'Nuff Said -- Starblazers Live Action

Will Gareth Edwards' MONSTERS Deliver?

I'm pretty excited about the potential of MONSTERS.  It is a giant monster film that adds a nice twist to the set up.  The monsters have come, they've done their stuff, and the world has "normalized" to deal with the problem.  It's essentially, "6 years after the alien invasion and most of the world is the same as before."  I like the premise and the trailer looks interesting.



As a Magnolia/Magnet film, it will be released On Demand before it hits the theaters.  For a film like this, I think that that is a brilliant move.  Sometimes you wait for a film, watch it on the small screen, and then wish you'd seen it on the big screen.  When you are the father of twins who has a wife who loves movies as much, if not more, than he does a movie going experience is $100+.  It's $25 for admission, $15 snacks, and $60 babysitter.  I watched Neil Marshall's CENTURION on demand a month ago, and really want to see it on the big screen.  It's currently playing at the Leammle Sunset 5 if anyone is interested in seeing it with me Sunday night.  There were a couple of moments I'd like to experience "super sized."  Having MONSTERS available on demand will allow me to make a similar decision, and I have high hopes.

Warhammer 40K Movie -- ULTRAMARINE Trailer Released

They had me at Screenplay by Dan Abnett. Then they added awesome animation, John Hurt, Sean Pertwee, and Terence Stamp.

Games Workshop's various Warhammer Universes are some of the narratively richest game worlds ever constructed, and it is fine time that one of those universes received a compelling film. If only producers would trust the property beyond the direct to dvd market. Not that I'm complaining. This looks awesome. But I'd love to see 40k on the big screen.

Someday a 720 page volume of Dan Abnett's non-fiction writings will be released for the low price of $75 (adjust for inflation properly) and he will be recognized for what he is. What is that, you ask?

Simply one of the most talented and prolific writers of fantasy/sf fiction writing today. He -- along with William King -- changed forever what it means to write "Media Tie-In" fiction. His writing is consistently well constructed and witty. One wonders what particular deal with the Muses Mr. Abnett made.

We are the Ultramarines, the Sons of Guilliman. Whilst we draw breath, we stand. Whilst we stand, we fight. Whilst we fight, we prevail. Nothing shall stay our wrath.

+++ Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines+++ Warhammer 40k Rule Book 5th Edition

FOR THE EMPEROR!

Suckerpunch -- Zack Snyder's New Film Trailer is a Nerdgasm

What if Kenneth Hite re-imagined Pan's Labyrinth and included Tri-Planes, Dragons, Mecha, Machine Guns, Samurai, Kung Fu? OH MY!

Did I mention the Nazis and the exploding Zeppelin?!

Zack Snyder's next film is an original work written by the director. It tells the story of a young girl who is institutionalized by her cruel stepfather and who retreats into a fantasy land in order to cope with the situation and gain her revenge. The film is so high concept that it makes my brain want to explode. From what is in the video, there is almost no conceivable way that this film can have a coherent narrative.

And you know what?

I cannot wait.

Then again, I am a sucker for exploding Zeppelins.

New TRON: LEGACY Trailer

Unlike the editors of Variety, whose jaded view of the marketing aspects of TRON demonstrate a cluelessness regarding Gen-X culture, I have been anticipating a sequel to the original TRON film since the day I left the theater in 1982. Contrary to what the opening line of the snide Variety article discussing TRON: LEGACY might lead you to believe, the first TRON film did quite well. According to BoxOfficeMojo, the original film had a cost of $17 million and made $33 million in domestic box office -- a moderate success. This figure does not include the sales of video game machines, VHS tapes, DVDs, or any of the other merchandise associated with the film.

Initial under-performance is no sign of a lack of long-term interest. One can excuse executives in 1982 for not being able to see into the future at TRON's legacy, but current executives are right to invest so much time and marketing energy behind the new film.

Now...if only the movie's story will match the effort put into the film in other areas.

DDR + David Hasselhoff = ??? -- Legend of the Dancing Ninja

Dance Dance Revolution, Kung Fu, David Hasselhoff.

Do I really need to say anything more about this production?

Green Hornet Trailer -- I'll Leave It to Bill Cunningham to Describe How Wrong this Is

Just like Kevin Smith, Michael Gondry and Seth Rogan just don't get this character.

It might help to start by taking the character seriously.

The Hornet should be frightening in his "role" as criminal mastermind, and Brit Reid should be unimpeachable in his role as crusading journalist. It is the perfect duality.

Trust fund loser who needs to redeem himself after the death of his father is so Freudianly lame.

Complaints aside, at least the film is coming out around my birthday. This will allow me to continue my "let's watch the worst movie of XX for my birthday party" tradition. Let's see how this compares to In the Name of the King.

The Other Guys Not to Be Confused with The Good Guys

So far, my wife and I have been impressed and entertained by Fox Television's new series The Good Guys. We're suckers for a good action comedy cop show. I blame it on the television we grew up watching. From Starsky and Hutch to Sledgehammer, Gen X-ers watched a lot of cop shows that had light-hearted elements like Starsky and Hutch and C.H.I.P.S, or that were out and out comedies like Sledgehammer.

Comedy, cops, and action just seem natural.

This summer Adam McKay, the scribe who brought us the comedy masterpiece Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, brings us what may be the ultimate comedy, cops, and action film.

Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Keaton, and...Will Ferrell.

This looks like a fun summer film. Like "Ricky Bobby," this film isn't likely to win awards. But, also like "Ricky Bobby," it is likely to produce a lot of laughs.

Tangled: Disney's New Twist on Rapunzel

As critical as I am of the current trend of self-referential and ironic adaptations of classic fairy tales, Tangled looks fun. That said, the Zoolander reference was a bit much for me -- and is a perfect example of what I despise about "re-imaginings" of classic tales.

Is The Cup of Tears Already the Third Best Ninja Movie Ever Made?

Gary Shore's two-minute independently produced "trailer" The Cup of Tears has already led to him signing an agreement with Universal to direct a film based upon the trailer. The two-minute trailer combines Tibetan monks, Shaolin looking monks, Samurai, Ninjas, things that look like missiles shot in "bullet time," and space ships shooting at each other. Somehow it manages to do this with almost no similarity to Cowboy Bebop.

Looking at Shore's direction of the action sequences, I am almost tempted to say that this is the third best American made ninja movie ever produced.

The first two?

Ninja Assassin and Revenge of the Ninja

The lack of Sho Kosugi automatically removes Shore's film from the top two.

As for other films in the Top 10 American Produced ninja movies, they include in no particular order The Octogon, You Only Live Twice, American Ninja, The Challenge, and The Hunted.

I don't consider Kill Bill a ninja film. It is too much an amalgam of all that is awesome in Eastern action cinema.

Nuff Said -- Prince of Persia Trailer as Performed by Legos

Raise your hand if you made stop motion action figure/lego figure movies, or dreamed of doing so, as a kid?

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Nuff Said: Empire Strikes Back (1950) -- In Glorious 3D

You Can Never Leave "The World of Martial Arts"

John Woo returns to his Last Hurrah for Chivalry roots with Reign of Assassins.

God I love wuxia films and the narrative tropes of jiang hu.

A-Team -- Second Trailer: Speaking of Things That Make My Inner 12 Year-old Happy

Tron as Advertised by Saul Bass

Readers of this blog know that I am pretty excited about the release of Tron: Legacy in 3-D this Christmas. I imagine it will be one of the first movies that my daughters and I watch together in the theater and sharing a small piece of my cherished childhood with my own children is something to which I am very much looking forward.

One of the things that I am interested in seeing is how modern visual techniques are going to transform the concepts that were presented in the original film. The original film was a visual tour de force. Its ability to translate computer concepts into beautiful visual metaphors was remarkable and the imagery in the film comparing the circuit like structure of the "internet" with the nighttime illuminated landscape of a modern city is one of my favorite transitions in all of film.

That said, after stumbling upon Hexagonall's Tron credits, and advertising, done in the style of Saul Bass, I have begun to wonder what a retro-remake of Tron done in the style of a Stanley Donen, Alfred Hitchcock, or John Frankenheimer would be like. Try and imagine the film that would follow these opening credits:

This is a movie that I'd like to see. In particular, I'd like to see how modern animators would face the challenge of doing a retro-remake that uses modern technology to achieve classic animation techniques. What animation style would be used to simulate the life within the computer? What would a retro-remake "innerverse" look like? What would the opening video game sequence look like? I don't know, but I would love to see it.

Generic Movie: Hollywood as of 1980 or as of Its Origins?

Sean Mattie and I have been discussing, via email, the current fiscal/narrative conservatism that Hollywood seems to be exhibiting of late. His argument, and it is a common argument among critics, is that Hollywood is "no longer" in the business of making original productions and now busies themselves with adaptations of other works and long strings of sequels/remakes.

Having read The Day of the Locust (and seen the movie) and The Loved One (and seen that movie too), I am less critical of modern Hollywood than he is. I think that Hollywood has always been in the business of being risk averse and that the question to consider is whether the overall quality of entertainment offered today is less than that of any other given point in history. I am also of the opinion that quality is up compared to most eras of cinema, but that classic movies of the past are...well...Classic.

Speaking of The Day of the Locust, the thing I have always liked most about the Simpsons television show is how Homer Simpson continually visually references his namesake and his "big hands" in the majority of episodes. Every time Homer is choking Bart, you are getting a glimpse of the end of The Day of the Locust.

Season of the Witch (2010) -- Nicolas Cage Gets Medieval on Us

Man, I love Nicolas Cage. I may not enjoy every movie he star in, but the man doesn't seem to be ashamed to star in movies aimed at geek culture. Bangkok Dangerous may have been less dynamic than I had hoped, and I can nitpick about Ghost Rider all day, but Cage keeps coming out in projects that seem specifically tailored to the kind of movie I want to see in theaters.

The upcoming Harry Dresden Sorcerer's Apprentice film by Disney looks like fun, and so does Season of the Witch.

Hero Press provides the synopsis from the press release.

"His faith broken by years of battle as a crusader, [medieval knight] Behmen (Nicolas Cage) returns to central Europe to find his homeland decimated by the Black Plague.

"While searching for food and supplies at the Palace at Marburg, Behmen and his trusted companion, Felson (Ron Perlman), are apprehended and ordered by the dying Cardinal to deliver a young peasant girl believed to be the witch responsible for the Plague to a remote abbey where her powers can be destroyed.

"Behmen agrees to the assignment but only if the peasant girl is granted a fair trial.

"As he and five others set off on this dangerous journey, they realize with mounting dread that the cunning girl is no ordinary human and that their mission will pit them against an evil that even in these dark times they never could have imagined."

Looks like they are taking a little from Seventh Seal and mixing it with a little Ivanhoe adding a dash of Brotherhood of the Wolf and a dollop of Christopher Lee.

What more could one ask for?

Right, that it is better than In the Name of the King or The Knights of Bloodsteel.

Season of the Witch - Trailer
by dreadcentral

Toy Movies as You Likely Won't See Them

Playing off of the recent explosion of films based on 80s toy and animation properties, animator Dan Meth brings us a few imagined films based on other properties. The first film Care Bears vs. My Little Pony doesn't list an imagined director, one could easily pick a few names, but the other films do. My personal favorite is David Cronenberg's Cabbage Patch Kids. It captures the Cronenberg feel while demonstrating just how creepy the Cabbage Patch backstory really is. It's like a combination of Village of the Damned, The Children, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Night of the Living Dead.

Toy Movies

Atom.com: Funny Videos | Animation | TV & Movie Spoofs

Just for kicks, here's the preview for The Children.

TOY STORY: Now I'm Stressed About Buzz Lightyear's Fate

My wife and I are big fans of Disney's Pixar films, and we hope our 21 month old twin daughters will join us in our passion. I just watched the preview for next year's Toy Story 3. I had no idea what to expect, but the last thing I expected was cliffhanger stress, but that's what I feel now...cliffhanger stress.

What will happen to Buzz Lightyear?! I need to know!

The movie went from "must see due to fandom" to "must see or I'll go freakin' crazy!"

Fh'tagn!

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Excited About KARATE KID (2010)

I have always found the storyline of the first Karate Kid movie to be a little less than satisfying. Most people see a story about a kid who is moved to a new neighborhood, is harassed by bullies, and learns martial arts to confront those bullies. I don't. I see a movie about a "new kid" who lies to people about having martial arts prowess in order to be better liked, who has his lie revealed with accompanying public embarrassment, and who eventually learns martial arts and confronts those who revealed his lie.

Daniel-San's lie in the first act of the movie creates a moral dilemma which could have made for an interesting story. Many of us have been the new kid in an unfamiliar community where we have no friends. The desire to make friends provide powerful pressures that can lead us to make mistakes that we must later overcome. One of my favorite romantic comedies The Importance of Being Earnest uses lies in this very manner. It also deals with the consequences that these lies can have upon the tellers. Had the original Karate Kid dealt more with Daniel confronting his deception, and less time painting "Johnny" as a two-dimensional bully (an effect that gets shattered in the third act of the film anyway as the villain role is completely shifted to the sensei of Cobra Kai dojo), the film would have been much more satisfying.

The new version of the film, starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, seems to avoid my criticism of the original by making the story more purely about the new kid vs. bullies narrative. At least, the recently released trailer makes it seem that this is the case. I think that this is a good choice, one can always enjoy a kid faces off the bully story, but I don't think it is the best choice.

One of the things that I liked about the recent film Fighting, starring Brian White and Channing Tatum, was the lack of "villain" in the roles of the fighters in the film. Yes Fighting had villains, but they weren't the combatants. The combatants had real reasons for wanting to fight each other, reasons rooted in very human motivations. Brian White's character, Evan Hailey, has every reason to despise Channing Tatum's character. By providing a sympathetic, but not overly so, antagonist, Fighting was a little bit better than your average "fight movie." Given that the story is in many ways a remake of Jean Claude Van Damme's Lionheart, it is all the more remarkable.

The new Karate Kid changes the setting and the martial arts style of the protagonist and it looks to be interesting. That is, if I can wrap my mind around the change of "Sand the Floor" to "Take of Your Coat."