It's the first trailer for Superman!

And, ummm... little on the fence about this.  I think David Corenswet is definitely tapping into the Superman mystique.  When I see him as Superman and then as Clark Kent it really is like looking at two different people, which is what Christopher Reeve - the gold standard for the character - pulled off magnificently.

I'm wondering if this trailer packs in too much for a teaser.  This is our first time looking at James Gunn's Superman, due out this coming July 11.  It doesn't give us as much sense of wonder about Superman himself as I was anticipating.  But, Krypto is awesome!  Who doesn't love dogs? :-)

Anyhoo, here is the teaser, which dropped a little while ago.  See for yourself and feel free to leave a comment.

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Public domain is destroying my childhood (Look at what they've done to Popeye!)

In the past couple of years some beloved characters have begun entering public domain.  And that's led to them being abused by people with less than noble intent.  The worst example probably being the recent film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, in which Pooh becomes a feral bear hellbent on revenge for Christopher Robin abandoning him.  It's a horrible thing to do to such a revered children's character and of course it found an audience, probably of people who never cared to even watch the Disney movie much less read the original book.

But what "they" have done to Popeye has got to be worse than that.

Here is the trailer for Popeye the Slayer Man:

This is actually one of two movies coming up featuring a murderous Popeye.  The other is Shiver Me Timbers and it looks more horrible than this one.

I'm sure the people who do this think they're being "cute" but they're really not.  It's almost pitiful: They could be using their talents and their tools to make something much more original and endearing to a larger audience.  And instead they are giving us this... crap.

This isn't something being done in tribute to a beloved franchise.  It's not like this is a "fan film".  A true fan film is done out of care and devotion and appreciation.  Star Wars has had tons of fan-produced movies, some of them even full-length features.  Nobody who has made a serious fan film ever expected to actually make money for their effort.  It's something you do because you have a neat idea that you want to express your love of that particular setting and its characters with.  And because making movies can be a fun experience for everyone involved.  There is a kind of child-like innocence that happens when making a sincere fan film.  We certainly had that vibe when my friends and I made Forcery years ago.

Popeye the Slayer Man is not any of that at all.  It's a cheap cash grab making a mockery of the source material.  There is nothing whatsoever "funny" or "horror"-filled about its premise.  Just like the other movies being derived from characters now lapsing into public domain.

I certainly won't be seeing this.  Any more than I saw the Pooh "film".  And I sincerely hope that nobody involved in this dreck ever gets taken seriously by the entertainment industry.

Betty Boop enters public domain next year.  God only knows what some sick minds out there plan to do to her.

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Teaser video for the final season of Stranger Things

Why didn't somebody tell me about this??  It was released three weeks ago!!

Oh alright, I guess I've just been so busy with things that I didn't notice.  The past three months or so have been so whacked on my end.  I'm sure an awful lot slipped under my radar.

But I'm glad to be seeing it now.  Stranger Things has more or less become the only pop cultural franchise that I'm interested in anymore.  Star Wars is now such a mess that I finally gave up being a fan.  And Doctor Who has gone completely off the rails in the worst way.

Well, there is one final season left of Stranger Things.  Feels like an enormous epoch of my life is winding down.  This show is going to leave a vacuum and I don't know what is going to fill it.

So here is the teaser for season five, with the titles of the episodes to look forward to.  Speculate away!

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It's the first poster and trailer for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!

I've had the honor and the great pleasure of being among the cast of two productions of the stage play of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  If it were possible I would play the head fireman every year for the rest of my life, it was so much fun!  It's a wonderful story rife with holiday hilarity, hijinks, and hope.

I had no idea that this movie was coming, the announcement struck right out of the blue.  But I'm already looking forward to it with great zeal.  This is the second time that the book has been adapted into a motion  picture, the first was a television movie for the ABC network in 1983.  This new version is directed by Dallas Jenkins, who I have a lot of respect for.

And if done right The Best Christmas Pageant Ever could... emphasis could... become a holiday tradition movie every bit as much as Home Alone.  It might be THAT good.

So here's the first poster that was released a few days ago:

And here's the first trailer, which promises lots of chaos from the Herdman kids:

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is set to premiere in theaters this November 8th.

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The announcement trailer for Gears of War: E-Day

I  very rarely play video or computer games anymore.  Mostly it's because of a lack of time.  And there are other amusements too, like having a miniature dachshund.  But that doesn't mean I don't have an active interest in the industry...

(I am currently trying to finish Fallout: New Vegas at last, whenever I'm having some downtime.  It's only been out since 2010.  Time to wrap that baby up!)

There is one game franchise that is especially near and dear to my heart though: the Gears of War series.

Maybe it's because each of the games seem to have coincided with some circumstance in my life.  Gears of  War was released on November 7th, 2006.  That was also Election Day of my first/likely last political campaign.  Then came Gears of War 2 two years later.  That game came out a few weeks after the worst thing that ever happened to me.  I had lost everything except a few belongings including, somehow, my Xbox 360.  That second Gears game provided a much needed distraction from myself.  And then in 2011 came Gears of War 3.  I think my girlfriend at the time found my excitement to be more than a bit amusing... like when I called her on the phone at 10 p.m. to tell her that I'd successfully defended Anvil Gate.

I haven't been able to play Gears of War: Judgment yet though.  Again, circumstances coincided and not the best of them at that.  And I haven't had much opportunity to get a more modern Xbox system, so the fourth and fifth of the main Gears series are still unplayed by me.

Maybe someday I'll get that newer Xbox.  Maybe it'll coincide with a new BioShock game (another game series I love immensely).  And based on what was released yesterday, I'm making it a personal goal to get that Xbox X or whatever it's called...

Behold the announcement trailer for Gears of War: E-Day.

As the title suggests this game is set during around Emergence Day, fourteen years before the first Gears of War.  These are considerably younger versions of Marcus and Dom.  We're going to see the very first attacks by the Locusts upon the humans of Sera and based on the trailer it's going to be brutal.

Gears of War: E-Day is scheduled to be released sometime in 2025, probably around the fall if previous games have been any indication.

Maybe this next game's release will coincide with happier circumstances.  For all of us.

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I plan on wearing my Ghostbusters uniform on opening day of this

 New trailer for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire dropped a few hours ago and I've watched it a few times now.  I'm getting a vibe that this might be the best film since the original.  It's hitting on all the right notes.  And hey, it even has the return of Walter Peck!

Watch it here:

 

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Reveal trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle!

Word is breaking loose at this hour that Bethesda's new Indiana Jones game has finally been revealed...

Coming later this year it's Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.  Looks set pre World War II aka the "golden era" of the saga.  As for the "MacGuffin" of this particular adventure, there are hints of in in the trailer that went live a little while ago.

So let's take a look at it!

I'm not much of a video game player anymore (though I still want to eventually finish Fallout: New Vegas) but this might tempt me to get a new console.  Well, of course a new BioShock game would make me want that even more :-)

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I have watched the teaser trailer for GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE at least ten times so far...

 ...and, well, I'm stoked about this movie.  It looks like it could be even better than Ghostbuster: Afterlife.  And I loved that movie a lot.

Here's the teaser for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire that dropped yesterday:

I will definitely be wearing my Ghostbusters uniform to the theater to see this.  All the more reason to upgrade my boots for it :-)

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"Zathras warn": The trailer for BABYLON 5: THE ROAD HOME

It was released earlier today.  I've watched this trailer for Babylon 5: The Road Home at least five times now... and I am stoked.  It looks beautiful.  And it seems that they've done an excellent job at casting the voice actors for the characters whose original portrayers have "gone beyond the Rim" over the years.

(I'm hoping that we get at least one look inside Garibaldi's quarters aboard Babylon 5.  Just to see if the painting of Daffy Duck is still there.)

Anyhoo... enjoy!

Babylon 5: The Road Home hits digital download, 4K, and Blu-ray on August 15th, 2023.

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 42

Gonna be WAY easy to post today!  The trailer for Stranger Things season four dropped this morning.  I may or may not have watched this a few times at the office today.

Holy smokes!  Hard to believe it's been three years since season three.  Looks like the wait will be worth it though.  Love the use of Journey's "Separate Ways" in this.  Just... epic, man.

War is coming indeed.  And did you catch Robert Englund's character with the gouged-out eyes?  What the heck?!

Stranger Things season four hits Netflix on May 27th. 

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First trailer for DUNE is epic!

Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune just dropped its first trailer.  And it looks insane!!  The film itself is due in December and here's hoping that the theaters (and everything else) will finally be wide open because this looks to be a movie screaming for the big screen experience.  Love the reveal of the sandworm!

Turn your peepers toward this, ladies and gents:

 

Will Villeneuve's Dune succeed where two previous adaptations have come up short?  I thought the Sci-Fi Channel's version was an admirable attempt (and it did give us the follow-up Children of Dune) and however glorious a mess it was, David Lynch's Dune has a hypnotic quality to its production design.  But those didn't quite nail it.  Or maybe Dune is one of those stories best left to the book and the reader's imagination.  We'll find out in a few months.

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Trailers for OVERLORD and GLASS

American soldiers fighting undead horror during the invasion of Normandy.  Maybe instead of Overlord it could have been titled The Longest Night.  Get it?  Get it?!  "Yes ladies and gentlemen I'll be here all week, try the salad!"

Just one complaint about an otherwise great trailer: the music.  Not very much fitting for a World War  II setting no matter it's unique conceit.  Could have been more suggestive of the era.  Nonetheless, I will be looking for this one.

And then there is the first trailer for Glass, that premiered during Comic Con yesterday.  Still haven't seen Split but I did hear about its tie-in with Unbreakable: a film I have loved since seeing it when I lived in Asheville years ago.  M. Night Shyamalan looks to be giving us a genre we don't deserve and didn't even know we needed: a "thinkin' man's" superhero shared cinemaverse.  I might be finally catching Split via iTunes later today.  In the meantime, here's the first look at Glass, which breaks loose this January. And to be honest, this is the first trailer for anything in quite awhile that has me stoked about seeing the movie...

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The final official trailer for ENDER'S GAME

It's been almost a quarter-century since I first read Ender's Game and for almost as long I've heard a movie adaptation being discussed.  With less than three months before it finally comes out, I'm at long last... feeling more than cautiously optimistic that this will be a very, very good movie.

Here's the last trailer we'll see before the release on November 1st:


I know it would be ridiculously difficult to pull off because in so many ways it's a wildly different sort of tale, but I'm hoping this movie does well so an adaptation of the sequel Speaker for the Dead can get greenlit.

And I'm sooooo looking forward to watching and writing a review of this movie!  Even more than I did for Watchmen, maybe...

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Trailer for THE BROTHERS RAPTURE fan-made BioShock movie!

BioShock Infinite has been out for over a month. It's a game I haven't played an I'm not inclined to either. Why? Because in this blogger's opinion it's not a true BioShock game.

For me, the BioShock mythos will always be focused on Rapture: that city beneath the waves of the North Atlantic, not a brightly-lit metropolis floating Lord-knows-where in the sky. The first BioShock game was and remains the most intellectual and even enlightening video game I have ever enjoyed. It's difficult even calling it a "video game".  From what I've heard, BioShock Infinite's world of Columbia is a beauty to behold and has a degree of moral choice... but in the end it doesn't leave as strong an impression as Rapture.

I'll say it again: BioShock is high-brow literature of a whole new kind that hasn't been seen before. And its sequel BioShock 2 did a pretty good job continuing its themes.  And I think there's plenty, plenty of room for a BioShock 3 and more past that.  Maybe it could be a few years later in the 1970s and the U.S. and Soviet governments finally learn about Rapture and try to take it.  I'm not the first to think that and I hope that the folks at 2K have thought of it either... or any idea that would even more terrific!

Well anyhoo, the real BioShock saga has long inspired some amazing work by its fans and now a group of filmmakers has produced a film that looks just as good if not better than anything Hollywood is likely to crank out!  The Brothers Rapture (click here for its official Facebook page) is getting released next week on May 13th, but there's already a trailer for it.

And it is gorgeous to behold!


As the article at The Escapist describes it: " Set before the hidden city underwent cultural and physical collapse, The Brothers Rapture explores the people who thrived in a land without limits.  It appears to take the setting and theme of Bioshock and spin them out into an original story.  The trailer shows the brothers Charles and Arthur, artists newly arrived in Rapture.  They seem overjoyed at the freedom that Rapture offers them, until a shady figure in a dapper hat shows up offering to turn their very hands into tools.  Expect philosophical arguments and scenes of people shooting large vials of glowing goo into their arms."

Seriously, I don't know which I'm now looking forward to more next week: Star Trek Into Darkness, or this baby.

A thankful tip o' the hat to loyal reader Roxanne Martin for forwarding this along! :-)

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Well, here we go... the trailer for ENDER'S GAME

I shall remain cautiously optimistic. Ender's Game comes out on November 1st.

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MAN OF STEEL trailer, and the last one for STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

I've a theory: Benedict Cumberbatch is playing Khan Noonien Singh. In the post-Kelvin altered timeline the Botany Bay was found years earlier than it was in the original Star Trek series, and Khan wound up working for Starfleet's black ops. Then years later he comes back for revenge for something or 'nother and that's when he and Kirk will tangle for the "first" time.

But if he's an entirely new character, I'm down for that too. Either way from the looks of this final trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness, it's gonna be a toad-strangler of a movie!

Meanwhile the new trailer for Man of Steel swooped onto the Intertubes a short while ago...

I will believe this Superman can fly :-)

And this movie has had some of the most beautiful trailers that I have seen for a summer tentpole in a long, long time.

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CALVIN AND HOBBES: THE MOVIE trailer

Unfortunately it's something fan-made and... eeeeeaaaaaAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH SOMEBODY PLEASE MAKE THIS MOVIE MAKE IT REAL SERIOUSLY MAKE IT REAL REAL REAL!!!

Bill Watterson should let us chip into a Kickstarter and get this produced! Make $50 million the goal and it will reach it in less than a day...


Props to GrittyReboots for the great work!  And thanks goes to Billy Cripe for finding this :-)

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STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS has a new trailer!

Less than two months before this baby erupts across our peepers and I can't wait!

Whether he turns out to be Khan or not, Benedict Cumberbatch has already sold me as being a classic Trek villain.

Does anyone else think that the Starfleet war room looks a lot like the one in Dr. Strangelove? Here's praying that Star Trek Into Darkness doesn't end with Kirk riding a torpedo while whooping and hollerin'...

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It's the REAL first trailer for STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS!

Eleven days ago J.J. Abrams' boys at Bad Robot let loose their teaser for Star Trek Into Darkness. Paramount is officially calling that one an "announcement" for the upcoming movie.

Then this afternoon they release what they're claiming is the actual first trailer for it.

Confused? Yeah me too kinda.

But I think most will agree: this could be, so far, the most intense and poignant trailer for a Star Trek movie ever:

You're gonna have to watch it in Quicktime if you wanna see it 'cuz at the moment the Paramount lawyers are having it wiped like crazy from YouTube. Besides, you REALLY want to watch this in full beautiful Quicktime anyway. Trust me :-)

Still no word on whether or not Benedict Cumberbatch will be playing Khan. But right now the confidence is pretty high that Alice Eve's character will be Carol Marcus. And then there's that final shot from this trailer that will remind everyone of a certain famous scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan...

Gotta love a good mystery!

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"So... shall we begin?" STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS teaser is online!

I'm telling y'all here and now, that when Star Trek Into Darkness comes out in May... that for the first time in my life I will show up on its premiere night wearing a Starfleet costume. And I will wear the uniform proudly! I even have an idea for it but you good readers will have to just wait and see :-)

So what is it that would so motivate your friend and humble narrator to make such a drastic departure from his usual space saga haberdashery?

Boldly go and watch this teaser trailer! Do it NOW!!

Okay, I am going to place my bets now: that is Khan Noonien Singh who Benedict Cumberbatch is playing. And that's my final answer until we know for sure. Because whoever Cumberbatch's character is he is absurdly strong, agile and blessed with apparently superior intellect. Sound like a certain genetically-enhanced superman to me...

And the rest of the teaser ain't too shabby either :-)

Wanna see it even better? Set your phasers to "fun" and watch it in full high-def glorious Quicktime here!

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