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Win tickets to an advance screening of THE LAST EXORCISM

Winners have been chosen! Check your email to see if you’ve won!

In the mood for a scary movie? DumbDrum.com just scored some tickets to a sneak preview of THE LAST EXORCISM (Rated PG-13), and we want to hook you up! Just leave a comment on this post and tell us about your scariest encounter with the paranormal!

The screening will take place Wednesday, August 18th at 7:30pm at Regal Manchester Stadium 16 in Fresno. You have until Monday, August 16th to leave a comment (winners will be contacted by email so use a real one). Check out the trailer below and the synopsis after the break.

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Cross Streets #7 – Divisadero & Fulton

Join Roque and Bryan as they explore the city of Fresno
one cross street at a time in this ongoing web series.

Past Episodes:
#1 – First & Shields, #2 – Fresno & G, #3 – Belmont Loop, #4 – Willow & Friant, #5 – Kings Canyon & Peach, #5 – Kings Canyon & Peach, #6 – Fresno & Belmont

Win tickets to an advance screening of SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD

UPDATE: The winners are in! TheJoaquinDead, James, Ignium, Kelly Brown, John, Brock, Daniel & Danny Hinton are our winners. Thanks so much to everyone who participated and thanks so much for the awesome stories. This post was truly “an epic of epic epicness.”

What a better way to beat the summer heat than with a free movie screening?! DumbDrum.com just scored some tickets to a sneak preview of SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (Rated PG-13), and we want to hook you up! Just leave a comment on this post, telling us about your favorite video game related memory!

The movie screening will take place Tuesday, August 10th at 7:30pm at Edwards Fresno Stadium 22. You have until Friday, July 30th to leave a comment (winners will be contacted by email so use a real one). Check out the trailer below and the synopsis after the break.

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First Look: Anthony Hopkins in “Thor” & Ryan Reynolds as “Green Lantern”

Well the internet gods have blessed us with two new photos from upcoming comic book film adaptations. First up is Anthony Hopkins as Odin in Marvel’s Kenneth Branagh directed “Thor,” which hits theaters next May. Some folks have been calling these costumes plain “ridiculous.” I, on the other hand, think it looks pretty bad ass. I mean, look at Sir Anthony there striking that awesome pose. That’s one bad ass old man right there. But then again, this is coming from someone who’s never read a “Thor” comic. In other rather unsurprising news, “Thor” will be post-converted into 3D for its release.

Next up we have Ryan Reynolds in his title role in DC’s Martin Campbell directed “Green Lantern”, also hitting theaters next summer. Now, the costuming process for the Green Lantern made some press a couple months ago when it was revealed that Reynolds would be wearing a tracking suit on set and his actual costume would be… get this… ENTIRELY COMPUTER GENERATED. OK, might make sense to some since the Green Lantern’s suit is essentially energy, powered by his ring, but it still had this guy kinda worried. CG suit, really? That has the potential to look incredibly awful. In this first look photo from Entertainment Weekly, the design of the suit is actually not all that bad. I dunno about those green veins running to his chest, kinda weird. But then again this is a still image created specifically for this magazine. I’ll have to reserve judgment until we see the suit in full motion. Until then, my fingers remained crossed for something… hopefully cooler. (P.S.: the film will also be post-converted to 3D, ugh). So what do you guys think? Did the costume designers for “Thor” and “Green Lantern” (well, the CG artists in this case) do a good job? See full size pics after the jump. Read more…

Dem Reviews: Inception

Bryan’s Review:
In a hot stinky summer of lackluster films, “Inception” is a fresh breeze of ocean air. In fact, it may be one of the most unique films in recent memory. Everything about it is near flawless: the script, direction, cast, visuals, sound, music, sets, effects. From the opening scene we are immediately thrown into the world of the dream, forced to pick up the lingo of an “extractor,” someone who’s able to enter your dreams and steal your most guarded thoughts and ideas. There are admittedly similarities to other films such as “Dreamscape” and “The Matrix,” but without a doubt writer/director Christopher Nolan has very successfully created his own unique, vast, and intriguing world, much like the “dream architects” portrayed in the film. From that opening scene the film just grabs you and won’t let go. But what makes this film work, hands down, is the cast. Its one of the best ensemble casts of the past couple years. “Inception” has a running time of two and half hours, but trust me: it doesn’t feel like it. And with all its complexities, I wouldn’t doubt that you’ll be back for repeated viewings. Nolan made it clear with “The Dark Knight” that he’s the king of the comic book film, but with “Inception” he transcends genres. The king of sci-fi, king of thrillers? No, just a damn fine filmmaker at the top of his game.

Brodiemash’s Review within a Review:
Complexity is a double edged sword. When done wrong, a jumbled mess occurs that usually only ends up making sense to the lone architect. But when something complex comes together to form something elegant, true magic occurs. And that’s exactly what Christopher Nolan has sculpted with his latest film “Inception.” Staying spoiler-free as possible, the film simply gets high marks from this guy in all areas: direction, cast, music, art direction, script. Pretty much one of the most complete packages I’ve ever witnessed in cinema history. If I was forced to pick the worse part, it would be the minor complaint that the visuals seemed to peak (a very high peak) too early. But nothing that pulled me out of an otherwise amazing ride. This film is easily one of the best films of the year… and very possibly one of the best of our times! Don’t sleep on this one and check it out as soon as possible!

More ‘Summer Arts’ goodness…

If you missed out on “FernGully” director Bill Kroyer’s lecture on Monday, don’t worry, there’s still plenty of CSU Summer Arts goodness to go around. Here are a few upcoming film-related lectures. We’re very lucky to have all this amazing artistic talent visiting Fresno.

Tomorrow, July 1st, 7pm, Wahlberg Recital Hall – Animator Tom Sito will talk about how the lessons of the Golden Age artists of animation remain relevant to today’s modern digital media. Sito has more credits that you can shake a stick at, having worked on classics such as The Lion King, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Aladdin, Dinosaurs, and Shrek.

Monday, July 5th, 8pm, Wahlberg Recital Hall – Pixar Animation Studios animator Andrew Gordon has worked on Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, A Bug’s Life, and Toy Story 2. He just finished production on Toy Story 3. No word on the focus of his discussion, but I’m sure it’ll be quite interesting!

Thursday, July 15th, 7pm, Conley Art Lecture Hall – Toy designer, inventor, and entrepreneur Mark Trageser will talk about the toy business including working with designers, filmmakers, and toy companies.

All events take place at Fresno State. For a full calendar listing of all the events and to purchase tickets online, click here. Let’s get out there and support Summer Arts!

Fresno was scouted for “Iron Man 2″

OMG, did u hearz this?!11 Dumb Drum caught up recently with Fresno’s film commissioner Ray Arthur, who gave us some details regarding the Fresno connection to one of this summer’s biggest blockbusters, Iron Man 2.

Dumb Drum: So we heard it through the grape vine… (Get it? Fresno, ag, grapes, raisins, har?) … that Fresno was somehow involved in Iron Man 2. True? What’s the story?

Ray Arthur: Either through IMDb or Production Weekly I had received a listing for “Iron Man 2″ that listed my friend Scott Allen Logan as Location Manager. I contacted Scott in late December ’08 to propose City Hall and other locations to him for IM2. I forwarded a few photos of City Hall to Scott and we kept in touch for several weeks. Location Scout Scott Trimble came to Fresno on Friday evening, March 13, 2009, to shoot City Hall for IM2. On March 16, I received a non-disclosure form from “Rustic Films,” the fake company that Jon Favreau was using to keep IM2 locations secreted. Iron Man, Rustic … get it? I had worked with both Scotts before on previous projects.

Ray goes on to tell us that no specific scene shooting was ever planned for Fresno City Hall, that it would simply be plate shots for visual effects. But no additional photography occurred past March 13. Principal photography for IM2 began three weeks later on April 6, 2009. While we can confirm that Fresno wasn’t featured in the final movie, Ray tells us there’s no ruling out that Scott Trimble’s location photography may have been used as basis for some of the futuristic architecture in the “Stark Expo” sequences. Either way, pretty neat! Now let’s start the “Fresno for The Avengers” campaign right now! C’mon Joss Whedon!

“FernGully” director Bill Kroyer to speak at Fresno State tomorrow

Director/Animator Bill Kroyer will speak at Fresno State on Monday as part of this year’s CSU Summer Arts festivities. Kroyer, who’s best known to me as the director of FernGully: The Last Rainforest (aka. the original Avatar), also has a lot of other VFX credits to his name, which include: Starchaser, The Jetson’s Movie, Tron, Cats & Dogs, Scooby-Doo, Garfield, The Green Mile, The Chronicles of Narnia, etc. According to the Summer Arts website, Kroyer will be discussing “the evolution of photo-realistic imagery and captured motion and how those developments have broadened the scope of visual effects filmmaking while presenting challenges to the artist and animator to keep the art of animation ‘stronger than real life.’” Well that’s a mouthful, and it should make for a pretty interesting lecture! It’s all going down tomorrow, Monday, June 28 at 7pm at the Wahlberg Recital Hall (Music Building) at Fresno State. Tickets are $7 students/seniors, $10 general admission and can be purchased online here. Get out there and support CSU Summer Arts!

Local filmmaker Matt Sconce to premiere his feature film this Friday

We’re all about local film here at Dumb Drum, and this Friday one of our fellow filmmaker buddies, Matt Sconce, will be premiering his first feature-length film “Stricken” in Avenal. Despite being incredibly busy getting everything ready for the big night, Matt found time to “electronically” sit down with us for an email interview.

Dumb Drum: Congrats on finishing your film! So how did you first get involved in filmmaking?

Matt Sconce: I got involved in filmmaking after winning an American Idol Music Video contest with my wife in 2004. I have always loved to tell stories and I decided to move in the direction of writing and directing. In 2006 I made my first comedy short “Nine to Five Ninja” for a www.dvxuser.com film festival contest and then my first serious short for the same festival “Stricken”. Stricken won best sound design and was nominated for best horror film of the year at the Action on Film Festival in Pasadena and that motivated me to write the feature script based on the short concept. Read more…

Cross Streets #6 – Fresno & Belmont

Join Roque and Bryan as they explore the city of Fresno
one cross street at a time in this ongoing web series.

Past Episodes:
#1 – First & Shields, #2 – Fresno & G, #3 – Belmont Loop, #4 – Willow & Friant, #5 – Kings Canyon & Peach