<![CDATA[io9: Milla Jovovich]]> http://cache.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: Milla Jovovich]]> http://io9.com/tag/milla jovovich http://io9.com/tag/milla jovovich <![CDATA[ Serial Killings Lead To A Surreal Luc Besson Nightmare ]]> Director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) is making another science fiction thriller, starring Korean mega-star Dong Kun-Jang (Tae Guk Gi — The Brotherhood Of War). The as-yet-untitled action movie is based on a novel by a South Korean professor about a serial killer in New York, whose actions spark a series of unforeseen consequences. Milla Jovovich and Natalie Portman are "expected" to co-star in the French-Korean co-production, according to reports. [China Daily]

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io9-5039229 Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:40:00 PDT Charlie Jane Anders http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5039229&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Why Alice Ain't Married Anymore ]]> I adored Resident Evil: Extinction, the third in the series of movies starring Milla Jovovich as the bio-engineered, satellite-controlled ninja Alice. She has to fight evil computers, plus all the zombies created by a virus that's escaped from the evil R&D mad science outfit Umbrella Corporation. But to fully appreciate why Alice is so badass, you have to go back to the first Resident Evil movie and watch her throw off the shackles of the man she's been programmed to love.

I've got two short clips for you here. One comes as the movie begins, after Alice's mind has been wiped by a chemical released by the AI running Umbrella. She starts to remember her "past" in little bits as she enters the Umbrella complex to find out what's gone wrong. There's this early, creepy moment where she remembers that she was supposedly married, but her wedding ring is "property of Umbrella corporation," which makes it seem as if her marriage memories are just implants to keep her in line. So in the second scene, towards the end of the flick, we discover her "husband" is one of the bad guys, and she has to get rid of him with her rediscovered superpowers. This scene is the ultimate breakup moment. Now you know why Alice has serious relationship baggage. [Resident Evil via IMDB]

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io9-5027979 Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:48:20 PDT Annalee Newitz http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5027979&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Will Milla Jovovich Pee On Shia LaBoeuf's Head? ]]> milla.jpgThe Internet is buzzing with the rumor that Fifth Element star Milla Jovovich could be cast as the first female transformer in Transformer 2. More specifically, rumor has it she's going to play a sexy Decepticon. We'd love to see Milla playing a villain, even if it's only voice work, and her throaty snarl might help increase the threat level of the hitherto bland movie Decepticons. Meanwhile, Rainn Wilson will play a college professor (who wears leather pants?). [MTV]

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io9-393684 Wed, 28 May 2008 12:40:00 PDT Meredith Woerner http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=393684&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Ultraviolet Goes Noir In Anime Remake ]]> Can an animated reboot make sense of Kurt Wimmer's Ultraviolet, two years later? Wimmer's visually stunning vampire-plague movie, set in a future dystopia where everything is always color-coordinated, became a confusing mess at least partly due to studio interference. And now acclaimed anime director Osamu Dezaki (Aim For The Ace!, Lupin III) is supervising an adaptation, called Ultraviolet: Code 044. It premieres on the Animax satellite channel in Japan on July 1. No word on when it hits the U.S., but here's a teaser trailer, which shows a much moodier, less candy-colored version of the saga. [Animax]

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io9-378138 Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:30:00 PDT Charlie Jane Anders http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=378138&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Which Overexposed Scifi Actor Should Take A Nice Break? ]]> You keep seeing the same faces over and over again in science fiction. At first it's like, "Oh, there's my old friend Summer Glau. I'm so glad she's getting work." And then, it slowly turns into, "How many maniacs of science can Jeffrey Combs play before he actually falls asleep in mid-speech and lights his hair on fire with his bunsen burner?" Especially when people like Will Smith admit they're only doing scifi because it's commercial. Click through to vote for the most overexposed science fiction actor.

I resisted the temptation to include people like Katee Sackhoff, who's only done two shows: Battlestar Galactica and Bionic Woman. Or Scott Bakula. Or half the cast of Firefly, who've gone on to be on other things. I also decided to leave out Bruce Willis and Cilian Murphy, who have been in a lot of scifi but aren't really "scifi actors" in the way that Will Smith is. Who would you have included on this poll?

In any case, you needn't feel guilty about voting for a good actor in this poll. Everyone here is a good actor, but maybe one of these people should work in other genres for a while. (Which, to be fair, Smith did for a bit.)

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

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io9-358426 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:00:23 PST Charlie Jane Anders http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=358426&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Greatest Car Chases In Science Fiction (Part 2) ]]> Milla Jovovich's weird strappy leotard and crazy talk beguile Bruce Willis into helping her jet away from the cops in his flying taxi. He swerves through CGI tunnels at a breakneck pace. It's another one of the greatest car chases in science fiction, according to us as well as you, the readers. Click through for more hyperkinetic clips.

I wasn't able to include all of your suggestions in this list because I ran out of time. And I was already frantically sourcing clips from Fifth Element and Deja Vu when I posted part one yesterday. But this includes most of your suggestions as well as a few surprises:

The Fifth Element (1997). This is basically just an old-fashioned chase. You have a cop scanner-blocker instead of a radar-detector, and the cop cars have machine guns on their hoods. But then it ends in the traditional way, with Bruce scooting onto the train tracks and avoiding a freight train, which the cops crash into, spilling cartons onto their hood. You can practically hear the banjo music.

Deja Vu (2006). Denzel Washington is wearing a headset which lets him see four days into the past. He drives around looking at the past (night-time) through one eye, and the present (daytime) through the other. He's chasing the past movements of a terrorist who blew up part of New Orleans three days ago. And of course he wreaks major havoc in the present while he tries to chase a phantom from the past. It's an amazingly brilliant moment in an otherwise dull movie. Washington drives a Hummer H1 modeled on a real robot car, the H1ghlander. An autonomous robot car built by Carnegie Mellon for the 2005 DARPA challenge, the H1ghlander features LIDAR laser-ranging units, an intertial navigation system and SICK laser sensors. (I have no idea what SICK laser sensors are, but they sound hard-core.) Director Tony Scott used a Porche SUV with a special robot camera arm that can film at 180 MPH, for this sequence.


Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace
(1999). Because you demanded it, here's the pod-racing scene. Wacky aliens, goggles, funny zappy lightning running between the poles of the pod, zoomy video-gamey action. It's pretty kinetic, and one of the few moments in Menace that isn't bogged down by weird ethnic alien people talking too much, or grasshopper-headed fight robots fighting.

Matrix: Reloaded (2002). Sure, a lot of this movie felt like a powerpoint presentation about fate vs. free will and the meaning of something or other. But it was almost all worth it for the giant freeway pileup, where Neo and Trinity try to get the Keymaker to safety. The white-dredlock guys have guns that magically make the cars flip over, and then they can turn into carjacking ghosts. Meanwhile, Agent Smith can jump onto cars and smush/flip them without slowing down. Here's the clip:

Terminator 3 (2003). Like we said, cyborgs just make better car crashes. Every one of the Terminator films has an awesome car chase at some point. In the first movie, Arnie steals a cop car and tries to run Reese and Sarah down. In the second movie, the evil Terminator is in a giant tanker truck trying to run down the Connors' pickup truck, but Arnie jumps onto the tanker and manages to flip it over, so it skids on its side into a steel factory and bursts. But the best car-chase spectacle of all is in Terminator 3, where a female Terminator chases John Connor's van while Arnie follows on motorcycle. Oh, and half a dozen cop cars also try to catch John Connor. Laser hand-blasts, crane-street-fu, Arnie carjacking a firetruck after he gets splatted on the windshield... it's all pretty awesome.

Next (2007). Nicholas Cage plays Johnny Cadillac, who can see two minutes into the future and adjust his actions accordingly. As any normal person would, he uses this ability to drive really fast and lead the cops on a crazy-ass chase through the streets of Las Vegas. It's based on a Philip K. Dick story, so you know it has to be brilliant. Right?

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io9-347603 Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:23:23 PST charliejane http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=347603&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Must See: The Fifth Element ]]> Fifth%20Element.jpg Must-see movies are futuristic classics that shouldn't be missed. Of course, not every must-see is perfect. That's why we've rated them 1-5 on the patented "crunchy goodness" scale.

Title: The Fifth Element
Date: 1997

Vitals: A babe from another dimension teaches a hypercapitalist, urbanized world that love is the answer to all their problems - especially if love is wearing nothing more than bandages on her tits. Also, there are a bunch of flying car chase scenes.

Famous names: Luc Besson, Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, Gary Oldman

Crunchy goodness: 2

Design breakthrough: Sometimes a breakthrough is a beta test that turns out to be woefully wrong. The Fifth Element demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that nobody wants the future to look like it was designed by aging French fashionistas who still think it's racy to reference the Virgin Mary.

Copycats: Thankfully there was no Sixth Element, but Fifth Element did launch the career of the world's first-ever female action star - Milla Jovovich. Sure there have been other women who played action roles, but Jovovich is the only one to play solely action heroes (see her wildly popular Resident Evil series). Hopefully her action hero career will not follow the trajectory of Arnold Schwarzenegger's, because that would mean she'd have to star in a series of terrible comedies before becoming a homophobic politician.

Sights you'll never unsee: The costumes.


Fifth Element - Script, Multimedia, Character Descriptions...

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io9-305375 Sun, 30 Sep 2007 21:42:48 PDT Annalee Newitz http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=305375&view=rss&microfeed=true