Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Changes Coming Soon!

Dear Readers,

I wish to inform you all that I'll be posting up an archive section on my blog to backlog all reviews dating back to 2005! They'll be ready to download under the previous review template for your reading pleasure! I just need to review them once again to make sure they are as typo-free as possible.

My old film articles will also be posted along with a list of archived podcasts!

IN THE WORKS

I'm sure I've stressed how much I love directors Christopher Nolan's and Paul Greengrass's work. Soon I hope to have my reviews for the respective movies. Yes, I hope to write reviews for each of my favorite films to further convince you to watch them!

Speaking of favorites, most of you should know I have a growing library of film scores (soundtracks). I've waited patiently for my reviews to be posted up on www.soundtrack.net. Sadly, my work has gone ignored further convincing me to open up my own soundtrack review website.

For most of you, it wouldn't be of interest. The important part for me is that I do have a large audience that loves to hear how I rate movie scores. So shortly after the debut of The Dark Knight, I'll be shutting down my Dark Knight Blog and opening up The Soundtrack Corner!

This is a heck of a busy summer indeed!

Thank you all for visiting my site and reading my reviews! I wouldn't be doing any of this if it weren't for your support!

-Andres

ABC NEWS: Film Director Sydney Pollack Dies

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Review Date: May 25, 2008)



My latest review for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is out!

BOX OFFICE: Indiana Jones digs up box office gold while Narnia disappoints

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has the biggest opening of the year thus far surpassing Iron Man's surprisingly strong debut of $98.6 million early this month, early estimates suggest. Studio executives were shooting for a $150 million+ Memorial Day weekend opening for Indy's 4th outing. Early estimates for the Friday-Sunday opening has Indy at over $101 million. Actual figures will be available Tuesday after the holiday.


Narnia isn't exactly in ruins but it sure isn't going to be a major domestic return for Disney. My predictions for this movie were right on. After a disappointing lower debut compared to the first installment, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian returned $23 million for its second weekend. That's over a 50% drop!!! Disney already has the 3rd installment - The Voyage of the Dawn Threader - in the works and is slated to open early May 2010 . . . once again after Iron Man in, well, Iron Man 2.

Will Disney pull back on the production budget for the next film? Will it use a smarter marketing campaign to target its appropiate audience? The Disney execs better learn from the mistakes from this outing. Prince Caspian cost $200 million to make. Domestically, I think it will recover the production budget but will fall way short of the $291 million of the 1st film.

I don't think there'll be a 4th Narnia film.

Of note, all the major films that have opened thus far this month have had positive reviews but revenues are lagging behind last year's poorly reviewed crop of films.

-Andres

Sunday, May 11, 2008

BOX OFFICE: Speed Racer Stalls! Iron Man Stays Atop Box Office!




Iron Man takes in another $50.5 million this weekend for a new total of $177.1 million! Iron Man is officially the highest grossing movie of the year!

TIME: Tom Cruise's Adolf Hitler film put back into Hollywood bunker


STORY: The fortunes of Hollywood actor Tom Cruise have suffered a blow with the news that his next big film has been postponed until 2009.

The release of Valkyrie, which tells the story of the 1944 assassination plot against Hitler, was first postponed from this summer to the autumn and is now not expected to appear until next year.

“We were originally expecting the film to be released in June,” said a senior executive at one of Britain’s leading cinema chains.

“I know there have been all sorts of problems with this production and we will not be screening it at all this year.”

The film is not only a blow to Cruise as an actor but in his more recent incarnation as a movie mogul at United Artists (UA), the studio which made the film.

One critic in Hollywood has declared “Valkyrie is dead”, with another arguing that the film’s problems could also wreck the revival of UA.

Cruise, whose earlier career saw hit after hit with Top Gun, Rain Man and Jerry Maguire, is a stakeholder in UA, which was originally founded by Charlie Chaplin and other stars.

It has since passed through several different owners until Cruise relaunched it as a major studio in 2006.

Cruise, who is married to the actress Katie Holmes, has a minority stake with his business partner Paula Wagner, but the pair have almost total control over which films are made.

UA’s first major film, Lions for Lambs, a story about the Iraq war with Cruise and Meryl Streep starring and Robert Redford directing, flopped.

Valkyrie has been directed by Bryan Singer, who is best known for The Usual Suspects and X-Men. The new film, which was mostly shot last year at a cost of £45m, has so far left test audiences unimpressed.

The quality of Cruise’s German accent was widely commented on. The film has also had to have reshoots after footage was damaged in labs.

Cruise plays the German officer Claus von Stauffenberg, who led the plot. Other German parts are played by British actors, including Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh.

A flop would not be good news either for Branagh, who directed three films last year – The Magic Flute, As You Like It and Sleuth – all of which had mixed reviews.

However, Branagh has usually fared better as an actor. He won awards for the film Conspiracy in 2001, where he played the Nazi bureaucrat Reinhard Heydrich, who chaired the conference during the second world war at which the policy of exterminating Jews was decided upon.

Roger Friedman, who has a widely read film blog and a column on foxnews.com, recently advised Cruise, who was formerly married to Nicole Kidman, to “do another Jerry Maguire-like comedy” to get his acting career back on track.

TRAILER

Friday, May 9, 2008

REUTERS: Pirates director to turn BioShock game into film


Take-Two Interactive Software Inc said on Friday that "Pirates of the Caribbean" director Gore Verbinski will make a movie version of "BioShock," its hit video game about an underwater utopia gone disastrously wrong.

The movie will be made by Universal Pictures, a unit of NBC Universal owned by General Electric Co, and John Logan, writer of "Gladiator" and "Sweeney Todd," was in talks to pen the screenplay, Take-Two said.

"Gore is an avid video gamer and true fan of 'BioShock'. That was extremely important to us in deciding to move forward with this project," Christoph Hartmann, president of Take-Two's 2K Games label, said in a statement.

Take-Two did not disclose financial terms of the deal or other details, such as when the film would be released. The company is the target of a $2 billion takeover bid by rival game publisher Electronic Arts Inc.

Released last August for Microsoft Corp's Xbox 360 game console, "BioShock" won praise for its complex story, haunting art deco atmosphere and creepy characters such as Big Daddies and Little Sisters.

"BioShock" has sold more than 2 million copies and Take-Two is working on a sequel.

The "BioShock" movie deal is the latest sign of the growing importance of video games in popular culture.

Earlier this week, Take-Two said its "Grand Theft Auto 4" criminal action game racked up more than $500 million in global sales in its first week.

That handily topped Hollywood's biggest film debut, Verbinski's "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," which pulled in $406 million in global box office receipts in its first six days.

Microsoft made headlines when it signed "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson to produce a movie adaptation of its hit "Halo" video game, but the project was put on hold in 2006 when financial backers Universal and 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp pulled out of the deal.

(Reporting by Scott Hillis; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Thursday, May 8, 2008

EW: First Look: 'W,' Oliver Stone's Bush Biopic


Josh Brolin is playing George "Dubya" Bush in Oliver Stone's supposed biopic. Brolin recently starred in The Critic Corner's Best Picture of the Year last year: No Country For Old Men.

W is scheduled to open this winter.

-Andres

Summer 2008 Movie Guide - Parts 1 & 2!

SURPRISE!!!!

Even I didn't think it would happen but it did! Now for your listening pleasure, I present The Critic Corner Summer Movie Guide for May & June films!

Click below to download/stream the podcasts!


Summer Movie Guide & The M. Night Shyamalan Films including the upcoming The Happening

Don't Mess With The Zohan Full Trailer Debut!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Marvel has announced four new movies for 2010 and 2011, including Iron Man 2 and the Avengers!

STORY: You might want to be sitting down for this one, True Believers...Okay, you ready?

This morning Marvel Studios announced four new films slated for 2010 and 2011, including two Avengers-related movies!


With Iron Man's cinematic debut currently blasting through box offices throughout the country, fans can expect a second film to hit theaters on April 30, 2010! And a few months later in July, the mighty Thor himself will wield his enchanted hammer across the big screen courtesy of director Matthew Vaughn!

Pumped yet? You should be—and you haven't heard the best part! The summer of 2011 will kick off in style with a Captain America movie, followed just two short months later with the July-debuting Avengers!


Want the very first looks at how the Marvel movie universe is already tying together? Be sure you stick to your seats until the very end of "Iron Man"—yes, all the way through the credits! There's an extra special, extra exciting, extra scene guaranteed to thrill!

Plus, as first revealed at New York Comic-Con 2008, catch Robert Downey, Jr.'s cameo as Tony Stark in "The Incredible Hulk," smashing into theaters on June 13!

That noise you hear in the background is the sound of Marvelites the world over rejoicing, True Believer! So get ready, because these next few years are going to be one heck of a good time!

-Marvel.com

Monday, May 5, 2008

More Hollywood News (5/5/08)

Technician On 2nd Bond Film Is Knifed!!

By JAMES TAPPER - More by this author » Last updated at 01:00am on 4th May 2008

STORY: The curse of 007 has struck again after a technician working on the latest Bond movie was stabbed with a steak knife in a domestic dispute.

The 58-year-old man, who was working on Daniel Craig's second Bond film, Quantum Of Solace, was found lying unconscious in a pool of blood yesterday morning after a night out.

Police said he had been attacked by a woman in the bedroom of her house in Dornbirn, Austria.

He is believed to have wrestled the knife from her and staggered into the street.

He is now said to be recovering in hospital, according to Bond sources.

It is the third major mishap to befall the movie, prompting fears it may be jinxed.

Engineer Fraser Dunn, 29, was lucky to survive after crashing a £134,000 Aston Martin DBS into Lake Garda in Italy two weeks ago.

Six days later, stuntman Aris Comninos, 40, suffered serious head injuries after crashing while filming a chase scene.

In the latest incident Austrian police said the unnamed British technician had met a 47-year-old Austrian woman in a bar in the town of Dornbirn, near where filming is taking place. He was invited back to her home when she attacked him.

He was discovered at 6am yesterday and police gave him emergency first aid.

His condition was "critical".

A police spokesman said: "The woman appears to have attacked the man with a steak knife in the bedroom.

"At some stage he had wrestled the knife free from the woman and used it to drive her off before staggering out the door and collapsing in the street.

"He suffered deep cut wounds to the head and hands, and the first policeman to arrive thought he had died as his pulse was so weak and there was so much blood.

"The woman was found first."

A movie spokeswoman said: "I can confirm a technician was injured in a domestic dispute."

Thursday, May 1, 2008

The Summer Movie Preview Guide

My friends, sadly I couldn't get to do a Summer Movie Preview this time around. I got sick real bad. So to all my loyal readers, I am sorry.

For a good Summer Movie Guide, check out this one from Yahoo! Movies:



I love this one so enjoy it!

I'll be giving my spin on upcoming movies. Speaking of which, click on the poster below for showtimes, tickets, pictures, etc for Iron Man!

Hancock Full Trailer Debut!