Category: Daily
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Random geek crashes the Visionaries party at the Con
Oh, there was a hilarious moment early on during that EW Visionaries panel yesterday, when a fan leaped onto the stage somehow, in a faux-geek guise, to crash the party. Here’s a clip of the disturbance, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly:
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COMIC-CON: Visionaries Jackson and Cameron address the masses
The crowning jewel of the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, by far, has been the Entertainment Weekly-sponsored “Visionaries” panel yesterday evening, featuring filmmakers Peter Jackson and James Cameron. So many real-world, in-the-trenches, eye-on-the-future topics were discussed that it became tedious to sit and transcribe the proceedings, so after a while I just committed myself to as many video clips as I could grab. Though I was tweeting as much as possible. Ditto Jeff Wells, who passed along some nice quotes throughout.The two talked about everything from motion-capture technology to balancing the duties of screenwriter with that of producer and director, and really, anything in between. It was the most enlightening panel Comic-Con could have hoped for, and even the attendee questions were brighter than usual.
Line of the evening: “It’s not a good idea to ask a woman if she wants to have another baby when she’s crowning,” which was Cameron’s response to a query about his next project.
Much of the discussion was dedicated to the idea that these two guys constantly push the envelope, not only of what is possible in cinema, but of what a studio is willing to fund. Cameron in particular displayed his usual maverick side when questions like this came about, at one point saying that Warner Bros. needed to “grow a pair of balls” regarding an eventual 3D release of the “Lord of the Rings” franchise.
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COMIC-CON: Peter Jackson receives standing ovation at first ever Con appearance
Peter Jackson made his long-awaited first trip to Comic-Con yesterday in support of Neill Blomkamp’s “District 9,” which screened to a select audience Thursday. He received the expected standing ovation by the many Ringers and Bad-Tasters in attendance.“This is a moment to remember for the rest of my life,” he said after snapping a few photos of the audience like a geek in heaven.
Jackson was joined by Blomkamp and actor Sharlto Copley on stage for a discussion of the thoughtful sci-fi film. An extended trailer (that, to my mind, gave away too much of the plot’s particulars) cranked the crowd’s anticipation for the film up to 11, but I personally wish the moderator had drawn out some more insightful commentary from Copley, whom I praised to the ends of the earth after seeing his riveting performance Thursday.
Jackson talked about the project’s genesis, being born from the ashes of his failed “Halo” project. The seeds of “District 9” can be found in Blomkamp’s short film “Alive in Joburg,” which crossed Jackson’s path when he was seeking out a helmer for “Halo.”
“The idea was that we would produce ‘Halo,’ but from the very beginning we wanted to find a new director, someone who was fresh, original, who would bring a new spin to the film,” Jackson said. “Neill had done a couple of short movies and we were really impressed. And then ‘Halo’ died due to studio politics. We got kind of disillusioned with what happened and we thought, ‘Why don’t we try to take control of the situation,’ so we suggested the idea of working on an original idea. Keep the budget low and put this energy into a different project. So it worked out for the best.”
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COMIC-CON: A very important date with the designs of ‘Alice in Wonderland’
Yesterday I moseyed on over to Seventh Ave., between J and K Streets for a glimpse of Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” production design set-up, and the display was predictably jaw-dropping.An empty bulding has been converted into various elements of Wonderland, from the hall of doors to the tea party set-up to the Red Queen’s throne room, it was all the eye-popping Burton splendor you could hope for. The other side included a stop on the massive “Tron: Legacy” viral event, which was thoroughly covered by Devindra Hardawar at /Film.
Given our tendency to champion below-the-line talent here at In Contention, I thought I owed it to costume designer Collen Atwood (whose threads were also on display) and production designer Robert Stromberg to tour the event and offer up some snaps of their work. Models and concept sketches were strewn throughout as well. Both designers, I think it’s safe to say, are heading for Oscar nominations next year.
Here’s a taste of what I saw today:
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James Cameron on ‘The Hurt Locker’
With the more gossipy factions of the press trying to conjure up tension between him and his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, it’s great to see that James Cameron is having none of it.
In this extract from an interview with David Poland — worth checking out here — Cameron sings the praises of “The Hurt Locker,” suggesting it could emerge as the “Platoon” of the Iraq generation. He also makes clear that they continue to enjoy a professional friendship … so the wags hoping for some kind of bitter rivalry come Oscar season will be disappointed.
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WEEKLY WRAP: Comic-Con, a taste of ‘Avatar’ and ‘Alice’
• Comic-Con was the week’s big story, with 25 minutes of footage from “Avatar” its major talking-point so far.• Meanwhile, the rather less glitzy sci-fi of “District 9” wowed the crowds.
• And Gary Oldman slipped some unexpected news about the next Batman installment.
• Good week for trailers, as both “Alice in Wonderland” and “Bright Star” offered a crazyglimpse of their goods.
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COMIC-CON: Acker, Bekmambetov and Burton showcase ‘9’
Focus Features rolled out an extended clip of Shane Acker’s “9” a few moments ago to adulating fans who seemed more eager to ask producer Tim Burton a slew of peripheral questions and offer the usual “you’re an inspiration” sentiments to the macabre-obsessed director. So it goes at Comic-Con.But on the issue at hand, Burton offered that he connected to Acker’s original short film (which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005) immediately.
“You see a lot of personal films, but you don’t see a lot of personal films that are animated,” he said in the post-screening panel discussion. “I’ve been through it before, endless conversations with studios, ‘Why can’t Jack Skellington have eyes?’ I thought I could at least help fight those battles so he could concentrate on the film. You’ve got enough to worry about making the film to have those kind of stupid conversations.”
Acker, who chimed in there to mention how supportive Focus, which he calls a “director-driven” studio, has been on the project, said he didn’t originally conceive the story as a feature film. It was more of a director’s reel piece meant to secure other work for him as a filmmaker. But when Burton (and co-producer Timur Bekmambetov) took an interest and the project began to unfold as as a feature, he fell in love with the story all over again.
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Warm notices for Streep in ‘Julie & Julia’
Even before anyone had laid eyes on Nora Ephron’s “Julie & Julia,” I felt fairly confident in predicting the critical response: nice, unremarkable film dominated by a broadly entertaining, larger-than-life turn from Meryl Streep.And so it has come to pass. The trade papers are united in their lukewarm feelings on the film itself, while Streep comes in for the expected praise for a showy star turn a showy star role. (Meanwhile, poor Amy Adams gets predictably, if charitably, sidelined, despite her joint billing.)
Variety’s Justin Chang is harshest on the film, calling it “overstuffed and predigested … a slick, presumptuous vanity project,” but has nothing but kind words for Streep’s “delightfully daffy” performance:
Doing her formidable best to counteract (the film’s) drawbacks is Streep, whose 5-foot-6 frame makes her an imperfect physical match for the 6-foot-2 Julia, but who proves more than up to the challenge of tackling this beloved celebrity’s equally outsized personality. Delivering an elegant approximation of the woman’s distinctly flutelike vocal pitch and endearing mannerisms, Streep abundantly conveys the warmth, rich humor and joie de vivre so evident in Julia’s TV appearances and her writing.
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Gary Oldman at Comic-Con: The next Batman film starts shooting next year
“But you didn’t hear it from me,” he told the crowd during the Warner Bros. “Book of Eli” panel. It’ll be for a 2011 release.
The convention center’s roof will land somewhere in La Jolla later this afternoon. Christopher Nolan is fuming somewhere.
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‘Jonah Hex’ poster
I Tweeted a far-away shot of the new “Jonah Hex” poster from the exhibition hall yesterday, but luckily there’s a better image floating around the net now. I kind of dig it:
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COMIC-CON: Peter Jackson and Neil Blomkamp unveil ‘District 9’ to eager first audience
Last night Peter Jackson showed up at the Horton Plaza United Artists theater a few blocks north of the convention center with protege Neill Blomkamp and actor Sharlto Copley in tow. The occasion: the first ever screening of Blomkamp’s “District 9,” a sci-fi installment that finds itself in the midst of a heavy “what the heck is it?” campaign right now that hopes to drum up anticipation for the August 14 release (and will no doubt see a spike in that once the web press finds time to sit at their laptops and hammer out reactions).I didn’t really know what to expect. I haven’t follwed the viral on this to the letter like so many and I really just thought it would be a nifty diversion during the Con if nothing else. But it was so much more. The film, which I won’t even discuss plot-wise, isn’t a watershed moment for sci-fi cinema by any means, so don’t let me over state.
What it is, however, is a dedicated, small piece of character-driven genre, much like Duncan Jones’s “Moon” in that way, that was smartly nurtured by Jackson. It also has plenty of seat-leaping action moments to go around, but at it’s heart, it is a near one-man show from actor Sharlto Copley, a fresh young talent who, quite frankly, stunned the hell out of me with his control of a character that is quite complicated in some ways.
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EW’s Wonder Women panel at the Con
I was bummed I had to miss yesterday’s Entertainment Weekly-sponsored women’s showcase here at Comic-Con, but luckily the mag has video snippets available for viewing now. No embed feature, though, which is unfortuate, but go give them a look anyway. Panelists included Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana, Elizabeth Mitchell and Eliza Dushku.
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New ‘Tron’ lightcycle at viral Comic-Con event
I covered yesterday’s “Tron: Legacy” panel with as much diligence as I could summon, but the fact remains I’ve never seen the original film and don’t consider myself part of the flock on this one. That said, there was an intriguing viral event last night that plenty of the web press attended. Devin Faraci from CHUD snapped this shot of the new lightcycle for the film, and the pic is so gorgeous in its composition and lighting that I just had to pass it along:
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‘American Graffiti’ — why it still resonates, 36 years later
George Lucas grew up in a small town, Modesto, California, where on Friday nights the guys hopped in their freshly washed and waxed cars and cruised the streets, rock and roll blaring out of the rolled down windows. Everyone knew each other so the streets were alive as though one big party were happening.Lucas, with William Huyck and Gloria Katz, would later write the screenplay for “American Graffitti,” a remarkable little film set in 1962 and a small town in California on the last night of summer before school begins. Loosely based on experiences Lucas had as a teenager, the film would become a touchstone for a generation, having an impact on pop culture no one expected. For the generations after the 1970s that have seen the film, it has the same curious effect, and without sounding self-important or condescending, that impact will grow as they, and we, continue to age.
Why? We knew people like this. We were people like this.
The film is familiar for almost anyone who ever went to high school, perhaps more so to small town natives. We all knew the town tough guy who hung around with the high school kids long after he had left school because he needs the adoration they give him. There was the class geek: glasses-wearing, short, trying a little too hard to please, but likable just the same.
The class jock, who would also be the class president dating the head of the cheerleader sqaud, and the intellectual, who could not wait to get out of the town and see what the world held for him. All of us, sometime in our lives at school, knew people like this, perhaps even were people like this.
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More images from ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’
Over at USA Today, Susan Wloszczyna has an exclusive first look at nine new images from Wes Anderson’s “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” plus some insight into the film’s screenplay:The much-expanded plot has been tweaked to include many elements found in Anderson’s other films, including a dysfunctional clan and a male rivalry. The four Fox children in the book have been whittled down to one handful: Ash (Jason Schwartzman, channeling his Max character from Rushmore), a petulant social misfit who wears a superhero cape and resents his cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson, Wes’ brother) for being good at everything.
Schwartzman, a veteran of three Anderson features, proclaims Mr. Fox as “the ultimate.” “It’s funny, but also visually beautiful. Instead of adapting his style of directing to animation, he brought animation to him. He made a Wes film.”
That last bit isn’t exactly a selling point for a guy like me.
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7/24 Web Round-up
• Sam Toy reports from the set of “Coco Before Chanel.” [Empire]• Evan Davis on the cinema of Nicolas Ray. [The Auteurs’ Notebook]
• Peter Sciretta (who I finally ran into yesterday) video blogs “Avatar” footage reactions with his crew (which is hitting the pavement hard at the Con). [/Film]
