Sony Pictures has released a new, animated movie poster thanks to that fascinating technology called Adobe Flash. It’s a neat concept and worth checking out, but I hope this doesn’t become common place in movie marketing. We already are forced to plow through slow-loading, hard-to-navigation websites, and an animated Flash poster is nothing more than a teaser webpage in the shape of a movie poster.

Still, click on the image below to check out the animated Terminator Salvation movie poster:

The Longshots arrives on DVD on Tuesday, December 2nd. The movie stars Ice Cube and the girl from Akeelah and the Bee as a coach and female football quarterback respectively, who carry a rather crappy team to the playoffs. The family sports movie, directed by Fred Durst of all people, is based on a true story.

I’ve written a movie review for the film, so the only logical next step is to… read my Longshots movie review.

Alternatively, if you’re too lazy to read, you can instead enter to win a Longshots DVD.

In my quest to watch all things Audrey Hepburn, I have moved onto Sabrina, another widely known classic. A big fan of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Roman Holiday, I went into Sabrina, a rather silly romantic comedy, with high expectations… and unfortunately, Sabrina didn’t quite meet them.

Sabrina is still a good movie, and how could it not be starring Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn and William Holden. Bogart and Holden play two rich brothers who, for most of their life, have all but ignored the existence of young Sabrina Fairchild (Hepburn), the daughter of their family’s chauffeur. Bogart is all work and Holden all play, but both find a commonality when Sabrina returns from Paris suddenly all grown up and sophisticated - and gorgeous - and realize that they are both head over heels in love with her. Family tension and crazy antics ensue as the two brothers fight to win her love. (more…)

The box office pundits can stop guessing, at least somewhat. After a $7 million Friday, analysts still weren’t sure what to make of Twilight as it moved into the weekend. How many of the film’s fans flocked to the midnight showings? Would they still show up in force over the rest of the weekend?

With Friday results in, those questions still linger, but it is clear that Twilight, a movie with a purported $37 million budget, could make as much as $70 million this weekend. Counting the midnight showings, Twilight made $33 million on Friday, a massive intake - especially for a low-budget film. This opening, powered by teenage girls, is absolutely stunning though not completely surprising, considering the fan buzz around the film that has mounted in the past few weeks. I’d say the expectation is that Saturday and Sunday won’t fare as well, as those who really wanted to see the movie Thursday night probably went to go see it on Friday, but even with a low multiplier for the rest of the weekend, the film is in good shape.

Next week will be even more interesting. Given that it’s Thanksgiving weekend, Twilight has the chance to remain huge, but will the fans that poured out this week return for multiple viewings? It’s hard to tell. The weekend essentially gives teenagers four days in a row off, and many families that didn’t want to fight the masses may show up then. Curious non-fans like myself may also turn out, though the mixed reviews may have scared some people into waiting for DVD. Still, Twilight is a blockbuster, and there won’t be a lot of competition all the way until December 12th.

As for the other big movies this weekend, Bolt looks to be shooting for a $27 million weekend, having taken in $7.1 on Friday. This is pretty disappointing for the Disney movie, especially given its moderately good reviews, and you have to wonder just how much tension there is between the Pixar guys, who produce the truly high-quality, high-revenue pictures and the “regular” Disney crew, who just don’t.

Quantum of Solace took in $8.7 on Friday, and should also end up with about $27 million for the weekend. This precipitous drop had to be expected, though one has to ask how much higher the result would have been had word-of-mouth been better. I for one usually go see James Bond movies two or three times in theaters, but my only interest in seeing this one again is to watch it with lessened expectations.

Mickey Rourke is receiving rave reviews for his performance in The Wrestler, the latest film from Darren Aronofsky. Watch the all-new movie trailer now:

The sure-fire victor of the 2009 Academy Awards, Pixar’s Wall-E flies onto DVD this Tuesday, bringing with it one of the most ambitious, creative and visually stunning films ever made. Last year’s Oscar-winner Ratatouille was downright amazing for these same reasons (my roommate prefers the rat film), but

Wall-E managed to make a likable character and a smart, entertaining story with minimal dialogue. For a big budget film - a kid’s movie, no less - to feature almost no English is downright risky, but if there’s any studio that would take on such a task, it is Pixar.

As you can tell, I’m a huge fan of Wall-E; I doubt it will receive a Best Picture nomination as has been rumored, but we shall see. You can read my full Wall-E movie review here.

As for the three-disc DVD, it’s pretty good. The third disc is a digital copy of the film, so that doesn’t count, but the second disc is loaded with a good amount of interviews, making-of featurettes, deleted scenes and some family friendly features as well (the disc is split into Humans, for film fans, and Robots, for families).

I am currently watching The Pixar Story, an hour-and-a-half documentary that explores the creation of Pixar and computer animation in general. It’s quite interesting, as the lead animator began at Disney, was fired, and then moved to Lucasarts. From Star Wars to Young Sherlock Holmes (one of my favorites), computer animation begin to grow. Of course, money was an issue, and so Steve Jobs of Apple helped finance the spin-off company Pixar. That’s as far as I’ve gotten, but it’s pretty interesting.

Other features include:

• Deleted scenes
  There’s no real animation here, other than crudely drawn storyboards with music and audio added in for effect. I’m not a big fan of these, but as far as faux deleted scenes go, these are pretty good. It’s interesting to see that the ship’s computer was originally a stand alone robot, not something that is in fact connected to the ship itself.
• BnL Shorts
  This is a video designed for the ship’s captain that explains the brilliance of BnL, the reason for leaving Earth and the responsibilities the captain has for controlling the ship. His hardest task is that he has to clap his hands twice to get his morning coffee. This is pretty funny.
• Featurettes
  There are several behind-the-scenes featurettes that explore various aspects of the film. While each one is short (thankfully), these are pretty insightful as we get to see the thought processes put into the level of detail, the style of animation and so on and so forth. We get to see how Wall-E is inspired after bomb-detonating robots and many others, and, most interesting, the original plans for the film, which involved aliens (no humans) and eventually humans that had digressed into blobs. I’m glad they finally settled on overweight humans, however.
• Family-friendly features. I didn’t explore these too much, but there is one snippet that involves Wall-E being “attacked” by a variety of items including a magnet and vaccuum cleaner. It’s pretty funny, and I’m sure kids will have a blast wth it. There is also a feature where children can select from 30-40 robots seen in the movie and learn a bit more about them.

I also give Disney props for displaying the running time of each feature, so I knew how much time commitment I was putting in. All DVDs should do this.

The Wall-E DVD isn’t anything amazing, but insightful featurettes and a great movie make this a must-buy for all DVD fans.

The Ben Stiller-directed action-comedy Tropic Thunder arrives on DVD this week and is sure to be a big hit. The movie, which got off to a shockingly slow start in theaters, quickly developed into a sleeper hit, based on pretty good word of mouth and a great cast that includes Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey and Tom Cruise, in the longest and most inspired cameo in years. Still, studio executives had to be expecting more - but DVD sales should make up for some of that.

I have the two-disc Director’s Cut version of Tropic Thunder on my desk, and with it comes several entertaining special features. I haven’t actually watched this new unrated director’s cut just yet (it adds 13 minutes to the film), but I will let you know when I do. Meanwhile, many of the special features are worth seeing, if only for their entertainment value.

Those looking for insightful behind-the-scenes examinations of the making of Tropic Thunder may be disappointed, as the DVD is less concerned with delivering something insightful as it is with being funny. For the most part, the Tropic Thunder features try to make you laugh, and some even interview the cast in character.

Since Tropic Thunder is a movie about a movie, this makes sense. Most of the features are about the making of the movie inside the movie, not about the movie we all went to see. This plays out well. For instance, The Hot LZ Blowing S#%t Up interviews Danny McBride as his character Cody, and he talks about how amazing it was for the crew to just blow into the untouched jungle, remove all the trees and destroy everything in sight in a matter of days.

The Cast of Tropic Thunder is also played out as partially in-character, and at the very least the actors play along in a laugh-out-loud way.

I watched Before the Thunder and Designing the Thunder, but for the life of me cannot remember what those featurettes were about. I believe this were more legit ones, and includes some script readings, casting choices and so on and so forth. There are some good nuggets in here.

Rain of Madness is a particularly funny documentary that plays out like a tragic, behind-the-scenes documentary that looks at what went wrong with the filming of the movie within the movie (did that make sense?). Directed by some British dude (because British narrators are better than anything else), the documentary looks at the problems of the picture and the events that led up to the tragic circumstances to follow. This mockumentary is downright funny at times, as one who didn’t know better could actually take it seriously.

There are some decent deleted and extended scenes as well, and an alternate ending that adds just a little more to the one seen in theaters. Of course, those of you who liked the viral videos that emerged from the MTV Movie Awards, they are included here.

Some of the video rehearsals are quite interesting as well.

The Tropic Thunder bonus features look to make you laugh more than teach you about film, and if that’s your cup of tea, you should find plenty to enjoy here. As for the movie itself, feel free to read my Tropic Thunder movie review.

If you went ye old theatre house this weekend to see Quantum of Solace (looking at a $75 million weekend… what did I say, box office experts???), then you’ve probably seen the exciting new movie trailer for the upcoming J.J. Abrams sci-fi film Star Trek. Supposedly, the trailer is based some little known TV and movie series that started a few decade ago. I don’t know what much about it, but the movie looks pretty damn good.

It starts off a tad weak, looking like a new trailer for Fast and Furious as someone races across the desert - toward a massive cliff - in an apparent chase. At the last second, the car swerves and the driver is thrown from it; as the car plummets over the side, the driver - a boy - manages to scramble to safety, his legs dangling over the precipice. His pursuer asks his name, and the boy stands up defiantly and blurts out, a little too loudly, “James Tiberius Kirk.” Oh shit, it’s the Star Trek trailer!

These kind of intro scenes, featuring a boy version of a known character, can be at times jarring. Especially spliced and diced for the trailer, hence taken out of context, the scene comes in as a little underwhelming, mainly due to the forced announcement of the character’s name. Minor details, though.

We are immediately thrust into a series of montages - in other words, the trailer is more an extended teaser than anything else - of Kirk and Spock pre-Enterprise days, and at the building of the Enterprise. Then comes the action, and there’s lots of it: creepy looking villains, space battles, giant monsters and more. This is clearly going to be a darker Star Trek, and J.J. Abrams has taken it a little closer to the Star Wars world in terms of action, which is good as that, in my opinion, has always been an argument against the Trek franchise (you look at Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Wars, which essentially came out around the same time, and you tell me that one doesn’t have action sequences that are 20 years beyond the other). There’s also a little more emphasis on sex and sexuality in the trailer, which adds a bit of spice to it all.

At the same time, there are plenty of items to ensure Trekkies that the world isn’t completely being f**ked up; the sounds, the spacecraft and, hell, even Zachary Quinto as Spock look like they were pulled from the old series, only improved. The big question mark will be how the rather odd cast - namely Chris Pine - holds up to the rabid comparisons that are sure to follow. That may be make or break for the Trekkies.

This trailer, which really is just a long teaser, does a good job of setting the stage, giving us a bit of footage and a feel for the action, and making Star Trek, perhaps for the first time in several decades, appeal to broader audiences. It isn’t perfect, and I don’t think it has that “blow ‘em away” feel that I was hoping for, but it’s a great first step.

Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond pic, opens this weekend in the United States, two weeks after it opened in other parts of the globe. The movie has already made $161 million, and is primed to crush the $40.8 million opening for Casino Royale a few years ago.

As I’ve said before, I’m no box office expert and won’t pretend to be, but here are what some other websites are saying: (more…)

Every once in a while, a story comes along that just leaves you scratching your head. If it had been announced by some random blog or rumor website, one could dismiss it as pure conjecture - silly conjecture at that - and go on with their lives. But the story came from The Hollywood Reporter, a respectable Hollywood insider that usually doesn’t give in to rumors.

The Hollywood Reporter is… reporting… that a movie is being made that is based on the classic Hasbro board game Monopoly. Yes, Monopoly. I’m sorry, but Candy Land might be worthy of movie status simply because it lends itself to such (and yes, a cartoon was made on that film), but Monopoly? Really?

Is it just some preliminary brainstorming that Universal Studios is tossing around? No. Pamela Pettler is set to write the screenplay, and Ridley Scott - yes, Ridley Scott - has officially signed on to direct. Can you imagine that meeting where they called Scott in to pitch him on Monopoly: The Movie? How do you convince a director like that to take on such a likely crapfest?

Well, according to the article, the movie may be set in the future with a Blade Runner edginess. Hmm. So, allegedly, the movie is going to be a sequel to Blade Runner but based on a board game?

I don’t get it. I really don’t get it. None of this story makes sense whatsoever.