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Funnybook Films in your Future

With the funnybook red&gold/green “One-Two” punch of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk knocking on the Summer blockbuster door to kick off the Summer season, I just wanted to look down the road a bit to see what we can expect for the rest of the funnybook year to come, because, unlike this guy, I’m actually looking forward to this year’s slate of funnybook films.

First of all, June is going to be rounded out by Wanted (which began life as a creator-owned comicbook mini-series, by Mark Millar and J. G. Jones which was published by Top Cow in 2003–‘04. This one is an action-packed adventure staring Angelina Jolie as a killer assassin who is schooling a young man James McAvoy in the art of the kill. The trailers look very cool (but then again so did those of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and we all know how that one turned out, eh?).

Up next month we have Hellboy II: The Golden Army and Batman: The Dark Knight, both of which also look good. Batman, as you all know is a character from the DC stable of heroes, but you might not know that Hellboy hails from Dark Horse an upstart Left Coast comicbook company that has found it niche in successfully linking up with a number of Hollywood Studios (either by adapting their movies to comics (Aliens, Terminator), or by having characters that began life in their comics go the other way and make the jump into movies (Barb Wire, The 300, Sin City). Much has already been written about this Batman Returns follow-up and the unfortunate and tragic death of Heath Ledger. From what I’ve seen of the trailers and how spectacular the previous film was, this one is going to be the one to beat this Summer.

Further out we can expect Punisher: War Zone this December, and (from what we’ve heard) this one will be better than either The Thomas Jane/John Travolta film or the original Dolph Lundgren version. Again, I’m holding judgment on this one until I see some more. Also scheduled for a December release is the Film Whiteout, Based on the comicbook. Whiteout follows U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko as she uncovers the first murder ever in the Antarctic just as the sun is about to set for six months. She must catch the killer before he leaves the ice or be stuck there with him in the dark for six months. I read one installment of this comic (I think it was something I got on Free Comicbook Day) and it read real well. Glad to see it is being made into a film.

There actually might be more, but this is what I know of right now.

Oh yeah, I’m formally issuing a “WTF” Alert for our Imperious Leader.

The Perfessor

Sci-Fi Nazis Movie

A teaser trailer for

IRON SKY

where in 1945, the Nazis do something completely different.

Alas, there’s not a whiff of plot in this teaser trailer, merely the premise.

Sound only req’d for sultry background music.

I loved the initial film noir look of this. Very stylish, very nicely done. I wish there was more just like it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Iron Man Trailer _could_ be stretched into a movie?

Could the film makers actually keep your attention for more than 90 seconds?
I don’t know about you, but I’m not so certain:

(sound and tongue in cheek req’d)

Wildly Popular ‘Iron Man’ Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

The Eighth Harry Potter Movie

Seven books.

Eight movies.

It was only a matter of time, I thought, until the Harry Potter franchise had to take one of the books and split it. Fortunately, it’s the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I imagine the first one will be called
Harry Potter and the Deathly,
and the second
Harry Potter and the Hallows
which sounds like a rock band. :)

Nah, I’m sure it’s going to be more like Part I and Part II, ala Kill Bill.

Problem is, breaking a movie into two parts has the tendency to piss some people off.

Kill Bill failed as a two part movie because a lot of the good stuff that people went to go see was the action in the first half of the movie. When the second part came out, people just didn’t care that much about the resolution. They just wanted to see Part I again, just different.

This won’t happen with Harry Potter. It’s kind of funny… those of us readers who’ve read Harry know all of what’s going to happen, and yet in posts like this, we really shouldn’t talk about the details, because it would kind of spoil the movie for the movie goers who’ve never read any of the book series. I mean, sure, the big one line spoiler that came out with Book 6 and Book 7, about who lives and who dies, sure… But the rest of the details are of course known to the readers at this point.

What’s not known is the shape(s) of the movies themselves. With Half Blood Prince, Book 6, what portions do you leave out? We’ve learned that the action sequences are always the best, but that means that some other material has to be covered pretty quickly.

The reason Book 7 is split up into two movies is to split this exposition into two movies. At this point, Book 7 Part I has a fantastic opening sequence, and then does okay, and then falls flat. I can’t see how the second half of the Part I is going to NOT drag.

But, I’m a Harry Potter fan, which means I’ll hold out hope. I can’t view the Harry Potter franchise from an unbiased perspective. The series had me from the first page.

If I, however, had only seen the movies, I’d be coming to this with more of a jaundiced eye, thinking that the Warner Brothers were just wanting to milk this a bit too much. They’ll be covering up the grey hairs on Daniel Radcliffe’s temples by the end of this…

The Fall, or how I learned to love a movie without a plot

This is one of those trailers for a movie that does it’s job superbly.

It Makes You Want To Go And See The Film.

You can tell by the look that it should be watched on a big screen. This, unfortunately, is the only way you can convince me to go to the theater these days. Make the product gorgeous.

The Fall, directed by Tarsem Singh and “presented” by Spike Jonze and David Fincher is about a tale told to a girl with a broken arm/collarbone, by a bed ridden man in a hospital. It should go to limited release sometime in March.

If you don’t have time to watch the trailer, the tale seemingly has implications outside the story itself, involving the hospital the bedridden storyteller and the little girl are both in. The story then gets rather dark…

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Hemorrhoid Cream

So once again, fan of Dr. Jones, that money in your pocket that was briefly yours will be mine.

Speed Racer Trailer - Overheard at the movie theater

OVERHEARD–
After watching the latest movie trailer for Speed Racer,
a voice of a college age boy sitting right behind us to his pals:

“Man, that started out pretty cool,
but it got pretty gay pretty quick”

Alison and I both laughed out loud at that.