Thursday, March 19, 2009

MacGyver ...the movie?

'MacGyver' getting revived as feature film
New Line developing pic based on ABC's 1985-92 series
By Borys Kit and Jay Fernandez


New Line is using twine, bubble gum and a pencil to throw "MacGyver" into development as a feature film.

Raffaella De Laurentiis, daughter of Dino De Laurentiis, is producing through her Raffaella Prods. along with Martha De Laurentiis and series creator Lee Zlotoff. Dino De Laurentiis is exec producing.

"MacGyver" was a science-oriented adventure series that ran from 1985-92 on ABC. Richard Dean Anderson, later of "Stargate: Atlantis" and "SG-1" fame, starred as an incredibly resourceful secret agent for the Phoenix Foundation who frequently would escape from dangerous situations with ingenious and lightning-quick engineering trickery.

Two telefilms starring Anderson aired in the years after the show's cancellation. The character eventually achieved enough cultural penetration to become a reference for anyone attempting to jury-rig a solution out of household items. "Saturday Night Live" took the concept to the next level with its spoofs "MacGruber," starring Will Forte. No writer is attached, but the studio hopes to find a script that can acknowledge how the concept has staked a place into pop culture yet still makes for a serious and fun adventure movie.

"We think we're a stick of chewing gum, a paper clip and an A-list writer away from a global franchise," said New Line's Richard Brener, who will oversee with Sam Brown and Walter Hamada.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

STRANGLEHOLD, the videogame sequel to John Woo's HARDBOILED set to become a movie?


a scene from HARDBOILED

HARDBOILED (1992 Hongkong movie) was one of the movies that made director John Woo the master of ballistic action, and it was also one of the films which sealed Chow Yun Fat as one of Asia's greatest action superstars. It also was one of the films which made Hongkong cinema one of the best sources for noir action movies.

STRANGLEHOLD is the 2006 videogame sequel of the legendary action movie HARDBOILED. In an interview, John Woo states "we developed a video game STRANGLEHOLD featuring the character Inspector Tequila in Chow Yun-fat’s likeness and with his voice. We spent four years making the game, which was released in 2006 by Midway. It became a moderate hit.

We are now developing a movie of STRANGLEHOLD, and just signed the writers Fabrizio & Passmore. It will be a hardcore action film set in both Hong Kong and Chicago. We will keep some of the action set pieces of the game, but the story is different. It is a total reinvention, with a much younger Tequila. In other words, it is not a sequel to HARD-BOILED."

See the full article at Twitchfilm.com

Monday, March 16, 2009

Fantastic Four to be Rebooted


Fantastic Four is Getting the Boot...a Reboot that is
IESB's has heard word around town is Fantastic Four over at 20th Century Fox is gearing up for a reboot. There is also going to be a reboot for DAREDEVIL and The PLANET OF THE APES franchise with a prequel in the works Fantastic Four is joining the reboot gang.

The two films previously released never really caught on with the fans and the studio is reportedly looking to completely retool, recast and recrew the franchise. This means no Tim Story, no Iaon, no Julian, no Chris, no Chiklis and no Jessica.

The first Fantastic Four in 2005 pulled in over $330 million worldwide and the second film, Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer, opened in 2007 with a total box office take of $290 million. Both made money and were commercial successes but the reviews were lackluster and the fan reaction was mediocre.

The franchise is looking to be "less bubble gum" this time round following the Iron Man template, which was a complete success in reviews and box office take but a bit darker when it came to its superhero. Iron Man was in no way as dark as The Dark Knight but was funny, action-y as well as a bit on the serious side.
SOURCE: IESB

Personally, I was contented with the first two Fantastic Four movies. Wasnt F4 one of the sunnier comicbooks series? But then again, I am really not a big F4 fan, so it must be different from their point-of-view.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

You Changed My Life

Changed For The Better
by Philbert Ortiz Dy

from ClicktheCity.com

In my review of A Very Special Love, I wrote that despite liking some parts of the film, I was generally frustrated with it because of its inability to escape its kilig-centric approach to love, never really earning the intense, weighty drama that’s present in the movie. And now, its sequel You Changed My Life enters cinemas, and though it’s still rough around the edges, it does a lot to improve what came before it. You Changed My Life is more mature, more developed, and a far more balanced film.

The film picks up where the last movie left off. Migs Montenegro and Laida Magtalas (John Lloyd Cruz and Sarah Geronimo) are now in a committed relationship, and are deliriously happy. But six months into their relationship, Migs gets promoted and sent to Laguna to manage his family’s industrial laundry business. Migs quickly realizes that he’s bitten off more than he can chew, and soon finds himself having trouble keeping his workforce happy. The long hours and added responsibility keep Migs from spending time with Laida, who begins to feel that she’s not getting enough out of their relationship. As Migs struggles with the pressure, and Laida begins to feel abandoned, the two are finding it difficult to find reasons to stay together.

The first act of this movie is still pretty rough. In a mad rush to remind audiences of everything that was in the first film, the movie rapidly goes through some clunky exposition and does an encore of all the kilig stunts that gave the last movie its identity. But then the film turns a corner, and it begins a process of deconstructing the relationship and really developing the characters. Laida finally reveals her flaws, subtle as they are, and Migs stumbles head-on to making wrongheaded decisions about their business. And suddenly the stunts don’t work, and their love is tested in a fairly realistic manner. And as they’re forced to make more mature decisions, their relationship actually begins to mean something.

The film still leans on some of its old tricks, and some things still come too easy. A subplot about an old friend of Laida’s (Rayver Cruz) largely leads nowhere, and only sets up a bunch of artificial conflicts for the couple. But for the most part, it feels like an active effort was made to earn the movie’s sentiment. Genuine character development takes the place of empty romantic gestures, and that’s the critical difference between this movie and the last. There’s this strange acknowledgement that romantic stunts may not really be a good basis for a strong relationship, and that both these characters needed to grow up and have something more than an empty, cutesy love for them to flourish as a couple and as their own person. I complained last time about how the relationship could never justify what Migs went through with his family. Here, the stronger part of the story, Migs’ familial issues, becomes the catalyst for making the relationship something greater than it was. And the difference in effect is startling.

Technically, the film’s taken a slight step back. It feels a little more rushed than usual, and the overall look of the film suffers for it. Some scenes fare better than others, but inconsistent color grading and gain plague the project. Some scenes could’ve used more coverage, as well. The cast remains largely the same. John Lloyd Cruz has his ups and downs, and when it counts, he delivers. Sarah Geronimo goes a lot larger with the goofiness in this film, which can be distracting, but she makes up for it in the smaller scenes. There’s really an honesty to her performances that’s endearing, and I think it’s about time that we get her into more serious roles. Rayver Cruz works well enough in his role, though he does feel a bit shoehorned in. For my money, the best thing in this cast is Rowell Santiago, who hits exactly the right notes in his softer scenes, providing the film with much of its real emotional punch.

For me, the film started out really shaky, but it just won me over. It did practically everything that was keeping me from loving the first film, giving weight to the central romance and just making more mature choices all together. The film still hasn’t shed its juvenilia completely, but now it serves as an accent rather than a focus, and the story benefits as a whole for it. It’s still far from perfect: entire subplots could be dropped without much effect, the screenplay could be a lot tighter, and the filmmaking could’ve been less rushed. But overall, it’s an improvement, providing the most important thing of all: a love worth fighting for.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li - SHOULD I, OR SHOULD I NOT WATCH IT?

STREETFIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI is now showing in Iloilo. I know there are still so many Streetfighter fans out there who await a good film adaptation of their beloved game. But it seems that the new movie is not really a movie bent on redeeming itself from the awful movie which starred Van Damme.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li received generally negative reviews and was not pre-screened for critics. The film ranking website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 4% of critics had given the film positive reviews, based upon a sample of 45. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 17, based on 10 reviews. Amongst the more positive reviews, Rob Nelson of Variety wrote that "Neither the best nor the worst of movies derived from videogames, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li at least gives action fans plenty to ogle besides the titular heroine (Kristin Kreuk)". While The New York Times wrote that the film was "Reveling in the vivid Bangkok locations, Geoff Boyle's photography is crisp and bright, and Dion Lam's action choreography unusually witty". Negative reviews focused on the screenplay and fight scenes. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that "other than a few reasonably well-staged fight sequences, the proceedings are dull and visually uninspired. Justin Marks' solemn screenplay lacks any trace of wit."[6] Jeremy Wheeler of TV Guide wrote that "Fight scenes, while admirable for shaking off the shaky-cam aesthetic of their big-screen brethren, neither inspire nor find a good balance between martial arts and FX-laden power punches". IGN gave the movie 1.5 stars out of 5, saying "There's better staged and more enjoyable brawls between Peter and the Chicken on Family Guy." They also stated the original live-action Street Fighter film was more enjoyable than The Legend of Chun-Li.

My personal opinion? Watch it only if you're there to see the spellbinding beauty of Kristin Kreuk, otherwise, you're better off sticking to the game instead. In the meantime, enjoy this audio review from Spill.com...


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Thursday, March 12, 2009

Drag Me to Hell trailer

In 1981, director Sam Raimi (& producers Robert Tapert & producer/actor Bruce Campbell) broke into the film scene with one of the earliest indie horror movies that instantly became a horror classic (not to mention still one of the scariest movies ever made) EVIL DEAD. After a couple of more movies, Sam Raimi refrained from horror movies with movies like Darkman, and took time to enjoy in his success as the director of the Spider-man movies. Fans of the director have been waiting too long for Raimi to continue the Evil Dead saga or for Raimi to make another horror movie. The long wait is over. Raimi returns to the genre that made him rise to fame. Raimi's new film is a Horror. This year, Raimi brings us the return of True Horror with...
DRAG ME TO HELL

Robin Hood is Coming in May of 2010

Robin Hood is Coming in May of 2010
Source: Universal Pictures
March 11, 2009


Russel Crowe is Robin Hood?!!!

Universal Pictures has scheduled a May 14, 2010 release for director Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett.

The other releases scheduled for May of 2010 so far are Iron Man 2 (May 7), Shrek Goes Fourth (May 21) and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (May 28) - so there's no direct competition for these four films yet.

Crowe plays Robin of Loxley in an origin story of Robin Hood that hews close to historical facts of the period. Abandoned as a child, he finds community with the common people of Nottingham. Robin's abandonment and trust issues hamper his ability to fall in love. He meets his match in Marian (Blanchett), a strong, independent woman.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Watchmen

Compare & Contrast: WATCHMEN
by Mark Earl Yap

Radioactive Culture

Watchmen (Comics) | Watchmen (Film)
9.8 of 10 | 9.0 of 10
Writer: Alan Moore | Director: Zack Snyder
Artist: David Gibbons | Screenplay: David Hayter

4 years ago, when I started earning an income, the first things I spent my money on were graphic novels. At first, I just bought trade paperbacks of popular superhero comics. But I grew tired of the superheroes. So I started digging around for something different. During that time, Time magazine had just published their list of "Top 100 novels", and Watchmen was the only graphic novel on that list. The book made a lot of commotion back then. So I thought, even though its pages were still rife with costumed heroes, I'd give it shot. After reading it, my outlook on the mainstream comics industry has forever changed. It has matured.

Watchmen, the graphic novel, just blew my guts and mind away. I've never read a superhero book that displays plenty of realism. The setting, especially, an alternate reality that resembles much of the 80's, with all its political issues intact (mainly the Nuclear Arms Race), is very realistic. Only the existence of masked heroes and their technologies have altered real-world events, like the Vietnam War and the utilization of electric cars. The characters are also real and -with the exception of Dr. Manhattan- powerless. The superheroes have flaws and issues. They're not your typical role models for 10 year-old kids. Their morality are neither black nor white but different shades of gray. In short, their superhero image was deconstructed, and that's what I really love about the graphic novel.

For the most part, I'm happy to say that the things I like about the graphic novel was faithfully adapted into the film. The setting, the themes and the works I've mentioned came to life on the big screen. Almost every panel in the graphic novel (especially the sex scene) was put to motion in the film. Even the dialogue was pretty much lifted from the word bubbles and made audible. But what I really loved about the movie are the cast. All of them did an exemplary job of bringing each Watchman to life. Jackie Earle Harley, especially, did a bad-ass job playing Rorschach. Jeffrey Dean Morgan's performance also made me love The Comedian (he's my least favorite character in the graphic novel). As for Malin Akerman, I couldn't think of any actress that can play a much sexier Silk Spectre than her.

But changes and tweaks there were in the film, however. But most were necessary changes and insignificant enough (unless you're a purist amongst purists) to affect the main plot and theme of the film. The biggest tweak was probably the vehicle of doomsday in the plot (which I won't spoil). But I think it was a good move because it made the movie less pulpy by eliminating the mad science aspect that was present in the graphic novel. The book's histories, the advent of costumed heroes and political events, were also reduced and refitted into the opening scene. So the details that made the atmosphere so dense in the graphic novel is diluted in the movie. The Tales of the Black Freighter, a sub story in the comics, was also entirely removed from the film.

Overall, as a fan of the graphic novel, I was very pleased with the Watchmen. It is a good example of a comics-to-film adaptation because it stayed true to the comics. Even the cast worked hard to accurately portray the characters in the movie. So that means a lot to me. True, there were tweaks. But they were too minor to alter the film's main plot and theme -which is the deconstruction of the superhero image (a nice theme in the thick of superhero flicks). The only thing bad I can think about it is that the film was too loyal to the graphic novel. Which means that the film can become too convoluted to those who haven't read the comic version. Also, it probably won't draw crowds that don't like comics in the first place.

Friday, March 06, 2009

PUSH


PUSH: SOMETHING BETWEEN 'HEROES' & X'-MEN'
by Reymundo Salao


First off, I apologize to you people who follow my column, I disappeared again because my pc got busted. I had to spend like 12 thousand to get it fixed and I had to beg and utang to get it fixed (replaced the motherboard, the works). So my column and my website had to sleep for 2 weeks. All I can do is some minor updates when I visited a friend's house. Anyway, I woke up early today and realized that WATCHMEN is not yet showing in Iloilo! AYudipu!!! What do they think of Iloilo? Uma?! You see, This friday is supposed to be the Opening Day for the highly anticipated movie adaptation of the graphic novel classic WATCHMEN (which is also one of TIME Magazine's top 100 books of all time). Oh well. Pahuway. It's still early and who knows maybe it's just a one day delay (cross fingers). Let's move on to a movie I saw last week which is currently on extended run; the superpowered action movie "PUSH"

PUSH feels like the TV series HEROES without the dull moments which in here are replaced by stylish hip cinematography and funky electronica mixes. PUSH also feels like a mellow version of "X-Men"; one without costumes and without the "save-the-world and mankind" aspect. PUSH's storyline simply revolves around a group of individuals gifted with psychic and superhuman abilities, which are hunted down by a secret government agency also composed of individuals with superhuman powers.

Chris Evans have impressed us and proved that he can act in a serious degree when he appeared in the Danny Boyle film SUNSHINE. Director Paul McGuigan was also impressed by Evans in that movie and because of this, Evans was cast as the lead character of this movie. Despite being better known by the mainstream moviegoing public as The Human Torch in the Fantastic Four movies, Chris Evans does a fine job handling the main character title here. Side-by-side Evans is Dakota Fanning and Camila Belle who looks a bit too worn-out in this movie. Djimon Honsou plays the lead villain who's out to hunt our main characters. Honsou never fails to be good in any role, and in this one, he's a coll villain.


The look, the feel, and the setting of the movie itself, which is in the streets of Hongkong is very colorfully urban artistic. Many of the shots feel too raw that it works best if you think of it as a "Matrix" of indie cinema. But what makes it a cool movie for some is what makes it a bad movie for others. The raw feel of the movie, you see, feels like it lacked a sense of explosion and magnitude to impress those who are expecting the blowout satisfaction by the typical superhero movie these days. Personally, I also felt that it lacked a certain amount of x-factor impact for me to consider it a really awesome flick. There were moments, while I'm watching the movie, that I felt that all my friends should watch this movie, but when I got to the end, it only gave me half the satisfaction I would have desired to have. Also, my main gripe about the movie is that the storytelling was not so tight. The movie tried to make the twists and turns of the plot interestingly complex, which was beautiful at some point. But where the storyline goes in the end, only proves that those twists really were just cheap storyline diversions. The unresolved ending craves for a sequel, which is a shame if the movie becomes unsuccessful and that sequel wont be produced. A shame because I did love this movie despite its little shortcomings, and I wanna see where the characters will go after this movie, which feels like just an episode.