Yesterday at noon, a text message popped up on my phone: “TF has soft opened. Wanna go?” And with that, I put all of my scheduled work on hold. I jumped in a car and was off to Universal City. Transformers: The Ride doesn’t open at Universal Studios Hollywood until May 25th 2012, but yesterday the theme park was running a technical rehearsal.
Theme parks usually hold grand opening celebrations, complete a red carpet with celebrities and the usual group of press folk. And after that, on an advertised date, the masses go at it. But before any of that can happen, theme parks hold “soft launches”. This usually begins with employee nights, allowing workers at the theme park to test out the new attraction. After that, they open the ride on select days and hours to annual pass-holders, and sometimes later, the general public. The point of these previews are to test the rides against large groups, to fine tune the technology and hopefully spot problems before the real advertised grand opening.
After the jump you can read my reaction and watch a video blog I recorded after experiencing the ride alongside /Film correspondent and theme park expert Reza Lackey. I have also included an image gallery featuring photos from outside the attraction and inside the queue.
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On April 9 2012, readers of /Film as well as FirstShowing.net were treated to a free, early screening of Drew Goddard‘s The Cabin in the Woods in San Diego, CA. The film, co-written by Joss Whedon, is about a group of friends who think they’re just going on a nice quiet wilderness vacation and find something much, much more. Star Kristen Connolly was on hand to answer questions, fans got free swag and all was right with the world.
After the screening fans were asked to line up and tell us what they thought of the film. Russ has already weighed in with his thoughts and, after the jump, see what your fellow readers thought . Read More »
There are a great many questions surrounding Pixar’s 2012 offering: Brave. The film, which stars a willful, red-headed princess named Merida, is not only Pixar’s first period piece, it’s their first movie with a female lead. There was a major, public directorial change early in the production procees, and it’s by far the company’s most visually realistic film to date. Coming from a world where fish, cars, monsters and toys are king, will a realistic female princess struggling with not only her family but her own identity be something audiences will flock to en masse, even if the story is filled with magic, action and humor?
Disney selected a small group of journalists who’d never been to Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, CA to watch the first thirty minutes of the movie, hoping to alleviate many of those worries. In that aim, they succeeded. Over the next week or so, you’ll be reading interviews with director Mark Andrews, producer Katherine Sarafian, the story artist, production designer and much more. But, for now, here’s a video blog of myself and Cinemablend‘s Katey Rich discussing the first thirty minutes of Brave. Read More »
WonderCon 2012 took over the Anaheim Convention Center this year, so more Hollywood studios were in attendance than in previous San Francisco-based editions. While there wasn’t a lot of newsworthy bits to come out of the panels this year, we did get to see a lot of footage from upcoming films: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman, Battleship and Rian Johnson‘s Looper.
After the con closed its doors, I recorded a video blog with /Film writers Germain Lussier and Adam Quigley, joined by Alex Billington from FirstShowing.net. We give reactions to all the footage we saw (with exception of The Amazing Spider-Man, since it was the same sizzle reel I posted about last month). We try not to go into descriptions, and instead just give you our reactions. Watch it now embedded after the jump.
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Last month I received a cryptic e-mail inviting me to a private screening of a new Star Wars film edited by Topher Grace — which is funny because I had no idea there was a new Star Wars film in the works, with or without Grace’s involvement. I was told the screening was a secret private event arranged only for friends only and was asked not to talk about it beforehand. The event was held somewhere in the Hollywood area in a a screening room filled with filmmakers, editors, actors, actresses and only a few press friends. I was told I could blog about it afterwards if I wanted, so here goes…
For those of you who don’t know, Topher Grace is a film geek. He loves the Star Wars films, the Back to the Future movies and all the same signature titles of any film geek who grew up in the 1980s. He recently became interested in the editing process and wanted to learn more about the art form. Instead of cutting a short film, he wanted to use something he was more familiar with.
His idea was to edit the Star Wars prequels into one movie, as they would provide him a lot of footage to work with. He used footage from all three prequels, a couple cuts from the original trilogy, some music from The Clone Wars television series, and even a dialogue bit from Anthony Daniels’ (C-3PO) audio book recordings. He even created a new opening text crawl to set up his version of the story.
The result is an 85-minute movie titled Star Wars: Episode III.5: The Editor Strikes Back. It should be noted that the Star Wars prequel trilogy is almost 7 hours in total length, and the shortest film (Episode 1) is more than 51 minutes longer than Grace’s fan cut. What this means is a lot of footage ended up on the editing room floor, and a lot of creative choices were made in the editing process. And the result? Topher Grace’s Star Wars film is probably the best possible edit of the Star Wars prequels given the footage released and available.
Whats most shocking is that with only 85 minutes of footage, Topher was able to completely tell the main narrative of Anakin Skywalker’s road from Jedi to the Sith. While I know the missing pieces and could even fill in the blanks in my head as the film raced past, none of those points were really needed. Whats better is that the character motivations are even more clear and identifiable, a real character arc not bogged down by podraces, galactic senates, Jar Jar Binks, politics or most of the needless parts of the Star Wars prequels. It not only clarifies the story, but makes the film a lot more action-packed.
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Act of Valor is two movies. The first is your basic, exciting, yet simple war movie. It features some minor character development and emotion wrapped around a lot of shoot ‘em up action, explosions and death. High-octane kind of stuff. Acting not required.
Then there’s the second movie. And that movie is created by the fact that Act of Valor mostly stars real life, active Navy SEALS. That means everything you see was hypothetically put through a no bullshit filter. The missions are based on true events, the on-screen techniques drip with realism, and if the acting or dialogue isn’t quite up to par, it’s okay because these guys are true American heroes. Including these men gives the film a gravitas that all but negates any issues the movie itself has.
Act of Valor is a deeply flawed, but interesting and entertaining film. Instead of reading the rest of my thoughts, you can watch a video of me talking about it on the Totally Rad Show. Read More »
Sony Pictures held worldwide sneak peek event for The Amazing Spider-Man on Monday in 13 cities. “The Untold Story Begins” events took place simultaneously, with the cast and filmmakers appearing live in various cities, connecting with each other though live satellite feeds in Los Angeles, New York City, Rio de Janeiro and London. Almost a thousand fans lined up at the AMC Theater in Century City, CA, many more than Sony had anticipated. The studio added additional screenings of the footage (sans in-theater celebrity appearances) to satisfy most of the fans who showed up.
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There’s a running joke amongst comedians that people get into stand-up just so they can be TV stars. It works for some but for others, it seems like stand-up might be a better route to get into film directing. It worked for Woody Allen, Louis CK and now it’s worked for Mike Birbiglia, a successful touring comedian who turned his one man autobiographical off-Broadway show Sleepwalk With Me into a feature film. The movie just had its world premiere at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
Birbiglia stars as Matt, a struggling stand-up comedian who has been with his girlfriend Abby (Lauren Ambrose) for eight years. When the couple begins to have problems, Matt uses that to finally find his voice, which in turn makes the relationship even more difficult. Then there’s the tiny matter of Matt dangerously sleepwalking every night, all of which actually happened in Birbiglia’s life.
Co-starring James Rebhorn, Carol Kane, Marc Maron and produced by Ira Glass (This American Life), Sleepwalk With Me is incredibly clever, well-directed and laugh out loud hilarious. The message isn’t all that new, but the journey there definitely is.
Watch a clip from the movie as well as a video blog featuring myself and Jordan Raup from The Film Stage after the jump. Read More »
