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Hey, folks. Capone in Chicago here. One of the great benefits of getting to go to Butt-Numb-a-Thon every year is that we've stayed up to date with the works of Matthew Vaughn over the years. At the second BNAT, we saw SNATCH (which Vaughn produced); a few years later, we got a tasty preview of LAYER CAKE (his directing debut); and at Half-Ass-a-Thon just days before the Alamo Drafthouse closed its doors, we got a sneak peak at the delightful and subversive STARDUST, based on the book by Neil Gaiman. Vaughn recorded a hilarious video introduction to the screening, in which he apologized for leaving X-MEN 3 in the hands of Brett Ratner. I've seen STARDUST twice now, and really enjoy watching it charm an audience as it goes deeper into its imaginative tale of a young man falling in love with a celestial body.
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Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
Seems like a bit of a split decision based on these reactions.
First up, someone who had a heck of a good time with it:
Hey Harry,
I've been readin AICN for over a decade now (holy crap!) and i've never had the pleasure of scooping a movie for ya, but tonight that changed. Due to the nature of my new job, i recieved advanced passes to see Stardust tonight. I'm not really a critic, or a reviewer in terms of my abilities, but i'm fairly discerning as to what movies I enjoy.
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Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
I can’t wait to show this film to my wife. I think it’ll be one of her favorites this summer.
They’re doing a number of early screenings, and I think that’s a smart move. The film needs some lovin’ in order to get the word out that it’s a lot of fun. Hopefully word of mouth is strong and picks up the closer we get to release:
I went to see Stardust last night in the Aventura mall in Miami Florida. The theatre was packed to the rafters, the show was held up a half hour so they could literally fill every seat in the house. At the last minute they let one of the two rows resereved for studio exectutives up to the general publuc, and they clamed they turned away over 200 people. To top things off the air conditioning was not working properly, in the summer, in South Florida, which made things a little uncomfortable to say the least.
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Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a chat I had with Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer of this summer’s TRANSFORMERS, 1408 and STARDUST. This is an interview five years ago I would have put money on never appearing on this website. When di Bonaventura was an exec at Warner Bros he was kind of Harry’s arch-enemy. Harry demanded his resignation on almost a weekly basis, it seemed.
But he dropped out of the suit world and dropped into the producer world and the water is long under the bridge. di Bonaventura has been attaching himself to some good and interesting projects.
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Look. I hated X-Men 3. HATED it. So when Matthew Vaughn ended his videotaped introduction to Stardust with an apology for leaving X3 in the incapable hands of Brett Ratner, I doubled over in my seat. I doubt anyone laughed harder. What would have been nice though is if that introduction had been followed up by a movie that proved that Vaughn was actually capable of taking an adapted genre property and making anything other than a complete mess out of it. Because that's not what followed. What followed was a fucking mess. The word trainwreck would come to mind – if this train ever left the station.
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Hey folks, Harry here... The following reviewer is the lovely Andromeda. She's married to Kraken - and allows him his "illicit adventures" with Quint. That said, you've probably seen Andromeda before. She was the blonde that King Kong picked up that screamed so magnificently in Peter Jackson's remake. That said, she had no part in STARDUST, though I'm betting she would've killed 7 or 8 close friends just for the honor. There were 3 moments during the film where she caught my attention during the movie. She was absolutely transported by the film... so much so, that she did something she hasn't done -- she wrote up her feelings on this movie. Here you go...
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Hey folks, Harry here with a newbie to the Drafthouse that got in to this Half-Ass-A-Thon! So take a gander at the event from the Salt Lake side of things...
I feel truly honored to have been able to attend at least one AICN event at the original downtown Alamo Drafthouse before it closed. It was quite a trek for me. I'm a filmmaker based in Salt Lake City and a shoot for our documentary coincidentally brought us within a few days of Half-Ass-A-Thon. We figured, "what the hell?" and pulled our travel back by two days in order to obtain a chance of getting into the event. Doing this was a gamble, you see, because the event was sold out before we left.
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Hey folks, Harry here... Well, I hosted my last event at the Original Drafthouse last night and this morning. And there were a lot of familiar faces and not-so familiar faces. But one thing seemed universal... they loved STARDUST. At one point after the film was over, Kraken (Quint's platonic lover) came back from the lobby with this goofy dazed grin on his face. He thumbed in the direction of the lobby and said, "Um, Every girl in lobby looks like they just had meaningful sex and amazing orgasms." In a summer filled with sequelitis... STARDUST and RATATOUILLE are really the creative stand-outs. That said, STARDUST is the real surprise. People just aren't really aware of it, but throughout the film there was applause, not of just visual effects moments, but applause to the greatness of dialogue, sequences and for just getting caught up into the film. And before the film, Matthew Vaughn personally apologized for leaving X-MEN 3 in the hands of Brett Ratner... but I have to say... STARDUST is the sweetest most amazing love letter to those that dream about the worlds out there waiting to be discovered. Here's The Legman with our first look at Half-Ass-A-Thon... if you were there, send in your impressions!
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Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
I’m really curious to see what people make of this one as it starts screening in the weeks ahead. Neil Gaiman finally saw it, and it sounds like he’s happy with the film, which is a pretty great thing to read. But of course, Neil’s a li’l biased, and he’s probably relieved that someone’s actually made a film that honors his source material.
What about someone who’s just walking in cold? What do you think they might have to say about it?
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Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a nice chat I recently had with the man, the myth, the absolute legend Mr. Neil Gaiman.
I’ve met Gaiman on a couple of occasions in the past… very brief encounters, really. I bumped into him at Comic-Con last year and way back when he did the English language script for PRINCESS MONONOKE he came through Austin. At the time I had a sketch book (it was later in a bag that was sitting in the front seat of a car that got broken into during a visit to LA and was taken) and Mr. Gaiman graciously sketched me an awesome Sandman.
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I thought I’d be clever. I thought I’d travel on the cheap. I thought I’d dash in and dash out and it would be a quick kick.
Yeah. That’s what I thought.
I spent some time working in New York City during the ‘90s. I had a blast, but I never spent enough time there to stop feeling like a tourist. Since then, I’ve been back twice. Both times were frustratingly quick trips. I always like to think I can get around in New York, that I’ve mastered it. Then I put that to the test, and I remember that New York can just plain wear you down when it wants to. I was a smartass on this trip. I spent an hour or so on Friday night looking up MTA routes and subway routes, plotting out exactly how to get to my hotel, to the screening, to the after-party, and then back to the hotel. I like walking in New York. I was looking forward to it, frankly.
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Do not check out the trailer to STARDUST – if you do – and it happens to interest you, I suppose it must’ve worked, but for me… it filled me with reasons to not see STARDUST. It looked like a mess to me. DeNiro looked like he was in a different movie, Michelle Pfeiffer comes across as… well gob-smackingly gorgeous… but then the “hero” is like bleh – and it just looks like a lot of nonsense.
The film?
Utter Perfection!
Absolutely loved it.
Now here’s something you need to realize going into this movie… this isn’t an ACTION fantasy, it is a ROMANTIC FANTASY… and one that works, I’m genuinely pleased to say.
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Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
I really didn’t mean to ruffle any feathers when I ran that link last week to the Russian ShoWest footage that showed up online in Postage-Stamp-O-Rama. Color me impatient because I think STARDUST has a chance at being something really special and fun when it’s released this summer.
Now we can finally get our first great look at footage from the film, and it’s looking good to me. Fans of EXTRAS have got to love the scene where Gervais and De Niro finally get to face off in the film. There’s a lot going on here, and this trailer still just scratches the surface of what we can expect from the finished film.
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Merrick here...
We've received some wildy positive reactions to early screenings of this film (HERE and HERE, for example) -- but Boozi's take on the film is quite different.
When reading this, it's critical to remember that (as Boozi indicates) STARDUST is not yet finished; many changes may be made to film between now and its late July release date.
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Hey, gang. "Moriarty" here. Just wanted to drop another little tidbit on you. The film, like all good fairy tales, is narrated, and there was quite a bit of discussion about whose dulcet tones would be appropriate to tell this particular story.
Well, it's official now, and Ian McKellen will be the storyteller. Sounds just about perfect to me. Now back to Quint and the pictures...
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with some stills from the upcoming Matthew Vaughn adaptation of Neil Gaiman's STARDUST. I'm greatly looking forward to this one. The people were cool when I toured the Pinewood sets, the original book by Gaiman is pretty awesome and all the early word from test screenings is this one is has been knocked out of the park.
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Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
I’m not remotely surprised to hear that STARDUST is knocking test audiences out, even without completed FX or a finished score.
When I visited the set, what I saw was a production that certainly didn’t lack for ambition. Matthew Vaughn has always struck me as absurdly confident, and that confidence seemed to be paying off with a raucous film that finally looked to bring the work of Neil Gaiman to life.
But don’t take my word for it. Check out this report from Thursday night’s screening:
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Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a pair of test screening reviews of Matthew Vaughn (LAYER CAKE)'s adaptation of Neil Gaiman (Sandman)'s fantasy novel, STARDUST. I'm a pretty big fan of Gaiman's book and loved LAYER CAKE big time, so naturally this one is high on my "want to see now" list.
We've got two reviews so far, with the promise of a few more. It'll be good to see a consensus. Both of the reviews we have so far are positive, the second shorter, but illustrating some slow parts a bit more.
Keep in mind these guys saw an early cut of a giant Fantasy Epic and that this is far from being the version we'll see in theaters next July. Also be warned of story spoilers. If you want to go in 100% fresh, you might want to click back now knowing that 2 people who saw an early cut both loved it. For the rest, here they are! Enjoy!
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Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
As I mentioned in my first article about my recent trip to England, I was thrilled to visit Pinewood because of all the great films that have been made there over the years. As it
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Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
It was easily the quickest turnaround ever from someone saying, "Hey, would you be willing to visit the set?" to me actually sitting on a plane, en route somewhere. In this case,
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Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Obviously, London is full of history. I did a bunch of sight-seeing on my 5 day trip back in May... Big Ben, Parliament, London Eye, Picadilly, Covent Garden, SoHo, Leicester Sq., Buckingham, Trafalgar Sq., etc, but, possib
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Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a few location pics from Matthew Vaughn's STARDUST. First up are some pics of a small village called Castle Combe, provided by local delinquent NeoMaxiZoomDwebi. It appears that Castle Combe will be the location of the
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Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I finally figured it out. I've known the guy for five or six years at this point, talking occasionally, and it took me this long to pinpoint it.
Matthew Vaughn is Bugs Bunny.
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Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. We reported way back in April that Matthew Vaughn was directing an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's book STARDUST. Now Variety is confirming it along with the news that Paramount Pictures is in final negotiations to fund and dis
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Received this scoop from a rather tempting character named Desire. I just felt this craving urge to pass it along to you, and the last thing Desire told me was that (it's a strange entity so I don't know the proper pronoun) was creating the desire i
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Hola readerinos... Neil Gaiman has been touring up a storm as of late and it seems that while he is wearing down... He's also developing a whole slate of coolness for our cinematic interests. It seems that Bob Weistein likes the ol boy. Unlike mos
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