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Post by fenris on Jun 23, 2008 18:40:51 GMT
Punisher: War Zone is about to go into production, with the title character being played by British actor Ray Stevenson. The movie's director Lexi Alexander has just announced on her personal website that Colin Salmon will also be in the movie, playing a FBI agent. Here's a link to the teaser trailer for Punisher: War Zone, which looks like an entertaining action flick. Can't spot Colin Salmon anywhere in the trailer (unless he's the black guy briefly seen trading punches with Stevenson), but longer trailers will start appearing closer to the film's release in America this December. No word yet on overseas release dates. youtube.com/watch?v=CYQ5QWcdMR4
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Post by fenris on Jul 28, 2008 19:29:17 GMT
Have more news regarding Punisher: War Zone. The movie was originally intended to be a medium-budget action thriller, but following the massive success of Iron Man and The Dark Knight, production company & distributor Lionsgate are apparently convinced that this film should have similar box office appeal. As a result, director Lexi Alexander has reportedly been sacked so that extensive re-editing can take place, to reflect Lionsgate's new vision for the movie. The specially-composed score has also apparently been ditched, and will be replaced by a trash-metal soundtrack (the kind that sells tie-in albums, regardless of whether or not it actually suits the movie). Oh well. I just hope that Punisher: War Zone doesn't join the long list of Movies Ruined By The Studio and/or Distributor. Meanwhile, here's a new trailer for the film - look quickly for Julie Benz as a brunette; www.joblo.com/video/arrow/player.php?video=punishertrailer2
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Post by fenris on Aug 14, 2008 18:10:21 GMT
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Post by fenris on Dec 30, 2008 19:51:26 GMT
Colin Salmon can be seen in the movie Freeze Frame, which is receiving it's UK terrestrial premiere on ITV1 at 23:40 on 08/01/09.
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Post by fenris on Dec 31, 2008 20:35:23 GMT
Colin Salmon is starring in Doomsday, a movie that's being shot in Eastern Europe for the (American) Sci-Fi Channel. Other cast members include Luke Goss, Marina Sirtis (from Star Trek: The Next Generation), and Lexx's Xenia Seeberg. Most news-sites (see the link below) have automatically assumed that this movie is a continuation/sequel/spin-off of the Neil Marshall directed Doomsday that was released in cinemas earlier this year. But after doing some searching on the internet, I can't find any actual confirmation of this. If this made-for-cable movie is connected to Marshall's film, I'm surprised that it's crept under everyone's radar, as there's been lots of interest and coverage on-line about the upcoming Descent 2 and Dog Soldiers: Fresh Meat (the latter currently lost in Development Hell), both sequels to his previous films. www.quietearth.us/articles/2008/12/30/Neil-Marshalls-DOOMSDAY-heading-for-the-small-screen
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Post by DreamDangerously on Jan 7, 2009 15:49:31 GMT
Did anyone else see his apperance on Soccer AM on Saturday? I only caught the tail end of it so I missed the main interview they did with him. It was very amusing when the (I have to say at this point, scarily vacant) soccerette pointed out that she had a bit part in Doomsday and Colin Salmon quite blatantly couldn't remember her at all.
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Post by orokiah on Jan 8, 2009 15:03:04 GMT
Did anyone else see his apperance on Soccer AM on Saturday? I only caught the tail end of it so I missed the main interview they did with him. It was very amusing when the (I have to say at this point, scarily vacant) soccerette pointed out that she had a bit part in Doomsday and Colin Salmon quite blatantly couldn't remember her at all. I haven't seen much of Soccer AM since Tim Lovejoy left - I'm not really a fan of his but the show's never been quite the same. I'd have watched it if I'd known Colin Salmon was on though.
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Post by fenris on Jan 13, 2009 20:35:55 GMT
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Post by fenris on Feb 13, 2009 20:34:28 GMT
I've posted my thoughts on Punisher: War Zone on the Bloody.Hell forum, created by our very own DreamDangerously. New members always welcome! Here's a link; bloodyhell.i-conoclastic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=23EDIT: as the Bloody.Hell forum unfortunately failed to take off, here's my review of Punisher: War Zone in full; This week I've seen the movie Punisher: War Zone, in which Colin Salmon is fourth-billed. Although he's doesn't play a major character, his role is large one and he appears throughout the film.
Based on the popular Marvel Comics anti-hero, War Zone is the third movie about the Punisher, the previous efforts being the very entertaining and under-rated The Punisher (1989) starring Dolph Lundgren, and the recent 2004 film in which Thomas Jane played the character. War Zone ignores the Jane movie and establishes it's own, separate continuity (one that is quite faithful to the original comics), effectively being a reboot as opposed to a sequel.
The movie's storyline has ex-Special Forces vigilante Frank Castle - aka the Punisher (Ray Stevenson) - accidently kill an undercover FBI agent during a firefight with henchmen working for vain, handsome mobster Billy 'the Beaut', causing Castle to seriously doubt the morality of his self-appointed one-man war against organised crime. However, while the Punisher considers hanging up his guns, Billy has survived their encounter, but the cost has been hideously mangled features that even the best plastic surgeons can't repair. With a sewn-together mess where his face used to be, Billy rechristens himself 'Jigsaw', breaks his psycho brother Looney Bin Jim (Doug Hutchison) out of the asylum, and sets out to get revenge on both Castle and the FBI agent's widow (Julie Benz). Making things even more complicated is the agent's partner (Salmon) who's determined to bring the Punisher in, and has joined forces with NYPD Detective Soap, who's been tracking Castle for years.
Stevenson is a perfect fit for the role of the Punisher. Of the previous actors who have played the character, Lundgren portrayed him as a burnt-out, emotionally dead avenger, who kept killing criminals because he'd forgotten how to do anything else, while Jane's Punisher was so angry, raw and traumatised that being treated with kindness made him uncomfortable - he didn't know how to interact with anyone who wasn't shooting at him. Stevenson plays Castle as a driven and determined soldier, who doesn't allow himself to think outside of his mission - but with cracks through which his log-buried humanity occasionally resurfaces. As for the rest of the cast, West and Hutchison are clearly enjoying themselves as a pair of gleefully over-the-top villains; Benz does wonders with a thankless role that requires her only to grieve, be threatened and get kidnapped; while Salmon provides solid support and has a great alleyway fight scene with Stevenson. Sadly, the talented character actor Wayne Knight is woefully under-used as Microchip, the Punisher's main provider of information and gun supplier (he was a major character in the comics).
One aspect of the movie that impressed me was the relative level of reality in the gunfight sequences. How many times in action movies have you seen the hero firing round after round but never reloading or running out of bullets? Or if he does run out, he simply drops or throws away his guns and picks up firearms that belonged to a dead opponent and carries on shooting? Not so in War Zone: every time Castle fires several rounds with a handgun or a couple of bursts from a machine gun, he stops at the first opportunity, ejects the clip and shoves in a fresh one. And everytime he's finished with a gun, he places it back in it's holster - because they're his guns: he's cleaned them, maintained them, and he knows that they work. He's not going to entrust his life to a dirty piece of scrap that belonged to a smackhead gangbanger.
Of course, War Zone has it's faults. The comic relief provided by Soap is just too broad and jarring: he'd be more at home in a Police Academy sequel. And a subplot about vengeful Russian mobsters just vanishes during the climax. But I still consider Punisher: War Zone to be far more entertaining than such over-rated Marvel adaptations as the Fantastic Four movies, Iron Man, the X-Men and Blade trilogies, and the Spider-Man films.
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Post by orokiah on Mar 15, 2009 19:46:41 GMT
Colin Salmon is guest starring in the fifth episode, 'Buried', of the surprisingly good Law & Order: UK. It's being shown on ITV1 at 9pm on 23/03/09.
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Post by fenris on Jul 4, 2009 19:51:10 GMT
Here's a description of a movie I saw a couple of days ago: it was about an immortal female warrior who hunts demons, and although she's several centuries old she still looks like a teenager. Searching for her arch-enemy, she poses as a student and enrolls into a private school at which Colin Salmon plays one of the teachers. The film's called Blood: The Last Vampire, and it's based on a popular short (48 minutes) anime movie that was released in 2000. As you can tell from my brief synopsis above, there's plenty to interest Hex fans. There's even a scene in which the villains attempt to kill the main character's sidekick during a private kendo lesson (just as Jez had planned for Leon), only to be foiled by the heroine's unexpected intervention. I really liked Blood, but I should point out that it is very unoriginal - there's nothing here that you haven't seen before. However, this movie thankfully lacks all the supposedly 'cool' stylish posing of the Blade and Underworld films (which grew increasingly tiresome as both those series progressed). There's also an unexpected and wonderfully subtle scene in which ancient half-vampire heroine Saya enters a classroom on her first day at the school, and it's clear from the look in her eyes as she glances over her classmates that she has absolutely nothing in common with these children. The movie is set in 1970 (the events in the original anime took place in 1946) but apart from the lack of mobile phones, it might as well be the present. I guessing that Blood is a UK co-production based on the number of British actors in the cast: apart from Salmon, there's also Larry Lamb (who normally gets cast as Cockney villains and most recently been seen in Eastenders) and Liam Cunningham, all playing Americans. The film's many action scenes are competent and well handled, without being anything truly special. The most impressive is a early skirmish in which a badly-outnumbered Saya battles against several dozen demon opponents in an alleyway during a rainstorm. However, a lengthy period swordfighting flashback not only occurs too late in the narrative to be effective, but actually slows the film down when it should be building up to it's finale. And it's unfortunate that the climatic action sequence borrows heavily from setpieces seen in the recent genre movies Underworld: Evolution and Wanted. But despite these shortcomings, as stated earlier I enjoyed Blood: The Last Vampire and would recommend it, provided that you're prepared for it's lack of originality. Here's a link to the film's trailer. The industrial/techno track that kicks in halfway through is 'Hell Above the Water' by my all-time favourite band, Curve; us.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2558264089/
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Post by fenris on Dec 31, 2009 22:00:29 GMT
An American TV series starring Colin Salmon that was screened in the US in 2003 is finally being shown in the UK, starting next week. It's called Keen Eddie, with Mark Valley (nope, me neither) as title character Eddie Arlette, an American cop who finds himself seconded to the Metropolitan Police (hmm... sounds similar to Dempsey & Makepeace). The series was filmed in London, and in addition to Salmon, other regular British cast members include Alexi Sayle, Green Wing's Julian Rhind-Tutt, and a then-unknown Sienna Miller.
Keen Eddie is being screened at 22:00 on Saturdays, starting 02/01/10, on CBS Drama (the channel formerly known as Zone Romantica).
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Post by fenris on Mar 18, 2010 10:04:05 GMT
Punisher: War Zone is being shown on the Sky Movie Premiere channel every day for a week, starting on Friday 26/03/10.
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Post by orokiah on May 2, 2010 15:07:11 GMT
Colin Salmon is among the cast of new Sky1 drama Strike Back, a six-part adaptation of Chris Ryan's book of the same name. It starts with a double bill on 05/05/10 at 9pm. And Colin has kind words to say about Hex in his interview for the series: Sky is a good house to be in at the moment. I'm proud to be involved with this project, and I was proud to be involved with Hex. I loved Hex and globally it was massive, as this has the potential to be.
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Post by fenris on May 3, 2010 15:00:16 GMT
Colin Salmon is among the cast of new Sky1 drama Strike Back, a six-part adaptation of Chris Ryan's book of the same name. It starts with a double bill on 05/05/10 at 9pm. Broadcasting watchdogs have criticized both Five and Sky for their lack of original homegrown drama and reliance on American imports. In my opinion, such criticism is justified: the only dramas I can recall being commissioned by Sky in the last ten-fifteen years are the long-running football soap Dream Team (believed by many to be the direct inspiration for ITV's hugely successful Footballers' Wives), the drug-fuelled bonkfests Is Harry on the Boat? and Mile High,, our very own Hex, a couple of two-part Terry Pratchett adaptations, and last year's gangland mini-series The Take. However, while Five are hampered by their limited budget, Sky are bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch's bottomless wallet, so they've really got no excuse, and Strike Back plus the aforementioned The Take are clearly their attempts to address this. I actually won't be able to watch Strike Back, as last year I stopped subscribing to Sky and instead switched to their Freesat service, so I no longer to access to Sky One. However, based on the promotional material & footage that I've seen, it seems to be a rather uninspired mix-match of spooks and Ultimate Force, with lingering traces of late-Eighties/early-Nineties shows such as Saracen and CI5: The New Professionals. But in addition to Salmon and Richard Armitage, Sky have rounded up some talented actors to fill out the cast, so hopefully it'll turn out to be a quality production.
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