Alan Moore, the writer of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, V For Vendetta, and The Watchmen graphic novels, is teaming up with director Mitch Jenkins for a series of short films. The shorts represent the first time Moore has written directly for the screen, and the first time he’s endorsed and been creatively involved in a film project.
Act of Faith is the first installment in the series and will premiere in October at The Creator’s Project New York event, along with the second installment, Jimmy’s End. Act of Faith recently completed shooting in London and Jimmy’s End will be shot this summer in Northampton.
Nickelodeon’s dubbing Monday, June 25th “Big Time Monday” as Big Time Rush dominates the network on two different shows. The guys will appear as panelists on a new episode of Figure It Out at 7pm followed by the return of their series at 7:30pm. The group is also launching their new single, “Windows Down,” on iTunes that day.
Details on the Big Time Rush “Big Time Returns” Episode:
The boys return from their world tour to discover that they are now stars at the Palm Woods. Everywhere they turn there are fans, autograph-seekers, even a new BTR-themed tour of the place that is being sold by Bitters. In the midst of all this, what the guys really want to focus on is girls. Carlos is more determined than ever to land a girlfriend, Logan wants to reconnect with Camille, and James and Kendall seem to both be interested in Lucy.
Katy Perry’s legion of Twitter followers heard the news first: Perry’s big screen concert film, Katy Perry: Part of Me, will premiere a few days early in 100 locations in the US and Canada. The special advance Twitter premiere screenings will take place exclusively in RealD® 3D in advance of its official opening on July 5th. Fans lucky enough to get tickets to the advance screening will take home a pair of pink collectible Katy Perry RealD® 3D glasses and an exclusive pin-up poster.
“When we invited Katy’s millions of Twitter fans to be part of the movie-making experience, we were overwhelmed by the positive response,” said Amy Powell, President of Insurge Pictures. “From Katy’s first Tweet announcing the movie, her fans have been incredibly passionate and supportive and we want to make sure they are among the first to see the film they helped shape.”
Added Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO: “The use of Twitter throughout the making and release of Katy Perry: Part of Me illustrates the power of Twitter to break down barriers between artists like Katy and their fans.”
Tickets can be purchased for the July 2nd 4:00 and 7:00pm screenings at KatyPerryPartofMe.com/Sneak.
Insurge Pictures also released a few new clips from Katy Perry: Part of Me which is described as a “backstage pass, front row seat and intimate look at the fun, glamorous, heartbreaking, inspiring, crazy, magical, passionate and honest mad diary of Katy.”
True Blood season 5 episode #3 (“Whatever I Am, You Made Me!”) reveals more info on the Vampire Authority’s agenda, follows Tara’s decidedly rocky transition from human to vampire, and shows how the chaos caused by the return of Russell Edgington (Denis O’Hare).
The Plot:
Debut: SUNDAY, JUNE 24 (9:00-10:00 p.m.)
Other HBO playdates: June 24 (12:35 a.m.), 27 (10:00 p.m.), 28 (11:15 p.m.) and 30 (9:30 p.m.)
HBO2 playdates: June 25 (9:00 p.m.), 28 (8:00 p.m.) and 29 (11:00 p.m.), and July 1 (1:30 p.m.)
Bill (Stephen Moyer) and Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) barter for their lives with the Authority Chancellors and their leader, Roman (Christopher Meloni). Salome and Roman enlist a new ally in the face of Russell’s return. Sookie (Anna Paquin) goes to Fangtasia to ask for help from Pam, who is still caught up in her memories of Eric and the strange murders at the Comstock Brothel. Andy’s dalliance with Holly (Lauren Bowles) comes back to bite him in the butt; later, he’s visited by Gordon (Steve Rankin) and Barbara Pelt (Linda Purl), who are searching for Debbie. Jason bumps into an old high school teacher, but their reunion brings up conflicting feelings.
Written by Raelle Tucker; directed by David Petrarca.
The Inbetweeners stars Joey Pollari as Will McKenzie, Bubba Lewis as Simon Cooper, Zack Pearlman as Jay Cartwright, Mark L. Young as Neil Sutherland, and Alex Frnka as Carly D’Amato.
The Plot:
The Inbetweeners takes a comedic look at a group of teenagers navigating high school and charging into adulthood the way everyone does…by taking one step forward and three steps back. Whether humiliating themselves in an effort to impress the girl of their dreams, or mercilessly mocking their friend for driving a bright yellow clunker with a cassette player and one blue door, get ready to embrace the “inbetween.”
Dr. Who‘s David Tennant [pictured in Fright Night] and War Horse‘s Emily Watson are set to play husband and wife in BBC Two’s The Politician’s Husband. Simon Cellan Jones (The Borgias, Boardwalk Empire) directs the three-part serial which began shooting this month in London.
Commenting on The Politician’s Husband, Ben Stephenson, Controller of BBC Drama Commissioning, stated: “Paula Milne returns to BBC Two with a fine piece of drama that manages to combine the political and domestic worlds so elegantly. Starring David Tennant and Emily Watson, it demonstrates the channel’s continued commitment to original British drama.”
“It is said that all power corrupts but the power balance within a marriage can be unspoken and subtle whereas the power games in politics are more overt and manipulatory,” says writer/creator Paula Milne. “The drama explores the personal realm of a political marriage played against the ruthless hubris of Westminster politics – and what can happen when those two realms collide.”
The Plot:
A highly authored, gripping drama The Politician’s Husband follows the shifting balance of power in a political marriage and the ensuing consequences when a wife becomes more successful than her husband.
Senior Cabinet Minister, Aiden Hoynes (Tennant), is happily married to Freya (Watson), a junior minister. When we meet Aiden he is a rising star in Westminster. He went into Parliament driven by idealism, but after his son Noah was diagnosed with Aspergers he allowed himself to be sucked into the power games of Westminster, which provided him with a place to hide.
Freya Gardner (Watson), although equally able, has put the brakes on her own political career in order to provide stability for the family. But even as a Junior Minister, most recognize she is a political star in the making.
Bruce Babbish, played by Ed Stoppard (Upstairs Downstairs, Any Human Heart), is one of Aiden’s closet friends. Bruce chose a political career, not out of ideology but because it suited his Machiavellian nature and lust for power and its trappings. For him the fun lies in the chase, in second guessing his opponents. Bruce is ambitious and even Aiden isn’t immune from his friend’s ruthless streak.
The cast also includes Jack Shepherd (The Nativity, WyCliffe) as Aiden’s Father Joe; Roger Allam (The Queen, The Thick of It) as Chief Whip Marcus Fitzwallace and Oscar Kennedy (Toast, Great Expectations, Hunted) as the Hoynes’ son Noah.
“So, what are you doing with the rest of your life?” “Catching up on some me time, finding God, maybe move around some chairs.” That’s neighbors Penny (Keira Knightley) and Dodge (Steve Carell) getting acquainted while the world only has three weeks left before an asteroid crashes into earth effectively destroying the entire planet in the comedy film Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.
After his wife runs off leaving him alone, Dodge finds himself unable to break out of his boring, daily routine of going to work and selling insurance (there’s actually been an increase in interest in the Armageddon package from his customers). One night while Dodge is fixating on his old high school sweetheart, he notices Penny crying outside his window. It seems she missed the final flight to England and now has no chance to get back home to see her family and spend the End of Days with them. Being emotionally exhausted, Penny falls into a deep sleep on Dodge’s couch and is still sound asleep when Dodge goes to work the next morning.
The next night a riot breaks out in Dodge and Penny’s neighborhood and the mayhem is heading right for their apartment complex. The unlikely pair flee in Penny’s car and end up taking a road trip to A) reunite Dodge with his high school sweetheart and B) get Penny to someone Dodge claims has a plane and can fly her home to her family before the world ends.
Sweet, charming and very funny, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a dark, romantic, comedy/drama that has the best and most original spin on the End of Days storyline in a movie in years.
Steve Carell is hilarious as Dodge, the straight-laced, awkward, downright square-peg guy who has always lived his life looking for a secure safety net and is finally forced by the impending Armageddon to take the adventure of his life by looking to rekindle and reclaim the love of his life. The scene where he tries to tell his maid he doesn’t need her to clean his apartment anymore because there’s no real point and she mistakes it for him firing her is laugh out loud hysterical. Carell is also very effective in the tender, quiet scenes in the film between Dodge and Penny.
Keira Knightley gives one her best performances as Penny, the spirited, sensitive extrovert who at first is nothing but trouble and a pain in the butt for poor Dodge but soon becomes a great and much needed travel companion. The scene where she finally gets a chance to call her family and talk to them when it’s still unclear if she will ever get home is sure to bring a lump to the audience’s throat.
The film is well-paced and has great cameos from some familiar actors – which will not be revealed here. It also has a fantastic soundtrack with the use of some of the best songs from the 1960s and early 1970s which both enhance and provide emotional depth to the film.
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a dark romantic comedy that begs the question: if you only had a few weeks or days left before the End of Days, what would you do and who would you do it with? Make sure this summer to spend some time with Dodge and Penny for some good laughs, a sweet romance, and a few surprises along the way.
GRADE: B
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World hits theaters on June 22, 2012 and is rated R for language including sexual references, some drug use and brief violence.
Pixar returns from their Cars 2 dip into mediocrity with Brave, the story of a fiercely independent Scottish princess whose desire to change her mother’s mind leads to a witch’s spell gone wrong.
As always, before getting to the feature film, I’ll give a quick recap of the short that accompanies it. In this case, it’s La Luna, which was nominated for an Oscar in the animated short film category last year. It involves a little boy who accompanies his father and grandfather to work for the first time. They’re the ones responsible for ensuring the moon appears in its correct phase of the night sky. It’s cute and falls in line with the type of thing the Oscars like to nominate, but it felt a bit forgettable and lacked the overt humor that has made the Pixar shorts so engaging.
Onto Brave itself, there are two elements that work spectacularly in its favor. One, casting Kelly Macdonald as the voice of Princess Merida was spot on. She imbues the heroine with the right mix of femininity and a defiant spirit. The other voices are decent, employing the likes of Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, Robbie Coltrane, and Craig Ferguson, but no one particular shines through like Macdonald.
As for the other thing Pixar got right, it’s the general aesthetic and animation style of the movie. The brilliant greens, fiery red hair, and damp but lush landscape of Scotland are all on display here. It’s quite a lovely film to look at … in 2D that is.
The first thing to mention in terms of missing the mark is the studio’s latest attempt at the third dimension. They started to go along with the technological craze with the release of 2009’s Up and have yet to make any of their films feel immersive using 3D. If anything, wearing the tinted glasses only dulls the rich color palette, and this is definitely one you can feel safe in saving those extra few dollars and buying some candy at the concession stand instead.
What else missed the mark? Well, almost everything else sadly; and I emphasize the “sad” because like the rest of the world, I’ve come to expect a certain level of excellence from Pixar films. Of course, their string of successes was bound to come to an end, and with the Cars 2 speed bump in the rearview mirror, returning to an original story brought hope. However, the story never shifts into that next gear, and the movie is rather slight in its profundity. This is simply a tale of a girl coming of age and the realization by both mother and daughter that their growing differences are actually a sign that they’re more alike than they realize.
In short, this is a perfectly serviceable Disney movie masquerading as a Pixar movie, and yes there is a difference. If you want an easy comparison scale using the latest examples from the two studios, this is better than Cars 2 (not that it’s hard to be) but lacks the depth and general entertainment of Tangled (whose 3D was far better). This trip to Scotland is also a bit violent at times ensuring Brave earns its PG rating with its rather vicious bear fights (seriously, bringing kids under 6 or 7 to the theater may not be a good idea).
To sum up, if you’ve got kids you have no choice anyway, but see this in 2D and save yourself the money and the annoyance of 3D. If you don’t have kids but love Pixar movies, it’s not that this isn’t worth watching, but it doesn’t need a trip to the theaters and can safely await the home market. Anyone outside of those demographics can simply go see Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.
GRADE: C
Brave hits theaters on June 22, 2012 and is rated PG for some scary action and rude humor.
ABC’s new competition series The Glass House is set to premiere on June 18, 2012. The one-hour reality series finds 14 contestants vying for a $250,000 grand prize.
ABC’s official synopsis: “Welcome to The Glass House, a real-life, real-time reality competition series that puts the viewer in charge of the game. Fourteen contestants will live and compete for a quarter million dollars in this totally wired, state-of-the-art house. But the contestants won’t only be playing against each other each week; they’ll also be playing to win over the viewing audience, as fans will be directing and controlling their every move throughout the competition. The Glass House is the next step in the evolution of unscripted television.”
Online and through social networks, viewers will be encouraged to support and follow those contestants they like and those they don’t. Viewer voting will help determine which contestants are sent home, but also which eliminated players can earn a chance to return to ‘The Glass House’ to compete. And viewer feedback doesn’t end there!
Several times a week, viewers can watch a live online feed of the players and vote to decide everything from what they wear and eat to the games they play, even where they sleep. In addition viewers will have the opportunity to give their favorite players feedback on their game from outside the house. How the contestants use that information is up to them, because in the end this is about who plays the best social game, so the most important alliances players can have are with their fans.”
Season one’s competitors include:
Alex, bail bondsman (age 25) – Dallas, TX
Andrea, bookkeeper (age 31) – Valencia, CA
Apollo, poet/author (age 28) – Phoenix, AZ
Ashley, paralegal (age 30) – New Orleans, LA
Erica, cocktail waitress (age 27) – Denver, CO
Gene, stuntman (age 28) – Chicago, IL
Holly, retail sales (age 21) – Detroit, MI
Jacob, cook (age 28) – Coos Bay, OR
Jeffrey, receptionist (age 35) – Brooklyn, NY
Joy, nurse (age 27) – Fredericksburg, VA
Kevin, police sergeant (age 33) – Toledo, OH
Mike, bar mitzvah DJ (age 48) – Pembroke, MA
Robin, blogger (age 43) – Washington, DC
Stephanie, scientist (age 32) – Boston, MA
Honest Abe may have been a secret vampire hunter, but he wasn’t the only President who had a talent for killing creatures. This Funny or Die video teases upcoming sequels to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter including James K Polk: Frankenstein Wrestler, FDR: Dragon Whisperer, Millard Fillmore: Mummy Skeptic, and Andrew Jackson: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Hunter.
