Hmmm… there are only a few days left to get this one funded (the campaign ends on 9/19), and it’s a bit far from its goal. I thought people LOVED horror games? Unless they’re all free version of Slenderman-playing posers, of course (none of those games is actually “scary” – I find them annoying and one-note jump scare-fests for the most part). Anyway, if you have some spare loot burning a hole in your jeans, take off those jeans before you get a bad case of hot ass and pledge a few of those dollars, dinars, Euros or whatever to these fine guys from Germany HERE. If anything, at least READ the pitch page for the testimonials, some of which are pretty interesting. Kurtis Blow is still around AND a gamer? Wild!
Sometimes You Get It, Sometimes You Don’t Department: About a month back I’m walking to the subway from a press event and there’s this guy walking a cute bulldog (well, cute for a bulldog) who stops at a traffic light while a big truck is trying to turn the corner. As I stroll up next to them and wait the minute or so it’ll take the truck to make the turn, a gal in a nice summer dress pops out of a store, walks up to the guy and starts chatting about his dog, asking if she could pet it. He says “Sure!” and while she’s doing so, she looks up and asks “What’s your dog’s name?” The guy looks down and says “Murphy” and yes, I let out a huge laugh. The guy looks over at me as I’m recovering and I ask “Robocop?, to which HE starts cracking up. “Yeah, yeah…” Of course, as we’re having our chuckle, the gal is looking at us and not quite getting it. Right at that moment, the truck finished negotiating the turn and I noted to the guy that he might want to let the lady in on the reference before she thinks something crazy is going on. Of course, I had that Basil Poledouris theme playing in my head as I strolled off…
Oh yeah… nice poster, huh? I’m betting we’ll see a few more before this one’s ready for its close up.
Well, it may be DOOM! for Breaking Bad on AMC, but everyone’s favorite legal eagle, Saul Goodman will get a second shot at life when all is said and done. AMC’s PR department dropped this short note around to a bunch of entertainment sites to-day:
AMC and Sony Pictures Television confirmed today that they have reached a licensing agreement for a spinoff of Vince Gilligan’s landmark AMC/SPT series Breaking Bad. As conceived, the new series is based on the show’s popular Saul Goodman character with the working title Better Call Saul. Plans call for Saul to be a one-hour prequel that will focus on the evolution of the popular Saul Goodman character before he ever became Walter White’s lawyer.
Which means that there’s a good chance this show will be popping up sooner than later. As it’s a prequel, there’s that very tantalizing element here that perhaps ol’ Saul won’t be around when that Breaking Bad finale rolls around, but I won’t even start speculating about that here. However, I will say that I guess this was going to happen during Sunday’s show when Saul’s early entry at the car wash led to he and Walt talking shop with a HUGE billboard for Goodman’s law firm in the background that tied in nicely to the very funny fake site AMC put up recently. As long as Bob Odenkirk stays healthy and stays away from sinking cruise ships, air shows with faulty planes, auto races on bad days, slippery bathtubs, angry pets, well-armed ladies of the evening or other modern hazards, I predict this quirky show will be a winner once the pilot gets done and screened.
And yes, the title of this post refers to this being “old” news already even though it’s only a few hours fresh. I’d have posted it sooner, but I was working on a review and running a virus scan. Ah well… Not the first, but the most entertaining is my motto (today at least. For another hour or two at best)…
OK, I’m (almost) sold. Granted, you can’t beat the original for what it brought to audiences back in the day (an unexpected hit, plenty of quotable lines, practical effects work galore and a story that solid, mixing drama, humor and extreme violence very well indeed), but this remake isn’t looking bad at all from this trailer. I have to say that this NOT being rated R is a bit annoying (the original film’s first cut kicked the censors in the groin and got an X rating until a few choice cuts were made. It took eleven attempts in total to get that R rating!), but I’m betting the studio thinks a PG-13 film will put more asses into seats because the tweens can walk up and buy tickets. Bleh.
Anyway, on one hand I can’t see this tanking unless there’s a big snowstorm in February that keeps people away and the film gets really awful reviews from some older cranky critics who do nothing but revere certain films and have a ZERO tolerance for anyone (no matter how skilled) touching what they grew up watching too many times. Then again… that February 7, 2014 release date scares me a bit. That and the assorted set woes I’ve occasionally read about. Well, as long as it’s better than Total Recall and Dredd and Hollywood doesn’t decide to copy Robocop 2 to even more of a T if this film does well, maybe it’ll be fine. Let’s see now… February, la, la, la… that means the Blu-Ray/DVD is out around May… Hmmmm, I think it’ll make a nice birthday present for me next year…
Eek. Here comes the mountain man-droid, so go hide under something until he’s gone. Unless he’s coming for you, which means you won’t get far at all. Yeah, that was a really good idea, huh? Of course, no Krueger (Sharlto Copely, who’s been working out a bit, I see) means no confrontation and Elysium probably gets to be a boring film… so go right on ahead and press that button or whatever. Just make sure you’re nowhere in the vicinity hen you do. It seems Mr. K. is a bit un-picky when he chooses his targets.
This has been a public service announcement. Neill Blomkamp’s latest film opens this Friday at a theater near you (most likely).
While Elysium looks to be pretty grim in spots, as with Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, there’s probably going to be some humor found in the strangest places. D9 had plenty of irony going for it in a few areas and I think it would be pretty amusing to see references to that film here (as if, yes, it’s the same Earth those aliens visited getting an even more depressing future this time out). We’ll see, of course – but I hope this does well out of the game and better than the other future flicks that have crashed and burned at the box office. If anything, I’ll bet the Blu-Ray/DVD set will do pretty well, as it looks like one of those flicks that’s worth multiple views just to see the many layers of depth in the CG effects work (which is some of the best I’ve seen in a film like this).
I’m not the biggest fan of these clip job teases, but they sure didn’t spoil District 9 for me by the time I got around to seeing it. Neill Blomkamp and his effects team certainly have a way with mixing CG and practical effects that doesn’t look fake or too overblown at all and yeah, Matt Damon as a cobbled together cyborg is making for a pretty interesting character.
As long as the ending feels right (and doesn’t necessarily set up a sequel), I think this might do well and yes, we may see someone at Microsoft kicking themselves in the ass for not letting Mr. B. do that Halo movie. Of course, those folks are still in desperation mode, so I can see them throwing money his way to get on board that Xbox One’s content machine for a super exclusive.
Boy, am I SO behind on my fantasy novel reading… I guess. I’d never even heard of The Wardstone Chronicles until this trailer for Seventh Son rolled around and while I don’t think I’ll be diving into any of the books anytime soon, this trailer looks pretty cool in a flash-forward about a year to “When I finally caught this on cable I was really surprised at how good it was!” manner. Of course, that’s not what WB and Legendary Pictures want to hear, but that’s how I roll these days with those crazy ticket prices. “I’ll take “LESS Expensive Cinema Gimmickry” for $200, Alex!”… or something like that…
“Uh-oh… better get Maaco!” Well, at least it’s rustproof, right? I actually hope that if there’s a soundtrack CD, that’s the image that goes on the disc so it looks as if it’s Cap’s shield spinning REALLY fast. Anyway, the first film was pretty fun, so I’m hoping this sequel keeps the stuff that worked and adds more without being too overblown for the sake of being a pre-summer 2014 blockbuster. I think that Marvel is on a very nice roll these days (mostly), so every good film they get out makes forgetting about the past mistakes easier. That said, some of the not so hot flicks has a few interesting elements, but I’m not sure the world is ready for revisiting those characters just yet…
Spoiler: Wait, didn’t (almost) everyone die at the end of 300? End spoiler. Well, OK, this sequel that takes up things after the events of the original film isn’t supposed to be “historically” accurate (hell, the first film certainly wasn’t) and you hopefully won’t see a headless, zombified King Leonidas blurping around, but I bet this trailer really gets the testosterone rumbling in all the right places for some folks. I didn’t like 300 that much until my second viewing, as I didn’t read the graphic novel until I decided to borrow a copy from a friend and play “shot for shot” with it. Hey, I like stylized film making, but I thought it was a wee too much CG-heavy in pretending to be a moving comic book. Still, it did well and got Snyder doing more and cooler stuff, right?
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 