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Will Smith, the closest thing to a sure bet in Hollywood, overcame some of the worst reviews of his career to claim the top spot at the Independence Day holiday boxoffice with “Hancock.”

The comedy-drama, in which Smith plays a drunken superhero, sold an estimated $66 million worth of tickets across the United States and Canada during the three days beginning July 4, distributor Columbia Pictures said on Sunday.

Since opening on July 2 — with Tuesday-night previews rolled into Wednesday sales — the film has earned $107.3 million, becoming his 8th consecutive No. 1.

Smith, 39, has ruled the July 4 holiday weekend on five occasions, beginning with 1996′s “Independence Day,” his all-time personal best. Adjusted for ticket-price inflation, the “Hancock” opening ranks at No. 3 among those offerings, according to tracking firm Box Office Mojo.

In “Hancock,” his slovenly character’s unorthodox crime-busting efforts cause more problems than they solve, and he enlists a public-relations man, played by Jason Bateman, to help restore his reputation among the displeased citizenry of Los Angeles. Critics were intrigued by the premise, but vexed by a dramatic sub-plot involving Bateman’s wife, played by Charlize Theron.

Smith was last in theaters with the apocalyptic drama “I Am Legend,” which ended up with $256 million domestically after opening last December.

“Hancock,” which cost about $150 million to make, was directed by Peter Berg, who was in theaters last year with the Middle East thriller “The Kingdom.” Columbia is a unit of Sony.

Last weekend’s champion, Walt Disney’s robot love story “WALL-E,” slipped to No. 2 with $33.4 million, taking its 10-day total to $128.1 million. [thr]

Signal is a monthly video diary chronicling the production of moon based Nazi comedy, Iron Sky. Check out the first episode (in two parts) below.

You can also see the first trailer right here.

Hailed by many as a return to his indie roots, Steven Soderbergh’s Bubble is an intriguing little murder mystery/drama which peels back the comfort and routine of life in the heart of small town America. Set amongst the employees of a doll factory Bubble follows a triangular relationship between three of the factory’s employees: older Martha (Debbie Doebereiner), her younger friend Kyle (Dustin Ashley), and the new girl, Rose (Misty Wilkins) who causes somewhat of a stir in their affairs.

Certainly Bubble is a far cry from the high Hollywood drama of the Ocean’s series. Not only does Soderbergh use a non-professional cast but he also strips back the crew size and shooting schedule (and consequently the budget) to create an independent feature that plays somewhat like a documentary; blurring the boundaries of reality and fiction. The lives revealed onscreen feel completely authentic, in part due to much of the script being formed from the cast’s actual life experiences.

The film may be slow-burn but is engrossing in its detailed examination of the everyday. Who would’ve guessed, real life can be just as interesting as tales of high adventure! The factory in which many of the establishing shots are filmed becomes almost another character and lends something ominous to the feel of the film. Seeing the little parts of the dolls’ bodies being popped out of moulds and having facial features glued on is slightly creepy to watch but makes for compelling visual imagery nonetheless.

Bubble essentially develops the relationships of the three principals over the period of a week at the end of which a somewhat unexplained murder occurs. This is followed, in the latter part of the film, by a police investigation into the murder. Soderbergh wisely refrains from unnecessary exposition, leaving the audience to gauge to happenings, and the relationships form what plays out. There are no unnatural pieces of character development or intimacy built at an unrealistic pace. All is as it might be with a group of people had you been given hidden camera footage of them. Kudos has to go to the cast for a job well done, particularly when you find out how nervous they were. Much praise is deserved by both Steven and writer Coleman Hough for putting their trust (and creative material) in the hands of these non-professionals’ and for making the production process less intimidating than it might have been. Their trust was certainly rewarded.

Fans of independent cinema will enjoy Bubble, as will anyone who can appreciate the hidden drama in present in the happenings of the everyday.

DVD Info + Special Features
For me the special features on this Bubble DVD release were more than just an interesting addition to the feature. They actually give a quite a bit of context to the project and to Soderbergh’s aims with it. It turns out that Bubble is the first film in a series of 6 that he has signed up to do for a company called HD-Net utilising HD technology in the shooting as well as releasing simultaneously on DVD and in theatres.

Soderbergh had wanted to play out a ‘murder mystery’ story but in a micro-setting. Instead of high drama and big budget he set out to explore the telling of that kind of story in the lives of some very real feeling small town people. One technique that he and writer Coleman Hough use to achieve this is to outline to the cast what topics need to be covered in a given scene – or where it needs to go – and then let them create the dialogue in their own words, using their own stories as their character background. He even filmed using local people from the towns in which the film was shot. The result is spot on.

The director’s commentary has Steven Soderbergh being interviewed by Mark Romanek and is of interest even of what they’re saying often has no relevance to what you’re seeing onscreen. In fact I might even be tempted to just listen to the audio without watching. One of Romanek’s comments sums up some of the appeal of this film: he says that the emotional flatness produced by a cast who are not so much ‘acting out a script’ so much as just ‘talking to each other’ gives the audience greater scope to participate in the story that is unfolding rather than just watching a spectacle – which is what often occurs when viewing mainstream cinema. The cast commentary reveals the cast members to be – in personality – quite like their characters with Dustin often not speaking unless called upon, whilst Debbie talks away happily and Misty is quite cheeky. The three are guided in their commentary by writer Coleman Hough with whom they seem to have developed a good relationship. The making of featurette and the cast audition interviews gives us a good picture of how the production went from the point of view of these non-professionals.

Understanding the director’s aims, and also how raw the cast and screenplay were, went a good way to increasing my enjoyment of the film on the subsequent rewatch.

» Region 4 PAL
» Anamorphic Widescreen 16:9
» Language: English (Dolby Digital 3.0 or 2.0)

» Feature
» Director’s commentary
» Actors’ commentary
» Deleted Scenes & Alternate ending
» Bursting the Bubble: making-of featurette
» Higher Definition: Steven Soderbergh Interview
» Finding the Cast: cast audition interviews
» Original Theatrical Trailer

Reviewed by: Jacob Powell
Rating: M – Contains offensive language
Duration: 98 mins
Genre: Indie Drama / Murder Mystery
Director: Steven Soderbergh (2005)
Actors: Debbie Doebereiner, Dustin Ashley, and Misty Wilkins.
Country: USA
Distributor: Madman
Release Date: Available Now

1 Kung Fu Panda
2 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
3 Prince Caspian
4 Second-Hand Wedding
5 Speed Racer
6 The Happening
7 Sex and the City
8 Happy-Go-Lucky
9 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le papillon)
10 Across the Uiverse

It didn’t take long, but already there are whispers of a sequel in response to the $50 million opening weekend notched by Timur Bekmambetov’s Hollywood filmmaking debut Wanted. Wanted is being labeled this year’s 300 and will probably continue to make money throughout the summer due to strong word of mouth.

Cinema Blend received an inside scoop indicating that Wanted is to be made into a trilogy. It’s not surprisingly, really, since the general approach by studios nowadays is to automatically bank on two sequels once the first one has proven itself. The big question is where they would go with the story next. The graphic novel was pretty self-contained, and although they did stray quite a bit from the comic book pages, the movie is pretty self-contained as well. James McAvoy, Terence Stamp and Angelina Jolie are all supposed to be returning for future installments but no one knows just what direction the franchise will take.

With a trademark eye for detail, film-maker Peter Jackson has hired an astronomer to ensure the moon’s position in his movie Dambusters is spot-on.

A full moon was key to the May 1943 Dambusters raids, in which Allied planes bombed German dams at night.

Former Carter Observatory senior astronomer Brian Carter, not related to the founding Carter family, was asked to research the moon’s position over Germany at the time.

“Somebody just rang up. I didn’t realise it was for Peter Jackson until later.”

Mr Carter has since been made redundant from the observatory and has set up a paid service providing information about celestial events.

Computer software allows him to find where the moon was at any time, anywhere on the globe.

“We can see its position, how bright it was, that sort of thing.”

He was impressed by the lengths Jackson had gone to.

“I think these days film-makers like to get things as right as possible. In the past there have been a few bloopers.”

The attack took place on May 16, 1943, a date chosen for the full moon, and because the dams’ water levels were high.

The moon’s dim glow gave just enough light for flight crews to perform the precise task of dropping unique bouncing bombs on the dams, but also exposed them to anti-aircraft fire, meaning they had to hug the ground. A deadly mix of German guns and accidents from low-level flying meant that of the 19 Lancaster bombers and 133 crew taking part, eight planes and 56 men were lost.

Jackson is known as a director who likes to put the stamp of authenticity on his films. For his remake of King Kong he created a mini 1930s New York set in the Lower Hutt suburb of Seaview.

A spokesman for Jackson said Dambusters was still in pre-production. Filming was expected to start next year. [stuff]

WARNING: SPOILERS APLENTY

10: Soylent Green (1973)
Future cop Chuck Heston has been through hell trying to find out what the big secret at the core of his overcrowded society is, only to find that the Soylent Company that provides food for the starving earth has been processing human bodies and feeding it to the populace. Dragged off by the authorities, the last shot is of desperate Heston’s hand crying out for justice as he cries: ‘Soylent Green is people!’.

9: The Elephant Man (1980)
David Lynch’s classic telling of the fortunes of the deformed but transcendent John Merrick could actually have had a relatively happy ending, with Merrick loved and cared for. Instead Lynch shoots right past this hard-won contentment to create a bittersweet montage of images that pre-figure the beginning of his next film, Dune (1984), showing the ghostly visage of Merrick’s possibly imaginary mother floating through space as Merrick peacefully takes his own life. “Nothing will die…”

8: The Descent (2005)
Exactly how depressing you find the ending of Neil Marshall’s tale of pot-holing horror depends on how involved you are able to become with his abrasive set of female characters. The re-cuts in the U.S. release leave the film with two possible endings, the bleaker of which finds the surviving character awaking from a psychotic dream of an improbably easy escape, to find herself buried alive in the goblin-strewn labyrinth.

7: Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)
Jittery Veronica Cartwright approaches fellow refugee Donald Sutherland, having lost him in the flight from the pod-people Sutherland is standing by some trees looking confused. He spies Cartwright. They’ve been through hell together. He raises his arm and points at her accusingly, and lets out a ululating cry that will alert all the other pod-people to her presence!

6: The Fly (1986)
Brundlefly, in a last ditch effort to reverse the genetic collision between himself and a house fly, takes one last, unwise trip in his teleportation devise, to emerge as a ghastly fusion of teleporter metal and monster. A horrified Geena Davis watches the thing approach with a shot gun in her hand. Brundlefly’s had enough – he gets hold of the end of the barrel and positions it between his own fly eyes. Davies pulls the trigger and breaks out in tears.

5: Dead Ringers (1988)
More vein-opening from David Cronenberg. This bizarre and affecting tale of twin gynaecologist brothers concludes with a touching but miserable suicide pact between the insane siblings.

4: Spider (2002)
Yet more Canadian grimness from Cronenberg, as Ralph Fiennes’ oedipal protagonist decides to end the drudgery of his impoverished and schizophrenic life by taking it.

3: Nineteen-Eighty Four (1984)
Dissident Winston Smith realises there’s a limit to the power of love, as a nasty run-in with rats in Room 101 turns him into a model Eurasian Citizen who renounces his rebel girlfriend and embraces Big Brother.

2: A.I. – Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Having been abandoned by his mum in one of the most disturbing and misery-inducing scenes in contemporary cinema, robot boy Haley Joel Osment stares depressed into space at the bottom of the Hudson River for 2000 years, only to be rescued by itinerant aliens who use science/magic to give him the long lost mum he always wanted – and then take her away from him just before he expires forever.

1: The Mist (2007)
After driving desperately through the blasted, monster-strewn landscape of Frank Darabont’s 2007 Stephen King adaptation, Thomas Jane finally runs out of fuel. With only four bullets left, Jane gallantly spares his son, his new love interest and two close friends the horror of being eaten by the nasties, and nobly goes out to face his fate – only to find that the Military have finally come and are mopping up the debris. Another two minutes and everyone in the car would have been saved! [den of geek]

I’m not a fan of vampire flicks; the ones that I have seen (mainly Blade and Undewrworld) have left me unsatisfied with these nocturnal creatures. Though human in appearance, then seem to have evolved to be extremely agile, fast and possess a strength that defies belief. In short they seem almost comically implausible. This may be the reason I like slow, lumbering Zombies so much. The undead are supposed to command fear through their sheer numbers and their unrelenting desire to consume you.

But 30 Days of Night appealed to me for some reason, be it the Steadman style splatter posters, or the fact that it was based on a graphic novel, I’m not sure. But I was ready to give vampires one last chance.

In 30 Days the bloodthirsty night dwellers have all the abilities that so offended me in previous movies, but somehow this didn’t seem to matter, as vampires were not the sole focus of the movie. Rather we were introduced to a community as it prepared for it’s annual month of zero daylight – hence the name of the movie – a community of people who essentially live in one of the most remote, isolated town in America for one reason: solitude.

The movie kicks off with a spate of increasingly bizarre crimes that have one hidden purpose: to totally isolate the inhabitants form the outside world. A stranger has come to town to prepare the way, and he brings with him an ominous warning; “That cold ain’t the weather. That’s Death approaching.”

When the vampires finally do arrive, things kick into overdrive as the snowy winterscape makes the perfect backdrop for the one-sided, blood soaked massacre that is about to be wrought on the unsuspecting townsfolk.

Fortunately enough of them keep their heads long enough to hideout and plan their survival for the next 30 days and the movie becomes somewhat of a survival horror, where human emotion drives the story rather than bloodlust.

The things that make this an enjoyable vampire movie for me, other than the heart pounding, edge of your seats thrill ride, is the subtleties that seem to be over looked in other vamp flicks; the vampires in 30 Days are almost zombie like in their bloodstained addiction to fresh humans, going from one victim to the next without bothering to wipe the excess crimson off their faces. They are given a pack like mentality, where they wait on their leader before doing anything, but like hungry dogs they have a look of desperation on their faces, a palatable desperation for feeding that shows them to be sub human, to be consumed by the darkness that they have to live in. Their excitement is short lived as they will never find enough satisfaction and always be left wanting more. Theirs is a life of total un-fulfilment.

The surviving humans on the other hand are not a bunch of gun-ho superheroes, rather your ordinary, regular Joes, who are scared witless, and only have a glimpse of hope through the leadership and determination of the local sheriff. But even though they know the only way to survive to is stick together and follow the leader, human nature takes it toil and causes them to make mistakes and end up as a midnight snack.

Food for thought (spoilers):
As visually violent and gloomy as the story seems, there is hope for the small band of survivors. If they can be held together by their leader long enough, the sun will rise again and with it bring the illuminating salvation of daylight, the only thing these night stalkers fear.

Trivia:
A picture of Steve Niles, who wrote the original comic book, hangs in the attic hideout.

Writer Steve Niles originally conceived and pitched the story as a film for some years, but it was turned down by studios and thus reworked as a comic book. Eventually one of the producers who had rejected the original pitch worked on the movie adaptation.

Josh Hartnett did his own stunts, and Melissa George did most of Stella’s driving.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: R16 – Contains Violence, Offensive Language & Horror.
Duration: 114 mins.
Genre: Horror, Vampire.
Director: David Slade.
Actors: Josh Hartnett, Ben Foster, Elizabeth Hawthorne, Melissa George, Joel Tobeck, Danny Huston, Craig Hall, Manu Bennett.
Distributor: Warner.
Release Date: Available now.

Born to race cars, Speed Racer is aggressive, passionate, instinctive and fearless. The only thing that overshadows him is the memory of the brother he idolized—the legendary Rex Racer, whose death in a race has left behind a legacy that Speed is driven to fulfill.

What better premise could a movie have? Action a plenty from those masters of action, the Wachowski brothers. But then the trailer came out, everything was brightly candy coated and overdone with CGI. Expectations suddenly dropped like a bunch of lead balloons. Speed Racer was destined to fail.

So it was with little anticipation that I took the family along to a screening so Speed Racer, the kids might get a kick out of it I figured. My fatalistic expectations were fulfilled from the beginning of the movie, I could se why it had bombed overseas; the acting was wooden, the scrip was bad and the graphics, whilst very smooth, were totally over the top.

But then something happened. Speed took center stage, we began to see what kind of a man he was, his determination, passion, his underdog status and we cheered for him. My middle child Aimee started pumping her fist in the air silently chanting ‘Go Speed, Go!’

The cheesiness of it didn’t matter, Speed Racer was a feel good movie fuelled by a massive candy coated sugar rush. It was a welcome relief to the more demanding, more serious grown up movies that abound Hollywood.

It was in a word, refreshing.

It’s then that the genius of it hit me. The Wachowski brothers hadn’t dropped the ball, rather they’d thrown a curved one. Speed racer was not the all out action spectacular we had expected from the makers of The Matrix. No, this was a (albeit overpriced) children’s movie through and through. More than that, it was a digital re-imaging of the Saturday morning cartoon genre.

The brothers had redefined an entire genre.

Speed Racer was a flawed masterpiece. Flawed in their inability to edit it to a more child friendly length, flawed in what it cost to make, but a masterpiece non-the-less. Doomed to failure because people wouldn’t realise until it was too late that to enjoy it, you needed to take some children along with you, to open you eyes to the child-like simplicity and joy of candy coloured CGI, and to close your eyes to the wooden acting and predictable plot.

Food for thought:
Speed makes a bold statement early in the movie, “When I’m in a T-180… everything just makes sense.” For Speed, to drive well is what ignites him with both passion and purpose. Racing was what he was created to do, what he does best. Through his racing he not only begins to make sense of his life, but he helps everyone else see how much better the world can be.

Trivia:
Milka Duno, who plays Kellie Gearbox, is an actual professional race car driver in the Indy Racing League.

Danica Patrick was reportedly offered a cameo but declined secondary to racing commitments with Andretti Green Racing and the Indy Racing League.

Peter Fernandez, the voice of Speed Racer and Racer X in the original cartoon series, plays the Race Announcer in this movie.

Keanu Reeves turned down the role of Racer X.

The view inside Speed’s locker at the start of the film shows his watch to be a Heuer Monaco Sportiva, the same watch worn by Steve McQueen in the classic racing film Le Mans (1971).

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: PG – Contains violence.
Duration: 135 mins.
Genre: Action Childrens.
Director: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski.
Actors: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox.
Distributor: Roadshow.
Release Date: Out now.