Tag Archives: Entertainment

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

By Erin

The long-awaited day is here. I am very excited to say that Marvel Studios’ Guardians of  the Galaxy Vol. 2 is now playing in theaters everywhere! Easily the funniest film of the year, it makes for an awesome start to the summer moviegoing season, which I am so ready for! The story follows the team as they fight to keep their newfound family together while traversing the outer reaches of the cosmos to unravel the mysteries of Peter Quill’s true parentage.

Having now saved the galaxy once, the half-human intergalactic adventurer known as Star-Lord is newly famous and keenly aware of it. When the Guardians’ newfound notoriety brings Quill’s long-lost father back into his life, his bond with the other Guardians will be put to the test. So why should you be so excited to run out and go see it? I’ve got plenty of reasons for you!

All-Star-Cast

The chemistry between the cast from the first film is what really made it shine and become the huge hit it has turned into. I am happy to say they they’re all back! Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Michael Rooker, Sean Gunn and Karen Gillan are all back with the Guardians. New talent to the crew includes: Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, Elizabeth Debicki and Pom Klementieff. James Gunn and the cast know how to make this crew work, the relationships built between the crew is fantastic and continue to grow and evolve.

Baby Groot

Baby Groot is the cutest most adorable thing that has ever happened on a movie screen. At the heart of some very touching and moving scenes and he provides some great comic relief, just watch him dance. Need I say more?

Awesome Mix Vol. 2

The music continues to be awesome. If you loved Awesome Mix Vol. 1 from the first Guardians of the Galaxy, then you will love this one too! Awesome Mix Vol. 1 is more than a great soundtrack, it is the mixtape that Peter Quill’s mother gave to him before she died and he was abducted. Full of nostalgic ’70s and ’80s tunes, each song is carefully dropped into the plot.

ALL the FEELS!

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 sends viewers on an emotional rollercoaster. You have all of the witty, clever comedy thrown in there of course. Drax’s one-liners  will have you cracking up. There are so many different relationships to pay attention to as we go deeper with the characters that are now well known. We watch Peter Quill and Gamora’s interesting ‘romantic’ relationship grow. Gamora and Nebula’s special sister relationship unfolds before us. Also Yondu and Quill have their moments. Love, loyalty, family and friends. You will become a part of the family in as you get sucked into the story. Not to spoil anything, but you may want to bring the tissues!

The End Credits

By now I think most Marvel fans know to stay until the very end of the credits or else you will miss out on some important information. So be sure to watch all the way until the end! 😉

The universe is expanding and it is extraordinary. What are you waiting for? Go out and see it!

Like GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/guardiansofthegalaxy/

Follow GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Guardians

Follow GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/guardiansofthegalaxy/

Visit the official GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 website here: https://marvel.com/guardians

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 is in theaters NOW! 🙂

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2–Meet the Cast!

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2–Meet the Cast!

By Erin

In Marvel Studios’ latest adventure, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” the Guardians must fight to keep their newfound family together as they unravel the mystery of Peter Quill’s true parentage. Picking up right where 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” left off, Marvel Studios’ “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” continues the action-packed, irreverent, epic space adventures of Peter Quill aka Star-Lord and his gang of eccentric characters as they patrol and protect the universe. We are introduced to Awesome Mixtape #2 where the story follows the team as they fight to stay together while traversing the outer reaches of the cosmos. Old foes become new allies and fan-favorite characters from the classic comics will come to our heroes’ aid as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand.

Before the movie blasts into theaters everywhere this Friday, May 5th, we had the chance to meet the cast at a press conference last month. Take a look at some of the hilarious moments that were captured and what the cast had to share with us about the new film.

Moderated by Kara Warner from People Magazine, it was just one laugh after another. Look at all those smiles!

Press Conference #1 with the below talent:

  • Chris Pratt (“Peter Quill / Star-Lord”)
  • Kurt Russell (“Ego”)
  • Michael Rooker (“Yondu”)
  • Elizabeth Debicki (“Ayesha”)
  • Director James Gunn
  • Producer Kevin Feige

Press Conference #2 with the below talent:

  • Zoe Saldana (“Gamora”)
  • Dave Bautista (“Drax”)
  • Karen Gillan (“Nebula”)
  • Sean Gunn (“Kraglin”)
  • Pom Klementieff (“Mantis”)
  • Sylvester Stallone (“Member of Nova Corps”)
  • Producer Kevin Feige

The first question was directed at Elizabeth regarding her new role as Ayesha. Being a new member of the cast, what kind of initiation process was there, and what exactly convinced her to join this ragtag bunch.

Elizabeth: James convinced me obviously. He’s extremely persuasive, not that I needed convincing. My first day on set was when we were shooting in the throne room, and I was obviously terrified of playing this extremely powerful creature. I remember sitting up on the throne for a long time and all the Guardians were in front of me. It was so intimidating, and it was about two hours before we spoke to each other, I think. They all came up in this line to sort of come and say hello. I was like, please come and say hello to me! Someone say hello. And then that was fine after that.

Also new to the cast is Kurt Russell as Ego.

Kurt: They do this weird thing. I didn’t quite know what to make of it. You have to do this thing, you have to go to Chris’s house… I don’t know how much I can say. You have to bring over some food. The truth is that when I read the script I wanted to make sure I was kind of understanding it correctly and I hadn’t seen the first movie. All of a sudden, one day I was doing Hateful Eight stuff like this, and all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom, boom, my phone and the people around me are saying, are you gonna do, oh that’s great, are you gonna be Star Lord’s dad? Are you gonna be Peter Quill’s father and are you gonna do Guardians of the Galaxy and I, I just was like, guys, I don’t really know what they’re talking about. And I saw the movie and when I saw the movie, I immediately started getting it. I also immediately started wanting to do it. That was immediately followed by, everybody loved the first movie. What you don’t want to do is do something that’s gonna make them not like the second one, right? I don’t know about you, but I said yeah. I told James that. I said, I don’t want to mess this thing up, so I need your help.

James Gunn was asked if there is one thing that he wanted to make sure not to mess up.

James: The movie? I don’t know. I just wanted to continue the film from the first movie. So many sequels are not good. The primary reason in studying them seemed to be that so many of them just kind of do the same thing the first movie did with different template, and so they say, oh people liked the dance-off in the first movie, so what’s our version of the dance-off? People liked “we are Groot” in the first movie, what’s our version of “we are Groot”? And instead of doing that, we really tried to let these characters grow and change. We want to watch them become new people and different people in every film that we come up with. I think allowing them to be themselves and do their thing, I know that sounds strange because I’m writing what they say, but sometimes I’m just letting it happen inside my own imagination and letting the characters go where they wanted to go. I think the thing that I didn’t want to mess up was just trying to be a rehash of the first movie. I think people were surprised by the first movie, people have been surprised by the second film, and to give people something new and something different from what they already had.

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Born in China with Fun Facts From Producer Roy Conli

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Born in China with Fun Facts From Producer Roy Conli

By Erin

Disneynature’s latest gem Born in China, features epic beauty, hidden majesty and endless wonder. It centers around the families of three native species; snow leopards, pandas, and golden snub-nosed monkeys. Already having great acclaim and box-office success in China, it is now open today for U.S. audiences to join in on all the wonder and amazement this film has to offer. We had the amazing opportunity to chat with the movie’s producer Roy Conli to learn how the production crew got the film’s majestic nature footage, and why this was such an important project to him. He shared many fun and interesting facts with us about the film. Take a look below to see some of my favorite things that I learned about Born in China & Roy Conli.

Producer Roy Conli attends the New York Premeire Of Disneynature’s “Born In China” at Landmark Sunshine Cinema on April 8, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images or Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

 Roy Conli: joined Disney in 1993 and co-produced “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” and went over to Paris to run the Paris studio in 1995, where he completed portions of “Hunchback.” He also worked on “Hercules” and “Tarzan” over there, and then came back in 1998 to work on “Treasure Planet,”“Tangled”, and then “Big Hero 6,” which came out in 2014 which was a lot of fun for him, as he won a big award.

“Born in China” is the seventh theatrical release for Disneynature, the first new Disney-branded film label from The Walt Disney Studios in more than 60 years. Born in China is narrated by John Krasinski.

 Shane Moore, the cinematographer for the snow leopards, spent 253 hours shooting over four trips, over six seasons. He was living in a little, uninsulated shack next to a monastery in the Quinghai Plateau. He and his very small team would leave before dawn and get back after dark, and shoot straight for the length of their Visas.

 Since they were coming in on journalistic Visas, they would have to leave after three months. The first shot of the snow leopard was at 90 days into his first stay. He had to leave the day after he got his first shot. But it’s a testament to the perseverance and professionalism these guys have. They track these animals and get to understand their movement and start to understand the thought process, their habits and customs as well.

 Pandas are incredibly isolated and they don’t like a lot of companionships around them, and they’re also 800-pound animals. So a mother panda with her cub can be somewhat intimidating and dangerous. What the cinematographers and the crew did was wear panda suits and they would put panda scent on them. As you build a relationship with these animals, and those animals see that you are not a danger, then they start getting closer and closer.

Description: Cinematographer Justin Maguire filming golden snub-nosed monkeys.

 The monkeys were the easiest to film. They just wanted to play with the cameras.

 Roy Conli told us about the importance of letting nature take its course while filming and “The Pinocchio Factor”–Amazing and frightening experiences that show life as it is and how children can handle more than we give them credit for.

One Last thing Roy Conli wanted everyone to know was to make sure to see the film this first week, when it first comes out. “Disney does something, and they’ve done it on every Disneynature release that I can remember: a portion of the proceeds from that first week is going to the World Wildlife Fund, and specifically targeted toward panda and snow leopards, in terms of the protection of those populations. We always say that Disneynature is a title that is there to educate, that is there to inspire, and then that is there to entertain. And in this particular case, it’s also there to serve. The work that Disneynature has done over the last ten years has helped protect 130,000 acres of chimpanzee reserve, create 65,000 acres of plain land for cats in Kenya, 400,000 acres protected in the U.S. National Park system, a 40,000 acre marine reserve in the Bahamas, protection of endangered monkeys in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, three million trees planted in the Amazon, in Brazil. This work is really, really important and it’s one of the greatest things that Disneynature provides. The World Wildlife Fund, in this particular instance, is going to be the beneficiary of that. And it’s going to help protect those populations for generations.”

Help protect snow leopards and pandas with Disneynature’s Born in China!

China is home to many iconic species and the WWF works to protect them, including giant pandas and snow leopards like the ones we see in the film. Premiering today, Born in China brings them to the big screen—and for every ticket sold in participating markets through April 27, Disneynature will make a donation to support WWF’s work in China. How awesome is that?? Happy Earth Day! 🙂

Character: Red-Crowned Cranes

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Visit the official BORN IN CHINA website: http://nature.disney.com/born-in-china

BORN IN CHINA is rated G and is in theatres everywhere NOW!