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The most anticipated Zombie movies of 2012

Saturday, January 7th, 2012

(The list of most anticipated comedies here, most anticipated fantasy films here, most anticipated Finnish films here, most anticipated action movies here and the most anticipated scifi movies for 2012 here.)

If you happen to like zombie films, 2012 is not going to leave you dry. No sir. Thirty-plus feature films are marching to the big and small screens, from small indie flicks made with just few bucks, to the biggest zombie film ever made – World War Z. Zombie Room takes a closer look at the horde crawling at us.

Shaun of the Dead opened the floodgates of the zombie comedy (zom com, as they call it nowadays) -genre – and in 2012 they keep on coming like never before. Dave of the Dead is another one of the kind – this time it’s post-zombie-apocalypse world where the undead have became second-class citizens. In Canadian 3D-zom com Dead Before Dawn 3D [ Official Web Site ] a group of college kids unleash a curse that causes people to commit suicide and come back as zombie demons – zemons.

In Detention of the Dead [ Teaser ‖ Official Web Site ] , Breakfast Club meets Shaun of the Dead – a bunch of college kids trapped in detention during zombie apocalypse, and in Stalled [ Facebook page ] a luckless maintenance gopher finds himself stuck in a ladies restroom during one. Last but not least, Corey Feldman jumps in the pants of Zombie King, whose evil plans Edward Furlong has to win in the upcoming British horror comedy The Zombie King [ Teaser ‖ Official Web Site ].

Zombies land also to Europe, with Dutch zom com Zombibi [ Trailer ], where Amsterdam gets overrun by zombies, and the motley crew of survivors go way over the top in re-inventing ways to kill their dead fellow Amsterdamned.

And that’s not all. Zombies are getting more girlfriend and family-oriented as well. A Little Bit Zombie [ Trailer ‖ Official Web Site ] is an indie rom zom com, where an infected, mild-mannered HR manager attempts to fulfill his overwhelming desire for brains and avoid Max, the obsessed Zombie Hunter hot on his trail. All while keeping it together so as not to incur the wrath of his Bridezilla-to-be, In Abercrombie & Zombie a failed Survivor reality show auditioner comes back to life to pursue his dream to become the first zombie supermodel. Same theme continues in Zombie Blondes, where a new girl in the town Hannah gets new friends who all have names starting with same first letter, bleached blonde hair and eerily lightweight bodies… Big players are going Zombie again as well – Paramount is marching boy scouts to fight the zombie apocalypse and save the girl scouts of the neighboring camp in (cleverly named) Boy Scouts vs. Zombies.

It’s not just comedies, though. Good old zombie-smashing takes (probably) place in 100,000 Zombie Heads, starring among others great Vernon Wells (yes, the very Bennett from Commando and Lord General from Weird Science!), and My Bloody Valentine 3D director Patrick Lussier is pitching his new film Condition Dead [ Official Web Site ] as “Saving Private Ryan, with zombies”. In 3D, I would assume. And of course, what would be a zombie-year be without Paco Plaza returning with a new installation to the [REC]-saga – [REC]³ Génesis [ Trailer ]. As a cherry on top, Uwe Boll-produced zombie action flick Zombie Massacre [ Trailer ]is gathering momentum as well, fitted with a nifty trailer.

In animation front, The Living Corpse comic book series – which is apparently a famous one – is being remade into an animated feature film of the same name [ Trailer and Official Web Site ] . And in even bigger news, it might be that James Farr‘s comic book series Xombie gets remade into a major Dreamworks production of the same name, penned by Star Trek / Transformers duo Kurtzman and Orci! That sounds awesome!

Even Jesus Christ (the original zombie) is marching on the big screen: independent, Kickstarter-financed zombie film The Zombie Christ [ Trailer ‖ Official Web Site ] takes us into the 80′s future, where the ultimate weapon is sent to earth: the Zombie Christ. And in Jesus Hates Zombies [ Official Web Site ] – based on a comic book series of the same name – director Eric Balfour (whom you know as an actor with a face in wrong aspect ratio – don’t believe me, check it out yourself!) brings Jesus Christ back to save the humanity. Jesus ends up fighting together with Abe Lincoln, Mother Theresa and Elvis Presley against zombies and werewolves and whatnot.

And finally, the zombie world gets crazier and weirder with legendary 83-year-old cult director Ted V. Mikels who revisits his 60′s film The Astro Zombies in Astro Zombies: M4 – Invaders from Cyberspace [ Trailer ].

It sure looks like the zombie apocalypse if truly here – at least on the big screen. I picked three films to pay special attention to:

Directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace, Monster’s Ball)

The biggest-ever zombie film in the history of cinema, World War Z is based on a book with the same name. Staggering 125 million-dollar film is written by the creator of Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski, and several people who’ve read the story have appraised it not just being a genre-defining script, but one with Best Picture -potential, if realized the right way. Brad Pitt is the playing the main character, a UN representative who scours the world, interviewing survivors of the zombie apocalypse, referred to as World War Z. No teaser or trailer has yet been released, but there are several videos on YouTube shot by outsiders about the shoot, and even based on that stuff, the film looks like a fucking riot of awesomeness.

Directed by Chris Butler & Sam Fell (The Tale of Despereaux)

From the creators of Coraline comes a new horror stop-motion animation ParaNorman, a film which visual beauty just throws you off your chair. The story tells of a small town that comes under siege by the undead, and of a boy, Norman, who’s the only one with the ability to speak with the dead. The bravely creepy animation seems to be in all charts as one of the most interesting films coming out next year – stylish, fun and something fresh for the animation *and* zombie genre.

Directed by Richard Raaphorst

Having been in production under different names for ages, Amsterdam-based director Richard Raaphorst is bringing something completely new to the field. A WWII Nazi experiment has led to the creation of an undead army, using the test results of historical dr. Frankenstein as its’ basis. The film looks like something I haven’t seen ever before, and might very well become a hugely popular classic to accompany Dead Snow in the hall of best zombie films ever made. The promo reel via Twitch Films looks so beautiful I really have hard time waiting for this to finally become reality. The film – according to promos – is (correct me if I’m wrong!) black-and-white and possibly mute, accompanied with haunting soundtrack and great sound design, and impeccable sense of style.

Posted in Most Anticipated, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

The most anticipated Action films of 2012

Friday, January 6th, 2012

The list of the most anticipated comedies here, fantasy films here, Finnish movies here and science fiction movies here.

While Scifi geeks have fun with loads of interesting films coming up in 2012, the low-brow, I-want-to-see-things-explode -audience and the superhero fans have it a bit dry. Yes, there’s new Batman – and it looks cool, I have to admit – but other than that, it feels like an in-between year for the good old blowing-shit-up. I picked the following films not because I’m overtly enthusiastic about them, but because there wasn’t much to choose from.

Directed by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception)

Wanna guess the most pirated film of all time? The Dark Knight Rises will snatch that title in a heartbeat. Will it be a good conclusion to Bale-starred, Nolan-directed Batmans? Sure it will. Will it be interesting, or fresh, or something radical? Absolutely not. I’m expecting The Dark Knight Rises to wrap up what Nolan started with excellent Batman Begins, and followed with mediocre The Dark Knight. I’m expecting to see a lot of money being blown in the air and Christian Bale (over)doing “the agony of being Batman” like never before, and I expect to be entertained, but I’m not expecting to walk out of the theater feeling like a new man.

And that’s just fine. Bring it on. I’m ready. I don’t care.

Directed by David Koepp (Ghost Town)

A dream for every fixie hipster in New York, Premium Rush is a story about a bicycle messenger who picks up an envelope from Columbia University, and gets chased down by a dirty cop who’s desperate to get the delivery.

The film is all about bicycling as fast as possible among the New York traffic, and at least according to the trailer, they’ve really grasped the life-threatening feeling of traffic-cycling on tape. So much that the main actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt almost got killed during the shooting: he smashed in the back of a taxi and took a good swan dive into the windscreen.

The film sounds like loads of fun, and David Koepp is a great writer and a his film Ghost Town made a big impression on me few years back. One tip, though. Don’t watch the trailer more than 5 seconds. It’s one of those “let’s scan through the story of the film so there’s no reason to go see it anymore” -trailers…

Directed by Simon West

First installation of The Expendables wasn’t anything to write home about, although I was expecting a lot of the film. My mistake. I wanted to see 80′s action with humor, self-irony and great action scenes, but I got nothing but a boring, noisy mess of a film that took itself way too seriously. The only thing that redeemed The Expendables was Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s appearance. And that’s going to be the only reason I’m walking back to theaters with part 2 as well, eagerly paying whatever they are asking for it. It’s Arnold, for God’s sake, and a bunch of old farts.

Directed by Joel Carnahan (The A-team, Smokin’ Aces)

Directed by Joel Carnahan, The Grey is a Liam Neeson -film about a bunch of plane crash survivors fighting a pack of wolves in Alaska. There seems to be nice, gray, gritty look and feel on the film, ruthless survival action and well, a bunch of wolves, with which I hope don’t follow the “we-have-to-do-wolves-otherwise-we-don’t-exist” -trend which was so popular in the beginning of 2000′s and resulted some of the worst CG creatures in recent history (See: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Day After Tomorrow)

Directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition)
There’s absolutely nothing interesting or edgy about the new James Bond -movie. Trust me: nothing. Everything about the film smells like well-made but rather boring – only remarkable thing is that Sam Mendes is directing, and we know him being a good and innovative director. But no matter how I look at Skyfall, it’s just another Bond-movie. It’s the same ballet we’ve seen a million times before; Bond falling for a bunch of hot chicks, having trouble with his superiors, a charismatic villain and a lot of explosions. Only this time it’s probably more about the drama and less on the action. Hopefully better than Quantum of Solace, but never going to rise to the excellency of Casino Royale.

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The most anticipated Scifi movies of 2012

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

Previous lists:
Most anticipated Comedies of 2012
Most anticipated Fantasy films of 2012
Most anticipated Finnish films of 2012

We’ve seen so much of that endless superhero bullshit on the big screens lately that I think people are finally getting a bit fed up with whatever Spiderman meets Batman meets Green whoever reboot it’s going to be, nobody really gives a shit. Well, I’m wrong, I know, but as a scifi geek, I’m happy to see that it’s not all that’s coming to theaters next year – 2012 is building up to be quite a phenomenal year for proper good old high-concept space-battling tecnho-babbling scifi movies!

Directed by me

I know it’s a bit cheesy to put your own film to the list of “most anticipated movies” but what the hell. Moon Nazis are about to invade Earth in 2018, and a lot of big-ass CG-heavy space battle and black, politically incorrect humor is to follow. We Finns are not very good at appraising ourselves and our achievements, but I have to say I’m damn proud of Iron Sky, and happy to be able to chip in to the wonderful scifi year of 2012 with a film which I hope will live a long life.

Directed by Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachovski

Based on a major award winning David Mitchell novel with the same name, Cloud Atlas is a huge, complex and multi-layered film directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski siblings. The cast is jaw-dropping (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving and my pal Götz Otto), the budget mind-boggling (140 million), and the whole story sounds like a really wonderful yet challenging science fiction epic. Take this:

“Cloud Atlas is an epic story of humankind in which actions and consequences of our lives impact one another throughout the past, present and the future as one soul is shaped from a murderer into a savior and a single act of kindness ripples out for centuries to inspire a revolution.”

Wow. That’s a handful! Not too many pictures have yet emerged of the film, let alone a teaser, but it’s already a film that I know is going to swipe the floor with anything else they can throw at it. Save Iron Sky, of course

Directed by Josh Trank

Grabbing the title of the best trailer of 2012, Chronicle is a story that starts small and builds into epic proportions. A bunch of kids find out that they have a special ability to move objects with the power of their mind – telekinesis, that is. And they use it like any bunch of teenagers would – to bug off other people. As always with telekinesis, first it’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt, and then it all goes to hell. Chronicle is the first film for the director Josh Trank, and follows the trend of found footage -scifi, which we’ve seen executed in Cloverfield and District 9.

Directed by Ridley Scott

When Ridley Scott said he’d be rebooting the Alien franchise, I wanted to hit him, but then I rememberd that it’s Ridley Scott, man who brought us Alien, Blade Runner and whatnot, and I realized that if somebody could do it properly, it would be the man himself.

Still, it sounded like a shit idea.

Prometheus production has kept a tight lid on the film, and only the bits that had trickled to the outside world kept people guessing whether the film is going to be an Alien-movie at all – and when the teaser posters and first trailer popped out, it became clear it’s a stand-alone mythology, unconnected to Alien. Phew.

The film is a search of the origins of mankind, and it looks really really good, in the way only Ridley Scott can do. Dark, brutal and gut-wrenchingly scifi.

Directed by Gary Ross (Pleasantville)

I’ve always wanted to do a movie about Stephen King‘s (under pseudonym Richard Bachman) book The Long Walk. The idea is that every year there’s a big competition in US where 100 kids are chosen to walk from Maine to Massachusettes. That’s about 4 days of walking. The rules are simple: if you walk slower than certain pace, you die. If you stop, you die. If you don’t finish first, you die. People volunteer, because the price is that if they win, they can ask for anything they want, and they will get it.

Not surprisingly, somebody (well, by “somebody” I mean none other than Frank Darabont ) has bought the rights for the film.

Anyway, it’s a simple and beautiful story, and The Hunger Games takes similar sort of idea – set in the future, there’s a game where from every state (or district, since USA doesn’t exist anymore) a teenager is picked randomly and set into the playing field with 20-something other competitors, and the idea is to come out as the sole survivor. Directed by Gary Ross, man who wrote Big and directed the awesome Pleasantville, Hunger Games could really be something special.

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The most anticipated Finnish movies of 2012

Sunday, January 1st, 2012

(The most anticipated comedies of 2012)
(The most anticipated Fantasy films of 2012)

The next year is going to be quite an exciting film year for Finland. Coming out are two of the biggest films in the history of Finnish cinema - Iron Sky (which I have not added to the list of the most anticipated Finnish films because well.. It’s my film and Mannerheim, and bunch of great directors are back with their new films, which are more international than ever. Although Finland hasn’t quite found it’s “thing” yet for International market, the variety of next year’s films is so vast that whichever of these films makes it big internationally, many similar ones are bound to follow. I might even be so bold to claim that next year is going to be a watershed moment for Finnish films!

Dome Karukoski (Lapland Odyssey, The Beauty And The Bastard)

Talk about an epic project! Mannerheim is a movie about the Finnish marshal and president Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim, one of the most beloved and controversial Finns ever lived, and the movie about his life has been in production for ages. The film has a humongous budget of 12,7 million €, and it’s been going through huge financial and artistic troubles along years of the production. The big turning point was when the director Renny Harlin stepped down, and a great Finnish young director Dome Karukoski grabbed the helm. And finally now it seems the film is really about to happen! I’m a bit skeptical on 2012 release, but … crossing fingers!

It’s going to be interesting to see how the filmmakers treat the controversial image of Mannerheim, a man who Hitler admired, who ran Finland during it’s hardest time in history, traveled the world and made decisions that both saved the country and threw it to the wolves.

Aku Louhimies (Frozen Land, Tears of April)

Vuosaari is a collection of dark, gritty love stories in Vuosaari suburb of Helsinki. Directed by Aku Louhimies, one of the best directors of all time coming from Finland, only shadowed by Aki Kaurismäki, the film is probably going to get a lot of international attention as well. And it’s about time for Aku, he’s been doing great films in Finland, and I think he would have a lot to give to the international cinema as well!

Directed by Petri Kotwica (Black Ice)

Rat King is an Finnish-Estonian co-production from another remarkable Finnish director Petri Kotwica, who has always done interesting, edgy thrillers, and Rat King continues this trend. It’s a film about a game addict who get tangled into a web of shit when he decides to participate in one last game. The story is ambitious to say the least, and the film looks really, really dark and beautiful. The film is going to be a good mindfuck thriller, the kind I like, and it’s being shot by Mika Orasmaa, who I worked with on Iron Sky, and the stuff he’s saying about the film sounds amazing.

Directed by Stobe Harju

Remember those great films made by bands? Me neither. Well, Stobe Harju goes bravely with Nightwish where no filmmaker has ever succeeded, and from what I’ve heard, he very well might be the first to actually score. The film Imaginarium is a story about an old composer on his deathbed, remembering his past life. To accompany the film, Nightwish released also an album, which sold like hell and has been said the best album by Nightwish, and according to Metal Hammer, the best album of 2011.

I have absolutely no idea what to expect, other than I know Stobe is a visual director, and Nightwish is a very visual band. So, a visual film, and if the story works, it very well might be a masterpiece.

Directed by Samuli Valkama

A small, cute love story about a guy and his father who both fall in love with the same girl, an American square dance teacher who comes to Finland. The film has nice international appeal to it, and the actress Emilie de Ravin (known from her work at Lost) is fresh sight in otherwise rather monochromatic casting options. This is the first film for the director Samuli Valkama, and it seems like he’s becominge a director who doesn’t necessarily dwell in the darkest corners to find a story, and although Finngrit is a thing of beauty and a nice export coming from Finland, we certainly need directors like Samuli and films like Love and Other Troubles to remind that it’s actually alright to live in Finland!

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The most anticipated Fantasy films of 2012

Friday, December 30th, 2011

(See the Most Anticipated Comedies of 2012 here.)

The key word for Fantasy films in 2012 is “sexy”. We’ve already seen all the beasts the CG can throw at us, all the beautiful mountains New Zealand can offer and heard all the stories your grandparents have been scaring you shitless with. The fantasy genre of today is like the fairy tales most of these films are based on – sexy, dark, gory and by far not meant for anybody under the age of 18.

Directed by Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings-trilogy, King Kong)

This is the very book I’ve read more times than anything else in the world. This very story is the basis for Lord of the Rings, which is my all-time favorite book, and film(s) as well. So not surprisingly, especially with Peter Jackson directing, I’m happy to see The Hobbit bringing back the beautiful landscapes and the awesome cast on the big screen, in a way only PJ can do. Big, beautiful and epic.

Having said that, I wasn’t crazy about the trailer. Everything is exactly as it should be, but it doesn’t feel like there’s anything more. I hope it’s just the first trailer -syndrome, and they are saving the more interesting bits for later, but part of me is scared that the film wouldn’t have been pushed far enough, and could be left hanging somewhere in-between, like King Kong did.

But still, this is the one film I’m waiting more than anything else next year, by far.

Directed by Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow, Kill Buljo)

Tommy Wirkola directed one of the best films coming out from Nordic countries ever, and definitely the best film in 2009 – a Nazi Zombie comedy Dead Snow. The film went extremely well, becoming a cult classic, and not surprisingly, he got offered a change to direct a major Hollywood film, and Hansel And Gretel‘s classic story got under his fingertips.

It’s been 15 years since the traumatic gingerbread house incident, and the siblings Hansel and Gretel have decided to make sure nobody has to go through that shit again. They’ve devoted themselves in hunting down and killing witches all around the world. The film is loaded with great actors – Jeremy Renner as Hansel and stunning Gemma Arterton as Gretel, and even a Finnish actress Pihla Viitala has found her way to the cast.

I’m excited to see how Tommy Wirkola handles a big, 60-million dollar production, but given how well he did with Dead Snow, it’s probably going to kick some really serious ass. It’s going to look great and have great action, shitload of fun and buckets of blood and gore in it.

Directed by Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X-Men)

Doing a good trailer is an art form of it’s own, and films shouldn’t be judged based solely on the trailers. But looking at Jack the Giant Killer‘s trailer, I fell instantly in love with the it. Bryan Singer is a wonderful director who knows how to throw stuff at big screen, and it feels like the film could be something to rock your socks off for good.

It’s based on Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack the Giant Killer fairytales, where the basic story is that Jack (played by Nicholas Hoult) goes out to kill giants, and a giant beanstalk is somehow associated to the story. Honestly, I haven’t read or even seen either of the stories so I don’t know shit, because they are not that popular fairy tales in Finland, and I don’t like fairy tales anyway, but – having said that – the film looks like a lot of fun.

Directed by Rupert Sanders

This year we have two Snow White -stories coming at us, both in a completely different tangent. Snow White and the Huntsman is a dark-tinted fantasy adventure from a first-time director Rupert Sanders, who’s juggling a massive 70 million dollar budget as his first feature. The plot is a classic one – evil queen orders Thor… I mean Kirk’s dad… I mean the Huntsman to drag Snow White into the forest, and kill. But instead, he saves her life – and because this is a dark action fantasy film, she learns the art of war and gets ready to kick the queen in her pretty ass with the aid of seven dwarves.

The trailer promises some quite unforgettable costume design and stunning performance from Charlize Theron (as usual), and although it doesn’t feel like the film will be renewing the genre in any way, it seems to be extremely well made. Good start for Rupert Sanders, I would say.

Directed by Tarsem (The Fall, Immortals)

The other Snow White films comes from… wherever the films by Tarsem usually come from. Nobody knows. The guy is a visual genius, and brave enough to extend his geniusness to storytelling. Knowing how amazing work he did with The Fall, whatever Mirror, Mirror is, it’s going to be very… special. And beautiful. The only aspect I’m a bit worried about is that it’s a comedy, and I have no idea what kind of a comedian Tarsem is…

Posted in Top lists, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Most anticipated comedies of 2012

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

Comedy of the 2012 is cynical, offensive and way over the top. Gone are the days of the John Hughes -style 80′s comedy with a good spirit and positive undertone – today’s comedy is about people getting drunk, killed, humiliated and ending up dead in the gutter, and then being pissed on by a crack whore.

And we love it.

These are the five most interesting comedies coming out next year.

Ps. I decided not to include my film Iron Sky here because that would be like president voting for him/herself in the elections.

(Umm… I guess they actually do that.)

Directed by Larry Charles (Borat, Brüno)

I’ve always found Sacha Baron Cohen‘s characters stupidly funny, and The Dictator just happens to hit the politically incorrect nerve exactly the right way. Again, Sacha and his court director Larry Charles go way over the top, but in their world, it seems to work. It’ll be a lot of people who are going to get really angry about The Dictator, and that’s what Sascha and Larry are best at – making films that get all kind of bigots, fundamentalists and nationalists enraged. If The Dictator doesn’t get him a death threat or two, nothing will. Although, I bet he’s swamped in them anyway – even I got some due to my work with Star Wreck, and I’m waiting what fun Iron Sky brings to the table.

Directed by Nima Nourizadeh

Remember the John Hughes films in the 80′s, where a teenager decides to throw a big party to all the kids in the school to become the popular one, but then everything goes to shit? Well, Project X has the same concept, but it’s being updated to meet the demands of today’s viewers. Written by Matt Drake (Tully) and Michael Bacall (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) and produced by Todd Phillips, known better as the director of both Hangovers, the trailer promises quite a fucked-up crazy party movie, and in addition for being an extremely well-made trailer, it seems like a hell of a lot of fun for the audience that has already seen everything.

Directed by Seth Rogen

Back in 2007 – that’s centuries ago in Internet time – Seth Rogen did an 8-minute short film by the name of Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse, and released a trailer of it to the Internet. Something happened, and the short film never actually surfaced. But now – centuries later – a film based on the short called The Apocalypse is about to be shot and released, and it has a cast of some of the funniest men in Hollywood. And they all play themselves.

The story is simple – something has gone south in the world, and the apocalypse is here. Two guys – apparently, now there’s more of them, though – have locked themselves up in a shelter. They are the last survivors – and all of them class A assholes.

“It’s going to be a pretty offensive vision of the apocalypse,” Seth Rogen says to MTV Movies. The film has a budget of 30 million USD.

The trailer for the short film is here:

Directed by Adam Shankman (Hairspray, The Pacifier)

I don’t like musicals, but I like 80′s hard rock, and I like Tom Cruise. Yeah, I know you want to start whining something about Cruise, but why not shut the hell up and watch some of the great films he’s done instead. Try Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol, for example. Or you might say Tom is not very funny – well, one of the best roles he’s done is in Tropic Thunder, and he’s funny as hell. And this time, Tom Cruise is playing a hard rock legend, and although he’s not the main character, his presence somehow cements the fact that this film has a lot of class, style and good meininki in it. Meininki is Finnish and means good times. Sort of.

Every /b/-tard‘s and Redditor‘s wet dream – the film where all the Internet memes become alive and part of the feature film plot – is happening. An American VFX company Nurv has (rick)rolled it’s sleeves and slammed together a concept teaser, by which they hope to get studios and A-list stars interested.

The plot is an Alice In Wonderland -type of story about a guy who gets lost in the wild world of the Internet, in search of a girl he met at an Internet chatroom. The imaginary kingdom of the Internet is hosted by none other than Antoine Dodson – yes, the very Bed Intruder Guy himself – and the film is overloaded with dozens of Internet meme stars (Numa Numa Guy, Boxxy, Tay Zonday and Double Rainbow Guy to name a few). All of them the real deal.

The movie hasn’t been filmed yet, so I’m a bit skeptical on 2012 release, but it has a script, and it’s being actively financed on IndieGoGo, so if you want to see this happen, head on over there and hand them a dime or two.

Anything I missed? Anything that’s not supposed to be there? Let’s hear your thoughts!

Posted in Most Anticipated, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Dr. Professor’s Thesis of Evil is here!

Saturday, October 15th, 2011

Today was released one of the most interesting film productions hailing from Finland in the last few years – a short film called Dr. Professor’s Thesis of Evil, a dark superhero comedy made in the most interesting fashion. They call the method Motion Novel, which basically is a combination with slightly animated photos embedded with great sound design, dialogue and music. The method makes it possible to create cost-efficiently stunning visuals and great (voice) acting, two of the hardest things to grasp by a small indie film crew from a random small country in Europe, and create a polished, ultra-cool end result.

And that is what Dr. Professor’s Thesis of Evil is. Added with a successful crowd funding campaign, the film is my new favorite project from Winland, and hopefully we’ll get to see more of these Motion Novels popping up from these far reaches of the Earth.

You can watch the whole movie Dr. Professor’s Thesis of Evil …

Here!

And here’s the trailer. Enjoy:

Dr. Professor’s Thesis of Evil Official Teaser from Thesis of Evil on Vimeo.

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Lesson on Independent Film: The People vs. The People vs. George Lucas

Saturday, October 15th, 2011

A surprising “review” of the quite well-known independent documentary The people vs. George Lucas appeared on Twitch Film the other day, in the form of an open letter to the director of the film, Alexandre Philippe. The link started to travel around the Internet, but I wasn’t sure of the content. It’s a long rant about Alexandre skipping the payment of the artwork for the artist of the poster for the film, which is bad of course. But simultaneously, it had the smell of uninformed provocative horseshit which ended up with sharing the email address of Alexandre, suggesting people to send hate mail to him. Read the open letter here and feel the hatred towards Alexandre piling up.

The unpaid artwork.

You ready for the lesson?

Well, here’s Alexandre’s response. First, hats off to Twitch for publishing also the respond to the open letter. Alexandre jumps into the accusations written by David and goes through them very thoroughly, defending his standpoint and telling in quite detail how independent film is being financed. The bottom line is: by deferring his work as an artist, he will be getting his money back for his work if the film ever ends up making money. Way before the producers or the director sees a dime. That’s the reality of independent film – if the film becomes successful and breaks even, it will take a long time for the money to travel to the artists, and there’s nothing much the filmmaker can do about it. Other than defend himself from the accusations spat at him after 14 hours shooting day and promise that he’s working hard as hell on it. Furthermore, he goes on noting that it’s actually not very good journalism to not to call, email or try to take any contact in any way to confirm the accusations made by a third party, and then end up releasing the private email of the director in the article, and asking people to send hate mail to him.

This is a good lesson in independent film making. There’s so many people who believe the moment a distributor, whose logo they can remember seeing in front of a film, jumps on board and starts distributing the film, that the filmmakers become instantly rich big name in Hollywood. (I’ve done a distribution deal with Universal with my first film and I have now 10€ in my bank account.) So at least before making these assumptions, please make sure you know what you are talking about.

Todd Brown from Twitch Film sums it quite well in this response to the discussion. And still I think the whole Open Letter did open a very interesting discussion, so it was good to read it and even greater to read Alexandre’s response. The bottom line is: the only way to make sure the independent filmmakers get paid for doing what they love is by supporting them, and paying for their products in whatever way you feel like. A good way would be to buy the DVD. Probably as directly as possible from the filmmakers.

TL;DR: Good film discussion here, follow the links:

1. , 2. and 3.

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Let’s talk about VFX, baby!

Monday, August 8th, 2011

I’ve been working on a Computer Graphics heavy features for the last 13 years, and set up a company with my friend and colleague Samuli Torssonen & a bunch of others, focusing solely on visual effects for feature films and advertisements, called Energia Productions, in Tampere, Finland. Now that we’re about to step in to the last leg of the big post-production push of our second feature film Iron Sky, I thought about sharing some thoughts on working with a visual effects team, from director’s point of view. It’s good to know that as a director I’m hopelessly inept when it comes to technology of any kind, so I’m helpless and relying totally on the experience and creativity of my team, and of course, the close working relationship with our CGI producer / VFX supervisor Samuli T.

TAXI RIDE TO THE SHADY SIDE

The relationship between a Visual Effects (VFX) artists and the director is not unlike the one of a taxi driver and a customer. Whereas both have the same goal – to get from place A to place B – their approach to the topic is quite different. Director knows where he’s headed, and a skilled VFX artist knows how to get there, but just like with a taxi driver, it’s usually better to let them choose the route, otherwise you might end up somewhere in the shady part of the town with a nasty bill in your hand.

It’s not always easy to find a good working relationship with a VFX team, because the common language is not the same. It bears striking resemblances, but it’s different. Again, both have the same end result in mind, but the ways to get there are completely different, whether you’re a director or a VFX wiz. So it’s good to get to know the VFX team, but let the VFX supervisor take care of running the team. It’s sometimes absolutely irresistible to burst out into a fountain of ideas when watching someone working on a small bit of the movie on the screen, but usually that ends up with you fighting with VFX supervisor, the artist getting confused and/or budget bouncing up and down and producers starting to call you.

CGI producer / VFX supervisor Samuli Torssonen leading the Lightwave team.

So the key is to work closely with the supervisor, but let him/her do their job. See, as a director, you’ll be free to ramble on your artistic visions as much as you want to the supervisor, and his/her job is to turn it into man hours, polygons, choose of programs and so forth. Supervisor knows the budget, knows the resources and knows the schedule, and can tune up the director’s requests to match the given parameters. Sometimes, it might not be possible, but it’s better to hear the bad news from the supervisor sooner than later.

PREVIEWS ARE THE BITCH

What I always find the hardest working as a director on a VFX heavy film are the previews. It’s always a big guessing game trying to get an understanding on what to look at with previews, what not to look at, and how to comment them the most productive way.

See, in the ideal world at least in my mind the process of a shot (from director’s point of view) is as follows: First, you sit down with the VFX supervisor, the DP, the AD etc., and sort out the shot you want to be done. Then, you get to see a rough animatic of it – something to see to determine that the camera movement, the scale, the length and so on are approximately right. Then, you possibly see a concept art of the environment to be able to judge a bit on the lightning and the general mood of the set. And after that, you see a draft of the shot when it’s 20% done, comment it, see another version with your comments implemented and further developed at around 60% done, and then something just before it’s being determined to be final, at around 90%, for the final tweaks. Then the shot is ready, all is dandy and you have what you came in for.

This is how it works in theory. In practice, it’s unfortunately not this structured. All the talk about percents is completely arbitrary and have absolutely no ties to reality, because with a shot there’s only two possible situations: it’s either ready, or it’s not ready. Anything in between can turn into any amount of trouble, regarding what you are asking, and how it can be done. Usually, the biggest problem is that something in the shot just doesn’t look right or real, but the big task is to pin-point what it is. It can be perspective, the shadows on the ground, the chroma key, light setup with shot material vs. computer-generated material, or any number of smaller and smaller details – usually a bunch of them rather than one. And requesting changes – even just small ones – can suddenly push the shot back to the very beginning, because it might turn out it needs to be re-done completely. In the end, all you have in the schedule is finished shots and unfinished shots, and as long as the schedule and the unfinished shots are in some kind of balance things are good.

And when they’re not, people start to sweat. Yes, you included, herr Direktor. And that sometimes leads into situation where you either need to agree to compromise, or start killing other shots to get this one at hands right. That decision is usually the one you’d like to push as far as possible, but it’ll come in front of you, and then the shot is either in or out, or you go out and find more time and money, which are the two luxuries you usually have absolutely none left at the post production phase anymore. All the reserves have been used, all the tricks have been done. It’s just you, the deadline and the decision.

But much more than that, working on a VFX shots is just absolutely rewarding. As a director, you’re not requested to sit around at the VFX house, waiting for renders to finish and artists to get frames ready, but you’ll pop over every once a week and see as the thing you’ve had in your head is starting to come alive, piece by piece. There’s nothing more rewarding than watching something you’ve only been able to describe to people with words suddenly have lines, and colors and shapes instead of an actor in front of a glowing plain green screen.

Lead Compositor Juuso Kaari leading the composing team

INSIDE A VFX STUDIO

I’ve been to a bunch of VFX houses, travelling here and there, and there’s two kind of joints I’ve stumbled across to. There are the ones crowded with stubbly-bearded ADs chilling by their Macs, sipping latte, with hot receptionists asking if you prefer your Pellegrino bubbly or still (I always go still). And then there are the unearthed nerd caves with poor air condition, with wires and dust fighting for breeding ground in the corners.

I prefer the latter. Why? Because I’ve grown in that kind of atmosphere. I like to think in my mind that a good VFX team is too devoted to their work to really care about the shit laying around, too deep in their work to have time to take the cups to the dishwasher and too busy to even leave home when the day is over. These joints may not look like much, but they are the real powerhouses, at least in my experience. I obviously haven’t visited Pixar, or any of the big big studios, but I’ve worked at Energia, my CGI production house, and as an aesthetic pedantic asshole I’m usually the one complaining about the mess of the place. Well, I was until I realized it’s not going to change anything, because it’s just better that way. What’s around the screens doesn’t matter, only what’s going on on them.

It’s interesting what kind of people end up in VFX business, and end up being masters of their craft, too. In Energia, we have scientists, musicians, architects, graphic artists, familymen – from France, UK, US, Canada, Finland… all working together, sharing the same enthusiasm – to make the best, the most beautiful film possible. The film you’ve had playing in your head for years and years, these guys are out there to make it real.

(One thing we don’t have, though, is women. Every now and then a girlfriend of some of the guys wanders around at Energia, but they never stay long. I wonder why

A good VFX artist is devoted, creative, technically skilled, inventive, able to pay attention to details. But in addition to this, he/she is usually also knowledgeable – it’s amazing how much you need to know about combustion engines, space stations, guns, cartwheels, different types of wood, fabrics, nature, light, history, math, physics… you name it. You never know where you need it, but there will be a day when the detailed knowledge you have about nuclear explosions in the lower earth atmosphere, or how velcro works under water, proves highly important to the task at hands.

Working with the team like Energia is highly rewarding, but you have to be aware of the basics of the difference between a film crew and a VFX team. It’s like working in slow motion film set, where every camera move and lightning change takes days to complete, yet everyone around you is busting their asses to get it done.

It’s weird, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. A good relationship with a good VFX house is crucial. Just look at Lucas and Industrial Light and Magic, or Peter Jackson and WETA. Maybe Energia will one day grow to be a house like them. One can hope!

Energia Productions main hall. Altogether, about 20+ VFX artists work at Energia currently, all focusing on Iron Sky.

(Photos by Joni Niva)

Posted in General, Movies, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Imagine report: Power to the People!

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

I was asked to participate in an interesting seminar / panel discussion that was part of the Imagine Film Festival program, in Amsterdam, Holland. The seminar was called Power to the People, and it discussed two basic topics: fan fiction and crowdsourcing. Attending alongside me were a New York -based filmmaker and an actor Zachary Oberzan, who had made his own interpretation of the book First Blood, called Flooding with Love for the Kid (2010), Alexandré Philippe, a documentary director who had released a film called The People vs. George Lucas (2010), and a Danish director Martin Koolhoven, who had crowdsourced 60-second edits of his hugely popular film Winter in Wartime (2008).

The Imagine panelists (from left): Zachary Oberzan, Alexandré Philippe, Timo Vuorensola and Martin Koolhoven.

The moderators had prepared a bunch of bold statements, which they flashed on the screen as a discussion starters, igniting the panelists to venture from fan art to crowd sourcing, crowd funding and finally the future of the film industry. Although I was one of the panelists, I felt the discussion was quite thorough, and didn’t degrade into circlejerking or a flame war at any point, which unfortunately can’t be said of every panel I’ve attended to.

Flooding with Love for the Kid is quite an interesting project, of which I had not heard of before the festival, although the film’s been out there quite prominently – just one of those things right down my alley that I’ve managed to somehow miss. The idea behind the film that it was shot with $96 in one apartment in New York, by Zachary Oberzan, who’s playing all the roles himself. Zachary, a big First Blood fan (first, the movie – then, the book), realized his life-long dream to re-interpret the novel, on which Stallone‘s film by the same name is based on. Fact is, he never had any money, equipement or crew to do it, but being an unemployed filmmaker and an actor in New York, he decided to quite waiting around for other people’s permission to make the film, and went ahead and just did it. The trailer is here:

Zachary told interesting stories, as he had contacted the novelist David Morrell who wrote the book, to gain his permission for making the film – and although Morrell didn’t own the rights, he did give his blessing. But still, Stallone has the filming rights for First Blood, and if he wanted to play asshole, he could sue Zachary quite fast. But the discussion of whether it would be either a fan film, a parody or something in between is something the lawyers are not especially enthusiastic to start fighting for.

Right now, Zachary is working on a film/theater project where he’s re-making shot-by-shot his youth fan remakes of Van Damme‘s movie KickBoxer (1989), and he tours around the world on theater stages showing the films and playing Van Damme on the stage simultaneously. A very interesting project touring right now, and goes by the name Your Brother, Remember. Check out the amazing trailer below – if this doesn’t make you think about Samuli Torssonen back in the days when he was working on Andy Bones and Star Wrecks, then nothing:

Alexandré Philippe, a director of The People vs. George Lucas jumps even further down the fan’s mind with his documentary, trying to find out an answer to the question of how far does the rights of the author go, and does a fanbase that’s been feeding the filmmaker for decades have any say on what can be done with the franchise and what not. Although Star Wars is quite unique case, it’s a great subject to mess around the topic; there probably is no fan of the original Star Wars saga who really can say they think the prequels, started by The Phantom Menace (2001), get even close to the original trilogy.

And more interestingly, as Lucas has been tampering with even the original trilogy, releasing new versions loaded with heaps of terrible, already outdated CGI and completely retarded plot twists and needless changes, the question is even more interesting. What version of the original Star Wars trilogy is the version that’s “real”? Who can make the decision? Lucas – who says that the latest remake of the original trilogy, the one where Han Shot First, is the real one, and the original one is obsolete? Or the fans who’ve fell in love during the last 30+ years over and over again to the very original trilogy – they’ve been denied an access to that film, and re-sold time and time again a newer, even worse version every time.

Check out this trailer for the film, it should prove to be quite an exciting watch indeed:

The last guest was a Dutch filmmaker Martin Koolhoven who made an extremely succesful Dutch film Winter In Wartime that’s been spreading on big screens all the way to the States. He was there because as a part of a competition, the fans of his film were asked to re-edit the film into 60 second segments. As it usually happens (he indicated it was especially a Dutch phenomenon), the people didn’t follow the rules and re-made the 60 second versions into a completely different stories that had nothing to do with the original film.

The winning piece was a very innovative 60 second short film where the main character rides a bicycle, and on his both sides jump on and off the characters of the film, thus telling in a very clever, cute and compressed form the story of the film. Instead of editing it, they shot the whole material, so they had really put an effort into making the film.

This led to a question I wasn’t able to give a clear answer to: why did I release Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning (2005) under a license which allows anyone to further distribute it the way anyone wants to, but not to make derivate works of it.

Like Martin said, there’s no better way to promote a film than a fan re-make – or a spinoff – of it – which have happened already so many times in Star Wreck’s case, the biggest of those being Star Wreck 2pi that’s currently in production – so why didn’t I allow, and encourage it further?

I enjoyed taking part in the panel, and liked the way the discussion travelled from defining a fan film to legal issues, and then moving on to separation between crowd sourcing and crowd funding, and eventually asking what’s the business model of a laptop filmmaker using Internet as his or her’s main distribution and marketing channel. I assume there’s not one clear answer to that, but I believe it’s “motion”. It’s impeartive to be able to keep the product alive, keep it spreading in whatever form it most naturally takes, in whatever media it most naturally goes to – whether it’s fan art, merchandise, DVD sales or whatever – and constantly try new things.

And coming back to Hugh Hancock‘s extremely good point he made during a seminar in Singapore – the most important thing in the Internet is to fail fast. Try new things, see if they work – and if they don’t, kill them, move on and come up with another idea. The Internet is in constant motion – the key is to keep up to it.

Here’s a a video of the trip; it’s quite long, and maybe quite confusing, but I wanted to grasp a bit of Amsterdam and a bit of the panel to it. Enjoy:

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