Doug Jones – The CFQ Interview

Doug Jones demnstrates the difficulties of being a wandering minstrel in the post-apocalyptic US in DUST OF WAR.
Doug Jones demonstrates the difficulties of being a wandering minstrel in the post-apocalyptic US in DUST OF WAR.

The speaker of the Louisiana State Senate. An agoraphobic starfish. Two copies of Playboy with their centerfolds torn out. These are probably the only things actor Doug Jones hasn’t been in his variegated career. In makeup and out, whether playing an amphibious scholar, a benevolent alien, or a mute, demonic organ harvester, Jones has managed to create roles that have been at once vivid, evocative, and memorable.
It happens to be a good time for Jones. Not only was there the recent video release of the ultra-violent grindhouse action film, RAZE — in which Jones plays the entitled overseer of an all-female death-match — but the complete third season disc set of FALLING SKIES, where Jones is the alien ambassador Cochise, has just come out, and now Jones appears as a wandering (and canny) minstrel in the dizzyingly eclectic post-apocalyptic/ROAD WARRIOResque/alien invasion/western, DUST OF WAR, which just became available on VOD. We’re thrilled to be able to talk with Doug Jones about all of this, and more, as we kick off our second season of THE CFQ INTERVIEW. Click on the player to hear the show.

PACIFIC RIM: CFQ Spotlight Podcast 4:28

A Jaeger makes a handsome, albeit destructive, addition to any city in PACIFIC RIM.
A Jaeger makes a handsome, albeit destructive, addition to any city in PACIFIC RIM.

PACIFIC RIM is Tombstone pizza when you asked for Lombardi’s, McDonald’s when you wanted Shake Shack: A passable example of something that was never going to be the pinnacle of sophistication to begin with, but could have been so much better. Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French, and Dan Persons get together to discuss Guillermo del Toro’s eagerly awaited Kaiju (giant monsters) film, in which a corps of mammoth robots, called Jaegers (German for hunter — did you know that?) and piloted by an international team of mind-linked soldiers, embarks on a last-ditch mission to meet the enemy on both land and sea (will there be much destruction of valuable real estate? Oh, my child, certainly there will be), and put an end to the conflict once and for all. Battle sequences are analyzed, drama and character arcs, such as they are, are deconstructed, questions of how such talents as Idris Elba and Ron Perlman are misused are pondered, and slowly, slowly, the long route to recovery from dashed expectations is begun. Also: What’s coming to theaters next week.

Here’s What’s Going On 07/12/2013: Guillermo del Toro on PACIFIC RIM

You can’t dream this stuff up… The finer points of torturing your actors… Next film will not be about unicorns weaving rainbows…
From the luxurious Cinefantastique Online studios in NYC, Dan Persons brings you up-to-date on what’s happening in the world of fantastic film & TV.

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Here’s What’s Going On 07/09/2013: DOCTOR WHO Starring Michael Jackson!?!

Jacko was courted for feature adaptation… Guillermo del Toro announces writer for SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE… Batman gets recruited for JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE FLASHPOINT PARADOX…
From the luxurious Cinefantastique Online studios in NYC, Dan Persons brings you up-to-date on what’s happening in fantastic film & TV.

FULL-SIZE VIDEO IS BELOW


Here’s What’s Going On 07/03/2013: Will There Be a Hellboy 3?

Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman are game… A Hong Kong action star contracts RIGOR MORTIS… Brothers discover what’s UNDER THE BED…
From the luxurious Cinefantastique Online studios in NYC, Dan Persons brings you up-to-date on what’s happening in fantastic film & TV.

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Here’s What’s Going On 06/26/2013: Pics from PACIFIC RIM

Guillermo del Toro loves robots vs. monsters… Ronald D. Moore gets fantastically historical… WOULD YOU RATHER attend a deadly dinner party?…
From the luxurious Cinefantastique Online studios in NYC, Dan Persons brings you up-to-date on what’s happening in the world of fantastic media.

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PACIFIC RIM


Japan's Coyote Tango in a scene from the sci-fi action adventure "Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures Pacific Rim," a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Japan's Coyote Tango in a scene from the sci-fi action adventure "Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures Pacific Rim," a Warner Bros. Pictures release.

(L-r) CHARLIE HUNNAM as Raleigh Becket and MANA ASHIDA as Young Mako.
(L-r) CHARLIE HUNNAM as Raleigh Becket and MANA ASHIDA as Young Mako.

(L-r) MAX MARTINI as Herc Hansen and ROB KAZINSKY as Chuck Hansen.
(L-r) MAX MARTINI as Herc Hansen and ROB KAZINSKY as Chuck Hansen.

(L-r) RINKO KIKUCHI as Mako Mori and IDRIS ELBA as Stacker Pentecost.
(L-r) RINKO KIKUCHI as Mako Mori and IDRIS ELBA as Stacker Pentecost.

A Kaiju, code name Trespasser, attacks the Golden Gate Bridge.
A Kaiju, code name Trespasser, attacks the Golden Gate Bridge.

China's Crimson Typhoon in a scene from the sci-fi action adventure "Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures PACIFIC RIM," a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
China's Crimson Typhoon.



Here’s What’s Going On 06/18/2013: Joss Whedon Talks AVENGERS 2

Loki will not be the Big Bad… John Hurt will probably not be the Doctor for long… KUNG FU PANDA 3 seeks harmony with China… YouTube live video capture seeks no harmony with Google Chrome (you’ll see, sorry)…
From the luxurious Cinefantastique Online Studios in NYC, Dan Persons brings you up-to-date on what’s happening in the world of genre media.

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Pacific Rim featurettes

In “Oversized Robots,” Guillermo Del Toro discusses his upcoming film, in which giant monsters emerge from a dimensional portal deep in the ocean, and humanity responds by placing warriors in colossal  robots. In particular, the director notes the necessity of including practical effects to convey the physicality of the situation; in PACIFIC RIM, this took the form of a four-story tall set, complete with a rig, for the head of the robot, so that the actors would bounce around as if battling an opponent.
Fans of Japanese kaiju films such should get a kick out of the premise of PACIFIC RIM, which deliberately recalls the GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA films of the 1990s and early 2000s (not to mention Stuart Gordon’s ROBOT JOX). In fact, the monsters in the film are even called by the word “kaiju.”

In “Drift Space,” Del Toro and cast members Charlie Hunnam and Rob Kazinsky elaborate on portraying the men controlling the robots, who must fuse their memories in order to act as one consciousness while directing a machine too large for a single person to operate.

“Con Footage” gives us a more detailed look at the story set-up than presented in the trailers.

Pacific-Rim-Poster

MAMA: CFQ Spotlight Podcast 4:03

Either She's Confronting a Hostile Spectral Force or Just Been Told She Can't Have McDonald's for Dinner: Isabelle Nélisse meets MAMA.
Either She's Confronting a Hostile Force from Beyond the Grave or She's Just Been Told She Can't Have McDonald's for Dinner: Isabelle Nélisse meets MAMA.

Screw the armed guards in the schools, let’s get some firepower into the home, ’cause there’s definitely some malignant stuff going on there. In MAMA, a young couple (Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) are saddled with a pair of literally feral children and have to contend with the challenges not only of raising a pair of kids accustomed to ambulating on all fours, but also of dealing with the malevolent, spectral force that’s followed them home. Mama don’t go for Fruit Roll-Ups.
Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French, and Dan Persons saw the latest in executive producer Guillermo del Toro’s attempts to resurrect the classic, moody horror films of the seventies, and come away with an appreciation for the film’s stylistic visuals and creepy atmosphere, but not so much that they can’t make generous sport of the film’s plot glitches. And boy, are there plot glitches.
Plus: What’s coming to theaters next week.

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Mama in theatres January 18

Universal Pictures releases this horror film, presented by Guillermo Del Toro. Andres Mushietti directed, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Neil Cross and Barbara Mushietti, based on his 2008 short subject.The cast includes Jessica Chastain, Nikoaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nelisse, Daniel Kash, Javier Botet, and Jane Moffat as the voice of Mama. The story has two feral siblings rescued from the wild and adopted by their uncle. How they survived is a mystery, but they may have an invisible guardian looking over them. Could it be…Mama?
U.S. Theatrical Release Date: Friday, January 18, 2013
mama poster