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teaser-for-hellboy:-the-crooked-man-brings-the-low-budget-horror-vibes

Teaser for Hellboy: The Crooked Man brings the low-budget horror vibes

culture, Entertainment, film trailers, films, Hellboy, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, Ketchup Entertainment / /

“smells like death” —

Hellboy creator Mike Mignola co-wrote the screenplay based on his short story from comics.

–

Hellboy: The Crooked Man is based on a 2008 limited series by Mike Mignola and artist Richard Corben.

It has only been a few years since David Harbour starred in the 2019 reboot of the Hellboy film franchise—a critical and box office failure, although Harbour’s performance earned praise. But via Entertainment Weekly, we learned that there’s a new reboot coming our way: Hellboy: The Crooked Man. The project wrapped filming in May and now has a teaser—inexplicably released in 480p—giving us our first glimpse of star Jack Kesy’s (Claws, Deadpool 2) take on Mike Mignola’s iconic character.

It’s definitely a very different look and vibe from the previous big studio releases. Director Brian Taylor (Crank) is clearly leaning into the low-budget folk horror genre for this, but will fans embrace a bargain-basement Hellboy reboot—even one co-written by Mignola himself?

Mignola based his script on a 2008 Hellboy limited series he created, with artwork by Richard Corben. That story features a younger Hellboy wandering in the Appalachian Mountains in 1958 after “finishing up some stuff down South.” He meets regional native Tom Ferrell, coming home after decades away. When he was young, Tom was initiated as a witch and has returned to atone for that, even though he has never actually practiced magic—apart from a magical “witch-bone” he carries with him.

Tom and Hellboy team up to protect a young witch named Cora from having her soul reaped by the Crooked Man, aided by a blind pastor, the Reverend Watts. The Crooked Man was an 18th-century war profiteer named Jeremiah Witkins. Witkins was hanged for his crimes but returned from Hell and became the resident devil in those parts. Witkins wants Cora’s soul, and he also covets Tom’s witch-bone, but his evil machinations prove to be no match for Hellboy.

Jack Kesy steps into the role of Hellboy, following in the footsteps of Ron Perlman and David Harbour.

Enlarge / Jack Kesy steps into the role of Hellboy, following in the footsteps of Ron Perlman and David Harbour.

Ketchup Entertainment

The new film seems to hew fairly closely to the source material—understandably so given Mignola’s direct involvement. Per the official premise: “In the 1950s, Hellboy and a rookie BPRD (Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense) agent, stranded in rural Appalachia, discover a small community haunted by witches, led by a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy’s past: the Crooked Man.”

In addition to Kesy, the cast includes Jefferson White as Tom Ferrell; Adeline Rudolph as rookie BPRD agent Bobbie Jo Song; Joseph Marcell as Reverend Nathaniel Armstrong Watts; Leah McNamara as Effie Kolb; Hannah Margetson as Cora Fisher; and Martin Bassindale in a dual role: Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm, founder and head of the BPRD and Hellboy’s adoptive father, and Jeremiah Witkins, aka the Crooked Man.

The teaser opens with some scenic shots of Appalachia as Hellboy makes ominous comments in a voiceover about “evil” lurking and how the forest “smells like death.” It doesn’t take long for that evil to make itself known, as a levitating woman is bitten by a snake, plagues of insects and other creatures wreak havoc, and Hellboy is assured that “all your friends are gonna die.” The poor quality of the teaser is unfortunate and frankly does not instill tons of confidence, but I like the folk horror vibe; some of those scenes look hella scary. Tonally, the teaser feels a bit like The Blair Witch Project meets The Conjuring or The Witch.

What it doesn’t feel like is the Hellboy we have come to know and love. Look, diehard fans are still mad that Guillermo del Toro never got to complete his planned trilogy after the massive success of Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). Originally titled Hellboy III: Dark Worlds, the project was canceled due to lack of financing, and the fans haven’t forgotten… or forgiven.

Lionsgate tried to reboot the franchise instead with Harbour in the titular role, but that film turned out to be one of the biggest flops of 2019. Director Neil Marshall actually disowned the film, calling it “godawful” and “the worst professional experience of my life.” He had pitched the project as a darker, R-rated horror version of Hellboy, but studio interference meant he had very little creative control in the end. Now it’s Taylor’s turn to bring us his own darker, horrific R-rated vision, working on a smaller scale—if nothing else, it hopefully reduced the aforementioned studio interference. There’s not yet a release date, but we’ll see how it turned out soon enough.

Listing image by Ketchup Entertainment

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It’s a showdown with Sabretooth in latest Deadpool and Wolverine trailer

culture, film trailers, films, marvel studios / /

“Ground and pound until he makes no sound” —

“People have waited decades for this fight. It’s not gonna be easy.”

–

Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman star in Deadpool and Wolverine.

It’s safe to say that Marvel Studios’ Deadpool and Wolverine is one of the most hotly anticipated releases of the summer. We’ve had a teaser and full trailer, and now the studio has released a second one-minute trailer with a surprise appearance bound to delight X-Men fans everywhere. It’s none other than Sabretooth, played by the same actor, Tyler Mane, who portrayed the character in 2000’s X-Men. And he’s got a score to settle with Wolverine.

As previously reported, Ryan Reynolds found the perfect fit with 2016’s Deadpool, starring as Wade Wilson, a former Canadian special forces operative (dishonorably discharged) who develops regenerative healing powers that heal his cancer but leave him permanently disfigured with scars all over his body. Wade decides to become a masked vigilante, turning down an invitation to join the X-Men and abandon his bad-boy ways. The first Deadpool was a big hit, racking up $782 million at the global box office, critical praise, and a couple of Golden Globe nominations for good measure. Deadpool 2 was released in 2018 and was just as successful.

Deadpool and Wolverine reunites Reynolds with many familiar faces from the first two films. Morena Baccarin is back as Wade’s girlfriend Vanessa, along with Leslie Uggams as Blind Al; Karan Soni as Wade’s personal chauffeur, taxi driver Dopinder; Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead; Stefan Kapičić as the voice of Colossus; Shioli Kutsuna as Negasonic’s mutant girlfriend, Yukio; Randal Reeder as Buck; and Lewis Tan as X-Force member Shatterstar.

We’re also getting some characters drawn from various films under the 20th Century Fox Marvel umbrella: Pyro (Aaron Stanford)—last seen in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand—and Jennifer Garner’s Elektra, who appeared in the 2003 Daredevil film as well as 2005’s Elektra. Along with Sabretooth, the mutants Toad and Dogpool should be on hand to make some trouble. New to the franchise are Matthew MacFadyen as a Time Variance Authority agent named Paradox and Emma Corrin as the lead villain. There have been rumors that Owen Wilson’s Mobius and the animated Miss Minutes from Loki may also appear in the film.

  • The battle is going pretty well and this dynamic duo wants to know: “Who’s next?”

    YouTube/Marvel Studios

  • “Oh. My. God. Sabretooth.” Our feelings exactly.

    YouTube/Marvel Studios

  • Deadpool calls for a timeout because Wolverine “looks ridiculous” with all those weapons sticking out of him.

    YouTube/Marvel Studios

  • Wolverine is not amused.

    YouTube/Marvel Studios

  • Battle!!!

    YouTube/Marvel Studios

Marvel released a two-minute teaser for the new movie during the Super Bowl in February, featuring the trademark cheeky irreverence that made audiences embrace Reynold’s R-rated superhero in the first place, plus a glimpse of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine—or rather, his distinctive shadow. And yes, Marvel is retaining that R rating—a big step given that all the prior MCU films have been resoundingly PG-13. Marvel dropped a full trailer in April that was chock-full of off-color witticisms, meta-references, slo-mo action, and a generous sprinkling of F-bombs. (But no cocaine! Wade promised Kevin Feige!)

This latest trailer has a lot of the same footage as that April trailer until the 26-second mark. That’s when Wolverine growls, “Who’s next?” after battling a horde of foes. Who should jump into the fray with an answering growl but Sabretooth. We are all Deadpool when he exclaims, “Oh. My. God.” Sabretooth breaks out his claws and asks Wolverine if he’s ready to die. That’s when Deadpool calls a timeout to pull a few weapons out of his frenemy and offer a few tips on how to defeat the other mutant, to Wolverine’s annoyance.

“People have waited decades for this fight,” Deadpool insists. “It’s not gonna be easy. Baby knife. Shoot the devil, you take him down. Side control. Then full mount, and you ground and pound until he makes no sound because he’s dead. OK, good luck, I’m a huge fan.” We’ll have to wait a few more weeks to find out if Wolverine takes any of that advice.

Deadpool and Wolverine hits theaters on July 26, 2024.

Listing image by YouTube/Marvel Studios

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Runway’s latest AI video generator brings giant cotton candy monsters to life

AI, AI-generated video, Biz & IT, Deepfakes, filmmaking, films, Gen-2, Gen-3, Gen-3 Alpha, giant cotton-candy monster, Google, machine learning, Meta, openai, Runway, Sora, Special Effects, video synthesis / /
Screen capture of a Runway Gen-3 Alpha video generated with the prompt

Enlarge / Screen capture of a Runway Gen-3 Alpha video generated with the prompt “A giant humanoid, made of fluffy blue cotton candy, stomping on the ground, and roaring to the sky, clear blue sky behind them.”

On Sunday, Runway announced a new AI video synthesis model called Gen-3 Alpha that’s still under development, but it appears to create video of similar quality to OpenAI’s Sora, which debuted earlier this year (and has also not yet been released). It can generate novel, high-definition video from text prompts that range from realistic humans to surrealistic monsters stomping the countryside.

Unlike Runway’s previous best model from June 2023, which could only create two-second-long clips, Gen-3 Alpha can reportedly create 10-second-long video segments of people, places, and things that have a consistency and coherency that easily surpasses Gen-2. If 10 seconds sounds short compared to Sora’s full minute of video, consider that the company is working with a shoestring budget of compute compared to more lavishly funded OpenAI—and actually has a history of shipping video generation capability to commercial users.

Gen-3 Alpha does not generate audio to accompany the video clips, and it’s highly likely that temporally coherent generations (those that keep a character consistent over time) are dependent on similar high-quality training material. But Runway’s improvement in visual fidelity over the past year is difficult to ignore.

AI video heats up

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for AI video synthesis in the AI research community, including the launch of the Chinese model Kling, created by Beijing-based Kuaishou Technology (sometimes called “Kwai”). Kling can generate two minutes of 1080p HD video at 30 frames per second with a level of detail and coherency that reportedly matches Sora.

Gen-3 Alpha prompt: “Subtle reflections of a woman on the window of a train moving at hyper-speed in a Japanese city.”

Not long after Kling debuted, people on social media began creating surreal AI videos using Luma AI’s Luma Dream Machine. These videos were novel and weird but generally lacked coherency; we tested out Dream Machine and were not impressed by anything we saw.

Meanwhile, one of the original text-to-video pioneers, New York City-based Runway—founded in 2018—recently found itself the butt of memes that showed its Gen-2 tech falling out of favor compared to newer video synthesis models. That may have spurred the announcement of Gen-3 Alpha.

Gen-3 Alpha prompt: “An astronaut running through an alley in Rio de Janeiro.”

Generating realistic humans has always been tricky for video synthesis models, so Runway specifically shows off Gen-3 Alpha’s ability to create what its developers call “expressive” human characters with a range of actions, gestures, and emotions. However, the company’s provided examples weren’t particularly expressive—mostly people just slowly staring and blinking—but they do look realistic.

Provided human examples include generated videos of a woman on a train, an astronaut running through a street, a man with his face lit by the glow of a TV set, a woman driving a car, and a woman running, among others.

Gen-3 Alpha prompt: “A close-up shot of a young woman driving a car, looking thoughtful, blurred green forest visible through the rainy car window.”

The generated demo videos also include more surreal video synthesis examples, including a giant creature walking in a rundown city, a man made of rocks walking in a forest, and the giant cotton candy monster seen below, which is probably the best video on the entire page.

Gen-3 Alpha prompt: “A giant humanoid, made of fluffy blue cotton candy, stomping on the ground, and roaring to the sky, clear blue sky behind them.”

Gen-3 will power various Runway AI editing tools (one of the company’s most notable claims to fame), including Multi Motion Brush, Advanced Camera Controls, and Director Mode. It can create videos from text or image prompts.

Runway says that Gen-3 Alpha is the first in a series of models trained on a new infrastructure designed for large-scale multimodal training, taking a step toward the development of what it calls “General World Models,” which are hypothetical AI systems that build internal representations of environments and use them to simulate future events within those environments.

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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the philosophy of self, identity, and memory

cognitive neuroscience, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, films, memory, personal identity, Science, science of memory, science philosophy / /
<em>Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</em> stars Jim Carrey in one of his most powerful dramatic roles.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/eternal6-800×514.jpg”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind stars Jim Carrey in one of his most powerful dramatic roles.

Focus Features

Last week, the 2004 cult classic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind marked its 20th anniversary, prompting many people to revisit the surreal sci-fi psychological drama about two ex-lovers who erase their memories of each other—only to find themselves falling in love all over again. Eternal Sunshine was a box office success and earned almost universal praise upon its release. It’s still a critical favorite today and remains one of star Jim Carrey’s most powerful and emotionally resonant dramatic roles. What better time for a rewatch and in-depth discussion of the film’s themes of memory, personal identity, love, and loss?

(Spoilers for the 2004 film below.)

Director Michel Gondry and co-writer Pierre Bismuth first came up with the concept for the film in 1998, based on a conversation Bismuth had with a female friend who, when he asked, said she would absolutely erase her boyfriend from her memory if she could. They brought on Charlie Kaufman to write the script, and the three men went on to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for their efforts. The title alludes to a 1717 poem by Alexander Pope, “Eloisa to Abelard,” based on the tragic love between medieval philosopher Peter Abelard and Héloïse d’Argenteuil and their differing perspectives on what happened between them when they exchanged letters later in life. These are the most relevant lines:

Of all affliction taught a lover yet,

‘Tis sure the hardest science to forget!

…

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Carrey plays Joel, a shy introvert who falls in love with the extroverted free spirit Clementine (Kate Winslet). The film opens with the couple estranged and Joel discovering that Clementine has erased all her memories of him, thanks to the proprietary technology of a company called Lacuna. Joel decides to do the same, and much of the film unfolds backward in time in a nonlinear narrative as Joel (while dreaming) relives his memories of their relationship in reverse. Those memories dissolve as he recalls each one, even though at one point, he changes his mind and tries unsuccessfully to stop the process.

The twist: Joel ends up meeting Clementine all over again on that beach in Montauk, and they are just as drawn to each other as before. When they learn—thanks to the machinations of a vengeful Lacuna employee—what happened between them the first time around, they almost separate again. But Joel convinces Clementine to take another chance, believing their relationship to be worth any future pain.

Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) meet-cute on the LIRR to Montauk.

Enlarge / Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) meet-cute on the LIRR to Montauk.

Much has been written over the last two decades about the scientific basis for the film, particularly the technology used to erase Joel’s and Clementine’s respective memories. The underlying neuroscience involves what’s known as memory reconsolidation. The brain is constantly processing memories, including associated emotions, both within the hippocampus and across the rest of the brain (system consolidation). Research into reconsolidation of memories emerged in the 2000s, in which past memories (usually traumatic ones) are recalled with the intent of altering them, since memories are unstable during the recall process. For example, in the case of severe PTSD, administering Beta blockers can decouple intense feelings of fear from traumatic memories while leaving those memories intact.

Like all good science fiction, Eternal Sunshine takes that grain of actual science and extends it in thought-provoking ways. In the film, so-called “problem memories” can be recalled individually while the patient is in a dream state and erased completely—uncomfortable feelings and all—as if they were computer files. Any neuroscientist will tell you this is not how memory works. What remains most interesting about Eternal Sunshine‘s premise is its thematic exploration of the persistence and vital importance of human memory.

So we thought it would be intriguing to mark the film’s 20th anniversary by exploring those ideas through the lens of philosophy with the guidance of Johns Hopkins University philosopher Jenann Ismael. Ismael specializes in probing questions of physics, metaphysics, cognition, and theory of mind. Her many publications include The Situated Self (2009), How Physics Makes Us Free (2016), and, most recently, Time: A Very Short Introduction (2021).

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Watch Godzilla Minus One in dazzling black and white during limited US run

culture, Entertainment, films, Godzilla, Godzilla Minus One, Toho International / /

A masterful remastering —

“By eliminating color, a new sense of reality emerges.”

–

Watch Godzilla Minus One in dazzling black and white during limited US run

Toho Inc.

The critically acclaimed film, Godzilla Minus One, hit US theaters in early December and racked up $51 million in the US alone and over $96 million globally, shooting past 2016’s Shin Godzilla as the most successful Japanese-produced Godzilla film to date. The film is winding down its theatrical run, but director, writer, and VFX supervisor Takashi Yamazaki has remastered a black-and-white version of the film as an homage to the 1954 classic Godzilla, released in Japan last week. And now US audiences will have a chance to see that version when Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color arrives at AMC theaters in the US for a limited run from January 26 through February 1.

(Minor spoilers for Godzilla Minus One below.)

Yamakazi spent three years writing the script for Godzilla Minus One, drawing inspiration not just from the original 1954 film but also Jaws (1975), Godzilla, Mothra and Ghidorah (2001), Shin Godzilla, and the films of Hayao Miyazaki. He opted to set the film in postwar Japan, like the original, rather than more recent events like the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, in order to explore themes of postwar trauma and emerging hope. The monster itself was designed to be horrifying, with spiky dorsal fins and a bellowing roar produced by recording an amplified roar in a large stadium.

The plot follows a former WWII kamikaze pilot named Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) who encountered Godzilla in 1945 when the monster attacked a Japanese base on Odo Island, but failed to act to help save the garrison. His parents were killed when Tokyo was bombed, so Shikishima is grappling with serious survivor’s guilt a few years later as he struggles to rebuild his life with a woman named Noriko (Minami Hamabe) and a rescued orphaned baby. Then Godzilla mutates and re-emerges for a renewed attack on Japan, and Shikishima gets the chance to redeem himself by helping to destroy the kaiju.

Godzilla Minus One was received with almost universal critical acclaim, with some declaring it not just one of the best films released in 2023 but possibly one of the best Godzilla films ever made. (We didn’t include the film in our own year’s best list because no Ars staffers had yet seen the film when the list was compiled, but it absolutely merits inclusion.) Among other accolades, the film made the Oscar shortlist for Best Visual Effects.

It was a painstaking process to remaster Godzilla Minus One into black and white. “Rather than just making it monochrome, it is a cut-by-cut,” Yamakazi said in a statement last month. “I had them make adjustments while making full use of various mattes as if they were creating a new movie. What I was aiming for was a style that looked like it was taken by masters of monochrome photography. We were able to unearth the texture of the skin and the details of the scenery that were hidden in the photographed data. Then, a frightening Godzilla, just like the one in the documentary, appeared. By eliminating color, a new sense of reality emerges.”

Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color will have a limited run in US AMC theaters from January 26 through February 1, 2024.

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Film Technica: Our favorite movies of 2023

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Film Technica: Our favorite movies of 2023

Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

Warning: Although we’ve done our best to avoid spoiling anything too major, please note this list does include a few specific references to several of the listed films that some might consider spoiler-y.

It’s been an odd couple of years for film as the industry struggles to regain its footing in the wake of a devastating global pandemic, but there are reasons to be optimistic about its future, both from a box office and variety standpoint. This was the year that the blockbuster superhero franchises that have dominated for more than a decade finally showed signs of faltering; the Marvel and DC Universe releases this year were mostly fine, but only one (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) made our 2023 year-end list. There were just so many of them, one after the other, adding up to serious superhero fatigue.

We still love our blockbusters, of course. This was also the summer of “Barbenheimer,” as audiences flocked to theaters for the unlikely pairing of Barbie and Oppenheimer, breaking a few box office records in the process. It was also a good year for smaller niche fare—including two re-imaginings of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—as well as a new film from the legendary Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon).

As always, we’re opting for an unranked list, with the exception of our “year’s best” vote at the very end, so you might look over the variety of genres and options and possibly add surprises to your eventual watchlist. We invite you to head to the comments and add your favorite films released in 2023.

D&D: Honor Among Thieves.” height=”426″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/dungeons1-640×426.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez star as Elgin (a bard) and Holga (a barbarian) in D&D: Honor Among Thieves.

Paramount Pictures

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Over two decades later, I am still a bit bitter about paying good money to see the 2000 Dungeons and Dragons movie with a group of friends on opening night. To this day, we’ll still parody Empress Savina dramatically proclaiming something along the lines of “I declare all people equal!” at the end of the movie (spoilers for a decades-old bad movie, I guess). Honor Among Thieves didn’t have a high bar to clear to wash the taste of that horrible adaptation out of my mouth. So it was nice to find that this new take on the D&D world leapt miles over that bar with a madcap, character-driven adventure that would be the envy of many a dungeon master.  

While Honor Among Thieves drops in a few references to familiar D&D items and creatures (hi, owlbears!), the movie wisely realizes that it can’t lean on those references to make an interesting movie. Instead, it uses D&D’s class system as the basis for some broad, trope-y characters to get thrown into an unlikely partnership. Chris Pine’s winning take on a bard is the driving force here, but Michelle Rodriguez’s barbarian and (an underutilized) Regé-Jean Page’s paladin steal plenty of scenes by really hewing true to their characters’ alignment chart.

The plot won’t win any awards for originality or surprise, but that character work and some well-paced action set pieces make this a thrilling family adventure, even for those who’ve never touched a D&D character sheet.

—Kyle Orland

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