Karina on SpoutBlog

Comic-Con 2008 - niversal: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and Death Race

Karina — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:00:36 GMT

3:54 - Eric: “Maria, you’re known for your work in indie film, what was it like working in this?”
Maria: “Well, I’m not naked in this film!”
Guy near me: “Wow, that was the wrong thing to say. They just lost my ticket.”

3:50 - Here comes everyone from The Mummy, including Maria Bello, John Hannah, Brendan Fraser, Michelle Yeoh, and Jet Li. The crowd goes insane for Jet Li, and someone shouts TAKE IT OFF! Wow. You stay classy, San Diego.

Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth

Comic-Con 2008: Terminator: Salvation (AKA T4)

Karina — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 21:00:39 GMT

1:58 - Moon Bloodgood, who plays a pilot in the movie, is talking about the connections between the characters, and she connects with “This guy over here…” indicating Sam Worthington. “… not in real life, though.”

Bryce Dallas Howard plays Kate Connor, and McG wanted to know “What attracted you to being in this, other than the fact that you get to make out with Bale?”

Bryce: “It was just that.”

1:55 - They’re talking about the new robot created for this film, the T-600s, the T-800s, and so on. It’s a lot of numbers.

McG: “The idea for these was always ‘Soviet tank, soviet tank, soviet, tank.’ and that’s what they did. Arnold, how do you feel about that?”

Asianegger: “It looks fantastic.”

*cheers*

1:51 - Wow, Asianegger is now running the panel.

He wants to know how involved Cameron and Schwazenegger are in this project. And he’s literally growling every syllable out in an Austrian accent.

McG didn’t really answer the question, so now McG is talking about the legacy of Stan Winston, and the degree that the Stan Winston Studios are involved in the production.

Guy from Stan Winston Studios: “Well, the first movie that we worked with Stan on was in 1983… the original Terminator. It’s wonderful and terrific to still be working on this.”

1:49 - Now there’s someone talking like Arnold Schwarzenegger…. and he’s Asian.

McG: “That was awesome. And if you’re Asian, that was fuckin’ amazing.”

They’re bringing Sarah, the T-1000, and Asian-zenegger up on stage. McG appears to be easily impressed.

1:48 - A woman dressed as Sarah Connor gets up and asks “Why did you bring that machine here and put it up in front of thousands of people when you know the kind of damage it can do?”

McG gives an incredibly geeky answer, talking about T-600s and their rubbery skin, and Sarah Connor’s time in the psychiatric ward.” He definitely knows his stuff.

1:47 - McG: “We see the becoming of Kyle Reese. He’s a crafty guy, he definitely knows his way around a gun. The irony is, in this picture, some of the best moves that Kyle Reese learned, he learned from machines.”

1:46 - Remarkably, Anton is still talking, about “fighting Skynet”.

1:44 - Anton: “Michael Biehn in the first Terminator movie is fuckin’ awesome. What we see in this film is the development of the hero… the guy that everyone knows.”

1:43 - McG: “We release disinformation from time to time, so some of what you’re reading online is manipulated by the studios. Part of the joys in going to the movies is not knowing what happens, and we’re trying to preserve that.”

1:42 - McG: “We’re already living in a science fiction world. You’re texting people on your Blackberries, they spell check you as you go. Instead of people wanting to talk to you about your mother and father, they want to manipulate your seratonin and L-DOPA levels.”

McG: “We’ve tried to follow what Christopher Nolan did with Batman Begins. You don’t watch that movie and see it as “Batman 5.”

1:40 - Q: “Will Arnold be back?”

McG: “Answering both of those questions would deprive everyone from the pleasure of watching the film. But in answering that, I think you’ll understand the direction in which we’re going. But, the T-101 model is very much a part of the Terminator mythology.”

I think we just got a pretty decent indication that we’ll see Arnold Schwarzenegger in some form in this movie.

1:39 - Sam: “I didn’t want to sign off if they were changing what James Cameron had done in his movies, because I love those.”

1:38 - Bryce Dallas Howard is showing how “fate” works…. by using a plastic cup. It’s not really Stephen Hawking stuff.

1:36 - First question from a nervous fan, “What’s it like working with Christian Bale?”

Sam Worthington: “Awesome. I mean, you’re going toe to toe with fuckin’ Batman. We’ve got a movie that kicks you in the balls here.”

McG: “I think you see why Sam got the job.”

McG: “You get to see machines we call Harvesters, aerodrones, and all of these Russian-inspired designs. There’s one shot in that footage where you see a claw come in and grab someone out of the gas station, and that speaks to the size of the Harvester robot.”

1:33 - McG: “We’ve shot this on this on color film, but we’re treating the film stock with as much silver as you’d treat a black and white movie to wash it out.”

Josh is asking if this follows the other films from the Terminator trilogy. “Is this a war picture?”

McG: “This is very much a war film… the Schwarzenegger Terminator model comes from 2029, and our film is set in 2018. We see the state of the war and the genesis of Skynet.”

1:32 - Common, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anton Yelchin “the young Kyle Reese”, and Sam Worthington take the stage.

1:29 - Here comes the footage.

Christian Bale in a post-apocalyptic world with dead Terminators on the ground. The radio crackles “How many survivors?” Bale barks out “ONE!”

Trenchcoats, topless women, Terminators we’ve never seen before, and Christian Bale screaming “YOU SON OF A BITCH!” at a Terminator who is trying to take his eyes out.

1:27 - “But first, I’m going to call our friend over in Japan, Christian Bale.” He whips out a cell phone and he’s dialing. Looks like McG is a Blackberry dude, and not an iPhone user.

“Straight to voicemail, don’t let me down….”

He’s leaving a message for him, “Let me first congratulate you on the Dark Knight“––crowd screams and yells––”And now we’re showing footage from our new movie, so let him hear it!”

1:26 - “We’ve been shooting this always with the picture first.” (whatever that means). “We’ve heard rumors of a PG-13 version of this movie… but we’ve been told ‘Hey, if it’s a Rated R movie, it’s a Rated R movie.’”

“We’re going to show you some footage that hasn’t been seen before. So get ready for that.”

1:25 - “We knew we needed an actor, someone with credibility. I wanted to protect the movie and protect all of you by hiring the greatest actor of his generation… Christian Bale.”

The crowd goes wild! I’ve noticed that all week people can just say “Batman!” and people go nuts.

1:24 - McG: “Prior to making this pictures, I spoke to James Cameron, and Arnold Schwazenegger of course. We hired Stan Winston, may he rest in piece…”

1:23 - Okay, finally we’re off and running. Josh Horowitz from MTV news (short, bespectacled) is introducing everyone.

McG comes out to let us know they’re in the middle of shooting, “And we’ve brought some of the cast with us.” Think Christian Bale-man will make an appearance?

1:15 - Music is still looping, building to a fever pitch…. and…. it loops again. “We’ll be starting soon, so please take your seats.” If the Terminator can time-travel, then why can’t they start their panel on time?

1:13 - They’re playing the DA DUM DUM DA DUM Terminator theme loudly. We’re about to get Terminated.

Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth

Comic-Con 2008: Dr. Horrible Part 4 Plans Confirmed

Karina — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:01:36 GMT

Joss Whedon just confirmed here on his Comic-Con panel that he plans to do at least another episode of Dr. Horrible. His relevant quotes after the jump; more details once the panel wraps.

Updates: Below the jump, details on the Dr. Horrible DVD…

A questioner asks, “What would a Part Four of Dr. Horrible be like?”

Joss sort of takes a deep breath. “The idea is that there will be another part –

(interrupted by huge cheers)

–so we’re not gonna tell you about it yet.”
He goes on to talk about why he’s excited to continue the webseries:

“I’m older, and balder/wiser than when I made Firefly, and I approach things differently. I take it one episode at a time. And any episode we don’t get out…I can make stuff on the internet now!” Cheers.

“Besides the fact that we all had an enormous amount of fun, this was designed to be a model for a new way to put out media, an artistic community that involves all of you guys, and all of us, and maybe not so much… other people.”

“I’m not trying to bring down the studios, I do still work there, as we all do, and I’m grateful for it…but things are changing, and its really important that as things change, they change for the better, and Dr. Horrible is about that, its about putting power in differnet hands — THE WRONG HANDS.”

DVD Details: Jed Whedon (I think–a brother of Joss for sure) said the following: “You’ve probably heard of Commentary: The Musical. If you haven’t, well...Commentary: The Musical. The songs are written.”

And there will be a conrest. “We will take video submissions for the Evil League of Evil. No longer than 3 minutes, like you’re applying for Survivor or something, We’ll put the 10 best videos on the DVD. We’ve got a couple of things to do first, like the soundtrack…”

Joss: “Soundtrack should be available for download within a couple of weeks.”

Also: Nathan Fillion named a site where you can have “your own functional Dr. Horrible van remote.” No, I don’t know what that would actually mean in real life, either, but play around with it and share your findings…

Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth

American Teen Review

Karina — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:01:29 GMT

Nanette Burstein’s American Teen has become ubiquitous since its Sundance premiere, both on the festival circuit and, thanks to a poster carefully calibrated to target Gen X nostalgia, online. Its title suggests a wishful universality, as if to say, “This is it! This is an unfiltered portrait of averageness!” Certainly, its semi-rural Indiana location was chosen for its middleness, both geographically and demographically––or, at least, to conform to a coastal idea of what that looks like. Certainly, in choosing to focus on a cross-section of subjects playing into our media-fed concepts of high school stereotypes, Burstein manages to show life at the same high school from a variety of different angles, whilst simultaneously playing up the idea that all American Teens are––really––hopelessly insecure dreamers stuck in a variety of systems and strictures that they’re desperate to break out of. But everyone prevails, because that’s what totally mythic average Americans do –– it’s, like, rugged individualism!

Much has been made in regards to Burstein’s alleged “manipulation” of her subjects and their lives: did she recreate email/text message exchanges or the reactions they caused? Does it matter if she did? I’ve seen the film twice, and neither time did these shot-reverse shot depictions of near-instant communication seem to get in the way of a larger truth.

But there are other elements of American Teen’s construction which are troubling––not because they came after-the-fact and weren’t produced organically in real life, but because Burstein either isn’t aware of or has made a conscious decision to ignore the very fact of “non-fiction” filmmaking that her subjects and their peers are likely most exposed to: MTV’s various reality shows, including True Life, The Real World, and, especially, Laguna Beach and The Hills.

Check out this Burstein quote in a recent story on the film, by Mark Olsen for the L.A. Times:

“I think it’s unusual to have a very narrative documentary, so people aren’t used to it,” she continued. I think people have a hard time believing teenagers are willing to be that intimate on camera. So sometimes I feel I’m being criticized for what the film’s achievements are.”

This is a bafflingly solipsistic statement coming from a filmmaker whose work has been criticized for being too “glossy” and “mainstream.” Her “achievements,” this “very narrative” form of documentary that she apparently thinks she’s pioneering, looks an awfully lot like the “non-scripted” content that MTV has been producing for 15 years or more, which has evolved from teenagers and young adults being actually, naively “intimate” in front of a camera––which more often than not meant exhibitionism in lieu of real intimacy (have you watched the first season of the Real World lately?)––to teenagers delivering a rote, practiced version of what television has told them looks like intimacy.

Of course, this transition has reached its apex with the stunningly successful The Hills, a reality show in-name-only that miles more stylish and satisfying than most scripted media about Americans of the same age. That Paramount Vantage would acquire American Teen is a no brainer: it accomplishes many of the same things, stylistically and thematically and atmospherically, that have lured a massive audience of eye and brain candy hungry youth to the other “non-fiction” products of Viacom––whether Burstein is ready to admit it or not.

There are scraps of voiceover in American Teen that come across as every bit as hollow (if not scripted) as the narrative catch-up which opens most episodes of Laguna Beach, suggesting, at the very least, that Burstein’s subjects have internalized the cadences used by “real” people on television. Formally, the film’s use of comic cutaways––such as talking head testimony about Megan (aka: The Bitch, aka My Favorite) laid into footage of Megan shooting guns––seems borrowed from the countless reality shows where we see visual irony used to subtly and not-so-subtly mock the contestants; if this is one of Burstein’s “achievements,” it’s one she shares with Flavor of Love.

But ultimately, what really pisses me off about American Teen is the way Burstein––following countless mainstream non-fiction productions before her––privilieges the female victim at the expense of asking difficult questions about the psychology of victimhood and its roots in social constructs like high school. American Teen propagates the same, modern-day martyr, constant victim-as-star bullshit that L.C. plays out season after season on The Hills. And even that, it gets wrong.

There’s not a single scene featuring American Teen victim/hero Hannah that’s anywhere near as elegant, sympathetic and purely satisfying as the final shot of the recently-released trailer for the next season of The Hills. As frequent watchers know, L.C. wears a lot of eye makeup –– grease paint armor against a camera primarily concerned with collaging her every eye roll out of context. But here, in a fight with a female friend, the poster girl for the cool, enigmatic eye twitch allows a single tear to carry a stream of mascara down her cheek. It is the moment that Hills fans––nay, the entirety of the culture––have been waiting for for three years. Nay, the entire decade!

Burstein clearly has a fondness for certain for her subjects, which allows her to present them sympathetically, even when their behavior is less than admirable. Unfortunately, this leads to an almost total lack of interrogation of Hannah, an artsy girl whose “unlikely” Achilles’ heel is attractive men. Burstein privileges Hannah’s milquetoast heartbreaks over the exploits of “princess” Megan, which I think is a shame; for all her non-conformist posturing, Hannah reveals herself to be so easily led by the concept of traditional romance that you end up wishing that someone would just slap her with a copy of Sexual Personae and make her education compete

Meanwhile, Megan, who survives Burstein’s regrettable stab at “humanizing” her mean girl behavior through a gently montage describing a family tragedy, is clearly a great, natural villian who revels in her caste-based supremacy. She’s a wildly compelling and infuriating socio-sexual manipulator straight out of Dangerous Liasons (or, maybe more accurately, Cruel Intentions)––except, though comfortably upper-middle-class, she can’t quite hide behind the excuse that money breeds depravity. She’s just not a nice person, and that’s real. There is, I’m sure, an amazingly insightful film somewhere in American Teen’s discarded footage, purely about Megan and the social psychology of high school power. And I’m dying for it.

But as its title suggests, American Teen is shooting for a wider scope, which might be more interesting if Burstein wasn’t so complicit in reinforcing tired stereotypes in her unwillingness to cast her camera outside of them. In one of the film’s most egregious **** yous to objectivity, Burstein implicitly condones the scarlet letter outcasting of Megan’s rival for her male friend’s affections, by discarding that character from the narrative as quickly as Megan does from her circle. This girl, whose ill-advised willingness to send a crush a smutty photo resulted in her being ostracized from the cool kids table and, we are led to believe, more or less total shame from the community––if THIS girl is not an American Teen, who is?

Note: Scant portions of this review appeared in a piece previously published during SilverDocs.

Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth

Comic-Con 2008: Kevin Smith, Scream Like a Girl

Karina — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:01:36 GMT

Kevin Smith has a sort of Clerks-does-Letterman interview style. He uses it mercilessly on some Hollywood women who love to make pain: Gale Ann Hurd (producer Terminator, Terminator 2), Lucy Lawless (Xena, Battlestar Galactica), Jaime King (The Spirit, Sin City), and Pia Guerra (Y: The Last Man).

Highlights:

- Lucy Lawless has more sex than Kevin Smith (obviously)

- A 16 year-old palm reader warned Lucy of Jay Leno

- Jaime King is named after The Bionic Woman

- Zach and Miri opens on Halloween

Liveblogging transcript after the jump

5:20 - KS and Jaime King:

KS reads a cue card question to Jamie King, then tells her not to answer it. “You did The Tripper with Jason Mews, right? Did he try to **** you? You’re not special, he does that to everyone. You’ve got two legs and a pulse.”

JK: Frank Miller is one of my closest freinds…

KS: Can you get me his autograph?

Jamie talks for a long time about how Frank Miller is “taking filmmaking to a whole other level.” (She’s basically giving the impression that she doesn’t know how to speak in non-publicist vetted language.)

KS: On The Spirit poster. “That’s a pimp campaign.”

JK: The Spirit doesn’t even come out until Xmas day, and its so great that people are actually putting effort into advertising something that I’m proud of.

KS: Note to self: if I ever put King in something, put her on the fucking poster.

5:15 - KS and Lucy Lawless

KS asks Lucy to tell story about why The Tonight Show calls their last take a “Lawless.”

She tells a story about how she was shooting something for them on a horse, and they said, let’s do one more take for insurance. She told them she couldn’t do it because the horse was American and she rides English. The horse threw her.

“I had been warned about this, in Turkey, two weeks before. A woman read my coffee grounds! She’s 16, she doesn’t speak english, it’s all through an interpreter. She said, ‘There’s a man with a big chin. Salt an pepper hair, big chin–he’s going to hurt you very badly.’ And two weeks later, I was all smashed up in a hospital from the Leno show. I was laid up for three months.”

KS: Did you sue the shit out of NBC?

LL: I was too stupid…I thought they’d never have me back on the show.

KS: You could have OWNED the show! Tonight Show with Lucy Lawless!

LL: It’s never been the same again. (Meaning the Leno show.)

5:10 - Kevin Smith and Gale Ann Hurd

Gale produced both Terminator and Aliens 2, early genre films with female leads.

Gale: We did call it The Terminator so it was a sneak attack: It starred a woman, but people don’t read scripts, so they thought it didn’t.

With Aliens, Alien had been a big hit, and the only surviver was Ripley So, it was a forgone conclusion that the sequel would star Sagourney.

But it’s still hard..I did a film called Aeon Flux, which I’m still very proud of (crowd cheers) even though the film failed miserably. So, they must have found it on DVD?

KS: As a producer who is also female, do you lean towards female material? What part wins out, the producer part, or the chick part?

Gale: I’m schizophrenic. I’m gender blind. Although I think Ray Stephenson is REALLY hot.

(KS and Gale talk for awhile about her Punisher origin movie)

KS: First scene, he kills Thomas Jane, you think?

5:05 - KS introducing panelists

Panelist Gale Ann Hurd’s “films have grossed over $1billion. What the **** is she doing here, then?”

(He’s taking a reeealllly long time to introduce everyone)

Introducing Lucy “Xena” Lawless, “Please don’t do the fucking yell, I’m sure she’s heard it.”

Now decides that “we should rename the panel Chubby Chasers. I’ll start things off by asking what I ask my male friends in The Business, ‘How much pussy do you get?’”

Lucy: I can get as much as I like, Kevin.

KS: Who were your fave female role models as a kid?

Gale: I’d have to say Tolkein

Lucy: Wonder Woman… I thought she was so much butcher. When I see her now, I’m like, you were shitting me. Bionic woman, that’s when they started thinking a female could carry an action series. And then they forgot for 20 years.

KS: They needed a lesbian like yourself.

Jamie King: I was actually named after Bionic Woman, Jamie Summers. I was really into Patti Smith, but it varied.

Pia Guerra: My first dog was names after Jamie Summers.

KS: Catfight!

(Pia and KS are sharing Jersey stories. Borrring.)

Lucy is bored too: Thats riveting conversation, Kevin. You got anything else on those cards?

KS: Moving on. Lawless is being a Diva!

4:55 - Kevin Smith is being introduced (and the man behind me is screaming very loud).

Zach and Miri opens on Halloween. Many cheers of “you’re my hero!”

Kevin Smith: Would it creep you out if I told you were my hero? I came to the con just to meet you and you fucking snubbed me. Welcome to Scream Like a Girl, I’m going to rename it Sweats Like A bitch, because it’s very hot.

Calls the Scream Awards “the awards show for people who don’t get laid.”

KS: Did anyone see the show last year? Didn’t Harrison Ford look fucking lost? He had that look like, “Oh shit.” Maybe that will be reflected in the clip we’re about to see.

Highlights of the scream awards…

Kevin Smith is fanning himself with his cue cards during the clip reel. It is pretty hot in here - that’s not just a chick joke. The reel ends with Robert Rodriguez, “**** the Oscars! I got a Spike!”

KS: Well, that was subtle…

Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth

Comic-Con 2008: Red Sonja w/ Robert Rodriguez and Rose McGowan

Karina — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:01:20 GMT

Robert Rodriguez and Rose McGowan answer questions on upcoming Red Sonja with director, Doug Aarniokoski.

Highlights:

Rodriguez is planning to restart the Conan franchise.
RR apparently fell for Rose after she called him “Count Fuckula”
Machete will be made starring Danny Trejo and it will be the first “Mexploitation” flick
Sin City 2 & 3 have scripts
Red Sonja will be so bloody, it will introduce the “Double R”

Read the liveblogging transcript after the jump.

3:00 - Wrapping up

Q: Are you gonna have piles of bodies like they had in the B & W comics?

RR: Oh, we got to, right? That’s the set dressing!

Q: Booth babes. last year there was a Cherry Darling booth babe. How did you feel?

Rose: I loved it! I thought she was so awesome. I watched it about 5 times on YouTube and sent it to my mom and dad.

Q: On video game

Rose: Video game for Red Sonja? I hope so.

2:57 - Machete is on and Heavy Metal Magazine

RR: Heavy Metal Magazine, that’s why I leaned towards Barbarella. I thought, finally, I have a justification for all these years and money on Heavy Metal Magazine.

Q: More zombie movies?

Rose: Only if he does Jane Austen.

RR: When we do Machete, I do want to add a trailer at the front that’s a sequel for Cherry Darling, the sequel to Planet Terror, showing some things I wanted to do that I couldn’t do.

RR: Back in 1993 when I first met Danny Trejo, I wrote a script from Machete, and I borrowed scenes from it. It’s one of those really backwards things, where I wrote the script, made the trailer, now people love the trailer and now I have to shoot the movie. There’s going to be two sequels: Machete Kills and Machete Kills Again.

“I have a Machete script, and it’s just a matter of locking down this next couple of months.”

“I’ve just dreamt about Machete too long. We need our own Mexploitation character.”

Q: With so many franchises going PG 13, are you guys going hard R?

RR: My name is “Double R.”

(Huge cheers)

“We’re gonna give you a double R, baby!” (Rose makes a pirate noise.)

2:51 -Meeting Rose and making RS

RR: I met Rose at the Cannes film festival. I started talking to her, and she would just brutally cut me down to size, and she would call me “Count Fuckula.” I was like, “Who are you, and where you been?”

I just found her arresting, and I kind of wrote a lot of [the Cherry Darling] character around her. It was just quite a force.

So having seen her really pull that off, and seeing the parts that were out there, the lack of, we knew we had to find something where she could step up and top that. And there was nothing. It had to be Red Sonja.

Q: Will you shoot RS in 3D so we can have blood thrown in our faces?

A: And other stuff, too. You’re really wanting cleavage, right?

(RR takes credit for “bringing 3D back” with Spy Kids 3.)

RR: I shot [Spy Kids 3] on a stage, to go out in the field is tougher. There is a new system, where you shoot and do the 3D in post. I might go that route instead.

Q: what else is in your private collection that might lead to a movie?

RR: I cant say now, because then you would know.

2:45 - More Q&A

Rose: I think I saw CHUD, was the first movie I saw in America. I saw a lot of movies I shouldn’t have.

If I announced I was doing a movie where I just stared at a teapot there’d be 400,000 people on the Internet saying “blahblahblah.” For some reason, it’s much easier to say things that are negative. So, with that in mind, with every thrust of my sword, I’ll be thinking of people like that.”

Q: About villains in RS

Villains? “We can’t say right now.”

Issues 9-12 are sort of the origin of her…but we’re not really saying until it leaks.

Q: About Conan casting

Conan casting? “Danny Trejo!” (Huge cheers)

RR: I’m surprised nobody’s asked about Machete yet! My phone’s gonna be ringing in a sec (does Danny Trejo’s voice) “Robert! When are we gonna make Machete? Hurry up, holmes!”

Q: Has the sword been designed?

Doug: Being designed as we speak, in a country far, far away.

Q: Rose, chance you might be involved in future Sin City?

Rose prevaricates.

2:41 - On leaving the DGA and collaborating

RR: It was very freeing to leave the DGA. They have a rulebook that says you can only have one director. They want the illusion that there’s only one voice, one vision, and that isn’t always true. People are always like “you do so many jobs yourself, don’t you like to collaborate?” I love to collaborate, and I got penalized for it.

So, I said, “Just to really stick it to them, I’ll add Quentin.” So, I added a special title for Quentin that doesn’t really exist. But that’s why I’m only producing in name on this one, and Doug’s directing. I don’t have any regrets. If I want to do a studio movie I just do Financial Core, which is where you just fall into the rules of the DGA.

Q: Are you directing a scene in Inglorious Bastards?

RR: I don’t know..it would probably be music again, or maybe he wants me to get blown up.

Q (11 year old girl): I like Planet Terror a lot… (Crowd cheers to hear that she’s 11!) “I also enjoyed the Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl.”

2:36 - On Rose’s stunts and scripts for Sin City:

Rose has been working out 3 hours a day for Red Sonja and is about to start sword training with the Wachowskis’ guy on Monday. Rose will do her own stunts in RS. “In Death Proof, the face being slammed against the plexi was mine. I smashed my cheekbone and almost had a concussion, but it wouldn’t look right otherwise. I’m gonna end up like a boxer at 38, but I do as much as I can.”

RR: It was fun seeing her a couple of months ago, she broke a couple of toes and had a black cast, and it was just like in Planet Terror.

Sin City 2 and 3 — They have a script, waiting for Frank Miller to be done with The Spirit.

2:33 - Taking questions:

RR: “Anyone who asks a really great question gets a tshirt.”

Q: I know your going for something different visually, but tonally are you trying to match the DeLaurentis films?

RR: No, totally different. Darker, more like the book, and the actual comics. Not anything to do with the other movie that was made in the 80’s.

Rose: I will not have a mullet.

RR: We’re still discussing that…

Q: Real locations or greenscreen?

Doug: A complement of both.

Q: I’ve been eating your breakfast tacos from Sin City for a long time. When are you gonna do another 10 minute cooking school?

RR: it’s gonna be Texas BBQ. It’s gonna be on the Grindhouse double disc DVD.

2:26 - On Doug Aarniokoski as director (2nd unit director, Resident Evil 3)

Doug was RR’s first Assistant Director since Four Rooms. RR talks for awhile about how great, tenacious, brave Doug is as a director.

RR: I have a director’s comitment with the Weinsteins. (He says Miramax first then corrects himself.) Where I owe them another picture, so I can’t direct this, but if I produce, I can do it as my next picture. So, it will be more like a co-director thing, I’m definitely going to get my hands dirty, but not officially, because Doug’s DGA (union) and I’m not.

RR says he’s in talks unofficially to direct a Conan film. It’s something to integrate the world and keep the vision of Senor Howard going.

Doug: People ask what my film background is, and I say I went to the school of Robert Rodriguez filmmaking. I remember one day we were at your house, and we went behind the secret bookcase into the room, and there were all these mockettes up there and you had Red Sonja. And we were like, “This is such an amazing character.”

And then one day I got the call, and he was like “Red Sonja” and I was like “Oh, absolutely!” We’re gonna shake it up here folks, I hope your ready for it.

They’re location scouting right now…

Doug: We’re gonna kick some backside– I have this thing that says I have to be careful because members of your audience may be 18 or under…

RR: I like finding different looks for a movie. This time I’ll patent it.

2:20 - Rose McGowan: It was very difficult [after Planet Terror] to do anything. I would read these scripts and be like, “Well, I guess I could make this kind of funny, if the guy didn’t talk too much.”

From a really early age, being into empowerment, being a feminist, and loving the underdog, and really, in my life, being one. So, I brought it home and said, “I’m really interested in female vengeance!” And then I’m like, “Oh god, therapist…”

This movie is going to be hard, its gonna be cold, its gonna be dirty, bloody. But I’m up for it. (Crowd cheers.)

I keep thinking Ill do a Jane Austen movie, and I said, “Would you ever do a Jane Austen movie?” and Robert said, “Could there be a dead body in it?”

When I was really little, I saw La Femme Nikita, and that’s what I wanted to be when I grew up. I think Nikita would be proud.

[On Robert Rodriguez:]

He’s always saying, make your own destiny. I had been in the mode for so long of I’ll just wait and see what they send me. But for 2 years now, I’ve really been firing on all engines and it’s all because of him. He’s so good at telling people to just do it. (Man, this whole panel is like a tribute to their relationship.)

So, what I’ve been able to “just do” is take a giant sword and kill a lot of people. And I think that explains my attraction. (To both Robert and Red Sonja, apparently.)

2:15 - Robert Rodriguez comes out. “We don’t have anything to show — we haven’t shot anything yet.”

They’re giving away T-shirts of the main poster, of Rose licking a blade.

Rose McGowan, ladies and gentleman. (Are they still dating? She’s wearing a ridiculous strapless green metallic dress. He doesn’t seem terribly excited to see her.)

RR: I’ve been a Robert E Howards fan since a long time ago.

He bought a Concan comic at the grocery store, at the magazine stand.

RR: With 10 kids, there wasn’t a lot of money for comics, but this was with all the other magazines, and it was black and white, and bloody and there were women in it.”

Savage Sword of Conan. I would read that same magazine over and over again @ 11 or 12 years old. There would be an ad for a subscription that would show Red Sonja holding up a severed head to Conan, and saying “Get ahead in life!”

I would think, “Wow, this is my fantasy of the perfect woman… even Conan’s looking up at her!”

Where Robert E Howard was born was the same place my father was born, in the same border town near Mexico city. I felt a real kinship to this freak. So, in my little writing room, I have a collecton of Sin City stuff, and I finally made that movie. I have a collection of Conan stuff, a collection of Heavy Metal Magazines, and Robert E Howards stuff.

I tried to write Conan stuff, but the wrong studio owns it. So Rose and I, we’re trying to figure out something to do together after doing Planet Terror. In that film she was so strong, and you know you’ll see a woman be in a film like that and the next film, they’ll play a girlfriend. You want her to do something that lets her take advantage of her strengths and talents.

We tried to do Barbarella, and that didnt work. She came into the kitchen with a script for Red Sonja and said, “I really like this script, don’t know if you’ve heard of it…” (Crowd likes this.) She was like, “They want to meet me, Do you think its a good property?”

And I was like –does spit take?

It’s geek’s dream to immerse her in this world that I’ve been collecting secretly since adolescence.
(I guess they are still dating, or want us to think they are.)

We decided to do this instead of Barbarella, which we did have funding for, we were gonna do it for $70 million in Germany, but there were other projects…

Rose: “if anybody would like to bottle Robert’s DNA, I think you can just swab the side of the podium there.”

Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth

Comic-Con 2008: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Max Payne

Karina — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:02:34 GMT

12:59 - Mila: I got to kick ass, learn how to take apart guns, and kick some ass in 5 inch heels. I had some weapons training with the automatic, the baton, I get to beat Mark up.

Mark: She enjoyed beating me up.

Moderator asks Mila to say some words about John in Russian.

John: “What’s Russian for “Oh fucker?”

Mark starts speaking Russain. “I learned it for another movie and I didn’t get to say it. You want to hear it again?” Girls squeal.

Ludacris: I don’t speak Russian.

Mark: I came from the music world, so I’m always a little suspect of guys, and how much they commit, but [Ludacris] is the next big bright shining star to come out of hip hop. He’s taken on a role that was really written for an actor, and he’s done an outstanding job.

Mark: Originally, his role was written for a 60 yr old white guy…

John: Originally, it was Robert Downey Jr. He went the other way with Tropic Thunder. We turned a white guy into a black guy.

12:54 - First clip of Max Payne:

Gang in a subway, Chicago. Max goes in the Mens room. Washes hands. Gang follows.

Gang leader threatens him for his watch. Mark turns around and shows his badge. Gang leader pulls out a gun, “You a cop or something?”

Mark: Not tonight.

They approach Mark. He kicks their asses. One guy gets away and jumps on the subway tracks, tries to outrun the train. Mark shoots at one guy until he’s crouched by a toilet. He pulls out a photo, with a gun to the guy’s chin, “You ever see this woman?”

End clip

12:51 - Director, John Moore: Isn’t that the point of playing the game — that you feel like Max Payne? So I thought, lets kick the shit out of the camera, so that you feel like the character, and that was pretty much the technique.

Mark: this is like doing a concert in Japan, you dont really say anything and they’re like “Oooh.” Now I know why The New Kids wanted to go back. You start missing that kind of thing, it makes you feel warm in the pants.

I read the script after doing Invincible, Lovely Bones and The Happening, and I wanted to kick some ass again. I thought, with my street cred, my arrest record I was credible enough to play this role. This guy is really one of the happiest guys in the work, he has a beautiful wife, beautiful child, and once that’s taken away he doesn’t really have any hope.

It’s a dark ugly world, and I think people are going to be very happy seeing him wreck havoc.

(Rolling the first clip…)

12:47 - Start of Max Payne panel:

Some girl: Mark I love you!

Mark Wahlberg: Thank you, I love you!

The girls like him way more than Keanu, but the boys cheered more for Ludacris than Wahlberg or Mila Kunis.

12:43 - Final reel of TDTESS presentation:

FBI goes to Dr Benson’s door. Army base. Jon Hamm is an FBI guy. He shows Helen, Klatu.

Voice over, Kathy Bates: The less advanced civilization is exterminated. Unfortunately, in this case, the less advanced civilization is us.

Jennifer in spacesuit. Big fireball in the middle of a city. Text on screen, “The skies will go dark, the cities will go quiet, the earth will stand still.”

Lots of destruction shots — blackouts, storms, fires, spacesuits.
(It might be a slightly new trailer, but it doesn’t look that different from what’s been online.)

12:39 - “Keanu, what’s Klatu’s view of humanity at that point?”

Keanu: He’s starting to have a little bit of a conflict about a decision that he made. He’s coming into a more human understanding, and being able to be affected. He has a little bit of ambivalence…and maybe he’s starting to think they’re not so bad as he thought they were.

Moderator: What can you tell us about Gort?

Scott: Somewhere along the line there developed rumors that there was no Gort — there is definitely Gort. It wouldn’t be TDTESS with no Gort. We went through various visualizations…at least 100’s of possibilities. We ended up coming back not far from the original in the concept. I began to see the simple brilliance of the human form chosen by this alien. They’re still working on him — WETA is doing it.

The spaceship, Klayu’s spacesuit, Gort — the idea of them having an organic, biological base, this idea is making its way into Sci-fi cinema. This idea that advanced civilizations are not into industrialization as we are because we’ve seen the effect of that. We’ve seen that that has it’s limits.

Setting up final video footage reel. They don’t come out until 12/12, so the visual effects are mostly not done. “I wanted to be able to give this audience what you’re here to see…”

12:35 - Scene w/ Jaden Smith and Keanu Reeves:

They’re in the back of a pickup. Looks like Keanu hitchhiked out of the containment facility.

Jaden: “You don’t look like an Alien. Why do you look human”

Keanu: “So I can talk to you.”

“I told Helen we should kill you. I didn’t mean it though.”

“So what’s going to happen to us?”

“I was just wondering the same thing.”

End scene
12:33 - Jennifer Connely plays Dr. Helen Benson (Crowd cat calls Jennifer.)

Scott: “The relationship between Helen and her son is deeply explored. We talked about how we could use the relationship between the two of them to be an illustration for Klatu as to how human beings treat each other, how they treat the planet.”

Jaden Smith plays her stepson.

“One of the things I love about the Wise film…it’s a film about the human spirit.”

Setting up scene of Jaden and Keanu together.

Scott: “Well get to the big, exciting movie stuff at the end–this is a smaller scene.”
12:30 - “Keanu, talk about becoming Klatu. What was your proccess?”

Keanu: “He just objectified everything he looked at…he was kind of an entity trapped in a human body. He came to see, to judge, so when he looked out, he just kind of … looked out.”

In the original, Klautu was kind of warm and fuzz, more human than human… I’m not that guy. (Giggles)

Scott: I watched original film quite a few times…I wanted to understand the essential things that made it work. That film really takes place in the real world, it’s not an overly fanciful movie, except for the alien elements. We tried to come up with a visual design that would support that idea, but the trick with the update was to look at the 1951 film as a product of that technological revolution. Sci-fi is now turning to higher ideas, and ecology and biology. That was very interesting to all of us. We tried to create something that was organic and paid homage to the original but wasn’t the same hard laser, spacecraft stuff that we’ve seen.

12:23 -First clip from The Day the Earth Stood Still:

This is a scene where Jlatum played by Keanu (girls scream) is being brought to A compound. He wants to speak to the world leaders, but he’s been denied. And is going to be interrogated. Keanu in a wheelchair, hospital scrubs, gets strapped to the chair and sensors put on his forehead.

Big, empty room… a lie detector test.

Control questions: Are you currently in a seated position?

Yes.

Are you human?

My body is.

Are you aware of an impending attack on the USA?

You should let me go.

Keanu gives tester a massive electric shock with his brain and then hypnotizes him into telling him how to escape. Keanu steals his suit, brain numbs all the guards, and walks out the door.

(Crowd goes apeshit.)

12:20 - “Why remake it, Scott?” asks moderator.

“If your gonna remake a classic, you’ve got to have a good reason…for me, it was the script. When I read it, what occurred to me, the original was so a product of its time, that commented so well on that early cold war era, and the visual effects were so ahead of its time, and the idea of updating it made sense because times have changed. We have different issues. This film seemed like the perfect venue to address some of those.”

He says story opened up chances to try new things with effects. “The idea of an Alien who comes to earth and assesses human nature from an outside perspective is such an interesting thing.”

Scott introduces first clip…

12:18 - Moderators first qustion for Scott: First film, directed by Robert Wise, “You had a close encounter with Robert Wise, tell us about that.”

He made a short film that got into a festival in Indiana, Wise was getting a Lifetime Achievement Award, he managed to get a private dinner with Wise, told him his fave films of his were The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Haunting. Wise told him that if he was into genre films, his first film should be horror. He took that advice and made The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

The producer was making Speed with Keanu, and he saw a poster at FOX for The Day the Earth Stood Still. while he was waiting for the President of Production to come in, he saw it and said, “Forget what I came here to pitch to you –– we should remake DTESS with Keanu.” But that exec was soon fired. 15 years later, a draft of the script showed up on his doorstep.
Keanu says he remembers that. Girls scream.

12:14 - Lights go down completely. Loud white noise on screen. Keanu Reeves comes out. Theyr’e going to show two scenes and a trailer from The Day the Earth Stood Still. Intros Scott Erickson, director, Jennifer Connely
producer moderator Michael Grode (sp?). The mics arent on. Girls are yelling “Keanu, we love you!”

12:10 - Director of Programming for comic con comes out, Eddie Ibrahim. Welcomes us to Comic-Con 2008, warns us not to videotape any of the trailers, etc. Sort of threatens that if we put anything on YouTube, the studios wont come back. Everyone claps at that. (This year they have true HD in Hall H.)

Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth

Comic-Con 2008: Guy Ritchie’s Comic Book

Karina — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:01:30 GMT

Whether or not Guy Ritchie is soon to become the most famous male divorcee on the planet, at least he’s keeping busy. The filmmaker will be here at the Con this weekend promoting RocknRolla, his long awaited follow-up to the kabbalah gangster debacle Revolver, and Virgin Comics is here touting Gamekeeper, a Ritchie-created comic book which will, at some point, become a Ritchie-directed film. Though Ritchie apparently approves drawings and storylines for each issue, a Virgin rep told me that the filmmaker was “way more involved” with the recently released Series 2, which introduces a band of mercenaries known as “The Soccer Club.” Panels and buying info can be found here. Above and below: shots from the Virgin display on the show floor, where Ritchie is being promoted alongside Dan Dare and another unlikely comic star, porn star Jenna Jameson.

Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth

Comic-Con 2008: Lego Batman and Stormtrooper

Karina — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:00:50 GMT

This has to be the dream of millions of kids: lifesize replicas of superheroes and Star Wars characters, made out of Legos. Unfortunately, even the most advantaged kids wouldn’t be able to get their hands on the kit to build the Stormtrooper pictured above, nor the impressively-detailed Batman below the jump.

I talked to Vince Rubino of LEGO Americas last night at the Con, and he told me that LEGO couldn’t possibly sell such a kit directly to consumers, because they “don’t have the instructions” to put them together. There are apparently six LEGO builders in the entire world with the expertise to put such a thing together. Richie Riches and the parents who bankroll them can go to Lego.com, where there are bios and contact info for each of these “accredited Certified Professionals”, from whom one an commission a custom creation such as those documented above and below.

Check out many more detail shots of the Batman on our Flickr stream.

Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth

Comic-Con 2008: Stamps!

Karina — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:00:57 GMT

You know a once-subcultural event has fatally passed over the point of capitalist no return when a U.S. government agency tries to get in on it. And so, in a far, far corner of the San Diego Convention Center, the U.S. Postal Service has set up a booth, in order to peddle wares to the ever-growing contingent of fanboy stamp collectors. I’m not kidding––Star Wars stamps are a huge deal. The gentleman I spoke to at the booth told me that when this series of stamps were released last year, they almost immediately sold out.

Whilst, technically, you could use a Luke or a Leia to mail your gas bill, due to the shortage of supply these 41 cent treasures are regularly selling for $12-15 on eBay. The booth also displays a number of comic and superhero themed stamps, including a box set of DC comic characters immortalized in postal currency.

Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth