And who isn’t? Me. I love this damn city. There are only two negatives I find about it. Number one is the traffic, but I knew that when I moved here so I do my best not to complain. The second thing that aggravates me here is sports radio. It’s either USC, the Lakers or the Dodgers 24/7. To put it nicely, I don’t consider myself a fan of any of those teams. Even if I could get some national perspective, it would be better than that. But, I digress.
R&B artist Ne-Yo, whom I recognize by name only, but couldn’t tell any one of his songs (although I’m sure I’ve heard them) is one a few actors announced today to star in an upcoming sci-fi film entitled Battle: Los Angeles. The picture is to be directed by Johnathan Liebesman (Darkness Falls), and will pit Ne-Yo as a corporal in a platoon fighting against an alien invasion. Are all alien invasion movies going to be compared to District 9, now? I would think that’s pretty much the pinnacle at the moment.
Obviously the film will take place in L.A., which has to be the most depicted city in cinema (for ease-of-use purposes) and I’d be curious to check out where the mayhem is to take place, much like I have an inkling of interest in the new “NCIS: Los Angeles,” with LL Cool J and Chris O’Donnell. Ne-Yo has previously been in Stomp the Yard and Save the Last Dance 2, so I can easily say I’ve never seen the guy act. He’ll at least be around Aaron Eckhart, Bridget Moynahan, Michael Pena and for fans of hers, Michelle Rodriguez. I’m more interested in your thoughts on the film than his casting, but by all means, throw your two cents in if you have an opinion on that, too.
According to BloodyDisgusting, a frequent tipster has hinted to them about who may have already been cast in Robert Rodriguez’s full-length adaptation of his Grindhouse trailer, Machete.
Pretty big names abound for a film once rumored to be released direct-to-DVD and one that stars Danny Trejo as the title character. Rodriguez has supposedly inked Michelle Rodriguez, Jonah Hill and Robert De Niro for roles. The film is scheduled to start shooting in just a couple of weeks, so you’d think these deals have to be darn close to being done if not already.
It seemed pretty unanimous that Machete was one of the most beloved parts of the Grindhouse experience (though I loved it all) and when I had friends over to watch a DVR’d full-version of the film there were instant calls of “I want to watch this movie,” when the trailer appeared. I think it’s great that conventional wisdom of an undeserved box office failure didn’t squash all the plans Rodriguez had for the future. If this news comes to pass, he has definitely wrangled up a nice cast for himself and it only works to increase my anticipation.
What do you think of the names you might be seeing in the big screen Machete?
By special “The Film Nest” guest contributor: Joseph Amaral (aka “JoeCoconut” in Comments section)
Yet again, we’re blessed with the good graces of another Hollywood blockbuster sequel. Moviegoers eat this stuff up and Hollywood continues to provide. Fast & Furious continues the tradition with its already tiresome franchise. It follows The Fast and the Furious (2001), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006). Fast & Furious also marks the return of the original cast to the series. Paul Walker came back for 2 Fast 2 Furious and Vin Diesel made a small cameo appearance in Tokyo Drift, but this is a full-on reunion. Since the first film, the trademark for these movies has been fast cars, catchy special effects, ridiculous plots and bad acting. Of course, who can forget the wonderful exchange between Diesel and Walker in the first film. “I almost had you,” said Walker after he almost beat Diesel in a race. “You almost had me?” Diesel said. “You never had me. You never had your car.”
Speaking of Diesel, I used to be a big fan of the man when he first came to the acting scene. He was terrific in Saving Private Ryan (his first movie) and Boiler Room. I always thought he had the potential to star in great movies. Sadly, that hasn’t occurred yet, and may never do so. He had glimpses with Sidney Lumet’s Find Me Guilty, but has otherwise been mired in dreck, since Boiler Room. He took the Hollywood action/adventure bait and starred in crap after crap like Pitch Black, The Fast and the Furious, xXx, AMan Apart, Chronicles of Riddick and Babylon A.D. Sadly, that tease of showing up at the end of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, hinting to another sequel, has finally materialized.
"I'm gonna take a tire iron to your skull if you don't wipe that smile off of your face."
Diesel returns as Dominic Toretto, now an ex-con, who must form an uneasy partnership with his old adversary; cop Brain O’Connor (Paul Walker), to stop a mutual enemy in Los Angeles. It brings back their ladies in the form of Toretto’s girl, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez; more on her in a bit), and O’Connor’s girl, Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster; whom I didn’t even know was still acting), who is also Dom’s sister. Justin Lin, who directed Tokyo Drift, returns for this, and I’m sure he’ll continue the bad direction of actors after Rob Cohen (Fast and the Furious) and John Singleton (2 Fast 2 Furious). Speaking of directing, there is online buzz that Diesel himself will direct a short prequel before this movie, telling the story of what happened to Dom and Letty after the events of the first film.
Now, to Michelle Rodriguez. I despise M-Rod. She has literally played the same tough-girl role in everything, following her critically acclaimed performance in Girlfight. That movie granted her overnight success that has somehow sustained for dozens of performances. She is one of the worst actresses I have EVER seen and has starred in garbage such as S.W.A.T., Blue Crush, BloodRayne (Uwe Boll-directed, need I say more) and was the worst thing about “Lost.” Thank goodness her career has waned a bit, and I hope this film doesn’t serve as a comeback. She’s earned her spot on our list of “Top 20 Actors Who May Want to Call it a Career.”
Do us a favor, and let go of her, Vinnie.
I’m obviously not a fan of these films and after seeing the trailer for this one, it doesn’t look positive, either. The formula for this series has dried up, and bringing back actors who were not good to begin with (aside from Diesel), doesn’t bode well. The cars, stunts and special effects may entertain people, but heaven help you if you desire a story.
There’s been a lot of hype about the Transformers sequel over the past few weeks. We were given the teaser poster, we put the movie up as one of our Top 20 Anticipated of the year, we’ve learned there wouldn’t be any Dinobots and now we have the first official footage from the film. Below is the Super Bowl spot for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It’s short. Only 30 seconds, but for anybody planning to check out the re-boot of Friday the 13th in a couple of weeks, you can expect to see a longer teaser attached to that. Behold the TV spot:
I LOVE that huge robot bursting through the freeway and emerging right at the end. That’s just beautiful. I’m also very happy to see a quick glimpse of a robot transforming into a car. It’s a magnificent sight.
You can indulge your nostalgia for the first film here and go back even further and pick up the 1986 animated film. All will help bide time until June 26th.
I’ve never seen an episode of “Star Trek” in my life. I’ve actually worked hard to avoid it. It’s always been around me in its several incarnations on TV, but I’ve managed to make myself sparse during those times. It’s the Klingons that I can’t look at. Like Worf. I could hardly stand to look at that guy through a commercial. Look at that thing. The stuff nightmares are made of. For the same reason, I’ve never seen any Planet of the Apes films. The faces are too difficult to look at for me.
There aren’t any Worf-like creatures in any of the Star Trek spots so far and I’m thankful for it. Here’s your chance to check out the Star Trek Super Bowl spot, below:
Is anybody excited for this who’s NOT a “Star Trek” fan already? I can kind of see the appeal. I think the involvement of J.J. Abrams was a good decision. It might help crossover into non-”Star Trek” fandom. What did you think of the TV spot? Did it really entice? Are you more into it, less into it or just the same?
Certainly one of my most anticipated movies of the year, Pixar’s Up, has its Super Bowl TV spot online. It’s very similar to the teaser trailer that’s already out. There’s a short tag joke at the end, which is knew. A whetting of the appetite for sure. Of course not much needs to be revealed to get people on board for a Pixar film. They just need to know it exists. Check out the spot, below.
We’ve already previewed the film here. And as the TV spot suggest, you can see an exclusive clip from ‘Up’ at Disney.com. Unfortunately I can’t embed it for you, so here’s a direct link to that clip. I won’t spoil anything about it for you.
Meanwhile, I’ve been catching up on my “Empire” magazine reading lately and there’s a couple new pics from Up I hadn’t seen before. Here they are for you:
What did you think of the TV spot? Did you check out the clip? I look forward to any comment from a devout Pixar fan, like myself.
Here we are with another Super Bowl spot before the game has been played. This one is for the filmic adaptation of the TV series “Land of the Lost.” Land of the Lost stars Will Ferrell and Danny McBride (second billing!) and they go back in time and face dinosaurs, amongst other creatures. I guess after not having Dinobots in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, we’ll still be able to get our dino fix this summer.
I don’t know. Never seeing the show, I don’t have any connection to the material. It could be good. I think this spot will do well in terms of selling the movie to viewers tomorrow, and that’s its main goal. I’m happy Will Ferrell isn’t in some crazy sports comedy and it looks pretty epic. Brad Silberling directs his first big movie since the unfortunate Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. That one is obviously off the “franchise” train.
What do you think of this spot? Do you want to see the movie?
This one is more of a scene from the film than just a TV spot. Kind of hard to believe you’ll see this one in it’s entirely during tomorrow’s game. That’d be $12 million! Whatever gets people excited about the film and makes them buy tickets, I guess.
The Year One is directed by Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day) from a script he wrote with “The Office” scribes, Gene Stupnitsky & Less Eisenberg. Michael Cera and Jack Black star as Oh and Zed, respectively, two caveman trying to survive before civilization. In the clip/TV spot below, you’ll also meet Kane and Abel, played by Paul Rudd and David Cross.
It looks pretty decent to me. I’d love it to be good and funny. I recall the buzz being not particularly strong from some test screening reviews I’ve read. I wish I was able to tell you myself if it was worthy or not.
UPDATE: It turns out that was just a clip. Here’s the actual Super Bowl spot.
This scene reminded me of a clip from the 1981 film, Caveman, starring Ringo Starr, that I’ve seen numerous types playing “Scene It” on the 360. Sadly, I couldn’t find the exact one. Here’s a clip of music being invented.
I wonder if the Super Bowl will be holding any more surprises tomorrow. We now bring you the Super Bowl spot for the third sequel (that’s number four) to The Fast and the Furious, the creatively titled Fast & Furious! This is the first Super Bowl spot we’ve posted for a film that’s already had a trailer released, so only slightly new footage. Of course, this is going out to the few people that watch the Super Bowl, too. Behold!
Vin Diesel used to be my boy when he was coming up. For those that know his first major film role was Saving Private Ryan, an even more in-depth education will lead you to knowing Spielberg had that role written into the film specifically for Diesel after seeing Vinny’s short film Multi-Facial, at Sundance. I bought the DVD and have always enjoyed the 20-minute short. It definitely displays Diesel’s acting chops and saddens me to know he’s been pigeon-holed into this crappy action stuff. Hopefully one day, he’ll break out like I know he’s capable of.
The complete short is below, but if you find it in your heart to buy the DVD, check it out here: Short 5 – Diversity.
I was never allowed to play with G.I. Joe’s as a kid, so I never got into them. I have no idea what any character’s name is. I know “Cobra” has something to do with that universe. So, my excitement for this film is less than zero. It wasn’t really increased by this TV spot. If you want to see what G.I. Joe has in store for you tomorrow during the Super Bowl, just check it out below.
Did you like it? Are you excited for this?
I don’t hold director, Stephen Sommers, in high regard. Remember Van Helsing? It is nice that it’s trying to find a spot in August though, which over the past 10 years or so (ever since The Sixth Sense) has extended the blockbuster season. I’m all for better movies spread around. I hope this is good for anybody that has an interest. Be sure to let me know.
About a year ago, a friend and I were recalling this old G.I. Joe commercial. For the heck of it, here it is below.
The first film-related TV spot set to air during the Super Bowl was made available today via MTV Movies Blog. The spot is for the Dwayne Johnson-starring Disney film, The Race to Witch Mountain.
The film is a remake of the 1975 film, Escape to Witch Mountain. Johnson plays, Jack Bruno, a modern-day Travis Bickle (only in that he drives a taxi), who is sought by a paranormal expert, Dr. Alex Friendman (Carla Gugino), to help protect two extraterrestrials from a dastardly organization who only want to use them for evil. Sounds dastardly.
With 30-seconds of airtime costing $3 million this year, this ad is costing Disney $6 million. Do you think it’s worth it? We’ll find out March 13th, I guess.
As promised earlier here, we’ll bring you all the movie-related Super Bowl ads as they’re released on the net. There could be more coming before the game itself, and we’ll keep you updated.
As mentioned in my preview of the film, I’m actually looking forward to Angels & Demons, even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of The Da Vinci Code film. I just have some wishful thinking, hoping Ron Howard and Co. will have learned from their mistakes. I did think the book was pretty cool and would like it to be done justice on the big screen. Tom Hanks is my boy.
The following clip doesn’t really show off a hell of a lot. It’s 30 seconds long and essentially just shows a few flashes. We’ll apparently have to wait for the theatrical trailer to even get a remote sense of what to expect. I would imagine we’ll get that pretty soon, as the film’s slated for release May 15th.
What did you guys think of this spot? Was they’re really much of anything to help you get hyped? Are you looking forward to this at all?
I certainly never bothered to make my way to a Sobe booth to pick up 3-D glasses, so I can’t tell you about the dazzling things I witnessed in the additional dimension. For those of you that saw the ad, here’s your chance to relive it, and for those that missed it, here’s you chance to see it.
I think this has a chance to be good, actually. I’m not much for any other studios computer animated films, but Pixar’s, and this certainly has a vague resemblance to Monsters, Inc. (as these studios are apt to do), but I do like the eye/tongue/elbow/butt scanner joke.
For those that saw the TV spot in 3-D did it really enhance your enjoyment at all? For anybody not as ready and willing to outright reject the animated product of non-Pixar, what’s your level of interest in the movie?
For some extreme trivia, former “The Simpsons” writer and longtime friend of Wes Anderson (he played the wrestling ref in Rushmore), Wally Wolodarsky had a hand in writing the script.
