If you simply must Hoover up any new footage of Star Trek Into Darkness footage that’s out there, then have a look at this Japanese trailer . There are a few new morsels to be found in the footage, including a shot of Spock in the volcano looking perilously close to becoming one with the magma churning around him. There’s also a scene of Peter Weller’s character, Admiral Marcus , telling someone to “run this bastard down.” Presumably, he’s talking about Benedict Cumberbatch ‘s mayhem-causing character John Harrison, who’s getting high marks for his performance in early reviews of the J.J. Abrams -directed movie. Here’s what Lucy O’Brien wrote on IGN : “Cumberbatch himself has never been better. While he’s proven his ability at volatile emotional-detachment with his role in Sherlock, he is, here, a true snake; an expressionless, sliver of a man whose mask only slips when he lunges for his prey. The Enterprise crew look trivial against him, their uniforms retro and goofy against his men’s magazine sleekness. Even Spock, quite the regal figure, looks small next to him.” Nice description, although in this clip, Spock doesn’t look small. He looks very, very hot: I’m not too worried about him though given this photo, which surfaced a few weeks ago: New ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ Photo: Cold Chillin’ With Mr. Spock? What do you think? Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
“I’ve been acting since I was 13 years old, so I love playing around with different genres of movies…It keeps my profession fresh for me,” Ethan Hawke told me on the red carpet at the Tribeca Film Festival . Hawke is here to make the rounds for Before Midnight , the third entry in writer/director Richard Linklater ‘ s popular indie franchise. It’s been 18 years since the actor starred opposite Julie Delpy in the first film, Before Sunrise , but Hawke still remembers that initial experience fondly. “Richard Linklater was the first person of my generation who I felt like, was, a grown-up artist.” As for Linklater, he’s happily surprised that new audiences are discovering this third entry. “It’s really cool! Young people like this one too…It really stands on its own. I would like people would see this and then go back and see the others. It moves you in a different way.” Check out my full interview below: More on Before Midnight : TRIBECA: ‘Before Midnight’ − Richard Linklater Hints That A Fourth Film Could Happen Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
The third time is neither a particular charm nor the kiss of death for Marvel Studios ’ robust Iron Man series, which has changed studios (from Paramount to Disney) and directors ( Shane Black subbing for Jon Favreau ) but otherwise toyed little with the formula that has so far generated more than $1.2 billion in global ticket sales. The inevitable franchise fatigue ― plus a markedly unmemorable villain ― may account for the feeling that Iron Man 3 is more perfunctory and workmanlike than its two predecessors, but this solid production still delivers more than enough of what fans expect to earn its weight in box office metal. Part of the rich appeal of the first Iron Man (2008) came from the inspired casting of Robert Downey Jr . , who brought loads of impish charisma and insouciance to the part of defense contractor turned iron-plated superhero Tony Stark . It was particularly fun to watch Downey becoming Iron Man, bobbing and weaving about in his space-age rocket suit like a novice surfer trying to stand up on a wave. You can only do an origin story once, alas, and some of the magic was already gone from 2010’s Iron Man 2 , which pitted our hero against a stock Russian heavy ( Mickey Rourke ) in a standard-issue revenge narrative, but still found ample time for Stark and romantic foil Pepper Potts ( Gwyneth Paltrow ) to do their very passable Tracy-Hepburn routine . There was also a sly running commentary on the celebrification of American culture ― and, in Stark’s effort to rid himself of the shrapnel slowly poisoning his body, a deft analog for Downey’s own widely publicized battle with various forms of addiction. Most of that is absent at the start of Iron Man 3 , which finds Stark in fine physical shape ― if a bit mentally unhinged from the events of The Avengers ― and living in relative domestic bliss with the comely Ms. Potts. All of which leaves little for Black (and co-screenwriter Drew Pearce ) to do other than summon up the latest villain from the Marvel dugout: A bearded, bin Laden-esque baddie who calls himself the Mandarin ( Ben Kingsley ) and who claims credit for a series of terror bombings, one of which, a frightening attack in front of Hollywood’s historic Chinese Theatre, has landed Stark security honcho Happy (Favreau) in a coma. (Although clearly unintentional, the movie’s recurring images of severed limbs and burning bodies can’t help but strike a queasy note in light of the recent events in Boston.) Spewing his boilerplate anti-American rhetoric in a series of crudely made videos that mysteriously jam the television airwaves, the Mandarin promises that “the big one is coming,” just in time for Christmas no less. If we’ve learned anything from fantasy villains ranging from Darth Vader to the Dark Knight trilogy’s Ra’s al Ghul , first appearances can be deceiving. Suffice to say that the Mandarin is in some kind of cahoots with a couple of blasts from Tony Stark’s past: an experimental botanist ( Rebecca Hall ) and her wealthy benefactor, Aldrich Killian ( Guy Pearce ), whose prize project, Extremis , involves “hacking” into the human DNA chain to cure the sick, heal the lame and pretty much do anything else you might desire. Upon hearing Killian’s pitch, Pepper notes that the technology sounds like it could easily be weaponized. She doesn’t know the half of it. As an A-list screenwriter in the ’80s and ’90s, Black practically defined a certain brand of sardonic Hollywood action spectacle (his credits include Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight ), then disappeared for most of the 2000s, surfacing briefly in 2005 with his directorial debut, the self-referential neo-noir Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (which featured Downey in a crucial comeback role). Iron Man 3 reps a huge step up in terms of scale, and Black largely acquits himself well, keeping the pace brisk, deploying a couple of modest surprises and staging a few undeniably impressive, super-sized setpieces. Among them: an end-of-first-act raid that reduces Stark’s swank Malibu pad to smithereens, and a mid-film, mid-air rescue that draws upon some truly spectacular skydiving acrobatics. The entire package is never less than professional, enhanced by ace tech contributions from cinematographer John Toll, production designer Bill Brzeski (replacing the late J. Michael Riva) and editors Peter Ford and Jeffrey S. Elliot. Yet the movie suffers from separating Downey from three of his best verbal sparring partners ― Favreau, Paltrow and Paul Bettany (as the voice of the uber-computer Jarvis) ― for much of the pic’s running time. And from top to bottom, Favreau’s handcrafted touch is conspicuously absent, particularly his affection for retro, Ray Harryhausen-esque visual effects. (This is by far the most digital-looking series entry.) Perhaps fittingly for a movie that introduces a new generation of remote-guided Iron Man suits, Iron Man 3 all too often feels as if it were assembled by a machine. Though advertised as Iron Man 3 in all promotional materials, the pic’s full onscreen title reads as Iron Man Three .
The studios want him, but, these, days Zac Efron only has eyes for indie film. After making a splash at the New York Film Festival with The Paperboy last fall , Efron is back in the Big Apple, at the Tribeca Film Festival, with At Any Price . What’s the deal? “Y’know, Dennis [Quaid] says that the only rule he sort of had for himself in his career is to do as many different types of movies as possible, and never stop stretching and trying something new,” Efron told when I talked to him about the project. I also talked to Quaid who said that he and At Any Price director Ramin Bahrani drew inspiration from Arthur Miller’s classic play: Death of a Salesman . “We talked about Death of a Salesman and the Willy Loman character a lot…[my character] is a man who’s really trying to do the best for his family but he’s corrupted himself in the process,” the actor told me. The buzz on At Any Price is that Efron will get you into the theater, but you’ll leave it talking about Quaid. Check out my full in-depth interview below: Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
What horror fan doesn’t watch The Walking Dead ? Musician and filmmaker Rob Zombie jokes it’s because he needs to catch up on Cheers first, but the reality is he’s a horror purist who takes the genre very seriously. That dedication led to Bob Weinstein handpicking him to relaunch the Halloween franchise back in 2007, and Paranormal Activity and Insidious producers Jason Blum and Oren Peli seeking out Zombie to direct an original horror flick. They certainly got one in The Lords of Salem . Blum and Peli gave Zombie complete creative control over the feature, and he marvels at what that freedom allowed him to accomplish. “I remember the first time I watched this movie with an audience. The whole last chunk of the movie I was like ‘Wow. This really could only be made without studio meddling,” Zombie told me, adding: “‘ Cause it’s pretty out there .” How out there? Zombie said friends have told him “Man, it’s weird. No, it’s weirder than that…No, it’s still weirder than that!” But Zombie says he doesn’t worry about his work being accepted by the mainstream. “I really just do what I like,” he explained. “I don’t understand what the general public likes sometimes.” In fact, Zombie feels there’s only two things you can count on with universal appeal: Coca-Cola and the Beatles . Check out my full in-depth interview below: More on The Lords of Salem : WATCH: Rob Zombie’s ‘The Lords Of Salem’ Trailer Looks Like A Crust-Punk ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ WATCH: ‘The Lords of Salem’ Video − Rob Zombie Channels Rodgers & Hammerstein
Why do the robbery scenes in Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond The Pines seem so authentic? They’re as close as you can get to the real thing without breaking the law! “Derek had this rule that all of those bank heists would be shot in one take,” explains star Ryan Gosling . “And so there was just an energy to them that I don’t think you could have got if you were breaking it up.” Turns out Cianfrance drew inspiration from an unlikely source for a top indie director. “My reference point for those robbery sequences wasn’t other movies, it was America’s Wildest Police Chases and Cops !…We had to really do these things!” The Magic of Ryan Gosling That’s Gosling racing through the streets of Schenectady, NY on a bike? Cianfrance says that because of the way he wanted to shoot the action scenes, it had to be. So they had the actor train with The Dark Knight franchise motorcycle stuntman Rick Miller, who after their first training session ranked Gosling on a scale of 1-10 at 3… In fact, Miller felt that with just eight weeks of prep time, he couldn’t get the actor beyond a 3.5 or 4. But as Gosling’s fans will tell you, the man can work miracles. “The day before production,” marvels Cianfrance, “I said ‘What level did Ryan get to?’ He said about a 7! So that shows you the magic of Ryan Gosling.” The Place Beyond The Pines opens in NY and LA today, and expands to more theaters on April 5 . Check out my full interviews with the director and cast below, including Gosling’s thoughts on how Drive was his version of a superhero movie: Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Ilya Naishuller sounds like the name of a character from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. , but he’s got a better shot at directing a future entry in the James Bond franchise. The 29-year-old Naishuller is a most interesting hyphenate: he’s the front man for the Russian punk band Biting Elbows and a filmmaker who has lit up the Internet — 6 million YouTube views and counting since its Mar. 18 upload — and Hollywood with a remarkable NSFW music video for the band’s new single “Bad Motherfucker.” The video, which is subtitled, Insane Office Escape 2, is a bit like a mash-up of The Matrix and Reservoir Dogs as seen from the perspective of a first-person shooter video game and it has gotten the attention of Samuel L. Jackson and Darren Aronofsky who have praised Naishuller via their Twitter feeds: This is some Buck Wild shit! This coming from a BMF! vimeo.com/m/62092214 — Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) March 22, 2013 so well done: kotaku.com/5991228/this-a… — darren aronofsky (@DarrenAronofsky) March 20, 2013 If you haven’t seen it already, watch it here: The video carries a “2” in its title because it’s a sequel of sorts to video that Naishuller made for Biting Elbows 2011 track “The Stampede,” which has more than 3 million YouTube views. But as you can see, the follow-up is a vast improvement on all counts. If you want to know more about Naishuller and the making of Insane Office Escape 2 , you can read BigThink’s interview with him here , where the punk filmmaker indicates that he attended New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts and has Hollywood agents sniffing around him. IMDbPro doesn’t yet have a listing for Naishuller, but I bet that’s about to change stat. [ BigThink ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Olympus Has Fallen features an almost 30-minute assault on The White House, and producer/star Gerard Butler says the extended siege wasn’t to show off. “You’re not going to take over one of the most defended buildings in the world in 30 seconds,” he told me. “There’s a version of that, but that’s not our movie.” And with such an intense scene, where do Butler and director Antoine Fuqua stand on the current controversy over special effects houses in Hollywood feeling underappreciated? “It’s tough,” empathizes Fuqua. “The visual effects, they deserve a lot of credit because, y’know, we get to go to worlds and see things you can never ever do. So, there are extremely creative people in these houses that deserve just as much respect as everyone else. They’re a part of the team.” I also spoke to Aaron Eckhart , who co-stars as the president. Did he ever imagine that with all the smarmy characters he’s played, one of the most earnest would be a politician? “Well I like that!” Eckhart laughs. “I expect the politicians — my politicians, I’ll say — to be honest and…trustworthy and truthful…so that’s kind of what I wanted to portray in this character here.” But that doesn’t mean Olympus Has Fallen is all hugs and kisses. It’s surprisingly violent — and enacting that violence took its toll on the cast. Rick Yune, who plays the film’s villain, confesses that co-star Dylan McDermott accidentally burned Butler’s face with a cigarette. McDermott totally owns up to it, saying “Yeah, I burned his neck…then I got hit in the throat which took me down for a few minutes…we all got our battle scars!” Check out my full interviews with Butler and company below: Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Director Paul Weitz wanted Tina Fey so badly for his new movie Admission that he was willing to keep her clothed. “Originally the movie was closer to the book in that it had a couple of legitimate sex scenes in it and I was like ‘Urk!'” Fey tells me. “So they were kind enough to accommodate that.” That doesn’t mean though that she and co-star Paul Rudd didn’t enjoy good chemistry. Rudd says he was “predisposed to liking her anyway” as they share many of the same friends. As for the film’s Princeton setting, the actor admitted that making Admission was the only way he could ever get on the campus as his “GPA was very middling”. Is Weitz worried that colleges will hold Admission — which is also very candid about the college admissions process — against his kids when they apply to college later down the line? Turns out he already has a plan! “I’m going to change their names!” But Princeton won’t hold a grudge, as Weitz says they agreed to let him film on campus because “they liked the idea of having Tina Fey around for a little bit”. However, he adds, the actual Princeton admissions office does not appear in the film because it remains “super-duper top secret”! Check out my full interviews below: Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Harmony Korine is passionate about making films his way. “I just want to be the greatest of all time — the greatest that ever did it,” said Spring Breakers director, who described his latest work as “beach noir.” I sat down with Korine at Movieline’s New York office for an in-depth discussion about Spring Breakers in-depth. Korine talked about how society is still shocked by violent female criminals, his liberal use of nudity in the movie, and the way he likes to work with his actors. “Once (they’re) in character, and understand the story and the world, it all becomes perfect,” he said. “There’s nothing they can do wrong.” Spring Breakers features current Disney star James Franco and former Disney stars Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez in a story about a trip to Florida that takes a dark turn. The film has striking visuals and I asked Korine if that quality is what makes his films so high-concept. “Yeah, I think they’re completely high-concept. I think they’re also like the lowest concept,” he said. “It’s like where retardation and transcendence intersect.” Check out my full interview below: Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
