ShoWest: Sony Pics

We just got out of the Sony presentation of their summer line-up and while it was short of proven franchises (a la, TRANSFORMERS or HARRY POTTER), they still had some exciting things to show off. Let’s take a look at what they had:

ANGELS AND DEMONS

While I’ve been tough on ANGELS AND DEMONS based on the footage we’ve seen publicly so far, we were treated to a sizzle reel about five minutes long that’s the best advertisement for the movie I’ve seen so far. I’m not saying the movie is definitely gonna rock your world but there’s more reason to believe. They wisely played up a little bit of Hanks’ humor in the film to lighten up the otherwise heavy proceedings.

THE UGLY TRUTH

Speaking of movies I’ve been hard on, I don’t think I’ve had many pleasant things to say about this Katherine Heigl romantic comedy. But as much as I hate to admit it, the world doesn’t revolve around me and the UGLY TRUTH footage they showed played extremely well. It was basically scenes from the trailer expanded a bit with two scenes from the middle of the movie. First Katherine Heigl accidentally wears a pair of vibrating panties out to a work dinner. A little kid picks up the controller and starts pushing all the buttons while she starts moaning and jumping.

The next scene was at a baseball game where Gerard Butler is trying to teach Heigl how to get this guy interested. She accidentally spills a drink on his pants and she frantically tries to wipe it off. She’s caught by the jumbotron cam and it looks like she’s giving him a handjob.

Both scenes killed and as much as I hate to admit it, were pretty cute for a Katerine Heigl romantic comedy. Could be a surprise comedy hit this summer because…

THE YEAR ONE

…the other comedy footage shown wasn’t as much of a hit. They basically rehashed a lot of the trailer footage and the Super Bowl sneak peek with a few new scenes added in. One shows what happens when Black bites into the forbidden apple and thinks he’s granted with infinite knowledge. Michael Cera asks him what happens to the sun at night, but he doesn’t know. He asks him where babies come from, but he doesn’t know. Then the serpent arrives and wraps itself around Cera’s head while he whimpers he’ll die a virgin.

YEAR ONE doesn’t look unfunny just mildly amusing. The crowd wasn’t really laughing along with the funnier bits whereas they were howling along with Katherine Heigl. I want to think there’s a lot more to this movie than what’s been shown (is there are a lot of R-rated stuff that hasn’t been released) but so far I haven’t been impressed.

DISTRICT 9

One of the biggest highlight of the panel was the first ever look at footage from the upcoming Peter Jackson produced sci-fi flick DISTRICT 9. The film takes place in the future 28 years after aliens came to the planet and were segregated on Earth alongside humans. The movie, directed by Neill Blomkamp, has the look of a documentary at times. There were title cards that said things like “They are not welcome” while we see a government worker entire the alien refugee camp. He’s serving an eviction notice to an alien and while there he finds a small metal cylinder. He picks it up and it sprays black liquid all over his face.

Later we see him trying to move on with his life but he’s showing symptoms associated with the black goo. It’s never stated, though implied, that he’s slowly turning into one of the aliens. As someone who previously was tasked with trying to get rid of the aliens he finds himself now conflicted and perhaps even taking sides with the aliens as they fight for their rights. It looked very sci-fi yet one with a political message as well.

I’m not sure what the budget was but the film was sporting some pretty impressive special effects. They show the giant alien space ship that has docked on Earth and the aliens themselves were both effectively rendered. It didn’t seem as action-oriented as I had anticipated but still packed enough punch to leave me wanting more.

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123

Finally they showed some footage from PELHAM 123. Like some of the previous footage, it was made up of the latest trailer with new footage added to the middle. Here we get some added footage of James Gandolfini as the NYC Mayor and John Turturro investigating Denzel’s character. Also Travolta screaming “fuck” about 25 times. Other than that, not much to get all that excited about nor no real major footage…