Monday, September 28th, 2009

Whenever I heard about a remake of Friday the 13th, I cringed. I hung my head both times it was announced that Rob Zombie would be taking on John Carpenter's classic Halloween franchise. Yet for some unknown reason, I've attached myself to Samuel Bayer's new take on Wes Craven's 1984 slasher A Nightmare on Elm Street. Is there any reasoning behind it? Well, I do love Bayer's music video work, but this is also his feature film directorial debut, and it is alongside a production credit with Michael Bay, one of the silver screen's leading douchebags. Also, Jackie Earle Haley is taking over the iconic role of Freddy Krueger. Sure, Haley definitely did the character of Rorschach justice in the adaptation of Alan Moore's Watchmen, but the actor is still relatively new to me, and despite his acting chops, will take nostalgia points away by simply not being Robert Englund. And finally, I haven't even heard of the lead actress, Rooney Mara, before. So, after this trailer, am I still wrongly and uncharacteristically stoked for this film? Probably, but here's hoping the odd intuition is right. Enjoy the trailer.
A Nightmare on Elm Street in HD


So, what does everybody think about Roman Polanski, a director constantly mentioned among the greats, getting arrested in Switzerland for a crime he committed in 1977? Of course, the crime was statutory rape. Still, on Polanski's side, the victim, the now 45-year-old Samantha Geiner doesn't want prosecution to be brought down upon the director. Another interesting thing to think about is that if Polanski would have been arrested back in 1978, when the United States issued warrants for his arrest for fleeing the country, we would have never had gotten his masterful 2002 film The Pianist. One last note on the Polanski scandal, I saw on Wikipedia, without a source, that his latest directorial effort, The Ghost was still in production and thus, has been put on hold. This definitely sounds like something that probably should be true, but I've yet to find an actual news site/blog to verify it.

Cinematical posted an article today announcing that, via Rian Johnson's Twitter account, The Brothers Bloom will get an earlier DVD release than planned, and will be on shelves tomorrow for rental only, not for purchase. I was actually shocked the film didn't get superb ratings, only scoring a 48% on RottenTomatoes from the top critics (vs. an 85% from the RT community), but I still have faith in the film and now have something planned for tomorrow.

Finally, another story that has been kicking around that I've yet to really grab onto is that CineVegas, the annual Los Vegas, Nevada film festival will be cancelled for 2010, presumably due to the "economic climate" according to the official site. I'm not all that broken up, because unfortunately living in southeastern Kentucky, film festivals are as imaginary and fantastical to me as the plot line to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Still, CineVegas was the original venue for Visioneers last year, and any time an outlet for quality stuff that could fly completely under the radar leaves, it is a bit saddening.

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

I worked late tonight, so I come home expecting to sleep rather than blog, but then I check a few things online and get completely submerged into all of the San Diego Comic Con coverage. The first thing I find is via ComingSoon, where the 2010 Joseph Kosinski Tron sequel finally got a title, Tron Legacy.

Elsewhere, we get plenty of coverage on The Green Hornet over at Cinematical. First, director Michel Gondry raps about the upcoming feature, and in a separate story, writers Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen (who also will star as the titular character), revealed the hero's car, a black 1966 Chrysler Crown Imperial.

It was also announced that Saw's James Wan will take over the job of director in an adaptation of one of my favorite video games of all time, Kanomi's Castlevania. I'm not crazy familiar with any of Wan's work, other than Saw; however, it may be an improvement over the last director attached to the project, Sylvain White, who previously directed Stomp the Yard, yet on the other hand has already signed on the helm the big screen version of DC Comic's The Losers.

Today, during the Avatar panel, fifteen minutes of the film was shown. Yet, if you are envious like me, and about a three day drive from San Diego, we will all get a chance to watch the preview for free on August 21st at IMAX theaters worldwide. An interesting marketing ploy for something that I felt already had quite a bit of buzz going on to not have a built in fan base already.

Away from Comic Con, well, it could have actually debuted there, but IGN doesn't have much of a write up about it, a new poster to Samuel Bayer's remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street came out today to compliment our first view of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger yesterday. The poster features Haley again, although as before, we cannot make any of his features out.

And finally, the Alice in Wonderland trailer that I had promised yesterday. You'll have to click the link though, as embedding was disabled on Moviefone, as well as YouTube. As expected, the film definitely looks intriguing, and very Tim Burton-y.

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Have you ever been really excited by the upcoming release of a film, yet think you will hate it? That is kind of how I feel about next year's remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. I was the same way with Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween, as I was sure it wouldn't be anything like the original John Carpenter version that I loved so much, yet I couldn't wait to see it. This newest picture that I found on MySpace Trailer Park, giving us the first, albeit unrecognizable, shot of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger, furthers my excitement, yet doesn't show enough to distill the dread of probable disapointment.

The teaser trailer for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland went online today, but before I could get home from work, was pulled until tomorrow. Still, if you can't wait, I'm sure there is still somewhere that has yet to pull it out there.

Yahoo! Movies has another look at Scarlett Johansson in Iron Man 2. We've still yet to see a quality picture of Johansson in full Black Canary get up. I'm sure that will be saved for the trailer.

AICN dropped the bomb today that Sam Raimi is on board as the director of a film adaptation of World of Warcraft, which will begin to shoot after Spider-Man 4. I have still yet to delve into the fandom of WoW, so I can't be too excited, but can you imagine the following this movie will obtain?

All movie blogs of the Interwebs will be buzzing this week due to the San Diego Comic Con getting under way. Although I am excited to receive all the nerdy spectacular news that will flow forth, envy for the cats in attendance is really the weightiest emotion I'll have this weekend.

SciFiSquad has a story saying that the F.W. Murnau Foundation of Germany has gotten their hands on some footage of Fritz Lang's epic 1927 science fiction masterpiece Metropolis, which up until now has been presumed to be lost. The footage, found in the archives of an Argentinean musuem, will be cleaned up by the Foundation, and will be released sometime in the future. The linked article tends to think the release will be in 2010 at the earliest, but it will definitely be an event, as it will be the most complete version shown, since probably the late 20's.