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ILM explains how they created the vfx for the New York Mirror Dimension sequence in "Doctor Strange."

The post How ILM Made Those Insane Bending Buildings in ‘Doctor Strange’ appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Debuting on Jimmy Kimmel Live, as all these superhero movie trailers tend to be doing lately, here’s the first teaser trailer for Doctor Strange. Get a gander a Benedict Cumberbatch as the Sorcerer Supreme and Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One, along with a few appearances from Chiwetel Ejiofor and Mads Mikkelsen. It looks to […]

The Doctor Strange movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch has been filming around NYC, but the ‘Batch decided to kick it up a notch by heading to a comics shop in costume, in this case my local, JHU and 32nd Street. The shop may also have made it to the final movie, as they were shooting on […]

Benedict Wong has been cast as Wong, a sidekick character, in the Doctor Strange movie. Recently, he was seen on the silver screen in The Martian film adaptation.

Here’s more from The Hollywood Reporter: “Wong, the character, is a Marvel mainstay, having been around since the 1960s. He performs healing duties, assists in occult matters, is knowledgeable in martial arts and tends to Strange’s affairs. Among his functions is to look after Strange’s body when the hero is astral projecting himself into other dimensional planes.”

According to Vulture, some of the other cast members include Benedict Cumberbatch in the titular role, Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One, and Mads Mikkelsen as the primary villain. Marvel Entertainment has set the theatrical release date for Nov. 4. (via Empire Magazine)

In casting news at THR that will likely lead to actor Benedict Wong having the easiest on-set direction days of any performer in one of these Marvel productions; The Martian star has been cast as Stephen Strange’s faithful sidekick Wong. Wong, the actor, not the character, has also been seen in films like Sunshine, where he […]

Mads Mikkelsen has been cast as the primary antagonist in the Doctor Strange movie. In the past, Mikkelsen has acted in several book-based projects such as King Arthur, The Three Musketeers, and Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky.

Vanity Fair reports that Benedict Cumberbatch plays the titular comic book hero; his character is a neurosurgeon-turned-sorcerer. Other cast members include Tilda Swinton, Rachel McAdams, and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios and a producer on Doctor Strange, sat for a conversation with Entertainment Weekly and explained that “Mads’ character is a sorcerer who breaks off into his own sect. [He] believes that the Ancient One is just protecting her own power base and that the world may be better off if we were to allow some of these other things through.” Marvel Entertainment has set the theatrical release date for Nov. 04, 2016. (via Variety)

Your first look at the big screen Sorcerer Supreme

The BBC has unleashed a second trailer for a Sherlock special. The Independent reports that this Victorian-themed episode is called “The Abominable Bride.”

Here’s more from Digital Spy: “Over 100 cinemas will be simulcasting the highly-anticipated Sherlock special on January 1, 2016, and now BBC is sharing further details of what fans can expect from the screenings…In addition to showing the one-off, 90-minute Victorian special, those who book their seats will also get to see extra filmed material, including a guided tour of 221B Baker Street from co-creator Steven Moffat and a look behind the scenes at how the episode was made, featuring the lead cast and crew.”

The video embedded above features scenes with Benedict Cumberbatch in the titular role and Martin Freeman playing Dr. John Watson. Follow this link to see the first trailer. Click here to download a free digital copy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. (via io9)

Benedict Cumberbatch performed Warsan Shire’s poem “Home” in front of an audience of theatergoers. Cumberbatch has been playing William Shakespeare’s famous Meloncholy Dane at a London production of Hamlet.

The Oscar-nominated actor criticized the British government for the way it has responded to the Syrian refugee crisis; he gave the spontaneous poetry recitation to honor the Syrians. Click here to read the poem in its entirety.

Here’s more from The Guardian: “The actor Benedict Cumberbatch has shown his growing frustration over the migration crisis during a speech after his Hamlet performance – reportedly saying ‘fuck the politicians.’ The Sherlock star has been giving nightly speeches after his curtain call at the Barbican in London and asking for donations to help Syrian refugees.” (via UpWorthy)

I’m not at D23 this weekend, and I’ll reserve any of the “on the scene” impressions for Beat contributors Alex Jones and Victor Van Scoit, who are both there in person. But that doesn’t mean I won’t report on the biggest announcements that are worthy of attention and discussion, and when it comes to Disney […]

Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oscar nominated for the incredible 12 Years A Slave (also known as one of the few movies to ever make me openly sob in the theater), is the latest prestigious thespian to join the ranks of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Ejiofor, long rumored to be a part of the upcoming Doctor Strange in some form or fashion, was confirmed today by Deadline to be playing the role of Baron Mordo, the Sorcerer Supreme’s long-time enemy. In the comics, Mordo is Strange’s fellow pupil under the guise of The Ancient One (reportedly being played by Tilda Swinton), and after Strange thwarts Mordo’s plans to kill their instructor, they become adversaries.

Deadline’s report is quick to note that this version of the character will actually be “an amalgamation of characters culled from Doctor Strange’s mythology”. This sounds a bit similar to the approach taken with Ivan Vanko in Iron Man 2, but hopefully the results will turn out a bit better here.

Doctor Strange, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, is directed by Scott Derrickson (Sinister, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) and will see release on November 4, 2016.

So, readers, what do you think about the new Baron Mordo?

Per THR, a fellow well regarded thespian may be joining Benedict Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange, as the outlet reports that Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton, Only Lovers Left Alive) is entering negotiations to play The Ancient One in the upcoming Marvel picture.

Were Swinton to join the cast, this would be her third comic book movie role, having played Gabriel in Constantine and the delightful Minister Mason in Snowpiercer.

The Ancient One, as most of you who are up on your Marvel lore probably already know, served as Stephen Strange’s mentor in the Himalayas. When the character died in the comics, Strange began to summon him through the spiritual plane and he continued to aide the good doctor.

THR also reports that Marvel originally sought a male for the role, but that the studio eventually retooled the role for a female.

It’s hard to argue that there’s any actress (and perhaps any performer, male or female) that’s been on a more incredible streak in terms of on-screen acclaim than Swinton. The sheer diversity in her role selection also speaks volumes about her avoidance to tread the same ground or be type-cast in any way. Honestly, Swinton is one of the few “sure things” in Hollywood right now, and if Marvel secures her services, it would prove quite a coup.

Doctor Strange, directed by Scott Derrickson (Sinister), will see release on November 4, 2016.

A trailer has been unveiled for the Black Mass film. According to the Wall Street Journal, the story for this movie was inspired by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill’s bestselling nonfiction title, Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, The FBI, and a Devil’s Deal.

The video embedded above offers glimpses of Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger, Benedict Cumberbatch as Bill Bulger, and David Harbour as John Morris. TIME.com reports that the theatrical release date has been set for September 18th.

In honor of National Poetry Month, we’ve dug up a video with Oscar-nominated actor Benedict Cumberbatch reciting the poem “Richard.” Click here to read The Guardian’s post which features the entire piece.

Cumberpatch, who plays Richard III in The Hollow Crown TV mini-series, delivered this reading at the re-interment of King Richard III. British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy wrote “Richard” specifically for this somber occasion.

SPOILERS: If you don’t know the story of Alan Turing and want to remain completely in the dark in regards to the plot of The Imitation Game, probably don’t read this.

As a dedicated Cumberbitch, of course I had to see The Imitation Game, in which my boyfriend Benedict Cumberbatch portrays genius and father of the modern computer Alan Turing.

Turing was a British mathematician, cryptographer, and marathon runner who helped break the Nazi Enigma code to bring an early cessation to World War II. The machine he used to break the code, “Christopher,” is the precursor to technology we use everyday, whether it be a computer or smart phone.

Post-war, Turing was found guilty of gross indecency, due to his homosexuality (a crime at the time) and sentenced to two years chemical castration through oestrogen injections in order to dissolve his libido. Due perhaps to the effects of the oestrogen, he killed himself at the age of forty-one.

Turing was never ashamed of his sexuality. He died a genius and a homosexual who has since been recognized for his accomplishments and for the unfortunate turn his life took as a gay male in the super paranoid 1950s.

The film, Imitation Game, follows Turing’s entire life through flashes into his past at boarding school, his present at Bletchley Park during World War II, and into his sad, horrible future, during the process of his chemical castration when he seemed ready to lose his mind.

Cumberbatch was ideally cast in the role of this awkward genius. He brings comedy, heart, and charisma to a man whose own mother called him “an odd duck.” The supporting cast is similarly enthralling, led by Keira Knightley and Matthew Goode (and a truly heart-wrenching portrayal by lesser-known Matthew Beard).

Screenwriter Graham Moore deserves every award possible for his flawless movement through time, choosing the moments in Alan’s life that shaped him the most. And I’d be remiss to not mention director Morten Tyldum, who guided and shaped the film into an emotional rollercoaster of joy, tragedy, and rage.

Cumberbatch has admitted he did not leave filming unscathed. During one scene, for instance, he had to portray Turing having an emotional breakdown. Surprise, surprise, Cumberbatch actually had a breakdown and couldn’t finish the scene.

He told the Los Angeles Daily News, “I just got completely lost in his tragedy. I tried to pace myself for the scene, but I could not stop crying. I could not stop keening for this guy who was wronged. It disgusted and profoundly upset me.” As an audience member, I felt the same about Turing’s fate.

The film is brilliant in execution. The performances are spot-on. More than that, though, The Imitation Game informs people of what happened to Alan Turing and what happened to so many men like him in the first half of the twentieth century.

Gay men were once the drug dealers of today. They were persecuted and imprisoned for their “crime” (sexual preference). Can you image that happening now? No, but that doesn’t mean we’re in any way out of the woods where gay rights are concerned.

A dear friend of mine was recently attacked via an online discussion board at her college. Fellow students found out she was gay and offered to help her. They wanted to take her someplace where she could be “healed.” They wanted her to know she could be fixed, but as I told her, “Honey, you can’t fix stupid.” We still live surrounded by ignorance, and no matter how well intentioned, my friend’s fellow students really hurt her feelings.

Steps have been taken to stop discrimination against gays. Gay marriage is being allowed in more and more states around the country. We’re certainly not putting people away for sodomy anymore. (Half the straight population would probably be behind bars, too.) But there is still a long way to go for more than just gays—for the rights of all races, sexes, and creeds.

The Imitation Game is really about choices: choose who you love, choose who you save, and choose who you want to be. Finally, choose to accept the way you were born.

Prometheus, a Titan god, was exiled from Mount Olympus by Zeus because he stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. He was condemned, punished, and chained to a rock while eagles ate at his liver. His name, in ancient Greek, means “forethinker “and literary history lauds him as a prophetic hero who rebels against his society to help man progress. The stolen fire is symbolic of creative powers and scientific knowledge. His theft encompasses risk, unintended consequences, and tragedy. Centuries later, modern times has another Promethean hero, Alan Turing. Like the Greek Titan before him, Turing suffers for his foresight and audacity to rebel.

The riveting film, The Imitation Game, directed by Morten Tyldum and staring Benedict Cumberbatch, offers us a portrait of Alan Turing that few of us knew before. After this peak into his extraordinary life, we wonder, how is it possible that within our lifetime, society could condemn to eternal punishment such a special person? Turing accepts his tragic fate and blames himself.

“I am not normal,” he confesses to his ex-fiancée, Joan Clarke.

“Normal?” she responds, angrily. “Could a normal man have shortened World War ll by two years and have saved 16 million people?”

The Turing machine, the precursor to the computer, is the result of his “not normal” mind. His obsession was to solve the greatest enigma of his time – to decode Nazi war messages.

In the film, as the leader of a team of cryptologists at Bletchley Park in 1940, Turing’s Bombe deciphered coded messages where German U-boats would decimate British ships. In 1943, the Colossus machine, built by engineer Tommy Flowers of the group, was able to decode messages directly from Hitler.

The movie, The Imitation Game, while depicting the life of an extraordinary person, also raises philosophical questions, not only about artificial intelligence, but what it is to be human. Cumberbatch’s Turing recognizes the danger of his invention. He feared what would happen if a thinking machine is programmed to replace a man; if a robot is processed by artificial intelligence and not by a human being who has a conscience, a soul, a heart.

Einstein experienced a similar dilemma. His theory of relativity created great advances in physics and scientific achievement, but also had tragic consequences – the development of the atomic bomb.

The Imitation Game will open Pandora’s box. Viewers will ponder on what the film passed over quickly. Who was a Russian spy? Why did Churchill not trust Stalin? What was the role of the Americans during this period of decrypting military codes? How did Israel get involved?

And viewers will want to know more about Alan Turing. Did Turing really commit suicide by biting into an apple laced with cyanide? Or does statistical probability tell us that Turing knew too much about too many things and perhaps too many people wanted him silent? This will be an enigma to decode.

The greatest crime from a sociological perspective, is the one committed by humanity against a unique individual because he is different. The Imitation Game will make us all ashamed of society’s crime of being prejudiced. Alan Turing stole fire from the gods to give to man power and knowledge. While doing so, he showed he was very human. And society condemned him for being so.

The post An enigma: the codes, the machine, the man appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Alan Mathison Turing (1912-1954) was a mathematician and computer scientist, remembered for his revolutionary Automatic Computing Engine, on which the first personal computer was based, and his crucial role in breaking the ENIGMA code during the Second World War. He continues to be regarded as one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century.

We live in an age that Turing both predicted and defined. His life and achievements are starting to be celebrated in popular culture, largely with the help of the newly released film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing and Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke. We’re proud to publish some of Turing’s own work in mathematics, computing, and artificial intelligence, as well as numerous explorations of his life and work. Use our interactive Enigma Machine below to learn more about Turing’s extraordinary achievements.

Image credits: (1) Bletchley Park Bombe by Antoine Taveneaux. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. (2) Alan Turing Aged 16, Unknown Artist. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. (3) Good question by Garrett Coakley. CC-BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr. 

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Benedict Cumberbatch (pictured, via) has been cast to take on the title role for Marvel’s Doctor Strange film adaptation. According to The Hollywood Reporter, other Hollywood stars who were being considered for this part include three-time Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix, The Notebook actor Ryan Gosling, and Academy Award winner Jared Leto.

Filmmaker Scott Derrickson will serve as the director for this project. Screenwriter Jon Spaihts will oversee the script; the first draft was a collaborative effort between writers Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer.

Here’s more from Deadline: “Doctor Strange was hatched by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko during that Marvel Comics heyday of the early 1960′s. He’s a neurosurgeon who becomes Sorcerer Supreme, protecting Earth against magical and mystical threats with powers of sorcery, mysticism, and martial arts.” (via The Verge)

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Benedict Cumberbatch will play Doctor Strange in the upcoming Marvel movie.

Some say he is merely “in talks” but we all know that this was fated to be, and it was doubtless some arcane spell cast by legions of Cumberphiles putting a whammy on Joaquin Phoenix—perhaps some kind of spell of confusion that made him think that playing Doctor Strange in the upcoming Marvel movie would not be the best thing  for his career.

But now all is right with the world, and the ‘Batch will play the sorcerer supreme. I mean, really, is there anyone who didn’t think this was perfect casting the moment it slippied in a sigh from a Tumblr user’s lips?

Marvel has finally found its Doctor Strange. I’m hearing Benedict Cumberbatch is the studio’s choice for the superhero pic, and negotiations are about to begin. The news comes after talks with Joaquin Phoenix around the time of Comic-Con went south, and Marvel went back to the drawing board. With names like Jared Leto and Tom Hardy also in the mix, this is obviously a coveted role. I expect this deal to make.

 

Doctor Strange was of course created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko back in the heyday of Marvel’s Strange Tales. The upcoming Doctor Strange film is set to be directed by Scott Derrickson and written by Jon Spaihts, following a first draft by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer. Rumor has it the film will be released in 2016.

The general public gets a lot of flak from the animation community for not being able to tell the difference between the studios that make mainstream CGI features.

Early this year, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts launched its interview series, In Conversation, with Benedict Cumberbatch. (Good choice!) Something he said about how he researches a new role struck a chord with me:

“[Research is] a security blanket. Not all of it — very little of it ends up on screen, often. And it’s just to take a little bit more possession of the extraordinariness of what I’m being asked to do. Because it’s so far removed from my experience. It just gets me a little bit more… It just gives me a little bit more courage to pretend to be something I’m so far from.”

[Watch the quoted clip, or the whole interview, here. Video will play automatically in a new window.]

I literally couldn’t have said it better, because I’m not Benedict Cumberbatch! But I feel the same way about novel research. Obviously, before you start writing about something you don’t know much about, like say computer hacking — the topic of my next book, The Silence of Six — you have to find out more about it. But the tricky thing about research is you don’t necessarily know what information you will need before you start outlining or writing the book. The natural solution is to learn everything you can, just like Sherlock, but as Cumberbatch said so sexily: most of that isn’t going to end up on the page, and it shouldn’t.

A “security blanket” is a perfect metaphor for the way I research, because I don’t feel comfortable enough to start a new project until I’ve read a bit about it — even if I’m just going to be making things up. Research also gives me a better idea of the kinds of things I’ll need to learn in more detail to make the book as authentic as possible, and the more I learn, the more ideas I have that will make the book even better.

My research usually starts off on the internet (where else?). I’ll probably start by visiting Wikipedia and various websites to get a basic introduction to a particular topic. This usually leads me to books and movies and documentaries that they’ve referenced, which soon become my primary sources, and I’ll start looking up fiction books on the same topic.

Some of my research books for The Silence of Six.

I know a lot of writers don’t or can’t read books similar to what they’re writing, because they’re worried about being influenced by them too much, but I find it helpful to see what’s out there. They help me discover the right tone for my book. It’s good to know how other writers have approached the same ideas, so I can avoid duplicating them and, maybe so I can try to do better. For instance, many technothrillers in film and print treat hacking like magic; a few minutes in front of a keyboard, and a hacker is deep in the Pentagon’s most top secret files, when in reality, a hack of that magnitude would take months, or much longer. In fact, before many hackers try to break into a facility or system, they do research too!

Research is one of my favorite parts of writing. I love to learn new things, and since my school days are long behind
me, researching new stories introduces me to all sorts of topics I wouldn’t have found out about otherwise. Research can also be fun — it gives you “permission” to read a bunch of books and watch TV shows and movies, while still considering it a productive part of writing. I finally started watching the show Leverage as inspiration for some of the infiltration scenes in The Silence of Six. I got to read Michelle Gagnon’s PERSEF0NE series and Robin Benway’s Also Known As books for great examples of how to write computer scenes and tense, action-filled chases. I watched The Fifth Estate, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange (but sadly I can’t recommend it, for reasons that have nothing to do with his performance). I also probably ended up on some NSA and FBI watchlists for Googling things like “How to hack into a Macbook,” “How to hack a car,” and how to do Google searches like that anonymously.

The danger of research is you can get a little too attached to that security blanket. There’s so much to read and watch, you can feel like maybe you’ll never be ready to start writing that book. You cram too much of your research into the book, so your editor starts giving you notes like, “It feels like there’s a subplot about Wi-Fi.” (All I can say about that is Wi-Fi is fascinating! And there are lots of ways to exploit it.) When research turns into procrastination, it’s time to put those books aside and start writing, confident that you know enough to get through a first draft, and you can always do more focused research later when you need it. Just highlight the sections that need to be filled in on your manuscript (I like to mark them “TK”), and keep going. And try to avoid falling into another Wikipedia spiral as you look up those missing details!

I’m in this exciting research phase with my next project. All I’ll tell you about it is that Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry, and The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst are on my reading list. I actually think these books aren’t at all similar to what I want to write, and this project shouldn’t need much research, but they’re going to get my subconscious thinking about the story so when I do start writing, I’ll feel ready.

Do you like researching your stories? How do you go about it? Do you like Benedict Cumberbatch?

The Weinstein Company has unveiled an official trailer for The Imitation Game. This film adaptation is based on Andrew Hodges’ biography Alan Turing: The Enigma.

The video embedded above offers glimpses of star actor Benedict Cumberbatch as the famous logician and computer scientist. Novelist Graham Moore penned the script.

According to Deadline, the story “centers on Turing and his team’s race against time to break the Enigma code at Britain’s top-secret Bletchley Park facility.” This movie will hit theaters on November 21, 2014.

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