Fishing in the Discount Bin -- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly viewing of one of the many DVDs in my personal library.  Back in the spring, I wanted to re-watch every Star Trek movie before Into Darkness came out, and that brings us to Part 3 of this series:  Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.  This is originally dated in my notes at April 6, 2013. 

Fishing in the Discount Bin - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

 Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly viewing of something in my movie library.  Back in the spring, I wanted to watch every Star Trek movie before Into Darkness came out, so I did.  And that brings us to the second part of my 12-part series "Every Star Trek Movie."  Dated in my notes at March 31, 2013, here's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. 

News from Markworld: December 2013

As has become my way, I'm blogging my annual Christmas card letter, for those who have drifted away, and may be googling my name some night, wondering whatever became of me. 

Good day!

Happy holidays from Mark Cappis!  Just taking a moment to slip a little friendly form letter into this Christmas card to let you know what happened to me in 2013.

Well, you’ve probably discovered the big thing by now.  You’ve probably looked at the return address and thought, “Hey, this didn’t come from Athabasca!  Mark moved!”  You are correct.  I am now in the Town of Westlock, serving as the afternoon host and assistant music director of 97.9 the Range.  Almost a year ago, the Company offered me the transfer to Westlock.  I was feeling ready for a new challenge, so I took the move.

For those not familiar with radio jobs, “music director” is the person at a radio station who actually picks the music that a station plays.  So it’s more duty and responsibility.  But, I’m still on the radio, and with added bonus of no longer having to be up at 4AM.

Other than that, it was a rather eventful year.  It was full of tragedy both large (my Opa passed away back at the start of summer) and small (hit a deer with my car).  It was full of victories both large (after being out of college for 14 years, finally got my student loans paid off) and small (used the leftover cash to finally get a hi-definition television). 

You’ll forgive me if I keep this brief.  Sitting down to pen this letter has been the #1 reason for me procrastinating and not getting my Christmas cards sent out, so I’ve taken a whole, “Let’s just get it done” attitude towards this.  As always, if you want more info about me and what I’m up to, my online foot print is far too large.  Google my name and the top three links that come up are my various blogs from over the years.  But to recap:

Main website:  www.chaosinabox.com
Blog:  chaosinabox.blogspot.com
Twitter:  @chaosinabox
Facebook:  facebook.com/chaosinabox
Podcast:  chaosinabox.com/podcast


And that’s my year in review.  I hope 2013 was good to you, and that 2014 will be even better.

Onwards and upwards!


Mark Cappis

Fishing in the Discount Bin - Star Trek: The Motion Picture -- The Director's Cut

Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, where I watch and rant about something in my DVD collection.  Today, we start something very special in this column.  I am a huge Trekkie.  Back in the spring, as I was getting ready for Star Trek Into Darkness, I got it in my head to sit down and watch every Star Trek movies.  So welcome to part 1 of my 12-part series, Every Star Trek Movie.  Like the song says, "Let's start at the very beginning...a very good place to start."  This is Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  This is dated in my notes at March 29, 2013.

Jupiter Ascending Upon Godzilla

If there's one thing that's stuck with me from my time in Japan, it's the schedule that movie studio Toho sticks to when it comes to releasing the latest films in their biggest franchises.  And that schedule is:

- March is for Doraemon
- July is for Pokemon
- December is for Godzilla

As such, whenever the holidays roll around, I can't help but get the itch to toss some Godzilla in the DVD player.  As such, I wish we were getting a new Godzilla movie in theatres right now.  And I really want to see the new Godzilla movie RIGHT NOW after seeing the first trailer for the latest American attempt to do a remake.

Yup, 15 years after 1998's Godzilla, the USA figured it was time once again to do their own rendition of Godzilla.  Legendary Pictures, the production company that partnered with DC Comics and Warner Brothers to do the Dark Knight Trilogy, acquired the movie rights to Godzilla back in 2010, and immediately went to work on producing a new, Americanized version.  To bring about this new version, Legendary got British director Gareth Edwards, whose 2010 indie film debut Monsters looked like he knew a thing or two about giant monster movies.  And to help out Edwards, legendary director and screenwriter Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) came on board to help write the screenplay.

Edwards put together an all-star cast, including Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick Ass in the Kick Ass movies), rising star Elizabeth Olson, Bryan Cranston (fresh of Breaking Bad) and Ken Watanabe.  A release date of May 2014 was locked in, and we got our very first trailer today.




OH. MY. GOD.  I've become much better versed in Godzilla lore since that 1998 film, and all I can say is, this looks like a Godzilla movie.  This really does look like they took Godzilla back to his roots.  Never forget, Godzilla was meant to represent the destruction caused by nuclear weapons, personified, and this...well, this looks like war.

We got the poster, too, and the trailer will be in theatres in front of The Hobbit.  Godzilla hits theatres on May 16.

 

And while I'm blogging about trailers, there's another one that came online that didn't make as big a splash as the Godzilla trailer, but it did catch my eye.  And that's the for Jupiter Ascending, the latest film from the Wachowskis.  

The Wachowskis have yet to recapture the acclaim they got for The Matrix Trilogy.  (Well..The Matrix at least.)  They wrote and produced the film version of V for Vendetta to mixed reviews.  I love the living hell out of Speed Racer, but I know I'm about one of twelve people on the planet who feel that way.   But Cloud Atlas got lots of critical love, and I haven't seen it yet.  

But after those adaptations, the Wachowskis are back with their latest original idea, Jupiter Ascending.  As with The Matrix trilogy, the Wachowskis are playing it pretty close to the vest, so we don't know too much about it.

We do know this brief plot synopsis.  Our heroine is Jupiter, a lowly cleaning lady in Chicago.  One day, though, she's abducted by intergalactic bounty hunter Caine, for something about her genetic make-up makes her a threat to the evil Queen of the Universe.  Of course, Caine must help Jupiter unlock her genetic potential, overthrow the Queen, and save the universe.

Jupiter is played by Mila Kunis, Caine is played by Channing Tatum, and Sean Bean pops up as well.

Everything about this trailer just looks...familiar.  A very familiar looking sci-fi universe.  Same ol' spaceships, same ol' outer space action.  And the plot.  A person leading a mundane existence who's believed to be "The One" and is whisked away to another world to try to save it.  Well, Wachowskis, if you know what works for you....

Jupiter Ascending hits theatres on July 24.

The News of Last Week

Wow, lots of good stuff happening last week that I've been wanting to sit and blog about.  And now, with a relatively quiet Sunday night, it's time to put pen to paper and blog away!

First up, we've got our first look at the next Spider-Man movie, The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  The next installment in this rebooted trilogy comes out in May.  Andrew Garfield is back as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Emma Watson is back as Gwen Stacey, and Sally Field is back as Aunt May.  New folks this time around include Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon/Electro, Paul Giamatti as Aleksi Systavich/Rhino, Dale DeHann is Harry Osborne, and Chris Cooper is Norman Osborn.

Behind the scenes, Marc Webb returns as director (and like every review for the first film, let's pause to appreciate the irony of his name).  Finessing the screenplay is the dynamic duo of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who wrote the Star Trek reboots.

Now that we know the players, let's gaze upon the film, shall we?




Wow. There is so much to love in that trailer, but it's giving me a sense of unease as well.  With our first glimpses of the Rhino, Electro, and a rebooted Green Goblin, plus hints of Dr. Octopus's tentacles and the Vulture's wings, it looks like we just may be getting a Sinister Six movie.  But is that a good thing?

With the runaway success of The Avengers, I fear that the current trend in superhero films is going to be to cram in as many heroes and villains as they can into a film.  For other examples, let's look at the upcoming mutant epic X-Men: Days of Future Past and the recent announcement that Gal Gadot will be playing Wonder Woman along side Ben Affleck's Batman and Henry Cavill's Superman in the upcoming Man of Steel sequel.  With all those characters, will we have room for them all?

See, at least with The Avengers and X-Men, we've had a whole film franchise before it so we could get to know the characters.  But with a Sinister Six in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, we'll hardly get a chance to know all the characters, and they'll just be a group of splashy red shirts.

Plus it looks the whole "mystery of Peter Parker's parents and origins" is once again going to be a huge plot point.  Remember with the first film, how it was all over the ad campaigns, only for that plot thread to be dropped within the first five minutes of the film?  Will this actually be the plot, or just another colossal tease?  

That being said, the things to love are outweighing my trepidations.  May 2!

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Speaking of X-Men: Days of Future Past, the film doesn't come out until May 23, but director Bryan Singer was the first to announce that they're already working on the sequel when he posted this tweet:

#Xmen #Apocalypse 2016!
— Bryan Singer (@BryanSinger) December 5, 2013

Yup, X-Men: Apocalypse is the next X-Film, coming in May of 2016.  For those not X-Men savvy, Apocalypse is one of the X-Men's deadliest foes.  One of the most powerful mutants, he is also supposedly the first one, having been born 5000 years ago.  His best-known storyline was called "Age of Apocalypse," where, thanks to an alternate timeline being formed, he became absolute ruler of Earth.

So the mind is beginning to boggle.  Will Apocalypse simply be the villain of X-Men: Apocalypse?  Will the time travel shenanigans of Days of Future Past lead to an Age of Apocalypse sequel?  The very popular rumour right now is that we'll at least be glimpsing Apocalypse is the post-credits scene of Days of Future Past.

And let's not forget, that's not the only X-Film in development.  Jeff Wadlow, the writer/director of this past summer's Kick-Ass 2, is already hard at work on trying to develop an X-Force film.  And The Wolverine's director James Mangold and Wolverine himself Hugh Jackman have been approached to give us another Wolverine solo film. 

So I think the X-Franchise is going to be around for quite some time.

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And lastly, something that was announced late on Friday afternoon.  When Disney bought LucasFilm a little over a year ago, and the whole world got caught up in the announcement of a new Star Wars film, the more observant asked, "Wait...does this mean that Disney owns Indiana Jones now, too?"

Well, we can now say...yes.

Apparently, Indy was a little more complicated than Star Wars.  While LucasFilm owned Star Wars lock, stock and barrel, Indy was part of a partnership between LucasFilm and Paramount Pictures.  So the past year was spent re-negotiating the terms of that partnership.

So, with re-negotiations done, Paramount now owns the four Indiana Jones films, and Disney owns the Indiana Jones characters, giving Disney free reign to make more Indiana Jones films, should they choose.

Is the world ready for more Indy?  Can Harrison Ford, now pushing 80, don the fedora once again?  Will we get another Young Indiana Jones prequel?  Who knows?  I think Disney's a little more focused on making those new Star Wars films, first. 

Fishing in the Discount Bin: Kick-Ass

Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly viewing of one of the many DVDs I own.  Today we get to a film that tries to answer the age old question, "What would it be like if we had superheroes in the real world?"  And that film is 2010's Kick-Ass.  This entry is dated in my notes at March 23, 2013.