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Details on Comic-Con Panels for PUSH and Alex Proyas' KNOWING!!
Hey everyone. Capone in San Diego here catching up on some of my panel reports at Comic-Con. What most people don't remember about the panel that birthed the now-legendary TWILIGHT presentation/rock concert was that it was actually a three-part event. TWILIGHT was the third of three film presented by Summit Pictures, and the other two films both hold promise in my eyes. The first presentation was of a film that has definitely been flying under my radar to date (granted, the film doesn't open until February 2009. The first thing I like about the film is that it's directed by Paul McGuigan of LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN, GANGSTER NO. 1, and THE ACID HOUSE fame. He also did WICKER PARK and THE RECKONING, so I guess that tips the scales in the wrong direction slightly, but the guy has such a distinct visual signature, and the two clips that were shown were great. The other thing that intrigues me about this film is the eclectic cast: Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Camilla Belle, and Djimon Hounsou, among others.
The opening clip that was shown was actually the opening of the film, and nice montage of archival images from the last 60-70 years with a narration by Fanning, I believe. She describes the origins of the Nazis rounding up people who show signs of having psychic powers and essentially running tests on them like lab rats. Soon after the war, most industrialized nations (and maybe a few that weren't) began developing similar programs, and the world's young psychics began hiding out to avoid detection and capture, and a few of the band together and hide out in Hong Kong (where most of the film takes place) to fight against government agents who would do them harm or at least rob them of their freedom. Apparently scientists have developed a drug designed to boost psychic abilities; the problem is everybody dies who gets injected. If my notes are correct, Camilla Belle's character is the only one of these kids who survives the injection, which makes her a target. These young people don't see themselves as superheroes of any kind; they simply want to be left alone to lead normal lives. There are different levels of psychics: watchers (who can see the future); movers (telekinetics); pushers (who can plant thoughts in your head); and many others.
The second clips shown was a short one with Hounsou, who plays the films villain, who leads one of the organizations gathering psychics. He's a pusher, and he convinces the guard who let Belle's character (also a pusher) that he needs to shoot himself in the head for his being deceived. It's a quick and nasty sequence. The final clip was my favorite, with Fanning (a watcher, who is sometimes wrong) attempting to convince Evans (a mover) to join the group of resistance fighters while they share a meal in a Hong Kong fish market. Fanning still blows me away with how she commands the screen. She's so damn authoritative in this scene, and does a great job trying to reason with Evans. He'll have none of it, but the two are soon attacked by a group of "screamers," psychics whose screams are so powerful that they can break all the glass in the fish market and make your ears bleed hard enough to knock you out. The number of fish tanks destroyed in this sequence is massive, with dead fish flopping around everywhere, and the noise the screamers make is really scary. The sequence reminded me a bit of Deckard chasing Zhoma in BLADE RUNNER, and that's a great thing. The scene also reveals something about a few of these characters: since many of them go out of their way not to use their abilities, they don't always know the extent their powers will manifest themselves or whether they can control them fully.
I'm still undecided about PUSH's potential. It could be another piece-of-shit JUMPER-like movie, but these are a better class of actor and nobody's running around trying to look cool or show off what they can do. I'll have a few more details for you about the film during my interviews with Evans, Belle, and, yes, Fanning very soon.
The panels that was standing between 6,000-plus TWILIGHT fans and the object of their affection was a short but cool panel for the Nicolas Cage film KNOWING, due in March 2009, from director Alex Proyas (DARK CITY; THE CROW; I, ROBOT). Proyas showed us what appeared to be extended trailer-like footage that spells out a complex but fascinating story. In the 1950s, a teacher asks her young students to draw a picture of what the future will look like for a time capsule. One little girl scribbles out an endless series of numbers, which the teacher is annoyed by, but she still puts it in the capsule. When the capsule is opened 50 years later, each student of the current year at this school is given on the drawings, and it just so happens that Cage's daughter gets the page with the numbers on it. Due to a slightly coffee stain accident, Cage notices that the numbers on the paper are not exactly random, and eventually he works out a cypher system that leads him to believe that half the numbers are a series of dates when major disasters happened in the world in the last 50 years. This doesn't sound so bad until Cage realizes that some of the dates are in the near future, and so the question becomes, What happens when the numbers run out?
The money shot of this particular footage begins with when Cage gets stuck in traffic while driving on the day he believes another major disaster will occur, in which, according to his numbers, 81 people will die. But the police tell him only a couple people have been hurt. Then a plane drops out of the sky right onto the bumper-to-bumper traffic. It's a harrowing sequence, one of many that were shown. The tone of KNOWING looks incredibly dark, but it also seems far more "realistic" than anything Proyas has done to date. During the Q&A, Proyas said his mission was to make the film as believable as possible and that his touchstone for the overall feel of the film was THE EXORCIST. Proyas also indicated that the plane crash sequence was only one of many disasters in the film and that it wasn't even the most impressive one. Gulp.
To read a more detailed account of what the film encompasses, be sure to read Quint's interview with Proyas. That's all for now; lots more to come. Hold tight.
-Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com
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+ Expand All
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Starring Demi Moore as "The Pregnant Woman" and Ashton Kutcher as the wacky doctor telling her to push.
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AHA!(One for the British AICNers out there)
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the more I learn about the latter, the better it feels it's shaping up. Sounds like a return to form after the disastrous I, Robot.
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He got a first and did a little yay. That kid's got potential I tell you. He's going to be the next Pennsy or Pondscum, just you see.
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Surely not, SpencerTrilby! That was a good movie!
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the girl got stuck in the traffic jam and still made it to say hi to her fans...who were thrilled, to say the least...
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I hated that movie so much, I even forgot it got Shia in it! But anyway, nice to see someone here capable of disagrement without resorting to insults.
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the crowd was less than enthusiastic and some even walked out before the panel was over...the cast seems to have no clue what the spirit is about and frank was a rambling mess...worst thing, jamie king showes up in a frock that covered everything...hey frank, sex sells...
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Jul 27, 2008 12:49:14 PM CDT
I Would Love To Have Seen The Meetings For I, Robot
by troutmaskreplicant
"Now Mr. Proyas, about the blatant product placements..." It's pretty clear that Proyas did that film so he could make big money for the studio and be allowed some later leeway in his choice of projects. So how did he stumble into a film with Nicholas Cage as the star? He suffered the curse of Will Smith (the money grabbers mangle the production) and now he may suffer the curse of Nick Cage (Nick Cage's bizarre acting ruins the film). Poor Mr. Proyas.
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Is Miller channeling the spirit...ugh...I mean essence of Adam West's Batman series? It damn well looks like it.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ entertainment/7527786.stm
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shia is going right to fucking jail...hes lucky he didnt cause any fatalities...dumbass
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And Jeff Nathanson is still at large? I say judicial wrongdoing! J'accuse!
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it was dumb but fun and made $350 million worldwide, not counting dvd.
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That Richard Kelly was going to direct? The one with a kid that has a hearing aid that got a horrible review somewhere online? Anyone remember that?
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Are we getting action star Cage or actor Nicholas Cage?
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Jul 27, 2008 2:42:08 PM CDT
Oh don't tell me we have people defending I Robot now
by industrykiller!
because you don't have any taste or dignity left if you do
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Jul 27, 2008 2:44:44 PM CDT
Rupee argueing box office means you know the film is shit
by industrykiller!
Especially with a Will Smith movies. The guy makes shit films almost exclusively and they always make money. That says more about how stupid the filmgoing public is than it does about the quality (or lack thereof) of the film.
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Okay, if you're an Asimov fan then it's pretty poor. However, if you're not the type of guy/gal who has sat down and drooled over Caves Of Steel or The Robots Of Dawn then it's a fun, action packed little flick which keeps you entertained.By the way, I heard an AICNer framed Shia. Which of you was it?
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I'm by no means an Asimov exegete, yet like I said I hated the movie. I expected much better from Proyas, I suppose. As for the "Shiagate", we all know Mori is the culprit.
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I think we all wished or predicted this one coming... Shia LaBeouf is in a Los Angeles hospital today, the result of an early morning car crash that left him with a messed-up hand and a DUI count on his rap sheet.
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Only with teen-agers and I'm getting tired of Nicholas Cage's (NEXT + NATIONAL TREASURE = KNOWING) blank stare acting. Can't they find a new leading man for these "fantastic" tales. Has anyone seen the new cut of DARK CITY? is it worth getting this week?
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Jul 27, 2008 4:29:10 PM CDT
Oh for fucks sake. Fuck you I Robot loving assholes
by guy who got a headache and accidentally
The movie was shit, you're an easily entertained consumer of filth who has shit taste in films, and who gives a fuck about how much money it made, as if that were any kind of indication of quality? People spend they're money on stupid shit, that's the only lesson to be learned from examing that useless bullshit. Did you dream as a child of someday growing up to become a useless fucking marketing executive, examing flowcharts and numbers for imaginary "trends" and "markets?" Or did it just hit you one day what a useless fucking piece of shit you are who is unable to create something of his own this is the only avenue left open to you, running your bullshit make believe business and fucking with the creative works of others?
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i robot was shit...but i dont blame proyas, who gotta eat...the writer was a hack...they took his story (which was shit) and morphed it with assimov and turned assimov to shit...then they shoved in product placement everywhere they could and came out with more shit...then that fucking hack gets on the internet and with his new found cred states that he is adapting the foundation trilogy...hahahahahahahaa...the dude couldnt write a bad episode of heroes...
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Well.... I liked it.
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Sweetly and tenderly. But, yeah, I, Robot was good and Alex Proyas is a genius so screw the haters.
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the zeroth law of robotics
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I posted this in the Proyas interview talkback but I'm doing it here too 'cause I'm bored.
I made a movie back in 2005 that has some scenes which are incredibly similar to some scenes in the trailer for Knowing. I'm specifically talking about the plane crash scene.
Long story short - In my film, a girl keeps hearing voices which she believes are ghosts trying to contact her. It turns out that they're not ghosts but rather the voices of 200 people who are going to die in a plane crash. That shot of the plane coming in the trailer is virtually identical to the one in my film.
I'm not screaming rip-off or anything (if I claimed I was the first one to think of this, I would be a moron...well, I'm a moron anyway but I digress) but the similarities are there. I wonder if those ideas were in the original script which Proyas claims to have received ten years ago or if they were added in by other writers over the last couple of years. Hmmm...
d post it to back up my claim.
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I'm sorry but everything about that movie sounds like the 80's Stephen King classic FIRESTARTER. If you haven't seen it, please watch it as it's absolutely astounding. If you wanna know the plot then that description of Push is basically it..!
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You're absolutely right, so I guess it's a mish-mash of Firestarter and Scanners. I bet it won't be half as good as either of those movies..!
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does not know who richard Kelly is! Fact! told from his own mouth. hope this ownes though
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And maybe it's not and we should stop being knee jerks
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go. Alex Proyas and the Cage are always welcome in my world.
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The synopsis for Knowing given above is identical to the one Richard Kelly gave me when I interviewed him around the release of Donnie Darko. My guess is that he got too involved with Southland Tales and now The Box and passed the project along. I thought the script was his, but IMDB doesn't list him as involved in any way.
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