Movies

The CineCoup Film Accelerator competition is coming down to the wire, and while there are some real gems in the top 10, we all know which film has to win! WolfCop writer & director Lowell Dean very kindly made himself available for an email Q&A session this weekend. I think my “please move production to Vancouver and let me be an extra” begging was subtle, but I’ll let you decide – read on for 10 questions and answers with Lowell. AQ: The script, effects & costumes and the production design for the film seems pretty evolved, based on what we can see in the trailer and the scene for the “Speechless” mission. What sort of pre-production tasks are you holding off on until WolfCop is inevitably selected as the winner in June? LD: I love your confidence. I have yet to do any storyboarding for WolfCop. For 13 Eerie (my first feature) we storyboarded every single action sequence or moment of action. We did it with drawing, acting and action figures, which was a fun way to storyboard! I plan to board at least every beat of action, and ideally I’d love to storyboard most of the movie if our schedule permits it. Despite its “small town America” setting, how much of the film’s aesthetic is rooted in Saskatchewan? Assuming WolfCop wins, will you keep the production there, or are there reasons you might choose (or be compelled by CineCoup’s “Accelerated Production” process) to move everything to a different province? The aesthetic is inspired by the look and feel of small town Saskatchewan – a quaint community on the edge of a dense, mysterious forest. I think of it as Saskatchewan mixed with a bit of Twin Peaks. While I would love to film here, Saskatchewan currently has no competitive film tax credit. So there is a possibility we will have to shoot WolfCop somewhere else. It is a truly Saskatchewan story, and my dream is to shoot it here. I’m just not sure how realistic that is right now. CineCoup seems like it’s been hands-off in terms of restricting the content and themes of the participating films. Is WolfCop likely to be rated PG-13 or R? What sort of audience will the completed film be geared for? I want it to be a true blue horror film. An R rating. Like the films that inspire it (An American Werewolf in London, Scream). A lot of it can be mysterious and implied – which will help with our lower budget. You don’t need to have incessant violence or gore, but when you’ve got a werewolf running around you need those chaotic visceral moments of violence to really drive home the power and danger of the character. I see (late) teen boys loving this movie. They may be the key demographic. But I’m in my 30s and I really want to see it too! How much of Werewolf Lou’s design came from Emersen Ziffle’s vision, versus input from Bernie, Lowell and Hugh? Are there any enhancements to the werewolf makeup effects that an expanded budget might permit? (not that any are needed!) The best part about Emersen and I being good friends is we hang out often, and have talked WolfCop for a year now over coffee and makeup tests, honing the look. That has been a big advantage of shooting a teaser trailer and then having our actor Leo Fafard do a couple personal appearances as WolfCop (at our CineCoup Top 40 Party in Regina and then at the Calgary Expo for Top 15). We’ve been tweaking the whole time. I can tell Emersen a few key details about the character, and he’s read the script and he can then go and create his magic. He knows what he is doing. Emersen suggested a muscle suit, which has worked wonders for the character’s physique and overall physicality as WolfCop. I don’t think a big budget will really change how the character looks, it might just afford us the time and tests to perfect the look of him. He’s very close now to his look for the final film. What are some of the advantages and disadvanta

Gribiche (1925). Kristin here: Lazare Meerson was one of the great set designers of the late silent period and into the 1930s. His name may not immediately ring a bell, but he designed the great French films of René Clair (La Proie du vent, An Italian Straw Hat, Les deux timides, Sous les toits de Paris, Le Million, À nous la liberté, and La Quatorze Juilliet) and Jacques Feyder (Gribiche [above], Carmen, Les Nouveaux Messieurs, Le Grand Jeu, Pensions Mimosas, and La Kermesse héroïque). He crossed paths with most of the major French Impressionist directors, sometimes in their post-Impressionist periods: Marcel L’Herbier (Feu Mathias Pascal, his masterpiece L’Argent, Le Mystère de la chambre jaune, and Le parfum de la dame en soi), Jean Epstein ( Les Aventures de Robert Macaire), and Abel Gance (Le fin du monde and Poliche). His credits include work with such French directors as Maurice Tourneur, Julien Duvivier, and Claude Autant-Lara. Meerson was born in Russia and fled the Revolution. Making his way via Germany to Paris, he became the assistant to set designer Alberto Cavalcanti on Feu Mathias Pascal. That’s one of the five French films on a new Flicker Alley release, “From Moscow to Montreuil: The Russian Émigrés in Paris: 1920-1929.” Meerson’s illustrious career led him to England in the second half of the 1930s, where he designed several notable films, including Paul Czinner’s As You Like It, Clair’s Break the News, and Feyder’s Knight without Armour, as well as the classic The Scarlet Pimpernel. He died in 1938 at the young age of 38. (The best online source on Meerson is R. F. Cousins’ filmography, bibliography, and brief biography.) His influence lives on in the work of his most prominent student, Alexandre Trauner (Le jour se lève, among many others). I begin with Meerson in order to stress how many important strands of film history come together in this very ambitious Flicker Alley set. It allows us to trace Meerson’s early years, from his first apprentice work, Feu Mathias Pascal, to his first and third projects for Feyder. That in itself would be enough to make this release notable, but the Albatros film studio in Paris during the 1920s hosted an amazing collection of talented people working in the cutting-edge styles of the era. Here we also find three films starring the extraordinary Russian star Ivan Mosjoukine, known to most audiences by reputation only, and then only for the ephemeral Kuleshov experiment that used footage from an old film with Mosjoukine.  This experiment is not known to survive. In it a close view his impassive face reputedly was edited together with shots of a dead woman, a bowl of soup, a small child, or perhaps other subjects, depending on which report you read. Spectators supposedly credited Mosjoukine with a marvelous performance, based on eyeline editing rather than any changes in his expression. We shall probably never know the exact form this experiment took and who saw it. I have to believe that the shots of Mosjoukine were inserted at wide intervals in a feature film, not strung together one right after the other, as makers of modern “reconstructions” of the experiment seem to assume. It’s much more interesting to watch Mosjoukine in the three very different performances presented here: Le Brasier Ardent, Kean, and Feu Mathias Pascal. His face is anything but impassive We can also appreciate Belgian-born director Jacques Feyder, who had begun his career with Crainquebille (on our 10-best list for 1922) and then suffered a box-office disappointment with the charming, poignant Visages d’enfants, making two notable films for Albatros. Gribiche contains the first performance by Françoise Rosay, Feyder’s wife, who became one of the grandes dames of French cinema. Most of all, however, this set makes a big step in showing us what happened after the Revolution to the most important Russian prod

ESPN is laying off an unspecified number of employees as it seeks to improve profitability, the company confirmed.

As season 1 winds down, Revolution ramps up its perplexing late-game storytelling decisions, abandoning promising storylines and characters in favor of mysterious additions to the plot that provide a short-term boost in terms of intrigue, but appear to pull the series farther away from its original conceit. Case in point: the sci-fi world the show has decided to nest in takes the concept of a world without power and hands groups of people cars, helicopters, drones and other energy-consuming devices whenever the plot calls for it, in favor of pushing a storyline about nanomachines, whatever is lurking in the Tower, and whether or not Charlie and Jason will have a long, meaningful relationship. For its part, ‘Clue’ picks up where last week’s episode left off: with Nora in Monroe’s clutches. Naturally, ...Click to continue reading ‘Revolution’ Season 1, Episode 18 Review – A Classic Whodunit

In This is the End, some of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities gather for an epic party at James Franco’s house, when an unexplained apocalyptic event suddenly strikes Los Angeles, killing many of our favorite stars in hilarious ways. The bevy of talented comedic actors playing versions of themselves in this extreme situation - including Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride and others –  has made the film one of the more anticipated of the summer. Though the setup is intriguing and potentially very funny, the slew of surprising big-name cameos is also helping the film generate plenty of interest. In the red and green-band trailers for the film, we’ve seen Michael Cera get skewered by a pole, pop-superstar Rihanna fall into a ...Click to continue reading ‘This is the End’ Clip: Emma Watson’s Apocalypse Theories

Which is inane as I'm fairly certain she waxes... [Continued ...]

It's been over a year since last we checked in with the lovable loonies over at Horror Decor, who arguably have some of the coolest stuff you've ever seen for either you or the horror fan in your life, and don't you know they have even more cuddly killer collectibles on tap! Below are a few samples, but we recommend you visit the official Horror Decor website because they're also rocking new merch from Night of the Living Dead, Candyman, House of 1000 Corpses, The Thing, The Stuff, and so much more along with the classics we brought you last year! And if you're not a pillow fan, don't worry- the site also has an extensive collection of other housewares including candles, coasters, oven mitts and pot holders, lamps, and pretty much anything else you could need to add some horrific flairs to your home. Check out some of Horror Decor's collection below, and make sure to head on over to order your favorites today! VISIT THE EVILSHOP @ AMAZON! Got news? Click here to submit it! Get comfy in the comments section below!

With its popularity at an all-time high, it may seem strange to think that we’re talking about the end of HBO’s Game of Thrones.  However, for those who (somehow) don’t know, the show is based on a series of novels by author George R.R. Martin and that series does have a predetermined end. This, of course, means that the Game of Thrones TV show has predetermined end – and now we know that it will be season 7. But with the books and the show not exactly following the same narrative path, how will Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga be split up across seven seasons of TV? Game of Thrones producer Frank Doelger told Radio Times the following about current plans for the show: [The number of seasons] is being discussed as we speak. The ...Click to continue reading ‘Game of Thrones’ to End in Season 7?

A new picture from the set of X-Men: Days of Future Past has the Internet convinced Jennifer Lawrence is naked as Mystique, but this time around it's a body suit.

So far we’ve had plenty of reasons to look forward to seeing the Bluths get back together for Season 4 of Arrested Development. But now it turns out that the long-awaited reunion wasn’t actually much of a reunion at all. Due to scheduling issues, Mitch Hurwitz admits, some scenes featuring multiple characters were actually shot at totally different times, with the actors’ performances edited together in post-production. The entire cast was only on set together for a total of two days. We won’t know until the new episodes hit this weekend how that method actually worked out for them, but it’s a little worrisome to say the least. Hit the jump to read Hurwitz’ comments. The series creator discused his unusual approach in an interview with Rolling Stone. We ended up with an eight-hour movie of Arrested Development where the pieces do kind of come together. Not only was the show told out of sequence, it was shot out of sequence. Half of the stuff is on green screen. There are scenes where there are two characters talking to each other. On one side, it’s Jason Bateman in July, and on the other side it’s Portia in November. It was these crazy, crazy things where everybody had to say, “Wait, she hasn’t gone to that party, so she wouldn’t have that makeup on, therefore . . . ” I mean, it was just nonstop like that, and it still is. I just finished what’s called offline editing three days ago. We had to be locked at four a.m. two or three days ago. I think we locked at 3:59 AM. In the final moments I was still saying, “Wait! He doesn’t know about Buster! Let’s move that line!” It was insane. [Laughs] This is, to me, one of the craziest things of this. Again, it’s such a fortune that I get this opportunity, but this is an eight-hour show that has been tested in no way. No one has seen it. I haven’t watched it back to back. Everyone has seen pieces of them, and we’ve been delivering them out of order. There’s never been a screening of these back-to-back. I guess that’s usually the case with television, right? You pick the pilot and then the rest of them are an episode, one at a time. But those episodes are pretty heavily vetted. It doesn’t sound like Hurwitz had much of a choice — given how busy all these actors are, it was probably green screen performances or nothing. But it definitely doesn’t sound like the ideal way to go. Already, there’s some negative buzz about the green screen method. According to sources who spoke with Buzzfeed, the results are pretty mixed. While one individual claimed to have barely noticed the effects during one scene featuring Henry Winkler, another complained that a scene between Jessica Walter and Liza Minnelli featured Austin Powers levels of phoniness. Worse still, the unorthodox approach has reportedly taken its toll on the cast’s famous rapport. “I think the reason most people like the [original] show is because it’s off-the-cuff and improvised,” said one source. “[Green screening] is something that I think is not a good idea — and I think a lot of fans would agree that they’d rather it not be made if it is not going to be made in the same style.” In a word, yikes. Hopefully it’ll turn out that Hurwitz is just being hard on himself when he talks about how messy the shooting process was, and that the criticism at Buzzfeed is overly negative. But for now, this is serving as a pretty good reminder not to set my expectations too sky-high. Arrested Development Season 4 hits May 26. ‘Arrested Development’ Movie Would Be Family Reunion, Plus New Info on the Story and Structure of Season FourTV Bits: ‘Arrested Development’, ‘Breaking Bad’, ‘Revolution’, ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’, ‘The League’, ‘American Horror Story: Asylum’