Saturday Night Live had a really cool spoof on The Artist last night. Host Zooey Deschanel “tap dances to the top” with the surpirse guest appearance of George Valentin himself, Jean Dujardin!
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Check out SNL’s official site for more videos from last night’s episode, including Clint Eastwood’s Chrysler ads and Nic Cage hilariously poking fun at himself on Weekend Update!
Over at ComingSoon.net, I just saw that leaked images of The Lizard, from the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man, have made their way onto the interwebbings. …or I should say, leaked images of a guy wearing a Lizard Halloween costume. If you thought the Pez version of The Lizard was bad, you may want to look away:
Holy shit. He looks like he’s concentrating really hard on something. Either that or he’s constipated. Isn’t The Lizard supposed to frightening?! This is about as scary as a character from Wind in the Willows.
We see stuff like this all the time: early peeks at otherwise secretive portions of films coming from toys, costumes, lunch pails, etc. With the amount of marketing that goes into one of these blockbusters, it’s gotta be harder than ever for a studio to keep their arms wrapped around the entire thing.
Even without an official response from Columbia Pictures, I would say these are probably a pretty accurate look at what we will get in the final film. I am going to withhold any further criticisms until I see the final movie but….oh man. A lot of people have already made the observation that he looks like one of the Goombas from the atrocious 1993 film Super Mario Bros.
They are (unfortunately and hilariously) spot on.
Check out ComingSoon.net for the full story and additional images.
Today, in Totally-Awesome-Things-That-Are-Almost-Movie-Related, the History Channel has released a teaser trailer for the forthcoming Hatfields & McCoys. Do yourself a favor and watch it here!
While this will not be arriving in a theater near you, after seeing this trailer, I certainly wish it was! If this doesn’t make you excited to see Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton wage some neighborly war, I don’t know what will. Maybe it’s the awesome choice of music for the teaser. Maybe it’s because I am a big Costner fan. Or maybe I just get all giddy-like every time we revisit the Western genre in film. Take your pick, ’cause this perfect storm of guns and grit has me fired up for a television mini-series…and when can you every say THAT without being an unapologetic fan of the Hallmark Channel??
We hope you can join us Sunday, February 26th for Oscar night as Cinema Recon will broadcast its first ever LIVE* show!! Our plan is to be on the couch with mics at the ready, cameras steadily positioned, and beers in hand right when the ceremony begins at 7:00ET/4:00PT. Watch the Oscars right along with us in real-time! We are going to power through the entire show: No breaks, no edits…Just pure, unadulterated Cinema Recon goodness!
Check back in with CinemaRecon.com soon and I will have instructions posted for how you can stream the video and audio right to your computer-machine!
To celebrate, Cinema Recon has been watching and reviewing a different Best Picture nominee each week leading up to Oscar night (next week we will see Hugo, if all things go according to plan). This week we are reviewing The Artist, and I couldn’t be more excited.
Everything I have heard so far about this year’s Academy Awards has led me to believe that it is going to be a two-horse race between The Descendants and The Artist (the Golden Globes certainly seemed to agree). Now that Jake and I have already given our reviews of the quite enjoyable Clooney flick, I’m very eager to see how The Artist will hold up against it.
Billy recently told me “The Artist makes going to the movies truly magical again. It doesn’t blow the doors down in any single aspect, and sure, it kinda uses a gimmick in being a silent film…but damned if I didn’t have a great time through the entire thing!” (sorry bud if my paraphrasing is off)
Have any of you had a chance to see The Artist yet? What are your thoughts? Only two weeks left until the big night!
* = So, you noticed that little asterisk up there, eh? Well, the Oscar show is scheduled to be a LIVE broadcast AS LONG AS all technical devices are working properly. I am working ’round the clock to make that so, but if I accidentally connect the blue wire where the red wire should have been, not to worry! I will still have the entire “CR Oscar Special” available for download and streaming on the site, just like every other show.
Holy sweet merciful God, wasn’t I just talking about ludicrous premises and mash-ups in film when we discussed the upcoming Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter? No sooner had I made that post did I stumble across this little trailer, released today, for Iron Sky:
Nazis from the freakin’ moon attacking present day New York in UFOs and blimp-shaped spaceships all coming out of swastika-shaped moon bases…Oh and Sarah Palin is in it. I shit you not. I am exhausted just having typed that, let alone having watched it!
Well that’s it then. Hollywood has gone insane. Somewhere a vein has popped and film studios are flinging bat-shit crazy movies at us. I don’t think I’m over reacting when I say the biblical Apocalypse is upon us. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… Nazis on the goddamn moon.
Touché, Blind Spot Pictures. You looked a President battling Nosferatu square in the eye and said, “You think that’s nuts? Well WE have lost our fucking MINDS!!”
….And we’ll probably go see it.
Oh yeah. Now this is what I’m talking about. Abraham Lincoln. Vampires. And a big ass Axe. It all gels together so nicely, doesn’t it?
In case you haven’t heard, 20th Century Fox and producer Tim Burton will bring us Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter this coming June. Judging by the unabashedly outrageous title, I expect a tongue-firmly-in-cheek mash-up of top hats and wooden stakes, which (if you are as big a horror fan like me) sounds delightful. I really do love a good (even often bad) horror movie. And I love it even more when a film knows exactly what it is supposed to be and embraces itself. Do you remember the scene in Inglorious Basterds where Omar and Donowitz unload a couple of MP40s into Adolf Hitler?? I kinda feel like, if done right, this movie could achieve that same “Anything Goes!” feeling for 90 minutes. We shall see…
June (unfortunately for us Prometheus fanatics) is still a long ways away. But to satisfy our presidential huntings of the undead, Entertainment Weekly has scored some cool pics that appear to be on location and in action! Check them out in the gallery below:
And I say why stop with Abe and vamps?! How about some Benjamin Franklin: Cyborg Slayer! Or Rosa Parks vs. Cthulhu!! Yeah!! Or give me a little Cowboys and Alie…oh…right. Okay, I’ll stop.
Well, that sure was close. Turns out that Harrison Ford/Blade Runner 2 rumor wasn’t true after all. Deadline had a chance to clear the air with Alcon Entertainment, the producer/financier working with Ridley Scott on the upcoming reboot. Andrew Kosove (Alcon big-cheese) had this to say:
“It is absolutely patently false that there has been any discussion about Harrison Ford being in Blade Runner … To be clear, what we are trying to do with Ridley now is go through the painstaking process of trying to break the back of the story, figure out the direction we’re going to take the movie and find a writer to work on it. The casting of the movie could not be further from our minds at this moment.”
Well…Good thing we waited a day to really check our sources, rather than post an article detailing Ford’s return to Blade Runner! You see, here at Cinema Recon, we go the extra mile to make damn, doubly sure every single news story is proven and factual. I mean, what kind of self-respecting journalists would we be if we were to flood the internets with wild rumors and hearsay??
Oh, speaking of journalism, a reliable source has given me super top-secret insider information that Batman dies at the end of The Dark Knight Rises.
Sad Batman is sad
A few months ago, we commented on how Mark Ruffalo seemed to be doing his best Zoolander impression.
Now, thanks to a wonderful screen by screen recap of The Avengers Superbowl trailer by io9.com, we have a great shot of The Hulk giving us his best “Green” Steel pose:
This is by far our best view of The Hulk yet. After seeing him cause a ruckus and stand amongst the other Avengers in the explosive new trailer, I for one am pretty excited for what’s in store. Still, a side by side by side comparison shows that The Hulk is going to need a bit more work turning left:
Ruffalo, on the other hand, has got it nailed
Cinema Recon will no doubt be front and center when The Avengers releases May 4, 2012. You can check out the extended Superbowl trailer below!
Oh my. I … I simply cannot begin to write the description for the following video.
I watched it. Let it digest for a second. Then I thought of all sorts of jabs and jokes I could make about it. They practically write themselves!
But as I write this post, its just…its just really difficult to cope with the fact that this thing even exists. I don’t even want to joke about it. This is no laughing matter. This is the cold, hard truth that entertainment is driven by financial figures and demographic polls. This is George Lucas saying, “Yes, I have heard all of your complaints about the direction of the Star Wars franchise. And NO, I don’t care. Don’t believe me? Watch THIS!”
The fact of the matter is, George Lucas is in the business of making money. He does not care if your childhood is tarnished. He does not care if Han shot first. He does not care if you think Jar Jar is annoying as shit. Why? Because special editions make money. Because re-tooling characters can appease a broader audience. Because little kids like annoying shit.
And so it is. This official Star Wars: Episode 1 trailer will make George more money. It will reach a broader audience. And it will cause little kids, who have no idea what Star Wars is, to perk their ears and beg their parents to take them to see it in extra profitable glorious 3D.
The Internets are, without a doubt, roaring over this trailer. I suppose I could bemoan along with them. Although, it would not be very surprising for me to tell you I don’t like this (I don’t). It would not be very shocking if I said this is utterly hilarious (it is). So I will simply just present this to you, so you can mull it over for yourself. And when you can finally put those thoughts into words, just realize… it doesn’t matter. Because at the end of the day, George has still found another way to turn one dollar into two.
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