Some set photos from the latest Wes Anderson movie Moonrise Kingdom have surfaced online. If you’re wondering why Edward Norton is ridiculously dressed as a camp counselor, then Focus Feature’s press release on the film could be of some help. Official word on what the film is going to be is as follows: “Set on an island off the coast of New England in the 1960s, Moonrise Kingdom follows a young boy and girl falling in love. When they are moved to run away together, various factions of the town mobilize to search for them and the town is turned upside down – which might not be such a bad thing. Bruce Willis plays the town sheriff; two-time Academy Award nominee Edward Norton is cast as a camp leader; Academy Award nominee Bill Murray and Academy Award winner Frances McDormand portray the young girl’s parents; the cast also includes Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton and Jason Schwartzman. The young boy and girl are played by Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward.”

“It’s the size of Texas, Mr. President.” Does it get any better than that? Of course it doesn’t. Armageddon is without doubt one of the finest motion pictures ever created by humans. If that snippet of dialogue made audible by Mr. Billy Bob Thornton himself didn’t convince you, maybe this will. “You think we’ll get hazard pay for this?” I’m going to pretend you’ve been living under a rock since 1998 and summarize one of the greatest summer blockbuster films ever made for you. So Billy Bob Thorton is sort of the head honcho of NASA and one day he’s supervising a standard in-space satellite repair when all of a sudden a meteor shower rips his crew to pieces. We then cut to New York City, which seems to always be the city that gets destroyed in big budget disaster movies, and sure enough the meteors tear through the city demolishing Grand Central Station, decapitating the Chrysler Building [insert Unstoppable joke here] and finally, in a moment fraught with unintended significance, the camera slowly zooms out to show the twin towers of the World Trade Center on fire. Then we’re treated to quickly cut scenes of people yelling and running through hallways and trying to figure out why Keith David keeps calling. Essentially, a giant asteroid is on a collision course with Earth and no matter where it hits, it will wipe out all life as we know it. Jason Isaacs convinces the President that the best plan is to [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Why?

In a sea of some of the most important pictures the world has known to date – why? In a collection spanning nearly one-hundred years of film history and inclusive of a large portion of the greatest filmmakers we’ve ever known…why? With a library containing movies which focus heavily on visual artistry and emotional complexities and probably have a combined budget *possibly* equal to that of this film…why? With another picture released the same year about pretty much the same thing made by a studio from the same country garnering stronger critical reception and sporting an [in]arguably more plausible solution and execution to the prevention of the end of the world via meteors the size of really, really big things…WHY? Why is this mammoth-sized summer blockbuster which is a masterpiece of the color orange alongside some of the most revered pictures of the last (nearly) 100 years?

The answer is simple, concrete, and indisputable:

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; we pity all the fools, not just those named April. Normally, this is the weekly internet column wherein I lambaste a terrible movie for which, despite its innumerable flaws, I harbor an unnatural love. In other words, plenty of snark peppered with honest admiration that only further calls into question my already dubious taste. Right about the time your brain is massaged into a warm, gelatinous goo, I supply a nasty/delicious snack food item tied into the film to similarly soften your six pack. But this week is different. I have been asked, and have subsequently agreed but only under protest, to cover a film far too excellent to warrant purchase on this awful little column. A film so cerebral, so beautiful, so auteur that it is an insult to film as an art form to allow it to suffer my irreverent, unworthy treatment. I hate that this movie will now be counted among the rank and file of cinematic garbage to which my proclivities typically run. That being said, I never back down from a challenge and, though it may suck some of the life from me, I now present…Armageddon.

Every day, come rain or shine or internet tubes breaking, Film School Rejects showcases a trailer from the past. “I’m marrying you.” “You bet you are!” Is there a more gut-punching emotional moment in a trailer in the history of ever? There is not. Ben Affleck stars alongside Bruce Willis in this explosive action flick directed by Michael Bay. You just don’t see much of this movie anymore, but it definitely deserves the attention. You won’t want to close your eyes or miss a thing while watching this trailer. Check out the trailer for yourself:

Hollywood has on several occasions done things in pairs. Skyline and Battle: LA. Volcano and Dante’s Peak. Debbie Does Dallas and Donnie Does Denver. Every time this happens we ask ourselves two questions: first, why? Second, which one was better? In the grand history of competing, similarly plotted movies, no two films have ever inspired more conversation and debate than Deep Impact and Armageddon. This is ridiculous. Not because it’s a waste of time to debate movies like this, but because there is no debate. Armageddon makes Deep Impact look a pair of monkeys painted the world’s most boring book in baby shit and then populated it with a bunch of actors you remembered from other movies. Armageddon is the vastly superior film and anyone who doesn’t recognize that sends me past my boiling point.

Griffith. Ford. Welles. Kubrick. Scorsese. Allen. Spielberg. No one would argue that these men are a few of the great visionaries who worked their magic on the U.S. cinematic landscape. But after 1998, all of their previous work just seemed…petty. That’s because 1998 was the year Armageddon showed up on our radar screens, giving us little time to prepare our viewing strategies before unleashing a force of hyperkentic visuals that splattered our brains on the back of theater seats. This wasn’t just a movie about a meteor coming to destroy Earth, it was the meteor, and in the wake of its war path, movies were never the same again. What exactly did Michael Bay do that changed cinema forever? The list is endless, but here are nine bold moves the renegade auteur took to ensure his place in Hollywood history:

Ever wake up in the morning with your head pounding? Chances are, that happened after trying one of our many drinking games. It also might have happened after spending a night watching films by Michael Bay. If your head is really, really pounding, you might have played a drinking game while watching the balls-to-the-wall explosive Michael Bay extravaganza known as Armageddon. Or, it could be the real Armageddon happening. Either way, it’s best enjoyed with a drink in hand. Awesome!

Every week, Landon Palmer and Cole Abaius log on to their favorite chat client of 1996 as Dontwannamissathang and AffleckFan23 in order to discuss some topical topic of interest. This week, the pair tries to envision a movie world where Armageddon was never made. How would people survive that? As a result, the merits of the film’s acting, philosophy and subtext are brought to light. Comparisons to Ingmar Bergman are made. Lives are changed. Spoilers for The Sixth Sense and Armageddon are revealed. Fortunately, this nightmarish landscape is only imaginary, because Armageddon did get made, and it’s available to watch whenever we feel like it.

In a recent press release, NASA has announced that it plans to land astronauts on an asteroid by 2025. This new development in space exploration must have been inspired, at least in part, by the hit 1998 Michael Bay film Armageddon, wherein a group of ultra-skilled oil drillers are sent to an asteroid headed for Earth with the mission of embedding an atomic weapon deep beneath its surface in order to blow it off of its course. What else could explain the fact that astronauts who’ve never quit are lining up right and left to be chosen for the expedition? Dr. Paul Abell, NASA’s lead scientist for planetary small bodies, addressed the issue, saying, “The Armageddon film with Bruce Willis was a very fun movie, but not exactly the most scientifically accurate. This is going to be an exciting endeavor, but not quite that dramatic. It’s going to happen a little bit more slowly.” This probably went without saying, as few things in human history have been as dramatic and harrowing as Bay’s masterpiece. Not to mention that, in a real world situation, I imagine it would be hard to find a rough neck crew of oil drillers quite as skilled as the ones that worked for Willis’s Harry Stamper. His claim that Armageddon wasn’t the most scientifically accurate film could be called into question, but probably he just meant it in the literal sense that The Rock’s portrayal of chemical weaponry is widely known as being the most painstakingly researched [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Noam Murro is going to direct Die Hard 5. Let that roll around in your head for a while. If you’re like me, you don’t even recognize the name. It’s okay. I had to look it up. Murro directed the fairly average, not quite as annoying as it could have been indie dramedy Smart People a few years back. Now, he’s going to be directing Die Hard 5. According to Deadline Gary, the newcomer/commercial veteran impressed Fox with his ad campaign for Halo: Reach. Check it out for yourself and see if you’re equally impressed:

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this shit late at night, what do you expect?

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this shit late at night, what do you expect?

After our inspired list of Die Hard sequel ideas, it’s clear that Fox is passing on all of them (including, somehow, Die Hard: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire) in favor of filming something with a bit more Latin flavor. In other news, Bruce Willis wasn’t joking about another Die Hard movie. The fifth in the series will reportedly film in 2011 in Puerto Rico, down South America way. It follows Bad Boys II and Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights in the grand tradition of filming there, although there’s no word on the plot yet. Plus, it’s also filming in New York, Los Angeles and Vancouver (which I’m told is also somewhere down South America way, but I can’t find it on the map). [Latino Review]

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr makes a complete and total jackass of himself by enjoying the hell out of Red and being more excited than he should about the prospects of Jackass 3D. He realizes that it may be the beginning of award season, but that won’t stop him from watching a movie about bodily fluids flying at the camera in 3D and getting mildly turned on by Helen Mirren firing a Gatling gun while wearing an evening gown.

It’s been a long time since a single film has featured the acting talent assembled in RED. But if there’s one thing this halfhearted action-comedy proves, it’s this: even Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and John Malkovich (not to mention Mary-Louise Parker, Brian Cox and Ernest Borgnine) can’t enliven a story as deadly as that crafted by screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber, based on the Warren Ellis/Cully Hamner graphic novel. Co-opting the age old, out of retirement for one last fling blueprint, the film follows retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Willis) as he and his former colleagues are forced back into the game when government spooks try to rub them out. Heavily armed and dangerous geriatrics Joe Matheson (Freeman), the wiry and paranoid Marvin Boggs (Malkovich) and the distinguished Victoria (Mirren) assist Frank in some serious butt kicking, supplemented by quirky quips and knowing, wizened back and forth banter.

There’s a world out there where people get shot more than they get paper cuts. It’s a world where alliances change, people might be out to kill you, but nothing’s ever all that big a deal. It’s just a Tuesday, and the black ops have busted into your home to end your life. Red might just be the best romantic comedy of the year featuring Helen Mirren on a piece of heavy artillery. Frank (Bruce Willis) is a former CIA agent who’s attacked in his home just when he’s close to asking out Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), a woman he calls the Federal Pension Program help line to speak with on a regular basis. The retired don’t know about Facebook yet. He draws her into a world of former spooks who are also being targeted, including a suave gentleman (played by Morgan Freeman), a paranoid stuffed pig enthusiast (John Malkovich) and a gorgeous lady with a penchant for wet work (Helen Mirren).

For many — especially those who love to see things stabbed, shot and ‘sploded with maximum force — all you really need from a legendary badass team-up like The Expendables is the action. There is no need for story or character development, no use for sharp or witty dialog, and no room for romance. It’s all about the loudest and most violent moments that the mind of director Sylvester Stallone can deliver. Nothing else really matters, right? Perhaps. But consider this. The Expendables flick that’s been playing out in your mind since the moment the project was announced is the epitome of a “no holds barred thrill ride,” is it not? A non-stop smattering of violence hung together by a generic, but mostly logical plot. It never lets up, does it? Unlike that movie that’s been playing in your head, the real Expendables film is a mixed bag. Inside this bag is the action that’s been promised from day one, the gigantic men of action making their requisite appearances (if only momentary, in some cases) and plenty of bodies to be piled up at the end of the day. Also in this bag is an unseemly amount of character and plot. Remember that thing you didn’t need in this testosterone-a-thon? Yeah, that’s all there. In just as much bulk as the stuff that you did want.

I’m apt to employ the term temple when describing Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse. It is a place of holy reverence for cinema of all genres and visible levels of technical proficiency. The people who own and operate this glorious shrine to film are tried-and-true movie geeks and they know how to put together events that allow for communal worship and celebration of our passion. Last year they unleashed an event that, by its close, had graduated to force of nature: Cinemapocalypse. The premise was that Quentin Tarantino wanted to premier Inglourious Basterds in Austin and the epic epicness of that film called for something a bit more grandiose than a simple screening. So along with Basterds, QT brought two other films; personal favorites of his that inspired the main attraction. Veteran character actor, and all-around badass Robert Forster then introduced a film of his own and the evening concluded with two more films; six in total. The event ran all through the night and well into the next day. The first Cinemapocalypse was so loaded to the gills with pure awesome that its aforementioned awesomeness could not be contained within or quelled by just one event. It was a cinch that a second Cinemapocalypse would follow, but the anchor film would have to be something unbelievably amazing to match the power of Nazi killing and Hitler exploding. Luckily, Sylvester Stallone reached into his most manly of chests, ripped out a bloody rib, and gave birth to the ensemble of testosterone that [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

When I visited the set of Summit Entertainment’s Red earlier this year, I had an idea that it might be sort of fun. Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren (among others) playing former CIA assassins who must band together to fight against the Agency that’s now hunting them? Sure, that sounds like a blast. But it wasn’t until this new trailer — one that played to crowds at Comic-Con and has since hit the web — that I was completely sold. It’s not the dark, grim tale that Warren Ellis wrote in his comic. It’s something different. Something fun and in many ways, completely absurd. But damn, does it look fun. After the jump you can check out the new trailer, as well as a few new images from the film.