Screen Rant » moon

Poster Friday: Moon, Tooth Fairy, Parnassus & More!

Rob Keyes — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:42:29 +0000

Happy Friday everyone! Today we’ve again gathered the latest posters to come out for this week’s poster round-up.

Screen Rant’s wall this week now includes one-sheets for The Princess and the Frog, Planet 51, Taking Woodstock, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Blood Creek, Moon, Tooth Fairy, Yes Men Fix The World, Pandorum, Dread, Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant.

Let’s get to it.

To start, here’s the new poster for The Princess and the Frog thanks to our friends at Latino Review – Note the classic and beautifully hand-drawn art for Disney’s next addition to its 2D library:

The Princess and the Frog opens December 11, 2009.

Source: Latino Review

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Summer 2009: The Season Of Bad Movies [Updated]

Heath McKnight — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:38:14 +0000

Well, the summer movie season is officially over, and while box office earnings are way up, it seems like the quality of the films have actually gone way down. But for every few badly-written movies (like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Transformers 2, and G.I. Joe–though some will say it’s not that bad), there was a diamond in the rough like District 9. So why were so many movies so bad in the summer of ‘09, even if they did make a lot of money? Hint: The Writers Strike!

Before the summer began, I wrote an article about how the 2007 Writers Strike might affect the summer 2009 movies. I speculated that back in 2007, studios were nervous about how long the writers strike could last, leaving them with a possible lack of films for the fall/winter 2008 and all-important summer 2009 season (early May to late August 2009). To make sure they had big films lined up for Summer ‘09, the studios pushed to have their big-budget scripts quick-finished before the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) contracts were up in November 2007 and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in summer of 2008.

So what happened? Movies like Wolverine, Transformers 2, GI Joe, Angels and Demons, Terminator Salvation, and others got thrashed by critics (and our own, brave reviewers here at Screen Rant), for their lackluster scripts that showed every sign of being half-cooked. Now, some of you might thing bad scripts and summer blockbusters go hand-in-hand – but let’s be honest, when was the last time there were so many stinkers that came out in one summer? Sure, many of these films made a lot of money, but how much of that profit hinges on moviegoers looking for affordable entertainment and “stay-cations” in this bad economy?

It’s very well known that most of the summer ‘09 films were rushed into production. Angels and Demons was delayed a year due to the Strike, but that didn’t seem to help make the final product that much better; Michael Bay has said in interviews that he worked out the overall story of Transformers 2, all the way down to the action AND comedic bits. However, when the WGA strike ended, writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman were joined by fellow writer Ehren Krueger to try and get the script for TF2 hammered out in a matter of three or four months to meet the production start deadline. At that rushed pace, the script was bound to suffer.

Several Big-budget franchise installments failed to live up to the hype.

Here’s a quick recap of some of the more disappointing movies this summer:

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Terminator: Salvation
Angels and Demons
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Year One
Public Enemies (this one is open to debate–it seems kind of split on how people and critics liked it–Vic liked it)

(Continue to pg. 2 to see which movies of Summer ‘09 were actually good!)

You Might Also Be Interested In:

2009 Scream Award Nominations

Ross Miller — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:37:08 +0000

The nominees have been announced for the fourth annual Scream Awards, held every year by Spike TV. The decisively more “fan-friendly” award ceremony (compared to the Oscars) honors films from the sci-fi, fantasy, horror and comic-book genres of movies, TV shows and comic books. The awards are described as, “the first and only global event of its kind,” to honor those genres.

The Scream 2009 nominees were chosen by the Advisory Board of Hollywood and Genre Leaders, a list which this year includes the likes of Wes Craven, Roland Emmerich, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Eli Roth and Zack Snyder, plus many more. The event will be taped on Saturday, October 17th this year at The Greek Theater in Los Angeles, and will air on Spike TV ten days later on Tuesday, October 27th (check for local times).

Along with the awards, the show will also be airing some exclusive, world premiere of footage of some of the most anticipated movies of 2010! Presenters and musicians for the event are to be announced shortly.

Below is the list of a selection of the 32 categories from this year’s Scream nominations. For those of you (all of you?) who want to have YOUR say on which film should win, you’re in luck! Public voting for the awards has opened already and will run right up to October 17th. But before you head off to vote, here are some of the nominees:

BEST FANTASY MOVIE

“Coraline”

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”

“Twilight”

“Up”

“Watchmen”

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”

BEST HORROR MOVIE

“Dead Snow”

“Drag Me to Hell”

“Friday the 13th”

“Let the Right One In”

“My Bloody Valentine 3D”

“Splinter”

BEST COMIC BOOK MOVIE

“Dragonball Evolution”

“Punisher: War Zone”

“The Spirit”

“Watchmen”

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”

BEST VILLAIN

Eric Bana as Nero; “Star Trek”

Cam Gigandet as James; “Twilight”

Lorna Raver as Mrs. Ganush; rag Me to Hell”

Liev Schrieber as Victor Creed/Sabretooth; “X-Men”

Alexander Skarsgård as Eric Northman; “True Blood”

BEST DIRECTOR

J.J. Abrams; “Star Trek”

Tomas Alfredson; “Let the Right One In”

Michael Bay; “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”

Pete Doctor & Bob Peterson; “Up”

Duncan Jones; “Moon”

Sam Raimi; “Drag Me to Hell”

BEST TV SHOW

Battlestar Galactica

Dexter

Fringe

Lost

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

True Blood

BEST ACTOR IN A FANTASY MOVIE OR TV SHOW

Ed Asner, “Up”

Hugh Jackman, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”

Robert Pattinson, “Twilight”

Brad Pitt, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

Daniel Radcliffe, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”

Michael Sheen, “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans”

BEST ACTRESS IN A FANTASY MOVIE OR TV SHOW

Scarlett Johansson, “The Spirit”

Jamie King, “The Spirit”

Rhona Mitra, “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans”

Kristen Stewart, “Twilight”

Emma Watson, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”

For the rest of the nominees you can head over to Spike.com, where you can also cast your votes.

Although some of the awards are truly suspect (how the hell The Spirit got nominated for ANYTHING is beyond me), I still like the overall celebration of the type of sci-fi, fantasy, comic book and horror films we here at Screen Rant revel in Although I won’t go into a specific rundown of who I think should win, I’d like to throw my opinion in the ring for a few of them:

Lost should win Best TV Show (I love Dexter, but it’s no Lost); Best Horror Movie should go to Let The Right One In (I would say Drag Me To Hell, but since that’s a comedy too, Let The Right One takes it for me); Best Actor in a Fantasy Movie Or TV Show should go to Brad Pitt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; and Best Comic Book Movie should (EASILY) go to Watchmen.

But enough from me, what and who will YOU vote for? As stated, you can cast your votes over at Spike.com, and you can see if the winners match your picks when the Scream Awards 2009 air on October 27th this year on Spike TV.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

‘Moon’ Scoops Top Award at EIFF 2009

Ross Miller — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:48:00 +0000

The Edinburgh International Film Festival had it’s last day yesterday, part of which included the annual festival award ceremony. Screen Rant recently reviewed the new Duncan Jones/Sam Rockwell flick Moon, which scooped one of the top awards at EIFF, known as the Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film. Other winners included the Cannes favorite Fish Tank, and the phone-sex drama Easier With Practice.

For those of you who may not know (and unless you’re really into smaller films and festivals, or live in the UK, you probably won’t), the Edinburgh International Film Festival is the longest continually running film festival in the world, first starting in 1947. It celebrates all type of films from low-budget British horror flicks to the latest from Pixar. I have been lucky enough to attend the festival two years running now, and I have enjoyed the variety and quality of films immensely so far.

As I mentioned, Moon took the Michael Powell British film award, but here is the full list of EIFF 2009 award-winners (click on titles for film info):

(Courtesy of EIFF and Empire)

Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film
Moon – Directed by Duncan Jones

PPG Award for Best Performance in a British Feature Film
Katie Jarvis - Fish Tank

Best New International Feature Award
Easier With Practice

Standard Life Audience Award
The Secret Of Kells

Best Documentary Award
Boris Ryzhy

Skillset New Directors Award
Cary Joji Fukunaga - Sin Nombre

The Rotten Tomatoes Critical Consensus Award
Humpday

UK Film Council Award for Best British Short Film
After Tomorrow

Best International Short Film Award
Princess Margaret Blvd.

Scottish Short Documentary Award
Peter In Radioland

McLaren Award for New British Animation
Photograph Of Jesus

Either by some odd coincidence or cruel twist of fate, I somehow only caught one of those above winning movies, and that was Moon. I really liked the film, but wasn’t quite enamored with it as most were. The two highlights of the festival for me were Ponytpool – a Canadian zombie movie with a twist – and Black Dynamite – a spoof of the “blaxploitation” movies of the ’70s.

Movies I wasn’t so keen on at the EIFF 2009 were the controversial Antichrist, which was a love it or hate movie that shocked and appalled a lot of people at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year (I now share in their distaste for it, btw). One of my most anticipated movies of the festival, Romeo & Juliet vs. The Living Dead was a huge disappointment, and ended up being the worst film I saw there.

A sad truth is that many of the smaller films that were shown at the EIFF (as is the case with most festivals) won’t get a wide release. It’s a shame, since some of the films deserve just as much recognition as movies with multi-million dollar price tags.

Did any of you happen to make it to the Edinburgh International Film Festival this year? If not, do any of those winning movies look appealing to you?

Sources: EIFF and Empire

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Moon Review

Kofi Outlaw — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:51:27 +0000

Short version: Moon is an interesting, well-acted film that takes what could have been cliched sci-fi conventions and explores them from a fresh angle.

Screen Rant reviews Moon

Moon is the debut feature film by writer/director Duncan Jones. The film stars Sam Rockwell, the voice of Kevin Spacey and… actually just those two, really. The film is set on the lunar base Selene in a future where Helium 3, a gas mined from the moon’s surface, holds the key to reversing Earth’s energy crisis.

Rockwell plays Sam Bell, the one-man team assigned to Selene on a three-year contract. Bell’s primary job is waiting around days on end for one of the corporation’s three automated lunar harvesters to register a full Helium 3 load, which he then extracts and jettisons to Earth on a small space transport.

Moon opens as Bell is coming to the end of his three-year term. He’s bored, isolated, lonely and desperately aching to be reunited with his wife and the daughter he never met back on Earth. Bell’s only “friend” on the station is GERTY (voice of Spacey), an artificial intelligence system charged with watching over Sam and keeping him pacified and focused on his job.

As his time on the station comes to a close, Sam starts feeling strange. He starts seeing things, feeling odd pangs of emotion, and even some physical pain. One day, while out on a routine Helium 3 extraction, Sam suffers a terrible accident that prompts the corporation to initiate a horrifying contingency plan, all but forgetting about Sam even as his life hangs in the balance.

I’ll stop there. I’ve been debating for some time about how much of the plot of Moon I should reveal. In this case, it’s hard to judge where the line between spoilers and non-spoilers falls. I will say this: What you think is going to be Moon’s eleventh-hour plot twist is actually a first-half-hour plot twist. Conventions that other sci-fi films try to use as a climatic gimmick, Moon uses as a jumping-off point. Already that catapults the film far ahead of other sci-fi movies, landing it in a realm of originality all its own. And, to its credit, Moon does a pretty good job building on that fresh terrain.

The real standout in this film is Sam Rockwell. Those familiar with some of Rockwell’s back catalog (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Matchstick Men, Choke) know what a dangerously underrated actor he is. In Moon, Rockwell is (essentially) a one-man show: He gets up on screen and for 97 minutes takes his character through every conceivable emotion you could ever be asked to portray at an acting workshop. And not only is the performance funny, sad, freaky, thought-provoking and totally believable, it’s also very engaging. It’s a hard thing for one actor to hold an audience’s interest for a whole movie (Tom Hanks got an Oscar nom for it), yet every time I thought I knew what Sam Bell was going to do next, I was surprised. A great performance.

I also really enjoyed the “character” of GERTY. It’s essentially Kevin Spacey’s voice (which is somehow simultaneously soothing and slightly unnerving) and a robotic arm with a small monitor screen displaying an emoticon. And yet somehow, despite his monotone dialogue and programmed responses, GERTY nearly steals every scene he’s in and is arguably the most “human” character in the film. Some people might be tempted to say, “Dude, it’s HAL from 2001,” but in the end, I think GERTY will win most viewers over.

With Moon, writer-director Duncan Jones (who is David Bowie’s son, BTW) has definitely managed to achieve the nearly impossible: Breaking free of sci-fi conventions to create something new and unique, and yet oddly familiar. Like with GERTY, there were a couple of times during the movie I thought it was going to become a carbon-copy of this or that famous sci-fi film – but every time I started to feel that way, Jones managed to veer things just far enough off the beaten path to keep Moon feeling refreshingly interesting. Jones, I suspect, will become a very accomplished sci-fi director if he chooses to stay with the genre.

The only real criticism I have with this film is the story. The characters are well rendered, the plot never really gets lost in its own convolutions, and the major themes (even the implied ones) are very, very, interesting to think about. Moon is one of those movies you finish seeing and immediatly want to see again, knowing what you know now.

Tension is the real weak point of the story. Without giving too much away, lets just say that the nature of the plot makes it hard for the story to have any real sense of narrative or thematic tension. The ending of the film is primarily a thematic payoff, one that could be hard for some viewers to relate to on a personal or emotional level. Basically the film is like watching skilled philosophers (that would be Moon co-writers Jones and Nathan Parker) positing a philosophical point and calling that posited point a “climax.” Sure, what’s being posited may be interesting, but how many people are going to care?

In the end, though Moon may fall short of stirring the heart, it sure does stir the intellect. And let’s face it: Intellectual stimulation is pretty much what sci-fi fans are all about. Moon is a high point for the genre, and Douglas Jones and Sam Rockwell deserve a lot of the credit for taking it into orbit.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Duncan Jones Following ‘Moon’ with ‘Mute’

Rob Frappier — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:43:30 +0000

As much as I like bombastic, high-intensity, and (let’s face it) goofy action films ( i.e. Transformers), the majority of my favorite sci-fi movies are of the slow and contemplative variety. You know, movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, and Alien. Which is why I have been so excited for Duncan Jones’ upcoming feature Moon.

Widely praised at Sundance, Moon looks like it could be the kind of sci-fi drama that that sci-fi fans can really sink their teeth into. Plus it has Sam Rockwell who, between his widely praised performance in Moon and his supporting role in the upcoming Iron Man 2, is poised to potentially become a legitimate Hollywood leading man.

So, given the buzz surrounding Moon, how exciting is it that Jones and Rockwell may team up again on Jones’ next film, the Blade Runner-inspired Mute?

Recently, io9 caught up with Duncan Jones to ask him some questions about Mute, his approach to sci-fi, and more. I’ve reproduced a few of the questions below:

On the Mute script:

Yes it’s been done for awhile. I actually wrote it before I did Moon. The script has started to go out to actors. So if I can get a cast, and if Moon goes well and people have the faith to invest in me to another film then that’s the film I’m very much hoping I’ll do next.

On how he was inspired by Blade Runner.

The only reason that I mention Blade Runner is because there’s something about that particular film, where they really created a believable and realistic living breathing futuristic world. For all of the other films that have tried to do that I don’t think anything has come as close the way Blade Runner has to creating something believable. Something that feels real and organic. It’s like going to a real city and shooting a film there. You just get a sense that this place exists. [In] most of the science fiction films, it always feels a bit fake and a bit flat, but Blade Runner really didn’t. That’s the aspect of Blade Runner I’m hoping to capture.

On villains for Mute.

First of all, there’s more than one person [as in Moon], but also there’s a couple of villains in there which I’m really excited about. They’re so different than anything you’ve seen. I hope I get the chance to make the film because they’re going to be very unique, you’re not going to have seen anyone like these two guys before.

For a full version of the interview, follow this link.

Moon will be in theaters on June 12, 2009. Mute is currently in development and no word yet on a release date.

Source: io9 via The Playlist

You Might Also Be Interested In:

‘Moon’ Trailer & Clips

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:33:08 +0000

One of the hits at the Sundance film festival was a little sci-fi flick starring Sam Rockwell called Moon. Unfortunately I didn’t see it, and based on the trailer and few clips we have for you below, I’m sorry I missed it.

Check them out after the jump.

[See post to watch Flash video]

Head over to IGN.com for an HD version of the trailer.

And here are five clips from the film:

Based on this the film looks like a cross between the working man, creepy vibe of Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Here’s the official synopsis, courtesy of IMDB.com:

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is nearing the end of his contract with Lunar. He’s been a faithful employee for 3 long years. His home has been Selene, a moon base where he has spent his days alone, mining Helium 3. The precious gas holds the key to reversing the Earth’s energy crisis.

Isolated, determined and steadfast, Sam has followed the rulebook obediently and his time on the moon has been enlightening, but uneventful. The solitude has given him time to reflect on the mistakes of his past and work on his raging temper. He does his job mechanically, and spends most of his available time dreaming of his imminent return to Earth, to his wife, young daughter and an early retirement.

But 2 weeks shy of his departure from Selene, Sam starts seeing things, hearing things and feeling strange. And when a routine extraction goes horribly wrong, he discovers that Lunar have their own plans for replacing him and the new recruit is eerily familiar.

Before he can return to Earth, Sam has to confront himself and the discovery that the life he has created, may not be his own. It’s more than his contract that is set to expire.

Very interesting looking and I’ll definitely be checking this one out this summer.

Moon opens on June 12th, 2009.

You Might Also Be Interested In: