There are a lot of perks that come with age: Wisdom arrives with every passing year, self-awareness and acceptance increases each day, and the ability to rub a youngster's nose in your kick-ass experience is immediately satisfying at all times.

Yep, being able to pull seniority—and earn it—is a timeless classic, whether in Elizabethan literature or on the big screen with an M16 in one hand and a DEA badge in the other. That instant appeal certainly is what Arnold Schwarzenegger has in spades in this weekend’s Sabotage, an action flick that posits the former governator as the coolest alpha cop on screen, despite all the younger DEA sidekicks trying to keep pace while lagging far behind him. It is also part of a noble tradition of classic silver screen stars who can still prove their ability to one-up the next generation like a bus driver dropping the kids off at school. Without further adieu, here are 10 seasoned pros that still got it!

Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven (1992)

The squinted eyes, the half-chewed cigar, and the flowing poncho—Clint Eastwood cut one of the most mythically searing images of an Old West that never existed. Truly, none of the legendary frontiers of boundless horizon and endless opportunity shimmered quite as alluringly as in the hands of 20^th century storytellers, but Eastwood’s onscreen alter-ego, often existing in a landscape that was as much southern Spain as Southwest Texas, occupied a special iconic status; he was The Man With No Name (at least in the Sergio Leone Dollars Trilogy), and he was an indestructible force of nigh supernatural justice.

He’s also why Eastwood felt so obligated to unravel that Old West myth about the lone gunslinger in the hopes to find something true underneath. What he came up with was ugly, anguished, and ultimately tragic. Yet, in the filmmaker’s swan song to the American genre, he arguably created his greatest masterpiece. In a film in which aging Bill Munny (Eastwood) may be a bad man, and a killer of women and children to boot, he is also one that recognizes the virtue in standing by his grit and true-self. William Munny is a killer, but he is still twice the man as the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett), the boastful braggart who often appears like a child trying to impress daddy when cast in Munny’s long shadow. Munny also has none of the pretensions or illusions about his vile nature that Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) displays as the self-appointed white hat who hides behind a badge as he does wicked things. No, Bill just does Little Bill in. That says it all.

John Wayne in The Searchers (1956)

To continue the Western image, if there is one who eclipses Eastwood in the popular consciousness, it’s John “The Duke” Wayne, a bigger than life presence who is as ubiquitous within the genre as horses and Monument Valley. Indeed, it could be argued that there is no other shot with as much hopeful optimism bounding from the frame as the dolly-in on Wayne’s youthful Ringo Kid in John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939). But in that movie, Wayne played a young man, and in The Searchers (1956), also directed by Ford, Wayne is the epitome of seasoned.

Wayne’s Ethan Edwards is a former Confederate officer who, after some years away, has returned to his not-so-loving brother Aaron Edwards and his too-loving sister-in-law, Martha. However, the reunion is short-lived when Aaron, Martha, and most of their family are brutally slaughtered by Comanche Native Americans. With their youngest daughter Debbie kidnapped, Ethan teams with the only person he has left close to blood, the part-Native American Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), to bring her home. It is an epic quest that spans the seasons and the years, as little Debbie grows into comely Comanche wife Natalie Wood, and Ethan’s journey changes from one of revenge and rescue to twisted white supremacist euthanasia. While we may not always agree with Ethan’s viewpoints, there is no tougher S.O.B. on either side of Indian Territory than the man that Martin comes to see as a father figure, and whose mutual respect is the one thing that may have stayed Ethan’s hand. In the film’s closing shot, Martin gets to join the darkness of civilization with a terrified Debbie when she’s “saved” by her family. But Ethan is the real deal: a desperado without a place in the settled West, walking alone into the fading light.

Sean Connery in The Rock (1996)

When looking to cast someone intimidating enough to escape from Alcatraz 25 years ago, and crazy enough to go back with Nicolas freakin’ Cage, director Michael Bay and producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson could not have done better than the original international man of mystery. Sean Connery (or at least his interpretation of Terrence Young) is James Bond. There have been other actors to play Fleming’s double-0 superspy, but none have had the perfect balance of detached indifference to aggressive violence, as well as aggressive foreplay. That is why Bay’s one truly great movie had an acting coup when they indirectly implied that The Rock’s John Patrick Mason was the 007 returned to the big screen. He may have started with grungy white hair, but the irrepressible Scotsman brought style back to the ‘90s and even managed to bury Cage’s frenzied antics with sheer all-consuming presence. He may not have been able to out-crazy Cage when they shared the screen (who could?), but he managed to supplant the young man as the obvious second banana with the simple fold of a tie and the roll of an R. This was Connery’s movie to save the day and kill terrorists in, Cage might as well have been stirring his martinis.

Michael Caine in Harry Brown (2009)

Some young punks just need a lesson in how things are done. That is at least the way Harry Brown (Michael Caine) sees things after he retires from the Royal Marines to a London council estate following a career of service in Northern Ireland. The neighborhood is so rough that Harry can’t take the shortcut to see his wife dying in the hospital or do much of anything when his pub-mate Len Atwell (David Bradley) is killed by a local gang of street hooligans. No, these delinquents need more than one lesson, and Harry is willing to stay after school to make sure it gets drilled in their heads right next to the bullets. In one of Caine’s best later-in-life performances, he embodies an older generation’s distaste and apprehension for youth culture, and in these seedy neighborhoods where even the cops have given up, maybe old Harry has a point?

Sylvester Stallone in Rocky Balboa (2006)

If you told anyone 10 years ago that “Rocky VI” would be the best sequel of the whole damn lot, you would have been laughed into silence after the words “Rocky VI.” Who wanted to see Sylvester Stallone resurrect his signature character again, especially past the age of 60? The answer is probably only Stallone, but we are lucky that he did since Rocky Balboa stands as a stark bookend on the 1976 classic underdog story. As an old man whose family and personal issues have lost him his fortune, Rock’s a washed-up athlete that no one sees the value of anymore. That is at least until, much like the original Rocky, a world champion conjures a PR move by holding an exhibition match with the former heavyweight icon. What unfolds is Rocky not winning the bout and proving the dissenters wrong (again), but him instead going the distance one last time and being able to still stand on his own two feet. Rocky proves in his “Death of a Prize Fighter” opus—crystallized through the snowy streets of Philadelphia during the training montages—that he is still worth a damn to at least himself. That is something worth fighting for, especially when it makes a whippersnapper half his age learn a little respect.

Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Ironically, one career highlight revisited in the 21^st century that had far higher expectation, and achieved much lower adoration after release, was the return of Harrison Ford as Dr. Henry Jones Jr. (Indiana is the dog’s name). Yet whatever shortcomings the fourth adventure with Indy may have introduced, none of them were at the hand of Ford. Hell, despite being 65 during production, he still looked like he could wallop co-star Shia LaBeouf, stuntmen not required. Bringing back the heroic charisma of everyone’s favorite archeologist, all the “old school” stuff about this movie worked like a charm, including Ford and a welcomed return for Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood. The newfangled special effects, aliens, and LaBeouf may have left the movie wanting, but Ford’s Indy still can dominate multiplexes with the snap of his whip. Even after 70, he likely could do it again.

Bruce Willis in Looper (2012)

Bruce Willis. This is an action star who has been in the game so long that he never really needed a comeback since he has reliably been right there making stuff blow up good for decades. It is probably why he has hinted more than once that he is tired of the bullets and brawn genre as of late. So, when director Rian Johnson got him to engage for some of his best work in years with Looper, it really made for something special. Willis’ Old Joe doesn’t just show any kid how they used to do things downtown; he gets to show himself when he travels back to his past and meets Young Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a smart-mouth with a gun. Well, Old Joe is smarter and has a gun too, so what are they to do with their impasse when the younger decides he has to kill his senior? For starters, not bleed on themselves after Old Joe kicks his teeth in during this time traveling Gordian-knot. Willis hasn’t been this lively in years, and the result is a movie where he can finally look in a mirror and like what he sees: Gordon-Levitt’s Young Joe playing catch-up.

Liam Neeson in Taken (2008)

“But what I do have are a very particular set of skills.” These are the words that have launched a brand new sub-genre: the Liam Neeson Punches People In February Movie. And Neeson is indeed a master at it. As a late-in-life action star, Neeson’s tall frame, imposing Irish brogue, and perfected ability to deliver the understated deadpan have made him a natural to the genre with low-cost, no-nonsense action flicks that always get the job done. Still, none have done that job better than Taken, a film where a couple of smug French sex traffickers thought they could kidnap Liam Neeson’s sweet, oblivious daughter (Maggie Grace as another millennial who underestimates Neeson’s awesomeness), and get away with it. They even mock Neeson over the phone after he fairly warns them about his aforementioned skill-set. Perhaps, he should have offered them a PDF of his CV? In any case, they dare to taunt Mr. Neeson, “Good luck.” That was a…Really. Stupid. Idea. Neeson spends the next 95 minutes testifying to this when he cuts a bloody war path through Paris that depletes the local population of about half a thousand scumbags. He warned them.

Morgan Freeman in Se7en  (1995)

Morgan Freeman’s Somerset says everything that needs to be known about himself at the end of David Fincher’s first masterpiece, Se7en. “Ernest Hemingway once wrote, ‘The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.’ I agree with the second part.” An educated and highly intellectual detective, Somerset has been in the game too long to not realize how foul people tend to be. Yet, he is willing to give the good fight, even when staring into the abyss of his final case involving a serial killer committing seven murders based on the Bible’s seven deadly sins. It is a shadowy world that bypasses noir and cuts straight into nihilism. But if younger Det. Mills (Brad Pitt) had only heeded some of Somerset’s advice about the job and handling these fiends, perhaps he could have resisted pulling the trigger and firing several shots into John Doe’s chillingly evil head. Doe, played with seething misanthropy by a smiling Kevin Spacey, never got the upper-hand on Freeman’s world-weary Somerset. However, that might be due to the box not being meant for him. Nevertheless, it was the inexperienced Mills who let John Doe’s work of art be completed.

Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino (2008)

And to round out the list, we return to an even crustier and more grizzled Clint Eastwood. Nearly 20 years before Gran Torino, Eastwood said goodbye to the Man with No Name in Unforgiven, but it is in Torino that he makes his peace with “Dirty” Harry Callahan. As bitter Walt Kowalski, Eastwood plays a retired assembly line worker from Detroit. A former veteran of the Korean War, he is cut from the same mold as Schwarzenegger in this weekend’s Sabotage. He’s aged, withdrawn, and angry that his wife was taken away from him. But rather than whither away on his front porch with a can of PBR on constant tap, he puts the blue ribbon down just long enough to pick up the shotgun and clean up his neighborhood.

When gangs threaten his Hmong neighbors, Walt makes their protection his hobby, even turning the young son who once tried to boost his prized Gran Torino, a troubled kid named Thao (Bee Vang), into his very own protégé. He has no use for his wife’s religion, or the bourgeois condescension from his adult children and spoiled grandchildren. He is going to use his few remaining years to make the world a better place, one trespass-free lawn at a time. Still never anything less than a racist and a short-sighted senior with as many prejudices as Eastwood’s famed San Francisco cop, Eastwood was allowed to covertly explore the trope one last time while still finding the heroism therein. Yeah…

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Sex. If you don't want to dig any deeper, it's easy to claim that's all Danish director Lars von Trier wanted to put on screen with his latest endeavor, Nymphomaniac. With more beneath it's skin than some may be willing to admit, Nymphomaniac does still put some its high powered stars in some risqué positions they once thought they may not be a part of when their careers kicked off. We sat down with Charlotte Gainsbourg—who plays both volumes of Nymphomaniac’s narrator, as an older but not necessarily calmer Joe—and picked her brain on what it's like working with a director like von Trier and how easy it is to put herself out there for him.

What did it feel like, knowing that your family was going to see this movie?

Charlotte Gainsbourg: They haven’t.

They haven’t?

Nope.

Did you ask them not to?

Oh my mother did. I didn’t ask anything. I think it might be a bit embarrassing for people who know me well. I won’t push anyone to see a film I’m in.

What was the most challenging aspect of taking on this role?

It’s easy to say yes to a film that Lars directs, because I admire him so much. Of course it’s challenging, because you put yourself into sort of extreme situations. Not even the sexual… Some of it, I was a bit nervous about, but it wasn’t just that. It was also suffering. It’s always quite overwhelming and just extreme. But I want to go there, there’s no question. I want to explore things with him, and he has such a wonderful method of working and exploring with you, never judging. When I had the impression that I was going to quite dark places, he was there with me and really had a lot of empathy for the character. In the end, I really love his films. Usually I’m always embarrassed, watching myself in films I’ve done. With him, there’s so much surprise, and the story telling is so rich that I’m so proud to be in his films.

Did you find yourself surprised while on set?

Surprised by what?

Surprised by anything that you came up with, because I heard that everyone was pretty much creative with the material.

I was never surprised by myself, no. I remember that the big surprise to me, before we started the film, was the fact that he asked Jamie Bell to play that [BDSM fetishist character], because, on paper, I had read a sort of masculine brute. I thought it was so interesting to ask such a refined actor who was so youthful. It gave a completely different aspect to that character and to the whole masochism part that I had to go through.

Did you find it hard to come out of such a dark place? It seems like you went to a really dark place, which it seems his films have taken you to in the past.

I have to say that during the shoot, I was still breastfeeding my baby, and it was so strange to go from such extremes on the set to something so innocent and such light places, in my hotel room with my little girl. It may be a necessary voyage. It’s a film and it’s a game, and I had a lot of fun shooting it.

Do you find yourself in the same creative place when preparing for a role, as when you’re doing your music?

No. With films, I really have the impression that I’m a tool. I love being a tool, but I’m in the hands of a talented director like Lars and I want to be sort of a puppet for him. That’s the whole pleasure. With music, I have a feeling and that’s why I find it much harder; I have a feeling that I’m in command, that I can say what I want to say, and explore myself and put myself out there much more. They’re completely different perspectives on work.

What are your next projects?

Since I did Lars’ film, I think I did seven films or six. I especially did four in a row, since last September, which was a lot for me, so now I’m taking a break. Maybe I’ll try concentrating on music, if I can. I’d love that. I’ll have to promote those six films.

Can you name any of them?

I did a Spanish film that I loved doing. Then I did a comedy you might have heard of. It’s a French comedy by the guys [Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano] who did Intouchables. I haven’t seen any of those films yet. It’s lovely to go from Lars’ film to a comedy.

When you finally saw the movie, you got to see the story that you were telling brought to life. You wouldn’t see that on set. You were literally telling a story. More so than usual, you get to see something that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. You got to see the script come to life in a different way. I’m just curious how that felt to finally see it all come to life.

Yeah, it was a whole surprise. Sometimes, [actress Stacy Martin who plays young Joe and I] were there, in Germany, at the same time. We would cross into each other, but I never saw any of the dailies, even mine. I didn’t know anything that was going on with her. I was so amazed by the beauty of what she had done and the aesthetics that were put into that part of the film, because in Volume 2, I really have the impression that all that is being put on a pedestal for her and her beauty and the experience and sex, well it all collapses once I come in.

Having worked with Lars before, do you feel like you’ve built up a rapport with him? Or is every film you work on with him an experiment in terror?

I do believe that we have some kind of friendship. I love him very, very, much and I don’t know much about him. He’s still very mysterious. There’s a real awkwardness between us and that’s the way it is. I like that about him, not knowing too much, not being able to analyze everything, not being able to have him answer my questions. But at the same time, I have a feeling that he knows everything about me. It’s a strange relationship.

I really feel that he’s not given enough credit for what he does for women in film.

Yeah, because I’ve heard he’s misogynistic and I don’t see how it’s possible. There’s a lot of self-hatred, and I believe he has that for himself, as a man, and he portrays himself through women. On the contrary, I think there’s a lot of affection and admiration for women.

All of his movies are filled with people he’s worked with plenty of times. Is there a certain sense of entitlement when you walk on one of these sets?

No. Not at all. On the contrary, I remember Melancholia was my second film with him; I would’ve been entitled to some kind of consistency, but on the contrary he was quite tough with me on that film, avoiding me for some time. Because the first part of the film, I wasn’t really there. He put me in a place where I felt very uncomfortable. He’s never where you think he’s going to be.

That must keep it interesting.

Very interesting, because I do like not being balanced and being in an awkward position. Being unsure of myself is part of the way I like working. That’s what I finally understood. I think I like being uncomfortable.

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The one Marvel movie coming out this year that fans tend to overlook is getting closer by the day: Walt Disney Animations Studios’ Big Hero 6. Based on the titular Marvel comic book super squad that started appearing in the late 1990s, the film is being made by the same studio that gave us Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph. And now, we have the first vocal casting confirmation for the project with TJ Miller, who recently told Bostinno that he would be lending his talents to the film. Confirming that, Rotoscopers is now reporting that he will be voicing the character of Fred.

Fred is described to be an aspiring low-budget filmmaker who at one time volunteered to be a test subject for robot experiments with Tadashi, but is now happily staying on as a fellow researcher at Tech Labs where he films weird, “funny” videos of himself.

When Disney acquired Marvel in 2009, Disney CEO Bob Iger encouraged the House of Mouse side to consider other, lesser Marvel properties for animated adaptation, leading to Big Hero 6. As a team of Japanese superheroes, created in 1998, the super-squad was originally led by Silver Samurai (an X-Men villain who appeared in 2013’s The Wolverine). However like all super-teams, the roster has rotated. Set originally in Japan—where the heroes would face Eastern-centric horrors like the astral embodiment of the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings—this effort adapted by Walt Disney Animation Studios will be set in the futuristic San Fransokyo, a hybrid between San Francisco and Tokyo. There, Marvel’s child prodigy turned superhero, Hiro Hamada, and his trusty robot Baymax will find themselves in an origin story of criminal malfeasance. Joe Quesada, Marvel Entertainment’s chief creative officer, has said it retains Marvel’s “heroic arcs,” but with a Disney-flavor in the main characters’ relationship.

Big Hero 6 opens November 7, 2014.

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The first trailer for Begin Again, a new romantic entry from Once’s John Carney, was released by The Weinstein Company today. In the below video, you can witness what happens when one dream of big city life ends for another in a film that stars Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine, Hailee Steinfeld, Catherine Keener, and CeeLo Green.

When Gretta (Knightley) and her boyfriend (Adam Levine) move to New York, they have big dreams about pursuing a musical career together. However, when the male half of the duo ditches Gretta for a record contract and intentions of solo fame and fortune, Gretta is devastated and almost as down on her luck as a fired record producer (Mark Ruffalo) who happens to hear one of her songs during an open mic night. Enchanted, and a little drunk, he decides to invest in her singing with a very, very stripped down solo album that will use the city as their recording studio in the blind hope of changing their lives.

Begin Again opens July 4, 2014.

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The last thing anyone wants to see in their backyard is a giant alien invasion, but that’s appears par for the course in Michael Bay’s Transformers universe. Nevertheless, the onslaught of giant robots (perhaps of the dino variety?) from the other world can only mean one thing: Run away, and that is exactly what they do in this new Transformers: Age of Extinction Poster with Mark Wahlberg and Nicola Peltz.

Set for a June 27, 2014 release date, Transformers: Age of Extinction acts as a soft-reboot of the franchise, as the jittery hero Sam Witwicky has been replaced by Wahlberg in search of saving his daughter. However, Michael Bay has assuredly returned for the mayhem, and will be joined by Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Sophia Myles, Li Bingbing, TJ Miller, and Han Geng.

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The apparent final lead role for Paramount and Skydance’s Terminator reboot, Terminator: Genesis, has been cast with actor Dayo Okeniyi stepping into the shoes of Mile Dyson, the man who inadvertently engineered our apocalypse.

Variety reports that the studio and director Alan Taylor closed in on a deal with Okeniyi, best known for playing one of the tributes in 2012’s The Hunger Games, after talks with John Boyega (who has been linked to Star Wars: Episode VII) ended after he curiously pulled away from the project. Okeniyi joins a cast that already includes Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones as Sarah Connor, the woman who would birth our world’s savoir, as well as Jason Clarke (no relation) as that child grown up in the future, and Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese, the bridge between the two timelines. Arnold Schwarzenegger is also expected to reprise his role as the time-traveling killer cyborg.

For long-time fans of the Terminator franchise, Miles Dyson did not appear in the original 1984 Terminator flick, but he was a major part of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) where he was played by Joe Morton. As the man who accidentally designs artificial intelligence at Cyberdyne, which becomes Skynet, he is meant to be a sci-fi Oppenheimer who becomes death, the destroyer of worlds. He also did not last long in that film, but since they are moving up his prominence in the reboot, there is a good chance he may last a little longer.

Terminator: Genesis hits theaters on July 1, 2015.

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Alien: Isolationlooks to reverse the fortunes of the Alienvideo game franchise, following the disappointing (and late) Aliens: Colonial Marines game from last year. But when a first person shooter doesn't exactly light up your life, why not change tactics a little? Enter Alien: Isolation, which takes the game back to the roots of the original Alienfilm, which was less about shoot-em-up pyrotechnics and more about body horror and uncertainty. 

“We couldn’t be happier to finally announce a date for Alien: Isolation,” said Alistair Hope, Creative Lead at Creative Assembly. “The reaction we have seen so far has been simply incredible, from the screams and shrieks to the cold sweats and racing hearts. It’s the Alien game that we’ve always wanted to play and we can’t wait to let everyone get their hands on it this fall.”

The official word on Alien: Isolationfollows:

Alien: Isolation is a first-person survival horror game capturing the fear and tension evoked by Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic film. Players find themselves in an atmosphere of constant dread and mortal danger as an unpredictable, ruthless Xenomorph is stalking and killing deep in the shadows. Underpowered and underprepared, you must scavenge resources, improvise solutions and use your wits, not just to succeed in your mission, but to simply stay alive.

Alien: Isolation will be available from October 7, 2014, for Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3, and Windows PC. Our chests are positively bursting with expectation (sorry).

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It seem the Sharknadonews doesn't end on just the sequel announcement! A few days ago, RiffTrax – the ever-popular successor to Mystery Science Theater 3000– revealed that they would be doing another RiffTrax Live show on July 10th, while not giving out any other details. Yesterday, the trio of Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy revealed via online press conference that the movie would be none other than cult hit Sharknado!

This will be the team's 11th RiffTrax Live broadcast, dating back to August, 2009's Plan 9 From Outer Space with the most recent edition being last December's Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. While the website is able to release mp3 commentary for such major movies as Avengersand Star Wars, the RiffTrax Live setup makes it harder for them to get notable movie titles due to copyright obstacles. Usually, they rely on public domain films, but in recent years they've been getting involved with movies that come with a price, such as Birdemic(which probably cost them ten bucks and a half-finished jar of applesauce, but it still counts) and Starship Troopers (part of a Kickstarter originally meant for Twilight). Getting The Asylum's Sharknado is sort of a big deal, though in its own way, it's acting as a big advertisement for the upcoming sequel.

If you haven't experienced RiffTrax Live, it's a live filming of Mike, Bill, and Kevin watching whichever movie as Fathom Events broadcasts it to theaters all around the US and Canada. They tend to include at least one unrelated short film to make fun of before hitting the feature presentation. All of the previous ones are available on their website except for Starship Troopers due to rights issues.

While the show will be on July 10, tickets will go on sale on Friday May 2. If your theater is anything like mine, I'd suggest getting them at least a week in advance. Bring lots of friends. The more the merrier.

Here's the announcement video where they discuss the show, as well as Tuesday's upcoming 3-hour block of them lampooning National Geographic's various TV shows.

Fathom Events, The Asylum and RiffTrax.com® are ecstatic to bring the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000® (MST3K) back to select cinemas nationwide on Thursday, July 10 LIVE at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 7:00 p.m. CT and tape-delayed to 7:00 p.m. MT/ 8:00 p.m. PT AND Tuesday, July 15 at 7:30 p.m. (local time) for a hilarious never-before-seen take on the viral B-movie sensation, Sharknado.

Join Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett of RiffTrax.com for an uproarious riff on the most outrageous flick of 2013! This two-night event will be your only chance to see the guys fire their wisecracking commentary at Sharknado on the big screen.

Michael J. Nelson As the former host and writer of the Emmy-nominated, Peabody Award-winning Mystery Science Theater 3000®, Nelson has appeared on numerous radio and TV shows, written a regular column for TV Guide, and authored many best-selling books.

Kevin Murphy Perhaps best known as the man behind the plucky red robot Tom Servo on Mystery Science Theater 3000®, Murphy is also author of the bestselling book A Year at the Movies: One Man’s Filmgoing Odyssey and has been a regular contributor to NPR’s Weekend Edition and Wits.

Bill Corbett A former writer and performer for Mystery Science Theater 3000®, Corbett was the voice of the robot “Crow” (version 2.0), as well as many other strange characters including the clueless alien “The Observer” (a.k.a. “Brain Guy”). Corbett is also a screenwriter and an internationally-produced playwright.

Considered by many critics to be one of the greatest movies ever made in the “Tornado full of sharks” genre, Sharknadodebuted in 2013 to unprecedented buzz. Not since Snakes On A Plane had the Internet been so excited about a movie, and not since the late 90s had anyone been so excited about anything starring Tara Reid.

Ian Ziering, played by William Katt, stars as “Fin” (Get it???) a famous surfer whose day at the beach is ruined by colder than expected water temperatures. We’re just kidding of course, it’s ruined by the ENORMOUS TORNADO FULL OF RAVENOUS SHARKS. Soon they infiltrate the entire city of Los Angeles via the sewer system and… Look, why are you still reading this? It has chainsaws, helicopters dropping bombs, and the aforementioned TORNADO FULL OF SHARKS! Get yourself to the theater already!

From the moment it debuted, Sharknadohas been one of the most requested titles in RiffTrax history. It makes Jaws IV look like Jaws III, and Jaws III look like Jaws. You won’t want to miss the chance to see Mike, Kevin, and Bill tackle Sharknado!

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Filmmaker Gareth Evans stunned audiences a few years back with his second feature film, The Raid (known in the U.S. as The Raid: Redemption), in which a rookie cop named Rama (Iko Uwais) must battle an army of criminals as he makes his way to the top of a tenement and the crime lord who resides there. The film’s extensive use of the Indonesian martial art known as pencak silat gave the film’s intensely violent action sequences an almost ballet-like feel that set them apart from anything happening in Hollywood productions and pegged Evans as a director to watch.

Now Evans is back with The Raid 2 (a.k.a. The Raid 2: Berandal) in which Rama works undercover to gain access to a criminal organization and bring down not just its bosses but their friends on the political scene. The film is again brutal and relentless, but this time Evans opens up the story and the settings, taking the action into the streets of Jakarta and into a variety of striking new locations while giving the story a more operatic sweep.

Den Of Geek sat down with Evans recently in Los Angeles to discuss shooting The Raid 2, how the film’s jaw-dropping car chase was based on a real incident, and where he draws the line on violence.

Den Of Geek: I was interested to read that you had this script before making The Raid so let’s talk about that.

Gareth Evans: Back in 2008 I made a film called Merantau. When that finished I wrote a script called Berandal. Berandal was a standalone film and it was about a young guy who goes into prison, befriends the son of a mob boss, comes out, joins him as an enforcer and then has to survive a gang war. I tried for two years to get the budget for it but couldn’t get it off the ground. And then the next thing I know I’m like, okay, well we’ve got to do something. It’s been two years. So we went off and started working on The Raid 1 instead as a backup project, as a plan B. And then while I was designing it I was thinking, what the f**k was wrong with that Berandal script? What was bugging me about it? And the biggest thing that was annoying me was the fact that the lead character’s motivation was sketchy. Like, why would he stay with them if they’re in a gang war? He could just leave. And so I started thinking, how do I keep him there. What’s my force to keep him there? And I said well, if he was an undercover cop he has to stay, that’s his job. It’s his duty. He has to stay then and not let on that there’s anything wrong with him. So then I was working on The Raid 1 and I was like okay, well let’s make this a sequel. And at the end of Raid 1 we started to sow the seeds of the other characters that would play a part in The Raid 2.

I went back to that script, retrofitted it, rewrote it maybe 30, 40 percent. Added in police procedural stuff, more investigative elements to it. Because in that pre-existing one I already had Hammer Girl. I already had Baseball Bat Man. I already had Bejo. I had the son and the father and the jealousy. Just didn’t have the police procedural stuff. So that was like a major part of the rewrite.

So with Rama, you had a ready-made character and motivation.

Yeah, exactly, yeah. Once I made him an undercover cop and once I kind of raised the stakes about the family, it’s like that building was small fry but f**k, they’re going to try and find you now. And then it was like, yeah, that was a great way to be able to push that motivation and be like he’s got to look after his family. He’s got to do this for his family. And even though it’s taken three years of his life away that he’ll never get back with his kid, it’s paramount to him that they’re safe.

Were you chomping at the bit to get out into the world so to speak and use a lot of different locations and create a much bigger picture?

Yeah. I loved doing the first one but there’s something incredibly limiting to the idea of shooting inside the studio all the time. Like 80 percent of it was studio based. So while we’re shooting it’s all gray walls, gray floors, just dark, dingy and not much color to it -- desaturated. Trying to create an interesting visual landscape was difficult in that film. It had more of a hard-edged gritty, documentary style feel to it in a way. When we did this one I was like,"Okay, guys, we’re going to take this out in the streets. We’re going to change it up a lot. I want to make it more vibrant. I want to make it more colorful, and I also want to mess around with the way we shoot stuff."

So when it’s the fight sequences we stick to our regular routine of being able to be handheld and dynamic and vibrant, come up and down and left and right, making every shot the best that complements the choreography. Then when it comes to the drama sequences I wanted to go more composed, more classical in terms of the camera position. I got really specific when it came to the Japanese guys. I wanted to shoot them like a Japanese movie, not like an Indonesian movie, not like my movie but a Japanese action movie. So we had this like little sort of small movement of the camera, but when they sit down and it’s all composed, all controlled.

What were the practical challenges of actually going on location in Jakarta and shooting this kind of film with car chases and everything?

Everything was not bad in terms of the logistics of the real location. Car chases are a f**king nightmare though. The car chase was brutal no matter where you shot it. Same with the taxi attack. That stuff was so hard. It was so difficult because you book a road to use for the shoot and then you turn up and then the police will turn up three hours later. So before you already start you’ve lost 20 percent of your shooting time, 25 percent sometimes. And then when we’re shooting if they hear me call "cut" on the speaker system they would open the road and let traffic come up. We haven’t even reset the scene yet. So then we’re coming back down the road and all these cars are swerving around us. Some of them are swerving at us. And everyone was calling us p***k, a****le, piece of s**t because we blocked their traffic for a while. There’s not really the infrastructure in Indonesia yet for doing a car chase. They’ve still got a lot to learn really in terms of being able to really get control of those roads. Because right now they send us like two policemen to control a 400 meter road.

I read that the taxi sequence was based on a true event. What’s the story?

What happened was this. You remember the London riots about three years ago in the summertime? They burned down a lot of stores and stuff like that and there was just general chaos for a while. A friend of mine works for the police force. A friend of his is also a policeman. And he was on patrol one night and he was in the police car and he was driving up this one street and he came to a stop at some traffic lights. And as his car came to a stop he saw this group of kids coming on either side with scaffolding bars and they smashed his windows and then hit him in the face. And he fell down to the floor. He dropped down inside the car. And as he looked up they were all just reaching in with knives trying to stab him. So he ended up having to put his hand on the gas pedal just to get himself away from them. So that’s the real life version. In mine I have like bodies hanging on. They keep chasing after him.

The violence in the movie is just as intense as the first one, if not more so. Do you try things and say no, that’s too much? Is there anything you wouldn’t do or show?

Torture.

Okay.

For me it’s like this. Everything we do is a visceral reaction. Let's say we stab him in the shoulder with the hammer. Well all we see is like (makes motion of hammer hitting) clunk and (grimaces) "aghh" and then cut. We don't stay on there for a while and see all the detail and twist it around or whatever. So there’s a difference between that and then what I like. I try to respect what my dad says about film violence. My dad was a massive, massive fan of cinema, he still is to this day. But he used to be a computer teacher. And every weekend basically he would come home from his last day of the week, we’d go to the video store, we’d pick a film, come back and watch it. I would always pick like Commando or something or Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan.

If I was too young to watch that stuff he’d sit there with me and if I saw something that wasn’t appropriate he would give me a moral lesson about it afterwards. He would tell me why that was wrong, why what happened in that scene was particularly sadistic. Otherwise he’d kick me out of the room and then he’d press pause and then as I’m out of the room he’d start to press play and watch it for himself. And then call me back in when the violence had gone. And so my dad always had that thing where you can be visceral, you can shock people, you can make people have a reaction to something but never tip it over into the edge of torture or over the edge into like pain and suffering as the focal point. So with Hammer Girl we hit, boom, we show you something really quick, then we cut away and move on. And that’s my limitation. That’s my cut-off point when it comes to violence.

What's next? I understand you have a possible Raid 3 idea, but I also understand that Hollywood has started to ring your bell a little bit.

Raid 3, I have an idea for it. I know what I want to do with it. So whereas The Raid 2 starts two hours after The Raid 1 finishes. Raid 3 starts three hours before The Raid 2 finishes. So we go back in time to a certain event where someone puts a series of events in motion, makes a decision on something that will come back to haunt him. And it’s all about the consequences of that and branching off into that story. That’s The Raid 3. And in terms of doing something in Hollywood. I have two projects in development. One with Universal, one with MRC. I am currently pursuing those and we’re going to see what happens, which one drops first. Whichever one is the one that can kind of go ahead early next year. That’ll be the one I work on.

Are they action oriented?

Yeah, they are. There’s action beats in them. One of them is definitely action. The other one has got a lot of action beats in it as well. But yeah, whether it’s martial arts or not I don’t know. Most likely not because I want to take a break from it and I come back to martial arts when it comes to The Raid 3 and then another film I want to do in Indonesia with Iko again.

The Raid 2 is in theaters now.

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There are two kinds of people: those who like Planet of the Apes movies (even the not-so-great ones), and those who do not. We're going to assume that if you're a Den of Geek reader, you probably like Planet of the Apes movies, and movies about intelligent (or giant) primates in general. With that in mind, we'd like to present to you the new TV spot for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which is positively loaded with menace and, of course, apes.

What is Dawn of the Planet of the Apes about? We're glad you asked:

A growing nation of genetically evolved apes led by Caesar is threatened by a band of human survivors of the devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier. They reach a fragile peace, but it proves short-lived, as both sides are brought to the brink of a war that will determine who will emerge as Earth's dominant species.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes opens on July 11th. It's directed by Matt Reeves and stars Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, and Keri Russell.

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After that epically entertaining trailer for X-Men: Days of Future Past that dropped last week, 20^th Century Fox had the Internet community abuzz with flights of Sentinels and a seemingly doomed Ororo Munroe. But the studio and director Bryan Singer are not done there, because the marketing drive for the hotly anticipated superhero blockbuster is only just now getting warmed up. In the newest TV spot for the movie, Patrick Stewart’s older Professor X is giving another lecture, and this one is about struggling to find hope in the seeming end of days.

X-Men: Days of Future Past opens on May 23, 2014. Directed by Bryan Singer, the man who launched the cinematic X-franchise, it will not only reunite the all-important X-Men trinity of Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, and Ian McKellen, but it will also team them up with their younger X-Men: First Class counterparts like Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, and James McAvoy. And that's just the start! Plenty of old X-Men favorites, including Shawn Ashmore's Iceman and Ellen Page’s Kitty Pryde are back for this one, too. Whatever X-Men: Days of Future Past may turn out to be, it probably won't be dull!

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The Apes may have risen in 2011, but only now is the dawning of their world at hand, and 20^th Century Fox has been proud to announce it with a new TV spot, and now a new teaser that hints at the next stage of life for Caesar, the ape conqueror brought to wonderful life by Andy Serkis’ motion captured performance.

In Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, superb character actors Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, and Gary Oldman are getting to lead an ensemble that still sports Andy Serkis as benevolent ape king, Caesar, in a world where the apes truly rule. And with Matt Reeves at the helm, director of the vastly underrated Let Me In, Fox again has a mystery box of a franchise film that we cannot wait to unwrap.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes begins July 11, 2014.

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Those fiercely, sometimes even obnoxiously independent souls over at Troma Entertainment are marking their 40th anniversary this year, and these first three months alone have been busy ones for Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz, and the whole darn Troma Team. Following the release of their heartrending extravaganza, Return to Nuke ‘Em High (Vol.1), they received some long-overdue recognition from both the American Cinematique and The Museum of Modern Art. Now they’ve announced the overwhelming number of submissions to this year’s TromaDance film festival has forced them to move to a larger venue and nudge the date bak a bit to give people time to make arrangements. So now the festival will be celebrating its 15th anniversary on the weekend of June 27th and 28th at The Paper Box, a performance and art space (with a really nice bar and backyard) in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Sure, the whole damn world’s awash in film festivals. Swing a cat around and chances are good you’ll thwack some snooty critic or producer on his way to one or another. You got your Cannes, Venice, Berlin, New York, Tribeca, Sundance, SXSW, wherever the hell else. But every last one of them is owned and operated by giant corporations, big studios, and graphpaper heads with deep pockets and no sense of humor. As a result, those fancy, respectable festivals are no damn fun at all. Which is kind of a moot point anyway, considering schlubs like us aren’t exactly welcome.

Since its inception in 1999, TromaDance has been like no other film festival on earth, a truly independent festival focused on indie filmmakers and movie fans. True to the studio’s anarchist, anti-corporate, DIY sensibilities (and setting it far apart from the likes of SlamDance and even the NYUFF), TromaDance not only doesn’t charge filmmakers fees to submit their films for consideration, they don’t even charge admission to any of the screenings or panel discussions or parties. All you need to do is find your way there, get in line early (everything’s first come, first served), and maybe bring along a couple bucks for beers. Along that same thinking, given TromaDance also adamantly refuses to offer any VIP consideration of any kind to anyone, the filmmakers, musicians, and celebrities who attend (and they do) are forced to stand in line with the likes of us, sit next to us at screenings, and mingle with us at the parties, who knows? On top of seeing some swell new pictures you might get the chance to share your thoughts on global warming, proper brain splattering, and public nudity with Samuel L. Jackson. You probably won’t get a sneak peek at Mr. Jackson’s latest while you’re there, nor the new reboot of a film that was useless crap when Lion’s Gate released it originally five years ago, but chances are good you’ll end up seeing something you weren’t expecting.

Although the final screening schedule has yet to be announced, a rough overview of the festivities runs like this: On Friday the 27th, they’ll be screening films from 6-10 p.m., and on Saturday the 28th things get underway at noon, with films shown in blocks until 10 that night. After that is the afterparty (just like those fancy festivals, except it won’t cost anything to get in and it’ll be, y’know, FUN) with bands and performers and the typical sort of madness you can expect from Troma.

For more information on the TromaDance Film Festival please visit: http://tromadance.com

The Paper Box

17 Meadow Street

Brooklyn, NY

Phone (718) 383-3815

http://paperboxnyc.com/

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