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19 articles from 2009
Cutthroat Island on Blu-Ray
22 December 2009 11:31 AM, PST
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I never minded Cutthroat Island, as I usually don.t mind the widely trashed films. It.s big dumb action. It wasn.t my money. I get to see what $100 million looks like for about 10 bucks and no risk on my part. They gave the film a solid Blu Ray transfer that highlights the film.s lavish spectacle, and also reveals the flaws of its fiasco
Cutthroat Island on Blu-Ray
Many of the shots are out of focus. Like just plain not in focus. Some of the vistas are so muddy, even Blu Ray can.t pull color out, and these are tropical paradises here. Some scenes are just unlit or underexposed. Sometimes the corners of shots are blown out with overexposed light. Sometimes the color timing just doesn.t match from shot to shot and the skies are beige.
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Paramount Saddles Up to The Further Adventures Of Doc Holliday
17 December 2009 10:07 PM, PST
| Collider.com
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Paramount Pictures is hoping to set up a Western-genre tentpole flick with The Further Adventures of Doc Holliday, a spec script they just picked up from Chad St. John. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the film beyond Variety saying it’s “described as a history-based action adventure tale in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean.” I’m glad they specified that really successful flick because I was worried they were going to make a film in the vein of Cutthroat Island. St. John is attached to a number of Warner Bros. films including Sgt. Rock, Motor City, Outland, and The Days Before, which landed at #10 on this year’s Black List (an annual ranking of the best un-produced screenplays in Hollywood).
Holliday is a well-known figure of Western lore from his friendship with Wyatt Earp to his role in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral to dying from tuberculosis.
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- Matt Goldberg
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Georgia Rule
28 October 2009 10:40 AM, PDT
| Movieline
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Some directors bounce back from a roster of cinematic turkeys, but the combined effect of Cutthroat Island, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, and Driven seem to have invoked a "three strikes and you're out" rule for Renny Harlin. The onetime top director has spent the last few years making films like The Covenant and the John Cena starrer 12 Rounds, and he's now set Val Kilmer and Emmanuelle Chriqui to star in Georgia, a war film about last year's military conflict between Russia and Georgia. Which one of them is playing the explosion? [THR]
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Emmanuelle Chriqui Joins Val Kilmer in Renny Harlin’s Georgia
27 October 2009 11:19 PM, PDT
| Collider.com
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Before we continue, Renny Harlin’s upcoming film “Georgia” is not about The Peach State and the tale how Coca-Cola will one day flow out of our drinking fountains. “Georgia” is based on last year’s conflict between Russia and the country of Georgia. THR reports that hottie/red-carpet eye candy Emmanuelle Chriqui will play opposite Val Kilmer in the drama about an American journalist (Kilmer) and his cameraman caught in the crossfire and a Georgia native (Chriqui) and doctoral student who becomes entangled with them.
Chriqui is best known for her role on “Entourage” playing the love interest of Kevin Connolly’s character, Eric. Since “Entourage’ is a fantasy, I believe the most recent episode featured a tearful goodbye between them before Eric had to go and drop the The One Ring into Mount Doom. Kilmer has appeared in numerous roles but he has a lifetime free pass from
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- Matt Goldberg
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Somali Pirates Plan On Boarding A Theater Near You
23 October 2009 12:24 PM, PDT
| FilmSchoolRejects.com
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Is there any more exciting film staple than pirates? Pillaging, raping, kidnapping, cannon-firing, parrot-owning, Sicilian-beating, Keith Richards-loving, one leg missing, singing and dancing pirates!
And now we can add real-life pirates to the list thanks to those pesky Somalian rapscallions who've been terrorizing the coast of Africa for the past several years. Per Variety, Columbia Pictures has hired Billy Ray to write a film based on the five-day hostage drama that played out earlier this year. More specifically, the film will center on Captain Richard Phillips whose life story rights as well as the rights to his upcoming book were optioned by Columbia. Phillips was held hostage by pirates before being rescued by Navy Seals. Spoiler alert!
Ray's most recent work as screenwriter includes State of Play, Breach, and Flightplan. He also has a Westworld remake and the potential Ryan Reynolds vehicle Motorcade on his plate as well.
This project is easily a year or more
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- Rob Hunter
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The Top 10 Most Influential Scores of the Past Decade: #5
4 October 2009 7:00 AM, PDT
| SCOREcastOnline.com
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#5 - The Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy
(Klaus Badelt/Hans Zimmer)
Blaring brass, sawing strings, playful woodwinds, bombastic percussion, ghostly choirs... It's the latest release from EastWest! Uh... or a cue from the Jerry Bruckheimer/Disney franchise The Pirates Of The Caribbean.
Okay, look. We know this one is going to start a flame war... but before you comment on why this score is the end to all that's right and holy in our industry, just remember... You Voted For These!
The Pirates Of The Caribbean started out being something that Hans Zimmer never thought would amount to much (Tpotc: The Curse of the Black Pearl; 2003), and ended up being probably one of the definitive works of his career (Tpotc: At World's End; 2007). Originally handed off to protege Klaus Badelt to handle (with Zimmer "producing" as an overseer... Lead balloon, much?), Tpotc might be solely responsible for the deluge of
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- noreply@blogger.com (SCOREcast Admin)
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Celebrate 'Talk Like a Pirate Day' With Movies!
19 September 2009 5:02 PM, PDT
| Cinematical
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"Aargh!" "Ahoy, matey!" "Shiver me timbers!" Ok, that's it, I'm out of buccaneer bon mots, which are pretty much essential in order to honor Talk Like a Pirate Day, celebrated annually on September 19. And even those pirate sayings are ones I took from an article on the event in Los Angeles Times, which credits John "Oi' Chumbucket" Bauer and Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers for igniting the tradition years ago.
When it comes to movies, the Pirates of the Caribbean series comes trippingly to mind, especially since Disney just announced that Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides will be coming ashore in Summer 2011, with Johnny Depp returning as Jack Sparrow. But it's pretty tough to talk like Johnny Depp -- believe me, I've tried, and gotten my face slapped as a result -- so what other movie pirates can we safely imitate? Here's a quick list:
Errol Flynn. I'm working on my Australian accent,
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- Peter Martin
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[DVD Review] CutThroat Island
11 August 2009 3:00 PM, PDT
| JustPressPlay.net
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Either I'm a sucker for pirate stories, or I owe Renny Harlin an apology. After lambasting him for his disaster of an action film 12 Rounds, I now see that as a director he was hideously robbed of the fame CutThroat Island should have brought him when the box office of its time failed to recognize the greatness inherent in pirate epics. Fast forward eight years to Disney’s vastly inferior Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and you begin to realize just how bad Mr. Harlin got hosed. Compared to PotC, CutThroat Island’s visuals have a much grander scale; its story’s plot has actual merit; and it’s not all kept afloat by a flamboyant Johnny Depp in pirate garb.
Morgan Adams (Geena Davis) goes into the family piracy business when her “uncle” Dog (Frank Langella) has her father walk the plank with an anchor tied about his ankles.
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- Lex Walker
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New On DVD This Week
11 August 2009 1:15 PM, PDT
| The Flickcast
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Here’s a list of some of the new DVD and Blu-ray releases this week we’re particularly interested in. Plus, some old favorites (and not so favorites) coming out this week for the first time on Blu-ray.
Movies
About Last Night… ~ Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, James Belushi (Blu-ray)
Alien Trespass ~ Eric McCormack, Dan Lauria, Robert Patrick, and Jenni Baird (DVD and Blu-ray)
Blue Thunder ~ Roy Scheider, Warren Oates, Candy Clark, and Daniel Stern (Blu-ray)
Chaos ~ Jason Statham (Blu-ray)
The Class (Entre Les Murs) ~ François Bégaudeau, Agame Malembo-Emene, and Angélica Sancio (DVD)
Cutthroat Island ~ Geena Davis, Frank Langella, Matthew Modine (Blu-ray)
Eagles Over London ~ Van Johnson, Frederick Stafford, Francisco Rabal, and Luigi Pistilli (Blu-ray)
Gigantic ~ Zooey Deschanel, Paul Dano, John Goodman, and Ed Asner (DVD)
I Love You, Man ~ Paul Rudd, Jason Segal (DVD and Blu-ray)
Katyn ~ Artur Amijewski, Maja Ostaszewska, and Andrzej Chyra (DVD)
Michael Jackson: Moonwalking – The
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- Joe Gillis
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This Week on DVD: I Love You, Man, The Class, Tmnt Collection
11 August 2009 9:59 AM, PDT
| FilmJunk
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If you're going DVD shopping today, there are a few decent choices, however I wouldn't really recommend either I Love You, Man or 17 Again unless you absolutely love Paul Rudd or Zac Efron. Instead, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Oscar-nominated French film The Class, and the indie comedy Gigantic is at least worth a look. Also in stores this week is the '50s sci-fi spoof Alien Trespass, the direct-to-dvd sequel to Road Trip, and a Michael Jackson documentary, plus all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies on Blu-ray! Will you be spending your hard-earned cash on anything this week?
I Love You, Man [1] (DVD, Blu-ray [2])
17 Again [3] (DVD, Blu-ray [4])
The Class [5] (DVD, Blu-ray [6])
Gigantic [7]
Alien Trespass [8] (DVD, Blu-ray [9])
Road Trip: Beer Pong [10]
Gooby [11]
Almost Heaven [12]
The Last Resort [13]
Steppin' [14]
The Tiger's Tail [15]
The Art of War III: Retribution [16]
Dark Rising [17]
Dead by Dawn 2: The Return [18]
Moonwalking: The True Story
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- Sean
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This Week On DVD and Blu-ray: August 11, 2009
11 August 2009 12:54 AM, PDT
| Rope of Silicon
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DVD Links: DVD News | Release Dates | New Dvds | Reviews | RSS Feed
Not a huge week for new releases, but there are some titles I just added to the release date calendar detailed at the end of this update you may be interested in adding to your preorder shopping cart. Oh, and it appears Paramount has decided to begin releasing the Blu-ray editions of their films before releasing the DVD editions. They are starting with Dance Flick on September 8... It'll be interesting to see if it gets more people to adopt the high-def format once bigger named releases starting hitting the shelves.
The Class
This one made the #6 spot on my list of top ten movies of 2008 so it should be obvious I think it is the one film releasing this week you need to watch. It's not a brain bender of a story as it details one class in a
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- Brad Brevet
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DVD Playhouse--August 2009
10 August 2009 2:25 AM, PDT
| The Hollywood Interview
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DVD Playhouse—August 2009
By
Allen Gardner
Watchmen—Director’S Cut (Warner Bros.) Director Zack Snyder’s film of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ landmark graphic novel is as worthy an adaptation of a great book that has ever been filmed. In an alternative version of the year 1985, Richard Nixon is serving his third term as President and super heroes have been outlawed by a congressional act, in spite of the fact that two of the most high-profile “masks,” Dr. Manhattan (Billy Cruddup) and The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) helped the U.S. win the Vietnam War. When The Comedian is found murdered, many former heroes become concerned that a conspiracy is afoot to assassinate retired costumed crime fighters. Former masks Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman) and still-operating Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley, in an Oscar-worthy turn) launch an investigation of their own, all while the Pentagon’s “Doomsday
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- The Hollywood Interview.com
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Blu-Ray Review: ‘12 Rounds’ Fails to Entertain For Even 12 Minutes
10 July 2009 3:11 PM, PDT
| HollywoodChicago.com
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Chicago – Renny Harlin’s “12 Rounds,” starring the WWE’s John Cena and now available on Blu-Ray and DVD, is a shockingly dull affair, an action film that tries to maintain a breakneck pace but forgets that movie rollercoasters are only fun with ups And downs instead of just a numbing series of stunt sequences.
Blu-Ray Rating: 1.0/5.0
The reasonably effective Cena (although he had more to do in “The Marine”) plays a New Orleans police officer named Danny Fisher, an average cop who happens to stop a brilliant thief whose girlfriend is accidentally killed in the process. A year later, the thief has escaped from prison with only one apparent goal - enacting his revenge on Danny.
12 Rounds was released on Blu-Ray on June 30th, 2009.
Photo credit: Fox
The criminal mastermind unleashes a ridiculously plot-hole-filled series of challenges for our muscled hero, including stopping a moving cable car and escaping an about-to-drop elevator.
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- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
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Blu-ray Dates
6 July 2009 10:00 AM, PDT
| SmellsLikeScreenSpirit
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July 07, 2009
* The Deep (Sony)
* Grumpy Old Men (Warner)
* Knowing (Summit)
* Push (Summit)
* Torchwood: The Complete Second Season (BBC)
* The Unborn (Universal)
* The Universe: The Complete Season Two (A&E)
July 14, 2009
* The Black Crowes: Warpaint Live (Eagle Rock)
* Cheap Trick: Every Trick in the Book (Music Inc.)
* Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Curse of the Golden Flower, House of Flying Daggers Trilogy (Box Set) (Sony)
* The Edge of Love (Image)
* Explicit Ills (Phase 4 Films)
* For All Mankind (Criterion Collection)
* The Haunting in Connecticut: Unrated Special Edition (Lionsgate)
* I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (Sony)
* Mad Men: Season Two (Lionsgate)
* NBA Champions 2008-2009 (Warner)
* Night Train (National Ent Media)
* Shark Week: Great Bites Collection (Discovery Channel)
* This is Spinal Tap (MGM)
* The Towering Inferno (20th Century Fox)
* Wild Pacific (BBC)
July 21, 2009
* 300: The Complete Experience (Warner)
* Coraline (Universal)
* Echelon Conspiracy (Paramount)
* Google Me (Cinevolve)
* The Great Buck Howard (Magnolia
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- Dave Campbell
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Five Favourite Films with Renny Harlin
29 May 2009 2:42 AM, PDT
| Rotten Tomatoes
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Finnish director Renny Harlin has one of the most schizophrenic CVs in movie-dom. He's directed some of the most beloved action films of the last 20 years, including Die Hard 2, Deep Blue Sea, The Long Kiss Goodnight and, of course, Cliffhanger. His latest, the faintly-ridiculous but always-enjoyable 12 Rounds continues this tradition. He's also, however, responsible for two of the most reviled movies of recent times -- for notorious flop Cutthroat Island and for taking a hatchet to Paul Schrader's The Exorcist: The Beginning. For someone with such a varied back catalogue, we had no idea what his five
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The Battle Over The Rights To Terminator 5
15 May 2009 12:42 AM, PDT
| ScreenRant.com
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As we near the release of the highly anticipated Terminator Salvation, troubled MGM Studios is hoping to get into the Terminator game by positioning itself to take over the distribution of Terminator 5, part two in the planned new trilogy. Yep, shock waves are being felt around Hollywood, since Warner Bros. and Sony are distributing next week’s Terminator Film.
Terminator Salvation is opening in a week (May 21, 2009), and Warner Bros. is distributing the film domestically (much like it did with the under-rated Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines), while the international release is being handled by Sony. Halcyon, the production company behind the movie, is planning on creating a new trilogy starting with Salvation and director McG is already talking about potential T5 plot lines. So it’s a surprise that there may be a battle for the distribution rights.
A little history between MGM and the Terminator franchise:
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- Heath McKnight
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The Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl - Movie Review
29 March 2009 11:55 AM, PDT
| AreYouScreening.com
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If you happened to contribute your dollars to the slightly under $10 million amassed by 1995's Cutthroat Island, you don’t have to wonder what went wrong with that movie. What went wrong, that is, that turned that movie into the biggest money loser of all time (It has since been surpassed, and resides at number five on the list). The swashbuckling, pirate adventure, once a mainstay of Hollywood, was reduced to a joke, and the near ten-year drought that has followed shows the curse bestowed on the genre. But, it seemed like a good idea at the time. People (historically) love a good pirate story, and there were recognizable names involved. There were great sets, gorgeous ships, and something over $90 million thrown at the thing. The problem was it was just no damn fun at all.
With Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Disney takes its
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- Marc Eastman
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Movies That Deserve a Second Life: Action/Adventure Edition
13 March 2009 2:12 PM, PDT
| JustPressPlay.net
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When referring to a movie that nabbed a second life, typically home video is the savior. There are countless movies that didn’t fare well in their original theatrical runs but have earned a so-called second life thanks to profitable video sales and rentals that make them much stronger than they ever were when they first arrived. Examples of this trend vary greatly, whether you’re referring to genre, era, proliferation (or magnitude of the “second life”) and, of course, how deserving it is. Most that get a boost long after its premiere got where it is now slowly, spread wide by word of mouth and critical re-analysis. Most of them were not well received during the initial run, and many are re-evaluated, and mistakes are mended. Among them: 2001, The Princess Bride, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Big Lebowski, Fight Club, Office Space and Dazed and Confused. These
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- Matt Medlock
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Howard the Duck on DVD
15 February 2009 11:08 PM, PST
| www.canmag.com
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I suppose a Blu Ray of this movie would be too much to ask, as it's taken the entire 12 years of the format to even arrive on DVD. At least they put together a respectable selection of extras.
On DVD: Howard the Duck
They give a very honest account of the studio and critical reception of the film, including how the title became a punchline until the likes of Hudson Hawk replaced it, to be followed by Last Action Hero and Cutthroat Island. There may be a tad of revisionist history as they recall viewers warming up to it. I'm not sure they ever did but there's no defensiveness.
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19 articles from 2009
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