Digital Dent

I've been told by a rock-solid source that Cinesite in London are to be handling the CG FX for Two Face in The Dark Knight, with their work due to start in earnest in November. I mention this just so you know it isn't an entirely make-up based look.

[EDIT: Actually, my source has read this published post and told me, actually, it's Framestore CFC and I 'misinterpreted their clues' to the FX house. My mistake, and quite a dumb one, really. I could explain the confusion in how I thought they meant one and not the other, but they asked me not to, as it might just reveal who they are...]

But why not make-up, I wonder? The only solid reasons I can think of are all mouth-based - teeth showing through a wound, maybe, or impossible mouth movements. But I don't know for sure. Hopefulyl more info will be forthcoming.

Cinesite are, frankly, brilliant and have a great back catlogue of work - from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to Hot Fuzz.

[EDIT: And Framestore CFC are similarly excellent, if not more so. Their work on Children of Men is amongst the greatest FX work ever completed. As well as the digital Dent they'll also be creating the virtual set extensions for the Hong Kong scenes and some CG stand-in Batmen]

Movie Minesweeper - The Almost Everything Is A Movie Minesweeper These Days Edition

- JoBlo have a YouTube clip from after the credits of Pirates 3. Clearly, the clip was obtained illegally (not by JoBlo, but the original uploader) but, on the upside, it'll save you sitting through the end credits when really, all you'll want to do is get out of there and restart your circulation.

- MTV are bringing back Unplugged. The new epsiodes will apparently include Mary J. Blige, The Police, Bon Jovi, Kenny Chesney and John Mayer.

- Mark Verheiden has announced that his Teen Titans script will find the kids at 'an interesting (and universal) crossroads in their lives'.

- Twitch were on an absolute role today. They've had pictures from Be Kind, Rewind (Mos Def and Jack Black about to bust some ghosts, it seems); Daybreakers; Eastern Promise; and Doomsday.

- Feed have Mike Maguire's Comcast ad. Download it and watch it 'all big' for the best effect.

- On June 10th, the Prince Charles Cinema will be given over to a reprise of the Hot Fuzztival. Hard Boiled at 11am, The Last Boy Scout at 1.45, Point Break at 4.30 and then (!) at 8pm, Hot Fuzz with a live audio commentary from Edgar and company.

- The Poor Things schedule is being rejigged just so Lindsay Lohan can be in the film. What a waste of effort.

- Broken Lizard's next will probably be The Babymaker.

- Time Magazine's Ocean's 13 interviews are a nice, sparky read.

- IESB loved Hostel 2 too.

- Animation Magazine have some clips from the US version of Creature Comforts.

The Fuzzball Rally

Get ready for a double-dip, UK-based Spaced Cadets. The US DVD of Hot Fuzz is to contain an exlusive feature, The Fuzzball Rally. Think Nick, Simon and Edgar in cars (or not - see below), acting daft (definitely - see... well, everythign else they've ever done). You get the idea.

Direct Download Link For The Goya's Ghosts Trailer

I remember how long the US had to wait for Hot Fuzz after the UK release. Hardly seemed fair did it? Even more cruel is the delay in the release of Goya's Ghosts.

I saw the film a few weeks back at my local Odeon (Oxford George Street, where a significant number of films are given a truly subpar presentation and, it's quite obvious, the projectionists should have been sacked years ago - the same goes for the Odeon Magdalen Street too) but the US release isn't until late July.

What's more, it's a much better film than the admittedly-excellent Hot Fuzz. Indeed, the only better film I've seen this year was Son of Rambow.

Goya's Ghosts is a bonafide masterpiece and, if your country hasn't had the film yet, you should be marking your diary in anticipation, indulging in a little excitement and downloading the trailer right now.

Was Hot Fuzz Really A Documentary?

Sandford has been added to TownPup, with a really rather amusing entry.

The Original Nicholas Angel

Nicholas Angel in Hot Fuzz may have the name of a music supervisor, but his character was inspired by a Bill Bailey sketch, directed by Edgar Wright. That's according to Edgar, anyway. The full sketch, co-starring Simon Pegg, is on YouTube now.

You Really Must Read This Post If You Love Films For Film Lovers

Let me remind you all that, yes, the majority of cinema audiences are still made up of people who talk through the film, answer calls in the film, don't go to see a film in particular but duck into whatever is showing at the time they arrive, really aren't interested in the film at all...

...but if you're here, you're not that kind of person.

So, today, please, American readers consider this: Hot Fuzz is released. It isn't perfect. But it is very good. And I really think it needs your support. This isn't a huge release in the American marketplace - Vacancy and Fracture are out in the US today also, and they're much higher profile (though neither of them have anything like the buzz Hot Fuzz had over here).

Help Hot Fuzz - which will in turn help Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg which will, ultimately, help us. This film was made for film lovers, really, first and foremost. Not that it alienates 'the casuals', mind... just that it does mean something special to a real film lover.

Take your friends to see Hot Fuzz tonight. Failing that, take them tomorrow. You will all enjoy it, possibly love it, and there's every chance you'll disagree with my (minor) criticisms of it - lord knows just about everybody else has.

Marvel-ous Sega, Wright Gone Wrong?

Marvel and Sega have inked deals for videogame spin-offs of several upcoming Marvel movies. The games will be released day-and-date with the films.

The deal now includes Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor. Should the greenlight never come for the Captain or the Norse God, the games will, apparently, still go ahead.

Rights to Avengers, Nick Fury and Ant Man films haven't been inked yet - which suggests Thor and Captain America are higher priority movies for Marvel right now. I fear we may never get to see Edgar Wright's Ant Man movie, this perhaps stokes the flames of that fear.

Will Wright's next film be his reteaming with Pegg and Frost? Will it be Scott Pilgrim? Them? Something completely different? Perhaps the box office for Hot Fuzz in the US this weekend will decide.

Even More On The Hot Fuzz DVD

Want to know what the Easter Egg on the Hot Fuzz DVD is? Me too. I know that it's called Fence Jump - but there's also a deleted scene with that name, and a non-deleted scene with that nature. The Egg version is 23 seconds long - I expect it might be Simon coming a cropper trying to vault a fence. Confirmation if and when I get it.

I told you previously that Dead Right, Edgar's homespun cop film from before he wuz famous, was included. I can now confirm that a 10 minute making of Dead Right is also included, called Am Blam.

More featurettes: Sgt. Fisher's Perfect Sunday; Cranks, Cranes and Controlled Chaos; Friends, Family, Etc. - they're all pretty short, from just over a minute to around five.

Remember the comic-strip-come-animatic Plot Holes on the Shaun of the Dead disc? Those included here are How the NWA Killed Tim Messenger; How Danny Knew to Stab Angel and How Everyone Survived the Explosion. Expect them to be a shade less serious, and viable, than their Shaun counterparts.

We must be getting to the end of the line here. How much more can there be to reveal? We've now mapped out just about every last inch of the DVD's capacity.

Hot Fuzz Deleted Scenes

The upcoming R2 DVD of Hot Fuzz - out June 11th, start putting pennies aside now and you'll be able to afford it with only your accumulated change from the chip shop - features a decent string of deleted scenes.

There's an alernative opening, running over 11 minutes; a short epilogue, just over a minute long; and a big list of snips from heare there and everywhere. Here are the scenes' titles as they will appear on the DVD Menus:

Travelling to Sandford
The station tour
Pub lunch
The grassroots approach
A slow afternoon
Meet the NWA
Lonely Angel
The Fridge Magnate
Fence jump
Traffic Duty
Crockett and Tubby
Webley's Farm
A night at The Crown
Hoodie Fight
Point Break
Investigating Merchant's Death
A fete worse than death
Angel on the case
Prime suspect
Sandford Castle

Of course, many of those seem to refer to scenes already in the film so you can expect longer and alternative versions. They each run from around 45 seconds to 2 minutes.

All of the video blogs are on the disc too, including 'the lost blog', "The Police Station Tour".

For more on the many Hot Fuzz DVD special features, hit the Hot Fuzz label below to look for the previous posts on the matter here at film ick.

Film Handling Rules Were Made To Be Broken, Scratched And Duffed Up In The Street

From Framestore CFC's April newsletter:

Edgar Wright, the enormously talented young director of Hot Fuzz, was so pleased with his experience at Framestore CFC on that film that he then brought us the 90 second 'fake trailer' he's preparing as his contribution to the hugely anticipated Tarantino/Rodriguez project, Grindhouse - their homage to sleazy 70s exploitation flicks. In order to create a piece of footage that really looked like it was 30 years old, our diligent DI team shot Wright's material out to film several times, taking the prints out on the street to be duffed up, with even a street sweeper's broom enlisted to scratch and scuff the celluloid. Our trained professionals report that there was something incredibly satisfying about breaking every film-handling rule in the book…

Hot Fuzz - Dead Right

[EDIT: So, as it turns out, Dead Right was a shot-on video cop film Edgar made in his teens. You can see a clip right now, on YouTube. The truly funny thing is, it actually shows some genuine promise - and I just expected it to be silly.

I've also learned that the main film will come with four audio commentaries - Edgar, Simon and Nick, the police-playing actors, the NWA folk and some real, genuine live coppers]

I can now tell you that the Hot Fuzz DVD, here in the UK at least, will also feature a 40 minute something called Dead Right. What could it be? The pre-requisite making-of featurettes and so on seem to be accounted for in the supplements I revealed last week. A subplot movie of deleted scenes? That's a bit hopeful, I admit.

I'm getting Hot Fuzz anticipation all over again.

Hot Fuzz Flip Chart

Remember the flip chart on the Shaun of the Dead DVD? The same idea is back for the Hot Fuzz disc.

This time, Edgar and Simon will spend a full fourteen minutes guiding us through their scrawlings, aborted narrative dead ends and charming doodles.

[EDIT: I see now that the disc will also include:

We Made Hot Fuzz - a 30 minute making of
19 seconds of a Flick Book - the other side of what was seen in the film
Here Come the Fuzz featurette - about five minutes worth
Another five minutes on the Art Department
About 2 minutes of outtakes featuring Simon mugging at the camera

No idea yet about commentaries and so on, but watch this space...]

Hot Russ

Ever wanted to see a Hot Fuzz trailer... dubbed into Russian? Thought you had.

It's Magic

The unstable-slash-mental trailer for Magicians is finally here. If The Illusionist wasn't quite enough to wash the bad taste of The Prestige out of your mouth, this will do it for sure. This will pick up the Brit-comedy baton just when Hot Fuzz is finally out of steam and zoom us through the summer.

film ick have are a myriad of trailer formats for you to choose from:

Low, Medium and High varieties of WMV; Low, Medium and High varieties of RealVideo; Low, Medium and High varieties of delicious Quicktime. You can right-click any of those to save them, too.

This being directed by Andrew O'Connor, I think there's two things we can be sure of: there will be plenty of real illusions, totally do-able ones that don't depend on cinema trickery; and he won't give away anything that would rankle the Magic Circle.

Will 'suck my wand' become a catch phrase when Magicians is released in May? Blimey... I hope not.

Punch Pilot

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hot Fuzz's Lucy Punch has won a lead role in the Fox comedy pilot Two Families. The premise is simple: Beau Bridges' character had two sets of children with two seperate mothers who, when adult, all come together for the first time. Not the most fresh sounding of ideas, is it?

Christopher Denham and Geneva Carr have also been cast in the split ranks of siblings.

Three For McG

In recent months, McG has been linked to family film Me and My Monster, and now IESB seek to shackle his name to The Losers and a remake of Fantastic Voyage. I'd prefer to see the Fantastic Voyage, I think, but I doubt it would dislodge Innerspace from my cushiony heart. Which will it really be? The Losers, I'd bet. The execs will see how similar the comic book original is to The A-Team and pigeonhole McG accordingly, turn on the green light and get scribbling with their Blankety Blank paraphenalia.

Poor old McG. He gets such a hard time. Though I've only seen his Charlie's Angels films (besides any number of promos and music videos) and am still waiting for We Are Marshall to cross the Atlantic, I've got a lot of time for Joseph McGinty Nichol. A Superman film starring Beyonce Knowles and Justin Timberlake? It wouldn't have been Superman Returns, I'm sure, but it certainly had my curiosity piqued.

The motocross sequence in the second Charlie's Angels film was a better action scene than anything in Hot Fuzz, that's for sure. Well, in execution if not conception. The day Tony Scott can direct an action sequence better than McG is the day I'll start tightrope walking the standard line on those two.

Maxim Misjudgement

For their March issue, Maxim have brewed up a list they're calling "The 20 Greatest Awful Movies of All Time" - but there's a little problem. You see, there's a number of films on the list that are, simply put, rather less awful than some of this year's Best Picture contenders at the Oscars.

They Live and Big Trouble in Little China give John Carpenter a couple of black marks, the latter in the number one spot. That's just ignorant.

Peter Jackson's Brain Dead / Dead Alive is listed at number 5, Starship Troopers at number 12. Again, very silly. Meet the Feebles, maybe, but Brain Dead? I'm not being glib when I call it a genuine classic.

So, Maxim... what on earth is supposed to be awful about these films?

A few mediocrities make the list too - Tango & Cash, The Beastmaster and Hard Target. Admittedly, Hard Target is the least of John Woo's work but it's not a total wash out by any means. I could name about a hundred action films that aren't one tenth as good and find a thousand more in the bibliography appendix at the back of the Hot Fuzz script.

I do wish people would stop smugly panning films on the basis of their genres, a couple of cast members, their basic iconography or milieu and get down to thinking about the quality of the filmmaking. Of course, I've been wishing that for decades, and I'm starting to think that it's never going to happen.

See the full list online and find out if there's anything else there you want to make a case for.

Genies Snub Magic

Tideland has been snubbed at the Canadian Genie awards, the only major prizes for which it had been nominated. Instead - and in the typical partisan style that always marrs the Baftas, Cesars, Oscars and so on - the gongs were handed out in a genuinely confusing fashion.

The Rocket scooped Best Director for Charles Biname plus Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume, Editing, Lead Actor and Actress and Supporting Actor and Sound Editing - but not best film.

That went to Eric Canuel's Bon Cop, Bad Cop (the Canadian Hot Fuzz) which was also rewarded with Acheivement in Overall Sound and the Golden Reel.

I know - it doesn't add up. A film supposedly towers above its competition which, somehow, is actually better in most regards. Typical. This stuff drives me nuts. It seem like all they were doing was rewarding Bon Cop, Bad Cop for it's record breaking box office.

Grrrrr! And please 'don't get me started' on the Dayton/Faris snub in the Directing category of the Oscars this year. I'll go supernova.

The Latest, Greatest Hot Fuzz Trailer

Empire magazine have something very nice for you to look at.