"Children of Men" Straight from the Con

Spent last Friday at the Comic Con in San Diego.
Top 3 things - Interview with Alfonso Cuaron and a preview of his upcoming film Children of Men, our lunch at a fabulous restaurant called Acqua Al 2 (sister restaurant to a place in Florence, Italy), and last but definitely not least a panel with Robert Smigel and Triumph the insult comic dog!
Alfonso was interviewed by Guillermo del Toro, they are old friends which really came across and recounted a funny story from the week before in Paris as well as many interesting tid bits about the creation, pre-pro, and shooting of "Children of Men." They showed the full trailer, which was more intriguing than I expected the movie to be based on just the pitch. Then, throughout their conversation, they showed clips straight from the film (some up to 10 minutes long.) The movie stars Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, and Michael Caine. Michael Caine's character looks a little like Brent Spiner from Independence Day with the crazy hair, but I'm betting he's a great grounding element in the film.
Clive and Julianne I would have been VERY wary of if I hadn't seen the clips. On paper they sound about as exciting to me as vanilla and white bread, but in the clips Clive had a drive and an intensity that I haven't seen before. It seems that Alfonso had a great affect on Clive and his process of shooting each scene as one complete shot with no cuts seems to have added an urgency to Clive's acting that helps him pop off screen a little more than usual. The film itself appears to be pretty epic and the production design is very impressive. It manages to be clearly futurisitic and yet very familiar and accessible. Alfonso's idea was that at first glance a crowded dirty city should appear as such and a row of cars should appear as a row of cars, and only on second glance the cars are not any brand you know. The setting is a world in disrepair, a reality that has no future as no one can have children, so there is no point to keeping anything up, maintaining property, etc. If you look closely you see a high tech world that looks slightly advanced from today, but the technology and futuristic touches are roughed up as well. Alfonso said they didn't "design" the world so much as use "reference" to exactly recreate it.
Our lunch was a lovely break from the, ummm... uniqueness of Comic Con :)
We ended the day with Robert Smigel. At one point he found out that next door to us was the Klingon "Lifestyle" conference and ran next door to talk to them. Sadly the Klingons were already gone, that would have been legendary. He showed a bunch of cartoons that were banned on television, talked about Charlie Brown Christmas, and introduced Charles Shulz's wife. He was just as brilliant and hysterical in person and I loved his take no prisoner's attitude; if he wanted to make a statement he made it regardless of who he took down with him - the parent company of his show, G.E., his boss, Lorne Michaels, or beloved icons like Disney. The most common pieces that seemed to have been pulled from the air were about Michael Jackson (whose lawyers threatend to sue) and not Disney (who didn't threaten to sue.) He put all of Michael's "quirks" (read as "disgusting" and "evil") on display and he took them all one step further since he was doing animation. There was a funny beat where Michael, who is about to go into the courthouse is lured away by the scent of a little boy who was put out on a window sill. I don't know if Robert spent any time wandering around the convention with Triumph, but I'm waiting for something to show up online because it was the perfect venue for him.