It’s rare that a truly original film comes through the system and actually make us take note. The upcoming animated film from Dreamworks, Rise of the Guardians (formerly Guardians of Childhood) is just that.
With an all-star cast an a premise we haven’t liked this much since Nightmare Before Christmas, this flick could be our new favorite from Dreamworks. Here’s the premise:
 
More than a collection of the well-known childhood legends, Rise of the Guardians tells the story of a group of heroes — each with extraordinary abilities. When an evil spirit known as Pitch lays down the gauntlet to take over the world, the immortal Guardians must join forces for the first time to protect the hopes, beliefs and imagination of children all over the world. This epic 3D adventure stars Chris Pine as Jack Frost, Alec Baldwin as North (Santa Claus), Hugh Jackman as Bunnymund (Easter Bunny), Isla Fisher as Tooth (Tooth Fairy) and Jude Law as Pitch (The Boogeyman).
 
With a scheduled release of November 21, 2012, you can expect this one to be the big hit of the 2012 holiday season (provided The Hobbit doesn’t steal our hearts). Take a look at Santa looking bad ass after the jump.

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Often times a filmmaker and a composer find a shared voice, a common approach that allows both to make the project they share truly remarkable. One of the highest profile partnerships is that of Steven Spielberg and John Williams, arguably the two greatest artist in their chosen fields. This winter brings us not one, but two brand new collaborations between these two heavyweights, and today we are going to dig into the first of the two, War Horse.

I was extremely excited when I began listening to this music, every time Williams composes music for a Spielberg film there is a good chance he is crafting something remarkable. The first 25 seconds of the War Horse score immediately let me know this music would be no exception. The score is classic Williams, with a somberness that is just subtle enough to be noticed, but not get in the way of the idealistic sheen that Williams uses so well.

The main theme of War Horse is beautiful, Williams is the greatest theme writer in the history of ever and some how he manages to still do it to this day. The theme is simple, but evocative of early 20th century hopes and dreams as well as the nobility of the soliders fighting in the first two world wars. Which makes sense due to the fact that the film is about the incredible journey of a boy, too young to enlist going to the war torn trenches in France to save his friend, the titular horse. 

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OK, I am calling it right now. Henry Jackman is a composer to watch. So far this year he has scored three films, all with a unique, interesting and fun sound. First it was the stellar X-Men: First Class, my review of which can be found here, followed by Winnie the Pooh which was really good in very different ways. Now Jackman brings his up and coming stylings to another animated feature, although this time one that has it’s roots in a decidedly different musical lineage.

Puss in Boots is the first spin off film in the Shrek franchise, and it follows the titular Puss (tee hee), played by Antonio Bandaras, in his own adventures. Puss was a highlight of the second film and one of the few good parts of the third and fourth movies so a stand alone feature might work.

The film is about sword-wielding avenger with a thick Spanish accent played by Antonio Bandaras, and if you immediately thought Zorro then you and Mr. Jackman might have something in common.

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The Transformers trilogy is an interesting beast. The first film was a surprisingly great sci-fi action film, the second was one of the worst pieces of junk I have ever sat through and the third comes somewhere in the middle. Despite the inconsistency in quality from film to film the one thing that remained steady in it’s excellence was Steve Jablonsky’s scores.

Jablonsky comes from the Hans Zimmer cadre of film composers who have dominated the movie score scene over the last decade. Like Klaus Badelt and Harry Gregson-Williams before him, Jablonsky made a significant impact in his career collaborating with a prolific filmmaker, Michael Bay. He had several good scores prior to Transformers, particularly The Island, but it wasn’t until he scored the giant talking robot opus that you knew you were listening to a real talent who has limitless potential.

Now at the end of the Transformers saga Silva Screen Records has put together a collection of the music from the entire trilogy, celebrating some of the best action sci-fi music ever written. The music is performed by London Music Works and does a really incredible job of capturing the essence of what the music is. This is especially great considering that at times the music actually sounds quite different.

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Letters from Iwo Jima was Clint Eastwood’s follow up to Flags of Our Fathers as told through the Japanese defender’s perspective. Ken Watanabe stars as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who was the man responsible for defending Iwo Jima from the American invasion. Kazunari Ninomiya stars as PFC. Saigo, a conscripted baker who doesn’t want to fight, and wants to return home to his wife and new child.

The film is told through a series of flash forwards and flashbacks such as Flags, and shows the struggle many Japanese soldiers faced while preparing the island for the upcoming invasion by the American Marines portrayed in the first film.

Letters From Iwo Jima is most noted for being the most realistic portrayal of Japanese combatants in a World War II before. Eastwood uses his direction to show a picture which shows the struggles the Japanese faced in preparing themselves for certain death. Of all the characters in the film, both Saigo (Ninomiya) and Kuribayashi (Watanabe) know that this is a fight that they can’t win.

When Kuribayashi arrives on Iwo he is amazed to see how unprepared his forces are in meeting the American threat. Kuribayashi begins transforming Mt. Suribachi into an impregnable fortress that will prove fatal for the American invaders. He also has his men prepare bunker complexes, pillboxes, blockhouses, and many earth covered structures to keep the Americans from gaining a foothold inland from the water’s edge.

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This week’s pick is Clint Eastwood’s World War II masterpiece Flags of Our Fathers that depicts the famous flag raising on Mt. Suribachi on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima. The film stars Ryan Phillippe (Navy Corpman 2^nd class John “Doc” Bradley), Jesse Bradford (Corporal Rene Gagnon), Paul Walker (Sgt. Hank Hansen), and Robert Patrick (Col. Chandler Johnson).

The film is told through a series of flash-forwards and flashbacks, through the three remaining men who were responsible for the flag raising which helped to raise America’s morale as the Pacific war raged on with no foreseeable end in sight. The seven Marines that are the focal point of the film begin their training at Camp Tarawa in Hawaii with mountain climbing and other P.T. drills.

As they set sail towards their destination, it is revealed that the target in question is the Japanese held island of Iwo Jima, which sits just seven hundred miles away from the Japanese mainland.

During a debriefing, the company commander, Captain Severance (McDonough) tells the men that they will meet stiff enemy resistance than ever before because Iwo is Japanese soil and its defenders will fight to the last man in order to prevent the Americans from gaining a closer foothold toward Japan.

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It has cowboys. It has aliens. It has cowboys and aliens. It’s not a bad film. It’s not a good film. It is a movie. That’s a pretty lackluster opener, but, walking out of the screening, I felt almost completely neutral about Cowboys and Aliens–it was like the things I liked and the things I disliked were in perfect balance.

The film doesn’t fail to deliver on anything the title promises, and you can lose count of the standard tropes from either genre that it hits, but it’s tough to maintain the toothy grin I expected all throughout. Though I’m getting ahead of myself.

Daniel Craig plays Jake Lonergan (one of many last names I suspect are puns but am not entirely sure), a notorious outlaw who awakes one morning with a heavy case of amnesia and one hell of a bracelet on his left arm. He makes his way to the nearest town, controlled by the gruff cattle rancher Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and his uppity son Percy (Paul Dano), whose favorite pastime is terrifying the community at large and in particular the local bartender (Sam Rockwell) and his wife (Ana de la Reguera).

It’s not long before Jake endears himself to the locals, among them the soused preacher (Clancy Brown), the woman with a secret (Olivia Wilde), and, naturally, the sheriff (Keith Carradine) by punching out Percy, and not long after that that his identity is revealed, and he’s locked up. Still less longer, the aliens arrive, capture a handful of significant townsfolk, and everyone’s differences are set aside as they form a posse to recover the abductees. ‘round about this time, Jake discovers that his bracelet is able to sense the aliens and, better yet, can blow ‘em up real good.

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The score for the first Michael Bay Transformers movie was something of a shock. I wasn’t expecting much from the movie, and I anticipated even less from the movie’s score. In fact, I expected something more like incomprehensible metal percussions and minimalism in the theme department.

What Steve Jablonsky delivered was nothing short of a revelation, I had a perfect  cinematic music moment during the arrival to earth scene. A moment where the music, movie and context of my own life all blended together for one transcendent moment.  This has only happened three other times in my life, and the composers responsible were named Wiliams, Goldsmith and Shore. So believe me when I say I really liked the music of the first film.

Then came Transformers 2, an abomination of truly grand proportions. The score was solid, but unspectacular. It had none of the awe and wonder that made made the first film’s music such a joy. In the absence of that we got instrumental Linkin Park! Whoop!

Now I understand a film that is second in a franchise isn’t going to have that same freshness, but I was expecting so much better. So now here we are at Transformers 3, Jablonsky has returned with almost everyone else and I am more than curious to hear what he has to offer.

Last week I gave you a review where I hadn’t seen the movie (well TV show actually), now this week I am giving you a review where I saw the movie first before I listend to the score album. In the movie, the music wasn’t as dominant as it was in the first film, but it was far more enjoyable than the last film’s score.

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When asked about his role in Jaws 4: The Revenge, Michael Caine once said, “I never saw it—but I saw the house it paid for, and it’s fantastic!” I suspect John Turturro’s been saying something similar for the past four years whenever he’s asked about the Transformers movies. Now we can add John Malkovich and Frances McDormand to that group. And maybe Alan Tudyk.

The plot is as labyrinthine as it is unnecessary. Back in the early 1960s, a ship from war-torn Cybertron (if the Transformers spend all their time fighting, how did they ever evolve?) crashed on the moon. Among the cargo were several “Pillars” that have some sort of significance to the war.

Also, a big, tough Autobot named Sentinal Prime. The White House gets wise to this, and thus we have the impetus for the moon landing (apparently, many historical events were due to Transformers; they don’t get around to revealing that car in which Kennedy was shot was an Autobot, but there may be a fourth film).

Fast-forward to the present day, where the Autobots are now working for the Feds to preserve humanity (how did we ever get along without them?). While on a mission to Chernobyl, Optimus Prime discovers some remnant of the Pillars and decides that it’s high time to revive Sentinal. Also, the Pillars are somehow able to teleport things, which means that it can be used to bring an army of invading Decepticons to earth (according to Frances McDormand, National Intelligence Director).

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Box office analysts expected this weekend to be a pretty huge draw, bringing in families with Kung Fu Panda 2 and everyone else with The Hangover Part 2. Nobody, however, expected the R-rated sequel to The Hangover to pull in over $100 Million since Thursday.

That’s precisely what happened, as Todd Phillips’ film grossed roughly $137 Million since Thursday in the domestic box office and pulled in just under $200 Million worldwide.

Also hitting theaters this weekend, Kung Fu Panda 2 opened to good box office grosses, just not as impressive. The Dreamworks sequel pulled in an estimated $68 Million locally and upwards of $125 Million worldwide.

In third place for the weekend, Pirates 4 dropped off over 50% since last weekend, bringing in an estimated $40 Million for the weekend. This may sound low, but it helps top the film off at $634 Million worldwide over the 10 days. Not too shabby.

Also opening this weekend is Terence Malick’s Tree of Life, which only hit 4 theaters across the country, and still managed to pull in roughly $373,000, which averages out to nearly $100,000 per theater.

Next weekend we’ve got another heavy hitter as Fox’s X-Men: First Class hits over 3,000 theaters. Expect to see big things from that film.

As we do often, we’ve got another trailer to share with you today. That’s one of the cool things about Hollywood, they’ve always got another movie to promote and there’s always a new trailer to watch and maybe even enjoy.

Case in point today is a brand new one for Reel Steel starring Hugh jackman and some battling robots. DreamWorks has released a new trailer for the movie and in this one we get to see more of Jackman in action, more fighting robots and, unfortunately, more of the “human story” as well. Sorry, the kid is a bit annoying.

I know the movie can’t be two hours of robots kicking the crap out of each other but at least they could have found a slightly more appealing kid to play, well, the kid. Hey, its probably not as bad as we think it is.

Judge for yourself and check out the trailer after the jump. Reel Steel punches its way into theaters on October 7th.

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Many thought this Easter weekend was going to be a slam dunk for Tyler Perry and his third film to be based on the popular “Madea” character.  However, it was a blue macaw and his feathered friends who fended off the competition. Rio came in at the number one spot for the second weekend in a row.  The film made $26.8M, bringing its two week total to $81M.

Madea was a close second, with Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family making $25.8.  That is a very solid opening weekend total, but it is only the fourth largest debut from Tyler Perry, and it is lower than the two previous Madea movies.

The audience skewed heavily toward African American women over the age of 25, which is very typical for one of Perry’s films.  The film got a coveted “A” grade from audience members polled by CinemaScore. It should also be noted that Madea’s Big Happy Family had the highest per/screen average of the weekend ($11,254).

After critic reviews started coming in as less than stellar, there was some fear that Water for Elephants would under-perform, but it came in about where expected. The romance starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon made about $17.5M and got an “A-” grade from viewers.

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