Dracula Year Zero Rises at Universal

[Fallen Angel]

Right, right I get you bit you know what I mean flash forward however many hundreds of years to a time when Van Helsing is running around somewhere.

 

[Gort Baringa]

I am in agreement that I would rather be scared of Dracula than to root for him.

This being said, the films looks pretty good from the trailer.

And, is that Charles Dance as the vampire who creates Dracula?

 

[Hush]

Universal has taken down the trailer, this is so annoying!

 

[Blitzkrieg Bop]

Again, this.
http://www.upcominghorrormovies.com/movie/dracula-untold

 

[Lord]

The trailer did look pretty cool, but i'm not sure how to feel about this project, the Director and screenwriters don't seem to have any past work to compare and these types of film are usualy pretty bad, i hope it entertains. If it's good enough, this could kick off Universal's planned relaunch of Universal Horror.

If this is a success maybe spin off in to Van Helsing?

That film is already being planned, so far, along with The Mummy, are the only ones that are suposedly going to be part of the relaunched Universal Horror, taking place in modern days. If this film is successful, i could see them turning Van Helsing into a sort of follow up, the opening and ending of the trailer even seemed to pay homage to classic Universal Horror.

 

[Drz]

Ah Dracula, the franchise that dearly needed a 3rd act cgi extravaganza in the form of a bat swarm.

PS. I really can't wait for someone in TUMBLR to get offended how the trailer calls the Ottoman empire "evil". lol. You can't call Muslims that! (note: the joke is about people being offended at everything these days)

 

[Blitzkrieg Bop]

I welcome this movie. It's a little cliche to make him the fallen hero, but I still wanna see this. Bat punch is cool.

 

[Jick]

Oh damn! I missed the trailer. I really want to watch it.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Hmmm... I see some good stuff in this trailer but I can see why they took it down so quickly. Some things in it just feel... off, like when the title of the movie shows up about an eighth of the way in. Still, I like Evans, Charles Dance and Dominic Cooper, so I'll give it a shot.

Also, watching this does make me still kinda wish Evans had been cast as Batman.

 

[slumcat]

Hmmm... I see some good stuff in this trailer but I can see why they took it down so quickly. Some things in it just feel... off, like when the title of the movie shows up about an eighth of the way in. Still, I like Evans, Charles Dance and Dominic Cooper, so I'll give it a shot.

Also, watching this does make me still kinda wish Evans had been cast as Batman.

This is one thing I will agree with. He has the look, voice, intensity and the physicality. And plus he's young, so we could have gotten a young Batman with 6 movies to look forward to. Plus he has a very very good bantering rapport with Henry Cavill. I daresay his reception would have been infinitely better and less controversial than Affleck. But ah, that ship has sailed.

 

[Sawyer]

I don't give a rat's ass about controversial. I've found the mass controversy over Affleck's casting idiotic and fickle from day one. If the Twitterverse wants to behave like Daredevil and Gigli and all that **** from ten years ago are the only movies in Affleck's repertoire, that's their problem.

 

[slumcat]

What makes you think it is only those movies?

I haven't even seen Daredevil and Gigli and I still think he is an awful actor.

So there.

 

[Marvolo]

Well you're certainly entitled to that opinion. But I wonder if you've seen truly awful acting. Uwe Bowl films and The Room have awful acting. Hayden Christensen in the Prequels that is bad acting. Not awful, but bad nonetheless. Affleck in Good Will Hunting, Argo, and The Town however is far from awful.

 

[Tim_Riggins]

Some people just like to think they can tell good acting from bad acting but they're just fooling themselves.

Say all you want about Affleck, he's proven himself, especially lately to be an excellent actor: Good Will Hunting, Chasing Amy (which might be one of his finest, most underrated performances), Hollywoodland, The Town (one of his best, underrated as well), Argo, The Company Men (I mean seriously, he's fantastic in it). And I wouldn't be surprised if he slayed it in Gone Girl.

What I like about him is that he's not over the top, he's fairly subdued & subtle in a lot of his work, it's very internal & I like that a thousand times more than a clown being over the top & overacting (not to say that being over the top can't be good for certain roles of course)

 

[slumcat]

Well you're certainly entitled to that opinion. But I wonder if you've seen truly awful acting. Uwe Bowl films and The Room have awful acting. Hayden Christensen in the Prequels that is bad acting. Not awful, but bad nonetheless. Affleck in Good Will Hunting, Argo, and The Town however is far from awful.

Well there is no fixed good and bad you know, good and bad are never absolute only relative. So maybe I have seen far better acting that Affleck seems awful to me.

But even in Argo and Town, I find him wooden and dull, monotonous. I for the life of me cannot say he is a skilled thespian or anything of that sort. He's more tolerable in some films compared to another, but he's never earned more than a pass grade in my book - he's just absolutely unremarkable to me and not an actor I am specially clamoring to see. But he's working with directors I am interested in so I see his movies.

 

[Lord]

Well you're certainly entitled to that opinion. But I wonder if you've seen truly awful acting. Uwe Bowl films and The Room have awful acting. Hayden Christensen in the Prequels that is bad acting. Not awful, but bad nonetheless. Affleck in Good Will Hunting, Argo, and The Town however is far from awful.

Honestly, he's passable at best, when he's directing, he's able to make a decent performance, but nothing remarkable. Showing the absolute worst actings possible doesn't realy make Ben Affleck any better, that's why they're considered extremes.

 

[Marvolo]

Well there is no fixed good and bad you know, good and bad are never absolute only relative. So maybe I have seen far better acting that Affleck seems awful to me.

But even in Argo and Town, I find him wooden and dull, monotonous. I for the life of me cannot say he is a skilled thespian or anything of that sort. He's more tolerable in some films compared to another, but he's never earned more than a pass grade in my book - he's just absolutely unremarkable to me and not an actor I am specially clamoring to see. But he's working with directors I am interested in so I see his movies.

I understand that he isn't your cup of tea. Everyone likes what they like. There are a few quality actors and actresses that I don't enjoy watching for one subjective reason or another, but I wouldn't say they are awful at their craft simply because I don't enjoy them on screen.

Honestly, he's passable at best, when he's directing, he's able to make a decent performance, but nothing remarkable. Showing the absolute worst actings possible doesn't realy make Ben Affleck any better, that's why they're considered extremes.

I pointed out the worst to show that saying Afflek is "awful" is an exaggeration. The Room has some truly awful acting, and I've never seen Affleck give a performance that was anywhere near as bad as what's on display in The Room. Let's keep things in perspective.

 

[Lord]

In that case, yeah, he's not awful, though a poster could easily consider him bad, i myself think he's going to be passable, but i'm more interested in the promise that now he may direct a JL or Batman film than what he may bring as an actor.

The film looks like it may be on the very least entertaining, Van Helsing was a guilty pleasure of mine, if this one follows the gothic look it seems to be following in the trailer, then i'll probably enjoy it quite a bit.

Oh damn! I missed the trailer. I really want to watch it.

You missed it because you wanted to, Blitzkrieg Bop keeps sending a link to a site where the trailer can be viewed:

http://www.upcominghorrormovies.com/movie/dracula-untold

Scroll down to the videos.

 

[Tim_Riggins]

Once again, an actor giving a subdued, quiet & subtle performance without making crazy facial expressions every single second = wooden & dull for some. Wow, just wow.

That's precisely why we can't have debates on that kind of thing. There is no fixed good or bad? There's talk about The Room above, let's take that example: Tommy Wiseau: FIXED BAD, awful beyond belief, that's awful acting as said, the kind that's blatant, that even a guy who wouldn't know anything about the craft, would know that he's bad.

Taylor Lautner: fixed bad. There are plenty of examples like this one. DiCaprio: FIXED GOOD, McConaughey: fixed good, etc, etc, etc.

Affleck in some of his best roles? FIXED GOOD, not convinced by The Town or Argo? I don't know, watch Chasing Amy, then try once again saying that he's dull, wooden. Geez. I realize I'm wasting my breath trying to "convince" (there's nothing to convince about anyway) some of you, but come on. I could pursue the rant by being really arrogant, but I'm gonna stop there.

 

[Lord]

Once again, an actor giving a subdued, quiet & subtle performance without making crazy facial expressions every single second = wooden & dull for some. Wow, just wow.

I think that now you're just exagerating, nobody's saying he's weak for not being over the top, Joaquin Phoenix in Her and Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs were subdued performances, but they still were impressive. In his best, Ben Affleck just comes across to me as alright, nothing special.

 

[Tim_Riggins]

I'm not exaggerating, the "oh he's so wooden" phrase is being thrown around a lot & usually never in the right context. I just hate that.

It's like you saying about Phoenix's performance in Her that it's impressive. Huh? He's fantastic in Her, but is a performance supposed to be impressive? The actor becomes the character, or just fades away only for the character to exist, they are instead of pretending to be, the adjective impressive just rubs me in the wrong way in this context.

Anyway, I've seen many times some great performances being ignored or diminished by people because they didn't like the actor himself and couldn't make the distinction btw the two.

 

[slumcat]

Once again, an actor giving a subdued, quiet & subtle performance without making crazy facial expressions every single second = wooden & dull for some. Wow, just wow.

That's precisely why we can't have debates on that kind of thing. There is no fixed good or bad? There's talk about The Room above, let's take that example: Tommy Wiseau: FIXED BAD, awful beyond belief, that's awful acting as said, the kind that's blatant, that even a guy who wouldn't know anything about the craft, would know that he's bad.

Taylor Lautner: fixed bad. There are plenty of examples like this one. DiCaprio: FIXED GOOD, McConaughey: fixed good, etc, etc, etc.

Affleck in some of his best roles? FIXED GOOD, not convinced by The Town or Argo? I don't know, watch Chasing Amy, then try once again saying that he's dull, wooden. Geez. I realize I'm wasting my breath trying to "convince" (there's nothing to convince about anyway) some of you, but come on. I could pursue the rant by being really arrogant, but I'm gonna stop there.

Sigh. There is an ocean between subdued and wooden. Infact my favorite performances are all underplayed and I actually more or less dont like overacting at all (like most Meryl Streep performances these days).

To me some of the greatest performances in past few years are in Amour, Mother and Poetry. Have you seen these films? They are almost excessively restrained. And I absolutely love that. My favorite actor is Isabelle Huppert who wouldn't be caught dead actually emoting, she is just natural and constantly underplays. She can convey an ocean of thought with just her impassive face. Great acting is all in the eyes. And Affleck in that regard is dull and wooden and lifeless.

Watch some of the examples I cited to see the contrast. Hollywood infact is very rarely capable of restrained or naturalistic acting (Affleck is certainly not an example jeez) - it seems to be a European pre-occupation now.

And regarding fixed good and fixed bad, I don't even know what it means, but acting is still not objective. Like your fixed good example of DiCaprio, I find him strictly ok and very bad a lot of the times (The Great Gatsby etc.) and very good some times (J. Edgar).

 

[Rowsdower!]

Well, sh**. Sorry, didn't mean to turn this into a thread about Affleck. I have no problem with his casting; I just think Evans could have made an interesting Batman.

Anyway, I really hope this movie turns out to be pretty good. There is certainly enough talent there from an acting standpoint but I worry that this will turn out like I, Frankenstein. Even if it's on the level of something like Solomon Kane I don't think that will resonate with people... Dracula is such a familiar name that I think people want to see something new done with the character. Even though this movie clearly intends to show them that, I think it has to be really, really well done to make people care.

 

[Hush]

Anyway, THIS MOVIE, looks like it will be very very fun. I like Evans a lot.

 

[Lord]

It doesn't look near as bad as I, Frankenstein, but i fear it may not be too good either, bat fist is a fun but also shlocky idea, i just hope it can be fun and deliver interesting visuals like Van Helsing, though i'm hopeful this one will be better regarded.