Paramount have released the U.K. trailer for Mandate Pictures’ Young Adult, and it’s everything you hoped it would be and more.

Young Adult stars Charlize Theron (Monster) as a young adult fiction writer who, after a messy divorce, returns to her hometown of Minnesota in a bid to win back her now married ex-boyfriend.

Marking the second collaboration between director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody after the Academy Award winning Juno, Young Adult features a terrific supporting cast, including Patton Oswalt (Magnolia), Patrick Wilson (Hard Candy), Elizabeth Reaser (Twilight) and Collette Wolfe (17 Again).

While the film hits selected cinemas in the US this weekend, U.K. audiences will have to wait until February 10, 2012.

In the meantime, you can check out the new U.K. trailer below:

Source: Digitalspy

An open mind is a wonderful thing, and I approach every film I see with one. Despite the narrative black hole that was Transformers Revenge of the Fallen there was something in the first film which gave me hope that a return to form was the only option open to Michael Bay and his enormous metal army, and it certainly couldn’t be worse than racist robots and roboballs, could it?

Transformers Dark of the Moon is a technical marvel and though the lauded 3D obviously doesn’t make it to DVD the incredible CG creations have never looked better on screen with whole cities crumbling and some excellent stunt work at play here, particularly in a set piece with a collapsing building. Likewise there’s a few new robots taking the field here as we find Shia LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky down on his luck after saving the world, though he does have a stupidly attractive girlfriend and knows all the cool giant robots in town, but with comedy parents in town for a road trip and no luck finding a job we’re all set for Round Three of this planet wide boxing match.

When this one rolled out in cinemas the lines were already drawn and the critical backlash was countered before it appeared by the fanbase, a section of which championed the notion that as a Transformers film it isn’t meant for critics and is best enjoyed with the brain firmly switched off. This is an immensely stupid and troubling comment and its prevalence as a defence the wake of T DOTM finding its way into cinemas is an indication that the film rarely tries to deliver anything other than the usual maelstrom of metal fisticuffs.

It does start off well, and has a nice premise setting things in motion, with the Moon landing mission having a secret purpose. This opening scene is well directed and gives a glimmer of hope that we’ll have more to work with here than usual. Sadly it’s the only original piece in the film and very soon we are back on track with Bay’s patented rapid fire dialogue, complete with some outlandishly terribly comedy insertions which litter the film like an errant child who has had too much ice-cream and shouts childish jokes during a family dinner, and then comes all the all-too-familiar hitting. I know this film has its audience and I’m very happy they enjoyed the film but there’s so little here to engage any emotion other than unrequited lust; it is as if Bay has some sort of contraption similar to Krank’s dream stealer in Jeunet & Caro’s The City of Lost Children and is drawing on the dullest of teenage wet dreams.

And John Malkovich does John Turturro’s Crazy Guy routine this time round so you get that thrown in for free.

I would wish that this was the final film in the series of Big Robots Hitting but I fear we’re due to see more from this sterile world, with Jason Statham’s name being bandied around for a new director to place in the middle of the next mess, and I can see it happening because, as my friend who watched it with me said, in Michael Bay’s world there are no fat ladies to sing.

**~~~ (2/5)

Extras.

There were no extras on the DVD I was sent and that’s just as well.

The Adventures of Tintin is set to storm into UK cinemas this Wednesday and this evening sees the UK premiere hit London with many of the cast set to be in attendance. Jamie Bell, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and writers Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish and Steven Moffat are all set to walk the red carpet and you can see it all as it unfolds from the confort of your own computer screen. We’ll be there braving the London cold to hopefully bring you interviews with the names mentioned above as soon as we possibly can.

From Oscar®-winning director Steven Spielberg and Oscar®-winning producer Peter Jackson, two of today’s most visionary storytellers, comes a 3D motion picture event:  an epic, globe-hopping quest that spans hidden mysteries, menacing criminals and ancient secrets – and brings to dazzling, life the classic escapades that have enthralled generation after generation with their one-of-a-kind mix of action, humor and scintillating tale-spinning in The Adventures of Tintin: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN.

Based on the internationally beloved and irrepressible characters created by Hergé, the story follows the unquenchably curious young reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell) and his fiercely loyal dog Snowy as they discover a model ship carrying an explosive secret.  Drawn into a centuries-old mystery, Tintin finds himself in the sightlines of Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine (Daniel Craig), a diabolical villain who believes Tintin has stolen a priceless treasure tied to dastardly pirate named Red Rackham.  But with the help of his dog Snowy, the salty, cantankerous Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) and the bumbling detectives Thompson & Thomson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost), Tintin will travel half the world, outwitting and outrunning his enemies in a breathless chase to find the final resting place of The Unicorn, a shipwreck that may hold the key to vast fortune … and an ancient curse.

From the high seas to the sands of North African deserts, every new twist and turn sweeps Tintin and his friends to escalating levels of thrills and peril, proving that when you dare to risk everything, there’s no limit to what you can do.

I’ll say no more other than I hope you enjoy the coverage right here. The stream is set to go live 17:30 GMT. You can see all our coverage of all things Tintin right here and our review here.

New trailer time for Tintin and there’s a whole lot of One Boy and his Dog to enjoy here as the release date for the 3D Mo-captravaganza from Messrs. Spielberg and Jackson draws ever closer.

What’s gratifying on the new posters has the names of writers Stephen Moffat, Joe Cornish and Edgar Wright prominently displayed alongside the Producer and Director and I’m certainly hoping for big things from this talented trio.

Ben saw the film earlier this week and his thoughts are up here, and there’s certainly something very enticing about a new Spielberg action movie. In the UK we’ll have our chance to see the film on the 26th of October with a December release for the States.

Here are your posters and a new trailer, anticipation frenzy-whipped yet?

The Playlist threw us the trailer bone while IMPA did the poster thing with the usual aplomb.

The first reviews are finding their way online for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn and it’s a generally positive reception for a film which comes to us from two masters of modern popular cinema. If you’re curious then click here to read Ben’s take on the film.

THR sat down with the pair to talk about their collaboration and their love of the story and the new technology which helped bring this version of Herge’s celebrated boy-wonder to the big screen. Certainly when the Blu-ray is released there’ll be lots of interesting behind the scenes stuff to dive into, not least on the technology side of things, but also to see how the two worked on a day by day basis.

We here in the UK get Tintin on the 26th of October while the US have to wait until the 21 December to join in on the fun. The earlier release date here is nice and all, but remember that the States get The Muppets in a month while we have to wait until February next year to indulge ourselves. Both sides of the Atlantic are calling for simulataneous worldwide releases right now.

Here’s the

It’s probably worth starting this review of The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn by gently ushering a couple of elephants out of the room. The first is the title, which is ridiculously overlong. For the sake of simplicity, from here on in, we’ll simply be calling it ‘Tintin’. The second, much larger elephant is the look of the film.

Motion capture is second only to 3D as a point of contention among audiences. Quite understandably so. All too often, reasonably good films have been hampered by characters who move in an odd fashion, and have a soulless, dead-eyed look. Getting expression out of animated characters is a difficult enough thing to achieve, and the almost religious adherence of proponents of the technique like Robert Zemeckis, to animation based exactly on the actors’ performances rather than a collaboration between actor and animator, often makes this impossible. This is also not helped by the fact that the filmmakers almost always seem to plump for character designs that end up squarely in the middle of the Uncanny Valley.

Tintin is something of an exception to this. While the textures used on the characters are as close to real life as a modern computer will allow, the designs deftly skirt the edges of the precipice, taking their cues from Herge’s artwork rather than the actors portraying them. There is the odd moment when a hand or part of a face looks as if it’s been photographed rather than drawn, but rarely does it become unnerving. In contrast to this, the animation team appear to have focused much of their effort on getting everything else to look ‘real’, and with great success. The sets, props and costumes all look incredible, and it’s surprisingly easy to forget that this isn’t a live action film.

With these pachyderms pushed aside for the moment, we’re free to consider the movie in more general terms.  The story is well thought out, and feels like a Tintin adventure should – clever and fun – taking cues from the books, without being slavishly faithful. A conflation of several published stories, it none the less seems like a complete work, without unnecessary threads added for fan service. Indeed, where the film adds characters who wouldn’t otherwise appear, it does so in a way that is entirely consistent with its own logic, and uses them in a fashion that advances the story.

Tonally the 40s setting, the globe-trotting adventure and the intelligent, everyman lead – equally at home with brains, fists or guns gives the film a similar feel to Indiana Jones. Not surprising really, given that Spielberg himself once compared the two characters. This could have gone badly, the last time Spielberg entered this territory we ended up with Shia Le Tarzan, and Harrison Ford in a fridge. Worse, it could have simply been overly self-referential or even self-parody*. Fortunately Tintin is much more in the spirit of the first three films rather than the last, packed with intrigue and excitement rather than loaded down by its own mythology.

The beauty of this is that we get to see Spielberg directing the sort of fun action that he hasn’t done well since the late nineties, and it’s glorious. It’s also the point where our attention is once more on That Elephant. By using motion capture Spielberg is free to create action sequences that he never could in real life. The showpiece chase through a Moroccan city involves a hotel being carried through the streets on a tank, motorbike sidecars crashing through buildings and torrents of water turning whole streets into rivers. The sheer logistics of this, let alone the cost, would make it incredibly difficult, if not impossible to achieve in a live action film. Certainly some of the shots used simply can’t be done outside of animation.

While overblown, effects dependent chases don’t always work in live action films, with Tintin it was the highlight. Because everything is created in a computer there’s no issue with integrating animation and photography, and because everything does look slightly unreal, we can accept the impossible, whether that is a camera move, or a partial suspension of gravity.

Unfortunately while motion capture and near-photo-real animation allow for Tintin’s greatest triumph, it is also the film’s biggest flaw. While the chase, as well as the film in general, works well from a technical standpoint, it’s also somewhat sterile. There’s every reason for us to be emotionally connected with the characters, and rooting for them through their adventure, but the reality is that we’re not. Ordinarily this could be blamed on script, direction or acting, but everything here seems fine. If anything, it’s actually much better than fine. The problem is that the characters simply don’t connect. They’re far from the eerie mannequins we saw in films like Final Fantasy and Beowulf, but they still don’t give enough subtle cues for us to empathise with them as we would with a human actor, and they’re not sufficiently broad and cartoonish for us to forgive this.

Consequently, Tintin feels very mechanical. It’s not dull or boring, and it’s certainly worth a watch, but it’s nowhere near as good a film as it should have been. It isn’t even the sum of its very well made parts. It almost certainly is, however, the best film it could be.

 ***~~ (3/5)

*Yes, I appreciate the last Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was pretty much self-parody anyway, but  humour me.

Paramount / Columbia have dropped this brand new trailer for Peter Jackson / Steven Spielberg’s new movie, The Adventures Of Tintin which is set for release in the UK  October 26th.

Based on three of Georges “Hergé” Remi’s original Tintin stories, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is directed by Steven Spielberg, and stars Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Tony Curran, Toby Jones, Mackenzie Crook, Cary Elwes and Gad Elmaleh.

Tintin (Bell) and his friends discover directions to a sunken ship commanded by Capt. Haddock’s ancestor and go off on a treasure hunt.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn will be released in the UK October 26th, almost two months before it hits US cinemas on December 23rd.

This comes courtesy of MSN.

One of the more enjoyable surprises of the recent Big Screen event here in London was the screening of some footage from The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn complete with an introduction from Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg.

In the introduction they talked of their love for the stories and characters (both looking, it has to be said, as if they were having the time of their lives) and we’re hoping for a good old-fashioned adventure from two masters of the form.

The high adventures of the bequiffed one and his furry sidekick looked phenomenal on screen with Hergé’s cast of characters rendered faithfully and brimming with life that to the voice talents of Jamie Bell, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and especially Andy Serkis as Capt. Archibald Haddock. Having Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish on board to script the film certainly can’t hurt its chances.

We’ve been given a new piece of concept art today and any new look at the film is fun to share, and it’s high time as the film is out here in the UK on the 26th of October.

Here’s the artwork, expect to see this one emblazoned with the film’s title and pasted onto the sides of buidlings across the land.

As always, click to embiggen.

HeyUGuys is live at the O2 arena in London for the Empire Big Screen movie event for the full three days and we aim to have as much covered as possible.

Right now we have the Paramount Pictures Panel and we’ll be liveblogging the event right here on this page. You won’t have to refresh anything – just keep watching the live blog panel below and we’ll update you with all the goings on.

The studio are all over the event with the premiere of their latest blockbuster Cowboys and Aliens taking place last night and there’s another big film on the digital horizon with The Adventures of Tintin along with the smaller, less interesting fish in the Paramount pond – Puss in Boots, Footloose and a third helping of Paranormal Activity.

You can ask us questions as we go, and we’ll do our best to respond to them.

You can follow all our Big Screen coverage right here.

Big Screen – Paramount Panel

(08/14/2011)

  

Close

10:02

HeyUGuys:  Good morning all! Another wonderful day at the 02 arena for the final day of Empire Big Screen. It’s the PAramount pictures panel here. MI4, Paranormal Activity 3 and Footloose. And we’ll be disturbed by The Devil Inside Me and then in a complete turnaround with the first 10 ten mins of Puss in Boots… Sunday August 14, 2011 10:02 HeyUGuys

10:04

HeyUGuys:  Oh, and Footloose too. They are bigging it up in the montage… Sunday August 14, 2011 10:04 HeyUGuys

10:07

HeyUGuys:  This is the Mission Impossible trailer, with some amazing shots of the Kremlin set piece. Amazing as it is they seems to have this new film right. It’s more of the same to be sure but that’s not a bad thing at all. Huge set pieces and the old Tom Cruise charm is all over this one… Sunday August 14, 2011 10:07 HeyUGuys

10:09

HeyUGuys:  The Paranormal Activity 3 trailer is playing now – none of this is now but just like Ghostwatch (search for our Video Vault) there will be something nasty lurking in the shadows. It’s a decent trailer with a great ending – the perfect tease. Let’s hope they really make something of this one. Sunday August 14, 2011 10:09 HeyUGuys

10:12

HeyUGuys:  Like Crazy trailer played. I think everyone in the audience now wants to see it. Me included. Search for the trailer on the site and give yourselves a minute or two to watch. Sunday August 14, 2011 10:12 HeyUGuys

10:12

HeyUGuys:  Hey! Enough love stuff – here’s Cowboy and Aliens. It features both Cowboys and Aliens. Sunday August 14, 2011 10:12 HeyUGuys

10:15

HeyUGuys:  Footloose – the director and star are very excited about the film. This is the drive-in scene. Kids will be dancing their ‘asses’ off. Sunday August 14, 2011 10:15 HeyUGuys

10:20

HeyUGuys:  So, it’s a little like the cast of True Blood doing a musical episode. This is not a bad thing. In a nice homage to Grease the drive-in cinema screen was seen playing that Animated hot-dog advert with the twirling baton. It looks fun, and exactly what a pretty remake of Footloose should be. Sunday August 14, 2011 10:20 HeyUGuys

10:23

HeyUGuys:  In the air of 80s nostalgia and the Gleeful resurgence of dance films Footloose seems like it belongs… Flashdance next? Sunday August 14, 2011 10:23 HeyUGuys

10:28

HeyUGuys:  A slight correction – the film I alluded to earlier was The Devil Inside, not The Devil Inside Me. It’s an exorcist film. Two priests in a basement performing an exorcism. With The Last Exorcism doing the documentary thing and The Rite being last year’s exorcism thriler it will take more than a contorted woman breaking free from her hospital bed and climbing spider-like up the wall to get us interested. This was clearly an early trailer but so far, so so-so. Sunday August 14, 2011 10:28 HeyUGuys

10:29

HeyUGuys:  Puss in Boots now – 10 mins. THe crowd are loving it. Sunday August 14, 2011 10:29 HeyUGuys

10:40

HeyUGuys:  Against all expectations the Puss in Boots footage looked very good with moments of Roadrunner-esque hi jinx and an excellent Dance Fight and a character glimpsed in the trailer who crops up again in the footage. Put it this way – this got the best reaction from the crowd so far. The 3D was not projecting properly but when it was working it looked great. Tintin now… Sunday August 14, 2011 10:40 HeyUGuys

10:46

HeyUGuys:  Spielberg and Jackson are presenting their footage. Clearly loving their opportunity to bring Tintin to the screen. Unlike many of the recorded intros we’ve seen they are really giving us a lot of context for the production. From Peter Jackson’s CGI test of Snowy the dog sent from the set of King Kong to War of the Worlds, to the collaboration with Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. They clearly love this project… Sunday August 14, 2011 10:46 HeyUGuys

10:57

HeyUGuys:  The Tintin footage was not new of course but it looked stunning as expected. The Polar Express syndrome has been thankfully overcome and the world Spielberg and Jackson have created looks solid, impressive and though the brief snippets looked impressive there wasn’t enough to get an idea of the script Moffat, Wright and Cornish have come up with. While all the 3D effects and the CG does look impressive it’s the script I’m looking forward to… Sunday August 14, 2011 10:57 HeyUGuys

11:00

HeyUGuys:  Well – that was Paramount. the Footloose and Puss in Boots extended clips were new to us and there was a lot of love for the return to the Shrekiverse with Jack and Jill looking like Bonnie and Clyde in Little Britain fat suits. As I said it got the best reaction from the crowd and Antonio Banderas is clearly having the time of his life. Next up – Liongate! Sunday August 14, 2011 11:00 HeyUGuys

11:01

 

 

I’ve loved the posters for Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin so far.

Each teased the adventure ahead with sihlouettes of our bequiffed hero and his dog wandering towards both Hell and High Water and there was a genuine sense that was coming would be something special. Sadly this new poster, if it is indeed an official one, has the epic scale and adventuring spirit kicked out of it in favour of Big Faces in the Sky and our old friends Orange and Blue.

Spielberg and Jackson recently took to San Diego and spoke up their mo-capped film and there’s no doubting the colliison of talents will spark great things, but this poster smacks of the shoe-horning of an awesome spectacle into Generic Movie Poster Mode.

Here’s the mishmash,

Cinema Blend – thanks.

As I write this, Steven Spielberg is standing up in Hall H alongside Peter Jackson to talk about their brand new movie, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn or The Adventures of Tintin as I believe it is now known.

Based on three of Georges “Hergé” Remi’s original Tintin stories, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is directed by Steven Spielberg, and stars Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Tony Curran, Toby Jones, Mackenzie Crook, Cary Elwes and Gad Elmaleh.

Tintin (Bell) and his friends discover directions to a sunken ship commanded by Capt. Haddock’s ancestor and go off on a treasure hunt.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn will be released in the UK October 26th, almost two months before it hits US cinemas on December 23rd.

To coincide with this, Hollywood.com have released this brand new image from the movie which shows Tintin zooming along on his motorbike. Check it out below or click here to view the rest of our Tintin coverage.

Click the image below to make it grow BIG!

Another trailer has surfaced for the Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson Tintin movie and it’s a good one, giving hints of the tone the film is going for.

The trailer sets out the basic story, throws in a few beautiful shots of the set pieces and there’s some slapstick to chorlte to in between the action, which is pushed to the fore in this new look.

There’s also a nice moment with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thompson and Thomson and seeing the rest of the characters there’s cause to breathe a cautious sigh of relief as the much feared Polar Express/Dead Eyes syndrome appears to have been worked out.

Based on three of Georges “Hergé” Remi’s original Tintin stories, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is directed by Steven Spielberg, and stars Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Tony Curran, Toby Jones, Mackenzie Crook, Cary Elwes and Gad Elmaleh.

Tintin (Bell) and his friends discover directions to a sunken ship commanded by Capt. Haddock’s ancestor and go off on a treasure hunt.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn will be released in the UK October 26th, almost two months before it hits US cinemas on December 23rd.

Here’s the trailer, which should be released soon in shiny HD.

Tech Sergeant Epps and Captain Lennox quickly worked out in 2007′s Transformers that their conventional ammunition wasn’t going to cut it when it came to bringing down a Decepticon. Instead, they needed to use Rapier rounds (or something) because they burn at a higher temperature (or something). What neither of them knew then, what none of us could have known then, is that the franchise as a whole would evolve to become entirely bullet-proof within four short years.

For the most part, Transformers (2007) was well-received. Of course it was not everyone’s cup of tea and it was loud and silly, but the special effects were outstanding and the action sequences breath-taking, with a fairly arch and knowing script touching the right bases on its way from A to B. 2009′s sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, very much eschewed the “less is more” ethos in favour of “a lot more is a lot more”. We had lots more Decepticons, we didn’t really know who they were or what they were doing, Megan Fox gratuitously spread herself over a motorbike in order to keep teenage boys (and middle-aged fathers) happy, pyramids got trashed, outrageous racial stereotypes were perpetuated, we were treated to a giant swinging set of Decepticon testicles and Michael Bay just kept turning up the volume. As a film it had moments of fun and entertainment, but it fell way short of the first in terms of quality, coherence and cohesion and yet, here’s the thing; it made $836m to the $708m of the first instalment.

Clearly these films were becoming increasingly critic-proof, as Revenge of the Fallen was roundly lambasted by film journalists. Two stars seemed to be the order of the day (for whatever that is worth) and Mark Kermode in particular savaged the film as misogynistic, crass and racist. A year down the line, Bay himself confessed that ROTF had fallen short of expectations in terms of quality and that the next film, which by then was underway would correct its shortcomings as a way of making things up to the audience, who he acknowledged deserved better. This was quite an admission and heightened expectations that Dark of the Moon (as it came to be known) would be more akin to the 2007 in terms of quality. But consider those box office numbers again for a moment. No doubt Michael Bay has no desire to be known as some sort of hack who gets good box office but remains dismissed by the critics fraternity. He plays to his strengths (great set-pieces, high-quality action direction, lots of explosions), but he won’t be wholly indifferent to his critical reputation. Having said that, Paramount would have taken a long, hard look at those figures and, one would assume, leaned towards Bay’s ear to whisper, “if it ain’t broke…”. What they clearly had on their hands here was a combination of product and director with alchemic qualities, able to produce pure gold out of base components. It didn’t make any difference whether the critics liked it or not, audiences were pouring in, fortunes were made and all of a sudden the franchise became boxed in.

So here we are in 2011 and Dark of the Moon is now with us. It is every bit the bullet-proof juggernaut that its’ predecessor was. In excess of $400m in its first week, worldwide. This despite some unbelievably vitriolic reviews. Film Freak Central says:-

Transformers: Asshole holds the distinction of being the first movie this year I’m actually ashamed of. In it, I recognize every failing of we the people, paraded before us as though they were virtues.

Roger Ebert says:-

a visually ugly film with an incoherent plot, wooden characters and inane dialog. It provided me with one of the more unpleasant experiences I’ve had at the movies.

Mark Kermode had nothing nice to say at all, dismissing it as soft-core porn, crass, leering and obscene. Reviews were, in the interests of fairness and balance, more positive elsewhere, but certainly no-one hailed it as a masterpiece. Empire Magazine captured the inevitable outcome best with their summary:-

An improvement on Transformers 2, but then what isn’t? To paraphrase the Bard, it’s a tale, full of sound and fury and extremely stupid dialogue and nonsensical plotting and preposterous stunts and robots punching each other’s heads off, signifying nothing. Needless to say, it’s going to be huge.

Exactly. It didn’t matter what anyone thought of the film, it didn’t matter whether it was better or worse than the previous films, it didn’t matter whether Bay learned his lessons and gave us the Transformers film we deserved. It was bigger, louder, longer, more exciting, better-rendered and most importantly, in 3D. Yes, you get to wear uncomfortable shades for 160 minutes as well. To be honest, I quite enjoyed a lot of it, though Bay insistence on salivating over Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s body every five minutes was dreary and unpleasant. But, IT DOESN’T MATTER. This franchise has become indestructible, death proof. The critics have turned on the film and it has made no difference at all.

Bear in mind that this isn’t the first critically-mauled, effects-heavy film to reach the cinema recently. Skyline performed wretchedly and Green Lantern has fared far worse than hoped by the studio. Neither of these could escape from the impact of negative reviews and ambivalent audience reactions. But where they stumbled and fell, Dark of the Moon has shrugged and carried on pounding. The difference must be that regardless of what it says about our taste in films, regardless of whether we should like it or not, Bay is giving the audience what they want and we are lapping it up. No-one is going to be able to convince Bay or Paramount that a wrong turn has been taken and that the franchise needs to be scaled back, rebooted and the quality improved (as seems to be happening now with Spider-Man). Successive franchise entries have been louder, longer and less refined and the money just keeps pouring in ever more abundantly.

I’m not sure what if anything can stop this juggernaut. Unless the studio decides to grasp some higher ideal of not sacrificing quality and artistic integrity on the altar of commercial success, we will surely just get more of the same. For these sorts of projects, money talks. It took the unmitigated failure of Batman & Robin to wrestle the franchise away from Schumacher and entrust it to Nolan, which has resulted in The Dark Knight, Oscar success and greater box office returns than any other entry in the franchise. Unless and until we stop watching these films, they won’t change. Why would they? Why should they? We have only ourselves to blame.

This image was released a few days ago but we’ve been so consumed with all things Potter, it somehow got missed! It’s a nice new image from The Spielberg, Jackson mocap collaboration that is, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

Based on three of Georges “Hergé” Remi’s original Tintin stories, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is directed by Steven Spielberg , and stars Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg , Nick Frost , Tony Curran, Toby Jones, Mackenzie Crook, Cary Elwes and Gad Elmaleh .

Tintin (Bell) and his friends discover directions to a sunken ship commanded by Capt. Haddock’s ancestor and go off on a treasure hunt.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn will be released in the UK October 26th, almost two months before it hits US cinemas on December 23rd.

If you missed all the other coverage from TinTin including 2 trailers, you can keep track of it all here.

Source: Animatie via Playlist

We’ve featured some of the videos from The Soundworks Collection before and every time they shine a light on a world heard but not seen.

Even today when DVD special features are commonplace there is a growing tendancy for discs to be stuffed with blooper reels and ‘featurettes’ culled from press kits with no actual added value, so we’re lucky then that there are these videos available for free.

Michael Bay’s third Transformers films, Dark of the Moon, has traveresed the inevitable line between disgusted critics and satisfied audiences (with exceptions on both sides of course) but for all the talk of 3D and visual insanity the sound design of the films hasn’t had much attention.

Enter the Soundworks Collection, who have done another excptional job in giving us a look at the people and techniques behind the aural assualt.

Have a look below and check out their homepage for much more.

Soundworks Collection: The Sound of Transformers: Dark of the Moon from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

On Thursday night, Russia’s Red Square in Moscow played host to the world premiere of Michael Bay’s third installment of the Transformers franchise: Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Also at the event were stars Shia LaBeouf, Tyrese Gibson, Rosie Huntington-Whitely, and Patrick Dempseyl. Linkin Park were also there to play a gig for the massive audience that gathered for the event.

Patramount have sent over a video from the event which looks amazing and I wish we’d were there. Fortunately for us, we’ll be at a fan screening of the movie today at the BFI in London where MIchael Bay and Rosie will be showing up so stay tuned for photos and our report from that event.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is directed by Michael Bay and stars Shia LaBeouf , Josh Duhamel , Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, John Malkovich , Patrick Dempsey , Ken Jeong , John Turturro , Frances McDormand , Peter Cullen and Tyrese Gibson.

Synopsis: Shia LaBeouf returns as Sam Witwicky in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. When a mysterious event from Earth’s past erupts into the present day it threatens to bring a war to Earth so big that the Transformers alone will not be able to save us.

The movie will hit both US and UK cinemas on 29th June.

The footage below has interviews with all the main cast and director Michael Bay. Check it out below.

After throwing your creative weight behind a box office flop of epic proportions like Town & Country ($10 million revenue against a $105 million budget!) it’s no wonder you’d retreat from the spotlight to lick your wounds. Hardly the most prolific actor during  the 1990’s, nevertheless, 70’s superstar Warren Beatty looks to have finally put the bad experiences of that 2001 comedy behind him and finally found a new project.

What’s more, he’s also stepping behind the camera too (for the first time since the edgy 1998 satirical comedy Bulworth) for a yet untitled comedy for Paramount. Deadline are reporting that the studio has confirmed that Beatty is in pre-production (working on a script he wrote) and the casting process has now begun.

Beatty was once a cinematic force to be reckoned with. He shepherded in the New Hollywood era with 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde, and appeared in a number of features now regarded as classics (alongside the tale of those two young bank robbers, he was the star of seminal 70’s paranoia thriller The Parallax View and Robert Altman’s much-cherished revisionist western McCabe & Mrs. Miller). Ten years is a long time to be away from the motion picture industry, and it will be interesting to see if the actor (now 74) can do something which resonates with an audience of this era.

As we’re getting closer to the 29th June release date for Transformers: Dark of the Moon, we’re seeing the last of the advertising campaign  for what is set to be an immense final instalment in Michael Bay’s Transformers films.

Linkin Park have released via their YouTube page a minute-and-a-half video of footage from Dark of the Moon set to their track, Iridescent, featured on the film’s soundtrack, and MovieWeb have posted another fifteen-second TV spot for the film too.

The video Linkin Park have put up features a lot of the footage we’ve seen in previous trailers for the film, but it also gives us some incredible new footage and some extensions of the clips that we’ve already seen. Whatever you think about the Transformers films themselves, you cannot deny that their visual effects are stunning, and this new video really shows what we can look forward to when the film comes out next week.

The music set to the video works perfectly with the footage. The song opens stripped pretty bare, with Chester’s vocals against a piano, and against these words, we see the Decepticons taking over America. But then this raw guitar kicks in,  with a choir-like “Let it go” sung out, and Bumblebee makes a life-saving catch, and it just makes your spine tingle.

The TV spot is a slightly different affair, and is essentially pretty average. Rather than go for the epic footage like the music video, it goes for a bit of humour instead with the bite-sized Decepticons, one of which is taking a dog for a ride. It isn’t the best TV spot, but worth fifteen seconds to see the second, blue-haired mini Decepticon.

Just like a lot of people will be, I cannot wait for next week to roll around, because I have a feeling that Michael Bay and everyone involved in the film will be bringing us something extra special for what is set to be their last film together. It’s going to be immense. And here are those two videos for your viewing pleasure to whet your appetites.

I always like a nice marketing campaign but it would be nice if Paramount brought out a different style of poster for their new movie, Transformers: Dark of the Moon. All three films have now been the same sort of thing with a Autobot or Deception smashing something up with a city behind them. Have a look at the awesome Potter posters guys and get something cool done or better yet, get Drew Struzan in!

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is directed by Michael Bay and stars Shia LaBeouf , Josh Duhamel , Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, John Malkovich , Patrick Dempsey , Ken Jeong , John Turturro , Frances McDormand , Peter Cullen and Tyrese Gibson.

Synopsis: Shia LaBeouf returns as Sam Witwicky in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. When a mysterious event from Earth’s past erupts into the present day it threatens to bring a war to Earth so big that the Transformers alone will not be able to save us.

The movie will hit both US and UK cinemas on 29th June.

Source: Fandango

How Michael Bay convinced Frances McDormand and John Malkovich to sign up for the third Transformers film is beyond me, but there are pictures to prove it below, as well as a new TV spot which features Optimus Prime sitting and having a good old think about his life*.

Michael Bay’s 3D robotravaganza is almost upon us and it seems churlish to lower expectations for this film more than the second TF film did but with a few teaser trailers looking ‘good’ chances are that Bay and Co. have learned from their big expensive mistakes.

Here’s a TV spot,

Point those eyes at the gallery and imagine a blzaing sunset with the faint whiff of a heavy rock soundtrack somewhere in the distance. Click them.

Getting all sourcey for a moment, the TV spot came in from Latino Review and the pics flew in from Yahoo via Collider. A chorus of thanks to each and all.

*Not really.