The Buried Movie Trailer has premiered. Buried (2010) is directed by Rodrigo Cortés and stars Ryan Reynolds, Anne Lockhart, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Ivana Miño.  Buried‘s plot synopsis: “Paul Conroy, a truck driver, awakens buried alive six feet underground with nothing but a lighter, a knife and a cell phone. Although he suffers from amnesia as to how he got there, he soon starts to remember what has happened to him.” This film sounds more like a play than a theatrical release. I have to give them movie trailer producers credit for a cool looking trailer, especially considering the limited locations of the film e.g. a coffin. Buried opens on September 24, 2010.

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Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern (2011) has premiered via Entertainment Weekly. Green Lantern is directed by Martin Campbell and stars Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Tim Robbins, Peter Sarsgaard, and Angela Bassett. Green Lantern‘s plot synopsis: “In a universe as vast as it is mysterious, a small but powerful force has existed for centuries. Protectors of peace and justice, they are called the Green Lantern Corps. A brotherhood of warriors sworn to keep intergalactic order, each Green Lantern wears a ring that grants him superpowers. But when a new enemy called Parallax threatens to destroy the balance of power in the Universe, their fate and the fate of Earth lie in the hands of their newest recruit, the first human ever selected: Hal Jordan.” In the cover photo, Ryan Reynolds is sporting the fabled computer generated Green Lantern suit we have heard so much about and probably would never have seen if it weren’t for the success of Avatar and the advent of 3D it ushered in. Green Lantern is scheduled to be released on June 17, 2011. Most of the other photos are labeled via the Entertainment Tonight article.

Source: SlashFilm

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the names of the 135 industry individuals they are inviting to join the academy. We have a full listing of 2010 Academy invitations below. The invitees for 2010 are:

Actors
Tobin Bell – Saw, The Firm
Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air, The Departed
Miguel Ferrer – Traffic, RoboCop
James Gandolfini – In the Loop, Get Shorty
Anna Kendrick – Up in the Air, Twilight
Mo’Nique – Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, Phat Girlz
Carey Mulligan – An Education, Public Enemies
Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker, 28 Weeks Later
Ryan Reynolds – The Proposal, X-Men Origins: Wolverine
LaTanya Richardson Jackson – Mother and Child, Losing Isaiah
Peter Riegert – Traffic, Crossing Delancey
Sam Robards – A.I. Artificial Intelligence, American Beauty
Saoirse Ronan – The Lovely Bones, Atonement
Zoe Saldana – Avatar, Star Trek
Adam Sandler – Funny People, Punch-Drunk Love
Peter Sarsgaard – An Education, Boys Don’t Cry
Gabourey Sidibe – Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
Shaun Toub – Iron Man, The Kite Runner
Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds
George Wyner – A Serious Man, American Pie 2

Animators
Ken Bielenberg – Monsters vs Aliens, Shrek
Peter de Seve – Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Ratatouille
Steve Hickner – Bee Movie, The Prince of Egypt: The Sands of Time
Angus MacLane – Toy Story 3, WALL-E
Darragh O’Connell – Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty, Give Up Yer Aul Sins
Simon Otto – How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda
Bob Pauley – Toy Story 3, Monsters, Inc.
Willem Thijssen – The Aroma of Tea, A Greek Tragedy

Art Directors
Kim Sinclair – Avatar, Cast Away
Dave Warren – Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Bridget Jones’s Diary

At-Large
Darcy Antonellis
John Lowry

Casting Directors
Laura Rosenthal – The Messenger, I’m Not There

Cinematographers
Barry Ackroyd – The Hurt Locker, United 93
Christian Berger – The White Ribbon, Cache
Hagen Bogdanski – The Young Victoria, The Lives of Others
Shane Hurlbut – Terminator Salvation, We Are Marshall
Tom Hurwitz – Valentino The Last Emperor, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Dan Mindel – Star Trek, Mission: Impossible III
Tobias Schliessler – The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, Hancock
Stephen Windon – The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, House of Wax
Robert Yeoman – Get Him to the Greek, The Squid and the Whale

Costume Designers
Catherine Leterrier – Coco before Chanel, Avenue Montaigne
Janet Patterson – Bright Star, The Piano

Directors
Jacques Audiard – A Prophet, The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Juan Jose Campanella – The Secret in Their Eyes, “Son of the Bride”
Lee Daniels – Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, Shadowboxer
Claudia Llosa – The Milk of Sorrow, Madeinusa
Lone Scherfig – An Education, Italian for Beginners
Adam Shankman – Bedtime Stories, Hairspray

Julia Reichert, documentary filmmakerDocumentary
Nancy Baker – Rehearsing a Dream, Born into Brothels
Rick Goldsmith – The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press
Davis Guggenheim – It Might Get Loud, An Inconvenient Truth
Tia Lessin – Capitalism: A Love Story, Trouble the Water
Cara Mertes – The Betrayal, My Country, My Country
Frazer Pennebaker – Al Franken: God Spoke, The War Room
Julia Reichert – The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant, Seeing Red
Morgan Spurlock – Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?, Super Size Me

Executives
Christopher W. Aronson
Jim Berk
Philippe Dauman
Sheila DeLoach
Donald Peter Granger
Nathan Kahane
Andrew Karpen
Ryan Kavanaugh
David Kosse
David Andrew Spitz
Emma Watts

Film Editors
Robert Frazen – Synecdoche, New York, Smart People
Dana E. Glauberman – Up in the Air, Thank You for Smoking
Joe Klotz – Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, Grace Is Gone
Bob Murawski – The Hurt Locker, Spider-Man
John Refoua – Avatar, Reno 911!: Miami

Live Action Short Films
Joachim Back – The New Tenants
Gregg Helvey – Kavi, The Knife Grinder’s Tale

Makeup Artists and Hairstylists
Kris Evans – X-Men The Last Stand Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Jane Galli – Knight and Day, 3:10 to Yuma
Mindy Hall – Star Trek, World Trade Center
Joel Harlow – Star Trek, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Jenny Shircore – The Young Victoria, Elizabeth

Music
Christophe Beck – The Hangover, Bring It On
Bono – Gangs of New York, In the Name of the Father
T Bone Burnett – Crazy Heart, Cold Mountain
The Edge – Gangs of New York, “GoldenEye”
Brian Tyler – Fast & Furious, Aliens vs. Predator Requiem

Producers
Stephanie Allain – Black Snake Moan, Hustle & Flow
Gregory Jacobs – The Informant!, The Good German
Jon Landau – Avatar, Titanic
Marc Turtletaub – Away We Go, Little Miss Sunshine
Glenn Williamson – Sunshine Cleaning, Hollywoodland

Production Designers
Kirk M. Pertruccelli – The Incredible Hulk, The Patriot
Edward S. Verreaux – G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Jurassic Park III

Public Relations
Dwight Caines
Suzanne M. Cole
Tommy Gargotta
Sophie Gluck
Josh Greenstein
Pamela Levine
Wendy Lightbourn
Michele Robertson
Tony Sella

Set Decorators
Maggie Gray – The Young Victoria, Ella Enchanted
Douglas A. Mowat – Role Models, The Sixth Sense
Caroline Smith – The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Match Point

Sound
Frank Eulner – Iron Man 2, Hellboy
Adam Jenkins – I Love You, Man, Crash
Tony Lamberti – “Inglourious Basterds,” Sideways
Dennis Leonard – Disney’s A Christmas Carol, The Polar Express
Tom Myers – Up, WALL-E
Paul N.J. Ottosson – The Hurt Locker, Spider-Man 3
Resul Pookutty – Ghajini, Slumdog Millionaire
Gary A. Rizzo – How to Train Your Dragon, The Dark Knight
Michael Silvers – Up, Ratatouille
Gwendolyn Yates Whittle – Avatar, “The Simpsons Movie”

Richard Baneham, Avatar, The Lord of the RingsVisual Effects
Matt Aitken – District 9, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Karen Ansel – Angels & Demons, Men in Black II
Richard Baneham – Avatar, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Eric Barba – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Zodiac
Paul Debevec – Avatar, King Kong
Russell Earl – Star Trek, Transformers
Steve Galich – Date Night, “Transformers”
Andrew R. Jones – Avatar, I, Robot
Dan Kaufman – District 9, Ocean’s Thirteen
Derek Spears – The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Superman Returns
Steve Sullivan – Avatar, Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
Michael J. Wassel – Hellboy II: The Golden Army, The Bourne Identity

Writers
Neill Blomkamp – District 9
Mark Boal – The Hurt Locker, In the Valley of Elah
Geoffrey Fletcher – Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
Nick Hornby – An Education, Fever Pitch
Alex Kurtzman – Star Trek, Mission: Impossible III
Tom McCarthy – Up, The Visitor
Roberto Orci – Star Trek, Mission: Impossible III
Terri Tatchell – District 9

Source: AltFilmGuide

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The Buried Teaser Trailer has premiered. Buried is directed Rodrigo Cortes and stars Ryan Reynolds, Ivana Mino, and Anne Lockhart. Buried‘s plot synopsis: “A civil contractor working in Iraq, Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds), awakens buried alive in the desert with nothing but a candle, a knife and a cell phone. Although he suffers from amnesia as to how he got there, he soon starts to remember what has happened to him.” Poor bastard.  I do not know what I would do if I suddenly woke up buried in a coffin with my cellphone. The film seems as if it is a one man play staring Reynolds which means Buried will be either hit or miss. Buried will be released sometime in 2010.

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I was far more entertained and satisfied by X-Men Origins: Wolverine than X-Men: The Last Stand. To be fair, the only reasonable direction from that franchise’s descent was up. I knew going in or assumed, that Wolverine’s early life would be skipped over, condensed, et cetera. I knew that but God damn it would have been great if the pedantic, opening montage mold had been broken. I would have loved to have seen an extended D-Day scene like this:

The boat pulls up to the shore. Wolverine and Sabertooth (Liev Schreiber) are three rows back. The door comes down and the Germans open fire. The first row goes down. Sabertooth sees what is happening and ducks as the person in front of him gets hit three times. As that person is falling dead, Sabertooth grabs his body and uses it as a shield in front of himself, running forward yelling: “Jimmy, come on!” Sabertooth is Wolverine’s older brother and thus he strives to protect him when he can. Sabertooth runs onto the shore with the human shield taking multiple hits. Wolverine is running behind him with his M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle, the same rifle Clint Eastwood brandished with flourish in Gran Torino, and with what is left of the soldiers from the landing boat behind him. As Sabertooth draws fire, Wolverine, like Hawkeye covering Great Serpent at the end of The Last of the Mohicans, fires at the German positions in front of him. Once enough in land, Sabertooth discards the now bloody corpse and gallops on all fours towards the nearest German position in front of him. Instead of showing this from the side, the camera is in front as Sabertooth gallops. Wolverine and the others soldiers cover his approach. Sabertooth gets over the sand wall cuts through a German bunker in the same fashion as the T-1000 in The Good Wound episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Wolverine and the men take cover against the sand wall ala Saving Private Ryan until Sabertooth yells over it: “Jimmy its safe. Bring the men.”

I am not that familiar with Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) but I had heard about his proclivity to talk before seeing this film. I liked the way that was portrayed in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and how they mixed his code name, Deadpool, with Weapon 11 but his purest fans are most-likely not happy and unamused. If I were on them, I would feel the same way.

Aspects of the final confrontation in X-Men Origins: Wolverine made absolutely no sense. The Star Wars: The Phantom Menace moment were the protagonists are approaching the door, it opens to reveal the antagonist, 99% of the protagonist go a different way while the main protagonist and antagonist fight. Writers David Benioff and Skip Woods most have unconsciously had The Phantom Menace on the brain for that scene. The similarities are too numerous to be coincidence. And the fact that Wolverine always fights someone with a healing factor, already pointed out by Roger Ebert’s X2: X-Men United film review, is getting repetitive, though, unlike in X-Men: The Last Stand, was abundantly entertaining in the third act of this film.

Another dubious moment in the film was when Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins) gets shot, is laying dying, has her hand on Styker’s leg and tells him to walk away. This may be one of the all time most idiotic screenplay decisions of all time. Silverfox is dying from a single gun shot wound and instead of telling Stryker, a soldier and scientist, to extract the bullet, plug the hole, and save her life, she tells him to walk away. Instead of telling Stryker to pick her up and carry her inside to be saved by the doctors that worked on Weapon 11, she tells him to walk away. An intelligent auteur like James Cameron would never have let stupidity like this slid through the script editing process intact. I do not think this would have been seen on screen if Bryan Singer and his writing team were at the controls either. Look how cleaner the logic is in X2: X-Men United is in comparison to this film. There might be holes but they are pin-points not nuclear explosions like in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Why didn’t Silverfox just tell Stryker to plant her an apple orchard instead. “Stryker, I’m bleeding out. I think I’m dying. Don’t help me or stabilize my condition. Don’t call the docs from the lab or 911. No. I want you to plant me an orchard. An apple orchard. Get going. Move!”

There was also something I never quite understood. If Wolverine has no memories, no past dictating his conduct, no moral center, what tells him how to act and how to conduct himself? Why is he good? His conscience and everything that built it (his childhood) has been erased. He is a blank slate with a berserk rage streak.  Wouldn’t that make him a bad person, even more so than his brother Victor? What makes him act in a moral why? I imagine this is explored at length in the comic book. We will never see this explained on film since there is no action, CGI component to be explored or new mutants to exploit within it.

Like X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine has instances of horrendously bad CGI: Wolverine and his claws in the old folks’ bathroom, Wolverine jumping off of the waterfall (which they zoomed in on to let you know something was going to happen with it beforehand), Agent Zero (Daniel Henney) jumping back into the helicopter, et cetera. The CGI adamantium claws in the first X-Men film were better realized than in this film, far better. Using real stunt men instead of CGI ones would have benefitted X-Men Origins: Wolverine as well. And why wasn’t Sabertooth’s chest (I know he has a healing factor) and clothing burned, charred, and set on fire after being struck by Weapon 11’s hot optic blast multiple times? Does his clothing have special fabric healing abilities as well? How does Wolverine claws stop Weapon 11’s optic blast from getting through each individual claw? Those swords that Weapon 11 sports, they are too lengthy to actually fit within his forearms as shown in the film. Also, there is no continuity between this film and X-Men 1 or 2. The room where Wolverine’s bones are bonded with adamantium is completely different from the one in his nightmares in X-Men and from the final fight in X2: X-Men United. Minor details like these are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things or so Fox executives think.

Renny LeBeau/Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), his past escape from The Island, and his Texas Hold em sub-plot were completely unnecessary and underused as was the inclusion of Fred J. Duke (Kevin Durand), though he was funny in his later, Blob incarnation: “Blob? Did you call me Blob?” Like X-Men: The Last Stand, new mutants are introduced with little or no development. They were included in X-Men Origins: Wolverine to show off their abilities on screen, nothing more, nothing less. Keeping this in mind, a potential advertisement for the film: We’ve got new mutants to show you. Come see X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Gavin Hood’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine is another in an increasing long line of comic book films that ultimately disappoints on multiple levels, no matter how snazzy its special effects (lack there of) and fight scenes are. Hood should have striven for continuity with the previous Singer films instead of recreating certain circumstances and environments e.g. the lab where Wolverine was created and Sabertooth’s character being recast. Tyler Mane played him in X-Men. In the realistic age comic book age of The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and segments of The Incredible Hulk, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a film of the past.

Rating: 7/10

Soundtrack Review for X-Men Origins: Wolverine

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine trailer looks good. Love that Gambit makes an appearance as well.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine “is a prequel to the X-Men film trilogy, focusing on the mutant Wolverine and his time with Team X, before Wolverine’s skeleton was bonded with the indestructible metal adamantium. Set seventeen years before X-Men, the film will focus on Wolverine’s violent past, his early encounters with William Stryker, the Weapon X program and his interactions with other mutants will be explored, including his complex relationship with Sabretooth / Victor Creed.” Extensive X-Men Origins: Wolverine coverage can be found here.

Source: Wikipedia

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Smokin’ Aces is a film in the vein of True Romance and other superiorly written Quentin Tarantino flicks minus any of character detail, character development or inventive prose, save for a scene involving a lawyer and three bounty hunters in a hotel room. Aces is a Tarantino film in desperate need of Tarantino or his protégé Robert Rodriguez. This film is the severely mentally handicapped third nephew of a good film inspired by what Tarantino has done in the movie industry. Wayne Kramer’s Running Scared and Paul McGuigan’s Lucky Number Slevin were films that may have “borrowed” structure and other elements (i.e. unique characters converging on one another) from Tarantino films but they smartly made them their own and added to the equation at the same time. Aces started off as good as its brethren with all of the character introductions but got stuck in first gear during its second act and never recovered.

I read a review for this film in the New York Times that started off with something like: BLAM, BLAM, BLAM. Head explodes, BLAM, guy sits on chainsaw. BLAM. End credits. If this film was that adrenalised, I would have actually had a good time. Much like Crank, this film was so lackluster I just wanted the film to end or at least get good and interesting. We know going in that there is going to be a gun fight or two or three but ninety percent of the ones that transpired in this film had no basis in reality. There is a part in the film that involves an assassin with a assault cannon (A) in one hotel filled with civilians and FBI agents (B) in another hotel filled with civilians. (A) fires at (B) but precisely and accurately with the aid of an eye patch and sniper scope and you know what? Guess what happens? You will never guess. The FBI agents blindly return fire into hotel (A); filled with the aforementioned civilians, without even knowing what floor the cannon shoots came from. They just fire at the civilian building repeatedly, emptying whole handgun magazines in the process. Guess what else? The director, Joe Carnahan, never shows the effect of the FBI’s returned fire. It is never even broached, mentioned or brought up in the remainder of the film. Brilliant, realistic and well-thought out are the words that come to mind at the conclusion of this intrepidly scrutinized scene and all the others of its likewise quality.

Smokin’ Aces is a film that could have been great with more tweaking and development. Unfortunately, just like Crank, the trailer for this film was actually better and more entertaining than the film it was advertising. Did you notice that I did not mention a single character or actor’s name during the course of my review? That is because they are all interchangeable. No one planted his or her flag as an actor in this film and no one had anything memorable to contribute. Smokin’ Aces is a construct of vapidness where big name stars and their talent disappear into the black hole of a film that goes no where. Joe Carnahan showed a lot of promise in 2002 with Narc but his two follow ups, Ticker and this film, have failed to bring that glimmer of burgeoning and qualified directorial talent to fruition.

Rating: 5/10

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