I’ve always looked at all J.J. Abrams productions with some guarded optimism since so many people seem to hype his stuff. I liked his reboot of Star Trek, but was very so-so on his Mission Impossible 3. I will admit that he does have a good batting average when it comes to tv and now film. His latest film is Super 8.
This Super Bowl tv spot shows more than the teaser trailer with the train wreck and the steel door being pounded at. The film looks to be set sometime around the 1950’s if the set is to be believed. Some have reacted to info leaked about this film as Abrams’ homage on a certain family-friendly Spielberg alien film from the early 80’s.
Super 8 looks like the one film this summer that the less I know about it the better I’ll enjoy it when it finally comes out on June 10, 2011.
Ok, one of the big Marvel Pictures blockbusters finally gets it’s first ever trailer/tv spot release. I am talking about Joe Johnstone’s upcoming film adaptation of Captain America.
The trailer shows Chris Evans in the role of Steve Rogers both in his super-soldier persona and the before version when he’s a short, sickly and thin recruit. I will say that it was a tad disconcerting to see Chris Evans so sickly. The rest of the tv spot showed Captain America fighting the Nazis during World War 2 and I think there’s even a super brief glimpse of Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull removing his mask or, at least, losing his face which would be replaced by the iconic red skull head mask.
The film has been titled Captain America: The First Avenger and is set for a July 22, 2011 release.
I think most everyone will admit that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen wasn’t very good and to some people it was just one piece of turd. Even Michael Bay himself has admitted that the first sequel just tried to do too much without any sort of plan on how to pull it off.
Now, we have the third film and what looks like, at least from the trailer, may be a tad better. There seems to be more focus on the transformers themselves and the two sides fighting it out with lots of human collateral damage.
I sure hope this third film is not going to be like the second and more like the first but this time with invasion to make it more epic. The film comes out on July 1, 2011.
I know that the Fast and Furious franchise has been milked for as long as decent, but this latest tv spot for the fifth film in the series has made me rethink about not seeing it when it first comes out.
It looks to be concentrating more now on the action and less on how cool the cars are though from the looks of it they’re still driving around i some cool ass cars. Plus, this fifth one has the Rock back. I don’t mean Dwayne Johnson, but the Rock. Ever since he dropped the Rock moniker he had relagated himself to family-friendly films. He was truly cool on-screen when he was just the Rock.
This site has been pushing the upcoming alien invasion film, Battle: Los Angeles since the first trailer started coming out several months ago. Sony Pictures has just released the latest one and this Super Bowl tv spot is shorter than the usual trailers, but it definitely shows the potential for this film’s awesomeness.
It pretty much uses some of the same footage from the previous trailers, but shows new ones of the soldiers’ reaction to the initial stages of the invasion and how they’ll be the one’s to have to fight the big fight.
Here’s another tv spot to air during Super Bowl XLV and this time around it’s the one for the upcoming sequel to Dreamworks Animations very popular and successful Kung Fu Panda.
This one using that Queen arena anthem chant from “We Will Rock You”. The 30-second ty spot shows more action with the requisite panda shenanigans from Jack Black’s character.
Kung Fu Panda 2 is one sequel I’m definitely hyped to see as the first film I ended up watching over and over and over and over and over again. The film comes out on May 26, 2011.
Super Bowl XLV hasn’t even started and the very first summer blockbuster tv spot has already been released by its producers. While it still hasn’t premiered on tv it has already aired on the internet as Jon Favreau and crew continues to build up the hype the film got from its panel at 2010’s San Diego Comic-Con.
The tv spot that will air during the game is only half a minute long, but during that small time frame we see a lot more action with clear glimpses of the alien machines/spacecrafts that will be doing some abducting and probing in the Old West.
If this film end ups being as fun as the original Men In Black then I’m there. But part of me fears that it could turn out to be something like Wild, Wild West which would definitely make it a major fail. Here’s to hoping it’s more like the former and not the latter when it comes out on July 29, 2011.
It is Super Bowl Sunday and while most of the nation and also others around the world will be watching this event as if their life depended on it for some it’s just another Sunday. These people, some of them at least would rather be watching the Lingerie Bowl. In honor of the latest Lingerie Bowl we have a new “hottie of the day”. The hottie chosen is the lovely model and Playboy Playmate Jessica Canizales.
Ms. Canizales was born in Brazil, but spent most of her childhood growing up in Panama and Idaho as her family moved several times. Once she was 18 she moved to Miami where she began to go to school to become an interior designer. While going to school she worked part-time at the local Hooters. It would be while she was employed at Hooters that she began modeling for the Hooters calendar.
It sounds cliche but she was discovered by a Playboy scout while walking down South Beach and asked her if she was interested in posing for the magazine. Her decision to take the offer would payoff for Jessica as she became a Playmate for the Spanish version of Playboy. She has since appeared many times on special editions of the magazine and has begun working for Playboy TV.
Jessica has now begun to branch out and started her own official website where she interacts with her fans.
For today’s “Song of the Day,” I couldn’t decide between two tracks I had in mind—so I decided to feature them together. This time, it’s not just a “song of the day,” but “songs of the day.” Once you hear what I’ve chosen, you’ll understand why they belong side by side.
The latest selections come from film score composer Basil Poledouris, taken from what many consider his finest work and one of the greatest film scores ever written for the big screen: Conan the Barbarian (1982). The two tracks—Anvil of Crom and Riddle of Steel/Riders of Doom—especially in the Varese Sarabande release, form the powerful and unforgettable musical introduction to the Hyperborean world Conan inhabits.
Anvil of Crom opens the film with thunderous intensity. Timpani drums drive the rhythm while a massive ensemble of 24 French horns and bold brass deliver an overwhelming sense of might and grandeur. This introduction has become synonymous with Conan the Barbarian, earning fame well beyond the film itself—it’s often reused by other filmmakers in trailers for its commanding energy. Even though the piece runs under three minutes, Poledouris’s composition immediately establishes the epic tone audiences should expect from the journey ahead.
Following it is Riddle of Steel/Riders of Doom, which introduces the musical motifs for Conan and his nemesis, Thulsa Doom. The track begins peacefully, gradually building into Conan’s theme—the “riddle of steel” referenced in the title. This serenity is soon shattered as Riders of Doom emerges, dark and orchestral, marking Thulsa Doom’s presence. The second half bears a clear resemblance to Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, and while some critics suggest Poledouris leaned too heavily on Orff’s influence, I disagree. He may have drawn inspiration, but his execution stands triumphantly on its own, resulting in one of the most iconic pieces of film music ever composed.
Heard back-to-back, it’s evident why these two tracks must come as a pair. Anvil of Crom and Riddle of Steel/Riders of Doom are inseparable—an epic one-two punch that gives real force to the film’s opening narration by Conan’s chronicler, who speaks of “the days of high adventure.” The music doesn’t just accompany the words—it drives them home with a surge of raw, mythic power that perfectly captures the spirit of ancient legends and the world’s forgotten ages.
I first found out about this little cult film starring the very awesome Christopher Walken around 1993 or so when I was at the local Waldenbooks (yes there used to be bookstores not named Barnes & Noble or Borders back in the day) looking at the latest issue of Fangoria. Inside the magazine they were doing a brief feature on an upcoming horror film tentatively called God’s Army. All I saw was that it was to star Christopher Walken and it had gore and angels in it. That alone peaked my interest and I was looking forward to seeing it in the theaters. Almost two years passed and nothing about it was ever heard again until I visited the video rental place near my house and saw a VHS tape (yeah, those big videocassette thingies) with the title of The Prophecy and starring Christopher Walken.
This was the film I was so hyped to seeing in the theaters. The title had changed from it’s earlier (and much cooler) one of God’s Army. It would seem that it’s film distributor had little to no faith in the box-office potential of the film and just delayed it’s release to the point that when it did come out no one knew about it barely anyone saw it. It was a real damn shame since filmmaker Gregory Widen made such a good film that was able to mash-up horror, angels and a detective story all in one without creating a mess of things.
The Prophecy was about the war in heaven we were never taught about in Sunday school. We all know about the war in heaven where Lucifer and the rebel angels who followed him tried to overthrow God. That didn’t go over so well for Lucifer and he and his band of fallen angels were cast out into Hell by God and his right-hand man the Archangel Michael. This film talks about the second war in heaven soon thereafter which no one outside those who wrote little-known apocryphal texts about it (and being apocryphal they never were included in the Bible). This war now had a new group of angels led by the Archangel Gabriel rebelling against God for choosing humans (talking monkeys as these new rebels called them) above all living creatures including the angels themselves for God’s love. This war was now in a state of stalemate after countless millenia, but a prophecy about a soul so dark and evil was to be the tipping point for either side. This particular soul was to be found on Earth and whoever acquires it would break the stalemate and finally bring this second war to an end.
With this in mind we have Walken as the Archangel Gabriel coming down to Earth to look for this soul so he can finally win the war for his side (which also means the end of mankind). It’s the angel Simon (played by Eric Stoltz) who comes down to stop him from getting this soul or, at the very least, hide it from Gabriel. With these two factions of angels vying to acquire this soul we have a Detective Thomas Daggett smack in the middle of the case investigating all the weird happenings and deaths surrounding the battle between these two factions. The dead bodies of angels begin to appear on morgue slabs looking like eyeless, hermaphroditic specimens and angelic script found in crime scenes brings Daggett back to his time studying to be a priest before images of angels warring amongst themselves breaks him down and he quits the seminary to become a cop instead.
It would come down to these three factions racing against time to acquire this dark soul.
The film is not as gory as it’s feature in Fangoria made it out to be, but it is quite violent and bloody that I understand why it got the horror label attached to it. It’s more a dark fantasy thriller more than horror. It’s rare in today’s film that we see angels portrayed as the bloodthirsty beings that the really are. The film even points out this oft-ignored detail of God’s messengers. Angels are always the ones God sends to punish or send a very serious message to his chosen beings that is Man. The Prophecy shows this aspect of angels in full light and how their attitudes about humanity might lead some of them to hate God for raising Man above even them.
Christopher Walker does a great job conveying Gabriel’s hate and contempt for humans. His Gabriel is like one of those pundits always on tv (both liberal and consevative) who are so into their sides’ message that they never see the other side as anything but the enemy. One could almost say that Walken’s Gabriel is like then apocalypse-hungry version of Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann in one body. This is not to say that Walken goes over-the-top with his performance. In fact, he’s quite subdued in how he uses those many tics and voice mannerisms a whole cottage industry has grown around in.
Walken’s portrayal of Gabriel infuses what could’ve become a one-note villain with lots of layers and complexities that the rest of the cast were able to play off from. His character would be terrifying one moment then smoothly switch over to being funny and charming then back to terror. It’s due to his great performance that the other cast members like Stoltz as the weary, loyal angel Simon and Koteas as the fallen religious cop Daggett were able to bring their own performance to another level. This is quite a feat since the dialogue in the film was a mixed bag of horror cliches and interesting Biblical-speak about secret wars, apocryphal books and prophecies. The film even has a nice appearance of the first fallen angel himself and none other than Viggo Mortensen plays Lucifer.
The Prophecy does have a feeling that it was always one misstep away from becoming an awful film. This had happened with 2010’s Legion and did that film about angels and the apocalypse turn out to be a huge steaming pile of shit-turd. But while Dimension Film saw the film fall over on the side of bad for myself and those who have come to admire and love this cult classic the film stayed balance between good and bad. Widen’s film never went over to the side of becoming a truly great film, but it also never fell on the side that Legion ended up on. What Prophecy ended up becoming was a film that was almost grindhouse in nature, but even then it still looked too good with too many good performances to be given that label. The fact that it contains one of Christopher Walken’s best performances speaks well of a film that many critics during it’s early days had dismissed as just another bad horror film.
In the end, this film became just one of the many little-gems that got lost in film studio money politics. I definitely would recommend this cult film to people who haven’t seen it, but I would tell them to stop at just this film and not even go near the four sequels which came after it.
