Is there a box office draw for this movie?
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
All are welcome! All are welcome...to the Poltergeist remake.
MGM is gearing up for the remake of what is quite possibly the best haunted house movie ever made, Poltergeist. This is a movie that still creeps me out to this day.
Here's the worst part: It's brought to you by the writers of Boogeyman.
This has win written all over it. /sarcasm.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Best. News. Ever: A Veronica Mars Movie?!
TV News Messiah Michael Auseillo is reporting what could be the 2nd best TV-to-Movie news ever (the first being a Buffy movie): We're edging closer and closer to a Veronica Mars movie.
Kristen Bell and series creator Rob Thomas have met and discussed the possibility. Thomas says, "Kristen and I ran into each other, and we did discuss a Veronica movie." He goes on to say he has had conversations with series producer, Joel Silver. Thomas also said once he finishes work on the two pilots he is working on, the relaunch of Cupid and the adaptation of new Zealand's Outrageous Fortune, the Veronica Mars movie will be a "Top Priority."
This makes me happy.
Ausiello Files
The Secret Life of Bees trailer
Based on the New York Times best selling novel. I'll see it. It looks pretty good.
New DVD releases 8/19
I'm sure you'll all be rushing to the stores to pick up your copies of Dexter Season 2. But just in case, here are your new DVD releases for today.
There really isn't much to get excited over.
Street Kings
Gossip Girl Season One
House Season Four
Camp Rock
The Fletch Collection
Best of Both Worlds Concert: The 3-D Movie
Dana Carvey: Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies
The Wizard of Gore
The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior
Monday, August 18, 2008
New Family Guy Complete Series (So Far) DVD Collection
So Amazon has an exclusive complete collection of Family Guy available for preorder right now and it's all inside Stewie's head.
Awesome. Temptation, temptation, temptation.
Preorder it now from the Pop Culture Beast Store and get a great price of $121.99.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Star Wars: The Clone Wars Reviewed!
Let's get something out of the way right off the bat. The Clone Wars is hardly anything more than a commercial for a new series of action figures flooding your local stores.
That said, I can't deny that I enjoyed it.
That said, I feel guilty for doing so.
The Clone Wars were touched upon in the prequels and in the brilliant cartoon network series which makes me wonder why instead of utilizing people who did such a great job with this subject matter previously, Lucas decided to use a whole new group of people.
I'll say that this is a hard review to write only because I'm a huge Star Wars fan who truly loves the universe George Lucas created. I enjoyed the first two prequels when I saw them in the theaters. I loathed Episode III and have since come to loathe Episode II as well. The only watchable entry in the prequels is Episode I. It is sad to see how someone I had held in such regard crumble and take this most beloved of franchises and turn it to garbage.
So here we are with another entry into the Star Wars world, this one an apparent launching pad for a animated television series. This time a computer-animated tale set during The Clone Wars about a struggle for free passage through Hutt territory and the search for a kidnapped Hutt baby.
I said before that I enjoyed the movie while I was watching it. Much like Episode II. It's a 90-minute (give or take) distraction with some well-done action scenes and some good laughs.
Now that the lights have come up and I have had a couple days to think about it, I feel guilty for enjoying it because it really is a bad movie. It's not prequel-bad but compared to the top-notch cartoon from a couple years ago, it really doesn't stand up.
The film opens not with the scrolling text of films past, but instead with a newsreel like voice over reminiscent of Starship Troopers. I actually thought that was pretty clever.
The animation at times seems a bit stilted. This is most evident when the characters are walking. They don't seem very fluid.
Some of the characters are down-right annoying, case in point being Ahsoka Tano, Anakin's Padawan, who went from being irritating to cool numerous times. Basically, she was cool when she wasn't talking.
The rest of the characters are mostly carryovers from the film but there is a new character that I feel I must comment on. I'm surprised it hasn't hit the news or had any kind of controversy yet. The character is Jabba The Hutt's uncle, Ziro The Hutt. A make-up wearing, borderline drag queen who comes off like a cross between Truman Capote and Leslie Jordan. I can't imagine why GLAAD hasn't spoken up about this. It's skirting the offensive line pretty closely.
Another item of interest is the music. It's terrible. The familiar Star Wars score shows up exactly twice. At the beginning and at the end. The rest of the score is downright awful. It does nothing to enhance the movie and the times I could hear it over the explosions just made me think it belongs in some epic credit card commercial about someone lost in the desert desperate for an ATM.
Why did I enjoy it while I watched it then? It was fun and entertaining at the time. Maybe I was distracted from its flaws by the explosions or the few actually inspired action scenes? It's not a disaster by any means. It is much better than the three prequels thankfully but again it is not near as good as the previous Clone Wars cartoon we've seen. Maybe things will be different when the series begins. The movie does leave some unanswered questions that intrigued me enough to want to see further stories. I just hope things get better as they go along.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is in theaters today.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince shifted to Summer 2009
Warner Bros. announced today that they have pushed back the latest Harry Potter film a whopping NINE MONTHS to July 17, 2009.
Alan Horn, President and Chief Operating Officer, of Warner Bros. states, "Our reasons for shifting ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to summer are twofold: we know the summer season is an ideal window for a family tent pole release, as proven by the success of our last Harry Potter film, which is the second-highest grossing film in the franchise, behind only the first installment. Additionally, like every other studio, we are still feeling the repercussions of the writers’ strike, which impacted the readiness of scripts for other films—changing the competitive landscape for 2009 and offering new windows of opportunity that we wanted to take advantage of. We agreed the best strategy was to move ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to July, where it perfectly fills the gap for a major tent pole release for mid-summer.”
This is INSANE. Really lame move if you ask me.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Benefit Event Tonight!
F Yeah Fest Benefit
Tuesday, August 12th
Crystal Antlers
Brother Reade
Tweak Bird
Totally Michael
Slang Chickens
+ Todd from Sea Level will be djing
@ 6th St Warehouse
1269 E. 6th St. LA, CA
$6 / 9:00pm
Monday, August 11, 2008
Jonatha Brooke: Behind the Scenes of The Works!
Jonatha Brooke is one of my absolute favorite singers. She's made a great little behind the scenes look at her upcoming CD "The Works" which features songs by Woody Guthrie. The album hits stores on August 26, but you can preorder it and get an autographed copy sent over at the end of the week!
Check out the video and grab the CD. Jonatha is an amazing singer/songwriter and I can already tell this new album will be beautiful.
Jonatha Brooke
Myspace
Official Site
South Park started as a shocking cartoon about kids with potty mouths and fart jokes. Eleven years later it has become one of the funniest shows in recent memory and, dare I say, important? No other show satirizes popular culture as harshly or as truthfully as South Park. I never thought I'd be watching a cartoon for social commentary but here we are.
Season eleven is in fact one of the strongest seasons of the show. Each of the fourteen episodes, include the laugh-a-minute Imaginationland trilogy, are brilliantly funny and further prove Trey Parker and Matt Stone aren't just one trick ponies. They spoof The DaVinci Code, Guitar Hero, 300, 24, The "N-word" (in what is one of the season's funniest episodes, "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson"), Tourette's Syndrome, and much more.
The biggest disappointment, as with each of the South Park sets, is the lack of extras. We get mini-commentaries but nothing of any substance. This set in particular was rumored to have tracks for Rock Band included. That particular feature was shot down a while back but word continued that it would be included. Alas, it is not.
Considering the sets for Family Guy, which is easily described as South Park's arch-nemesis, come jam-packed with extras, you would think they would start to kick it up a bit. Unfortunately, that isn't the case as season eleven is as bare bones as the rest of them.
That's not to say the set isn't worth the price. The episodes alone make the price worth it, it would just be nice to get more features to pad it out a bit. I get a feeling that they are holding onto all the good stuff for the inevitable complete series set that will be released once the show goes off the air. Which from what I understand won't be any time soon.
South Park: The Complete Eleventh Season is in stores tomorrow, August 12. Head out and grab yourself a copy. You'll be laughing for hours. Laughter burns a lot of calories, y'know, so skip the gym membership this month and buy South Park instead.South Park The Complete Eleventh Season:
1) With Apologies To Jesse Jackson
2) Cartman Sucks
3) Lice Capades
4) The Snuke
5) Fantastic Easter Special
6) D-Yikes!
7) Night of the Living Homeless
8) Le Petit Tourette
9) More Crap
10) Imaginationland
11) Imaginationland: Episode II
12) Imaginationland: Episode III
13) Guitar Queer-O
14) The List
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