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Love the appearance of the CGI here. It's a spot-on merging of modern animation style with Charles Schulz's classic look.
But the highlight of course is the characters. Looks like most of the Peanuts gang all in one shot, including Snoopy's siblings (even Olaf made the cut!). And ya gotta appreciate the Little Red Haired Girl's face hidden behind the bag of popcorn...
Sometime in the 23rd century, it's gonna be a very bad day to be in London...
(click to embiggen at warp speed)
The figure looking across the blasted British landscape of the 23rd century is Benedict Cumberbatch's character. At this point I don't believe he's meant to be Gary Mitchell: the new ongoing Star Trek comic series overseen by J.J. Abrams' crew took care of the alternate reality's version of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" right out of the gate, and I heavily doubt they would ignore their own continuity like that by making Mitchell this movie's villain. But I don't think it's going to be Khan either. 2009's Star Trek was a wallop of one surprise after another: it remains the Blu-ray getting the most play at my house. And right now I'm so stoked about Star Trek Into Darkness that I don't care who the bad guy is going to be. This movie will rock and we all know it!
Speaking of Star Trek and things British, the girlfriend and I have seriously been digging the Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation2 limited series from comic publisher IDW. Yeah they went there: a crossover between Doctor Who and Star Trek. And curiously they work rather well together! Set after the Battle of Wolf 359, Assimilation2 has the Doctor, Amy and Rory landing aboard the Enterprise D just as the Federation is forced to deal once again with the Borg.... who have found a kindred spirit in their new allies the Cybermen. Lots of stuff here that'll appeal to TrekkiesTrekkers and Whovians alike. Hey, "the TARDIS on the Holodeck". What more needs to be said? :-)
ActionFest returns in just over a month to beat the snot out of Asheville, North Carolina (I mean that in a good way). This will be the third year for the world's only film festival devoted to action movies and the people who make them possible. I am thankful to have been at the inaugural event and then last year's festival. And I'm looking forward to being at ActionFest 2012 as well :-)
Here's the official poster for the festival...
The opening night's film is gonna be Solomon Kane, and ActionFest will close out with Wu Xia. I've been looking forward to seeing Solomon Kane for awhile now and I've only heard insanely good stuff about Wu Xia.
Imagine if, five decades before James Cameron set to work on it, it had been Howard Hawks instead who gave us Avatar... starring William Shatner, Natalie Wood, John Wayne, Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner?
It would probably look just like the poster on the right. And that's just one of the many very kewl "what-if?" scenarios that artist Peter Stults has come up with in "Movies from an Alternate Universe". Stults has brilliantly executed a series that... well, just try not to imagine Christopher Walken as the T-1000 when you see this rendering of Terminator 2: Judgment Day!
Great work Peter! And thanks to Kristen for directing our attention to this great feature :-)
I know practically nothing about The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, apart from this book being everywhere when I go into any of the local bookstores. In fact, the synopsis for the upcoming film adaptation - which I just read a short while ago - is all that I know about it at all...
Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the evil Capitol of the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games. A twisted punishment for a past uprising and an ongoing government intimidation tactic, The Hunger Games are a nationally televised event in which "Tributes" must fight with one another until one survivor remains. Pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives, Katniss is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy. If she's ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love. THE HUNGER GAMES is directed by Gary Ross, and produced by Nina Jacobson's Color Force in tandem with producer Jon Kilik. Suzanne Collins' best-selling novel, the first in a trilogy published by Scholastic that has over 16 million copies in print in the United States alone, has developed a massive global following.
What sayeth y'all who might have read this book: any good?
Here's the just-released poster for it, which has officially colored me intrigued...
Okay, I just found that there's also this trailer for it too...
Looks pretty solid. I may have to make time to read this book before the movie comes out :-)
2010's The Expendables was twelve scoops of action insanity with sprinkles on top! Saw it at the theater with my good friend Steven and, it just all-out assaulted our eyedrums and earballs with high octane metal mayhem and madness. In short it was exactly the kind of movie that we used to dream of seeing happen back in the Eighties and Nineties... and then some!
So if putting all that action heavyweight into the same film was gloriously good fun the first time, what might we expect from The Expendables 2, due this coming summer?
Ah-nuldt, you should have stayed in acting all this time instead of playing at governor of California. And looks like we're gonna get a whole new heapin' helpin' of Chuck Norris whup-ass!
The geek in me wants this movie to premiere first at ActionFest, 'cuz I've been going to that festival since it began in April of last year and it's the perfect venue for this sort of thing! But if not, I can wait 'til August :-)
As of this writing I'm in the midst of an emergency that has me... well, occupied, to put it mildly. Can't say enough how thankful my family is for the thoughts and prayers that a lot of people have been sending. And that's all I should say for the time being.
But I've a dire need to post something upbeat. And all two of my readers (okay there's more than that, and this blogger appreciates every one of you who takes time to read The Knight Shift on a regular basis :-) deserve something uber-kewl to tide y'all over until I get back to regular postin'.
So let me preface this by saying thusly, that you heard it here first: this movie will make a billion dollars at the box office. At least.
It was the summer of 1993, during my crazy two-week visit to a good friend in Belgium, that I was introduced to The Adventures of Tintin. And in spite of the sad lack of availability of the Tintin comics on this side of the pond, I most certainly consider myself to be a fan of Tintin: the intrepid young investigative journalist who along with faithful canine sidekick Snowy, has a lot of neat... ummmmmm... well, adventures :-) Tintin is a huge phenomenon all around the world but not in America. Not yet...
I told my friend Bennie in '93 that Tintin would make an awesome movie. I've been waiting for that to happen ever since.
Well, coming this Christmas to movie theaters everywhere, it's The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn. Directed by... Steven Spielberg (it's his first time ever directing a CGI film)! Produced by... Peter Jackson! The screenplay by... Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish! Orchestral score by... John Williams! Starring... Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Cary Elwes, and Daniel Craig! Among many others!
Holy Toledo. Just seeing Spielberg's and Jackson's and Williams' and Moffat's (currently the showrunner of Doctor Who) together like that alone gives me geek cardiac infarction.
That is... totally Tintin and Snowy. The darkness and ambiance of this image, is spot-on the world of Tintin.
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!!! Now behold the first teaser trailer that got released yesterday. Is this not the most GLORIOUS computer-generated animated EVER or what?!?
Can not, can not, CAN NOT wait until Christmas! This is going to be epic on a generational scale.
Okay, that should satisfy y'all until I can get back good 'n proper in the next few days :-)
When friend and fellow filmmaker Marco van Bergen sent me the teaser poster for his upcoming film Shadowlands, I immediately e-mailed him back something to the effect of "Marco, get some therapy dude!"
But seriously: it is a rather neat image, although rather bloody. But I like how it compels the eye to dart around it, picking out grisly detail and the film's tagline...
Hmmm... not too jazzed by this one. Maybe it has to do with it being that I've yet to see the movie version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? More likely the fact that as much as I love the Harry Potter books, I've grown weary of the film adaptations. They've diverted so much from the original novels that I for one would welcome a new attempt to make a movie franchise of this series ten or so years from now (ideally one movie a year for seven years, with the same cast). 'Twould definitely benefit from being produced in hindsight.
Anyways, there's yer first teaser poster for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the first part of which is due out later this year.
The new poster for Iron Man 2 was released yesterday and unless you saw the footage that was shown at this year's Comic-Con (which I didn't see, 'cuz I've never visited California, and I'd like to someday :-) then this is our first glimpse of War Machine. Looks great! I especially love how they included the shoulder-mounted cannon. And throwing Don Cheadle into the armor only makes it better!
