I saw this movie at a sneak preview and have to say I was very impressed at how Nolan was able to weave a complex narrative and for Bale and Jackman to execute it through their acting. I loved the fact that the story takes place at the turn of the century – not to mention the obvious allusion to film itself having been invented around that time and people thinking of it as a form of “visual magic.” The internal struggle each character faces as a result of the rivalry btw Bale and Jackman’s character comes off strongly, with very complimentary performance by Johansson and other female actors. Michael Caine’s character, as expected, is sort of that person who helps the story move along – though it’s Michael Caine so can’t really dismiss him as a “story device.” And finally, David Bowie is quite amusing as Nikola Tesla – fans will enjoy his cameo (actually he gets pretty good screen time). I’ve been a fan of Nolan since Memento and this one surely did not disappoint.
It was confirmed in July that Guillermo Del Toro would be adapting H. P. Lovecraft’s horror novel At the Mountains of Madness with James Cameron acting as executive producer.
Collider are now reporting that Universal and Del Toro may be at deadlocks over who they want to cast in the lead role. Universal appear to want James McAvoy, while Del Toro wants to cast Tom Cruise, whom he met earlier this year to discuss a new Van Helsing project.
At the Mountains of Madness will be shot in 3D, with filming likely to begin in May 2011, meaning both McAvoy and Cruise would be available, so it’s now up to Universal and Del Toro to reach an amicable agreement.
HP Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness was a horror novella, originally serialised in 1936 and included within several issues of Astounding Stories magazine.
The plot is detailed below:
A 1930s geologic expedition ventures into the unknown wastes of Antarctica. There part of the expedition suffers a horrendous fate. The survivors set out to discover what happened and find a vast city buried in the ice which pre-dates mankind. As they explore the fantastical ruins the scholars discover that the city’s terrifying builder’s may still be there.
Who would you like to see play the lead role – McAvoy, Cruise, or someone completely different? Have your say in the comments section below.
Cast your mind’s back to many years ago when director Robert Zemeckis was doing the publicity rounds for Back to the Future II and mischievously claimed that the hoverboards from the 2015 segment of the film were actually going into production. It was a complete fabrication of course, but I’m sure there were a number of excited children who half expected Santa to be dropping one off in that year’s bundle of presents.
The good news for that generation of kids who were misled is they may finally get the chance to own another of the film’s futuristic props, Marty McFly’s Nike Air Mag shoes! Nice Kicks have news that these automatic lace-ups have actually been patented by Nike (there’s a nice diagram of the trainer below).
Back to the Future is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and fans are riding the wave of nostalgia at the moment (watch this space for our interview with Bob Gale, one of the film’s producers!), so this is the perfect time for Nike to unveil this idea.
Personally, I’ll be more impressed when a new batch of DeLoreans hit the market, each with their very own built-in flux capacitor.
Jon Hamm, star of Mad Men, looks set to star in Jennifer Westfeldt’s upcoming dramedy Friends With Kids, with the couple “hopeful” that Kristen Wiig and Anne Hathaway will join the cast.
2010 seems to be a year that has embraced 3D technology more than ever before. 3D has started to pave a way for a new dynamic to movies that actually works. We’ve seen this technology before but there seem to be far less complaints this time around than there have been before, with movies like Avatar becoming the highest grossing film ever made – helped no end by the more expensive tickets and demands to go and see a 3D movie. In this infographic, we get to see exactly where 3d has come from right up to where we are now.
Did you know that 3D technology has been around for over 100 years? Research is predicting that by the end of 2010, more than 50 broadcasters and pay-TV providers will offer 3D services in the home. Does it come as a surprise that it has taken over 100 years to get 3D technology to this stage?
Sony have just sent us this infographic detailing how 3D has changed over the past century showing that, since the first patent for the 3D movie process way back in 1890, 3D has been popular and continually developed over the years with companies like Sony now bringing 3d into the home for the first time. They forecast that half of all televisions made in 2014 will be 3D-capable.
So what are your thoughts on 3d? Have you already gone out and bought a 3d TV or will you be buying one in the future? Is it something that you’re not bothered in the slightest about?
Tell us in the comments below.
I’ve placed both a 3d and a 2d version of the info graphic below. If you have a pair of 3d glasses at home, check it out in 3d!
Originally envisioned as a feature film, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series looks set to reach viewers via the smaller screen instead. Deemed unfilmable by Gaiman himself, the project is currently being acquired by Warner Bros. TV from sister company DC Entertainment, who are presumably looking to prove the comic’s creator wrong.
Considered by most circles a seminal piece of work in the medium, Sandman follows the trials of Morpheus, the so-called Lord of Dreaming. A deity who literally personifies dreams, the character started out in the horror fold, before quickly expanding to cover other genre’s with the introduction of The Endless. This group comprised siblings Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire, Delirium and, or course, Dream; taking place in a series of domains such as reality and The Dreaming, among others.
Originally touted to involve Roger Avery during its feature film days, DC quickly resorted to talks with HBO when thoughts turned to TV. THR are reporting that when the project failed to develop, however, Warner Bros. TV stepped in. While Gaiman has enjoyed limited involvement to date, it is still early days. At the top of Warner Bros.’ current list stands Eric Kripke, creator of the CW’s Supernatural. The director stood down from his creation after it outlived his five season plan, showing a level of integrity which will no doubt sate the many devotee’s Sandman has acquired over the years.
While the possibility of a big screen outing for The Endless looks less likely than ever, at least it now rests in capable and experienced hands. Stay tuned for more details.
J.J. Abrams’ hit TV series, Lost came to an end earlier this year but that doesn’t have to be the end of your viewing experience as the Season 6 Box Set and LOST: The Complete Collection are set for release on Blu-ray and DVD on Monday, 13th September. You can pre-order the box set here.
The lovely people at ABC Studios have been kind enough to give us copies of the Lost Season 6 Blu-ray box set to give away to five of our lucky readers!!
Synopsis: With only 18 episodes left until the final episode of Lost, the island’s violent shifts through time were ended by Locke when he traveled off-island in an attempt to persuade the Oceanic 6 to return. Back on the island, the survivors’ stay in late ‘70s Dharmaville was over when their covers were blown and they were accused of aiding “The Others,” and Sayid was gravely wounded during their flight. In addition, Ben killed Jacob at Locke’s request. But since Locke’s body was found to still be inside the coffin, exactly who – or what – is John Locke? And if Juliet was successful in detonating the hydrogen bomb, was she able to reset time, allowing Oceanic Air 815 to land safely in Los Angeles, or was the island destroyed along with all of its inhabitants?
To be in with a chance of winning this quite frankly, awesome prize, all you have to do is answer the following question using the form below:
Who plays the character of John Locke in Lost?
The small print:
This competition is open to the UK only
Only one entry per household will be counted
The competition will close Monday 13th September (release date) at 23.59 GMT
The winner will be picked at random from entries received
Produced by Eli Roth and directed by Daniel Stamm The Last Exorcism is a film made in the style of a documentary and the subject is Cotton Marcus, a preacher who agrees to carry out one last exorcism to show the world the truth behind them.
The Last Exorcism has been very successful in the US and has an ending that has divided audiences. We were lucky enough to get talk to both Eli Roth and Daniel Stamm about the film and its ending. There are therefore quite a few spoilers throughout.
Eli Roth’s involvement.
ER: Originally the producers Marc Abraham and Eric Newman brought the script to me as it was a project that they had developed and Studio Canal said that they would step in to finance the movie if I got involved. Originally the writers were attached to direct and I loved their film, Mail Order Wife. I read it (The Last Exorcism script) and thought it was one of the best, smartest, scariest, most compelling scripts I’d ever read. Every time I thought I had it figured out a new twist came in. And I’d always wanted to be involved in a possession film, an exorcism film. It’s such rich subject matter but of course you think, how could you ever top The Exorcist. I read the script and thought well you can’t top The Exorcist, don’t even try. You can tell a different story in this space, make it completely original and totally different. I started thinking about vampires and what started as Dracula and Nosferatu is now Twilight, True Blood and The Vampire Diaries. Look at Zombies, there’s the Dawn of the Dead remake, Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, The Walking Dead. It’s endless, people love it. Possession is so relevant and so modern, it’s still very much a part of culture and I thought it’s time to do an updated treatment of the subject.
The Last Exorcism is a very small film, it’s a psychological thriller, a drama about a girl who might be possessed or might be crazy. It’s the clash of science versus religion with the reverend taking the position of science saying she’s crazy and the father taking the position of religion. The fun is watching these two sides duke it out.
Social commentary in the film and the themes of faith and religion.
ER: When making the film you’re not really conscious of that but looking back you are. People have come out of it and they look at the clash of science and religion. That’s really America, I mean 42% of Americans believe in the Devil and Creationism and the other half think that that’s ridiculous and there were dinosaurs. Neither side will bend to one degree and it leads to everyone’s downfall. Both the father and Cotton want what’s best for the girl and they’re both coming out it from completely opposite ends. The film does not take a side, it presents both sides fairly. We’ve seen people who are atheists who’ve seen the movie who think she’s crazy and the deeply faithful who think the father’s right.
DS: I’m not arrogant enough to say here’s a ninety minute movie and by the end of it I’ll answer your questions about faith. But it was important to me that we would have these two forces, science and faith, that we send on their journey. We don’t have any preconceived notion of who should win, that we make the best possible case, the most intelligent, eloquent and fair case for each of these two and give them each a protagonist. Then send them on the journey and see what the outcome might be. And not say this is a movie about faith winning or science winning. I think it’s much stronger to create that question mark. That’s the big difference between the American audience and the European audience in that the American audience enjoys answers a lot and the European audience enjoys questions. I wanted to make a European movie in that way, we throw that question out there.
Why it is often women, in particular young girls who are the possessed characters in Exocism films?
ER: There have been films with men but when a girl gets possessed it’s terrifying and seeing a girl that’s very unsexualised, the way that Nell is, a virgin behaving sexually is disturbing as it looks out of character. If you saw a fifteen year old boy suddenly acting that way you wouldn’t think he was possessed you’d think he was fifteen. If you saw him doing the things that she does you’d think he’s not possessed he’s just being an asshole teenager. If you had a boy doing the stuff that happens in an exorcism movie you’d be watching A Clockwork Orange.
The documentary style of The Last Exorcism
ER: Found footage is where you found a camera, you took out the tape and pressed play and that’s it. We wanted to do a documentary where you’re watching Grey Gardens, The Brother’s Keeper, The king of Kong or American Movie and it’s scored and edited and you want people to get to the end of the movie and think who the f**k got this together. Was this the cult, was it God, is this Cotton’s greatest trick. Who knows. We like starting that discussion at the end of the film.
DS: The documentary style is completely liberating because you don’t spend any time on the technical aspects, you don’t spend four hours lighting something. You completely concentrate on the actors. We did twenty/thirty takes of stuff just to try to experiment, to give them the freedom of not feeling like they had to hit a particular vision of mine. They were completely free to improvise. 90% of what you get might be crap but the 10% feels real, it feels authentic. You have to create moments that feel real and if there’s a single moment that feels fake the whole building you’re building falls apart. That’s the challenge of that style. What it allows you to do in a horror movie is tear down that fourth wall that protects you.
The Ending
ER:Part of the fun of doing it for under two million dollars is you can take the position on the ending we took where this is where the story ends and leave it open ended. People are split on it too. They are either 100% with it and think, that’s incredible I need to rethink the whole movie or people think the movie just switched on them and think, what the f**k just happened and feel totally betrayed by it. We knew that was a chance that we were taking but overall for the people that like digging into an intellectual type of film it has sparked all kinds of discussion.
At the end of the film, the final ceremony is all about Cotton. The townspeople are doing all these theatrics for Cotton because they know he has the camera and it’s all because they know he doesn’t believe in God and therefore does not believe in the Devil. By the time the demon reveals itself it’s too late, if he really believed in God he’d have believed in him before that point. The whole film has an underlying message of faith, that you shouldn’t mess with forces bigger than yourself, than your understanding.
DS: When he walks towards the fire he has just found his faith but he hasn’t found his faith before hell opens up and the demon shoots out so can you really call that faith. How is God going to react to that? That isn’t for me to decide so we cut away.
(at this point I asked about how the film could be read as a creation by the villagers or by Cotton)
I always loved the idea too that it might all be his (Cotton Marcus’) show and if you pay attention to the first act there is a lot of set up to that that then never pays off. He says that every preacher needs a hook to bring people in. His hook would be this film, the demon. His wife also says that he’s writing screenplays. Then we have the flames, the smoke, everything that the demon is made of. I was hoping this would come across more but when we test screened it it didn’t really as people couldn’t wrap the heads around the idea that he found actors that good, finding a girl that good who could do all the stuff she does. That fell apart a bit in that it’s probably not Cotton Marcus’ film but I love that there is a touch of that. No-one asked me about that in the US.
We get all kinds of reactions about the ending and there is a real passionate debate. I would love for everyone to love it but the next best thing is this because it shows how passionate people are about the movie and about the characters. I’m getting people on Twitter telling me to jump of the Empire State building. Wow, that’s pretty passionate.
Future projects
ER: Endangered Species is in the writing stage. For The Man With The Iron Fist we are scouting locations in the middle of September in China. In my dream I will finish this (The Last Exorcism) then do Endangered Species then do Thanksgiving… The problem is that in the first 12 pages of Thanksgiving we already have 38 kills and we realise that’s a bit ridiculous, we’ll have to tone it down a bit.
DS: My next project is a supernatural thriller and it’s not going to be shot in documentary style. It’s going to be an actual narrative, conventional movie. The deal is just being made so I can’t talk about it but I’m burning to talk about it because one of my favourite filmmakers in the world, whose a legend, is producing it. He’s incredible and I can’t wait to work with him on this. It’s an idea of his that another writer is writing and I’m going to direct. It has a twist in the ending, without giving away who it is.
The Last Exorcism is released in UK cinemas today.
A brand new poster for Gareth Edwards’ low-budget alien invasion flick Monsters, has made it’s way online, via IMPA.
This new poster is certainly more artistic than the others we’ve seen, and maintains the high level of intrigue surrounding the film.
Monsters stars Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able. It will be released on November 12.
Alien life forms have spread throughout central America leading to the quarantine of half of Mexico. The U.S. and Mexican militaries are battling to contain the creatures, with a wall stretching along the American border. The story follows Andrew (McNairy), an American photojournalist helping his wealthy employer’s daughter, Samantha (Able), get back to America. Their journey takes them across Central America and eventually into the ‘infected zone’.
Check out the oddly captivating poster below:
You can find all our coverage of Monsters here, including trailers, posters and a review from the Edinburgh Film Festival.
After winning a competition in 2007 Jason Eisner’s fake trailer for Hobo With a Shotgun was attached to prints of Grindhouse. Another fake trailer that played as part of the Grindhouse double bill was Machete.
Both Machete and Hobo With a Shotgun are now ‘real’ feature films and today marks the US release of Machete (although it’s not released in the UK until late November). Fittingly the new trailer for Hobo With a Shotgun is playing in some theaters before Machete but not wanting to deprive fans Eisner has also released it online.
There have been quite a few videos released during the production of Hobo With a Shotgun, which stars Rutger Hauer as the titular Hobo, and you can check out our coverage here.
Eisner says the following of the trailer on his site:
This teaser was first created as a sizzle reel for producers and distributors. It was designed to give everyone an idea of what Hobo would look, sound and feel like. It got such a great reaction from everyone that we decided there was no way we should hide this from you guys.
Check out the trailer embedded below. Definitely NSFW.
I saw this movie at a sneak preview and have to say I was very impressed at how Nolan was able to weave a complex narrative and for Bale and Jackman to execute it through their acting. I loved the fact that the story takes place at the turn of the century – not to mention the obvious allusion to film itself having been invented around that time and people thinking of it as a form of “visual magic.” The internal struggle each character faces as a result of the rivalry btw Bale and Jackman’s character comes off strongly, with very complimentary performance by Johansson and other female actors. Michael Caine’s character, as expected, is sort of that person who helps the story move along – though it’s Michael Caine so can’t really dismiss him as a “story device.” And finally, David Bowie is quite amusing as Nikola Tesla – fans will enjoy his cameo (actually he gets pretty good screen time). I’ve been a fan of Nolan since Memento and this one surely did not disappoint.
It was 
Cast your mind’s back to many years ago when director Robert Zemeckis was doing the publicity rounds for Back to the Future II and mischievously claimed that the hoverboards from the 2015 segment of the film were actually going into production. It was a complete fabrication of course, but I’m sure there were a number of excited children who half expected Santa to be dropping one off in that year’s bundle of presents.
Jon Hamm, star of Mad Men, looks set to star in Jennifer Westfeldt’s upcoming dramedy Friends With Kids, with the couple “hopeful” that Kristen Wiig and Anne Hathaway will join the cast.
2010 seems to be a year that has embraced 3D technology more than ever before. 3D has started to pave a way for a new dynamic to movies that actually works. We’ve seen this technology before but there seem to be far less complaints this time around than there have been before, with movies like Avatar becoming the highest grossing film ever made – helped no end by the more expensive tickets and demands to go and see a 3D movie. In this infographic, we get to see exactly where 3d has come from right up to where we are now.
Originally envisioned as a feature film, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series looks set to reach viewers via the smaller screen instead. Deemed unfilmable by Gaiman himself, the project is currently being acquired by Warner Bros. TV from sister company DC Entertainment, who are presumably looking to prove the comic’s creator wrong.
A brand new poster for Gareth Edwards’ low-budget alien invasion flick Monsters, has made it’s way online, via 
