Fantastic Voyage...Again

Hollywood's fascination with the re-make continues with talks that Fantastic Voyage will be the latest to succumb to the modern makeover.

The plot is simple. Five scientists agree to be miniaturised in order to undertake some intricate medical procedures. From the inside. However, the human body is hostile, and there's a traitor in their midst.

The 1966 original starred Donald Pleasance and Raquel Welch whose tighty-white outfit was almost as hard to believe as she as a medical expert. Forty plus years of special effect development will replace the glittery looking sets (blood vessels) and globular blobs (white blood cells). We hope.

View the vintage trailer here.



In the 80s the subject was re-visited with Innerspace, a romp with Dennis Quaid as the miniature pilot accidentally injected into a hyperchondria-riddled Martin Short. The on-screen chemistry (pun intended) between Quaid and bride-to-be Meg Ryan was more memorable than the film itself.

The re-make is to be directed by Shawn Levy (Real Steel), and Hugh Jackman is being considered.

Eclipse and Inception Lead 2011 MTV Movie Awards Nominees

Late last evening (South African Time) MTV announced the nominees for the their annual Movie Awards show. Unlike most awards shows which make a genuine attempt at selecting the best films, artistically speaking, as nominees, the MTV Movie Awards are unashamedly a popularity contest which rewards films more for box office dollars and internet buzz than Rotten Tomatoes scores. This explains why Twilight Saga: Eclipse leads the nominations list, especially considering it's status as the joint lead nominee at this year's Razzie Awards, and why we have categories such as Best Line From A Movie and Best Scared As Sh-- Moment. For all it's faults, last year's show was easily the most entertaining awards show of any kind in a long time so I definitely will tune in for this year's event as well. Here's the full list of nominees from MTV:

Best Movie
"Black Swan"
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1"
"Inception"
"The Social Network"
"The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"


Best Female Performance
Emma Stone, "Easy A"
Emma Watson, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1"
Jennifer Aniston, "Just Go With It"
Kristen Stewart, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"
Natalie Portman, "Black Swan"


Best Male Performance
Daniel Radcliffe, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1"
Jesse Eisenberg, "The Social Network"
Robert Pattinson, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"
Taylor Lautner, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"
Zac Efron, "Charlie St. Cloud"


Best Breakout Star
Andrew Garfield, "The Social Network"
Chloë Grace Moretz, "Kick-Ass"
Hailee Steinfeld, "True Grit"
Jay Chou, "The Green Hornet"
Olivia Wilde, "TRON: Legacy"
Xavier Samuel, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"


Best Comedic Performance
Adam Sandler, "Just Go With It"
Ashton Kutcher, "No Strings Attached"
Emma Stone, "Easy A"
Russell Brand, "Get Him to the Greek"
Zach Galifianakis, "Due Date"


Best Line From A Movie (New Category)
Alexys Nycole Sanchez, "Grown Ups": "I want to get chocolate wasted."
Amanda Bynes and Emma Stone, "Easy A": Amanda Bynes: "There is a higher power that will judge you for your indecency." Emma Stone: "Tom Cruise?"
Jesse Eisenberg, "The Social Network": "If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook."
Justin Timberlake and Andrew Garfield, "The Social Network": Justin Timberlake: "... A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool?" Andrew Garfield: "A billion dollars. And that shut everybody up."
Tom Hardy, "Inception": "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger darling."


Best Villain
Christoph Waltz, "The Green Hornet"
Leighton Meester, "The Roommate"
Mickey Rourke, "Iron Man 2"
Ned Beatty, "Toy Story 3"
Tom Felton, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1"


Best Fight
Amy Adams vs. The Sisters, "The Fighter"
Chloë Grace Moretz vs. Mark Strong, "Kick-Ass"
Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint vs. Death Eaters, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1"
Joseph Gordon-Levitt vs. Hallway Attacker, "Inception"
Robert Pattinson vs. Bryce Dallas Howard and Xavier Samuel, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"


Best Kiss
Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, "Inception"
Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1"
Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"
Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"
Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, "Black Swan"


Best Jaw-Dropping Moment
James Franco, "127 Hours," Cuts Off His Arm
Justin Bieber, "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," Performance Spectacular
Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page, "Inception," Paris Café Scene
Natalie Portman, "Black Swan," Mutilation: Pulls the Skin off Her Finger
Steve-O, "Jackass 3D," Port-A-Potty Bungee Stunt


Best Scared-As-Sh-- Performance
Ashley Bell, "The Last Exorcism"
Ellen Page, "Inception"
Jessica Szohr, "Piranha 3D"
Minka Kelly, "The Roommate"
Ryan Reynolds, "Buried"


Biggest Badass Star
Alex Pettyfer, "I Am Number Four"
Chloë Grace Moretz, "Kick-Ass"
Jaden Smith, "The Karate Kid"
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, "Inception"
Robert Downey Jr., "Iron Man 2"

Do the right thing and head on over to MTV to vote for your favourite film in each of the categories (Inception FTW!).
The 2011 MTV Movie Awards will take place on the 5th of June in Los Angeles.

Men in Black III Set Pictures

Production for Men in Black III is underway in Coney Island. The set has been made to look like the 1960’s. Below is a selection of pictures taken from the set, from SolariaSun.

The film will feature Will Smith as Agent J, he will be travelling back in time with a younger Agent K, who is played by Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin.

From looking at the set photo’s it looks like it’s going to be quite an interesting film with a bit of comedy thrown in. Will Smith is sure to shine in his role.

Emma Thompson, Nicole Scherzinger, Alice Eve and Michael Stuhlbarg are among the cast members of the film.

Men in Black III will hit the theatres on 25 May 2012.

Idris Elba Deserves A Big Movie Role

Every now and then an actor interests me for some reason. This interest can develop into fascination which can last for a while, even a large portion of the star's career.

One of those actors is Idris Elba. Already 38-years old, Elba has worked his way through many films and television series to get himself into prominent roles such as that of the gatekeeper in Thor, Heimdall which was released this year.

He has played so many bit parts in good films such as 28 Weeks Later and Rock 'n Rolla that surely it is time for him to get a lead role.

Elba began his career in an episode of the funny British sitcom 2point4 Children, where he played a parachute instructor. He then appeared in interesting roles in Absolutely Fabulous, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, Silent Witness and underrated vampire series, Ultraviolet.

Elba's best performance is arguably the one that he gave in the TV series: The Wire. That show has been rated one of the best ever crime shows in entertainment history.

Elba played Russell "Stringer" Bell, a drug kingpin in the series. Bell's character is supposed to look more intelligent by having him take economics classes at Baltimore City Community College and by maintaining a personal library. The library includes a copy of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations.

He tries to legitimise his Barksdale Organisation by investing in housing properties and paying off politicians.

Elba later starred in Luther, a British series as a policeman in a lead role. He was quite powerful in Luther but he is falling into the typical Black actor role of cop or criminal. He plays both well but I hope to see him bringing a different person to our screens soon.

I have some faith that he could play the role of Superhero, Luke Cage, AKA: Power Man. Unfortunately Tyrese Gibson is attached to that role but I believe Gibson should stick to average action films like Fast Five.

Alistair Anderson

An Immaculately Framed Image?

Considering the primary role of cinematography in achieving the desired atmosphere and conveying the intended effect to a viewer, it is interesting to see how this important element differs from one film to the next.

The more commercial films tend to treat this very important aspect by relying on a formulaic design. This ‘formula’ becomes evident when one focuses in on this aspect of the films and quickly its clear how little effort was put into configuring an ideal shot. The thing is, an ideal shot does not only consist of a perfect composition, but the strength of the shot is connected with the movement of the film as well. In this aspect I result to the cinematographer Tom DiCillo. In yet another Jim Jarmusch masterpiece, DiCillio’s cinematography was enforced to make each shot as simple and as strong as possible, while reinforcing the central ‘feeling’ of each scene. One of the most important things as a cinematographer, DiCillio also adds, is to create a kind of uniform atmosphere throughout the film.

Another Jim Jarmusch cinematographer, Christopher Doyle, who worked on The Limits of Control with Jarmusch is considered to be the greatest working cinematographer today. It is interesting to watch Doyle’s work as it considered every movement beforehand so as to result in cinematography as close to perfection as you can get, where every shot is immaculately framed.

Movie Clichés

No matter what the movie genre, release date or plot, the dreaded cliché will inevitably crop up. Below follows some of the most prominent ones.

Villains are terrible shots. Even with hundreds of bullets flying everywhere the hero will escape unharmed, until the plot demands otherwise. Also, even after firing hundreds of bullets the bad guys never need to reload, unless a dialogue is called for.

Staying with the action theme; shooting the fuel tank of a car will make it explode. This cliché was busted by Mythbusters, as they proved in most cases it will simply not work. Mythbusters also disproved the cliché that a character will be violently flung back when hit by a bullet, as the bullet cannot possibly hold enough momentum.

Another action/horror cliché is that a killer will never die the first time, as my gaming boyfriend always says: “You must double tap.” Shoot once to kill and a second time to make sure the bastard stays dead.

The feminist cliché: When a woman goes to bed in the movies, she will always wear a full face of makeup and incredibly wake-up without so much a smear or a pillow stain. Through experience I can truthfully say that this cliché is most definitely false.

This cliché would most definitely be problematic in real life: Anybody running away from someone or something will immediately be blessed with the ability to hotwire a car. A car chase is after all a lot more interesting than a foot chase.

Another cliché which always confuses and infuriates me is when a hero/good guy is attacked by a mob of bad guys/ninja’s/villains - they will always politely attack one or two at time, rather than rush him altogether. Also, why do the bad guys always reveal their scheme? It is such a cliché, rather keep us in suspense, it’s a lot more thrilling than giving away the plot.

Then there’s the technology cliché: anybody, especially pimple faced teenagers, can hack into confidential government records; all they need is a laptop and some typing skills. To make it more believable their expression needs to be one of absolute concentration, a few seconds of furious typing and eye squinting and viola access granted.

By definition a cliché is a phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of originality. Above certainly fits that description. If you can think of anymore clichés post us a comment and let’s see how many we can unearth.

Top 5 Musicals

Today I have decided to list my top five musical films of all time, well what I have seen anyway. I am not the hugest musical film fan; I usually feel that the singing just gets a bit too much after the first 45 minutes. So these are the five musicals that I could handle, and that other non-musical fans could possibly also handle.

1. The Lion King (1994)– who hasn’t watched The Lion King and not enjoyed it? If those characters didn’t tug at your soft spot then you could have a heart of steel. The most famous song in this film is ‘Hakunamata’ ,and it will get me singing along every time.

2. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (2005) – this could possibly be for my love of Roald Dahl’s books from my childhood days. I am talking about Tim Burton’s version of this film with Johnny Depp. I loved Johnny Depp in this film and the Umpa Lumpas were exactly how I pictured them while reading the book.

3. Moulin Rouge (2005) – this is a typical film that most girls love to watch over and over. It’s a love story, with dancing and singing – what more do we need?

4. Chicago (2002) - this film seemed more ‘badass’ compared to other musicals. It is full of glitz and glam, but is about two jailed murderesses. I loved the dancing and outfits and left me feeling a sense of woman power after watching it.

5. Grease (1978) – of course Grease had to make an appearance on this list. It is one of the most famous musicals in my opinion. It is an old favourite and the songs are still be played and we still sing along and do the dance. The ‘Grease Lightening’ song often gets played at parties and clubs and the dance floor goes crazy.

Kathryn Bigelow to make film which features Bin Laden’s death

Kathryn Bigelow who last year won an Oscar for directing The Hurt Locker, which featured marines looking for explosives in Iraq, has been working on a film involving the team that killed the US's most-wanted man, Osama Bin Laden, according to website, MovieWeb.

MovieWeb has now said that writer Mark Boal will rewrite his script after Bin Laden was killed last Sunday. He will include the 40-minute fight that ended in Bin Laden's demise.

He has contacts in military intelligence and has worked as an investigative journalist, MovieWeb said.

Hollywood took scenes involving NY's Two Towers out of films released post the September 11 2001 attacks. Now, we have a film involving the death of the man that destroyed that landmark.

Alistair Anderson

Hot New Trailer: X-Men First Class

Disclaimer: I have never been a big fan of the X-Men comics. The original trilogy of films plus Gavin Hood's X-Men Origins: Wolverine did not do much to sway my unfavourable opinion so it's hardly surprising that when I heard about the development of a new X-Men film early last year, I couldn't help but feel more than a bit disinterested. Fast forward a year later and the appearance of a new international trailer for the film now known as X-Men: First Class has got me all kinds of excited for an X-Men film for the first time in my life. It doesn't hurt that it's directed by Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) and features a talented cast that includes James McAvoy (Wanted, Atonement, The Last King Of Scotland), Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds, Centurion), Kevin Bacon, January Jones (Mad Men) and Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone). Have a look at the full trailer below:



Looks epic doesn't it?

Synopsis:
Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto's Brotherhood and Professor X's X-MEN.

X-Men: First Class opens in South African cinemas on June 3 2011.

New Set Photos From Jonathan Liebesman's Clash Of The Titans 2

After the recent commercial success of Battle: Los Angeles, South African director Jonathan Liebesman has started working on his next Hollywood blockbuster film. This time around he will be directing Sam Worthington in the sequel to 2010's Clash Of The Titans. The film started shooting more than a month ago in Tenerife (the largest of the Canary Islands) and now the first batch of set photos have leaked online. While they don't show any of the film's cast in action, they are interesting to have a look at just to see the style of the production design as well as the potential scale of the film.

Check out TumbaAbierta.com to see the rest of the images (you might wanna refresh your Google Translate skills if you want to read anything there because the site is in Spanish).

We obviously can't tell from a bunch of set photos whether or not this sequel will be better than it's predecessor but that doesn't stop us from hoping for the best. This is about as guaranteed a box office hit as any director can ever wish for so hopefully our boy Jonathan knocks this one out the park. After the debacle that was Battle: Los Angeles, I don't think another critically panned film will do his fledgling Hollywood career any good no matter how many hundreds of millions of dollars this racks up at the box office.

Stay tuned to ScreenForum for further updates on the film's progress as more details emerge.

Clash Of  The Titans 2 will be released in cinemas in early 2012.

Jim Jarmusch Films - A Balancing Act

“Anyone who makes a film that is the film they want to make, and it is not defined by marketing analysis or a commercial enterprise, is independent. My movies are kind of made by hand. They're not polished -- they're sort of built in the garage. It's more like being an artisan in some way.” - Jim Jarmusch on his apparent ‘independent’ films.

What a guy, what a vision; this sounds plain when one has witnessed the pure ‘artisan’ quality of a Jim Jarmusch film. I would prefer writing about the art of his films for almost ‘forever’. Yet I have to be content to simply summarize the genius of his filming into a focused statement: the perfection inherent in Jim Jarmusch’s films rely on the subtle yet all encompassing balance between the elements in a film; the setting, the characters, the story and the cinematography, all equally ‘perfect’, ‘need’ each other in order to convey the such intensity as the finished works currently display.

The only thing I’ll allow myself to include about Jarmusch’s mastery is his filmography, for those who dares to witness pure equilibrium. So, watch Permanent Vacation (1980), Stranger than Paradise (1984), Down by Law (1986), Mystery Train (1989), Night on Earth (1991), Dead Man (1995), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), Broken Flowers (2005) and The Limits of Control (2009).

Film Review: Thor

Rating: 7.5/10 - Very Good

Marvel Comics' latest superhero film hit theatres this past weekend and it is definitely their best film yet.

Those Films That Stick

There are two types of films – the ones that you watch and you forget about and then the ones that you watch that linger in the back of your mind for several days after. These films will always be remembered and each time you think of them, it will evoke the feelings it made you feel.

The Addams Family Returns

Our favourite dysfunctional family might be returning to the big screen. Here’s a hint: “They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky, they’re all together ooky”. Yes! It’s the Addams Family.

According to The Addams Family movie website the movie will be animated in 3D by stop-motion animation and it will draw from the original comics signed by Charles Addams – the creator of the morbidly funny family.

Director Of The Month Film Review: Paul Thomas Anderson - Punch-Drunk Love

Rating: 8.4/10 - Excellent

Punch-Drunk Love is the second last film in our month long review of Paul Thomas Anderson's filmography. See the full review after the jump.