Tag: Cinema

Your Lion Heart.

The AICN gang get their hands on (and quickly disavow) a Kramervision look at the first Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe trailer. It’s a bit Lemony Snicket-meets-LotR, and unless you’re a fan of the books I’d skip this Shakicam boot and wait until an official version leaks…but, otherwise, this is looking pretty solid, particularly Tilda Swinton.

Ghost Riders in the Sky.

Two superheroes made their first public appearance today. First up, and more importantly, is Brandon Routh in full Superman regalia. He looks…ok, I suppose. To be honest, I’m getting a fanboy conventioner vibe from this pic, but I think I’d probably feel that way about anybody but Christopher Reeve in the Big Red Boots. Meanwhile, our first shot of Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze has also popped up, although there’s not much to see quite yet, and unfortunately his head isn’t on fire.

Gimme a V.

A thespian-terrorist connection? The upcoming film version of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta receives an infusion of grade-A British talent, including Stephen Fry, John Hurt, Tim Pigott-Smith, and Sinead Cusack. (They join James Purefoy, Natalie Portman, and Stephen Rea.)

Darth Spoiler.

In a losing bout with the Dark Side, I broke down and read the full Episode III: Revenge of the Sith script last night (as well as the last chapter of the novelization.) Obviously, massive spoilers involved, none of which I’ll recount here. But I’d say that, at least on paper, the groan-quotient is lower than in Episode II, although the movie does start off somewhat ham-handedly. And, as with Episode I, there are a number of clunky “let’s take a meeting” exposition scenes throughout that I could see coming off rather badly. But, given the action setpieces herein, this should probably be the best of the prequels…or, at least, one hopes.

Endorian Extinction.

“What happens when you detonate a spherical metal honeycomb over five hundred miles wide just above the atmosphere of a habitable world? Regardless of specifics, the world won’t remain habitable for long.” Also found last night while perusing Star Wars sites, this technical commentary delves into the unwitting and horrifying environmental disaster precipitated by the Rebel Alliance upon the forest moon of Endor, as a result of the events depicted in Return of the Jedi (Another SW movie, as it turns out, that I went in massively spoiled for — I was living in Belgium at the time, and it didn’t open there until well after the US release.)

Opus Dei & the Octopus.

First up on Benedict XVI’s agenda: Smiting down the forthcoming Da Vinci Code film, which, along with Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, and Jean Reno, now also includes Alfred Molina and Sir Ian McKellen as “Bishop Arigarosa” and “Sir Teabing” respectively. I haven’t read the book, so I have no idea if this is good casting or not…but adding quality like Molina and McKellen can’t be a bad thing.

Rock of Ages.

The new trailer for Ridley Scott’s Crusader-pic Kingdom of Heaven is now online, and while it looks nice enough, I have to concur with the AICN guys: It’s hard to take the movie seriously with the goofy college-metal in the background.