Good friend of the site, Brad Rusk from Colorado’s own Horrorfest, just e-mailed me and told me that Return to Sleepaway Camp has not only finished filming, but it has been picked up by Magnolia Pictures and will be released to DVD on October 14th.  He got the word from someone close to the production of the film.

The Sleepaway Camp series is cult-classic slasher film series.  I know that Barry is going to be extremely curious to check this out.  Click the picture below to get a sneak peak at the first trailer preview.

Holy crap in a bucket!  The trailer for Watchmen has finally gone live online, and I’m absolutely floored.    Trailer Addict comes through again with a great looking version of it.  Barry saw this on Monday and has been telling me how amazing it is.  Really, nothing could have prepared me for this trailer.  I’m not catching The Dark Knight until Sunday morning, but I’m almost more excited to see this on the big screen than the main feature!

As a bit of a disclaimer, this trailer suffers from the exact issues that the first Twilight trailer had.  It’s a trailer made for fans.  If you don’t know anything about Watchmen, you’re going to be lost.  You’re going to think these characters are ripoffs of other superheroes.  You’d be right.  If you are at all interested in comics or good adult stories, beg (from friends), borrow (from your local library), or buy (because we don’t condone stealing) this book.  There’s a reason this story is held in such high regard.

Let the drooling commence!

I know that we’ve been pretty harsh on Twilight in the past and I made the promise that we wouldn’t talk anymore smack until more stuff came out about it.  Well, Trailer Addict has put up the new trailer.  I have to say that I’m officially taking myself out of the “This looks like sheer crap” camp.  I’m now putting myself in the “This isn’t for me” camp.

Let me explain.  The production values look considerably better than the teaser trailer.  It gives a bit more of the story, and it’s just not a story I’m interested in.  If it gets a ton of good buzz, I may check it out.  Because this is a big phenomenon waiting to happen, though, we need to cover it.  Anyway check it out!

Good friend to the site, Marc Lougee, has somehow found time between screening The Pit and the Pendulum all over the world and finalizing the DVD release to write a really interesting article about the setup he used in the making of Pit.  He was able to put the entire rig together, including the PC, lens, cameras and everything for less than $2400.  That is just crazy awesome.  Anyway, it’s a very worthwhile read and you can check it out here.

Also, please take some time to read his tribute to Stan Winston.  He shares a pretty funny story and it’s quite touching.

I literally just opened the envelope containing these about five minutes ago, so I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but I’ll make a bit of an overview as to the stories in the paper, but we received three copies of Issue #3 of The Gotham Times at SG headquarters today!  No, this isn’t for me to gloat…ok, maybe just a little.  Never fear, though, we’re going to be distributing two of these copies.  One will be auctioned off this week or next week with 100% of the proceeds going to benefit Child’s Play.  As for the other copy, well…we’re not sure quite yet. 

Edit:  Hit the jump for info as to what’s in the issue.  Hit the link above if you want to read for yourself, or I’ve done a quick rundown on the highlights.

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Update:  Harry Knowles over at Ain’t It Cool has verified this story through his sources.  I was worried that my initial reaction may have been a bit premature, but I stand by what I said more than ever now.  I completely understand that a director is only one part of what makes a good movie, but I firmly believe that Mr. Favreau has more than a little bit to do with the fact that Iron Man is no longer the b-list hero he’s been for a long time.  That’s why I’m standing this firmly behind him.

In what is potentially a repeat of the X-Men 3 debacle, First Showing is reporting thatMarvel is saying that Iron Man director Jon Favreau is not necessary for Iron Man 2 to be financially successful.  It seems to be a veiled attempt to lowball Favreau before they even give him a second call after Iron Man’s stellar box office numbers.  It’s also possible that Marvel is attempting a power play in response to Favreau saying he isn’t sure that Iron Man 2 could be ready by 2010.

I am absolutely willing to go on record and say that should Marvel go down this road of killing the golden goose before it lays more than one egg, I will absolutely boycott Iron Man 2 and will possibly cease all coverage of Iron Man 2.  This is specifically if Favreau were not brought back for the next movie.  I truly feel this strongly about the topic.  Jon Favreau brought a lot of the heart that made people love the first movie, and I worry that a Favreau-less Iron Man would be as bad (if not worse) than X-Men 3.

At ScreenGeeks, we use all kinds of resources for our theatrical and dvd releases.  We use Box Office Mojo for referrence on all of our theatrical releases.  For the past few months, they’ve been showing that Postal will be getting a wide release against Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull next weekend.  Some would say that’s crazy to do, but I think it’s a brilliant move.  When Postal fails at the box office, he’ll be able to say that everyone who would have seen Postal went to see Indy instead.

 Well, it looks like that’s not the only excuse Uwe Boll will have when Postal flops.  Kotaku got ahold of a press release from Uwe Boll saying that instead of opening on 1500 screens nationwide, he’s now getting a whopping FOUR screens.  Apparently, they can’t even get theaters in New York or Los Angeles to let them rent out theaters to show the movie.

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So, last night I was surfing around looking for something to take my mind off my Suns getting ousted by the Spurs (again!), when I came across this awesome version of the new Dark Knight trailer over at Slashfilm.  I’ve been watching the viral marketing for this movie, and I’m continually amazed.  I got involved on the Harvey Dent side of things and I got a copy of the second issue of the Gotham Times, a bunch of posters and I even got the button that’s half melted from the Concerned Citizens For A Better Gotham.  It’s absolutely genius.  Warner Bros. understands how important word-of-mouth is in the summer movie season, and this is topping the movie discussion among geeks everywhere.  I would be very curious to see how much they’re spending as opposed to what it would cost for prime-time advertisements.  This really seems to be more effective use of their money.  Anyway, check out the video.  It really is cool.

What most believed would be the highlight and centerpiece of the entire weekend convention ended up being an uneven exhibit of footage from Get Smart and Speed Racer. The short version is that the Get Smart footage and presentation was sensational, while the Speed Racer platform was a dud.

The Warner Brothers movie presentation began with an extended clip from Get Smart- the footage began with a brief showcase of the film’s buddy team, played by Nate Torrence and Masi Oka and continued with the film’s entire airplane sequence. I won’t spoil a moment of this sequence, but will only say that the lengthy set piece featured Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway and absolutely brought the house down. Not since Starfest got an extended first look at the cafeteria scene from Spider-man have I heard an audience go this nuts for an exclusive, never-before-seen series of clips. We got impressive wallops of action and comedy and a few people around me were laughing so hard, I became afraid for their long-term health. Following the hearty applause, the lights went up and Oka and Torrence took the stage. Their Q&A was delightfully odd and unpredictable- while Oka got the expected round of Heroes questions and Torrence had some “great working with Steve Carrell” tidbits, they were both at their best when they boggled the audience by showing their close friendship with off-the-wall displays of affection (lots of hand grasping and one of them even got down on one knee to proclaim their love for the other). Torrence’s jovial demeanor was a fun contrast to Oka’s focused seriousness (which should play well in the movie, as well). Once they left the stage, it no longer became a question of whether Get Smart or The Love Guru would own their summer movie weekend (my advice to the Love Guru camp- you should consider pushing your movie back to Spring of ’09, at the earliest). Get Smart looks more like True Lies than Starsky and Hutch and will probably hit big.

Audience goodwill was high after Oka and Torrence left the stage. The lights dimmed once again and Kevin, the fearless, ageless and unflappable Starfest MC, announced we were about to see some Speed Racer footage. Well, it was the exact same 4-minute trailer that hit the web last week and you could feel the disappointment in the crowd. The lights came up, end of panel. No one from the movie came (not even that king of cool and promotional workhorse himself, Joel Silver). To say the least, following an enormously successful panel on Get Smart with the terribly underwhelming Speed Racer footage was akin to leaving a fantastic office party, getting on the elevator and finding it getting stuck mid-floor with a fellow passenger experiancing bad gas. If anyone at Starfest wasn’t excited about Speed Racer before, that panel isn’t going to change their minds.

Overall, no one who was there will likely forget the Get Smart footage and Q&A…and no one who was there will remember or care about the Speed Racer trailer.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Nana Visitor on Saturday at Starfest.  During our time with her, she revealed that she will be playing Pamela Voorhees in the upcoming Friday the 13th remake.  She apparently won’t be in the film for long, but she has had a mold made of her head.  Yeah…any guesses as to how she leaves the film?

Update:  We now have the audio from our interview with Ms. Visitor.  She talks about Friday the 13th at about the 6:10 mark.

 

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I’ve also added the picture we had with Ms. Visitor.  The bruise at the bridge of her nose is from when they cast the mold, so that must have just been done recently.

We have also added a transcript after the jump. (more…)