One of the highlights of Saturday of last week was the footage Universal showed off for Jon Farveau's "Cowboys and Aliens". Seriously, after seeing Daniel Craig completely take on a spaceship by himself, you want more.Roberto Orci was one of the dominant figures warndering around the Con, mainly because it seemed he had his hand in every other big television show or feature presented. He was recently cornered and asked a bit more about "Cowboys and Aliens", and went on a bit about the schooling they were given by none other than Steven Spielberg. The alien invasion movie never goes out of style, and the cowboy movie is one that's kind of gone out of style. So the idea of mixing them to make a third genre that is something you haven't seen, even though the two elements are familiar... I keep calling it chocolate and peanut butter.He (Spielberg) literally showed us a brand new print (The Searchers), and he commented throughout the whole thing. We had basically Steven Spielberg commenting on thsi movie, so he took us to Western school. And that was the first one we saw. And then he kind of gave us a list, and we saw a couple of movies after that every weekend. And we just saw Shane, The Professionals, Who Shot Liberty Valance, High Noon... but The Searchers was the first one, and that's the one that really stuck in our minds. [It's a dark film but] very emotional. That moment when John Wayne picks up that girl, you know... if you've sat through the whole movie, it gets you.If that's the case, then you can see that some of the 'teachings' are starting to pay off with the footage already showcased. "Cowboys and Aliens" includes the talents of Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, Noah Ringer and Harrison Ford. The comic book adapted feature flies into theaters everywhere on July 29th, 2011.Source: io9

During three magical days at Comic-Con last week, I had many fascinating conversations, from Guillermo del Toro discussing his love for The Haunted Mansion and the challenge of H.P. Lovecraft adaptations, to Mark Wahlberg making a colorful case for his thespian credentials. But if I had to choose a favorite, I think I’d go with

 

The Montreal World Film Festival will pay tribute to the celebrated French actress Nathalie Baye, who will be in Montreal to present a selection of her films. One of the most well-respected and versatile French actresses of her generation, Nathalie Baye has enjoyed a lengthy career that has included multiple César awards and a wide variety of roles. She has been the muse of many of the great directors of the French screen, such as Alain Cavalier, Nicole Garcia, Jean-Luc Godard, Tonie Marshall, Maurice Pialat, Claude Chabrol, Bertrand Tavernier and François Truffaut, and also has distinguished herself in international films by such directors as Marco Ferreri, Steven Spielberg, Robert Wise and Tsai Ming-liang.

Thanks to her sensuality and skillful comic timing, Baye has been used to great effect in everything from serious psychological dramas to light romantic comedies. Baye developed a love of dance at an early age. Her passion took her to New York at the age of 17, where she trained as a ballerina for two years. Upon her return to France, she became interested in acting, and studied drama at the Paris Conservatoire. Over the course of her studies she gained a reputation as a talented comedienne, and made her screen debut opposite Isabelle Adjani in the 1971 comedy Faustine. Two years later, Truffaut cast her in a supporting part in Day for Night, and Baye subsequently landed her first starring role in Maurice Pialat's La Gueule Ouverte (1974).

Rising quickly through the acting ranks during the 1970s and 1980s, she was increasingly sought after by such directors as Godard, for his 1979 romantic drama Sauve Qui Peut (la Vie), Pierre Granier-Deferre for his comedy Strange Affair (1981) and Bob Swaim for his crime drama La Balance (1982), winning Césars in each.

Unlike many actresses whose careers wane as they edge toward middle age, Baye continued to portray vibrant, attractive women in thrillers, dramas, and comedies alike. Two of her more celebrated films were An Affair of Love (Frédéric Fonteyne, 1999), which cast Baye as a woman who discovers that having an exclusively sexual affair is not as easy as she had imagined, and Vénus Beauté (Institut) (2000), a romantic comedy in which Baye played a beautician in search of love without commitment. She earned a Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival for the former film and her fourth César nomination for the latter, further proof that the passing of years had only strengthened her appeal. An appeal and versatility which continues to be on display, as in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002) and Xavier Beauvais' The Young Lieutenant (2005), for whose portrayal of a life-hardened police detective she earned a fourth César.

Ms. Baye will receive the Grand Prize of the Americas in tribute to her extraordinary body of work. The 34th edition of the Montreal World Film Festival will take place August 26 to September 6, 2010. For more information, visit: www.ffm-montreal.org

Sandy Mandelberger, Festival Dailies Editor

All right, Steven Spielberg , we'll bitebut you owe us BIG TIME after Indiana Jones and the Barely Watchable Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

All right, Steven Spielberg, we’ll bite…but you owe us BIG TIME after Indiana Jones and the Barely Watchable Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Spielberg starts shooting his next film, War Horse, on Monday. The film is based on a hit West End play from London. The story takes place during World War I, and it centers on [...]

Pan's Labyrinth writer/director tells MTV News announcement is coming "soon enough;" likely not a Hobbit tie-in.

Iconic film mastermind Steven Spielberg, in conjunction with Electronic Arts, created the Boom Blox Wii puzzle game franchise in 2008. The original and its sequel won generally favorable reviews, but he's no longer the only man in Hollywood creating games.

Guillermo del Toro, writer and director of the 2006 Spanish fantasy film Pan's Labyrinth and 2004's Hellboy, told MTV News that he's currently working with a "big" company on more than one video game.

"One of the things we're announcing in the next few weeks is a big deal with a big company," del Toro told MTV. "We're going to do games that are going to be technically and narratively very interesting. It's not a development deal. We're going to do it. We're doing them. And we're going to announce it soon enough."

Regrettably, del Toro didn't provide any further details on his video game efforts and said only that were he to reveal more details, the aforementioned company "would probably shoot me in the head."

Del Toro is no longer attached to the upcoming Hobbit films but has previously noted his interest in creating games from that universe. Also in an interview with MTV News, del Toro said he'd like to create a "revolution" with a Hobbit game, but due to time constraints, it's not planned to launch alongside the first Hobbit film.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

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Quick, name the last film Steven Spielberg directed.

Put your best foot forward as we take a stroll round the best doors on film with Kevin Holmes. After you …

Few bits of furniture are so rich in symbolic meaning as the door: it can be an opening or an exit, a beginning or an ending. It can protect and guard but also trap and imprison. It holds promise or danger, and often both. And, of course, cinema itself is a doorway, a threshold to another world where anything is possible.

An open door is an invitation, but once you walk through it your life can change forever. Take Karen in Goodfellas entering the Copacabana nightclub; she isn't just entering the club, but Henry's life too – it's a classic portal.

As well as an opening doors can also be a barrier; a divider between home and the world. Hidden behind a locked door can lurk something nasty, something terrifying; an alien presence, even from within. The unseen slamming shut of a door can evoke tension, terror – and comedy. And yet, somehow, a door has never won an Academy Award. The words "cellar door" may be considered by a linguist as one of the most beautiful phrases in the English language, but in Donnie Darko it also represents a descent into darkness, into the basement of the mind.

A door is a temptation and revulsion all in one, which must be what makes it so attractive to the film-maker. So please, come inside, have a look around, but don't forget to close the door on your way out.

1) At the end of the cyclone scene, Dorothy opens her front door and is transported from one world – Kansas – to Oz; from the real to the imagined. But it was also opening the door to cinema's future: from sepia to Technicolor.

2) A doorway into another life through the side door of the Copacabana – set, appropriately, to the entire tune of And Then He Kissed Me by The Crystals. This long tracking shot not only seduces the viewer but reflects Henry's seduction of Karen, too.

3) The blazing orange light from a UFO eloping through a living room door was the master image Steven Spielberg chose to sum up his entire film career.

4) A recurring motif throughout The Searchers is the open doorway; inside is the known, outside is the other. It's the central conflict of John Wayne's antihero. Where does he belong? In neither, probably. But this closing shot sees him about to enter the house, and pausing, before heading back into the wilderness.

5) Shelley Duvall finds safety behind a bathroom door in The Shining. But though doors can protect us from the horrors we don't want to face, when that horror has an axe, the sanctuary can be short-lived.

Last week on Clip joint, swanstep saluted faces and scenes that have launched a thousand drips. Here are his top picks from your suggested clips featuring rain.

1) I'm feeling some pressure to include at least one truly popular choice on this list, lest this moment be twitter-scorned, or worse, lost forever like Rutger Hauer's utterly splendid, improv/invention at the end of Blade Runner. (Sorry Tiffany's, Cherbourg, and Casablanca.)

2) In Days of Being Wild Wong Kar-Wai takes full advantage of the natural justification that rain affords for extremely short visual and aural focal lengths as a cop tries to comfort a disconsolate beauty (go 7:30 in).

3) Greatpoochini tempted me with Suspiria, but I settled on his choice of a bizarre, long dark afternoon of the soul that climaxes with Burt Lancaster hobbling past a rain-swept tennis court to a mildly comical doorstep deluge in The Swimmer (go 2m in).

4) In Ozu's Floating Weeds, Kamajuro cruelly berates and foreswears his lover and leading lady, Sumiko, from across a rain drenched street.

5) And this week's winner is ExFi, who convincingly urged that Tarkovsky reigns in rain with this truly mind-expanding, heart-stunning omnibus clip. Is it possible that Tarkovsky, widely acclaimed as he always has been, is nonetheless still underrated as a film-maker relative to his evident achievements? That's certainly what this compilation has me thinking.

Thanks also to steenbeck and AJBee for their picks, and to many others for discussions.

Check out our exclusive interview with Cowboys & Aliens director Jon Favreau wherein he discusses production details, casting decisions and Steven Spielberg.

As a wee child of the seventies, if you had the misfortune of experiencing the big screen terror-fest known as Jaws (or any of its three non- Steven Spielberg -affiliated sequels), your wide-eyed innocence and natural appreciation for all creatures great and small may have been forever shattered by your understandable fear of being torn apart limb by limb. This is the pop culture perspective of sharks that many of us have, but the reality is that the deep sea predator is facing an ongoing battle of its own for survival due to human-caused threats including widespread oceanic pollution, habitat damage, overfishing and the worst issue of all – shark finning. Each year, vast fishing operations catch up to 100 million sharks at sea , cutting off their dorsal and pectoral fins while they are still alive before dumping the creatures back into the ocean. Their compromised mobility ends up causing them to sink to the ocean floor where they either die of starvation, succumb to suffocation or end up becoming a snack for a larger predator. This practice fuels the demand for shark fin soup which is considered a highly sought-after luxury menu item in many Asian and European cultures but the consequence is that shark populations have become depleted by well over 90% in the last three decades. The Discovery Channel – which has teamed up with the conservation organization Oceana (and even donated money to help their shark protection efforts) — intends to educate the public about the often misunderstood and maligned deep sea species with their 23 rd annual Shark Week , beginning Sunday August 1 st .  Their special event stands out this year thanks to the use of high tech, super-slow-mo cameras that capture outstanding footage of the creatures in crystal clear detail, from the power of their bite (with film capturing what happens inside of their jaws) to countless intriguing facts that will make viewers develop a soft spot in their hearts much in the same way that noted wildlife cinematographer Andy Brandy Casagrande IV has.  Sandwiched between their diverse collection of shark-themed programming will be various public service announcements that help viewers to comprehend the precarious state that the predators really are in at this moment in time. For those who get bitten by shark-mania, the festivities extend to Discovery Channel ’s website where info-geeks can enjoy interactive resources, brand new mind-blowing shark videos and countless other cerebral diversions. Here’s a tasty snack you can really sink your teeth into — an all-new Shark Week teaser (below)…and if you are compelled to do a little more to make a difference, consider donating whatever you can afford to aid Oceana’s conservation projects or sign these anti-shark finning petitions via Shark Savers . Via Official Press Release

….which is what happens when you have the rare promising, productive, thoughtful first meeting with the even rarer nice, smart, humane TV executive. And then you hear nothing for a month. In television, if it’s going to happen, it happens fast.

Fortunately for you, the network in question was ABC. Fortunately for you, because I have a great ABC network executive story. It’s the mid-90s and ABC puts a new person in charge of everything. At the time, Steven Spielberg was producing a hour-long show on ABC, “High Incident,” and after a season and a half of low ratings, the show was in danger of not being renewed for ther fall. On the bubble, as people I don’t care for say. Spielberg calls the new president and says, “Look, I know my show didn’t have a great first year, but I have some wonderful ideas and I know how to fix this.” The new president says, “I know you do. I’m not worried. We want to be in the Steven Spielberg business.” Spielberg says, “Terrific, but I’ve been through this before, people say things, things change. And I’d be more comfortable if you let me fly into New York, take you out to lunch and tell you what I have planned for next season.”

“Steven,” says the new boss, “I understand you’re concerned. And you and I have never met. But I swear to you, I’m sitting here in my office, looking at the schedule on the board for next fall, and there it is, Thursdays at 8, ‘High Incident.’ So, stay in LA, start working on next season. You have my word we will not cancel your show.”

“I could be there tomorrow morning.”

“Steven, relax. I’ll see you when I’m in LA.”

Next day, gone.

(Cue band: There’s no business like show b….)

Which of these Top 10 earning celebrity stars are a big surprise for you?  Forbes released its annual list of Top 100 Celebrity power players of the past year and here are the top 10 in revenue?  Some favorites like Angelina Jolie (ranked 18^th) and Tom Cruise (ranked 56^th) are on the list. So let’s check out our Top 10 revenue producers on the Forbes list:

1.       Oprah Winfrey  - $315 Million

2.       James Cameron - $210 Million

3.       U2 w/Bono - $130 Million

4.       Tyler Perry - $125 Million

5.       Michael Bay - $120 Million

6.       AC/DC - $114 Million

7.       Tiger Woods - $105 Million

8.       Jerry Bruckheimer - $100 Million

9.       Steven Spielberg - $100 Million

10.   George Lucas - $95 Million

Not bad in a tough economic year.  Which of these do you believe belongs on our list of most annoying people of 2010?

Aliens are a hot commodity, and Paramount Pictures knows it. The studio not only has Area 51 is the pipeline from Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli, but they also are currently filming the J.J. Abrams/Steven Spielberg collaboration Super 8 for a summer 2011 release. Getting in on the action is none other than Michael Bay, who is set to produce his own spin on the popular alien invasion phenomenon alongside Paranormal Activity's Steven Schneider. The Bobby Glickert penned top secret project is described as Cloverfield meets Paranormal Activity, a hilarious combination consider the two other films Paramount is distributing. Either way, I'm 100% OK with 400 alien movies so long as they're GOOD.

[From: Entertainment Weekly]

The actress displays her bump while posing for photos with Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw

An expectant Kelly Preston poses with husband John Travolta after visiting pals Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw at their Hamptons estate for the weekend.

If anyone knows the power of Comic-Con, it’s actor/writer/director/swinger Jon Favreau, whose journey to mega-global success began with one pitch-perfect panel at Comic-Con, for Iron Man. This year, he flew straight to the Con from the set of his latest film, Cowboys and Aliens, to explain the enigmatic movie to the curious Geekerati. Before entering Hall H with a handcuffed Harrison Ford, however, Favreau met us at the Bayside Hilton in a penthouse suite worthy of Tony Stark. From our perch, we watched fans swarm the convention center and the Gaslamp district like army ants, while a breathless, fresh-off-the-jet Favreau grabbed a glass of water and a breath. Then, he gave us the pleasure of his first interview about Cowboys and Aliens, reflected on the power of Comic-Con, and told us who best to consult on how to design movie aliens. (Hint: his name rhymes with Shmielberg.)

Galerinha na casa dos 30 ou quase lá, nerds e nostálgicos de plantão. Pegue o lenço e prepare-se para derramar lágrimas com esse anúncio feito hoje pela Warner Bros.

“The Goonies” Edição Especial de 25 anos em Blu-ray ou DVD. O box gigante vem com o filme, jogo de tabuleiro, reprodução do roteiro original, um reprint de uma revista especial de 1985 e mais um reprint de uma edição de 2009 da Empire Magazine que fez uma retrospectiva do clássico de Steven Spielberg e Richard Donner.

Nos EUA, o pacote – ou apenas o filme em Blu-Ray e DVD, se preferir – será lançado no dia 2 de novembro. Aqui no Brasil, nunca se sabe. Agora que já passou a emoção, voltemos a nossa programação normal.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Warner Bros today announced details for The Goonies 25th Anniversary Collection DVD/Blu-ray box set, due in stores on November 2nd 2010. The new box set includes a new board game, original movie storyboard reproductions, a 1985 souvenir magazine reprint, and reprint of 2009 Empire Magazine article with cast photos and updates. Hit the jump for more information and high resolution cover art. WARNER HOME VIDEO CELEBRATES THE GOONIES 25TH ANNIVERSARY ON NOVEMBER 2, 2010 WITH THE DEBUT OF THE GOONIES 25TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTOR’S EDITION ON BLU-RAY DISC TM AND DVD ASTORIA, Ore.,  – The Goonies R Good Enuff! Relive the wild adventure when The Goonies 25th Anniversary Collector’s Edition debuts on Blu-rayTM and DVD November 2, 2010. Directed by Richard Donner (Superman, Lethal Weapon series, Ladyhawke), the beloved family adventure is presented by one of the most influential personalities in the history of film, Steven Spielberg (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Schindler's List, Saving Private ...

So who do you think will be the most fascinating person to appear at the social event of the summer...Chelsea Clinton's wedding? Could it be her father, former President Bill Clinton?

Nope.

Or perhaps it is her mother, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? Sorry, not her either.

In fact none of the glitterati guests at the wedding which include Steven Spielberg, Oprah, Ted Turner, and Barbra Streisand even come close.

Had you guessed Chelsea's future mother-in-law, former one-term congresswoman Marjorie Margolies Mezvinsky, you would be close. After all, the former TV news reporter is infamous for swearing up and down to the voters in her district to never support a tax increase and the following year (1993) voted for a Clinton tax hike budget. She had to be assisted down the House aisle looking like a deer caught in the headlights when she committed that act of political suicide due to a betrayal of her campaign promise. Recently she went on to "assure" current Democrat congressmen facing the November elections by gushing about how wonderful life was after she lost her seat in Congress.

However, it turns out that it is Marjorie's hubby, also a former congressman, Edward ("Fast Talkin' Eddie") Mezvinsky, described by the FBI as a "one-man crime wave," who will easily be the most fascinating person at Chelsea's wedding. And what makes him especially fascinating in addition to his many financial crimes for which he served several years in prison is the fact that he got so easily caught up in Nigerian scams. Apparently he fell hard for the Nigerian scams and even traveled several times to that country as described by ABC News:

Prosecutors say Mezvinsky used his connections to the Clintons and his son's social relationship with Chelsea to persuade people to give him money to participate in the scams.

Mezvinsky traveled to Nigeria numerous times and ultimately lost more than $3 million as a victim of the scammers.

Prosecutors say Mezvinsky fell particularly hard for what is known as the "black money" scam. Victims are told millions of dollars have been coated with black ink so the money could be smuggled out of Nigeria.

 The scammers then offer to sell a special, expensive chemical to remove the black ink so the currency can be used.

Prosecutors say Mezvinsky fell for at least three separate "black money" schemes that he thought would bring him millions.

So if your humble correspondent were able to crash Chelsea's wedding, the one person there I would single out for conversation would be Fast Talkin' Eddie. And the question I would ask him would be, "How does a supposedly savvy former congressman fall so easily for an obvious Nigerian scam?"

I always wondered about who could possibly be suckered into those Nigerian scams since they have been well known almost from the start of the Internet. Here is an actual but typical excerpt of an example Nigerian e-mail:

"It is with heart full of hope and gods wish that I write to seek your help in the context below. I am Mr. Claudio Kabila, the second son of the late Laurent Kabila Former President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R.C) whose sudden death occurred in January 2001. Having gotten your particulars from my late father's library, I have no doubt to your capacity and goodwill to assist me in receiving into your custody (for safety) the sum of US $37 million willed and deposited in the favor of myself and my mother who is the second wife of the late president.

 "This money is currently kept in a trust deposit vault with a Finance and Security company here in (DUBAI) However, the new Government headed by my step brother Joseph has on assumption of office setup an inquiry to recover all the assets belonging to my late dad including cash and properties with the pretence of safe-keeping, but with actual intention of personal inheritance. All this because we are from a polygamous family. The investigation team has submitted their report, presently some cash and assets have been seized..."

Of course, anyone foolish enough to participate in this scheme would soon find his bank account cleared of all funds by the Nigerian scammer. Until the Mezvinsky conviction I assumed that all the victims had to be incredibly ignorant yahoos. However, Fast Talkin' Eddie has proven that even supposedly sophisticated politicians can get caught up in this easily detected scam.

And what wedding present would I give to Chelsea and her groom? The most appropriate gift may just be "I Do Not Come to You by Chance," a funny novel about Nigerian e-mail scams.

Oh, and Fast Talkin' Eddie, do try to refrain from giving a wedding gift of cash coated with black ink.

While I’m not a huge fan of Hollywood’s shift towards 3D films, whatever Louie Psihoyos has up his sleeve might just convince me otherwise. The Cove director recently shed some light on his next project — and instead of focusing on one species in peril, this one will run the gamut. “We’re shooting a 3-D film whose working title is The Singing Planet ,” Psihoyos told Momentum . “It’s a film about the mass extinction of wildlife caused by humanity – I think it’s the biggest story out there right now.” Staying true to current events, Psihoyos confirmed that the film will shoot in the Gulf — as well as “Polynesia, all over the Pacific including Cocos and Galapagos, Europe and many places now being determined….” The interview also covers in-depth the technology and cameras Psihoyos and his crew used while shooting The Cove ; ending with a very funny story of the director’s chance meeting with Steven Spielberg. About five years ago I was in the Caribbean on vacation and my son became friends with Steven Spielberg’s son. The director came over to the boat I was staying on and asked me what I did for living. I told him I was a still photographer thinking about getting into film – and asked him if he had any advice. From experience with directing Jaws, he told me, “Never make a movie involving boats or animals.” Dolphins everywhere can be thankful that Psihoyos never took those words to heart. Check out the full interview here.

I' ve read somewhere that Steven Spielberg wanted Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones, but had to refuse because he had already signed for Magnum P.I. and the part was given to Harrison Ford. In my opinion Selleck is better actor than Ford, and would have been a better Indy (and perhaps his carreer would have been more successfull..) And you, what is your opinion?

Sure, this year's Comic-Con event was steeped with geeky goodness, with plenty of movies, TV shows and -- if you looked hard enough -- even comic books arriving with presentations and panels intended to satisfy every fanboy and girl in attendance. But what wasn't being royally hyped that maybe missed out this year?

1. The Adventures of Tintin: Based on a classic Belgian comic strip, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson's trilogy of motion-capture films has been in the works for a while now, with Spielberg having wrapped filming on his first chapter in March of 2009. Surely, in the sixteen months since, they've could've had a polished teaser prepared for the San Diego masses. Co-writer Edgar Wright and co-stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were already in town plugging their latest ventures, and Jackson might've been able to make an appearance while waiting for The Hobbit to finally get off the ground. (Spielberg's already cracking away at getting War Horse in theaters next August -- that's right, before Tintin even hits.) However, just because Tron: Legacy decided to give everyone a taste a year and a half out doesn't mean that these two wanted to follow suit; don't be so surprised if this lot dominates Hall H come this time next year.

Filed under: Action, Animation, Classics, Documentary, Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, MGM, Universal, Warner Brothers, RumorMonger, Fandom, 20th Century Fox, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels

Continue reading Ten Films That Weren't at Comic Con ... But Should Have Been

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Check out the first still of Daniel Craig as gunslinger Jake Lonergan in the sci-fi western Cowboys & Aliens, out July 29, 2011.

The 42-year-old actor attended the movie’s panel discussion during Comic-Con 2010 held at California’s San Diego Convention Center on Saturday (July 24). He was accompanied by director Jon Favreau (Iron Man) and co-stars Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde and Sam Rockwell — all pictured here!

Heavyweight producers on board include Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.

Click inside for the synopsis…

15+ pictures inside of the Cowboys & Aliens panel at Comic-Con..

“COWBOYS & ALIENS” SYNOPSIS

1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger (Craig) with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford). It’s a town that lives in fear.

But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known.

Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force. With the help of the elusive traveler Ella (Wilde), he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents — townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors — all in danger of annihilation. United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival.

Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), Karen Allen (Marion Ravenwood), John Rhys-Davies (Sallah), Paul Freem

carmen3503560 wrote a new blog post: We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story Sale-$14.49! We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story Sale-$14.49! Compare & Purchase We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story at Amazon by clicking here! List Price: $14.98 Amazon Price : $14.49 Click Here To Purchase At Amazon! We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story Description: For every kid who ever wanted to meet a real dinosaur, Steven Spielberg presents We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story – the animated tale of four prehistoric pals [...]

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En el año 2001, la inteligencia artificial se puso de moda gracias a Steven Spielberg y su película homónima. En ella nos presentaba a David, el primer prototipo de un nuevo nicho de mercado: los niño...

What the heck is a Rocket Poppeteer? It's got something to do with J.J. Abrams's upcoming movie "Super 8," his homage to/collaboration with Steven Spielberg that hasn't even begun production yet. But, in keeping with the traditions of Abrams's production company, Bad Robot, the viral buzz is already being generated. While standing in line for the "Green Lantern" Comic-Con panel -- a panel that hundreds of people, including me, were shut out of -- an ice cream truck dubbed the Super Speed Flier and featuring the words "Rocket Poppeteers" on the side was spotted cruising the streets of San Diego. "Join the Race for Outer Space!" it urged. A Web site for the Rocket Poppeteers leads to the Rocket Poppeteers Twitter page. And as the Super 8 News notes, it all ties back in to "Super 8" ... somehow. I wasn't able to get close enough to snap a


San Diego - Steven Spielberg - JJ Abrams - ComicCon - Viral marketing

Entertainment Weekly caught up with J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon at the San Diego Comic-Con where they both took turns talking about their upcoming projects. Whedon, who announced he would be directing The Avengers movie, talked about the 3D transfer of The Cabin in the Woods (hilarious stuff), while Abrams was pretty tight-lipped on his Steven Spielberg collaboration Super 8. More inside.

In the middle of the first day of the San Diego Comic Con, Hall H broke from showing thunderously loud movie clips to present a conversation between Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams. The 'Visionaries' panel, as it was called, was a low-key talk that was more about the personalities of the two participants than the movies they'll soon be making. So there wasn't a lot of news about The Avengers or Star Trek 2 or even, for the most part, Abrams' 'secret' movie Super 8. But in the case of the latter, Abrams gave a little bit of backstory that explains his connection 8mm movies. We'll have a transcript of the full Visionaries panel up shortly; in the meantime, hit the break for all of Abrams' comments about how he first came into personal contact with the early films of Steven Spielberg. And get to the end, when he seems to ...

Alex Pettyfer , Timothy Olyphant et Teresa Palmer présentent ce nouveau film de SF en vidéo, avec des séquences exclusives du tournage. Après avoir fait ses classes dans Alex Rider , le jeune acteur Alex Pettyfer sera le héros d' I am number four , l'adaptation d'un roman pas encore paru qui suit le destin de neuf extra-terrestres dont la planète a été détruite, et qui vont se réfugier sur Terre, sous la forme d'adolescents. Timothy Olyphant ( Hitman ) a rejoint le casting dernièrement, dans le rôle du protecteur des aliens. Et Teresa Palmer , que l'on découvrira le mois prochain dans L'apprenti sorcier , est l'une des rescapées. Un casting ultra sexy , donc, que l'on retrouve dans cette vidéo dévoilée lors du Comic-con, de San Diego, qui mélange des interviews de l'équipe et des images du tournage. L'occasion de jeter un premier coup d'oeil sur un projet qui pourrait bien faire beaucoup parler de lui. Produit par Michael Bay et Steven Spielberg , le film pourrait être décliné en franchise, si le succès est au rendez-vous, puisque l'on peut imaginer un film dédié à chaque extra-terrestre échoué sur la Planète Bleue. Avis aux anglophones, le livre dont s'inspire de film, écrit par James Frey, sortira le 3 août prochain en anglais. Vous pouvez dès à présent en lire les premières pages en exclusivité sur le site d'Entertainment Weekly . I am number four sortira le 18 février prochain aux Etats-Unis.

Los Angeles Times

Bad Robot vs. Mutant Enemy: JJ Abrams and Joss Whedon's Comic-Con Smackdown (24) E! Online (blog) JJ's working on Super 8 with Steven Spielberg and the sequel to Star Trek—and his new TV show, Undercovers, premieres this fall on NBC. ... SDCC: Joss Whedon & J.J. Abrams unite; THE AVENGERS, STAR TREK 2 and more!Obsessed With Film Abrams And Whedon At Comic-ConTrek Today Comic-Con: JJ Abrams and Joss Whedon [Part 1]/FILM (blog) Entertainment Weekly -CNN (blog) -UGO all 322 news articles »

Le 34e Festival des films du monde (FFM) rendra hommage à Nathalie Baye. L'actrice française, qui a commencé sa carrière au grand écran dans les années 1970, a entre autres été sous la direction de Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Steven Spielberg ou encore Robert Wise.

Not long ago, I saw an episode of South Park in which the young protagonists stumbled upon Indiana Jones being sexually abused by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Witnessing this crime, they later decided, was a bit like sitting through Lucas and Spielberg's most recent Indiana Jones movie, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – in both cases Jones was systematically degraded and abused to gratify the two Hollywood moguls. "Do you remember that scene with Indiana in the refrigerator?" the boys lamented, shaking their heads. "It just didn't make any sense."

How bad are things going for Night Shyamalan, who was once such a celebrated young filmmaker that Time magazine put him on the cover, knighting him as the next Steven Spielberg? If you made a graph of the Rotten Tomatoes...

Dear Mr. Spielberg, 

Is it okay if I call you Steve? I'm going to assume that it's fine with you. If you have a problem with it, just let me know. You can reach me through the usual channels. Do you even use the usual channels? It's hard to picture you texting. Just saying.

Anyhow, I wanted to write you this letter to wish you a happy anniversary. Remember? It was 28 years ago today that you signed an agreement to turn E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial into a video game. I imagine that there was probably a big press release to accompany this, with the Atari logo and E.T. posters plastered everywhere. After all, the movie had already been out for more than a month and was still topping the charts when this announcement was made. 

Do people keep pens when they ink big deals, like they do when the president signs new laws into effect? Today Barack Obama is signing some historic sweeping financial legislation, and he'll be using several special, commemorative pens to do so. Were there special pens for the Atari / E.T. deal? Not that they're close to the same thing, but I had some Space Invaders pencils when I was a kid, and they were the bomb. But you probably didn't use those.

Still, it had to be a day that you remember even now. After all, Atari was at the top of its game, selling 8 million Atari 2600 units in 1982 alone. Forget the choices of today, this was the only console to own back then, and they had achieved extreme market saturation. Likewise, E.T. was burning up the box office, staying in the top two slots for six weeks, and making tons of dough in the process. A video game seemed like a no-brainer.

Sadly, it actually turned out to be a literal no-brainer. A week after signing the deal, you hired Howard Scott Warshaw, who had spent seven months designing Yar's Revenge, which was one of the best games on the 2600, and then six months designing Raiders of the Lost Ark, which would come out in November of that year. Seemed like a good choice at the time, I'd imagine. Which is why you guys offered him $200,000 and an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii. 

But then, Atari CEO Ray Kassar, who thought that making a game based on a movie was a "dumb idea" in the first place, told Warshaw that the game would need to be ready on September 1st. Pretty mind-boggling stuff, even for a Spielberg, am I right? Warshaw didn't even meet with you until a few days later, which basically gave him one month to design a game that was expected to sell millions.

Even when you met with Warshaw, you dismissed his idea and pitched something more like Pac-Man instead. Really? Pac-Man? I'm not sure what the mentality was there, and Warshaw felt the same way since he went off to work and based the game on his original idea. Because of time constraints and the Atari brand, the game skipped testing, and was rushed into production. Five million copies were made that year. Five million! 

Of course, 3.5 million of those iconic cartridges were returned to Atari, who secretly buried them in a landfill in New Mexico. And the failure of the game led to the decline of Atari, and the enormous video game crash of 1983. The game was actually a success in that it sold very well, although it was almost universally hated, but since Atari pumped out so many carts, they had also swelled their earning estimates. Meaning they took a $536 million dollar bath in 1983.

But still, happy anniversary. We imagine if the time-machine DeLorean from Back to the Future (a movie you produced, I might add) was real, you might head back in time and make some changes to this title. Or just tell Atari to only make 1.5 million copies. Or release Avatar in 1982 and blow everyone away and beat Cameron to the punch by 27 years. If it makes you feel any better, the E.T. board game sucked too.

But please, enough with the Boom Blox (which granted, I freakin' love) and give us a movie game that we can really get behind. That Jaws Unleashed game was truly awful, and I know you could take an afternoon and design one we'd love to play. Toss in a few full-motion video cutscenes that you directed, and there's a massive summer title. "Just when you thought it was safe to go back on your console ..." That's a freebie.

In the meantime, stay in touch, and keep up the good work. The Pacific was excellent.

Love,

Kevin

Oh, P.S. You might enjoy this music video that chronicles the game. Or you might hate it. At any rate, here it is.

 

STEVEN SPIELBERG embraced modern "motion capture" technology for movies after he tried it out for fun in pal ROBERT ZEMECKIS' film BEOWULF - and his "guest shot" made it to the final cut.

Steven Spielberg embraced modern "motion capture" technology for movies after he tried it out for fun in pal Robert Zemeckis' film Beowulf - and his "guest shot" made it to the final cut.

Do you want to have a lot of fun with the video-game which refers to this legendary Steven Spielberg? “I really love the game and I always wanted to create a game that children could play” Steven Spielberg said. Boom Blox includes a lot of fun and exciting test scenarios for you and your children. [...]

Quand Peter Jackson était petit, il faisait déjà des films? Grande soirée le 26 juin dernier à Londres. Le British Film Institute avait réuni de très nombreuses personnalités du cinéma pour célébrer le 90e anniversaire de Ray Harryhausen , LE pionnier des effets spéciaux. Au long de cinquante-huit ans de carrière, l'animateur a marqué les mémoires de plusieurs générations de cinéastes ? celles de Steven Spielberg , comme celle de Tim Burton , Sam Raimi - avec des créatures, comme le Cyclope de Jason et les Argonautes , les Tyrannosaures de La vallée de Gwangi où La Gorgone de la version originale du Choc des titans . Parmi les réalisateurs venus lui rendre hommage, Peter Jackson n'est pas venu les mains vides : il a présenté un film amateur, réalisé quand il était pré-adolescent, très marqué par le travail d'Harryhausen. Cliquez ici pour accéder à la vidéo. Exclu Vidés : les stars et leurs jouets d'enfance Peter Jackson : prêt pour The Hobbit !

[1]DiCaprio and his Inception A-team: Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt Twelve days ago, on this very blog, I asked, Will Inception finally get Leonardo DiCaprio and Oscar past first base? [2] We'll have to wait until early next year to find out if he scores, but Inception's $60.4 million opening weekend (DiCaprio's best ever -- yes, even better than Titanic, which, in all fairness, opened with $28.6 million on 1,100 fewer screens at 1997 movie-ticket prices) was good for at least one confirmation: Leonardo DiCaprio has quietly become one of the most bankable movie stars in Hollywood. Will Smith, Adam Sander, Johnny Depp, Sandra Bullock, Meryl Streep, meet the competition. Despite its huge buzz, $100 million marketing campaign and excellent reviews before pulling out of the starting gate, some wondered if Inception would prove to be too confusing for massive mass consumption, citing the intricate plot (blink and you might miss the key to understanding the entire thing) and unexpected twists and turns.  Not even DiCaprio's A-list name above the title made it a sure thing. If it ended up making money, some reasoned, it would be from word of mouth, over a span of weeks, or months. Boy did Inception and DiCaprio prove them wrong. Not only did they outdo the prognostications, but those aforementioned twists and turns most likely will help Inception build nicely in the coming weeks with both word-of-mouth and repeat business padding its intake. A $200 million-plus final North American gross is not only a possibility --  it's a likelihood, one that would make the film's $160 million price tag [3] more than worth it. Even leaving Titanic out of the equation, DiCaprio has produced the goods before at the box office. [4] Though his focus since Titanic -- and throughout his career since he made the leap from Growing Pains to the big screen -- has been more on quality over quantity with highly esteemed directors (Martin Scorcese, who's directed him in four films, Steven Spielberg, Sam Mendes, Inception's Christopher Nolan), he's enjoyed several major successes. Between 2002 and 2006, he scored four for four at the box office with Gangs of New York ($77.8 million), Catch Me If You Can ($164.6 million), The Aviator ($102.6 million) and The Departed ($132.4 million). In fact, of the 12 films DiCaprio has starred in since Titanic, there only have been a few total duds: Celebrity's $5 million take was meager, even for a Woody Allen movie, while 2008 was a particularly bleak year, with both Revolutionary Road ($22.9 million, despite boasting what I consider to be one of DiCaprio's strongest performances) and Body of Lies ($39.4 million) underperforming at the box office. (Although his Revolutionary Road and Titanic costar Kate Winslet would go on to finally win her Oscar for that year's The Reader, it must have been no consolation for DiCaprio.) But 2010 is looking to possibly be DiCaprio's Sandra Bullock moment. Last year, Bullock was queen, with back-to-back hits (The Proposal and The Blind Side); this year, DiCaprio is king -- if not of the world, at least of Hollywood. If he doesn't start asking for more than $20 million a film, he should. Though he probably doesn't need career advice, were I to give him some, it would be to branch out. Relax. Lighten up. Every movie doesn't have to be crazy intense boasting the performance of a lifetime. If I were DiCaprio, just to prove to everyone that I can indeed do everything, I'd find a high-quality comedy and book it for my next film. He rarely gets to crack a smile onscreen, and comedy is the one genre in which the actor has yet to prove himself. I hear Sandra Bullock is looking for a post-Oscar project. Picture it: DiCaprio and Bullock, together for the first time. Now that could be an affair to remember. [1] http://www.daylife.com/image/07Je31B0a3ekI?utm_source=zemanta&utm_medium=p&utm_content=07Je31B0a3ekI&utm_campaign=z1 [2] http://trueslant.com/jeremyhelligar/2010/07/07/will-inception-finally-get-leonardo-dicaprio-and-oscar-past-first-base/ [3] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-inception-20100713,0,3119222.story [4] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?id=leonardodicaprio.htm

Redacción Internacional.- El cine de acción ha sido un género tradicionalmente despreciado por los críticos y amado por el público, pero el caso actual de "Origen", protagonizada por Leonardo DiCaprio, recuerda que, como en "Bullit" o "Infiltrados", la adrenalina y el prestigio pueden convivir.

Con "Origen", Christopher Nolan repite la hazaña que consiguió con "El caballero oscuro": demostrar que mantener al espectador clavado en la butaca sin recurrir al golpe de efecto requiere un sustrato dramático, una construcción de personajes y una artillería visual dignas de elogio.

Es decir: que se puede ser buen director sin que "acción" sea solamente la palabra que sigue a "luces" y "cámara".

De hecho, tras el megaéxito de la hasta ahora última entrega de Batman en cine, incluso la Academia de Hollywood se dio cuenta de que estaba dejando de lado un género con piezas nada desdeñables, y un año más tarde ampliaba a diez las finalistas a mejor película para dar cabida a cintas menos "oscarizables".

Así, en la terna por el premio máximo estaban la frenética invasión extraterrestre de "District 9", "Malditos bastardos", de Quentin Tarantino, quien dota de igual agilidad los diálogos que las metralletas, y por supuesto "Avatar", del gurú de masas James Cameron. Sin embargo, ninguna fue la vencedora de la noche.

Martin Scorsese con "Infiltrados" había roto la maldición del género en 2006, que desde "Rocky" treinta años atrás no había tenido un exponente tan claro alzado como la mejor producción del año en los Óscar, aunque la acción sí se había colado en forma de thriller con "El silencio de los corderos" o arropada por ambientación histórica en "Braveheart" o "Gladiator".

"El fugitivo" subrayó en 1993 que la antología del cine también se escribe con adrenalina, y de eso siempre supo Steven Spielberg, que no dudó en alimentar de acción sus cintas de aventuras con Indiana Jones, o sus ciencias ficciones con "Parque Jurásico" y "Minority Report".

Además de Tarantino, Spielberg, Cameron y Nolan, se ha hablado de "maestros de la acción" en los casos de Michael Mann con su vibrante "Heat", o Paul Greengrass, con sus aportaciones a la saga de Jason Bourne.

En los años setenta, el contexto político favorecía que el cine de espionaje estuviera en un momento de especial lucidez, no sólo en la irregular serie de James Bond, sino con títulos como "Los tres días del cóndor" o "Todos los hombres del presidente".

Sidney Pollack y Alan J. Pakula, respectivos directores de aquellas cintas, aún serían en los noventa responsables de las mejores adaptaciones de los best-sellers de John Grisham: el primero con "La tapadera" y el segundo con "El informe pelícano".

Y un hombre, Brian De Palma, ha dedicado toda su carrera a explorar el lenguaje cinematográfico con espectaculares secuencias de acción: desde "Los intocables de Elliot Ness" a "Femme Fatale".

Roman Polanski con "Frenético" o incluso John Cassavetes con "Gloria", supieron subir al tren de la acción sus obsesiones personales.

Y a pesar de que parece que la acción implica medios y que los medios están concentrados en Hollywood, muchas veces las mejores muestras del género han venido de otras geografías.

El hongkonés Johnnie To, con cintas como "Sparrow" o "Election" ha pasado por los festivales más importantes de Europa, al igual que Takeshi Kitano, que con "Zatoichi" o "Hana-bi" ha conseguido dejar sin aliento más a la crítica que al público mayoritario. Y no hay que olvidar que la propia "Infiltrados" es un remake no confeso de "Infernal Affairs", de Lau Wai Keung.

En Europa, cuna del cine del autor, tampoco han renunciado a probar suerte en el ritmo sincopado: Luc Besson, con "León (El profesional)", Tom Twyker, con "Corre, Lola, Corre", Guy Ritchie, con "Snatch" e incluso el español Daniel Monzón con "Celda 211" han dado un toque mucho más "artie" a este género para masas.

Y desde luego, el cine clásico de Hollywood, con su capacidad para no confundir discurso directo con la simplicidad, regaló verdaderas obras maestras como "Con la muerte en los talones", de Hitchcock, muchas películas de John Frankenheimer o "Bullit" y "La gran evasión", ambas protagonizadas por Steve McQueen.

Mateo Sancho Cardiel

On a trip we just completed, the van we drove over a thousand miles in six days (a Dodge) suddenly quit outside Wichita Falls, Texas. The minute it happened, I was pretty sure what the problem was. We have replaced the fuel pump three times in six years, and since the last one was replaced about two years ago, I figured it was curtains for this one. I’m pretty sure (though not certain) that the people who designed that fuel pump had college degrees. And I’m also pretty sure that few if any of the people who helped us from that point onward had degrees in engineering, or possibly anything else. But we would have been stuck without their help.

The gentleman driving the tow truck told us he’d been a semi-trailer driver for thirteen years, then switched to towing for the next thirteen. He was the only person at the small gas station he worked for who could drive the tow truck, and so he’d been on call 24 hours a day for the last several years, except for one day off when he got married.

The guy in charge of the repair shop where they towed the van was very proud of the twenty-something young man who actually did the repair, which involved draining out some 30 gallons of gas (we’d just filled it) without setting the place on fire, dropping the tank, getting all the gaskets and clips and screws out and back in the right way, and putting it all back together again so it didn’t leak. The auto technician did nothing that I couldn’t do without some practice, but he did it in about an hour and a half. I would have taken all day and spent most of it on trips to the auto-parts store to get special tools, assuming I didn’t blow up my house first. The manager said he was very proud of that technician after watching him grow from an inexperienced teenager to a seasoned professional over the ten years or so he’d worked there.

Over 60% of Americans 25 and older have not completed even a two-year associate college degree. They are citizens like anyone else, and voters too, but to listen to certain elite groups in this country, you would think that everybody either has to have a college degree or else they represent abject failures of the system if they don’t. Columnist John Derbyshire recently cited several quotations along these lines, such as: “All students should graduate from high school prepared for college and a career—no matter who you are or where you come from.” The speaker was President Obama, and for a politician it is a peculiarly unqualified statement. If he had simply stopped at “All students should graduate from high school,” I’d agree with him there—about fifteen percent of Americans over 25 haven’t even gotten that far. But at the risk of raining on my own parade (I teach engineering in college), I think it is unrealistic to expect or insist that everybody, no matter what their inclinations, abilities, or interests are, should graduate from college ore else become a second-class citizen.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that the opportunity to get a college degree should be artificially restricted to a given class, or income level, or sex, or race. Opportunities should be equal for all, but if for good and logical reasons, a given student would like to cease his or her formal schooling after high school and become a great plumber, or auto mechanic, or tow-truck driver, or filmmaker (Steven Spielberg dropped out of college to go into the film business), I would like the economy to provide them with that opportunity, and for society not to look down upon them as some sort of failure simply because of the kind of work they do. Not everybody who drops out of college is another Spielberg, but the point I’m trying to make is that there are many honorable, useful, and even significant jobs out there which do not require a college degree. And that is as it should be.

The natural tendency of our society, unfortunately, is to look up to people who (1) have lots of money, (2) have lots of people working for them, or (3) manipulate symbols instead of real things. Most engineers nowadays are in the third category, but for every engineer with a college degree in most industries, there are two or three folks who build, test, sell, and fix the things that the engineers design. And while increasing numbers of the lower-ranking workers have college degrees, in many cases such degrees are still not necessary, for example in the construction trades.

The engineering-ethics angle here is to respect those whose education is not as advanced as yours, and remember that the thing called “tacit knowledge”—the right way to ease a tank full of gas down out of a car without incinerating yourself or your shop, for example—is real, and sometimes more important for a given task than anything you could learn in college.

Everyone in an honorable occupation—that is, one which isn’t positively evil—makes a useful contribution to society and deserves to be treated as an important, knowledgeable part of the grand system that makes engineering the vital thing it is in modern life. The next time you deal with such a person, don’t belittle their educational attainments. Instead, watch them, find out just how much they can do that you can’t—and learn.

Sources: John Derbyshire’s column, “The Jobs Americans Should Not Have to Do?” appeared at http://article.nationalreview.com/438112/the-jobs-americans-should-not-have-to-do/john-derbyshire. The statistics on the percentage of Americans who are college graduates is from the U. S. Census Bureau website http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s0226.pdf.

more images LOS ANGELES (GaeaTimes.com)- The latest buzz on the web is the trailer of ‘Super 8‘. The trailer was aired for the first time during the show of Iron Man 2 in some theaters and fans have since then shown immense curiosity in the Steven Spielberg production. The film’s trailer was also released on the ... Read more »»».

Have you ever wanted to work with Steven Spielberg on his next movie? Could you be the next winner of the Oscar for the best Cinematography 2010?

This is your chance now ... we're making a Happy 5th Birthday movie for Joomla. You can work with our talented professional directors, who have over 30 years combined TV/video/film industry experience and, most importantly, they come from right within our Joomla! community.

From a series of shorts/adverts/videos planned for Joomla!, this is the first call - for the Happy 5th Birthday Joomla! movie. We need you and your videos! Signing up will give you all the information you need and personal access to Svein Wisnaes and Jeremy Wilken who will advise on your particular camera and how best to shoot in your chosen location.

"Location Check in is so 2010," Mark Cuban writes today on his blog. His thought is that facial recognition hardware/software installed in public venues is going to replace the need for users to actually check-in to a place. I absolutely agree. But I think we're ten years away from that happening. And maybe more. If you've seen the Steven Spielberg movie Minority Report, it has a similar technology to what Cuban envisions. At a few points, main character John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is walking through a public place and a retina scanner picks up his unique eye signature and offers up customized advertisements and specials for him. "John Anderton, you could use a Guinness right about now!" American Express recognizes that Anderton has been a card member since 2037.

This 63rd Cannes Film Festival featured the surprise new sensational documentary film by producer Lincoln Phipps. Having left his job in California government, he sold his house and put everything into the film with inflexible drive and passion; and lo and behold, a success story! The cast and crew finished editing literally days before cut off dates for entry and were celebrated with flying colors at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

Directed by Sam George and written by Greg MacGillivray, Hollywood Dont Surf (2010) features legendary filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg and actors Pamela Anderson and Gary Busey
as they talk about the history between surfing and Hollywood, both California's most prominent cultural archetypes, and the relationship between the two worlds both in cinema and in reality.

When I hung out with Lincoln in Cannes, he was giddy with with glee over his newfound status as full-time producer and now working tirelessly on several exciting new film projects to come. Look out for this innovative fresh new film that will, like a tidal wave, crash into world theaters and stores, bringing Hollywood and surfista lifestyle to you!

 

written by, Vanessa McMahon

 

**stay tuned for interviews and images to come.

 

 

 

Has it really been 25 years since Mikey and the gang found One Eyed Willy's treasure? So it has and even if that makes you feel as old as Willy himself, it still calls for a celebration. On November 2nd, Warner Home Video will release The Goonies 25th Anniversary Collector's Edition on DVD and Blu-ray.

It's a special edition, so of course it's going to cost you a hefty penny, but it's The Goonies we're talking about here; even if your family was facing foreclosure at the expense of a country club, it still might be worth the cash. DVD Active has all of the details in terms of special features and they're quite impressive - for those who don't already own a copy of the film at least. Both versions come with commentary with director Richard Donner and the cast, a making of the movie documentary, the Cyndi Lauper music video "The Goonies 'R Good Enough," deleted scenes and the theatrical trailer. In terms of non-digital specs, the set will come with a new board game, collective storyboard prints, a 1985 souvenir magazine and a reprint of a 2009 article with updates on the cast, producer Steven Spielberg and Donner.

The Collector's Edition certainly makes due on that price tag, but the only drawback is that those who own the DVD special edition or the more recently release BD, already have a chunk, no pun intended, of the goods. The commentary, the Cyndi Lauper video, the documentary and deleted scenes were all on the older versions. The commentary might be the most entertaining track I've ever heard, so that'll be worth a second listen/viewing, but anyone picking up this Collector's Edition is really in it for the physical goods.

Filed under: Distribution, New on DVD, Home Entertainment

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[The folks at Haunted Temple Studios went from EA-sized teams to a four-man operation, and they talk to our own Chris Remo on the transition and what they've learned while making their turn-based strategy game Skulls of the Shogun.]

The members of Haunted Temple Studios spent years working together on massive teams at Electronic Arts' Los Angeles studio. Now, with their debut turn-based strategy game Skulls of the Shogun, the distributed studio's developers are relishing the greater individual input they have as part of a tight four-man team.

Targeted for release later this year on Xbox Live Arcade and PC, Skulls of the Shogun is influenced by classic 60s-era anime design and driven by a desire to push the turn-based tactical genre beyond its longtime Advance Wars touchstone.

Recently, we had a chance to sit down with three of Haunted Temple's four members -- programmers Borut Pfeifer and Ben Vance, and "founder of the studio, director, and only artist/art director" Jake Kazdal.

Topics discussed include the slow evolution of turn-based strategy on consoles, the technical challenges behind moving to a gridless design, settling on a visual style, and transitioning from massive development teams to a gang of four.

Turn-based strategy has a strong heritage on the PC, but this smaller scale take on the genre has been almost exclusive to portables lately. Why do you think there aren’t more games like this on consoles or PC?

Jake Kazdal: I don’t know. I don’t know why the genre hasn’t really evolved in a long time either. Fire Emblem or Advance Wars are practically the same as they were on the SNES. Really, nothing changed. The biggest leap forward recently was Valkyria Chronicles, which I thought was a brilliant game, and this borrows from that in certain places.

How did it influence you?

JK: It definitely got me thinking about turn-based strategy games without the grid. There’s definitely a big step towards that. That game is more about ranged combat, and this is more about close quarters, so there are a lot of differences, but it’s definitely an inspiration.

Have you run into any big design or tech challenges going off the grid?

[All three interviewees laugh.]

Okay!

Borut Pfeifer: We’ve played around with a number of ideas -- where characters will go organically to get out of your [controlled character’s] way to maintain a space, but it’s tricky. You don’t want to push dudes out of their position for gameplay purposes, and you don’t want to be able to push one of your guys even though his movement is used up.

You seem to have put some elasticity in there, with units spreading out a bit when they get bunched up.

BP: Right, but after a bunch of playtesting, that probably won’t quite work, and we have a few other ideas, like being able to do a judo move through people, to keep the fluidity of motion without getting you into bad collision or breaking game mechanics.

JK: I would say it’s been one of the greatest challenges, but also one of the most interesting challenges. We’re breaking new ground in this genre with a 2D game like this moving off the grid. I haven’t seen it done before in this manner.

My whole career, and a lot of this stuff we all worked on, has been very cutting-edge -- answering new questions and new problems as opposed to doing the same games over and over. We love breaking new ground. It’s easy to iterate at this team size. We talk all the time and just plug in new ideas and feel them out. If they work, they stay; if they don’t, we throw them away. It’s awesome; I’ve never had more fun making games than this project.

On that note, how are you structured? You all work remotely, right?

JK: Yeah. I work out of Seattle, and these guys are both out of L.A. Well, [Borut’s] in L.A.; [Ben is] kind of a nomad these days.

Yeah, you were saying you’re working from the road these days?

Ben Vance: Yeah. I’ve been based in L.A. for the last five years, working with the Boom Blox team, and our new project got cancelled, so they laid the team off. At that point, I got seriously involved in this project but, because of some personal reasons, I also wanted to get out of my apartment, and I’ve been on the road since then.

[For more on Vance’s unique game development odyssey to escape a “landlord from hell,” check out Gamasutra’s previous interview.]

To go back to discussions of this genre being underrepresented, I think this art style is also not particularly represented in the genre. In part because it’s so common to portables, games like this are usually cartoonish as filtered through pixel art, whereas this is a sharper line art look. How did you settle on it?

JK: Actually, that’s one of the things I’m most proud of. I lived in Japan for a long time, and I’m really influenced by 60s anime -- classic anime with very sharp, simple character designs and very lush backgrounds. I’ve been looking at a lot of that stuff for this game. The [Legend of Zelda: The] Wind Waker art director was actually an art director from the films back in those days. I’ve been looking at a lot at that kind of stuff.

It doesn’t look as “extreme” as a lot of anime, at least to me.

JK: Well, the 60s stuff had a very different look than modern anime. It was before the whole pink hair and robots and stuff – closer to Astro Boy than to Gundam. I’m a huge fan of that stuff, and of vinyl character design like Kidrobot -- the little plastic collectible stuff. I love modern, urban character design out of Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, and lots of stuff in the United States.

I’m surrounded by that all the time, and I wanted to make something that’s fresh and stands on its own two legs, yet people would recognize it. I think it does have its own identity, and that’s my goal as an art director.

There’s a very specific vibe going on with the whole concept for this game, including the title and even the font the title is in, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. It reminds me of a mid-century tiki attraction or something. Does that make any sense?

JK: It is very reminiscent of a lot of the black and white, late 50s and early 60s Japanese anime. You see that sort of font and look with that 60s pop design. The animation and culture of that era was very innocent and different. It’s a bygone era, but it’s a great source of inspiration. And it sticks out against other games you’re going to see, because everything is brown and photorealistic and gritty. And I love those games, but for a small team I wanted to do something different.

Did you come into the project knowing what the aesthetic was going to be?

JK: No, but I wanted to do something that appealed to me as an artist, something I wanted to spend time getting better at. So I surrounded myself with old cartoons, went on a shopping trip to Japan, I went to [Tokyo retailer] Mandarake, and spent hundreds of dollars on old anime, comic books, and urban vinyl characters. I steeped in that pot and this came out.

Since you’re using XNA, you’re basically simultaneously developing on PC and Xbox 360. Are you going to develop separate interfaces for each—cursor-based for PC and direct-control interface for 360?

BV: Yeah. There’s a little bit of it on PC, but it’s not done yet. We’ll probably do a UI that’s a little more RTS inspired on PC. That’s our first inclination, but we haven’t gotten to that point yet.

JK: We’d like to do iPod, iPad, and Windows 7 Phone version, so we’re going to need to figure all that stuff out.

How did you decide on the initial two platforms? Was it just because you like working in XNA?

BP: Pretty much. I’ve been working in Visual Studio for ten years, and as I was thinking about new projects, I got a Mac Mini and started messing around with that, and it’s just a little too ingrained. Using [Apple’s Mac development suite] Xcode is like beating my head against something. So I decided to try XNA, and it’s just this wonderful, musical experience—hallelujahs in the background and everything. I mean, [Microsoft] knows how to make dev tools. Everything is so easy. The content build process is totally customizable. There are a couple things to be careful of, like C# and garbage collection, but it’s a really nice development environment. And like Jake says, even he can figure out how to put it on an Xbox.

JK: This is a big deal. I’m not a tech guy, to say the least.

At what point are you in development now?

JK: We’re getting close to alpha on our vertical slice. We know what the game is now. There’s still some tuning and tweaking to do, and the bulk of the work left is fleshing out the campaign, AI, and network code, tweaking the UI and some of the effects, and animations.

But the core of the gameplay is there, and it’ll be easier moving forward than it’s been getting to this point. We would like to finish this year. We’re not under any strict timelines, we don’t have a publisher yet, and we’re self-funded, but we would like to finish this year.

Have you learned any major lessons about developing with such a small team, after coming from big companies like EA?

JK: For me, it was having the concept of a vertical slice, where we go almost to completion with a small chunk of the game before spending any effort on designing a bunch of levels where we might have to go change a bunch of stuff later. We’ve got a very small map, a very big map, and a four-player map, and between those three maps we’re getting gameplay consistent across the board.

Banging out content is going to be a lot easier now that we have that template in place. The more successful big studios I’ve worked at definitely use that sort of process.

BP: Also, taking the time to work on the tools, like the custom 2D level editor, functionality that will speed up map building, and a custom animation tool that can do skeleton animation with keyframing and scaling. Spending the time on the tools took more than a month and a half of focused time, but it’s definitely paid off.

Is that level editor something you would consider releasing to the public?

BP: Potentially, yeah. The core of the engine, although it’s greatly modified, stems from AngelXNA, which in turn stems from Angel, which is an EALA prototyping engine. Angel is in C++ and AngelXNA is in C# and XNA. It would be cool, when things are polished and bug-free, to put it back up there.

What’s it like each being 25 percent of the team?

BP: My day-to-day at EA on teams like [canceled Steven Spielberg project] LMNO had a lot of interacting with other people. I was on AI, so I was working closely with designers, usually upwards of ten people, as opposed to one person really closely. So we’re able to iterate much faster, and it is less hectic in that sense that you’re able to focus on really perfecting something.

JK: I’ve had pretty much every position there doing art in video games, and being at once the artist, art director, and animator, there’s a lot less communication, because it’s all me. I’m with myself all day and I can do everything. The hardest part has been defining the vision, the look, and the style guides, but once that’s done, it’s a lot easier than going back and forth with a bunch of people to keep a single vision consistent.

I definitely prefer being able to do all of this. I missed being an animator, I missed doing character design, so it’s been a dream to be able to do all the stuff while making our own game. It’s awesome.

Your other team member [Sam Bird] is an audio guy, so you have no titled designers. Do you all share the design role?

BV: To a large extent, yeah. We were all a little bit designer in previous roles.

JK: None of us are dedicated designers. [Ben and Borut] are engineers, and I’m an artist, but we’re very passionate about the genre, and I take lead design roles and make some of the hard decisions, but I bounce everything off these guys. We come to a team conclusion before moving forward on most design issues.

BV: I think that’s one of the strengths of working with these guys. We’re able to collaborate, and all of us have done that in big industry jobs. Each of us has lots of skills -- I’m not just a programmer, Borut’s not just a programmer, Jake’s not just an artist.

It’s really effective to be able to bounce things off each other and make more producer-type decisions -- these roles would be whole other people in other projects. It’s been a really interesting process.