"Everything is connected," reads the tagline for Cloud Atlas. As it is with life and the history of time and humanity, so it is with film reviews; sharply divided reactions have been coming out of Toronto, where the ambitious, history-spanning epic had its world premiere. Seldom do movies garner such polarizing critical reads: Is Cloud Atlas a triumph of ambition or, as one critic spat, "a unique and totally unparalleled disaster?"
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He's played cops, a count, Houdini, a time traveler, a king, and even a drag queen, but in this week's Lockout, Guy Pearce treads new ground as an all-out action hero -- not that he necessarily sees things that way. "People used to say that about L.A. Confidential," he recalled to Movieline recently in Los Angeles. "They’d go, ‘Wow, so you’re an action hero!’ I’d be like, action hero? It’s a ‘50s film noir!" Even still, after 20+ years of acting, most recently in a string of acclaimed supporting turns (see: The King's Speech, The Hurt Locker, Animal Kingdom, Mildred Pierce), it's only now that Pearce is laying claim to the title, guns blazing.
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Again with this "teaser for a trailer" business. If you cannot wait until Sunday to get a glimpse of the actual trailer for Len Wiseman's Total Recall remake, here are thirty seconds of Colin Farrell driving flying cars and jumping off of balconies and Kate Beckinsale looking hot. I'm still holding out for evidence that Wiseman kept the three-boobed lady in his version, which will determine if this rehash of the 1990 sci-fi gem gets my ticket dollars or not.
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It's brief, but the newly debuted teaser trailer for the sci-fi romance The Host is here to tantalize you with images of freaky-eyed pod people and star Saoirse Ronan's fierce, unearthly qualities. Adapted from author Stephenie Meyer's non-Twilight novel about a human and an alien symbiote who share the same body, The Host is headed to theaters in 2013 under director Andrew Niccol (In Time), and while this oughta give Host readers a twinge of anticipation, non-fans are likely scratching their heads wondering what Ronan's eyeballs and the vaguely Benetton-like reel of faces has to do with anything.
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This fall you'll see Joseph Gordon-Levitt as you've never seen him before: As Bruce Willis. In the sci-fi time-travel action pic Looper, from Brick director Rian Johnson, Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, an assassin who ties up loose ends for the mob by killing targets as they're sent back in time from the future -- until one day his own future self (played by Willis) comes through for extermination. Previewing a teaser for the September release at WonderCon, Johnson and Gordon-Levitt discussed the trickiness of transforming Gordon-Levitt into a young Willis, pulled off with the aid of prosthetics, and why it's particularly difficult to talk about their time travel thriller.
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A new minute-or-so-long trailer for Prometheus has landed, and while it's unclear how much of this footage will be included in Saturday's planned 2:33 minute trailer debut (which will follow 20th Century Fox's WonderCon presentation), Ridley Scott's June 8 sci-fi pic just keeps the hits coming. Sparse on dialogue, big on images, the trailer teases Prometheus's IMAX release and impresses on the startling strength of its visuals alone.
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It's no secret that Disney's been scrambling to counteract bad tracking and mixed word of mouth on their mega-budgeted March actioner John Carter, so it's worth a look to see what they've done with the latest (and "final") trailer for the Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation. And behold! A trailer filled with nearly everything that makes John Carter worth going to see: Alien creatures, political intrigue, Taylor Kitsch in a loincloth, Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris, and lots of inventive, fantastical action.
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Festival darling Brit Marling burst onto the scene last summer with the sci-fi indie Another Earth (and will be seen in the upcoming fiscal thriller Arbitrage opposite Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon), but her turn as a mysterious cult leader in this April's Sound of My Voice is the more impressive introduction to the charismatic up and comer. Hit the jump to watch the first 10 minutes of Sound of My Voice, courtesy of Fox Searchlight, and see for yourself.
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The premise for Argentinean director Juan Diego Solanas's English-language sci-fi romance Upside Down has one helluva gimmick: Kirsten Dunst and Jim Sturgess find true love against huge odds, the hitch being that they live on inverted planets and are forbidden to cross over to each other's world. Hell, some people won't date outside of their area code. Watch the dazzling first trailer and appreciate how much easier relationships are should be on a single planet by comparison.
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Lonely sci-fi nerds, listen up: It was only a matter of time following the recent influx of geek-themed porn, but Dennis Hof, the professional pimp and entrepreneur behind the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel seen on HBO's Cathouse, is about to make your fantasies come true. Soon, in the not-so-distant future (ok, a few months from now), Hof and partner/"chief alien design queen" Heidi Fleiss will open the Alien Cathouse 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas -- a legal brothel with a science fiction theme. Bring on the green-skinned Orion hotties!
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In news that might have caused my fifth grade self to break out in an awkward dance of joy, there is actual movement on a long-attempted adaptation of Anne McCaffrey's The Dragonriders of Pern series. X-Men writer David Hayter will reportedly adapt Dragonflight, the first novel in McCaffrey's celebrated book series set on the planet of Pern, where generations of humans form telepathic links with fire-breathing dragons to defend themselves from a deadly enemy known as Thread.
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Yes, yes. TNT's Falling Skies is some kind of film event even though it's a television show, thanks to the involvement of co-creator/big time movie producer Steven Spielberg. But that's not the only semi-related pop cultural reference that comes to mind during the frenetic two and a half minute trailer for the "powerful new original series," a trailer that dares your mind not to wander to just about a dozen other sci-fi properties that are not Falling Skies. Focus, class!
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Duncan Jones is a director who loves his science fiction. After finding success with his debut feature Moon, Jones assumed the helm of this week's Jake Gyllenhaal pic Source Code, about a soldier involved in a government project that sends him back to relive a dead man's final eight minutes in order to avert a terrorist attack. What's more, Jones spent his down time on the Source Code promo trail whipping up a treatment for his next film -- an even larger scale tale that he promises will be "my last blast of sci-fi." So really, who better to drop some friendly pro-tips on making science fiction cinema than the man currently making his mark in the genre?
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