Drive Angry 3D is actually a surprisingly fun ride. It might not be a good movie, but it sure was a good time. From the minds of Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier comes the next experiment in their 3D dominance. They started with the horror My Bloody Valentine in 3D and decided it would be cool to do a 3D movie with fast cars and explosions so BOOM! here is Drive Angry starring a ridiculously cool cast headed by Nicolas Cage, William Fichtner and Billy Burke.
Don’t worry about the plot. I really wish they didn’t even have a story. The movie is bad ass from frame one until the flashbacks of a back story come in. You know it goes downhill from there. If they tried to just be a grindhouse-esque shoot em up with interesting characters, fast cars, and in your face action, this would’ve been a done deal must see. Luckily they don’t care too much for the story so it doesn’t kill it altogether. A lot of plot points aren’t answered and most are just so ridiculous for the point of being ridiculous that it’s fun. The gist of it is a walking contradiction named Milton (Nicolas Cage) is here to revenge his daughter who was murdered by a messiah of the next age, Jonah King (Billy Burke). The Accountant (William Fichtner) is following Milton and his new companion, Piper, played by the drop dead gorgeous Amber Heard.
The drop dead gorgeous Amber Heard
William Fichtner and Amber Heard steal the show. If you’re a Nicolas Cage fan, he’ll be your favorite, but if not, you’ll hate his character. The Accountant, who walks with reason and doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings, is one of those characters you’re just drawn to and want to know everything about. He calls it how he sees it and has a one track mind. Piper, a southern firecracker who looks great and packs a punch. The ensemble cast doesn’t end there, you get to see Billy Burke, David Morse, and Marc Macaulay all on screen together. Each character’s unique addition to this mishmash of random car chases and gun fights makes the movie enjoyable rather than just another movie.
William Fichtner stole the show...and an FBI badge
If you love badass rock music to get your riled up, you’ll really appreciate this soundtrack. Each song is paired with a scene, and once the action gets turned up, so does the volume. From Peaches’ “Fuck the Pain Away,” to “Deaf Leading the Blind,” from Flatlined and of course AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.” There’s one completely amazingly ridiculous scene where Milton has a one night stand right before and during a gun fight. “I never disrobe before a gun fight.” As you can see, the lines in the movie are as pointless as the movie itself but there are quite a few winners that’ll make you chuckle.
So were you laughing with Nicolas Cage or at him?
For mindless fun (which is what movies should be, right?), Drive Angry is a sure thing. You won’t get what you’re expecting and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. You’ll be laughing with the movie (rather than at it), you’ll be Oh, and yes, these guys know how to do 3D. They’re some of the pioneers in the area and they really keep improving their craft. This is a great mix of the gimmicky in your face stuff people still want with the layered immersive 3D that makes you forget you’re wearing the glasses. You’ll have fun. Leave your brain in the backseat and just Drive Angry.
From the very beginning of the movie, I couldn’t believe Season of the Witch was rated PG-13. Either I don’t remember being thirteen or thirteen year-olds these days are a lot more desensitized. Season of the Witch begins with a hanging and drowning of three witches…or does it? How can you tell who is a witch and who isn’t a witch? Am I a witch? Are you a witch? Which witch would watch this witch movie?? I’m sorry I’m going nowhere…kinda like this movie did.
Comic-Con is the leading comic book convention in the world. Over the years, it has become a platform for movie studios to debut exclusive information and footage from their upcoming films.
advancescreenings.com is heading to San Diego for the 2010 Comic-Con! The movie schedule this year looks intense so we should have tons of stories and previews for you in the next couple of weeks. You can find the full Comic-Con schedule 
I was disappointed but I had pretty high hopes. I was looking forward to this movie because there was so much potential in almost every aspect of the production. You have a coming of age story mixed with magic and adventure, sound familiar? This is definitely going to be compared to Harry Potter and sadly, it doesn’t hold a candle next to it. But even so, it does conjure up an adventure for kids and fans of movies like the National Treasure series which shares the same director (Jon Turteltaub) and producer (Jerry Bruckheimer) as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice as well as the star, Nicolas Cage.
The movie lives up to the hype! I missed countless screenings and heard many peoples’ reactions to the film throughout the past few weeks so my expectations fluctuated with every person I talked to. Still, I was surprised with what I saw and smiled from beginning to end…it was exceptional and well delivered. Kick-Ass is the story about a regular kid living at home with his dad. He goes through the regular routine day to day: going to school, hanging with friends, and generally being unimportant. He’s not into sports, isn’t popular, and doesn’t have any special skills at all. He constantly thinks to himself why nobody has ever tried to become a superhero. He thinks the comic books have it wrong – you don’t need to have special powers, you just need to have a mix of optimism and naivety.
WonderCon is one of the country’s best comics conventions featuring guests and events for comics, movies, video games, and other popular media. This year, WonderCon had presentations by such Hollywood studios as Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, and Lionsgate.
Disney started their showcase with a first look at Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time starring Jake Gyllenhaal, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and directed by Mike Newell…all three were in attendance to talk about the movie. Prince of Persia is based on the popular video game of the same name. It follows the adventures of a prince who stumbles upon a mythical object which can affect time itself. He teams up with the princess of his rivals to stop a sandstorm which would end of the world. From what they showed and said, it’s definitely an action-packed summer blockbuster but Jerry kept highlighting the points that it would have lots of comedy and romance. Pretty much, it’s trying to have mass appeal and target the largest market possible. It was filmed in Morocco where it was said to be over a hundred degrees every day. Additionally, they sent teams around the world to take authentic pictures and bring back the images to build unique sets. But even with that backdrop, a lot of the movie will be computer generated. The footage they showed looked very common and bland. Granted, it’s still early and the scenes weren’t polished up yet. However, the time travel affects with the sand looked awesome as well as the scenes with snakes…they did some really cool things there. It’s reminiscent of the director, Mike Newell’s work in Harry Potter, very magical. You can expect a lot of free running/parkour type stuff from Jake who literally runs up walls.
Jerry Bruckheimer stayed in his seat as the panels changed because he was presenting his 2nd upcoming film with Disney, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice starring Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel and is directed by Jon Turteltaub. Set in modern-day, a college student in New York City finds himself in a magical battle between good and evil. He is destined to become a great and powerful sorcerer trained by an old wizard by the name of Balthazar. On the plot, Jon Turteltaub commented on how fundamental this plot is to Disney and that it originated from a segment in Fantasia. He comically said that obviously they’re not doing a cartoon for two hours of a mop (even though the iconic sequence of the mop is in the film). To me, the footage looked amazing. This is going to be a homerun for Disney and regain them some lost fans while gaining them a lot of new ones from the younger generation who has no idea what Fantasia is and would definitely not sit through it today. You can tell it’s still geared towards kids, but it looks really funny and entertaining…kind of a Harry Potter like feel. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice looks at magic a different way than Harry Potter though. Turteltaub said he wanted to create a very realistic and modern weird feeling as if you were in this world with the characters on the screen and then the magic would enter all of our lives.
Finally, Disney’s last film showcased was a continuation of a little known franchise from Disney Pixar called Toy Story 3. The third film in this series follows the characters as they are abandoned in a day care while their owner, Andy, goes away to college. At first, to all of the toys except Woody, it looks like a paradise but kids love new toys…The director, Lee Unkrich, said that it took two days in a cabin to come up with the story but over two and half years of storyboarding and fine tuning. He felt the pressure of taking this huge franchise and creating a third feature length film every day of the process of making it but it doesn’t look like he failed…every time a new character was shown to the audience, there was a collective “awww.” There’s no doubt in my mind that this film will resonate with the new generation of kids and that the old fans will flock back to see the new instalment. When an audience member asked Jeff Garlin about improvising in the movie he said that when the script is good, he doesn’t like to improvise. He likes to improvise in order to help a movie out but with Wall-E and Toy Story 3, he felt that the scripts were great so that should give you an idea of how good this one is going to be.
