Final The Dark Knight Rises Trailer out
I think Dark Knight Rises is the movie I am most excited about this summer, with the possible exception of The Avengers that is coming out this week. This final trailer certainly makes me all the more excited for the movie.
A great look at Aaron Sorkin and his new HBO show Newsroom
Cast of HBO’s Newsroom
Vanity Fair has up a great piece on Aaron Sorkin and his new HBO show Newsroom that will be premiering Sunday, June 24, 2012. The piece is on the longer side, but I enjoy that when it is on a subject I enjoy. The article gives you a great sense both in terms of the way Sorkin works and what the new show Newsroom will be like. Here is one quote on one reason Sorkin creates TV shows:
Sorkin, who has been criticized for credit hogging—most often, the television writing process is highly collaborative—defended his method. “I create these shows so that I can write them,” he said flatly. “I’m not an empire builder. I’m not interested in just producing. All I want to do is write. I came up as a playwright—writing is something you do by yourself in a room.
“That said, I couldn’t possibly write the show without that room full of people. I go in there, and we kick around ideas. I’m writing about all kinds of things I don’t know anything about. So they do research for me.” Argument ensues. And, for Sorkin, happiness. “I come from a family of lawyers, all smarter than I am,” he said. “I grew up really enjoying the sound of intelligence and the sound of a great argument, and wanting to imitate that sound.”
This next quote is a bit obvious sense can tell from the shows he has created but still gives some insight into why he creates the shows he does:
“I really like workplace shows,” he continued. “I like creating workplace families, and writing about people who are very good at what they do, and less good at everything else.”
Finally a quote about the way Sorkin writes the way he does, which as he as says himself, he is wordy:
“I’m pretty wordy when I write,” Sorkin said, putting it pretty mildly. In an era when images have largely muscled out words, and much film and television dialogue feels like a succession of one- (or half-) liners, Sorkin’s scripts hark back to the passionately idealistic, speech-rich screenplays Robert Riskin wrote for Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Meet John Doe. Actors love him for it—it gives them more screen time, after all, and a chance to really strut their stuff. In return, there’s a price to pay.
via Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom: Sneak Peek at the New HBO Show | Hollywood | Vanity Fair.
There is many more interesting things in the article so make sure to check it out. In the end the article certainly helps keep my enthusiasm for Sorkin’s new show high.
The Dramatic Success of Apple’s iPad.
I think this quick quote really helps show the dramatic success Apple’s iPad has been.
Apple sold 11.8 million iPads during the quarter, more than double the number it sold last year. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, helped put this in perspective during the company’s earnings call.“Just two years after we shipped the initial iPad, we sold 67 million,” he said. “It took us 24 years to sell that many Macs, and five years for that many iPods, and over three years for that many iPhones.”
via Tim Cook Spells Out the Rapid Growth of Apples iPad - NYTimes.com.
American Reunion Movie Review
I had the chance last week to go to an advance screening of the newest film in the American Pie franchise, American Reunion. Overall I greatly enjoyed it. I laughed more than I have at a comedy in a long time.
I think possibly part of the reason I enjoyed it so much, is that because I am the roughly the same age group as the characters in the film. The film is built around the groups high school reunion, their 10 year reunion just happening a few years late. Next year (2013) will be 10 years since I have graduated from high school so I am at a similar point in my life. The things the characters are going through I am either experiencing or seeing my friends experience. For these reasons the things that happen in the story make me more apt to relate to the film to a certain degree.
With taking that into account, this movie is still at its heart another American Pie film, the characters are now just a bit older and facing different problems, but they have not changed drastically, but the natural evolution that you might expect at their current age. The movie still has what I would call American Pie humor, some of the low brow humor and sex jokes the films are known for. To me in the end if you liked the other films in the series, American Pie, American Pie 2, and American Wedding I bet you would enjoy this film overall. This could be that since I have not seen the other three main films in the series for a while, but I think American Reunion could be the best of the series so far to me. I just don’t remembering laughing as much during the other three movies as I did in American Reunion.
If you could not tell I would certainly recommend seeing this film if you are in the mood for a good comedy.
Game Of Thrones what’s new in season 2
Here are two great videos to help get you ready for Game of Thrones season 2. If you are looking for a good primer on what will be new season two of Game Of Thrones these will certainly help. One that introduces several of the new characters that we will see in the second season. The second video is of the new locations that we will be seeing in the new season. I am repeating myself in saying this, but these videos certainly help in making me excited for the new season that is coming on April 1st.
If you are looking for a good primer on what will be new in season two of Game Of Thrones these will certainly help.
Embracing IMAX for 2D and not 3D
An article over at Movieline.com talks about how “more and more evidence suggests that audiences are both showing a preference for IMAX and happily forgoing often-reviled 3-D visuals.”
Personally for me if a movie films scenes with IMAX cameras to take advantage of the bigger picture it can offer, like Christopher Nolan did with the Dark Knight did, I am more willing to pay for that experience than I am with 3D. For me I don’t see 3D as a big attraction or something that I care to spend the extra money on . While 3D can add some value to movies, overall it just does not add enough to a movie where I would regularly pay the higher 3D ticket price for that experience.
IMAX to me I think can add enough value when the film makers film at least part of their movies using IMAX cameras, some of the recent examples of that are Dark Knight like I mentioned and Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol. The more immersive world they can create normally for action scenes to me is overall normally worth the extra price if I am already interested in the movie. While I don’t always choose the IMAX screening I certainly normally consider it in the movies that take proper advantage of it. To truly see what IMAX filmed scenes can bring to a movie see the picture below and how much more detail IMAX brought to the screen.
Image via Slashfilm.com
This part from the article has some good stats on performance of 3D vs 2D showings of the movie The Lorax. (Emphasis mine)
Other telling statistics came with the hit film The Lorax, whose hefty $70 million opening far exceeded expectations. Industry investment analyst Richard Greenfield found that while 3-D screens represented a nearly two-to-one majority of The Lorax’s theater count, the grosses expose a nearly even split between 2-D and 3-D. The per-screen average shows that more money was made in conventional screenings, a stunning figure once you factor in the inflated 3-D ticket prices. That breakdown means that while 60 percent of the screenings were displayed in 3-D, 60 percent of the audience watched in 2-D.
via The IMAX Old Wave: How Audiences and Filmmakers Are Embracing the 2-D Mega-Screen - Movieline.
As that helps show I am not the only one that prefers 2D over 3D whether for cost reasons or if people just don’t like 3D itself. It will be interesting to see if and how this trend continues in the future both in terms of movies filming at least partly with IMAX cameras and how prevalent 3D movies stay in the next few years.
To read more about how Dark Knight scenes came about in IMAX check out this article over at Slashfilm.com: How The Dark Knight Went IMAX
4 Days until return of Game Of Thrones to HBO
It will be great to have the HBO TV show Game Of Thrones back for its second season starting on Sunday April 1st. From all the previews I have seen for the new season it certainly looks like we are in for another good season or at least I hope we are. As it was with the first season, it will continue to be interesting to see how the second book is adapted to the screen and what type of changes end up being made.
Below is a trailer for season two:
HBO has also released a series of Pledge Your Allegiance videos focusing on 5 different noble houses that are in the show. I have put the one for House Stark below and included links to the other four.
House Baratheon House Lanister House Greyjoy House Targaryen
