The Gallows is yet another found footage horror movie, but this one seems to have some studio execs rather fired up. The small indie horror film was snatched up by Warner Bros. and Blumhouse and will be released right in the middle of summer blockbuster season, rather than being dumped in mid-Septmeber.
the new full-length trailer for The Gallows shows us the story, which doesn’t excite me one way or another to be honest. But somebody out there has immense faith in the film.
Here is The full-length trailer for The Gallows:
These found footage horror films are hit or miss for me. It makes sense why they are so popular, because they are cheap and if they hit all the right notes the windfall can be spectacular (see: Paranormal Activity, which seems like a title card on all of these movies now… From the Producers of…). I always hope these movies bring the scares, so here’s hoping for The Gallows.
The Gallows stars an unknown cast of young actors, Cassidy Gifford, Ryan Shoos, Reese Mishler and Pfeifer Brown. Directed by Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing, The Gallows opens July 10.
Actor Oscar Isaac spoke with Matthew Sardo about the world of science fiction; from his current film by Alex Garland Ex Machina and how he was blown away by the script, to his excitement for his role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Isaac commented on if he was hesitant to sign up for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
“I was hesitant just as much as, okay is this a character I can play? After you get past the fact that I’m being asked to be in Star Wars, which is amazing and important. But then I have to think, well is there something there I can do with it. Can I bring something to it, and after speaking with J.J. and Lawrence Kasdan and Kathy Kennedy I felt like yeah, this is definitely something I want to be in,” said Isaac.
As far as Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Apocalypse, Isaac confirmed that he has filmed some scenes already and he has seen what he will look like in final makeup. He also touched on how he prepared for his role as Apocalypse.
“I’ve been reading the script a lot and trying to come at for me, an interesting angle. Definitely focusing on the fact he is the embodiment of the second coming of the judgments of God and that energy going in. We’re playing with that. What we are trying to do is make his philosophy, and what his mission is, one that is both simple but also holds water, that really makes sense throughout the whole movie. I think Simon Kinberg and Bryan Singer, we’ve been able to come up with something very cool,” said Isaac.
Ex Machina is in theaters now, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. will be in theaters on December 18, and X-Men: Apocalypse is scheduled for May 27, 2016.
Slow West is a Western that borrows from all Westerns, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just that this borrowing makes the film at hand a confused mishmash of tone and direction. It tries to be an introspective, art house Western, like The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford, but it also goes for a more mainstream, adventurous tone at times. There are even hints of the bleak humor from the Coen Brothers’ True Grit. But Slow West can never decide what it wants to be as we follow the story to its somber conclusion.
Kodi Smit-McPhee stars as Jay Cavendish, a young man from the Scottish Highlands who has traveled to the harsh western landscape of America to find his lost love. Jay is not cut out for the scoundrels and outlaws he will run across in this lawless land. Almost immediately, he is rescued from soldiers turned Indian hunters by Silas, a mysterious stranger played by Michael Fassbender. Silas warns him of the dangers in front of him on his journey, and offers his assistance for monetary compensation. Jay is reluctant for the most part, but he realizes over time that he needs Silas to get him to his ultimate destination.
The odd couple come across a handful of wanderers and bounty hunters, and the story opens up as we discover Silas’s motivation for helping Jay. At 84 minutes, Slow West wastes no time in moving these characters across the American West, it is lean and direct. But this danger and treachery Silas speaks of is not wholly displayed in the film, mostly because the film feels to slick and choreographed. The cinematography is marvelous, but it is too marvelous for the story it is trying to tell. Every shot and scene feels entirely staged. There is no grit or grime, characters are too clean, the landscape has the look of a set more than wide open space. It may have all been shot outside, but the camera stays too glossy to add the texture necessary to a story about cruel conditions and ruthless outlaws.
And as for that tone I mentioned earlier, it is all over the place. There is dark humor, a scene involving hallucinations, somber seriousness, action, everything really. Films can shift tones all the time, but they have to have conviction. It is almost as if director John Maclean is trying things on the screen, rather than dedicating his story to one or the other. Maclean shows real talent here, his story just needs refining.
Fassbender and Smit-McPhee work well with each other, but their relationship never goes beyond a surface level. In the end, it was tough to care about anybody in Slow West or where they ended up. Had the film decided on what sort of story it wanted to tell, and told it with the appropriate look and feel, it could have been a gem of a film. As it is, the crisis of Slow West is in its base identity.
According to Mike Fleming Jr. of Deadline, Paramount Pictures is putting together and all-star line up of writers to work on Transformers sequels and spinoffs.
Two months ago Paramount picked Akiva Goldsman to incubate ideas for the franchise. Now they’ve created a “writer’s room” with Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Iron Man scribes Art Marcum & Matt Holloway, Pacific Rim 2‘s Zak Penn and Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Lost‘s Jeff Pinkner.
According to Fleming there gave been no formal contracts signed yet.
Back in March Kirkman was promoting Paramount’s Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.
If you don’t remember Batkid from 2013 then you must have been under a non-social media rock.
Warner Bros. just released the first trailer for Batkid Begins the documentary based on the Make-A-Wish Foundation event in which San Francisco was transformed into Gotham City so that a five-year-old Miles could be Batman for a day.
Batkid Begins will be in select theaters on June 26.
The zombie genre may have found have found its source, Cooties. This horror comedy will have the most awkward zombie kills as kids get dropped left and right in this 96 minute R-rated film.
From the twisted minds of Leigh Whannell (co-creator of Saw and Insidious) and Ian Brennan (co-creator of “Glee”), COOTIES is a horror comedy with unexpected laughs and unapologetic thrills. When a cafeteria food virus turns elementary school children into killer zombies, a group of misfit teachers must band together to escape the playground carnage. The film stars Elijah Wood (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings), Rainn Wilson (“The Office”), and Alison Pill (“The Newsroom”) as teachers who fight to survive the mayhem while hilariously bickering in an uncomfortable love triangle on the worst Monday of their lives.
Cooties will be out on September 18 in theaters and on VOD.
David Letterman gave his final Top 10 List Wednesday night and Alec Baldwin, Barbara Walters, Steve Martin, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jim Carrey, Tina Fey, Peyton Manning and Bill Murray all appeared on stage to help Dave out.
The final Late Show with David Letterman was Wednesday night and the Foo Fighters played the final song. The band performed “Everlong” accompanied by highlights spanning 33 years of Letterman’s late-night career.
The Hashtag Show, is reporting that Marvel Studios is looking at Matthew McConaughey to play Norman Osborn in the new Spider-Man reboot (Spider-Man: New Avenger).
The site says that this news is unconfirmed at the moment and still a rumor for now.
The Spider-Man: New Avenger is scheduled for release on July 28th, 2017.
The concept of the corporation trying to take a hard-working man’s property has been used for centuries but Ken Pisani’s Colonus takes that concept and hits it on the head with a shovel!
The plot that Pisani has constructed is Total Recall on steroids. The Earth is gone. The colony on Mars had to pollute the planet to raise the temperature and the colony on Venus figured out that they could survive in cloud cities 50 kilometers above the surface. Now the colony on Mars wants what the colony on Venus has. Man versus man at its finest.
As an introduction to the series the reader is hooked by fourth page in. The main character Braxton is tough as nails and is more than pumped to defend his planet, and guess what, the corporation is ready to devour another world and doesn’t care who’s in the way. The premise works so well that I’m drooling for the next chapter.
If Frank Miller and Mike Mignola had a love child his name would be Arturo Lauria. His work very solid in the first chapter and his color palette choices are brilliant. Lauria’s action sequences are very smooth and deliberate. What worked really well was the advanced perspective, this lead to a very tense feeling while reading the book.
If you’re a fan of science fiction or Clint Eastwood, this is a must read.
Colonus
by Ken Pisani and Arturo Lauria
Debuting in Dark Horse Presents #10, May 2015
The future. Earth is a dead planet.
Its survivors have colonized Mars, while Earth’s outcasts–the criminals, miscreants, fringe-dwellers, and sociopaths–fled inward, to Venus.
Three generations later, the Mars colony has replicated the worst of the world they left behind: avarice, gluttony, and a thirst for power… while the denizens of Venus, strengthened by hardship forged in brutality and hellish conditions, thrive.
And now, Mars turns its attention to lovely Venus.
