Wed, December 21, 2011 The sports comedy Goon stars Sean William Scott as Doug Glatt, a slacker from a rich family who discovers he has a knack for fighting hockey goons. Dragged to a game by his best friend, Doug punches out the visiting team's toughest player when the angered player rushes into the stands. The team quickly gets Doug on the team and, even though he can't skate, encourage him to beat up their opponents.
Wed, December 21, 2011 
Even though the trailer for The Hobbit dropped online yesterday, I still get a sense that The Dark Knight Rises holds most of the attention for this week. As it usually is with Christopher Nolan's films, things take a while to heat up and it looks like we are finally hitting the good stuff. Above are two hi-res images which should look very familiar to everyone. These two images were recently released in an issue of Empire magazine with scans floating around online. Hopefully more will follow in the next few weeks. Screen Rant has larger versions of both images and have constructed quite a fun and interesting image of the various Bat-suit's the hero as worn over the years.
Wed, December 21, 2011 
For awhile there, we all bought into James Cameron's "Fuck 3D post conversion!" diatribe and while there is merit to that argument the fact that Cameron is supervising a theatrical rerelease of Titanic in post conversion whiffs of hypocrisy. We've also seen a fair amount of good work done on applying the 3D gimmick to big movies in post-production without the use of 3D cameras. Thor, Green Lantern (as terrible a movie it was) and Immortals come to mind.
You can add Star Trek 2 to the list as J.J. Abrams tells MTV:
"'We're shooting on film, 2-D, and then we'll do a good high-end conversion like the 'Harry Potter' movie and all that. Luckily, with our release date now we have the months needed to do it right because if you rush it, it never looks good.'"
Another possibility in the cards is lensing in IMAX, a move that will sit better considering how generally better accepted it is, and the fact that Christopher Nolan and Brad Bird have wowed audiences with the format.
Tue, December 20, 2011 Do I really need to say much? Unless you lived under a rock you saw the Lord of the Rings trilogy and this is the book that came before it, but it's not a prequel, just an adventure with Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit that gave the ring to Frodo.
Unlike with LOTR's I haven't read The Hobbit so my expectations were open and I think it looks good as you'd expect, but the lack of an Aragorn character is a miss in my view. Still, great to see that old stinker Gollum at the end.
Tue, December 20, 2011 Even if you're not a gamer (which I'm not), anyone who watched the Star Wars movie marathon on Spike this past weekend (which I did) was bombarded by promos for the new multiplayer online game Star Wars: The Old Republic, which hopes that the galaxy far far away will be able to take on that pesky World of Warcraft universe in one swift stroke.
The game officially launched today, and with no need for subtleties this close to the holidays, launch promos today included an Imperial flash mob in Times Square, and a Jedi-style occupying of Wall Street with the ringing of the Nasdaq bell.
For those of us whose Star Wars' gaming skills peaked with the Atari games in the 80s and usually don't venture beyond the Lego versions of the games today, here's a good look at what exactly Star Wars: The Old Republic is about, courtesy of IGN:
Looks pretty cool. Star Wars: The Old Republic is available now.
Tue, December 20, 2011 
I'm already tired of the "I CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT BANE'S SAYING!" comments on The Dark Knight Rises prologue and trailer. That, and people who think they're clever to "decipher" the Occupy Wall-Street/99% allegory from one line of dialogue by Anne Hathaway. Because Christoper Nolan, li'l brother Jonah and David Goyer were fucking Nostradamus to know that left-wing bullshit was going down back in early 2009 when they started writing. Ugh. Better prepare yourselves for another seven months of this crap, folks.
It's not just people on the Internet complaining about Bane. They include Warner Brothers executives and reports THR, helmer Nolan isn't playing ball with adjusting Tom Hardy's muffled vocals at great lengths for us dumb-ass movie-goers to understand what he's saying this July:
"'Chris wants the audience to catch up and participate rather than push everything at them. He doesn't dumb things down,' says one high-level exec, declining to be named. 'You've got to pedal faster to keep up.'"
Not to be one of those "In Nolan We Trust" assholes (I can't stand that saying because those jackass fanboys only give Nolan the benefit of the doubt but were it anyone else, they'd scream bloody murder. They should give all directors in charge the benefit of the doubt), but Nolan's a competent filmmaker to know what he's doing here.
Mon, December 19, 2011 Yes, I know. A preview of a trailer (which is basically a preview of a movie). But this isn't just any movie, this is Ridley Scott's return to the sci-fi/horror genre that he redefined. I'm speaking, of course, about Prometheus, the is it or is it not prequel to Alien (honestly, I think Stevie Wonder could see this thing is connected to the original film).
Below is a short clip of some scenes from the trailer along with Scott talking about the film and some behind the scenes footage. Everything looks great on this thing and I can't wait until the trailer comes out Thursday.
I have a feeling this thing is going to become a sci-fi classic.
Prometheus opens in theaters nationwide June 8th, 2012.
Mon, December 19, 2011 There's a lot of like to about the first theatrical trailer to The Dark Knight Rises, courtesy of Coming Soon.
A lot of little things – Alfred, who was beautifully portrayed as Bruce's surrogate father and the only person who still believed in him when everyone else wrote him off as fuck up in Batman Begins and stood by his frankly psychotic yet idealistic plan to save his home, finally breaking down, the unseating of Jim Gordon as Commissioner now that his days as "a war hero" are past him, the slow emergence of Selina Kyle and where she stands, the mysterious prison facility Bruce Wayne is in (and notice, sporting grey hair) and the montage of Gotham's destruction.
All of this carried to the most chilling rendition of the Star Spangled Banner leading to the payoff of that football field's decimation. Yet it all still comes down to the finality of this onscreen incarnation of the World's Greatest Detective and the mortality of Wayne. That evocative image of the broken mask says it all.
What I like the most is Christopher Nolan is still being coy. While there's plenty of bit pieces here and there in these two minutes to enjoy and overanalyze (Something no doubt the Internet will until its July 20th opening), you can sense still much more to The Dark Knight Rises intentionally being held back.
Mon, December 19, 2011 
If the Broccolis were serious about creating a long-term, years' spanning continuity, you wouldn't hear a nasty, single syllable from my mouth.
But we're talking about people with a proven track-record of reneging on their claims of "going back to Fleming" after box-office receipts get low and suddenly they're once again trying to recapture that lightning-in-a-bottle spark from Goldfinger. Continuity has never been a priority for them, and judging by the James Bond franchise's viability fifty years on, it's justified.
Producer Michael Wilson tells People UK they've drawn up a contract for Daniel Craig to stay on as James Bond for an additional five pictures, not including the lensing-as-we-speak Skyfall, due out November 2012.
Doing some calculations in my head, Craig would be fifty-four by the end of this new arrangement under the assumption Eon and Sony would crank out a Bond picture every two years, no exceptions.
Craig is doing wonders with the character. But as much as the Broccolis want to repeat all the glory days, do they lack the common sense to remember the low point in the series too, i.e. when Roger Moore was practically laughed off the screen for being too old?
