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Teaser Trailer: Toy Story 3

Release Date: June 18, 2010
Director: Lee Unkrich
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, Estelle Harris, John Ratzenberger, Ned Beatty, Jodi Benson, Michael Keaton

Plot: The creators of the beloved "Toy Story" films re-open the toy box and bring moviegoers back to the delightful world of Woody, Buzz and our favorite gang of toy characters in "Toy Story 3." Lee Unkrich (co-director of "Toy Story 2" and "Finding Nemo") directs this highly anticipated film, and Michael Arndt, the Academy Award®-winning screenwriter of "Little Miss Sunshine," brings his unique talents and comedic sensibilities to the proceedings.

Thoughts: The first Toy Story came out in November 1995 so this movie will be coming out over 15 years later, which makes me feel super old even though I am only 23. I enjoyed the first two movies a lot, but that might be because I was only like 10 years old at the time. Hopefully this movie will live up to my wonderful memories of the first two, but I fear that will be difficult because I loved them so much. I do like how the teaser managed to utilize most of the main characters from the films and I am interested in seeing more in the coming year.

Fake Trailer: Green Lantern

Jaron Pitts has created a trailer for a Green Lantern movie starring Nathan Fillion as Hal Jordon. Pitts combined superimposed computer effects with clips from Firefly, JLU, Star Trek and many other movies and television shows. It’s too bad that we’re going to have to wait another 2 years for a real Green Lantern film. But for now we have this trailer which I think it is very impressive.

Supposedly Bradley Cooper (The Hangover and ‘Sack’ in Wedding Crashers) is set to star as Hal Jordan in the actual film which will be out in 2011. I love Nathan Fillion and I think he would make a good Green Lantern, but Bradley Cooper is a pretty good choice, too. I am more familiar with the John Stewart version of the Green Lantern from watching Justice League so I think it would be cool if they got a black person to play him, but either way the Green Lantern is one of my favorite comic book characters so I am pretty excited for the movie regardless of who they get to play him.



Clips were combined from the following film and television sources:

Planet of the Apes
Serenity Trailer
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Stardust Trailer
The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring
Firefly
Dragonball Evolution Trailer
Galaxy Quest
The Fountain Trailer
Superman Returns Trailer
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Smallville
Justice League TAS
GI Joe Trailer
Contact
Star Trek Enterprise
Star Wars Episode III
The Mutant Chronicles Trailer
Iron Man
Star Trek Trailer
Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe Cutscene
The Chronicles of Riddick
Kamen Rider
Bedtime Stories
Escape from Witch Mountain Trailer
The Matrix Revolutions
The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian
White Noise 2

Trailer: Surrogates

Release Date: September 25th 2009
Director: Jonathan Mostow
Starring: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, James Francis Ginty, Boris Kodjoe, Ving Rhames

Plot: FBI agents (Bruce Willis and Radha Mitchell) investigate the mysterious murder of a college student linked to the man who helped create a high-tech surrogate phenomenon that allows people to purchase unflawed robotic versions of themselves—fit, good looking remotely controlled machines that ultimately assume their life roles—enabling people to experience life vicariously from the comfort and safety of their own homes. The murder spawns a quest for answers: in a world of masks, who's real and who can you trust?

Thoughts: This movie reminds me of a combination of Die Hard and I, Robot, both of which I love, and I also am a fan of most Bruce Willis movies so right away I’m on board. I don’t know anything about the graphic novel, but I have heard good things. I am really curious to see this movie when it comes out, and depending on reviews and peoples’ reactions to it this may be one that I see in the theater.

Cooper, Helms and Galifianakis on The Hangover

Some people just can't handle Vegas and Warner Bros.' raunchy and hilarious new comedy The Hangover shows you what can happen if you party just a little too hard. In the Todd Phillips-directed film, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis play three guys who go to sin city for a bachelor party. When things get out of hand and they lose the groom (Justin Bartha), they are desperate to do anything to find him and save the wedding.

ComingSoon.net recently went to Vegas and talked to the guys about their new film and what it was like for them playing such outrageous characters.

Q: Was that the greatest CGI in the world, or did you really lose a tooth?
Ed Helms: No. There was no CGI at all. This is an implanted tooth that my dentist was able to take out for the run of the movie.

Q: How did you lose it?
Helms: It's a birth defect, actually. I never had a tooth there.

Q: Really?
Helms: Yeah. I never had a tooth. So I don't have any kind of cool story.
Bradley Cooper: You had a baby tooth though, didn't you?
Helms: I had a baby tooth. When the baby tooth fell out, I never had an adult tooth that came in.

Q: Did Todd know that, or was that already in the script?
Helms: It was in the script. Todd didn't know it. And we actually tried alternatives first for a while. We tried to black it out. We did some screen camera tests blacking it out. And they made a prosthetic for me, and they gave it to me, and I was like, "This is like the worst joke ever. This is my first big part in a movie, and I look like a horse!" It waslike a picket fence with a gap in it that fit over my normal teeth. And I was like, "No. This is vetoed!" And then they came up with the implant, and I talked to my dentist, and he said, "Yeah, we can do it."

Q: Anybody else have any birth defects that helped their role?
Zach Galifianakis: I was born with this beard.
Helms: That's a skin condition. That's not an actual beard, it's a fungus.

Q: Zach, how much of your character was in the script, and how much did you invent?
Galifianakis: Well, the script was very well written, but you take a little bit of your own things that are in your mind for the character and kind of add it. But a lot of it was there already. But Todd Phillips let us add to our characters and improvise, and it worked. I think it worked. I haven't seen the movie.

Q: So was it your decision or was the script that he idolizes Bradley's character?
Galifianakis: That was something we kind of came up with as we were doing it. Because I myself fell in love with Bradley Cooper as an actor, so I thought, "Well, we'll just put that in the movie." And yeah, I don't think that was in the script.
Cooper: No, it wasn't. Yeah. I just remember us talking about it like halfway through, we thought...
Galifianakis: Yeah, it would be funny...
Cooper: Because the three of us are together the whole movie, and it'd be great to sort of see what happens. Because if you spend the time with each other, your dynamic will change. So Stu and Phil sort of reconnect, because they were obviously friends years ago, because they were best friends. So they reconnect. And then Alan and Phil, we just came up with this idea that he starts to sort of idolize Phil. And Phil sort of starts to really appreciate Alan, too. Even from the beginning when he swerves the car into the truck where everybody's flipping out, Phil loves it.
Helms: That's one of my favorite traits of Alan's, is how much he idolizes Phil. [laughs]
Cooper: When he says it like, "Does my hair look like Phil's?" at the end.
Helms: At the end, he wanted his hair to look just like Phil's.
Cooper: We pitched that to Todd, remember?
Galifianakis: That was a last minute thing. We changed it. Right before we shot the closing scenes.
Helms: And then another thing that was totally Zach and not in the script was your character's penchant for saying the word "classic."
Cooper: Oh, that's right!
Helms: Which became like...
Cooper: ...a tagline.
Helms: Our cast and crew gift at the end was a hat that said "classic." And that actually came up with the hair moment at the end, too, when you're like, "Does my hair look like Phil's?" And we were like, "How do I respond? Do I blow him off? Do I just kind of like call him an idiot?" And I was like, "No, it should be something warm that shows a connection." So we agreed on "classic" Phil. It was a little tribute to Alan.
Galifianakis: It came together really well.

Q: What was it like shooting in Vegas and spending such a long time at Caesar's Palace?
Cooper: It served the movie very well, because you sort of can't fake that feeling of what it's like to be here for a month and a half in a casino. So it really fueled everything. Because there's a grittiness. Vegas is sort of the fifth character of the movie. And luckily, we shot the Vegas portion first, and then the L.A. portion second. So we sort of brought what this town does to you to L.A. But yeah, you know, you feel like you're in this sort of crazy other world when you're here for so long.

Q: Did it normalize at a certain point?
Cooper: Absolutely. Yeah. I have a lot of anxiety coming to Vegas all the time. I'd get off the airplane and I'd hear the slots and I'd sort of get panicky. And now it's like home. I can't believe it. It was really true. It's sort of comforting, all the sounds. [laughs]
Helms: Yeah. I've always thought of Vegas as a sort of like dark wonderland. Like it's sort of like a sort of f*cked up amusement park. And then when you spend five, six weeks here--and we were shooting all over the city, like places where tourists never go--this city actually becomes normal. Like you start to see the things that really are normal about the city, like little league baseball teams, and a library. [laughs] And like all these things that you just never associate with Vegas. Like, "Wow, people live here. And function here. Pretty normally."
Cooper: And Zach would go... You went to a lot of little league games in your time.
Galifianakis: [sarcastically] Yes, Bradley, I went to a lot of little league games.
Cooper: Alan has this thing where he can't be like 500 yards in front of a Chuck E. Cheese. So like Zach, in order to study his character, would go...
Galifianakis: Can I just say, because I've said it before, that that does not come from... That can't be near a school or Chuck E. Cheese or a food court has everything to do with the character Alan wants to hang out with 12-year-olds and skateboard with them, not because he wants to do anything malicious.
Helms: But let me tell you something: I love that you keep throwing that disclaimer out there, but to a parent, there's no difference.
Galifianakis: Yes! But if you knew the true intentions, you would not be offended by it.

Q: Were there lines in the script that implied that?
Helms: No, this is a retro-fitted explanation. [laughs]
Galifianakis: And that wasn't in the script, the hinting that he's had some problems being around children. And then he ends up with a baby. [laughs]

Reporter: You'll be happy to know that in my notes, I put "Zach wants to hang out in schools because he is a 12-year-old."
Galifianakis: Right. Can you please...Instead of "Zach," can you put "Alan"? [Everyone laughs]

Q: Out of all of the adventures you guys go on in the film, do you have a favorite?
Helms: These are some spoilers I guess... I loved the whole sequence of drugging the tiger all the way through [Mike] Tyson's house. That's the one glimpse of the night before that you actually see which is Tyson's security footage.

Q: Which was more intimidating - Tyson or the tiger?
Helms: The tiger was scary as sh*t. Tyson was really cool actually. He was incredibly gracious.
Galifianakis: Tigers kill things and eat their young. That never left my mind.

Q: When Mr. Chow jumps out of the car, how many takes did you do of that scene?
Cooper: Too many. We did a lot. It wasn't just Mr. Chow. It was the stunt guy too who would jump on my neck. He wasn't naked though. Mr. Chow was.
Galifianakis: They did a lot of takes with Mr. Chow and the stunt guy, but Bradley was in every take. He caught the guy.
Helms: I can't believe your spine held up.
Cooper: I know. I don't understand it. God was good to me that day.

Q: What kind of special relationship do you have now with the guy that jumped crotch first on you?
Galifianakis: You have nut neck.
Helms: You actually got jockage on your cheek.

Q: Were you guys pleased with the level you could take this movie to or did you want to push it even further?
Cooper: There is no level that you could push farther than what Todd Phillips wants to push. You could murmur an idea that you think is outlandish and he'd go, "Yeah, yeah let's do that in the movie."
Helms: Todd has no boundaries.
Cooper: He has a very dark sense of humor at times. The whole tone of the movie is suitable to that. It's really kind of his vision. I realized two weeks in that all I had to was pretty much play Todd. "Oh, I'm just pretty much playing you."

Q: Can you talk about the tasering scene? Todd really wanted you to be shocked right?
Cooper: Yeah, he did want us to be shocked. Luckily Warner Bros. said that was illegal. So we didn't do that.
Helms: He's so funny, Todd, because he's like, "We really want to taser you because I just want you to have something to react to. I was like, "No, you can't taser me. I'm an actor." I can act like I'm being tased. He's like, "You know we dialed it down from 50,000 to 30,000 volts so it won't be as bad."
Cooper: He's like, "Look at this YouTube footage. See the guy's fine."
Helms: The guy looked like he was in a lot of pain. He's paralyzed on the left side of his body. That was a fun one to shoot because it was just so extreme. Also Rob Riggle is one of the funniest human beings on the planet and thank God he gets a chance to really pop in this movie. Rob Riggle is the cop. I've known him for years and I just adore him.
Galifianakis: I was getting ready to say that the other good thing about that scene was there were kids in it, but given what we talked about earlier I realized we should not talk about it. It was fun though to have kids reacting to tasering because tasering by itself that's funny, but if you add the element of kids there it's just extra funny. Then they're clapping and they're tasering us.

Q: Are you actually spitting on a baby?
Helms: No comment. We did a couple of takes where I… I don't think spit is the right word. Sprayed maybe a little bit of water at a baby. Oh boy.
Galifianakis: It was actually bleach.
Helms: What you see in the movie is what we shot. It is what it is.

Q: Ed, you work in an ensemble cast as well on "The Office" so is that something you can bring from the show to a film like this?
Helms: Yeah well I don't know. I think every part is different and Stu fits in with these guys very differently than Andy Bernard fits in with the cast of "The Office." I guess in terms of understanding a group dynamic, maybe having the eagerness to be playful with other people. The generosity too I would think - that's a huge thing on the set of "The Office." Everyone wants to give everyone else a lot of space to shine and be funny. And that crossed over here too. One of the really fun things about this movie is that we are as people really different and then our characters are also very different from each other so there wasn't any sense of competition because what was funny for Zach wasn't funny for me or Bradley. We could all be ourselves and not feel threatened. That's the hallmark of a good ensemble and that's a testament to Todd's casting.

Q: Can you talking about the song you're singing in the movie.
Helms: Yeah totally. That was the day of. Todd said, "let's get the song in the movie," so I went off and wrote it. Todd and I did the words together and we shot it right away.

Q: Brad, you've been rumored to be in "Green Lantern" for a while. Is there a reason playing that character would be especially meaningful for you?
Galifianakis: Oh was that to Bradley?

Q: Have you been in talks with the studio?
Cooper: No, it's a great character. But I don't know.

Q: Are you a fan of the comics?
Cooper: Sure. Yeah.

Q: Have you been trying on rings?
Cooper: No.

The Hangover hits theaters on June 5th.

Get Him to the Greek Set Footage

MTV got a chance to visit the set of the Forgetting Sarah Marshall spin-off, Get Him to the Greek. The story, written and directed by Nicolas Stoller, follows a fresh-out-of-college record company intern named Aaron Greenberg (Jonah Hill) who is assigned the job of transporting an out-of-control rock star named Aldous Snow (Russell Brand, reprising his role from Sarah Marshall) from London to a gig at Los Angeles’ famous Greek Theater.

I’ve embedded footage below of Brand giving a tour of the set, where we get to see the behind the scenes antics as Hill shoots a scene with and his angry record company boss Sergio (played by Sean “P-Diddy” Combs) in a club.



I think Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a really funny movie and Jonah Hill's interaction with Russell Brand is one of my favorite things about it so I have high hopes for this movie. Get Him to the Greek will hit theaters in April 2010.

Ben Stiller Talks Zoolander 2

Ben Stiller talked to Screenrush about the long-in-development sequel to Zoolander. While it doesn’t sound like it will be happening anytime soon (Stiller says he’s been “working on a script over the years and HOPEFULLY it will happen”) we at least have some details of what the sequel might involve.

I am not a huge fan of Ben Stiller, but Zoolander is one of my favorite movies, regardless of how dumb it is, and I would be interested in seeing a sequel if it is as good as the first.

More about this movie

Christian Bale on Terminator Salvation

His dark and menacing performance as the caped crusader helped resurrect the Batman franchise and now many are hoping that Christian Bale will successfully revive another iconic character - John Connor. The long-awaited Terminator Salvation is finally here and Bale stars in the Warner Bros. flick that's set a few years into the future.

ComingSoon.net talked to the in-demand actor about what it was like to be John Connor and why he had to be persuaded to play the role.

Q: We just talked to Sam Worthington and somebody asked him if you were intense. He said, "I hate that f*cking word now. People call him intense, but he's just passionate." How do you feel about the intense label?
Christian Bale: I hate that f*cking word. I said it first alright.

Q: Do you feel like your intense?
Bale: I don't really analyze each word. People can label me whatever they want to label me. That's their prerogative. I don't actually have the same passion of feelings as Sam does about the word. I'm like whatever. I don't care. Call me an a-hole. I'm alright. I'm fine. If that's what you think of me then that's your right to think that.

Q: It's an interesting choice to go into another franchise. What did you see in this movie that you really wanted to be a part of?
Bale: I didn't go straight into it. I did "Public Enemies" in between. I felt like the franchise was done so when I first sent it, I didn't have an interest. Then I [heard an] idea that really was something good that could be told here. If that was going to happen then absolutely, I wanted to be on board. I like mixing it up. I like doing a "Dark Knight, "Batman Begins," "The Machinist" and things. Doing "Public Enemies" and then doing "Terminator." I enjoy that mix.

Q: How does the physicality of these roles change your life?
Bale: Not so intense on this one. Not nearly as intense as it was on "Batman." It's probably more intense for Sam because he's somebody who could actually have a fist fight with the Terminator. So for me, it was mainly just weapons handling and preparation for that. We had a great advisor who I spent a lot of time with, but the physical challenge was not nearly as tough as I thought it was going to be.

Q: Can you talk about how you collaborated with McG on your character?
Bale: Initially collaboration was just me saying, "No, I didn't want to do the movie." Then it was, "Why?" When people look at the franchise mythology and think it's over, you've got to come back with something that really knocks people out. I just didn't feel like it was there, but that wasn't just me. Everybody felt that. I really couldn't see that it wouldn't be able to get there. It just seemed crazy to me, like it wouldn't be possible. So I took a leap of faith because it was the right strike in everything they were saying. So alright, let's have a few points that we want to get across in another script that we want to be written and fine. Let's go after that. Of course a movie is collaboration, but a director has to have his own point of view. That is a director's job. He creates the point of view and he must have a strong point of view. He has to. He can't be wishy washy. He creates a rhythm. You can't have too many chiefs. He's obviously very open to ideas, but I like it when I'm hearing great ideas and then I'm just adding onto it making it something extra.

Q: What was your reaction when you saw it all put together?
Bale: I saw a few different variations like any movie. It goes through a lot of different shapes. Ultimately, the last one I saw I really felt satisfied. The public will decide. This isn't a movie that you sit down and watch as a personal 2AM viewing. It's not something in which you sort of gaze into the human soul and speak to you that way. It's a movie that's meant to be watched with a lot of different people and get that common energy. Movies like this are much like sports. It's that feeling of a common excitement throughout the theater. That's what I loved about seeing "T2" I felt like I think we might have a chance here. People will decide, but I think we might have a chance here of maybe revive this and be able to move on. We'll see what happens with any future movies if this one does well enough.

Q: If you do another "Terminator" movie, can you talk about where you'd like to see your character go emotionally?
Bale: No.

Q: Any chance we might see you in another Batman film?
Bale: You know, after making a number of blunders, I've learned that I do not answer that question until Chris Nolan has answered that question.

Q: Can you talk about the "I'll be back" scene?
Bale: That was actually something which a friend of mine who knew came on as a writer for awhile. I would have liked him to be around longer throughout the movie, but it was actually when Jon Nolan was on it briefly. He called me up and said, "Christian, I have this good idea I want to run by you because you might just say no way." I thought you know what, let's try it. We can always cut it out. My aim was to attempt and you can tell me if I did it successfully or not. My aim was to kind of have it be such a logical answer that hopefully people didn't go in that second, "What's he doing an Arnie impression for?" I didn't want it to come across as an impression. Ideally for me, a few seconds later people who know the other movies go, "Hey he just said the same line." That way I felt comfortable.

Q: You and Anton Yelchin have this weird time travel relationship. How was that to develop?
Bale: You know what, I solved it by just not thinking about it too much. That's really the answer to it. As soon as you start getting into any kind of time travel, which we don't have in this one. It's before the days where that has been discovered. You can get into a complete mess with the movies. It just becomes limitless and completely confusing. That one was fairly straight forward. I just don't think about it that much.

Q: Was the helicopter scene done in one take?
Bale: Well that would be great wouldn't it? Imagine that if it was done in one take. That would be fantastic. The camera didn't ever pan off. I'm having a tricky time remembering that one, so I guess it must have been one take.

Q: What's the most dangerous stunt you did in this? The helicopter scene looked horrifying.
Bale: If it had been done in one take then it would have been. (Everyone laughs) The biggest adrenaline rush was actually a dive I had to make down into a caverness space and I had to drop a fair distance for that, but I have worked with all the stunt guys, the riggers, the stunt coordinators before on a number of movies and I know how good they are. It became just a heart pounding rush. I've got to say, the stunts in this one, I didn't find real tricky.

Q: Are you fearless? I remember asking you on Batman when you were on a ledge of a building if you were nervous and you looked at me like I was crazy.
Bale: I'm sure there are things I have a fear of, but just not standing on the ledge of a building.

Q: How are things going with "The Fighter"?
Bale: I hope that we'll be making it.

Q: You've been an actor a lot longer than you've been a star. With the TMZ culture, are you concerned about it distracting people from your character onscreen? Does it distract from your performance?
Bale: Not for me it doesn't because I don't know what things are being said of gossipy stuff. My life is much happier when I ignore that. As for other people, that's their choice. If they want to embrace that then they're probably going to sacrifice enjoyment in the movies. I really believe that, but it's their choice if that's what they love looking at. I don't get it, but it is what it is.

Q: Can you talk about the scenes that got cut and that aren't in the theatrical cut?
Bale: I hate all the extras that you get on DVDs like the deleted scenes. They're deleted for a reason. Why show it? There's that expression you've got to kill your babies sometimes. That happens. You do get some very good scenes, but they just don't work with the rhythm of the movie. I'm pretty satisfied with what you see in this movie.

Q: Anymore scenes with you and Bryce that we didn't see?
Bale: Yeah, there were a few, but you'll have to speak to McG about that. He's the one who made the call.

Terminator Salvation hits theaters on May 21.

Trailer: Woody Allen’s Whatever Works

Release Date: June 19, 2009 (NY, LA)
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Begley Jr., Patricia Clarkson, Henry Cavill, Kristen Johnston, Michael McKean

Plot: An eccentric New Yorker (Larry David) abandons his upper class life to lead a more bohemian existence. He meets a young girl from the South and her family and no two people seem to get along in the entanglements that follow.

Thoughts: Woody Allen does roughly one movie per year, and I don’t think there has ever been one that I cared about, but I might actually enjoy this one. I love LD on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but this is pretty much his first real acting role since that show is mostly improv and by the looks of it he is doing a decent job. This seems like the kind of role that Bill Murray would be doing these days, maybe because it is a similar plot to Lost in Translation, but I am curious to see how Larry David does with it anyways. Chances are high that I will never see this movie, however if the opportunity arises I will not turn away.

The Expendables Behind-the-Scenes Video

The production Blog for Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables has posted this new behind-the-scenes video featuring several scenes being filmed for the action film. Opening April 23, 2010, the movie follows a team of mercenaries on a mission to overthrow a South American dictator.

Stallone, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Eric Roberts, Mickey Rourke, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Charisma Carpenter, Giselle Itie, Brittany Murphy and David Zayas star in the Lionsgate release.

Trailer: Duncan Jones’ Moon

Release Date: June 12, 2009 (NY, LA)
Director: Duncan Jones
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott, Rosie Shaw, Kaya Scodelario, Benedict Wong

Plot: 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.

Thoughts: I have been hearing mutterings of this movie for a few months now, ever since it premiered at Sundance, and right away it sounded interesting to me. Now that I have finally seen the trailer I am even more interested. I think Sam Rockwell is a very underrated actor because I cannot think of a movie that I do not enjoy him in. Based on the trailer the movie may be a little boring because it is basically a guy alone in space, but I am very interested in seeing it when it comes to DVD.

Year One Director Harold Ramis

The first person we talked to on the set of Year One was the mastermind behind the project, director Harold Ramis. Having already been behind some of the funniest comedies of the last three decades--Animal House, Meatballs, Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day are four of the comedy classics Ramis has written and/or directed--the filmmaker is tackling his biggest subject to date with Year One - the bible. He talked to us about how the movie came together.

ComingSoon.net: It seems that this has a modern premise but the language and dialogue will be "of the period." Is that the way the script was written, or was that a decision you made?
Harold Ramis: The whole conceit of the movie is to put these characters with a modern, contemporary sensibility in an ancient world. It's not a time travel device or anything. My assumption always was... not unlike "Monty Python" and "The Life of Brian," in that, at every great historical event, there's some jerk like me standing in the background not getting it, being out of sync, seeing through the pretensions or the hypocrisy of it. That's where our main characters come from. So they express themselves; their vernacular is much like our audiences', but the people around them are in the classic role. So in a way it's like you're watching a Cecil B. DeMille movie, and two of your favorite comedy stars turn up.

CS: Whose idea was it to do this PG-13? I think we've gotten used to anything Judd's involved with automatically being Rated R.
Ramis: Yeah, the studio... I was writing it for families anyway, not that it's a wholesome movie. It's pretty twisted anyway, but I thought that they'd gone about as far as you can go in "Superbad" and even "Knocked Up," language and explicit sexual stuff, so this movie's not about that. My own adolescent sense of humor can be rude, but I really thought that this content might make this movie suitable for younger kids and older kids. It sounds grandiose and way over-optimistic, but having been involved in "Ghostbusters," it makes me think that there are movies that whole families will see together and the parents will enjoy as much as the kids do.

CS: Can you tell us a little bit about how the idea came about and how you worked with the writers to develop the idea? Did you meet them while you were directing "The Office"?
Ramis: No, Gene (Stupnitsky) and Lee (Eisenberg), I met them both as college students. Gene lives in the next suburb, he grew up in Deerfield. My office is in Highland Park, so they're adjacent suburbs, and Gene came to me, I think between his junior and senior year at the University of Iowa and wanted to work for me. Huge fan of mine and I'm the only filmmaker in the area. He came to me and worked as an intern, as an assistant, in several different capacities, and then Lee, we spent our summers on Martha's Vineyward, and Lee Eisenberg was working as a waiter at a restaurant called Alchemy and he seemed like such a funny guy that we just started talking and I asked him what he was going to do after college, and he wanted to be a comedy writer. He came to L.A. and worked for us as a P.A. and intern also, so they met while they were both P.A.-ing on different projects of ours. They started writing specs together and they showed me everything they wrote and it was getting better and better, so when I thought, "Who can I work with on this?" I wanted someone with a much younger sensibility and then they got the jobs on "The Office" and they were fully professionalized. The script, their regular work on "The Office" and then another script they're doing for CollegeHumor.com, so those are the guys.

The ideas that turn up in this movie have been bouncing around in my head since 1975, believe it or not, when I started thinking of an early world comedy at that time. Then I was doing a show - John Belushi and Bill Murray were in the show. I just watched a show on PBS about the Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal coexisting on the planet at the same time, so suggested at in improv the next day that John play Neanderthal and Bill play Cro-Magnon meeting for the first time. Modern man meets the caveman. John was great as the Neanderthal, and Bill was extremely funny as the Cro-Magnon, and Bill had a completely contemporary approach obviously. That comic voice kinda stuck in my head; just someone speaking in a modern way, in an ancient setting.

CS: What was it like working with a newer generation of comics in Jack Black and Michael Cera?
Ramis: Yeah, it's somewhat generational. I think the press release the studio first put out was Judd and I was a meeting of these generations. There's a picture of Judd as a teenager, coming to see me in L.A. in the early '80s, which is what he was doing as a kid; was just trying to meet every funny person who he'd seen on television or in movies. So I started hearing about Judd first. I'd see interviews; I knew about "Freaks and Geeks," and I started seeing interviews where he would mention me as some big influence on him. So Judd's about 40 and I'm about 60 and then [Michael] Cera's like 20. So he started working with people one generation younger than he is, and he's one generation younger than me. So now he's the bridge for me to people two generations younger. I have a son who's a year younger than Michael Cera.

CS: You mentioned "Life of Brian" before. We were talking earlier about other great Biblical comedies like "History of the World Part I" or "Wholly Moses!," which is a bit of a forgotten film. What's going to differentiate this movie from some of the other classics? What's your spin on it, basically?
Ramis: Well (chuckles) our spin is that "Wholly Moses!" was awful! [laughter] And that's well forgotten, and "History of the World" I looked at again and it's very old school. It's very Catskills. It isn't really expressing any kind of philosophy. Whereas the Python films do contain some kind of social commentary, and there's a sense of playing with real literature with the Pythons, and that's sort of what I was going for here. I've been looking at the Old Testament for a very long time, starting as a Hebrew school student, and just thinking about it every year. I've had some really enlightening contact with a progressive rabbi that I know, and these ideas, suddenly after 9/11, seem much more important. The role that religion plays in the world, the power of Fundamentalism over people's lives. I thought, maybe I can take all of those ideas I had about the early world and use them in service of this idea. And to somehow find an interpretation of Genesis that would hook directly into where we are today. All our problems go all the way back right to the beginning.

CS: Do you think that the Old Testament is inherently funnier than the New Testament?
Ramis: I don't know about funnier, but I was explaining to someone that the New Testament is a much better narrative, that's why it's more popular, because it's like a hero's journey. It's one character, the story takes place in one person's lifetime, it has a beginning, a middle and an end, and a redemption. You look at the Old Testament, and it's one dysfunctional family after another. Somehow, when we tell Bible stories to kids, they turn out to be little morality tales, but they're not! You read the Old Testament, and people, they're more than flawed; they do some terrible things to each other, and there are no happy endings; there are no resolutions. These stories just go on and on in the Old Testament. I noticed that, and I also noticed that they're all journeys in the Old Testament. Everyone's on a journey; they've either been expelled from somewhere or exiled or they're fleeing from something or they're out seeking something in the world. When I thought about doing the Old Testament, there was no single story that has a good enough arc to be a movie, unless you're doing "The Ten Commandments" again. So I thought I could take all these stories from the early part of Genesis and smash them into one story. I'm sure most of our young audience will not know the difference anyway. (laughter) So it was a way to try and forge a narrative out of a bunch of Genesis material.

CS: What are some of your favorite straight Bible epics?
Ramis: As a kid, "Ben Hur" was like, really powerful and I liked "Ten Commandments" as a kid. Now look at it and it seems so ridiculous, but the funniest is "Samson and Delilah." Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr. It's one of the worst movies ever made. It's DeMille, and it is really bad, but it makes me laugh so much. You're going to have to see it to know how awful it is.

CS: We heard earlier Adam and Eve are going to be in it, along with the forbidden apple?
Ramis: [laughs] Well there are representations of that, yeah.

CS: Can you list a few of those? Is the Burning Bush going to be in it?
Ramis: No, the forbidden fruit is a trigger event, and it really starts with Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. Jack [Black] and June Raphael and Michael [Cera], they are living in a state of nature. That's my interpretation of the Garden of Eden, man's pre-civilization. So they're hunter-gatherers. Jack is the laziest hunter-gatherer in the tribe, and they have one rule in the tribe: the one rule is that you can't eat that fruit. You can eat anything else, but not that fruit. Jack, as part of his seduction of June, eats the fruit and she gets to eat the fruit. So it's an original sin concept, it causes his fall, and he's expelled from the tribe, which sets him off on this journey. The first people they meet are Cain and Abel, and they travel with Cain for a while, they run into Abraham later, and then Abraham warning them about Sodom. Every awful thing he says about Sodom sounds very good to them. (laughs)

CS: Is there going to be the type of social commentary that there was in "Life of Brian" or are you just using that background for the humor?
Ramis: Well, I always liked everything Monty Python did, but just the idea that there could be something as accurate and funny done on the Old Testament, as they did on the New Testament, that was an appealing concept. When I looked at all the Bible movies. I looked at all the comedies and all the serious ones, and theirs was really far and away the best of the comedies, so part of it for me was to try and do a satire as elegant as that one, and then looking at all the old Cecil B. DeMille pictures and all the other Bible pictures that were made, it's also part parody of every bible epic you've seen.

CS: We saw the camels and we heard you had sheep and other animals. Any crazy stories?
Ramis: Yeah, lot of animals. Nothing's run amuck yet. We had a cougar that didn't want to work. I heard he was constipated (laughter) but it's the cougar that was in "Talladega Nights." When they hired the cougar, they were like "Hey, this cougar worked with Will Ferrell..."

CS: How are Jack and Mike around animals?
Ramis: Oh, they're great. Jack had a little scene with a fox in it, they've worked with oxen so far. Virtually every scene in the movie has animals in it. Seemed like part of doing the early world. We have a zebu walking around, and noone's ever seen a zebu.

CS: Is there any concern of a backlash among religious groups?
Ramis: No, I think the Fundamentalists will put it on their banned lists without even seeing it. It seems that will be an instant knee jerk reaction to the content of the movie. Orthodox Jews won't be allowed to see it, and I think all religious moderates will enjoy the film.

CS: There's never a discussion with the studio or anything where they ask to soften things?
Ramis: Amy Pascal, who runs the studio, she was at the first meeting where I described what I wanted to do, and she said that since 9/11, she's wanted to do a film on Fundamentalism, but always thought it would be a drama. She said, "Now I'm thinking it might be a comedy."

CS: They're building this huge thing... is that part of a set piece for the end of the movie?
Ramis: Yeah... things will fall down. (laughter)

CS: Will you only have one opportunity to shoot it?
Ramis: We're doing it on a Saturday I think. Two weeks from Saturday.

CS: Can you tell us what they're trying to build?
Ramis: Oh, it's a zigarrat. A lot of zigarrats, or as I call them "The birthday cake zigarrats," where it's one layer after another and they get smaller and smaller, but it's the Tower of Babel, it's a huge obilisk.

CS: Can you talk about shooting in Shreveport, and why you chose it here, especially with the amount of churches there are in the area? I thought that was kind of ironic.
Ramis: A lot of churches. Well, someone said, "You're shooting a bible comedy in the bible belt. How smart is that?" People have been great so far. We haven't had any problems, but Shreveport is one of the states (sic) that has one of the best tax breaks in the country, and we needed that help. For a comedy, this is quite a large scale. Hundreds of costumed extras and all this construction, so we needed a relatively inexpensive place to work, and we didn't want to leave the country.

CS: How did you find this place where you could build five actress of Sodom?
Ramis: It's a little more, it's like six and a half acres. This is a large sand pit. The sand has been dredged out of the waterways, I guess, and we looked at another sand pit and some other open fields, one of them on a military base, which was a landfill I think. We have another big set that we use for the farming village that Cain and Abel live in, and that's on a big flat landfill.

CS: Just timing-wise, is Jesus or God going to be felt in this movie?
Ramis: No, we're thousands of years before Jesus. It's the real one... Jesus wasn't born in the Year One. They made it "one" after him. (laughs) Because when he was born, they didn't say, "Let's start counting again; this will be one." And then when he died, they didn't say "This must be 33." It was in the 7th Century that Pope Gregory decided to try to figure out a calendar that began with the birth of Jesus, so he enlisted a monk named Dennis the Short (laughs) to do a calculation which took him quite a while but he figured it out by tracing generations back. And he was still six years off.

CS: What kind of special effects will we see in the film?
Ramis: The usual. [laughs] Multiplying crowds. The movie is a secular humanist testament. (laughs) The only miracle that I know is the miracle of life itself. To me, everything is a miracle, so we don't need fire and brimstone to live in a state of awe and wonder. That's sort of what the movie's positing to people. If you want to see miracles, just look around every day. It's just existence itself; it's kind of a Buddhist thing, so the Dalai Lama appears at the end (laughter), floating on a cloud.

CS: It's funny that Jack Black is in your movie. I wondered if you saw "Be Kind Rewind" and their "sweded" version of "Ghostbusters" where Jack Black plays you? He plays everybody but Bill Murray. It's very entertaining.
Ramis: So I've heard. I haven't seen it yet. I saw clips that suggested that's what they were doing, but I met Jack first on "Orange County." We did some improvising together but it doesn't appear in the film, but we were working the same nights, so I got to know him a little bit. Stephen Frears also put me in "High Fidelity"--I played John's father, it was a little fantasy moment--but they cut it out. It's on the DVD I guess, but I didn't meet Jack then, but that's where I first saw him and thought he was so great. I wanted to work with this guy for a long time.

CS: Are you any way involved with the "Ghostbusters" video game that's coming out?
Ramis: Yes I am! They consulted with us every step of the way, they showed us drawings, and they laid out the concept of the narrative of the game, and showed us drawings of all the environments, and then showed us animatics of the preliminary stuff.

CS: Have you played it yourself?
Ramis: No, I'm not a gamer. Then we had the script, and we've been looking at the script, and we'll make changes. Mine will be sort of in-studio. I think Danny [Aykroyd]'s been working on actually rewriting their script.

Trailer: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

Release Date: June 12, 2009
Director: Tony Scott
Starring: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, John Turturro, Luis Guzman, Michael Rispoli, James Gandolfini

Plot: In "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," Denzel Washington stars as New York City subway dispatcher Walter Garber, whose ordinary day is thrown into chaos by an audacious crime: the hijacking of a subway train. John Travolta stars as Ryder, the criminal mastermind who, as leader of a highly-armed gang of four, threatens to execute the train's passengers unless a large ransom is paid within one hour. As the tension mounts beneath his feet, Garber employs his vast knowledge of the subway system in a battle to outwit Ryder and save the hostages. But there's one riddle Garber can't solve: even if the thieves get the money, how can they possibly escape?

Thoughts: This trailer reminds me a lot of the movie Inside Man which also starred Denzel Washington, but I like pretty much anything he does so I don’t have a problem with that. I have never been a fan of John Travolta, but he is typically pretty good as a bad guy. This trailer look like your average heist movie, but it looks interesting to me none the less. I would watch this movie at the $1 theater or if it came on TV, but I cannot see spending $8 on it, and to it’s credit there are few movies I can.

Evolution of the Batman Logo

There have been many variation of the Batman logo over the last 70 years. Rodrigo Rojas has put together a two and a half minute video showing the mutation of the iconic symbol over the years.

Trailer: Sam Mendes’ Away We Go

Release Date: June 5, 2009 (NY, LA)
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Jeff Daniels, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Allison Janney, Chris Messina, Catherine O’Hara, Paul Schneider, Carmen Ejogo, Jim Gaffigan, Josh Hamilton, Melanie Lynskey

Plot: Directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes ("American Beauty") from an original screenplay by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, this funny and heartfelt film follows the journey of an expectant couple (John Krasinski ["The Office"] and Maya Rudolph ["Saturday Night Live"]), as they travel the U.S. in search of the perfect place to put down roots and raise their family. Along the way, they have misadventures and find fresh connections with an assortment of relatives and old friends who just might help them discover "home" on their own terms for the first time. The movie features the music of Alexi Murdoch.

Thoughts: Sam Mendes director of Revolutionary Road, Jarhead, Road to Perdition, and American Beauty brings you a movie that feels completely different. This movie has a very independent feel and reminds me a lot of Little Miss Sunshine. Based on what I have seen and heard thus far this movie has actually piqued my interest. I am not sure how good the actual movie will be, but I would have to give John Krasinski’s beard an A+ and that is enough to make me want to see it.

Kevin Smith Part 4: The Dark Side Of The Internet

Writer / Director Kevin Smith in an exclusive interview talks about his recent revelations about the internet.

Kevin Smith Part 3: Change, Death, Legacy

Writer / Director Kevin Smith in an exclusive interview discusses his upcoming film "A Couple Of Dicks" discusses his career, what his Dad would think, what motivates him and his legacy.

Kevin Smith Part 2: Writing & Filmmaking

Writer / Director Kevin Smith talks about how he started writing and making movies, his growth as a film maker and the advantages of being in film school for 16 years.

Kevin Smith Part 1: Sellling Out And Salty Language

Writer / Director Kevin Smith in an exlusive interview discusses his upcoming film "A Couple Of Dicks", set to roll with stars Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. Smith talks about Mirmax, selling out and more.

Coming Soon

I have been meaning to get to this blog for a while, but I have been busy with finals coming up in a few weeks, work, and training for my new job, but I promise as soon as I get more time I will get this thing going. Over the next few days I am going to post this interview with Kevin Smith that I found on YouTube. I have been a fan of his for a number of years and I think he gives the best interviews. All of the Evening with Kevin Smith DVDs fascinate me because he can talk for hours and will say what ever he wants. Coming up in the future I will be posting some new trailers and my thoughts on them, along with my thoughts on some of the movies in the works, and maybe some reviews and other stuff relating to movies.

Another Useless Blog

This blog is the newest member of the useless family where I will attempt to provide movie reviews, trailers, my thoughts and other things that have to do with movies that I don't want to take the time and space to put on Useless News.