Author: Maurice Mitchell
Want to know what the December movies are all about? Here are the geeky December movies being released along with my thoughts about them. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows When? December 16th What Is It? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous super-sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, gets an update with this adaptation of Lionel Wigram’s comic book series by writer/director Guy Ritchie (RocknRolla) starring Robert Downey Jr. as the titular detective, with Jude Law stepping into the shoes of his sidekick, Dr. Watson. Heading up the rest of the cast are RocknRolla’s Mark Strong as the film’s villain, Blackwood, and Rachel McAdams portraying…
Star Wars villain Darth Vader is an imposing figure, but he’s nowhere near the top villain ever created. He’s a moron who didn’t do a very good job of getting what he wanted. He was given the “Ultimate Villain” award at the 2011 Scream Awards. The American Film Institute listed Vader as the third greatest movie villain in cinema history. Since they started it, how does he compare with other great cinematic villains? Let’s break it down. 1. Darth Vader Was Clueless A great villain like Shakespeare’s Iago is a master planner. Death Vader was not. Iago devised a plan…
I missed last week’s Friends Friday and this week’s is late. I’ll make it a double-sized post to make up for it. This week’s news is surprisingly movie heavy. Upcoming movies, unseen movies and one horribly bad (good?) movie. Awards The recipient of this week’s blog award is Arlee Bird! He gets our second “Pied Piper: Most Deserving Blog Followers” award.He’s got over a thousand followers for his great story-telling and juggling skills. I’m going to change the award request from last time. Simply name three people who deserve their followers you’d like to pass it to. They can be…
This infographic traces the connections in the Marvel movies that have led up to The Avengers (2012). Its been three years in coming with five directors, but next year “The Avengers” are assembling. In 2008, Iron Man came out and audiences were thrilled to see Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) announce “The Avengers Initiative”. Since then, we’ve waited years and carefully examined five movies for the six characters that make up the superteam known as “The Avengers”. Some have been obvious, like Nick Fury walking into a room. Some have not, like the Hulk showing up in a television screen. Check…
In Time explores a fascinating concept, but an unsatisfying ending and some weak acting by Justin Timberlake spoil an interesting film. The film In Time has a simple premise. Everyone has a counter on their arm that tells them exactly how long they have to live. It is accurate to the second and when it goes to zero the person dies immediately. In this world of the future they discover the secret of immortality. Everyone gets to stay 25 and live forever. The catch is that it costs to extend your time. The rich can afford to keep living, while…
Get the The Ultimate Matrix Collection [Blu-ray] for less than $25.49 (that’s 61% off the list price of $64.98). Its Tuesday, which means I let you know the latest DVD and Blu Ray deals. This is CyberMonday Deals Week at Amazon which means some crazy deals.Today’s Gold Deal is the seven (or ten on DVD) disc set of the Ultimate Matrix collection. I described my love for the original Matrix and dislike for the sequels already. I’ll just say these films are important yet flawed. The Blu-Ray and DVD collection of the trilogy is inspired though. The following comes from…
If you want to have your phone ring with your favorite Star Wars song, then follow these six easy steps. What you’ll need An MP3 song Audacity sound editor 1. Find A Song Get a song by ripping a CD, using your library or buying one. I’m going to get the song from Amazon since they sell them as MP3s. The promo code STUDYBRK will get you a $2 credit. So, you basically get a free song. The song I want to use is John William’s “Duel Of The Fates” from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. This song is one of my favorites…
If you’ve ever wondered why the featured post slider on the blog doesn’t updated regularly, then read this post. It may answer some questions you have. At the top of the page is a slider that shows five posts with an image. It’s the reason I chose this new design template. I looked high and low for a slider we could just add to the old template, but couldn’t find one. So, we got a whole new template for the blog mainly for the slider. We’ve gotten feedback that it’s the best new feature of the design. The only problem?…
Will Iron Man be duking it out with the Hulk in his “Hulkbuster” armor? Concept artist Adi Granov doesn’t think so. He would know since he’s worked on two of the Marvel films Iron Man and Iron Man 2. Italian website BadTaste had an interview with Granov where he says the Hulkbuster isn’t going to show up in The Avengers. About this topic, there is [an Iron Man armor] that everybody is looking forward to seeing on the screen: the Hulkbuster. “In the first [‘Iron Man’] movie we had the Iron Monger … the idea for him came from the Hulkbuster.…
The American Revolutionary War was pretty thrilling, but how much more awesome would it have been with light sabers? Lucas, dump the 3-D Star Wars prequels and start making Revolutionary War movies! How much more cool would the revolutionary war have been with light sabers? What other time period would have been awesome with light sabers? [Image Source: Pics and Gifs]
On this day, November 22, 1968, television’s first inter-racial kiss appeared on Star Trek and opened the door to racial equality for generations. In the Star Trek episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” the crew is forced to do the bidding of “gods” who force Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) to kiss. One critic said, “The underlying message was, ‘If I have to kiss you to save my ship and crew, by God, I’ll do it.'” The moment was so ground-breaking the studio shot two versions of the scene: One with them kissing and one without in case they changed…
William Shatner said that Star Trek is better than Star Wars. Carrie Fisher responded via YouTube. Shatner, who played Captain Kirk on Star Trek, made headlines by saying “Star Trek had relationships, conflict among the relationships, stories that involved humanity and philosophical questions…Star Wars was special effects. It was ILM at it’s best”. He also claimed Lucas ripped off from Roddenberry. Shanter is always mouthing off to get attention, so this is no big deal. However, Bill made a colossal mistake saying, “Princess Leia, as beautiful as she was and as wonderful an actress as she is can’t compare to the marvelous heroines we…
My wife and I signed up for “Disney Movie Club” this weekend. While browsing through the list of films, I was struck by how many “un-Disney” Disney films there are in the catalogue. You know, movies that you don’t think of as fitting into the traditional Disney style. All great films though. So, I decided to make a short list of films that you wouldn’t think of as Disney films. Some of these are produced by Touchstone, which is basically Walt Disney Pictures under another name. 1. The Black Hole (1979) This film still haunts me. Directed by Gary Nelson…
Germain Lussier at SlashFilm reports that Fandango now offers “mobile tickets” you can purchase to avoid movie lines and they’re everywhere but Arizona! Many airlines have already done away with paper tickets and now one of the largest sellers of movie tickets is finally making the digital leap. After almost two years of development and smaller test runs, Fandango‘s Mobile Ticket initiative begins its major roll out this weekend at select Regal Cinemas with the release of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1. People who buy tickets online (not just for Twilight, for any movie) can have a message…
Marvel has released a new set of promotional character posters for the 2012 film The Avengers and we breakdown the bizarre images along with a conspicuous rump in full view. It’s kind of a weird design since they decided to have each character jammed into the Avengers logo. These will probably be broken up into eight movie posters for the theaters. Here’s the breakdown: 1. Captain America – They got in his shield so that’s cool, but they covered his face! 2. Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) – This is a good one. Mysterious and bold. He has a green tint to…
When I heard they were cutting Doctor Who down to a half season I couldn’t imagine why. Turns out their ditching the whole show to make a movie. This makes me pretty mad. David Yates is set to direct according to Variety. “We’re looking at writers now.” He said, “We’re going to spend two to three years to get it right. It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena.” The show, about a time-and-space-traveling British dude, is the most successful science-fiction show ever running from 1963 to 1989, and 2005 to present. Why in the world would they…
Here are seven fascinating things you may not know about Captain America: The First Avenger. Millions have seen the blockbuster film Captain America, but there are still new things to learn. While I’ve seen it a bunch of times, did you know that Hayley Atwell grabbed some breast in the film? Captain America rode a motorcycle with a fitting name. What was it? Was Red Skull’s accent intentionally mad? Why wasn’t co-creator Joe Simon in the film? Read on to learn seven fascinating facts about Captain America: The First Avenger 1. Rogers Really DID Use a Body Double Many, including IMDb…
When we were nominated for the Movie 411 awards this month we started a contest and here are the winners We decided to reward our awesome Google Followers with a contest. Thanks for following us. We appreciate it. Here are the three winners chosen at random from our followers. 1. Storm Safety Blog 2. Chris 3. ♥MJ Congratulations! So, what can you do with five dollars? You can pay for shipping for an item or gift. You can also choose from e-books or one of Amazon’s many “Instant Video” titles under $5. There are a bunch of movies under five, plus…
Here’s our profile of the lovely and talented Carrie Fisher. The woman that became a Princess to millions around the world without ever wearing a crown. Carrie Fisher was born October 21, 1956 to singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds. Based on her family history, it was assumed she’d go into show business. Her first big role was in 1977 when she starred as Princess Leia Organa in George Lucas’ science fiction film Star Wars (retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) opposite Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. Her hairstyle from the first film, known as the “Cinnamon…
No one wants to die, but if I can just hang around till November 29th, I can watch the superhero themed “Victoria Secret’s” show. Then I’ll go with a smile. Superheroes and lingerie models. Too great tastes that go great together. To balance it out, here’s a picture of my wife’s favorite superhero, Thor, with his shirt off.Now for this week’s link love.Hollywood Spy’s Dez has a trailer for the new film Snow White and the Huntsman and it looks…interesting. Some of it looks cool. Like Chris Hemsworth. Other parts just look bizarre. Like the queen floating in a milk bath.…
Meet the greatest space travelers ever. They’re soldiers, construction workers, scientists and children. Here is the final of a five part series counting down the 100 greatest space travelers of all-time. Everyone has dreamed of going into space. While most of us will never get there hundreds of movies, television shows and books show people traveling into space. We compiled a list of the ones we consider the top 100 space travelers of all-time. You can read the criteria we used here. It’s been a week long series that has come to the end. You can read the previous entries…
Meet the greatest space travelers ever. They’re soldiers, construction workers, scientists and children. Here is the third in a five part series counting down the 100 greatest space travelers of all-time. Everyone has dreamed of going into space. While most of us will never get there hundreds of movies, television shows and books show people traveling into space. We compiled a list of the ones we consider the top 100 space travelers of all-time. You can read the criteria we used here. Previous: #100-81 #80-61 #60-41 40. William “Hawk” Hawkins, Col. (Tommy Lee Jones) Space Cowboys (2000) Tommy Lee Jones is…
Meet the greatest space travelers ever. They’re soldiers, construction workers, scientists and children. Here is the third in a five part series counting down the 100 greatest space travelers of all-time. Everyone has dreamed of going into space. While most of us will never get there hundreds of movies, television shows and books show people traveling into space. We compiled a list of the ones we consider the top 100 space travelers of all-time. You can read the criteria we used here. Previous: #100-81 #80-61 The List 60. Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery) Star Trek: Enterprise Ensign Mayweather is a human, but…
In an interview with the “Wall Street Journal” Ridley Scott says he’s working on a follow up to his classic film Blade Runner and it’s “liable to be a sequel.” But, will it be in 3-D? One thing to consider is that he just finished his latest movie Prometheus in 3-D. While talking about filming at the San Diego Comic-Con he said “I’ll never work without 3-D again, even for small dialogue scenes.” He feels the depth of field makes for a richer experience. This is the way I felt after watching Avatar and the way I didn’t feel watching Tron. If it’s done right, the…
Meet the greatest space travelers ever. They’re soldiers, construction workers, scientists and children. Here is the second of a five part series counting down the 100 greatest space travelers of all-time. Everyone has dreamed of going into space. While most of us will never get there hundreds of movies, television shows and books show people traveling into space. We compiled a list of the ones we consider the top 100 space travelers of all-time. You can read the criteria we used here. Previous #100-81 Next #60-41 The List 80. Capt. Shane Vansen (Kristen Cloke) Space: Above and Beyond When Vansen was…
Meet the greatest space travelers ever. They’re soldiers, construction workers, scientists and children. Here is the first of a five part series of blog posts counting down the 100 greatest space travelers of all-time. Everyone has dreamed of going into space. While most of us will never get there hundreds of movies, television shows and books show people traveling into space. We compiled a list of the ones we consider the top 100 space travelers of all-time. We had to make up some rules for the list so here they are. First, these are fictional astronauts. It’s not fair to compare…
Every Friday we’re going to feature some news from our friends in the blogspot community. Here’s this week’s news you’ll want to use. Catch the CassaFire Alex is having a launch party for his new book CassaFire, the sequel to CassaStar. Make sure you sign up so you can win one of five copies! We’re going to start giving out blog awards so the first one goes to Alex. He has over 1000 followers through his sheer Ninja magnetism and hard work in the blogger community. I’m making him the first recipient of the “Pied Piper Coolest Followers” award! Here…
Battlestar Galactica Reboot Not Going To “Frak It Up” Bryan Singer’s long rumored reboot film of the 1978 television show Battlestar Galactica is ramping up with a new writer. John Orloff, who also wrote the Shakespeare film Anonymous, said, “I have wanted to write this movie since I was 12 year old and [I] built a Galactica model from scratch out of balsa wood, cardboard, old model parts and LEDs. I love BSG, and I would pass on the job rather than frak it up.” I dunno. The television series pretty much did everything you could do with the concept,…
The Matrix (1999) was a cinematic marvel, but thanks to the sequels it’s a huge mess and I’ll explain why. When a movie does well studios always push for a sequel. I can understand how much pressure the Wachowski’s were under. Their first movie, Bound, was critically acclaimed but not exactly a block-busters. Suddenly, men with suits are shoveling money at them and people were begging for more of this amazing film. So, the decided to go for it and make a trilogy. They expanded on ideas they had from the first film and came up with a storyline, plot and new…
In case you missed them, here are the most popular posts from last month. Everything from Star Wars lists to Batman. 10. Want To See the Full List of Changes to the ‘Star Wars’ Films? [List] This infographic lists all the changes to Star Wars Lucas has made going back to the 1970s. 9. 13 Frequently Asked Questions About ‘The Avengers’ Trailer Answered [Superheroes] If you saw the new Avengers trailer, but still don’t understand what’s going on then check this post out. 8. 10 Best Life-Size Star Wars Replicas Readers can’t get enough of life-size speeder bikes. 7. The ‘Star…