More From Comic-Con: “Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2” Panel

Posted on July 16, 2012 at 9:52 pm

It was the first last press conference when the cast of “Twilight” got together to talk to the fans and the press about the last episode and the journey that brought them to this moment.  Following their appearance at the enormous Hall H, with fans who had been camping out for days, the actors and author Stephanie Meyer met with the press.  Kristen Stewart told us about the transformation of her character, Bella, who has some major changes in store after she becomes both a vampire and a mother in the last moments of “Breaking Dawn, Part 1.”  She said her reaction to her new persona was, “I’m a sportscar; let’s break her in.  Even the way she walks into a room is different.”  As for filming the sex scene compared to the tender, if energetic honeymoon scene in the last one:  “We’re not even humans any more.  We tried and it was rated R, .  He was trying not to get his white paint on me and I was trying not to get my brown paint on him.”

Kellan Lutz talked about how his character, Emmett, has to battle Bella.  “To see the little things she would change was fun.”

They were all glad to be together again and enjoyed reminiscing about the earlier films.  Stephanie Meyer said that the first time she saw Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner they were in costume already and “they were all dressed up as my imaginary friends.”  They appreciated original director Catherine Hardwicke’s casting choices, and how well they held up as the actors had the unusual opportunity to create characters who have four times as long as the usual movie to explore their journeys.

When they made the first film, some of them were underage and they laughed that “we had some monitoring.”  The boys and girls stayed in different hotels. They laughed about their “cat classes” and said that like their characters, they felt they were surrounded by protectors, the cast and crew all looking out for them.  They especially enjoyed scenes where many characters were involved because “everyone has covers” (shooting the same thing over and over from different angles), so it meant they had more time together.  They laughed as they described the “dance-off” choreographed as a surprise treat for director Bill Condon by cast members Mia Maestro and Toni Trucks.  They were sentimental about the way “the fans have grown with us”

As for the last chapter, there are “a lot more vampires this time around.”  Jackson Rathbone says his character, Jasper, was “tweaked out, like a junkie going through withdrawal, but now gets more comfortable, more at ease.”  Nikki Reed said she finally got to smile — “a big deal! I look forward to having the audience root for Rosalie a little more.”  Ashley Greene says that Alice, always “lovable, friendly, upbeat, gets to act more vampire, gets more of an edge.”  Elizabeth Reaser said the events of the final film force Esme “into a different lifestyle.  She’s a pacifist forced to be a powerhouse.  She doesn’t have a choice; she has to betray her sense of herself in order to protect her family.”  Peter Facinelli laughed that the biggest change for him was instead of dying his hair blonde, he wore a wig.  And he joked about how much he will miss the woods–and the contact lenses.

Lautner said that in the final chapter it has” become less complicated.  Instead of a triangle, it’s a square.”  “No,” said Stewart, “it’s a perfect circle.”

 

 

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A Day at Comic-Con

Posted on July 14, 2012 at 12:00 am

Oh, there is so much I want to tell you!  But you will see why all I have time to do right now is entice you by sharing my schedule for today.

6:00 am Pick up by stretch limo to be taken to the studios of my good friends Emily, Tommy, Laura, and Jeff and Jer.  I usually review movies on their show each week from my house (at a more civilized time of the morning — Eastern time).  But one of the best parts of my visits to San Diego for Comic-Con is that I get to be in studio with them.

Exhibit Hall to look at some of the more than more than 1000 booths and displays — everything from solo artists drawing on a table to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of effects — and of course 150,000 attendees, many in costumes.  All day long, I took photos of my favorites, more than 100.

The biggest venue at Comic-Con is Hall H, which seats 6000.  That is where the high profile events are held, so that was my next stop.  I saw the actors and filmmakers behind “Paranorman” and the cast and producers of “The Big Bang Theory,” though Sheldon (Jim Parsons) attended via computer screen because he is starring in “Harvey” on Broadway and Leonard (Johnny Galecki) did not make it because his plane was delayed.

I then went to a series of interviews with the “Paranorman” people and then a press conference with Joss Whedon and the cast of “Firefly,” who were announcing their 10-year anniversary special, to be broadcast on November 11.

Then I visited a display of the Batmobiles, including Adam West’s, Val Kilmer’s, and the Dark Knight’s.  And a guy from TV Guide was conducting an interview of the creators of “Big Bang Theory,” so I stayed to listen to that.

Then back to the Convention Center for three panel discussions: Hollywood concept artists talked about their work on films from “Rango” to “Stargate,” “Rise of Planet of the Apes,” and “Oz the Great and Powerful;” “Girls Gone Genre,” with Gale Anne Hurd (Producer of “The Terminator” and “Walking Dead”), Marti Noxon (“Buffy,” “Glee”), and Angela Robinson (“True Blood”), and a status report on “Stripped,” a new documentary about the rich history and precarious future of comic strips.  Just to give you an idea, at any time of day or night there are dozens of these events going on, each, smart, funny, and fun.  I wish I could go to everything!

More details coming soon!

 

 

 

 

 

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Comic-Con: “Oz the Great and Powerful”

Posted on July 13, 2012 at 10:47 am

I am sure that somewhere in the world there were people who were looking at great works of art and somewhere else people were enjoying magnificent natural vistas and exquisite flowers but I assure you that no one saw anything more beautiful than I did yesterday as I sat just a few feet across from Mila Kunis and Michelle Williams, the stars of the 2013 release “Oz the Great and Powerful.”  Their charm and looks make them pretty but their graciousness and dedication to their art and their audience makes them truly lovely.

Producer Joe Roth and director Sam Raimi sat on either side of the actresses to tell us about the film, a prequel to the story we all know, based on the book by “Wizard of Oz” author L. Frank Baum that tells us how the “humbug” got from Kansas to Oz and came to live in the Emerald City.  Mila Kunis plays the witch who will become known as the Wicked Witch of the West, and Michelle Williams plays Glinda.

One luxury they all appreciated was the chance to minimize the use of green screen effects.  Kunis spoke of the dazzling designs and the pleasure of working in a “fully furnished” environment.  Roth described  seven huge sets built in a Detroit filming facility, each twice the size of the typical Hollywood space.

Kunis told us that when she first moved to the United States from Ukraine as a little girl, “The Wizard of Oz was one of the first films she loved, and so her parents gave her the Baum books to help her learn English.  Raimi, the director of horror films and the “Spider-Man” trilogy, spoke with feeling about how much it meant to him to make a film with so much emphasis on the way the characters change and what they learn.  This is his first 3D film, so he had a learning curve about the way the technology affects editing and composition.  “There’s a whole different language of cutting.”

He also told us about the patience the film required because his stars had other commitments — Kunis was filming “Ted,” Williams was promoting “My Week with Marilyn,” Rachel Weisz was making the new “Bourne” movie, and title star James Franco was “off getting another degree.”  Franco himself had learned and grown since he and Raimi worked together on the “Spider-Man” films.  Now that he has also been a director, he has more “openness, collaboration, patience, more of a sense of what goes into a shot.”

They did not have the rights to the iconic images we all know so well from the MGM film and in any event, their plan was to “nod lovingly toward it and make our own story” set in “the whimsical nature of Baum’s great world” and characters who struggle and learn and deal with the consequences of their choices.

 

 

 

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Comic-Con, Preview Night

Posted on July 12, 2012 at 10:57 am

I am thrilled to be back at Comic-Con and the preview night was sensational.  The special effects geniuses at WETA have really outdone themselves and their enormous trolls from Peter Jackson’s upcoming “The Hobbit” were magnificent.  I saw “Star Wars” cookbooks (one with a recipe for Wookiee pies and a Darth Vader cookie cutter) and a meta comic book about Siegel and Shuster, the teenagers who created Superman (and inspired Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, soon to be a movie).   I watched upcoming television programs “The Following,” with James Purefoy as a serial killer and Kevin Bacon as a damaged former FBI agent and “Revolution,” a post-apocalyptic story about earth fifteen years after all power sources mysteriously stop working.  I interviewed Lisa Camp, editor in chief of the “distinguished but daring” publishing firm McFarland & Company, with its wide-ranging and extraordinarily expert books.  And I had the very great pleasure of speaking to Disney animation legend Don Hahn about his new film, “Frankenweenie.”  Based on the cult classic short film by Tim Burton, this stop-motion feature will open this fall.  I asked Hahn about the difference between digital and live-action animation, he told me that it was the physical challenge.  The sets, like this one of a schoolroom, were laid out in one huge room and the effort involved in reaching and stretching to make the minute adjustments for each frame was “like Pilates,” he told me.  I especially admired the way he tied in what they did to the best from the past (he said they used the same technique developed by special effects master Ray Harryhausen) and the present (digital cameras allowed them to get immediate feedback on what they were doing).  I will be attending press conferences on “Frankenweenie” and the final film in the “Twilight” series later today.  Stay tuned!

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Comic-Con 2012!

Posted on July 10, 2012 at 3:00 pm

It’s almost here!  The San Diego Comic-Con starts tomorrow night and continues through Sunday afternoon, with thousands of passionate fans and hundreds of events.  I always refer to it as the Iowa caucuses of popular culture because this is where the many of the most important and highest visibility movies, games, books, and television shows we will be seeing over the next couple of years make their debuts.  This year the stars and filmmakers behind such highly anticipated films as the last “Twilight” chapter, Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” “Paranorman,” “Pacific Rim,” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” will be there to entice fans with delectable details.  Cast members from television shows like “Game of Thrones” and “The Big Bang Theory” will appear on panels to talk about their new seasons and share some behind-the-scenes stories.  The acclaimed literary star Margaret Atwood tweeted that she is on her way to Comic-Con.  And I will be there to see as much as I can and take lots of pictures of attendees in costume.  Even the pseudonymous author of Fifty Shades of Grey, E.L. James, will be there.  Stay tuned!

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