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WATCH: ‘Elysium’ Trailer − Matt Damon’s HULC Suit Vs. Lockheed-Martin’s

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The new trailer for Neill Blomkamp’s  Elysium  features some interesting contraptions, as you might expect from a science-fiction movie set 150 years into the future. And at least one of them is very plausible. HULC, Not Hulk I’m not so sure about the viability of a cancer-curing body scanner that calls to mind the autodoc from Prometheus ,  or lethal gun-wielding robots, but the exo-suit that Matt Damon wears to invade idyllic Elysium in search of a cure for his radiation sickness (and, no doubt, so much more)  is already in development at defense contractor Lockheed-Martin . It’s called the Human Universal Load Carrier or HULC , for short.  This is how Lockheed-Martin’s website describes it: The HULC is a completely un-tethered, hydraulic-powered anthropomorphic exoskeleton that provides users with the ability to carry loads of up to 200 pounds for extended periods of time and over all terrains. Its flexible design allows for deep squats, crawls and upper-body lifting. An onboard micro-computer ensures the exoskeleton moves in concert with the individual. The HULC’s modularity allows for major components to be swapped out in the field. Additionally, its unique power-saving design allows the user to operate on battery power for extended missions. When battery power is low, the HULC system continues to support the loads and does not restrict mobility. HULC can also support a maximum load, with or without power. I’ve posted a HULC demo clip below, but, first, check out the Elysium trailer and poster, which will give you a better idea of Damon’s exo-suit.   Blomkamp told Yahoo! that it will carry the Kawasaki logo because he wanted the contraption to be like the “motocross kind of version of a strength suit.” Given some of the squirm-inducing scenes in Blomkamp’s superb last film,  District 9 , Damon’s Kawasaki suit will require some kind of gory and painful connection to his brain, spinal cord or some other part of his body . (The trailer shows part of the apparatus being attached to his skull with screws. I hope they used some strong bone-appropriate anchors.) I don’t know what a boom saw is, but, judging from the trailer, it will be used in the procedure. Matt Damon HULCs Up As you’ll see from the clip below, the Lockheed Martin HULC suit doesn’t need to be hardwired to the human body. Yet. The HULC As Science, Not Fiction Discuss. [ Yahoo!] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on  Twitter. Follow Movieline on  Twitter.

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WATCH: ‘Elysium’ Trailer − Matt Damon’s HULC Suit Vs. Lockheed-Martin’s

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WATCH: ‘Elysium’ Trailer − Matt Damon’s HULC Suit Vs. Lockheed-Martin’s

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The new trailer for Neill Blomkamp’s  Elysium  features some interesting contraptions, as you might expect from a science-fiction movie set 150 years into the future. And at least one of them is very plausible. HULC, Not Hulk I’m not so sure about the viability of a cancer-curing body scanner that calls to mind the autodoc from Prometheus ,  or lethal gun-wielding robots, but the exo-suit that Matt Damon wears to invade idyllic Elysium in search of a cure for his radiation sickness (and, no doubt, so much more)  is already in development at defense contractor Lockheed-Martin . It’s called the Human Universal Load Carrier or HULC , for short.  This is how Lockheed-Martin’s website describes it: The HULC is a completely un-tethered, hydraulic-powered anthropomorphic exoskeleton that provides users with the ability to carry loads of up to 200 pounds for extended periods of time and over all terrains. Its flexible design allows for deep squats, crawls and upper-body lifting. An onboard micro-computer ensures the exoskeleton moves in concert with the individual. The HULC’s modularity allows for major components to be swapped out in the field. Additionally, its unique power-saving design allows the user to operate on battery power for extended missions. When battery power is low, the HULC system continues to support the loads and does not restrict mobility. HULC can also support a maximum load, with or without power. I’ve posted a HULC demo clip below, but, first, check out the Elysium trailer and poster, which will give you a better idea of Damon’s exo-suit.   Blomkamp told Yahoo! that it will carry the Kawasaki logo because he wanted the contraption to be like the “motocross kind of version of a strength suit.” Given some of the squirm-inducing scenes in Blomkamp’s superb last film,  District 9 , Damon’s Kawasaki suit will require some kind of gory and painful connection to his brain, spinal cord or some other part of his body . (The trailer shows part of the apparatus being attached to his skull with screws. I hope they used some strong bone-appropriate anchors.) I don’t know what a boom saw is, but, judging from the trailer, it will be used in the procedure. Matt Damon HULCs Up As you’ll see from the clip below, the Lockheed Martin HULC suit doesn’t need to be hardwired to the human body. Yet. The HULC As Science, Not Fiction Discuss. [ Yahoo!] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on  Twitter. Follow Movieline on  Twitter.

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WATCH: ‘Elysium’ Trailer − Matt Damon’s HULC Suit Vs. Lockheed-Martin’s

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WATCH: ‘Rush’ Trailer − Has Ron Howard Finally Released The Clutch On His Stolid Filmmaking Style?

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Ron Howard’s time across the pond looks like it has been good for him.  With the exception of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby , I’ve never been a fan of racing movies.  I realize that death lurks around every curve, but, from a spectator’s perspective, auto races are about as thrilling as Major League baseball games. There’s a lot of monotony in those laps (and innings).   I feel the same about Howard’s stolid filmmaking style — have you seen The Da Vinci Code lately? — so when I learned he was the director of Rush , the story of the 1970s rivalry between Formula One race-car drivers Austrian Niki Lauda and Brit James Hunt , I didn’t exactly put it on my must-see list of 2013. But after watching this revved-up UK trailer for the movie, I’ve changed my mind.  I’m now eager to see Rush,  if only to determine whether Howard has shaken up his filmmaking style as much as this clip indicates. To use a punny driving term: he looks like he’s really released the clutch on his safe style.  There’s real tension and unpredictable energy in this footage, which was shot in the UK and Germany, as well as a kind of feckless romance that is so Seventies. (As Hunt, the rakish Chris Hemsworth , says in voiceover: “The closer you are to death, the more alive you feel.” Oh yes, and Olivia Wilde plays 70s model Suzy Miller.) And pay special attention to Daniel Brühl , who may not be as handsome as Hemsworth, but is much more compelling as Lauder, the Austrian driver who was horribly burned in a crash at the 1976 German Grand  Prix. Remarkably, he returned to the track six weeks later to keep Hunt from knocking him  from his standing as the number-one ranked drive in the world. The actual outcome of that race is rather anticlimactic in movie terms — Lauda retired from the race — so it will be interesting to see whether Howard can make it pay off dramatically. That said, the film’s September release date — when the film industry is getting into the awards-season mindset in earnest, suggests that he’s found a solution. I’ll be watching. Ron Howard’s Shakes Up His Filmmaking Style With  Rush Follow Frank DiGiacomo on  Twitter. Follow Movieline on  Twitter.

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WATCH: ‘Rush’ Trailer − Has Ron Howard Finally Released The Clutch On His Stolid Filmmaking Style?

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Annette Funicello’s Death (1942-2013): Play ‘Beach Blanket Bingo’ With Her One Last Time

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Actress and original Mouseketeer Annette Funicello  has gone to great big surf party in the sky, and I’d like to remember her with the opening sequence to one of her most memorable movies:  Beach Blanket Bingo .   Funicello passed away at the age of 70 on Monday from complications due to multiple sclerosis, and in addition to her Mickey Mouse Club work will be remembered for her work with Frankie Avalon in American International’s beach-party movies of the 1960s (which led to a couple of name-checks in Grease ). In this clip,  Funicello sings the movie’s title song with Avalon and manages to maintain her dignity while everyone else on the beach is shaking their money makers. There’s a reason she was America’s sweetheart for so long. While you’re at it, check out the cameos by Don Rickles , Paul Lynde and, weirdly, Buster Keaton , who engages in a Benny Hill-style fishing gag at the end of the clip. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on  Twitter. Follow Movieline on  Twitter.

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Annette Funicello’s Death (1942-2013): Play ‘Beach Blanket Bingo’ With Her One Last Time

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WATCH: ‘Carrie’ Not Scary? New Trailer Gets An ‘F’ In Fright Dept.

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The first trailer for the remake of another classic horror film — Stephen King’s   Carrie — is out, and it’s looking anemic compared to the bloody and blood-curdling promotional campaign that Evil Dead     has waged over the last several months. Boys Don’t Cry director Kimberly Peirce  is certainly capable of bringing something original to this story, but, based on the trailer, I don’t see it.  The only new twist I detect appears to be that Carrie’s traumatic first encounter with menstruation is going to end up on the Internet thanks to a cell-phone wielding mean girl in the scene. The rest of the action in this clip appears to copy the plot of Brian De Palma’s  original 1976 adaptation without upping the fright factor. There’s another factor to consider that a reader raised the last time I wrote about this movie :  Even beneath a an awful haircut, Carrie star Chloe Grace Moretz’s beauty shines through, which makes it difficult to believe that she could be a weird pariah in high school. What do you think?  Let me know in the comments section. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on  Twitter. Follow Movieline on  Twitter.

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WATCH: ‘Carrie’ Not Scary? New Trailer Gets An ‘F’ In Fright Dept.

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REVIEW: Meatheaded ‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation’ Should Be Titled ‘Regurgitation’

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Offering a more straight-faced brand of idiocy than its cheerfully dumb 2009 predecessor, G.I. Joe: Retaliation might well have been titled G.I. Joe: Regurgitation , advertising big guns, visual effects and that other line of Hasbro toys with the same joyless, chew-everything-up-and-spit-it-out efficiency. Largely devoid of personality, apart from a few nifty action flourishes courtesy of helmer Jon M. Chu , Paramount’s late-March blockbuster, pushed back from a 2012 release (ostensibly to allow for a 3D conversion), may have trouble matching G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra ’s $302 million worldwide gross. But with no shortage of merchandising and other cross-promotional opportunities, it should still score significant attention from targeted male viewers. Appreciably rougher and grittier in feel than the Stephen Sommers-directed The Rise of Cobra , Retaliation  makes any number of ham-fisted bids for topical relevance, and naturally almost every one of them represents an affront to good taste. Among other things, the film is a sort of accidental comedy about nuclear warfare, as much of the silly plot concerns a global summit where the hope of mass disarmament soon gives way to the threat of mass annihilation. Elsewhere, the script (by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick) finds our trusty Joes raiding a North Korean compound shortly before they head to Islamabad, where they wind up framed for the assassination of Pakistan’s president. All this geopolitical mayhem is being orchestrated by the U.S. commander-in-chief (Jonathan Pryce) — or rather, the dastardly doppelganger who’s impersonating him with the aid of super-sophisticated “nanomite” technology (because latex is just a little too Mission: Impossible ). The president’s stand-in is a high-ranking member of Cobra, a secret network of megalomaniacs bent on wiping out the G.I. Joes once and for all, and in the early going, they come perilously close. Tatum Channing’s Screen Time Is Brief Probably aware that no one in the audience could possibly care about any sense of continuity with The Rise of Cobra  and its eminently forgettable characters, the filmmakers have opted to retain just a few key players this time around. In what feels like an odd miscalculation given the actor’s recent popularity, Channing Tatum’s Duke is around for only about 10 minutes to pass the baton to a fresh G.I. Joe unit led by the physically imposing Roadblock ( Dwayne Johnson ) and rounded out by Flint (D.J. Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), both of whom evince far less charisma than the military-grade weapons provided them by Gen. Joe Colton ( Bruce Willis , phoning it in). Actor To Watch: Byung-hyun Lee Providing a bit more interest is the Joes’ ninja faction, chiefly Snake Eyes (Ray Park), whose inexpressive mask stands in marked contrast to the piercing gaze of his longtime nemesis, white-clad swordfighter Storm Shadow ( Korean star Byung-hyun Lee ). Along with newcomer Jinx (Elodie Yung), these returning characters figure prominently into the picture’s finest moment, a fight scene in the Himalayas that employs wirework and stereoscopy to highly vertiginous effect. The visual grace of this sequence is no surprise coming from Chu, who demonstrated a real flair for staging in the two Step Up  pics he directed. But as in those movies, sustaining a narrative or transcending a patchy script seem beyond his abilities. One of the least savory aspects of the franchise is the unseemly pleasure it takes in the wholesale destruction of foreign cities, which goes hand-in-hand with its jingoistic portrait of American military might. Audiences who thrilled to the sight of Paris under biochemical attack in Cobra  will be pleased to watch London endure an even more horrific fate here, although the sequence is tossed off in quick, almost ho-hum fashion, with no time to dwell on anything so exquisitely crass as the spectacle of the Eiffel Tower collapsing. Meatheaded and derivative as it is, G.I. Joe: Retaliation  is hardly the nadir, as hollow corporate products go; certainly it’s nowhere near as aggressively off-putting as the Transformers  movies, the other action-figure adaptations in the Hasbro universe. The dialogue has improved markedly since the earlier outing, and the lensing and editing, while hardly models of coherence, just about manage to avoid excessive jumpiness. Andrew Menzies’ production design, with sets standing in for everything from a Tokyo skyscraper to a Nepalese monastery, proves resourceful within the confines of a largely New Orleans-shot production. With the exceptions of the often mesmerizing Lee and the ever-reliable Johnson, the performances are merely serviceable. Follow Movieline on  Twitter .

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WATCH: The Mandarin Isn’t Talking Funny Anymore

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

There’s yet another Iron Man 3 TV spot making the rounds, and, like the international TV spot I wrote about on Monday, it leaves the distinct impression that Ben Kingsley has dialed back the affected voice he was using in his portrayal of the Mandarin . How Kingsley Dialed Back The Mandarin’s Vocal Acrobatics In this clip, Kingsley, in voiceover, uses his signature line, “You’ll never see me coming,” but this time he doesn’t lead-foot the l’s and r’s.  Instead, he breaks up the sentence with dramatic pauses, so he sounds appropriately dangerous as opposed to dangerous and destined to be a recurring Saturday Night Live character.  Check out the second clip for Kingsley’s original reading of the line. A Disney spokeswoman still hasn’t gotten back to me on whether a conscious decision was made to change the downplay the Mandarin’s vocal acrobatics. If that ever happens, I’ll update. Marvel Studios Chief Kevin Feige Plays Superhero Shrink For Tony Stark:  In other Iron Man 3 news, Marvel Studios Production President Kevin Feige plays superhero shrink in an “Under The Armor” interview at Marvel.com and sheds some light on Tony Stark’s mindset going into the movie.  Noting that this latest installment in the Iron Man saga takes place after the events of The Avengers Feige says: “Not only did he encounter all of those crazy characters with hammers and capes and shields and gamma-irradiated strength, but a portal to another world opened above his head. Tony Stark is a very scientifically minded guy who thought he was at the cutting edge of science, and suddenly learned in those brief moments at the end of “Marvel’s The Avengers,” that there is an infinite amount that he doesn’t know. I think that made him feel small in a certain way and I think even encountering those other super heroes in “Marvel’s The Avengers” made him feel like he was not the most powerful person in the world, which I think Tony likes to feel like he is. He may be the smartest person in the world, but not necessarily the most powerful. So when we meet him at the beginning of “Iron Man 3,” he’s using the suit as a shell almost. It is a shell to shield himself from all of this new information, this new influx of reality that is crashing around him. At the same time, as tends to happen in good movies, another villain arises. And suddenly, when he’s sort of at a state where he’d much rather stay in his lab and work on his suits, something happens that forces him to get out of his house, to get out of his lab and even in some cases, get out of the suit, to confront this new evil.” More on Iron Man 3 & the Mandarin:  WATCH: Pepper Dons Armor & The Mandarin Sheds Weird Dialect In International ‘Iron Man 3’ Clip Marvel Studios Says Iron Man 3 Villain The Mandarin Isn’t Chinese, He’s International ‘Iron Man 3’ Director Spills On The Mandarin & He Sounds Like….Mike Ovitz? [ Marvel.com ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on  Twitter . Follow Movieline on  Twitter .

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WATCH: Harmony Korine Says ‘Spring Breakers’ Is The Intersection Of ‘Retardation & Transcendance’

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

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 . 

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‘Iron Man 3’ Director Spills On The Mandarin & He Sounds Like….Mike Ovitz?

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

If, like me, you’ve been spending way too much time puzzling over the international villain of mystery known as The Mandarin , I have some clues and an out-there theory. I’ll give you the information first. In an interview with Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige and Iron Man 3  d irector Shane Black that was posted Monday on Marvel.com , the two men shed a little bit more light on the character, played by Ben Kingsley .  In the Marvel Comics universe, the Mandarin is Chinese, but in the Marvel movie universe he’s more of an multicultural mutt, in part, because Asian audiences are so hugely important to tentpole movies today that no studio wants to risk offending a nation of 1.4 billion. (That’s almost 20 percent of the world’s population in pie-chart terms.) According to Feige, the Mandarin “is recognizable and frightening and fearful in a very sort of ripped-from-the-headlines, Osama Bin Laden sort of way.”  At the same time, he explained, Black, who directed Iron Man 3 and co-wrote the script with Drew Pearce saw him as analogous “to Marlon Brando’s character in Apocalypse Now , Colonel Kurtz. He was a guy who’s gone off the reservation, who’s incorporating all these different symbols and iconography into his worldview.” And here’s Black’s take from that same interview: “He represents every terrorist in a way, but he specifically has crafted himself in the manner of the Mandarin, of the warlord, and I think that’s great because you get to do the comic book [version of the villain], but yet you don’t have to deal with the specifics of the Fu Man Chu stereotyping. We aren’t saying he’s Chinese, we’re saying he, in fact, draws a cloak around himself of Chinese symbols and dragons because it represents his obsession with Sun Tzu and ancient arts of warfare that he has studied.” Which brings me to my theory. Black’s reference to Sun Tzu reminds me of another long-deposed warlord who cloaked himself in the words of that famous Chinese military strategist and The Art of War author: Creative Artists Agency co-founder Michael Ovitz, who once had much of Hollywood by the short hairs and did business out of an I.M. Pei-designed shrine to his success.  Black was a CAA client during the agency’s 1980s heyday, and some of the lines that the Mandarin utters in the last trailer, which I’ve posted below, could pass for agent speak. How do I know. Imagine Entourage ‘s Ari Gold saying: “Mr. Stark, today is the first day of what’s left of your life” or “Do you want an empty life or a meaningful death?” See what I mean? More on Iron Man 3:  WATCH: There’s My Boys! Final ‘Iron Man 3’ Trailer Offers Sneak Look At Tony Stark’s Metal Army Say Hello To My Metal Friends: New ‘Iron Man 3’ Poster Reveals Alloyed Forces  [ Marvel.com ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on  Twitter . Follow Movieline on  Twitter .

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WATCH: Don’t Judge ‘The Place Beyond The Pines’ By These Three Videos

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond The Pines remains among my favorite unreleased movies since I saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, it’s testament to the movie’s satisfying complexity that these three video clips don’t really convey the emotional wallop that the film packs. Here’s the other thing: I can’t really set these videos up properly without some major spoilers, so I would urge you not to write off the movie if these three excerpts don’t exactly move you. Suffice it to say, the first two clips feature appear, in chronological order in the first third of the movie, where motorcycle stunt driver Luke ( Ryan Gosling ) learns that he fathered a child by Romina (Eva Mendes) and decides that he doesn’t want to be the deadbeat dad that he had as a kid.  Alas, his decision to be a responsible parent involves robbing banks to support his kid, which is not exactly Brady Bunch territory, but Cianfrance uses Luke’s storyline to set up a movie that has some very smart things to say about morality and legacy. Luke and Romina’s story is intertwined with the narrative arc of police officer Avery Cross, played by Bradley Cooper. In the third and final clip, he attempts to inform his superior of corruption in the department and doesn’t exactly meet with a willing audience. The movie only gets more interesting and gripping from there. The Place Beyond The Pines opens on March 29. More on The Place Beyond The Pines:  The Principals Behind The  Pines : Gosling and Cianfrance On Robbing Banks, Fatherhood, Face Tattoos, And More Ryan Gosling: ‘I’m Not Allowed to Have An Opinion’ About The Media’s Coverage Of My Life Follow Frank DiGiacomo on  Twitter . Follow Movieline on  Twitter .

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