Film School Buzz
Robert Rodriguez premiered footage from Nimród Antal’s Predators at SXSW on Friday, and Fox has put the put the 2-minute sneak preview online. Watch it now on the official Predators movie website, or embedded after the jump. Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Official Plot Synopsis: Royce, a mercenary who reluctantly leads a group of elite warriors who come to realize they’ve been brought together on an alien planet… as prey. With the exception of a disgraced physician, they are all cold-blooded killers mercenaries, Yakuza, convicts, death squad members human “predators” that are now being systemically hunted and eliminated by a new breed of alien Predators.
Coming to theaters on July 7th, 2010
Jackie Gleason : "You're in the Picture"
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In October 2006, Netflix launched a contest that challenged entrants to improve its recommendation algorithm by 10%. The winner(s) would receive $1 million, dubbed the Netflix Prize. It was a win-win: Netflix received relatively cheap R&D, while everyday statistics enthusiasts had a shot at making a big payday. The results of the competition came down to a buzzer-beating finish, with a group called BellKor Pragmatic Chaos submitting the winning entry just four minutes before the contest was over.
The Netflix Prize was a resounding success. It generated tons of publicity for Netflix and BellKor Pragmatic Chaos was obviously glad to take home the prize. This past August, Netflix announced it would follow up the Netflix Prize with a sequel.
But the initial contest also attracted the attention of the FTC and of certain Netflix users, who were concerned that the anonymized data Netflix provided to contest entrants compromised Netflix users’ privacy. Today, Netflix announced on its company blog that it would be canceling its Netflix Prize Sequel, after completing negotiations with the FTC and settling a private lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleged that Netflix gave away private information, even though it anonymized the movie rental information, such as movie choices and movie ratings. But in 2007, two researchers from the University of Texas released a paper demonstrating that they could determine a user’s identity if that user had also left movie ratings at another site, such as IMDB. “Simply removing names does not ensure that data will remain anonymous,” one of the researchers insisted. “And the implications stretch far beyond the world of Netflix.”
In its announcement today, Netflix promised:
We have reached an understanding with the FTC and have settled the lawsuit with plaintiffs. The resolution to both matters involves certain parameters for how we use Netflix data in any future research programs. In light of all this, we have decided to not pursue the Netflix Prize sequel that we announced on August 6, 2009. We will continue to explore ways to collaborate with the research community and improve our recommendations system so we can constantly improve the movie recommendations we make for you. So stay tuned.
Releasing anonymous user data has proven ill-advised in the past, even when companies thought it could do no harm. In 2006, the New York Times was able to determine the identity of an individual just by using her anonymous AOL search data, which AOL released to the general public without permission. Interestingly, Forbes points out that Netflix could have avoided this issue the first time around by employing “data masking,” which would have allowed the data to retain its usefulness while making it untraceable.
While protecting user privacy is always a good thing, it’s too bad we won’t see a Netflix Prize sequel in the near future; I may never get a good follow-up recommendation for Atanarjuat now…
It takes a bold designer to take on the iconography of Alfred Hitchcock. Between his own sensibilities and collaborations with designers like Saul Bass and cinematographer Robert Burks, Hitchcock’s films have some of the most memorable images in the mainstream film canon.
So here comes graphic designer Laz Marquez with a series of four poster designs for classic Hitchcock films — Psycho, The Birds, Vertigo and Rear Window — that look like they’d fit right in with each movie’s original material campaign. See ‘em larger after the break.
Marquez did the first poster in this series, The Birds, on sort of a lark (har, har), then followed through with the other three based on extensive interest from fans. Here’s what he had to say about the series as he published the final entry, Psycho:
Since I’ve started this project, I’ve had such an amazing time taking each piece of cinematic history and re-imagining it on my own terms. It’s been spontaneous, challenging and overall fulfilling. In addition, it’s been amazing to put some of the process in the hands of my followers and see what they’ve wanted the project to evolve into. Overall, I couldn’t be happier! Initially, I was only going to do 3 in a set but I’ve decided to add one last request into the Mix. With that, I bring you my Re-Envisioning of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”.
I like these a bit better than Mario Graciotti’s recent series of Hitchcock posters, though that’s not a knock against Gaciotti’s work. Just personal reaction. The Birds and Psycho posters are fantastic, I like the Bass-referencing design of the Vertigo image, and can get into the Rear Window design, though I think it is the least compelling of the quartet.
Cool Stuff is a daily feature of slashfilm.com. Know of any geekarific creations or cool products which should be featured on Cool Stuff? E-Mail us at orfilms@gmail.com.
Very unexpected news from the Disney camp today: the studio has just issued a press release saying that, after production finishes on Mars Needs Moms, the Robert Zemeckis studio ImageMovers Digital will be closed in 2011.
We don’t have a lot of details on the closing right now, but a statement from Walt Disney Studios president Alan Bergman says it all:
Bob and the entire IMD team successfully built a state of the art studio and produced an amazing film, A Christmas Carol, at a time when the dynamics of the industry are rapidly changing. But, given today’s economic realities, we need to find alternative ways to bring creative content to audiences and IMD no longer fits into our business model.
In other words, the movies from IMD are quite expensive, and if A Christmas Carol is any indication, they’re not making the sort of money the new Disney regime would like. The press release says that a new production deal may be formed to continue work on the Yellow Submarine remake, but I wonder what this really means for that project.
The LA Times reports that 450 people will be laid off as operations at the studio wind down.
I’m not the biggest fan of most of the Zemeckis mo-cap films, but looking at them objectively no one could say that each hasn’t built upon the previous efforts. I couldn’t take the dead eyes of Polar Express, but by A Christmas Carol IMD was producing animation that had a lot of life. Will Zemeckis be able to carry on in the same capacity elsewhere, or will it be up to Cameron, Spielberg, Jackson and others to push mo-cap forward?
Mars Needs Moms, based on the book by Berkley Breathed and directed by Simon Wells, will open on March 11, 2011.
Here’s the full press release, via Deadline:
BURBANK, Calif. – March 12, 2010 – The Walt Disney Studios and ImageMovers Digital (IMD) today announced that they will close operations at IMD’s Marin County facility after production is completed on Mars Needs Moms. The IMD facility is expected to be closed by January, 2011.
“Bob and the entire IMD team successfully built a state of the art studio and produced an amazing film, A Christmas Carol, at a time when the dynamics of the industry are rapidly changing,” said Alan Bergman, President of The Walt Disney Studios. “But, given today’s economic realities, we need to find alternative ways to bring creative content to audiences and IMD no longer fits into our business model.”
“I’m incredibly proud of the talented team that we assembled at IMD and the fantastic work they have accomplished,” said Robert Zemeckis, one of the co-founders of ImageMovers Digital. “Their pride and dedication to making quality movies is evident in everything we have produced.”
The Studio is hoping to create a new long-term production deal with Zemeckis and his IMD partners, Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey, which will include the continued development of the Yellow Submarine project.
Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?
Future X- Cops Trailer
If I had any money to give someone to make a movie, if I had any pull to give someone all the time in the world to put their creative vision on the screen, I would give all of it to writer/director Jing Wong.
Without question this trailer has to be one of the most unintentionally bizarre examples of what is possible when you mix a hyper stylized vision of the future with an action movie that looks like it belongs on basic cable circa 1986 as a dubbed import that would have been played after Lazer Tag: The Cartoon Series but before Soul Train.
This is my new favorite film.
I mean, you cannot watch this and think this is anything but an episode of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers that got plumb out of control in the wardrobe department, where the director decided to steal wholesale from action movies from America, and where the writers campaigned, and won by attrition, to have a love story crammed within its action scenes.
When you start a trailer that rips off Iron Man’s assembly montage, and does it without winking an eye and plays it completely straight, while also having a battle sequence where a guy has bulletproof, pterodactyl wings and another guy with metal alligators on the end of octopus tentacles a la Spider-Man 2, you’ve got my attention. It’s phenomenal. It’s glorious. It’s a battle royale that I can’t help watching a few times over because it is just that good. You’ve got a guy doing battle with a Conair hair dryer, the costumes are outrageous, and a guy gets crushed with a mega forklift arm that seems to be straight out of Aliens.
This trailer is above reproach because after all this insane stuff happens, the mood changes and we get a violin suite that sounds like it should belong in Gone With The Wind, our hero cuddles with a woman he deeply cares about. Smash cut to a flaming helicopter falling to the ground. Bad guys start terrorizing an amusement park, one guy hand cranks a Ferris wheel hard enough to jettison a car while another removes some track off a roller coaster in a special effect sequence you can’t help but wonder who authorized it, while some woman is driven through concrete walls by a flying motorcycle. Cut to violins and our hero making out with his girlfriend.
This trailer is utterly insane and defies any rational explanation.
The ending of this is no better, with our hero (Andy Lau) becoming a glossy white Iron Man, looking like it was designed with Mega Man in mind instead, and literally boring a hole through one of the bad guys.
I couldn’t make this up on paper if I tried but so help me God I want to own this movie and savor it today.
The Myth of the American Sleepover Trailer
Look, three things:
One, these kids are way too self-aware to be the kind of horned up, late teen crowd that I, and many of my cohorts, was back in the day. Some of the dialogue is way too snappy for some pimple faced geek who is looking to break himself off a piece like a Kit-Kat bar, splittin’ a log if you want to get vulgar about it I guess, to be spewing as some of these kids are in this trailer.
Two, as anyone who is a regular reader of this column knows, I am an avid lover of most anything teen related. I was personally felled with great sadness when PBS’ American High was over, but the subject matter of this trailer reminded me of that series in a way.
Three, high fives to director David Robert Mitchell for getting a cast, mostly, of kids who at least look like they could be your average American teenagers on the screen; this helps to not only create a sense of voyeuristic realism but it enhances the drama unfolding on the screen.
By his own admission, as it states on his website, Mitchell cuts movie trailers. This helps to explain how this thing starts out feeling like a film and not a trailer cut by a first-time director who only knows how to make movies. There’s a subtlety to it and it shows here as we ease into this film with girls being girls; it’s a little cutesy but it gets to the heart of what we’re watching.
The music accompaniment is perfect, eschewing some emo blowhard band and putting in a nice pop track that doesn’t overpower what’s happening on the screen, and the subsequent scenes only help to flesh out those who we’re going to be following. Like I mentioned, we get a little too cerebral with the language in some areas but the cinematography just makes up for it.
Dare I say it but this trailer has the strongest final half I’ve seen of many trailers this year. It’s a bunch of seemingly unrelated moments but those moments make you want to see this film that much more. It’s when you realize the trailer’s over that you’re left wanting. Kudos all around for making me feel something on the inside.
No One Knows About Persian Cats Trailer
You’ve got a lot of things people can project on this film happening all at once.
Bahman Ghobadi has directed a movie that feels like a documentary shot within Iran. In that regard, you wonder whether this is a movie that was made in a clandestine manner as it is set in a country where political and social unrest lies just beneath the hard crust of their patriarchal exterior. Then you have the actors who brim with such joy and are passionate about their love of music you can feel your mind drift as you think why our 24 hour news cycle hasn’t told us about the normal lives of Iranians. The trailer is a wonderful mix of all these things, it keeps you engaged throughout, as we try and piece together what it is we’re supposed to be focused on.
What I like about this preview, primarily, is that we’re given a solid push from the start. The interstitial lays it all out from the beginning about informing us about what it’s like in modern Iran for those who love talking about their government and who love to listen to rock n’ roll. It’s a dichotomy that drives the entire trailer.
The Cannes recognition at the front helps to establish its pedigree and, like a popularity contest, says how special important people think this movie is. And it is, as the trailer’s musical beats feel peppy and hard to not root for as the action on the screen tells the tale of a band who wants to play music. It’s a mix of the traditional and the sacred as we see some of the more fundamental aspects of traditional Iranian music give way to these long hairs who find themselves playing in alcoves and cow farms. There does feel like there is a tension simmering below what’s happening on the screen and that’s when the fuzz pops up.
The trailer spells it out, what happens to people like musicians who decide to play for passion and for creative expression. It’s all very hush hush and the risks that these kids take in order to express themselves through their art is captured wonderfully. The tail end of this trailer, filled with quotes from people who excite you with their praise of this picture, packs little moments that show you further the line between doing what you feel and doing what you’re told. Glorious.
Shelter Trailer
When Timur Bekmambetov was tapped to direct Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy in Wanted, I was intrigued more than anything else.
It’s not that I thought that Timur was going to light the world on fire with his brilliance or ability to film a scene in a way that’s never been done before but I was nonetheless curious at how an artist goes from making films in his own style to making one in a studio system. Forget about geography, I would bet dollars to doughnuts there was an adjustment in making a movie that conforms to the way us here in America like our action films given to us. Truth be told, he nailed it well and he seems to be doing fine on his own.
Now, with this film, Shelter, co-directed by Swedes Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, you have a movie that stars Julianne Moore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers with these guys’ previous directorial credits being “Snapphanar” and “De drabbade.” Again, it’s interesting to see how the language of an artist comes through when they do a project wholly separated from the system they’re used to. Here, I would say, there seems to be nothing lost in translation as I was pretty dialed in to what was happening in the beginning of this trailer.
It absolutely has the vibe of a big picture thriller, no question; we’re all used to how sanitized these movies can be but there does, at the very least, have the sheen of something foreboding, exciting.
Meyers plays someone with a multiple personality disorder which does open the door for overacting, I know, but it seems pretty well in check along the lines of Primal Fear. That was a movie that depended on the strength of its story and of the actors in it and this trailer at least teases that Meyers is channeling something great along with this movie being penned by Michael Cooney of Identity fame.
Yes, it’s a little hokey with the flashbacks to when Meyers wasn’t mental, his illness being explained as a result of emotional abuse, but I will tell you what I really do love the cut scenes with images of deformed freaks, dudes wielding tire irons in the rain, snakes being drained of their poisonous juices, and a plot line that isn’t spoiled with anything revealing.
It’s refreshing not to have something like this ruined with too much information and it’s equally pleasing to have a movie that looks like it could be enjoyed by the older set as it seems like it’s skewing that way. No matter, as the mix of weirdness and the fantastical makes this appear like a solid two or three star thriller. As well, this trailer knew, and embraced, what it is and it made for a viewing experience that didn’t feel false or a lie and for that I think it deserves a place on the radar.
The Disappearance of Alice Creed Trailer
Taken surprised a lot of people last year so with a little effort at least this movie has something to attach its hitch to.
No matter that you have one of the most frightening actors working in the UK today, Eddie Marsan, starring as a wicked kidnapper but the trailer just gets right down to it without any set up. In fact, we start out with a video camera capturing the plea of a tormented victim founded in actress Gemma Arterton that we don’t need background, we don’t need an explanation. With that, we’re off and running wild to put together how we got to this point.
I’m not sure of the particulars but the story elements that we’re given just make this look like a straight kidnap tale with a pack of guys who planned everything out. It’s all so well-presented that when the script is flipped and the kidnapped becomes the person in charge it all becomes so much more interesting.
This trailer just explodes with its concept that it’s not she who is going to blow these guys away with a gun she wrests away from one of the kidnappers but that she’s going to allow the ransom to be paid so she can take a slice of it, much to Marsan’s ignorant disappointment. Seeing how Marsan is on the outside it just follows that the plan concocted will eventually be sniffed out and the trailer just does an excellent job in ratcheting up the excitement. It’s a game of who will figure out whom first but this trailer plays it simple with just giving us enough information without being too predictable.
In case you missed them, here are the other trailers we covered at /Film this week:
Dustin Hoffman may be ready to make his directorial debut. He’s in talks to helm Quartet, which is being written by Ronald Harwood based on his play by the same name. The story is about an aging, retired intelligence agent who has to fend off violent attacks by younger, better armed operatives. Oops. Wait. That’s the story for Red, the movie with Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and many more. This one is about elderly opera singers. Close enough? The cast is great, and the names are after the break.
Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney are the current leads set for the BBC films production, according to Screen Daily. The plan is to shoot this fall in the UK. Will Quartet end up as a televised BBC film, or a theatrical release? We don’t know, but with Hoffman’s name on the director card it seems like a good candidate for art houses.
The logline for Quartet goes like this: “Cecily, Reggie and Wilfred are in a home for retired opera singers. This year’s plans to celebrate Verdi’s birthday with a concert are not going to plan.” Part of the problem with the plan is a fourth character, Jean. Not sure whether Maggie Smith is in mind for Cecily or Jean, but unless things are being drastically changed the final casting to round out the title quartet will be a woman, meaning only that Hoffman won’t be in one of the major roles in addition to his directing duties.
Harwood won Best Adapted Screenplay for The Pianist, and was nominated as screenwriter of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. He was just hired by Dreamworks to craft the script for that long in development biopic of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As I said when we reported on that deal, Harwood has a love for stories that deal with performers and the stage, so you can see where Quartet comes from.
I know it isn’t the most attention-getting story, but I like this set of actors, and am really curious about Hoffman as a director. Richard Loncraine was previously set to direct this one, and I wonder, too, if the actors, who have been cast for a while, will stick around should Hoffman come aboard.
We know very little about Terrence Malick’s new film Tree of Life, said to be a generational family drama. We know it stars Brad Pitt as part of the film’s elder generation, and Sean Penn as the adult version of Pitt’s son. Beyond that, plot details are sketchy as Malick’s team has been very good about scrubbing them from the web. Not so sketchy that you can’t find them if you really want, but I’d rather leave all that as a mystery. Feel like I know too much already.
Various theoretical release dates have been batted around since the film was pushed back from a late 2009 release. We’ve figured it would premiere at Cannes, and while that debut isn’t yet confirmed, it seems almost a lock now. Apparition’s Bob Berney has been talking up the film, and confirming that an early November release is currently planned for North America. There’s not much here, but for those dying for this movie (like me), is is something.
Peter Hammond is reporting a few small details about the film that come by way of Berney, i.e. the guy releasing the film. So take them with a certain informed caution, since the guy has a vested interest. These details are small and verging on hearsay, but bear with me. It’s a slowish news day, and this is a movie about which I know a lot of people are keen to know more.
Berney said at the Independent Spirit awards that Tree of Life would see release in the beginning of November, and is “very likely to show up in Cannes.” (Emphasis on ‘very’ is Hammond, not me.) He’d previously given that November date to Anne Thompson as well.
Hammond reports that Berney says Tree of Life is “like a dream and Malick fans are going to be extremely happy.” Berney compares Brad Pitt to Robert De Niro in This Boy’s Life, which is not really what I expected to hear. He also highlights Jessica Chastain, who plays Pitt’s wife, as a performer to watch out for.
Like I said, scant new details. Is there any trailer I want to see more than this one? Nope. Not even Scott Pilgrim.
Stephen talks about the Romance of Travel and the realities of shooting on location, relating some Rules of the Road he has gleaned from experiencing the good, the bad, and the very bad.
The Tobolowsky Files is a new podcast from the people who brought you the /Filmcast, featuring a series of stories about life, love, and the entertainment industry, as told by legendary character actor Stephen Tobolowsky. You can always e-mail Stephen at stephentobolowsky(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or you can e-mail David at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com. You can also follow Stephen on Twitter or follow David on Twitter. Please let us know what you think of the show! You can find every episode of the podcast at http://www.tobolowskyfiles.com!
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Stills from the film "The Runaways," based on the lives of Joan Jett and Cherie Currie. "The Runaways" is directed by Floria Sigismondi and stars Kristin Stewart and Dakota Fanning.
