classic movies. Today, Worth1000.com ran a contest where all you photoshop gurus create fake posters of popular movies by changing only ONE letter of the movie title and the results are just downright hilarious! Now, if only they did a poster for “The Last and the Furious”…

Click the posters to check out the rest of the entries!

Sunshine

Synopsis: Fifty years into the future, the Sun is dying and Earth’s last hope of survival is a team of scientist on a journey to our nearest star with a mission to revive it.

My first encounter with Danny Boyle was a little known film called “Shallow Grave”. It was a movie that explored the dynamics of three friends and the limits of their relationships when they chance upon a bag full of untraceable cash falls into their hands. It had all the trademark Boyle trappings and I was hooked. “Trainspotting” cemented what I already knew about this off beat director from Manchester, “The Beach” was a romp on the wild side and I was onto “28 Days Later” faster than red on rash. So when I heard that Danny (we’re on a first name basis now) was coming out with a movie that harks from the sci-fi genre, you could bet your last dollar that I already had first day tickets.

There are only so many ways to scream in space, and Danny knows that all too well. His movies are essentially character studies. He throws his characters in a melting pot situation and explores the extremes that they would go to survive. “Shallow Grave” was about friends and money, “Trainspotting” was about friends and drugs and “The Beach” was about a paradise found and lost. His movies are akin to experiments on the state of humanity. And “Sunshine”, is no different.

Director Danny Boyle and scribe Alex Garland have worked together on “The Beach” and “28 Days Later” which would mark their third collaboration. A script lays the ground rules for any movie and the director takes it to a another level of creativity. An advantage of working with a scriptwriter whom one is familiar with is that there is almost a symbiotic relationship between the writer and director which usually results in a better made movie (Example of a bad collaboration: “The Matrix: Reloaded and Revolutions”). Both Boyle and Garland cobbled together a script that examines the intimate, not to mention delicate, balance of egos and personalities of a group of people, stuck together in what is essentially a metal coffin for a year and a half, hurtling through space on a mission where the fate of humanity rests on their success.

This is Cillian Murphy’s (“Red Eye” and “Batman Begins”) second outing with Boyle and company after his breakout role in “28 Days Later”. He portrays the unwilling physicist, who is responsible for designing the device that will hopefully re-ignite the sun, similarly to his role in “28 Days Later”. His character goes through a similar development arc from meek geek to the unwitting hero in this film and it is a role that he dons with ease. Cillian has a look of contained eccentricities that befits his scientist on a suicide mission role perfectly. Michelle Yeoh (“Memoirs of a Geisha” and “Police Story 3”) was a surprise treat for me as her role was not publicised in any form or manner for this film. She is a competent actress and it was a honestly a pleasure to see her be given more roles that allows her to flex her acting muscle instead of her physical ones.

Rounding out the cast is Chris Evans (“Not Another Teen Movie” and “Fantastic Four”) who pretty much rehashes his previous roles from “FF4” and “Cellular” but this time as the pragmatic hot shot pilot. Cliffe Curtis (“Whale Rider” and “Training Day”) plays the onboard psychiatrist/doctor for the company of scientists who tethers on the edge of sanity. Rose Byrne (“Marie Antoinette” and “Wicker Park”), Troy Garity (“After the Sunset” and “Bandits”), Hiroyuki Sanada (“The Last Samurai” and “The White Countess”) and Benedict Wong (“Dirty Pretty Things” and “Spy Game”) fill up the remaining crew members.

One of the highlights of this film would definitely be the cinematography. German borne Alwin H. Kuchler composes some of the most exquisite shots of space this side of “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Never will you find more well crafted spectacles of space since Kubrick’s cinematic masterpiece. He is able to bring you deathly close to the action or amplify the vast loneliness of space and still marry the two extremes within the same scene without having it ever be jarring.

If you love Danny Boyle’s movies, you are going to love “Sunshine”. He infuses well worn genres with his distinctive blend of style, cinematography and story that is just refreshing to watch. Do not watch this if you are a pop-corn sci-fi fan (the people who felt doomsday summer blockbusters like “The Core” or “Armageddon” were highbrow fare) for you will unfortunately find that the thrill-a-minute action sequences are considerably missing. But even if you are not a fan of science fiction, watch this if you are in the mood to have your brain lightly pricked and slightly picked for this is not your ordinary sci-fi flick.

This may be bit of old news to some of you reading this but Indiana Jones 4 is well into production and will soon be a reality. While there is some trepidation on whether this is a good move for the franchise, considering that the last three Jone’s outings left us on a pretty high note, I actually find myself secretly awaiting this new addition to the previous trilogy of movies.

Harrison Ford is coming back and The Bearded One (Steven Spielberg) is slated to direct while George Lucas is serving as Producer/Executive Producer. Welsh-born actor Jonathan Rhys Davies (Sallah from the previous films) is making a comeback too. Cate Blanchett (”Elizabeth” and “Lord of the Rings”) and Ray Winstone (”The Departed” and “King Arthur”) are both set for as yet unconfirmed roles . Plus there are rumours that Indy’s son will make an appearance as well as someone from his ‘colourful’ past. Negotiations are abound to lure Sean Connery back as Indy’s dad although I do not know how that might work plotwise as Harrison is now as old as Connery’s character in the last movie.

In a recent interview, Ol’ Georgie was quoted saying “He’s not running in any of the movies. He’s either on a horse or driving a car or a motorcycle. And he’ll play his age in this movie with what’s appropriate. The chases are more suspenseful than speedy. Like the rolling ball in the first film — it’s not that he’s running that fast, it’s that there’s a giant ball coming at him.”.

Harrison is pushing 64 and I somehow find it hard pressed to see Indiana outrun that stone boulder now at that he is “playing his age”. Perhaps the trio has some brand spanking new bleeding edge special effect to reverse his age up their collective sleeves. Either way, we have to wait till November this year for the teaser trailer to debut and to summer 2008 for the actual movie to be released. Stay tuned!!

TMNT

Synopsis: The Turtle Brothers have to band together to defeat an ancient curse that would lay New York City in ruins. And we can’t have that can we?

I will admit it right here and now that I was a turtle-head way back in the day when eating pizza was so popular that it was warranted its own food group, when living in a sewer was hip and practicing “Ninjitsu” was a social norm for adolescents. I begged my parents to buy me the toys, the comics, the video games to even the kiddy colouring book and I knew the theme song better than Abraham Lincoln knew his Gettysburg address. Needless to say, this was probably one of the last cartoons series that I’ve ever followed with such childlike fervor and it’s a nostalgic headtrip to see the franchise burst back into mainstream culture once more.

With THAT out of the way, I can safely say that the film “TMNT” (short for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because acronyms are so much cooler!) will definitely appeal to the current generation of “Turtle-heads” as well as satisfying the “Ninja Turtle” fans from the original comic days. And by that I mean the very first Turtle incarnation that spawned out of a sketch Kevin Eastman penciled together based on a zany story idea by Peter Laird. The comics were gritty, violent and much welcome break from all the mainstream placid kiddy comics of that era (I was coming out of my “Archies” phase).

Now twenty years on, this new CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) flick updates our most beloved underground sewer crimefighters with the bit of the old and the best of the new. All of our favourite characters are back save for their arch-nemesis Oroku Saki, better known as “The Shredder” which was fine by me because I’ve always thought he looked more kind of kooky than menacing especially if the name of his alter ego is more akin to that of a kitchen appliance.

The four brothers, Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo and Donatello are back and ready to kick some serious shell. April O’Neil (Sarah Michelle Gellar; “Buffy” and “Scooby Doo”), Splinter (Mako; “Crying Freeman” and “Pearl Harbour”) and even Casey Jones (Chris Evans, “Fantastic Four” and “Sunshine”) return for this outing and new additions include Karai (Zhang Ziyi; “Rush Hour 2” and “Memoirs of a Geisha”) and Mr. Winters (Patrick Stewart; “X-men 1&2” and “Star Trek”) round off this stellar voice ensemble.

There were two series of cartoons that were produced for our pizza munching mutants, one that started in 1987 and another in 2003. The film takes its character cues from the latter series which adds a lot more edge to each of the characters rather than having to adopt the kiddy friendliness of the former version. I take it that the children of the 21st century have evolved to lot more demanding bunch. The story line is a simple one but carries a resonating theme of ‘brotherhood’ throughout. I would have liked it better if they fleshed that out a bit more during the course of the film as this feels rather Leonardo/Raphael centric. I felt that the camaraderie from the original cartoons and even the live action movies was significantly glazed over in this movie.

The pacing at the beginning of the film was drawn out and built up the scenarios rather quickly. It also allowed for convincing character development early on in the film but the latter half of the movie felt terribly rushed and compacted. It was almost as if they realised that they ran out of time or money to tie up the story and dispensed some key plot points in lieu of the movie’s runtime. Perhaps we might see a ‘director’s cut of this come three months later when the DVD is released, who knows. But that still does not excuse the fact that this would have been a great movie if they had taken their time to complete the story. One thing that stands out for this movie is the level of 3D animation that it has achieved. The level of realism here could easily cause animation giants like Pixar and Dreamworks to literally start “shaking in their shells”.

Watch this if you are an 80’s cartoon junkie who just cannot get enough of old school franchises getting the 21st century update (like me) or if you are an animation buff looking for some solid 3D animation (also like me). Non-fans of the franchise (ie. Parents) might find it a little hard to justify forking out good money for this but hey, your kids are gonna love it.