The great and powerful Ryan Ottley was nice enough to send over some pictures of his time on the set of Paul. For those not familiar with Ryan, he draws for the Image title Invincible. As well as some other fun projects, such as Sea Bear & Grizzly Shark. Follow him on Twitter and make sure to check out his personal site, but not before reading about his adventure below!

I got a call from Robert one day in 2009, he asked if I wanted to be on the movie set of Pegg and Frost’s new film. I was a bit perplexed by this at first, didn’t understand WHY anyone would want us in their movie. He explained more and told me that they were huge fans of our comics and all we had to do was pretend we were at Comicon, I quickly agreed. So Robert sent them a box of comics and shirts to use in the film and we went to New Mexico. We were on set for two days, ALL day. 6am to 11pm. These guys work some seriously crazy hours. I took cell phone photos throughout, not the best photos but it’s all I got.

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We walk into the Albuquerque convention center and there it is, the best “fake” Comicon I’ve ever seen! It felt like a real con was going to happen here! Robert, Cory, Joe Keatinge, and Andy Kuhn and I walked around looking at the booths, no extras are there yet, just us and the crew setting up for shots. A fellow named Clint Trucks was our generous host and instantly our friend. He’s the one that set up this whole Comicon scene, he introduced us to the directors and other actors. We find the Image booth set up, 12 gauge booth was brought there by Doug Wagner, Oni, Slave Labor, and many other comic companies brought their booths out to be a part of this. Clint showed us our “fake” booth with large signs with our names on them and we hung out for a bit, felt right at home! The 400 extras showed up and the filming started. It lasted all day, I drew the whole time and while it was interesting to see how this stuff is made and see familiar faces of actors, it’s actually very tedious and a bit boring, at the same time very eye opening to how much man-power it takes and how time-consuming movie making really is. And I was thankful for the job I have, comics for the win. When we had to pretend to be at Comicon it was actually harder than I thought. Had to act normal but NOT talk. Just mouth words to the extras at our booth. It obviously felt unnatural but I did my best without bursting out laughing at the weirdness of the situation. Unfortunately lots of this scene was cut and hopefully the DVD extras show all of this stuff.

This was when they asked us to come into a panel room and we had to pretend George Lucas was coming on stage and we cheered and followed direction. I got this photo of Robert sitting by a fake Picard. They didn’t want us sitting together, we looked to “grouped” so they spread us all out to look more natural I guess.

Cory and Robert Spooning. Not for reals though, they were both very awake. They were just “acting” asleep for the sake of the photo, very believable stuff here folks.

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Plenty of Princess Leia’s on hand, Simon sat amongst them for a photo shoot. Cracking everyone up, him and Nick Frost were constantly happy and in a great mood making everyone laugh the whole time. At one point Nick came over to talk to us and geek with us a bit about comics. He’s a fan of Invincible and so Cory and I gave him a folder with some original art because we are huge fans of his. He flipped out, said some crude hilarious things that had to do with his excitement getting the pages. One thing I remember was he did say he was going to frame them, so the glass would make for easy clean-up when he was done. I felt bad that we didn’t bring anything for Pegg but he didn’t read our book! Simon Pegg is a Walking Dead fan and there was no Walking dead artists present! Sorry Simon! I should have at least drew him a zombie.

Watching them do scenes and then replay them through the tv’s here and then eventually do a re-shoot. Very cool to watch.

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Really awesome to see Kristen Wiig dress up as our Invincible character Atom Eve. Robert, Cory, and I asked if we could take photos so they happily obliged. This scene never made it into the theatrical release, wait for the DVD! But hey, still cool to see. At lunch, before this scene, we sat with the crew, Simon Pegg came over and talked with us for a bit, chatting to Robert about the Walking Dead. Simon then said “Well I better run, I need to do a Kissing scene with Atom Eve!” He then pointed at Robert, Cory, and I, and said “I’m living out all of YOUR fantasies.”

Good times.

Ryan

In Zach Snyders newest film Sucker Punch, film goers are taken on a high octane visual ride. And YES, the film is just as cliche as THAT description of it. It is hard to characterize where Sucker Punch goes wrong. It SHOULD be fun. It has all the parts of what should create a perfect machine of high adrenaline kinetic ass kickery that leaves your brain spinning yet begging for more. But – it’s NOT, and it Doesn’t. At its best – it is like a love letter to all things HEAVY METAL; Lovely ladies, in fantastical and alluring outfits, kicking ass and doing damage. At it’s worst – it is like a never ending music video for a sound track that would have been really edgy & exciting in 1998. All the glitz, glam, and explosions don’t make up for where the story and performances just fail to engage the audience.

The story gives us Baby Doll; a 20 year old waif who is being sent against her will to an insane asylum after an attempt to kill her morally corrupt step father leads to the accidental death of her sister. Once in the mental Hospital, we quickly learn that the management is corrupt, and that our heroine has five days before she will be Lobotomized. Then – things go all Inception on us – we are no longer in the asylum, but a whore house/ cabaret. And instead of being lobotomized, in five days Baby Doll (or more over – her virginity) is going to be hoisted up on a silver platter to a “High Roller” client to the “establishment of ill repute”. Then we get ANOTHER layer to this onion, by adding in the Dancing-but-not-really-dancing-but-fantasizing-about-fighting-scenes. We are given the rather absurd reasoning that the girls have to dance – to attract clients (Really?). And thusly Baby doll HAS to dance. This is where the epic fight scenes that you see in the trailers and all the cool promotional and collectible art come in. Baby Doll imagines fighting when she dances. We never see her dance – and we never see her fight in any way that could be mistaken for anything dance like. We just get to see reaction shots from everyone else that make you wonder what the hell she is doing. Is the shy blonde waif really a bump and grinding freak? Or perhaps – a gymnast? Nope. No explanation. Apparently her sexy dance borders on hypnotizing, and THAT is all the rational you are going to get. Coupled with the other characters and their half ass developed stories – All of this gets mushed together into a story about escaping. But in the end is just about mental escapism. Which is more or less ALL that Sucker Punch ever aspires to be. A distraction.

So lets recap; Sucker Punch is fighting, substituting for sexy dancing, in a whore house, that is really an asylum. To add to the sense of metal disorientation you have the fact that the film makers play fast and loose with time and place at every level of the story. The insane asylum is vague vintage Americana circa 1950’s or 60’s. The whore house is Gypsy Rose Lee area Burlesque in look – but they dance to contemporary artists like Bjork. Then the fight sequences are just all over the place merging the past with futurism etc etc. Which makes you ask the question; How the HELL does Baby Doll imagine this stuff?!?! In the end it feels less about good story telling and more about maximizing selling merchandise to consumers at Comic Con and Hot Topic. In early interviews Snyder called Sucker Punch “Alice in Wonderland with Machine Guns”. But I think a fellow Bot summed it up perfectly as “Empty-headed bauble. A movie mashup of Brazil, Moulin Rouge, Kill Bill, and Girl Interrupted.”.

Welcome to another installment of The Big Movie Mouth-Off!

Starring Jeff Vice from MSN Entertainment and Jimmy Martin from SLUG Magazine (and both regular panelists on The Geek Show Podcast), the Big Movie Mouth-Off is produced and directed by Bryan Young (me) and Elias Pate from Big Shiny Robot! It appears on Xfinity On Demand in Utah and on Xfinity’s Channel 6, on line, and at Brewvies Cinema Pub.

You’ll want to friend the Big Movie Mouth-Off on Facebook, too, as they are constantly giving away passes to advanced screenings of all the newest films.

There is a Big Movie Mouth-Off podcast as well, and you can listen to the latest episode here .

First we have Paul:

Then Red Riding Hood:

And The Lincoln Lawyer:

My first impressions? Wow. Just wow.

What’s right: Great explanation for most of the “civillians” who are only vaguely aware of Cap of where he came from. Perfectly gives the period feel and vibe. Lots of art deco inspired technology and 40’s period costume design.

What’s better: the inordinate amount of ass-kicking this manages to stuff into a short trailer. When Cap and the commandos break through the door and he’s firing his pistol. . . omgomgomg! Throwing his shield. The fast-to-slow Zach-Snyder-esque action of hard melee hits. The glimpses into side characters: Bucky, Howard Stark! (who also gets a name check) and Tommy Lee Jones. There’s a nascent movement to recruit Tommy Lee Jones to run for Senate in Texas to replace the retiring Kay Bailey Hutchsion.  After seeing this? Yeah, let’s do it.

What’s not as good: typical trailer fare: cuts that move too quickly between action pieces so it’s hard to figure out what’s going on in order to imply action, the hero shows self doubt and then is reassured, a character voice-over explains the plot.  But really no major problems!

The suit looks good. Everything looks both organic and cool.

Bitching points: I wanted to see more HYDRA and Red Skull. Oh well.

But what say you robots? Get crazy in the comments section and let’s start predicting, right now based on trailer vs trailer: Thor? or Cap? I’m firmly on team Steve Rogers right now. Gonna go watch it again……

UPDATE: I found a better quality version of the trailer (in HD)! This trailer really deserves it, so enjoy! –Shaz-Bot

There have been some concerns of AKIRA fans that a live-action adaptation may never make it to the big screen, but it looks like the project is still moving forward and looking to start production this August!

According to Deadline, director Albert Hughes (The Book of Eli) has received a freshly rewritten script from Steve Kloves (Harry Potter films) and this script has been sent out to a short-list of actors the studio wants in the lead roles.

The story takes place in the rebuilt New Manhattan where a leader of a biker gang saves his friend from a medical experiment. There are two major roles, and I’m told that for Tetsuo, Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield and James McAvoy have been given the new script. For the role of Kaneda, the script has been given to Garrett Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake and Joaquin Phoenix. The two leads are expected to come from that group of actors.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I am not a huge fan of anime/manga/whatever it’s technically called, but I do recognize the fan base this particular title has and the importance it seems to have in the genre. I have only seen AKIRA once, and that was about ten years ago – I didn’t much care for it. Perhaps a re-watching is in order as I just watched the Cowboy Bebop movie last night and quite enjoyed it. I suppose my point is, I don’t really have strong feelings one way or another about this list of actors. To me, it seems to be a pretty talented group, but I’m not close enough to the source material to make a strong statement one way or the other.

So, all of you Big Shiny Robot readers who are fans of AKIRA, I’m leaving it up to you! Sound off in the comments below and share your thoughts on what you think of this list of actors the studio is looking to tap for Tetsuo and Kaneda!

On the heels of yesterdays story by Variety stating that Joseph Gordon-Levitt will in fact be in The Dark Knight Rises and that he will be playing Alberto Falcone, EW has stated that while it is true that JGL will be in the film, he will not be playing Alberto Falcone.

Sigh.

Both articles are citing “insiders” and a “source close to the situation”, so only time will tell which one’s “source” proves to be the correct one. In any case, speculation continues on who exactly JGL has been tapped to play.

Come with me, just for one moment, down the fanboy road.

We here at BSR have had many discussions and light-hearted arguments as to whether or not Dick Grayson, Robin, has a place in Nolan’s Batman universe. While I and a few other bots think that Nolan could make him work, the general concensus is that the Boy Wonder just wouldn’t fit in Nolan’s dark and gritty world he’s created for this particular Batman series. However, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for Dick Grayson to play a role, sans the red, yellow, and green costume – kind of being Robin without being Robin. All over Twitter you can find wishful fanboy hoping that perhaps Gordon-Levitt will be portraying Dick Grayson, with perhaps a hint of him becoming Robin (or maybe skipping straight to Night Wing would be a better fit for this universe?) towards the end.

Is this scenario unlikely? Personally, I think so. Would it be cool to see though? Hell yes it would.

I’m sure we will see even more speculation and reports from “inside sources” up until it is confirmed by either the studio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, or Nolan as to which role he will be taking on in the film.

The Dark Knight Rises is due to hit theaters on July 20, 2012.

For the hard core Jack Sparrow fans and the passive nerd movie watcher there is a new trailer for “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”. We get a better look at the mermaids and exotic locals, and a little bit better feel for the story.

Stranger Tides appears to find Jack NOT Captain of the Black Pearl, but being sought by the Crown as the high sea’s top weird crap expert to lead an expedition in search of the mythic “Fountain of Youth” (I guess when word gets out that you helped loose an ancient sea goddess these kind of job offers are to be expected). Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa is back as a proper Captain to a vessel in the Crown’s fleet.

New comers to the story Ian McShane as uber-famous Pirate Captain- Blackbeard (so far the only character in the pirates franchise to have notably ACTUALLY existed!) and Penelope Cruise as Angelica, Captain Blackbeard’s daughter, give this the 4th film in the franchise a bit of an upgrade if you ask me. Newbies Astrid Berges-Frisbey and Sam Claflin round out the cast and bring the some how required young love angle as captive mermaid and besotted young sailor.

Admit it – Yes you have Pirates of the Caribbean fatigue – and YES you are STILL going to see this movie with the rest of us.

Roger Ebert posted the poster for this new Woody Allen Romantic Comedy Midnight in Paris and it has been all a buzz on the internet today. I’ve long been a big fan of everything Woody Allen so I got excited when I saw this poster and found out who was all involved. Owen Wilson is always a good fit, add to that Adrien Brody who’s took time off his brodyquest to be in the movie, and Carla Bruni’s film debut. Most people know Bruni for being the wife of the President of France but I know her from her beautiful singing:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dACf2-N32Kg

The basic plot premise is as follows: “A romantic comedy about a family traveling to the French capital for business. The party includes a young engaged couple forced to confront the illusion that a life different from their own is better.” Most of the filming took place in Paris and it’s set to debut at Cannes this week, so we’ll surely see it here in the US in a couple of months.

I have been loving Allen’s movies for a long time but mostly I like it when he goes towards the more comedic side. Bananas and Deconstructing Harry could both easily make it into my top 20 movies of all time. So I’m very excited for this one. What are your thoughts on this new film?

Last week the news broke that FOX is putting a new Daredevil movie into the pipeline with David Slade at the helm.

A few days after this, Slade took to Twitter to comment on the current news and rumors floating around:

Forgot to look at the internet for a few weeks and its a litany of false (and not so far off) rumours. So without breaking confidentiality, yes Daredevil, we have a great outline for a very strong character driven take on Mr Matt Murdock. It will bare [sic] no relation to the previous Daredevil movie in any way. We are at early planning stages and have not yet discussed any cast.

To me, this doesn’t give us too much information about what’s right or wrong, but it does tells us that FOX is looking to reboot the series as opposed to using the first movie as the origin. As a fan, this may make you cringe thinking that now we have to sit through another DD origin story, but you just never know. On this month’s Big Shiny Podcast (which will hit a little later this week) Kill-tacular-tron and I discuss how The Incredible Hulk handled it’s origin story incredibly well via the opening credits – so perhaps we will get that kind of origin treatment since a previous movie, even though one that will apparently not be related to this new film, already covered the basics of DD’s origins.

Slade also noted that some rumors are incredibly false, and others are “not so far off”. Of course, he’s bound to confidentiality agreements at this point, so we will have to wait and see exactly which rumors prove to be true. “Born Again” anybody? . . .

Last week, The Hornet was taken to the cleaners, literally! Now, the cops and the crooks are after The Hornet & Kato! I bet if the Black Beauty didn’t make a noise like a giant hornet it’d be easier to get away! As it is, this episode treats you to a thrilling car chase, but who know how it will end, but Britt Reid’s number may be up! Sit back and enjoy Chapter Nine of The Green Hornet: The Hornet Trapped!