Author Archives: russ

Feb 21 2013
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Movie Movie News

Kitsch is back and this time he’s angry

Taylor Kitsch may have had arguably the worst year in film last year.  A year where he was poised to be a breakout star in can’t miss films like John Carter, Battleship, and Oliver Stone’s return to form, Savages, he instead became the butt of most snarky bloggers’ jokes.  Sucks. I’m sure other actors had worse years, but probably not one who was supposed to become a megastar.

It looks like Kitsch may have learned his lesson as he’s taking some different roles in 2013.  We’ve reported on the others, so I wont get into them, but he recently signed on to play the villain in Exit 147.  It is written by Travis Malloy, who wrote the underrated Pandorum, and will be directed by Julian Jarrold, of Kinky Boots and the forever-in-my-netflix-queue’s Red Riding trilogy.  Based on the talent behind the camera, I think Kitsch might be able to play a small town sheriff who terrorizes a man who gets stuck in the town.  Or maybe he can’t, but I think this is a much safer role, and a much smaller film, so that even if it’s a giant failure it’s not a historically epic one.

We’ll see!

 

p.s. This might be my 5th Taylor Kitsch post.  I just like the guy

Feb 06 2013
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Movie Movie News

The Star of Guardians of the Galaxy Will Be…

Chris Pratt.

Chris Pratt will be starring as the half-human lead in the weird Marvel space-epic, Guardians of the Galaxy.  Apparently every single white male on earth tested for this part, and at no point did Chris Pratt’s name come up, but he’s an inspired choice.  He’s the funniest guy in nearly everything he’s in, most girls seem to think he’s awesome (he is), and he did his “serious” turn in Zero Dark Thirty as a badass army dude, so I think this will work out really well.

I don’t know who is overseeing a lot of the casting decisions at Marvel, but they are crushing it.  They don’t break the bank on any actors, but they get people who’ll become stars and wrap them into 4-6 picture deals before their asking price skyrockets.

Smart. Smart. Smart.

James Gunn directing and Chris Pratt starring in a Marvel Space Action Film? Win.

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Feb 05 2013
Movie Movie Trailers

Fast and Furious 6 Trailer

Need I say more?

Feb 04 2013
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Uncategorized

The “Fast” Franchise and Alphabetical Hell

So we all know the Super Bowl was yesterday and it was a great game, but what was even greater was the Fast and Furious commercial that showed the vehicular mayhem that is going to be unleashed this Memorial Day.  I can’t wait for it.

I only had one tiny issue with the spot:  Why call it Fast and Furious 6?  You’ve created an illogical mess of titling these films over the years, so why go so basic now?  I never thought a franchise could mess names up more than Rambo:

1. First Blood

2. Rambo: First Blood Part 2

3. Rambo III

4. Rambo

 

The Fast franchise looked at Rambo and decided to get even stupider.  Lets look back at these titles and laugh for a minute:

1. The Fast and The Furious – nothing wrong with this one.  It’s a great title and lets you know what you’ll be in for.

2. 2 Fast 2 Furious – THE GREATEST TITLE IN HISTORY.  It lets you know this is going to be double the stupidity, and double the other stuff you’d like doubled, but it now comes before the first film if you like alphabetizing.

3. The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift – this is a spinoff sidequel, so I really don’t have an issue with this title, but it’ll get hairy later on.  This is technically the last film in the Fast chronology.

4. Fast and Furious – All they did was drop THE from the titles and thats ok!?!? They didn’t even call it Fast and FOURious.  Just dropped a few the’s and called it a day.

5. Fast Five – This title is perfect, cause it’s simple. It’s the 5th Fast movie, so it’s Fast Five.

Up to this point however, I don’t think any of the titles would even be consecutive in a DVD rack.  Now we’re getting

6. Fast and Furious 6 – which yes, I get that it’s the 6th Fast film, but theres only one film up to this point called Fast and Furious, and it’s the 4th film.  So this should technically be Fast and Furious 2

Or you call it Fast 6 cause it’s the 6th Fast movie.  Because it’s definitely not Fast and Furious 6.  Also yes there are 6 Fast movies, but if you take chronological order into account, this would be the 5th film, because Tokyo Drift is the last one.  Or just call it Furiou6

Anyway you slice it, I feel like JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof have something to do with the titles of these films.  I do hope however that the 7th and final film is titled Furious.  Just Furious. No one would see that coming.

I’ll be the midnight screening of Fast and Furious 6 no matter what.

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Feb 04 2013
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Movie Movie News

The Marvel Universe, Phase 3, and Hulk

There are some really exciting rumors floating around the Marvel camp in regards to what’s going to be happening with Hulk and with Phase 3.

What we already know:

Kevin Feige has already stated that Ant-Man and Doctor Strange are part of Phase 3.  Ant-Man already has a film ready to come out after the Thanos/Cosmic heavy Phase 2 ends.  Strange I think will be a cool character to flesh out as well.  Whether or not he can hold up his own movie or not is another story.
What we are speculating:

The folks over at Latino-Review, who often nail their super early Marvel movie rumors, came out yesterday with a story that not only will the Hulk be getting his own film AGAIN in Phase 3, but he will be the lynchpin of the whole series of films!  The rumor is that because of Hulk’s extremely violent and dangerous actions (which I’m assuming will take place in Avengers 2), The Illuminati (group of marvel heroes) decide that the safest bet is to send Hulk into space, which will lead to the Phase 3 Hulk film based on Planet Hulk.  Planet Hulk is just about the only interesting thing you could do with him at this point, so if he were to get a movie, this version of Hulk I think would really lend himself to a film like this.  Hulk needs to fight things that are bigger and scarier than him, so him on a planet full of monsters sounds perfect.  Also we know that the long in development Hulk TV series has for the most part been shelved.  It is my thinking that if the Hulk wasn’t so wildly popular in Avengers, they’d continue with it, but now that people like Hulk so much, they have to give us what we want.

The best part of this in my opinion is that Avengers 3 would largely co-op the World War Hulk storyline, which was also huge and widely popular.

I really hope this happens.  I think it would be an awesome followup to Phase 2.  I’m sure they wont call the Illuminati, the Illuminati, and I’m sure they’ll be different characters plugged in, but I think this has the potential to be a gigantic success.  We know Marvel really plans ahead, so it would totally make sense that they are already working on the Phase 3 stuff.  Phase 2, outside of Guardians of the Galaxy, doesn’t really have any real risks associated with it.  But I think if that works, then we’ve been more exposed to other planets and the masses would accept a Hulk/Gladiator type movie.   Also when you consider there is a Hulk cartoon coming out this fall that has a lot of the Planet Hulk monsters on it, I bet that’s Marvels way of getting the kids used to the idea of the other monsters Hulk fights/allies with.

The only thing I’m thinking is that their World War Hulk storyline might have a little more black and white added to it, in that they might make a villain have more to do with all of it instead of just having Hulk fight all of these good guys.  I’ll leave that to the writers though.

Anyway, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and an increased Hulk presence, Marvel will have given me everything I want for a massive Avengers 3.  Except for Black Panther.

 

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Jan 31 2013
Movie Movie News

X-Men: Days of Future Past UPDATE

So there seems to a be a ton of news flying out of the X camp almost daily, which excites me to some degree.  So it looks like damn near everyone who lived thru Brett Ratners abomination X-Men 3 is pretty much on board for this bridging of the franchises (Shawn Ashmore, Ellen Page, Anna Paquin etc).  I was curious as to whether they would alter the Days storyline as it heavily features Kitty Pryde (Page), but I guess up to this point they are sticking to it.

Bryan Singer has even gone so far as to contact Jim Cameron (we’re close actually) to help him flesh out the rules of time-travel, and while Jim is no pro, it’s nice to see it’s being taken quite seriously.

Lastly, and what I think we’ll be an awesome touch, the film looks like it’s going to be set in 1973.  The First Class mutants will travel to the future to see that it’s shitty and stuff.  I like that it’s going be set in the 70’s cause after seeing one period comic film, I want to see more.  Also this gives Bryan Singer some time to sort of clean up continuity.  And it also could be a fun dig at Ratners Xmen film in the sense that that world got turned to Sentinel shit and now it’s up to this current First Class generation to fix  it.  Maybe this also can correct the all the lapses this world has.

My only issue at this point is that this movie sounds incredibly big and ambitious, and might be best served in two parts.  Yes I am aware the original story was only 2 issues, but this seems really big for X standards, and we know these films have issues balancing their characters as it is.

We’ll see.

Jan 25 2013
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Movie Movie News

The Justice League Roster is Set.

Batman.

Superman.

Green Lantern.

Flash.

Wonder Woman.

In 2015 when we get the Justice League movie DC and Warner Bros are desperate to get off the ground, we’ll be getting it without Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, or Hawkman.  Why? Because Warners doesn’t have enough time to shoehorn them into something.  I’m thinking a lot of their plans backfired when Green Lantern was a piece of a shit, so now they are too afraid to get these time-tested characters on screen first (a la Marvel with the Avengers).  Now they’ve pinned all of their hopes on Man of Steel being well-received so that can be the launch pad.  My advice to them: Don’t fuck this up. By the time we got Avengers we got a pretty stacked roster that is only going to expand with each subsequent film.  Why? Because Marvel did it right.  There is no shame in copying their template when BILLIONS of dollars are at stake.   Get more heroes on that team so it can really evoke that Gods of Olympus mentality the Justice League has long held.

At least get Martian Manhunter in there…

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Dec 28 2012
Fake Movie Friday

Fake Movie Friday: The Mystic

So I’m in the office when I don’t have to listening to the Les Mis soundtrack for about the 54592th time and this jumped into my brain.  A 1970’s rollerskating film.

The Mystic

The Mystic is THE friday night spot for red blooded American teens in Bainesville, Indiana.  It’s a pretty boring town, without a lot of excitement, except for these friday nights.  The high schoolers all go The Mystic.  It’s the most happening rollerskating rink around.  Cue a scene of a bunch of kids rollerskating around and doing tricks while typical 70’s music plays.  DJ Goodvibes announces the star rollerskating duo, FlashFunk are about to take to the rink and perform a new routine.  It’s really really good and we pan closer to a kid watching them named Dale.  He’s a good skater, but aspires to be as good as these guys.  After they perform he asks if they can give him some pointers.  They say sure and take Dale under their wing.  This makes him more popular than he’s ever been.  He gets home late that night and his single father is pissed.  Says dancing wont get him anywhere in life blah blah blah.

Continue reading →

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Dec 25 2012
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Fake Movie Friday

Fake Movie Christmas – Dude Where’s My Baby?

So instead of giving you guys a fake movie friday last week, I thought I’d save my shitty take on a christmas movie, but also make a sequel at the same time.

Dude Where’s My Baby

The film opens up on Jesse (Ashton Kutcher) and Wanda (Jennifer Garner) calling Chester (Seann William Scott) and Wilma (Marla Sokoloff) and asking how the baby is.  Chester says the baby is totally “shibby” and that they’re so happy to have little rugmuncher around the house.  Jesse says that if they need anything (while making body language to suggest weed smoking) to call him.  Chester says thanks and the movie starts.   Wilma now has a high powered business lady job in the city and Chester is a house-husband.  So he and the baby, named Tiger have a really great connection.  Wilma reminds him that her parents are coming for Christmas Eve dinner, so he and Tiger need to be on their best behavior.  Chester says of course and tells her they are going to run some errands all day and chill and stuff, but they’ll be fine.  We cut to Chester at the supermarket in the snacks aisle.  The baby is like at that age where it can walk, but not like talk a bunch FYI.  Anyway, Chester sees what looks like a mugging from the other aisle, and when he turns to grab Tiger and leave she’s gone, cue the classic line, Dude Wheres My Baby?

Continue reading →

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Dec 20 2012
Movie Movie Trailers

Pain And Gain Trailer

Now before we all jump on Michael Bay for making nothing but awful movies, lets remember he directed The Rock, Bad Boys, and one of my favorite action movies of all time, Bad Boys II.  I like that with Pain and Gain he’s getting back to telling a smaller story (by his standards) and it’s set in the 90’s, a time he knows extremely well having been a music video director.

His leads are Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Mackie, and The Rock playing a bunch of juiced-up gym rats.  I’m sold on that alone.

See for yourself:

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