SpongeBob Squarepants ventures out of the ocean and into the dry land in the latest sequel featuring Antonio Banderas, Clancy Brown, and Tom Kenny. More info on “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water” in the article below.
Nicktoons heroes battle live-action evil on dry land in long-awaited sequel
Want to feel old? It has been a full ten yearssince the originalSpongeBob Squarepantsmovie. Two generations (and counting) of fans have been clamoring for a sequel the whole time, and now Nickelodeon has debuted the first trailer forThe SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water,in which the champions of Bikini Bottom will appear for the first time in 3D opposite live-action human actors.
In the sequel (which also includes scenes rendered in the series traditional 2D animation), Antonio Banderas appears as an evil pirate seeking a powerful magic relic hidden in SpongeBob and friends’ undersea community of Bikini Bottom. When he succeeds in stealing it – placing both the ocean and surface worlds in peril – SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward, Sandy, Plankton and Mr. Krabs must undertake the perilous journey to the human world to confront him (which is where the 3D kicks in); ultimately making use of the stolen magic themselves to become human-sized superheroes.
While SpongeBob characters have ventured onto land before, in the series it was typically accomplished using intentionally-crude live-action puppets of realistic-looking sea creatures. In the first movie, SpongeBob and Patrick were depicted as remaining animated when on dry land, but only so long as they didn’t dry out. They also encountered a human ally in the form ofBaywatchstar David Hasselhoff.
Sponge Out of Wateris currently targeting a February 2015 release date.
Samantha Pouls is a film enthusiast who aspires to make genre-bending films that sell around the world. Visit this Facebook page for more filmmaking articles, news, and interesting discussions.
Filmmaking is not just an art. It can also be a pastime that helps people find relief from life’s problems and faceeveryday challenges. This article from the Los Angeles Times proves how filmmaking helped troubled youths turn their lives around.
As a child, Darlene Visoso tried to protect herself from the harsh words she endured from her father’s girlfriend by shutting off her emotions.
Until her early years of high school, she dealt with her pain, anger and insecurity by ignoring her feelings.
“I kind of went into a phase where I was like, what’s the point of feeling? What’s the point of laughing if you’re going to cry? What’s the point of crying if it’s non-ending emotion?” she said.
Though the girlfriend and her father have since split up, Darlene, now 17 and a recent graduate of South Gate High School, made a short film about her experiences titled “Learning to Feel.” She wrote it and played a part, starring as a girl who must learn to express her emotions after the death of her best friend.
The film was created through one of several programs run by Southern California Crossroads, a nonprofit group that aims to help underprivileged youths in violence-plagued communities. The film program, in partnership with the New York-based Tribeca Film Institute and St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, allows students to confront social issues in their communities and their lives.
The topics addressed in the short films include such things as bullying, gun and gang violence, acceptance and self-identity. Saul Cervantes, a teacher with Crossroads, said filmmaking gives students a way to communicate.
“They feel like whatever they go through, they have to say it’s not really important,” he said. “This gives us an opportunity to show them a way to have a voice.”
Crossroads was formed in 2005 to help youths avoid violence, intervene in crisis situations and provide reentry services for those with criminal records. Although the heart of the program is education and employment, Crossroads offers mentoring, case management, tattoo removals and the film program.
It serves 18- to 24-year-olds who have dropped out of high school or have a criminal background. The exception is the film program, which includes students at Hosler Middle School in Lynwood, South Gate High School and Lynwood High School.
Cervantes said he assesses students’ weaknesses and strengths, and assigns them jobs on films because “everyone has a spot in filmmaking.” Once they have jobs, the students must work together, which unifies students, something that doesn’t always happen outside the program, he said.
Alan Lopez, 13, acted in a film about how difficult it can be for young people to show who they really are, a challenge he has dealt with.
“You have to be yourself and not care what other people think,” Alan said, adding that it can be difficult because people “judge you by your cover.”
Paul Carrillo, executive director of the nonprofit, said he hopes the films’ impact extends beyond Crossroads and into the community. Because he wants the content to be relevant, he allows students to choose topics and write films to reflect what’s going on in their lives.
“We think they don’t see anything, they don’t know anything, they’re naive,” Cervantes said. “But they see it all.”
One member of the young adult class, Eric Saldana, 24, said he knows there’s violence and criminal activity in his neighborhood. So he chose to act in a film about choosing peace over violence. He said he is committed to raising awareness of the issues his friends and family members have been traumatized by.
He wants to show his work to friends and family “for them to change or something, to take the same thing that I took.”
On June 28, more than 100 people filed into an auditorium at St. Francis, the hospital that works in collaboration with the program. Among them were students, parents, surgeons and financial sponsors. All came to watch the first Crossroads film screening.
They viewed 11 films. The last featured teenagers releasing red balloons into the sky, an abstract depiction of its creators’ desire to chase their dreams.
After the film, Carrillo told the crowd, “We wanted you all to leave feeling inspired.”
As each person left, they were handed a chocolate or carrot cupcake decorated with white icing and a little red balloon
Teen filmmaker Samantha Pouls spends most of her time making short films and experimenting with different genres. Follow this blog for more discussions on filmmaking.
ResidentIndiewire.comcritic Sam Adams talks about finding profound meaning in Wes Anderson’s overtly twee machinations in “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”
Tony Revolori and Saoirse Ronan in “The Grand Budapest Hotel”| Image Source: blogs.indiewire.com
In his book “The Wes Anderson Collection,” Matt Zoller Seitz talks about Anderson’s use of what he calls “material synecdoche,” which he defined ina 2009 articleas “showcasing objects, locations, or articles of clothing that define whole personalities, relationships, or conflicts.” In psychological realism, we look inside characters to get a sense of who they are, but in Anderson’s world, those details are on the outside. His characters actually wear their hearts on their sleeves.
That holds true, as it turns out, for Anderson’s films as well as the characters within them. “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” builds to an encounter with the mythical crayon ponyfish, a flagrantly fake Plasticine creation that is nonetheless surpassingly beautiful — a neat summary of Anderson’s films, whose overt artifice doesn’t prevent them from being profoundly moving (at least when they work). In “Moonrise Kingdom,” the runaway teenage lovers cement their bond by piercing the girl’s ears with a pair of fishhooks earrings — a stand-in for deflowering that nonetheless draws real blood.
In “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” the old-world aesthete M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) engineers a prison break by smuggling in digging tools disguised as elegant, oddly shaped pastries. The guards destroy other, less visually appealing foodstuffs in order to check for hidden contraband, but even they’re not immune to the pristine beauty of a Mendl’s pastry. Critics, for the most part, focus on the pastry, the immaculate, self-conscious beauty of Anderson’s movie: its dollhouse sets, its painstakingly composed shots, its stylized comic performances. But I want to focus on the hammer, the cold and surprisingly powerful force beneath “The Grand Budapest Hotel’s” dazzling surface.
The world of “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is a flagrantly artificial one, both physically and world-historically. The buildings in Anderson’s invented country of Zubrowska look like two-dimensional dioramas, evoking the theatrical illusion of the 19th century and the cinematic wonderments of George Melies, right down to the hand-tinted colors. The 1932 time frame in which most of the movie’s action is set ties it to the rise of Nazi Germany, whose iconography is echoed by the jagged double-S of the troops who eventually take over Gustave’s beloved hotel; the striped uniform Gustave wears in prison evokes the garb of Nazi concentration camp inmates. But Anderson also steals from the first World War as well as the second, compressing the first half of the 20th century into a single, world-altering conflict.
“The Grand Budapest Hotel’s” 1932 is the innermost in a series of temporal and narrative frames. In 1968, the hotel’s erstwhile lobby boy and current owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham) tells the story of M. Gustave to a young writer (Jude Law). In 1985, that writer’s older self (Tom Wilkinson) retells the story to a camera in his office, presumably a metaphor for the writing of a novel. Finally, in an undated, presumably present-day, frame, a young woman in what appears to be a former Eastern Bloc country visits a shrine devoted to the now-deceased writer, and sits down to read his book — called, of course, “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” (Ina neat parallel, the Brutalist revamp of the Grand Budapest’s interior was built on top of its gilded exterior, then peeled away once the 1968 scenes had been shot.) AsI’ve written previously, these time periods tie the movie to three major shifts in the European balance of power: World War II, the Prague Spring, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Anderson never lets us forget that these frames are constructed. The three main time periods are shot in different aspect ratios: boxy 1.33:1 for the 1932 scenes; Cinemascope 2.35:1 for the 1960s; widescreen 1.85:1 for 1985 and the present day.The first two are presented within a 1.85 frame, as they would be if you were watching them on a flatscreen TV, and even the 1985 scenes are pulled in from the edges so that they don’t fill the screen; none of them gives us the complete picture. The writer’s direct address to the camera in 1985 is the least overtly stylized, but his monologue is interrupted by a young boy with a toy pistol, and when the writer shoos him out of the door, the camera swivels and we catch a glimpse of workmen in the next room, painting the walls a pale pink. Like the others, his frame remains a work in progress.
Such self-aware aestheticism is the manna on which Anderson’s admirers feed, but in “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” it has a specific, decidedly un-frivolous purpose. M. Gustave isn’t simply a prissy nostalgist, a Belle Epoque throwback pining for a world that “had vanished long before he ever entered it.” His insistence on elemental decency, his mantra that anger is merely the expression of needs unmet, is a subtle form of resistance — tinged, it must be said, with a hint of willful denial. At times, his insistence on maintaining decorum in the face of chaos evokes history’s whipping boy Neville Chamberlain.
Like many a member of an oppressed people, M. Gustave uses charm to work the system, which has allowed the Grand Budapest Hotel to function as an island of stability in an increasingly tumultuous world. But as the situation worsens and cultivated soldiers like Edward Norton’s Henckels are replaced by jackbooted thugs, Gustave begins to lose his grip. The only time the word “fascist” escapes his lips — the only time it’s uttered at all — is when he fails to sweet-talk his way past the border patrol who want to detain the “stateless” Zero (Tony Revolori) for failure to produce the correct papers. Henckels, who with Norton’s flat American accent appears on the scene like a poorly cast extra, saves Zero from likely internment and execution, but Gustave has been shown that the power he’s accumulated, and the fantasy he’s tried to sustain, have their limits. He tries to reassert both with an impromptu poetry recitation, but he finally gives up: “Oh, fuck it.” The confrontation is reprised at the end of the 1932 story, with results so dire the film cannot bear to depict them.
The physical dissimilarity between Revolori, a 17-year-old Guatemalan-American, and the 74-year-old Abraham, whose heritage is Syrian, further emphasizes the movie’s constructed nature, but it also gives the reference to Zero’s statelessness a frightening edge, one that’s honed when he reveals to Gustave that he fled to Zubrowska after his family was killed during a war in his native country. In the age of drone warfare, the image of global powers fighting each other with masses of troops seems unfathomably distant, but the idea of innocents being massacred by an invading power cuts all too close to home.
Ignoring such moments of rupture while cooing over Anderson’s manicured frames is the equivalent of praising the pastry but ignoring the hammer. It’s the combination of the two that gives “The Grand Budapest Hotel” its melancholy power.
Samantha Pouls is a budding filmmaker who loves experimenting with different techniques and approaches in film production. Follow this Twitter account for more about movies and the art of filmmaking.
Just like the rest of Hollywood, the cast and crew of the Hunger Games films were shocked by the death of fellow actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. Read what they had to say in this article from Hollywood Life.
Philip Seymour Hoffman was only seven days short of completing his work in the ‘Hunger Games’ trilogy when he tragically passed away on Feb. 2. Later that day, the cast broke their silence to express their ‘devastating loss’ in a joint statement.
Philip, who played Plutarch Heavensbee, was arguably the only actor in Hunger Games: Catching Fire to draw any of the attention away from Jennifer Lawrence. When he was found dead of an apparent heroin overdose on Feb. 2, the Hollywood community instantly shared their grief with the rest of the world, and now the Hunger Games cast has issued a public statement to express their feelings on the legendary actor’s untimely death.
“Words cannot convey the devastating loss we are all feeling right now,” read the statement issued by Jennifer, director Francis Lawrence, and Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins on behalf of the entire cast and crew. “Philip was a wonderful person and an exceptional talent, and our hearts are breaking. Our deepest thoughts and condolences go out to his family.”
Their statement follows an earlier statement from Lionsgate, the production company behind the Hunger Games movies. “Philip Seymour Hoffman was a singular talent and one of the most gifted actors of our generation,” the studio said. “We’re very fortunate that he graced our Hunger Games family. Losing him in his prime is a tragedy, and we send our deepest condolences to Philip’s family.”
HollywoodLife.com sends thoughts and prayers to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s family as they process their terrible loss.
– Shaunna Murphy
Samantha Pouls hones her skills in filmmaking to become a critically and financially successful artist in the future. She is an avid fan of many large-scale film productions that have created a strong impact in popular culture, such as The Hunger Games. Go to this Facebook pagefor more links to articles about the movie industry.
“That’s the discussion we’re having right now; how exactly do you do that, and how do you do it without betraying the audience and making them all mean?” he says. “Cabin In The Woods’ Drew Goddard is going to be writing that one, so it’s kind of his problem… I’m kidding. We’re all working on each other’s stuff. So we want to be true to it, but there are some antiheroes in this day and age. There have been examples of that even on TV – Vic Mackey on The Shield, one of the great antiheroes of all time. There are ways to milk that story. Audiences have seen everything. They’ve seen all the good guys who never do anything wrong. Is there a story in seeing the other side? That’s the challenge, and that’s the fun. I’m not sure how we’re going to do that yet.”
In terms of logistics, Orci, along with regular partner Alex Kurtzman and fellow writers Goddard, Jeff Pinkner and Ed Solomon, are using a method well known to most of them, who got their start in TV writing rooms under the likes of J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon. “In television, you get a great team of writers together, a writing staff, and you’re working on five episodes at once. You’re prepping one, you’re shooting one, you’re writing one, you’re posting one, and you’re trying to make sure they’re consistent over 13 or 22 episodes. That’s how we learned how to do things. So it’s funny in the movie business, and you have different things being done by different teams and they’re not all communicating with each other.
“So when we talked about our interest in all this stuff, we said, ‘Well, the way would want to do it is kind of go to a TV model,’ and then the distinction between the quality of TV and film has gone away. They’re both equally viable, awesome storytelling formats. So the idea of, let’s get a core group of writers and producers and directors – and even though I might not be the one writing Venom, I’ll be in the meetings talking about how to make it interesting. We could be putting in Easter eggs and planning ahead in the previous movies, and then that guy over there is going to write that movie, and Ed Solomon’s gonna write another one with us. So having a committee, a board, of people who are creative, who are filmmaker, who just keep it all together, that’s kind of going back to the way we started.”
Of course, there is also the not-so-small matter of getting The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and 4 made too, and all the time hoping that the superhero movie bubble doesn’t burst in the meantime. But at least Orci and co. have a plan to make everything hang together. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will be in our cinemas on April 18.
Samantha Pouls is a movie buff who loves the Harry Potter series, The Hunger Games, and the Twilight saga. Like this Facebook page for more movie news, trailers, reviews, and more.
It has been a couple of weeks since the showing of Catching Fire, but the second Hunger Games installment is still fanned red hot by the inextinguishable passion of the fans. The Huffington Postexplains why the series has become so irresistible.
The first time I ever picked up the hunger games book, I was completely enraptured by its brilliance. Afterwards, I simply could not put the book down, and I went on to finish the trilogy in one weekend. There is something about the hunger games that necessarily draws its reader to a climatic excitement, even before you finish the first chapter of the first book.
Catching Fire explores the brewing revolution that Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, unintentionally began with her act of defiance at the 74th annual hunger games. Although her defiance stemmed from a strong will to survive rather than to start a social and political revolution in the districts, Katniss would soon learn that her intentions were more or less irrelevant. She would become the symbol of a revolution that is far greater than individual survival, one that transcends the bonds of enslavement that the Capitol forces the citizens of the district to face. Somehow, her path to survival is finely and dangerously aligned with revolution and freedom.
It is not hard for the people of Panem to see themselves, their will, their thoughts, their consciousness reflected through Katniss. Her defiance led to both a subconscious and a conscious elevation of a repressed and suppressed will, not simply to survive, but rather, to be free. The movie, at a very thematic level, reflects these larger concepts quite well. The acting was captivating, the writing was absolutely brilliant and, the directing and pace of the movie was phenomenal.
What I enjoyed most about the movie was how the movie was able to conceptualize most of the themes that the book explores without completely sensationalizing the film. Jennifer Lawrence is arguably, one of the most brilliant actresses of our generation. There is something about the way that she acts that reflects factions of a variety of persons in one character, and that allows the audience to recognize themselves in her, no matter the part she plays in a movie. The reason why that is so important for the movie catching fire, is that Katniss was able to start a revolution because the citizens of the districts saw a piece of themselves reflected through her, both in her fiery and her fragilities. Jennifer Lawrence was able to through Katniss, embody a degree of intersectionality between vulnerability, unfounded courage, survival, sacrifice, and hope.
Catching Fire, I would argue, is a realization of a Marxist ideology within a dystopic reality. The proletariat (citizens of the districts) become socially, politically, and economically aware of their enslavement by the bourgeoisie (citizens of the capitol). This self-consciousness forces the proletariat to start a revolution to gain political control of the state. Within this framework, Katniss can be viewed as the link between self-consciousness and a lack thereof. Katniss is able to personify a possible transition to self-consciousness and social awareness, by her simple act of defiance.
I have alluded a bit to the general storyline but I am very wary to give away any specific spoilers because I want everyone to be able to fully enjoy the movie, through trepidation and anticipation. But I would say this though, the intensity of the last scene of the film is definitely one to watch out for. Jennifer Lawrence was able to, in the spam of a couple minutes embody denial, grief, true sadness, anger, a willingness to come to a full realization of her symbolic role as the mocking jay, and all of that subsequently makes you hopeful for what is to come. Thrilling, absolutely thrilling. Happy Hunger Games And May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favour.
Samantha Pouls is an amateur filmmaker and a junior high school student living in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. For more articles on the film industry, visit this
‘Thor: The Dark World’ is no doubt one of the most talked-about movies these days. In fact, most film critics agree that the sequel to the 2011 Marvel movie is more entertaining than its predecessor, and it’s all thanks to the superpower charm of Tom Hiddleston. Joe Neumaier ofNew York Daily Newswrites the following review.
What weird sorcery is this? “Thor: The Dark World” may not be thunder from the movie gods, but it is — shock! — an entertaining journey into mystery, action and fun.
That wasn’t a preordained outcome. Thor’s 2011 Marvel Comics film adaptation — a crucial set-up for “The Avengers” — was a dull deal, with giant robots attacking empty southwestern towns and a brawny Norse mythology-derived alien superbeing. As directed by Kenneth Branagh, it tried too hard to bridge worlds.
Not so with the sequel. Director Alan Taylor, a TV vet (“Six Feet Under,” “The Sopranos,” and, most crucially, “Game of Thrones”), has given “The Dark World” both a light touch and a streamlined feel. It cruises where the earlier film lumbered. There’s also a jolt in here of “Lord of the Rings.” It has its faults, but this is solidly in the upper sphere of superhero sequels.
Two years after Thor (Chris Hemsworth) helped the Avengers quash his evil adopted brother Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) plan to rule Earth, the blond God of Thunder is a good son to Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and misses pretty Earth girl Jane (Natalie Portman).
But a “dark elf” named Malekith (unrecognizable Christopher Eccleston) is after a funky mist called the Aether. This, we’re told, can be used to return the universe (aka the Nine Realms) to darkness. Jane happens to find the Aether in a chasm on Earth and absorbs it.
To extract it and protect the Nine Realms, Thor brings Jane to his disco-lit world of Asgard. But once Malekith gets the Aether and brings it to his home, Svartalfheim (gesundheit!), Thor’s only hope is to free Loki from his Asgardian prison and set off together on a tenuous partnership to defeat Malekith.
That’s a lot of gobbledygook, and reads like the fine print on a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Yet “The Dark World“ keeps its feet on the ground. Hemsworth has evolved into the Marvel version of Errol Flynn — he balances swashbuckling with sly humor — and Portman has grown into an appealingly feisty heroine. Her cute, snarky sidekick Darcy (Kat Dennings) is a welcome return, as is Stellan Skarsgard as their now-brain-fried scientist mentor.
As it goes with superhero flicks, the true believers are the ones who’ll groove on it the most. In fact, anyone who considers a giant hammer (called Mjolnir, as if you didn’t know) as cool as a lightsaber or the Batmobile likely has more invested in the story than the average moviegoer.Let’s face it, the real villain here is essentially a gloomy meteorological phenomenon.
The secret weapon is Hiddleston. The best thing the film’s army of five screenwriters did is set the odd couple of Thor and Loki on a sort-of celestial road trip. Loki is puckish, malevolent, peevish, magnetic and, with his Rooney Mara-like pale skin and dark hair, the polar opposite of Hemsworth. Hiddleston’s villainous asides steal the show, and he brightens “The Dark World” when it needs it most.
An avid film fan, Samantha Pouls knows a lot of movies–from blockbusters to indie films–than the average junior high school student. To keep abreast of the latest movies and updates in the film industry, follow this Twitter page.
I have no idea what effect foodimals will have on the ecosystem, and I do worry. But the 3-D animated movie mash-up that creates such exotic species as taco-diles, shrim-panzees, banan-ostriches and, my favorite, fla-mangoes makes for some pretty delicious family fun in “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2.”
There are definitely fewer carbs this time around. Whether charges of insensitivity to childhood obesity issues hurled at the first film are the reason, “Cloudy 2” is overwhelmingly fruit- and veggie-centric. And honestly, anyone who can pull off a running joke about leeks that does not make you gag, and is in fact a silly delight, deserves props.
That team involves prolific voice actor Cody Cameron and animator Kris Pearn, plucked from the trenches of “Cloudy” and plopped into co-directors’ chairs for “2” — sharing nicely, I’m sure, since the sequel’s all about getting along. Further extending the weird science first popularized by Judi and Ron Barrett’s children’s book, the screenplay is by Erica Rivinoja, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein.
When last we left the Atlantic island of Swallow Falls, aspiring inventor Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) was destroying his greatest achievement, the Diatomic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator, to save the world from a devastating spaghetti and meatball storm.
“Cloudy 2” picks up with the island’s evacuation for cleanup. Its good citizens relocate to the big city of San Franjose — Silicon Valley with a few hills. It’s a place of high-tech glass towers and neutral-toned minimalism controlled by a single conglomerate, Live Corp. The company is in the business of the “betterment of mankind,” so you know right away its eccentric owner, Chester V (Will Forte), is up to no good. Ever by his side is new assistant Barb (Kristen Schaal), an orangutan outfitted with a human brain and fighting for a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t. It’s an issue.
In Flint’s camp, in case you need reminding, is Anna Faris’ TV weathercaster Sam Sparks, still swooning over Flint. Manny’s behind the camera, and Benjamin Bratt‘s behind him. James Caan is Flint’s outdoorsy dad, completely tapped into his sensitive side now and hoping to bond with his boy over manly things. In the long minute or so that separates the two films’ time frame, Andy Samberg‘s Brent has become a mogul; his Chick-N-Sushi joints are a hit. Earl (Terry Crews), Swallow Falls cop, has turned in his badge and turned foodie. And Neil Patrick Harris‘ scamp, Steve the Monkey, is more essential and up to even more mischief.
Though the movie will go into great detail, all you need to know is that Chester V’s designs on world domination involve getting his hands on Flint’s food replicating machine. You didn’t really think it was destroyed, did you?
It hasn’t merely survived, it’s gone mad — churning out mountains, and rivers, and swamps, and jungles, and deserts overrun with 39 different varieties of misbegotten new species.
The animation and 3-D effects of this hybrid world are simply stunning, and a much-needed jolt after San Franjose and Live Corp.’s uniformity. The color is scrumptious and the human characters, with their expressive Pinocchio-esque eyes, are enchanting. But it is the inventive design of the many creatures that feels so fresh. The detail is so rich, and so dense, that you wish some of the frames would freeze so you had more time for savoring.
They are an eclectic bunch of interlopers. But the best — as always — are the more organic mash-ups like those fla-mangoes, where the fruit fits the shape of the bird quite nicely. The completely zany creations, like the cheeseburger bully that scurries around on spider legs made of French fries, are more of a stretch. And that screaming, lettuce-spitting taco-dile is slightly scary.
But even if Flint can find and stop his machine, what is to be done with this bounty of new breeds?
It’s a pickle.
Because like the tribe of briny bruisers that roam the land, foodimals are sweet once you get to know them. Conflict is definitely on the menu as it should be. It’s the sides that drag things down. There are more secondary story lines than marshmallow fellows, who replicate at rabbit speed.
It’s all very murky what might happen if the machine fell into the wrong hands (those would be Chester V’s). More worrisome is the way even bigger questions are completely ignored. Like what happens when food becomes our friend — literally. What do we eat? What do they eat? No clue.
But perhaps the only question that matters is whether parents will care if the plot is undercooked as long as their little munchkins are giggling. I think we can hazard a guess on that one.
Samantha Pouls is a high school junior who lives in Gladwyne, PA. She spends her time indulging her love for films. See similar articles here
Famous vampire romance writer Stephanie Meyer tells of her 10-year journey as the creator of the best-selling Twilight series in an article forApp.com.
Image Source: cmsimg.app.com Stephenie Meyer first had the idea for the ‘Twilight’ saga in 2003. / GANNETT
A decade ago, it all began with a dream.
As the story goes on her official website, it was June 2, 2003, when Stephenie Meyer, then a stay-at-home mother of three, had a dream that she couldn’t shake. Writing in the evenings, three months later she had completed “Twilight.”
The rest, as they say, is history. Meyer’s four-book teen vampire romance saga has sold more than 100 million copies since the publication of the first book in 2005 and launched a hit film franchise.
Now the producer of the film version of friend Shannon Hale’s comedic novel “Austenland,” Meyer reflected on the 10-year journey “Twilight” has taken her on.
“It feels like I’m super, super old,” said Meyer, 39. “Like 10 years? Oh, my gosh, I don’t know where it went. But it’s amazing to stop and think back to my life 10 years ago and how drastically it has changed. I just wouldn’t have seen any of it coming. If you had told me back then, ‘Ten years from now you’ll be promoting a movie you produced,’ I’d have been like, ‘What drugs are you taking?’ It’s so bizarre.”
The massive success of “Twilight” led Meyer to the world of film production. Through her company Fickle Fish Films, she produced the two-part adaptation of “The Twilight Saga – Breaking Dawn” in 2011 and 2012, and earlier this year released the film version of her novel “The Host.”
“They’re so different,” Meyer said of the film and literature worlds. “I feel like it’s a completely different kind of artistic outlet. Writing is so solitary and so much in your own head. You have to enjoy being a hermit, which I very much do.
“Film is a chance to be creative with a big group of people and work with other people’s ideas and kind of see how people do things and learn from that. And so in a way, doing the movies that I’ve done has been a lot like taking a couple of semesters of college, it’s my own little film school. And I love learning new things, so I’ve really enjoyed that.”
There’s been some talk of a ghost story or a mermaid tale from the author in the future, but Meyer remained mum on the subject of her next written work.
“See, back in the early days I used to tell people about all of the ideas that I had floating in my head that I assumed would become books at some point,” she said. “But then, people have the expectation that it will be out in six months, and so I really don’t talk about what I’m working on anymore because it changes a lot.
“I’ll be working on something and then another idea will drag me away. I guess that’s really my problem, committing to one idea and sticking with it. And so I’m not going to talk about what I’m working on right now.”
In the years since the initial success of “Twilight,” plenty of folks have been busy making jokes at the franchise’s expense. What’s Meyer’s take on the “Twilight” parodies and mockery?
“Oh, I think it’s fun,” she said. “I think my favorite is probably the ‘South Park’ episode that was ‘Twilight’ related, that one was hysterical. As long as something makes me laugh, I’m all for it.”
Looking up to renowned writers such as Stephanie Meyer, junior high school student Samantha Pouls seeks to pursue a career in writing and filmmaking in the future. Learn about her interests on this Facebook page.
Apocalyptic films are just that—apocalyptic. Most of the time they just share the same plot: a world in chaos with a super human phenomenon—it could be a tumultuous war against a megalomaniac dictator, an invasion of a monarchy of aliens who sees the Earth as a potential colony, or any violent upheaval that makes light matter of humanity’s well-developed technologies. But what if the antagonist is none of these, but a corny bunch of walking deads, of rancid zombies?
World War Z, an apocalyptic zombie film based on Max Brook’s novel, begins with barely mawkish drama that could have let one imagine that the entire film would revolve around Gerry Lane’s (Brad Pitt) family and his being a former UN troubleshooter. But this drama ends immediately, as the following frames do not hesitate to go straight to the point: as the family drives through the Philadelphia city traffic, an uproar breaks the peace, causing severe traffic flow, and giving way to the appearance of the so-called zombies.
Action-packed, intentionally rowdy, and breathtaking. What follows is a series of zombie-killing scenes peppered with occasional dramas of Gerry choosing to save the world over his own family, as a protagonist is expected to choose the greater heroic cause. After, the entire film continues in a not-so-otherworldly fashion: Brad Pitt travels around the world to find the weakness of the zombies—which he then finds minutes before the film ends. The open-ended finale, which shows zombie survivors from different parts of the globe, has Gerry Lane reuniting with his family.
Perhaps the film’s only fault is the profusion of a popular soda product at the climax—which killed the drama that could have merited a standing ovation for Pitt after killing all the zombies in a cinematically otherworldly fashion.
But who could not forgive a “just right” film if Brad Pitt is in it?
Samantha Pouls understands that as a high school student who is interested filmmaking, she must not only look at the films produced outside the States but be a supporter of her own country’s movie industry, too. This Facebook page provides updates on her other activities.
The Youth and their Aspirations 
