TRON: Legacy Teaser Trailer

Disney has finally released the teaser trailer for Tron: Legacy, the long awaited sequel to the 1982 cult classic Tron.  The film stars recent Oscar winner Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Bruce Boxleitner, James Frain, Beau Garrett, and Michael Sheen.

I wrote up a detailed description of the teaser trailer a few weeks back and tried to give my best recap from memory. Needless to say, I was wrong with about 40% of it.  My biggest mistake was thinking Michael Sheen was the red suit: it’s actually CLU 2; a younger version of Kevin Flynn (Bridges). Director Joseph Kosinski recently did a Q & A session for Legacy and let slip two very interesting tibits: Jeff Bridges would be digitally de-aged to appear as his younger self in the movie. Bruce Boxleitner will be going through a similar process showing up as TRON himself.

What’s cooler than this teaser trailer?  The fact that it’s a just a teaser trailer and that we can expect an even longer one before the movie premieres this winter!

The trailer (which is available for download here) is currently playing in 3D with Alice in Wonderland.

TRON: Legacy hits theatres December 17, 2010.

Second Iron Man 2 Trailer

The second official trailer for Iron Man 2 has just hit the web. The film sees Tony Stark pitted against his competitors, his government and a new threat in the form of Ivan Vanko, a mysterious Russian with a vendetta against the Stark family.

The film is directed by Jon Favreau and stars Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson.

Iron Man 2 hits theatres May 7th 2010.

Canadian Music Week Preview: Films

My column for this month is a special edition in honour of the upcoming Canadian Music Week: a five-day festival showcasing great Canadian music acts as well as conferences, lectures, award shows and films. It’s going to be a wild ride, and I want to show you which events will make you lean forward, flail your arms and smile.

Canadian Music Week (and Fest – the music portion) requires that you purchase passes to attend events (obviously). You can purchase weekly or daily passes. For more pass information, go here. However, if you want to go to just one concert, individual tickets can be purchased here.

CMW runs March 10-14, with events during the days and concerts/films in the evenings.

This is the first part in a trio of articles in preparation for CMW. Today, I’ll tell you which films I think are worth seeing.

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DorkShelf.com One Year Anniversary!

Dork Shelf was conceived in a bar over beer and breakfast nearly one year ago. That’s right, drinking before noon led to what you see now. Inappropriate alcohol-consumption aside, we’ll be marking the actual anniversary of the site based on when the first post happened, which was in fact one year ago today.

I want to take this opportunity to thank my co-founders Jeff and Lucas and all of our contributors for the hard work they’ve put in over the past year. We’ve got something special here, be proud of it guys!

I’d also like to sincerely thank all of our readers, without you guys there would be no Dork Shelf. As always, we appreciate your readership and your comments!

Our second year at DorkShelf.com is going to be even better. Expect new features, new contributors, some events and that long awaited site redesign!

Stay tuned…

Tron: Legacy Trailer Description and Reaction

I was part of the lucky group of people who were invited to a sneak peek at the first theatrical trailer for Disney’s upcoming Tron: Legacy. The online viral marketing campaign for the film has kicked into high gear in the past two weeks. FlynnLives.com was the first site to pop up, which invited people to scour London, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney and Toronto for clues that would reveal the name of a website where intrepid scavengers could register for the screening event.

Tron: Legacy follows Sam Flynn (Garret Hedlund), the son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), who is looking into his father’s mysterious disappearance 25 years ago.  His search leads him to his father’s old haunts and ultimately transports him into the same cyber-universe that his father was once trapped in and now resides. Check out the full trailer description after the jump.

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The Crazies Review

Radha Mitchell in The Crazies

Breck Eisner’s The Crazies is a film that makes no bones about what it is. I had expected another run-of-the-mill horror film going in, but left the theatre pleasantly surprised. The Crazies is a tightly wound ball of suspense that will manage to unsettle and entertain you. The film is loosely based on George Romero’s 1973 movie of the same name; that film focused on both the civilian and military response to a deadly outbreak in a small town. Like Romero’s other work the film contained timely social commentary, in this case the film was a satire of the Vietnam War. The 2010 version of The Crazies is a little different, with the focus on squarely on the civilians, their dealings with the infected and the brutal military containment of the town. Now I’m sure you could draw out some kind of analogy relating to the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, but if there is any underlying message it doesn’t feel nearly as ham-handed as some of Romero’s efforts. The Crazies is a rare example of a Hollywood horror film that is not only a good genre film, but a pretty decent flick period. Unlike many other horror films, you’ll feel invested in the movie and actually root for the characters to survive.

Spoilers to follow.

Welcome to picture perfect Ogden Marsh, an ordinary farming community in rural Iowa. This is a town where nothing really exciting ever happens, and that’s just the way the residents like it. Here we meet the local Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and his pregnant wife Judy (Radha Mitchell), the town doctor. When a local man unexpectedly shows up to a high school baseball game wielding a shotgun, Sheriff Dutton is forced to shoot him in self-defense. In the wake of this incident, more townsfolk begin to acting strangely; what was another painfully normal Spring in Ogdgen Marsh slowly begins turning into a nightmare for the residents. As things spiral out of control, Dutton and his Deputy (Joe Anderson) discover that a military aircraft containing a biological weapon recently crashed into the reservoir, contaminating the local water supply. Before the two are able to warn the residents the military cordons off the town and begin rounding up the infected families with brutal efficiency.

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Shutter Island Review

Martin Scorsese is a name that is synonymous with great films. It is impossible to call yourself a cinephile and not appreciate the man’s filmmaking. It’s also seemingly impossible to review one of his films without a lengthy preamble discussing his legendary oeuvre; so I’ll spare you that. We all know the great movies he’s made, mentioning how great Taxi Driver and Goodfellas are doesn’t really tell you anything about his latest film. That being said, Shutter Island is bound to be compared with his earlier work; not because it’s not of the same calibre as those other films, but because it’s so different from them.

Before I talk about the film itself, I have to comment on the trailer for the movie. The trailer for Shutter Island gives away far too many details about the film. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ll have a pretty good idea of exactly what is going to happen in the film. Seeing the trailer made the film less enjoyable for me.

Spoilers to follow

Based on the novel Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone) the film tells the story of two U.S. Federal marshals sent to investigate the escape of a patient from an isolated mental hospital off the coast of Massachusetts. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) immediately sense that all is not as it appears when the hospital’s administrator (Ben Kingsley) is less than forthcoming with information the marshals need for their investigation. Daniels, who has his own motives for taking on this case, believes that there is more going on at the hospital than just a simple prisoner escape. He and Aule begin to unravel what they believe to be a government conspiracy involving sick experiments being conducted on the patients of Shutter Island. Between a hurricane, patient escapes and an evasive hospital administration the marshals have their work cut out for them.

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Christopher Nolan to Godfather Superman Pre-Production

Deadline Hollywood is reporting that miracle-working director Christoper Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception) is set to take a “godfather” role for pre-production work on the upcoming Superman reboot. Talks about bringing the Man of Steel back on the big screen have ramped up recently, with the news about Nolan just coming today. Warner Bros. plans to abandon Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns storyline (which itself was a continuation of the storyline from the original Superman films) and totally reboot the franchise; new actors would be cast.  While there are no tentative plans for Nolan to direct the film, DC has certainly lent some credibility to the new Superman film by putting him in this executive position.

Nolan is at the top of his game coming off The Dark Knight, it’s awesome that he’s involved with the new Superman movie. With Nolan’s brother Jonah and David Goyer allegedly hard at work on the script for The Dark Knight follow-up and Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern already in production it looks like were in for some great stuff from Warner Bros. and DC Comics.  Makes you wonder if DC wants to follow the Marvel formula and start building a cohesive universe for all of their films. Clark Kent is set to appear in the upcoming Green Lantern film, so they may have already planned to have the actor selected as the new Man of Steel debut in that film first.

Via Deadline Hollywood

Saw: The Video Game: The Review

Editor’s Note: This review was originally intended for publication late last year, but was misplaced by yours truly. My apologies to Zack – Will

Do I want to play a game? Yeah sure, why not? I’m always down for a good bout of Tetris, but with Fall winds rattling my bones, scary games are definitely on the menu. Saw? The game? A game of Saw? Now I know the high brow savant in me wants to slide this concept away and move on to something… European, I need to honestly admit that Saw, the obnoxiously successful torture porn series of films that have a new entry annually if only to prove how much thought and effort is needed for the next installment, is not nearly as offensive as a video game. In fact I find that most things that tend to make you groan in films are usually the very same things you’ll fist pump for in a video game. So perhaps, conceptually, Saw: The Video Game may have something going for it. Thus begging the question, do you want to play THIS game?

You are Detective Tapp, one of the detectives aggressively hounding Jigsaw, the main antagonist of the franchise. Tapp was apparently shot in the first Saw film, though I’m no expert on the subject. So instead I have come to the conclusion that Detective Tapp was on his way to his buddy’s Bill Cosby dress up party when he was shot and kidnapped by the Jigsaw killer then awoken in a house o’ nightmares. If I have to give the writing team one medal it is for coming up with a great reason for complete strangers to want to tear Tapp a new one. You discover that Jigsaw has surgically implanted a key somewhere in Tapp’s body, and it is this key that so happens to be the path freedom for every other victim in the building. The way the encountered enemies incorporate Jigsaw’s lore is also fairly clever, from blinded brawlers who have steel boxes mounted to their head, to some with their hands bound to a stick of dynamite. Things descend into dumb pretty quickly though. To every victim of Jigsaw’s torture is some kind of justification, though they are really stretching it with this one. Tapp’s moral failing is that he’s just too obsessed with Jigsaw, and so Jigsaw decided to punish him. It just feels like the needle wagging its finger at the junkie. I guess the obvious cure for Tapp would be for Jigsaw to stop, y’know, killing people, but Jigsaw acts above it, and in this game especially rubs off as more hypocritical and smug than interesting. Tapp’s carrot on a string is to use this opportunity to figure out who Jigsaw is once and for all, though since the films have already treaded on that ground, it’s not nearly as tantalizing for the player.

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Heartless Trailer

The trailer for Philip Ridley’s Faustian thriller Heartless has hit the web. The film stars Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe, 21) as Jamie, a young man with a heart-shaped birthmark on his face. The East London neighbourhood Jamie calls home has been plagued by violence. Most people believe that the seemingly random violence is gang related, but Jamie soon discovers that there is a much more sinister cause behind attacks.

Heartless also stars the gorgeous Clémence Poésy and the awesome Eddie Marsan.
No North American release date has been set, but keep your eye on the official site for any news regarding a local screening.

Be sure to check out Shelagh’s review of Heartless from last year’s Sitges Film Festival.

Podcast 16: Spock is Dead

Will, Jeff, Lucas and Noah sit down to discuss the Oscar nominations, the return of Lost, Mass Effect 2, Star Trek Online and its effects on social lives, Iron Man’s suit redesign and what people can expect from Iron Man 2.

Download: Dork Shelf Podcast 16 (44 MB, MP3, 64:54)
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Listen:  

Programme:

• 0:00 — “The CN Tower can work it out (Final Fantasy ft. Q-Tip)” by Tor
• 2:26 — Academy Award nominations
• 19:20 — Lost Season 6 Premiere
• 24:49 — Dorky television and franchise cross-pollination
• 28:42 — “Royal Flush (Instrumental)” by Big Boi ft. Andre 3000 & Raekwon
• 29:26 — Mass Effect 2
• 42:31 — Star Trek Online and Martin Luther King Jr.
• 52:43 — Iron Man redesign, Iron Man 2 and The Avengers
• 46:15 — “Cousins” by Vampire Weekend

Discussed:

• Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Star Trek Online
• The Avengers, The Invincible Iron Man, Captain America
• Lost, The Hurt Locker, District 9, Inglourious Basterds, Avatar, Star Trek, Iron Man 2

The Losers Trailer

The first trailer for the big screen adaptation of Andy Diggle’s comic book The Losers has hit the web.  The film, like the comic book, centres on a CIA anti-terrorism team who are betrayed by their handler and left for dead. The group of agents decide to take out everyone responsible for selling them out, prime among them, their handler Max.

The film looks like it could be some fun, it has a great cast featuring Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Zoe Saldana, Jason Patric and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I also really like the fact that they are staying faithful to the source material, which doesn’t often happen when studios adapt lesser known properties like The Losers.

The Losers is due in theatres April 9th 2010.