Cowboys and Aliens news and tidbits

[Sylvia's girl]

A different view point on C&A footage

This weekend I was in Austin for Harry Knowles’ annual Butt-Numb-A-Thon, an event I love. We had some really intriguing and amazing vintage films play and some hit or miss new films, but we also had a couple of footage presentations. I’ll say this up front: I hate these things. Ever since Fellowship of the Ring studios have been hot to show geek journalists and audiences 20 or 30 minutes of an upcoming movie; to me this ruins the experience of seeing the real film for the first time, and I’d rather just watch the unfinished movie than a big chunk of the film.

One of the footage presentations this year was the first 40 minutes of Cowboys & Aliens, Jon Favreau’s big summer blockbuster for 2011. It was incomplete, without FX and obviously missing insert shots and some other stuff. This makes it hard to judge what I was looking at, but I can say one thing:

Jon, make this 40 minutes into nothing more than 18 minutes.

What we saw was essentially exactly what was shown at Comic Con, except stretched out. Really stretched out. I am a fan of the concept of Cowboys & Aliens, and I am a fan of Favreau and of Daniel Craig, but what we saw was way too flat and way too empty.

I think the great stuff in the film will be coming in the scenes after what we saw at BNAT, which makes showing that opening act feel like a weird choice. That said, I do have some worries about the general script; much of what we saw were intros to characters in the Old West town, and Sam Rockwell is given some lines where he just nakedly lays out his character and his relationships in a way that sounds like he’s reading writers Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof’s notes on the character out loud. Just cringe-inducingly on the nose dialogue.

Daniel Craig seems great; he has a true badass quality about him and he sells some really terrific moments of action and coolness. Paul Dano is impressive as a total weasel of a character; I think I’m going to like seeing bad things happen to him in the film. Olivia Wilde is intriguing, but had very little screen time in the opening 40.

The big question mark is Harrison Ford. He looked befuddled for much of the opening act, and even in scenes where befuddlement wasn’t called for. He’s playing a heavy, and he has the growl for it, but I have to wait until I see more to really figure him out.

I don’t think you’ll ever see the version of act one of Cowboys & Aliens that we saw; Favreau is obviously trying to create the flavor of a Western, but his pacing here is just too slack. Also too slack is the big action set piece – setting aside the unfinished effects (which, by the way, I kind of loved – alien spacecraft portrayed as just banks of lights feels right), the editing was too loose and the attack went on for way too long without enough high points. There’s a repetitive nature to seeing saloons and other Old West buildings blow up as people run around in confusion and shoot Colts into the sky.

After BNAT some of us discussed what the marketing point of the footage was. Some folks felt that it was to get across the fact that this is a serious film and the Western elements are done seriously. I think it’s just because Favreau really values that audience. He’s aware that Comic Con gave Iron Man a major boost, and ever since then he’s been very interested in catering to the geek crowd. I think he brought that footage because he wanted to do something cool for that audience, which I like and respect.

I’m still positive and hopeful for Cowboys & Aliens. I just hope that the next two acts are a little more thrilling than what we saw in Austin.

http://www.badassdigest.com/2010/12/13/ ... oys-aliens

[Germangirl]

Hm - the writer doesn't seem like he wanted to bash the film just for the bashing sake - it sounds plausible, what he writes, but then - no one else thought about it like that. The reviews were all great - so I tend to believe the majority of favourable reviews for now. Lets hope for the best...

[Dunda]

It wasntr a real preview, as the writer says he got to watch almost the same fottage they showed at the Comic Con.

Which means, rough and unedited fottage. I've no doubt, that even the most exciting and thrilling actiona advneture movie has it's lenght, before it is edited to its final cut in the cutting room.

So no worry about that......

[Germangirl]

No, no worries Here are two more, that sound like the other favourable reviews.

Inside Movies & DVD with Drew McWeeny
Review: BNAT 12 features early looks at 'Rango,' 'Cowboys and Aliens,' 'Green Hornet' and more

The rest of the premieres were held until the end of the festival, but we had special presentations by Universal and Paramount in the middle of things. Jon Favreau, Bob Orci, and Ron Howard came rolling in, and they brought a full 40 minutes of footage with them for next summer's "Cowboys and Aliens." I'd actually seen this at a recent visit to the editing room, just before the release of the trailer for the movie, and I'm impressed with it. Starting with Daniel Craig waking up alone in the desert, confused, his wrist wrapped in some sort of mechanical device, no memory of who he is or how he got there, the film moves quickly. Even before the main title comes up, we get a look at Craig in action, taking out a group of armed men, even tackling one of them off a horse. Clancy Brown, Keith Carradine, Sam Rockwell, and Adam Beach all show up in interesting roles as townspeople who have to struggle with the iron fist of Col. Dollarhyde, played with appropriate grizzle by Harrison Ford, and his idiot son Percy, played by Paul Dano. One of the best things about the footage is the near-constant abuse that Dano takes, and I hope it's a running thread in the film. Craig and Ford both come across as big giant alpha males, and the idea of the two of them having to work together to sort out the mystery of what happened to Craig and what happened to the townspeople that are abducted in the action set piece that wrapped up the sequence we saw. I like the slow burn in the 40 minutes we saw, the emphasis on character, the Western tropes played just right. Olivia Wilde plays a local woman who seems to know something about Craig and his troubles, and we saw some footage that hinted at a larger mystery involving her. Favreau seems cautiously optimistic about the film so far, excited by what he's doing, and Ron Howard couldn't have been more effusive in his praise right before it played. They were smart to show an uninterrupted chunk of the movie like this, because it demonstrates exactly what the tone is, and how the genre mash-up will work when it's finished. I can't wait for the film to open on July 29, 2011.

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-capt ... t-and-more

See, my punchy mind can't be sure if we saw the first 40 minutes of COWBOYS AND ALIENS at this point or later in the program, but fuck it, I'm writing about it now. Jon Favreau, Roberto Orci, and Ron Howard brought this unfinished piece to BNAT and without going into spoilers I'll simply say that this movie is going to fucking ROCK. Favreau has done something that can simply not be repaid - he brought Harrison Ford back. And not just stuck him into the film, either. He's fucking BACK. He gives a rich, layered, complex performance - as complex as movies of this type can be, anyway - and he commands attention as soon as he takes the screen. Who knows, he may even get recognized for it by the Academy. I don't want to be hyperbolic, but holy shit, he's so engaged here and for those of us disappointed in CRYSTAL SKULL this was an ass-kicking that we've been looking for since MOSQUITO COAST. Hell, maybe since BLADE RUNNER.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/47717

bendrummer @Jon_Favreau The footage was incredible. After seeing that footage, it's what I'm looking forward the most to seeing next summer.

What a double bill. RT @Jayjaylee: Was treated to Cowboys & Aliens trailer prior to the King's Speech. Entire audience applauded and cheered

[Sylvia's girl]

COWBOYS & ALIENS introduces us to not one, but two, despicable characters who, by the end of the first act, you loathe to their core. Each does something that makes you want to reach through the screen and smack the shit out of them – and while one of them repeatedly gets his comeuppance, the second is untouchable and becomes ever more sinister with every bullet he dodges. Making things ever more interesting, these two villains aren’t even the film’s true antagonists – merely forces against which our hero, an amnesiac played by Daniel Craig, must overcome (and possibly even work alongside) in order to survive and discover his true identity.

Craig is at his best here, giving the same kind of rugged-but-blank scoundrel-with-a-heart-of-gold performance that we saw out of him in CASINO ROYALE. Likewise Paul Dano continues to prove that he is one of the very best actors of his generation, turning in a blisteringly smarmy performance as a town ruffian. Meanwhile Sam Rockwell does everything he does well as the spineless local bartender and the legendary Clancy Brown plays the town preacher with all the gruff cool you want out of a Clancy Brown performance. But the real story here is Harrison Ford. Let’s face it, we love Harrison Ford, but he hasn’t done anything to the hilt in a long time.

Until now.

Here, Ford is given a meaty, dark role that plays perfectly to his strengths as an actor, while allowing him to continue his graceful slide into the elder statesman style supporting roles that action great Charlton Heston so readily moved into as he aged out of leading man status. Ford delivers with all the grim authority and sardonic derision that he’s been trying to find a place for in recent roles, but found it hard to find a solid footing. Favreau somehow found the primer, and wrested from him his best performance in over a decade – even this early in the film.

The first act is perfectly constructed. Everything works. Despite being an early workprint, Favreau doesn’t have a single second of fat in this part of the film. It unfolds like a classic western, delivering violent twist after violent twist until it goes all FROM DUSK TILL DAWN and swerves into being a completely different kind of movie altogether. The chemistry between the cast is undeniable and the action – even sans expensive effects – was top notch. If Favreau can keep up the level of intensity he shows in the first act throughout the second and third, then this will no doubt be next summer’s epic success story.

July cannot come soon enough. Keep this on your radar.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/47768

[Germangirl]

Love the sound of this. Thx

The first act is perfectly constructed. Everything works. Despite being an early workprint, Favreau doesn’t have a single second of fat in this part of the film. It unfolds like a classic western, delivering violent twist after violent twist until it goes all FROM DUSK TILL DAWN and swerves into being a completely different kind of movie altogether. The chemistry between the cast is undeniable and the action – even sans expensive effects – was top notch. If Favreau can keep up the level of intensity he shows in the first act throughout the second and third, then this will no doubt be next summer’s epic success story.

July cannot come soon enough. Keep this on your radar.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/47768

[bubita]

still 8 months ahead

[SmittenDramaKitten]

'The Fav' can trust me............ the less I know about C&A, the better. I like to be surprised by movies that are this monumentally good and have as few 'plot spoilers' as possible... Still, it's good to read a few snippets and juicy pieces of gossip....

[Germangirl]

Maybe a reason to see Tron

Cowboys & Aliens trailer in front of most prints of #Tron

[Dunda]

German trailer:

http://www.cowboysandaliensintl.com/intl/de/



Thank God, he's dubbed by Wunder


Now that's indeed a reason to watch Tron over here

[Germangirl]

German trailer:

http://www.cowboysandaliensintl.com/intl/de/



Thank God, he's dubbed by Wunder


Now that's indeed a reason to watch Tron over here

..or any other film its attached to here.

[Daniel_Craig]

[Germangirl]

Cool The German Trailer is online. It´s good, that Daniel is dubbed by Dietmar Wunder.

Dietmar Wunder is also dubbing Sam Rockwell in present movies. Daniel is the bigger star in C&A. Sam Rockwell is dubbed by another actor.

So - what movie is it attached to? Anybody?

[Anglophile]

So, with that, allow me to just say this: Daniel Effing Craig. Daniel M. Effing Craig, to be more specific.

Here's a guy I really only know from being James Bond. (And the South African toughie in Munich.) He ascends to incredible badass heights here. Iconic. It's no coincidence he is sharing the spotlight here with Harrison Ford. There is well earned torch-passing going on here.

That sounds epic!

[Elvenstar]

thx for all the news

lol

So, with that, allow me to just say this: Daniel Effing Craig. Daniel M. Effing Craig, to be more specific.

sounds promisisng