Review: TUCKER & DALE VS EVIL

Sometimes all the necessary things for a great movie to come into existence line up; it is the holy alliance or a fresh idea, a great script, and good acting comming together. If you have this it is quite unlikely for any filmmaker to screw it up. Eli Craig was blessed with this trifecta on his directorial debut, Tucker & Dale vs Evil, a warm parody of the teenage slasher classics (if we can call them classics). The film is what the Scream and Scary Movie franchises could have been had they not lacked, a fresh idea, a good script to tie down that idea, and good acting to make that idea come to life. And yet while those movies make millions Tucker & Dale vs Evil has sat on a shelf for two years, mostly because studios increasingly refuse to believe newcomers can be bankable filmmakers.

Win a Trip to Comic-Con!

“THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN™” SWINGS INTO COMIC-CON® –

AND YOU CAN GET THE OPPORTUNITY TO REPRESENT

SPIDER-MAN FANS EVERYWHERE

BY BECOMING THE FACE OF THE FAN®

"The Amazing Spider-Man" Face of the Fan Contest Begins Today

CULVER CITY, Calif., June 2, 2011 – In anticipation of the July 3, 2012 worldwide release of The Amazing Spider-Man™ in 3D, the cast and filmmakers will discuss the movie for the first time as they address the fans at Comic-Con® San Diego.  One fan can be a part of the action by proving he or she is the ultimate Spider-Man fan in The Amazing Spider-Man Face of the Fan® contest.  The contest winner will be the “face of the fan” at Comic-Con, and have the opportunity to meet the talent and filmmakers and conduct an interview with them.

US residents 18 years of age and older can go to www.faceofthefan.com/TheAmazingSpider-Man to enter the contest, which begins today and runs through June 27, 2011.  To enter the contest, users submit a sixty-second video of themselves answering the question, “Why should you be the Face of the Fan correspondent at Comic-Con?”  Complete rules and instructions are available at www.faceofthefan.com/TheAmazingSpider-Man.

What They Smoked in "Pineapple Express"

Ever since the trailer for "Pineapple Express" came out, people have been wondering left and right, what did they actually smoke on set of the film.

Obviously, they did not smoke real marijuana, because that would have severely hampered the amount of takes they could shoot a scene, but now, it has been revealed what they really smoked.

It is a marijuana look-a-like / act-a-like known as 'Wizards Smoke', which is a legal alternative to marijuana. It produces the same amount and type of smoke, and also looks very similar in plant form. Apparently this has much less of a mental effect on the body than actual marijuana. According to James Franco "You can buy this at any smoke shop."

The case is closed on what Rogen and Franco smoked in both the film and at the MTV 2008 movie awards, as pictured above.


Ironically, Rogen was almost kicked out of the MAXIM party (San Diego, during Comic-Con 2008), which was a party honoring the Pineapple Express cast. Apparently, people noticed that Rogen's cigarette was laced with more than just normal tobacco. He was told to extinguish the cigarette or leave immediately.

Should have saved some of that 'Wizards Smoke' from the shooting. I'm sure there was plenty left over.

PIXAR's UP

Pixar's next movie is called UP. It is about a little old man named Carl, who covers his house with balloons and flies away to South America to go on the adventures he wished he had went on with his wife when she was still alive. He meets up with a little wilderness scout and together they journey the land doing all sorts of fantastical things.

Disney's BOLT

BOLT

Bolt is the next animated feature from Walt Disney Animation studios, and is set for release this November. After a Q&A with the Directors, and being shown 20 minutes of footage, I am ready to give a preliminary report of this film.

It is well known that this film has been going through crazy 'Development Hell'. It was conceived by Chris Sanders (The creator/director of "Lilo and Stitch", and was shuffled around when Pixar's John Lasseter took over the studio. Now Sanders is over at Dreamworks, and Bolt is being helmed by Byron Howard and Chris Williams.

The film tells the story of a movie star dog and his friends as they try to get across the country from New York to Hollywood, with the dog, Bolt, thinking he actually possesses the superpowers that he uses onscreen. Slowly he learns he does not have powers, and learns who he really is.

For the visual style of this movie, Disney has 10 patents pending on a software that allows them to have what seems like had painted brush strokes on all the sets and locations, making the whole movie seem more handcrafted and stylish. The style is a nice noticeable change, and is probably the same software used in Tarzan's tree surfing sequences, and will probably be expanded again for Glen Keane's Rapunel due to hit theaters in 2010.

Look forward to this, it may not be what many people expected, but will be a nice movie, and probably very enjoyable none-the-less. Also, the primary voices are done by Miley Cyrus and John Travolta, so it can be expected to be a major hit.

TERMINATOR: SALVATION

TERMINATOR SALVATION

Director McG as well as Moon Bloodgood, Sam Worthington, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Common took the stage to discuss "Terminator: Salvation", the next in the Terminator Franchise, starring Christian Bale as John Connor. It is interesting because this film is a reboot, a prequel, and a sequel. Set after Judgement Day, this film will show the world that the other three movies have only hinted at. Swarzenegger will not appear, since his model of the T-800 has not been built at this time, but McG hinted that when the time comes to show the T-800, the character will not be recast.

It is not clear if the film will have a new Terminator as the villain, or if the villain will be a human, but it was noted that this is the time of the crummy latex skin terminators, so we can expect a few of those, also many other machines that have been created to kill the humans before Skynet has fully established itself.

A three minute trailer was shown and it looks simply fantastic. Plenty of action, and a very good representation of the world that Terminators have expected to see. James Cameron was consulted along the whole process, and all the models were built by Stan Winston studios before Stan died, so it should be just what we are looking for.

Comic-Con 2008

I AM BACK FROM COMIC-CON. PREPARE TO BE INFORMED.