MOVIEBOB: Megan Fox is April O'Neil

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Friday, 13 July 2012

Letterman Shitstorm

Posted on 03:31 by rajrani
It's 6am on this coast, I've been repairing old video games and recording audio all night, time to crash, etc., but I wanted to have something about this up since a lot of you are probably waking up to the news:

During an interview with Anne Hathaway on The Late Show last night, David Letterman may or may not have blurted out a major, MAJOR, MAJOR spoiler for the "The Dark Knight Rises."

I'm not going to post the clip, a link to the clip or information on where/how you can get it. I will say that, for what it's worth, Letterman immediately started walking it back as a "joke;" but Hathaway's reaction/expression went from "I have momentarily left my physical body" to "someone offstage has just dropped their pants" to "oh my god Christopher Nolan is going to have me WACKED on the way back to my limo."

Make of that what you will. People HAVE seen the movie so the spoilers ARE now in the wind; supposedly, Christopher Nolan threw some kind of fit at a press event when one of the questioneers asked a spoiler-y question while everything was rolling.
Read More
Posted in | No comments

Thursday, 12 July 2012

Raimi Returns With "Oz"

Posted on 23:00 by rajrani
What I like most about this trailer for Sam Raimi's "Oz: The Great & Powerful" (a prequel/origin-story with James Franco as the Kansas con-artist/magician who ultimately becomes That Man Behind The Curtain) - apart from the indications that they're going to use a color/aspect-ratio metamorphosis for the Earth/Oz transitions a'la the MGM film's black-and-white to color transition - is the way that, despite the obvious visual connections being made to the Judy Garland version and the Disney live-action-fantasy "house style" vibe; the direction, composition, tone and especially the design of some of the creatures all immediately identify that we are indeed still getting a Sam Raimi movie...



I especially LOVE that last "stinger" shot. Apart from being another instant "from the director of Evil Dead" moment, it's a PERFECT use of shared pop-cultural iconography: Everyone in the audience who understands that this is a "Wizard of Oz" prequel instantly understands that what we're seeing is the pre-reveal (maybe even the "birth?") of one of cinema's greatest villains... The Wicked Witch of The West. In this version, all three(?) of the Oz Witches apparently start out good/beautiful, so one assumes at some point the Western one will be going green n' mean - maybe at the finale? Or as a sequel-tease?

Wanna get really psyched? Think back to The Wicked Witch in that original movie, THEN think back on how Raimi traditionally handles/depicts witch/crone creatures in his films. Awesomeness potential: HIGH.
Read More
Posted in | No comments

It Lives

Posted on 22:32 by rajrani
As part of moving into the new place, I've been looting my parents' house for old stuff I can still use. One discovery turned out to be my original NES and collection of games; which tonight underwent a thorough disassembling, cleaning with rubbing-alcohol (system and carts) and reassembling.

The entire process was tweeted game by game (sorry, people who don't like tweetspam, I was excited is all.) and this is my favorite photo I took of the process - you can't quite see it in this image, but the NES is on a shelf below the Wii and XBox; connected via the HDTV's inexplicable-yet-welcome coax input.


I still haven't fully furnished the place - money is kinda tight right now, to be honest - but I'll be springing for some kind of plug-extender so I can properly get the oldschool big-ass AC adaptor into my surge-protector (the NES was plugged into another, not-always-convenient outlet for this test run.

After that? Let the word go out to every sold, pawned, yard-sale'd, lost and forgotten NES cartridge on the North Shore: I am coming for you, and you WILL live again!
Read More
Posted in | No comments

Wednesday, 11 July 2012

Aronofsky's "Noah" Will (Probably) Cause Our Next Big Bible-Movie Shitstorm

Posted on 23:27 by rajrani
Darren Aronofsky has tweeted the first set pic of construction for his upcoming film "Noah," he of Ark-building fame. If completed on schedule, it's on-track to be the first of a potential wave of Biblical epics - elsewhere, Steven Spielberg is circling an update of "The Ten Commandments."

I'm kind of psyched about the prospects of this.

From a strictly literary perspective, Bible Stories are among those rare cases were visually/narratively bizzare material also happens to be material that a plurality of the mainstream audience is not only familiar with but takes as... well, gospel, for lack of a better word. It's the only genre where you can pack the screen with devils, demons, flaming swords and guys splitting oceans with magic staffs and still sell tickets to people who'd never turn out for, say, "Lord of The Rings." But Aronofsky's plans for "Noah" look to push that to acceptance to the breaking point...


The version of Noah's Ark that most present-day religious people (it's my understanding that despite being part of the "Old" Testament, Noah's Ark is more "popular" in a retelling sense among Christians than Jews, though Jewish readers are enthusiastically welcome to correct me on that) are familiar with is highly sanitized, coming from (comparitively, given that the events described are - literally - pre-historic) recent translations that specifically worked to tone-down the more "mythological-sounding" elements from Genesis (giants, monsters, dragons, etc) and other pre-Exodus Biblical texts. The meat of the story is always the same - the world has become hopelessly corrupt, God aims to wipe out said corruption with an apocalyptic flood, Noah is warned by God and tasked with building a massive ship that will whether the storm - allowing Noah, his family and a cargo of mated-pairs of every known animal to survive and repopulate the planet. Because strikingly-similar "flood stories" occur in hundreds of other disparate religions, the story is a fixture of pantheist/monomyth theories as well.

In most modern tellings, the "corruption" the invites the flood is just the traditional post-Exodus understanding of sin; but as Noah's adventures pre-date Exodus by millenia, you'll be unsurprised to learn that the pre-cleanup versions (there's never just one with stuff this ancient) were a little more... "complicated:" Mankind's corruption ("mankind," incidentally, being a race of long-lived superhuman's having descended directly from Adam and Eve in some variations) was incited by a sect of Angels called Watchers (yes, "the guys from Dogma") who migrated to Earth in order to seduce human women. The children of these unions were giants (or sometimes just really, really bad guys) called Nephilim, and it was the havoc they caused (and other sundry violations caused by forbidden knowledge given to man by the meddling Angels) that despoiled the Earth and necessitated the flood. Depending on which version you consult, figures like Enoch, Gog and even Lucifer turn up.

It's this more mythic, creature-featuring and (with no offense meant to my religious readers) "high fantasy"-flavored version that allegedly informs Aronofsky's take on the material. While much of it is being kept under wraps for now, it is known that The Watchers are onhand, and that the depiction of them and other Angels is described in-line with their "original" conception; i.e. less "guys with wings" and more "bio-mechanical horrors with multiple eyes, wings, limbs, etc."

How will religiously-devout moviegoers respond to a Bible Movie that's less Cecil B. DeMille and more Guillermo Del Toro? We'll see...
Read More
Posted in | No comments

Oh, Baby!

Posted on 12:25 by rajrani
Via ShockTillYouDrop

"Killer Baby" movies are a popular monster/horror subgenre for an obvious reason: It's the ultimate extreme of both the "deceptively-harmless-looking-killer" conceit and the "evil-perversion-of-goodness" conceit. We're biologically/evolutionarily hardwired to respond viscerally to babies - that jolting chill up your spine when a baby cries somewhere? That's your ancient, ancient instinct telling you "YOUNG ONES IN PERIL! PROTECT THE FUTURE OF THE PACK!" - and Killer Baby movies exploit that.

The best one is still Larry Cohen's seminal "It's Alive" (the original, Cohen's own well-meaning remake kinda sucks) but there've been plenty since. To my recollection, though, Tara Robinson's upcoming "After Birth" is either the first or the first in a long time to come from a female filmmaker. In this variation, a homeless woman is impregnated by an evil force and must confront the killer creature she gives birth to. If nothing else, it has TWO of the best ad-copy lines I expect to see this year...



"Every Child Is A Gift From God... EXCEPT ONE!"

"For One Girl... Pro-Life... Is A DEATH SENTENCE!"

THAT, friends, is how you sell me a Killer Baby Movie. Keeping an eye on this one.
Read More
Posted in | No comments

Tuesday, 10 July 2012

Big Picture: "Batman Revisited - Part III"

Posted on 10:46 by rajrani
"Batman Forever" this week.


The Escapist : The Big Picture : Batman Revisited, Part 3
Read More
Posted in | No comments

Monday, 9 July 2012

You'll Never Guess What I Talked About On The "Post-Movie Podcast"

Posted on 20:00 by rajrani
My esteemed colleagues Steve Head and John Black graciously invited me back on "The Post-Movie Podcast" (which everybody should be downloading and reviewing on iTunes) over the weekend. Our discussion focused, of course, mostly on "The Amazing Spider-Man;" which I can only assume will provide further aggravation for people who are shocked - shocked! - that persons whose job is largely dependant on viewership and exposure choose to "dwell on" the most popular, noteworthy and heavily-searched movie on the planet at the moment...

Read More
Posted in | No comments
Newer Posts Older Posts Home
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • All The Singing
    Here's the new trailer for Tom Hooper's "Les Miserables" movie, the big hook of which (apart from "OMFGTHEYFINALLYD...
  • Mumblecore Beatdown
    You may have heard that Badass Digest helmer Devin Faraci and "mumblecore" darling Joe Swanberg participated in one of Fantastic F...
  • Gritty Reboots: "Calvin & Hobbes"
    Thus far, the Gritty Reboots YouTube channel had seemed like a great concept in search of a target, but their "Calvin & Hobbes...
  • Is Deathstroke in "Arrow!?"
    The trailer for The CW's Green Arrow show "Arrow" (Green is apparently boxoffice-poison for Warners now) looks pretty awful -...
  • BUY MY BOOK
    You can now buy you're very own copy (in print or ebook) of "SUPER MARIO BROS 3: BRICK BY BRICK" from Fangamer. So, please, ...
  • All The Hate (updated)
    UPDATE: I'm leaving the original block-of-angry (which, just for perspective, was typed out on a phone while I waited to smother my ang...
  • Escape to The Movies: "42"
    Um... base hit, I guess? I dunno, pick your own baseball metaphor. Intermission. More Sam Raimi. Do it. The Escapist : Escape to the Movies...
  • Remember When "Bewitched" Cured Racism With Blackface?
    I have a soft spot of cheesy 50s/60s sitcoms, which definitely includes "Bewitched," but I don't know that I'd ever seen T...
  • FREEEEEEEZE IN HELL, SPIDER-MAN!!!
    The Daily Mail has the first snaps of Jamie Foxx in his makeup as Maxwell Dillion aka  Electro for "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," r...
  • Is "Robot & Frank" The Next Great Indie Scifi Movie?
    If "Wall-E" and "Up" made a baby and decided to raise it live-action, it would probably look a lot like "Robot ...

Blog Archive

  • ▼  2013 (213)
    • ▼  July (6)
      • "The Engine is Sacred!"
      • Escape to The Movies: "The Lone Ranger"
      • Sharks. Tornado. "Sharknado."
      • One More "Pacific Rim" Trailer
      • Big Picture: "With Great Power"
      • BUY MY BOOK
    • ►  June (28)
    • ►  May (48)
    • ►  April (38)
    • ►  March (28)
    • ►  February (26)
    • ►  January (39)
  • ►  2012 (287)
    • ►  December (40)
    • ►  November (28)
    • ►  October (47)
    • ►  September (41)
    • ►  August (47)
    • ►  July (41)
    • ►  June (39)
    • ►  May (4)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

rajrani
View my complete profile