Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn will be hitting UK screens later this month, and a new UK trailer has been released online in preparation.

As the movie is pretty much complete now the action scenes are prominent in the trailer, with most of the new footage involving a motorcycle and a sidecar. We also see shots of ships on fire, and some amazing scenery from Tintin’s travels.

Watch below:

In the film, co-written by Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim), Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) and Steven Moffat (Doctor Who), Jamie Bell stars as journalist and adventurer Tintin with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost playing detective twins Thompson and Thomson and Daniel Craig playing villainous pirate Red Rackham. Paramount will release The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn in the US in December, with Sony releasing the film in Europe and overseas over the next few months.

Read similar posts to New UK trailer for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn at Filmonic

A new trailer for Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn has found its way online. It’s not the best quality so it’s hard to get a good look at the faces (the teaser did a good job of hiding them), but the new footage gives us a run-through of the story and we get to see a few new action scenes.

Watch below: (I’ll update with a HD version when it becomes available)

In the film, co-written by Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim), Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) and Steven Moffat (Doctor Who), Jamie Bell stars as journalist and adventurer Tintin with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost playing detective twins Thompson and Thomson and Daniel Craig playing villainous pirate Red Rackham. Paramount will release The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn in the US in December, with Sony releasing the film in Europe and overseas in October.

Read similar posts to New trailer for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn at Filmonic

Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block received strong reviews at the SXSW Film Festival earlier this year, and despite the characters being equipped with thick London accents Screen Gems picked it up for distribution in the US.

Now Box Office Mojo has listed the US release date for July 29, 2011, which means it’ll be going up against Cowboys and Aliens and The Smurfs.

The film follows follows a gang of tough inner-city kids who rob Sam (Jodie Whittaker) as she is walking home in a scary South London tower block. She flees when the gang is attacked by a small alien creature which falls from the sky. While Sam and the police hunt for the gang, a second wave of creatures falls. The gang grabs weapons, mount bikes, and set out to defend their turf. But this time, the creatures are much bigger. Savage and bestial, nothing will stand in their way. And the bunch of no-hope kids who just attacked Sam are about to become her only hope.

I’ve embedded the trailer below:

You can read Filmonic’s review of Attack the Block here!

Read similar posts to Screen Gems will release Attack the Block next month at Filmonic

As expected, Paramount today released the first official trailer for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. The teaser only lasts a minute long so few plot details are explained, however we do get a look at Tintin himself and a few money shots, including a ship (the Unicorn I presume) sailing across a desert.

Watch below:

It’s certainly a visual treat, and reminds me of the cartoon made in the 90s. I’m not sure why they’ve intentionality tried to hide the faces (apart from the shot at the end). Maybe they’ve done it because it’s a ‘teaser’, or it could be the case WETA haven’t completed the visuals yet so they don’t want to sell the movie with incomplete motion capture.

In the film, co-written by Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim), Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) and Steven Moffat (Doctor Who), Jamie Bell stars as journalist and adventurer Tintin with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost playing detective twins Thompson and Thomson and Daniel Craig playing villainous pirate Red Rackham. Paramount will release The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn in the US in December, with Sony releasing the film in Europe and overseas in October.

Read similar posts to The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn teaser trailer at Filmonic

Joe Cornish is a name many of you probably aren’t familiar with…yet. But this guy is poised on the edge of breakout status, and my hope is that in a few years, he’ll be drawing the same admiration and acclaim as his contemporary and sometimes-writing partner, Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World). The duo co-wrote the screenplay for Spielberg’s upcoming holiday release The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, and they have been working on a script for the lower-tier Marvel superhero Ant-Man for years now. Attack the Block marks Cornish’s feature directorial debut (he also wrote the movie), and with its kinetic pacing, solid character work, and genre-mashing sensibilities, the movie already seems destined to become a cult classic.

It opens in South London with a girl named Sam (Jodie Whittaker) getting mugged by a gang of teenage hoodlums, led by Moses (John Boyega). The mugging is interrupted when an alien smashes through a car roof nearby, and after the guys kill the creature and parade it back to their “block,” they soon realize the invasion isn’t limited to one creature – there are many more falling from the sky, and these are a lot bigger and meaner than the first one. Teaming up with Sam and a few potheads (one played by Edgar Wright staple Nick Frost), the gang must band together in order to survive both the invasion and the unstable antics of the perpetually pissed off psychotic local drug dealer Hi-Hatz.

Rarely have the genres of action, comedy, and science fiction combined to such rousing effect as in this movie. The script is blazingly quick-witted, tearing from chase scene to set piece with jokes peppered throughout and near-perfect comic timing. Every gag works, every action scene is both conceived and executed in terrific fashion, and the character moments are spectacular. Similar movies may feel predictable, but things actually matter here: characters you grow to love die thanks to the glow-in-the-dark fangs of the aliens, and since no one is off limits, it heightens the drama throughout. The montage sequences of the gang preparing for battle has Wright’s influence all over it, and the movie has a genuinely fun atmosphere even though these characters are enduring a horrifying situation.

Cornish used a cast comprised almost entirely of unknowns and they all work wonderfully together. They bounce their London slang off each other and practically finish each other’s sentences with a youthful exuberance and blustery bravado found in kids who think they’re gangsters, but are really just victims of a bad social situation. The colleague who got me into this screening (Drew McWeeny at HitFix – thanks Drew!) told me Cornish went through a four month casting search, and after he found everyone, he allowed the kids to essentially rewrite the dialogue into more natural language, mimicking the way they actually speak. That sensibility comes across brilliantly in the movie; the characters feel like real people instead of stock roles, and each one has his or her own defining characteristics. The accents may be a bit harsh at times, but there’s absolutely no reason to subtitle the movie if and when it gets U.S. distribution (as discussions have indicated since Attack the Block‘s SXSW Film Festival premiere).

Unfortunately, you read that correctly – this movie hits the UK on May 13th, 2011, but if you’re in the United States and you want to see it, you’re sadly out of luck. It’s shocking to me that distributors haven’t picked this up yet, because it’s a surefire cult classic that may not do gangbusters at the box office, but will make some serious cash in the home video market. I know I’ll be purchasing the Blu-ray and showing it to all of my friends; this is the type of movie that plays great to a crowd, and fans of science fiction, comedy, or even some of the old Amblin films will be in geek heaven.

Attack the Block is full of references to other films, but these aren’t nearly as obvious as the ones in Paul, another recent alien film with which Edgar Wright and Nick Frost were involved. Instead, this one relies more on the vibe than specific homages; there are touches of Gremlins, Alien, The Thing, and many more, but Attack always feels confident in its own skin, fine with sitting back and allowing the story to speak for itself. The language of the characters actually serves to strengthen this film’s own voice: catch phrases and exclamations like “allow it,” “truth!” and “believe!” give the movie a charm that no American remake (shudder) could hope to recapture.

Props must be given to first-time actor John Boyega who carries the film as Moses, the leader of the gang. He’s equally successful in the quietly intense moments as in the bombastic slow motion battle scenes, and I’m certain we haven’t seen the last of him on the big screen. Alex Esmail (who plays Pest) and Leeon Jones (who plays Jerome) also did some solid work, and Jodie Whittaker (Sam) did a great job as the emotional center of the movie. Nick Frost has a really small role, but he’s content with underplaying his part in order to let the young cast shine, so don’t expect much from him or you’ll surely be disappointed.

I can’t imagine having a more purely fun time in theaters this year, so expect Attack the Block to make it onto my Favorites of the Year list come December. If you ask me, there aren’t enough movies that feature swords and fireworks as ridiculous weapons, and this movie not only has both, but embraces them – they actually provide some of the coolest moments in the movie. Keep your eyes peeled for this one – it’s totally worth your while. Until next time…

Read similar posts to Review: Attack the Block at Filmonic

While Paul is not the third entry into the infamous Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s third cinematic team-up is almost as enjoyable as their previous collaborations. Let’s face it: Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are both awesome movies, and without Edgar Wright behind the camera to complete the triumvirate, one might assume that another director stepping into the situation would be a bit intimidated to work with such a close-knit group. Not the case for Superbad and Adventureland director Greg Mottola, who, while not matching Wright’s unique dynamism, imbues Paul with his own pacing and comedy sensibilities that ultimately results in a very enjoyable moviegoing experience.

The story follows Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost), two geeky British comic book creators who travel to America to go on a road trip to see their favorite alien hot spots across the country. Along the way, they discover an actual alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) and go on the run from Agent Zoil (Bateman), a “man in black” tasked with hunting the alien down. Pegg and Frost’s influence is felt all over this film and keeps with their signature style of slightly mocking a genre, paying homage to it, and adding an exciting new entry to its ranks all at the same time. This is one that movie geeks will love in the same way that gamers and pop culture nerds loved Scott Pilgrim vs. The World; there are so many references to other movies (alien, road trip, and otherwise) that I could spend an entire post listing all of them.

The CG work for Paul’s alien body was surprisingly impressive, never aiming for “realism,” per se, but always remaining fluid and true to the character. And speaking of the character, Paul was hilarious. He’s a smoking foul-mouthed version of E.T., embracing (and at times contributing to) human pop culture in a way that makes his character almost pleasant among all the cursing and drinking. Honestly, Paul himself was the character about whom I had the biggest doubts going in, but Seth Rogen – an actor yet to give a truly excellent performance in my opinion – did a fantastic job with the voice work and really gave the alien an extra spark of life that would be hard for many other actors to replicate.

The movie featured smaller roles for a lot of people we’ve seen in comedy before. Kristen Wiig is charming as the extremist Christian whose world is turned upside down with the discovery of extraterrestrial life (her character also doubles as Pegg’s love interest and provides a bit of conflict between Pegg and Frost). Sigourney Weaver has a small cameo as the determined head of the government agency looking for Paul. Bill Hader (“SNL”) and Joe Lo Truglio (Superbad) play rookie agents tagging along with Bateman, David Koechner (Anchorman) and Jesse Plemons (TV’s “Friday Night Lights”) are a couple of redneck homophobes that become bitter enemies to our heroes, and Jeffrey Tambor (“Arrested Development”) has a small role as a self-centered comic creator the guys meet at Comic-Con.

Speaking of Comic-Con, the movie has the best depiction of the convention I’ve ever seen on screen. It’s such an accurate representation of what it’s like, and though the movie wasn’t actually shot at the convention, it could have fooled me. I had a chance to attend my first Comic-Con last year with the guys and girls at GeekTyrant (check out all our coverage here), and Paul not only captured the physical accuracy of the convention center and surrounding areas but also the giddy feeling of excitement it provides – geeking out as only geeks can.

If I have any qualms with the movie, it’s that the story was a bit predictable at times. Due to personal bias, I’m more willing to forgive predictability with movies that embrace fun than ones that aim for seriousness, so this wasn’t as big of a turn off for me as it most assuredly will be for some. To me, the comedy and the heart are the most important parts of this movie, and they hit on all the right beats. A lot of people will find the anti-Christian overtones to be a bit off-putting, but aside from that one issue, I think the entire film has an infectious enthusiasm to it – all of the protagonists are extremely likeable and Pegg and Frost’s writing makes it very easy to root for them. The pacing was solid, with no scene dragging on too long and the action moving quickly across different locations to keep things visually interesting.

Paul is a great entry into the ranks of the Pegg-Frost collaborations, and a new high point in Greg Mottola’s career alongside Superbad. This movie will undoubtedly put smiles on the faces of movie lovers across the country as they take an insane road trip with these characters that ends at the absolute perfect location. Until next time…

Read similar posts to Review: Paul at Filmonic

head over to Yahoo! has released a new trailer for Paul which stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman and Sigourney Weaver. The teaser trailer we got back in October was only 70 seconds long, but this latest trailer is the full 2 minute 30 seconds one.

The movie follows two British comic book geeks (Pegg and Frost) who go on a road trip through America. On the way, they discover an alien named Paul (voiced by Rogen) at Area 51 who needs their help.

In the trailer, embedded below, we get to see a lot more of Seth Rogen’s alien character who exposes himself on a number of occasions, turns invisible, and brings birds back to life.

The film is directed by Superbad director Greg Mottola so fans of that type of comedy should be looking forward to this, as will fans of Pegg and Frost’s earlier work in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

Paul will be released on February 18th in the UK and March 18th in the US.

Read similar posts to Another trailer for Paul at Filmonic

Empire have released the official one-sheet for Paul, which stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman and Sigourney Weaver, and follows two British comic book geeks (Pegg and Frost) who go on a road trip through America. On the way, they discover an alien named Paul (voiced by Rogen) at Area 51 who needs their help.

Check the full poster out below:

The film is directed by Superbad director Greg Mottola so fans of that type of comedy should be looking forward to this, as will fans of Pegg and Frost’s earlier work in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMzsQzRFXqc

Paul will be released on February 14th in the UK and March 18th in the US.

Read similar posts to Paul movie poster at Filmonic

Empire were given our first official look at Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn. The film is based on the series of comic strips created by Belgian artist Georges Rémi which have sold over 200 million copies worldwide (mostly in Europe).

Secret of the Unicorn is using the same performance-capture technology James Cameron used for Avatar, but from these images it looks like they are opting for a classic Tintin look rather than being completely photo-realistic. Spielberg actually finished filming in March 2009 after a mere 32 days of shooting, and Peter Jackson has since been working with WETA on the special effects.

Captain Archibald Haddock, played by Andy Serkis

“With live action you’re going to have actors pretending to be Captain Haddock and Tintin,” says Peter Jackson. “You’d be casting people to look like them. It’s not really going to feel like the Tintin Hergé drew. It’s going to be somewhat different. With CGI we can bring Hergé’s world to life, keep the stylised caricatured faces, keep everything looking like Hergé’s artwork, but make it photo-real.”

From past experience with Avatar these types of movies always look better in motion, but these images look pretty cool. The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn still has another year in post-production until its December 2011 release so things we see now will probably be improved upon by the time the movie rolls around.

Jamie Bell stars as journalist and adventurer Tintin, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost play detective twins Thompson and Thomson and Daniel Craig plays villainous pirate Red Rackham.

Head over to Empire to see their Tintin December cover, and they also have quotes from Spielberg on this movie as well as future sequels (he’s thinking about having the third or fourth Tintin film based on Tintin’s adventures on the Moon).

Read similar posts to First images from Spielberg’s Tintin at Filmonic

We finally have our first look at Paul, which was originally going to be released this year but got pushed back to February 2011. The film stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman and Sigourney Weaver, and follows two British comic book geeks (Pegg and Frost) who go on a road trip through America. On the way, they discover an alien named Paul (voiced by Rogen) at Area 51 who needs their help.

The film is directed by Superbad director Greg Mottola so fans of that type of comedy should be looking forward to this, as will fans of Pegg and Frost’s earlier work in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

This teaser, which you can watch below, doesn’t really show us anything wildly hilarious, but that may come with future trailers and the inevitable red band one. In this case the cast is a good enough reason to be interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMzsQzRFXqc

Read similar posts to Paul teaser trailer at Filmonic