Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Directed by Rupert Wyatt
Starring James Franco, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Andy Serkis, David Oyelowo, Brian Cox, Tom Felton
Release Date: August 5, 2011

Next to Star Trek the Planet of the Apes series is my favorite science-fiction and adventure film franchise by far. I can watch each one of the films, even the lesser sequels like Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and come away with something new to think of every time. Each film was a bold and heady Molotov cocktail of intriguing ideas, complex characters, pitch-black satire, and rousing adventure. With the exception of Battle, none of the films ever reached a fully optimistic conclusion, and despite some last-minute tinkering not even the ending of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was all sunshine and relaxed laughter. The movies were all about the downfall of the human race, brought down by their own imperial arrogance and replaced in the pecking order by the highly evolved apes once treated as pets and slave labor by the ruling elite. It’s certainly one of the most influential series of films in the history of the medium, the original genre franchise, and a merchandising powerhouse years before Star Wars and Harry Potter even existed.

Even though the series reached its end in 1973 with Battle, the Apes franchise endured for decades to come; there was an ill-advised attempt to relaunch the Apes film series in 2001 with the Tim Burton-directed “reimagining” of the original Planet of the Apes and attempts to keep the Planet of the Apes thriving in live-action and animated television that never had achieved the impact of the films. Now the series is getting another shot in the arm with the long-awaited prequel Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which approaches the legend of the Planet of the Apes from an interesting new direction.

20th Century Fox is starting to ramp up the promotional campaign for Rise of the Planet of the Apes as the movie’s August 5 release date fast approaches. Just recently the studio released a pair of television spots and new domestic and international trailers. If you’ve seen any of the previously released trailers, you won’t find much new in these videos. The international trailer probably contains some extra shots, but I’ve seen it all before. You can watch the new videos and trailers here below.

Still, I love the look of the film so far. The CGI motion-capture on the apes looks amazing to the point where even in their brief appearances you feel a great deal of sympathy for them, especially in the lead performance by Andy Serkis as Caesar. But with the exception of John Lithgow, the human actors don’t fare as well in these trailers. I hope it’s just a case of the promo materials holding back.

The full-length trailer for the latest in the Planet of the Apes saga, a long-in-development prequel entitled Rise of the Planet of the Apes, has debuted and you can watch it below.

The last time 20th Century Fox attempted to reboot their valuable Planet of the Apes franchise the result was Tim Burton’s 2001 “reimagining” that despite being one of that year’s biggest hits was little more than a mediocre summer action picture that was heavily compromised in the rush to meet the release date that had been locked down before the movie even went before the cameras. A decade later and the studio has decided to give it another shot, but this time it looks like they may have done it right and created an Apes installment that could measure up to the best of the original film series, which debuted with the modern classic Planet of the Apes in 1968 and concluded with Battle for the Planet of the Apes in 1973 (not counting the live-action and animated television spin-offs that followed in the wake of the release of Battle).

Everything is coming together rather nicely for director Sam Raimi‘s Wizard of Oz prequel Oz, The Great and Powerful thus far.

After a rocky start trying to lock in a lead, things have settled down and quite the impressive cast has been put together. The prequel stars James Franco as a snake oil salesman who’s whisked off to the lands of Oz in his hot air balloon, where he’ll find himself in the middle of a power struggle before becoming the eventual “Wizard of Oz.” But before Franco was confirmed, Robert Downey Jr. was set to play the part and Johnny Depp was mentioned as a possibility when Downey left.

Howl
Directed by Robert Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
Starring James Franco, Jon Hamm, David Strathairn, Bob Balaban, Jeff Daniels, Todd Rotondi, Mary-Louise Parker
UK Release date: February 25, 2011

16:10pm Screen 3 in the basement of the Cornerhouse, the missus and I alone in the dark, a screen no bigger than 15×10 feet, making this feel like a slideshow presentation and the film starts in greyscale, in a smoky basement cafe in 1955 San Fransisco…

In 1955, a 29-year-old unpublished poet realised the American Dream in a four-part poem called Howl, a poem that would become an obscene ode to the struggle of his displaced lost generation, post WWII when the creation of ‘teenager’ also created a whole slew of new problems for the new transition between child and man.

“What would my father think of Howl?” Ginsberg wondered, a typical notion of self examination and the constant need to prove to parents that, yes, you will find a job, even if it is not in their footsteps. Ginsberg would soon find out two years later in 1957 that it isn’t just what his father thinks, but the general public when the poem became infamous when his publisher was thrust into a court trial for the distribution of obscene materials.