The Flickcast – Page 433 of 1030 – Stuff Nerds Love

Review: ‘Super 8’

Posted on June 12, 2011

J.J. Abrams latest film Super 8 is not E.T., to which it doubtless will be compared. Nor is it Close Encounters of the Third Kind, another film in the Steven Spielberg oeuvre to which it also owes a great debt. Heck, it isn’t even The Goonies. It is not any of these films.

Instead, it’s a stark reminder that having all the tricks in the bag doesn’t necessarily mean you can make magic. Being a fan of Abrams and his previous efforts, I went into Super 8 optimistic and enthusiastic that I was in for a great movie.

What I got instead was a shrill effort that accomplishes almost nothing except to demonstrate a filmmaker obviously at the top of his game technically, but seemingly lacking a grasp on what true human interaction, characters and to the greatest extent, story, are supposed to look like. I had a hard time caring about anyone in this movie, especially most of the kids. They all seem to exhist in the film mostly to fill a quota for a particular type of character.

You have the quiet kid who suffered a recent loss, the fat kid who tries to make up for it by being loud and bossy, the awkward kid who’s extremely nervous, the kid with braces who likes to blow stuff up because, as evidenced by the fact that you never see his parents, he’s obviously acting out. You also have the lonely, beautiful girl with the angry, drunk father.

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Tom Selleck’s ‘Indiana Jones’ Audition, NBC’s ‘Wonder Woman’ Teaser, & WiiU’s ‘Killer Freaks from Outer Space’ are all On The Radar

Posted on June 10, 2011

Welcome to another edition of On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage during the week. Let is know if we missed something interesting.

Let’s get started!

• We finally get the first sounds of Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull in a new teaser for Captain America: The First Avenger. Funny…he sounds a lot like Megatron.

• It looks like the lawsuit against Warner Bros for use of Mike Tyson’s tattoo on Ed Helms in The Hangover Part II may force them to CG the tattoo out of the DVD’s. This seems like a completely reasonable use of that $400 million the film made in the box office.

• Dark animated film 9 director Shane Acker is planning on a big-screen adaptation of Thomas The Tank Engine. Our hope is that Tim Burton also produces this film and Thomas is now a train…from hell!

• Ever want to know what Raiders of the Lost Ark would be like with Tom Selleck and Sean Young? Here you go, but we warn you: the mustache did not help him in the audition.

• Before we ever get the inevitable leaked pilot, we’ve got a whopping 7 second teaser from the failed NBC Wonder Woman series. Who knew you could sum up the entire reason why it failed in 7 seconds?

• In hoping to leave the kids table and join the big boys, Nintendo has teamed with Ubisoft to work on a new raunchy game for the WiiU, titled Killer Freaks from Outer Space. We’re totally sold.

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AT&T To Provide Free Wi-Fi in 20 New York Parks

Posted on June 10, 2011

I’m just going to chalk this news up to the fact that AT&T is tired of all the bad press and bad rap it gets for its subpar network and service. Even if it really is just a way to help its tarnished image, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.

To what am I referring? Well, according to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (via The New York Times), the city will soon be offering free Wi-Fi in 20 of its parks.

AT&T will power the service, which will be available later this Summer in various spots including Prospect Park, Battery Park, and Central Park. That’s a great development and a progressive idea which will no doubt be welcome by residents and visitors alike.

The public will have ad-free access to the free networks for at least the next five years. What happens in five years is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the Wi-Fi explodes at that time? No, probably not.

Also, no word on if this new initiative will improve phone reception in New York for anyone dumb enough to still be on AT&T. My guess is no, it won’t.

Norwegian ‘Troll Hunter’ Getting Americanized by Chris Columbus

Posted on June 10, 2011

You know us Americans, always thinking we can do things better than everyone else. It’s sorta ironic, then, that a guy named Chris Columbus has made a deal to remake the Norweigian mockumentary monster film Troll Hunter. Columbus’ 1492 Pictures has partnered with CJ Entertainment & Media to acquire the rights to remake the the Andre Ovredal-directed film that’s just now hitting theaters and On Demand.

In case you’re not familiar with Troll Hunter it follows a group of students whose investigation into a series of killings seemingly done by a bear leads them to something even more unexpected. They wind up following and documenting a mystery man who turns out to be a troll hunter. And these trolls are pretty darn big . . . and nasty.

“Troll Hunter was a visceral, thrilling cinematic rock and roller coaster ride of a movie. Visually, there are scenes in this film that American audiences have never seen. We want to introduce an International audience to this amazing moviegoing experience!” said Chris Columbus.

So, you’re going to introduce audiences to this experience by remaking the film? Why not just show them the “amazing experience” of the film that’s already been made and be done with it? Yeah, that’s not likely.

Film Review: ‘Super 8’

Posted on June 10, 2011

I’m hesitant to write a summary of Super 8 because I went in knowing nothing about it, had some reservations at first, but was so surprised at around the 10-minute mark that I immediately came on board. So if you’d like to enjoy it cold, read no further. Though I suspect that warning could apply to any film.

Super 8 takes place during the summer of 1979 and follows an outcast group of kids deeply engaged in one of the great pleasures of childhood: making movies. There’s the director Charles (Riley Griffiths), Joe, the makeup guy (Joel Courtney), a few of their bucktoothed, gangly friends, and the female lead Alice (Elle Fanning). Of course, these kids invest much more into their movies than my friends and I ever did (makeup? Multiple angles?), and one of the running gags is Charles’ insistence on production values, regardless of whether it endangers the cast and crew.

While shooting one of the scenes at an abandoned depot, a train barrels past and is derailed by a truck driving down the tracks. The magnificent crash is caught on film and the kids discover that the driver of the truck, who miraculously survives, is their science teacher Mr. Woodward (Glynn Turman), who tells them to get the hell out of there just as the feds arrive.

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Film Score Friday: ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’ By Hans Zimmer

Posted on June 10, 2011

The Pirates of the Caribbean film series is a great many things. It has covered four long, epic films and has captured the imagination of a generation of movie fans excited to embrace adventure. One of the aspects of the franchise that has stayed consistently great up to this point is the musical scores.

Mostly the brain child of Hans Zimmer, with a great start by Klaus Badlet, the music of the first three films has been excellent. Now with the fourth thrilling tale of Captain Jack Sparrow in theaters we have the chance to re-visit the high seas with another Zimmer score.

Before I get knee deep into the new score I did want to spend a minute talking about the score for the third film. The last movie gets a lot of negativity, some of it deserved, some of it not-so-much. This has led the film’s score to become one of the most criminally under appreciated pieces of film music ever written. Everything that made the Pirates themes brilliant is enhanced and expanded upon here, and the new pieces are all uniformly excellent.

The album is capped by the single best arrangement of the classic ‘He’s a Pirate’ theme that flows seamlessly into a beautiful main theme of the third film which is probably best described as Will and Elizabeth’s love theme. Great stuff all around, and I encourage any score fan to seek it out, you will be pleased.

Now to the latest film’s music. On Stranger Tides is a stand alone adventure, but it leans heavily on the themes already established for the main pirate characters of Jack and Barbossa. The new elements in this soundtrack come from the characters of Angelica and Blackbeard, both getting new themes that are generally successful. The mot exciting new sound in the score originates from Angelica’s theme, she is a Spaniard and as such Zimmer crafts a wonderful Spanish sound with the help of Rodrigo y Gabriela.

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Season 2 of ‘Walking Dead’ Shoot Delays Traffic with Zombie Warnings

Posted on June 10, 2011

It’s rare that a show puts together an awesome idea long before they even release a trailer for the new season. That’s pretty much what’s happening with AMC’s second season of the critically acclaimed adaptation of The Walking Dead.

Down in Atlanta, where the show currently shoots and takes place, the roads are slowed due to a certain zombie outbreak. You tell us if this isn’t one of the scariest road signs you’ve ever seen on the highway. Here’s the official report.

Police in Cobb County are warning drivers to be on guard for a zombie outbreak as filming of the hit drama series “The Walking Dead” begins there. They plan to post two message boards on a busy thoroughfare.

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Go Behind The Scenes of ‘Super 8′ Before You See it This Weekend

Posted on June 10, 2011

While we may have a pretty deep review of the flick later today, there are still plenty of us who are waiting impatiently to see exactly what kind of magic can happen when screen legends J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg team up on a sci-fi picture in Super 8.

Much like Abrams’ last big original sci-fi flick Cloverfield, this film has been shrouded in some pretty deep mystery since we first got a glimpse of the trailer back in January. Here’s what we have for a synopsis, in case you still aren’t up to speed.

In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town witness a catastrophic train crash while making a super 8 movie and soon suspect that it was not an accident. Shortly after, unusual disappearances and inexplicable events begin to take place in town, and the local Deputy tries to uncover the truth – something more terrifying than any of them could have imagined.

Filled with no-name child actors who will most likely steal the show, the film is as pure as Spielberg’s E.T. was nearly 30 years ago. Check out a brand new featurette on the film after the jump, and be sure to catch Super 8 in theaters starting today.

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