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Joe Johnston Reveals All His 'Captain America' Plans
Filed under: Action, Paramount, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, War
With The Wolfman press conference came with veritable ton of First Avenger: Captain America news, courtesy of Joe Johnston, and all the sites that were lucky enough to sit down with him. I don't want to steal any thunder or exclusives, but I'm rounding up all the cool and relevant items for your reading pleasure, but I urge you to visit all our friends and read their pieces in entirety as there's lots of intriguing little hints that I can't begin to list here.
If you were worried that Cap would be battling anyone other than the Red Skull, you can put your mind at ease. Johnston confirmed to Ryan Rotten at ShockTillYouDrop that Red Skull will be the main villain of First Avenger: Captain America. As fans know, the creation and success of the Nazi terror known as the Red Skull is what leads to America "turning" Steve Rogers into Captain America. You can read a little more about him on an old Geek Beat if you like.
Cinematical Set Visit: Channing Tatum Talks 'Dear John'
Filed under: Drama, Romance, New Releases, Sony, Movie Marketing, Interviews, War
I have to confess that I don't think I could have picked Channing Tatum out of a line-up before meeting him on the set of Dear John. I knew vaguely that he was one of those incredibly buff Ambercrombie Models, I knew he danced, and knew he was going to be in G.I. Joe, but I didn't have a very precise image of him. As I disembarked from our car, he galloped past me, and I didn't recognize him right away. Shocking!
I think everyone has an image of what they think Tatum must be like. I'm happy to say that you're wrong. For one thing, he's charismatic in a way that I don't think has come across onscreen yet. I hope Dear John changes that for him. In person, he's incredibly warm, friendly, and sweet and no one could stop singing his praises. As you can guess, actors run the gauntlet as far as approachability goes, but there wasn't a smack of phony affability in Tatum. He even gave us all a hug after our interview -- and no, none of us asked -- which is not something actors really do. Come on, I don't want to hug 99% of the people I meet in a professional day. And yes, girls, you can feel every muscle.
Here's our Q&A with Tatum, which Cinematical participated in with UGO and Coming Soon. The questions were not all asked by Cinematical, so we've kept them all in bold as a reference.
Review: Dear John
Filed under: Drama, Romance, Sony, Theatrical Reviews, War
In the world of romantic novels and their film adaptations, it's hard not to know the name of Nicholas Sparks. The best-selling author has a knack for enduring romance, kisses in the rain and North Carolina shorelines, and Hollywood tends to translate his tearjerkers with an effortless emphasis on those most swoon-worthy moments ... which means that certain cynics rarely take well to his particular brand of saccharine whether it's on the page or the screen.
As luck would have it, Dear John isn't nearly as saccharine or heavy-handed as any movie about autism, cancer and a love divided by duty inherently threatens to be. In fact, in director Lasse Hallstrom's hands, the material comes off with some measure of grace and restraint, as do the performances of Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, and it's all enough to have even us certain cynics rooting for their eventual reunion.
Doc Talk: Why Remake a Documentary as a Dramatic Film?
Filed under: Documentary, Drama, Independent, Steven Spielberg, Remakes and Sequels, Columns, Cinematical Indie, War
What constitutes a remake of a documentary? Would you consider Milk to be based on The Times of Harvey Milk? Rob Epstein, who directed the latter, was thanked in the credits of the former and his film was surely an inspiration. His footage was even lifted or recreated for parts of Gus Van Sant's dramatized version. But Milk was ultimately deemed an original work, at least as far as the Academy Awards are concerned.
If you were to argue the case that the biopic is based on the documentary, where then would you draw the line? Is Monster based on Nick Broomfield's first Aileen Wuornos film (he too is thanked)? Is part of Munich based on One Day in September? And speaking of films by Kevin Macdonald, is The Last King of Scotland at all a remake of Barbet Schroeder's General Idi Amin Dada? It does feature footage from the doc, after all.
There's no denying Cate Blanchett's segment of I'm Not There is lifted from D.A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back, but it's easier to say the latter was merely used as reference. Frederick Wiseman meanwhile insinuates Stanley Kubrick stole much of the first half of Full Metal Jacket from his own boot camp film Basic Training, which was indeed used by Kubrick as uncredited research material. The later fiction film is considered solely based on an autobiographical novel by Gustav Hasford.
Cinematical Set Visit: 'Dear John'
Filed under: Drama, Romance, New Releases, Sony, DIY/Filmmaking, Movie Marketing, War
It is an incredibly hot and humid Charleston evening – the temperature is around 77 degrees and it's November – and we're climbing onto a set of a modern fairy tale. That's a high description for a dive seafood restaurant (and it is a dive), and even with the glimmering sunset and sea view, there's no way it would earn that kind of flowery description without the help of Nicholas Sparks. Luckily, he's the fairy godfather making lush romance out of Bowen's Island, where Sony has graciously invited Cinematical to the set of the latest Sparks romance, Dear John.
Directed by Lasse Hallstrom, Dear John centers around a young soldier named John Tyree (played by Channing Tatum), a young rebel with a rocky relationship with his father, who is played by the superb Richard Jenkins. He joins the Army to straighten himself out, and becomes a member of the Special Forces. One summer, while on leave, he meets the charming Savannah Lynn Curtis (Amanda Seyfried). Being a Sparks story, it's naturally love at first sight, but the lovers are separated by unhappy circumstance – in this case, it's 9/11, and John has to decide where his duty lies. "The book is very much about John and Savannah's love to each other, but it's also very clearly a love triangle of sorts. It's really a love rectangle – it's the story of John and his love for Savannah, and John and his relationship with his father, and John and his duty to his country," says producer Marty Bowen.
Sgt. Rock Skips Iraq and Ships Out For Times Unknown
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Warner Brothers, Scripts, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, War
Once upon a time, Sgt. Rock was set to battle Nazis in occupied France. Over the years, he's changed commanders -- er, directors -- and actors but one thing was always certain: Like Captain America, Sgt. Rock would keep to his time and place. Until last November, when Warner Bros announced they were taking him into the future with Francis Lawrence and screenwriter Chad. St. John.At the time, the news didn't attract much notice, perhaps because it was a little confusing. A lot of Sgt. Rock fans thought the film might be in his future rather than Earth's, and we would see him fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq. While that was a logical leap, it turned out to be wishful thinking. Joel Silver told the LA Times that Sgt. Rock will indeed be jumping into the not-too-distant future and saving humanity. There's no hint as to who or what he will be fighting in that futuristic battlefield. Will it be an old enemy made new again, such as Russia or neo-Nazis? Or will it be something like aliens or cyborgs? Silver is keeping tight-lipped, and revealed only that a new draft of the script had arrived: "It's a little bit in the future. As a war movie, it's not going to be 'where it's been,' it's going to be 'where it's going.' We didn't want to do Iraq, we didn't want to do a contemporary war. We wanted to do a sort of futuristic war. It's pretty strong."
I still don't understand the point. Like Cap, Sgt. Rock is the kind of character that was created and defined by WW2. He belongs there. I think Inglourious Basterds proved audiences were hungry for fictional WW2 adventures. The appeal of films like The Dirty Dozen and Where Eagles Dare has never waned. Why not go classic with Sgt. Rock instead of so silly and generic?
What's Captain America Up To? Joe Johnston Talks
Filed under: Action, Paramount, Scripts, DIY/Filmmaking, Comic/Superhero/Geek, War
While many may be waiting for those first official shots from Thor, the rumor mill has promptly turned its attention to The First Avenger: Captain America, particularly since Joe Johnston is all done with The Wolfman. Little tidbits have been popping up all over our great and wide Internet, and while they don't reveal anything very new, you can comfort yourself that the wheels are still turning.A few weeks ago, Johnston gave an interview with Box Office that revealed his take on the character. "It's not going to be a Captain America that you expect. It's something different. It is influenced by the comic book, but it goes off in a completely different direction. It's the origin story of Captain America. It's mostly period-there are modern, present-day bookends on it-but it's basically the story of how Steve Rogers becomes Captain America ... He was this 98-pound weakling, he was this wimp, and he's transformed instantly into this Adonis. You'd think he got everything he wanted. Well, he didn't get everything he wanted. The rules change at that point and his life gets even more complicated and dire ... At the heart of it, it's a story about this kid, who all he wants to do is fit in. This thing happens and he still doesn't fit in. And he has to prove himself a hero-essentially go AWOL to save a friend. Eventually at the very end, I don't want to give away too much, but he does fit in. But it's the journey of getting him there that's interesting. And it's a lot of fun."
Continued below ...
Sundance Review: The Shock Doctrine
Filed under: Documentary, Independent, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews, Home Entertainment, Politics, Cinematical Indie, War
The optimum way to see a documentary like Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross' The Shock Doctrine is at a film festival, such as Sundance, where it made its North American premiere this week. Unfortunately, I saw it in my living room, which is probably how most people in the U.S. will see it thanks to the Video-On-Demand cable channel Sundance Selects, which began airing the film immediately following its Park City debut.
Not to say the festival experience makes it a better film, but at least attendees of the first Sundance screening had the benefit of a post-film discussion featuring the film's directors and Naomi Klein, the author of the book upon which it's based. It's safe to assume she explained her arguments regarding "disaster capitalism" and the faults of Laissez-faire economics better than the film does. And Winterbottom and Whitecross are possibly the only ones who can defend what they had intended with their ultimately disjointed translation of Klein's thesis.
I had only the internet to use as a reference and clarifier in the end. What I learned afterward about the film and Klein's involvement in its production is that she basically walked away due to its increasing departure from what she felt an adaption of her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism should look like. From what I understand, Klein's work is more investigative journalism, while Winterbottom and Whitecross have concentrated on a history lesson based upon her expose of Milton Friedman's methods of economic shock therapy.
Pitch of the Day: 'Beyond the Call' (Remake)
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Independent, Remakes and Sequels, Cinematical Indie, War
Now that Marshall Curry's 2009 go-kart documentary Racing Dreams is being turned into a dramatic feature -- from Star Trek writer-producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, no less -- it's time to just pitch every feel-good doc for a potential Hollywood remake. First up, since one of its three subjects has been missing in Haiti since the January 12 earthquake, I'd like to suggest a movie based on Adrian Belic's 2006 documentary...Beyond the Call
The original Beyond the Call, which like Racing Dreams played the Tribeca Film Festival and has barely been seen since, is about the three-man humanitarian organization Knightsbridge, whose missions around the world have been called a cross between Indiana Jones and Mother Teresa. In the movie they're seen bringing food, supplies, money and assistance to needy areas of Afghanistan, the Philippines and Burma. And they're not only good human beings, they're hilarious, too.
Attention Fans of Irreverent Stop-Motion Animation: 'Viva the 'Nam' Calls to You
Filed under: Action, Comedy, DIY/Filmmaking, War, Trailers and Clips
I got a message last night from a friend asking if I wanted to come over and watch a feature-length, stop-motion Vietnam war film called Viva the 'Nam made with GI Joe figures. I'll be honest, the idea of it gave me visions of a series of Robot Chicken skits strung together for roughly 80 or so minutes, and, well, that's a vision I have little interest in seeing. But then I read the message out loud and had a change of heart. A feature-length, stop-motion Vietnam war film called Viva the 'Nam ... with GI Joe figures? Of course I want to see that! Why wouldn't I want to see that? What I wasn't told, however, proved even better.
Viva the Nam has been a labor of love for over eight years (!), the current runtime clocks in at 107 minutes (!!), the 'GI Joes' used in the animation are actually celebrity action figures (!!!), and the whole thing was shot on 16mm (!!!!). Oh, and though the film is a spoof on a wide swath of Vietnam war movies, it's much more than just a few loosely assembled gags. It has a flawed but full narrative with intertwining storylines that goes beyond what you'd expect from a project of this nature.
Of course that's not to say that Viva the 'Nam is a serious movie. It was made with a serious face, sure, but this is a war/action spoof made with action-figures and as far as that genre niche goes, Viva the 'Nam is King. Granted, it doesn't really have any competition, but iffins it did, I wager it'd stick a plastic combat knife right through the plastic faces of anyone out for the newly-invented title.
Tom Cruise and J.J. Abrams Reunite for 'Mission Impossible 4'
'Big Top Pee-Wee': The Original Benicio Del Toro Wolfman
Spin-ematical: New on DVD and Blu-ray for 2/9
Watch This: Brilliant Oscar-Nominated Short 'Logorama'
Chris Nolan to Lead 'Superman' Reboot!?
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