Cowboys & Aliens – the interviews

During the promotion of Western/sci-fi flick Cowboys and Aliens, Jon Favreau, gregarious filmmaker that he is, conducted a series of interviews with most of the principal cast in the film. The result is a wonderful series of short but candid interviews on the making of the film. It may not have made a huge splash with audiences and critics when it debuted in the US at the start of the month, but I do wish filmmakers and studios do these interviews a little more often instead of those maddeningly boring Q&A’s that they churn out. Here are a few of them embedded on the site, to see the rest, watch them on YouTube or at the Cowboys & Aliens site.

Poster Roundup – Immortals, TF3, The Guard, Crazy Stupid Love and more

Another week and tons of posters to get through!

beginning with Immortals directed by Tarsem Singh (The Fall and the upcoming Snow White film with Julia Roberts), comes another batch of character posters (four in total). After the teaser trailer was received somewhat negatively (arguments over style and question marks over the originality of the content), Warner Bros has set about redressing those concerns by distracting us with some gorgeous one sheets. They’re not an indication of whether the film will be any good, but if the posters are accurate representation of the film’s style, it will certainly look very purdy. Unlike the first batch these character posters focus more on the human element of the film.

Immortals follows Henry Cavill’s (The Tudors, upcoming Man of Steel) Theseus, a peasant chosen by Zeus to battle against a new evil that threatens the land. Mad with power, King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) has declared war against humanity. Amassing a bloodthirsty army of soldiers, Hyperion has scorched Greece in search of the legendary Epirus Bow, a weapon forged in the heavens by Ares. In the king’s hands, the bow would rain destruction upon mankind and annihilate the Gods. But ancient law dictates the Gods must not intervene in man’s conflict. They remain powerless to stop Hyperion until Theseus comes forth as their only hope.

I’ll keep this one short and sweet. Optimus Prime, sword, destruction. Can you guess which film it is? I can’t say that I’m anticipating Transformers: Dark of the Moon, I’m vaguely interested in how Michael Bay will handle the 3D but we’re three films into this franchise and I’ve found it not to my liking. That being said I’ll probably go and see this, the mere hint of redemption after Revenge of the Fallen is pulling me in. There must be something wrong with me.

Next up is a smaller film. Written and directed by John Michael McDonagh (Brother of Martin McDonagh who wrote and directed the brilliant In Bruges), comes The Guard. Starring Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle, the former as an unorthodox Irish policeman with a confrontational personality who’s teamed up with an uptight FBI agent (Cheadle) to investigate an international drug-smuggling ring. Promising the same kind of black humour that In Bruges was sprinkled with, for me this film is a must see. The Guard is released August 19th in the UK.

It doesn’t hit our shores until sometime in September (2nd September to be exact) but Crazy Stupid Love is coming out in the US on the 29th July. Apparently this film is very good according to those who have seen it but this poster seems to place strictly with the raunchy comedy genre which probably does it a disservice. And look at those faces lining the bottom of the poster, each character looks like they’ve been airbrushed to the point where I can’t even tell if Steve Carell is real or just a coloured in photo-fit.

When I first heard about The Devil’s Double I thought it was a horror film which completely disinterested me. Then I did some research (Total Film magazine and IMDB!) and found out it’s about Dominic Cooper’s Latif Yahia, a man who was forced to become the double of Saddam Hussein’s sadistic son, Uday. My interest peaked only to be reminded that the buzz on this film is so-so. Directed by Lee Tamohori (director of the abysmal Die Another Day) the film comes out in the UK on the 12th August.

Next up is Jon Favreau’s Cowboys and Aliens. Bond flanked by Indiana Jones. Nuff said. Uk release date is August 19th.

I posted the original set of posters some time ago, along with a trailer and now we have another poster for Gavin O’ Connor’s (Pride and Glory) Warrior. It was shown at the film exhibitor’s festival in the US and garnered some good reviews. Starring Nick Nolte, Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy, expect to see this one in cinemas on the 23 September. If you like staring at ripped bodies you will definitely like this poster.

It’s not easy being green. It really isn’t.

Finally the poster for the Footloose remake. Having never seen the 1984 original with Kevin Bacon I can’t say that I even raised an eyebrow looking at this poster. Who cares?

 

another trailer for Cowboys and Aliens

I’m not casting doubt on whether Cowboys and Aliens will be  any good, in fact I think it’ll be a more than decent blend of the Western and Sci-Fi genres. However, with each trailer that comes out, I find myself becoming slightly bored by the footage Paramount/Dreamworks are showing. They’ve already sold the set-piece where the town in the film comes under attack but keeping come back to it over and over and they’ve done this with other sequences as well. I have no problem with recycling footage but do we need 3/4 trailers if you’re going to take that route? I wonder whether the amount of trailers being released is a reaction to the deluge of marketing noise  that’s been created between sequels and other comic book films that are coming out this summer.

 

Thoughts on the Super Bowl Trailers

I’m not much of American football fan myself, living in the UK we don’t get a lot of coverage on the NFL so the American Football (or Hand-egg) is usually out of sight, out of mind. That is until the Super Bowl rolls around and we’re inundated with reports on THE GREATEST SPORTING EVENT IN THE WORLD (/sarcasm). It gets even worse as since I live in the UK all those trailers that studios pay through the nose to get on air aren’t even available for me to see til the next day. All the glamour and glitz of the Super Bowl is lost in me as I struggle to figure whose who and why play consistently stops every thirty seconds, disappears for a minute, comes back for ten seconds and so on…

Anyhoo, the trailers, most of which run for thirty seconds, a few one minute spots and they usually represent films coming out in the Summer; setting down a marker for possible definite blockbusters that will occupy our screens for the duration of the summer. For my thoughts, read on…