Also in Tuesday's early round-up of news briefs: Sean Penn is boarding an action thriller; Merchant Ivory composer dies at 71; The Hamptons International Film Festival's head makes an exit; And Future Weather wins top jury prize at Napa Valley Film Festival.
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Also in Wednesday evening's round-up of news briefs: MoMA unveils its Awards-centered Contenders series; Under the Bridge heads to U.S. theaters; Ridley Scott teams with Focus on a series of low-budget thrillers; And New York may have cancelled its Halloween Parade in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, but the Film Society of Lincoln Center is up and running with Halloween and other events this week.
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The world sat on stitches as the Cold War raged. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Iceland as the world glared. Would the world order of two superpowers on the brink end after decades of a nuclear arms race come to a close? Would a Communist and a Republican actually come to an understanding? Could Mikhail and Ronnie get along? If Nancy and Raisa were any indication, that would be a - no! The meeting that might have ended the U.S.-Soviet standoff is of course heading to the big screen and Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz will portray Gorbachev in Reykjavik.
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Also in Friday morning's round-up of news briefs: Ridley Scott gives the low-down on a Blade Runner sequel. Michelle Williams is eyeing a role in a WWII-era drama and a run-down on the weekend's new specialty release offerings.
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Ridley Scott knows how to keep the world talking about Prometheus. With the release of the film on Blu-Ray and DVD on Tuesday, much of the conversation about this very engaging movie has centered on how earlier versions of the script were more closely connected to the Alien franchise. (Facehuggers, chestbursters and xenomorphs, oh my!) But a new infographic that's getting attention on the web puts the spotlight on the weaponized black goo that's stored on the Engineers' space ship. more »
Tony Scott apparently had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, preliminary reports have said. The Top Gun director died Sunday after jumping from a bridge in near Los Angeles.
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Also in Thursday morning's round-up of news briefs: Warner Bros passes the domestic $1 billion mark again. A Prometheus sequel is moving forward, Christopher Eccleston is a Marvel villain and Broadway to honor Gore Vidal.
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Ridley and Tony Scott know a thing or two about indelible movie scenes. So it's not surprising that the filmmakers behind, respectively, the chest burster scene in Alien and the "Bela Lugosi Is Dead"-accompanied blood-drinking scene at the opening of The Hunger would rely on an iconic single image to connect their A&E Network reboot of Coma to Michael Crichton's original 1978 movie adaptation of Robin Cook's novel about organ harvesting.
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I went to see Prometheus over the weekend, and like many of you, I was disappointed (to put it lightly). Although a technical achievement in every way, the narrative and characters left much to be desired. The mystery I wanted solved was not the black goo or the Engineers — it was how the creative team of Ridley Scott, Damon Lindelof, and Jon Spaihts could produce a movie with such rudimentary mistakes. There have been casts of Scream movies with more intelligence than this lineup of characters. The connective tissue between the film’s big set pieces felt as if plucked from a Random Idea Generator program online; even the mythology was mucked up as the film dissolved into a by-the-book sci-fi thriller by the end.
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Whether you loved Prometheus or were left frustrated by it, everyone who's seen Ridley Scott's sci-fi pic can agree it leaves you with a plethora of unanswered questions. So maybe it's good news that Scott has revealed the eventual DVD/Blu-ray release will feature deleted scenes and a 20 minute-longer extended cut of the film — even if Scott is perfectly happy stymieing audiences with his theatrical cut.
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Ridley Scott's Prometheus opens stateside today, which means no more tiptoeing around spoilers for those who've seen it. (Obviously, spoilers will follow. You've been warned.) The number one complaint among folks who have now seen the highly anticipated Alien kinda-prequel? So. Many. Unanswered. Questions. So let's jump right into the spoiler goo and get to deciding (and, hopefully, answering) the biggest question prompted by Scott's gorgeous, murky space opus that is left yet unanswered.
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The Ridley Scott-directed Sci-Fi thriller awaits its U.S. bow this weekend and momentum appears to be on its side. Across the Atlantic where audiences have already flocked to see the movie, Twentieth Century Fox is already cashing in, with a £6.24M gross last weekend, which translates to just over $9.7M. That figure outshines any of the Alien movies, according to The Guardian which reported the figures.
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People with a strong sartorial sense know the difference between what’s elegant and what’s merely elaborate. It’s not the same in the movie world, where big and overcomplicated is so often mistaken for better, when really it’s only...big and overcomplicated. Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, designed as a sort-of prequel to the director’s 1979 terror-in-space aria Alien, is elaborate all right. But it’s imaginative only in a stiff, expensive way. Scott vests the movie with an admirable degree of integrity – it doesn’t feel like a cheap grab for our moviegoing dollars – but it doesn’t inspire anything so vital as wonder or fear, either. Prometheus has been one of the most anticipated pictures of the summer, but its lackluster payoff is summed up perfectly by one of its chief characters, a scientist who travels a long way from Earth in the hope of meeting the allegedly superior beings who created us humans: “This place isn’t what we thought it was.”
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Also up for Tuesday morning's new round up, Oscilloscope picks up a SXSW selection, MTV Movie Awards suffers a decline in ratings. Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins readies for the camera to play the role of a rock legend and Venice taps an Italian actor to lead its Horizons jury.
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Don't worry, no Prometheus spoilers here, just a peek into the brain of Sir Ridley Scott, who opened an interview with press by musing on... tape recorders. And Star Trek. And light speed. Naturally.
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