Cinefantastique Online

The Warner Brothers Television series SMALLVILLE garnered quite a few fans (and vocal critics) in it’s years on the abandoned WB Network and it’s successor, the CW.  

In view of the upcoming MAN OF STEEL film relaunch, it’s somewhat surprising to see DC Comic launch a comic book continuation of the TV series.

Here’s DC’s press release:

“Fans of the smash-hit TV series Smallville haven’t had much to cheer about since the show ended its critically acclaimed 10-year run on The CW last May. That’s all going to change with the upcoming new comic book series from DC Entertainment: SMALLVILLE SEASON 11.

Written by former Smallville show scribe Bryan Q. Miller, the new digital first series will be published digitally on April 13, 2012, with new digital chapters released weekly thereafter. Additionally, the online chapters will be offered in a print periodical, along with an episode guide to the hit television series, with the first print issue released on May 16.

The new comic book series picks-up where the show left off (with Clark officially now as Superman!) and features other fan-favorite characters including Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, Chloe Sullivan-Queen, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and General Lane.
The book features an all-star creative team – in addition to Miller, SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 creators include print cover artist Gary Frank (SUPERMAN SECRET ORIGIN), digital cover artist Cat Staggs and interiors by Pere Perez (BATGIRL).

“Six months after Clark Kent donned the cape and took to the skies to save Earth from Apokolips… enter Season 11!” enthuses Miller. “New allies abound! New enemies afoot! And old friends return where they’re least expected! Pere and colorist Chris Beckett have done a fantastic job of capturing the look of the show and the players, and Gary and Cat are knocking it out of the park on covers. I couldn’t be more excited to help give seasoned viewers and new readers an all-access pass to Clark’s first year in the cape.’ “

Lois (Erica Durance) & Clark (Tom Welling)

The cover preview above  seems to include a well-rendered likeness of SMALLVILLE star Tom Welling as the Man of Steel, wearing the “New 52″ version of the costume. The series finale had featured a mostly CGI version of Welling in what seemed like a mix of the traditional ‘uniform’ and the SUPERMAN RETURNS costume.

This new trailer gives us more insight into Andrew Garfield’s disctinctly edgier Peter Parker and Spider-Man, plus a better look at the Lizard.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Irrfan Khan, with Martin Sheen and Sally Field. The film is directed by Marc Webb from a screenplay written by James Vanderbilt, based on the Marvel Comic Book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Due out July 3rd from Sony/Columbia Pictures.

“THE AMAZING SPISER MAN is the story of Peter Parker (Garfield), an outcast high schooler who was abandoned by his parents as a boy, leaving him to be raised by his Uncle Ben (Sheen) and Aunt May (Field). Like most teenagers, Peter is trying to figure out who he is and how he got to be the person he is today. Peter is also finding his way with his first high school crush, Gwen Stacy (Stone), and together, they struggle with love, commitment, and secrets. As Peter discovers a mysterious briefcase that belonged to his father, he begins a quest to understand his parents’ disappearance – leading him directly to Oscorp and the lab of Dr. Curt Connors (Ifans), his father’s former partner. As Spider-Man is set on a collision course with Connors’ alter-ego, The Lizard, Peter will make life-altering choices to use his powers and shape his destiny to become a hero.”

We Blame Slytherin: Daniel Radcliffe unearths the secret of a hostile spirit in THE WOMAN IN BLACK.

The balmy days of February have triggered an uncommon sense of renewal, nowhere more so than in the cinema, where, after a customarily dismal January (we’re looking at you, THE DEVIL INSIDE), there now come glimmers of hope in the entertaining and atmospheric THE WOMAN IN BLACK. Featuring a post-Potter Daniel Radcliffe as an emotionally ravaged lawyer trying to redeem his career in the British countryside, instead discovering a village where children spontaneously take their lives and an isolated mansion houses a malign spirit and a terrible secret, the film’s a refreshing invocation of the classic ghost story, all the better for coming from British horror-home Hammer.

beabetterbooktalker.com’s Andrea Lipinski joins Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French, and Dan Persons to stir up the spirits and measure the film’s ability to generate scares and creeps. Plus: The gang delivers capsule reviews of CHRONICLE, THE INNKEEPERS, and KILL LIST. Also: What’s coming in theaters and home video.

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GOING TO STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE THIS WEEKEND?
TWEET YOUR #WalkAwayReview TO @cfqspotlight
(Please don’t tweet during the movie!)

Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the evil Capitol of the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games. A twisted punishment for a past uprising and an ongoing government intimidation tactic, The Hunger Games are a nationally televised event in which “Tributes” must fight with one another until one survivor remains.

Pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives, Katniss is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy. If she’s ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz ,  Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland.

THE HUNGER GAMES is directed by Gary Ross, with a screenplay by Gary Ross and Suzanne Collins and Billy Ray, based on the novel by Suzanne Collins. 
Due out March 23rd from Color Force and Lionsgate.

Not Your Typical Hit: Pro assassins find themselves in over their heads in KILL LIST.

What starts out as common, garden-variety crime thriller turns… bizarre, and then frightening, in director Ben Wheatley’s twisty new film, KILL LIST. The tale of middle class hit-man Jay (Neil Maskell), who with colleague Gal (Michael Smiley) goes out for one more job and discovers blood oaths, strange rites, and disturbingly grateful targets have been thrown into the bargain, the film allows Wheatley to hook the rough-edged shooting style he explored in his debut effort, DOWN TERRACE, to a world that has room for both examinations of a tempestuous home life and the graphic shocks of classic horror. Think IN BRUGES meets THE WICKER MAN, then forget about all that and prepare to get righteously freaked-out.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Wheatley.

UNFORTUNATE TECHNICAL NOTE: Our usual podcast host has started giving us agita, apparently because we are just that popular, so we’ve temporarily switched to another service and had to downgrade our audio quality as a result. We’ll get this snag patched up and be back to the rich, beautiful sound you expect from MMP as soon as possible.

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According to Deadline, Stephen Amell (THE VAMPIRE DIARIES) has been cast in the lead in the CW’s Green Arrow pilot, entitled simply ARROW.

Based on the DC Comics character, The Green Arrow was  created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp, first appearing in More Fun Comics #73 in 1941. 

 The character bears a relationship to Edgar Wallace’s masked character from the novel The Green Archer. Possibly inspired by the 1940 Columbia movie serial of the same name, which presented the lethal bowman of Bellamy Castle in a more heroic light, Weisinger recast the Green Arrow as a fairly obvious Batman retread, giving him a young red-clad Robin analog named Speedy, an Arrow-Car, and an Arrow Cave headquarters.  

The Green Arrow is Oliver Queen, millionaire playboy turned masked vigilante in Star City, an altogether brighter place than Gotham. In the Warner Brothers pilot he’s been upgraded to a “billionaire industrialist-turned-outspoken politician”. (In keeping with modern characterizations.)

For most of his comic book career, the character was an also-ran, not making it into the Justice Society in the Golden Age, appearing instead in the Seven Soldiers of Victory (The Law’s Legionnaires) among other secondary heroes.

However, he became one of the few DC characters to survive the post-WWII die-off of super heroes, possibly because Mort Weisinger had become a managing editor of DC, and he kept the Arrow and his other creation for More Fun #73, Aquaman going as back-up features in Adventure Comics and Superboy.

In the 60’s Silver Age he would join the Justice Society, and in the 1970’s he would shed his bland, copy-cat image by changing his Robin Hood-esque costume and becoming a harder-edged, left-leaning hot-head, often at odds with his more conservative colleagues, particularly his friend Green Lantern (Hal Jordan).

On the long-running WB-CW network SMALLVILLE series, Justin Hartley took on the role (again as a Batman substitute) and became a regular cast member and fan favorite.

Rather than capitalize on this history, apparently the decision has made to intentionally separate this pilot from  the previous show, and thus presumably several years of potentially confining continuity problems and audience expectations.

The pilot will be directed by David Nutter, and will be written/executive produced by Andrew Kreisberg,  with Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim (GREEN LANTERN).

Though it seems somewhat surprising to entrust the writing to a team that did not garner fan or critic favor with their previous superhero work, a non-super-powered hero show has some real potential on the budget-restricted network.

In response to Zachary Quinto’s( Mr. Spock) recent comment that the script to the currently filming STAR TREK sequel is still undergoing rewrites, co-writer Roberto Orci told TrekMovie.com

“…you should know the story hasn’t change(d), the structure hasn’t changed, and the action sequences haven’t changed. Most changes are minor.
The changes I suspect Quinto is referring to are the character interactions as we fine tune the level of their various friendships. How well they all know each other and what they’ve all been through off screen is a nuanced yet essential part of the actors understanding where they are coming from with each other. While discussing the exact same plot elements, what they’ve been through colors their attitude toward each other.
And given that the time past (sic) in real life is different than the amount of time passed in the movie world, it takes a polish to get it just right. That’s what polishes (a legal contractual word in our contract) are for.
Does any of this mean the movie will be any good? No. But if it’s no good, it will be because we were wrong to execute exactly what we wanted. Not because we changed our minds or someone changed our minds for us. “

See the much longer comments at the link above, where Orci adds that some slight revisions are also necessary to accomodate changes in setting as director JJ Abrambs explores new equipment allowing greater camera movement, presumably within and between sets.  All this must of course be documented and reflected in the script on any complex production.

Nearly all films require some on-going rewrites during production  to allow for directors’ decisions, ideas generated by actor improvisations,  location opportunities, etc.

You May Feel a Burning Sensation: Brittania Nicol discovers the secrets of THE WICKER TREE.

A story as relevant as yesterday’s headlines, or too late a tale? Some thirty years ago, Cinefantastique hailed Robin Hardy’s THE WICKER MAN as “the CITIZEN KANE of horror,” lauding the Anthony Shaffer-scripted story of a god-fearing police detective trying  to solve a mystery within a community of Scottish pagans for its bold eroticism and cunning narrative. Now, Hardy has taken his own novel, Cowboys for Christ, and brought it to the screen as THE WICKER TREE, billing it as a “reimagining” of his original triumph.

Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski and Dan Persons take a look at this tale of a couple of present-day evangelical missionaries who find they may have bitten off more than can chew in trying to convert the “heathens” of a Scottish village, and discuss how the film fares in its three-plus decade transition. Plus: Oscar 2012 nominations, and what’s coming to theaters and home video.

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SEEING THE WOMAN IN BLACK THIS WEEKEND?
TWEET YOUR #WalkAwayReview TO @cfqspotlight
(Please don’t tweet during the movie!)

According to Variety, several members of the cast of MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS will re-unite as voice actors in Terry Jones’s ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING, a sci-fi farce that will combine CGI and live action.

Python veteran Jones wrote the script with Gavin Scott, and will direct, while Mike Medavoy (LIFE OF BRIAN, BLACK SWAN) will produce.
In addition (presumably) to Jones who directed the group in MONTY PYTHON’S THE MEANING OF LIFE, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Michael Palin have agreed to voice ailens that will give a human being the power to do “absolutely anything”, so that they can observe the results.

The production also wants to sign up Eric Idle and Robin Williams (THE BICENTENNIAL MAN). From the article,  it seems that the producers want Williams to voice a talking dog named Dennis, and possibly also play a live action role.

Producer Medavoy said: “Terry and Gavin have crafted a classic farce— something I feel I know a little bit about after all the ‘Pink Panther’ pictures we did with Blake Edwards at United Artists. In fact, the movie even has a pompous Frenchman reminiscent of Inspector Clouseau ( ed. the live-action part Robin Williams might fill) —but there the similarity ends. Like all projects originated by any of the Monty Python guys,  ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING delightfully defies a logline.”

Terry Jones added :”It’s not a Monty Python picture, but it certainly has that sensibility.”

Dick Tufeld (Richard Norton Tufeld) best known as the voice of the Robot on LOST IN SPACE, passed away Janauary 22nd. He was 85.

Starting out in radio, Tufeld’s ability to put great enthusiasm and drama into his readings led to the job of announcing and narrating the ABC radio version of the 1950’s science fiction TV series SPACE PATROL. He would also announce many of the live television program’s episodes.

He was the announcer for DISNEY’S WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLOR, and the ZORRO TV series — which starred Guy Williams, later to star in LOST IN SPACE.

He served as narrator of Irwin Allen’s VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA series, and also did the voice of a disembodied alien brain.

He was the narrator (and voice of Mission Control) on LOST IN SPACE, which would also result in his best known acting work, the Robot (sometimes known as the B-9 Environmental Control Robot). He almost didn’t get the part, as Irwin Allen didn’t care for his line readings when Tufeld attempted to conform with what the producer suggested. Deciding to ignore Allen’s instructions, he went with his own instincts — and that landed him the job.

Originally the Robot’s voice was  deep and flatly menacing, as the Robot and Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris)  were at first intended as short-term antagonists. Tufeld lightened his tone slightly and added a great deal more expression to his delivery as the Robot became more humanized.

Sarcastic interplay between the equally  pompous Smith and his metallic adversary became a highlight of the increasingly tongue-in-cheek show.

(Interestingly, the actor inside the Robot, Bob May, provided the Robot’s derisive laughter, as  DickTuefeld didn’t think he did it justice.)

Tuefeled mentioned that the sound mixers never seemed to write down the exact settings used to filter the Robot’s voice, and they would sometimes have to fiddle around for a while to produce the same sound.  

Dick Tuefeld also narrated THE TIME TUNNEL for Irwin Allen.

Continuing as a staff announcer for ABC TV, Tufeld would continue to be a producers’ choice for genre productions, doing announcer/narrator work on cartoons such as THE FANTASTIC FOUR (1978), SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS, and THUNDAR THE BARBARIAN.

In 1998, Dick Tufeld provided the voice of the Robot in the LOST IN SPACE movie reboot, sounding amazingly like he did on the old series, despite the passing of years and vocal cord surgery.

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Disney/Marvel’s THE AVENGERS is featured in this week’s Empire Magazine , which hits the stands Thursday.

In addition to this cover picture, alternate solo covers featuring Scarlet Johansson’s  Black Window, Chris Evans as Captain America, Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man and Chris Humsworth as Thor can be found at the link above.

A tidbit from the article gives us Tom Hidddleston’s take on Loki, and his importance to the film.  ”He knows who he is now, and what his powers are.

“In order for The Avengers to come together, Loki has to be more menacing, and all of his malevolence is founded in a completely delusional dream.”

Sounds very much in keeping with the Marvel theme of tragic underpinnings to their heroes and villains.