Category Archives: Film
Film
Saturday At The Movies – Retaliate with G.I. Joe
Last week on Saturday At The Movies, our own Andy Burns took a look at G.I. Joe: Retaliation, here‘s what he thought of the film. This week, Emily McGuiness gives her opinion of the flick, movie ratings, the US military, violence, gravity missiles, and Channing Tatum.
I had low expectations for the second movie in the franchise. The first one was charming enough but it didn’t make me want to see the SFX heavy second movie. However Channing Tatum has come up in the world and The Rock is usually pretty entertaining. The movie seemed worth a go, even if I was forced to see it in 3D. Was I pleased?
Overall, I was pleased. They put forth enough of a plot to get me from action scene to action scene. I didn’t need much more than that. There were cool gadgets, hot ladies, hunky guys and plenty of ninja action. How could I ask for more? I wasn’t looking for mind-bending plot twists. *Spoiler* I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a good idea to blow up gravity projected missiles hanging above Earth. Wouldn’t the debris rain down on Earth anyway? Oh, well. There was one cool, unexpected 3D effect in a bullet coming straight at you. Usually those effects are annoying but in this case it did bring you further into the action sequence and made you feel like you were part of the fight. There was some good, some bad. I just wanted punching and fun. That is what I got.
My disappointments included, not enough Channing Tatum. I was promised him as a main character in this movie. *Spoiler* He’s been doing all the press junkets and interviews, like he’s not killed in the first eighth of the movie. We didn’t even get him half dressed. What kind of action movie is this!?
Nudity aside, this movie did bring back the warm and fuzzies for America’s military. A huge part of the appeal of G.I. Joe as we 80’s kids got older was the fact that you could join the military and in theory fight like the Joes did. It’s enough to make even the most hardened cynic patriotic. The best of America’s military code is shown in the movie: the camaraderie, the tough do-or-die attitude that gets you through any situation, the acceptance of women as equal partners in combat, trusting our President to make moral and clear decisions. Whether these ideals are actually upheld in the political/military arena is an article I won’t attempt. This all culminated in the award ceremony toward the end of the movie. The Joes stand in full dress uniform, awarded medals of honor by their Colonel (Bruce Willis) and the Colonel finally acknowledges Lady Jaye as an equal. Roadblock even received General Patton’s gun in a fraternal promise to make Cobra Commander pay. It stirred my red, white and blue.
There were also a number of children in the theater, which I found interesting. It was PG-13 and these kids were in no way close to 13. People died. Girls got somewhat naked. War was waged in a somewhat fake way. These parents can’t think this was a cartoon. Maybe I’m old and crotchety but this wasn’t a kid’s movie.
Would I go see the next one? Maybe. If they brought Channing Tatum back. I can probably only do one movie of Parkour dude making eyes at Lady Jaye and The Rock being all muscled.
A Solid 5 nostalgic 80’s cartoons out of 10
It’s G.I. Joe: Retaliation Vs. Evil Dead Vs. Jurassic Park 3D – Biff Bam Pop’s Box Office Predictions
All bets are off this weekend at the cinema!
No, it’s not the release of the summer’s first tent-pole feature (Iron Man 3 is still a month away) – it’s just BBP’s esteemed Editor-in-Chief, Andy Burns, asking me to do him a solid and come up with astute predictions for the box office this weekend. As you might recall, I’m not so good at this job, and on this particular weekend, the science of money prognostication is…even more complicated.
You see, it’s the second weekend of G.I. Joe Retaliation battling some downright Evil Dead remake, which are both up against the re-release of the classic Jurassic Park (in 3D this time out). Accounting has never been more difficult!
Check out my (hopefully not-so futile) attempts at number crunching after the jump!
In the Thick of It: Duking It Out for CineCoup
Two weeks ago I wrote about taking the plunge on the CineCoup Film Accelerator, making a trailer for Starkers, a feature-to-be in the hunt for $1 million in Cineplex funding. We’re definitely swimming in the deep end; no water-wings for the teams competing from all over Canada. When the contest opened there were ninety-one teams. Now there’s eighty-two. Fourteen days, and attrition has set in.
We’ve done two Mission Videos already in that time. Every Sunday, the CineCoup teams scramble to get a video in by midnight, which appears for public viewing starting the following Monday at 9pm. The first Mission Video was a “power trio” vid, giving each team a chance to introduce their members. Teams leapt at the chance to unleash their pent-up creativity. Check out the the three top videos so far after the jump!
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Trailer Time: More Star Trek Into Darkness
Your summer blockbusters not coming quick enough? Here’s the second official Star Trek Into Darkness trailer, playing before Oz the Great and Powerful in most theaters:
Oh wow. They are specifically dodging the identity of the villain, but “by now you’ve all heard about what happened in London,” and “he’s a fugitive and” Kirk wants “to take him out.” What do you folks think?
All I know is I can’t wait for May 17th! “Punch it!”
CineCoup’s Million-Dollar Green-Light
The toughest part about making a movie is, well, everything. You need a good story. Someone has to make that story into a decent script. Actors have to bring the script to life. A director has to realize the world the actors inhabit, giving the movie its shape and style. A host of people bring that director’s vision to fruition. There’s editing, effects, sound, score, and that doesn’t even get to distribution and marketing and how much fizzy sugar water is this all going to sell anyway. Making movies is hard, and every one that gets done is a minor miracle.
That puts CineCoup in the minor miracle business. Founded by J. Joly and Brian Wideen in May of 2012, the CineCoup Film Accelerator is a new model for filmmaking. They decided to put the power in social media, and let people decide where their tastes lie, before the film actually gets made. Trailers are what open the doors. This past weekend, CineCoup opened the curtain on ninety-one trailers from indie filmmakers across Canada. They run the gamut from comedy to drama to horror to sci-fi. Each one is two-minutes of first impression, to make you want to see a movie that hasn’t even been made. By leveraging Facebook, Twitter and the like, these scrappy teams can duke it out for fans, and CineCoup gets to see what plays with a bunch of different audiences. Over three months and through weekly media exercises, the teams will build on their feature ideas, and CineCoup will relentlessly narrow the field, à la American Idol. The winning team gets a million dollars toward the production of their film, backed by Cineplex Odeon. Not Avengers money, but enough to get a good little indie film really rolling.
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Trailer Time: The Hangover Part III
Vegas
junkies, rejoice! The trailer for The Hangover Part III has just been released, and this spring the wolf pack heads back to the strip to wrap up the unhappy trilogy of errors – Vegas-style.
Slotted for release on May 24, 2013, the third and final chapter will see Galifinakis, Helms, Cooper, Jeong and other favourites going hard on the hijinks. Also rumoured? Melissa McCarthy – which has me sold.
But here, enjoy the trailer:
I’m a huge fan of sin city; this is why I loved The Hangover. I don’t think I’m alone… the first movie grossed almost $45 million in its opening weekend; this may look dismal compared to The Hangover Part II, which took place in Bangkok and took in over $85 million at its debut. But the Las Vegas antics were always at the heart of the movie’s success, and if the franchise hopes to continue its box office run to the bank, it’s wise to bring the wolf pack back to the familiarity of the strip.
No doubt The Hangover Part III will prove one of the bigger summer blockbusters; even if the movie can’t live up to the original, everyone loves a good Hangover story… not to mention another movie-based excuse to go on a Vegas binge of your own!
Mighty Marvel March: The New Iron Man 3 Trailer
Here is a very special Trailer Time for Mighty Marvel March here at Biff Bam Pop! Ladies and gentlemen, Avengers and civilians, super-villains and metahuman terrorists, may I present the new trailer for Iron Man 3!
Wow. We get a better look at the Iron Patriot, at the Mandarin, a whole bunch of different Iron Man armors, and was that the Hulkbuster??
Iron Man 3 stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, and Ben Kingsley. The film opens on May 3rd, 2013, and that day just can’t get here fast enough!
What do you folks think?
Saturday At The Movies: Zero Dark Thirty
I couldn’t wait until I saw this movie. It was closure in a way, a horrendous deed was done and for once the bad guy got caught. The historical drama, Zero Dark Thirty, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, written by Mark Boal and produced by Bigelow, Boal and Megan Ellison, centers around the events leading up to the discovery of Osama bin Laden’s hideout and his execution. Now there has been a lot of controversy with critics saying that the film did not give enough factual information, or that it downplayed the horror of torture. Maybe the critics are right, but who cares? For me, it was important to see this film. Why? One good reason; a group of terrorists known as al-Qaeda, were given an order from Osama bid Laden to attack and murder American citizens. I wanted to see how we finally caught the monster and this film does a good job in telling the story. Learn more after the jump.
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