Not A Bad Harrison Ford Impersonation

Yeah, we don't really need a review of '42' at this point but Jeremy Jahns' impersonation of Harrison Ford is worth watching.

Start at about :57, ends by 1:05.

Not, like, epic -- but fun enough.

























.

Really? That's How It Was? Trailer for '42'

So, Jackie Robinson is playing second and makes an error. The crowd starts jeering, yelling death threats. Shortstop Pee Wee Reese goes over and puts his arm around Jackie and looks at the stands. The crowd goes silent.

'42' is looking must-see. Great trailer. Wow.




















.

'Blade Runner' Photo Analysis Scene

I remember watching this the first time. I was mesmerized when Deckard (Harrison Ford) used a photo analyzer to get clues from the scene of a murder. Back then, we were using film, which was okay but you'd never get this level of resolution even from large format.



Now, we have voice command and the resolution of digital photography has improved to the point that it's comparable to what's depicted in the scene.

Here's a still captured with the new Canon EOS-1DX DSLR. (From the Canon site)

This was taken with the Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro at 1/125th second, f 14. ISO 100.

Nice. But, the really impressive thing is a 100% crop:

If you push it a littler further the image becomes pixelated, but it's still clear what you're looking at:

Move in even more...

Okay, admittedly not quite what Deckard got from his Esper Photo Analyzer -- but close. In a few years it'll be even better.

When 'Blade Runner' came out I figured the (photo) tech in the movie might become a reality in, like, a hundred years. Maybe. I never thought I'd use a camera or computer software capable of doing what's depicted in the scene. It's very cool to do just that. Today.

As far as photography goes science fiction has, pretty much, become a reality.



















,.

Harrison Ford Tantrum on Jimmy Kimmel Live

Kinda early for this, but...

.

'Cowboys & Aliens' Cast Interview

This is a good one. Worth 12 minutes.

.

Steven Spielberg, Jon Favreau, Brian Grazer, and Ron Howard Talk Cowboys & Aliens and Movies in General

Great stuff











Does it get any better. More from the series, this time with Favreau and Harrison Ford, here and here

.

More with Harrison Ford and Jon Favreau

More here

.

Jon Favreau and Harrison Ford Talk...Movies

More

.

'Cowboys & Aliens' Making-Of Teaser Featurette

.

Now With More Geek Appeal

They took the right approach with selling 'Cowboys & Aliens'. First trailers sold the concept of a western with tech elements. This trailer sells the idea of a tech/sci-fi horror thriller with spaceships, monsters, and steel laser weapons that are grafted to Daniel Craig's arm that happens to take place in the old west.

Nice. The geeks are loving it. There's nobody saying 'A western with spaceships?' anymore.

Trailer success.

'Cowboys & Aliens' Trailer

'Cowboys & Aliens'

Some very nice new footage.

'Cowboys & Aliens'

Jon Favreau is staking a claim as the guy who can take comic book material and infuse it with life, story, depth of character.

Trailer grabs you, won't let go. Hints at plot, makes you want to know more. I never would have thought a movie about people in the old west battling space aliens could come off this real. Rarely seen in genre work.

This has Story.

'Morning Glory'

I usually hate this kind of product. Hate. Love this trailer for 'Morning Glory'. Can't wait to see this.

Indy's Indies

Harrison Ford's days as an action star probably ended with Crystal Skull (and that wouldn't have gone over if it wasn't a sequel to the beloved Indy series). Ford is doing the smart thing with 'Crossing Over' -- maintaining a presence with smaller indie films. This one looks like a tough sell, though. The same may hold true for 'Crowley', a drama about a scientist who searches for a cure for his children's genetic disorder.

But, while 'Crossing Over' and 'Crowley' won't draw huge audiences, anything is better than seeing Ford struggle to convince us he can still carry an action movie by portraying a geriatric hero defending family and society against all manner of bad guy(s). That's just too embarrassing for everyone involved.

The last I heard 'Crossing Over' is set for release in early 2009.

Happy Birthday Mr. Ford

Over at Pop Dose, Robert Cass wishes Harrison Ford a happy 66th. This is one of my favorite movie stars -- a Golden Era leading man in an age of disposable icons. However, I agree with Cass when he asserts that Mr. Ford tried to hang on to his status perhaps a bit too long with more than a few roles (see: 'Firewall') in which he plays (as Cass rightfully points out, citing many a reviewer's assessment) yet another character who delivers cliche dialogue through clenched jaws with eyes burning of determination and the lips snarled just so.

With Ford not willing to budge on his asking price per movie and with the scripts (and box office) for said movies becoming more laughable, I thought his career was in crash-and-burn mode. But then comes Indiana Jones 4 and, just like that, Ford earns a reprise. He's putting the new lease on his movie star's life to use not by demanding top-dollar for a retread execution of a bloated cliche script, but by doing small pieces like 'Crossing Over' (pictured, with Alice Braga), and what looks like another character-driven drama, 'Crowley', in what one would hope and assume is an effort to re-establish himself as a viable commodity.

Good to see him back, albeit not exactly in the same form as a president kicking terrorists off Air Force One or a privateer blasting the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace to elude capture. By the same token, though, he's not in the same form as he was in 'Hollywood Homicide' (which, in this case, is first degree premeditated murder of one's career)... At age 66 doing movies like 'Crossing Over' is a very smart move.

Here's Cass' write up. A couple excerpts:

If you were to ask me "What did you want to be when you grew up?," I could lie and say "astronaut" or "baseball player" or even "actor," but the answer is "Harrison Ford." More than anything else, I wanted to be Harrison Ford. I grew up in the '80s, a decade in which the actor played Han Solo in two Star Wars films and Indiana Jones in three films. For a young boy, those were iconic characters...

...because he wouldn't drop his $20 million fee, those interesting scripts from young writer-directors never showed up in his mailbox...