The new, full-length trailer for November’s upcoming release The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 has gone live today.
It’s much the same as the teaser we saw earlier, with shots of Bella and Edward’s wedding and the revelation of Bella’s pregnancy. Smiley faces all round then, surely? Not so, because (shock! horror!) it turns out Bella’s sprog is half-human, half-vampire, and will kill Bella before she even gets the chance to give birth to it. Little sod.
From a film-making perspective, Red State feels like a first time effort. Shaky but admirable, trying too hard to throw in every trick they've seen in better movies. If Red State were the work of a first time director, I would offer words of encouragement and optimism that they will refine their vision in future films.As the tenth film of a man who has worked in the industry for seventeen years, is it really worthy of celebration that he has finally figured out how to move a camera?
In front of that camera, Smith found Red State's one saving grace with a remarkable lead performance from Michael Parks. He is incredible in the role as pastor Abin Cooper, he dominates the film and adds substance to a two-dimensional role. His mad preacher is the most intriguing form of villain; the one convinced they are the good guy and Parks completely sells Cooper's conviction. There is life in the film when he appears and recites Smith's politically tone-deaf script with such verve, I don't think there would be a Red State without him.
There seems to be a definite trend in horror at the moment towards the home invasion film. In recent years there's been Them, The Strangers, and of course Funny Games – presumably the inspiration for many of this current generation. You're Next is another such offering.
The film kicks off with an homage to that great Scream opening with Drew Barrymore – letting the audience know exactly what they are in for from the off – before diving into the meat of the tale.
Earlier this week Coming Soon released some set photographs from the new Peter Lenkov comic adaptation, R.I.P.D. The film is directed by Robert Schwentke of Red, Flight Plan and The Time Traveler’s Wife fame. R.I.P.D. stands for Rest in Peace Department. The film follows a recently murdered copper who, with the help of an undead police squad, sets out to find the man who murdered him. The pictures don’t much away, but, being a huge fan of all things undead, I’m excited about the project.
If you were to ask everybody who has ever watched an Ice Age film to summarise them in one word, very few would say “ice”. In fact, the overwhelming majority would probably say “acorn”. Like Pixar’s Wall-E, Scrat has proven it doesn’t take many words to steal the hearts of an audience. For all the baby-stealing, dinosaur-fighting fun the franchise has offered, it’s the mute rat’s unfailing devotion to his acorn that proved the highlight, and so 20th Century Fox has issued him the job of poster-boy in the latest promotion for the fourth instalment in the Ice Age series.
You don’t see any more in this new clip than what you've already seen in the trailer, but this little snippet also lets us know the date has now changed from October 2011 to 2nd December 2011. So that's good. The footage comes in at just a minute long and it builds up some nice suspense for the feature.
It starts with the Derek Jameson (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) wiping the frost off an ice block - looks like it contains something unidentified. He seems tense and one of the other characters helpfully shouts ‘BOO’ from behind him (naughty Joel Edgerton). I’m not afraid to admit that with my headphones on full blast this actually made me jump. As the dust settles from the initial scare, the ice-encased creature bursts from the block and out through the roof. You get a glimpse of the design and it reveals only a tiny bit more than in the main trailer. Huge fangs - check. A least four spiky legs - check. But that’s about it.
This is Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s first feature film and is a safe bet. It's being marketed as a prequel, but, from the trailers and clips, it seems that this is simply a remake of the 1982 original. Definitely one to keep an eye on.
The first time I encountered Jesse Eisenberg was on a long-haul flight from London to Ottawa in 2009. Having exhausted many of my initial preferences of film and televised entertainment on-board, I took a punt on Greg Mottola’s retro comedy Adventureland. In my relatively sleep-deprived state, considering the director, the style of humour and inclusion of the likes of Bill Hader, I naturally made comparisons with Mottola’s Superbad, leaving Eisenberg as essentially a poor man’s Michael Cera. I expect that their vague physical similarities also played a significant role in this.
Hot off the heels of the announcement that both Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger are returning to the sequel in larger roles, now there’s even more on their way.
Whilst the news wasn't exactly unexpected, it seems to have taken an age for JJ Abrams to officially sign to up to direct Star Trek 2, the long-awaited sequel to 2009's lens-flared reboot. Now it has been confirmed that it will indeed be Abrams in the director's chair, guiding the crew of the starship Enterprise in their continuing mission to explore strange new worlds.
A quick internet search reveals that there are currently nine films called Quartet. What will make this one stand out from the rest? Oh, that’s right - Dustin Hoffman is directing it.
