Rama's Screen

This is not an April Fools’ joke, this true info has been going around the web for the last few hours. Via hitflix, a near finished DVD=rip of the upcoming X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE was leaked online today. The movie won’t hit theaters until May 1st, 2009 and bad news for Fox, people can now watch the workprint on several kinds of websites out there. Good quality too, marred only by a few unfinished FX shots.
Will it hurt the film? Possibly, but it will definitely hurt 20th Century Fox in a significant financial manner. I’ve always wanted to see Fox get what it deserves for being such a d*ck this past year, and having one of its biggest movies of the year spoiled like this is, thus causing the studio to lose money, is like the perfect payback.
That said, I don’t support piracy but I’m not going to chastice the douchebag who leaked this movie for the world to see either. Well, sucks to be Fox right now.

Do you remember that Michael Bay commercial where he demands things to be awesome and things just start freakishly exploding to pieces around him? He wasn’t f*ing around.. when Bay asks you for something awesome, you better give him nothing less than awesome because that is the only language he understands.

You wanna know how anal he could be when it comes to all things awesome? Visual FX Supervisor for both Transformers movies, Scott Farrar revealed to Variety recently of how challenging the process and how massive the second movie is compared to the previous installment..

“Michael took the production value up many, many notches,” he says. “Just the backgrounds alone are huge. It’s a combination of ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Ben-Hur,’ in regards to fantastic backgrounds and the unbelievable sets we worked at around the world.”

Everyone involved in “Revenge of the Fallen” is keeping the details under wraps, but Farrar says there are some 60 robot characters, and they play in settings around the world. Some, like refineries at night, were chosen to boost the visual drama and show off the scale of the giant ‘bots.

What’s more, this time the Transformers will interact much more with the world around them. Farrar highlights “the splashes and the hits and the fighting on dirt or moving, banging into trees,” explaining, “Things splinter and break, they spit, they outgas, they sweat, they snort.”

The difference is.. Apocalypse Now and Ben-Hur had great storylines.. you don’t go to watch Transformers movies for the storyline.
The article went on to also say that this particular project has one new challenge..”several sequences will be shown in Imax format, approximately 16 times larger than 35mm, which means the CG work must be finished at much higher resolution. At that scale, it can take several days to render a final frame”
With all the pain, sweat, blood, tears that the VFX people have to go through for this, not to mention a very demanding boss like Bay, this movie better be the motherload of all things awesome!

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN opens June 24th, 2009

MySpace has the new trailer for THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123. (Check out the previous trailer) a Tony Scott-directed thriller remake, starring Denzel Washington as the good guy, duh! And John Travolta as the bad guy, also another duh! And somewhere in between.. John Turturro, Luis Guzman and James Gandolfini get to join the action. I’m thinking this movie might become a sleeper hit, the one that people underestimate and it suddenly sneakes up around the corner and steals the money.
This is going to be one helluva subway ride!

Washington plays New York City subway dispatcher Walter Garber, whose ordinary day is thrown into chaos by an audacious crime: the hijacking of a subway train. Travolta stars as Ryder, the criminal mastermind who, as leader of a highly-armed gang of four, threatens to execute the train’s passengers unless a large ransom is paid within one hour. As the tension mounts beneath his feet, Garber employs his vast knowledge of the subway system in a battle to outwit Ryder and save the hostages. But there’s one riddle Garber can’t solve: even if the thieves get the money, how can they possibly escape?

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 opens June 12th, 2009

D’oh! According to HollywoodReporter, U.S. Postal Service will launch The Simpsons later this year.  But don’t use the stamp to mail your letter to Springfield.. because there are so many Springfields in the U.S. of A, Homer’s hometown could any one of those.
The image above isn’t an official example of the stamp, that one was from Worth1000.com contest but it looks pretty cool though, nice effort!

The design for the actual upcoming The Simpsons stamp is masterminded by the show’s creator Matt Groening who by the way we should thank for bringing us the iconic family for the past 20 years and counting.
The 44-cent first-class mail stamps will feature Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson. It’s about time they get this type of recognition.
Curious to see what it looks like?.. well hold your horses because a sneak peek will be unveiled on April 9th and you can bet your culos you’ll see it here too.

Speaking of The Simpsons, I went on THE SIMPSONS THE RIDE at Universal Studios the other day and it was absolutely thrilling, way better than BTTF The Ride which is what it used to be was before the change.
My only complaint is that right outside the building, there isn’t any kind of Simpsons restaurant, they should’ve built a Krusty Burger place right next to it.

According to Hollywoodreporter, funnyman Will Arnett and Oscar nominee Michael Shannon have joined the cast of JONAH HEX, a movie adaptation based on the DC Comics character, to be directed by Jimmy Hawyward.
Josh Brolin plays the scarred, rough-and-tumble gunslinger bounty hunter tracking a voodoo practitioner (John Malkovich) who wants to raise an army of undead to liberate the South
Megan Fox plays Leila, a gun-wielding beauty and love interest of Hex

Will Arnett will play a Union soldier who enlists Hex and is blindsided by the dirty fighting style of his enemies. If you think he’s going to be the comic-relief in this movie, better think again because the report says that his role “not inherently comic”
I think Arnett’s actual hilarious days are behind him back in the short-lived series Arrested Development, after that, the gigs he’s been doing to make us laugh.. failed one after another.

Michael Shannon was brilliant Revolutionary Road, too bad he had to be nominated in the same year as Heath Ledger’s THE JOKER because otherwise Shannon would’ve snubbed that Oscar easily. In JONAH HEX, Shannon will play Doc Cross Williams, the bizarre ringleader of a brutal gladiator circus event. They’re already planning on having his character show up for the sequel.. wow there you go! The S word.. for “sequels” they don’t even know if the first movie’s going to bank money and yet they already unleashed the S word..Hollywood is unfreakin’believable!

JONAH HEX opens August 6th, 2010

More and more of this starts showing up these days, people who want to make a movie based on a book that’s already made into a movie before but they want to do the book justice instead of simply working on a remake.
According to Variety, the dude behind The OC, Gossip Girl and he also writes the script for X-Men: First Class, Josh Schwartz is going to make his directorial debut by putting his own spin on the novel BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY by author Jay McInerny about the tragicomedy of a young man in NYC, struggling with the reality of his mother’s death, alienation and the seductive pull of drugs
It was previously made into a movie back in 1988 starring Kiefer Sutherland and Michael J. Fox and the 80s hottie Phoebe Cates.

* Here’s the trailer for the 1988 Bright Light, Big City

I admit, the title above sounds a exaggerated,.. the fact is WB or any studio for that matter, didn’t fire Steve Carell .. because let’s face it, he’s one of the hottest commodities today when it comes to comedy.
The right info is according to Variety, WB has bought the rights to the novel DUMPED by author Andrew Gottlieb about a man searching for new meaning in his life after his wife abruptly files for divorce.
Steve Carell will play the lead and Vic Levin will write the adapted screenplay.
Judging from the plot, Carell is the right man for the job, considering how well he did with drama/comedy in Little Miss Sunshine and Dan In Real Life.

In the same article, it also reveals that Carell’s The Office co-star Ed Helms who plays Andy Bernard in the series and can be seen in the upcoming comedy The Hangover, will also have his own movie and Carell’s production company CAROUSEL is going to help make the project happen.
Helms and Jacob Feischer wrote the script about a Civil War reenactor/history buff who gets accidentally transported back to the Civil War with three buddies who have to find a way home without altering history. Interesting concept.
We’ll see if Ed Helms has what it takes be the next comedy star.

Pineapple Express was one of my favorite comedy movies last year, not nearly as outrageous as Tropic Thunder but Seth Rogen and James Franco are our generation’s Cheech and Chong, plus the sight of Danny McBride crawling out of a burning building got me laughing so hard I almost shat my pants.

According to Variety, the laughter continues as James Franco, Danny McBride will reunite along with their Pineapple Express director David Gordon Green for another comedy movie titled YOUR HIGHNESS

Rogen and Goldberg didn’t write this one.. as a matter of fact, the brains behind YOUR HIGHNESS are Danny McBride and his Foot Fist Way co-star Ben Best a.k.a Chuck The Truck. Now that itself is a good enough reason to be all hyped up about this.
The story is about two spoiled and arrogant princes in a medieval fantasy setting, forced to go on a quest to save their family and the kingdom after an evil wizard casts a spell on their father and kidnaps the older prince’s fiance.

I vote for Ben Best as the evil Wizard, that would rock socks off!

I’m not a fan of Entertainment Tonight but this past evening I caught an episode and it featured the new photoshoot of the cast and director of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS that will be part of the May issue of Vanity Fair magazine.
I tried to look for those photos online but they haven’t been released yet. Thanks to TarantinoArchives for the screenshots above. Check out the promo vibrant video below after the jump

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Paul Dano and Ed Asner in GIGANTIC

This past weekend I had the honor of interviewing the great Mr. Ed Asner. He’s a TV legend due to his many years as the character Lou Grant but some of you who are today’s generation might recognize him as Santa Claus in Will Ferrell’s comedy Elf, and you can hear his voice this summer in Pixar’s next animated movie UP as Carl Frederickson.
But Ed Asner will also be in GIGANTIC (check out my review) which will open in select cities on April 3rd, 2009.
I interviewed the director, Matt Aselton and now Ed Asner. I love this job! We had a great chat and here’s what went down. Thanks to Specialopsmedia for making this possible.

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