Director Gareth Edwards Breaks Down the Godzilla Trailer

The British film magazine Empire is quickly becoming Godzilla central.  The glossy, picture and heavy on movie news and articles periodical was granted the privilege of the first full reveal of The King of Monsters that graces its April cover (above).  Empire mail subscribers even get their own special Godzilla commemorative cover (below)!

In homage to the new, improved and massively huge Godzilla, Empire is issuing a “megazine”.   It’s 30 % bigger than the typical humongous Empire, measuring in at 26 cm by 34 cm and tilting the scales at a mail carrier back breaking weight of over 2 pounds.  For those with weak hand strength Empire also comes in its standard edition.

To promote the “megazine” Empire managed a special event with Godzilla director, Gareth Edwards.  Edwards will be signing copies of the “megazine” today (February 28th) at the Forbidden Planet Megastore in London between 6pm and 7 pm.

They even managed to get Edwards to do an analysis of the recently released trailer which is generating massive fan and internet interest on what it all means.  Go here to see it.

Among the more interesting things revealed by Edwards:

It’s kind-of sort-of a sequel to the original 1954 Japanese version.  Duh!

The mysterious flying creatures in the village evacuation scene (speculated to be Rodan) are really shaded origami figures.

The destroyed Statue of Liberty seen in the trailer is not in New York but Los Angeles.

The A-bomb displayed really has a comic picture of Godzilla on it.

What everyone thinks is a tentacle holding a bomb is not really a tentacle holding a bomb.

The walking through the giant dinosaur bones scenes is really a treasure map for fans to seek and search something about Godzilla’s origins.

The planes falling from the sky are in there because everyone expects planes to fall out of the sky in these kinds of trailers.

That the back story involves a Godzilla eyewitness who really did relay the events to Toho studios which inspired the making of the original film.

The Godzilla roar was done with the use of a double bass, leather gloves and rosin– the same way they did the original Godzilla roar.

Marko Manev and Matt Ferguson Show Off Their “Influences”

Two of the more famous members of the art collective known as the Poster Posse, Marko Manev and Matt Ferguson, will be featured in “Influences” an Exhibition at Bottleneck Gallery in Brooklyn.  The “Influences” featured are formative artistic, and of course, trend setting classic films.  

Influences by Marko Manev and Matt Ferguson, opens at 7 p.m. February 28 at the Bottleneck Gallery, 60 Broadway, Brooklyn, New York. It’ll remain on display until March 7. Get specifics at www.bottleneckgallery.com. Also, there will be a special online preview at 8 p.m. February 27 on the site. Follow @BottleneckNYC for more.

Marko Manev

I remember when I was a kid playing with my G.I.Joes, there were always two scenarios. One was that they were in a huge ship, without guns, trapped with an alien, the other was that they were in a jungle hunted by a predator that they couldn’t see. So doing a piece for ‘The Predator ‘really took me back to those days…

The rest of the pieces for the show will also be from some of my favorite movies from my childhood that had a huge impact on me… hence the title, “Influences”.

Conan the Barbarian

Predator

Total Recall

Matt Ferguson

“After a long brainstorming process we came up the idea of INFLUENCES. A show about the films and TV that made us who we are today. So my selection of art is all inspired by things I was obsessed with as a child. I used to love having themed birthdays and a lot of those movies factored heavily in that, either a specific film we would go see that I fell in love with or a toy I got that sparked my imagination. I remember vividly watching Jurassic Park when I was 10 and wanting to know how they did it, this led to a fascination with special effects and specifically Steven Spielberg films. I still have my “making of” book which had so much cool behind the scenes stuff in it. Anyway I realized that ILM and Amblin were responsible for a sizable portion of the films I loved, it just boggled my mind how cool all that stuff was, and that’s what I wanted to do with this show… make art that made me remember how I felt watching those films.” – Matt Ferguson

Batman-Movie

Batteries

Close Encounters

ET

Explorers

Flash Gordon

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park 2

Ted

TMNT

 

Noah Inspired Art Show Opens the Flood Gates of Artisitic Creativity

Mythmaker– Show Stopper Insanity by Erik Parker

While Russell Crowe is petitioning the Pope to schedule a Noah screening at the Vatican, director Darren Aronofksy is gathering a tidal wave of artist for his Noah inspired art show “Fountains of the Deep” taken from Genesis 7:1, “… on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” The fountains of the Deep are depicted as great geyser streams that rise towards the heaven in the latest Noah trailer.   The effect is both startling and awe-inspiring which is the same emotional response these art pieces try to strive for.   

Aronofsky in an interview about the show explains its genesis: 

“While writing the script for ‘Noah,’ I wondered how my favorite artists would interpret the iconic text. So I decided to ask a few of them to return to Genesis and create an image of their own… This exhibit is the collection of their work: in painting, in drawing, in photography, in sculpture and in music.”

Over fifty artists have contributed works.  As requested by Aronofsky each artist will present their flood visions in their preferred medium. 

Artist included are contemporary illustrators Ugo Rondinone, Sue Williams, Karen Kilimnik, Mike Nelson, and Nan Goldin.  Comic book legends like Jim Lee, Jim Woodring and Simon Bisley, a leading contributor to Heavy Metal magazine and graffiti duo Faile are also displaying their own Deluge inspirations.   The show will also feature work from recently deceased artist Reverend Howard Finster known for his albums covers for REM and The Talking Heads.   

Dominic Teja Sidhu also collaborated with Aronofsky for the show.   Sidhu created some of the nightmarish set pieces for Aronofsky’s Black Swan which starred Natalie Portman.

“Fountains of the Deep: Visions of Noah and the Flood”  takes place March 7-29 at  462 West Broadway in New York City.

The sneak peeks are from Aronofsky’s Twitter feed. 

Noah 2982 AD– Dan Piraro

It Begins by James JeanShock and Awe Dodo’s Rise Up by Faile

Tranquil Sojourn by Carmen Arvizu

Surreal Isolation by Greg Ruth

2014 Best Pic Nominees Get More Parody Posters

The annual Lego parody of Best Pict Nominees has been a success, and the kids have walked off with their own parody Oscars– now it is time for  for the more insane lampoons to receive their applause.  

I find most of them quite clever.

Imagining 12 Years a Slave as a Harry Potter re-incantation does have some poignancy.  (above)

American Hustle did seem to have that reto-Futrama vibe going on.

I always thought Nebraska  had a little Breaking Bad buried deep in the back story of Woody’s life. 

Her can be seen as the ultimate narcissist superhero extravaganza featuring the ultimate meshing of hardware, software and human in Iron Man/Tony Stark/Robert Downy Jr– pick the poseur you wish to be. 

If Captain Reynolds had the ship that Malcolm Reynolds had in Firefly the hijacking would never have occurred. 

Hmm, that Matthew Mconaughey poster does look like an early Walking Dead promo sheet.

The Philomenia parody is probably a little too recherche for those who haven’t seen Sunny in Philadelphia. 

And as for the Worf of Wall Street, everyone knows that the Enterprise was just a Federation party ship.

                You can’t have Gravity without a Grau (from Despicable Me) in there.

If you like them you can buy them as either a poster or a t-shirt.   Go to riptapparel.com to see more.  

Godzilla’s New Roar Is Truly Scary

If the new trailer and poster for Gareth Edwards Godzilla reboot isn’t getting you amped to see the new incarnation of the King of the Monsters, the creatures just released new roar certainly will.   There is an echo of all the great Godzilla roars but larger, longer, nastier.   Half way through the roar amplifies and then drops into a queasy silence giving the hint of some thing more menacing to come.  It plays as a mash-up of all prior Godzilla roars but still has an evolutionary quality to it.  The roar is definitely beast. It still leaves goose bumps on my skin even after more than a half-dozen listens. 

Check it out below and then listen to the compilation of Godzilla roars from 1954 to today created by ortboy just below it. 

Legendary is encouraging fans to make the roar viral, remix it, homage it and video montage it in any way that their hearts desire.  

We know you can’t wait for more Godzilla, and we’re excited to announce that the King of the Monster’s roar, in all its primal fury, has been unleashed!

Godzilla’s mighty battle cry is now yours to share and we can’t wait to see what you can do with it. If you have a cool idea of how to turn this audio clip into a remix, homage video or anything else you can come up with, share your creation using #godzilla or tweet us at @legendary.

LET US HEAR YOU ROAR…
WHO KNOWS WHAT YOU MIGHT AWAKEN!

The next Godzilla trailer comes out Tuesday. 

How Jesus Is Bringing Churchgoers Back to the Movies

How do you get churchgoers to go to the movies?  You give them Jesus, of course.  And that is what Fox Studios has done with Son of God, a movie adapted from extended out-takes and additional footage shot while making The Bible mini-series.

The Bible aired on The History Channel last March and was seen by 13.1 million viewers, a record for a cable television special series. The series became the biggest-selling miniseries on DVD in its first week of release, and biggest on Blu-ray and Digital HD of all time.  A sequel, A.D.: Beyond the Bible is being planned by NBC.

Producers and husband and wife, Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, both devout Christians in a The Hollywood Reporter interview said ” Our hope is that the story and message of Jesus Christ will reach tens of millions of people nationwide.” Son of God is directed by BBC historical documentary veteran Christopher Spencer.

Churches and Christian charities and universities are eagerly embracing the chance to deliver “The Message”.

Liberty University, the world’s largest Christian university, has bought out 13 of the 14 auditoriums for the nearby to campus 14 screen Regal for the February 28th opening of Son of God.  The Liam Neeson actionneer, Non Stop, a high altitude hijack thriller, will be be the only other film competing with Son of God.

Relief group Compassion international, which is the exclusive charity for Son of God in the US, has purchased over 225,000 tickets for screenings in 40 cities.  The group is using local churches to handle the ticket distribution.

San Diego’s Rock Church, has booked all 19 screens of a local AMC for early Wednesday previews of the movie.  Sacramento’s Bayside Church bought over 2,000 seats for the local movie house there.  Mega-church pastor Rick Warren is also contributing to the theater take-over craze by buying out screens in 8 different movie palaces through out Orange County.

“I’ve seen most of the films about Jesus produced in the past 50 years, and Son of God is the best,“ Warren said in a statement. “We’re excited Jesus is back on the big screen, and we’re going to fill the theaters.”   “This is a rare opportunity to bring the story of Christ into our mainstream culture. We want to see Jesus in movie theaters where sight and sound can open up our senses and let grace come in. The message of the Gospel deserves to be on the big screen – and this is our chance to see it there.”

Fox is also making a push to get the word about Son of God out to the heavily Latin Christian/Catholic market.   Three thousand dual track English/Spanish digital copies are being released.  Heavily dominated Latino markets are getting a dubbed version that features the voices of Mexican actors Eduardo Verastegui, Adriana Barraza and Blanca Soto. A 22 minute making of special will be shown on Telemundo February 22nd.

“There’s a high level of Christianity in the Hispanic community, many of whom don’t normally go to the movies but want to see Son of God,” says Fox domestic distribution chief Chris Aronson to THR.  Burnett notes the campaign has been helped by the fact that the star, Diego Morgado, who is Portuguese, “is the first Latin Jesus in an English film.”

Actor Morgado related in a comment to Good Morning America how an experience at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem changed how he went about preparing for the role of Son of God.

“I saw this father and a young kid, they were praying. And I stood for like two hours there. By the time I left, they were still praying,” Morgado told GMA. “And I realized whatever I was about to do would be connecting more with that kid than his father. We live in a visual world now. Kids can learn a lot by seeing things rather than reading it. So I really understood the responsibility.”

“I grew up as a Christian and I always think of Jesus as someone right next to us, you know, someone really close, and I never actually saw that onscreen in a way that could be identified,” Morgado said. “So I actually tried to go that way and build this relationship of one-on-one with the viewer.”

Ticket sales are over 500,000 for Son of God as of Wednesday February 20th.  At an average ticket price from $5.00-9.00 that puts pre-sales at between $2.5-$4.5 million.

The release date is not coincidental.  Son of God opens close to 10 years to the day since the release of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (February 25, 2004).  Passion made over $83 million its opening weekend and eventually earned over $499 million.

Unlike the controversial Gibson movie the only controversy Son of God has generated is the cutting of Satan from the film. Several bloggers noted in a side by side comparison that Mohamen Mehdi Ouazanni, the actor who played Satan in The Bible mini-series bared a slight resemblance to President Obama.  The Obama/Satan comparsion became so viral that producers Burnett and Downey each issued statements supporting the President and deriding those who choose to see “false connections” there.  

“For our movie, Son of God, I wanted all of the focus to be on Jesus. I want his name to be on the lips of everyone who sees this movie, so we cast Satan out. It gives me great pleasure to tell you that the devil is on the cutting-room floor,” Downey noted to THR.

“This movie is designed to be seen in communities,” Burnett told The Hollywood Reporter about Son of God. “Therefore, it’s the perfect venue for church groups to band together and watch Son of God in a community. That’s what’s really happening.”

Son of God is only the first of three Bible based movies to come this year. 

Next up is Noah already generating controversy for its portrayal of Noah as an action hero and environmental crusader.  Director Darren Aronofsky and the studio have been having a running feud (since then amicably resolved) over who has final cut on the epic.   The movie coming out March 28th will present Aronofsky’s vision of The Flood tale.  

After that is Ridley Scott’s Exodus starring Christian Bale as Moses.  In a nod to Bale’s previous role as The Dark Knight and Scott’s avowed agnostic views expect a darker version of the Bible story with a very radical and unique view of how God is presented and seen.   Exodus opens December 12th. 

Movie-wise 2014 should be a year of Biblical proportions.

Kid Cinema: Watch These Kids Hysterically Recreate Scenes From the 2014 Best Picture Nominees

The kids who recreated these hilarious parodies of Oscar Best Picture Nominees are all too young to see them by themselves, but it doesn’t mean that with a little parental guidance that they can’t do a hysterical version of the more famous scenes.   Another example of why kids say and do the cutest things.

Enjoy!

Godzilla Poster Shows Its Awesomeness

The Godzilla remake is certainly high on my must see list for this year, and the 1998 Roland Emmerich remake starring Matthew Broderick is a guilty pleasure because of its screwiness and Michael Lerner’s wickedly funny Roger Ebert parody which generated a season’s worth of press feuding between the noted critic and Emmerich.  Watching Japanese Kaiju every month at the local drive-in was a big part of my formative film training.  Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro’s Kaiju and giant robot feast was one of my favorite pure fun films of last year.   As an extra bonus the original 1954 Japanese Godzilla (which did not have Raymond Burr inserted for American audience identification) has been spiffed up and will be re-released  in a handful of cities starting in April.

Thankfully they haven’t messed too much with the King of Monsters aside from exponentially increasing his awesomeness.  This Gojira (Japanese name) is twice the size and height.  The San Francisco stomp depicted in the latest poster has Godzilla two times taller than the TransAmerica Tower which according to Wikipedia is 48 stories and 850 feet high. The plot has several of Izzy’s monster buds making some cameos.  Japan will play an important part in the storyline, so a traditional Ginza stomp is bound to happen.

Director Gareth Edwards (Monsters) is keeping the remake close to the dark apocalyptic tone of the original.  This Godzilla will be a force of nature altered substantially by the unintended consequences of human technology.   Toho, the Tokyo based monster movie distributor and production company worked closely with Gareth to ensure that this new Godzilla clone had true Japanese genes.

Naturally some Avengers related punch is needed to counteract this threat.  Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Quicksilver) and Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch) of the upcoming Joss Whedon  directed second Marvel opus are part of the cast.  Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) also has a prominent role, along with Ken Watanabe and Juliet Binoche.  Binoche has her own famous monster story.  She was Steven Spielberg’s choice for the Laura Dern role in Jurassic Park but couldn’t do the film because of a scheduling conflict.

Godzilla opens May 16th everywhere.

The official plot synopsis:

 An epic rebirth of Toho’s iconic Godzilla, this spectacular adventure pits the world’s most famous monster against malevolent creatures who, bolstered by humanity’s scientific arrogance, threaten our very existence.

Read more at http://collider.com/godzilla-remake-poster/#lfVkqE4C7ABhxGeZ.99

 

Guardians of the Galaxy First Poster Is All About the Welcome

The GOTG campaign is beginning to amp up with a trailer drop and also a bunch of short features going online. The poster features the same irreverent humor typical of the trailer.   GOTG is trumpeted on the poster as the fifth best Marvel franchise to come to the screen after Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers.  Fans either are delighted or offended by that fact. 

Fans of the series can take delight in some of the poster details.  The emblem/logos on the uniforms are of Spartoi design. Star-Lord, real name Peter Quill, is half Spartoi  from his father’s side.  Gamora’s sword is based off an unused one displayed in the concept art for Thor: The Dark World.  Her other sword, Godslayer has a brief cameo in the GOTG trailer.  

For those unfamiliar with the GOTG galaxy from left to right are Star-Lord (Chris Pratt, currently on chirpy display as the voice of Emmett in The Lego Movie) a half human/half alien (Spartoi) super thief; Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) a hulk with pay back on the brain; Gamora (Zoe Saldana) a green skinned femme fatale; Groot (voice of Vin Diesel) a walking, talking, thinking tree stump that doesn’t exist in any Lord of the Rings alternate universe; and a super intelligent, weaponized and probably highly stinky raccoon named Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper). 

The film also stars  Lee Pace, Karen Gillan, Benicio Del Toro, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Michael Rooker, Peter Serafinowicz, and Glenn Close.  Guardians of the Galaxy opens in 3D on August 1st.

The official synopsis:

An action-packed, epic space adventure, Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” expands the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the cosmos, where brash adventurer Peter Quill finds himself the object of an unrelenting bounty hunt after stealing a mysterious orb coveted by Ronan, a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the entire universe. To evade the ever-persistent Ronan, Quill is forced into an uneasy truce with a quartet of disparate misfits—Rocket, a gun-toting raccoon, Groot, a tree-like humanoid, the deadly and enigmatic Gamora and the revenge-driven Drax the Destroyer. But when Quill discovers the true power of the orb and the menace it poses to the cosmos, he must do his best to rally his ragtag rivals for a last, desperate stand—with the galaxy’s fate in the balance.

The Monuments Men: Getting It All Artfully Wrong

George Clooney’s The Monuments Men is curiously artless for a movie about artists and curators recovering Western High Culture from all Nazi attempts to destroy it.  Clooney is Hollywood reigning revivalist and Renaissance man of they don’t make them like they use to cinema be it political thriller (The Ides of March), screwball romance (Leatherheads), or social commentary/warning (Good Night and Good Luck).  Here, Clooney commits the sin of treating art as a MacGuffin, a plot device thereby trashing art while trying to exult it.  The name for this kind of misfire is kitsch.   If done for a captive Germanic audience during World War II the Nazi version of The Monuments Men would play on an endless loop in Hitler’s (himself a failed artist) much desired but never built Fuhrer Museum.

The Monuments Men is loosely based on the Robert M. Edsel and Brett Witter nonfiction book.  Clooney and co-writer Grant Heslov have stuck close to the history while refusing to amp the drama and adventure.  The moral, philosophical question of whether art is worth fighting and killing for is raised to give some false serious intent.  Like any war movie peripheral characters will die to prove small points and move the action forward.   Bill Murray, John Goodman and Jean Dujardin exist only to play the Murray-Goodman-Dujardin character types the script demands.

The lack of thematic detail and character backstory makes Clooney seem disinterested in the art of his story.  The Monuments Men barely functions as history lesson and the drama hardly enthralls.  Saying and speaking is not engagement if there is no professional commitment or even awe at seeing a long sought object of desire.   The movie shies away from debates and having too much shop talk.  It is too gentile to even dish the latest artistic dirt. 

Almost 50 years ago John Frankenheimer made The Train, a movie starring Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield and Jeanne Moreau about a group of resistance fighters who plot to take back art that Nazis have stolen.  It was that rare combination of heist and war movie that delivered the goods.  The Monuments Men wants to be that kind of movie. Unfortunately it’s too afraid of doing the crime and fighting the battle.  

The Monuments Men gets a C+ from me.