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SHOOT: FRINGE’s Joshua Jackson Dodges Manhattan Traffic Downtown for 5×07

Fringe took over a block of West Hastings Street in downtown Vancouver last Monday dressed as New York City to film a scene of Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop dodging about two dozen cars while crossing the street for episode seven of the final season. Observers, Loyalist troops and citizens dressed in 1940s garb walking in the background told us this scene is set in 2036. It was a deceptively simple one of Peter crossing the street, coming to a dead stop in the middle of it until a New York cabbie yells at him to “get out of the way” and then continuing on to the curb on the other side. But all those moving vehicles required a stunt coordinator on set.

Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE’s Joshua Jackson Dodges Manhattan Traffic Downtown for 5×07

BIG READ: Making of UNDERWORLD AWAKENING

Published February 7, 2012 on Vancouver is Awesome

The return of Kate Beckinsale and her cat suit powered supernatural thriller Underworld Awakening to a weekend North American box office win of $25 million+ for its late January opening but critics blasted the fourth installment of the franchise for its weak storyline. U4 box office halved for its second weekend and then halved again last weekend. I saw the film last week in 3D and enjoyed watching Beckinsale and her stunt double playing kickass-cool vampire Selene and Simon Fraser University as its unmistakable self playing nefarious bio-tech company Antigen.

Vengeance Returns is the Underworld Awakening tagline. Here is a plot synopsis with spoilers: Not long after the events of Underworld Evolution, vampire Selene and her hybrid vampire/Lycan lover Michael Corvin are captured during The Purge, a crusade by humans to rid the world of vampires and Lycans (evolved werewolfs who can shift between wolf and human form). Twelve years later, Selene is freed from cryogenic suspension in Antigen headquarters by her and Corvin’s vampire/Lycan hybrid daughter Eve — a daughter Selene never knew she had with a lover who appears to be dead. Antigen claims to be developing an antidote for the virus that creates vampires and Lycans, but is really run by Lycans who are injecting Eve’s hybrid blood into themselves to create a race of super Lycans, impervious to silver and with enhanced abilities and size.

Unfortunately Scott Speedman declined to return as Selene’s lover Michael Corvin in the fourth film so we only see him in flashbacks or as a blurred figure in Underworld Awakening. New to this Vancouver-shot movie franchise about vampires and werewolves that predates the Twilight craze is human Detective Sebastian played by Michael Ealy of The Good Wife (see photo below).

After a brief recap of the Underworld saga so far, the new film opens with scenes of a genocide of not one but two species — vampires and Lycans — that was filmed mainly downtown. For example, crew set up a security checkpoint with police/SWAT extras on Hamilton Street outside Pappas Furs for filming on May 1st last year. Read More »BIG READ: Making of UNDERWORLD AWAKENING

BIG READ: Hip Hop Fairytale RAGS Goes Downtown

Published June 30, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

Hip hop fairy tale Rags looked more like a feature movie than a TV movie, with its dozens of prop New York taxi cabs cruising our downtown streets during its month of filming here. The Nickelodeon musical stars 17-year-old Keke Palmer, who also produces (backed by Mariah-Carey-husband and TeenNick chairman Nick Cannon), in a reverse-gender Cinderella story set in New York with teenage Max Schneider as her Cinder-fella, Charlie Prince. Is this Nickelodeon’s answer to the Disney smash High School Musical?

It could be, with the help of grownup Nickelodeon star Drake Bell of the popular Drake & Josh series in the cast: Bell (see the signature bangs below) is the current Nick heartthrob to Cinder-fella Max Schneider’s heartthrob-in-waiting. You might have spotted the actor Bell here last summer filming the upcoming live-action A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow up, Timmy Turner! Or you might have seen the just-turned-25-year-old musician Bell doing the rounds of New York morning shows this week, promoting his new 4-track EP — A Reminder — whose preview single Terrific recently topped the iTunes chart. I had no idea of Bell’s star power among the junior set until I uploaded this photo of him and Max Schneider (with his ukulele on his back) filming a Rags scene in Oceanic Plaza downtown.

During each take of the scene between Drake Bell and Max Schneider, Read More »BIG READ: Hip Hop Fairytale RAGS Goes Downtown