Tag: Steven Spielberg

Anne Hathaway In Talks For Female Lead In Spielberg’s ‘Robopocalypse’

by Shawn Madden

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises) is in negotiations for the female lead in Steven Spielberg’s Robopocalypse. She may be joining Chris Hemsworth (Thor), who has been previously reported as being in talks for the male lead in the film. The film is based on the book by Daniel H. Wilson.

Tom Rothman, who will be departing from his post as chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment will be producing the film. DreamWorks has been developing the property since 2009, when it acquired rights to Wilson’s then-unpublished manuscript about the fate of the human race following a robot uprising. Robopocalypse is currently set to hit theaters on April 24, 2014.

‘E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial’ Returns To The Big Screen For It’s 30th Anniversary!

by Scott Alminiana

Get ready to turn on your heartlight one more time! In honor of it’s 30th anniversary and prior to it’s release on blu-ray, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial will be returning to the big screen for one night only!

Screenings will take place on Wednesday, October 3rd at 7:00 PM, with special matinee screenings in select theaters at 2:00 PM. The screenings will be presented by NCM® Fathom Events, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Universal Pictures as part of the studio’s 100th Anniversary celebration. Fans will get to see the all-new, digitally remastered version of the film, and there will be a special taped introduction by TCM host Ben Mankiewicz.

Tickets are currently on sale at participating theater box offices and online at www.FathomEvents.com. Get your tickets today before they sell out!

I’ll be seeing it on the big screen for sure and will probably be wearing a red hoodie even! E.T. holds a special place in my heart, I joke with people at tell them that it’s the movie that taught me to distrust my government (which isn’t true at all but makes me laugh). It’s actually the movie that taught me to curse without knowing that I was indeed cursing. I used to call my brother “penis breath” when I’d get mad at him, but little did I know that I was actually calling him a cocksucker. Took me years to figure that one out. So thank you Elliot and Steven Spielberg for that one! Seriously though, this is a fantastic movie and any time it’s on I find myself sucked in. October 3rd can’t get here soon enough. I’ll see you geeks there!

“Jaws” Blu-ray Review

by Eric Diaz

This past week saw the long awaited Blu-ray debut of Steven Spielberg’s classic film Jaws. In reviewing this new Blu-ray, I’m not going to review the actual movie itself because really, if you’re reading a site called Geekscape and you’ve never seen Jaws, well….I’m not even sure what to say to that, except you should probably get on that and rent it already. Or better yet, just buy the new Blu-ray sight unseen. Unless you have really awful taste in film, you won’t regret it. Because Jaws isn’t just one one of the greatest genre films of all time, it is one of the greatest films of all time, period. And in many ways helped create the modern movie landscape we all live in today.

How Jaws Changed Everything

To say Jaws changed the movie marketplace is not doing the film justice. Star Wars gets a lot of credit for being the first Summer Blockbuster, but the truth is Jaws did it two years before Star Wars hit cinemas, in the Summer of 1975. Popular opinion says that the 1970’s was the age of the more serious, director driven adult movies, especially in comparison to today. When people say “the films of the 70’s” they think of films like Taxi Driver, Apocalypse, Now and The Deer Hunter. And to a large extent that is true, the 70’s was the last great age of serious films coming out of the Hollywood system. But it was also the birth of the modern Hollywood blockbuster era.

The blueprint for how modern Hollywood movies are contstructed, filmed and eventually marketed began in the 1970’s. While more serious adult fare was indeed becoming the norm in Hollywood, also true was the rise of once disreputable source material given the A list treatment by the movie studios. Two mega blockbusters that predated Jaws by just a couple of years were The Godfather and The Exorcist, one a gangster movie and the other a supernatural horror film. In the previous decades in Hollywood, neither of those subject matters was considered “serious” enough to be given the A List treatment that movies like The Ten Commandments or The Sound of Music got, and were always relegated to B pictures at the local drive in. Both movies proved that the American masses loved their pulp fiction, and they also love their pulp fiction done with a high degree of integrity. The one-two punch of both of those moves layed the groundwork for Jaws being the gigantic hit it became, not just here but all over the world.

While there were mega hit movies before, what Jaws was, though, was the first true Summer blockbuster, and the first movie to take true advantage of a wide release, instead of the slow rollout over the course of several months from city to city, as was always done before. Until Jaws, a typical Hollywood movie would debut in say, New York, then months later in Chicago, or LA, and a movie could play differently in one city in comparison to the next. If a movie performed badly in too many cities, it just might not ever even make it to release where you live. The idea of releasing a movie nationwide, with a major marketing blitz of television ads and merchandising behind it, was started by Jaws.

The Digital Transfer And Restoration

Instead of reviewing the actual movie here, because I think it is pretty safe to assume you’ve seen it or at the very least know it is a classic,  I’m just going to review the new   Blu- ray transfer of the film instead. In short, the transfer is stunning. There were moments it was hard to believe I was watching a movie from 1975 (although some of the more hideous clothes and hairstyles served to remind me, especially Mayor Vaughn’s horrid jackets) The team assigned to the restoration of Jaws should be given some kind of an award, because their work on this movie is breathtaking. As shown in one of the special features included on the disc, Jaws was painstakingly restored frame by frame, with every piece of dirt and every scratch removed from the original camera negative. But although dirt and scratches were removed, there wasn’t any annoying digital grain removal, the kind that gives older movies that weird plasticy look at times. The result is a movie that looks like it was shot yesterday, but isn’t overly glossy or too polished looking. The grit is still there, but not in your face.

I’m not an audiophile, so it is hard for me to really review the sound on this Blu ray (my speakers are merely my television speakers) I will say that the new Blu ray has the original mono track as well as a new DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, for those of you for whom that means something. For me thought, the real treasure on this Blu-ray, aside from the movie itself of course, is the wealth of special features, especially the two feature length documentaries included here.

Young Steven Spielberg and “Bruce” the mechanical shark that almost never worked. Bruce was named after Spielberg’s lawyer. Oh Steven, you crack up you.

The Making of Jaws (1995)

Steven Spielberg is infamous for not providing audio commentary on any of his films. I’m not sure why, because he has no problem talking about his movies in great detail in other special features in the form of rather lengthy interviews. A rather lengthy interview with Spielberg is included on this disc in The Making of Jaws, Laurent Bouzereau’s 2 hour long documentary from the 1995 Laserdisc box set. In this documentary, not only does Spielberg go into great detail about the making of the film, but there are also lots of other talking head interviews with the likes of original novelist Peter Benchley, Roy Schieder, Richard Dreyfuss, composer John Williams, and producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown, along with most of the main principal players behind the making of the movie.

The whole thing is shot in a very boring manner, 80’s PBS style, and the production value scream “on the cheap,” but this was a time when any movie was lucky to get a special feature in any capacity. (the 90’s were a dark time for film geeks. Laserdiscs cost a fortune, and barely had any special features. You brats today don’t know how lucky you are) But if you can get past the low grade production standards, this two hour doc is a wealth of information on the making of Jaws, and worth watching all two hours of. I’m so glad Universal included it here, despite how dated it all looks. Looks aren’t everything after all.

The Shark Is Still Working (2009)

In many ways though, the crown jewel of the special features is the documentary The Shark Is Still Working. The documentary was made by “Jaws” fans  James Gelet, Jake Gove, Erik Hollander, and James-Michael Roddy over a seven-year period, using  Laurent Bouzereau’s1995 documentary, The Making of Jaws as merely a starting off point. The movie gets its name from the often told anecdotes of Richard Dreyfuss, who in interviews often shared stories about the troubled production of Jaws and the quote “The shark is NOT working” which he said he heard over and over again from frustrated members of the crew. Once the mechanical shark was finally up and running, Dreyfuss would regularly hear the quote “The shark is still working” with equal regularity. Unlike The Making of Jaws, this documentary delves into every aspect of the Jaws phenomenon, from the brutal shoot in the Summer of 1974 off of Martha’s Vineyard with an overwhelmed twenty six year old Steven Spielberg, to the merchandising avalanche that followed, to things like Jawsfest today, where fans gather and share their adoration of all things related to the film.

This documentary leaves no Jaws stone unturned, interviewing people like the artist who created the original iconic movie poster, the various real life locals who played small parts in the movie, and even the man who provided the narration in the oh so very effective trailer to the film, Percy Rodriguez, whose trailer tagline was just as iconic for an entire generation as the movie itself (“It is as if God made the devil, and gave him…JAWS!” Brilliant!) This documentary was completed in 2007 or so, and shown at many festivals to rave reviews, but legal red tape has held up the films release until now. It seems perfect and fitting that the movie is finally released on the same Blu ray as Jaws itself.

Aside from The Shark Is Still Working, the Blu ray has tons of other special features, like On The Set, a BBC news report made from the actual Martha’s Vineyard shooting location back in 1974, deleted scenes and outtakes, storyboards, trailers. The only thing really missing from the movie is a commentary track, but Spielberg never does them for any movie, so it isn’t a big shock really.

If you’re a fan of this movie, this is a must own Blu-ray. I don’t care if you have the DVD already, time to Ebay that shit. This is how Steven Spielberg’s classic needs to be viewed from here on out. So do yourself a favor and buy Jaws on Blu-ray.

‘Raiders Of The Lost Ark’ Is Getting Re-Released In IMAX!

by Shawn Madden

So, were you too young to catch Raiders Of The Lost Ark in theaters the first time around? Well don’t worry because you will have your chance!  Paramount is re-releasing Steven Spielberg’s Raiders Of The Lost Ark, featuring Harrison Fords first outing as Indiana Jones, into IMAX theaters. You read that one right. Not only do you get the see the movie in theaters but you get to see it in IMAX! An official announcement hasn’t been issued by Paramount yet, but that the movie is popping up on various ticketing and theater websites as an attraction opening on Sept 7th. An announcement is expected this week, but until then we won’t know how big of a release this is going to get.  Better get ready to buy these when they go on sale and ask yourself why it had to be snakes with all of your friends.

Source: THR

‘Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes’ Screenwriters Hired For ‘JURASSIC PARK 4’

by Shawn Madden

Well, it looks like we will be getting that fourth ‘Jurassic Park’ that has been talked about for years. Deadline is reporting that Universal is setting Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver to write the script for the fourth film. Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy will be producing the film but Spielberg will not be directing this one.

Will we get robotic dinosaurs or cgi? Will it be yet another island they forgot about? Will we get any of the original cast? Just sayin’…Jeff Goldblum please.

I don’t have those answers. What I do know is that Universal is re-releasing the original film in 3D on July 19, 2013. Anybody hear that? It’s a, um… It’s an impact tremor, that’s what it is… I’m fairly alarmed here.

“E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” Coming To Blu-ray This Fall!

by Scott Alminiana

Buy yourself a pack of Reese’s Pieces and get ready to relive your childhood. Steven Spielberg’s 1982 classic, “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” is coming to Blu-ray for the first time this fall. The Blu-ray will be digitally remastered from the original 35MM film elements, with 7.1 surround sound, and will contain “hours of bonus features”. It looks as if fans will get the original theatrical version of the film and not the 2002 digital release, if not both. Here’s the trailer:

Jurassic Park Gets 3D Re-Release For Summer 2013

by Eric Diaz

Get ready to return to Jurassic Park, just in time for the film’s 20th Anniversary in next year. Universal has just announced (via Deadline.com) that they are re-releasing their classic Spielberg blockbuster in 3D on July 19th, 2013, right smack dab in the middle of Summer. While re-releases of classic movies in 3D is not a new trend, usually they are released in the Winter or Spring, as to not compete with the big, shiny new movies of Summer. At the same time, Universal  has moved up the release of their Tom Cruise sci fi flick Oblivion to April 26, 2013. This seems a bit odd, as April seems a better date for an older movie, but what do I know?

While I am sick to death of 3D, I don’t mind older films getting the 3D re-release treatment, because that seems to be the only way to get those classic films on the big screen for a whole new generation of ignorant teenagers  fresh, new moviegoers. If the only way for that to happen is to release them in 3D, then so be it. Besides, what would you rather have….this or a lame Jurassic Park IV?

Soon to be "Comin' At Ya!" in 3D, scaring the pants of impressionable children brought to the theaters by irresponsible parents.

Indiana Jones Finally Coming To High Definition This Fall

by Eric Diaz

The last holdout of the big genre franchises to come to high definition has finally been announced, as Paramount and Lucasfilm made it official today: The Complete Indiana Jones Collection will arrive on Blu Ray in Fall 2012. Yes, they said “complete”, meaning that you’ll have to buy a copy of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as well. But who cares? Use it as a coaster or something. All that matters is Raiders of the Lost Ark in high def. Everything else is gravy.

According to the press release “The Complete Indiana Jones Blu-ray Collection will be excavated in the fall of 2012 and will include all four of Indy’s thrilling adventures, using the highest possible high definition picture and audio presentation – along with a “best of” collection of documentaries, interviews, featurettes and a few new surprises.” I imagine when they say “best of” they mean they’ll be porting over all the documentaries from the old DVD sets, and maybe like the Star Wars collection last Fall, they’ll include the original vintage “Making Of” docs as well. Sadly, extensive new special features are mostly a thing of the past in this day and age, but this being Indy, I imagine they’ll thrown in something new. I wish they’d include Jamie Benning’s wonderful filmumentary on the making of Raiders that was released this past year, but that’s a long shot.

Along with Indy, this year will also see the release of Spielberg’s Jaws, E.T., and the rest of the James Bond series on Blu Ray. If you still haven’t upgraded to high def, I’d say now would be the time.

Indy Strikes Back!

by profwagstaff

So, everybody seems to be hating on Indy these days. What the fuck’s up with that? Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is NOT a perfect movie by any means. It certainly has its problems. Jonathan laid them all out for all to see a couple of days ago…and I can certainly agree with just about everything he said.

Just about…

But first, let me tell you what I thought. This may be total blasphemy, but I thought it was better than Temple Of Doom. Maybe not by a longshot, but by enough for me to enjoy it more than that black mark on the Indy totem pole.

What’s wrong with TOD, you might ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

First off, it was FAR too dark for a series that was, first and foremost, a throwback to the classic action heroes of yore. Sure, the pulp novels that Indy was sort of based on could get dark, but we never expected there to be child slaves or heart-ripping Thugees in an Indiana Jones movie. (Yeah, yeah. There was only one before it and it included melting faces…but even THAT wasn’t as gory or dark as ripping hearts out of chests, showing it to the still living victim and then burning said victim alive in the pits of a volcano…or hell…or whatever the hell it was.) Steven Spielberg had never directed a movie that was as dark as Temple Of Doom. Even Poltergeist (which he wrote and produced) wasn’t as dark, really. More frightening, sure. That movie kept me up for weeks…and that was just a couple of years ago when I saw it again.

Of course, we all know that the PG-13 rating was created because of Temple Of Doom. THAT’S how dark it was. It probably could have been rated R and people wouldn’t have been surprised. The only reason it was PG was because Spielberg complained to the MPAA. (A trick that has continued to work for him. Why else do you think Saving Private Ryan was rated R instead of NC-17?)

My second problem was the depiction of the Thugees. These guys were a pretty horrible sect of Indian/Hindu culture. They robbed and killed unsuspecting travelers all in the name of the goddess Kali. They were wiped out in the early parts of the 20th Century, but who knows?

The Thugees in Temple Of Doom seemed to have come from a more sadistic version of the Beatles’ movie Help! They were cartoonish and historically completely inaccurate. The real Thugees killed people with yellow sashes. No heart-ripping involved. But that wouldn’t have made a very compelling movie, so Spielberg had them do horrible things to the people as they killed them. There is one guy who tries to kill Indy with a sash, but that was such a small thing that it was barely noticed.

This is why the movie was banned in India for years.

And my third problem was the fact that Indy was suddenly a superhero. In Raiders (and Last Crusade after it), Indy was human. He never really did anything that a human couldn’t survive. A very strong human, sure. Perhaps a human with the strength of Pat Roach. But a human, nonetheless.

In TOD, he and his friends jump out of an airplane that is still a thousand or so feet up with only a rubber rescue raft to break their fall. Yeah. That’s right. Even Short Round survives. (Yeah, he’s cool, but he’s SUCH a stereotype.) Hell, even Willie The Annoying Bitch survives. How? Not a clue. She was sleeping with the director. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.

Then they manage to survive a roller coaster ride on a rickety old mine train system going about 60 mph with no breaks. Plenty of breaks in the tracks, though, that they jump over and survive. And Indy stops them with his feet.

Whatever. TOD is the worst of the four. But I digress. On to Crystal Skull.

I did have a problem with the end of the opening sequence. Not the introduction to Indy. That worked for me. In fact, I thought it showed him to be just as much of a bad-ass as the first movie did. We see him only in silhouette for quite a while and, yeah, he’s getting the crap beat out of him, but he’s incredibly hard as it’s being done. He’s taking it and looks ready to give it back.

No, it’s the nuclear blast and his apparent survival that got me. Now, he’s not just any ol’ superhero. He’s fucking Superman. He climbs into a refrigerator (lead lined, apparently) that is pretty close to ground fucking zero and then proceeds to be blasted about five miles away. The fridge is thrown HARD. He hits the ground hard enough to do some damage, not just to the ground, but to the fridge. The door flies open and he stumbles out, basically unscathed. No broken bones. Maybe a few scratches on his face…but were those from the beating he took?

Whatever. I’ll buy the three waterfalls towards the end better than I’ll buy that.

Jonathan had a problem with the introduction to Mutt. He said that no hero should be introduced sitting down. Well, he was sitting down on a fucking motorcycle. I think that pretty much nullifies any “pussy” comments. Remember, his hero, Marlon Brando, was introduced sitting on a motorcycle. No comparisons to Mr. Brando here. Just saying that he was obviously pretty heavily influenced by The Wild One, so why not introduce on a motorcycle?

As for the argument that Mutt didn’t change throughout the movie and never seemed to become a hero because he was a “cool guy” throughout…that’s wrong. He was a poser at the beginning. Yeah, introduced on a motorcycle and all, but he was a poser. He wasn’t cool and he knew it, but he tried his best to put on a good face. By the end, after showing some pretty good sword skills, he was nearly ready for the hat…nearly. Indy stole it away from him at the last second. If everyone has their way, maybe by the end of the next one he WILL be ready for the hat. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

By the way, Mutt=Indy. Remember, “We named the dog Indiana!” Yeah, it’s dumb, but there’s a reason for it. And for the 50s, that was probably a pretty cool name. They had dumber nicknames back then. Jughead? Come on!

The Crystal Skull was definitely used too much as a cure-all. I will certainly agree to that. And the villains weren’t as bad-ass as they should have been…but I never really got the impression that Irina Spalko had any powers, only that she studied them. She did not have the guts to actually look into the eyes of the skull. That’s what Oxley was for. He was the guinea pig. Since he didn’t fare so well, she had not done it yet. That whole Vulcan mind grip that she almost did to Indy was all for show and he never looked like he believed it. Of course, neither did she, really. I think it was more for effect than for any kind of scare tactic.

By the way, Jonathan, your idea to have Indy forced to nearly kill Oxley by Spalko’s psychic powers is too much of a Temple Of Doom thing. Sure, it could be chalked up as an homage, but why homage something from TOD that no one really liked. Did we LIKE seeing Indy slap a little boy around? Hell, no.

The animals didn’t bother me that much. In fact, after they were off screen, I forgot about them. There are animals in the jungle. And I could see Mutt getting the idea to swing from monkeys. Whatever. Not a big deal. Plus, it was kind of cool to see them all gang up on the one Ruskie in the jeep. Fuck him. And the groundhogs? Meh. Take ’em or leave ’em. I kind of liked having the Paramount logo turn into a molehill in this one. Certainly better than going into a bad musical number. No, Willie. Anything does NOT go.

So, yeah. I had fun with The Crystal Skull. Jonathan’s version would have been better. I agree. He’s a very good writer. But I also think that he still feels burned from Episode I (editor: “I do”).

And just so you know where I’m coming from, this was written by someone who thought that Episode I had its moments, but was ultimately kind of boring, Episode II was fun, but not great and Episode III was nearly up to Jedi standards. With a few writing/directing tweaks, it could have been the best of the bunch.

I also realize that Spielberg doesn’t make these kinds of movies anymore. The last “fun” movies that he made was a stretch of Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal. Only Minority Report was an action film, but it was pretty serious. The other two were light dramas. And War Of The Worlds was pretty deadly serious. He had to try to reteach himself how to direct a light action flick. And he did a fairly decent job. Hopefully, if they do end up making a fifth like they’ve always wanted to do since the 80s, he can do a better job. I’ll be in line for it.

You can find more Professor Wagstaff reviews and opinions at Professor Wagstaff’s official website: www.profwagstaff.com. Just be ready to disagree with everything he says… like Jonathan’s been doing since highschool! But really, check it out. He’s the self professed Geek of All Media!