Category: Uncategorized

One more TGO Episode 50 Trailer

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Milking it? Probably… but it’s not like I can turn around at this point. Below, the ScrewAttack.com Exclusive trailer for “War of The Thinkers;” the humor value (or lack thereof) may depend wholly on how burned-out you are on “Dead Island” spoofs at this point…

http://v.giantrealm.com/saf/272828ab50091da6eb1ae85133def12ae9a44eb4

The actual episode/mini-move is still set to debut on ScrewAttack a week from tonight, April 25th at 11pm ET.

"Thor" reviews coming in largely positive (updated)

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“Thor” had it’s official premiere yesterday (today?) in Australia, where star Chris Hemsworth got his start as a popular TV actor, in preparation for it’s UK rollout on 4/27 and it’s U.S./etc debut on May 6th. It was also, apparently, shown to some U.S. critics around the same time. The reviews have started hitting the web and Twitter… and so far the word is good. Hollywood Reporter liked it, so did Variety. On the “geek press” side, Drew McWeeny agrees. There are a bunch more, but these will give you a rough consensus.

UPDATE! Empire’s review is another rave.

Those trying to stay 100% spoiler/plot-structure-info free will probably want to just skim those or avoid full-reads altogether (nothing major in them, but you never know) but a few consistent themes run throughout almost every review I’ve read:

It’s bigger than we’ve been sold. The trailers have been short-selling Asgard and focusing on the Earth scenes. Apparently this doesn’t reflect the “ratio” of cosmic-to-earthbound action in the actual film.

It’s not a “dark” movie. This intrigues me – almost every all of the reviews that bother mentioning the other Marvel/Avengers films make a point to mention that this is probably the most “kid-friendly” of the cycle so far; in as much as it’s more heavily grounded in comic/fantasy business than PG-13 body-horror (“Incredible Hulk”) or midlife-crisis and/or corporate politics (“Iron Man 1&2.”) I’m MORE than fine with that – I don’t want to see a “grownup” movie about a Space Viking looking and his Magical Hammer.

Hemsworth is good. This is the first Marvel/Avengers movie that’s being shouldered by a previously-unknown leading man, so it’s good to see mostly across-the-board praise for Chris Hemsworth.

The drama works. Another VERY frequent compliment – though often noted as the “upside” to criticisms that the action/fight sequences aren’t necessarily the most groundbreaking. Probably the single most-recurring thing in the first crop of reviews is near-univesal agreement that the courtly/family intrigue among The Gods kills; with ample credit being given to the choice of Shakespearean/arcane-bombast specialist Brannagh as director. This is GOOD to hear, if it’s true – “Thor” is both the weirdest and least-known of the principal Avengers, and if this film AND its/his part in future continuity is going to work people need to grasp/”buy” the characters and their world. Remember: “Iron Man” worked so well as a superhero character-study that no one cared about (or now remembers) it’s awkward, nonexistant 3rd act.

"Planet of The Apes" prequel trailer teases (potentially) awesome movie with (probably) shitty moral/message

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Y’know what’s great about the PoTA franchise? Since it’s ALL about time-travel and alternate-history, this could easily be considered a sequel, prequel, reboot and in-name-only-cash-in all at once. Depicted below: James Franco is putting on his seriousface for reverse-ironic lulz a scientist using primate brain-research to seek “the cure” (Alzheimers again, I’m assuming?) who ends up creating super-intelligent, revolution-minded simians. Money shot? A gorilla preparing to beat up a helicopter. Ticket. SOLD.

How awesome does that look? So awesome I almost don’t want to vomit right now…

Great Rao… can I BE anymore sick of once again hearing the clear “voice of reason” character somberly intone “some things aren’t MEANT tobe changed!” as a ‘step back from the brink’ line to the “mad” scientist?

Some things aren’t meant to be changed? Oh, well – my mistake! By all means, let’s unplug all those artificial hearts, siphon out all those lifesaving medicines and unsew all those awful ungodly stitches – after all, clearly all those “natural causes” weren’t MEANT to be stopped from killing people. Never forget, kids: Science is a scary, hard-to-understand thing that smart people do; which means it’s scary and evil.

Egh. Yeah, fine, movie looks great so far and I can’t hold this “against” it at this point, but still… when did it get decided that Science Fiction always had to be about making people AFRAID of human progress?

Fans React in Horror as Only Other "Superman" Antagonist Anyone has Heard of Cast in "Man of Steel"

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Michael Shannon – who may just be the most unironically-intense working actor in Hollywood – has been cast as a (the?) villain in “The Man of Steel;” the Zack Snyder directed Superman movie that Warner Bros. is ram-rodding into theaters to beat-out the “we have to pay Seigel & Schuster’s heirs now” train to the station. Surprising absolutely no one, he’s NOT playing Toyman, Parasite, Bizarro Brainiac, Metallo or anyone else from Superman’s unfortunately-named, oddly-sparse enemy pool; nor is he playing Darkseid – a “New Gods” character that everyone thinks is a Superman villain because DC has been using him as an all-purpose Big Bad for about 30 years now.

Nope, he’s General Zod.

For the life of me, I don’t know why the prospect of Zod infuriates fans so much. Well… okay, actually I do – it’s because Zod isn’t important in the comic lore but to “the masses” who only know the Donner movies he’s the most well known (okay, ONLY known) Superman antagonist who isn’t Lex Luthor, and they resent that. Okay, I get that.

Yeah, I’d like to see one of the more obscure-yet-“important” enemies, but this makes sense from a filmmaking perspective: It gives you the ONE thing people have been demanding of a modern Superman movie – Superhuman fight scenes – without having to have character who is a kinda-generic monster (Parasite) probably too complicated for a one-off or first installment (Brainiac, Bizarro) or possesed of a silly-sounding name (all of them.) I liked the rumors about Metallo, but I also get that having him essentially fight The Terminator brings up that whole “wait, I thought this guy could punch-out The Moon?” problem. In addition, Zod makes thematic sense – the new script (from David Goyer and Nolan brothers) is apparently heavy on a “would the modern world REALLY react to a Superman so positively?” vibe; and having a second all-powerful alien whose evil fits that pretty well.

So… yeah, like everything else in this production it’s kinda anticlimactic and not crazy-exciting… but I don’t see where all the rage is coming from.

Does a (sort-of) returning character reveal the plot of "Dark Knight Rises?"

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THR today broke the news that Josh Pence – the actor who’s face was digitally-replaced with Armie Hammer’s for the “twinning” shots in “The Social Network” – has a role in “The Dark Knight Rises” as the younger version (for flashbacks) of an existing character. Said character’s identity is confirmed in the story, and nudges VERY headily in the direction of confirming a lot of people’s assumptions about what the new film’s story might entail.

It’s not technically a spoiler, since everyone has run the story and the name, but in case you’d rather not read anything about it I’ll do the rest after the jump…


So, Pence is playing Young Ra’s Al Ghul, in flashbacks apparently set 30 years in the past.

No other information is given, but any renewed presence for Ra’s Al Ghul would seem to indicate what many people have been assuming/hoping/predicting for awhile now: that the League of Shadows – the anarchist-terrorist ninjas from “Batman Begins” – are coming back in some capacity. Right off the bat (no pun intended) I’m digging that idea because it suggests a turn back into “Begins’s” more comic-esque level of unreality (ninjas, doomsday weapon, fear-toxin, etc) after“Knight” took the franchise as far into realism as you can get while still making a Batman movie.

It also lends credence to the rumor that, if true, represents the worst-kept secret since the “bonus ending” of “Iron Man” – that Marion Cotillard’s as-yet-unidentified “key role” is some variation of Talia Al Ghul, Ra’s daughter and likely successor as leader of the League. Let me toss in some more specualtion on that end – the LoS’s previously-established “thing” for masks, long-term scheming and arcane chemistry would be a really handy way to explain Bane.

Here’s what I want to know: What exactly does being a younger Ra’s Al Ghul actually MEAN in this context? In the comics, Ra’s is a literal thousand-years-old immortal; but Liam Neeson’s dialogue in “Begins” – along with Christopher Nolan’s consistent veto of the more “out there” aspects of Bat-mythology – indicated that in this universe it’s more of a smoke-and-mirrors creating the illusion of immortality thing in this universe. But it was never made precisely clear how the ruse was actually set up, i.e. was Neeson the “real” Ra’s and Ken Watanabe was a decoy, or is the idea that there’s NO “real” guy and “Ra’s Al Ghul” is just a title passed from leader-to-leader “Dread Pirate Roberts”-style?

The reason I wonder this? We still don’t know who Joseph Gordon Levitt is playing, and if the idea is that “Ra’s Al Ghul” IS just a title, well… do the math. I’ll just say this: If the big third act “boo!” of this is a fully-alive Liam Neeson stepping out from the shadows, I’ll be the happiest widdle boy in the whole wide world…