Watching Andrew Stanton’s adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ seminal science fiction pulp novel, A Princess of Mars– here blandly labeled John Carter– is equivalent to a genre-fueled out of body experience. You’ve seen this film before. You’ve seen it in Star Wars (both the original trilogy and the prequel films), you’ve seen it in Avatar, you’ve seen it in Superman. John Carter‘s influences read so blatantly that watching the film feels akin to playing a movie association game in which elements from its plot and narrative are connected to those of other essential sci-fi blockbusters. What we’re really watching, of course, is the big-screen arrival of the story that informed each of those aforementioned properties and more;…
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G-S-T Review…John Carter
Today’s science fiction has a debt to Edgar Rice Burroughs. The man created what is widely considered one of the first alien worlds that leaved and breathed outside of our own realm. He gave them their own language, religion, culture, and feuds. And he did all of this with the first appearance of John Carter in 1912. Before Star Wars, before Avatar, before Star Trek, there was the Barsoom (what we call Mars) adventures and it was pulpy, light, fantastic fare. They inspired hundreds, if not thousands, of writers to dream big. Now, 100 years later, a big budget film version finally exists and I think it’s a worthy showcase…
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G-S-T Review…Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy brilliantly captures the zeitgeist of the Cold War era. For you purists out there, this work of art utilizes aged film grain throughout the entire picture. This is not a film set in the 1970’s, shot in HD and hurled at your face in 3D. This motion picture is one of the closest representations of a 1970’s spy film, since the 1970’s. If you still own, or ever owned, a Betamax VCR you might wish, for nostalgia sake only, that this movie was being released on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy, Ultraviolet Digital Copy and Betamax (not VHS).
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Sweet Trailer…'John Carter of Mars'
Wow, now this is just looking sooo much better. A few months back Disney released one major league teaser for Andrew Stanton’s film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter. Seeming to have a Cowboys & Aliens meets Avatar vibe some may have been put off by the strange alchemy of stories/genres but this second trailer should get a good number of naysayers on the JCM bandwagon. Earlier today Good Morning America gave us a sneak peek (thanks to First Showing for the heads up) but now we have the official second trailer in its entirety and it doesn’t disappoint one bit. Have a look and enjoy!! Pixar superstar Andrew Stanton…
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Teaser Trailer…'John Carter of Mars'
Director Andrew Stanton has been hard at work on his big screen adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic sci-fi novel A Princess of Mars and all the while we’ve been wondering how it was shaping up. Recently we’ve seen some concept images (after the jump), a lack luster poster but today we get our first glimpse of the world of John Carter. Admittedly its still rough and has a SyFy feel to it but it looks like it’s headed in the right direction. Well how would I know, I’ve never read the book:P Anyway, for your enjoyment, a look at Andrew Stanton’s live-action epic… Sporting a varied but still very…
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Sweet (Teaser) Trailer…'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'
From director Tomas Alfredson comes the espionage throwback adaptation of John Le Carré’s best-selling novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Like Munich before it, this looks like a well crafted retro-styled spy thriller of the highest caliber. Sporting a highly impressive cast featuring Tom Hardy, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Ciarán Hinds, Stephen Graham and John Hurt just to name a few, this all star line-up looks sure to please. But have a look as this seems, even for a teaser of less than perfect quality, like it’s firing on all the right cyllinders. Enjoy… (Note: We’ll get a proper trailer of higher quality as soon as it becomes available) Known for the stellar vampire film Let…
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Sweet Trailer…'Green Lantern'
Super hero season is nearly upon us and while the (mostly) Earth THOR comes out this weekend, next month DC’s Green Lantern looks to take us beyond the stars in this epic looking comic film. Here we have the final and full-on theatrical trailer for the Green Lantern and boy, does it look special. Grand in pretty much every aspect it looks like its got a lot to prove and that’s one good thing about comic films lately; the fact they’re all trying to out do each other. In theory all these evolving comic adaptations should yield a better end product that makes fans and studios very happy. Whether on…
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Sweet (Teaser) Trailer…’Green Lantern’
Well the hits just keep on coming don’t they? We thought two pretty sweet trailers in one day was enough. But as yesterday was just chock full of teaser/trailer goodness it seems there’s more fun to be had this week. Most of you have probably seen the Entertainment Tonight “first look” clip and intriguing as it was, we now have something even better! Below we have this simply stunning trailer for Martin Campbell‘s Green Lantern film starring Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern. This longer than normal teaser trailer (kind of like the Thor trailer released at Comic Con) really sets the stage for the big screen debut of another popular DC…
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G-S-T Review…Robin Hood
In Hollywood circles, there’s been some constant actor director tag teams in the past, Johnny Depp,/Tim Burton, Nic Cage/Jerry Bruckheimer, DeNiro(and DiCaprio)/Scorsese to name a few. But if there’s one team that continues to impress, it’s the one, two punch of Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe. Well those two were at it again, this time to tell the story of Robin Hood. Despite years of saturation from the famous man in green tights, this was a different tale all together that is not the tale you think you’ve seen. But where shall I start? Maybe I’ll take a cue from the movie and start…at the beginning. Now as per a recent trend in Hollywood, prequels…
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Off the Shelf…’RocknRolla’
Our friend Ruth at FlixChatter recently did a post about the opening sequence to Rocknrolla and after reading it, I thought “man I want to watch that again!”. Also, I just love that intro song by Black Strobe…to me, that whole bit just works. I really enjoyed RocknRolla in the theater and it is such a treat on DVD/Blu-Ray. Sure it’s not quite Snatch part II that fans were expecting, but I think it turned out well. All I can say about this film is that “Guy is back!!”…and now that Madonna is gone, I think we’ll be getting more quality Ritchie films in the near future. RocknRolla was one very…