world war z Tagged Articles at Cinematical
From Page to Screen: 'World War Z'
Filed under: Horror », From Page to Screen »
This column is so often steeped in skepticism that it's a relief to declare unequivocally: I cannot freakin' wait for this movie. Just as I was starting to think that the zombie sub-genre was becoming played – the recent trend toward athletic, lightning-quick zombies hasn't really cured the zombie movie's fundamental repetitiveness – World War Z threatens to revitalize (your gratitude for not writing "resurrect" or "reanimate") the genre by hauling it, straight-faced and dead serious, into the real world.
The first thing Brooks does is set ground rules. Once infected and undead, zombies are essentially monomaniacal brains unmoored from brains' normal contingencies – e.g. a pumping heart, a digestive system, oxygen. Until the brain itself is destroyed, it will stupidly, relentlessly pursue human flesh, using whatever parts of the original body remain at its disposal. Zombies move slowly, with arms – if available – raised toward their target. If a zombie finds prey, it will moan; if a nearby zombie hears a moan, it will move toward the source and let out a moan itself. You see how this could escalate.
The Scary Bits: Demons, Crocs & Vampires
Filed under: Horror », The Scary Bits »
How many excellent vampire movies can you name? A handful, maybe a dozen? (Even less for me: I'd go with Dracula '31, Dracula '58, Near Dark and maybe two or three others.) Well here's a very cool listing of the top 70 vampire movies of all time that Snarkerati put up last year. The films are ranked via IMDb and RT scores, so at least there's a method to all this madness.
Anyone out there (besides me) a big fan of Night of the Demons? Sure you are. 1988, Linnea Quigley, demon massacres, lotsa gore. (No, not Demons, although that's a good one too.) Well, it's one of those horror flicks that getting the remake treatment. The new version stars Edward Furlong, Diora Baird, Shannon Elizabeth and Monica Keena -- and based on this rather solid set report at Shock, the remake looks to be coming along quite gorily.
Thanks to Bloody-D for pointing us towards the trailer for a new indie horror called Growth. The bio-terror tale looks pretty solid, and the promo clip makes fine use of those Trent Reznor chords. Ah cool: Looks like the Aussie cult classic killer croc flick Dark Age is finally coming to R1 DVD, thanks in no small part to the fantastic Fantastic Fest. And if you like a little gore with your Thanksgiving gravy, then check out the splatter menu that MonstersHD is cooking up.
Elsewhere on Cinematical: That nifty-sounding Monster of Florence book has landed a screenwriter; the inarguably excellent World War Z has landed a diector; War Monkeys is described as a Tarantino-ish Gremlins; and apparently there's a big vampire movie opening this weekend.
The Rocchi Review -- BondCast with Kevin Kelly of Spout and Joystiq
Filed under: Action », MGM », Sony », Podcasts », Interviews », James Bond », Remakes and Sequels », Daniel Craig », The Rocchi Review: Online Film Community Podcast »
What does Daniel Craig get right in his new outing as James Bond? What does Quantum of Solace get wrong? Can Marc Forster really direct action? Is Olga Kurylenko really the "hottest Bond girl ever?" Which directors could and should take on Bond's 23rd outing? And above and beyond all these topics, what does this week's guest Kevin Kelly, of Joystiq and Spout, think needs to happen to save Bond from both his corporate overlords and world-destroying villains? You can listen to the podcast here at Cinematical by clicking below:
As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.
Bond Director Turns to 'World War Z'
Filed under: Horror »
If you're a fan of horror and/or books, and you haven't checked out Max Brooks' World War Z yet, then here's another good excuse to go out and get a copy: The movie version seems to be moving full-steam ahead, and Variety informs us that Quantum of Solace director Marc Forster has been signed to head up WWZ. (The unpredictable director also helmed Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, Stay, Stranger Than Fiction, and The Kite Runner.)The ever-busy J. Michael Straczynski is on adaptation duty, and the project will arrive by way of Plan B and Paramount Pictures. Forster says "the genre always fascinated me, and when they pitched it to me, it reminded me of the paranoid conspiracy films of the '70s like 'All the President's Men." Sounds goo to me. Ah yes, the plot: It's a historical document about the zombie apocalypse, ten years after the fact. Pretty cool, eh?
That's all wehave on this project so far, but the article does inform us that A) Forster is unlikely to return to the Bond franchise and B) Max Brooks is also the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. Which somehow makes his book even cooler. More on the World War Z movie as it comes in. Bet on it.
'World War Z' Gets an Early Script Review
Filed under: Drama », Horror », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », RumorMonger », Scripts », Brad Pitt »
If nothing else, at least fans of Max Brooks' book World War Z can be a little more at ease with the idea of a big screen version. AICN reports that they have gotten their hands on an early version of the script for the 'zombie drama' World War Z ... and what's the verdict? According to them, "I love this script. Love every dark, somber, upsetting page of it. This is a horror epic, a serious, sober-minded adult picture waiting to be made, and it's one of the best pieces of screenwriting craft I've encountered in a while." AICN's review also goes into detail about some of the plot for the film, so if you haven't read the book and like to be surprised you might want to avoid reading the whole review.News of the film first emerged last February, when it was first announced that Brad Pitt's Plan B Productions would produce a feature film. The structure of the novel is a compendium of stories from survivors of a war between the living and the undead. The plot jumps time and space, so it must not have been an easy task to weave all these stories into one narrative. The task fell to J. Michael Straczynski (a comic book writer and a creator of TVs Babylon 5), and it would appear that he has done a bang up job of it.
Bring Out Your Dead! World War Z is Coming!
Filed under: Fandom », Scripts », DIY/Filmmaking », Movie Marketing »
Get ready to break out your copies of The Zombie Survival Guide, and be sure to stock up on bottled water and "lobos" (you know, those weapons with which one decapitates the living dead in hand-to-hand combat) -- Max Brooks's World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is being made into a film, with J. Michael Straczynski (who's also scribing Silver Surfer) adapting the book for the big screen. The film is being produced by Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment and Paramount is distributing.This is probably old news to some of you, but it's exciting news to me, since I just last night finished reading World War Z. I was absolutely immersed in this book and found it hard to put down. I've had deliciously scary zombie nightmares regularly while reading it, and have spent waayyyyyy more time than is probably healthy in discussions with my husband about the practical issues surrounding surviving a plague of the undead, comparing World War Z to Stephen King's plague book, The Stand, and pondering whether such a thing as an undead plague could actually scientifically happen (see, this kind of freakish obsessiveness is why I don't read or watch a lot of horror ...).
Silver Surfer Solo Film Being Prepped and 'Thor' May Get Director
Filed under: Action », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Comic/Superhero/Geek », Remakes and Sequels »
According to the LA Times today, 20th Century Fox is already prepping a solo spin-off for the Silver Surfer. The Marvel character features in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, opening this weekend, and Fox is apparently hoping that pic performs well enough to give the Surfer his own movie, because the studio has hired comic book writer/screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski to pen the thing. Straczynski has written for a number of Marvel titles, including the new series Silver Surfer: Requiem, he created the sci-fi series Babylon 5 and he recently delivered scripts for The Changeling, to be directed by Clint Eastwood, and the zombie adaptation World War Z. The LA Times article claims the Silver Surfer movie would be darker in tone than the new Fantastic Four sequel, possibly in response to fan criticisms of the sequel's PG rating. I've never actually read the Silver Surfer comics, so I'm not sure how dark is appropriate for the character, but I'll always take a more grown-up comic adaptation than something geared toward young children.More exciting for me is the news, also mentioned in the LA Times piece, that Thor may soon have a director. Unlike the Surfer comics, The Mighty Thor was a title I followed for years, and so far the closest thing I've had to seeing the hero/god on the big screen is his 'cameo' in Adventures in Babysitting (and I doubt he'll be in the remake). Supposedly Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughn is in negotiations to helm the comic adaptation, which was greenlit last summer and which has a script by Mark Protosevich (Poseidon). I'm not a huge fan of Vaughn's directorial style and I was happy when he dropped out of X-Men: The Last Stand (though now I think he'd have done better), but I'm willing to give him a chance with Thor. I think his style may actually be appropriate for the god of thunder. Besides, we've so far only seen one film from him; his next, Stardust, arrives in August.
[via JoBlo and Moviehole]
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