Author Archives: Arleigh

Thor (2nd Official Trailer)

Posted on by Arleigh

First we hear news that Marvel has tabbed Shane Black to be the director for the third Iron Man film. Now, Marvel has decided to unleash the second official full trailer upon the masses.

This second trailer expands on the first trailer and the Super Bowl TV Spot. There’s some new scenes added but I especially like how they’ve given a longer look at Thor fighting the Frost Giants of Jotunheim which is what will probably lead to him being banished by All-Father himself, Odin, to Earth to learn how to be a hero or some such.

There’s also more new stuff about Loki acting as the main villain of the film. I don’t consider the Destroyer as the villain but more of a tool of Loki’s. From what I could gather from this new trailer it looks like Kat Denning’s character will be the comic relief on the human side of things while Ray Stevenson’s Volstagg does it on the Asgardian side.

The film comes out in both 2D and 3D this May 6th. Let the Summer Blockbuster Wars begin!

Iron Man 3 To Get Shane Black

Posted on by Arleigh

When Marvel Pictures and filmmaker Jon Favreau announced that he wouldn’t be doing Iron Man 3 there were some worries that no one would be up to the task to replace the man who brought the character of Iron Man to the big-screen. The first film was a fun, origin story that showed Iron Man was above being relegated to Tier 2 superhero status. The sequel wasn’t as well-planned and executed. There were rumblings behind the scenes that Favreau was none too happy with Marvel for rushing the sequel.

The split between filmmaker and studio has been amicable in public and Favreau will remain as producer of the third film. Once it was official that a new director would be needed the search began and the interwebs and it’s geek hordes went into rumor overdrive. The question everyone wanted to know now is will Marvel make the same mistake 20th Century Fox did when they replaced Bryan Singer for X-Men 3 with Brett Ratner or will they actually do their due diligence and find someone who understands the Iron Man franchise to make a third film work.

It looks like Marvel may have done their job during their search for, according to the entertainment news site Deadline, writer-directed Shane Black is now in negotiations with the studio to take over for Favreau and helm the third film. If the deal goes through then it couldn’t have happened to a better filmmaker and definitely puts the franchise in very capable hands.

Black made his directorial debut with the critically-acclaimed and popular comedy-mystery, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (which also happened to have had Robert Downey, Jr. in the lead), and he’s been one of the best writers of action films since the late 80’s when he penned the first two Lethal Weapon films.

Personally, I think this is an upgrade from Favreau. I thought Favreau was a good filmmaker who did a great job in making the first Iron Man film not get lost in the hype and hoopla that was The Dark Knight, but the second film also showed that the expectations the first film created for the sequel may have been too much for him to handle. Whether Marvel studio heads rushed him or not he didn’t stand up to the challenge.

With Shane Black the franchise now has a filmmaker who understands action films, but also how to make them fun and irreverent. While the Deadline article didn’t specify whether Black will be writing the script for the third film in addition to directing, I would find think Marvel would want to tap Black’s penchant for writing smart, funny action scripts to make sure Iron Man 3 gets back to the high-bar the first film had set. One thing that bodes well for all this is that Robert Downey, Jr. has worked with Black before so the two shouldn’t have to worry about getting comfortable with each other.

Iron Man 3 has no release date other than Marvel wanting it to be a 2013 Summer film. Until, then let’s hope Marvel doesn’t screw the negotiations up and lose Black.

Source: Deadline

Dead Island: Official Announcement Trailer

Posted on by Arleigh

The zombie fps survival game that seem to be blowing up the interwebs with it’s “official announcement” trailer was a title that was initially talked about several years ago when Valve’s Left 4 Dead first came out and become a massive hit. Zombies were back in force in gaming (not that it really left) and every no-name studio was announcing a zombie title to try and take advantage of the sudden craze for the walking dead in games.

Techland was one such studio and their title was to be called, Dead Island. It was to be a first-person shooter for the Xbox 360 and PC. Set in an unnamed resort island, the game was received by the gaming community who followed such news with some interest. That interest soon waned when nothing new and concrete about the game came out in the last couple years. It’s now 2011 and, after a couple brief tidbits about the title in 2010, it looks like the game is going to be a reality (fingers crossed).

The trailer has been getting major praises since IGN first premiered it. People were soon hyped to see the game become a reality. Those who still were guarded with their reactions still thought the trailer was well-done and, some even said, it was artfully done. One thing that seem to have everyone in agreement is how heartbreaking the trailer ends up being once the whole sequence plays out. It’s true what some have said. Children always seem to be taboo as zombie chow in films and most games (novels have been more ahead of the game when it comes to children becoming zombie food) and it looks like Techland decided no one will be safe in this game.

I, for one, have been one of those who have been following this title since it was first talked about years back and if this announcement trailer really means the game will be made then my faith in the title has been rewarded.

I sure hop it doesn’t suck….

Source: IGN

Quickie Review: Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave (dir. by Ellory Elkayem)

Posted on by Arleigh

There’s not much to say about Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave other than it’s actually worse than the movie before it. Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis was really bad and not in the so bad it’s funny. What had been a cult horror franchise which had fun with the zombie genre in addition to putting some genuine scares in people, these last two Return of the Living Dead films should pretty much kill the franchise just when the zombie revival is still going on strong.

Ellory Elkayem does directing duty for this fifth installment. He also directed the fourth film. I had thought that not everything should be laid at Elkayem’s feet when it came to who to blame for the lackluster and awful film that was Necropolis, but after sitting through Rave to the Grave I have to say that whatever good will Ellory Elkayem built up with his funny take on the giant creature feature, Eight-Legged Freaks, has been wasted with his back-to-back filming of Necropolis and Rave to the Grave. Elkayem films both films one after the other and I am going to assume this was more to save on the budget than any sort of continuity with the actors hired to play recurring roles. If saving money was the main reason then it sure didn’t look like it. Except for a few hero-zombie (zombies given more screentime than most thus given a better make-up effect) scenes the film clearly shows it’s ultra low-budget pedrigree. I don’t have problems with low-budget horror movies as long as there’s a sense of energy and enjoyment by those making it, but neither Necropolis and Rave to the Grave showed any one of the two.

Rave to the Grave occurs one year after the events of Necropolis and the teenage survivors of that film have now graduated and attending college. The film never really makes it clear if they’re in back in the U.S. attending college or still in Eastern Europe where the previous film was set. Either way the survivors from the previous film seem to have moved on quite well from their horrific experiences in Necropolis. The fact that they don’t seem to recognize the newly found containment barrel marked with the label of 2-4-5 Trioxin just adds to the weird and huge plot hole between film four and five. One would think that these kids would have it etched forver in their minds that containment barrel with 2-4-5- Trioxin equals horror. Instead they naively investigate and research the barrel with one of their friends realizing he could turn the chemical leaking from the barrel into a new form of rave drug whose extreme hallucinogenic effects also hide a side-effect which basically turns anyone who partakes of the drug into a zombie.

The rest of the movie deals with the survivors finally realizing the crisis they’ve unleashed and instead of calling for police or military help decide to go to the same outdoor rave party where everyone is taking the drug to try and find the person who made the drug Z and stop him from taking them. Like I said earlier, the film really has major plot holes and most of the time doesn’t make much sense. What we get in the end is an excuse to have a huge set piece where the survivors get to shoot as many zombies as possible while at the same time allow for the random raver to suddenly become a zombie out of the blue. There’s also a subplot of a couple of bumbling Men-in-Black type agents whose job it is to recover the Trioxin barrel while remaining inconspicuous. The secret organization they belong to must be global since I could barely understand their lines with the heavy Russian accent used by both “actors”.

My disappointment in what could’ve been a nice follow-up to the first three Return of the Living Dead movies was compounded by the sheer Z-movie level of Rave to the Grave after the awful work that was Necropolis. For those wanting to see a good b-level zombie movie that’s bad but enjoyable at the same time should check out House of the Dead 2. Yes, the sequel to Uwe Boll’s rancid and awful House of the Dead ended up being better than the original and way more entertaining than Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave. I wouldn’t even accept this film as a free dvd if someone gave it to me. In fact, I may end up punching that person as a reflex action.

Quickie Review: Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis (dir. by Ellory Elkayem)

Posted on by Arleigh

I remember watching the original Return of the Living Dead in 1985. That zombie movie played on the premise that Night of the Living Dead actually happened. It was a great twist and interesting idea. The zombies in that film weren’t shambling and dumb like the one’s in Romero’s film. Instead these zombies were pretty quick and could talk and formulate plans and traps. Also these zombies couldn’t be killed by destroying the brain. It was the birth of the superzombies and it made for a fun experience. One thing it also had was a nice dose of comedy mixed in with the horror.

A few years later they had a sequel to Return of the Living Dead that was a good second helping. Nothing to write home about but it was a fun gory flick. Then came a second sequel which dropped the comedy and instead tried to be Romeo and Juliet meets brain-eating zombies. Other than the usual gore and bloodsplatter this second sequel was an utter failure. It took over 10 years for someone to try making a couple more sequels, but sure enough someone found a way to do it. They even found a good enough director in Ellory Elkayem (he directed the fun, campy giant spider monster flick Eight-Legged Freaks). There was talk that this third sequel will return the ROTLD franchise back to its roots of horror mixed with comedy. I was stoked about the news. Then when it came time to see Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis, I found out that it was going to go direct-to-cable. This usually means bad news all around about the overall quality of the finished film, but I was still going to give it a chance.

I finally saw its premiere on Sci-Fi channel in 2005 and all my low expectations weren’t even reached by the what I saw on the TV. The movie starts off well enough and right from the get-go they don’t hide the fact that the film is taking place in some Eastern European country. Peter Coyote the — only actor with any sort of talent — makes his appearance in this scene and there’s not even any attempt to make his character abit mysterious of whether he’s a good guy or a bad guy. Coyote’s scientist role in the film screams evil mad scientist. The rest of the cast seemed like it was randomly picked from a college campus and from the streets of Romania. The dialogue was bad enough but having them read out loud by amateurs just made it all worse.

The whole premise of the film outside of reintroducing newcomers to the zombifying effects of Trioxin seemed like the writers were trying to emulate Resident Evil instead of Return of the Living Dead. There’s the mega-corporation which deals with everything known to man and also research and develops illegal biowarfare technology like zombies armed with hi-tech weapons. Resident Evil did this better (thats not saying much) so it goes without saying that ROTLD4: Necropolis just didn’t know what it wanted to be. There wasn’t any of the comedy that made the first two films in the franchise so fun to watch. It looked as if they tried to make a serious zombie movie and instead it turned out to be seriously bad.

Even the zombies themselves ended up being inconsistent with the zombies from the first two films. Some seemed smart enough but most were of the Romero kind which goes against everything that is ROTLD. Their feeding habits even changed from eating nothing but brains but to eating other parts of the body. Then the filmmakers made it so they’re not indestructible anymore. Shooting these zombies in the head will drop them like a sack of bricks.

There really wasn’t anything fun about this sequel. Zombie movies are suppose to be dumb, gory fun but instead Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis just ends up being dumb, horrible and awful. I had alot of hope in Ellory Elkayem as an up-and-coming genre director, but cranking out this film after making such a fun one in Eight-Legged Freaks is a mystery and saddening. I wouldn’t recommend this film as a rental on dvd. Just go rent the original trilogy of films in the series and leave this one alone.

Quickie Review: Return of the Living Dead 3 (dir. by Brian Yuzna)

Posted on by Arleigh

In 1993 horror fans were greeted with the release of Return of the Living Dead 3. This third film in the Return of the Living Dead series produced by John Russo ends up being a very good zombie movie and actually has genuine horror that the second film lacked. What ROTLDIII, its writers and directors seem to have left behind was the comedy side of the series which made them cult-classics to begin with.

Taking up directing duty this time around was genre-veteran Brian Yuzna (Beyond Re-Animator) who films this third entry purely on a horror standpoint. This film is serious horror from start to finish. This time around the military is still trying to find a way to use 2-4-5 Trioxin as a way to create zombie soldiers, but ones that could be easily controlled by them. To say that this project hasn’t met with success is an understatement. But it’s the story of the son of the military project director and his girlfriend who dominate the film’s plot. As portrayed by J. Trevor Edmond and Melinda Clarke, these two star-crossed lovers find themselves enmeshed with the dark secret of the project being held in secret. Son soon uses the Trioxin gas to try and ressurect his girlfriend who gets killed early on during an accident. What he gets instead is an undead girlfriend whose hunger for live brains (for some reason the zombies in this ROTLD sequel also feed on other bodily parts) can only be controlled when she causes herself bodily pain through extreme forms of piercing. The rest of the film deals with the father trying to save his son not just from himself and his undead girlfriend but from the hordes of escaped zombies in the facility.

The horror in the film was actually pretty good and this was helped a lot by the gore effects work which surpasses anything the first two films in the series had. The acting was decent enough with Melinda Clarke as the zombified girlfriend putting on a sexy, albeit creepy performance. If it wasn’t for the brain and flesh-eating she sure would’ve made for quite a poster girl for teenage boys.

In the end, Return of the Living Dead 3 continues the series admirably. Despite not having much humor and comedy in the film, this third film in the series more than makes up for it with high levels of gore and a definite sense of horror the first two didn’t much have not to mention a bit of romance which seemed to work.

X-Men: First Class Official Trailer

Posted on by Arleigh

Of all the Marvel Comic book films coming out this summer it is the one not being made by Marvel themselves which seems to be getting the biggest amount of negative press and buzz from the fans. The last couple weeks has seen pictures from the set either leaked by accident or on purpose to gauge fan reaction. To say that reaction has been underwhelming would be an understatement.

The film is 20th Century Fox Studios latest film on the X-Men franchise. A franchise which is now batting 2-for-4. The first two films in the franchise were thought of as being very good to great and the last two seen as a major mess or just plain awful. Now the fifth film has just released it’s first official trailer and from the look of things it looks to be retconning all the vents which occurred in the first four films. The scenes used for the trailer looked very good and the looks of the many (people complaining about the amount of characters in the third Nolan/Batman film will be apoplectic once they see First Class) characters gives me some hope.

The film has Matthew Vaughn just fresh off of Kick-Ass and it will be up to him to create a gem out of the rough stone people seem to be judging the film at the moment. X-Men: First Class is set for a June 3, 2011 release.

Song of the Day: Suicide Mission from Mass Effect 2 (by Jack Wall)

Posted on by Arleigh

The news about Clint Mansell being brought in to compose the score for the upcoming Mass Effect 3 rpg from BioWare has me listening through the score from the previous two games in the series. To continue the jonesing I’m getting from this news I’ve chosen track 25 from the Mass Effect 2 soundtrack to be the latest “Song of the Day”.

“Suicide Mission” comes into Mass Effect 2 around the beginning of the third and final act of the game when the player has gathered and assembled his team of rogues, assassins, berserkers and all sorts of undesirables to make that final jump through the Omega 4 Mass Relay. This track brings together the main theme from the very first game with the brass heavy and hopeful sound of track 5, “Normandy Reborn”, in the second game.

I sometimes just reload the save prior to the jump through the Omega 4 just so I can listen to this particular track of the soundtrack and see the visuals accompanying it. If I don’t feel like replaying that part of the game I’d just reload right before the end credits begins and just enjoy listening to it.

“Suicide Mission” just brings an epic sound to the game and anyone who has played it knows how it brings to rise goosebumps upon hearing it. For those who haven’t played the  games this piece of music just brings to mind some of the best in epic, orchestral scores.

 

Mass Effect 3 to have a Clint Mansell score

Posted on by Arleigh

Some major news on the video game front was reported today. One of the most critically-acclaimed video game franchises of the last five years will have an award-winning music composer creating the score for it.

The game in question is the third (most likely final entry in the current trilogy) game in BioWare’s Mass Effect rpg franchise. The composer is one Clint Mansell. He is the same Clint Mansell who has created some of the most evocative film scores for the last decade and most of it for Darren Aronofsky’s films (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan).

Mass Effect 3 will be Mansell’s first foray into video game music composing. This is great news for fans of the franchise. It lends an even more cinematic flair to a series whose musical score were already great to begin with.

EA and BioWare are definitely pulling out all the stops to create a worthy finish to this trilogy. I already know that I will be getting the game and I will definitely be buying the soundtrack once it’s up for sale (I already own the first two that were composed by Jack Wall).

Source: The Quietus

PS: Here’s two pieces of music so people understand why I thought the first two game had awesome scores and Mansell being brought in for the third means awesome just went up to 11.

Mass Effect

Mass Effect 2

Quickie Review: Return of the Living Dead Part II (dir. by Ken Weiderhorn)

Posted on by Arleigh

1988 saw the release of Return of the Living Dead Part II. This film is a sort of sequel/reboot of the first film in that the story and even some of the characters bear too much of a similarity to the original film. Ken Weiderhorn both writes and directs this “sequel” and it shows. The film reuses alot of what made the first film a cult-classic amongst horror fans. Weiderhorn seems to be of the philosophy that if something ain’t broke then don’t fix it. What this does is make the film feel like a deja vu and maybe that was his intent since two of the main characters in the film say pretty much the same thing. Despite all this the film itself is pretty good and stays true to the original, albeit with abit more humor and better effects work.

Reprising similar roles they had in the first film are James Karen as Ed and Thom Mathews as Joey. Both work as in the post-burial industry and moonlight stealing valuables from the privates crypts and mausoleum in the cemetery they’re working in. Their characters act and almost have similar lines from Karen and Mathews’ characters of Frank and Freddy in the first film. Karen as Ed goes over-the-top once the 2-4-5 Trioxin gas is let loose and the dead bodies in the cemetery begin to come back to life seeking live brains. It’s these two characters who really keep the film from spiraling down to awful status. Even though their characters are similar to the original film, Karen and Mathews still bring a dose of great comedic timing and horror to the situation.

This time around the town has been safely evacuated by the military except for a few people who lived on the newly-built suburban housing area in the outskirt of town. It’s these survivors who must try and find a way to defeat the zombies and at the same time convince the military blockading the town that they’re not infected. There’s more action and comedy in this sequel. I think the comedy part of the film got way too much attention, but as I said earlier, Weiderhorn seems to think that if it worked in the original then it should work with more in this film. The effects work looks a bit better and probably due to an increase in the budget.

In the end, Return of the Living Dead Part II never brought anything new to the original it was following-up. The film pretty much reuses the same characters and situations. Weiderhorn does this to good effect and the finished product was an entertaining enough horror-comedy. Who knows how this sequel would’ve turned out if Russo had written it and O’Bannon back directing.