Welcome to The Extras! A daily dose of all the smaller movie related news, clips and just plain cool stuff that you might have missed!
This weekend past saw the birthday of iconic 80’s film writer, director and producer, John Hughes. Hughes passed away in 2009, but the indelible legacy he left behind will never stop being cherished by millions. (Just recently one of his creations, Ferris Bueller was resurrected by actor Matthew Broderick for Super Bowl)
His work never fails to invoke a massive sense of nostalgia in me and for many the world over it’s the same.
We will always miss you Mr. Hughes. RIP.
It’s a well documented fact that I have a greasy and empty popcorn box where my heart should be, yet even I couldn’t help but throw in an “AWWWWWWW” or two at this story. 7 Year old Matthew Grammer was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2009, and for his Make-A-Wish Foundation request, he wanted nothing more than to be R2-D2 from Star Wars. And the guys from Little Mountain Productions made it happen:
Well, gosh darn it, that’s just about the coolest thing I’ve seen in ages. And in case you were wondering, young Matthew has been responding well to chemo and his family is optimistic that he will have to go for his final treatment soon.
Disney’s John Carter is a film that I am stupidly excited for. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ story is to science-fiction what Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is to fantasy. So it stands to reason that everybody is just chomping at the bit to see it, right? Right?!
Unfortunately, according to the latest tracking results by Disney, just the opposite is true. The female half of the demographic is just outright not interested in the film, with many other demographics showing levels of ambivalence. Obviously these are all just projections and will likely change once it opens and word of mouth spreads, especially if the film turns out to be as good as early buzz dictates, but this is still very disheartening.
If these pre-release levels of disinterest are reflected in ticket sales, then there are talks that Disney may be looking to lose $100 million on this film. That right there is a big chunk of cheese.
If you’ve been regular reader of this column, then you’ll realize that if there are two things that I love, it’s LEGO and classic Science-Fiction. And when you combine the two, just like Legohaulic did for his LEGO Blade Runner designs, well then I’m in all kinds of geeky nirvana.
I can’t wait to show my future children my homicidal android stripper in a see-through trench coat LEGO figure.
Joss Whedon is a vampire and he has not slept since Firefly ended. This is the most logical explanation that I can come up with for the fact while making the mother-flipping Avengers, he has still somehow found the time to do 2 other movies. First it was his Much Ado About Nothing adaptation with Nathan Fillion, and then it was revealed that he has also been doing a supernatural romance entitled, In Your Eyes. And now, according to Deadline he has found his two leads for that project in Zoe Kazahn (Revolution Road) and Michael Stahl-David (Cloverfield).
In the film Stahl-David plays Dylan, an ex-con living in New Mexico, while Kazahn is Rebecca, a Connecticut woman married to a much older doctor. They have never met, yet they can somehow see and hear each other.
So, sorta like Facebook then, just without the annoying game notifications and ex-girlfriend stalkers.
Speaking of Joss Whedon’s Avengers, there’s a new still image out, courtesy of CBM scanning it in from the latest Empire Magazine. We don’t really learn much new from this image except that Black Widow is a natural power-walker, Hawkeye is suffering from Angry Short Man syndrome and that Captain America’s helmet looks really, REALLY dumb when viewed straight on.
I give it 20 minutes before some random explosion/kick/Hulk flatulence conveniently dislodges it.
The first film clip from The Amazing Spider-Man is out and I’d be outright lying if I told you that there was anything of interest to be seen in it. Maybe Sony are firm believers of that old adage “saving the best for last” and so thus are giving us the converse of that rule in this meh-tastic first scene. In the scene, Peter Parker talks to a guy and the guy talks back. That’s it. That’s the entire clip. Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself, but just note we here at TheMovies.co.za do not offer refunds on minutes of life lost:
Maybe we’ve all got it wrong and Sony is actually pulling off the most devious of marketing campaigns. They release a clip so utterly worthless, that it sets the internet aflame with people raging about its inanity, and then when they next release a clip, even if it shows a scene that’s even slightly interesting, we’ll all herald it as the second coming. Tricksy hobbitses.
I was recently told that by one of our readers that my never-ending hatred of the Twilight franchise is too… well, never-ending. As a response, I promised that I will be reining in my sparkle-fueled teeth-gnashing and fist-pumping a bit.
Well, today I’m doing more than just reining it in. I’m coming out to declare my allegiance to Team Edward!
You can actually buy that Team Edward T-Shirt over HERE!
Well, that’s all we have time for today folks. Speaking of time, no you are not stuck in some time dilation field. Today’s Extras post is indeed a whopping 2.5 hours late, but there is a very good reason for this. You see, today I endured torture of the most malignant variety, a punishment to make even old Behelzebub himself quiver in fear: Murderously Slow Internet.
Damn, just thinking about it is giving me cold chills again.
Last Updated: February 20, 2012
