Evil Dead II

This semi-sequel to Sam Raimi's cult hit The Evil Dead is filled with hyperkinetic camera acrobatics, rapid-fire editing and "splatstick" gore effects ... not to mention a truly goofy performance by Bruce Campbell. Nearly the entire storyline of the previous film has been re-shot and presented in a drastically condensed form within the first few minutes: rock-jawed but clueless "hero" Ash (Campbell) now visits the mountain cabin only with girlfriend Linda (played here by Denise Bixler). Upon arrival at the cabin, Ash discovers the Sumerian Book of the Dead, the ritual dagger and a reel-to-reel tape containing the professor's translations of the book's hieroglyphics. The incantations summon an unseen, growling spirit from within the woods, which bursts into the cabin and takes possession of Linda's soul. Ash is forced to decapitate her with a shovel, after which he buries her in the forest. At first dawn, Ash tries to make his escape, but is promptly set upon by the spirits, given a solid thrashing and nearly possessed himself, saved only by the arrival of sunlight. Cut off from the outside world, Ash is forced to hole up in the cabin and wait for the next demonic onslaught -- which arrives sooner than expected, led by Linda's rotting corpse. After being bitten by Linda's chatty decapitated head, Ash's hand becomes independent of his body and begins pummeling him repeatedly. 

The story then jumps to a local airport, where the professor's daughter Annie (Sarah Berry) and her partner Ed Getley (Richard Domeier) have just arrived with the missing pages to the Necronomicon. They employ a cranky pair of local rednecks, Jake (Dan Hicks) and Bobbie Joe (Kassie Wesley), as guides to lead them through the dense woods to the cabin ... where, at that very moment, Ash is removing his belligerent hand with a chainsaw, creating yet another ambulatory foe. Driven to the brink of insanity, Ash fires blindly at a noise outside, unaware that the new arrivals are Annie and company. Bobbie Joe is injured by the gunshot, which incurs the wrath of Jake, who knocks Ash senseless and locks him in the fruit cellar. Believing her father was murdered by Ash, Annie plays the rest of the professor's recording to learn the truth, and discovers her possessed mother was buried in the same cellar -- and not exactly resting in peace. This touches off a string of unbelievably gruesome (and hysterically funny) events, including Henrietta's transformation into a stop-motion creature (reminiscent of a Ray Harryhausen creation), Ed's sudden metamorphosis into a toothy, levitating ghoul, and Ash's climactic confrontation with the forest demon itself. The obvious glee with which Raimi and company present this cavalcade of slime-drenched monstrosities and Three Stooges pratfalls makes it impossible to take seriously as a horror film, but Evil Dead 2 is nevertheless essential viewing among connoisseurs of truly demented cinema. 

Film Context

Breaking Bad film

Breaking Bad has a previous audience, therefore it would be good to make a blockbuster out of the TV series.

Movie Name: ?---

Actors: Bruce Willis, Jared Leto

Iconic moment:  Gustavo Face off scene

CGI: meth explosions, 

How does your film fit the blockbuster criteria?

It would be hard for the film to be a global appeal because Breaking Bad is set in New Mexico, so it would be hard to sell to other countries such as the UK. However Breaking Bad has a really large fan base so devoted fans would flock to the cinema to see the film. There is also a lot of products for the TV series. Stunts and explosions could come under SFX/CGI because the production that goes into stunts and explosions still costs a lot. Fans would find a Breaking Bad film enjoyable because there is meaning behind the plot rather than the same bad Vs good plot. Walter White is seen as more of a vigilante by fans even though his acts are illegal. But because they are justified, his means to keep his family alive and greed, drives his determination, which is something that many people can relate to.

With new technology developing, such as Television (advertisement and trailers), internet (piracy), this has changed the way the audience look at films and expect from them (more spectacles). New markets, 3D, these are all the aspects that have developed since 1973. Most movies are childish as the main target audience are the youths, who see the grand marketing and trailers (which is all hyped up to gain the youth attention), those youths decide to go to the cinema to watch the movie. They're making pre-sold films to gain the attention of the youth audience who are distracted by games and internet (interactive audience). Therefore they have to bring the "old" stories back in a new light (CGI, spectacles). They bring in spectacles and do hyped marketing, inorder to bring the youths back into the cinema. They use I-max, 3D effects, high technology to attract the young audience back into the cinema. 

Technology reasons:

• Cut costs by generating effects on computer, style over substance.
• Better quality, better viewing experience.
• Special effects attract audience, spectacle.
• Audience goes to cinema to see big screen, 3D, event etc.
• 3D gets people back in the cinema.

Economic reasons: 

• Easier for people to download films therefore they don't go to the cinema, therefore it's harder to gain  a profit.
• More money put in creates an event, you get money back.
• More money means it difficult to be creative.
• Pre-sold films sell for more because they stick to an idea that sells.

Social reasons:

• Recognisable fan-base, come back to see what's changed, reboot? Have to be pre-sold in order to gain money back, fans buy into franchises.
• Losing interest in cinema, less people go, watch it online.
• Pre-sold films get interest back.
• The audience doesn't just watch films, into interacting (gaming etc)
• Blockbuster's rely on marketing not just word-of-mouth.
• Producers don't want to make a original film incase they lose money so they follow what they know has sold well.

RoboCop Synopsis

BUDGET: $13 million

In 2028, multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Overseas, their drones have been used by the military for years but the Dreyfuss Act, a publically-supported act preventing drones from being allowed to bear firearms, prevents the drones from being used locally. OmniCorp CEO Raymond Sellars has his marketing team, in conjunction with scientist Dr. Dennett Norton, to create a new law enforcement product by combining human and machine in the hopes of changing public opinion and raising OmniCorp's profits.

Policeman Alex Murphy is critically injured by a carbomb planted by crooked cops outside his house under the payroll of local crime boss Antoine Vallon. Norton picks Murphy for the Robocop program, and after getting consent from Murphy's wife, Clara, has him outfitted with the Robocop body and software, which gives him enhanced strength along with instant computing information in his brain. Alex at first rejects his current condition, but is convinced by Norton to be strong for his wife and son. Rick Mattox, OmniCorp's military tactician, is skeptical of Alex's abilities and points out he will never be as efficient as a drone. In order to make Alex perform better, Norton tampers with Alex's brain, making him believe that his tactical decisions are his own when he is actually executing programs.

While preparing for a public press conference to unveil Robocop, Alex is emotionally overwhelmed and has a seizure while downloading the police database information into his brain. Pressed for time, Norton has Alex's brain chemistry altered, lowering his dopamine levels until he no longer displays any emotions. Under control, Alex attends the press conference, where he ignores his waiting wife and son, and efficiently apprehends a criminal in the crowd. RoboCop is a public relations success, and afterward Alex is successful in drastically reducing the crime rate in Detroit. Public opinion on the Dreyfuss Act begins to turn.

Clara, who has been prevented by OmniCorp from seeing Alex, manages to confront her husband as he is leaving the station, telling him about his son David's nightmares. Alex leaves, but then overrides his programming and detours from his current case to go to his house. He reviews the CCTV footage of his accident and realizes that David saw his body and was traumatized by it. Alex then pursues Vallon for revenge, tracking him down to a warehouse where Alex then kills everyone. Alex then returns to the station to apprehend the two cops who sold him out; they tell him that the Chief of Police is in on it. Alex kills the two cops, and is about to arrest the Chief of Police when Mattox, who has been given full access to the Robocop program, remotely shuts him down.

Sellars decides to spin this turn of events to his advantage, via television presenter Pat Novak, who thanks RoboCop for revealing the fallibility of the police, and points out that drones are incorruptible. A repeal of the Dreyfuss Act goes underway, with votes overwhelmingly in support of the repeal. Sellars tells Norton that RoboCop is no longer relevant, and sends Mattox to destroy him. Norton reaches Alex in the lab first and has him brought back to consciousness, telling him everything. Alex, feeling betrayed, goes after Sellars.

Sellars has the OmniCorp building shut down and armed with drones. Alex manages to gain entry with the help of his former partner, Jack Lewis (Michael K. Williams) and other police officers. Alex reaches the roof, where Sellars is waiting for a helicopter and has Clara and David as hostages. Alex's programming prevents him from arresting Sellars, but he manages to overcome it just long enough to shoot Sellars, killing him.

In the closing scenes, OmniCorp's parent company, OCP, decides to review the drone and RoboCop program. The President vetoes the repeal of the Dreyfuss Act based on the testimony of Norton, who confesses everything they'd done in the RoboCop program. Alex's body is rebuilt in Norton's laboratory, and then he waits for Clara and David, who are coming to visit him.

Film Pitch

Sundance Film Festival 2014

The 2014 Sundance Film Festival kicked off on Jan. 16, once again bringing dozens of new and innovative films to Park City, Utah. The 11 day event, which runs through Jan. 26, featured stars such as actor and festival founder Robert Redford.

WHIPLASH

The film Whiplash was premiered is about a drama about an aspiring drummer (Miles Teller) who is criticized by his art college professor (J.K. Simmons) has received one of the warmest receptions for an opening film in recent memory at the Sundance festival. Miles Teller — who can be seen on screen later this month with Zac Efron in That Awkward Moment — took four-hour drum lessons three times a week to play the lead in Whiplash, shown below in the movie scenes.

CAMP X-RAY

Camp X-Ray is about a young woman who joins the military to be part of something bigger than herself and her small-town roots. Instead, she ends up as a new guard at Guantanamo Bay, where her mission is far from black and white. Surrounded by hostile jihadists and aggressive squadmates, she strikes up an unusual friendship with one of the detainees. As two people on opposite sides of a war, they struggle to find their way through the ethical quagmire of Guantanamo Bay. In the process, they form an unlikely bond that changes them both.

INFINITELY POLAR BEAR

The year is 1978, and the Stuart family is struggling to hold it together. Cameron (played by Mark Ruffalo), is a bipolar father, and has had a nervous breakdown that leaves him unemployable, and Maggie, a hardworking mother, can’t quite make ends meet. Despite Cameron’s aristocratic genes and the couple’s top-notch education, they’re broke. When Maggie decides to accept a scholarship to pursue her MBA in New York, she must leave her daughters, Faith and Amelia, in Boston with their now-somewhat-convalesced father. So begins an untamed, unpredictable, 18-month experiment as eccentric, exuberant Cameron takes over primary parenting of his precocious, sensitive little girls. 

Inspired by writer/director Maya Forbes’s childhood, Infinitely Polar Bear lovingly and honestly portrays the pain and frustration of being raised by a father incapable of managing adult responsibilities and explores the gifts inherent in not being sheltered from that reality.

Jack Reacher Spoiler

At the beginning of the film a man drives a van into a parking garage across the Allegheny River from PNC Park and, after dropping a quarter into the meter, readies a sniper rifle. He takes aim and kills five people on the river’s North Shore Trail from long range before fleeing in the van. The police soon arrive at the scene of the murder, headed by Detective Emerson (David Oyelowo), and discover a shell casing as well as the quarter used to pay for parking. A fingerprint taken from the coin points to James Barr, a former U.S. Army sniper. When the police raid his house, they find the van, equipment for making bullets, the rifle in question, and Barr, fast asleep in his bed.

During an interrogation by Emerson and the District Attorney, Alex Rodin (Richard Jenkins), Barr is offered a choice between life in prison in exchange for a full confession or guaranteed death row, as Rodin has never failed to convict. Thinking Barr is going to confess when he takes the notepad, they are bewildered when he instead writes "Get Jack Reacher". Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is a drifter and former U.S. Army Military Police Corps officer. Reacher later arrives in Pittsburgh after seeing a news report about Barr and the shooting. Emerson and Rodin deny Reacher’s request to view the evidence but agree to let him see the suspect. Barr, as it turns out, was brutally attacked by fellow inmates while in police custody and is now in a coma. Reacher meets Barr’s defense attorney, counselor Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike), the District Attorney’s daughter, who's been saddled with the apparently hopeless task of saving Barr from the death penalty.

Helen says she can arrange for Reacher to see the evidence if he will become her lead investigator. Reacher retorts that he is not interested in clearing Barr. He reveals that Barr had gone on a killing spree during his tour in Iraq but was not prosecuted because his victims were under investigation for major crimes — and the U.S. Army wants them forgotten. Reacher vowed that if Barr tried anything like this again, he would take him down.

Reacher agrees to investigate if Helen visits the victims’ families to learn about the people murdered that day. Reacher goes to the crime scene and finds inconsistencies about this location, thinking that a trained shooter would have done the killings from the cover of the van on the nearby Fort Duquesne Bridge. After Helen reports her findings about the victims to Reacher, he suggests that the owner of a local construction company was the intended victim, with the killing of the other victims intended as a cover-up.

After an apparently spurious bar fight, Reacher realizes that someone is attempting to strong-arm him into dropping his investigation. Reacher is later framed for the murder of the young woman who was paid to instigate the bar-room brawl, but this only motivates him further. Reacher eventually follows up a lead at a shooting range in the neighboring state of Ohio, owned by former U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Martin Cash, who will talk only if Reacher will demonstrate his U.S. Army sniping skills.

The real perpetrators are the members of a Russian gang, who are masquerading as legitimate businessmen. The gang's elderly leader spent much of his life in a Soviet Gulag and is known only as the Zec (prisoner). The gang kidnaps Helen with the aid of Detective Emerson and holds her hostage at a quarry. Reacher outwits the mob guards, killing them with Cash's help, before confronting the Zec about the conspiracy. Reacher kills the Zec to prevent him from eluding justice.

Reacher and Cash flee the scene with confidence that Helen will clear Reacher's name. When Barr awakens from his coma, he tells Helen that he has no recent memory but believes that he must be guilty of the shootings. Barr's mental reconstruction of how he would have committed the shootings confirms that Reacher's theory was correct from the beginning. Still unaware of all these developments, Barr is willing to confess and accept his punishment, fearing that Reacher will mete out justice if the law does not.