Day: July 26, 2014

Are you going to tell me that the Henry Cavill who starred in Man of Steel showed up today at ComicCon? Photos can add weight, I realize, so the below photo (taken during Cavill’s appearance in Hall H) may be “fibbing” to some extent, but it looks to me like Cavill has nearly become Ernest Borgnine in Bad Day at Black Rock (’55). Let me guess — the plot of Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, which began shooting two months ago, involves Superman getting depressed and turning to drink and trans-fat foods…something like that.

(l.) Henry Cavill in Man of Steel; (r.) during an appearance today (Saturday, 7.26) at ComicCon.

I went to the Landmark last night to see Anton Corbijn‘s A Most Wanted Man for the second time. It’s a subtle, finely tuned thing. It was satisfying to note that the clues and indications seemed easier to spot this time. In yesterday’s review I called it “one of those films you want to see twice to scan for whatever clues may have been revealed early on but which you, the all-but-clueless or perhaps not-smart-enough viewer, missed the first time.” I did notice that the sound at the Landmark seemed sharper and more precise than at the Wilshire Screening Room, where I first caught it. What sounded murky or muttering at the Wilshire was clear and discernible at the Landmark.

I was given a complimentary ticket and therefore didn’t have a chance to choose my own seat. I got there in the middle of the trailers and was shown to my seat, which was in the middle of a crowded row of 70something bluehairs. I didn’t want to sit there but the row in front was half empty. So I stood and waited for latecomers to arrive, figuring that at least a couple of seats would be available five or ten minutes after the film began. I waited five minutes (the show was scheduled to start at 7:10 pm) and sure enough, two or three people arrived. Four empty seats left. I waited another five and nobody else showed. At 7:20 pm I took a seat on the aisle and settled in.

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Macleans‘ Barry Hertz called to chat the other day about Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt, whose performance as a catcher-turned-insecure-first-baseman in Moneyball was a standout in that Bennett Miller film, and who occupied the vibe of a genuine Navy Seal in Kathryn Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty. We all need to pay the bills and cover our kids’ education, but let’s hope that Pratt…oh, hell, he’s going for the dough and that’s that.

From one ComicCon hater to another (or at least someone who parks his car in the general vicinity of my garage, at least as far as sharing a deep-seated loathing for fanboy CG-driven fantasy fare is concerned)…thank you! It’ll take many generations, but when the Eloi finally emerge as the dominant global species historians will look back and say, “It all began with the ComicCon mentality.” Here’s a reply to one of Harris’s claims.

It was announced today at ComicCon that Michael Mann‘s Blackhat (formerly Cyber), a thriller about cyber-terrorism with Chris Hemsworth, will open platform-style later this year in order to qualify for award-season honors. Mann and Hemsworth unveiled the first footage of Blackhat in Hall H. Deadline‘s Michael Fleming is reporting that Blackhat “may qualify for the Oscars this year in a strategy much like Lone Survivor this past awards season.” If they follow the LS playbook it’ll open just after Christmas. The wide opening will be 1.16.05. The trailer “looks big-scale and sensational…Mann at his best,” Fleming enthused.

Hemsworth offered this quote roughly a year ago: “I just finished [Blackhat]. It’s based in the world of cyber-terrorism….a sort of cat-and-mouse international heist-thriller. Basically, something similar to the Chicago Board of Trade is hacked into and it sets off a chain of events around the world, affecting the stock market. The code that was used to hack into it…my character had written it years before and he happens to be in prison for cyber crime. He is pulled out and offered a deal if he works with a joint task force of the FBI and the Chinese government in trying to track this guy down. It starts off in Chicago and ends up in Kuala Lumpur, in Hong Kong and in Jakarta.”

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A new Interstellar trailer was screened at ComicCon yesterday. Perhaps it reflects what director and co-writer Chris Nolan said was his basic goal in creating this futuristic sci-fi drama, which was “to recapture some of the sense of wonder about the cosmos that he felt as a boy,” according to Hero Complex‘s Josh Rottenberg. Nolan added that “the biggest influence on the film was Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.” Maybe so, but the earlier trailer (i.e., the one that popped two months ago when everyone was in Cannes) doesn’t begin to even approach the slightest trace of cosmic Kubrickian splendor. Did I get any kind of space-vibe? Yeah — it reminded me of footage from Ron Howard‘s Apollo 13.

I took another look at trailer #1 this morning and I wasn’t going for it. On top of which I’ve read plot descriptions calling McConaughey’s character a “widowed dad.” I’m sorry but something in me says “watch it” when I hear that term. I don’t trust any writer or filmmaker who decides that “widowed” is more likable or sympathetic than “divorced”. On top of which I’m sensing other indications of emotional calculation. Perhaps a whiff or two of sentimentality. On top of which I’m suddenly feeling, for no reason I can make sense of, a little McConaughey-ed out.

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Bukowski is eternal but does he need this kind of punch-punch hey-hey? Hats off to many of the images by Yissus Galiana, and, I suppose, some of the sound effects by Galiana and Angel Teran. But the music (by Godspeed You Black Emperor) is way too loud in the second half. The piece all but collapses because of this. More showboating than artful.