Hello everybody. By “everybody”, I mean the few family and friends who actually bother reading my entries. You’d think they’d consult someplace a bit closer to the actual Hollywood machine for their movie news instead of a third-year journalism student with his ear to the ground, but some people are just inscrutable.

Today I have a hodgepodge of news for you. For your convenience I’ve cleverly arranged it in no particular order whatsoever.

Beowulf: I had no real thoughts on Beowulf as it came out, being pretty much ready to dismiss it as,

1. An ill-concieved update on a story that only high-school kids taking English literature have any recent connection to

and

2. Another movie featuring the creepy sort of pseudo-realistic animation of the sort that brought us the souless, waxy visage of Tom Hanks in “The Polar Express”.

I have read a bit more about it, though, and found that it was written by Neil Gaiman, the award-winning author of novels (”American Gods”, “Anansi Boys” ) and graphic novels. (”The Sandman” series) I really do enjoy the guy’s books. I have my hopes that he would not associate himself with an overly terrible project.  I plan on seeing Beowulf soon, and I will then let you know which of my gut instincts proved correct.

John Rambo: I thought it was kind of interesting what Sylvester Stallone said recently. He gave us what amounts to sort of a psychological analysis of Rambo’s character in the next film. Check this out.

“(Rambo) realizes his entire existence has been for naught,” Stallone says of the fourth flick. “Peace is an accident; war is natural. Old men start it, young men fight it, everybody in the middle dies, and nobody tells the truth. He says, ‘You think God’s going to make it all go away? What has He done and changed in the world? He has done nothing. We are an aggressive animal and will never be at peace.’ That’s how he feels.”

Tim Burton: I sometimes think that I could probably just write an entire blog about Burton and just Burton. He always has his fingers in so many things. I don’t even like the guy all that much, but boy is he newsworthy. He has two new projects he’s working on, and here’s the catch: they’re both in GLORIOUS 3-D! I guess having his classic “Nightmare Before Christmas” shown in 3-D has gotten him interested? The first of the two projects is a remake of Lewis Carroll’s classic “children’s” novel, “Alice in Wonderland”. The second is “Frankenweenie”, a full-length version of one of Tim Burton’s early claymation shorts. I believe the original Frankenweenie was included in the special features of the “Nightmare Before Christmas” dvd, and the story is rather morbid, considering it’s about a dog brought back to life by his owner. I guess think “Old Yeller” meets “Re-Animator”.

Cloverfield: I leave you with one last tidbit about my pet super-secret monster-movie, Cloverfield. It is officially called “Cloverfield”, for one. Now we get to start the arduous process of wondering why, WHY is it called Cloverfield? A new trailer apparently debutes with Beowulf. Just one more reason I’ll be heading out to see it soon. Rumors persist that this J.J. Abrams monster flick is a new attempt to restart the “Godzilla” franchise on American shores. The big scaly guy has been absent both here and in Japan for some time now, because Japanese film-makers decided that even the Japanese market needed a rest from Godzilla for a little while. He may be ready to make a stompin’ return, except he’ll be stomping New York and not Tokyo.

 Happy Thanksgiving everybody. We should all celebrate by watching Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving” trailer from “Grindhouse”.

 I really wish more people had gone and seen that movie.

-Jim

I have a cornucopia of things for you today. Let us bask in this Autumn bounty.

Troll 2: Alright, I have to explain a couple things first.  In 1992, one of the worst movies ever was filmed. It was called Troll 2. It starred a man who had been a dental student until the day before filming, and is now a dentist.

This…thing…is about a family that shows up in the town of “Nilbog” (read it backwards, har har har) and is attacked by tiny goblin-men. There are no trolls in the movie. A movie called Troll 2 has zero trolls in it. Yes.

The movie flew into internet noteriety after it was reviewed on the humor site SomethingAwful. That review (and it is hilarious) can be found here. To quote the review,

“To break up the tension and bickering, the mom steps in and requests Jonathan to “sing that song I like so much.” The song, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” was obviously too technical and confusing for the mother to recall the name of, but that still doesn’t quite explain why she liked it “so much.” I would guess it’s because she’s an idiot, but I’ve been wrong before.”

It goes much further than that. After this, though, most people were content to sit back and enjoy the big steaming pile of a movie that Troll 2 is.

But not all people. Today I learned of a new documentary being produced by people like me–people who really love terrible movies. It is called “Best.Worst.Movie”, and it is a documentary about the making of Troll 2 and how it went from being hailed as possibly the worst film of all time (lowest rating of 2006 on IMDB) to a cult classic. They released a long trailer showing Troll 2 fans and people who were in the original movie, and that can be seen here. Words cannot convey my joy.

Major Movie Star: While we’re on the topic of bad movies, I should tell you about this. It’s a movie about Jessica Simpson joining the army. Watch this trailer. What it right now. I’ll wait, drop everything and WATCH.

You done watching? Good, now if you can convince me that your life has not been cheapened by watching, I owe you a drink.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: An interesting featurette has just hit the web, about the Quidditch matches in the upcoming movie. There has been a lack of Quidditch in the recent films, mostly due to the fact that it’s not important to the actual plot, but it was too big a part of this book to ignore. In the featurette, a fashionista explains to us that the new leather padding (They look sort of like Red Grange on a broomstick now) makes them look much tougher (or “match-oh”, as she pronounces it). This interesting tidbit can be viewed right here.

-Jim

In case you’ve been living under a rock, here’s a quick post about the Writers Guild of America strike. Picket lines began in The Center Of The Film-World, Calif., Monday as writers and studios failed to reach an agreement. Late-night talk shows with Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have already been forced into re-runs. It’s only a matter of time before sitcoms such as “The Office” will follow.

An Associated Press article posted earlier today made the assertion that “If history is any indication, this walkoff could last a loooong time….”

It must be a grim situation indeed if the Associated Press feels the need to include four O’s in “long.” Granted, as that sentence continued to say, the last time the Writers Guild of America went on strike, it lasted for 22 weeks. A strike that long in this age of television could create monsters worse than those seen in the “Imaginationland” episodes of “South Park.” Our imaginations may run wild after all.

Things are abuzz! Let me show you.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: They’ve announced a director, and it’s Guillermo del Toro. If you haven’t seen del Toro’s most recent film “Pan’s Labyrinth”, then I need you to just stop reading immediately and go attain a copy. Do whatever you have to do. Police officers will understand your need for haste, for you will be a person who has not seen Pan’s Labyrinth. The adult fairy-tale won three academy awards and spent awards season being pretty much awesome. And now, this guy gets his hands on the most intense of the Harry Potter books.

“God, if only he would deviate from script and just kill Harry for good,” I think, when I receive the news. “It’d be an even bigger bombshell than gay Dumbledore.”

Speaking of. How big of a cop-out is it for J.K. Rowling to spend a decade of her life releasing Harry Potter books where she apparently “always knew” that Dumbledore is gay, but chooses not to bother making the announcement until everybody is done buying their copies? Oh, if you announce a gay character, several fewer conservative Christians might not pay you your $25, you say? How awful that must be for you. Seriously, if you decide to announce a character the magnitude of Albus freakin’ Dumbledore as gay, I think you might need to spare at least a line in the books to it, rather than a posthumous press conference for a deceased wizard. Call me crazy.

G.I. Joe: Apparently George Clooney is going to star. This marks quite a break from movies like “Syriana” and “Michael Clayton”. Specifically in the “Gimme a paycheck,” sort of direction.

Kung Fu Panda: I think this could be the new “Snakes on a Plane”, at least when it comes to being the butt of “what a dumb movie” sort of jokes. It stars the vocal talents of Jack Black, which is a little sad, as he’s perfectly capable of being a funny person. But a funny panda? I dunno. The story centers around Black’s panda learning kung fu to protect it’s native China or somesuch nonsense. I am sort of looking forward to what is sure to be a movie completely and utterly laced with horrible Chinese racial stereotypes. Black’s panda probably gets raised in a laundromat on a diet of chop suey and then fails a driver’s test. And oh, how the audiences will laugh. They’d probably be best off if they just had absolutely no human beings in it at all. You can see the trailer here.

-Jim

Today’s blog is devoted to random movie-buzz odds and ends floating around on the internet. In fact, it may be more accurate to title the rest of this piece:

Return to Castle Linkenstein:

I Am Legend: Based on the novel by Richard Matheson, “I Am Legend” is the story of the last man left alive in an apocalyptic Los Angeles.  Why is he the last man alive? I’m glad you asked. It seems that a strain of insane bacterium has turned everybody but our protagonist (who is immune) into some sort of vampire. The novel tells the story of his daily life, living in the city, venturing out in the daytime to look for other survivors; and at night holing up in his house and trying to resist vampire attacks.

Also, apparently Will Smith had gotten tired of playing kindly golf-ghosts and down-on-their-luck fathers, as he will be starring as the film’s Omega man, the last man left on Earth.  The trailer for “I Am Legend” was recently released and can be seen here.

John Rambo: Another trailer for the new “Rambo” movie dropped onto the internet recently and then was promptly removed from all networking sites. The trailers for this movie have got to the be award-winners for “Goriest Movie Trailers of All Time”. Check this one out. (Not for the faint of heart)

G.I. Joe: First “Transformers”, now this. My nostalgia has come to the silver screen! Paramount has begun casting for a live-action “G.I. Joe” movie.  Who will this movie even be for, exactly? Children? How can you have a movie with “Cobra Commander” as the villain marketed towards adults? The only people who will go are guys my age who had the action figures.

What’s next? “Shining Time Station: The Movie”?

 -Jim

Oh ho, blog posts two days in a row! I must be feeling empowered. If I’m not careful, coherent thoughts and well-reasoned arguments might start slipping in as well! I assure you, dear reader, that I will do everything in my power to prevent that eventuality.

Many movie-related topics are a-buzz in my mind. I will list them in no particular order whatsoever.

The Nightmare Before Christmas: Tim Burton’s classic is back in theaters today! For a week or so, it is playing at the Beverly in Champaign. Also, it’s in 3D! I know a lot of people out there like this movie. If you walk into a Hot Topic (though that’s not something I do often) you can still see Jack Skellington on a sizable chunk of the merchandise. This is a chance for all those people (including myself) who didn’t get to see the movie in theaters when it first came out to see it on the big screen. In three dimensionsssss. Spooky, right? Because nothing improves an animated musical like the incorporation of 3D.

Across the Universe: Weeks back I favorably reviewed this Beatles musical. I continue to read and hear reviews about it, and I continue to be interested in just how split opinions are on it. Even here in campus media there isn’t any agreement. I write that I like it, the Buzz writer writes a negative review, the Booze News writer writes a positive review. Ebert gives it 4 stars, Entertainment Weekly gives it a “C-”. And from Entertainment Weekly, that’s basically an F. Of course, some of the ratings can be partially understood. If you read many of Roger Ebert’s reviews you’ll see quickly enough that he really digs feel-good “family-fun” sorts of flicks, and that this colorful collection of 60’s nostalgia probably pulled all the appropriate heartstrings.

I still feel, however, that the vast majority of reviewers to negatively rate the film must have registered some kind of prejudice or dislike before the movie even began. This is the kind of movie you have to suspend some belief for. It’s a musical, we know it’s going to be light on plot anyway. Nit-picking and getting annoyed about the fact that the main characters have names like “Jude”, “Lucy”, “Sadie”, and “Prudence” so as to then work them into Beatles songs gets one nowhere. It’s like complaining throughout the whole of “Finding Nemo” that fish simply don’t speak and that the movie is just ruined for you.

I’m not saying that a person can’t dislike the movie, or write a negative review of it. I just look at the negative reviews and find very little having anything to do with the actual movie and quite a lot of bias. An online critic at www.movies.com, Dave White, who I usually like, had a review that ran on and on like this ad nauseum:

“My lead character is named Jude, like in “Hey, Jude.” I know, clever, right? And guess what his girlfriend’s name is? Lucy! Like in the sky! With diamonds! I kill me.”

Because, as we all know, movies with silly character names are then incapable of being worth watching.

Amelia Earhart Movie: I realize that the topics of my movie blog thus far have been fairly consistently appealing to male bias. To date I’ve already written about Indiana Jones, Dune, Terminator, Sweeney Todd, and the like. I apologize for my one-sidedness.

To that effect, I just read something interesting. It seems that two-time Oscar-winner Hilary Swank has signed on to star in a new biopic about the life of famous female aviator Amelia Earhart. Honestly, the reason that this one interests me is that you’ve got to wonder how they’re going to end the movie. The real-life Earhart disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1939 while trying to fly around the globe. She was never seen again. Weird enough way to end a biopic? It would be great if it ended with her getting in her little plane and saying “Y’all just sit tight, (she was from Kansas) I’ll be back from my flight in a jiffy and we can slop the pigs,” to her assembled family before taxiing off into the sunset, presumably to win another Academy Award in the category of “Best Doomed Aviatrix” .

This post is excessively long: I apologize. Feel free to pursue more constructive uses of your time, like making card-houses, or whittling wooden utensils.

Sam Raimi: Unfortunately for you, though, it’s not quite done. Director Sam Raimi continues to be a busybody in Hollywood these days. He confirmed several days ago that there will indeed be a “Spiderman 4″, and that he and studio execs are currently listening to pitches from writers about the next chapter of the web-crawler’s film series. Spiderman fan-boys with prepared fan-fiction scripts, this is your chance. There is some question, however, if Tobey Maguire will stick around for future volumes of the series.

Meanwhile, Raimi is in other places at the same time. This weekend, a Raimi-produced vampire horror-flick, “30 Days of Night” opens in theaters. Raimi has also (very importantly, to nerds like me) said that he would love to direct the theatrical version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit if New Line is unable to reach an understanding with Peter Jackson, the director of the “Lord of the Rings” films to continue on to “The Hobbit”.

And now, you’re finally free to do other things.

-Jim

I really might be.

I got phenomenally excited today to hear this news. Peter Berg, the director of the recent “The Kingdom” and “Collateral”, is rumored to be filming a new adaptation of one of the great classics of science fiction literature, Dune. Dune, if you haven’t ever heard of it, (shame on you) is the masterwork of old-timey sci-fi author Frank Herbert. The book is a very long, very wordy, very good critique of power, religious fantatiscism, and fate, set in a far distant future.

Dune happens to be well-enough known to have been filmed several times before already, with varying success. The better known of the two adaptations is probably David Lynch’s 1984 effort, which I personally always thought of as a big, steaming pile of a movie. It was a sci-fi movie with Sting in it. Yes, the singer. That Sting.

A better version was actually produced in 2000 by the sci-fi channel, as a mini-series. That version, at 4 hours long, was actually long enough to do the book justice. Dune really is a film that works better with a cast of unknowns, and this version’s biggest star was William Hurt, who was killed off pretty quickly anyway.

 Those two factors make me strongly doubt that this new Dune could honestly be any good. Who goes to see epic sci-fi movies in theaters that are over 4 hours? “Grindhouse” taught us that even cool movies with existing fan bases (hello, all you people who saw “300″ and not Grindhouse) can still fail spectacularly because they’re too long. A 2 hour-long version of “Dune” will not work, any more than it would have worked for the Lord of the Rings films. The question, then, is whether or not the studio will have the guts to take a chance on Dune.

 I really hope they do.

“Fear is the mind-killer…”- Bene Gesserit litany, Dune

Old is in, apparently.

 It’s not difficult to see that pretty much every action series of any renknown has gotten a makeover in the last few years/next few years, and that they have pretty much one thing in common: Old Men Heroes.

Rocky did it. Die Hard did it. Rambo and Indiana Jones are doing it. The general idea seems to mimic professional wrestling ideaology: If you’re still able to raise a six-pack and you were once a great athlete, you can always beat the new villain at the peak of his game, whatever the ridiculous odds may be.

Terminator: But while I gripe about it, I’m honestly not even sure that it’s so bad, when the alternative is what the Terminator franchise is now doing. Warner has purchased the rights to James Cameron’s brainchild and has decided to make, not just a fourth Terminator movie, but apparently a whole new series of three that they call a “reinvention” and not just straight-up sequels. As if that somehow absolves them.

 ”But Jim,” you say. “Surely it could at least have a decent title that might make us hopeful for an interesting new spin on a tired idea?”

 I’m afraid not. The first announced title in the new series is Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.

Indiana Jones: And while I’m on the subject of Old Man Heroes I might as well mention the latest information that’s leaked out on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (yeah, that’s the title) as well. Steven Spielberg has confirmed that the villains of this flick, which takes place in the 1950’s, will be the obvious choice: Russians. It’s honestly a shame that they couldn’t make an Indiana Jones film in the 50’s with the old fallback villains, Nazis. Perhaps if Indy was hunting down artifacts in Argentina and met escaped Nazi war criminals? Why not?

 One final note: How much older do you suppose Harrison Ford will be than his love interest in this movie, if he has one besides Karen Allen? (She was his girl in the first movie, and should be appearing again) About what, 25 years? 30? It will be interesting to see the exact moment that Indy goes from being a dashing older gentleman to a creepy, Christopher Walken-esque lothario.

-Jim

The much anticipated trailer for “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Butcher of Fleet Street”, has finally hit the web. First, a note.

Burton: What the heck is it with Tim Burton and certain actors and actresses? I can only assume he thinks that only Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are able to bring his amazing creative genius to life. He either loves them or owes them, because they’re in practically everything he ever shoots. Even when it’s a stop-motion animation film like “Corpse Bride”, they still play the main characters. Interestingly enough, that film was a musical, and neither of them really had any role in the songs. Sweeney Todd is also a musical, and they will both be singing. You have to wonder why they wouldn’t have bothered having the two LEAD CHARACTERS sing in Corpse Bride if the two were decent singers. But hey, maybe they both got a lot better at it in the past few years, eh?

Sweeney Todd: For those unaware, Sweeney Todd is a remake of a classic musical about a murderous barber who gets revenge for a long imprisonment by cutting people’s throats while they sit in his barber chair. They then get sent down to the butcher in the shop below, who makes them into tasty meat pies.

 Naturally, the movie is being released this Christmas. Dec. 21, to be exact. It certainly looks to capture the spirit of the holiday.

 This movie has a truly ridiculous cast, and I mean that in a good way. Everybody in it will be recognizable to movie-goers as a person who was in something else that was incredibly successful in the last year. Johnny Depp was of course Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Carribean”. Helena Bonham Carter was Bellatrix Lestrange in the latest of the Harry Potter movies. Continuing with the Harry Potter trend, Timothy Spall, who played Wormtail, also makes an appearence. And while we’re sampling the Harry Potter cast, what movie would be complete without the crown jewel, Alan Rickman, who played Snape? Honestly, the mere fact that Alan Rickman is associated with a project in any way is enough good-faith for me to see a movie. He was in town at Roger Ebert’s film festival last year for his movie “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer”, and he’s awesome.

Even Sacha Baron Cohen, of all people, shows up as a rival barber. Borat shows up. There’s something in this cast for everyone.

 So, an excited world gets its first look at Sweeney Todd, the Demon Butcher of Fleet Street, and even a look at a few strains of Mr. Depp’s lovely singing voice.

Honestly? It’s not bad. Here is the trailer. Let me know what you think, won’t you?

-Jim

Hello folks, I’m Jim Vorel, and you can look forward to seeing a lot of my thoughts on movies around here from here on out. Lets just jump right into it. There’s always so much to discuss!

 Family Guy: Frat guys rejoice! Family Guy is apparently coming to the big screen, driven on by the success of subpar movie adaptions of television shows that stopped being funny years ago. (Simpsons, I’m looking in your direction) Series creator Seth MacFarlane told MTV that he hopes to do a Family Guy movie as soon as possible. The plot, you ask? Well, if Family Guy epsiodes, and a movie based on those episodes, can really be expected to have a plot, MacFarlane has left only one hint. The plot, he said, “will have something to do with Pauly Shore”. I wish I were kidding, but I’m not.

 J.J. Abrams: If I were Will Ferrell in the movie “Zoolander” I would be saying “He’s so hot right now.” For those not in the know, Abrams is the executive producers of such industry megaliths as “Alias” and “Lost”. He is the reason that nerds the world over have been exposed to Jennifer Garner in pink wigs doing her best to look like the closest thing the real world can offer to a female anime-hero. Naturally, this means that he is a geek-darling to the world, and now he is tipping his hat into the world of movies. Silmultaneously hitting two of the richest veins in geekdom, he is producing a Star Trek movie and a Giant Monsters Stomping Things movie.

The Star Trek film has been confirmed as a prequel, dealing with a young Kirk and Spock before Kirk becomes captain of the Enterprise. The rumor-mill has outdone itself with casting rumors on this flick, everyone from Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe having rumored parts, but those may not pan out. One sure thing is that the young Spock will be played by Zachary Quinto, who is more familiar to the world as the villain Sylar from the first season “Heroes”. Leonard Nimoy, the original Spock, should also be showing up, obstensibly to reprise his character in this timeline as “Spock from the future”.

 Of considerably more interest (to me that is, I was never a Trekkie) is Abrams’ mysterious “Cloverfield” (the working title) project, although leaked sources involved with the production have claimed the final title will be ”Monstrous”. Abrams has confirmed that it will be a classic-style monster movie, though little is yet known about the creature itself, save that Abrams has said that it will breed little creatures that will run amok in the city it destroys, New York. In a cryptic teaser, a bunch of attractive New York young-persons are having a party that is interrupted by some loud roaring. The trailer ends with the head of the Statue of Liberty crushing a building as it lands and people running down the street screaming “It’s alive and it’s huge!!!” Abrams has been asked repeatedly if the film is another attempt to revive the Godzilla franchise in America, similar to the awful 1998 movie starring Matthew Broderick, without saying one way or another.

 Across the Universe: I had the chance the other day to see a movie that I’ve wanted to see since I heard about it, the Beatles-themed musical “Across the Universe”. I was intrigued by the completely contradictory reviews that it had recieved. Roger Ebert spoke of it as if it was the Second Coming, and then other papers called it an absolute failure. One particular online reviewer that I usually agree with hated just about every point of it, but I had the feeling that if I went and saw it I would probably disagree with him.

I was partially right. The thing about “Across the Universe” is that it asks you not to be bothered by its silliness, which isn’t that hard of a request to comply with. It’s a lovey-dovey story about a guy named Jude and a girl named Lucy, and a menagerie of other characters with Beatle-inspired names like Maxwell, Prudence, Dr. Robert. It basically says to you right away, “Can you handle this? Is it alright to you that we have the characters sing ‘Dear Prudence’ to the character named Prudence and try to act out the lyrics?” If that doesn’t piss you off beyond words then there’s no reason you can’t really enjoy the movie. The singing is nice. Maybe I’m biased because they took what might be my favorite Beatles song and made it the title, or maybe my taste is just very Ebert-ish. There’s very little plot (and I mean very little), but a lot of attractive people singing pretty good covers of songs that everybody already knows are great. I don’t really feel like you could hate it without deciding you hated it before ever seeing it, or just plain not liking the Beatles to begin with.

 But if you don’t like the Beatles to begin with, then you’re probably used to disagreeing with people, aren’t you.

-Jim