Focus Features and Laika released yesterday the second trailer for stop-motion animation ParaNorman. Frankly, it looks awesome giving us a lot more insight into the story courtesy of new scenes, voice-overs, and dialog, the last two being absent from the first trailer.

You know what they say, better short and sweet than long and boring. Running at just 1 minute and 9 seconds, that’s exactly what this trailer is.

As you can see, Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee) can see the dead and speak to them. But unlike Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense this is a comedy and animated to boot, so expect more than a few funny scenes. Besides that, he will have to face ghosts, zombies and grown-ups to save his town from a centuries-old curse.

Did I mention it comes from Laika? Only the guys that brought us the amazing Coraline back in 2009. Also it’s stop-motion in 3D, so what more could you want?

Directed by Chris Butler and Sam Fell, ParaNorman features the voices of Anna Kendrick, Leslie Mann, Christopher Mintz-Plass, John Goodman, Casey Affleck and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the titular character.

So again, ghosts, zombies, stop-motion, Coraline, John Goodman, Leslie Mann and McLovin. If you’re not sold yet then I don’t know what else to say. Oh yeah, ParaNorman comes out August 17th (same day as The Expendables 2) so mark your calendar, NOW!

What’s that you say, you don’t have a 2012 calendar yet? Then buy one you cheap bastard.

Read similar posts to New Trailer for ParaNorman at Filmonic

In 2008, Swedish director Tomas Alfredson directed Let the Right One In, a movie based on the best-selling Swedish novel of the same name. The movie won critical acclaim across the world – rightly so, since it’s an excellent film – and its international popularity spurred studios to remake it for an English-speaking audience. Matt Reeves (writer and director of Cloverfield) was chosen to take on the challenge of directing the next adaptation. But Reeves was fighting an uphill battle from the start: many fans of the original were displeased with the prospect of a remake, and nearly wrote the movie off before seeing it. So, what’s the verdict? Keep reading to find out.

In my opinion, Let Me In is a totally unnecessary film. That’s not to say it’s bad – quite the opposite, in fact. I enjoyed the film, and it’s a perfectly fine piece of craftsmanship all around. But it bears such a heavy resemblance to Alfredson’s 2008 film that I simply don’t think it should have been made in the first place. I think the fear of this remake was that in an “Americanized” version, the heart of the original would be lost. I’m happy to report this is not the case – if anything, this movie relies too heavily on Alfredson’s vision and just barely offers enough variation on the story to justify its existence.

Set in 1980′s New Mexico, the story follows Owen, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road), a young boy who is savagely bullied at school. He meets Abby, played by Chloe Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass), a strange girl who moves into his apartment complex. As the two strike up a friendship, it becomes clear to Owen that Abby is actually a vampire. She has a caretaker, played by Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), who is tasked with killing people to provide blood for her, and much of the drama comes from watching these scenarios unfold. Elias Koteas (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) plays a policeman trying to solve the murders.

The film does many things right, providing an eerie darkness to the wintry setting and capturing the viciousness of bullying in a school environment. The performances are all very good – the kids in particular deliver some striking work, forcing me to question my usual “I despise kids in movies” mantra. Reeves made a much darker movie with Let Me In, not as quiet and contemplative as the original, but still capturing the essence of what made that movie great. Key scenes (like one that takes place in a pool) are preserved in their entirety and not dumbed down or altered for the mainstream.

Reeves attempts to apply his own stamp to the film, and while I don’t think he truly accomplished that goal, he certainly added improving elements along the way. There was an impressive car crash sequence that wasn’t featured in the original (reminiscent of the only good part of Terminator Salvation). He also succeeds in giving the movie a nice sense of atmosphere, especially when it comes to the the isolation Owen feels during his parents’ divorce (his mother’s face is never completely visible, for example). The cinematography was haunting and beautiful, starting with an opening shot of ambulances travelling through the New Mexico landscape in an homage to Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars. There’s also a really great shot late in the movie of Owen peering through a frosty window at an empty playground after he witnesses something horrifying; it’s a fantastic visual representation of innocence lost.

If I were to nitpick an aspect of the film, it would be the CGI employed during Moretz’s vampire sequences. It takes you out of the story a bit, seeing her move in ways that humans can’t. The original succeeded because it grounded that character in a quasi-reality, using mostly practical effects and not relying on crazy visuals to get the same effect. There was another sequence – I won’t give it away, I’ll only say it involves fire – that was also much more effective in the original than in this one because of an over-reliance on CGI in the latter. (To the film’s credit, though, Let Me In wisely excised a ridiculous CGI cat sequence from Let the Right One In.)

I apologize for continually comparing this movie to the original, but aside from our natural human instinct for comparison in these situations, this case is even more difficult because they are so incredibly similar throughout. Ultimately, I think Let Me In will serve exactly the purpose that the studio intended: to expose this story to a wider audience in an English capacity. And that’s totally fine, since Let Me In is a really solid movie. I just wish more people would seek out Let the Right One In since it essentially “did it first” and it truly is almost the same movie except with subtitles. Until next time…

Read similar posts to Review: Let Me In at Filmonic

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about a father, never named, who is heading south with his son (The Boy) in a post-apocalyptic world where our biosphere has died, no animals or wildlife survive and the few humans still on the planet battle starvation and packs of roving cannibals. With the exception of a brief encounter with a squid, the book is a long, eloquently-written fable about every father in the world trying to raise his son through these times of doubt and uncertainty. The Man is constantly thinking of using one of his last bullets on The Boy, should he have to, much like each father could potentially abandon his son to the real world while their ward is under-prepared.

If the book was a moving experience that compared raising a child to the apocalypse, the movie concerned itself with showing us what raising a child in the apocalypse would look like. Because the novel this film was based on is so entrenched in using text as a means to deliver the story and theme, the movie feels like a parallel experience, where, by observing these characters, director John Hillcoat spends an hour establishing things the book had down in fifty pages. Interestingly, what we, the audience, have gotten out of this are two distinct experiences dealing with the same subject matter. The book is better, but the movie isn’t just reiterating the purpose of the book.

Make any sense?

The Road, the film, is made up of bleak landscapes and a score by Nick Cave that alternates between making itself known and hiding in the background when it should be taking the thematic reins. The visual aspect of The Road, the stark reality of seeing skinny naked-Viggo-Mortenson-butt, is its greatest strength. Power lines pepper the horizon like crucifixes, steam liners burn while beached on highways, abandoned suburbs…well, damn, they’re always creepy.

Viggo Mortenson does a great job, as always, as The Man, even though his main objective in the film is just to stay alive and keep The Boy safe. There isn’t a great deal on screen for Mortenson to work with. His Man is harsh, but is also well aware that his child was born after the unseen apocalypse and thus doesn’t know about things like manners, smoking or alcohol. Hillcoat and Mortenson have a secret pact throughout the film, and that pact is that, up until The Boy argues back for the first time towards the climax, The Road is from the perspective of The Man. When we see flashbacks of The Woman (Charlize Theron is a strong but brief performance), we always hear the conversation, we see what The Man sees. We only get one scene of “romance” between The Man and the long-dead Woman, and that’s in a single-shot-flashback that only concerns itself with healthy-looking hands learning to play the piano.

The Boy, played by Australian actor Kodi Smit-McPhee, matches Mortenson beat-for-beat in an impressive performance by a child actor. Considering The Boy in the book was frequently the physical cipher for emotional and philosophical discussion, Smit-McPhee manages to bring his wide-eyed reactions shots to new levels of emotion, as long as you remind yourself at the beginning of the film that this kid has never seen anything you and I would describe as “the normal world.” In one scene, when Mortenson’s Man is dangerously close to offing his Boy rather than turn him over to cannibal-rapists, The Boy responds to the cocking of the pistol’s hammer with “When will I see you again?” and the tension of the moment gives way to the realization that death means nothing to a child being raised amongst the walking inhabitants of hell.

Appearances by other characters are sparse, but – like all fables – there are a few along The Road to provide context and dialogue. Robert Duvall’s Old Man serves the same purpose as every blind, old man in fables throughout history and The Wire’s Michael K. Williams shows up as The Thief, the character that provides the tipping point for the divide between The Man and The Boy.

All and all, The Road will provide you with a bleak experience you won’t necessarily mind having as long as you follow your screening with a solid meal and a good night’s sleep under a blanket. The sad thing is that the book never left my mind for a good week after I finished it, and even friends who have not read the book seem to be okay with the movie the next day. The book is one experience and the movie is another, but instead of offering high praise, like “each is the other’s equal,” I can’t help but think that I’ll face the apocalypse of fatherhood but the desolate landscape of The Road is as distant to me as most science fiction.

Read similar posts to REVIEW: The Road at Filmonic

A great first trailer for The Road has appeared online. The Road is a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father and his young son across a barren landscape that was blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed civilization and most life on earth. The cast includes Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Guy Pearce.

The Road will be released in October in the US.

Read similar posts to The Road trailer at Filmonic

USA Today got our first look at The Road, which stars Viggo Mortensen, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce and Kodi Smit McPhee (who would have played a young Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine if filming didn’t get pushed back)

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food–and each other.

Read similar posts to First Look At The Road at Filmonic

Things have been quiet on the Wolverine front lately…too quiet I say. The cast and crew have been left to get on with filming, which is now in its fourth month. We know most of the cast and characters now, and we have been given a few images to keep us happy.

Main dude Hugh Jackman spoke to The Herald Sun recently about filming, and how the young actor hired to play a young Wolverine should not read stuff on the internet.

Jackman is deep into shooting an X-Men spinoff and new Seed project Wolverine in Sydney with co-stars Liev Schreiber and Ryan Reynolds.

“I’m used to these movies now,” he says. “They’re big and there’s a lot involved, a lot at stake, so it’s always high pressure. But Gavin Hood, our director, is a real force. He’s an Oscar-winning director (for Tsotsi) and he’s used to working under different kinds of pressure and stresses.”

Jackman hand-picked Melbourne youngster Kodi Smit-McPhee (Romulus, My Father) to play Wolverine as a young man.

“He’s one of those kids who’s fearless,” Jackman says. “I hope he doesn’t read this article because yes, there is pressure on him because of who he’s playing and the expectations of fans. I was lucky to be completely ignorant of fans’ expectations and the whole world before X-Men came out. I just hope he doesn’t read too much or go on the internet because he naturally has the goods I know the fans will love.”

Kodi Smit-McPhee should have nothing to worry about. He has a whole year before the hardcore fans rip his performance to shreds due to his hair not being ‘Wolverine’ enough, or his feet being too small.

Read similar posts to Hugh Jackman Talks Wolverine at Filmonic