Screen Rant » knowing

Win ‘Push’ & ‘Knowing’ on Blu-ray – Winners!

Vic Holtreman — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:58:55 +0000

Here are the two winners of our giveaway:

Debbie Egurrola - Coral Gables, FL
Dan Scaglione – Haverhill, MA

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Lucky for you, as Screen Rant gets more popular we get more goodies to give away to you. This time we have copies of Knowing and Push to hand out in awesome Blu-ray format. Both of these movies were OK, and I know a lot of folks actually enjoyed them quite a bit, so here’s your chance to own them both.

Here’s the official description of Knowing:

In 1958, as part of the dedication ceremony for a new elementary school, a group of students is asked to draw pictures to be stored in a time capsule. But one of the students, a mysterious girl who seems to hear whispered voices, fills her sheet of paper with rows of apparently random numbers instead.

Fast forward 50 years to the present: A new generation of students examines the contents of the time capsule and the girl’s cryptic message ends up in the hands of young Caleb Myles. But it is Caleb’s father, professor Ted Myles (Nicolas Cage), who makes the startling discovery that the encoded message predicts with pinpoint accuracy the dates, death tolls and coordinates of every major disaster of the past 50 years. As Ted further unravels the document’s secrets, he realizes it foretells three additional events-the last of which hints at destruction on a global scale and seems to somehow involve Ted and his son.

When Ted’s attempts to alert the authorities fall on deaf ears, he takes it upon himself to try to prevent more destruction from taking place.

This gripping supernatural thriller charts one man’s faltering steps towards belief in the ultimate order of the universe even as he finds himself surrounded by mounting chaos. With the reluctant help of Diana Whelan (Rose Byrne) and Abby, the daughter and granddaughter of the now-deceased author of the cryptic prophecies, Ted’s increasingly desperate efforts take him on a heart-pounding race against time until he finds himself facing the ultimate disaster-and the ultimate sacrifice.

And the special features:

Director commentary
Featurette: “Visions of the Apocalypse”
Featurette: “The Making of a Futuristic Thriller”

Here’s the official description of Push:

A riveting action-thriller, Push burrows deep into the deadly world of psychic espionage where artificially enhanced paranormal operatives have the ability to move objects with their minds, see the future, create new realities and kill without ever touching their victims. Against this setting, a young man and a teenage girl take on a clandestine agency in a race against time that will determine the future of civilization. The Division, a shadowy government agency, is genetically transforming citizens into an army of psychic warriors-and brutally disposing of those unwilling to participate. Nick Gant (Chris Evans), a second-generation telekinetic or “mover,” has been in hiding since the Division murdered his father more than a decade earlier. He has found sanctuary in densely populated Hong Kong-the last safe place on earth for fugitive psychics like him-but only if he can keep his gift a secret.

Push special features:

Deleted scenes with director commentary
Featurette: “The Science Behind the Fiction”
Director and cast commentary

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Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: April 12, 2009

Niall Browne — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 02:57:39 +0000

This week:

Miley is smiley over the box office; Gyllenhaal joins Thompson and Fiennes in Nanny McPhee; Terrance Howard may not be in Iron Man 2 – but he will star with Method Man and Gooding Jr in George Lucas’ Red Tails; Jennifer Garner likes Butter and we discover Burt Dickenson: The Most Powerful Magician on Planet Earth.

Box Office

Well if you thought that Fast and Furious’ $70+ million gross was impressive last week then you’ll be amazed that the Hannah Montana The Movie with Miley Cyrus banked $34 million over the weekend. That’s enough to mend Billy Ray’s Achy Breaky Heart.

Fast & Furious sped past the magic $100 million mark with a weekend total of $28 million. Down an okay 59% after its mega opening the Vin Diesel/ Paul Walker pic has now made off with $118 million.

Monster Vs. Aliens brought its total up to $144 million after making another $22 million.

Observe and Report had a modest $11 million weekend. If people observe and report that it’s good then it might have legs (highly doubtful), otherwise it’ll be a DVD performer.

Knowing managed to grab another $6.5 million bringing the total of the Nic Cage film to just under the $70 million mark. I Love You, Man did about $½ million less and its at $58 million.

The Haunting in Connecticut scared up another $5 million giving the low budget horror a pretty decent $46 million.

Dragonball Evolution crashed and burned with a not so good $4.5 million opening. Seriously – who decides to make a movie like this when everybody knows from day one that it’ll be terrible and that’ll tank?

Duplicity eeked out $2 million. It’ll never see $40 million.

Movie news

1. Maggie Gyllenhaal will star in the sequel to Nanny McPhee 2. The Dark Knight star joins Emma Thompson and Ralph Fiennes in the film. The family pic starts shooting next month at Shepperton Studios in England.

Source: Production Weekly

2. George Lucas’ Red Tails has finally started getting its cast together. Cuba Gooding Jr and Terrence Howard and Method Man will join many others in the Anthony Hemingway directed film.

Lucas said:

“I’ve been wanting to do Red Tails for 20 years, and we’ve finally got the means to showcase the skill of the Tuskegee pilots. We’re working on techniques which will give us the first true look at the aerial dogfighting of the era. And our top-notch cast will really make this story special.”

Source: Dark Horizons

3. Jennifer Garner is attached to produce and possibly star in Butter.
According to the Hollywood reporter:

“Butter follows a young orphan who, after being adopted by a Midwestern family, discovers she has an uncanny talent for butter-carving. She eventually finds herself up against the ambitious wife of the retired reigning champion in a town’s annual butter-sculpting contest.”

The script was written by Jason Micallef.

It butter be good!

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

4. Jake Kasdan will direct the comedy Burt Dickenson: The Most Powerful Magician on Planet Earth.

“The story centers on a Burt Dickenson, one half of successful two-man team who accidentally kills is partner and loses his inner magic. He has to find a way to rekindle it to fight his rival, a magician named Xander Storm.”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

That’s it for now folks. See you at the movies.

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Movie News Wrap Up: March 30, 2009

Niall Browne — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:44:37 +0000

This week:

Monsters Vs Aliens tops the box office; the Coens remake John Wayne’s True Grit; Val Kilmer talks up a reteam with Robert Downey Jr; Matthew McConaughey is The Lincoln Lawyer; Tobey Maguire knows The Limit; Ben Affleck and Matt Damon hunt for Good Will after Bourne again and Affleck hits The Town.

Box Office

Monsters Vs Aliens was the big winner this weekend with a powerful gross of $58 million. It’s the best opening gross of a movie this year (beating Watchmen). Also, horror isn’t dead with The Haunting in Connecticut scaring up $23 million in ticket sales.

Nicolas Cage’s Knowing dropped a decent 40% with a weekend take of almost $15 million giving the action flick a total gross of $46 million – despite bad reviews.

I Love You, Man managed another $12,7 million, while the Julia Roberts- Clive Owen heist movie Duplicity banked another $7.5 million for a $25 million total.

Dwayne Johnson’s Race To Witch Mountain fell over 50% giving the Disney film a total of $53 million.

Fellow wrestler John Cena misfired with 12 Rounds. The Renny Harlin directed film managed a poor $5 million weekend.

Watchmen eked out another $2.8 million bringing its total to $103.3 million.

Taken took another $2.7 million bringing the action pic’s gross to a huge $137 million.

Horror remake The Last House on The Left managed a weekend take of $2.6 million.

Movie News

1. The Coen brothers will remake John Wayne’s True Grit – the film that won the cinematic legend an Oscar!

The film will be based on the book by Charles Portis.

Variety states:

“Portis’ novel is about a 14-year-old girl who, along with an aging U.S. marshal and another lawman, tracks her father’s killer in hostile Indian territory.
But while the original film was a showcase for Wayne, the Coens’ version will tell the tale from the girl’s p.o.v.”

So who will the Coens get to replace Wayne? After all they are big, big boots to fill.

Didn’t they learn their lesson with The Ladykillers?

Source: Variety

2. Val Kilmer believes that we will see a sequel to 2005’s action-comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
The star twittered:

“RDJ, Jr (Robert Downey Jr) and I talked AGAIN about a Kiss Kiss Bang Bang sequel… Now that he is king of all time and space it will happen.”

I hope this is true. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is an exceptional film that didn’t get the release that it deserved by Warner Bros. Funny, compelling and extremely well written – you must seek it out.

Source: Twitter

3. Matthew McConaughey will take the lead in The Lincoln Lawyer.

“The legal thriller that centers on low-level criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller who finds himself representing a wealthy client with ties to a previous murder case Haller handled.”

The film which is based on the book by Michael Connolly will be a return to the leagal thriller genre for the bongo playing star who made his name in Joel Schumacher’s adaptation of John Grisham’s A Time To Kill.

Source: Variety

4. Tobey Maguire is attached to star in Columbia Pictures’ The Limit. According to Variety:

“Maguire will star as Phil Hill, who went against his good friend and Ferrari teammate Wolfgang von Trips in the 1961 Drivers Championship.”

Maguire will produce the film through his Maguire Entertainment production company.

I think that it’s no coincidence that Maguire’s company is set up at the studio that produces the Spider-Man films.

Source: Variety

5. Best friends and Good Will Hunting co-stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon will reunite for a new film next year.

The film will start shooting after Damon makes the next Bourne movie. Affleck is apparently mulling over directing duties on the film that was not written by the Oscar winning duo.

Affleck told Collider:

“We have a project but we haven’t said what it is just because of lame political money reasons. This is the movie we’re going to do together and I think it will be good.”

Source: Collider

6. Meanwhile, Affleck has been talking up his next directorial effort following the excellent Gone Baby Gone.

“I’m directing another movie and I’m going to act in the movie as well. That’s a slightly daunting prospect, but we’ll see. I’m nervous but excited. It’s called The Town – that’s the title I’m using now but I’m not sure it’ll be that – and it’s based on a book called Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan. It’s based on a true fact that there is this neighborhood in Boston called Charlestown where there are more armed robbers per capita than anywhere else in the world. It’s about this group of guys who rob a bank and an armored car.”

Source: Collider

That’s it for now. See you at the movies!

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Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: March 22, 2009

Niall Browne — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:18:54 +0000

It’s Sunday and therefore it’s Wrap Up time. This week:

We Know who is top of the box office; Cage and Bruckheimer make a date; Beatty fights over Dick Tracy; George Lucas’s Red Tails gets Wild(s); get ready for Demonkeeper; Segal meets Little Fockers and Universal knows the Rites of Men.

Box Office
Nicolas Cage is king of the box office with Knowing. The Alex Proyas (I Robot) directed film should manage about $24-25 million over the weekend. Put it this way, Knowing made more on Friday than Bangkok Dangerous made on it’s opening weekend.

The Paul Rudd- Jason Segal comedy I love You, Man should cash in $18 million over the weekend. The R-rated comedy was similar to the weekend starts of the stars previous film like Role Models and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Julia Roberts re-teams with Clive Owen for Duplicity. The comedy-caper film should steal $14.5 million from audiences over the weekend.

The Rock’s (or Dwayne Johnson‘s) Race To Witch Mountain should gather another $14 million bringing the Disney film to just under the $50 million mark.

Watchmen should bank another $6-7 million bringing the epic comic book movie to the $100 million mark. Not a bad gross, but it’s quite disappointing.

Last House on the Left dropped $65% to $6.5 million.

Liam Neeson’s Taken managed another $4.5 million bringing the total of the film to over $130 with a world wide take surpassing $200 million.

Movie News

1. Nicolas Cage’s forthcoming Disney film The Scorcerer’s Apprentice has a release date set for July 16, 2010. The Jerry Bruickheimer produced film which co-stasr Jay Baruchel, directed by Jon Turtletaub, is a modern retelling of the Disney classic.

It should make a killing at the box office.

Source: Variety

2. Warren Beatty is being sued by Tribune Media Services so that they can regain the rights to Dick Tracy. The action states that the character of Tracy should revert back to the company as Beatty hasn’t made “productive use” of the rights in a decade.

Beatty has however begun work on a Dick Tracy television special, but Tribune Media Services say that the show is only being produced so that Beatty can retain the rights to the character which he purchased in 1985.

Beatty starred in and directed a Dick Tracy movie that was released in 1990. The film grossed over $100 million at the US box office and co-starred Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman and Madonna.
It’s not a bad little film. Visually it’s very impressive with a pre-digital Sin City style vibe.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

3. 90210 star Tristan Wilds has been cast in George Lucas‘ Red Tails.

According to The Hollywood Reporter:

“Wilds will play Ray “Ray Gun” Knight, a flyboy nearly blinded over Nazi-occupied Italy who becomes the wingman of his friend and cohort, Marty. The two face the prejudice of the U.S. military as much as the overseas enemy but end up establishing an unprecedented record.”

The film was written by John Ridley and it will be directed by Anthony Hemingway.

Lucas has talked about this film for years, and I honestly believed that it would never see the light of day.

Now just get behind a camera again George and direct something like THX 1138 or American Graffiti.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

4. The Tale of Despereaux and Flushed Away director Sam Fell will direct a liva-action adaptation of Royce Buckingham’s Demonkeeper.

According to Variety:

“Story follows a Seattle teen who inherits responsibility for a house filled with demons. When the youth finally breaks free of his charges to go on a date, he returns to discover that kids have broken into the house, unleashing its most vicious demon, the Beast, Killer of Lost Children.”

Sounds like an interesting premise.

Source: Variety

5. Peter Segal is in the frame to direct the third Meet the Parents movie which is currently titled Little Fockers.

Segal had been expected to direct Get Smart 2, but Steve Carrell signed on to the comedy Date Night with Tina Fey. With Segal at the helm this will be the first Focker movie to to be directed by Jay Roach.

The Robert DeNiro produced film was written by John Hamburg. Ben Stiller, DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Barbara Streisand and Owen Wilson are all expected to return.

Source: Variety

6. Jonathan Herman’s new script Rites of Men has been bought by Universal Pictures. The script is being compared to the sleeper hit Taken.

The Hollywood Reporter said:

“Herman’s script centers on a working-class single dad whose only son is murdered and must then set out on a quest to solve the killing.”

The “dad on revenge” movie seems to be a popular new sub genre. Mark Wahlberg is attached to a similar film called Prisoners while Mel Gibson has the forthcoming Edge of Darkness.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

That’s it for now. See you at the movies.

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Knowing Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:53:01 +0000

Short version: Knowing starts out strong, but despite some impressive (and very intense) visual effects, unravels as it goes on.

Screen Rant reviews Knowing

I went into Knowing very neutral – I hadn’t heard much about it and the premise and trailer looked pretty promising. I realize Nicolas Cage hasn’t exactly been hitting it out of the park lately, but call me crazy: I like the guy despite the crazy hair and eccentric acting.

Knowing opens in 1959, on an elementary school playground – all the kids are running around and having fun except for one little girl, standing off on her own very still. Her name is Lucinda Embry (Lara Robinson) and she’s obviously the “weird kid” in the class. She actually reminded me of a young Christina Ricci from her role in the 1991 film The Addams Family.

Anyway, students were supposed to come up with a way to commemmorate something having to do with the school, and she was the one who came up with the winning idea: a time capsule. The teacher asked everyone to draw a picture of what they thought the future would be like 50 years from then, but instead Lucinda filled two sides of a sheet of paper with densely packed, apparantly random numbers.The teacher comes around to collect papers and feels pity for little Lucinda, who just seems out of sorts – and the teacher takes the paper from her, apparently (to me) before she was done.

Cut to present day and we have astrophysicist and MIT professor John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) and his son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury), living together in a nice home in a heavily wooded area. John’s wife has died not too long ago, and both he and Caleb are struggling to learn to live without her. John is drowning his sorrows in whiskey while trying to teach college class, work as a scientist and raise his son.

Of course we are now at the 50th anniversary of the burial of the time capsule, and Caleb ends up with the list of numbers penned by Lucinda. Even though Koestler has been drinking, one night he becomes curious about the numbers and manages to find the date of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 – not only that, but it seems that the number of people killed that day are also on the paper.

He starts scouring the sheet for other significant dates and finds tons of them – everything from natural disasters to accidents involving airplanes, fires, etc. This freaks him out, and not just for the obvious reasons, but because after the death of his wife he’s come to believe that everything is a result of random chance. This shows quite the opposite.

As a matter of fact he sees that 81 people are supposed to die the very next day, and right about here is where an intriguing premise and beginning of a movie starts to go off the rails. On that next day, he’s watching the news, desperately looking for a disaster that matches up with the prophecy. He finally falls asleep, but has to go pick up his son at school. And what happens? Within yards of where he’s standing during a traffic jam a small airplane crashes into the ground.

Don’t get me wrong… it was actually one of the cooler scenes in the movie, and the most intense (I don’t know when showing people on fire coming out of the wreckage of a burning plane became PG-13 material), but the fact that it happened at the exact location where he was strained credulity.

Being a scientist kind of guy, he tries to learn more about this mystery and tracks down Lucinda’s daughter Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne). Of course at first she thinks he’s a nutjob, but eventually comes around. She has a little girl and both she and Caleb start hearing the same “whispers” in their heads that Lucinda heard. There are also these pale, blond goth looking guys in long black coats who pop up mysteriously from time to time, who are obviously connected to the paper and to what’s happening.

From here John tries to stop the events that are predicted on the paper, and ominously, it seems like the final event which is only days away indicates the end of the world.

OK, a movie like this really hinges on what, precisely, the “secret” is and the ending – that can make or break the movie. The film started out actually quite cool, creepy and VERY intense but as it goes on you start to figure out that these guys that are appearing are one of three things: Angels, demons or aliens. The film throws in some biblical references (and Cage’s character is estranged from his father, a Pastor) and when it comes to the rather fantastic (and I don’t necessarily mean that in a good way) ending, I suppose depending on your point of view you may call it ambiguous or you’ll say it was actually one thing or another (I’m trying not to give anything away).

I think that if you’re a sci-fi fan the end will be satisfying, if you’re a New Age person you’ll get something different from the ending – and if you’re a Christian it may very well annoy the heck out of you (it did, me).

So in the end, is Knowing worth checking out? It depends – how much can you suspend your disbelief? It’s a cool premise but honestly, it’s got a lot of plot holes that were hard for me to get past by the end of the film. If you don’t think about it too hard you might enjoy it – or you might even find it funny despite its uber-serious intentions.

I’m kind of bummed about it because I’m a huge fan of director Alex Proyas’ Dark City, but this film certainly doesn’t measure up to that.

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New Posters For ‘Terminator Salvation,’ ‘Knowing’ & ‘Dark Mirror’

Ross Miller — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:52:33 +0000

Today we have some new posters for three upcoming movies for your viewing pleasure: Terminator Salvation, Knowing and Dark Mirror. The first is a new John Connor-centric poster for Terminator Salvation. It’s just one in a slew of other Terminator posters we’ve seen for the $200 million sci-fi/action sequel, but I’d say it’s, like most of the rest of them, pretty damn sweet:

Ah, but is that REALLY Christian Bale? Nope, it’s actually a poster for an action figure tied to the movie – but it’ll fool you at first glance. If you want to see pics of the actual figure, click on the image above. [update] Conveniently, a new Terminator Salvation poster came out right after this – Check it out:

The second poster is for the upcoming Nicolas Cage thriller Knowing, a film which looks like The Number 23 meets Cage’s own Next. This thing could go either way: disaster or fun entertainment…I suspect the former. Check the “meh” poster:

And the third is for Dark Mirror, a horror movie that’s been around for a while (the first screenings were in summer 2007) but this one-sheet has just been released. So even though it’s years old, the poster indicates it’s still to come out in general release. And the poster is pretty cool (according to the official blog for the film it was director Pablo Proenza who designed it):

Terminator Salvation is scheduled to be released on May 21st in the US and June 25th in the UK, Knowing is released on March 20th in the US and March 25th in the UK, and Dark Mirror is scheduled for a Spring release this year. Source: MoviesOnline.ca

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WonderCon 2009 – Knowing / Astro Boy Panel

Bruce Simmons — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:46:12 +0000

We were running short on time so we flew through these combined panels.

Knowing

Alex Proyas chatted to us remotely via a video about Knowing, telling us what we were about to see. They showed us the movie trailer and two scenes from the movie.

Knowing is about a teacher who examines a time capsule unearthed at his son’s school. The contents, a piece of paper, has a series of numbers that lead to predictions that have already come true and the rest of the numbers on the list presumably lead to events that will come true. This list leads Cage to believe the world is going to end at the close of the week.

The first scene involves the airline crash we catch a glimpse of in the trailer. This scene is pivotal to Nicolas Cage being convinced that the series of numbers is actually true. He’s stuck in a traffic jam and as he gets out to see what is going on, the plane goes tilting by, slamming into the ground. It’s an intense scene, and well done.

Cage reacts to the disaster by running over to the wreckage to help people. Some were on fire, some get caught up in secondary explosions and so forth. The note full of numbers showed the lat, lon and number of people who die at this location.

It’s accuracy to this event is, we’re told, what pushes Cage over into the believing side.

The 2nd clip shows Cage trying to anticipate the next disaster in a subway. He sees a suspicious character whom he pursues into a subway. I won’t tell you what happens with this suspicious character, but the ensuing subway accident, like the airplane, is detailed and devastating. Not too gross, but it’s implied well.

These scenes lead me to feel like this could be a great multi-mini-disaster-wreck-fest movie. It’s classic Cage playing a regular Joe shoved into an extreme circumstance. It could be good, but it’s what we don’t see that will either make or break the movie. Is the rest as good? Is the story compelling? I hope so.

Knowing opens March 20th.

Astro Boy

For the CGI movie Astro Boy, all we experienced today was a preview clip.

It opens with him falling down along the side of a skyscraper screaming. More screaming… a little more screaming as he goes shooting past us and suddenly his foot jets kick in. We watch him try to learn his balance on this new found skill.

He acquires it pretty quickly as he zooms up the side the building and into the clouds where he plays amongst the fluffy white things for a few minutes before zooming off saying out loud how he has to go home and tell his father.

Astro Boy features the voices of Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Donald Sutherland, Nicolas Cage and others.

How does this sound to you?

Astro Boy opens in October of 2009.

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Alex Proyas’ ‘Knowing’ Is More Intense Than You Think

Sabrina Cognata — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:00:32 +0000

The first thing I thought of after seeing Summit Entertainment’s panel for Alex Proyas’ new disaster flick Knowing was how much more brutal it seemed than in the trailer. In addition to viewing the trailer, I also had the opportunity to watch two extended, but unfinished clips from the film: One of a horrific plane crash and the other of a subway crash. (Keep this in mind if you consider bringing children to this film as it’s only rated PG-13.)

Other than the fact that I knew this was a film about predicting the world’s future in accordance to its major natural disasters, I didn’t exactly have much information about it, but these extended sequence were way more than I bargained for.

There are spoilers below and I’ll warn you before you come to them.

Teacher John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) becomes involved in trying to prevent a major natural disaster after discovering a piece of paper in a time capsule that has predicted every major natural disaster for the past 50 years. As John studies the paper more he is more able to understand how it works and even the dates and places of future disasters. Which brings us to the first clip.

[SPOILER ALERT]

Koestler is sitting in traffic, caused by a car accident, when he realizes that he is at the exact coordinates, on the date of one of the predicted disasters. He gets out of his car and asks a police officer if everything is all right. Then out from the sky falls a jumbo jet, which crashes through traffic and into a field. Koestler races through the wreckage to attempt to help people, who are on fire, dying or dead.

A scene Alex Proyas’ Knowing

I’m not sure about anyone else, but the sense of dread and doom I felt are unexplainable. I felt unprepared for such a cataclysmic event, but my interest was absolutely piqued about what would happen next.

In the second clip, Koestler is at he scene of the next disaster, which predicts the deaths of 81 people. He races up to a police officer asking why the area has yet to be evacuated. When she looks at him as though he’s an escapee from Bellevue, Koestler races into the subway, where he believes he sees a man that looks suspicious. He chases the guy onto a train when another train slips off its tracks and speeds through the air like a bullet, heading right for the train Koestler is on. Then the two trains collide and you watch the decimation of both trains, the subway station and tons of people.

[END SPOILERS]

Although, both scenes are very well crafted, I really spent a lot of time wondering how everything is going to be together in a way that explains the creepy alien looking men in the trailer with the number prediction sheet. My hope is Knowing won’t be the victim of a M. Night Shyamalan type ending, where 74 minutes of questions are answered in two minutes with an absurd anomaly for an explanation. It’s a cop out that totally cheapens storytelling.

Creepy aliens(?) from Knowing

As a disaster film, Knowing will hold its own, but in the realm of Sci-Fi thriller, I’ll be excited to see exactly how the discovery of the information in the time capsule will tie into the ending of this film. As the numbers on the paper run out, does that predict the impending doom of Earth? Or, rather, will it open up the possibility of Earth becoming a Utopia? I’m not sold on either one of those ideas, but it highlights some of the greatest fears of modern times, which should be really interesting to watch.

Knowing opens on March 20th.

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NY Comic Con: Summit Entertainment Panel

Kofi Outlaw — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:05:01 +0000

Probably the biggest surprise at this year’s New York Comic Con had to be the Summit Entertainment Panel, which featured footage from the studio’s upcoming films, Knowing, The Hurt Locker, and Astro Boy, all three of which are looking pretty good.

KNOWING

Knowing is the upcoming film from Alex Proyas, director of The Crow. It stars Nicolas Cage as a brilliant professor who discovers a sequence of numbers in an unearthed time capsule that predict every major disaster of the last century–and a doomsday disaster that will soon occur.

There were two clips from Knowing screened at the panel. The first showed how Nicolas Cage’s character, John Koestler, coming to believe in the numbers: he’s driving home on the highway contemplating the sequence and ends up stuck in traffic. As he’s stopped, Koestler happens to glance down at his car’s GPS navigator and realizes that his current latitude/longitude coordinates appear within the sequence. And just then a Boeing jet comes crashing onto the highway in a ball of flame and carnage. It’s pretty nuts.

The second clip took place later in the film, when Koestler is desperately trying to prevent these disasters from occurring. He goes into the NYC subway looking for what he assumes is a terrorist about to strike. He chases a suspicious man through the station and onto a train, only to discover the man is just a bootlegger. And just then an oncoming train jumps the track and goes careening through the station, crushing dozens of people. Again, pretty nuts.

So far Knowing looks pretty crazy. Don’t know how the actual plot is going to turn out (I see it potentially unraveling in the third act), but we’ll know for sure when Knowing hits theaters on March 20, 2009.

THE HURT LOCKER

I didn’t know much about The Hurt Locker going into the panel, but I definitely know about it now. The film stars Jeremy Renner (28 Weeks Later) as a Sgt. William James, a badass bomb diffuser over in Iraq. Watching James’ back are his fellow members of the Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit, Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldrige (Brian Geraghty). The movie focuses on the bond between the three EOD Unit soldiers as they travel through Iraq facing life and death with every job.

The clip screened at Comic Con focused on establishing the characters of the EOD Unit members: James, the bomb handler, is reckless, fearless and ultimately brilliant at what he does. Sgt. Sanborn, the Unit leader, is disciplined, methodical and pragmatic. Sgt. Eldrige, the sidekick, is meek but brave, and acts as the buffer between the clashing wills of James and Sanborn. The three lead actors all portrayed their parts well, and showed real chemistry as an ensemble.

Renner was present at the panel and shared some amusing anecdotes about what it was like to train in the desert wearing 100lb bomb disposal suits while being forced to perform menial tasks like picking up paperclips or completing math problems. He added that his character’s renegade attitude was based in part on crazy stories real EOD Unit soldiers had shared with him.

(Side note: Jeremy Renner could use an infusion of charisma. Smile every now and again bud, your’re in the movie biz!)

The Hurt Locker was directed by Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break) and I have to say, from what I saw, she’s done a great job at the helm. The clip they screened was one of the most tense sequences I’ve seen in years: quiet, no ambient music, with intimate close-up camera work and some exceptional sound mixing (every little rip, tear, or heavy breath sounds like the precursor to an explosion). The Hurt Locker will be sure to get hearts everywhere pumping triple-time when it hits theaters later this summer. Be sure to check it out.

ASTRO BOY

One of the films I’m really looking forward to this year is Summit Entertainment and Imagi Studios’ CGI reimagining of the anime classic, Astro Boy.

The Summit panel featured some never-before-seen concept art from the film, along with an extended sequence of the teaser trailer for the film, showing how Astro Boy learns how to use his foot jets. IGN got access to the pics (they were hosting the panel, after all), but the footage was off strictly limits (and security wasn’t messing around. They were watching the crowd with night vision lenses every time footage was shown).

Guess we’ll have to make do with the pics. Astro Boy is poised to hit theaters on October 23, 2009.

Astro Boy’s Schematics: arm cannons, leg jets and mini butt cannons, check

Astro Boy takes flight over Metro City

Astro Boy gets harrassed by the man

Astro Boy tries to escape pursuit

Astro Boy’s nemisis, The Peacekeeper, in “absorbtion phase”

Astro Boy gets excited for his big film debut

That’s it for the Summit Entertainment panel at this year’s New York Comic Con. Be sure to check out more on Knowing, The Hurt Locker and Astro Boy and tell us what you think.

Source: New York Comic Con

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Alex Proyas’ Thoughts on ‘The Crow’ & ‘Dracula: Year Zero’

Carl Lee — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:02:22 +0000

Concerning The Crow, someone had to finally ask what Alex Proyas thinks of a remake. With Stephen Norrington already signed to write and direct the reboot, which apparently isn’t going to be “gloriously gothic or stylized,” someone had to ask the original director what he thought.

JoBlo.com sat down with Proyas for a Knowing interview and ask about the recent announcement. He had this to say:

“I think it’s kind of premature, really… It’s seems like ‘The Crow’ is only like 15 years old maybe. It’s seems, early. (laughs) I always thought that remakes, you shouldn’t be given license to remake something for at least 25 years. I don’t know. It just seems kind of odd to me. Just re-release the original movie.”

Screen Rant is with you, Alex! We’ve about had it with Hollywood’s new infatuation with the terms “remake” and “reboot.” Ever since Tinsel town struck gold with Batman’s suit (sans-nipples), all we’ve been getting is regurgitated and half-thought-out flicks. Some original source materials are butchered so badly they deserve to be remade, but cult classics don’t need to be.

The Dark City and I, Robot director has a number of projects in the works, including Dracula: Year Zero and The Unpleasant Profession of Johnathan Hoag.

Year Zero is a “prequel of Bram Stroker’s ‘Dracula’.. that’s essentially a medieval epic.” In terms of casting, he was slim with the details but he did say “it may be someone a little younger than we’ve seen.” He also noted it won’t be like other Dracula movies, “it’s really about the birth of the legend. So it’s set in 13th Century Transylvania.” Because it’s still early in production, he didn’t have much else to say.

And finally, Johnathan Hoag is “just starting” with his first draft of the script. It’ll be some time before we hear anything about that one.

Knowing is out March 20, 2009 and stars Nic Cage.

Source: JoBlo.com

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Comic-Con ‘08: Summit Panel – Knowing

Vic Holtreman — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:14:16 +0000

Alex Proyas flew out from Australia to talk about his new film Knowing. Proyas jokingly apologized for not having any beautiful actors with him.

Nicolas Cage discovers a list of numbers that turn out to be predictors of every major disaster in the last 50 years.

They showed a clip setting up the plot of the entire film – a young girl in 1959 that seems a little “off” writes down two pages of seemingly random numbers when the teacher asked the class to draw pictures of what they think the future will look like. Cut to present day and Nic Cage discovers that the numbers do indeed have meaning and we follow the progression of what may be the upcoming disasters.

Proyas said that he wanted to make the movie and Nic Cage’s character as real as possible.

Despite the action-edited look of the trailer Proyas said the film is actually quite low key.

Proyas denied a rumor that he might be directed a Silver Surfer movie.

Knowing will be released in March 2009.

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