Archive | Film

Mandy Sneak Preview in Dublin

Be one of the first people to see Panos Cosmatos’ newest film at a Mandy sneak preview screening on September 13 in Dublin, California.

Mandy Sneak Preview

Join the members of Legion M, the worlds first fan-owned entertainment company, for a sneak preview screening of Mandy at Regal Hacienda in Dublin, California! Mandy is an action horror film directed by Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow) starring Nicolas Cage and Andrea Riseborough (Birdman, Oblivion). It is one of the last films scored by Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (Arrival). Be one of the first to see what’s sure to become one of the most talked about films of the year.

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Star Wars: The Definitive Top 10 List

Fans of lists and Star Wars, we are currently in a rare moment of list making history when we have exactly 10 theatrically released, live-action Star Wars films*. Thanks to the May 25, 2018 release of Solo: A Star Wars Story we can create a perfect top 10 list. We truly live in wondrous times. Of course, this moment of perfection will come to an end on December 20, 2019 when Episode IX adds an eleventh theatrically released, live-action Star Wars film forcing fans to finally choose which prequel film to drop from the list.

I haven’t taken the time to rank the Star Wars films since 2006. At that time my top six would have probably looked like this:

  1. Empire Strikes Back
  2. Star Wars
  3. Return of the Jedi
  4. Revenge of the Sith
  5. The Phantom Menace
  6. Attack of the Clones

It wasn’t until Scott Aukerman posted the ultimate list of Star Wars films that I realized, “oh hey, we can make a perfect top 10.”

 

The comments on that thread are delicious.

After watching Solo I thought it was finally time to stare at a wall and consider my Star Wars top 10. However, before we get to that I need to tell you about the specific individual Star Wars fan that is me.

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Black Panther Inspires Disney to Fund STEM Initiative in Oakland

At this point everyone in Oakland has had a chance to catch Black Panther, right? In case you haven’t, but plan on doing so, I should note everything below in this post is a spoiler for the final Oakland-based scene of the film. Okay?

Black Panther is breaking all sorts of records and that means plenty of dollar bills for the Walt Disney Company. According to ComingSoon.net, the House of Mouse has decided to put some of that money back into the communities that have no doubt helped make Black Panther one of the most successful superhero films ever.

Disney plans to donate $1 million to the Boys and Girls Club of America to help expand the organizations STEM programs. Part of that investment includes helping to establish an Oakland-based STEM Center of Innovation. The move is a clear nod to the film’s ending where Wakanda starts making contact with the rest of the world by establishing a science center in Oakland. T’Challa’s wicked smart sister, Shuri, is tapped to lead the science outreach initiative.

Black Panther - Shuir smiling

The majority of the film takes place in the fictional nation of Wakanda, but it is an Oakland film at heart. The Bay Area city is the birthplace of director Ryan Coogler who made his Hollywood debut with the critically-acclaimed indie film Fruitvale Station. That film told the story of Oscar Grant who on New Year’s Eve 2009 was shot in the back and murdered by BART police.

In a statement, Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger noted that Black Panther is “sparking discussion, inspiring people young and old, and breaking down age-old industry myths.”

Disney’s money will additionally support STEM programs in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Harlem, Hartford, Memphis, New Orleans, Orlando, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Watts.

Marvel Returns to San Francisco for More “Ant-Man and The Wasp” Filming

On the heels of Thor crushing the box office this weekend, Marvel has returned to San Francisco to shoot more scenes for next year’s Ant-Man and The Wasp.

The film crew, operating under the moniker PYM Particles Productions shooting a movie called “Cherry Blue,” spent Monday down at Pier 39. Thanks to additional signage posted around North Beach we know more filming is planned for this coming Wednesday near the Transamerica Building.

 

This is at least the second time this year the company has been to the city to shoot scenes for the second film involving  Marvel’s smallest (and sometimes largest) superhero. In September, PYM Particles Productions spent a week flipping cars near Nob Hill.

Ant-Man and the Wasp will be released in theaters on July 6, 2018. Most of the first film’s cast will return including Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, and Michael Douglas. Both Michelle Pfieffer and Laurence Fishburne have signed on for the sequel.

Hasbro Cinematic Universe could arrive as early as 2020

In April of 2016 news broke that Hasbro was going to make an effort to leverage several properties into a shared cinematic universe. The properties included G.I. Joe, Visionaries, M.A.S.K., Micronauts, and ROM.

Hasbro Shared Univrse

Art from IDW’s Hasbro Shared Universe which features Transformers, G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K., Rom, and others

The toy company brought together a who’s who of storytellers to form a writers room and start figuring out how all of the pieces could interlock. From Variety:

The writers assigned to the room are Lindsey Beer (“Wizard of Oz”), Michael Chabon(“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay”), Cheo Coker (“Ray Donovan”), Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley (“Spider-Man: Homecoming”), Joe Robert Cole (“Black Panther”), Nicole Perlman (“Guardians of the Galaxy”), Jeff Pinkner (“The Dark Tower”), Nicole Riegel (“Soldier Girls”), Geneva Robertson (“Tomb Raider”) and Brian K Vaughan (“Lost”).

After that initial announcement, there wasn’t much follow-up on the status of any sort of shared universe.

We do know Akiva Goldsman, who oversaw the writers room as well as the last three Transformers films, has left Hasbro to work with Paramount.

Curious about whether or not we’ll ever see this universe I started to do some digging. The best (and limited) information I could find was in a Hollywood Reporter profile of Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner. Buried at the very end of the June 2017 interview Goldner says:

There are vault brands like Micronauts, MASK, ROM and Visionaries. We had a writers room last summer to develop a suite of stories. My expectation is that by 2020, we should see some major entertainment coming from the development that we’ve undertaken.

That’s it. No follow-up for further explanation. Whether or not Hasbro still plans to combine that suite of stories into a shared universe is still a big question mark. The concept has worked well for IDW who holds the comic licenses for all of those toy brands.

The 10-year-old in me would simply be happy with a G.I. Jor reboot that mirrors the original Marvel comic book series.

What is Zendaya reading in the Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer?

Since it was announced Zendaya was cast in Spider-Man: Homecoming there’s been a big question mark around her character. Early rumors that she’d been cast as Mary Jane Watson were quashed by the star in a November interview with ET Online. She verified her character is named “Michelle.” Last night we saw the first trailer for the film finds Zendaya reading in the cafeteria giving us our first glimpse of the actress in her role.

The moment doesn’t give us many answers other than showing us “Michelle” is an avid book reader. As a fan of seeing books on film and figuring out what characters are reading, I took time last night to squint at the blurry screen capture.

Here are the top three books in the pile with Wikipedia synopsis:

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Adolescent

The novel chronicles the life of 19-year-old intellectual, Arkady Dolgoruky, illegitimate child of the controversial and womanizing landowner Versilov. A focus of the novel is the recurring conflict between father and son, particularly in ideology, which represents the battles between the conventional “old” way of thinking in the 1840s and the new nihilistic point of view of the youth of 1860s Russia. Whereas the young of Arkady’s time embraced a very negative opinion of Russian culture in contrast to Western or European culture.

Another main theme is Arkady’s development and utilization of his “idea” in his life, mainly a form of rebellion against society (and his father) through the rejection of attending a university, and the making of money and living independently, onto the eventual aim of becoming excessively wealthy and powerful.

Henry James’s The Wings of the Dove

This novel tells the story of Milly Theale, an American heiress stricken with a serious disease, and her effect on the people around her. Some of these people befriend Milly with honorable motives, while others are more self-interested.

Kōbō Abe’s Woman in the Dunes

In 1955, Jumpei Niki, a schoolteacher from Tokyo, visits a fishing village to collect insects. After missing the last bus, he is led, by the villagers, in an act of apparent hospitality, to a house in the dunes that can be reached only by ladder. The next morning the ladder is gone and he finds he is expected to keep the house clear of sand with the woman living there, with whom he is also to produce children. He eventually gives up trying to escape when he comes to realize returning to his old life would give him no more liberty. After seven years, he is proclaimed officially dead.

As for the fourth book, there are many books that have “Democracy” and I haven’t been able to find a matching book spine image.

Zendaya Reading in the Second Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer

The second trailer dropped on March 27 and gave us our second peek into Zendaya’s character’s reading interests in Spider-Man: Homecoming. This time the visual is clear: W. Somerset Maugham‘s 1915 masterpiece Of Human Bondage.

SPider-Man Homecoming Zendaya reading Of Human Bondage

From Penguin Books:

BalboaCon presents a weekend of superhero cartoons and films

strangeThe late-1970s must have been an interesting time for comic book fans eager to see live-action adaptations of their heroes. Three heroes made the leap from page to pilot to, at the least, one season: Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, and Hulk. One hero that wasn’t so lucky was Marvel’s Dr. Strange. In 1978, CBS produced a pilot for the Sorcerer Supreme that, unfortunately, didn’t get picked up for a full season. Outside of comic book super fans the two-hour pilot has remained mostly forgotten and unseen.

That same year DC smashed through the comic book pages and elevated their flagship hero, Superman, from funny books to the level of a cinematic star. Christopher Reeve defined the role of the Man of Steel in Richard Donner’s Superman. Christopher Reeve would go on to play the hero in three more films.

This weekend at the Balboa Theatre, 1978 will be front and center as the Balboa screens both Dr. Strange and Superman. Those two films are only a small part of comic book film programming taking place this weekend as part of Balboa Con. The historic Outer Richmond theater will be showing no less than 12 comic book-based films including the first three Superman films, DarkmanHellboyTank Girl, and more. According to the event’s Facebook page:

 

We are very excited to present the first ever Balboa Con! This is going to be a whole weekend dedicated to comic book art, movies, and cartoons! There will be four days of comic book movie programming along with Q&As, special guests, and lots and lots of affordable and amazing art in the lobby.

Dr. Strange will screen on Friday alongside the 1992 cult classic Dr. Mordrid. Dr. Mordrid is essentially Dr. Strange without a mustache because the film was produced by New Moon’s Charles Band who held an expired option for the Marvel character. He made the film with slight changes to the title character.

In addition to comic book-based film the Balboa will screen thematic cartoons and present a number of artists. The full screening schedule is below and artists will be appearing throughout the weekend.

balboacon

Tugg This Movie and Support the Cartoon Art Museum: Comix Beyond the Comic Book Pages (June 9)

Comix PosterThe Cartoon Art Museum is hoping to host a screening of Comix: Beyond the Comic Book Pages on June 9 at Landmark Embarcadero Theatre. The documentary explores the history and culture of comics through the voices of creators, publishers, store owners, collectors, and fans. The screening is a dual opportunity to celebrate comics while supporting the important work of the Cartoon Art Museum. However, the event will only happen if enough people RSVP using the Tugg screening platform before May 30.

If you’re unfamiliar with Tugg it’s a clever tool that allows cinema fans to bring obscure films to a theater with very little risk. I used the system a couple of times as an events producer in Madison, Wisconsin. Most notably, to bring the crowdsourced Iron Sky to the city when I couldn’t get any theaters to commit. It sold out. How it works is a theater determines the minimum number of butts that need to fill seats to justify showing the film. If that many people RSVP in advance the screening moves forward. If you can’t generate the minimum number of attendees the screening doesn’t happen. Guests are only charged if the screening happens.

The Cartoon Art Museum shuttered it’s doors last September due to the high cost of hosting a unique museum in San Francisco. Currently, the Cartoon Art Museum is questing for a new home. In addition to seeing the film, attendees can donate to the museum when they reserve a place through Tugg. As of this morning, it looks like I’m one of two people RSVP’d. That’s a shame! Let’s all watch a film together and support the Cartoon Art Museum.

Exhibition: CJM announces Stanley Kubrick Exhibition programming

shiningmuseum The Contemporary Jewish Museum has announced programming for the Stanley Kubrick Exhibition. The exhibition celebrating the life and work of one of cinema’s finest auteurs opens on June 30 (June 29 for members) and will kick-off four months of lectures and gallery talks related to Kubrick. Opening night features a discussion about the personal and professional life of Kubrick featuring Jan Harlan, Tim Heptner, Katharina Kubrick, and Hans-Peter Reichmann.

Throughout the following four months Kubrick fans will have opportunities to attend discussions related to his films, the filmmaker through the lens of Judaism, a spotlight on his immense collection of lenses and cameras, Kubrick as futurist, and much more. A complete list is available here.

We previously wrote about how the exhibition was presented in South Korea and we’re looking forward to seeing CJM’s presentation.

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