Daily Archives: May 26, 2012

Movie News & Opinions

Robocop: Coming Back from the 80s in a Strong Way

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In 1987 Paul Verhoeven released one of the most awesomely violent movies ever made, so violent in fact that it initially received and ‘X Rating’ for it’s graphic nature. It told the story of Detroit cop Alex Murphy being brutally murdered by Red Foreman, before OCP (the company that owned the police) stole his body and using state of the art 80s technology, brought Murphy back to life. Kinda. Robocop was born, more machine than man, at least early on. The movie was incredibly dark as some of Murphy’s memories surfaced and Robocop was forced to deal with the fact that he was once a man with a family and he struggled with his own existence. He did not however let this struggle interfere too much with the downpour of justice he rained onto New Detroit.

In the years to follow Robocop inspired 2 horrible sequels and a slew of crappy TV episodes. In addition though, he did also star in some pretty legit comics and video games. Then a couple of years back rumors surfaced that Darren Aronofsky, who has a penchant for making some pretty dark shit, was tapped to helm a series reboot and bring the iconic 80s hero back to the spotlight. Well delay after delay, including the production of Black Swan, for which he would receive an Oscar nomination, eventually took him out of the running and it was believed that the project was dead.

So while in ‘New Movie Limbo’, the old tin can cop went and got himself nominated to into statue-hood. What started as a joke on Twitter, directed at Detroit Mayor (and NBA Hall of Famer) Dave Bing was a suggestion to build a statue of Robocop downtown to bring in some tourism. Mayor Bing quickly shot this down, and by simply acknowledging it, the interwebs took it and ran. Internet geeks everywhere started pledging money towards the erection of the statue, but it was one geek in particular, Pete Hottelet, threw in $25,000. Who is Pete Hottelet you might ask. Well he is the owner of OCP, his company, named after the corrupt company that ran New Detroit in the movies, makes movie related memorabilia. His donation, combined with the rest of the internet patrons resulted in $67,436 being raised through Kickstarter. That statue is currently in the production stages.While we’re waiting to see the monument built, interest in the movie spiked back up. This time with Brazilian director José Padilha (Elite Squad) helming the project, and our favorite fictional Cyborg cop is set to be played by The Killing star Joel Kinnaman (below).

Well that had been the extent of what we’d heard for a while. Until just the other day when it was announced that Gary Oldman would also be joining the cast…

Oldman will be playing a new character named Norton, “the scientist who creates RoboCop and finds himself torn between the ideals of the machine trying to rediscover its humanity and the callous needs of a corporation.”

 Gary Oldman is fricking awesome. I’m pretty excited for this movie, which is believed to start shooting something this fall, possibly in Toronto. I was really hoping they’d shoot it here in Detroit. I have to say if this time around, it’s set somewhere other than Detroit, I’ll be upset. Anyway, Oldman makes everything better, so that good.

Ok, that’s all I got.

Movie News & Opinions

4 Reasons Why You Should See ‘Prometheus’

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1.) It’s the spiritual predecessor of the Alien films.

Multiple shots from trailers and clips have shown the plot to be centered in some fashion around the ubiquitous “Space Jockey” from the original Alien. Now, originally, it was just called The Pilot in the script, and was put there as a one off bit of foreshadowing towards the decidedly gory death that would befall the crew of the Nostromo. Anyone who’s watched Alien multiple times, has probably had questions about that weird elephantine looking pilot, who is surrounded by so much mystery and awe in the first film. Ridley Scott had also given thought to who this character was way back when the film first came out, and spoke of how it was “Really just a suit”. This of course lines up with some of the SPOILER images shown from the film, which depict a large bipedal creature, and not the elephantine enigma we’ve all come to love and enjoy.

2.) It’s a science fiction film made by Ridley Scott.

Granted, he’s only made two before this, but they were single handedly two of the most influential and captivating science fiction films of all time. Alien itself brought to the forefront the idea that science fiction CAN be taken seriously by a mainstream audience, and damn scary as well. Blade Runner, while not as critically appreciated in it’s time, is nonetheless regarded as a modern classic, teeming with philosophical, moral, and societal themes that all serve to rally around a singular question: What does it mean to be human? Both films revolutionized how we view aliens, artificial intelligence, body horror, fear and of course, being horribly mutilated by monsters and/or replicants. Both were also amazing, quintessential examples of their genre, and another entry by Mr. Scott is something to always be on the lookout for, regardless of its heritage. Its a damn, damn exciting heritage.

Charlize tells us how brilliant Ridley Scott is. Fun Fact: if you flip the D in Ridley Scott’s first name 180 degrees it turns into RIPLEY. COINCIDENCE? CONSPIRACY? You decide.

3.) It could lead to other, amazing, potentially game changing science fiction films by Ridley Scott.

Along with his proposed sequel to Prometheus, he’s mentioned getting a TRUE sequel to Blade Runner up and running, written by the original writer, giving us perhaps some finality and closure on the long running question of Deckard’s humanity, or telling an all new story entirely. It’s supposedly going to have a female lead, but I wouldn’t discount old Mr. Ford showing up in a cameo, and personally it’d be badass if it was ambiguous as to whether or not Deckard was old because his replicant time clock is running out, or if he’s just old because people get old and are old. Either way, if it’s got Scott behind the helm I’m all in for the ride, because trying to remake or reboot it just wouldn’t work without the OG crew in tow.

4.) It’s apparently set in the Firefly/Serenity universe.

I know what you’re thinking. “Whoa, what? How could that even be? They’re like two different things entirely Cheesebadger, you’re just making stuff up.” BUT YOU’D BE WRONG. BEHOLD!

That’s a screenshot of Mr. Malcolm Reynolds’ POV shooting a Weyland-Yutani cannon at Alliance cruisers. Go pop in your copy of the Firefly dvd DVD if you don’t believe me. It’s one of the first scenes in the first episode, where you see Mal lose hope as the battle of Serenity is lost. So what does this mean, other than horrific fan fiction where we see the fallout of weird alien sex clones made from River and Ripley? Nothing probably, but maybe… just maybe, if enough people see it… FIREFLY WILL GET PICKED UP FOR A NEW SEASON AND COME BACK, STRONGER THAN EVER!*

*Warning, may be entirely untrue and a horrible lie.

Movie Trailers

Kicking off the Cannes. 2012 Style.

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So it’s time once again for next year’s Oscar class to begin the long journey off palm-pressing and baby-kissing in order to get enough critical swagger to garner a nomination. Cannes film festival has kicked off and Movie Drawer has tipped us off to some of the early front-runners. Let’s dissect:

On The Road

This adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s generation defining novel looks like it will definitely be a serious contender. It has the right mix of young stars like Tron 2.0‘s  Garret Hedlund, a four-language speaking indie Director in Walter Salles, veteran character actors like Terrance Howard, Viggo Mortensen, Steve Buscemi and of course the all important period element, see old cars and Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss. I’m excited to see this movie as it’s one I can get away with on date night but will still have all the sex drugs and rock and roll you can handle. The biggest problem I see is Kristen Stewart. I applaud her for broadening her horizons and early reports are that she does a fine job but unfortunately like the Manning’s of the NFL she will always have the “Stewart Face” no matter how well she does.

Next up is another period piece based on a novel…

Lawless

Lawless used to be called “The Wettest County in the World” which was the name of the novel that it is based on but it got Hollywooded up a bit on the way as the producers quickly realized they needed a name that captured the violence of the story and that people would easily remember. This has another great ensemble cast including Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy who will be the hottest thing since sliced toast after The Dark Knight Rises and Guy Pearce who has begun to relish the bad guy role. The only potential stick in the spoke is the lead character being played by Shia LaBeouf. I don’t have anything against Shia personally but I don’t know if he has the depth needed to play a complicated tough guy like Jack Bondurant. Either way I’ve been excited for this movie to drop for a long time now.

Well you can forget about this next one as an Oscar nominee unless it’s in the foreign category because it’s so very French.

Laurence Anyways

Here is the modern tale of a cross-dressing man who wants to become a woman. I guess the twist is that he is in a heterosexual relationship but is still trying to become a woman. It looks pretty compelling and for the lead actor’s sake it’s too bad that it isn’t an American film because cross-dressing drama is Oscar Gold stateside.

Another French film has been garnering a lot of buzz apparently…

Amour

I guess this is on of those cases of “you gotta be there to see it” as the trailer doesn’t give away a whole lot except that it’s about aging relationships and the sanity of a crotchety old man.

One more foreign film being heralded as “Scotland’s Full Monty”…

The Angel’s Share

No subtitles on this one but you might need them as the scotch accent is thicker than the guy who tries to sell you the lawn seed. This seems like the classic feel good story of a neer-do-well that does good against the forces of classism. You may remember Director Ken Loach from such films as… well you porbably won’t remember Ken Loach from anything you’ve seen unless you are into the indie circuit but he is a talented and accomplished filmmaker who has surely produced a gem here.

That’s the early rub from Cannes so pick up your wine glasses, turn on your public radio and look forward to enjoying these “indie” films in your local art house not too long from now.

Movie News & Opinions

“GI Joe: Retaliation” Moves to 2013,”Ted” Takes Its June Spot

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In one of the more surprising stories this week, it’s being reported that the much-anticipated sequel to 2009’s GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra is being pushed back a whole nine months to March 29th of next year so 3D can be added. In other words, they’re moving it back a few months so they can make more money with a spring release. In fact, Paramount Execs are so upfront about said money-making, that one of them released a statement saying, “We’re going to do a conscientious 3D job because we’ve seen how it can better box office internationally.” I rest my case. [Ed. – It’s better than pushing it back for ‘reshoots’, which is almost always a sign of a shit movie…]

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