The full new Max Payne trailer has made it's way online.

20th Century Fox has revealed the full new trailer for Mark Wahlberg's action-thriller Max Payne, opening in theaters on October 17. Directed by John Moore, the video game adaptation co-stars Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges and Olga Kurylenko.

Wahlberg plays maverick cop Max Payne who is hell-bent on revenge against those responsible for the brutal murder of his family and partner. His obsessive investigation takes him on a nightmarish journey into a dark underworld. As the mystery deepens, Max is forced to battle enemies beyond the natural world and face an unthinkable betrayal.


Quite a few people seem to be raving about Max Payne and feel that it may be the first successful and dare I say, good video game film (I'm kind of a fan of Resident Evil, but then again, I love zombies so I may be a bit biased). I think that the trailer looks good, but I also think it suffers from one major flaw - it still feels like a video game movie. Until video games that are turned into movies ACTUALLY convince me that I am watching a movie and not a video game adaptation, they will never work.

According to Latino Review,

Relativity Media is now backing the property with a more moderate budget, utilizing the type of cost-effective technology employed in films like 300. A director was going to be attached in a week.

Now, Latino Review has learned that Max Makowski will take on the directing duties for the project, which was written by Justin Marks.

Makowski directed 2005's One Last Dance, rewrote the screenplay for the Hawaii Five-O feature, and is attached to the direct the big screen adaptation of 1970s TV series Kung Fu and the Shinobi remake.

Voltron: Defender of the Universe is described as a post-apocalyptic tale set in New York City and Mexico, where five survivors of an alien attack band together and end up piloting the five lion-shaped robots that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron that helps battle Earth's invaders. It is based on the popular 1980s Japanese animated TV series, comic books and toy line.


I was a bit worried about Voltron at first. I have always been a Voltron fan but was a bit worried that if not given the proper budget and respect it may come off as a ripoff Transformers for those who aren't familiar with the franchise. If they give the film a big enough budget, good actors and some sweet technology it would be possible that it could be a very respectable film. Now let's just hope they handle the source material with respect.

After the recent news of the next Harry Potter film shifting release dates - tons more films will follow suit to readjust their schedule as not to open against Harry Potter. Now, we hear that because Quantum of Solace moved, it is causing Australia to move it's release date as well.

Variety says that Fox has decided to move Baz Luhrmann's Australia, starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, away from the recently moved Quantum of Solace. The studio will go out with the pic in North America on November 26 instead of the previously planned November 14.

All this shifting is going to get messy, but when the end of the day comes, SOMEBODY is going to have to open against Harry Potter - right now it's looking like it will be Four Christmases and Transporter 3.

I find this matter of shifting films around quite an interesting business to make sure that you are releasing a film at the proper time. Many films have been complete success stories or have been destroyed just by when a film chose to open and who it was against.

NEXT AVENGERS: HEROES OF TOMORROW comes to DVD on September 2! Check out a "Making of" video plus concept art from the show below!

Previously known as Avengers Reborn, NEXT AVENGERS follows the children of the Avengers (the son of the Black Widow and Captain America, the son of the Wasp and Giant-Man, the son of the Black Panther and Storm, Thor's daughter, and Hawkeye's son) join Iron Man and the Hulk to combat Ultron.

This, is according to Marvel, the fifth film in the "Marvel Animated Features" is what they are calling it. (To my knowledge, this includes, Ultimate Avengers, Ultimate Avengers II, Invincible Iron Man, and Doctor Strange).

I haven't seen any of these, but have heard mixed reviews of some of them. Derek has seen a few of them and maybe he will have something to add to this post about the movies (from what I remember he likes Ultimate Avengers but HATES Invincible Iron Man).

I really wish Marvel would just get on the ball about these animated things and release some high quality animated films, because this looks like garbage. Check out the trailer below.



Maybe I'm just jealous that I'm not Hawkeye or Captain America's son.

Check out trailers for other Marvel animated business over at Marvel.com

New poster for Ridley Scott's upcoming Body of Lies.



The poster is little bit standard. Not much that we haven't seen before - and actually, Leo looks a bit plastic on the poster - kinda Ken doll-ish. I'm pretty excited for the film actually. I wasn't a huge fan of Scott's last directorial effort, American Gangster, but the man also has some great films under his belt (Gladiator, Alien, Matchstick Men, Black Hawk Down etc.) I am also excited for his next effort, Nottingham. Russell Crowe is, as I have said, one of the most talented actors we have right now (one of...not THE MOST). And I am a huge Leo fan so I will definitely be checking this film out.

Hello Readers,

SX0T and I are sorry for being away for a while. As you may know the two of us are currently engaged in earning our Master of Fine Arts degree, and its a busy job. Plus SX0T is currently in a month long stay at my place which means all we are doing is watching movies and talking about them, so it gets a little difficult to get to the important things like posting about movies on our blog. Plus the news about the Superman reboot has caused me to slip into a major depression and wallow in a bed of misery. (Expect a post about my feelings on that issue in the near future).

Regardless, here is a video showing some filming action for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen featuring the Transformers.

This is an old trailer that has been out for a while, but I thought I'd share because I really enjoy it. It is called Brothers Bloom. Not much to say about it - it kind of remind me a bit of a Wes Anderson film but with a different sort of quirkiness behind it. Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo usually rock the house, so it should be entertaining.

I just got wind of the trailer for the upcoming "sequel" if you want to call it that, for a relatively unknown film that came out a while ago called Paris, je t'aime. If you haven't seen Paris - it is a film in which a whole bunch of iconic directors wrote and directed small stories about love in the city of love. It had about 1 billion famous people in it and lots of different styles. (I thought parts of the film were excellent and other parts, not so much, but still a fun journey).

In any case, there is now going to be a thematic sequel about New York City done in the same fashion. Numerous directors and about 5 billion famous people. Among the interesting directors are Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, and Brett Ratner. Interesting. In any case - here's the trailer and let's hope it's good.

Been away for a bit (just been slacking a bit actually). I have seen some new Australia posters.





What I really like about this film is the entire vision behind it. The trailer, the colors, the look. They all feel so "Hollywood during the Golden Age". It really makes me have a sort of respect and high regard for the old Hollywood. These posters just top that feeling off. I especially like the fact that they have this little logo in the bottom corner that is just the A and Australia. The film so far looks different from Baz's other films, but I think this is really great. I hope that just like he made his "Red Curtain Trilogy" that all had a similar feel - I hope he makes a new trilogy of films that all have this old Hollywood epic feel. That would be pretty exciting.

Just in case anyone missed the trailer for Appaloosa here is.


I'm basically posting this because my Step Dad is a huge Western fan. Give him the title to any spaghetti western and he'll give you a quote. This movie looks interesting to me. We haven't seen to many good Westerns lately. 3:10 to Yuma and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford have paved the way for Westerns to have a strong come back. While movies like Seraphim Falls and The Missing have let me down, I am starting to see a light for Westerns with future movies like Appaloosa and Australia . Plus my Cousins band is named Appaloosa

I just had a chance to see a screening of American Teen, the new documentary about high school students in a small town in Indiana by Nanette Burstein, most well known for directing 2002's film festival highlight called The Kid Stays in the Picture. The film follows the stereotypical cliques of high school, jock, geek, rebel, princess - you know...The Breakfast Club. Was it more than just a Breakfast Club knockoff? Sure. Was it worth a watch? Absolutely.

The Awesome

This film is more than just a Breakfast Club ripoff. If you have any memory of high school, you will most likely identify with this documentary. You will feel for some, if not all of the characters at some point during the film. The film does an excellent job of providing characters that are interesting and fun to watch. High School at times can seem so trivial to someone that is past it, but for some reason you want to watch what happens to all of these people.

The film also has a fair amount of humor to back it up. I found myself laughing out loud a few times during the film. Sometimes with the characters, sometimes at them. It's no Judd Apatow production in terms of laughs, but it helps and makes the film a little more fun to watch. This movie has heart - that's for damn sure.

The Not So Awesome

The movie pretty much IS The Breakfast Club, so minus some points for not being as awesome. There are some animation things that take place every once and a while that feel completely unnecessary and out of place. I really don't know why the little animations were in the film. They just distracted me. The film has a certain MTV quality that will surely turn off documentary purists. This could be seen as a negative, or a positive.

These next few comments are not really negatives, more neutrals. Things that could be seen as good or bad depending on who is viewing the film. If you are looking for some sort of social commentary or for the "secret life of high schoolers" to be exposed here. You won't find it. It is simply an honest look at what it is to be a teenager. Not trying to make them look bad or good. It feels like a super long episode of MTV's Made that features 5 or 6 characters. And while this may be offputting to some, it seemed to work for this film.

Another thing that bothered me slightly was the fact that the "rebel/outcast" girl seemed to be the central character of the film. While she certainly was the most interesting of the characters, I couldn't help but think the filmmaker spent more time on her character simply because of some sort of "artistic" connection to a story such as hers (hates her small town, likes art, wants to go to Cali to be a filmmaker).

There is also word floating around that much of the film was staged, ala Laguna Beach/The Hills or whatever the hell those shows are. If this is the case, I'm sorely disappointed that the makers of this documentary went to those lengths for a story, but until I hear otherwise, I'll just take this as rumors.

OVERALL

Overall I think that this film is an important addition to the documentary genre, even if a little shallow in terms of it's social impact. It was enjoyable to watch with highly relative characters that were easy to relate to (even though they graduated something like 4-5 years after I did). The film has it's small share of issues, but if they can be ignored for the enjoyment of the film, they are things that can easily be overlooked. I've seen better, but I also left smiling. In this media obsessed world we live in, it must have been difficult to get some true emotion out of these students who are ever aware of the present camera. And they do. At times you can see they are faking for the camera, but the moments that slip through that and some the real side are the moments that count. Overall I would give this film a 7 out of 10.

As a side note, I really hate the marketing for this film. They decided to go with a spoof of The Breakfast Club poster. There is actually a really great yellow poster (which I am having trouble finding a good picture of because they stopped using it for marketing) - but instead they are doing this dumb Breakfast Club spoof poster. All this says to me is "we have no faith in our film and need to attach it to something respectable" what a shame.

Pineapple Express is another film by the writing duo of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and produced by...of course...Judd Apatow. One major difference between this and the rest of the Apatow crew films is this one is directed by David Gordon Green...a man known slightly for his more realistic based films. (One of my current roommates is a DGG fan and showed me some stuff along with a short by Clu Gulager called A Day With the Boys that influenced DGG). The story follows Dale Denton and Saul Silver as they are on the run from the law after Denton witnesses a cop murder someone. It is a stonerific comedy with lots of action to boot.

The Awesome

This film is funny, no doubt. It may not be funnier than some of the other Apatow films in my opinion, but it certainly delivers on the laughs. One of the things that this film does amazingly is truly blend an action film with a comedy. It isn't trying to be a comedy that has action in it, or an action flick that has the occasional laugh line. It really does a nice job of fully being both - something that I don't think I have ever seen (except maybe with the somewhat similar Hot Fuzz). James Franco knocks it out of the park once again with a comedic role (something I think he should definitely do more of), but the man who truly steals every scene he is in is comedic film newcomer Danny McBride. He has played small parts in a few comedies over the past couple years, but is definitely beginning to shine in roles like this (it really makes me want to see The Foot Fist Way).

The film is also violent to the max. It has some of the most violent scenes I have seen in recent flicks, let alone an action/comedy/bromance film. The scenes that do have their share of violent acts make sure you see what is going on also - no hiding the blood and body parts here - straight out of the 80'action flicks.

The soundtrack is also pretty awesome - and nicely used.

Everyone else turns in good performances and the movie is surely a good time.

The Not So Awesome

I only have a few complaints about the film, and they aren't too major.

1. Seth Rogen plays a fairly straight character in this film leaving most of the huge laughs to his co-stars. While not necessarily a problem, it may have been nice to see him be a bit more "typical"

2. I would have LOVED to see more cameo's. Cameo's make the world go 'round in films like this, and I just don't think there were enough. Where is McLovin (an action hero in his own respect)? Jonah Hill? Paul Rudd? Leslie Mann? Jason Segal? Jay Baruchel? I just think it could have offered many more comedic cameos than it did.

3. There is a HUGE loose end by the films ending that never gets wrapped up involving Dale and his high school girlfriend

4. The prologue seems out of place and slightly unnecessary (although it does feature the always funny Bill Hader)

Like I said, minor complaints - all things that can be overlooked once you are bending over in your seat laughing.

OVERALL

Overall, I would say that the Apatow crew (Seth Rogen and Even Goldberg writing team specifically can chalk up another gold after the below average Drillbit Taylor (their last writing effort). Apatow now has even more money in the bank and can begin to fund his global domination plots. And we are left with another great comedy to add to the collection (how long will this team go on? and who will get the torch next?). Overall, I give this film an 8 out of 10.

I just saw a trailer that has apparently been around for a while but I seem to have skipped over somehow. The film is called Taken and stars Liam Neeson and will be released September 26th (already came and went in France apparently) I found this film courtesy of John Campea over at The Movie Blog. Man was he right in his comments. This trailer alone gets me really pumped to see this film.

It feels like a combination of a really good suspense film, a Bond film, and a little bit of like...I don't know...one of the Bourne films. Suspense, action, espionage, all kinds of good stuff. And the trailer is put together in a really neat way.

It is also good to see Liam Neeson taking on a role like this (it's not quite as serious as some of his other roles, but plays off of his strengths really well). Check it out, let me know if you are pumped as well.

Poster - eh, not so much.