Rob Zombie and I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with his movies. While I was rather indifferent about House of a 1000 Corpses its followup, The Devil’s Reject,s was a much better structured horror flick. Next, he reinvented the Michael Myers legend with his remake of Halloween which I still hold as the second best in the series behind the original. Then came the inevitable sequel which took everything good he did in the first film and proceeded to take a massive dump on it.
The trailer for The Lords of Salem has given me a little hope that Zombie is getting back to the feel of Rejects.
The trailer seems like it has a lot of influences flowing through it. The Devil’s Rejects, Rosemary’s Baby and The Wicker Man (the classic, not the Nic Cage debacle) all seem to be guiding the way Zombie is crafting this movie.
The Lords of Salem stars Sheri Moon Zombie (per usual and with no complaints from me), Sid Haig, Bruce Davison and Clint Howard, who is working more than Ron these days. It will releases on April 19th.
There has been no studio confirmation, but reports are saying that Marvel Films has found its lead in James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Parks and Recreation alum Chris Pratt has reportedly nabbed the role of Peter Quill known as Star Lord on the intergalactic team. Pratt beat out the likes of Joel Edgerton, Jim Sturgess and Jack Huston from Boardwalk Empire who all tested for the role.
The movie version of Guardians of the Galaxy will consist of Star Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora and Groot.
Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey have been in talks for an unspecified role but rumors suggest it will be for the voice of Rocket Raccoon. The role of Drax the Destroyer has been narrowed down to Isiah Mustafa, Brian Patrick Wade and former WWE wrestler Dave Bautista.
Guardians of the Galaxy releases on August 1, 2014.
How odd is it to realize that the Fast series is about the have its sixth movie release? Paul Walker should definitely be thankful because I am pretty sure it has paid his mortgage for the past ten years. While I was never a huge fan of the first four in the series, the fifth (Fast Five) was undeniably fun to me because it got away from the street racing scene (which I officially give zero cares about) and turned it into a Oceans 11 heist movie on steroids.
Now the gang is all back together again in the new trailer for Fast & Furious 6 which sees them offered full pardons for their help in catching a new big bad played by Luke Wilson and assisted by Michelle Rodriguez who has died in more movies and shows than I care to count.
Maybe Adam Sandler has found his new niche in Hollywood. While the actors live action movies have been hitting a brick wall lately, Hotel Transylvania is his biggest hit since Grown Ups almost two and a half years ago. And while it doesn’t exactly blaze new trails in animation or even come close to touching Pixar’s unquestionable quality, it does serve as a mostly enjoyable Halloween romp.
Count Dracula (Sandler) has built an immense castle dubbing it Hotel Transylvania, a place where all monsters can come and vacation away from the real world and be human free. Drac really has a secondary reason for the hotel being so well hidden. His daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) lives with him and he never wants her to leave the castle so he has spent her entire life filling her head with all the reasons why humans are the most horrible creatures in existence. Now it is time for her 118th birthday and on the eve of her huge party, which will be attended by all of Dracula’s (and Sandler’s) friends Frankenstein (Kevin James), the Wolfman (Steve Buscemi), Invisible Man (David Spade) and the Mummy (Cee Lo Green), her father has promised her that she may leave the castle and explore the village closest to them for a few minutes.
After she realizes that humans are terrible creatures, thanks to Dracula’s horde of zombie bellboys playing humans, Mavis promises to stay at the castle forever. During her party a human named Jonathan (Andy Samburg) happens upon the castle. Dracula thinks quickly and dresses him up as a long, lost relative of Frankenstein to keep the guests of the hotel unawares that a human is in their midst. For them to find out would be the end of the hotel.
As is expected, Mavis and Jonathan fall for each other and he shows her and all of the guests that there is a lot more fun to be had in life if you just open yourself up more.
What did you expect? It is a kids movie. It is not like we are dealing with Inception here.
Photo courtesy nydailynews.com
While all the voice performances are good and the animation is serviceable, Hotel Transylvania does play it safe plot wise. We get the boy meets girl, boy leaves girl, friends band together to get boy back story. The jokes are more kid based and don’t have quite the adult bite as some other animated features, but that’s OK. This movie wasn’t made for the fat, cynical, Adam Sandler weary crowd like yours truly.
That is not to say there is no fun to be had in Hotel Transylvania. I had more than a few chuckles with jokes involving the zombie bellboys and Jon Lovitz’s performance as Quasimodo, who plays the foil of the movie as he tries to catch Jonathon and make a human pot pie out of him.
Also fans of Samurai Jack, Dexter’s Laboratory and Star Wars: The Clone Wars should take note and give this a watch because it is directed by the legen-wait for it- dary Genndy Tartakovsky and his certain vibe can be felt throughout the film. It is a good start for his feature film directorial debut and hopefully the film’s success will get him looked at to handle more animated features.
Hotel Transylvania has some good stuff going for it. A solid voice and quality director keep this movie from dragging into the Ferngully’s of kids films. It has its share of laughs and can easily be a Halloween movie to enjoy with your family. Your kids should have a great time with it and as an adult you can take it from me, you can watch a lot worse movies that have vampires in lead roles. Much, much worse.
Benedict Cumberbatch was apparently talking to all the other movie trailers that were shown at the Super Bowl because this newest one for Star Trek Into Darkness is thirty seconds of goosebumpy, nerdy feels.
Can I just say how awesome it is to get Chris Pine in the yellow Starfleet uniform, which we really only got a glimpse of it at the end of 2009’s Star Trek. It also looks as if the Enterprise has see better days as we see it plummeting to Earth.
We are still taking bets on Cumberbatch’s role. Khan? Possibly. Gary Mitchell? Unlikely since the monthly comic series that bridges the two movies has already had a re-telling of that tale. Maybe he is playing a chryogenically frozen Sherlock that has been thawed out in the future and embraced his madness. The possibilities!
Star Trek Into Darkness releases on May 17th……NOPE!!
People that downloaded the official movie app were given the announcement first that Star Trek Into Darkness will now open on Wednesday, May 15th with showtimes beginning at 8PM.
If you were like me then you spent a good part of last night’s Super Bowl waiting for the Iron Man 3 trailer. And also, if you were like me, then you were a little disappointed when it was a snippet of an airplane rescue.
Fear not true believers!!
The extended trailer (which the Super Bowl ad shared the link to) completely makes up for it. For all you ladies, you get thirty straight seconds of Robert Downey Jr. then we get to see more footage including Happy not looking so happy, Rhodey in full Iron Patriot armor and more Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin. I really don’t see why Disney didn’t foot the bill and put the full trailer up last night.
Paramount and Marvel have released a new poster for Iron Man 3. In it our dear friend Tony Stark appears to be free falling to Earth as his suit breaks apart.
Director Shane Black seems to be taking Tony down a dark road in this third installment of the franchise. With the tone of the trailer released late last year and the introduction of Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin, it looks like Tony’s worst days are ahead of him.
Iron Man 3 will have a Super Bowl ad that will run during the big game this weekend and we will have it here for you on Monday.
Duncan Jones, director of Moon, Source Code and sometimes son of David Bowie, has taken on the massive job of bringing World of Warcraft to the big screen. The script was originally written by Robert Robat, who penned Saving Private Ryan. Charles Leavitt (Blood Diamond) has been brought on to rewrite the script.
Sam Raimi was supposed to direct the film, but had to drop out after multiple delays. Raimi moved on to direct Oz, The Great and Powerful with Oscar nominated stoner James Franco.
Warcraft fans should be happy with the news. Raimi is a great director but ever since Spider-Man 3….yeah. [amazon_link id=”B002T9H2ME” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Moon[/amazon_link] was one of my favorite sci-fi movies of the past ten years and Jones’ involvement in the project has piqued my interest.
So The Amazing Spider-Man 2 may have just made up for getting Jamie Foxx to play Electro. The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Oscar nominee and all-around short, round ball of awesomeness Paul Giamatti is in talks to play the role of Rhino in the sequel to last year’s reboot The Amazing Spider-Man. Can you say Sinister Six??
Rhino has been a part of Spider-Man’s rogue gallery since 1966. His origin story is that of Russian thug that wore a suit resembling a rhino that gave him super strength. So don’t worry too much Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti is hopefully on the way to class this joint up.
Empire Magazine’s newest issue has a few shots from the new Man of Steel movie including the impressive cover you see above of Henry Cavill fully suited as Superman. Also shown are shots of Russell Crowe as Jor-El and Michael Shannon as Zod.
Empire is a great read but I normally don’t want to pay 10 bucks for a magazine. That may change with this issue.
