Screen Rant » John Scott Lewinski

Princess And The Frog Trailer Rallies Classic Animation

John Scott Lewinski — Mon, 11 May 2009 00:20:27 +0000

The Disney Channel unveiled the studio’s next animated feature Saturday, previewing the trailer for The Princess and the Frog. You can catch it below.

Why should you care? After all, there isn’t a single TIE Fighter in it. No killer robots. Not a single laser blast or skyscraper-shattering explosion. The princess isn’t a scantily clad zombie, and the frog doesn’t transform into a missile-laden Porsche.

But there’s also no all too familiar CGI, either. This is Disney’s long-awaited return to hand-drawn animation — moving away (temporarily) from the Pixar-dominated CG era of Toy Story, Cars, Shrek and Madagasgar. It’s the grand rally of the art form that brought us classics like Snow White, Dumbo, Fantasia and The Lion King. It’s the chance for anyone under the age of 21 to discover what intricately rendered animation drawn ...

Click to continue reading Princess And The Frog Trailer Rallies Classic Animation

Robot Chicken Meets Voltron In ‘Titan Maximum’

John Scott Lewinski — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:06:43 +0000

The brains behind the sci-fi, super-hero and action figure-stuffed animated comedy Robot Chicken are taking a spin-off to Saturn’s biggest moon with Titan Maximum.

Co-head writer/producer Tom Root and co-creator/executive producer Matthew Senreich created the spin-off series, which pits a collection of dysfunctional heroes and their Voltron-style assembled robot (pronounced “RO-bet,” if you’re cool and from the 1950s) against a solar system-conquering villain and crippling budget cuts. The comedy adventure’s animation will resemble Chicken’s stop motion style.

While Robot Chicken is a rapid-fire, short attention span-friendly sketch show, Titan will feature full plots per episode and an overall story arc for the series’ ongoing war of attrition.

Adult Swim ordered up nine episodes, and the show is set to premiere in September, just in time for the new fall season. With the Voltron live action movie mired in an ongoing ...

Click to continue reading Robot Chicken Meets Voltron In ‘Titan Maximum’

Fox Building on Wolverine’s Mojo With Deadpool Movie

John Scott Lewinski — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:45:59 +0000

Fresh off the almost $90 million opening weekend for X-men Origins: Wolverine, Fox is rushing ahead on a similar treatment for Marvel’s favorite mercenary, Deadpool.

If you’re keeping score along at home, a Deadpool movie would be a spinoff of a spinoff of the original big screen adaptations of X-Men. Ryan Reynolds played the wisecracking super gun for hire in Wolverine, and will return in the title role.

Spoiler Alert Below:

The movie’s version of Deadpool is beheaded by Wolverine, but a post credit sequence on some prints unveils that the mercenary survived.

End Spoiler

While the new movie seems like a sensible enough move considering the success of the first X-Men Origins, there’s a risk here. If you walk down the street in any American neighborhood, your fellow pedestrians know who Batman is. They could pick Spider-Man and Superman ...

Click to continue reading Fox Building on Wolverine’s Mojo With Deadpool Movie

Pitt Looks Like A Total Basterd In Tarantino’s New Poster

John Scott Lewinski — Sat, 02 May 2009 16:58:26 +0000

We have a new promotional poster from Universal for Quentin Tarantino’s World War II exploitation flick, Inglourious Basterds. It looks like nothing more than an introduction to the look of the film, and I think we can safely expect the rest of the film’s major players such as Diane Kruger, Eli Roth, Samm Levine, etc., to get their own preview poster before the official one-sheet arrives.

As Tarantino’s first film since 2007′s Grindhouse segment, Deathproof, Basterds should provide an interesting reception at the box office. It remains to be seen if audiences are ready to accept Tarantino’s smart-mouthed, anti-hero take on the holocaust and Nazi atrocities.

Take a look at the poster and see what you think:

Brad Pitt Inglorious Basterds poster

Of course, it’s not the first holocaust revenge fantasy to hit the screen, but it’s ...

Click to continue reading Pitt Looks Like A Total Basterd In Tarantino’s New Poster

Star Wars Back In Production In Hollywood

John Scott Lewinski — Sat, 02 May 2009 16:33:33 +0000

As Admiral Ackbar would say, “It’s a trap!” And, it’s an admittedly cheap headline.

There isn’t a new Star Wars movie in production if that’s what you’re thinking. And, the live-action series Lucas is planning is still in the writing and pre-production phase.

What’s really going on then?

A West Hollywood sound stage is full of familiar faces like Ackbar, C3PO and Boba Fett as Lucasfilm produces new material for an updating of Disney’s Star Tours ride. You can always trust Disney and Lucas to keep up with the newest in entertainment tech.

It’s hardly surprising Lucas is sticking to the “classic trilogy” heroes and villains for the updating. I mean, what are the odds that we’ll catch anything resembling a glimpse of Jar Jar Binks anywhere?

Source: /Film

Click to continue reading Star Wars Back In Production In Hollywood

New G.I. Joe Trailer: More Cheesy Than Heroic

John Scott Lewinski — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:27:55 +0000

The new international trailer for G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra looks to hit all its cues, but viewers might come away with the early symptoms of CGI fatigue.

We’re introduced to all the players, including General Hawk (Dennis Quaid), Destro (Christopher Eccleston) and The Baroness (Sienna Miller). We see that Cobra’s minions get metallic masks, in keeping with G.I. Joe tradition. We learn that the Joes get elaborate bio-suits that turn them into semi-superheroes.

But, the tone so far looks to venture a little too far into camp. The action comes off way over the top, while the CGI skirmishes look not too far removed from the “one per half-hour” frame rate of the original ...

Click to continue reading New G.I. Joe Trailer: More Cheesy Than Heroic

Drop Dead, Fred: We Predict The Next Top 5 Bad 80s Remakes

John Scott Lewinski — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:33:03 +0000

The news this week that Universal plans to remake the painfully awful 80′s disaster, Drop Dead Fred, shocks the imagination into envisioning what other horrible cinematic outings of two decades ago we’ll have to sit through in coming years.

The impressively unfunny Russell Brand will star in Fred, a dark “imaginary friend” comedy for adults. The original made no money and was roundly struck off during its theatrical run. But, everything pastel and techno-pop is new again in a movie industry seemingly devoid of the huevos necessary to make something original. It seems the studios are dead set on remaking every story set to celluloid while Ronald Reagan was president.

So, it’s inevitable that they’ll run through the lists of decent 80s movies and decide to crank out more remakes of the decade’s embarrassments. Here we’ve included five such ...

Click to continue reading Drop Dead, Fred: We Predict The Next Top 5 Bad 80s Remakes

Swine Flu Delays Mexican Star Trek & Wolverine Premieres

John Scott Lewinski — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:35:45 +0000

“Quien es mas macho? James T. Kirk o el virus de la gripe porcina?” The answer in English? Swine flu.

The only thing that can stop Star Trek — J.J. Abrams’ May 7 box office juggernaut — is the virulent, pork-themed virus currently dominating the headlines. Paramount announced Tuesday that it will indefinitely postpone the movie’s premiere throughout Mexico.

Mexico’s moviegoers were already set to miss out on X-Men Origins: Wolverine as 20th Century Fox announced it would also hold off on screening that blockbuster because of the pandemic.

In the wake of the flu, Mexico City is essentially shut down — making potential film premieres in the Mexican capital as unprofitable as they are potentially deadly. Both studios also expressed concern for their distribution staffers who would have to move in around the would-be infected.

There’s no word ...

Click to continue reading Swine Flu Delays Mexican Star Trek & Wolverine Premieres

Hollywood Limps To Another Remake With Videodrome

John Scott Lewinski — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:43:51 +0000

“Long live the old flesh!”

The remake craze in Hollywood trudged on Monday with the announcement that Universal picked up the rights to redo the bizarre 1983 horror David Cronenberg flick, Videodrome. Ehren Kruger, a co-writer of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is set to write the script.

The announcement merely continues the disturbing trend of the studios picking up movies of the mid (or even late) 80s and remaking them. We’ll also supposedly be seeing “new” versions of Romancing the Stone, The Last Starfighter, Back to School, Clash of the Titans, Short Circuit, etc. Movie audiences are simply going to have to sit through a CGI version of the 80s.

The concept of a remake is not a new one in the movie business, but the audacity of making most of a decade’s successful films less ...

Click to continue reading Hollywood Limps To Another Remake With Videodrome