Hey folks, Harry here with the first report of several that our guy covering ShoWest will be dishing. He missed the FINDING NEMO screening due to miscommunication, but that's alright... we had another agent on the case as back up. Meanwhile, he's got a lot of cool stuff to discuss, so I'll let him get on to it! Here's IRISH-MAN!!
Hello everyone, top o’ the morning to you. Irish-Man here with a report on ShoWest, the theater owners convention in Las Vegas. It was the first time I’d been to ShoWest, and I loved it. There isn’t a better place in the world for a convention than Vegas. ShoWest was held at Paris and Bally’s this year, and there was lots to do and see. While a lot of the seminars and booths were entirely geared towards theater owners and industry insiders, there was still a good amount of stuff for a spy like me to find out about.
If I wrote it all in one report, it would be too long, so I’m going to split it up. This part will be about the opening ceremony and the trade show. Part two will be the promotional lunch and the “Anger Management” screening and party. Part three will cover the Universal product reel, the “Dreamcatcher” screening, and a little bit about the press interviews.
Here we go with Part One:
For the opening ceremony of ShoWest, they had the producer of “xXx” and “Sweet Home Alabama” introduce a tribute to the movies of 2002 that crossed $100 Million. Watching the 26 movie clips (projected digitally) made me realize just how undeserving some of those were. “Goldmember” and “Scooby-Doo” come to mind. But that’s just personal taste, and there were definitely some highlights on the reel too (“The Two Towers” and “Attack of the Clones” looked great in their digital glory.
S.W.A.T.
Following the clips, the producer showed the first teaser trailer for “S.W.A.T.,” which he also produced and is coming out this summer. I’m sorry to report that it looks rather mundane. The cast includes Samuel L. Jackson (bald with a mustache), Michelle Rodriguez, LL Cool J, and Colin Farrell.
I find it hilarious that all the studios simultaneously decided that Colin Farrell was a star, so they started putting him in everything before the public even knew who he was. Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy, but I’ve never seen a star created so artificially instead of by virtue of his work. Again, it’s not that he does bad work. It’s just that he’s supposed to be this big star now, without a single hit to his credit. “Minority Report” was Cruise’s movie, and “Daredevil” was a hit because of the comic fans and Affleck/Garner.
Anyway, back to the teaser. It has a cool tagline: “Even cops dial 911.” But the images I saw were mostly typical action fare. There were guns, and shootouts, and cars exploding. There looks to be a big scene involving an airplane on a runway, and trying to stop it from taking off or something. An overhead shot showed one of the SWAT team on top of the plane trying to break in. There were lots of shots of the team in action, descending on ropes from a helicopter, infiltrating buildings, breaking windows, that kind of thing. Also some scenes of “team bonding,” where Sam Jackson was either giving a motivational speech or the team was all joking around with each other to show their cohesiveness and camaraderie. Nothing looked bad, but nothing stood out either. It looked very much like a run-of-the-mill action movie with “Super-Cops.” Maybe they’re holding something back till the release date is closer, or maybe it’s just not very original. I can’t say because I know nothing about the script. But so far, I’m on the fence. I’ll probably see it, but I’m not drooling with anticipation.
That night there was a screening of “Finding Nemo.” I was first told I would be able to get in, and then I was told that I’d have to check back later, and then I was told that I couldn’t get in. I was quite upset, as I wanted to see this more than anything at ShoWest. So I sulked off and played blackjack.
The next day I found out that if I had simply shown up at the theater at the right time, I probably could have walked right in with my press pass. Stupid Disney and their miscommunication problems. I was very upset about missing this. Now I’ll have to wait till the actual release. Although on a funny note, the next day I was talking to a guy who did get to see it. He told me he didn’t think it was appropriate for children because of “all the kids that are afraid of water.” Whatever. Was “Monsters Inc.” not appropriate for children because of all the kids that are afraid of monsters? This guy didn’t have a clue, so I kind of stopped talking to him after that.
On Wednesday, I went to the trade show. There were a lot of technical theater innovations that I didn’t pay much attention to, like concession equipment and lighting. I did try out a few of the “prototype” theater chairs, and wow…I hope these are coming soon to a theater near me. They were so big and comfortable that I wouldn’t mind having them in my living room. But who knows how long it will be before theaters start buying them. I also saw a new type of concession food called a “Burgerpipe.” I don’t know if anyone else has ever seen these, but it’s basically a hamburger…in the shape of a hot dog. For convenience, supposedly. How dumb.
PARAMOUNT'S BOOTH!
Paramount was the only studio with a booth, so I stopped there for quite a while. They had a preview reel showing, but there was no sound because they wanted people to be able to hear the representatives. So I saw silent previews for “Time Line,” and “The Italian Job.”
TIME LINE
“Time Line” is directed by Richard Donner about the graduate students that have to go back to medieval times to rescue their professor. At first I thought it would veer into the “Black Knight” comedy realm of a modern person stuck in an ancient period, and I was worried that hijinks might ensue. Thankfully, these fears quickly went away.
The students don’t try to blend in; they try to hide. The medieval world is harsh and they don’t want to be at the mercy of anybody who wouldn’t understand them. There looks to be a lot of sneaking around, and finding themselves surrounded by these brutal people. There were a couple brief shots of an all-out castle siege, and several of knights riding on horses, bearing down on people. I love medieval stuff, and this looked really cool. I’ll go check it out for sure.
THE ITALIAN JOB
“The Italian Job” had a much different vibe (obviously). I know this is a remake, but I haven’t seen the original. The feel I got from the preview (again silent) was very much in the style of “The Bourne Identity” mixed with “The Score.”
It stars Ed Norton, Mark Wahlberg, and Charlize Theron. There were several shots of Ed Norton (with a mustache) looking like an evil mastermind, plotting something and/or cackling with glee. I get the feeling he might be the “bad guy.” Wahlberg is clearly the hero and the movie looks like it involves double-crosses, chases, and elaborate heist plans. There were several shots of the much-ballyhooed Mini Cooper chase, and it does look pretty cool. There was a shot of an armored truck falling through the street to the subway below, and there were a couple shots of somebody manipulating traffic signals to cause massive crashes on the streets. I really would have liked sound on this one, but it looks like it just might be an intelligent action/heist movie.
LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE or LCTRTCOL for short
Finally at the Paramount booth I saw the full theatrical preview for “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.” The title’s even more unwieldy than “Star Wars, Episode Whatever…” It is narrated in the beginning, not by Mr. Voice, but by an African tribesman, who describes a rumored place that holds the source of all life and death. Then it cuts to Lara, riding horseback and practicing her aim with a rifle. Then a helicopter flies overhead and she heads back to her mansion.
Someone asks Lara if this source of life and death is Pandora’s Box. She says, “That’s the Sunday school version,” and throws a knife right at a book of Greek mythology. Somebody talks about how it could be turned into an extremely powerful weapon and how the Queen wants her to go find it. So she does, and the preview turns into a kind of action montage.
There is a shot of her jumping her motorcycle off a wall onto a dirt road below.
There is a shot of her doing a kind of spiral flip on a jet ski.
There is a very brief shot of some of the terracotta warriors being hacked up in a fight and another one of Lara on the roof of a cave. This must be that rotating set that was mentioned in the earlier set report.
There is a scene (the rumored sex scene), where Jolie is making out with some guy in bed, but she handcuffs him to the post and backs away. She is still wearing a nightgown in the scene, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up about any nudity.
There is a kind of orb made out of amber that glows and turns into a map for finding the Cradle of Life.
There is a cool part where she and another guy jump off of a huge building without parachutes, but the jumpsuits they are wearing have flaps that inflate, so they turn into these “flying squirrel” type of things and glide away.
The last thing I remember about the preview was that there were several shots of Lara in action, moving the way only a video game character could move. I don’t want to say it looked like wirework, though it almost definitely was, but it looked different. Like she would grab onto a pole, swing around it, let go and grab onto a balcony in mid-flight. Very cool moves, much like a video game, but it didn’t look like overly clumsy wirework. It’s kind of hard to describe, but it looked like a pretty good way to have Lara move.
Overall, I thought it looked decent. It helps that I’m a Jan de Bont fan, so I’ll probably be extra generous when I see it. I wasn’t blown away by the preview, but I was interested and I thought it looked good enough to go see. Of course I thought that about the first one, and look at how that turned out. Blech.
Anyway, this report was longer than I thought, and I’ll try to keep the Part Two shorter. It will cover the multi-studio promotional lunch and my review of “Anger Management.” Hope you found this interesting.
Until next time,
Irish-Man
