I was checking out the ticket situation for tonight’s screening of Never Let Me Go and was very surprised that there were still many empty seats in the theatre. I do realize that Piranha 3D (that’s playing simultaneously) is probably the more popular choice. But maybe you just didn’t know that there even was a screening of the film. Either way you don’t want to miss the screening of Never Let Me Go.
Never Let Me Go is one of the most talked about scifi films of this year and now there is a rare opportunity to see the film way ahed of schedule. Never Let Me Go isn’t a basic scifi film with little green men from Mars, it’s more of a science drama with sociological undertones. The film is based on the 2005 novel of the same name written by Kazuo Ishiguro.
The leading ladies of the film, Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan, are already Oscar favorites. And if you are anything like me and really enjoyed Andrew Garfield’s performance in The Social Network, you will be as exited as me to see another great performance from the young actor.
Here’s the synopsis from imdb.com
As children, Ruth, Kathy and Tommy, spend their childhood at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. As they grow into young adults, they find that they have to come to terms with the strength of the love they feel for each other, while preparing themselves for the haunting reality that awaits them.
NEVER LET ME GO
29.10.2010 / 21:45 / Maxim 1 (Kluuvikatu 1, Helsinki)
Here’s the direct link from where to buy tickets from.
More info on the film and the full schedule of Night Visions on the official site.
It’s not every day that you go to Apple Trailers’ page, and spot a film promotion there on a Finnish film. Jalmari Helander‘s first feature filmRare Exports, that’s based on the Rare Exports shorts that have been circling around the Internet for quite some time already, just landed a new page for Apple Trailers, and for once I can be proud of how internationally a Finnish film has been promoted. Go see yourself, here’s Rare Exports’ page on Apple Trailers!
It seems that we will not be seeing Khan in Star Trek’s yet-untitled sequel – which is damn good, since there’s already made a Star Trek movie with Khan in it and it’s a very good film already. So no need to re-invent the wheel there. But who’s gonna be putting up the party against the renewed Enterprise crew? It’s being said that it’s not a conventional villain as such, but someone we’re already familiar with from the first season of The Original Series.
Writer Max Barry, who has released his book Machine Man in a page-per-day – within the same time he writes it – format on the Internet as a feed (with first 43 pages for free) has just launched a major feature film deal with Mandalay Pictures, directed by the awesome Darren Aronofsky, one of the best out there. What’s even more interesting in Barry’s book is that he allowed people to comment and to discuss the pages he released every day, and partially based the continuation of the story to them – so one could say it’s partly collaboratively created novel as well.
Now there’s Internet for you.
I’m not sure why Aronofsky wants to do Wolverine 2, maybe there’s quite heaps of money involved, but I sure hope he jumps on this film as soon as possible, because it sounds just plain awesome. If a book’s first sentence is about dismemberment, it’s going to be awesome:
“One Tuesday afternoon my left leg was severed. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Well, it was. It was agonizing. There was a lot of screaming and flopping around and trying to tear my shirt into pieces to stem the bleeding. While I was busy with this, my co-workers stared through two-inch polycarbonate security glass and beat on the door.”
You can read first 43 pages for free, and sign up for a feed for full book on Max Barry’s website. The novel will be released in 2011, the filming might or might not start after Aronofsky’s done with Hugh Jackman.
(Via GeekTyrant, The Hollywood Reporter, Slash Film and maxbarry.com)
For reasons that remain to be unclear tome, the plans to re-create Michael Jackson‘s Thrilleras a feature film are afoot. I’m not surprised at all, the music video made in 1983 by John Landis and featuring Michael Jackson himself must be one of the greatest moments of Zombies on a screen of any size, and was a remarkably great and important part in making music videos have their golden age in the 80s that lasted all the way to late 90s. So picking a good old idea since everyone seems to be completely out of good new ideas is a natural way to go. Yet, making a remake of Thriller without Michael Jackson is like making The Predator without Arnold Schwarzenegger – and look how well that went…
(By the way, Schwarzenegger stated just 4 hours ago in his Twitter that we should “stay tuned for more info on his next project with James Cameron”. I intend to.
Anyway, now the big film blogs have started to whineabout how wrong it is that the short film is being remade. The same people who think it’s just OK to do a remake of a film like Let The Right One In – the main difference there really is that Let the Right One In is a Swedish movie, made in this strange language, so it’s OK to rape the shit out of the film. But when it comes to a Zombie music video, remaking that seems to be one hell of a whining point.
Anyway, I’m not specifically looking forward for the remake of either one of them – Thriller or Let the Right One In – but I’m aware that the latter of thes two was remade only because that’s the American equivalent of subtitles. Anyway, here’s the original Thriller music video, enjoy:
Fall is a time of heavy rain and gloomy darkness here in Finland, but for a movie nerd like me, it’s perhaps the best time of the year. It’s the time of the movie festivals! It all starts in August with Espoo Ciné, continuing to September with Helsinki International Movie Festival – Love & Anarchy and finally Night Visions in October. The latter is starting this week, so it’s time to go trough this years Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3010 lineup.
Night Visions will take place in Helsinki 27-31.10.2010. It is the only film festival in Finland to focus only on fantasy, horror, science fiction and cult cinema. This usually means that most of the films shown at NV, you won’t be able to see on a silver screen otherwise.
A Serbian Film is a Serbian horror film about a retired porn star who gets drafted into a snuff movie with child rape and necrophilic themes. The film has been causing a lot of commotion right after it’s first festival screening and for a good cause I imagine. Let me be the first to say that even though I’m extremely intrigued by this film, I’m still not 100% sure if I have the stomach to actually watch it. The stories I have heard about the film are mind boggling to say the least. For example raping a fetus isn’t something I particularly look forward to seeing. But when a film has this much controversy hanging over it, it’s almost impossible to resist. A Serbian Film is supposed to be the ultimate shocker film of the year, perhaps even the decade.
I guess this movie doesn’t need much of an intro. You all know Machete. It’s of course Robert Rodriguez’s highly-anticipated Grindhouse spin-off from his fake trailer a couple years back. Machete is also clearly the front runner in this years festival. The cast is out off this world, featuring Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro and even the uncrowned king of awesome, Mr. Steven Seagal himself. Unfortunately there is only a single screening and it’s naturally already sold out.
Piranha 3D is a horror film and the second remake of the 1978 film by the same name. I’m usually not very into re-makes and especially re-makes of a re-make, but for some reason I’m super exited about Piranha 3D. Maybe one reason is that I really thought the original film was pretty scary, although I did watch it when I was like 7 years old… In any case this film has a great sense of the good old days and it feels like a homage to the classic horror movie. I mean prehistoric killer fish, Richard Dreyfuss and Christopher Lloyd all in the same deadly package! And just to clarify that this is not just in my head, the film has gotten surprisingly positive reviews all over.
The first time we bumped into this film was back in 2008 in Cannes Film Festival, when me and Timo were just strolling around the market. La Horde instantly caught our eye with it’s awesome teaser poster at the time. I remember getting really exited about the film then, but up until now, I haven’ really heard anything about it. La Horde is a French zombie film, and personally that’s all I need to hear! If you’re not convinced, check out the cool trailer below.
Take notice of this film, because it is a late addition to the already great selection. Never Let Me Go is one interesting film you don’t want to miss. Just by looking at the trailer or any other marketing material for that matter, you might not know that Never Let Me Go is one of the most talked about sci-fi films of the year. And when I say sci-fi, I don’t mean flying saucers and little green men, I mean actual science, laboratories and human experiments. Critics have been raving over Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley for their performances and are even saying they are very strong candidates for this years Oscars. This is a rare opportunity to get to see the film way ahed of schedule, since the film is being distributed commercially in February 2011 the earliest.
Due Date is the new film from the director of Hangover. I don’t necessarily quite understand what business this film has in Night Visions, but never the less, I really want to see it. Hangover was hilarious and if Due Date has even half of it’s funniness, that’s good enough for me. Also how wrong can you really go on the road with Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis?
Here’s a film I might regret even mentioning. I just saw the trailer yesterday for the first time and I’m not quite sure what to make of it. The movie might have some potential when taking the bad ass cast into consideration. But it wouldn’t be the first time when a great cast is ensembled and the end result is still a piece of shit. The line up includes Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren. Oh, and if you were thinking what the RED stands for, it’s Retired Extremely Dangerous.
Finlandia-gala brings Finnish genre classics back to the silver screen, accompanied with prestige guests from the films. This year’s Finlandia-gala is proud to present Harmagedon (1986). Unfortunately I couldn’t find a trailer for Harmagedon, so you just have to go and see the film regardless. Last year the gala was a blast, so I wouldn’t miss it for the world!
One more bit of casting news for The Hobbit has just popped online – Sylvester McCoy, who’s been rumored for quite some time to play the role of Radagast the Brown (but which I didn’t take too seriously, since I didn’t remember Radagast having more than a side notion on the novel). Radagast is one of the Istari, the wizards that were sent to Middle-Earth to set things right – or at least to make sure they don’t go too wrong – but some of them went astray (like Saruman for example), some decided to fight the evil (like Gandalf) and some became wandering old coots more interested in the world around them than the actual big picture they were supposed to look over.
At the same time, the makers of The Hobbit are trying to fight to keep The Hobbit in New Zealand, and are mustering a rally for shooting The Hobbit in New Zealand on Labor’s Day on Monday, 25th of October. Here’s a trailer:
Now, asPeter Jackson‘s two-part 500+ million dollar productionThe Hobbit has finally been greenlit, the first casting news are pouring in. As huge fans of bothJ.R.R. Tolkien‘s Middle-Earth saga and Peter Jackson’s film adaptations, the Zombies will be closely following the production process.
Here’s the casting sheet for The Hobbit from Zombie Room, which we’ll be updating as new info comes pouring in (click to view larger):
TheOneRing.Net has more coherent information about the cast, but just wanted to mention that Martin Freeman, who plays Bilbo Baggins, has also a role as Watson in Moffat‘s new, highly acclaimed mini-series Sherlock.
In other news, it seems it’s not that clear at all that The Hobbit will be filmed in New Zealand after all – the talks about taking the production to Europe are still ongoing, and London has been mentioned as one possibility. Taking the film to UK, which has been the inspiration for Tolkien as the basis of Shire doesn’t sound bad at all. But Kiwis are going to put up one hell of a fight to get to keep the production, and that’s no wonder, given the size of the production – to start with.
Here’s Peter Jackson talking about the issues of the production:
According to Governator Schwarzenegger‘s Twitter account, something is going on between the main actor and the director of one of the greatest science fiction classics ever (Terminator 2, if you’re wondering…) are possibly going do something together in the future. What that is, nobody knows, but here’s what Schwarzenegger writes:
“Jim Cameron & I are working on something together, @zealcore. Will announce Mon. Here’s a shot of us discussing. “
Talk about premature… Anyhow, it seems that the dispute with the Actor’s Union ends, and all is nice and dandy in the Middle-Earth again, and The Hobbit might actually get shot there. Official statement by the Screen Actors Guild states:
“Today, our sister union New Zealand Actors Equity issued a statement recommending all international performer unions rescind their member advisories on the feature film production The Hobbit. In light of this recommendation, Screen Actors Guild will be alerting its members that they are now free to accept engagements, under Screen Actors Guild contract terms and conditions, on The Hobbit.”
Warner playing rough ball on the actors seems to have worked. Yet, I’m not completely sure should we be happy for this? It’s good that the film gets done, yet it would’ve been interesting to see how different it would’ve been, had it been shot in Eastern Europe, and the job opportunities for European filmmakers would’ve been enormous. But now that it’s back in NZ, we’re going to be enjoying the breathtaking nature again. Still, I don’t know what kind of compromises this means to the actors? Are they suddenly being stomped under a huge production with big studios and Sauron wins, or was the dispute just some petty whining about some regulations and making things unnecessarily complicated for any filmmaker to be able to actually make a film there – I don’t know, since I didn’t ever consider this issue being interesting enough to really dig into it. Maybe I should have. Maybe I, one day, will.
Anyhow, the sun is now shining above Shire again, the Hobbits are smoking their big wooden pipes and wiggling their big hairy toes on its grassy hills. And somewhere, under the Lonely Mountain, the big dragon sleeps. But for how long?
