Recently in film Category

Now this is some bad crazy fanwank in Iron Man.

Damn!

I never would have caught that.

If there's one movie you see this year about an alcoholic genius inventor that ends up creating a suit of powered armor and goes about kicking all kinds of ass after he has a crisis of conscience then make sure Iron Man is that movie.

Holy shit!

It was... it was...

It was damn near perfect.

It is quite possibly the most fun and dead on balls awesome comic book to film adaptation that I've ever seen.

In the world of awful films made from comics, this one is a shining gem of how to do it right.

Thank you Jon Favreau.

I knew from the moment I saw the leaked image of Tony Stark in the original thrown together armor I knew there was going to be something special here.

Everything about this film turned out great!

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And if you are saying to yourself "I want to see a fantastic movie that has superheroes in it during the dark era of the 1950's McCarthy hearings" then look no further than The New Frontier, the film adaptation of DC: The New Frontier.

Fantastic!

Whilst out yesterday picking up the remainder of the crack shelves in Lancaster, the G found me the shortpacked Iron Man Mark I figure I wanted.

Now I read Iron Man in the early 80s, but like all Marvel Comics I lost interest by the late 80s and just find it hard to read any of them anymore.

So honestly, when it was announced and Iron Man flick was in the works I was pretty much ho-hum about it. Though truthfully, I was more excited about this than certain recent Michael Bay films.

I knew that this was likely going to be a good film from the moment the first stills leaked and voila... the original grey Iron Man suit was in it.

I mean, they could have glossed over much of the character's history, including the evolution of the armor, and it would be standard sci-fi.

But no... they actually adapted the Tony Stark story to modern times and have given us him creating the armor in stages.

There was always something simple yet cool about Jack Kirby's original design which really only ever appeared in Iron Man's first appearance in 1963.

And the fact they included this in the film just shows a love that I didn't expect.

Now sure, this film could be a disaster like Daredevil, Elecktra, or Ghost Rider, but I'm thinking that it'll be several levels about those.

I can hope can't I?

And could Tony Stark have been better cast?

I think not.

Huh?

I SAID I THINK NOT!

What's funny is that there was a time in my life when I would have been ganked about this.

But there is nothing original anymore.

Absolutely nothing.

Instead of taking a dead franchise into someplace new they just basically are doing what Hollywood always does: the same old shit.

The mere fact that all these characters appear to be in what amounts to a prequel to the series just doesn't ring true to anything remotely like the military would be. Especially where certain much older doctors are concerned.

While I suppose I wish it well, it just pains me to see thing like this created purely because Hollywood and a few... they call themselves creators... can't do anything remotely original.

However, if this fails to do any box office, then man oh man is the franchise truly dead and I'll stand by my post from 2 years ago and say yet again it needs to be dead for many years before trying to bring it back.

DiCaprio, Warner Bros. in for live-action 'Akira' (Hollywood Reporter)

"Akira" has long been in development at the company, with producers Jon Peters and Basil Iwanyk involved at various times, as well as directors Stephen Norrington and Pitof. The rights lapsed but Warner managed to re-scoop them again for Robinson, who came to the studio with a vision of a two-part adaptation.

The new story moves the action to "New Manhattan," a city rebuilt by Japanese money.

I can only imagine how un-Akira like this'll be.

And Akira was only a tiny fraction of the original manga even.

No excitement here at the 'Crack for this one.

Now maybe if Michael Bay were to direct it I'd get really excited.

Yeah. That'd do it.

I feel kind of dirty.

The geek in me really wants to see and really wants to like that Jumper movie.

However, the geek in me also knows it will suck horrible balls of nastiness.

Looks the Joker will only be making one appearance now.

Bad craziness.

Yes!!!

I think Roger is in the trailer too!

I noticed Max put up a photo from one of our favorite movies over at his blog.

Indeed. This is the single best Christmas scene from any film ever.

Hell. It may be the single best film ever!

(And if you didn't realize it yet, I came home sick today and have been bored shitless and the cold meds are making my head even foggier than usual. And that's saying something since I'm usually way more messed up sober!)

So.

Giga asked me to update his Netflix queue yesterday so I rearranged some things and added some other films.

Shipping at the moment is Beer League, Little Miss Sunshine, and Notes on a Scandal to be followed by Rashômon, and then Lawrence of Arabia.

Yes. A little all over the place there.

Don't worry. There's plenty of Who in the queue.

This was actually really the first time I went into the system. Quite nice really.

I wonder if I plead enough to them... will they get the Japanease Masterforce and Victory series in?!?!?

Obscure TF stuff would be great.

Any of you partake of the Netflix awesomeness?

Let's put a smile on that face!

Damn!

Finally!

Planet Terror may well be one of the single greatest films ever!

(Yes. With Netflix I am now catching up on everything I missed in the theatre!)

Cherry Darling is one of the greatest film characters off all-time!

Robert Rodriquez should have directed the boring ass Transformers.

So I finally got to see Spider-Man 3 via Netflix delivery the other day.

Um.

While it certainly wasn't as good as Spider-Man 2 or even the first film, it didn't really suck.

But the more I watched the more I got the feeling that they just tried to cram too much shit into the thing!

I mean, I've never been able to find any enjoyment in Spider-Man in the comics at all. It was just never my thing. Raimi's films have been where I have found the most enjoyment of the characters and even the villains which I've always found to be the lamest of most comic super-heroes.

I just don't get the thing of cramming so many characters into a single story. There's only so much plot a film can deal with and Spider-Man 3 started to really fall apart for me because of too much "stuff" trying to get done.

You really had 3 possible films here crammed into one and I realized that because it is so dense that I really only cared for maybe 2 of them.

*spoilers ahead for a film most readers probably have seen*

If ever there was a pop culture franchise that needed 10 bullets right in the head it would have been James Bond for me.

Sure, I'd like to see Star Trek put out of its misery but James Bond has trudged along regurgitating the same shit movie after movie for almost 40 years.

Now when I was a kid, I used to eat them up, especially when they'd play on ABC's Friday Night Movies. I remember various babysitters and such letting me, ass firmly planted on a pillow, stay up late to watch whatever Bond flick was on.

I was too young to understand the awesomeness of hating Alex Trebek and was too early-age geek gullible to not get sucked into the gimmicky Roger Moore era.

Hell... I recall watching that cheeseball awful Moonraker probably close to 30 times as it was run into the ground on Showtime.

But by the time of View To A Kill, I was now 14 and my growing sense of appreciation for cinema and my tastes in general made me realize that I'd been watching the same movie over and over and over for the past decade.

And yet that same formulaic James Bond film kept getting churned out every few years, going from Moore to Timothy Dalton to Pierce Brosnan and yet it was basically the exact same script with the exact same acting with the exact same gimmicks.

Not only could I never bring myself to suffer through them again, I honestly couldn't inflict anything Bond on myself even on home video or via movie channels.

I'm all for a little regurgitation every now and then but folks, the entire James Bond franchise should have died in the 60s.

Well... after coming back from a wine party last night, Giga remembered he at a Bond film to take back that was already going to be late so we stayed up and watched it.

With the imminent release of the Transformers movie on DVD I find myself really apathetic to watching it again.

I can't say I'm in any hurry to go out and buy it and spend 2 hours watching it again.

Once at Botcon and once with Max Power, Kelmeister, and Kelmeister's Husband was plenty enough.

And what's even funnier?

We rented Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer this weekend and while I went into it expecting nothing at all I was totally shocked at how entertaining it was for the most part.

I really expected pointless action and what I got was an actual character-driven comic book movie!

Sure the ending was utterly lame and Jessica Alba is still totally miscast as Sue Sorm, but for the most part they totally nailed the interaction between the 4 main leads. That was really surprising.

Doctor Doom, due to the pointless alterations to his character from the first film is just as weak here, but it would have been hard to redeem him in any major fashion.

The Surfer was ok. After watching the featurettes on the 2nd DVD I'd really rather have had the actor who did the motion capture than the CGI insert. He pretty much is a cypher that doesn't really do all that much.

All in all, it was far more entertaining than I thought it would be.

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And 300?

I had avoided it not in the hopes of avoiding another comic book-to-film adaptation gone possibly wrong but because I'm still too close to the source event.

Longtime readers will know I've got one of those useless degrees in Classics and I focused primarily on Ancient History.

The Battle of Thermopylae has been an interest of mine since I was 7 and one has to be extremely careful in fictional adaptations of primary interests. Some of you may even remember that King Leonidas of Spart was even incorporated into a design of naladahc.com back in 2002 for quite some time.

Now Frank Miller's 300 novel is OK and is saved by Lynne Varley's phenomenal painting/colors. And this transfers to the film.

It is a remarkable piece of visual imagery. Truly beautiful to behold and a part of me regrets not having seen it on a big screen.

The film also does a remarkable job of showing the likely savagery of hand-to-hand combat, especially with the Spartans. They were indeed literally bred as fighting machines and I think the movie conveys it very well.

Of course, it works best when viewed as a Spartan telling other soldiers of the last stand of the 300 Spartans at Thermoplylae, wrapping it up in an almost ethereal fantasy. It makes the savagery much more potent when viewed through this lens.

Sure it isn't historically accurate. Though there were 300 Spartans at the battle, in reality there were quite a few other soldiers from other city-states who were also instrumental in the battle. That is totally missed here. The fact that Sparta enslaved an entire people and that pederasty was ingrained in their military culture is totally overlooked here as well, funny since much of the ancient history is about enslaving others and specific forms of homosexuality were institutionalized in much of Greece.

Using the lens of the soldier reiterating the story makes this barely palatable that that is pushing it.

Now one thing that kind of irked me was the portrayal of all non-Greeks as basically monstrous creatures. In fact, some of them, even Greek traitor Ephialtes, are portrayed visually as if they come from Mordor instead of the Greek highlands or the Middle East.

Of course, once again, if viewed through the lens of a storyteller making the enemy and traitor disgustingly monstrous actually makes a certain amount of sense.

I recall that some critics were all up in arms over the portrayal of Xerxes and all but really, just look at how any culture portrays its enemies and any argument can quickly fall apart.

Overall, it is one hell of a beautiful film.

I am eagerly awaiting Gatchaman!

It'll be interesting to see if this is true Japanese Gatchaman or ends up a hybrid (name-wise) with Battle of the Planets.

Unfortunately, the characters will forever be associated with their Battle of the Planets names for me.

I so totally want to see Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! and I never even knew it!

I hadn't hear much about it but The Movie Blog mentions that it looks like Tron: The Next Chapter may actually be happening.

I'm willing to wager that most of you who read this here barely-about-transforming-crack at-the-moment site were either still individual sperm and ovum, in diapers, or barely out of diapers when 12 year old Nala was sitting at the Glenbyrne Cinema in Glass City watching Tron.

It is still one of my secret favorite movies and the fact that Steve Lisberger, the original creator will be involved is great news.

Lisberger also was instrumental in another favorite animated film of mine called Animalypics.

Bruce Kwakimota is still one of the best names for a bird karate champion ever!

Went to see Stardust last night at Studio 35.

It has been years since I read Gaiman and Vess' original work but it is quite an enjoyable little film that any age could watch.

I hope Coraline will be as good, though that is not likely to be live action much at all.

Kelmeister sent me this:

If you haven't seen the Simpsons movie then you don't know how great Spider-Pig (aka Harry Plopper) is!

The problem is, he kind of just disappears from the script about half way into the film.

So I'm laying here in the Bed of Love™ on a Sunday morning watching the idiot box and flipped on Strange Days from 1995.

Yea. I know. Twelve years late to watch this.

Anyway, Angela Bassett is just awesome in this! Amazingly awesome.

I always thought she was hot and strong, but in this flick she is is hot and strong and intense!

She's like 49 now but man... I'm not usually the MILF type but oh la la!

Giga walks in and says "She'd make a great Mercy" and he's totally dead on right.

Mercy Graves is Lex Luthor's personal bodyguard in Superman: The Animated Series and when done right, she's a fantastic strong female character, both strong and sexy and totally in control.

I'm watching this movie now and thinking how great the gods-awful Superman Returns could have been if they had used the modern comics and animated series as source material instead of the tired old Richard Donner 70s shit.

The Simpsons Movie was great!

I even won a donut in Studio 35's trivia contest before the film started.

And after 20 years, we now know the state that Springfield is in!!!

G4 has a 2-hour live show from the San Diego Comic Con going on.

They have a live bit with Spielberg and everybody in the new Indiana Jones film, including Shia LaBeouf,

The thing that truly is awesome though... Karen Allen is in it reprising her role of Marion from Raiders of The Lost Ark !!! That confirms my initial thoughts that she's Shia's characters mother and since the film takes place in the 50s, he was most likely conceived around the time of Raiders.

Neil Gaiman was just on too.

The thing I hate about the G4 coverage though is the idiot hosts they get. These 2 were on last year and I swear so much of the info they spout during their attempts to be "hip" and "cool" is so incorrect it makes me want to scream.

Anyway, Simpsons Movie starts tomorrow.

Ferris Bueller's Day off is indeed a film to take to heart.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize this when I was 16.

I came across this over at Zaius Nation this afternoon.

I so have to find this Trilogy of Terror flick!