Here’s the beautiful Emily Blunt in Toronto for the red carpet premiere of “Looper.” We have to say that she looks pretty amazing in that tight red dress.
Check out the trailer below and a preview of the film from Jason’s September movie preview.
Images courtesy of Sony Pictures
Taking modern technological paranoia to its logical next step, the Bryan Singer-produced digital series “H+” takes an interesting, non-linear approach to its apocalyptic future storytelling. Created by John Cabrera, best known for his work as an actor on the popular television series “Gilmore Girls,” the series takes place in a near future in which 33 per cent of the world’s population has opted to have a device implanted into their bodies that connects their minds to the internet 24 hours a day. When a mysterious virus crashes the system, large portions of the world dies instantly, and the series primarily follows a few desperate survivors in an airport parking garage, while simultaneously cutting back and forth in time to various points before and after “it happened.”
“H+” is designed to be watched in any order, as each episode takes place in a different time and space, allowing viewers to stick with the main storyline in the parking garage first if they choose. This storyline begins with Julie Martin (Nikki Crawford) and her husband driving to the airport “5 minutes before it happened.” As they are making their way out of the parking lot, all hell breaks loose as the system crashes and people begin dropping like flies, cars and planes crash, and the automated sprinkler system goes off all over the garage. Only Kenneth Lubahn (David Clayton Rogers) seems to know what’s going on, telling the others they should be safe so long as they remain on the lower level of the garage where the signal is out. Med student Francesca Rossi (Lela Loren) works with him to save Julie’s husband, who has also fallen victim to the virus despite being in the same underground area as the rest of the survivors.
Meanwhile, the series flashes back to Helsinki, Finland, “7 years before it happened,” where Digital Crime Unit officer Topi Kuusela (Samuel Vauramo) begins to fall for Manta (Hannah Herzsprung), a mysterious target he has been assigned to follow. It is unclear so far what exactly her connection is to H+ Nano Teoranta, the company that manufactures the implants, but with an estimated 48-episode run, it is clearly just getting started. The first 14 episodes are available now on YouTube, with new ones premiering on Wednesdays. It’s hard to tell so far if “H+” will live up to the promise of its premise, but its high production values, mysterious time-jumping narrative style and intriguing, multinational subplots make it seem well worth watching to find out.
It is time now to return to the bizarre, frequently hilarious and occasionally disturbing fictional universe of China, Illinois, where Brad Neely‘s “The Professor Brothers” hold sway as the arbiters of knowledge and coolness. Steve and Frank Smith are brothers who both teach at a local community college whose mascot is a panda bear. Steve is the more laid back and presumably younger of the two, and his bald, sunglass-adorned appearance is vaguely reminiscent of Elton John. Frank, also mostly bald but bearded, is a connoisseur of drunken blackout experiences, as documented in the very funny two-part episode, “Fliff Night.”
Together, the Professor Brothers reign supreme in their shared office at the college, surrounded by books with titles like “Owl Sex” and “Man Cave.” They sometimes join forces for songs like the wonderfully catchy “Prisoner Christmas,” or to essentially prank some poor, unsuspecting student, as in “The T.A. Interview,” but more often than not, it is Prof. Steve who pranks Prof. Frank. In “The Substitute,” for example, Prof. Frank hands his history class over to Prof. Steve (it is never made clear what Prof. Steve actually teaches), who proceeds to make up an extremely strange and offensive lecture that he then blames on Prof. Steve’s notes, which he ignores in favor of a comic book. In “The Late Date,” Prof. Steve actually joins forces with the college’s dean for the ultimate prank on Prof. Frank, whose day has already been going very poorly.
Unlike Prof. Steve, Prof. Frank does sometimes get around to teaching some history, though it is primarily of the irreverent biblical kind, like his lecture on Sodom (“named after sodomy”) and Gomorrah (“which was named after an even weirder move”) in “Bible History #1.” He also recounts the life of “Jesus F**king Christ,” of whom he says, “I know that Jesus is pretty played, but just like feces, he was very real, and some point you have to talk about it.” According to Prof. Frank, Jesus was betrayed by a conspiracy of his disciples in order to sell more copies of his teachings; they then blamed it all on Judas, “who was planning on killing himself anyway.”
The foul-mouthed, slang-inventing Professor Brothers are perhaps not as fascinating as his earlier creation, “Baby Cakes,” but their songs and misadventures make a very funny addition to the China, Illinois, universe. Baby Cakes can be seen in the audience of some of Prof. Frank’s lectures, and he even gets some insightful dialogue in “Future Thoughts”: “When the aliens come, they will be so great in so many different ways, that everything we ever thought was cool will then make us ashamed.” Get ready for a “so much cooler” future, everybody, because according to the Professor Brothers, the government has been lying to us all along.
Few things are more ripe for satire than reality television, especially of the competitive variety seen on shows like “Survivor” and “The Bachelor,” and The Onion has boiled the format down to its essence with the web series “Sex House.” Combining the strangers living together format of MTV’s “The Real World,” on which all subsequent reality TV shows can be blamed, with the competitive dating games of so many other trash TV staples, “Sex House” skewers the artificiality and coercion involved in creating so-called “reality” programming.
The series focuses on six strangers brought together in the seemingly posh house for the sole purpose of having sex with one another. Each of them is a conveniently pegged type: Jay (Boyd Harris) is described as a “bro,” a “trim-seeker” and a “sex lover,” and his personality would not be out of place on “Jersey Shore”; Jay’s obvious female counterpart, Tara (Ashley Lobo), is a “sorority princess,” “proud skank” and “maneater”; Erin (Fiona Robert), an 18-year-old virgin, is “naive,” “clueless” “jailbait,” while Alex (Lea Pascal) is an “alt-punk” “polysexual princess”; Derek (Chris Boykin) is the show’s only gay guy, so he is described as a “sexually promiscuous” “flamboyant fireball,” but the show’s real wild card is Frank (Jesse Dabson), a 45-year-old “big daddy” who won a Tombstone pizza contest to get on the show.
The first few episodes progress as might be expected, with the desperate Alex trying to have sex with anyone and everyone, while Jay admits that “Tara’s pretty slutty, I get it,” though he is more interested in deflowering Erin, who is “totally smokin’. I’m like, ‘I’m tryin’ to have sex with that!’” The gang plays a disastrous game of “Sexy Truth or Sexy Dare” and receives pole dancing instructions in the third episode, “Get on That Pole!” Meanwhile, the males are given some “bro lessons” by Danny Vullmer (Chris Meister), a hacky comedian who makes dated references to Urkel, En Vogue and Roseanne Barr. Things get more and more disturbing after that, as “Erin Bares It All” in the fourth episode with a shocking announcement that changes everything, and the show’s participants begin to revolt against its creators, including the “asexual” and very creepy host (Chris Agos).
In its most recent episodes, “Sex House” has gradually become more like a horror film, which only makes it funnier, beginning with the disgusting “Banana Sex Olympics” in episode 5 and continuing with “Dr. Sex” in episode 6. By the most recent episode, “Sex in a Bottle,” things are looking decidedly grim for the malnourished prisoners of Sex House, and the preview for episode 8 (which goes live today) makes it clear that it’s only going to get worse. New episodes go live every Thursday on The Onion’s YouTube channel.
Universal Studios’ early summer action blockbuster “Battleship” hit Blu-ray on August 28th, and critic and fans alike are well in for a treat. Director Peter Berg, of “Hancock” and “The Kingdom” fame, helms this action–adventure experience with industry-standard mind blowing effects, thrilling battles and an all star cast with Liam Neeson, Rihanna and the lovely Brooklyn Decker as Samantha Shane. This action epic follows a young naval officer and his heroic crew as they launch an all out military showdown against a superior alien force with amazing results.
Bullz-Eye was recently invited to an exclusive Blu-ray preview in San Francisco at the legendary special effects studio that makes it all happen in this film, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Founded by George Lucas in 1975, ILM has set the standard for visual effects in film with a chain of classics including “Star Wars,” “E.T.,” “Indiana Jones” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” to name just a few. ILM has played a key role in seven of the top-10 world-wide box office hits of all time.
Upon arriving at the impressive ILM production campus on the former grounds of the U.S. Army Presidio complex near the Golden Gate Bridge, we were escorted to the preview screening of the Blu-ray release of “Battleship.” Here, in arguably the best screening room in the world for special effect films, we watched the film along with the new bonus features exclusive to the Blu-ray release. These included a remarkable “Visual Effects of Battleship” feature, featuring the ground breaking water simulation programs and the cutting edge motion capture effects where ILM pushes the boundaries to bring the aliens to life. The fascinating “behind the scenes” footage here is techie heaven!
Even more unique is the innovative Second Screen feature, which provides an interactive viewing experience that lets you control, interact with and explore “Battleship” with your networked tablet or computer, all in synchronization with the movie on the television screen . . . very cutting edge! With “flick view,” you can interact with the movie by moving content from your tablet to the television screen during the film and compare storyboards, animatics and other exciting content by “flicking” them from tablet to TV screen, by gesturing fingers upward on the tablet. Far out! The “Battleship” box set has more ways to store, collect, download and feature the film, including a Blu-ray disc, a DVD disc, a digital copy for downloading and the innovative UltraViolet version, where you can collect your movies on a “cloud” for instant streaming and downloading anywhere, any time on computers, tablets and smart phones.
After the screening, we were taken through the impressive production compound and grounds with its many iconic models and props of some of the greatest films of our era. You can see some of these props in the slideshow above. Members of the press were then treated to a green screen immersion of ourselves in the climatic “Battleship” deck scene, where an alien gets blown off the ship by main cannons on deck. It was wild! Here’s the clip they created with me in the scene and you can see the green screen setup in the first photo above.
Some of the individuals who brought this action-adventure film to life were members of the top special effect team with ILM. Grady Cofer and Pablo Helman acted as Visual Effects Supervisor and Second Unit Director, respectively. These two skilled craftsman have an amazing wealth of experience behind them, with epic sci-fi and action films to there credit including “Star Wars,” “Indiana Jones,” “Star Trek,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Bourne Supremacy,” “Terminator 3,” “Men in Black,” “War of the Worlds,” “Titanic,” “Apollo 13” and more. During our time with them, they both described their personal influences and their approach to this film, as well as thoughtful tips on how budding graphics designers and visual programmers may break into this world of computer visual effects. We also spoke with Animation and Digital Supervisors Glen McIntosh and Willi Geiger. They described their breakthrough animation techniques for the fluid “water” effects, with blasts of water particles expelled onscreen with breathtaking realism.
The extra features in the Blu-ray set are absolutely worthy of a film with these incredible special effects. The Second Screen feature definitely stands out and the entire package will keep you entertained hour after hour.
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