The trio is back.
After Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, director Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost will look to bring us another classic with The World’s End.
We recently got our first look at The World’s End with a teaser trailer and it looks like it could be fun. I like the premise of a group of friends trying to finish a pub crawl as an alien invasion (?) happens. And I like that Martin Freeman is in this.
The World’s End hits theaters on October 25.
The new Ender’s Game trailer was released this afternoon and it’s an interesting piece of marketing. Harrison Ford carrying the voice over work does a great job and the visuals smack you in the mouth. While it looks good, we’ve raved about lots of movies so far this year and a couple of them have been less than stellar. Iron Man 3 and Pain & Gain had great trailers that made us excited for the film, but as we left the theater, we experienced something very different. Not necessarily bad but definitely different.
So all that to say, it looks good but get excited at your own risk. Holy crap does it look good though.
Here is the official synopsis, courtesy of Summit:
In the near future, a hostile alien race (called the Formics) have attacked Earth. If not for the legendary heroics of International Fleet Commander, Mazer Rackham, all would have been lost. In preparation for the next attack, the highly esteemed Colonel Graff and the International Military are training only the best young children to find the future Mazer. Ender Wiggin, a shy, but strategically brilliant boy is pulled out of his school to join the elite. Arriving at Battle School, Ender quickly and easily masters increasingly difficult war games, distinguishing himself and winning respect amongst his peers. Ender is soon ordained by Graff as the military’s next great hope, resulting in his promotion to Command School. Once there, he’s trained by Mazer Rackham, himself, to lead his fellow soldiers into an epic battle that will determine the future of Earth and save the human race.
The film stars Asa Butterfield as Ender Wiggin, and some pretty big names such as Harrison Ford (Colonel Graff), Ben Kingsley (Mazer Rackham), and Viola Davis, as well as up and coming stars Aramis Knight, Abigail Breslin, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jimmy Pinchak. Ender’s Game is directed by Gavin Hood and comes to us November 1.
The first series in our InSession Movie Series is Baz Luhrmann. Neither Matthew, Nate or I have seen much of his work before and with the excitement of The Great Gatsby coming out, we thought we’d get to know him more. The movies we’ll be discussing are Strictly Ballroom, Romeo and Juliet, Australia, and Moulin Rouge!
Grades
Nate: F
JD: B-
Matthew: A-
Review
Click here to read our full review of Strictly Ballroom. Luhrmann’s 1992 film is his first film and it has plenty of layers throughout the movie that makes it good (or in Nate’s case why he hates it).
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Grades
Nate: D+
JD: B
Matthew: C
Review
Click here to read our full review of Romeo + Juliet. It’s a unique perspective on a play that is nothing less than a classic.
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Grades
Nate: C
JD: A-
Matthew: A
Review
Click here to read our full review of Moulin Rouge!. Beautiful colors, great performances, and perfectly executed musical pieces define this film.
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Grades
Nate: C-
JD: B
Matthew: n/a
Review
Click here to read our full review of Australia. Nate and JD disagree on a film that has a great story, but has some elements that become repetitive.
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There are a lot of great films coming out in May of 2013 to start off the summers movie season. Which movie this month will end up being the best?
On Episode 11 of our InSession Film Podcast, we discussed our Top 3 trilogies of all-time. This was a lot of fun.
Nate
1) The Lord of the Rings trilogy
2) Star Wars trilogy (original)
3) Toy Story trilogy
JD
1) The Lord of the Rings trilogy
2) The Dark Knight trilogy
3) Die Hard (1-3)
In Episode 11, we review Iron Man 3, discuss the Top 3 Trilogies of all-time and finish our Baz Lurhmann series and review his 2008 film, Australia. Plus a little bonus content at the end with a spoiler review of Iron Man 3 and our Extra Film segment of the week where we review Mud.
– Iron Man 3 Review
Grades
Nate: B-
JD: B-
Matthew: C
– We finish our Baz Luhrmann Series and review his 2008 film, Australia.
– Latest News
– John Williams will score the new Star Wars
– Steven Spielberg to direct American Sniper
– New Gears of War movie
– What We’ve Seen This Week
– Extra Film review of Mud
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InSession Film Podcast – Episode 11
Tom Cruise is ready to go on another mission.
According to Deadline, Cruise will reprise his role as Ethan Hunt in a fifth Mission: Impossible film. Paramount and Skydance confirmed that he will star and produce. The writer and director have not yet been finalized.
The last film in the franchise, 2011’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, made over $700 million worldwide, which is the most any Cruise film has ever made. That film was directed by Brad Bird and featured Jeremy Renner.
The Mission: Impossible franchise has a nice thing going right now. J.J. Abrams flipped the switch with 2006’s awesome third installment before Bird knocked it out of the park with the fourth. The franchise is flying high right now so it was only a matter of time before Cruise would sign up for another one.
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Writers: Baz Luhrmann, Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood, Richard Flanagan
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Brandon Walters
Synopsis: Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin, Australia, by Japanese forces firsthand.
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DIRECTION
With Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!, it’s pretty apparent that Baz Luhrmann has a very unique (to say the least) visual style. Australia is not quite like those films, instead focusing more on landscapes and picturesque vistas. Luhrmann gets solid performances out of his cast, even though most of the characters aren’t very well written and are very one-dimensional. And that leads into Luhrmann’s biggest problem: the script, which is too long and just isn’t very good.
Grade: C+
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SCRIPT
Overlong, slow, cliched, melodramatic are the best ways to describe the script for Australia. This is a nearly three-hour film that could’ve easily been cut down to less than two hours and you really wouldn’t miss a thing. The main story arc of Hugh Jackman’s Dover and Nicole Kidman’s Lady Sarah Ashley is incredibly cheesy and very sappy and what was with making all the Aboriginal people seem like mystical beings? Just a disaster all around.
Grade: D
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PERFORMANCES
For the most part the performances are solid in Australia with Jackman doing by far the best work. Brandon Walters, who plays the young Aboriginal boy, also is really good in his first feature film role. Kidman is kind of hit or miss, sometimes good and sometimes terribly bad (she was more hit than miss in Moulin Rouge!).
Grade: B-
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SCORE
Like the rest of Australia, there’s nothing memorable of this front. The score by David Hirschfelder is uninspired and unoriginal, using a lot of themes that can be found in many other westerns and romantic melodramas. But if you’re into The Wizard of Oz, they do incorporate “Over the Rainbow” into the film quite a bit. So there’s that.
Grade: C
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Iron Man 3 had the second biggest opening ever at the box office. Iron Man 3 had huge expectations and it came through with an estimated $175.3 million, which ranks it second all-time behind last years, The Avengers that took home $207.4 million. The business overseas is also doing incredible earning well over $1 billion worldwide. Yes, already, $1 billion.
The debut for Iron Man 3 is a pretty giant leap over Iron Man 2, which opened up at $128.1 million. While the third films in trilogies aren’t usually this successful, Iron Man 3 pretty much serves as a sequel to The Avengers and the marketing for this film was incredible. Disney did a phenomenal job of making this film look like an epic return for Tony Stark as his home is destroyed and The Mandarin would be possibly the best villain Marvel has had yet. Well if you’ve read my review for Iron Man 3, you’ll see it’s slightly (eyes roll) different than that.
According to Box Office Mojo, Iron Man 3, accounted for over 82 percent of the Top 12’s movies at the box office. Pain & Gain struggled this weekend and dropped 63% to an estimated $7.6 million. I hope Michael Bay didn’t have huge expectations for this film as his film lost all it’s luster after reviews started coming out. I however liked it and thought it was very different for him, but I can also see why people certainly didn’t like it. Jackie Robison’s biopic, 42, earned another $6.2 million, which four weeks out now makes Pain & Gain’s box office weekend look even more weak. Oblivion had an okay weekend which topped out at $5.8 million.
Any other movie this weekend had zero chance of competing with Iron Man 3, but given the fact that it was so successful, those other films can walk away happy that they still made anything valuable. Were you able to see anything this weekend in the theaters? Let us know in the comment section after the jump!
While Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Fantastic Four movie franchises are still owned by other studios, Marvel was able to get back the rights to Ghost Rider and Blade. In 2010, they regained the rights to The Punisher and in 2012 captured the rights to Daredevil after Fox wasn’t able to get a reboot off the writers table.
In an interview with EW, Marvel CEO Kevin Feige confirmed that Sony and New Line released the rights of Ghost Rider and Blade back to Marvel (probably where they belong too).
“Whenever a character comes back to us, it’s usually because the other studios don’t want to make the movies anymore – and that usually means the [previous] movies may not have been particularly well-received… They all have potential, but we’re not going to say ‘We got it back – make it,'” said Feige.
That’s a pretty smart decision by Feige given where the Marvel Universe is right now, they don’t necessarily need to bring back The Punisher, Blade or Ghost Rhider. Daredevil on the other hand could be a more likely fit and it’s probably the more interesting stories and characters that could do well if given the right cast and director. Marvel has a good thing going right now with the Avengers story arches, I’m not sure if any of these movies would be beneficial at all. However, I always like the idea of Marvel getting back their properties as they also do a great job of bringing their own characters to life on the big screen. Out of all the movies done so far, Iron Man 3 was probably the biggest disappointment so far. Although, it does set up the Tony Stark character well for the rest of Marvel’s Phase 2.
What do you guys think? Should they make stand alone movies for these new regained characters?
It looks like Steven Spielberg has found his next project and it’s another war movie. Since he’s not going to be directing Jurassic Park 4, a lot of people have been wondering what he’d do next. Well according to THR, Spielberg has officially signed on to direct American Sniper for Warner Brothers. While that title suggests a TV movie, the film is based on Chris Kyle’s own book, American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.
The movie will star Bradley Cooper, who will play Kyle as a Navy SEAL, a man who apparently has more sniper kills than anyone in U.S. history. The script is being written by Jason Dean Hall who also wrote the film, Spread. Bradley Cooper is set to produce alongside Spielberg, Andrew Lazar and Peter Morgan.
This will be the second bio-pic by Spielberg, but unlike Lincoln, no one will have any perspective or expectations as Kyle is mostly unknown outside of military experts, friends and family. Kyle served during the major battles of the Iraq War before leaving the Navy in 2009. Unfortunately, Kyle was killed earlier this year at a shooting range by a fellow vet who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
No other details have been mentioned yet, but knowing Spielberg, he’ll be able to play the action and characters great and will handle the controversy well. I love what he did with Lincoln and while this doesn’t have the same kind of history behind it, Spielberg will still pull off the emotions well. You can bet on this to probably be another Oscar contender.
In what isn’t a very big surprise, Michael Caine has been cast in Christopher Nolan’s, Interstellar. This will be the sixth time Caine and Nolan have teamed up, who worked together on the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception and The Prestige.
Caine will join a cast that includes Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain. It’s a pretty star-studded cast which is exciting giving Nolan’s amazing skillset as a director. Nolan also rewrote the script, which was done by his brother, and will center around an ambitious, heroic interstellar voyage that will push the boundaries of our scientific understanding.
I’m looking forward to this film and Caine is just another piece that makes me even more excited for it.
The Men in Black will be back. Sony Pictures has started development on the fourth movie in the franchise, according to The Wrap. Oren Uziel, who is writing an up coming Mortal Kombat film and the sequel to 21 Jump Street, has won the screenwriting gig.
Men in Black 3 was a success at the box office last summer and earned the franchise’s highest earnings. It probably wasn’t as good as the first one, but it was way better than the second film in the franchise.
Currently, there are no other details or release date for MIB 4. I assume Will Smith will be back in his role. Tommy Lee Jones has seemed like he’s done with the franchise, so I’m not sure how they’ll do his character or if he will even be in the film. I loved Smith in the third installment and the ending was amazing to that film.
What you think, good idea?
Director: Shane Black
Writers: Drew Pearce (screenplay), Shane Black (screenplay)
Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Sir Ben Kingsley
Synopsis: When Tony Stark’s world is torn apart by a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin, he starts an odyssey of rebuilding and retribution.
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DIRECTION
Shane Black is one of those guys that fly’s under the radar, but he is an extremely talented writer and director. That being said, I’m very disappointed with his direction for Iron Man 3 and most of the blame goes to the marketing for this film. I came in with high expectations; looking for a serious-toned, dramatic, revenge story that would have lots of action and an epic ending. And the marketing made it out to be just that. However, Iron Man 3 is comedic on every level and while it tries to take itself serious, it doesn’t pull it off very well. Of course you’d expect comedy out of it given the series, but it has that Transformers-type, unnecessary comedy that detracts from the film. The serious layers become forced and heartless with almost zero direction. Without giving away spoilers, the direction they take with The Mandarin is extremely disappointing and probably the part that is most upsetting. This is where the marketing fails the film the most and it’s hard to go much further without giving too much away. The action sequences are good though and the final battle in the last 20 minutes was executed flawlessly. The visuals are stunning and probably the best in the series leaving you in amazing suspense in several cases. This is Black at his very best and I love what he did with the film on those levels. There’s an established relationship between Tony Stark and a kid that I thought was heart-felt and hilarious, which gave the film and the character of Tony Stark a different vibe than what we’ve seen before. It feels very random and out of nowhere, but it was executed well. The film is also set as a flashback from Stark’s perspective as he is narrating the story which I thought was a nice touch. I love how they played Stark and the ending is set up incredibly for what and who he will be going forward. Overall, while it was funny and the visuals were great, I walked out with a feeling that can be described simply in one word: disappointed.
Grade: B-
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SCRIPT
Black is a talented writer and has written many films such as the Lethal Weapon series and his last movie he directed, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I’ve loved most of the films he’s put his hand too, but Iron Man 3 is not one of his better achievements (depending on how you look at it). If you’re looking for humor and fun, Black and Pearce’s script is good. The humor, while it doesn’t live up to the first two Iron Man‘s or The Avengers, is pretty good and even more colorful than the previous times we’ve seen Tony Stark. However the film doesn’t know if it’s a serious action-hero movie or a comedy that features superhero’s. Both the serious tone and the comedy feel lacking because they fight each other as to which one the film wants to be. The dialogue is strong and is a new revelation for Stark as he finds himself in some unfamiliar territory while being himself at the same time. The film for the most part floats on the surface except for the narrative of The Mandarin. Again, can’t go much further without giving spoilers, but it’s not what I was hoping for and is very different than the comics. Pepper Potts while mostly in the background, gets a bigger role in some ways that will set up her character more in future films. Her relationship with Stark was just set in fast forward. Again, because of the film’s ambiguity and randomness, it mostly is just all over the place leaving you with an emptiness we didn’t expect coming off The Avengers.
Grade: C+
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PERFORMANCES
Robert Downey Jr. is on his A game again in Iron Man 3. While I think the script doesn’t know if Stark should be serious or comedic, Downey Jr. delivers the lines well and brings that character to life once again. Downey Jr. is Tony Stark and it’ll be hard to see anyone else in that role. He’s incredible and he elevates the other actors and actresses around him. Gwenyth Paltrow is great as Pepper Pots again and while her role is more background, she delivers a punch at the end. Guy Pearce is an amazing bad guy and plays his character well without being too over the top. Sir Ben Kingsley is amazing in his role and while his character’s narrative is VERY lacking, he does an amazing job. The other supporting roles are good and what they need to be to make this film work. Some of the supporting characters bring unnecessary humor or are forced to deliver lines they don’t need to, but on a performance level they make it work.
Grade: A-
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SCORE
I was very distracted by my disappointment of the story that I didn’t pay enough attention to Brian Tyler’s score. That being said, it wasn’t something that was outstanding enough to get my attention either. It was good and I liked it in the action sequences. I don’t think it lives up to the first two Iron Man score’s, but I’ll have to give it another listen to be fair about it. It’s good enough that I will want to listen to it outside the film and Brian Tyler is a pretty good composer so it’s worth giving it a little attention.
Grade: B-
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If you’re a fan of the best-selling young adult science fiction novel Enders Game, then you’re in for a small treat here. The movie’s first sneak peak was released, but before you get too excited, this is a true teaser. Where marketing trailers now-a-days seems to dilute the movie a little bit, this is a very short teaser to get you excited. The first full trailer comes out next week on May 7.
If you’re not quite sure what the story is about, this teaser won’t help at all. The novel is set in a future where aliens have almost wiped out the human race and the surviving military has rounded up the best young minds to help figure out a way to destroy the invaders. The story surrounds around Ender Wiggin, one of human-kind’s best and youngest warriors chosen to be Earth’s last hope.
Well now that you know what the novel is about, here’s 14 seconds of teaser for you. And yes, it looks pretty awesome.
Enders Game will star Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield and is set to be released in November.
Here are the movies that are opening this weekend. Of course, you’ll go see Iron Man 3, but are there any others you’re excited for?
Iron Man 3
Love Is All You Need
Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s
The Iceman
Something in the Air
What Maisie Knew
Kiss of the Damned
Greetings from Tim Buckley
Generation Um…
Dead Man’s Burden
1st Night
Cinco de Mayo, La Batalla
Will White House Down be better than March’s Olympus Has Fallen? That’s the question everyone will ask themselves after watching the newest trailer.
My answer is that White House Down will be better. It has explosions-expert director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012), it’s written by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, The Amazing Spider-Man) and it features Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx. And this trailer just looks like a lot of over-the-top fun.
White House Down hits theaters on June 28.
If you’re like me, the anticipation for Man of Steel is killing you. Well, here’s a high-flying poster to tide you over.
Man of Steel opens on June 14.
