Movie Review: Robots

Even though it's a kid's movie, I really enjoyed this movie. There's enough wiz-bang eye candy in this film to fill three movies. It was made by the folks that made Ice Age, and let me tell you, they give Pixar a run for their money and may even exceed them with this one. The attention to detail is phenomenal. I thought the voice acting was really good, although Robin Williams was a little over the top, but that's what you get when he's involved. The film centers around Rodney Copperbottom and his quest to follow his dream making inventions for master inventor Bigweld (Mel Brooks). Leaving his hometown to go to the big city, Rodney meets new freinds and an enemy named Ratchet (Greg Kinear), who has overthrown Bigweld and plans to eradicate the older robots for financial gain. It's up to Rodney and his gang of Rusties to save Robot City! I give this film ****1/2 out of *****, it was much better than I anticipated and a great film for kids and adults.

Movies in the Works

Keanu Reaves is in negotiations to star in a new Sinbad movie titled The 8th Voyage of Sinbad. He will be portraying the adventuresome hero and not the comic from the 80's.

Bruce Willis is to star in a psychic thriller called Solace in which his character is a former doctor with psychic abilities who is hot on the trail of a serial killer. Unfortunately for him, the killer is also psychic, damn!

Oscar winner Hilary Swank hangs up her boxing gloves to star in The Reaping. It's a supernatural tale centering on a myth debunker who sets out to prove a small boy is not a supernatural force in a religious Texas town.

M. Night's Next

M. Night Shymalan will write and direct his next feature currently titled The Lady in the Water. It's a scifi/thriller to be developed by Warner Bros. The film centers around an apartment building manager who finds a mermaid type creature swimming in the apartment's pool. Disney was originally going to make the film, but in the end decided that it wasn't for them.

Horror/SciFi DVD releases for 3/29

The Horror Within
Ring of Darkness
Ripper 2: Letters from Within
Screamplay

Sad week for releases this time around. Just in case you're wondering, Ring of Darkness has nothing to do with The Ring, but it does star Adrienne Barbeau!

Ring 3 Probable

With the opening weekend success of The Ring 2, there is already talk of a third installment. Hideo Nakata, the director of both Ringu and the Ring 2 remake has expressed an interest in making the third one. With so many people complaining how bad the second was, maybe the studios should wait and see how much it makes this week before putting anything behind it. I have a feeling there will be a large dropoff in the box office.

And The Villian For Spiderman 3 is....

VENOM!!! Yes, what everyone has been hoping for apperently is going to happen. Joblo.com is reporting that the black clad supervillian will be played by Thomas Hayden Church. The entire article is available by clicking the link.
http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=6961

Book of the Week: Breed by Owl Goingback

Besides having one heck of a cool name, Owl Goingback is also a very good writer. He knows how to craft a nice ghost story, with quite a bit of historical information about the location of his story. That happens to be St. Augustine, Florida for this book. There's something astir in the historic old Tolomato cemetary and the spirit of none other than Chief Tolomato enlists the help of a tour guide to aide him in stopping the deadly force that's been unleashed. There are some good comic moments between the deceased Chief and his helper, Ssabra Onih. Owl is also very adept at creating inventive and detailed ways for his characters to bite the dust. Breed is a very entertaining read from a relatively new writer who has alot of promise ahead of him. I give it **** out of *****.

Movie of the Week: The Frighteners

Michael J. Fox stars in this strange mix of ghost story, comedy and serial killer pic. Directed by none other than LOTR's Peter Jackson, the movie moves at a nice pace and has more than it's share of visual treats. As a matter of fact, it was the last movie Jackson worked on before taking on Tolkien's trilogy. Fox stars as Frank Bannister, a psychic investigator who enlists the help of a few ghosts to help scam money out of people for ridding them of his ghosts. The film turns spooky when Death actually comes calling and starts killing people and leaving a numerical calling card on the heads of it's victims. It's up to Frank to find out what is doing the killing and find a way to stop it. Along for the ride are great performances from John Astin, Dee Wallace Stone, Jake Busey and a show stopping Jeffrey Combs. If any actor other than Combs was cast for his role, the film would never have been that same, or as good. This is a movie I can watch again and again, it's just that fun. I give it ****1/2 out of *****.

Ring Rules the Weekend

The Ring 2 proved once again that Horror is a hot commodity for today's moviegoer, stealing the number one spot from family favorite Robots. Ring 2 managed to pull in 36 million over the weekend, despite the advanced bad reviews of the film.

Star Wars 3D

According to The Hollywood Reporter, George Lucas is planning on re-releasing his Star Wars series back into the theaters starting in 2007. This time however, the films will be presented in 3D. Now, I don't know about you, but I think this is getting ridiculous. I mean, the man has talent, why not work on some fresh new material? At what point do you say "been there, seen that"?

New Batman Begins Poster!

Man, it's a big weekend for new poster reveals! Here's the new one for Batman Begins, which opens June 17. This film looks like it rocks and I'm hoping it does.

Hellboy 2 News

The sequel to one of the best comic book adaptations ever is in process of being made. So far, Ron Perlman and Selma Blair have been confirmed to reprise their roles and Guillermo Del Toro is to direct again. Selma is also on board to star in Adrianne Barbeau's role in The Fog remake prior to Hellboy 2.

Grudge Unrated Box Art

Here's what to look for on the shelves come May 17th. The unrated Director's Cut features almost a full 7 minutes of horrifying goodness and it's supposed to make the film much better than the theatrical version.

Classics Being Remade

For anyone that's interested, here's a list of some old classics being remade in the near future.

Altered States, House of Wax
The Bad Seed, Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Black Christmas, It's Alive
The Blob, Pet Semetary
Bride of Frankenstein, Prom Night
The Changeling, Scanners
The Evil Dead, The Sentinel
The Fly, Suspiria
The Fog, The Thing
The Hills Have Eyes, When a Stranger Calls
The Wicker Man

Hollywood must really be running low on original horror if they're remaking movies that have already been remade! And come on, was Pet Semetary released so long ago that it needs a remake already?

CD of the Week: Hot Fuss by The Killers

I feel like I'm stuck in the Eighties for some reason lately with Transylvania 6-5000 being the Movie of the Week, and watching Pauly Shore is Dead and now this CD. Granted this disc came out in June of 2004, but i'll be damned if it doesn't sound like it was made in that decade of excess. Any one of the tracks sound as if they would fit in a John Hughes movie. The Killers do a good job of bringing that type of feel to their sound, almost like The Cure but more up beat. The disc is pretty solid in it's song construction and most songs are rather good. I chalk it up as another of those rare discs that you put in and let play while you're working on a project or just cleaning the house. I give the CD **** out of *****.

Horror/SciFi DVD Releases for 3/22

Finding Neverland
The Final Cut
Batman and Robin: Complete '49 Serial Collection
Blood Angels
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 1, Episodes 1-2
Death4Told
Godzilla 5 Pack
Godzilla 7 Pack
Star Wars: Clone Wars Volume 1 (Animated)
Toxie's Triple Terror Volume 7
When Puppets and Dolls Attack

Who cares about Finding Neverland when you can watch When Puppets and Dolls Attack?!?

The Skeleton Key

Here's the creepy poster for Kate Hudson's new summertime scarefest called The Skeleton Key. It takes place in the Louisiana Bayou and it has voodoo, witchcraft and all kinds of spooky atmosphere. At least that's what I get from the trailer, which looks pretty good. You can check it out for yourself at the link.
http://movies.yahoo.com/movies/feature/theskeletonkeyqt.html

Book of the Week: The Highwayman by R.A. Salvatore

Set in Salvatore's rich world of Corona years before the DemonWar series, this action yarn moves quickly and doesn't fail to entertain. Nobody can pen a fight scene like Salvatore. The tale centers around the creation of The Highwayman, a mysterious masked man who has his own form of justice. There is a good balance between the fighting scenes and the creation of the hero\anti-hero. You get the feeling at the end of the book that this is a startup book for a new series. Salvatore seems to have taken bits of Batman, Robin Hood and some of his own characters like Drizzt and Elbryan and stuck them all in a blender and came up with a new hero. I really enjoyed this book and hope for the story to continue. And if that wasn't enough, the hardback version comes with a new Drizzt short story, how can you beat that? The Highwayman gets **** out of *****.

Movie of the Week: Transylvania 6-5000

Man, this movie brings back some memories. Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley, Jr. work great as a comic team in this laughfest from the eighties. The film is also a great comic vehicle for Geena Davis (in her best role ever, in my opinion), Michael Richards (Seinfeld's Kramer), Carol Kane, Jeffery Jones and an outstanding performance by Joseph Bolongna as the mad scientist. The laughs get bigger and bigger as the movie continues. The scene where Ed Begley asks the locals if they've seen Frankenstien is absolutely comic heaven. This was never a big hit so alot of people never heard of it, but take my word for it, if you have any sense of humor you will laugh, and laugh alot. I give it **** out of *****.

Tarantino Kills Jason Rumor!

Empire Online caught up with the Pulp Fiction director at the Empire Awards to get to the truth of the Friday the 13th rumors. Quentin was quoted saying,"It’s a complete lie. I like Jason and everything, but I’ve no intention of directing a movie! New Line talked to me about it, but it was a complete fabrication, that article. I would love to do a horror film. I’m just saying it’s not going to be Friday The 13th..." Well, I know that squashes alot of excitement about the film, but that's hollywood! Believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear. All I know is those Phantasm rumors better not be lies too!