Harry Potter press release 31/03/2011

STARS OF HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWSTM – PART 1 TO MEET FANS AT HMV OXFORD ST AHEAD OF THE FILM’S BLU-RAY™ AND DVD RELEASE



To celebrate the eagerly anticipated release of Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsTM – Part 1 on Blu-ray and DVD, HMV and Warner Home Video have teamed up to deliver a spectacular treat to the series’ dedicated fans.


On 10th April, from 4pm, fans* will come face-to-face with some of the heroes from Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsTM – Part 1 as they make a very special personal appearance at HMV, 150 Oxford Street, London.

Warwick Davies (Filius Flitwick / Griphook) will be joined at the store by Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom), Natalia Tena (Nymphadora Tonks) and Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood) to celebrate the release of the penultimate film on Blu-ray and DVD, with all attendees able to have their Blu-ray copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows™ – Part 1 signed by the stars.

Out on Blu-ray and DVD on 11 April, 2011 from Warner Home Video, the ensemble cast is back for the seventh and penultimate installment of the record-breaking franchise based on the best-selling book series by J.K. Rowling.

The Blu-ray disc of Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsTM – Part 1 will feature Warner Bros. Maximum Movie Mode, an interactive viewing experience that examines the entire film with such features as Focus Points, Picture-in-Picture, photo galleries and more. Additionally, there is a host of superb extra features. The HMV exclusive Blu-ray has an additional disc with behind the scenes feature ‘Behind the Magic’.

Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsTM – Part 1 will be also available as a two-disc DVD. Harry Potter™ box sets on both Blu-ray and DVD and featuring all seven films released in the franchise to date will also be released on 11 April, 2011.

Due to time constraints access to the queue at HMV Oxford St will be strictly limited. Wristbands will be issued from 10am on the day of the event from the store on a first come first served basis, no reservations, one wristband per person only.

Source Code: Video Special part 2

Kiss


'Love Story' Featurette

The Mist

How did they get away with that ending!?

Lover: Taken from IMDB
“Let me take a breath... Never have I had such a visceral physical reaction to a film... ever. Not even with Elem Klimov's Come and See. In the last fifteen minutes I was nearly physically paralyzed, and then started shaking, realizing how numb my body was... and I am dead serious. Frank Darabont's adaptation of Stephen King's novella goes heads above a 50s/60s monster movie homage. This is grade "A" chilling, terrifying, unsettling and utterly hopeless cinema in line with the most cynical and depressing classics from the 70s. The Mist itself and the monsters it brings are just the appetizer here. As all good horror should be, this explores the ultimate enemy, ourselves. In short one of the most beautiful, thrilling and terrible times I've had at the movies. To elaborate, it isn't a pitch perfect film... Some of the CGI at the beginning is weak, and there are a few lines that can't escape the genre, but other than that this is a home run in every department - The performances (especially from Toby Jones and Marcia Gay Harden), the ingenious hand held camera, which is never used as a gimmick. The sound design, the lack of an underscore... This lends to the great atmosphere and tension Darabont builds. I'm sure you can guess by now this isn't schmaltzy, sentimental Darabont here; this is an angry, maniacal man that rears his head and shouts, "Everything is lost!" and then shoots you in the gut. Any fan of Stephen King, The Twilight Zone or Ray Bradbury, will greedily devour this with a great big grin on their face, then feel very sick but so damn happy and then throw up. Best film of the year yet.”

A great review, maybe a bit over the top with how scary it was for some people. I have to say though that I agree with him, I knew nothing about this film when seeing it and a lot of the horrific moments and that ending have stayed with me since watching.

Hater: Taken from IMDB
“Better than the fog?... The Carpenter original?... Hell NO. With factory molded characters, bad CGI and unimaginative creature designs, you have your average bad TV movie, and yeah the ONLY Christian character is bat-poo crazy and Token Black Guy and his band of Ethnics don't trust Whitey... cue spurious amounts of patronising moralising tabloid level garbage (that is 'thought provoking' in the same way that carpet bombing is accurate..) This ends in the oh so obvious deaths you fully expect so far so bad TV movie all the way up to the very end. And then whoever made this decides finally to 'be creative' and makes such a miserable, downbeat, depressing, foul, evil minded ending that like the 'token Christian zealot' you will desire a sacrifice. It basically takes the hero forces him against type, forces him to destroy everything he lives for... and then in a continuity plot hole that Paul W S Anderson would orgasm over; suddenly 'the cavalry arrives' and all the evil misty stuff vanishes in the face of the 'lean, mean green machine' and its 'mist clearing flamethrowers(TM)' every one who sided with 'evil' lives and the hero is left a shattered ruined broken man with nothing to live for... and your left with a profound sense of joy.. Oh...er... sorry; I mean severe clinical depression.”

This is a bit harsh, labelling the characters ‘factory moulded’, what about the store assistant manager who is a crack hand with a gun or the grizzly old lady who’s more than willing to get her hands dirty. I think this person got to the end and like me was a bit depressed at how the director decided to end it, he’s then applied that whole feeling to the rest labelling what actually is a very effective horror and comment on society as a “TV Movie”. It’s over the top and unfair, The Mist is a fairly hopeless movie but not every film has to have a happy ending!

What I thought:
I went into watching The Mist knowing only one thing that the ending would blow me away. Well it did and here’s what I thought of the rest before I get to that ending! The first thing that struck me was effective build of tension, from the creeping mist down the mountain to soldiers, fire trucks and police driving by. It’s effective without needing any obvious clichés like radio news reports or really tense music. By the time the mist creeps over the car park of the super market and a local has come screaming in with a bloody nose, you should be hooked.

It’s at this point where I have a complaint; the first death scene featuring the Sherminator from American Pie is a bit messy. It’s mostly because the CGI in this sequence is the most questionable in the whole film. It is however only a blemish on what is a very scary film, scary not just in the sequences that involve the blood thirsty creatures but when the mirror is put up to the audience. We are shown a side of humanity most people gratefully will probably never have to see when all morals go out of the window! As one of the characters states when a human faces their mortality they will turn to anything that offers a solution.

It’s a grim reality and most of these scenes are so tense it’s hard to keep watching, some of the creature scenes are vastly effective to, from the spiders to bigger creatures in the mist, all brilliant. The of course is THAT ending, there is no way around it and it has to be mentioned. It is one of the bravest endings you will ever see and how the studio let them do it is beyond me! Bravo to them however because despite it being extremely melancholy it will blow you away and only top off what is supposed to be a pretty miserable movie anyway!

Source Code: Video Special

What is the Source Code? Featurette



What would you do? Clip

The Three Musketeers: New Trailer

It looks good but i'd put money on it being awful!

The Breakfast Club

Before the gross out teen comedies there was…

Lover: Taken from IMDB
“For many, John Hughes' The Breakfast Club showed what teenagers felt like in the 80's. It showed that no matter what background or what cliques you come from, we have all problems. This movie deals with a lot of tough subjects such as suicide, child abuse, divorce, competitive parents, and not being noticed at home. The film starts out as four different teenagers from four different backgrounds stuck in Saturday detention who find out more about each other as the film moves along. The characters include rebel John Bender, memorably played by Judd Nelson. Wrestler Andrew Clark (Emilio Estevez), nerd Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall), rich girl Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald), and loner Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy). Throughout one day, there are required to write about why they are in detention and how they see them themselves as people. Unlike most of Hughes' body of work, this film goes into some dark territory. The entire movie is like a watching a play. When you finally hear halfway throughout the movie why the following people are in detention, the reasons are believable. Many of these kids' family have parents who don't understand them and at the end of the movie, we know that these problems can't just be resolved by the end of the movie. The issues also make you sympathize with the characters. The film also has excellent acting such as the scene-stealing Paul Gleason as Richard Vernon, the man in charge of the detention. With memorable characters and excellent music, this is another great piece of work from John Hughes and one of the best movies of the 80's.”

The Breakfast Club is brilliant not just in the way it portrayed teens in the 80’s but in the way it portrayed teens. In this example it is a timeless teen comedy!

Hater: Taken from IMDB
“Oh, God! What an unbearable, agonizing film! This entire movie consists of a bunch of whiny rich kids (and Judd Nelson) complaining about how much their parents suck. For the ENTIRE MOVIE! Some of these kids' insurmountable problems include "taping a man's buttocks together and pulling some of the buttock hair off," I think (obviously traumatizing the young man) and "not being able to make a lamp in shop class" (but, isn't that a bit advanced for shop class? I mean, you need to know about electricity to make a lamp). Oh, the sorrow! Emilio Estevez crying while recounting the story of taping another man's ass-cheeks together is truly one of the low points of cinema. This is all expressed using consistently overwritten, verbose, completely unrealistic dialogue that sounds like it was written by a forty-year-old pretending to understand how teenagers speak (which is almost every movie ever made about high-school). Combined with the gaudy 80's fashions and music, this film makes for one truly unpleasant viewing experience. Really, I don't understand the attraction middle-aged people have to making films about high-school; it almost always just seems like they're desperately trying to be hip and appealing to teenagers, or living out some demented teenage fantasy where they weren't dorks in H.S. and part of the in-crowd (and getting laid), as though it actually mattered. High-school is a day care center where beleaguered parents send their hellspawn so they don't have to deal with them for seven hours, NOT an institution of higher-learning; it is not an environment that fosters critical thinking (and with good reason - too many people thinking leads to governments being overthrown). Who gives a crap about popularity and the in-crowd? Listening to these kids' "problems" made me want to pound a nail into my skull. Also, the principal character in this movie is a complete a**hole. He should have been suspended without pay for abusing the students. And I HATED the ending, where the individualistic Goth girl is made over (into what looks like a china-doll) and effectively is now allowed to hang out with the popular students. Gah!”

Me thinks someone is a little bitter about their high school days, I’d like to know the age of the person who wrote this? The 40-year-olds they are talking about were also teenagers at one point and would have had an idea of what we all feel and think about when we are going through that stage in our life.

What I thought:
Teen comedies have all but dried up, the reason most have failed miserably is that they all seem more interested in gross out comedy and gratuitous boob shots. What they should be focusing on is the teens themselves, Think about that time in your life, regardless of who you were at school you were bound to have some kind adolescent issue and more than likely they would stem from your home life. No other Teen comedy has done this as good or as poignantly as The Breakfast Club.

For one thing it is dialogue heavy, most modern teen comedies do away with heartfelt monologues from lonely Goths or confused jocks. Instead we are left with cheap one liners and visual gags that could make you gag or turn on the pubescent boy who hasn’t discovered porn. It’s a great shame as John Hughes postcard to the youth of his day proves, the film is teeming with depth, characterisation and above all kids you care about.

Learning how and why these kids got into detention are the best parts of the movie, every character gets their chance and every one shines. So what if some of their revelations can seem quit trivial, who are we to judge? Part of being a teenager is blowing things out of proportion and being over dramatic. Some however have every reason to be the criminal or Goth and learning how and why is touching and very well acted. Learning about these High School typecasts you’ll find yourself in one of them, if anyone is interested I’m the nerd without the intelligence! It’s in that very clear line between the stereotypes where The Breakfast Club is most influential, these ‘types’ of kids were around before but never like this.

One final point, The Breakfast club does have one gross out point with a bit of dandruff and even a bit of subtle sexuality thrown in. However these elements are not what the films is about and only add to what is not just a seminal teen movie but a seminal 80’s movie, which features that song from American Pie…

Kick Ass

Couldn’t put it better than the title itself!

Lover: Taken from IMDB
“I saw the previews for this and thought this was going to be one of those slapstick stupid comedy movies (Superbad, Super Hero Movie). I came on IMDb and saw the rating and the reviews and I thought I'd reconsider after doing some research on this. I was very wrong with my initial assessment. Yes, there's some teen comedic elements to this movie, but the movie flowed perfectly. Great Soundtrack, great fight scenes, acting was good, story was great and original. With a current IMDb rating of 8.3 as I write this, look's like I'm not alone on how I rated this movie. Show stealer was definitely Hit Girl. I foresee her having a huge career. Possibly the next Natalie Portman. Reminded me of Natalie's role in Leon. Which leads me to my next point. Unless you're into comic books, video games, in your teens/20's/30's and don't have a young kid, you might be taken aback that a little 11 year old girl is killing people and using bad words. For those that gave this a bad review because of that, do some research on a movie before you go see something that you think you won't like. I hate musicals and I'm not going to pay 10 bucks to see High School Musical and then come in here and complain that there was too much singing and dancing. It's clearly geared at a older teen/young adult audience and is rated R, what did you expect. In closing, one of the most entertaining films I've ever seen.”

A good review and very well pointed out about bad reviews for the 11 year old girl killing an swearing like a trooper!

Hater: Taken from IMDB
“I created an account just to give this movie the worst rating that I could possibly give it. Here are the reasons that first came to mind as to why this movie is a glittering jewel of everything that is wrong with popular culture. 1) Needless, unentertaining, uncreative and horribly graphic violence. 2) Needless, pathetic-attempts-at-being-funny sexual content. 3) Needless, excessive, pathetic-attempts-at-being-funny language (especially coming from a little girl). 4) Shallow, flimsy, and pathetically strung-together plot. 5) Next-to-zero character development. Oh, my goodness... it is painful just to try and remember this film. I feel ashamed that Nicolas Cage would be in this movie. I find the lack of any redeeming value in this movie to be staggering. I swear that my grades have dropped just because of the brain cells killed during the watching of this movie.”

Created an account to write a review that has no use to anyone!? Has helpfully put what they hated about the film in a numbered list, however did not feel that he had to justify any of the completely wrong opinions he has!

What I thought:
Kick Ass was a hit of Adrenaline to comic book movies, before it we had hyper realism of The Dark Knight storming the box office or Iron Man showing how you could do it fun and not even get the curse of that first movie. What we have with Kick Ass is an original piece which plays with the genre but not in a “Superhero movie” way. It pokes fun by having its protagonist basically just being good at getting his ass kicked and has you cheer on a lethal 11 year old girl who slices and dices without remorse and sais the c word!

It’s not hard to see how some people might find that uncomfortable viewing material, however it’s just that kind of film. All the writing about how offensive the film could be and it has an 18 rating. If you don’t like being offended by your movies then why bother watching Kick Ass! Aaron Johnson completely convinces as the all-American comic book nerd, his process of becoming Kick-Ass is very well thought out and planned you could almost seeing it happen for real. Via some comic book wizardry of a car accident and damaged nerve endings, hence the fact he can take a kick in; he becomes a super hero unlike any other.

With this outlook it’s a refreshing movie, the lighter side as a comic book nerd who is more than willing to abuse his super hero status to get the girl. Then there is the adrenaline I mentioned and the real heroes in this film, Firstly Nicholas Cage brings out his rarely seen a-game for this, channelling Adam Wests' Batman for Big Daddy. It’s a fantastic performance, not to mention bloody funny in all the right places. His relationship with his daughter though maybe a little psychotic is heart wrenching and well thought out. Of course the daughter in question is the main talking point in this film, Chloe Mortez is a revelation. Naughty words and blood baths aside she is completely brilliant as the naïve daughter treating the killing and what her father has taught her as a game. Of course this makes her a very efficient killer, you will surprise yourself as you find yourself cheering her on but of course in the end even she needs some help.

Acting aside it’s just a well-crafted piece of cinema, wonderfully written and directed, just wish they would hurry up and get Kick Ass 2 under way!

Your Highness: R Rated trailer

This looks really funny, favourite part? Triangle Face, never Triangle Face it scares me!

Jack Falls, Behind the scenes

Behind the scenes of Jack Falls

Attack the Block: Trailer

This looks the nuts! innit!

Fancy being a Nazi Zombie?

Prepare to be Scared is holding a casting call for its male fans to send one lucky person and a friend to the set of ‘Outpost 2: Black Sun’ to be Nazi Zombie extras in the film!

The winners will be sent to the set in Glasgow for the final day of the film’s shoot on Sunday 3rd April, and both be given a full zombie makeover, with costume, to take part in their scene.

In order to be considered, fans must upload a photo of themselves to the Prepare to be Scared Facebook page with the photo tag “I want to be a zombie in Outpost 2!” and get their friends to comment under the photo. The call closes at 5pm on Wednesday 30th March, and the person with the most unique user comments under their picture wins the part!

Just click here to enter Outpost 2: Black Sun

TT3D: Closer to the Edge, Trailer

Looks really good.

Cold Warrior, they need your help...

Cold Warrior - producers' intro from Al Clark on Vimeo.

It's nice to see other imaginative ways of film makers raising funds for projects, i covered a film last year that did it in a very similar way by selling credits through eBay. What i like about this and if you've watched the video above you'll know; is that by raising the funds themselves like this, the artistic integrity of the Director does not have to be at stake, not to mention the harsh message behind the film itself.

If you want to hear more about this project or you want to help then please follow the link bellow.

Cold Warrior

Rio meets Angry Birds

New film Rio takes on Angry Bids and all you lucky I-phone users can download the game!

Submarine press release

SUBMARINE ACHIEVES THE HIGHEST SCREEN AVERAGE IN THE UK MARKET PLACE FROM ITS OPENING WEEKEND.

AMAZING WORD OF MOUTH AND POSITIVE REVIEWS WILL MEAN CINEMA SITES WILL INCREASE THIS WEEKEND FROM 59 TO OVER 100, FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE BRITISH COMEDY HIT FOUR LIONS

Optimum Releasing and the filmmakers involved were thrilled to find out that Submarine achieved the highest screen average of all the films opening over the weekend. The good figures have been helped by glowing reviews and good excellent word of mouth. Submarine has had huge support and been very well reviewed through social networking sites. Supporters on twitter include Russell Brand, Katy Perry, Charlie Brooker, Edith Bowman & Paloma Faith. This weekend there are hopes to expand from 59 cinema sites to nearly 100.

Submarine is the hotly anticipated feature film debut from writer/director Richard Ayoade (‘Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace’, ‘IT Crowd’). An adaptation of Joe Dunthorne’s novel, Submarine stars Noah Taylor (Shine), Paddy Considine (Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee, ‘Red Riding’), Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige and Golden Globe winner Sally Hawkins (Happy Go Lucky). A Warp films production in association with Red Hour Films, Submarine is produced by Andy Stebbing (Kicks), Mark Herbert (This is England) and Mary Burke (A Complete History of My Sexual Failures).