EXCL: UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING STAR KATE BECKINSALE TALKS SELENE, SEQUEL, TOTAL RECALL: PART TWO

Underworld: Awakening opens in theatres today, so as a release day treat, here is part two the Dark Lord Bunnykins’ chat with lead actress Kate Beckinsale:

 

Regarding Selene, what is about her that you like and does she serve any particular function for you as an actress, like getting out your aggression for instance?

No, not really. I do think I’m attracted to female roles that are kind of empowering and interesting and complicated, in whatever kind of movie, whether it’s a comedy… I think it’s important to have those criteria to make it interesting for yourself, or drama or whatever. It just happens to be in a genre movie. But that genre tends to also be one of the few that really does celebrate an empowered woman. So it’s not necessarily something that I want to only do, and I wouldn’t only want to do a comedy for the rest of my life either, but the fact that I get to play these kind of women I think is very attractive.

EXCLUSIVE! XAVIER GENS TALKS “THE DIVIDE”

Frontiere(s) director Xavier Gens’ apocalyptic thriller The Divide gets a release today in Toronto and Winnipeg, the city in which it was filmed. Genre stalwart Michael Biehn (Aliens, The Terminator) stars as the caretaker of an apartment building who takes several residents into the building’s basement shelter when nuclear war devastates the outside world. But dwindling supplies and hope leads to a breakdown of both civility and civilization.

The DLB recently spoke to Gens from Morocco where he was filming a commercial.

EXCLUSIVE! KATE BECKINSALE TALKS “UNDERWORLD AWAKENING”: PART ONE

The DLB recently spoke to Underworld Evolution star Kate Beckinsale about the fourth entry in the ongoing werewolf/vampire franchise. Here are a few excerpts:

 

After you made Underworld Evolution, how did you feel about the possibility of making another Underworld film, and at what point did playing Selene again start to seem like a good idea?

Well, I didn’t think I was going to. I was told that the plan was to do a trilogy. I knew that the third one was a prequel and my character wasn’t around for that. I honestly didn’t think about it at all apart from occasionally when I was promoting another movie somebody would ask me about it, and I’d constantly say, ‘No, no, no. That’s it,’ because I thought it was! So it was only a little before we shot the movie that they came and asked, ‘Would you think about it?’ And I thought, well, okay, but it would have to be quite a different journey for the character to go on to make it interesting for people to watch and also to play the part.

WRETCHED REVIEWS: THE DEVIL INSIDE

THE DEVIL INSIDE

Starring Fernanda Andrade, Suzan Crowley and Simon Quarterman

Directed by William Brent Bell

Written by William Brent Bell & Matthew Peterman

Paramount

 

It’s not that The Devil Inside could not have been an entertaining film. The idea of a young woman (Andrade) traveling to Rome to find out the truth about why her mother was committed to a mental hospital in Rome after killing three people twenty years earlier in what appears to be an exorcism gone wrong holds promise. But coming as it does thirteen years after The Blair Witch Project, two years after Paranormal Activity, and one year after The Rite, the idea of a found footage exorcism movie seems about as fresh as the pea green puke Reagan projectile vomited onto Father Karras in The Exorcist back in 1973.

TERRIFYING TUESDAYS: FINAL DESTINATION 5

FINAL DESTINATION 5

Starring Nicholas D’Agosto, Miles Fisher and Emma Bell

Directed by Steven Quayle

Written by Eric Heisserer

New Line/Warner Home Entertainment

 

Let’s face it: you pretty much know what you are going to get with Final Destination 5. But the filmmakers have been clever enough (and respectful enough of the audience) to come up with another sequel which, while not strictly necessary, is a huge improvement over the last instalment, 2009’s execrable The Final Destination.

WRETCHED REVIEWS: “THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO”

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

Starring Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig and Christopher Plummer

Directed by David Fincher

Written by Steve Zaillian from the novel by Stieg Larsson

Columbia Pictures

First of all, macabre movie fans, yes, we do get to hear Karen O, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s version of Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” in a stunning opening credits sequence that rivals anything Maurice Binder ever created for the early Bonds and makes me want to get in line to watch this film again.

That aside, there are many reasons for horror fans to want to see this film: David Fincher’s dark, edgy aesthetic is in full effect; Rooney Mara is a Goth goddess, more frail physically than Noomi Rapace, the original Lisbeth Salander, but still tough as nails; and Reznor and Ross’s score walks the line between eerie and ambient.

DEVIANT DVD: “SAINT” (2010)

SAINT

Starring Egbert Jan Weeber, Bert Luppes and Huub Stapel

Written and directed by Dick Maas

eOne Entertainment

The recent angry Facebook status updates I have noticed from those looking to reclaim their right to wish people “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays” speaks to just how protective some people get about Christmas… sorry, the holiday season. Similarly, the Dutch take their equivalent, Sinterklaas, very seriously, to the point where poet and artist Quinsy Gario was pepper sprayed and arrested in Dordrecht, Holland, last month for wearing a  homemade T-shirt that read “Zwarte Piet is Racism.” (Zwarte Piet — or Black Pete — is Sinterklaas’s Sambo-like servant.)

MARTIN GORE AND VINCE CLARKE TEAM UP AS VCMG

Martin Gore (l) and Vince Clarke. Photo: Travis Shinn

 

This was unexpected. It seems that Depeche Mode co-founder Vince Clare, who left the band 30 years ago to for Yazoo and then Erasure, phone fellow DM compatriot Martin Gore earlier this year to form the project VCMG. A new EP is imminent, with an album to follow

OHGR ANNOUNCES WEST COAST NORTH AMERICAN TOUR

Skinny Puppy vocalist Ogre has announced West Coast North American tour dates for his ohGr project with Mark Walk. The tour is in support of the band’s latest album unDeveloped.

 

Dec 1 Bottom of the Hill San Fran, CA Dec 2 Hawthorne Theatre Portland, OR Dec 3 El Corazon Seattle, WA Dec 4 Rickshaw Vancouver, BC Dec 6 The Complex Salt Lake City, UT

Dec 7 Bluebird Theatre Denver, CO Dec 9 Nile Phoenix, AZ Dec 10 Constellation Room Santa Ana, CA Dec 11 El Rey Los Angeles, CA

HORROR BAND MOTIONLESS IN WHITE DEBUTS BLOODY NEW VIDEO

Pennsylvania-based horror rock band Motionless In White recently debuted the video for their new single “Immaculate Misconception” on FearNet. Directed by Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider’s son Cody Blue Snider, the clip features MIW singer Chris Motionless channeling his idol Marilyn Manson in a conceptual clip that sees him attacked by religious protestors and fighting back. Dee himself even shows up as a Roman soldier tasked with whipping Chris prior to his crucifixion.