In 1995 Sylvester Stallone put up on the big-screen a film adaptation of a sci-fi property that has a fan following as rabid as any sci-fi franchise there is. I am talking about the character of Judge Dredd which calls the British comic book anthology series 2000 A.D. it’s home for the past 35 years and counting. The Stallone production was just awful from start to finish.
It’s now 2012 and we have what one can only call a reboot of the Judge Dredd film from 1995 but with screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later, The Beach) writer the script and Pete Travis behind the director’s chair. Instead of Stallone reprising the role of the iconic Judge Dredd the job goes to genre vet Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings trilogy, Bourne Supremacy, Star Trek). We even get Lena Headey as the film’s main antagonist in drug crimelord of Mega-City One called simply by the moniker of Ma-Ma.
The first trailer shows some interesting design choices that veers away from the neogothic dystopian look of the comics and the overly comic book feel of the Stallone production. The look of Mega-City One and the film in general seems to be more akin to District 9. Another good thing the trailer shows and hopefully the film will follow through on is Urban never once taking off the Judge helmet his character wears in the film. Never once has Judge Dredd removed his helmet in the comics and if there was ever one heresy fans of the property would cry foul over it’s the character being seen helmet-less.
Here’s to hoping that this grittier take on the Judge Dredd property goes a long way in erasing the abomination that was the Stallone production.
Dredd 3Dis set for a September 21, 2012 release in the UK and soon after everywhere else.
It’s E3 week in Los Angeles (in a couple week it’ll be Anime Expo so as Lisa Marie would say, “Yay!”) and that means a load of announcements for new games and other gaming-related stuff. If there’s on game I’m really interested in checking out it’s the latest in the Haloseries. Bungie has moved on but Master Chief and all remained with Microsoft Game Studios. Taking over Bungie’s development duties is an in-house studio created by Microsoft to continue the Halofranchise after Bungie Studios’ departure.
343 Studios has big developmental shoes to fill since many fans of the franchise equate the series with Bungie Studios and no one else. Microsoft and 343 have done a good job of preparing fans of the franchise for the change in studios which has been several years in the making. Their first title is suppose to add new life to the Haloseries while making some necessary changes to keep up with the “Jonses” so to speak.
Halo 4takes place four years since the end of Halo 3and, from what the two trailers unleashed on the masses during Microsoft’s pre-E3 press conference, we see the familiar Covenant enemies but also a brand-new race that seem to have Forerunner technology. From the gameplay video shown below the first-person HUD series fans were so familar with has been tweaked to make it look like the player is actually looking out of the Spartan helm. I’d say this is 343 Studios trying to replicate the look and feel of Tony Stark looking through his helmet, but this time in a first-person point of view instead of the outside view we see in the films.
One thing that’s always a wonder to watch is what kind of live-action trailer Microsoft has come up with to help announce the game. Like their previous live-action trailers which behaved like short films, the one for Halo 4just ups the epicness from the previous ones. Sci-fi fans may even recognize the actor playing the captain of the UNSC Infinity as Mark Rolston who played the doomed Pvt. Drake in James Cameron’s Aliens.
It was just going to take before someone in one of the major Hollywood studios decided to tap into the board game market and pick one to adapt into a big-budget blockbuster. It worked wonders for Dreamworks and their bottom line with the Transformers trilogy. This time around we have Universal Pictures ready and set to release in the summer of 2012 their very own board game turned film in the Peter Berg-helmed Battleship.
Yes, you heard it right. That classic naval warfare game that made long road trips both easier to handle and also ripe for arguments has now been made into a film. There’s not much else to say other than watch the trailer. I will say that Liam Neeson must need a new mansion.
The first episode of the fourth season of Torchwood was a major success for the series as it moves from it’s British locale over to the United States. It was a move which gave the series (now dubbed Miracle Day) an even more epic tone which was a good thing since the series truly became an epic one throughout it’s third season, Children of Earth. The premiere episode saw the introduction of the American half of what I assume will be the newly-reconstituted Torchwood Institute. Mekhi Phifer comes in as the confidently arrogant CIA operative Rex Matheson who has a major stake in finding out the true agenda behind what the world has been calling “Miracle Day”. Taking on the role of support to Rex is the idealistic and, somewhat, naive CIA analyst Esther Drummond (played by Alexa Havins) who first introduces Rex to the term Torchwood in the first episode of the new season.
“Rendition” marks the second episode of the series and continues exactly where the premiere episode left off with Rex taking custody of the last two surviving members of the Torchwood Institute, the previously immortal Capt. Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper, and renditioning them back to the US through some vague US-UK intelligence cooperation program in the hopes that Torchwood will either shed a light into whats happening in the world or flush out the people who do know and who seem intent on killing Jack and Gwen.
This episode brings in a couple three new players into the new series whose agenda range from ambiguous to outright hostile in regards to the event of “Miracle Day” and the Torchwood survivors. There’s Rex’s fellow CIA operative Lyn (played by Dollhouse alum Dichen Lachmann) who has been sent to “assist” Rex in bringing stateside Jack and Gwen on a chartered jumbo jet. We find out soon enough Lyn’s agenda in accompanying Rex on this rendition flight as she secretly communicates with CIA deputy director Brian Friedkin (Wayne Knight) who seems to want Capt. Jack out of the way before the plane lands on Dulles International. The interaction between Lyn, Rex and the rest of Torchwood and flight crew really sets her up as the clear antagonist for this episode though it’s not yet established whether she will stay beyond this episode. Wayne Knight as the duplicitious CIA director Friedkin was a hit-and-miss addition for me. His character was written quite well, but I think the casting director for the show really dropped the ball in putting such a recognizable face in a role that needed someone who could get lost in the role. I’m sure I wasn’t the only viewer of this episode who either vocally or mentally shouted “Newman!” when he first appeared in the episode.
The third new character to make their appearance in this episode was the PR consultant Jilly Kitzinger (Lauren Ambrose) who seemed really gung-ho in trying to represent the suddenly famous (instead of infamous) pedophile-murderer Oswald Danes whose blubbering breakdown during a news interview has begun to earn him shouts of forgiveness from the faceless masses. Lauren Ambrose as Kitzinger looked to be too peppy at first glance, but as the show progressed and she began appearing in places where one would wonder why she was there at all it planted seeds of just exactly who Jilly Kitzinger really is. This character is definitely one whose agenda may just swing back and forth as the series goes on.
This was the first episode of the new series to not be written by showrunner Russell T. Davies and one written by a newcomer to the Torchwood series in Doris Egan. The fact that Egan is new to the series didn’t really hamper the tone of this episode. It felt and sounded like a Torchwood episode. She even got a good handle on the Gwen Cooper character who bordered on organized panic during the flight to the US as Capt. Jack suffered through an attempt on his suddenly mortal life. I still get a kick at how quickly Gwen’s speech patterns get the more stressed out she gets. I was told by a hardcore fan over on Twitter that it was due to her being Welsh that she speaks so fast in such situation. That may or may not be true, but it made for some very amusing segments during an episode which continued to explore the dark side of the world population’s sudden bout with immortality.
It’s this exploration of whether “Miracle Day” actually is a miracle or a curse which gave the episode it’s serious weight throughout the episode. We see through Dr. Suarez (Arlene Tur) interacting with every expert trying to find out just exactly what has happened that “Miracle Day” looks to be a miracle by name only. The episode points out that people may night be dying but they’re still succumbing to injuries, diseases and plain old age. This dilemma brings about talks of a need to change how triage now operate and how “Miracle Day” looks to be the perfect breeding ground for super-germs and viruses. And while these were being discussed the series still hasn’t determined or given any clue as to the cause of this event whether it be natural, supernatural or extraterrestrial.
Overall, “Rendition” was a very good follow-up to an excellent premiere episode. We learn more about the new characters (all of them American) and see the old Torchwood faces back to doing what they do best and that’s solving a grave problem by the skin of their teeth. The new series has so far kept this Torchwood neophyte’s attention and actually has sold him on revisiting the past episodes and looking at them with eyes opened up by Miracle Day.
For the last half decade or so video game publishers have been trying to find a way to either topple Blizzard’s World of Warcraft from the top of the MMORPG mountain, but each and every attempt has failed on one level or another. Some rival MMORPGs have succeeded in slicing a small piece of the MMORPG market while others just failed utterly. EA tried in the last couple years with their Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, but that game failed in that it was rushed into the market broken in one way or another. It looks like EA will continue to try another attempt at WoW by using another iconic franchise and partnering that with one of the best rpg developers in the industry. The game that’s been hyping itself up at E3 for the past couple years is BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic.
This MMORPG looks to continue the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic franchise from BioWare into this MMORPG iteration. The game has been in development for over two years now and as of this week’s E3 there’s still no definite date for it’s release on Windows PC other than sometime next year. Here’s to hoping that the long development time is BioWare and EA looking to not make the same mistake that occurred with the rush to market with Warhammer: Age of Reckoning.
Oh, BioWare did release a beautiful trailer of the game’s Intro Cinematic.
One title that also looks to finish off a trilogy that’s garnered one of the biggest gaming fanbase is Epic Games’ Gears of War 3. This franchise remains exclusive to the Xbox 360 console.
The gameplay demo shown during the Microsoft Press Conference showed some of the new enemies players will end up going against not to mention some of the new weapons deployed by the COG team led by it’s leader Marcus Fenix. Gears of War 3 continues to make great use of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3.5 as detail between what’s cutscene cinematic and gameplay continues to blur that it’s hard to notice when the transition occurs.
Gears of War 3 still set for a September 20, 2011 release.
To say that Mass Effect 3 is one of the most-anticipated titles in the next 9 months would be an understatement. The franchise has been one of the most popular and critically-acclaimed video game series of the past five years and this third game looks to cap off a trilogy that many consider the Star Wars (original trilogy) of video gaming. The third game was highlighted not just in the Microsoft E3 Press Conference but also in EA’s own Press Conference which just goes to show how much this game means not just to EA but to Microsoft (even after the franchise finally became available to PS3 users I still consider it an Xbox 360 franchise).
In both conferences so many trailers were unleashed on those who were in attendance. Whether it were gameplay trailers, more trailers hinting at the story, trailer’s showing the game in demo right up to certain gameplay changes made for this final leg of the trilogy. One piece of news that was interesting was announced during Microsoft’s press conference and that was Mass Effect 3 having Kinect (the hands-free Xbox 360 controller system) capabilities.
One piece of news that every fan of the game was waiting for and finally got was this: Release Date – 03.06.2012. I may end up catching a virulent case of the blahs and call off work on that date and the rest of the week.
Anime films have been the type to make a major crossover from Japan to the United States when it comes to the US mainstream audience. While anime series typically still remain the realm of the hardcore fans of the genre the stand-alone films get much more love from mainstream critics and audiences in addition to the hardcore. One such film which looks to have made a successful mainstream crossover to the United States was the anime film Summer Wars which was originally released in Japan in August 1, 2009. The film saw it’s American debut at film festivals around the country in 2010, but since I saw it in late May 2011 I consider it a 2011 release for me thus qualifying it as one of the best films of 2011.
Summer Wars was the project of director Hosada Mamoru whose previous stand-alone anime film, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, was well-received by fans and critics alike. Working from a screenplay by Okudera Satoko (adapted from a story written by Hosada himself), Summer Wars was a nice blend of science-fiction, romance and Japanese slice-of-life. The story begins with the introduction and explanation of the OZ on-line community which becomes a major focal point to the film’s story and the many characters in it. OZ was explained as an on-line, social networking community which has become so ingrained in the world community that everything anyone does was done through it’s portals. Think of OZ was an amalgamation of Facebook, Second Life, iTunes, Netflix and every other social networking site all working under one umbrella. It’s a virtual world where people just don’t socially interact through games and chat lobbies, but also a place where every real-world store has a portal where people could purchase things online. It’s also become a palce where governments from local cities to whole countries have set-up their own areas that would control their cities and countries’ infrastructures. It’s Facebook on steroids.
One of the film’s main characters happens to work as a part-time moderator for OZ. Koiso Keiji also happens to be a 17-year old math whiz who would become instrumental in the story to come. The bulk of the story has Keiji being invited by a high school friend in Shinohara Natsuki (explained to him as a job she needs for him to do) to come with her to her family estate where he ends up meeting the rest of Natsuki’s very extended family and also it’s soon-to-be 90-year old matriarch in Jinnouich Sakae. This part of the film makes up the romance and it’s comedic aspect as Keiji gets introduced by Natsuki to her great grandmother Sakae as her boyfriend and future fiance much to Keiji’s surprise. As Keiji tries to awkwardly play along with Natsuki’s plan the second part of the film’s story kick’s in as he inadvertently assist someone or something into hacking into OZ and begin a sequence of events which threatens every account in OZ, but later on even threaten the world.
This part of the story actually worked quite well due to the recent major hacking of Sony’s Playstation and Qriocity networks which gave hackers access to tens of millions of account users’ info. It was hard not to think about this real-life event as something similar (albeit much more massive and danegrous in scope) occurred in Summer Wars. The fact that the film was completed in 2009 and the Sony hack happened just a month ago was real life copying fiction instead of the other way around. It’s this part of the story’s plot which added to the thrilling aspect of the film as Keiji and others (mostly the extended Jinnouichi Clan he meets) try to take on the cause of the OZ hack (which we quickly learn wasn’t a person but an advanced A.I. program released by the U.S. Army into OZ to test it’s capabilities not knowing it would become self-aware and hard to control).
Weaving in and around this science-fiction are some of what makes some Japanese anime so easily accessible to those outside of Japan. We see a slice-of-life that, at first looks to be typical Japanese daily life, but as the story moves along becomes something that everyone would recognize and have some sort of kinship with no matter their race or culture. It’s the theme of family togetherness even through adversity and the occassional disagreements between family members. It’s here we see Natsuki’s great grandmother Sakae show the need for the family to always find time to sit down and eat dinner together no matter what problems each and everyone may be having. It’s these very serene, at times quite hilarious, scenes of family life with the Jinnouichi Clan that Summer Wars will tug at audiences’ heartstrings and cause more than just a few to tear up. Some have said these scenes were too maudlin and corny, but I look at that complaint as people trying to project their own cynical nature on what was really an honest look at family life and how keeping a family together through adversity (both big and small) becomes a reward unto itself.
The Japanese voice cast did quite a good job bringing their animated characters to life from the main leads in Keiji, Natsuki and Sakae right up to the little children who added some levity to the situation. While I try to always watch anime with the Japanese language on with English subtitles for Summer Wars I also watched it with the English-voice dubbing. I was surprised to hear that the English-dubbed version was not as bad as most anime dubs and was actually quite good. Summer Wars looks to boast a who’s-who of English dub voice actors which probably lent itself to a quality dubbing in the end.
Summer Wars was produced by one of Japan’s major animation studios with Madhouse and the look of the film bears this out. The virtual world which made up OZ looked beautiful and made great use of CGI-animation. The avatars used by OZ account members were inventive and a menagerie of characters that all looked to be very distinct each and everytime a new one came on the screen. The animation for the real-world aspect of the film used traditional hand-drawn animation. While it didn’t have the sheen and flash of most anime series the flat-look and natural color scheme used for scenes when outside OZ lent a sense of realism and the natural that made it easier to get into the film. These two contrasting animation styles really helped in pointing out just how different OZ was to everything else.
Hosada Mamoru’s direction keeps everything from becoming a jumbled mess as the film juggles not just two major plot threads concurrently but smaller subplots involving certain individual family members of the Jinnouichi Clan. It’s a testament to his handling of the film that we’re never lost as the film’s story unfolds. Whether it’s the fake relationship between Keiji and Natsuki becoming something more real to the prodigal son coming back to the family after a self-imposed exile of ten years right up to a high school baseball tournament involving one of the family’s younger members who also happens to be a star pitcher.
In the end, Summer Wars should be seen as a landmark film that officially heralds the arrival of one of anime’s great filmmakers. With the untimely passing of Satoshi Kon there’s been a scramble within the anime community to find his heir apparent. Hayao Miyazaki will continue to be one of anime’s godfathers and pillar of quality work, but amongst the younger generation there was really no one stepping up the way Satoshi Kon did in so short a time. I think with Summer Wars it wouldn’t be too farfetched to say that Hosada Mamoru has also stepped up to join Miyazaki as one of the creative geniuses in the anime world. It also shows younger anime filmmakers that there is success to be had doing anime outside the usual mecha, mahou shoujo and shonen series which remains the backbone and meal-ticket for animation studios in Japan.
Summer Wars is an anime film that I’d highly recommend to all whether they’re fans of anime or have no idea what an anime was. This anime is that good and one that deserves to be called just film without the anime tag. It will be interesting to see what Hosada Mamoru comes up with next. I, for one, can’t wait to see what it is. Also, I recommend people watch this on Blu-Ray. The difference in how the animation comes across between Blu-Ray and DVD is leagues apart.
While bored out of my mind this early Monday morning (no work due to the Memorial Day holiday) I do what I usually do to try and get out of it: I surf YouTube. Doing this sometimes alleviates my boredom and sometimes it doesn’t. This time around it did as I came across a scene from a film that has to be one of my all-time favorites. An all-time favorite film and scene both.
The scene I came across is one of the earliest sequences in David Cronenberg’s seminal sci-fi work, Scanners. It stars Michael Ironside in the film’s villanous role as Darryl Revok. In this scene we don’t know he’s the heavy. We suspect something to be off about him, but we can’t put a finger on it. It’s during the unfolding of this short scene that we finally realize that Revok is not what he seems to be as the unfortunate “scanner” expert next to him begins to feel the depths of Revok’s ability. A feeling that soon turns to pain and then finally the explosive result.
I think I was nine years-old when I first saw this scene and to say that it left an indelible mark on me would be an understatement. I was still too young to truly appreciate Cronenberg as a filmmaker then, but years later when I saw this again when film started to become more than just entertainment for me was when I saw just how much a genius the man was. This scene helped put me on what would turn out to be an ongoing love affair of all things Cronenberg.
Also, for those who don’t know, Michael Ironside also ends up voicing that iconic video character Sam Fisher from the Splinter Cell franchise.
I’ve been hearing about this film called Real Steel for some time now and a trailer had even come out a couple months earlier, but it’s only with today’s release of the latest trailer that I’ve stopped to actually check it out.
From what I can see in the trailer this looks like a live-action, big-budget adaptation of that classic toy called “Rock’em, Sock’em Robots”. This being Dreamworks who have already turned one classic toy franchise into a major blockbuster film franchise then why not another toy. It stars Hugh Jackman who looks much slimmer and not as bulky as his former Wolverine self. Real Steel looks to be a father-son story that has been done so many times before, but this time with big giant boxing robots.
Further research on this film had me discovering that it’s actually based on a Richard Matheson short story called “Steel”. That story was actually a much darker, colder dystopia tale. Script changes since the screenplay and project was bought by Dreamworks in 2003 has toned down the dystopia and instead the project going more for a form of Americana nostalgia. I’m not sure if those changes were necessary. In fact, I wouldn’t have minded seeing this film go the original Matheson route.
I have feeling that despite my doubts about this film it will do quite well in the box-office. It’s a heartwarming tale with fighting robots and fathers will be taking their young sons to see this in droves. Well, except those fathers who happen to also be on-line film bloggers who may think this film not the kind of drivel and tripe to be showing to their young boys.
Real Steel is set for an October 7, 2011 release date.
Through the Shattered Lens 