I use the word “edgy” in the title of this post because “ridonkulous” wouldn’t quite fit. I thought this “Beastly” was a Sci-Fi channel or made-for-television movie when I first saw it advertised, but now I realize it’s something planned for a July 30th, 2010 release to the big screen. The studio is calling it a retelling of the classic “Beauty and the Beast” tale; I call it latching on to the “Twilight” teat and hoping to ride the wave …
Blog Posts
While the motto for the first 30 years of my life could easily be described as “Live for today because the nukes are coming tomorrow”, the motto of my last four years would probably be “Vampires are dumb”. I know I’m in the minority here but I’m pretty sure that somewhere around 1987, scientific research did indeed show that vampires, with their crazy eyes and pointy-toothed hissing preferences, were somewhere around 93% lame. So hey, imagine my surprise when I …
Richard Kelly. Way back in 2001, when the writer/director stormed the scene with his dark, brain-twisting cult fave/critically examined Donny Darko, he was touted as the next genius auteur. Of course, a second film has a way of changing overblown expectation and when Kelly followed up with the bloated, unintelligible cluster-hump known as Southland Tales in 2006, the same folks originally singing his praises were left holding a wet bag of dog crap, wondering if their pretentiousness had jumped in …
The upcoming film District 9 has been working on gaining your attention by not really trying hard to gain your attention. In some circles, this is called viral, but viral actually spreads. Nevertheless, District 9 has released another “viral” video in its line of its universe-based trailers. I’m not a the biggest fan of the technique and voice over. It feels too Starship Troopers/campy, while the film footage contrasts gritty and radtastic. Maybe I’m over anlayzing. Maybe I’m not, but …
Remember the film adaptation of Eidos’ video game Hitman? A shoven-headed and not-all-that-intimidating Timothy “Where’s he go?” Olyphant? A constantly stripping generic Eastern European Olga something or other? Shooting? Exploding? I do. Barely. And it was boring, pastiche and blah. But that don’t matter because apparently, it made some kind of money. IESB is reporting that Kyle Ward (screenwriter for another video game adaptation, Kane & Lynch, with Bruce Willis attached to star) has been given quill and parchment for …
Sid Ganis, president of The Motion Picture Academy, announced today the best picture category at next year’s Oscars will be enlarged from five nominees to 10. Ganis said, “Having 10 best picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize.” Translation: The Pixar mafia henchmen beat the ever-lovin’ snot out of them …
Anime (Japanese animation), in the U.S. at least, has always been a niche format. I’m not sure why it’s been so hard for American audiences to embrace it, but it’s probably because a) the style is reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons (ie-“crappy”) and b) years of ridiculous dubbing have made it a running joke (“NO! NNNNNNN… IDON’TWANTOTOGOWITHYOUWAITWHATAREYOUDOINGNNNNNYAAAAH!”) Over the last few years, Disney’s been trying to bridge the cultural divide with their U.S. releases of Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki films Spirited …
Hoooo boy! It would seem the Transformers sequel, what seemed to be a surefire summer blockbuster, is now headed full steam ahead for ignominy and a Golden Raspberry award. As of this writing and today’s release, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” stands at 22% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.com. And the reviews are brutal. Here’s a sample of what some notable critics are saying about Michael Bay’s Autobots vs. Decepticons movie. A great grinding garbage disposal of a movie, “Transformers: Revenge …