2007 San Diego Comic-Con Wrap Up & Thoughts

Vic Holtreman — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 20:32:12 +0000

Just, wow.

I hadn’t been to the San Diego Comic-Con in about seven years, and this was the first time I went as a member of the press. If I had to pick one word to describe my experience it would have to be:

Overwhelming.

I did have a lot of fun, especially at the parties held after the days’ events. In the photo above are some of the folks I met who run other movie sites that I visit every day. From left to right they’re Jessica from FirstShowing.net, Peter from /Film, John from The Movie Blog, Kevin (crouching) from Cinematical, then there I am in my Slusho t-shirt next to John from Advanced Iron and finally Alex from FirstShowing.net. I also met Jen from Rottentomatoes.com, and folks from Chud.com, Rope of Silicon and other sites.

As just one person, it’s impossible to cover everything movie-related going on at the Con due to overlapping panel times and the fact that you have to get in line early for the bigger presentations ahead of time. Not only that, but I was covering news for Screen Rant plus Advanced Iron. I did have some help with the coverage for the A.I. site, but I was also limited by other factors.

I knew going in this wasn’t going to work like clockwork, but with what I’ve learned next year I’ll do things a bit differently.

All in all it was a blast and I had the opportunity to meet a lot of folks I never dreamed I’d get to see face to face including Jon Favreau, Robert Downey Jr., Terrance Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert Burnett (director of one of my all time favorite movies, Free Enterprise), Michael Davis (director of the upcoming Shoot ‘em Up starring Clive Owen) and the writers of Crank and Pathology. I also spent some time talking to Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli from NBC’s Heroes) along with Zachary Quinto (Sylar from Heroes and Spock in the upcoming Star Trek film).

It was great getting a preview of some of the bigger films to come out next year and to be surrounded by tons of other folks who are as geeked out over movies as I am.

I think two of the biggest things to come out of the Con were Beowulf and Iron Man. I think Iron Man is going to turn out to be one of the biggest movies of 2008 and as Marvel Studios’ first film is going to knock one out of the park. It’s too early to tell with The Incredible Hulk, but the panelists certainly were passionate about the project and I think they’re going to come at it from the right angle.

I don’t know how Doomsday will do as another post-apocalyptic movie, Wall-E looks great, Pathology may do well if it can escape being labeled as torture porn (which it’s not). Shoot ‘em Up is definitely worth checking out as a definite R-rated action flick… Balls of Fury could go either way – the clip they showed was pretty funny but I don’t know if the entire film will be. Although doing a send up of the classic Bruce Lee movie Enter the Dragon with ping pong is a pretty damned funny idea.

The clip and cast of Hot Rod had me laughing, although honestly I thought the scene they showed (which WAS funny) went on for a little bit too long, like they didn’t know when to say “when.”

I know this kind of rambled, but that’s just how it felt while there, so it’s actually quite an appropriate style for this post.

Maybe next year I’ll actually have time to walk the exhibit hall and check out all the booths…

Pathology Trailer (and Party!)

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:18:58 +0000

A bunch of movie bloggers met with Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (the guys behind last year’s Crank), whose next film is the upcoming thriller Pathology. They gave us a sneak peek at the first ever trailer for the film. From what was in the trailer, it would be the red band version so I anticipate it will be cut a bit before being released. Pathology stars Milo Ventimiglia who plays Peter Petrelli in NBC’s Heroes.

First I have to say thanks to the guys over at Lakeshore Entertainment and to John Campea over at The Movie Blog for putting the gathering together. It was great to get to meet the guys who run FirstShowing.net and SlashFilm.com. I also met some great folks from RottenTomatoes.com. All great folks and it was great to finally meet people that I’ve “known” online for quite a while.

One extra cool thing was that Zachary Quinto, Milo Ventimiglia and Masi Oka from NBC’s Heroes were there. I had the opportunity to speak with Zach and spent quite a while talking with Milo, who stuck me as a really grounded guy. Super-nice guys, and it was actually weird talking to the guy who played Sylar but not having him creep me out.

With the recent backlash, or at least loss of interest in the torture porn genre, releasing a “scary” movie is a sticky situation. Even if a movie doesn’t fit into that mold, the studio has to be sure that the film is not even perceived as being that sort of film.

Pathology is a thriller which follows a number of med school students who seem to start out with the hypothetical question of how to murder someone in a manner that is undetectable or at least makes it impossible to track the killer – and then of course move on to actually trying out their theories. The trailer was very effective and showed Milo as a student who gets drawn into this game and finds himself unable to escape as it spirals out of control.

From what I’ve seen it looks like while it may have some graphic scenes it will actually have some character development (gasp!) allowing us to get to know Milo’s character and be drawn into his world, at first possibly disliking him but then pulling for him as he tries to extricate himself from the situation. It came across as quite intense and according to the guys in charge they went to great pains to verify the authenticity of the film in regards to the medical aspects of the story.

On the other hand they also previewed for us a trailer for a Clive Barker film titled Midnight Meat Market.

With a title like that, combined with the imagery from the trailer, I’d say this one is in for a hard time at the box office. Following on the heels of the flopping of Grindhouse (which the title elicits memories of) and the scenes of bloody mayhem in the trailer directly connected to slabs of beef in a butchering plant – the perception may be that this is just another version of Saw or Hostel (even if it’s not). The Clive Barker name carries some weight, and I hear the budget was pretty low on this one so it may end up profitable despite what I see as these two strikes against it.

I’ll withhold an opinion on that one until hearing and seeing more, but for now I think that Pathology not only looks like the better film but will also do better at the box office.

Screen Rant » pathology

2007 San Diego Comic-Con Wrap Up & Thoughts

Pathology Trailer (and Party!)