If that LED hoodie that you see in the above photo is part of Jamie Foxx’s Electro costume for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 , then doesn’t he remind you of another shocking villain: Star Wars uber-baddie Darth Sidious ? Part of the resemblance has to do with the hunched way in which Foxx is carrying himself and holding his hands in the photo, but look at the comparison below: Freaky, no? According to an interview Foxx gave to BlackFilm in December and other photos I’ve seen of him on the set, he’ll look nothing like the Sith lord when he emerges from that item of clothing. Fox appears to have subtle lightning-bolt-like veins on his neck and face. (Sidious looks like a more humanoid version of Yoda.) And he’s said that he’ll have “bolts and stuff in my arms when they are hanging me upside down and trying to figure out what [happened].” Not sure if Foxx means lightning bolts or actual Frankenstein-like bolts , but, if his upside-down scenes are anything like the ones he had in Django Unchained , I guess we’ll also find out if those bolts are everywhere on his body, if you know what I mean. Now, I’d love to see a shot of Paul Giamatti as the Rhino — as long as he doesn’t look like Dexter Jettster . Shocking Similarity: [ Blackfilm ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The latest teaser for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel is an effective one. The clip introduces General Zod via a grainy video transmission that makes Superman’s arch enemy look a lot creepier than he does in production stills. The voice clearly belongs to actor Michael Shannon , who plays Zod in this latest reboot of Warner’s Superman franchise, but the staticky image leaves the impression that the Kryptonian wack-job is wearing some sort of mask with weird eyes and an exceptionally elongated chin. Either that or Zod trimmed his goatee and got some sleep after sending this transmission. (See the photo above.) The calm way in which the baddie warns that the planet Earth will “suffer the consequences” if Kal-El (Superman’s Kryptonian name) doesn’t surrender is also a nice chilling touch. There may be more to look at in a couple of days or so. ComingSoon.net reports that another site IWillFindHim.com is counting down from 48 hours, possibly for a trailer. Since I can’t read Kryptonian, or whatever language that is on the screen, I’ll take their word for it. I, Zod [ ComingSoon , I Will Find Him ] More on Superman: Warner To Announce New DC Superhero Movies (And Remember Those Joseph Gordon-Levitt Rumors?) What The Kal-El? The Seriously Weird Superman That Nicolas Cage Almost Played Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Why am I not excited about Pacific Rim ? I’m mostly a fan of Guillermo del Toro ‘s work, particularly the superb Pan’s Labyrinth , but the three teaser clips that have been released for the filmmaker’s hotly anticipated mechs-vs-monsters summer sci-fi film have all left me cold. Part of the problem is that they’re all virtually the same. The new international TV spot, for instance, is a condensed retread of the earlier trailers, and its brevity draws attention to what I think may be the film’s biggest weakness: a lame monster. Yes, the giant human-piloted Jaeger mechs are impressive — even if they defy science and physics — but their enemies, which are called Kaiju , Japanese for “strange beast,” don’t look the fearsome, formidable part they’re supposed to play in the picture. (If you’re okay with spoilers, this review of the Pacific Rim script indicates that the Kaiju overwhelm the Jaegers.) Clearly, del Toro is paying homage to the Japanese Toho Studios kaiju films of the 1950s, ’60s and beyond — the Godzilla franchise being the most well known of them. The problem is, the creature in the Pacific Rim looks like it came directly from the set of one of those hokey movies and didn’t stop by the visual effects department to get a rad new upgrade. Remember, Gamera , the amusing flying turtle (which was not a Toho creation)? If you took the body of that ’60s-era monster and grafted the head of Roland Emmerich’s 1998 Godzilla onto it — not a movie that any filmmaker should be referencing — then you’d get a creature similar to the one you see in the photo above and trailer below. Not-So-Scary Monster Perhaps del Toro is keeping more fearsome creatures under wraps. The Kaiju apparently hail from another universe — a kind of interstellar Monster Island — so conceptually there could be more than one species. I hope so. If the creature in the teasers is all we get, then Pacific Rim could suffer from a real tension deficit. One other thing: It’s time to give Idris Elba’s “Today, we are canceling the apocalypse!” speech a rest. It was rousing the first 10 times I heard it — in January. Three months later, it’s ripe to be satirized, and the movie isn’t out until July 12. What do you think? More on Pacific Rim : ‘Pacific Rim’ Vs. Real World Physics: Giant Robots, Galileo, And The Square Cube Law WATCH: Do The Jaeger Meisters In New ‘Pacific Rim’ Trailer Defy Logic? [ Insight: Movies ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
I’m not sure what to expect from the The Lords of Salem after watching this clip. Director Rob Zombie appears to be having a Rodgers & Hammerstein moment as his wife, Sheri Moon Zombie , who plays a DJ, takes a very long walk in Day of the Dead make-up to meet one of the Lords in the title. Zombie’s movie is supposed to have some connection to the Salem witch trials via a mysterious recording that arrives at radio station where Mrs. Z works, but you’d be hard-pressed to know that from this clip, which is a Rolling Stone exclusive. To get a better sense of the movie, check out my post on the The Lords of Salem trailer here . It’s pretty trippy, too. The Lord & I: Crust-Punk Rodgers & Hammerstein [ Rolling Stone ] More on The Lords of Salem : WATCH: Rob Zombie’s ‘The Lords Of Salem’ Trailer Looks Like A Crust-Punk ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ First Image From Lords of Salem is ‘Very Painful,’ Promises Rob Zombie Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
If Evil Dead isn’t your idea of fun, then may I suggest a film about evil-in-the-making that also opens on Friday? It’s called Simon Killer , and it stars charismatic Brady Corbet as a young American up to no good in Paris. Simon appears to have traveled to the City of Lights to recover from a bad break-up, but, as this tense, visually striking film uncoils, it becomes apparent that he’s suffering a breakdown that will have lethal consequences. Directed by Antonio Campos, who, like Corbet, was involved in another smart psychological thriller, Martha Marcy May Marlene , Simon Killer is unsettling because its title character seems so much like the charming but self-involved dude working in the adjoining cubicle next or sitting two seats behind you in class. And I sat down with Campos and Corbet to talk about how they created such an authentic character. Movieline: Brady, a couple of times in the film, your character, Simon, talks about having studied the relationship between the eye and brain. You’re sending a message to moviegoers there. Brady Corbet: It serves as a key to unlock a lot of the film’s mysteries. The funny thing about a good metaphor is that you can take it very literally if you want. And if you want to read into it, then it can take on all kinds of meaning. The movie has an obsession with periphery: What’s happening in the periphery of the narrative? What’s happening in the periphery of the frame? What are you seeing? What are these characters not seeing about Simon? The whole movie is about perception, as a lot of great films that acknowledge the nuts and bolts of filmmaking are. With all of Antonio’s films, you are very conscious of the camera. And part of the fun of becoming that conscious of the camera is also becoming conscious of everything that’s not on camera. How did the Joran van der Sloot case inspire Simon Killer ? Corbet: Antonio found this insanely haunting quote from van der Sloot. He was being interrogated or interviewed and he said something like… Campos: If my mother had described me as an animal she would say I was a snake. But I’d like to be a lion, and one day I will be a lion.” There’s a similar line of dialogue in the movie. Corbet: The funny thing is that my mother had given me this fox pin right before we went to Paris so we swapped the snake for the fox. Campos: I was like, “That’s perfect. That’s perfect for you and perfect for the character.” Corbet: It’s very much how the whole movie was birthed. We’d obsess over an element, and then we’d find some way to take that element or a theme or a story and incorporate it into the narrative. Have either of you seen Crystal Fairy ? Campos: Yes. After seeing that movie at Sundance and Simon Killer, it seems to me that there’s this emerging genre of films that depicts young coddled and self-absorbed Americans abroad who, at the very least, are jerks, but, in terms of your character, Brady, can be something much more dangerous. Campos: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Why is this is emerging now? Campos: I don’t know. I think that our generation is very self-aware. Even like a show like Girls is about this sort of coddled generation. And what’s so clever about Girls is that Lena Dunham doesn’t let her characters get away with it. In the first season, there was always that moment where one of the girls would get called out for how superficial or narcissistic she was. We live in a narcissistic, coddled culture. We build this whole universe around ourselves through our social media. And there are all of these studies out there about how upper management has to figure out how to be sensitive to the needs of young employees and treat them in a way so that they don’t get scared. It’s all very strange, and I don’t know what the next step is. HR will have to get back to you on that one. Campos: My favorite moment in the film is when Simon calls his mom because it’s so incredibly human but it’s also incredibly pathetic. And you know it’s exactly something that someone of this generation would do if they committed a murder. He’d call his mother just to hear her say, “It’s going to be okay,” and, “Don’t worry, honey, you’re not that bad of a guy. “ Corbet: [Laughing] “You’re the handsomest boy in school. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Campos: “You’re a little fox.” Corbet: Something else that is interesting to us: I’m sure you’ve experienced it yourself when you’re alone with other men and they feel like you’re in the same fucking boys club with them. They will make some horrible remark about the lovely young woman that just got up to go to the bathroom, and they feel they can confide in you because they assume that all men think and act like that. This movie is also conscious of characters like that who aren’t hard to find in New York City’s models-and-bottles culture. There are more than a few men out there that treat women like prey. Campos: Brady said once said — and I think it’s very true —that the film is an exploration of what the word “whore” means to this generation. In fact, one of the few moments in the film that gets a laugh is when Simon refers to a past relationship by saying, “Whatever, she’s a whore.” Whether there’s a theater full of people watching the movie, or one person in a private screening room, that line always gets a laugh. Corbet: And when the audience laughs they implicate themselves in Simon’s mindset, which the rest of the movie then starts to tear apart. It’s part of the reason we wanted to have a fiercely intelligent female collaborator like Mati [Diop] come in and help us shape this story. As you saw, the sexual dynamics and politics keep shifting in terms of who has control or who seems to have control in the movie. That’s for sure. I felt increasingly unsettled as the movie progressed. Whose idea was it for Simon to make those creepy growls during particularly stressful moments? Corbet: That was Tony’s idea. He was very cute. He came to me and he said, “When you’re alone, do you ever make sounds?” And I was like, “I don’t know. What kind of sounds?” And, he said, “I don’t know, like this. [Makes a low growling sound.] And so we started trying to find weird places to incorporate it. This also happened during terrible time in my life. I was going through a break-up and was really devastated. I was anxiety-ridden and wasn’t sleeping very well at the time. I suffer from pretty violent panic attacks, and there are similar steps that you take when you’re dealing with one. You can do tapping, or some people moan into a pillow. So, we started to really think of it in terms of the character. [The growling] could be some trick he developed from years of therapy that his fucking upper-middle-class family in New York City bought him, and it’s just not working. On a more reductive level, the film is ferocious, it’s carnal, and so the way Simon processes something is, he roars like a lion. You don’t seem like the kind of filmmakers who would make a sequel to Simon Killer , but the set-up is certainly there. Campos: I was just saying: We should do Simon in Buenos Aires; Simon in Bangkok.… Corbet: Oh man. Simon in Bangkok would be dark. Campos: We could follow Simon on this adventure of ruining different women’s lives in different cities. And every city would be like a different scam. If we went the Joran van der Sloot route, he could be traveling around after being implicated in the death of this woman, right? And then he goes to Bangkok and he gets involved in human trafficking. Corbet: Dude, I would not put it past us in nine years when were stale and have no more ideas. Campos : We have an idea for a Martha Marcy May Marlene sequel as well, but that’s gonna be 20 years down the line. Have you figured out the next project you’ll do together? Campos: We don’t know yet. I’m going to act in something Brady does at some point. Corbet: I’ve got a role with his name on it in my next film. What does he play? Corbet: I want Antonio to play an economist. Campos: An economist. All right. More on Simon Killer : Simon Killer Polarizes, But Maybe That’s a Good Thing Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
There’s a new TV spot for Iron Man 3 out, and it drops a few new tantalizing images and hints. The clip begins with the Mandarin ( Ben Kingsley ) channeling Richard Nixon with some “My fellow Americans” shtick before proclaiming that “my soldiers will destroy your country.” Among the scenes that accompany the Mandarin’s dire voiceover are shots of those shirtless men in metal harnesses that have been featured in previous trailers, which suggests they’re the army the Mandarin is referencing. Just a few seconds later, though, we get a glimpse of a couple of evil-looking human dudes with red eyeballs who look like they were borrowed from the Terminator franchise. My guess is the red eyes have something to do with Extremis. The video also includes more footage of the Iron Army and Tony Stark ( Robert Downey Jr. ) playing smart-ass. At one point, he wields two machine guns Say-Hello-to-My-Little-Friends style . Tony Stark as Scarface’ s Tony Montana? I like it. The full clip is below. Watch it and let me know what you think about the Mandarin’s soldiers. Too Terminator ? More on Iron Man 3 : WATCH: There’s My Boys! Final ‘Iron Man 3’ Trailer Offers Sneak Look At Tony Stark’s Metal Army ‘Iron Man 3’: Is The Mandarin An Extremist Fringe Republican? Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of Robert Downey Jr. to the future phases of Marvel’s superhero film rollout. With Tuesday’s release of the limited edition Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled Blu-ray box set comes some corroboration, plus a cool scene of Iron Man doing some acrobatic hot-dogging just to put on his mask. It’s the highlight of this brief — and not exactly revelatory — Phase 2 preview clip that comes with the collection . Then again, with the release of Iron Man 3 just a little over a month away, why give away the store? Iron Man Flips Out Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of Robert Downey Jr. to the future phases of Marvel’s superhero film rollout. With Tuesday’s release of the limited edition Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled Blu-ray box set comes some corroboration, plus a cool scene of Iron Man doing some acrobatic hot-dogging just to put on his mask. It’s the highlight of this brief — and not exactly revelatory — Phase 2 preview clip that comes with the collection . Then again, with the release of Iron Man 3 just a little over a month away, why give away the store? Iron Man Flips Out Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
