Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance

Story: While struggling to control his inner demon, Johnny Blaze rides again to save a boy from the same being that gave him his cursed power.

Review: I have mixed emotions about this film. The story is nothing new. I have seen the premise in horror movies. Unlike other Marvel films, this is the only one that is on the same level. It is also not connected with the first movie because there was some inconsistencies so this movie is a partial reboot. Although I like what the Ghost Rider look like in the first movie, they removed the spikes on the knuckles and shoulders because it wasn't what Blaze look like in the comics but kept the chain as a weapon. There were also another change in this Ghost Rider. The skull was blackened compared in the first one. Even the motorcyle was different from the first ,movie. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this better than the first one and there are new characters including a new villain, Carrigan. 

Ghost Rider First Series Issue 1

Unlike in the comics, the villains Ghost Rider encounters are more human-like and they are not known in their usual names. For those who are into comics, we know that the demon Roarke is Mephisto and Carrigan is Blackout. In the comics, Johnny Blaze was using a stunt cyclist jumpsuit type for his Ghost Rider and was riding a regular motorcycle when he first appeared in August 1972 comics, Marvel Spotlight # 5. Just like in the comics, Ghost Rider is an anti-hero. 

Besides, Carrigan, there's another new character in this movie that is not clear whether it is the same one in the comics but it can be exciting to know. If it is so, can we expect another crossover story line in the movie just like what they did with The Avengers? For those who are interested to read Ghost Rider in comics, Ghost Rider still appears under Marvel Knights but you may need a lot of catching up to do. Ghost Rider is released and distributed by Sony/Columbia Pictures.

The latest Ghost Rider

Fact: Nicolas Cage's real name is Nicolas Coppola. He is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola. To avoid being familiarized with the director when Nicolas started, he used the name Cage, which was inspired by another Marvel Superhero, Luke Cage(formerly known as Power Man back then).

TAYLOR KITSCH, SCREEN'S NEWEST ACTION HERO IN “JOHN CARTER”

It isn’t often that an actor gets the opportunity to play a Civil War veteran who gets transported to the planet Mars and meets a beautiful, strong-willed princess so that he can help her fight a civil war of her own. For Taylor Kitsch, who put himself on the map playing Riggins on the highly acclaimed TV series “Friday Night Lights,” the chance to play the title role of John Carter in Academy Award®–winning writer/director Andrew Stanton’s “John Carter,” was something he was not going to pass up.

             “When I first read the script, I was drawn to the character-driven story and the fact that it will benefit from being a big studio movie,” he says. “It gave the filmmakers a chance to make the film in an amazing way. You get to know John Carter’s background with his family, the Civil War and everything. It’s heavy to play but it gives me such a base to draw from through the whole movie. For example, in one scene, you’ll see Carter playing with his rings and you’ll know what that truly means to him. It’s great as an actor because it’s something to really dive into.

             “The grandeur, and what Stanton’s done, and how it works and how it’s all intertwined is quite epic and I felt that as an actor,” he continues. “My character is definitely on an epic adventure. We go from the 1800s on the streets of New York to the Arizona Territory in the West to the plains of Mars—all in one movie. As an actor I experienced my character John Carter in many different settings that had specific emotions and needs that I had to evoke.

             “I can’t recall any movie that’s done it the way we have. The ending brings the adventure full circle brilliantly, but you’ll have to see it to understand what I mean.”

             Like all of the other actors working on “John Carter,” Kitsch loves working with Stanton. “Andrew Stanton’s vision was very infectious,” he says. “He’s just brilliant and you just have to go along with it. You have to believe in it because it’s such an incredible vision that if you don’t, you’re not doing the story and the character justice.

             “Our first meeting was great. I was so excited because I am a huge fan of ‘Wall-E’ and, come to find out, he’s a fan of ‘Friday Night Lights.’ It’s just been a great relationship from the get-go and trust has been there from day one. It was great to be able to have him explain his vision and then to become part of it.”

             Kitsch also credits Edgar Rice Burroughs, who created the character of John Carter in 1912, with the power of the story and of his character’s journey. “I think Burroughs was way ahead of his time, especially for his first science-fiction novel,” Kitsch states. “It relates to what we’re living and doing right now—the lack of natural resources, the energy problems, the wars going on from racism to religion. He was hitting it all almost 100 years ago. 

             “And even in the film we address all those things,” he says. “What Stanton has done is taken the base of John Carter from Burroughs and definitely gone into more depth of who John Carter really is and where he comes from.

             “Stanton has given me so much more to dive into with the character that wasn’t realized in the books. It’s been really great, script wise, to draw from that.”

             The love story in “John Carter” has also been a great experience for Kitsch to play. His co-star, Lynn Collins, plays Princess Dejah Thoris and their relationship has taken on a full, exciting life of its own. Kitsch credits Stanton and his screenplay for this. “In the books it’s almost love at first sight and John would do anything for Dejah, but in the film you follow an arc that happens with John and Dejah as their relationship develops,” he explains. “I love the banter back and forth. We rib each other and we challenge each other through different scenes and finally the truth just comes out. It’s a love story with everything else going on but it means so much to the film. It’s quite the backbone of it.

             “Our characters’ relationship at first is about pushing each other’s buttons to see how we’ll each react. That changes as we grow and she stops trying to test him and begins to see the real John, the part he can’t even see himself.

             “But through the relationship, Dejah and John have so much going on that those moments become very special and, in a sense, earned. It would be unreal just to play that relationship as it is in the moment. You have to understand that the stakes are always so high, so you have to create these small moments that are earned and not just like, ‘Oh, you’re pretty today.’ You definitely have to work and earn those moments, which make them that much more special in the film.”

             In the end, Kitsch has never worked harder or been more grateful for an experience as he is for his work on “John Carter.” 

             “Honestly, no job will ever be as physical and exhausting, yet rewarding, as this one,” he says with a smile. “I’ve been tested on every level and then some. The pure physicality of it, to the arc of the character, to the emotional spectrum he has. I’ve had to keep up my endurance this whole time, but again what you put in is what you hopefully get out. And I think that will be very specific to this role.” 

              “John Carter” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures.

FIRST-LOOK: “WRATH OF THE TITANS” LAYOUTS

Warner Bros. Has just released new marketing art for its upcoming 3D fantasy-adventure “Wrath of the Titans.” The materials consist of bus-shelter art individually featuring Perseus and Kronos, and a totem layout featuring the main characters Perseus, Andromeda, Agenor, Hades and Zeus.

             Directed by Jonathan Liebesman, “Wrath of the Titans” stars Sam Worthington, Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson as gods at war.

             A decade after his heroic defeat of the monstrous Kraken, Perseus (Worthington) —the demigod son of Zeus (Neeson)—is attempting to live a quieter life as a village fisherman and the sole parent to his 10-year old son, Helius.

             Meanwhile, a struggle for supremacy rages between the gods and the Titans. Dangerously weakened by humanity’s lack of devotion, the gods are losing control of the imprisoned Titans and their ferocious leader, Kronos, father of the long-ruling brothers Zeus, Hades (Fiennes) and Poseidon (Danny Huston). The triumvirate had overthrown their powerful father long ago, leaving him to rot in the gloomy abyss of Tartarus, a dungeon that lies deep within the cavernous underworld.

             Perseus cannot ignore his true calling when Hades, along with Zeus’ godly son, Ares (Edgar Ramírez), switch loyalties and make a deal with Kronos to capture Zeus. The Titans’ strength grows stronger as Zeus’ remaining godly powers are siphoned, and hell is unleashed on earth.

             Enlisting the help of the warrior Queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike), Poseidon’s demigod son, Argenor (Toby Kebbell), and fallen god Hephaestus (Bill Nighy), Perseus bravely embarks on a treacherous quest into the underworld to rescue Zeus, overthrow the Titans and save mankind.

             Opening across the Philippines in March, “Wrath of the Titans” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

The Descendants

Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

Story: Overcoming the troubles during the coma of his wife after a boating accident, Honolulu-based lawyer Matt King struggles to connect to his two daughters.

Review: The story can be told like a local drama series. These are some situations that happens to families in real life. Despite the serious tone, there are some comical scenes that can balance the conflicts in the story. Living in paradise like Honolulu doesn't guarantee that life would be pleasing. The casting was a good selection of new actors that could be famous someday.

Amara Miller, who played 10-year old daughter Scottie King, provides potential in future movie projects. She gave some comic performances. Nick Krause, who played Sid, also provided comic relief for the movie. Shailene Woodley, who played 17-year old daughter Alexandra King, has a promising career as a new hottie.

The production is so simple but it was set in Honolulu which is such a nice backdraft for any movie goer. The musical score is also purely Hawaiian but you won't hear any Elvis songs. This movie has a quality of an indie film because of it's lack of Hollywood element but for the good reasons. The Descendants is released and distributed by Fox Searchlight through Twentieth Century Fox.

Safe House

Story: CIA agent Matt Weston(Ryan Reynolds) is in charge of a CIA safe house in Africa when a CIA traitor named Tobin Frost escorted by Weston's fellow CIA agents arrive. While getting settled, what was supposed to be a secret and secured safe house was attacked and killed all the escorts. Weston needs to relocate the "house guest" in another place while finding out what secrets Frost is keeping.

Review: The safe house is what usually people call a place where they keep key witnesses who are in grave danger before testifying in a trial. In the case of the movie, it's what Frost is keeping. The suspense of the story is what will make the movie worth your money. There were lots of twist  and action packed scenes. I never saw Denzel Washington kick butt better than his last action movie like The Book of Eli.As for his character, Frost, he is hard to predict. Ryan Reynolds, did well as Matt Weston. He was able to redeem himself after bad review about Green Lantern. He was able to do action again just like what he did in Blade: Trinity where he played Knightstalker Hannibal Drake. There were elements of this movie that it was not is not Hollywood material and similar to indie filming because it was directed by Daniel Espinosa. This is one of the movies that opens this week that you shouldn't miss. Safe House opens February 10 in Philippine cinemas and is released locally by Solar Entertainment Corp.

FUN FACTS ABOUT THE MAKING OF “JOHN CARTER”

Walt Disney Pictures released some interesting trivia about the making of this much anticipated film.

             Set on the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars), “John Carter” tells the story of war‐weary, former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.

• “John Carter” is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ first novel, “A Princess of Mars.” An American writer, Burroughs was born in Chicago and is best known for writing and creating “Tarzan”—still one of the most successful and iconic fictional creations of all time.

• 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the character John Carter.

• Since 1935, various filmmakers have attempted to make a movie based on “A Princess of Mars”—the first was intended to be an animated feature film by Bob Clampett of “Beany and Cecil” fame. If it had been made, it would have been America’s first full-length animated film, prior to Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” which premiered in 1937.

• Academy Award®–winning director/writer Andrew Stanton directed and co-wrote the screenplay for “WALL•E,” which earned the Academy Award® and Golden Globe Award® for Best Animated Feature of 2008. He was Oscar®-nominated for the screenplay. Stanton made his directorial debut with “Finding Nemo,” garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay and winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film of 2003.

• “John Carter” screenwriters Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon discovered they had something in common when they met: they all still possessed the John Carter drawings and artwork that they had done when they were boys.

• Crewmembers, working on location in Utah, found a large bone protruding from the ground. The Bureau of Land Management confirmed it was in fact a Sauropod bone—either a femur or scapula—from a dinosaur that could have been 60ft long. An excavation is currently taking place to retrieve the rest of the prehistoric skeleton.

• The Ancient Barsoomian typography carved into the walls of the sacred temples in “John Carter” took their original design from actual markings found on the surface of the planet Mars.

• Working from the original source material, a linguist was hired to create the entire Thark Martian language, using just a few words mentioned in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels.

• The actors playing the nine-foot tall, green Thark characters had to learn to walk on stilts to film the scenes with John Carter, giving the correct eye-line contact for the dialogue.

• Stunt Coordinator Tom Struthers was delighted and amazed that Taylor Kitsch did 98% of his own stunt work, including an 85-foot jump in the learning-to-walk sequence, a 65-foot jump in the arena, battling the ferocious white apes, and a 250- foot long series of jumps in the Martian wilderness.

• Cinema audiences will be astonished to see actress Lynn Collins, when not donning her Dejah Thoris look, has strawberry blonde hair and fair skin.

• While filming in Utah, the film crew came across a small space center called the Mars Society Desert Research Station. No one was home but the Website reads: “Teams of hard-working volunteers, working in full simulation mode in the barren canyon lands of Utah, continue to explore the surrounding terrain, cataloging more waypoints, and analyzing the geology and biology of this fascinating and remarkably Mars-like region.”

(“John Carter” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures.)

“MY WEEK WITH MARILYN” EXCLUSIVE AT AYALA MALLS CINEMAS

Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe

The Weinstein Company's critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated film “My Week With Marilyn” starring Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh will be shown soon exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas (Glorietta 4, Greenbelt 3 and Trinoma).

             Early in the summer of 1956, American film star Marilyn Monroe (Williams) set foot on British soil for the first time. On honeymoon with her husband, the celebrated playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), Monroe came to England to shoot “The Prince and the Showgirl” - the film that famously united her with Sir Laurence Olivier (Branagh), the British theatre and film legend who directed and co-starred in the film.

             That same summer, 23-year-old Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) set foot on a film set for the first time in his life. Newly graduated from Oxford, Clark aspired to be a filmmaker and found a job as a lowly production hand on the set of “The Prince and the Showgirl.” Forty years later, he recounted his experiences of the six-month shoot in a diary-style memoir entitled The Prince, the Showgirl and Me. But one week in Clark's account was missing...

             It wasn't until years later that Clark revealed why. In a follow-up memoir entitled My Week with Marilyn, he recounted the true story of one magical week he spent alone with the world's biggest star -- the week he spent with Marilyn.

             "For a lot of people Marilyn is more of an iconic image than an actress,” admits director Simon Curtis. "People haven't seen her films as much as they have her portrait. My way into this project was falling in love with the first of Colin Clark's two memoirs. As somebody who was assistant director at The Royal Court Theatre, I found it fascinating to uncover this moment in time.”

             The first memoir, The Prince, The Showgirl and Me, recounts Clark's experiences working as third assistant director on the set of Monroe's first film as both producer and star in which she played opposite Olivier, who also directed. The book recounts the production's myriad problems, fuelled almost exclusively by the lack of communication and understanding between the two stars: Monroe's erratic behavior and tardiness were exacerbated by her addiction to alcohol and prescription medication; while Olivier, a staunch traditionalist, refused to accommodate Monroe's idiosyncrasies or her devotion to Method acting, which she practiced under the guidance of Paula Strasberg.

             While Clark's memoir is a dishy, fly-on-the-wall account of Olivier's and Monroe's fraught partnership, his follow-up memoir, My Week With Marilyn, feels like an intimate confession. In it, Clark affectionately remembers one enchanted week he spent leading the troubled Monroe on a tour of the English countryside. It offers an all-too-rare glimpse of the real woman beneath the carefully cultivated image, unencumbered by the busy machinery of stardom.

             "I couldn't believe my eyes when My Week with Marilyn was published,” avows Curtis. "Colin really did have this tense, erotically charged week with the most famous woman in the world, at the peak of her fame. I couldn't believe my luck when I was able to get hold of the rights. People had tried over the years. And in the last year I've met at least three very established directors who have said, "I've always wanted to make that story.' So I feel very lucky.”