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We're well seasoned when it comes to suspending disbelief and buying into a fairly incredible premise. But as technology becomes more advanced, it seems movie storylines are becoming even more implausible and outrageous. Disney's Tron: Legacy follows an abandoned son (Garrett Hedlund) who is transported into a computer world in order to find his missing father (Jeff Bridges). Digitizing a human being and placing him in a cyberworld could be a difficult plot for audiences to swallow ... if they hadn't already bought it in the 1982 original.
But Tron isn't the only movie to proclaim that "technology can do anything." We look back on 10 movies that take technology to the limit — and then kept going and going.
Is your favorite on the list? >>
Posted 12.17.10 by reelz -
Christopher "Ludacris" Bridges has made one of the most difficult crossovers for a performer to make, transitioning from foul-mouthed rapper to respected actor, earning roles in such Oscar-winning films as Crash and Hustle & Flow. Bridges is about to hit the big-screen again, this time in the sci-fi thriller Gamer, alongside tough-guy actor Gerard Butler.
In an interview with HipHopWired.com, Bridges is very aware of the difficulties of the transition he is making into feature films and maintains a humble attitude.
I'm taking my time with it and I come in with no ego. I've had a chance to work with a lot of different individuals especially on Crash. It was all kind of A-list actors on there so I just come in and learn before I take on that starring role. I'm just trying to get me feet all the way wet.
Being a successful rapper requires many different talents, one of them being self-promotion, which Bridges seems to have brought with him to his acting career.
[Gamer is] extremely interesting and ... the concept and everything, the graphics, the material and the storyline all comes together well, so I'm proud of that so on Friday people need to show up at the theater and make this thing happen.
Posted 09.03.09 by BrentJS -
Some of the most provocative images from the sci-fi action flick Gamer have nothing to do with the combat-to-the-death Gerard Butler is all wrapped up in. It's the Gamer girls in their skimpy outfits and electric colors who have provided some of the most original eye candy from the movie. Most prominent among them is statuesque former model Amber Valletta, who is featured in some sexed-up poses and outlandish clothing in recent batches of publicity stills.
What you don't see in the pictures, though, is that she is being played by remote control. And it really isn't pretty. The guy making her pose and do things is described as "a morbidly obese (and shirtless!) slug of a man who literally licks his putrid lips in nearly every shot he's given." How's that for contrast? Yikes.
Posted 09.03.09 by reelz -
Although the trailer for Gamer features Marilyn Manson's "Sweet Dreams," not everyone in the movie is so thrilled with the idea of being used and abused. IGN has put together a bunch of footage (some of it new) and cast interviews in a new Gamer featurette that explores the roots of resistance to this future dystopia in which people are manipulated, abused, and even killed for the pleasure of online game players.
In one new clip we get Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, who plays the head of the resistance, laying out for Gerard Butler just how much worse things are going to get for everyone if the nefarious people behind the games aren't stopped soon. Discussing another clip, Amber Valletta explains her character's struggle to maintain integrity even as she is exploited in the debaucherous game "Society."
Posted 09.02.09 by reelz -
Lionsgate used its Twitter page, which is quickly becoming the movie industry standard for updating progress on upcoming movies, to give some "Twitter exclusive" news on two of their upcoming movies:
***twitter exclusive*** KICK-ASS releases 4/16/10... EXPENDABLES arrive 8/20/10... and GAMER hits theaters THIS FRIDAY!!!
Don't worry, Lionsgate isn't mad at you, those capital letters are for emphasis. April is pretty close to Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaugh's assertion that the movie would arrive "early [2010]."
When The Expendables opens in August, writer/director Sylvester Stallone may already be finished with Rambo 5.
And Gamer opens Friday, in case you missed it.
Posted 09.02.09 by Ryan -
Gamer's dystopian future is full of exploitation, where reluctant recruits are manipulated into combat and sex for the pleasure of an idle elite. But it's not all fun and games, even for the master gamers, who are apparently under rather thorough supervision themselves.
In a new clip from the movie, Simon (Logan Lerman), the top gamer, gets an unexpected visit from TV land. The giant flickering head of Humanez Brother (rapper and actor Ludacris) pops up to offer a few choice words of advice about what was presumed to be a private conversation. He comes off as some kind of weird cross between Max Headroom and George Orwell's Big Brother, but he's apparently here to help.
Posted 08.18.09 by reelz -
Who has the biggest gun? The guy with three feet of flame coming out of the barrel, perhaps? More images from Gamer have arrived and they look a lot like promotional shots for a new first-person shooter video game. Ditto for a pair of new international posters for the movie. Gerard Butler, who stars in it as the ultimate cyber-warrior, has promised audiences a load of stylish ultra-violence, and the studio is doing its best to make this flick look like it really delivers.
It is no surprise then that the TV spot that debuted this week blurs the lines between advertising the gladiator-style Slayers game at the center of Gamer and a promotion for the movie itself.
Posted 07.31.09 by reelz -
The main plot line in Gamer involves the use of death row inmates as remote-controlled cyber-gladiators in a battle to the death. But it turns out that there is another game going on here as well. Human avatars are being played like puppets for sex as well as violence.
In this second game, people are being paid or otherwise coerced to play out other people's most debaucherous fantasies. Sort of like Dollhouse, except that the dolls in this case are controlled by a mental link to the person who is playing with them.
The two game lines — the sex and the violence — intersect with top cyber-gladiator Kabel (Gerard Butler), whose wife Angie (Amber Valletta) has gotten caught up in the sex-slave game.
Lots of angles of exploitation here, and it is hardly surprising that those being played have some questions about the maturity of the people playing them. In a pretty funny new clip from the movie, we see Kable explaining to his controller Simon that the game really isn't so cool.
Posted 07.24.09 by reelz -
In an interview over the weekend, Gerard Butler threw out a few pitches for his upcoming dystopian, cyber-gladiator movie Gamer. One of the most interesting was his response to concerns that the movie might be too depressing. Not at all, he suggests. It's really more of an entertaining mix of art and ... "guy juice":
...[it] won't be for every woman, but I know a lot of women who have seen it and loved it cause it's got a lot of guy juice you know, it's got that 300 thing going on, and a lot of women, liked 300 for certain reasons. But at the same time it makes 300 look like a picnic in terms of the violence. But you know, it's also in a way an arthouse action movie because it's surprisingly brave in the way it tries to paint the world and doesn't stop at anything. There's no short cuts here. It's a beautifully painted dark world that we've got into. And I don't think anyone has seen anything like that before.
He certainly has a way with words, in any case.
Posted 07.21.09 by reelz -
Most of what has leaked about Gamer so far is admittedly not very funny. Where's the humor in be manipulated in combat to the death by some master computer geek? But there is a lighter side to this dystopian tale of future gaming, John Leguizamo tells Sci Fi Wire. Leguizamo, who plays the character Freek in the movie, says he is there primarily to provide some comic relief:
I'm like a Renfield in the Dracula story, that crazy guy who's locked up in an insane asylum ... I'm in there; I have all this information, and I'm in the prison. I'm in the game.
In the game, but not involved in the butt-kicking so much. That, he says, he is leaving up to Gerard Butler, who plays Kable, the cyber-gladiator at the center of the action.
Posted 06.10.09 by reelz