Here are the official show notes for Episode 137 - Party The Year Away.
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Monday, December 15, 2014
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Geek News You Should Know 7/15/14
1) Thor is a girl? Marvel announced this morning that the God of Thunder will now be the Goddess of Thunder in a future Thor story-arch coming up. What this means for the Thor we know currently is a secret but we do that that at some point a female character will be able to pick up Mjolnir and wield the Thor's powers. This was received with big-time Internet nerd rage, but then again so was Peter Parker dying in both the regular Marvel Universe and the Ultimate Universe and many would agree that the books got better, and definitely got a lot fresher stories, because of it. So maybe we shouldn't judge a book by it's cover and see how the comic book is before we scoff at the idea. If the story sucks, then making Thor a woman may have been a bad idea, but odds are this book will give a fresh take on a character that in my opinion never worked in books nearly as good as he has in the Marvel movies. Here's a cover with the female Thor, try not to judge.
2) One of the coolest looking movies this winter is Big Hero 6 from Disney. I posted the teaser trailer here about a month ago and now the full fledged trailer is here and further solidifies my needing to see it. This is the first animated collaboration between Marvel and Disney.
3) Everything we loved as kids is coming back and that includes a re-launch of The Power Rangers as Ashely Miller and Zack Stentz, who previously worked on X-Men: First Class and Thor, are going to be writing the script with Roberto Orci serving as Executive Producer and will help on the story.
4) Saturday Night Live will be a few cast-members lighter this season as the show has announced they will not be bringing back Brooks Wheelan, Noel Wells, and John Milhiser next season. None of these performers really didn't amount to much on the show other than background performers so there releases are not very surprising.
5) Dark Horse is wrapping up it's Star Wars comic line as Marvel will begin publishing the book again in 2015, we finally have word from Marvel on what their first release is and it's pretty cool. Unfortunately, we don't know what new series are going to be released but we do know that all of the original Star Wars comics #1-#44 and Annual #1 are going to be released in an omnibus. The series begins with an adaptation of Episode IV through Episode V with lots of stories to bridge the gaps and complete the adventure. 2015 is going to be a great year for Star Wars fans and it's great that it begins immediately in January.
2) One of the coolest looking movies this winter is Big Hero 6 from Disney. I posted the teaser trailer here about a month ago and now the full fledged trailer is here and further solidifies my needing to see it. This is the first animated collaboration between Marvel and Disney.
3) Everything we loved as kids is coming back and that includes a re-launch of The Power Rangers as Ashely Miller and Zack Stentz, who previously worked on X-Men: First Class and Thor, are going to be writing the script with Roberto Orci serving as Executive Producer and will help on the story.
4) Saturday Night Live will be a few cast-members lighter this season as the show has announced they will not be bringing back Brooks Wheelan, Noel Wells, and John Milhiser next season. None of these performers really didn't amount to much on the show other than background performers so there releases are not very surprising.
5) Dark Horse is wrapping up it's Star Wars comic line as Marvel will begin publishing the book again in 2015, we finally have word from Marvel on what their first release is and it's pretty cool. Unfortunately, we don't know what new series are going to be released but we do know that all of the original Star Wars comics #1-#44 and Annual #1 are going to be released in an omnibus. The series begins with an adaptation of Episode IV through Episode V with lots of stories to bridge the gaps and complete the adventure. 2015 is going to be a great year for Star Wars fans and it's great that it begins immediately in January.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Geek News You Should Know 7/14/14
Took the later part of last week off, news was few and far in between, and my motivation to write was slightly dampened as I've been trying to expand my writing to other mediums but it seems like those efforts are not going as well as I'd like. I would talk about it more but I really don't want to. So yeah, how about some geek news.
1) We are just a day away from the new "Weird Al" Yankovic AL-bum Mandatory Fun from hitting store shelves and we have all the details right here. The parodies being included are of "Fancy" by Iggy Azeala, "Royals" by Lorde, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and Pharell, "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons, and "Happy" by Pharell. He also does style parodies of The Pixies, Foo Fighters, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Southern Culture on the Skids, and a whopping 9-minute song done in the style of Cat Stevens. All that plus a song that makes fun sports fight songs and the usual polka, where he takes songs like "Wrecking Ball" and "Get Lucky" and turns them into an amazing polka medley. Nerdist also released the first music video with celebrity appearances by Jack Black, Eric Stonestreet, Kristen Schaal, Aisha Tyler, and Margaret Cho of the song "Tacky" which you can check out here.
2) A teaser trailer for the new movie Horns was released online today and this might be the movie I'm looking forward to most this fall. Horns is based off of the Joe Hill novel of the same name, stars Daniel Radcliffe, and is directed by Alexander Aja (The Hills Have Eyes). The story is based around the character of Ig Perrish who is suspected of his girlfriend's murder and mysteriously grows a pair of horns on his head. The poster was also released and it's nice to see something different and very cool in my opinion.
3) Yahoo has made many happy people after picking up Community for a sixth season and now fans of the very underrated Enlisted are hoping that Yahoo will pick up the show for a second season. Kevin Beagel, creator of Enlisted, is having preliminary discussions with Yahoo and while a deal isn't close, it is possible. Enlisted tells the story of three brothers, one of which was serving overseas before being shipped back stateside, who are all on the same Army base with a wide cast of characters. This was one of my favorite new shows this spring and I would be very pleased to see it continue.
4) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes went bananas and dominated the box office this weekend. Granted, there wasn't much competition to stand in the way of Cesear and his crew but it still put up an impressive $72.6 million and topped it's predecessor Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which only put up $54.8 in it's first weekend. Transformers: Age of Extincition, which topped the box office the past two weeks, came in second this week with another $16.2 million, bringing it's total thus far to $208.8 million. Here is the rest of the list, courtesy of BoxOfficeMojo.com.
1) We are just a day away from the new "Weird Al" Yankovic AL-bum Mandatory Fun from hitting store shelves and we have all the details right here. The parodies being included are of "Fancy" by Iggy Azeala, "Royals" by Lorde, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and Pharell, "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons, and "Happy" by Pharell. He also does style parodies of The Pixies, Foo Fighters, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Southern Culture on the Skids, and a whopping 9-minute song done in the style of Cat Stevens. All that plus a song that makes fun sports fight songs and the usual polka, where he takes songs like "Wrecking Ball" and "Get Lucky" and turns them into an amazing polka medley. Nerdist also released the first music video with celebrity appearances by Jack Black, Eric Stonestreet, Kristen Schaal, Aisha Tyler, and Margaret Cho of the song "Tacky" which you can check out here.
2) A teaser trailer for the new movie Horns was released online today and this might be the movie I'm looking forward to most this fall. Horns is based off of the Joe Hill novel of the same name, stars Daniel Radcliffe, and is directed by Alexander Aja (The Hills Have Eyes). The story is based around the character of Ig Perrish who is suspected of his girlfriend's murder and mysteriously grows a pair of horns on his head. The poster was also released and it's nice to see something different and very cool in my opinion.
3) Yahoo has made many happy people after picking up Community for a sixth season and now fans of the very underrated Enlisted are hoping that Yahoo will pick up the show for a second season. Kevin Beagel, creator of Enlisted, is having preliminary discussions with Yahoo and while a deal isn't close, it is possible. Enlisted tells the story of three brothers, one of which was serving overseas before being shipped back stateside, who are all on the same Army base with a wide cast of characters. This was one of my favorite new shows this spring and I would be very pleased to see it continue.
4) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes went bananas and dominated the box office this weekend. Granted, there wasn't much competition to stand in the way of Cesear and his crew but it still put up an impressive $72.6 million and topped it's predecessor Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which only put up $54.8 in it's first weekend. Transformers: Age of Extincition, which topped the box office the past two weeks, came in second this week with another $16.2 million, bringing it's total thus far to $208.8 million. Here is the rest of the list, courtesy of BoxOfficeMojo.com.
| TW | LW | Title (click to view) | Studio | Weekend Gross | % Change | Theater Count / Change | Average | Total Gross | Budget* | Week # | |
| 1 | N | Dawn of the Planet of the Apes | Fox | $72,611,427 | - | 3,967 | - | $18,304 | $72,611,427 | $170 | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | Transformers: Age of Extinction | Par. | $16,302,415 | -56.0% | 3,913 | -320 | $4,166 | $208,833,713 | $210 | 3 |
| 3 | 2 | Tammy | WB | $12,555,151 | -41.8% | 3,465 | - | $3,623 | $56,998,752 | $20 | 2 |
| 4 | 3 | 22 Jump Street | Sony | $6,501,558 | -33.7% | 2,811 | -513 | $2,313 | $171,762,697 | $50 | 5 |
| 5 | 5 | How to Train Your Dragon 2 | Fox | $6,073,372 | -32.2% | 2,885 | -412 | $2,105 | $152,276,733 | $145 | 5 |
| 6 | 6 | Earth to Echo | Rela. | $5,488,277 | -34.4% | 3,230 | - | $1,699 | $24,585,816 | $13 | 2 |
| 7 | 4 | Deliver Us From Evil | SGem | $4,750,289 | -51.2% | 3,049 | - | $1,558 | $25,052,099 | $30 | 2 |
| 8 | 7 | Maleficent | BV | $4,180,586 | -32.1% | 2,077 | -312 | $2,013 | $222,005,394 | $180 | 7 |
| 9 | 15 | Begin Again | Wein. | $2,820,839 | +124.5% | 939 | +764 | $3,004 | $5,171,587 | - | 3 |
| 10 | 8 | Jersey Boys | WB | $2,517,430 | -51.2% | 1,968 | -662 | $1,279 | $41,712,040 | $40 | 4 |
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Geek News You Should Know: 7/8/14
You may not know this but the AB Conversation is huge in Israel. Yesterday alone, we had over 1000 pageviews from Israel, which in no way could be fake. So I would like to welcome all over our new readers from Israel and hope that even more and more people from Israel check out this site. Israel. Israel. Israel. Anyway, here's today's news.
1) Holy Hogwarts, today over on Pottermore, JK Rowling posted a new Harry Potter short story that basically destroyed their servers like people from Israel tried to destroy ours yesterday. Pottermore is a site that builds an online experience around reading the books, or in my case, a site I signed up for like 7 years ago around when the last book came out and didn't really use again. The fun part is it gives you super-hard usernames that you couldn't remember if you tried like NimbusNiffler2842.
In this story, written as a gossip column by Rita Skeeter and talks about the Hogwarts kids, who are all grown up now. Skeeter starts dishing some dirt and stirring the pot about possible marriage issues with Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley, although this is likely Rowling having fun with when she came out online saying Harry should have ended up with Hermoine. There's other juicy nuggets in there concluding with a hint towards more to come when Skeeter releases "Dumbledore's Army: The Dark Side of Demob" on July 31. What this means exactly right now, we have no idea, but it seems like the magical world of Hogwarts that Rowling stated she was done with, might not be over after all.
2) I am very much looking forward to Kevin Smith's new movie Tusk, which is based off of a Craigslist ad where someone wanted to hire a person to wear a walrus outfit in his house for 2 hours every night. While the movie is shot, Kevin Smith still hasn't acknowledged the cast of the movie completely and there is one big role that he wanted Quentin Tarantino to play, but he turned it down that it's rumored Johnny Depp might be playing. The trailer is scheduled to premiere at Comic Con in a few weeks and hopefully will come out on VOD and possibly another nationwide tour (ala Red State) this fall. The poster was released online today.
3) Disney has done a lot of live-action remakes of their classic animated movies with Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent hitting theaters in recent years. It sounds like the next one that is being prepared for the big screen will be a live-action Dumbo. Disney has hired the writer of the past three Transformers movie Ehren Kruger to write the screenplay. The mouse also has live-action versions of Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and Beauty & the Beast planned to come out over the next couple of years. I was never a big Dumbo fan growing up, I will admit to being intrigued to see a live-action flying elephant, that will be a really cool sight.
4) I have absolutely loved the V/H/S movies and view them as some of the best horror movies to come out over the past couple of years. The compilation horror series will end this year with it's third and final movie V/H/S Viral which will be available on VOD October 23. Maybe the only horror movie I liked more than V/H/S 2 last year was The Conjuring, which that's spinoff based on the creepy doll from the beginning of the movie, Annabelle, which was just announced will be hitting theaters this October 3. Not much is known about the story and if any of the story with the Warren family's history with the doll will be rehashed for this version or if it'll be treated more like a prequel, is up in the air. Looks like we could be in for a very spooky Halloween.
5) Ridley Scott has a movie coming out this December called Exodus: Gods and Kings, which stars Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Pharaoh Ramses, and tells the biblical story of Moses. It's a strange year in that we have a movie about Noah and Moses within one calendar year. The first teaser trailer for Exodus was released online today and you can watch here.
1) Holy Hogwarts, today over on Pottermore, JK Rowling posted a new Harry Potter short story that basically destroyed their servers like people from Israel tried to destroy ours yesterday. Pottermore is a site that builds an online experience around reading the books, or in my case, a site I signed up for like 7 years ago around when the last book came out and didn't really use again. The fun part is it gives you super-hard usernames that you couldn't remember if you tried like NimbusNiffler2842.
In this story, written as a gossip column by Rita Skeeter and talks about the Hogwarts kids, who are all grown up now. Skeeter starts dishing some dirt and stirring the pot about possible marriage issues with Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley, although this is likely Rowling having fun with when she came out online saying Harry should have ended up with Hermoine. There's other juicy nuggets in there concluding with a hint towards more to come when Skeeter releases "Dumbledore's Army: The Dark Side of Demob" on July 31. What this means exactly right now, we have no idea, but it seems like the magical world of Hogwarts that Rowling stated she was done with, might not be over after all.
2) I am very much looking forward to Kevin Smith's new movie Tusk, which is based off of a Craigslist ad where someone wanted to hire a person to wear a walrus outfit in his house for 2 hours every night. While the movie is shot, Kevin Smith still hasn't acknowledged the cast of the movie completely and there is one big role that he wanted Quentin Tarantino to play, but he turned it down that it's rumored Johnny Depp might be playing. The trailer is scheduled to premiere at Comic Con in a few weeks and hopefully will come out on VOD and possibly another nationwide tour (ala Red State) this fall. The poster was released online today.
3) Disney has done a lot of live-action remakes of their classic animated movies with Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent hitting theaters in recent years. It sounds like the next one that is being prepared for the big screen will be a live-action Dumbo. Disney has hired the writer of the past three Transformers movie Ehren Kruger to write the screenplay. The mouse also has live-action versions of Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and Beauty & the Beast planned to come out over the next couple of years. I was never a big Dumbo fan growing up, I will admit to being intrigued to see a live-action flying elephant, that will be a really cool sight.
4) I have absolutely loved the V/H/S movies and view them as some of the best horror movies to come out over the past couple of years. The compilation horror series will end this year with it's third and final movie V/H/S Viral which will be available on VOD October 23. Maybe the only horror movie I liked more than V/H/S 2 last year was The Conjuring, which that's spinoff based on the creepy doll from the beginning of the movie, Annabelle, which was just announced will be hitting theaters this October 3. Not much is known about the story and if any of the story with the Warren family's history with the doll will be rehashed for this version or if it'll be treated more like a prequel, is up in the air. Looks like we could be in for a very spooky Halloween.
5) Ridley Scott has a movie coming out this December called Exodus: Gods and Kings, which stars Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Pharaoh Ramses, and tells the biblical story of Moses. It's a strange year in that we have a movie about Noah and Moses within one calendar year. The first teaser trailer for Exodus was released online today and you can watch here.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Geek News You Should Know: 7/7/14
1) Ant-Man has undergone some major changes (MAJOR CHANGES, *salute*) in the past few months after Edgar Wright had left the project with Peyton Reed taking over directing and Adam McKay brought on to work to revise the script. McKay was never meant to stay on full-time as the writer as I'm sure he's got something with Will Ferrell happening again soon, so Gabriel Ferrari and Andrew Barrer are going to touch-up the script and be the go-to writers on set. Ferrari and Barrer don't have much to their resume other than an unmade Sabrina, the Teenage Witch movie, so it'll be interesting to see how they handle a project of this magnitude (pop pop). Marvel is such a huge system and with the excellent cast they've assembled (no pun intended, ok maybe a little pun was intended), there is no way this movie will fail.
2) Brandon Routh, who played Superman in Superman Returns, will be playing a DC Comics character once more, but this time it's going to be The Atom on the CW series, Arrow. The Atom, real name Ray Palmer, will be a recurring role in Arrow's third season. Palmer is a brilliant scientist and inventor and will reportedly take over as the new owner of Queen Consolidated. As The Atom, Ray can alter the size of his body as well as other objects.
3) I've had a bad feeling about Harrison Ford's broken leg screwing up the shooting schedule for Star Wars Episode VII and that has been confirmed. Theyare going to take a few weeks off from shooting in August in order for Ford to recuperate fully and then get his scenes filmed. Disney has assured everyone that absolutely nothing will stop them from releasing this movie in December 2015.
4) One of the movies I'm most looking forward to this year is Gone Girl, mostly because my wife is a HUGE fan of the book by Gillian Flynn, who also penned the screenplay for the movie. The movie stars Ben Affleck as Nick, a man who finds himself the main suspect after his wife suddenly goes missing. Even more exciting is, David Fincher (Fight Club, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), who is easily one of my favorite directors is making this. Gone Girl will open on October 3rd and the first full trailer for the movie was released online today.
5) Microsoft loves them some Halo. Coming out on November 11 for X-Box One is Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which has over 100 multiplayer maps, including every map every made for the previous Halo games in glorious 1080p. Included in this game is Halo: Nightfall, which is an original live-action series that introduces a new character that is pivotal in Halo 5: Guardians. Halo 5 and the X-Box exclusive Halo television series both launch in fall 2015 Here's a trailer for Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
2) Brandon Routh, who played Superman in Superman Returns, will be playing a DC Comics character once more, but this time it's going to be The Atom on the CW series, Arrow. The Atom, real name Ray Palmer, will be a recurring role in Arrow's third season. Palmer is a brilliant scientist and inventor and will reportedly take over as the new owner of Queen Consolidated. As The Atom, Ray can alter the size of his body as well as other objects.
3) I've had a bad feeling about Harrison Ford's broken leg screwing up the shooting schedule for Star Wars Episode VII and that has been confirmed. Theyare going to take a few weeks off from shooting in August in order for Ford to recuperate fully and then get his scenes filmed. Disney has assured everyone that absolutely nothing will stop them from releasing this movie in December 2015.
4) One of the movies I'm most looking forward to this year is Gone Girl, mostly because my wife is a HUGE fan of the book by Gillian Flynn, who also penned the screenplay for the movie. The movie stars Ben Affleck as Nick, a man who finds himself the main suspect after his wife suddenly goes missing. Even more exciting is, David Fincher (Fight Club, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), who is easily one of my favorite directors is making this. Gone Girl will open on October 3rd and the first full trailer for the movie was released online today.
5) Microsoft loves them some Halo. Coming out on November 11 for X-Box One is Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which has over 100 multiplayer maps, including every map every made for the previous Halo games in glorious 1080p. Included in this game is Halo: Nightfall, which is an original live-action series that introduces a new character that is pivotal in Halo 5: Guardians. Halo 5 and the X-Box exclusive Halo television series both launch in fall 2015 Here's a trailer for Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
Movie Review: Transformer: Age of Extinction
Transformers: Age of Extinction is the fourth movie in the
Transformers series and is in a lot of ways a re-launch of the
franchise, while not completely disregarding the events of the previous
movies. Age of Extinction takes place five years after the Battle of Chicago in Transformers: Dark of the Moon
where robots are now treated as harmful to the Earth. They are targeted
by CIA Agent Harold Atinger (Kelsey Grammar) whose group of hired
mercenaries work together with a robotic bounty hunter to target all of
the robots on Earth, especially leader of the Autobots Optimus Prime who
has completely disappeared. Instead of following Sam Witwicky (Shia
LaBeouf), we move to Texas and meet Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) who is a
mechanic, junk collector, and failed inventor struggling to pay his
bills. Cade finds a semi which he plans to sell for parts until he
discovers it's Optimus Prime. The CIA gains knowledge that Cade has
possession of Optimus Prime and while trying to escape, Cade discovers
the CIA is using tech from a defense contractor company lead by Joshua
Joyce (Stanley Tucci), who seems to be working on a level of robotics
beyond even the Transformers.
Michael Bay (Armageddon, Bad Boys) returns to direct this installment, as he has all the previous movies, but some things have changed. Mark Wahlberg breathes fresh air into the franchise and gives the series a credible leading man. The recent Transformers movies have had a lot of silly comedy, that doesn't really work in this kind of movie, and it was nice to see they drastically toned that down. T.J. Miller provides a lot of the comedy relief in this movie and it feels like the most natural fit for the comedy role since Anthony Anderson in the first film. Kelsey Grammer makes a despicable bad guy and a big improvement over John Turturro's Simmons character from the previous films, who became a huge joke. We are introduced to new Transformers and other types of robots along the way, the best being the trigger-happy Hound, voiced by John Goodman.
This movie has some great visual effects and Bay knows how to make a big screen action sequence that is jaw-dropping and tremendously impressive. However, where the movie fails is that it's 3 hours long and feels every bit of it. Just when you think you are totally drained from watching intense action sequence after intense action sequence, you experience Bayja vu and you get another intense action sequence. After the first hour, there is very little character development and even when you are introduced to new Transformers, including the debut of the Dinobots in the franchise, if you aren't steeped in Transformers lore before seeing the movie, you may have no idea who these characters are. While Age of Extinction is a vast improvement over the previous two entries in the Transformers universe, it has it's downfalls, especially compared to big budget action movies like the Marvel movies, where they treat character development equal to action. If you're looking for a big budget, loud, visual effects movie that will astonish, you will leave satisfied, however leave your brain at home.
Transformers: Age of Extinction is in theaters now.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
Michael Bay (Armageddon, Bad Boys) returns to direct this installment, as he has all the previous movies, but some things have changed. Mark Wahlberg breathes fresh air into the franchise and gives the series a credible leading man. The recent Transformers movies have had a lot of silly comedy, that doesn't really work in this kind of movie, and it was nice to see they drastically toned that down. T.J. Miller provides a lot of the comedy relief in this movie and it feels like the most natural fit for the comedy role since Anthony Anderson in the first film. Kelsey Grammer makes a despicable bad guy and a big improvement over John Turturro's Simmons character from the previous films, who became a huge joke. We are introduced to new Transformers and other types of robots along the way, the best being the trigger-happy Hound, voiced by John Goodman.
This movie has some great visual effects and Bay knows how to make a big screen action sequence that is jaw-dropping and tremendously impressive. However, where the movie fails is that it's 3 hours long and feels every bit of it. Just when you think you are totally drained from watching intense action sequence after intense action sequence, you experience Bayja vu and you get another intense action sequence. After the first hour, there is very little character development and even when you are introduced to new Transformers, including the debut of the Dinobots in the franchise, if you aren't steeped in Transformers lore before seeing the movie, you may have no idea who these characters are. While Age of Extinction is a vast improvement over the previous two entries in the Transformers universe, it has it's downfalls, especially compared to big budget action movies like the Marvel movies, where they treat character development equal to action. If you're looking for a big budget, loud, visual effects movie that will astonish, you will leave satisfied, however leave your brain at home.
Transformers: Age of Extinction is in theaters now.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Geek News You Should Know: 7/2/14
Sorry for the day off with the geek news, it's always a busy time for me at work at the end of one month and beginning of another, plus I think I saw a Transformer movie last night so I didn't have time to type up the ideas during the evening. I'll hit you with a super-sized portion of geek news for the same price today.
1) Disney is moving ahead on a sequel to the awesome 2007 movie Enchanted. While it's likely but uncertain that Amy Adams and James Marsden will be returning (they better be), they have announced who's making this movie. David N. Weiss and J. David Stem have been hired as the screenwriters and have previously written Shrek 2 and both of The Smurfs movies. The director of The Guilt Trip and The Proposal, Anne Fletcher, has been chosen as the director of this project.
2) While comedy sequels are typically not a good idea, Horrible Bosses 2 will be hitting theaters on November 26, and at least they aren't just setting the movie in Thailand. All of the actors that you loved will be back for the sequel, provided they didn't die in the first, and they will be joined by Christoph Waltz and Chris Pine, who seem like darn good additions to me. They just released the first trailer for it and you can watch it if you move your eyeballs two inches below this and press the play button.
3) Bill Murray is the funniest man on the planet, which makes it shocking that he hasn't starred in a comedy movie since 1997's The Man Who Knew Too Little. That is until October 24, when St. Vincent hits theaters. The movie also stars Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, and Chris O'Dowd and is from first-time feature writer/director Theodore Melfi. While this looks like another one of those movies were a young boy latches on and hangs around with an older man, like About a Boy and last year's The Way Way Back, I happen to love those movies so I am all in. Plus, it's nice to see Melissa McCarthy playing normal again. She's a very funny actress who doesn't need to resort to type-casting herself as a crazy person to make people laugh. Anyway, here's the trailer for St. Vincent.
4) Over on the boob tube, more details are leaking out about Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spinoff show, and the co-creator of the show has confirmed that some events will take place during Breaking Bad, making it quite possible that we haven't seen the last of Bryan Cranston as Walter White. Cranston has expressed interest in playing the character again for the spinoff show.
5) While it's very likely that work had begun on this previously, Seth Rogen tweeted out a picture suggesting that Evan Goldberg and himself are focusing solely on getting the future AMC series Preacher off the ground. This is one of the shows I am most looking forward to because like The Walking Dead before it got picked up, I was familiar with but hadn't read any of the source material, but only heard good things.
6) Speaking of scripts, Bryan Singer did something similar to Seth Rogen and instagram'd out a snippet from the X-Men: Age of Apocalypse script. While not much was mentioned besides a mention of the Four Horseman, it was cool to see it officially being worked on and despite his legal issues, it seems as though Singer will be directing this one as well. The follow-up to X-Men: Days of Future Past is scheduled to hit theaters on May 27, 2016.
7) Transformers: Age of Extinction is raking up money at the box office but Amazon has announced future Blu-Ray plans for the movie including an $80 Blu-Ray set that comes with a statue of Optimus Prime riding Grimlock. The statue is about 7 inches tall and 9 inches long which seems a little small for the price but still looks really cool and will be a must own for huge Transformers fans.
8) The BBC show Sherlock, which brought Benedict Cumberbatch to fame, has announced that it officially be coming back for a 4th season. That's not all as it sounds like they will also be shooting a Christmas episode as well in January 2015, presumably to air in December 2015. They haven't announced when they were going to be making the other 3 episodes but it sounds like they will air later in 2016. It sucks to wait, but I'm so glad we'll get at least another 4 stories.
9) Starz has announced that it has picked up a series based on Neil Gaiman's acclaimed fantasy novel American Gods which was released in 2001. Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, Wonderfalls) and Michael Green (The River, Heroes) are currently working on the pilot and will be the showrunners for the show. The show will follow Shadow Moon, who is an ex-con recruited by an old god, Mr. Weddnesday to be his bodyguard and help him assemble a group of old gods to fight newer gods that reflect American society's love of money, technology, media, celebrity, and drugs. I can't say that I've read the book but Gaiman usually makes really interesting things and combine that with Bryan Fuller and I am interested to see how this turns out. No word on when it will air yet.
10) FXX has ordered 10 episodes of a half-hour comedy series by Jay Baruchel titled Man Seeking Woman. The Undeclared star will play a hopeless romantic looking for love. The series will begin airing in 2015.
1) Disney is moving ahead on a sequel to the awesome 2007 movie Enchanted. While it's likely but uncertain that Amy Adams and James Marsden will be returning (they better be), they have announced who's making this movie. David N. Weiss and J. David Stem have been hired as the screenwriters and have previously written Shrek 2 and both of The Smurfs movies. The director of The Guilt Trip and The Proposal, Anne Fletcher, has been chosen as the director of this project.
2) While comedy sequels are typically not a good idea, Horrible Bosses 2 will be hitting theaters on November 26, and at least they aren't just setting the movie in Thailand. All of the actors that you loved will be back for the sequel, provided they didn't die in the first, and they will be joined by Christoph Waltz and Chris Pine, who seem like darn good additions to me. They just released the first trailer for it and you can watch it if you move your eyeballs two inches below this and press the play button.
3) Bill Murray is the funniest man on the planet, which makes it shocking that he hasn't starred in a comedy movie since 1997's The Man Who Knew Too Little. That is until October 24, when St. Vincent hits theaters. The movie also stars Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, and Chris O'Dowd and is from first-time feature writer/director Theodore Melfi. While this looks like another one of those movies were a young boy latches on and hangs around with an older man, like About a Boy and last year's The Way Way Back, I happen to love those movies so I am all in. Plus, it's nice to see Melissa McCarthy playing normal again. She's a very funny actress who doesn't need to resort to type-casting herself as a crazy person to make people laugh. Anyway, here's the trailer for St. Vincent.
4) Over on the boob tube, more details are leaking out about Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spinoff show, and the co-creator of the show has confirmed that some events will take place during Breaking Bad, making it quite possible that we haven't seen the last of Bryan Cranston as Walter White. Cranston has expressed interest in playing the character again for the spinoff show.
5) While it's very likely that work had begun on this previously, Seth Rogen tweeted out a picture suggesting that Evan Goldberg and himself are focusing solely on getting the future AMC series Preacher off the ground. This is one of the shows I am most looking forward to because like The Walking Dead before it got picked up, I was familiar with but hadn't read any of the source material, but only heard good things.
6) Speaking of scripts, Bryan Singer did something similar to Seth Rogen and instagram'd out a snippet from the X-Men: Age of Apocalypse script. While not much was mentioned besides a mention of the Four Horseman, it was cool to see it officially being worked on and despite his legal issues, it seems as though Singer will be directing this one as well. The follow-up to X-Men: Days of Future Past is scheduled to hit theaters on May 27, 2016.
7) Transformers: Age of Extinction is raking up money at the box office but Amazon has announced future Blu-Ray plans for the movie including an $80 Blu-Ray set that comes with a statue of Optimus Prime riding Grimlock. The statue is about 7 inches tall and 9 inches long which seems a little small for the price but still looks really cool and will be a must own for huge Transformers fans.
8) The BBC show Sherlock, which brought Benedict Cumberbatch to fame, has announced that it officially be coming back for a 4th season. That's not all as it sounds like they will also be shooting a Christmas episode as well in January 2015, presumably to air in December 2015. They haven't announced when they were going to be making the other 3 episodes but it sounds like they will air later in 2016. It sucks to wait, but I'm so glad we'll get at least another 4 stories.
9) Starz has announced that it has picked up a series based on Neil Gaiman's acclaimed fantasy novel American Gods which was released in 2001. Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, Wonderfalls) and Michael Green (The River, Heroes) are currently working on the pilot and will be the showrunners for the show. The show will follow Shadow Moon, who is an ex-con recruited by an old god, Mr. Weddnesday to be his bodyguard and help him assemble a group of old gods to fight newer gods that reflect American society's love of money, technology, media, celebrity, and drugs. I can't say that I've read the book but Gaiman usually makes really interesting things and combine that with Bryan Fuller and I am interested to see how this turns out. No word on when it will air yet.
10) FXX has ordered 10 episodes of a half-hour comedy series by Jay Baruchel titled Man Seeking Woman. The Undeclared star will play a hopeless romantic looking for love. The series will begin airing in 2015.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Geek News You Should Know: 6/30/14
1) Transformers: Age of Extinction dominated the box office this weekend breaking $100 million. No other new movies were released wide this weekend making Transformers dominance even easier. Age of Extincition brought in $41.6 million opening day which was the best for any movie in 2014. This was the 2nd biggest opening for a Transformers movie yet behind Revenge of the Fallen and a very good way to get this summer, which has been lagging at the box office, a boost. 22 Jump Street finished second at $15.8 million. Here is the top ten grosses this weekend courtesy of BoxOfficeMojo.com.
2) Doctor Who Season 8 will be coming sooner than most people expected as it was announced that it will debut on BBC and BBC America on August 23. They released a trailer teasing some of the upcoming episodes on the BBC site, which is available to be watched in the US, but we did get this very brief look.
3) Community will be coming back for a sixth season (no word yet on the movie). The shocking thing is instead of going to a television network or a huge already online video provider, it will be going to Yahoo Screen. While I've heard of Yahoo, I had no idea of the Screen in which they spoke of, so this is a great way to get their online video service out there. Hopefully sometime before Community airs, they will roll out a app for the PS3 or other devices so we can watch it on our TVs and not strictly online. The 13-episode 6th season will air at some point in 2015 and Dan Harmon will come back as the showrunner with the entire cast coming back (not including Donald Glover who left part-way through Season 5).
4) Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are teaming up together again, but this time it's not what you'd expect. They are starring in the movie The Skeleton Twins, where they play estranged siblings forced to reconnect and work through past issues. Instead of this being the comedy you'd expect from them, this is much more dramatic. Check out the trailer below.
5) Andy Serkis is one of those rare actors in Hollywood, where you've seen him on the big screen but probably wouldn't recognize him walking down the street. He's been terrific in the past as Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies, Caesar in the new Planet of the Apes movies, and will also be playing an undisclosed part in Star Wars: Episode VII. His company, The Imaginarium is working on Avengers: Age of Ultron and helping with the motion capture on Mark Ruffalo and some of the other characters in the movie. Serkis has announced in an interview that he will be playing a part in the new Avengers movie, while he couldn't say whether or not we will be seeing him or just be motion capture for the movie, this is exciting news.
| TW | LW | Title (click to view) | Studio | Weekend Gross | % Change | Theater Count / Change | Average | Total Gross | Budget* | Week # | |
| 1 | N | Transformers: Age of Extinction | Par. | $100,038,390 | - | 4,233 | - | $23,633 | $100,038,390 | $210 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 | 22 Jump Street | Sony | $15,842,375 | -42.3% | 3,426 | +120 | $4,624 | $140,279,267 | $50 | 3 |
| 3 | 3 | How to Train Your Dragon 2 | Fox | $13,237,697 | -46.4% | 3,750 | -518 | $3,530 | $121,952,229 | $145 | 3 |
| 4 | 1 | Think Like a Man Too | SGem | $10,316,397 | -64.7% | 2,225 | - | $4,637 | $48,084,757 | $24 | 2 |
| 5 | 5 | Maleficent | BV | $8,376,674 | -35.1% | 3,073 | -377 | $2,726 | $202,010,064 | $180 | 5 |
| 6 | 4 | Jersey Boys | WB | $7,712,264 | -42.1% | 2,905 | - | $2,655 | $27,444,750 | $40 | 2 |
| 7 | 6 | Edge of Tomorrow | WB | $5,404,290 | -45.0% | 2,535 | -677 | $2,132 | $84,348,922 | $178 | 4 |
| 8 | 7 | The Fault in our Stars | Fox | $5,130,777 | -40.1% | 2,845 | -495 | $1,803 | $109,875,795 | $12 | 4 |
| 9 | 8 | X-Men: Days of Future Past | Fox | $3,321,427 | -46.0% | 2,014 | -667 | $1,649 | $223,414,899 | $200 | 6 |
| 10 | 10 | Chef | ORF | $1,657,391 | -3.0% | 801 | -160 | $2,069 | $19,413,442 | - | 8 |
2) Doctor Who Season 8 will be coming sooner than most people expected as it was announced that it will debut on BBC and BBC America on August 23. They released a trailer teasing some of the upcoming episodes on the BBC site, which is available to be watched in the US, but we did get this very brief look.
3) Community will be coming back for a sixth season (no word yet on the movie). The shocking thing is instead of going to a television network or a huge already online video provider, it will be going to Yahoo Screen. While I've heard of Yahoo, I had no idea of the Screen in which they spoke of, so this is a great way to get their online video service out there. Hopefully sometime before Community airs, they will roll out a app for the PS3 or other devices so we can watch it on our TVs and not strictly online. The 13-episode 6th season will air at some point in 2015 and Dan Harmon will come back as the showrunner with the entire cast coming back (not including Donald Glover who left part-way through Season 5).
4) Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are teaming up together again, but this time it's not what you'd expect. They are starring in the movie The Skeleton Twins, where they play estranged siblings forced to reconnect and work through past issues. Instead of this being the comedy you'd expect from them, this is much more dramatic. Check out the trailer below.
5) Andy Serkis is one of those rare actors in Hollywood, where you've seen him on the big screen but probably wouldn't recognize him walking down the street. He's been terrific in the past as Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies, Caesar in the new Planet of the Apes movies, and will also be playing an undisclosed part in Star Wars: Episode VII. His company, The Imaginarium is working on Avengers: Age of Ultron and helping with the motion capture on Mark Ruffalo and some of the other characters in the movie. Serkis has announced in an interview that he will be playing a part in the new Avengers movie, while he couldn't say whether or not we will be seeing him or just be motion capture for the movie, this is exciting news.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Movie Review: They Came Together
They Came Together is the latest collaboration written by former members of The State and Stella, Michael Showalter and David Wain, who last wrote the cult classic Wet Hot American Summer together. David Wain, who also directed the movie, made his directorial debut with Wet Hot American Summer and then followed that up with The Ten, Role Models, and Wanderlust. The movie stars previous Wain/Showalter actors, Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler, who both worked together in Wet Hot American Summer. Rudd went on to star in all of Wain's other movies. The movie also features Cobie Smulders, Christopher Meloni, Bill Hader, Ellie Kemper, Max Greenfield, Ed Helms, and loads of other funny people.
While many will immediately compare this to Wet Hot American Summer, and rightfully so since the humor is very outlandish, silly, and light-hearted, I think it better compares in structure to Showalter's movie The Baxter, which was also a parody on the romantic comedy genre. While The Baxter focused more on what happens to the schmuck who gets left at the alter in romantic comedy movies, this is obviously more along the lines of a traditional rom-com. The humor works well and while really off the wall in parts, the movie has a really funny center to it that most will enjoy. However, there are some moments that depending upon your sense of humor may not translate well but for long-time fans, these are the moments they cherish.
Joel (Paul Rudd) and Molly (Amy Poehler) play a couple that are fresh out of their previous relationships and run into each other (literally) on their way to the same party where they are meant to be set-up to date each other. They blame the other for the run-in and hate each other because of it. On top of that Joel works for a giant candy store conglomerate that is set to put Molly's small candy shop out of business. All that being said, the two eventually fall for each other, break-up, and if you've seen romantic comedy movies you can figure out where it goes from there.
I really enjoyed watching this movie and as a fan of Wain/Showalter, I thought a lot of it was really hilarious. I wish our society leaned towards this type of parody of a genre like the Airplane and Naked Guns, rather than the Scary Movies and A Haunted Houses style where they pull specific scenes, ideas, characters from other movies. The movie only clocks in at 83 minutes and that seems like the right amount of time as ultimately there really isn't a whole lot of original story being told here. While comedy bits from the movie will stick with you long after, the movie itself doesn't do much to be remembered. At the end of the day, that's not really why you watch a movie like They Came Together, it's about the laughs and many of those are simply excellent.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Friday, June 27, 2014
Geek News You Should Know: 6/27/14
1) Guillermo del Toro has announced that despite an underperforming box office a sequel to last summer's Pacific Rim is in pre-production. Del Toro is working together with writers Zack Penn (Avengers) and Pacific Rim creator Travis Beacham on the project. If you're a Pacific Rim fan the fun doesn't end there as there will also be a Pacific Rim animated series and comic book series that expounds upon that universe. You can look for Pacific Rim 2 to hit theaters April 7, 2017.
2) Frank Darabont is in talks to direct the Snow White & the Huntman sequel that is scheduled to hit theaters in 2016. Darabont is most famous recently for making the the first season of The Walking Dead, but has directed classics like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. The interesting twist on this is, Darabont won the pitch competition telling a story that is a lot more Huntsman and not a lot of Snow White, even with a possibility that Kristen Stewart would not be in this at all.
3) Scoot McNairy, who has made quite a name for himself recently with roles in Argo and The Rover in theaters and on Halt and Catch Fire on TV, has signed on to be one of the thousand actors announced for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Nobody is sure of his role at this time, he could be playing a character like Green Lantern or The Flash or just some villain's stooge. Hopefully, we'll find out more in the upcoming years until this movie is actually released.
4) While not much is known about the Fantastic Four reboot being made by filmmaker Josh Trank besides the cast (Michael B. Jordan, Miles Teller, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell), Fox Production President Emma Watts has said that it will be done in a style very similar to Trank's found-footage film Chronicle. I'm honestly kind of shocked to hear this because that's an extremely unconvential way for a true comic book film to be shot. It worked for Chronicle because of the realist elements behind the movie, but with Fantastic Four at least traditionally having cosmic elements it seems like a very bold decision. With Trank making one of the upcoming Star Wars projects as well, I wonder if that too will follow that style, because seeing a found-footage Star Wars movie could be extremely interesting.
5) Masters of Sex is a very interesting show on Showtime that tells the story of Masters & Johnson, who pioneered research in different sexual studies including sexual response at Washington University in St. Louis. The show is based off a 2009 biography and tells all the exploits both inside and outside of the research center. I dug the first season of the show and definitley recommend watching it if you haven't seen it. They just released a trailer for the second season which premieres July 13 and you can watch it here.
2) Frank Darabont is in talks to direct the Snow White & the Huntman sequel that is scheduled to hit theaters in 2016. Darabont is most famous recently for making the the first season of The Walking Dead, but has directed classics like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. The interesting twist on this is, Darabont won the pitch competition telling a story that is a lot more Huntsman and not a lot of Snow White, even with a possibility that Kristen Stewart would not be in this at all.
3) Scoot McNairy, who has made quite a name for himself recently with roles in Argo and The Rover in theaters and on Halt and Catch Fire on TV, has signed on to be one of the thousand actors announced for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Nobody is sure of his role at this time, he could be playing a character like Green Lantern or The Flash or just some villain's stooge. Hopefully, we'll find out more in the upcoming years until this movie is actually released.
4) While not much is known about the Fantastic Four reboot being made by filmmaker Josh Trank besides the cast (Michael B. Jordan, Miles Teller, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell), Fox Production President Emma Watts has said that it will be done in a style very similar to Trank's found-footage film Chronicle. I'm honestly kind of shocked to hear this because that's an extremely unconvential way for a true comic book film to be shot. It worked for Chronicle because of the realist elements behind the movie, but with Fantastic Four at least traditionally having cosmic elements it seems like a very bold decision. With Trank making one of the upcoming Star Wars projects as well, I wonder if that too will follow that style, because seeing a found-footage Star Wars movie could be extremely interesting.
5) Masters of Sex is a very interesting show on Showtime that tells the story of Masters & Johnson, who pioneered research in different sexual studies including sexual response at Washington University in St. Louis. The show is based off a 2009 biography and tells all the exploits both inside and outside of the research center. I dug the first season of the show and definitley recommend watching it if you haven't seen it. They just released a trailer for the second season which premieres July 13 and you can watch it here.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Movie Review: Begin Again
Begin Again is the latest offering from writer/director John Carney, who is most known for doing the Irish romantic musical performance smash-hit Once. The movie is stylistically very similar to Once, with the one big exception being that instead of exploring Dublin, this movie takes us around New York City. Also, instead of going with musicians and making them actors like Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, Carney takes actress Keira Knightley and turns her into a singer (and a really good one at that).
The movie tells the story of a down on his luck former record executive, Steve (Mark Ruffalo), who walks into an open mic singer-songwriter night and discovers a young singer, Greta (Knightley), whom he sees enormous potential in and reignites his passion for music. Greta becomes hesitant to record an album after seeing how it screwed up her relationship with her ex-boyfriend who made it big, Dave Kohl (Adam Levine).
First of all, I was completely blown away by the film. I had high hopes because I was a huge fan of Once, but this movie far exceeded my expectations and showed major growth of John Carney as a filmmaker and storyteller. I loved the way the relationships were handled in the movie between all of these characters as there was such a delicate balance and realism that really added to the entire picture. The actors give great performances, especially the always exceptional Mark Ruffalo and provides occasional great comedic ability along with a deep believable sadness. For having a limited acting resume, Adam Levine impressed me greatly and Keira Knightley gives one of her greatest performances to date.
The songs, like Once, were primarily about falling in love, being in love, and then falling out of love, and did a great job capturing the emotions of the characters and expounding upon the story. Not only that, but the original songs they made for the movie were really good, especially Greta's. Dave Kohl's music sounded very much like Maroon 5, which isn't surprising, but since I'm not a Maroon 5 fan, I did not enjoy those songs as much. Keira Knightley has a great voice for the role and shockingly does her own singing in the movie, even though most people leaving the theater thought she didn't and were shocked to find out she did, even me.
The movie deals a lot with the struggles of record companies as part of the beginning of the movie is coming up with a way to get people to buy more music. They explore different options like audio commentaries, when the movie gives you the answer, make music that people will want to listen to instead of overproduced musical garbage that dominates much of the current marketplace. It also deals with the authenticity of both the music and musicians
While Chef has stolen the headlines as the indie darling movie of the summer, I think it has a lot of competition in Begin Again. This movie is like if Once made an awesome baby with High Fidelity. I was completely blown away by the movie. Rarely do I leave the theater and I say that I loved a movie, this was one of those rare exceptions.
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Geek News You Should Know: 6/26/14
Just wanted to apologize for not having geek news yesterday, there wasn't a lot going on that needed to be reported, plus it was a busy day capped off with going to a pre-screening of Begin Again last night. I plan on working on a Begin Again review today and hopefully that will be up by Friday, spoiler alert, it was awesome!
1) A teaser for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part One was released and this is how a teaser should be done. It features President Snow's Panem Address with Peeta at his side addressing that all should be "Together As One." It's a pretty powerful teaser and while I'm not the biggest fan of the Hunger Games, it's things like this that get me excited about the final movies.
2) I talked about Shane Black's Predator reboot a few days ago, more news has leaked out about this and the latest seems to be that instead of this being a reboot, it will be treated more like a sequel. Black and his co-writer Fred Dekker value the existing mythology of the previous Predator movies and don't want to completely start over.
3) While not much has been talked about in the highly anticipated sequel to Seth MacFarlane's Ted, Mark Wahlberg has talked about some details including that his character is no longer romantically linked to Mila Kunis' and is instead dating Amanda Seyfried in the movie, and this not very pleasing to his furry talking bear friend. Wahlberg also mentioned that that Ted will be "an even worse influence in this film." There is also a possibility that this movie will not take place entirely in Boston and they may "go on the road" at some point. Seth MacFarlane is usually pretty tight lipped about his projects, so we may not know more until closer to the film's June 26, 2015 release date.
4) The popular a capella singing group that won Season 3 of NBC's The Singoff and have made quite the name for themselves online with many extremely popular YouTube videos, Pentatonix, will be joining Pitch Perfect 2. Pentatonix will be playing a rival group to the Barden Bellas and filmed for one day last week. The group admitted to wearing some pretty interesting wardrobe choices but viewers will still be able to make out the 5-person signing group, although they will obviously be under a different name in the movie. The group doesn't have any lines in the movie which they admit is "probably for the best."
5) I love Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and find a lot of his stuff absolutely hilarious as he typically takes to the streets and makes fun of people their passions. In this instance, the cigar chomping puppet goes to an area of Queens where a bunch of people are gathered around to watch their country in the World Cup and proceeds to poop all over them. Here is part one of his report.
1) A teaser for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part One was released and this is how a teaser should be done. It features President Snow's Panem Address with Peeta at his side addressing that all should be "Together As One." It's a pretty powerful teaser and while I'm not the biggest fan of the Hunger Games, it's things like this that get me excited about the final movies.
2) I talked about Shane Black's Predator reboot a few days ago, more news has leaked out about this and the latest seems to be that instead of this being a reboot, it will be treated more like a sequel. Black and his co-writer Fred Dekker value the existing mythology of the previous Predator movies and don't want to completely start over.
3) While not much has been talked about in the highly anticipated sequel to Seth MacFarlane's Ted, Mark Wahlberg has talked about some details including that his character is no longer romantically linked to Mila Kunis' and is instead dating Amanda Seyfried in the movie, and this not very pleasing to his furry talking bear friend. Wahlberg also mentioned that that Ted will be "an even worse influence in this film." There is also a possibility that this movie will not take place entirely in Boston and they may "go on the road" at some point. Seth MacFarlane is usually pretty tight lipped about his projects, so we may not know more until closer to the film's June 26, 2015 release date.
4) The popular a capella singing group that won Season 3 of NBC's The Singoff and have made quite the name for themselves online with many extremely popular YouTube videos, Pentatonix, will be joining Pitch Perfect 2. Pentatonix will be playing a rival group to the Barden Bellas and filmed for one day last week. The group admitted to wearing some pretty interesting wardrobe choices but viewers will still be able to make out the 5-person signing group, although they will obviously be under a different name in the movie. The group doesn't have any lines in the movie which they admit is "probably for the best."
5) I love Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and find a lot of his stuff absolutely hilarious as he typically takes to the streets and makes fun of people their passions. In this instance, the cigar chomping puppet goes to an area of Queens where a bunch of people are gathered around to watch their country in the World Cup and proceeds to poop all over them. Here is part one of his report.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Geek News You Should Know: 6/24/14
1) Hulu was in talks with Community in hopes of bringing the sixth season to their online platform, however it seems like those talks have ended between the show's studio Sony and Hulu could not come to an agreement. It's rumored that Sony may be talking to another provider about the show returning however, they have a limited time frame as the cast's deals will expire on June 30th if a new home is not found by then. I really hope we hear some good news in the next week.
2) A new trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released online today and I'm sure will be the copy of the trailer before Transformers: Age of Extinction this weekend. While this movie has dealt with a lot of haters, it's getting hard to deny that it is actually starting to look pretty cool.
3) Shane Black, the director of Iron Man 3 and Lethal Weapon, is going to be writing and directing a reboot of Predator, for what seems like the 5th reboot of the franchise. This one will be a more direct remake of the original. Fred Dekkar, who co-wrote one of my favorite movies with Black Monster Squad, will handle the script based on Shane Black's story.
4) While I'm not the biggest Coen Brothers fan, I have enjoyed most of the movies that they've done. Their newest movie, Hail Cesear, tells the tale of a 1950's Hollywood "fixer," which is a guy that goes around and hides all of the messy personal details of actors. George Clooney and Josh Brolin were already announced for the cast, but now Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, and Channing Tatum, as a Gene Kelly-type actor, have joined the cast as well. Hail Cesear will be about making a movie, named Hail Cesar, based on a 1920's play, named Hail Cesar. Anyways, this movie sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
5) I've never been the biggest Planet of the Apes fan, but I was blown away by 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I thought it was a terrific movie and I am super pumped for it's sequel that comes out July 11, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. While they've released trailers before for it, Fox has just released the final trailer and this is a must see this summer for me.
2) A new trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released online today and I'm sure will be the copy of the trailer before Transformers: Age of Extinction this weekend. While this movie has dealt with a lot of haters, it's getting hard to deny that it is actually starting to look pretty cool.
3) Shane Black, the director of Iron Man 3 and Lethal Weapon, is going to be writing and directing a reboot of Predator, for what seems like the 5th reboot of the franchise. This one will be a more direct remake of the original. Fred Dekkar, who co-wrote one of my favorite movies with Black Monster Squad, will handle the script based on Shane Black's story.
4) While I'm not the biggest Coen Brothers fan, I have enjoyed most of the movies that they've done. Their newest movie, Hail Cesear, tells the tale of a 1950's Hollywood "fixer," which is a guy that goes around and hides all of the messy personal details of actors. George Clooney and Josh Brolin were already announced for the cast, but now Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, and Channing Tatum, as a Gene Kelly-type actor, have joined the cast as well. Hail Cesear will be about making a movie, named Hail Cesar, based on a 1920's play, named Hail Cesar. Anyways, this movie sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
5) I've never been the biggest Planet of the Apes fan, but I was blown away by 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I thought it was a terrific movie and I am super pumped for it's sequel that comes out July 11, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. While they've released trailers before for it, Fox has just released the final trailer and this is a must see this summer for me.
Monday, June 23, 2014
Obvious Child - Movie Review
Coming from first time writer/director Gillian Robespierre is the unique abortion/comedy combination Obvious Child. The movie stars Jenny Slate getting arguabley her first starring role in anything. Slate is probably most famous for being fired for saying the F-word on Saturday Night Live, but has also done a lot of good work guest appearing on Parks and Recreation, House of Lies, and Kroll Show. Jake Lacy, who played Pete in the later years of The Office, takes on his biggest role to date as well playing the love interest. Gaby Hoffmann, David Cross, and Richard Kind round out the familar names of the supporting cast.
Obvious Child is a controversial movie because it deals with abortion in a very pro-choice manner. While opinions on the topic can be varied and may greatly affect whether or not you see the movie, this should be known ahead of time for those sensitive to this subject. That being said, the story is based around the life of Donna (Slate), who is in her late 20's, works a job in a used book store that barely pays the bills, and is an aspiring stand-up comedian. After rebounding from a tough break-up, she meets the nice guy next door type in Max (Lacy) and has a one night stand, which ultimately leads to her having her unexpected pregnancy.
Despite her non-leading lady looks (during the opening scene in the movie she describes herself as looking like someone that you would buy a bagel from in a synagogue), Jenny Slate is terrific in this movie and this should be the role that leads to a huge boom in her career. She shows a ton of range and considering she is by far the focal point of the movie, I don't think there was a single scene she was not in, Slate had to do a lot of work from delivering stand-up comedy to having to deal with the emotional toll of having an abortion. Jake Lacy should also be recognized for the great supporting performance he gives in the movie. He does a good job of playing the nice, supportive guy that probably ever girl dreams of. While Lacy is not in a lot of the movie, the performance he gives is great and you can't help but root for him. The directing was fine, although it felt a little slow at points, I felt like Robespierre's script could have used just a little bit more comedy in parts. The humor was a little more on the subtle side and could have used a few more funny lines in the beginning of the movie, especially during her initial stand-up routine. However, the parts where I did laugh, I laughed hard including a hilarious joke from her gay friend Joey about getting someone pregnant.
If the topic of abortion doesn't offend you, I really recommend checking out this movie. Obvious Child has a great spirit and sense of humor while also being extremely heartfelt and doesn't make light of the situation.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Geek News You Should Know: 6/22/14
1) This weekend, where they were really no blockbusters, the box office was down considerably. Think Like a Man Too lead the pact this week making a little over $29million and narrowly beating out last week's number one, 22 Jump Street, which stayed strong and made around $27 million. Think Like a Man Too finished slightly lower than the original Think Like a Man, which made $33.6 million in it's opening weekend. The other big movie opening up this weekend, Jersey Boys, only pulled in $13.5 million this weekend, which was only good for fourth and has to be disappointing for the Clint Eastwood picture. I can't help but feel Jersey Boys may have opened up better in September or October with less competition. Here's the top ten courtesy of BoxOfficeMojo.com.
2) Marvel has announced their new releases for September 2014, which will be dealing with the aftermath of Original Sin and move towards the next events with Edge of Spider-Verse #1 as well as lots of books leading to the March of AXIS. Also coming out weekly in September will be The Death of Wolverine, where Wolverine has lost his healing power and has 3 months to live. New volumes of The Dark Tower and George Romero's Empire of the Dead launch this month as well. While new comics begin, some have to end, Ultimate Fantastic Four is officially gone with August's issue 6 being it's last and September's Avengers Undercover #10 bringing the end of that series. You can check out the full solicitations here.
3) Image also announced their September 2014 releases and it's chocked full of new and returning titles. New titles include Roche Limit, Copperhead, Oddly Normal and the debut of God Hates Astronauts, a trade that Anthony really loved, launching it's second volume but debuting in floppy form. They are also launching new storyarchs for Lazarus, '68, Deadly Class, Rocket Girl, and another book Anthony loves, A Voice in the Dark is launching it's second story entitled Get Your Gun and this time it's in full color. You can check out the full solicitations here. Over the past year or two, Image has truly become my favorite comic book company and more and more of my monthly comic book allotment has shifted over to them. The worst part is I don't even buy all of the Image books that I should, there's so many quality books by them that I'm not getting like Rat Queens, A Voice in the Dark, Lazarus, and Velvet to name a few.
4) I've always wanted to go to Harry Potter Land at Universal Studios and with the upcoming Diagon Alley area, it makes me want to go there even more. Unfortunately, when I was last in Orlando, due to poor honeymoon planning by this guy we missed our opportunity but hope to visit there soon. One of the many cash grabs/awesome thing at Harry Potter Land is the magic wands you can by at Ollivander's Wand Shop and make things around the theme park come to life. Here is a video with James and Oliver Phelps (Fred and George Weasley) and Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) playing with some of the features.
In addition to this, they have added a new ride Harry Potter and the Escape From Gringotts (which has been described by the few that have gone on it so far as worth the price of admission alone) as well as the Hogwarts Express where you can literally go through at wall at Platform 9 3/4. Need to start saving!
| TW | LW | Title (click to view) | Studio | Weekend Gross | % Change | Theater Count / Change | Average | Total Gross | Budget* | Week # | |
| 1 | N | Think Like a Man Too | SGem | $29,241,911 | - | 2,225 | - | $13,142 | $29,241,911 | $24 | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | 22 Jump Street | Sony | $27,460,995 | -51.9% | 3,306 | - | $8,306 | $109,911,125 | $50 | 2 |
| 3 | 2 | How to Train Your Dragon 2 | Fox | $24,719,312 | -50.0% | 4,268 | +15 | $5,792 | $94,596,047 | $145 | 2 |
| 4 | N | Jersey Boys | WB | $13,319,371 | - | 2,905 | - | $4,585 | $13,319,371 | $40 | 1 |
| 5 | 3 | Maleficent | BV | $12,910,766 | -30.2% | 3,450 | -173 | $3,742 | $185,879,334 | $180 | 4 |
| 6 | 4 | Edge of Tomorrow | WB | $9,820,080 | -40.6% | 3,212 | -293 | $3,057 | $73,991,573 | $178 | 3 |
| 7 | 5 | The Fault in our Stars | Fox | $8,565,710 | -42.1% | 3,340 | +67 | $2,565 | $98,694,043 | $12 | 3 |
| 8 | 6 | X-Men: Days of Future Past | Fox | $6,150,460 | -37.3% | 2,681 | -361 | $2,294 | $216,744,710 | $200 | 5 |
| 9 | 7 | Godzilla (2014) | WB | $1,888,304 | -43.0% | 1,365 | -723 | $1,383 | $194,983,388 | $160 | 6 |
| 10 | 10 | Chef | ORF | $1,708,590 | -21.9% | 961 | -141 | $1,778 | $16,805,782 | - | 7 |
2) Marvel has announced their new releases for September 2014, which will be dealing with the aftermath of Original Sin and move towards the next events with Edge of Spider-Verse #1 as well as lots of books leading to the March of AXIS. Also coming out weekly in September will be The Death of Wolverine, where Wolverine has lost his healing power and has 3 months to live. New volumes of The Dark Tower and George Romero's Empire of the Dead launch this month as well. While new comics begin, some have to end, Ultimate Fantastic Four is officially gone with August's issue 6 being it's last and September's Avengers Undercover #10 bringing the end of that series. You can check out the full solicitations here.
3) Image also announced their September 2014 releases and it's chocked full of new and returning titles. New titles include Roche Limit, Copperhead, Oddly Normal and the debut of God Hates Astronauts, a trade that Anthony really loved, launching it's second volume but debuting in floppy form. They are also launching new storyarchs for Lazarus, '68, Deadly Class, Rocket Girl, and another book Anthony loves, A Voice in the Dark is launching it's second story entitled Get Your Gun and this time it's in full color. You can check out the full solicitations here. Over the past year or two, Image has truly become my favorite comic book company and more and more of my monthly comic book allotment has shifted over to them. The worst part is I don't even buy all of the Image books that I should, there's so many quality books by them that I'm not getting like Rat Queens, A Voice in the Dark, Lazarus, and Velvet to name a few.
4) I've always wanted to go to Harry Potter Land at Universal Studios and with the upcoming Diagon Alley area, it makes me want to go there even more. Unfortunately, when I was last in Orlando, due to poor honeymoon planning by this guy we missed our opportunity but hope to visit there soon. One of the many cash grabs/awesome thing at Harry Potter Land is the magic wands you can by at Ollivander's Wand Shop and make things around the theme park come to life. Here is a video with James and Oliver Phelps (Fred and George Weasley) and Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) playing with some of the features.
In addition to this, they have added a new ride Harry Potter and the Escape From Gringotts (which has been described by the few that have gone on it so far as worth the price of admission alone) as well as the Hogwarts Express where you can literally go through at wall at Platform 9 3/4. Need to start saving!
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