Well, it’s here. Transformers: Dark of the Moon — the summer’s most outsized, eye-popping and/or melting 3-D visual effects spectacle — landed in theaters Tuesday night, commencing what will no doubt be a prodigious holiday box-office reign. And you know what that means: Now it’s time to talk it over. [Advisory: Spoilers to follow!]
Thanks to a couple of new stills in Empire magazine, the latest pictures of Ian McKellen and Martin Freeman’s sepia-hued prestige in The Hobbit are upon us! And they look… so shadowy. Like a Middle-earth version of There Will Be Blood , where Martin Freeman plays H.W. and McKellen plays a post-apocalyptic version of Daniel Plainview (whose Pringles mustache is replaced with a fibrous beard). Get a load of “young” Gandalf and a new quote from Peter Jackson.
Coen brother stock actor John Turturro told the AV Club that not only would he love to make a big screen spin-off for his Big Lebowski bowler Jesus Quintana, but he has already written up some notes. “Joel and Ethan don’t really want to do it, but if I can get them to approve my outline, which I think they liked there’s a very good chance of making it.” Until then, you’re just going to have to settle for those DirecTV commercials for your Lebowski reunion fix. [ AV Club ]
On top of being one of the worst-reviewed filmmakers of all time, German director Uwe Boll is many things: the possessor of a doctorate in literature, an author, an avid boxer (who has literally knocked out his critics ), a recipient of the rare Razzie “Worst Career” award, an outspoken adversary of Michael Bay, a non-chewer of Stride gum (the company supported a petition for him to retire in 2008), an unwavering believer in his own “art” form. And judging from the five minutes Movieline spent with him during Tuesday’s press event for BloodRayne: Third Reich — the straight-to-DVD third film in his BloodRayne franchise — Boll is also a current-events buff with an affinity for George Clooney movies and small, fluffy dogs.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon opened to a solid $13.5 million from its late Tuesday /early Wednesday screenings, including $5.5 million from the 3-D-only presentations leading the way Tuesday night. The figures exceed the early grosses from the series’ 2007 original but fall short of the $16 million that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen pulled down at midnight in 2009. Paramount currently anticipates a six-day holiday weekend tally above $160 million; drop back by Movieline tomorrow for our own Weekend Forecast predictions, which will be significantly higher. [ Deadline ]
While we patiently wait out the remaining month and a half until Craig Gillespie’s 3-D Fright Night hits theaters, DreamWorks has graciously delivered an apéritif of the horror comedy in the form of four blood-stained international character posters. The most entertaining of which is Colin Farrell’s, who playfully nibbles on a necklace, while offering his sexiest vampire come-hither look to passersby.
Now that nearly every action or comic-book movie wants to be as big, loud and spectacular as a Michael Bay movie, there’s something refreshingly straightforward — homespun, even — about an actual Michael Bay movie like Transformers: Dark of the Moon . The picture wears its ambitions on its whirring, rumbling, clanking, heavily CGI’ ed sleeve, and it pretends to be nothing more than it is: a honking, 40-karat piece of entertainment that will cost you dearly if you take your family to see it in the theaters, especially when you factor in that 3-D surcharge. Yet Dark of the Moon , the third installment in the unkillable Transformers franchise, shouldn’t be seen any other way. Bay doesn’t care about your soul, he just wants your money — but he at least makes sure you go home feeling exhausted and spent rather than vaguely dissatisfied. It’s a fair exchange.
If ever a trilogy warranted a grand Blu-ray rerelease, it’s surely Jurassic Park , the franchise that deserves credit for any post-1993 mention of velociraptors, brachiosauruses, and Sam Neill. It’s the pinnacle of summer cinema, and even if the last two films didn’t measure up to the original, it remains a singular, special franchise whose majesty won’t soon be duplicated (unless Terra Nova is much better than I expect). Click through to watch the new preview, read about the special Blu-ray features — including a fresh interview with Steven Spielberg — and gawk again at all the prehistoric tyranny.
If there’s anyone who knows how to break into horror these days, it’s Ti West, the 30-year-old writer/director whose feature films The Roost , Trigger Man , The House of the Devil and Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever (which he disowned after extensive re-editing by the producers) have made him a well-known name and respected auteur in the scare community. After showing his latest movie The Innkeepers at the Los Angeles Film Festival last week, Movieline asked the filmmaker to share his pro tips for breaking into the horror genre.