SANCTUM

PRESS RELEASE

Opens Friday, February 3, 2011, Runtime: 1 hour,  43 minutes. Rated R.  Language,

some violence and disturbing images.

Though it is one of the least-accessible cave systems on Earth, skilled diver Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh) has explored the South Pacific's Esa-ala Caves for months with his team Carl and Josh . When a flash flood cuts off their exit, suddenly they are caught in a life-or-death situation. With supplies dwindling, the divers must navigate a treacherous underwater labyrinth to find a new escape route. 
http://www.sanctummovie.com/

TRAILER

ABOVE THE LINE

Stars:  Rhys Wakefield, www.imdb.com/nae/nm1973422/
            Allison Cratchley, www.imdb.com/name/nm0186563/

            Christopher Baker, www.imdb.com/name/nm0048336/

Producer:  James Cameron, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cameron

Director:  Alister Grierson,  www.imdb.com/name/nm0340958/

Writers:  John Garvin, www.imdb.com/name/nm2510763/

                Andrew Wight, www.imdb.com/name/nm1337757/

STORYLINE

When a tropical storm forces them deep into the caverns, they must fight raging water, deadly terrain and creeping panic as they search for an unknown escape route to the sea.  Frank's team, including 17-year old Josh (Rhys Wakefield) and financier Carl Hurley (Loan Gruffudd) are forced to radically alter plans.  Soon, they are confronted with the unavoidable question:  Can they survive, or will they be trapped forever?


Shot on location of the gold coast in Queensland, Australia, Sanctum employs 3-D photography techniques Cameron developed to lens Avator.  Designed to operate in extreme environments, the technology used to shoot the action thriller will bring audiences on a breathless journey across plunging cliffs and into the furthest reaches of our subterranean world.

www.moviejungle.com/Articles/Sanctum-clips-interviews-and-behind-the-scenes-looks/

BUZZ

It's going to be a while before James Cameron is back on our screens, so in the meantime the next best thing for fans of bleeding-edge 3D and SFX looks like James Cameron's Sanctum. This should be fully immersive 3D - the first time we've properly experienced Avatar strength 3D in a watery environment. Glug.

We're obviously not counting Piranha 3D here, although that wasn't too terrible. But vaulting underwater caverns, bubbling scuba gear and thrilling scenarios involving ticking clocks and emptying oxygen tanks should raise the bar substantially in Sanctum. Shot in Queensland but set in New Guinea's unspoiled Esa-Ala caves, the plot seems more relevant by the day, as a crew of underwater cave divers find themselves cut off by flash floods and running out of air.  Serious claustrophobics look away now: James Cameron's Sanctum is out on February 4.

www.empireonline.com/news/feed.asp?NID=29973

INFORAMA COMMENT

Sometimes it's fun to speculate on how the screenwriter and director will steer a film. It's sort of like guessing which vehicles they will be driving.  So Sanctum, it seems, has a delightful number of choices to develop the project.

There could be a Disney-like approach similar to that studio's film Journey to the Center of the Earth.  The theme was scientists/adventurers were drawn to, then trapped in a part of the world never before seen.  The adventurer had to tiptoe through uncharted and quite dangerous territory in order to reach safe haven and loved ones at home.

The storyline may take a sci-fi slant.  A kind of Alice in Wonderland vehicle.  The protagonists figuratively and literally fall through a hole in this film.  Again the principals must find their way home by matching wits against a pitiless adversary, nature.

 Then again you could reasonably speculate that the film will do a 21st Century take on a  theme that has been told and retold a multitude of times throughout the centuries. That of being lost in unfamiliar surroundings and seemingly unable to escape.  From the Odyssey to Hansel and Gretel, this recurrent story of despair at being lost and the grit needed to survive persists and is inevitably entertaining and sometimes instructional.

To any of the above themes add the mixture of James Cameron's visual spectaculars.  Cameron is a film Michaelangelo and he enriches the visual palette with equally spectacular special effects. Fine details are every bit as important to Cameron as the script itself. The icing on the cake will be the 3-D application to the film. Extreme sports addicts will get their fix with the combination of spelunking and scuba diving in a cave no less.  The film will take on another facet, that of showing nature in the raw and how techno savvy individuals take on a duel to the death.

An interesting sideline will be the gamble the film producers are taking with the absence of top name actors in this project.  But this has been done on occasion with great success. Remember three plus decades ago when a then unknown Mel Gibson caused a sensation in the first of a series of Mad Max movie adventures. He demonstrates that a complete unknown can become a superstar with the right vehicle. By coincidence, Sanctum is also being filmed in Australia.  The gamble will be either wildly successful or a horrible disaster.

Regardless of how Sanctum is packaged and what themes are presented, the storyline and trailers indicate this will be a fun film.  If you like movies, if you like water, if you like adventure this film is for you. It appears to have all the ingredients necessary for the principal job: to entertain the audience.

THE RITE

Official Press Release:

World Premiere Wednesday, January 26, 2011
WHAT: The World Premiere of New Line Cinema’s “The Rite.”
WHEN: Wednesday, January 26
              Crew Arrivals: 5:00 p.m.
              Arrivals: 6:00 p.m.
              Screening: 7:00 p.m.
WHERE: Grauman’s Chinese Theatre
                 6925 Hollywood Boulevard
                 Los Angeles, CA
WHO: From the film: Anthony Hopkins, Colin O’Donoghue, Alice Braga, and director Mikael Håfström will be joined by celebrities to be announced soon.
“The Rite” is a supernatural thriller that uncovers the Devil’s reach to even one of the holiest places on Earth. Inspired by true events, the film follows seminary student Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue), who is sent to study exorcism at the Vatican in spite of his own doubts about the controversial practice and even his own faith. Wearing his deep skepticism like armor, Michael challenges his superiors to look to psychiatry, rather than demons, in treating the possessed. Only when he’s sent to apprentice with the unorthodox Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins) — a legendary priest who has performed thousands of exorcisms — does Michael’s armor begin to fall. As he is drawn into a troubling case that seems to transcend even Father Lucas’s skill, he begins to glimpse a phenomenon science can’t explain or control … and an evil so violent and terrifying that it forces him to question everything he believes.
THE RITE opens nationwide in theaters on Friday, January 28, 2011
“The Rite,” is a Contrafilm production, a Mikael Håfström film, and will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. The film has been rated PG-13 by the MPAA for disturbing thematic material, violence, frightening images, and language including sexual references.
http://www.what-do-you-believe.com/For For downloadable general information and photos, please visit: http://press.warnerbros.com/
and for electronic material please visit: http://www.epk.tv/

Contacts
Warner Bros. Pictures Broadcast: Allegra Haddigan, 818-954-6292 Print: Ari Swan, 818-954-3781 Photo: Michael Taylor, 818-954-6585 Online: Anne Chun, 818-954-4601 International: Diana Larios, 818-954-4537


TRAILER:

Link:   http://whatdoyoubelieve.warnerbros.com/

ABOVE THE LINE:

Stars:       Colin O'Donoghue, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1524440/
                Anthony Hopkins, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_hopkins
                 Ciaran Hinds, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciaran_Hinds

Director:  Mikael Hafstrom, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikael_Hafstrom

Writers:    Michael Petroni, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Petroni, Matt Baglio,
                                  http://www.mattbaglio.com/

Filmed in Budapest, Hungary, Rome, Lazio, Italy

STORYLINE: 

"Here’s the story behind The Rite: “A disillusioned American seminary student attends exorcism school at the Vatican and ultimately finds his faith through encounters with demonic forces.” Details are sketchy on the film’s IMDb page, but after a little research I can tell you that Colin O’Donoghue (The Tudors)  plays the “disillusioned American,” Hopkins plays the head exorcism teacher at the Vatican school along with Ciaran Hinds (The Eclipse) and Toby Jones (Capote), while Alice Braga (Predators) plays a love interest…or something." http://screenrant.com/the-rite-trailer-kofi-83893/

BUZZ: 

The Rite Movie Review.  "The Rite is following in the footsteps of all the other exorcism movies. Involvement of nuns, priests and demonic people, this seems to be a pretty typical thriller exorcist. This thriller is directed by Mikael Hafstrom and is starring Anthony Hopkins, Colin O’Donoghue, Alice Braga, Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones. The release date on this film, January 28, 2011. The Rite is not just another supernatural thriller with a stellar cast and a specialist director (Mikael Håfström, 1408.) It does so much more than, meandering through the mazes demonic scary. Even if it’s just a well crafted and evocative metaphor on our embattled times, we can expect a rare spiritual experience.

The Rite is supposedly based off of a true event. The story follows a seminary student who is attending school at the Vatican Exorcism. He meets a very unorthodox priest who opens up the dark side of their religion to the young man. The basic motto of this film is the devil can-reach-the holiest places on the planet. I hope that this movie isn’t too close to the mold of exorcist movies because if that is the case this movie could be very boring.
The Rite has a lot of spirits to take on the movie landscape that are possessed with more or less convincing stories. To me, rather a striking take on this subject was Francis Lawrence’s Constantine (2005) with Keanu Reeves as the cancer-ridden hell blazer.
Others, like The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), were disappointingly mediocre, if not outright bad. Like the Serpent, The Rite is based on a book and supposedly inspired by true events. Sceptical seminary student Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue) attends the school at the Vatican where he meets an unorthodox priest, Father Luke (Anthony Hopkins). Encountering a number of demons and exorcisms, Michael learns about the darker side of his faith and that's the phenomenon of possession, or course, is not just a residue of the archaic ages but very contemporary and ubiquitous, even at the Vatican."  http://showmovies.org/the-rite-movie-review.html

INFORAMA COMMENT:

Demonic possession stories predate Christianity. They were found in a number of other considerably older religions.  So the film has to tackle the question of the possession of a human by a supernatural being.  Should the film rely on special effects or just the usually strong performance of Anthony Hopkins, it will fail miserably. There must be a hook to catch the wary viewer armed with current knowledge of both lore and psychiatry.  This is a formidable task in light of today's increasingly areligious society.

An interesting sideline will be the script's depiction of the Vatican.  There are a number of priest/ scholars who have multiple degrees in multiple disciplines.  So why would an institution teach highly educated individuals a ritual that is over two thousand years old?  The agnostic and atheist would find this film anathema since giving credulity to supernatural evil tacitly acknowledges supernatural good.

 But, the trailer does look scaarrry!! I want to see it but I'm afraid to see it.  I am going back and forth with this one. The trailer is enticing and makes me want to find out who wins this battle in the continuing struggle between good and evil.  But, it also gives me the heebeegeebees.  Possession films are more frightening than slasher films.  It is often said that Anthony Hopkins seems to be at his best when he is playing these types of evil characters. I am interested in watching the idiosyncrasies that Hopkins injects into his character. With these types of movies I need to sit at the very back row so I can disengage if it gets too creepy.  I can always shut my eyes if I need to.  So will you see it?  Bring your crosses, bring your bibles, bring your prayers and maybe you'll survive this movie.