I’ve been surprised by the groundswell of support for the notion of freeing Roman Polanski since he was arrested on Sunday in Zurich. Ok, Debra Winger saying the arrest was part of a “philistine collusion”…whatever. But then a whole bunch of great filmmakers signed a silly petition demanding Polanski’s immediate release. Woody Allen, fine, no great surprise, but David Lynch and Martin Scorsese? Sigh. Now, thankfully, we’ve got Chris Rock weighing in on the case. Read More »
Entertainment Tonight has been posting a series of little set visit video clips from Iron Man 2. There was the first one showing Robert Downey, Jr. and some on-set action, a second following the enthusiasm around Mickey Rourke (embedded below) and now Don Cheadle gets the spotlight as ET focuses on the War Machine, his armored alter-ego that we first saw in footage displayed at Comic Con this year. Read More »
Last night, to the surprise of many, “Pee-wee Herman” began trending on Twitter only a few hours after new account for the character launched on the social network: @peeweeherman (it has just been verified as legit). Earlier this year, Peter posted about a limited engagement at Hollywood’s The Music Box in November marking the official return of Pee-wee Herman (actor Paul Reubens) to his subversive stage roots with The Pee-Wee Herman Show. Tickets have long since sold out. But the first real test regarding relevance, nostalgia, and the bottling of curious man-child magic arrived last night. And what worse place for Pee-wee to giggle coyly and crack abstinence jokes than on The Jay Leno Show? His awkward interview with The Prolonged Chin and a few thoughts after the jump…
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Because almost everything in certain parts of Comic Con was already running late today, but not quite everything, I raced from the Avatar footage (impressive, incredibly detailed, still more cartoonish than I expected) to the Dexter panel, only to finally be allowed to enter the hall just as the Season Four trailer finished. So I didn’t get to see the first footage of Dexter, Rita and their new son Harrison, nor the clips of John Lithgow as this season’s ‘killer of the year’.
I did see an image from Dexter: Early Cuts, the animated webisodes that will detail the killer’s early years, and a bit of footage from the video game soon to be released on the iPhone/iTouch platform. And even without seeing the trailer, I got quite a bit of information out of the panel discussion that followed. It’s after the break, as are embeds of both the season four trailer I missed and the Early Cuts teaser. Read More »
If you were intently watching news, Twitter and Facebook feeds last week as Michael Jackson was passing, you probably also saw an equally tragic piece of ‘news’ pass by: reports said that Jeff Goldblum had fallen to his death while filming a movie in New Zealand. Never mind that cursory searches suggested that he was at work in New York; the reports said New Zealand police confirmed the story as true!
How could we doubt such reportage? Cue up a double feature of The Fly and Buckaroo Banzai! (Just do that, anyway. They’re amazing.) Of course the story wasn’t true, but that didn’t stop Stephen Colbert and guest Jeff Goldblum from crying over it last night. Watch the clip, via Cinematical, after the jump. Read More »
On Monday, Entertainment Tonight will have an early premiere of the teaser trailer for M Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender (likely complete with the annoying announcer talking over everything… ugh). The trailer officially premieres with Transformers on Tuesday night. /Film reader Diego V sent over a promo they ran on Friday’s show which shows a few select moments of The Last Airbender trailer along with a promo for their visit to the set of the Beauty and the Beast redo Beastly starring Vanessa Hudgens, Mary-Kate Olsen and Alex Pettyfer. Check out the promo after the jump.
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Post-Finale Update: So that was delectably epic.
This Sunday at 11: 45 p.m. ET, the rolling, clueless glob better known as Meatwad enters our Meatspace. Sort of. He’ll appear as, erm, an exercise ball, as seen above. In celebration of the season finale, Aqua Teen Hunger Force is airing its first ever live-action episode during its six seasons on [adult swim]. Vocoder rapper, T-Pain, will portray Frylock, the show’s patient, levitating box of French fries. Red Alert: TP’s neck blingee features Mooninites. This fall, T-Pain will also play The Ghost of Spring Break, alongside Lil’ Wayne, Andy Samberg, and Rick Ross, on the [adult swim] special The Return of Freaknik, an animated ode to Atlanta’s infamous ass-bash. Check out the rude and ridic trailer.
Rounding out the cast for Sunday’s Force is cool comedian H. Jon Benjamin (Human Giant, Demitri Martin) as Master Shake and possibly our fave: open audition-winner, Dave Long Jr., as the wife-beater-lovin’ human disgrace known as Carl Brutananadilewski. Pictures and the esoteric episode synopsis after the jump…
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There isn’t a lot of news to come by tonight, so I thought I’d run this fun little story. /Film reader Mike Jutan wrote in to inform me that The Simpsons featured a reference to Pixar’s upcoming film Up.
“In a what-seems-to-becoming-a-trend move, The Simpsons again included a Pixar film reference. You might recall Fat Tony scaring the carpool kids with a “tonight you swim with the fishes… because I brought a Finding Nemo beach towel!” Also Wall-E made an appearance earlier this year as a honey-loving robot of the future, and then turned Homer into a garbage cube before taking off. Tonight on The Simpsons season finale, the “Up” floating baloon house makes an appearance at about 16 min into the episode. The shot immediately after shows Bart throwing a ball against a sign, with what look like Pixar hopping lamps acting as lighting for the sign. Nice touch. :)”
I’ve embedded the clip (via: Hulu) after the jump. Thanks to /Film readers Matt and Lazer for also sending this in.
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The first footage from the Mike Newell-directed big screen adaptation of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has aired on an ABC movie special, and is now online. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer explains the plot of the film adaptation, as we see actual footage from the film. We also get to see some of Jake Gyllenhaal’s training and a look at the extensive on location Morocco shoot. I was on London-set of the film and while I can’t say much (or anything really), I will say that I was quite impressed with what I saw. Watch the clip after the jump, remember to hit the HQ button to see it in high quality, and please leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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Charlie Rose had a good 30-minute interview with Star Trek director JJ Abrams.
Abrams talks about he got involved in Star Trek, the challenges he faced in creating a reboot, the influence of Richard Donner’s Superman, making a movie for non-Star Trek fans, how Sequels usually rip off “the wrong thing”, and redeveloping the iconic characters. Abrams also discusses how he became interested in film and filmmaking, meeting his idol Steven Spielberg, how technology has changed storytelling, how spectacle can only work to serve the humanity of the story, the importance of the mystery box, how the audience fills in the blanks, and his writing process.
I’ve embedded the interview after the jump thanks to Google Video.
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