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While the latest Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the first installment in a while to be rated PG, that doesn't mean it's any less messed-up. Sure, there's less blood (even though it's the first to put the word "blood" right in the title), but Harry still receives a nasty beating, there are teen make-out parties galore and at least one person gets murdered. Oh, and there are also zombies. Fricking zombies! In celebration of the scariest PG film we've seen in a while, we thought we'd run down the most effed-up moments in the franchise's first five films. No spoilers for Half-Blood, unless you count us mentioning zombies earlier. Too late!
Transformers 2: Electric-Car Boogaloo
It's a well-known fact to anyone within earshot of my office that I didn't like the first Transformers movie. In addition to an apparent hatred of the original cartoon, I thought it showed a hatred of humanity, from the robot characters' utter disregard for human lives to the human characters' lack of anything resembling real emotion to, yes, the peeing-on-John-Turturro incident. (No, I will not let it go. John Turturro is a national treasure.) So seeing all of the cool-looking new robots in the trailer for Revenge of the Fallen (Devastator! Ravage! The Fallen!) has my insides churning like Devastator's sand-hole. Could it possibly be good, thereby redeeming the original film and, in fact, the entire Michael Bay film library in my eyes? Doubtful. But the robots certainly look awesome. We gathered as much information as we could about the new robots and got some updates on the four returning primaries for a gallery we like to call Robot Roll Call! Check it out here, and let us know what you think of the movie below.
The much-hyped and anticipated The Hangover delivered, both laughs-wise and cash-wise, and now the Hollywood-types are going forward with a sequel. (Actually, the sequel was already planned before the movie was released, but, you know, it's like extra super for real planned now!) Since you can't very well get into terribly impressive mischief in your own town, where people you know can see and stop you, I had to wonder -- where will the sequel take place? Let's go globe-trottin' with the drunkies, shall we?
The backstory of the Terminator film franchise is filled with enough time-jumps to drown a McFly and will not be recapped here, but the quality of its installments can be summarized by each film's robot antagonist. The classic, relentless T-800 hunted Sarah Connor in the enduring original Terminator. The cold, shiny T-1000 shape-shifted through the sleek and stylish Judgment Day. And the cleavage-enhanced, mixed-bag hybrid T-X did whatever she did in the muddled mess that was Rise of the Machines. So what does it say that the primary robot foes in the newest installment, Terminator: Salvation, are shuffling, outdated T-600s that are constantly shooting at things and wear shreds of clothing and skin in a failed attempt to look human? Probably nothing good.
If I were a film director, I would be sticking references to other films into my movies all over the place. They would be films I admired, mostly, which means that somewhere, sometime, I would probably put in a reference to Donnie Darko, a personal favorite. Now, imagine that somebody made a movie that was entirely Donnie Darko references. Would it be a sequel to Donnie Darko? A tribute? A fan fiction? Considering that S. Darko stars Daveigh Chase as the grown-up version of her D. Darko character, Samantha from Sparkle Motion, the movie is obviously trying to be a sequel, but the only thing that separates this from fan fiction is that somebody gave the director Briana Evigan, Ed Westwick and a lot of money and let him make it into a movie.
By now, even jaded, nit-picky Star Trek fans have decided to either like the new movie along with the rest of the world or dislike it just to be contrary. Whichever you've chosen for yourself, congratulations! You either are or are not, in the Vulcan parlance, a dickhead. Now we can set about the business of figuring out which actors we want to join this merry band in the next installment. There's only a few more crew members left to show, but there are plenty of rogues, aliens and monsters to cast! Here's who we wanna make a stardate with.
I Want My DVD: Tuesday, May 12, 2009
If you like Star Trek, then it seems like somebody wants you to get out to Best Buy or Blockbuster this week, since there are a ton of DVD releases catering to lovers of sci-fi and fantasy. And Charlie Sheen, who's kind of a combination of both! Plus, Liam Neeson's biggest movie since The Phantom Menace.
Angels and Demons opens this weekend, and boy, does it look... exactly the same as The Da Vinci Code, except this time Tom Hanks has a decent haircut. And when the defining characteristic of your lead character is his haircut, you may be in trouble. (In other words, don't expect to beat Star Trek, Tom.) We're kinda disappointed, because usually Hanks delivers memorable, distinctive performances, whether good (Philadelphia) or bad (Bosom Buddies). Putting aside his famously Oscar-winning performance and his first steady cross-dressing job, we thought we'd run down the five roles that make Hanks a saint in our eyes, and the five that make him the devil.
Ever since they began revealing the fresh-faced young Enterprise crew and their Macbook-looking bridge, we've been worried about J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie. Would it pay tribute to the classic show that had come before it, and manage to simultaneously honor and ignore the easily enraged fan base? As more and more trailers and clips surface, and reports roll in from the privileged few who've seen it, the answer seems to be "yes." With some notable exceptions, the Enterprise crew is the spitting image of the crew that came before, and we compared each and every crew member to their predecessor to make sure. Check out our guide to the Past and Present Casts of Star Trek, and let us know what you think of the movie below!
It seems everyone, from high-ranking Hollywood executives to Joe car enthusiasts to hipster entertainment columnists, knew that Fast & Furious would do well in theaters this past weekend. After all, the only other new film was the indie comedy Adventureland, which isn't exactly Superbad, and the biggest threat from last weekend's holdovers was the kid-targeted Monsters vs. Aliens. But the film actually surpassed expectations, bringing in $72 million in the U.S. alone, giving it the biggest April opening of all time, plus another $30 mill from overseas. All of a sudden, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster are moneymakers, and they're gonna be getting a lot of offers in the wake of this. If this smart-ass entertainment columnist may offer some suggestions, I've got a multi-part plan for success for each of them.
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