Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?
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Wednesday 26th August 2009 marked the first day of photography on Mike Leigh’s latest picture. Taking roles include Michele Austin, David Bradley, Jim Broadbent, Phil Davis, Karina Fernandez, Oliver Maltman, Lesley Manville, Stuart McQuarrie, Martin Savage, Ruth Sheen, Imelda Staunton and Peter Wight and cinematographer Dick Pope is back again too. Of course, this being a Mike Leigh picture we don’t know which of those actors might be in a lead role or which of them could just pop up for a second in a single scene, we don’t know anything at all about the plot, and we definitely don’t have a title. Better than that even, none of the people making the film know any of this for sure either, including Leigh himself.
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Entertainment Weekly offers this first look at Jason Voorhees (albeit, a wide shot) from the Michael Bay produced Friday the 13th reboot. Apparently Chelsea’s (Willa Ford) decision to water-ski in Crystal Lake was a bad one. EW also has a new photo of Harry Potter and Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
USA Today released a new batch of photos from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Warner Bros has sent us high resolution versions of the photos, which you can check out below. As always, click to enlarge.
The article also hints that the upcoming films might stray a little from the books. The idea presented is that the book series is already complete, and everyone (even many of those who didn’t read the final book) already knows how everything ends. So the films will take on different focuses than you might be expecting. I’s guessing that it won’t be anything too drastically different, but it sure will be interesting.
And the last two photos come from MSN Cine, via Blogwartz
We missed this one yesterday, but Academy Award winner Jim Broadbent (Moulin Rouge!, Gangs of New York, Iris) revealed to Dark Horizons that he will play Horace Slughorn in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
“Who am I? He’s called Horace Slughorn. He’s a retired teacher of magic who’s drawn back out of retirement because he’s got some secrets they need in the battle against the Death Eaters and he’s quite star struck as a teacher and he’s drawn back into the fold because he likes to notch up celebrity students, and he’s drawn back by Harry.”
Slughorn was the long-serving Potions teacher and Head of Slytherin House since at least the 1940s, but retired in the 1980s. He went into hiding after the resurgence of Voldemort. At the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Hogwarts headmaster Professor Albus Dumbledore locates Slughorn and convinces him to succeed Professor Severus Snape as Potions Master.
Harry Potter 6 began filming on Monday for a November 21st 2008 release.
