Chris Evans may take a break from acting after his Marvel contract is up.
“I think when I’m done with this Marvel contract, I’ll take a little break from acting,with acting, you’re one piece in a very big puzzle. It’s like you helped buy a gift but you don’t know what the gift is, so you come back and see the movie. Sometimes it’s nice, sometimes it’s tragic. This process [directing], you’re involved in every single decision. If I hadn’t done it, I’d be really kicking myself. At the time, it was a daunting task for a number of reasons, but in hindsight it was the right move.”
Transformers: Age of Extinction
Here is a new poster with Mark Wahlberg holding either a fancy ass gun or a prop sword from the World of Warcraft movie he found laying around and decided “what the hell”.
TV
The Walking Dead
For the first time since the plodding Season 2, an episode of The Walking Dead bored me. The name of the episode should have been a warning; it was titled “Still”.
Rob Zombie
The rocker/director is developing a limited series based on the Charles Manson murders on Fox. The series will “tell converging stories of people and events leading up to and after the murders, from shifting points of view.” Everything about this seems like a win.
Late Night with Seth Meyers
Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart are the kings of Twitter and they are now the kings of late night after taking over Late Night this past Friday.
http://youtu.be/5J_tk25AYVQ
Games
Mass Effect
Bioware has stated that they have discussed releasing a remastered Mass Effect Trilogy for the Playstation 4 and Xbox One. I approve of this. If they can make it as good as the recently released Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, I will gladly play through them again.
3DS
Nintendo will release a Yoshi-themed 3DS XL on March 14th for $199.99. Yoshi can be manly. I may get it…shut the fuck up.
Toys
Superman
Sideshow Collectibles is making a Premium Format Figure featuring the once and always Superman, Christopher Reeve. Check out the sneak peek.
Happy Halloween! My second favorite holiday is here and that means watching my favorite horror series ever. So I decided I would give everyone an easy list of all the movies in the Halloween franchise from best to worst.
Beware! William Shatner masks and annoying singing TV commercials ahead.
1. Halloween (1978)
I decided to do this list first to worst instead of vice versa because the real intrigue is what will be at the bottom. The original John Carpenter classic will always be number one. It brought a new kind of terror to theaters 35 years ago and essentially created the slasher movie craze.
2. Halloween II (1981)
After Halloween hit John Carpenter became the next big thing for directors. He was too busy with his schedule of finishing up The Fog and filming Escape from New York to come back for the sequel but he and partner Debra Hill wrote the script which continued the story of Laurie Strode and Michael Myers on the same night. While there is a dip in quality, its hospital backdrop has always been a favorite of mine. Also, it has given us the song that Bud sang. “Amazing Grace, come sit on my face. Don’t make me cry, I need your pie.”
3. Halloween (2009)
After a five year break, Michael Myers returned in the form of Rob Zombie’s Halloween. The director retold the origin story of Michael and his subsequent madness in today’s time and it worked. It was brutal, visceral and made way for new versions of Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. Did anyone else find it weird seeing Danielle Harris nude after watching 4 & 5 so many times?
4. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
Acting as if Halloween 4-6 never happened, Jamie Lee Curtis returned as Laurie Strode in the sequel to Halloween 1 & 2. Still haunted by memories of that one night 20 years earlier even though she has moved across country and changed her name, Michael returns to come after her and her son. You also get an early Joseph Gordon Levitt death.
5. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
When Halloween 3’s attempt at a new singular story failed to capture anyone’s imaginations it was decided that Michael Myers and Dr. Loomis needed to come back from the supposed dead that happened at the end of Halloween 2. With Jamie Lee Curtis off being one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood, the writers killed her off in a car wreck and had Michael return to go after her daughter played by Danielle Harris. It was a decent addition to the franchise and had good box office since Michael Myers was back.
6. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1996)
A young Paul Rudd plays Tommy Doyle, the boy Laurie Strode was babysitting in the original Halloween. Jamie Lloyd (not played by Danielle Harris) is killed off and her baby is hunted down by Michael and some secret society that want to harness his power. This was Donald Pleasence’s last appearance as he died between filming being completed and the movie’s release.
7. Halloween 5: The Curse of Michael Myers (1989)
Halloween 4 was a hit so how did the studio react to it? By rushing out a sequel only a year later which put Halloween 4’s good ending on the back burner and had Danielle Harris return as Jamie Lloyd only to have her do her best Jodie Foster Nell impression for the first half of the movie. I always wonder what could have been if this had not been put on the fast track.
8. Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Halloween 2 director Rick Rosenthal returned to the franchise which also had Jamie Lee Curtis return as Laurie Strode for a few minutes. Then she died. Yep. On the run for 24 years and she lost. Michael returns home to see that a reality show has invaded his home and he starts offing folks until Busta Rhymes kung-fu fights him in a fire. I shit you not. It sounds like I just completely put a random set of words together to make a movie plot but this is really it.
9. Halloween II (2009)
Two years earlier Rob Zombie’s Halloween became the highest grossing movie in the franchise and people like me were excited when he came back to direct the sequel. What happened? Michael lumbers around with a lumberjack beard hanging from the bottom of his mask and almost stabs everyone in the face while sounding like he is having the world’s best/creepiest orgasm. I don’t know why Zombie got so face stab happy but it was a bit creepy. Scout Taylor-Compton returned as Laurie but the script called for her to act like such a massive bitch that I was actually hoping Michael would hurry up and stab her in the face 43 times. They also turned Malcolm McDowell’s Dr. Loomis into a fame-seeking asshole that I wished had stayed dead in the first movie.
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.
