And another month has almost gone by without me having blogged… I’m now in the final weeks of my thesis, only 3 more weeks until I hand my report in and 5 more weeks until my final thesis presentation. Scary. Suffice to say, I haven’t been really enjoying the summer that much (not that there’s much “summer” to enjoy), and have mainly been working and working and working. I have put some time aside though for interesting blog related events that might crop up, like last week’s one…

Last week I got to attend a press conference for Cowboys & Aliens, with Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Jon Favreau and Roberto Orci all in attendance. So much of what was said during the press conference was interesting (well, it was at least interesting to me) and I’ve been trying to figure out how to blog about it all; should I just do one massive post, or one post with only the cool bits? Instead I’ve split it up into four parts: this first one features all the questions for Daniel Craig and his answers. I’ll try to post the rest later this afternoon. Enjoy!

Q: I wonder if I could regress you to the summer of 1977 and ask what your 9 year old self might have thought of sharing the screen with Mr Ford?

DC: The truth of it is I don’t really know when Bladerunner came out, but I went to the cinema and sat in the cinema on my own, because not many people went to the cinema where I went to. I had no idea what was playing and Bladerunner came on. I thought then I want to work with that man. And I did.

Q: When a stranger arrives in a western town, you immediately think of Clint Eastwood. Do you go with that or do you try and fight it?

DC: No, god, you go with it. I mean, no, I wouldn’t try and fight that. I don’t really know what the question is, but if you’re asking me whether or not I watched Clint Eastwood for this movie, yes of course I did. But I watched everything else as well. You know, I watched a lot of John Wayne, Butch and Sundance, I’m just reeling off westerns now, it’s easier than answering the question. But yes, I kind of stole everything I could, but nothing specific.

Q: Have you got a favourite cowboy film of all time and/or a favourite alien film of all time?

DC: Little Big Men, I think, is most probably my favourite western. And Alien.

Q: This is quite a physically demanding role, Daniel, was it more so than the role of Bond? Did you pick up more bruises and grazes from playing this than you did from playing 007?

DC: It was just different. I mean, I don’t get to ride many horses in Bond, so that was really kind of the main distinction. No more than usual. There’s a lot more that I couldn’t do in this, because horse riding, although I’m getting better at it, I’m no expert. So a lot of what you see’s my brilliant double and brilliant stunt men. Funny enough, I picked up more bruises at the studio when we got back to LA than I did out when we were filming. I think everything’s sort of made out of fibreglass and that seems to scrape and bruise you worse than the real thing.

Q: How much of the classic Steve McQueen technique of going through the script and ripping out your lines did you do? Just so that you could say something with a look rather than with a line of dialogue?

DC: It’s kind of a natural process how it ended up being like that. As far as I’m concerned, the less I have to say the better. The more the character sort of talked about how he felt about things, the less real it seemed. He’s a man of action opposed to a man of words.

Isn’t there a Clint Eastwood legend that he only has 11 lines per movie? The character just wasn’t more verbose; it was literally saying “I don’t think he’s going to talk about his feelings before he goes in and starts shooting”. He’s going to start shooting and maybe talk about it afterwards, it’s simple as that. I make a joke out of it, but it was something that happened completely naturally as opposed of it being a conscious decision. It just seemed when gong through the script that sometimes I just went “I don’t need to say that. It’s already been told. That story’s already been told with the actions that I’m doing”.

Cool Stuff: Disney Punch

March 16th, 2011

I’m still looking forward to Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch; it looks weird, fun and slightly insane! I saw this video in my Twitter feed a couple of times and knew I just had to share it with you guys. Disney princesses mashed up with Sucker Punch. Awesome:

I really enjoyed Tron Legacy. I’m still disappointed the plot didn’t live up to the rest of the awesomeness: amazing music, gorgeous visuals and cool actors. If only the story had been better, it could have been a great movie (it’s an enjoyable movie, I find, and a pretty one, but not OMG-that-was-the-most-amazing-thing-in-the-world great).

The plot of the Tron ARG that I’d been following throughout the year before it had seemed so promising. I was expecting that to tie into the movie much much more. It somehow also just died once the movie came out. But now they’ve released the following short movie Tron: The Next Day which will appear on the DVD (kind of obvious, but: spoilers for Tron: Legacy):

Yay, Ram! This finally gives some closure to the ARG. ZackAttack was one of the members on the Flynn Lives forum, who leaked most of the Encom info. We all knew he was one of the ARG plants, but it never occurred to me that it would be one of the characters of the first movie. In case, you didn’t notice (or remember the first movie): there’s a small scene where Alan (Bruce Boxleitner) passes a co-worker who asks if he can grab some of Alan’s popcorn. He later appears in the computer world as Ram, one of the captured programs.

Now I’m excited for the next movie! Rumours are there will be 2 sort of trailers for Tron 3 on the DVD (plus this short movie) and I can’t wait to see them.

Via Bleeding Cool

Tags: Movies

I wrote about the Twisted Princesses series by deviantArt artist Jeffrey Thomas two years ago and I only discovered now that there have been a couple additions to the series. Again they’re so dark, yet gorgeous pictures:

Twisted Princess Rapunzel

Twisted Princess Tiana

Twisted Princess Megara

I recommend taking a look at the Deviant gallery with all the Twisted Princesses; there is just so much detail in the pictures, you’ve got to see them as large as possible! Plus Jeffrey has actually written background stories for each princess, explaining how they’ve turned out this way (I love the story behind Alice’s picture).

Tags: Movies

Back in 2008, I wrote about the Disney Dream Portrait campaign with photos by Annie Leibovtiz, and it’s been one of my most linked-to posts (check out those photos here). A couple of days ago 3 new photos for the campaign were added and again they’re so gorgeous!

It’s also interesting to see that Disney is using actors that are featured in their main live-action franchises right now: Olivia Wilde and Jeff Bridges were both in Tron, Penelope Cruz will be in the next Pirates of the Caribbean.

Where A Moment Of Beauty Lasts Forever

Disney

Jeff Bridges as The Beast, Penelope Cruz as Belle

Where Magic Speaks, Even When You’re Not The Fairest Of Them All

Disney

Olivia Wilde as the Evil Queen

Where Memories Take Hold and Never Let Go

Disney

Queen Latifah as Ursula (from The Little Mermaid)

So who are we still missing? Which Disney character would you like to see? I think we’re still missing The Hunchback and Esmeralda, Mulan, Tarzan and Jane, and then the more recent princesses like Rapunzel and Tiana. I’d love to see Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi as Rapunzel and Flynn!

Tags: Geeky, Movies

I managed to stay awake for the Oscars again! Is it just me or does it seem to be easier nowadays to stay awake with Twitter to keep you entertained?

I was really looking forward to Anne Hathaway and James Franco as hosts (Hathaway’s mini-bit during Hugh Jackman’s opening song was awesome 2 years ago), but I wasn’t really impressed with them. Here was their opening:

There’s some funny moments in there, but overall it doesn’t feel like the big grand opening some of the best presenters had in previous years.

I did however really enjoy Hathaway’s version of On My Own, but I haven’t been able to find a video of that to share with you guys. Plus all her dresses throughout the night were gorgeous! My take: pair Anne Hathaway with Hugh Jackman as hosts next year.

There’s also this video that the Oscar YouTube channel has released with the hosts performing Grease:

Stick around, I’ll be doing some more Oscar related posts today!

Last Tuesday we held this year’s first Movie Geeks of London meetup. It turned out to be a bit of a small meetup, but it was still great to see some familiar and some new faces. The theme of the night was the Oscars! I held a short presentation about my boxoffice project and we had Carl hold a short demo about his site Oscar Wager.

It’s a handy site for this weekend’s Oscars. The idea is that you can set up a wager, where everyone has to pick who they think is going to win (for all 24 categories). Whoever gets the most right, wins the prize. There’s also something in place in the case of a tie, but I don’t remember what that was.

So we’ve setup a Geeks of London Oscar Wager. We’re giving away 2 DVDs (most probably whatever wins Best Picture on Sunday, and one of the other Best Picture nominations) to whoever wins our Oscar Wager. Just fill in the form to enter. Keep in mind though once you’ve filled it in, you can’t edit it anymore. Entry closes (of couse) once the award show starts.

Tags: Movies

Okay, this just looks awesome:

I wasn’t really looking forward to this movie, until it’s was announced that it’s being directed by Matthew Vaughn. I love Kick-Ass and Stardust, so it’s going to be interesting to see how this X-Men turns out!

It’s 1am and I’m supposed to get up early to see a screening of Paul tomorrow morning, but I couldn’t resist watching the Superbowl this year. This is the first time I’m watching with friends (and actually have a clue what is happening). Being in the UK though, I can’t actually see all the ads and trailers live, but nowadays they’re pretty quickly available online. So here’s my roundup of the must-watch trailers of the Superbowl:

Super 8

Still very mysterious, but I love the vibe of this trailer (mainly cause of the music, I think). Kyle Chandler will always be Gary Hobson for me though (any other old Early Edition fans here?)

Captain America

I was a little underwhelmed when I saw this the first time. Re-watching it though makes me like it a bit more. Is it weird that I was expecting more action shots? I like the before and after shots of Chris Evens though.

Transformers

As much as I hate the plot of the Transformers movies, I do love the action. Giant robots fighting! What’s not to love? And installment #3 seems to have more action, more robots and more explosions. Fire bad, robot pretty.

Thor

Not much we hadn’t seen before. I still think it looks a little bit cheesy. But you know I love mythology and superheros, so whatever happens I’m going to see this.

Cowboys & Aliens

Ooh! We already had seen a trailer, but this spot shows a little bit more. Did you see that alien ship “unfold”?!

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

I still like the idea of this movie. My main problem with 2 and 3 were Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, and they’ been finally cut out of this movie. Instead we get Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane as Blackbeard (AWESOME).

Trailerrific: Hanna

February 4th, 2011

Okay, this just looks awesome:

I love how this doesn’t look like your typical action movie. And we need more kick ass heroines in movies!