Star Trek Proof!

Thanks to this weekends super bowl, there is now legitimate proof that I am in the new J.J. Abram's "Star Trek" movie. In order for me to prove this to you I'm going to have to resort back to my old blog for a bit here. On the old blog (mattmcg.wordpress.com) I made a post last March about how we shot some scenes for Star Trek on St. Patrick's Day in Los Angeles. In that post I found some pictures online that a spy had taken and posted them on the blog so everyone could see what I was describing in the blog. Those pics can now be found here:



so those are some pretty sweet pics from the shoot on st. patricks day of last year. The scene's were shot at the campus of Cal. State University - Northridge. We were told that the blue screens would be replaced with images of san francisco being blown up and we had to run toward it in fear. it sounded cool but in reality it was just me and 150 other redshirt extras running back and forth in the blistering heat 400 times a day.
But now, thanks to the super bowl, the new teaser trailer was shown and within the trailer you can see proof of the scene that i was in! you cant spot me out unless you have hawk vision or something but what you can see is the finished product. Maybe this means nothing to you but it brings a certain closure to my long day of work. It was all worth it now, the effects look great. Make sure to pause the trailer right on the scene from the pictures. its at about :19 seconds in, but it goes fast so give or take a second. try to compare the pictures to the actual image that made it to the movie. Here is the trailer:

So Say We All

Yesterday at work I was alerted that a celebrity was in our midst. After about 3 seconds, the alerter continued to tell me that the celebrity was none other than Edward James Olmos. A great actor who has been in such classics as "Blade Runner" and "Stand & Deliver". I am a big fan of his because not only was he in so many good movies but he is also the star of one of my favorite shows - Battlestar Galactica. He plays the captain of the galactica, Admiral Adama on the show. He is so badass on that show, i suggest all 3 people who read this blog to heavily get into this show unless you already have. Me and my co-worker friend Tom went to meet him when he was signing autographs for our department. Unfortunately we got to him too late and he was on his way out. I quickly asked "can we get a quick picture with my cell phone?" and he politely smiled and said "sure!" so some lady he was with took my cell phone and proceeded to take the WORST PICTURE ever taken by humans. She zoomed in way too far and cut tom out completely. Fortunately i made it into the picture, but i look like some sort of space creature. I guess thats fitting for the subject matter of his show..but anyway, the picture is posted below, try not to drool too much from jealousy...

the Karate Kid remake WILL suck

It had previously been announced a few months back that a remake of "The Karate Kid" with Will Smith's son, Jaden Smith in the titular role, was definitely going to happen. ::sigh:: The news dropped today that the role of Mr. Miyagi will be played by none other than martial arts expert and broken english extraordinaire: Jackie Chan. This movie is destined to be shit. It's also going to be directed by the guy who directed "The Pink Panther 2"...a sequel to a an awful remake that should have been left alone in the first place. Here he is directing another remake that shouldn't be made in the first place. I loathe shitty movie news days.

Supervillains Unite!

It was announced today that there will be not 1 but 2 villains in the next Iron Man film, directed by Jon Favreau. This bit of news is really interesting because the two stars who are rumored to be chosen for the parts are really great. First off for the role of Justin Hammer, a multibillionaire British businessman and a rival of industrialist Tony Stark, is rumored to have been taken by Sam Rockwell. You might recognize him from such films as "Charlies Angels", "The Green Mile", or more recently, "Frost/Nixon". He is one of the best actors out there right now in my opinion. In fact, I'm going to be seeing him shortly in his new film "Moon" premiering at Sundance this year. It looks to be a really interesting film and I will surely blog about that one once I've seen it.

The other villain scheduled to appear in Iron Man 2 is called "The Crimson Dynamo". The character is a heavily tattooed Russian arms dealer who battles the superhero in a nuclear-powered suit of armor that can control electricity. He is rumored to be played by none other than this years comeback kid: MICKEY ROURKE. If you haven't seen him in "The Wrestler" yet, you need to get your butt off of your chair and go see that film. He is outstanding and he is my pick for the best actor academy award for this years oscars. In the comics, The Crimson Dynamo was tricked into defecting to the US and went to work for Stark, forcing the Soviets to send KGB assassin Black Widow after him. What's interesting here is that the Black Widow character has also been rumored to appear in the sequel. There has been no casting news for that character as of yet. Honestly, if Hollywood has learned anything from "Spiderman 3", it's that 3 villains is 1 too many. The Black Widow should either be a cameo or not there AT ALL. Truth be told.

USA Network and the Impending Film Fest

I haven't blogged in soooo long, but hopefully now with my new job ill actually have a minute or two to set aside and write something. That's right, I have yet another new job. Now I am a production assistant for USA Network's promo department at the 30 Rock building in NYC! I'm on the 21st floor and officially a Manhattan commuter. It's a change of pace for me but I've been here 3 days so far and I'm really digging it.

I also now work with a friend of mine: Tom Sutch. Me and him have gone to middle school, high school AND college together. And now we work together too. Our resumes must be identical...aside from me disappearing for almost 2 years to Los Angeles... The very fact that we haven't attempted to murder each other even once says a lot. I'll be posting about any sort of cool things that happen to me while I work in this crazy famous building and this crazy famous city as well.

I am also excited for my trip to the Sundance Film Festival coming up in 2 weeks from today. My old buddy from LA, Kristian, and I will be meeting up in his home town of Park City, Utah for 5 days to see indie movie after indie movie in the bitter freezing cold at this years film fest. I will be blogging as much as I can about every movie I see, every celebrity I bump into and anything thing else that happens while I'm there. I will also take as many pictures as I can for this blog. I hope to update it more than normal in the near future, because otherwise...what's the point?

More IMAX News

sorry I havent blogged in a while, honestly there has been nothing really exciting to blog about....UNTIL NOW.

Just like The Dark Knight shot some scenes with an IMAX camera, another big summer tentpole action movie will be following in its giant 70mm footsteps:

TRANSFORMERS 2: Revenge of the Fallen!

That's right, Michael Bay, possibly the best director of action on Earth, is going to shoot some of the action scenes in his new transformers movie with the IMAX camera. That doesnt mean that the film will be reformatted to fit IMAX screens like some movies do (Eagle Eye, Harry Potter, Spider Man). It means the movie will actually be shot with the same cameras they use to shoot IMAX only films. This means that that the action scenes will stretch to fill the entire 70 foot screen with a crystal clear beautiful image filled with computer generated robots fighting each other while intercutting scenes of Megan Fox's perfectly formed ass.

I love robots. I love Michael Bay. I love IMAX.

IMAX: Wave of the Future?

It was anounced today that The Dark Knight will be re-released on IMAX screens in January just at the peak of Oscar hype. The obvious reasoning behind this is so that the movie will get noticed for oscar noms. Hopefully for Heath Ledger (Best Supporting Actor), maybe for Christopher Nolan (Best Director)? This is awesome because it has already grossed $950 MILLION DOLLARS worldwide, so it wouldn't take much more to get it in the elite ONE BILLION DOLLAR GROSS clique.

Speaking of IMAX, it was announced today that Jon Favreau (director of Iron Man) plans to shoot the ENTIRE sequel in IMAX 3D. Whereas, the dark knight only shot the action sequences with IMAX cameras, this movie would be shot like that the entire way through...AND in 3D. This seems like the way that all summer action blockbuster movies should be from now on, eh?