Friday turned out to be the busiest day film wise at the San Diego Comic Con this year. Panels, interviews and presentations conflicted with each other to the point that people and press had to miss out on a lot of events in order to catch what was most important to them. Multiple secret screenings were held around town for various comedies and one high profile drama, whilst parties popped up all over including one very hot ticket to the 'Confidential' bar. Here's a look at what I caught:
Borat If there was one presentation that raised the roof on Friday, this was it. The comedy follows Sacha Baron Cohen as the blissfully ignorant and politically incorrect Kazakhstani reporter Borat, and his adventures in the United States. Cohen was there in character and gave a five to eight minute comedy routine that got people laughing. Amongst his jokes were tales of his hometown's favourite comic book Astounding Woman who has the strength to pull a large plow for 84 hours, twelve breasts, and her genitals are large enough that she can simultaneously give birth to fourteen kids.
Three bits of footage were screened. The quite funny new trailer, a decent scene set in an antique shop, and then the scene that utterly shocked everyone. Comic Con is seen as a family friendly place for the most part but this utterly hilarious sequence involving Borat and his 400-pound boss nude fighting with each other
in a hotel bedroom pushed the limits to great result. I'm sure there will be complaints from all too stiff parents shocked that their kids had such R-rated comedy thrown in their faces, but for the rest of us it was a real highlight and was great to see a studio have the balls to show footage that was daring and proved utterly effective at pleasing its audience.
The fight, which starts when Borat walks out of the shower and sees his boss masturbating to a skin mag, included a rather 'generously endowed' black blurry shadow covering Borat's gentials throughout. The fight runs for several minutes and includes the pair in numerous simulated gay sexual positions, before the action spills out into a packed elevator and convention hall. The clip had people, including me, literally in tears of howling laughter throughout.
Eragon A premiere extended trailer aired for the dragon rider fantasy epic showing off the impressive cast including John Malkovich, Jeremy Irons, Robert Carlyle, Djimon Hounsou and some of the younger characters. Some decent footage of the dragons was on display, though they look quite different to those we've seen before - much more rounded heads and larger eyes.
There's an obviously much bigger budget than some similar dragon films of recent years, and Irons has some quite cool quotable lines. After a search of thousands of young actors, British-born blond hunk Edward Speelers finally landed the role two days before the plug got pulled on the film. He has never acted professionally before but Irons took him under his wing and Speelers trained with archery, sword fighting, boxing and acting lessons every day.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix As the film only recently began shooting there was only a short taped greeting from Daniel Radcliffe and Director David Yates talking about most of the aspects from the book that will be in the film.
Pathfinder A brief screening of the trailer kicked off the panel for the action drama about the Vikings arriving in North America in the ninth century. Director Marcus Nispel and actor Clancy Brown appeared and spoke about the film which Nispel describes as a small "Conan" like film but more authentic and gritty. He hopes to show off the realistic dark side to the warrior race. Brown, who has the most dialogue in the film, had to learn Icelandic to play his character.
An extended clip had a quite stylised and interesting look with washed out colours and a very darkly lit tone which adds a lot of atmosphere. The scene had Karl Urban surprising vikings who killed an Indian chief by grabbing one of their swords and attacking a nearby soldier - in the process cutting out that man's eye. Urban rushes away from pursuing hordes of Vikings armed with dogs, horses and black eagles chasing him. As one Vikingcloses in he leaps out from hiding underwater and slaughters the man.
The Reaping Actresses Hilary Swank and Annasophia Robb, producer Joel Silver and director Stephen Hopkins were on hand to talk about the supernatural thriller. Hilary Swank plays a sceptic investigating a young girl in a Louisiana town who may be causing the ten biblical plagues. After showing off the trailer, which had plenty of locusts and glimpses of the 'rivers turned blood' plague, there was a brief Q&A about the film. The project, which was shooting just after Hurricane Katrina hit in Louisiana, had to push through despite various setbacks including no computing or even electrical power at times.
Reno 911! The Movie The low-budget comedy about eccentric characters at a Nevada sheriff's department is going to the big screen and a hilarious trailer for the film completely spoofs the first "Miami Vice" teaser trailer but with much more 'shocking footage' involving girls in thongs climbing off ATVs, cops puking or being puked on, and even a big action scene involving motorbike jumping.
Three of the cast in attendance came out in character and did a comedy routine for about 20 minutes with several clips from the movie involving the cops trying to corral a chicken by shooting it, and another scene in which a guy gets jammed in an airport x-ray machine. The routine yielded a lot of laughs, mostly about the shock the trio displayed about the scenes shown which made them look like idiots.
Stardust
Neil Gaiman's beloved fantasy comic involving English villages, witches, falling stars and flying pirate ships gets a major film treatment from Paramount. Gaiman himself and several key people involved in the film's making like producer Lorenzo DiBonaventura and screenwriter Jane Goldman were on hand to show multiple scenes from the film. Director Matthew Vaughn was in London working on green screen photography for the film and was unable to attend. Amongst the stuff on offer was a quick montage, plus key moments including character bits with the likes of Robert DeNiro, Michelle Pfieffer and Ricky Gervais. More in-depth interviews with the key people involved will be going up here soon.
Superman Returns
Lots of stuff happened at this, click here for the full breakdown.
Transformers After a disappointing short message from Michael Bay, a fun but ultimately minor scoop was announced - Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime in the original animated series of the 80's, will do the voice work for the film as well.
The Wicker Man A short clip showed off one of the early scenes from the Nic Cage thriller remake of the English cult classic about a cop who stumbles upon a pagan worshipping town. A glimpse of the scene can be seen at the start of the trailer involving a mother and daughter being caught in a horrible road accident and explosion.
Director Neil LaBute came out to answer a few questions and mostly spoke about differences between this film and the original. Most notably the changing of the patriarchy of the cult to a matriarchy, and the island's industry changing to honey which allows for all sorts of bee/hive metaphors. Ellen Burstyn plays the Christopher Lee role as such which is quite different this time around, whilst a small tip of the hat will be made in the film to the original's star Edward Woodward.
