The last (best?) Bunnies theater

It looks like Angry Alien has discontinued their Bunny theater, but they ended with:

EVIL DEAD II!

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Review: Toy Story 3 in 3-D

I’m 40 years old this year. “Toy Story” debuted when I was 25, and though I was no longer a kid, that film transported me back to the years when I would let my imagination run wild just like Andy in the movie.

Pixar immediately established itself as what the Disney brand used to be: a guarantee that the movie that followed would be visually impressive, thoroughly entertaining, well-told and family-friendly. They have yet to make a movie that wasn’t a superior film to most anything else made by Hollywood. Half of their films should have been Best Picture contenders if not winners.

“Toy Story 2″ was originally going to be a cheapo straight-to-video, second-rate cash-generator, as the Disney studio has been cranking out for the last two decades. (“Lady and the Tramp 2″? Really?) Pixar wasn’t all that interested in doing sequels…but as the plot came together, they fell in love with the idea, shifted gears and made a sequel that was as good as the original in story and better in terms of visuals.

“Toy Story” was about a child’s natural tendency to lose interest in old toys as new toys debuted, with a side-plot about the kinds of children who do not treasure toys. “Toy Story 2″ carried the theme a little further: that a child’s fascination with toys doesn’t last forever, and is it better to be treasured in a glass case or to be loved intensely for a limited time?

There is a logical flaw in “Toy Story 2″ which I only realized as I re-watched it this week-end. (Don’t worry, it doesn’t wreck the movie: it may be illogical, but the actions are driven by emotions.) The entire misadventure occurs because a damaged toy is being put on the yard sale and Woody tries to rescue it. Of course, rescue it from what? If it sells, won’t the penguin toy be off to a new home with someone who loves it the way it is? Isn’t that better than sitting on a shelf, un-repaired and gathering dust?

It turns out that this question is the entire theme of the third movie: What happens to the toys when the child becomes an adult? Should they be kept in the attic for a possible future generation of kids to play with, if the adult even remembers they’re there? Should they be handed down to someone? Given to a charity toy drive? Kept as an un-playable memento of childhood? Or perhaps, being in a glass case in Tokyo should have been given more consideration? How about winding up in a landfill, only to be dug up by Wall*E 700 years later?

(Spoilers ahead!)

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By the end of this film, I had tears in my eyes. I can only imagine how powerful “Toy Story 3″ would be to someone who was Andy’s age when the original movie came out.

As for the 3-D, I would say skip it…except that the short film “Night and Day” playing before it is a stunning example of what can be done with today’s 3-D techniques. Aside from it, the 3-D does little to enhance the film.

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Voyage of the Dawn Treader trailer!

Fresh from its debut on Big Hollywood:

Chronicles Of Narnia 3

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Batman 3 and Superman reboot news

Batman 3 to Begin Filming in March 2011?.

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The Hobbit, Soviet style!

Here’s a link showing a Soviet era translation of The Hobbit, complete with illustrations!

Also included, a Russian TV production of The Hobbit!
As an aside, judging from the first vid, I never pictured Bilbo being the same size as Gandalf…

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Foul Language Alert!

Okay, it’s the heading, so you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

The following movies consist only of the clips in “Pulp Fiction” and “The Big Lebowski” where the F-word was said.  Of note:

1. Two minutes of each movie is taken up by F***s.
2. The F-word is almost everywhere, so that you can follow the entire plot of both films.
3. I’m with the cowboy, BTW.

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Iron Baby

YouTube – IRON BABY.

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Megan Fox won’t be in Transformers 3

MICHAEL BAY’S REVENGE! No More Megan; UPDATE: Suggested Replacements – Deadline.com.

Megan Fox, meanwhile, is claiming she chose not to be in the third one. Anyone who believes that she wouldn’t continue in her only profitable movies is gullible indeed.

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Shia LaBeouf(?): “Indy 4 was a stinkbomb”

Shia LaBeouf was brutally honest about Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull while promoting the new Wall Street sequel:

“I think the audience is pretty intelligent. I think they know when you’ve made … . And I think if you don’t acknowledge it, then why do they trust you the next time you’re promoting a movie. … We [Harrison Ford and LaBeouf] had major discussions. He wasn’t happy with it either. Look, the movie could have been updated. There was a reason it wasn’t universally accepted.”… Asked whether this was difficult to say, given his deep relationship with Spielberg, LaBeouf continued with the directness.  “I’ll probably get a call. But he needs to hear this. I love him. I love Steven. I have a relationship with Steven that supersedes our business work. And believe me, I talk to him often enough to know that I’m not out of line. And I would never disrespect the man. I think he’s a genius, and he’s given me my whole life. He’s done so much great work that there’s no need for him to feel vulnerable about one film. But when you drop the ball you drop the ball.”

As with George Clooney and “Batman and Robin”, Shia goes overboard in taking on a lot of blame that really belongs with the director/producers/writers.  It’s not his fault that he was told to swing from vines like Tarzan.

Christian Toto says: Time to stop the Shia hate.

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comic book super-heroes tv themes

This was rescued from the ancient vintage ComicBookResources’ Apr 20, 1999 TV Themes website. Incredibly a lot of the sound-files are now on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine servers and are not just dead links so they are available for download. Read the rest of this entry »

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Podcast #6: Avatar and More

Erik and I did a pile of podcasts in January, and it’s taking me a while to edit them. However, I couldn’t let Avatar hit shelves without posting Erik’s thoughts on it and several other films (then in theaters, now on DVD).

Discussed in this podcast:

 

 Avatar and More: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Back to the well, bay-bee, yeah!

Mike Myers has signed on for a fourth Austin Powers movie.

And fortunately, with all the clout he has gained from The Cat in the Hat and The Love Guru he was able to finagle a contract for ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

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Wife Crying at end of Return of the Jedi

This is too hilarious!

See more at The Official Wife Crying at Movies Site

Of course, if there’s anything to cry about, it’s that they appear to have watched the Star Wars movies in the order of 1-6, because she keeps sobbing about Anakin and Padme.  It’s disturbing that there’s a whole generation for whom the revelation in “Empire Strikes Back” is not a plot twist.

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No flying cars, neither.

So I’m watching “Can’t Buy Me Love“. It’s a 1987 movie from when Seth Green was a little punk.

In it, Patrick Dempsey plays a 17-year-old geek who arranges for a senior class hottie to date him for a month so that the “In Crowd” will consider him to be one of them. As the month wanes, the cheerleader sees him as a real person and begins to fall for him, especially when he takes them out for their last date. As they look through his telescope at the moon, he tells her that when he is his dad’s age there will be people living and working on the moon.

And then it hit me. 1987? His dad is played by Dennis Dugan of The Unidentified Flying Oddball
, who was 41 in 1987. I was a 17-year-old geek myself in 1987, so that math is pretty easy for me to do: Patrick’s character would be turning 41 in 2011.

Are we living on the moon yet? No. We’re even canceling the next generation of space travel.

Oh well, movies never get the future right. “2010: The Year We Make Contact” thought we’d still be locked in a space race with the U.S.S.R., and there are only five more years to invent hoverboards. On the plus side, I think Back to the Future 2 was a bit conservative in thinking the trend among teenagers would be to wear clothing inside outs. Last week, in 5 degree Fahrenheit and blowy Minnesota, I saw a punk walking down the street with his entire boxer shorts showing above his jeans, which he could only be supporting with his thighs. (Idiot.)

No jet-packs, no flying cars, no living on the moon. The only monumental thing to happen since 1987 is they remade “Can’t Buy Me Love.”

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Red Letter Media reviews “Avatar”

The guy who tore apart The Phantom Menace and the Star Trek movies strikes again!

Part Two:

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2010 on TCM!

Turner Classic Movies is showing 2010: The Year We Make Contact today!

If you haven’t seen it, it’s the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey. It doesn’t have Kubrick’s vision, but it does have action and a plot that makes more sense. The special effects and acting are top-notch. Unfortunately, the movie still has us fighting the Cold War against the Soviet Union in 2010, and this makes it horribly outdated.

Turner Classic Movies seems to be making a few changes for 2010; they now show movies made in the 1980s and the 1990s! (“L.A. Confidential”, which is only a decade old, is on in a couple days.) Here’s hoping this only means that they’ve expanded their range for what they consider “classics”, because I remember when American Movie Classics suddenly started showing “Turner and Hooch” and shortly afterward renamed themselves America’s Movie Crapfest, er, Channel.

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Podcast #4: Chatting about Movies and Star Trek

This started out as a test of my new equipment to see if the sound quality improved (it did). Unfortunately, you should not get two guys with extensive video store clerking experience chatting about random movies. We talked for about 50 minutes! We learn that Erik pronounces “bio-pic” without the hyphen. I tend to be vocabulary-challenged and say “like”, “um” and “you know” way too much. I prepare for an MST3K version of Star Trek, and my brother ruins “Fellowship of the Ring” forever. Also, who wants us to do a list of “Great movies you may not have seen?” (Erik talks over my sarcastic line, “Have you ever heard of The Princess Bride?” Could have been a gem. Oh well.)

Recorded June 30th. I had to laugh when I heard what I say at 55:05.

 

 Chatting About Movies and Star Trek: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Phantom Menace epic review (or epic fail?)

This one is especially filled with obscenities, so please be doubly-warned before pressing play.

But really…if you like funny reviews, you need to see this! It’s hilarious, and yet it makes some hard points…such as:
WHO was the main character of the Phantom Menace?

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RedLetterMedia’s ST: Nemesis review (hilarious!)

I know I didn’t like Star Trek: Nemesis, but this really helps bring to light that I only thought of half the reasons it sucked.

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RedLetterMedia’s Generations Review

I haven’t posted in a while. To make up for it, here are a ton of reviews on YouTube that I found. These are hilarious and insightful, culminating in a wonderful takedown of Phantom Menace.

PLEASE NOTE: A lot of these have language that is NSFW.

Let’s start with his review of Star Trek: Generations:

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