Fantastic Four Trailer

Well, this past week, we finally got our first look at one of the most talked-about superhero reboots coming in 2015, and that's Fantastic Four.

Sadly, it's been talked about for all the wrong reasons.  First up, people were talking about the lack of promotion.  Usually, with superhero films, we start getting teases a full year before release.  The preview the costume, they showcase the sets, do everything to show you how faithful they're being to the comics.  But for this...nothing.  Just blurry spy photos until this teaser came out.

Then there was the report that Dr. Doom, one of the most iconic supervillains in comics, had been reduced to an angry, anti-social blogger with the online handle "Doom."  In fact, some fear the comics are being ignored altogether as Kate Mara, who's playing Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, revealed in an interview that she was told not to read the comics to research her character as they are "doing something never done in the comics."

And let's not get into the criticism of the casting of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch.  What's so wrong with the Human Torch being a black guy?

Director Josh Trank, fresh off his debut film Chronicle, has said that in his Fantastic Four, he's going for a David Cronenberg body horror kind of feel, citing The Fly and Scanners as his biggest influences on the film.  I dunno...much like Superman and the resulting Man of Steel, Fantastic Four is a property I never envisioned going dark and gritty.  Also, much like the recent Spider-Man reboot, they've decided to draw their primary inspiration from the Ultimate Universe, meaning now the FF get their powers from a teleportation accident, and not being bombarded with cosmic rays, so that makes references to The Fly rather apt.

Rounding out the cast, we've got Miles Teller as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Toby Kebbell as Victor Domashev/Doom, and Tim Blake Nelson as Harvey Elder, who'll hopefully become the Mole Man in the sequel.

So...here's our first glimpse.




Is it just me, or are they really trying to make it look like Interstellar?  The fact that they are taking more of a hard sci-fi stance than the usual superhero fare looks interesting, but it doesn't really look or feel like Fantastic Four.  The most FF looking this is the bit at the end with our heroes looking at a mysterious shimmering shaft of light.  Given all the negative stuff I'd been reading about this film, the trailer definitely comes across as...not as expected.

Fantastic Four hits theatres on August 7. 

Fishing in the Discount Bin - Frozen

Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, where I watch one of the movies I own and then blog about it.  Today's film needs no introduction, as it's still pretty prominent in pop culture today:  Frozen.  This was originally in my notes at March 30, 2014. 

Fishing in the Discount Bin - Gravity

Here we are once again, on Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly watching of a movie I own, and blogging about it, because I really need a hobby.  Today, we get to one of the critical darlings of 2013, Gravity.  This pops up in my notes at March 9, 2014.

Latest Marvel Trailer: Ant-Man and Avengers: Age of Ultron

Well, I'm just hangin' out at home, burning off some leftover vacation days, so I may as well get to some blogging I've been putting off.  We got our latest batch of Marvel movies, so I've wanted to ramble about them a bit.   First up, we've got our first trailer for Ant-Man.

Ant-Man has had a long and storied development that has been well-documented elsewhere, so I'll try to give you the Coles Notes.  Way, way back in 2006, when Marvel announced that they'd be going into business for themselves and starting their own movie studio, they said their first three films would be Iron Man directed by Jon Favreau, The Incredible Hulk directed by Louis Leterrier, and Ant-Man directed by Edgar Wright.  When Nick Fury's post-credits scene in Iron Man got everyone hot and bothered at the prospect of an Avengers movie, Ant-Man got put on the back, back burner so Marvel could launch their "Phase I."  But Wright remained attached to the project, and kept doing development work as he bid his time doing Scott Pilgrim and The World's End.

When Marvel announced their "Phase II," Marvel revealed that Ant-Man would finally happen as their first film after Avengers: Age of Ultron.  Wright finally got down to the nitty gritty.  Paul Rudd was cast to play the second Ant-Man, Scott Lang.  Michael Douglas came on board to play the first Ant-Man, Hank Pym.  Evangeline Lily signed on to play Pym's daughter Hope!  Corey Stall was going to be the villainous Darren Cross, who takes up the mantle of Yellowjacket.  It was finally going to happen!

And then, this past summer, mere months before filming, disaster struck.  After hanging in there since 2006, Edgar Wright left the project.  Creative differences was the official reason given.  The rumor and speculation was that Ant-Man was always intended to be kind of a standalone thing, but when the Marvel Cinematic Universe took off, Marvel started pressuring Wright to add more Marvel Cinematic Universe elements.  And finally, the director and studio reached an impasse.  Wanting to maintain the schedule they'd set up, Marvel quickly began the search for a new director.  Frequent Will Ferrell collaborator Adam McKay was approached, but negotiations fell apart after a weekend.  McKay did do enough work, though, that he's getting a co-writer credited on the screenplay.  Finally, a new director was found in Peyton Reed, who brought us the cheerleader epic Bring It On, and the Jim Carrey vehicle Yes Man.

(Fun trivia fact:  Reed was once attached to do Fantastic Four, but 20th Century Fox [who own the movie rights to FF] balked at his idea to set it in the 1960s and base it on the original Stan Lee and Jack Kirby run.)

New director in hand, last-minute re-writes done to satisfy the new creative direction, leading many to wonder what the final product is now going to look like.  And we got our first glimpse when they finally released the new trailer a couple weeks ago.




This trailer was...not what I was expecting.  Despite being a founding member of the Avengers and having a 50+ year history in comics, Ant-Man has always been seen as this goofy, B-list character (except for that one time when Hank Pym punched his wife and the name became synonymous with spousal abuse).  And with a comedy talent like Edgar Wright as director, the hope was that Ant-Man was going to be the next Guardians of the Galaxy, a film that embraced the goofiness and turned into a very funny, yet very solid action adventure.  But instead of the next Guardians of the Galaxy, this comes across more like "Generic Superhero Film #762."

I'm still holding out hope, though.  Being a sucker for superhero films, you know I'll be there when it opens on July 17.

Oh, and we also got the second trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron.



I know some people are fretting over how dark it looks (especially with the creepy version of "I've Got No Strings" playing in the background), but I'm still loving it.  We're getting some more Hulk vs. Hulkbuster action.  Lots of wisecracks, too, about the Hulk's red eyes in that battle, leading many to speculate that he's being mind-controlled by Scarlett Witch in that scene. 

I'm still excited.  May 1!

Fishing in the Discount Bin - Thor: The Dark World

Thursday means Fishing in the Discount Bin, where I watch one of the many movies I own and blog about it, because I really don't get out much.  Return with me now to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as I watch Thor: The Dark World.  This comes from my notes of March 8, 2014.

  

Netflix Nonsense - The Big Lebowski

So what did I peruse on Netflix this past weekend?  Sometimes, Netflix can be a great place to find the classics that you've missed out on.  The Big Lebowski is high on the list of cult classics I knew I had to see someday, so when I saw it had recently been added to Netflix, it shot straight to the front of the queue.  And, with a quiet Saturday night at home, I knew it was time to check this classic off my cinematic bucket list.

Fishing in the Discount Bin - Tangled

Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin!  I took a couple weeks off there for Christmas and New Years, but I'm back, and I still have a ton of DVDs and Blu-Rays to watch and blog about!  Let's start off this year with Disney's 2010 gritty reboot of princess tales, Tangled.  This is originally in my notes at March 2, 2014.

Vacation's End

It seemed like it was going to be an OK day.  Yeah, we had some snow and bitter cold, but the online road reports said the highways were OK.  But it didn't warn me about those city streets.  Nothing more frightening than being in bumper-to-bumper traffic and your turn's coming up, so you start hitting the breaks and turning the steering wheel, but you don't slow down or turn.  But I made it through the city in one piece.

What was so important that I had to brave such city streets?  Well, the first weekend in January is the traditional end of the whole Christmas vacation season, so I was hot to spend some gift cards.  Movie geek that I am, one of my gift cards was for Cineplex, so I figured it was finally time to see The Hobbit:  The Battle of the Five Armies.

The Hobbit was pretty good.  I have the same general complaint that I have with the entire Hobbit trilogy, and that is, when they expanded a single novel into a trilogy, you can really feel the padding.  At 2.5 hours, The Battle of the Five Armies is the shortest of the trilogy, but I was still checking my watch a few times wondering when they'd get one with it.  I remember coming out of the theatre after the second film and thinking, "But what's left?  Bard the Bowman kills Smaug, we have the Battle of the Five Armies, and that's it!"  And that's pretty much what happens in the film.  I'm a little miffed that Bard killing Smaug kind of becomes a James Bond-style pre-credits sequence, when it would have made a much better end to the second film, but whatever. 

As I'm sure I've blogged before, I love The Hobbit and have read it several times, but have never been able to plow through the incredibly-dense The Lord of the Rings.  So when I saw some of the large scale battles in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, I was always thinking, "Oh, I hope we get to see the Battle of the Five Armies done like this someday."  And we did.  And it was magnificent. 

I give it a solid 3 out of 4.  As always, the complete review is over on the main site.

Didn't do much else in the city besides see the movie.  I wanted to spend some Christmas cash on a new Otter Box for my iPhone.  For those not in the know, an Otter Box is a protective case to keep the phone from getting damaged.  Otter Box has the reputation as being the most durable in the world.  A co-worker actually ran over his iPhone with his car.  The Otter Box was destroyed, but it did its job and the phone was fine. 

I must have dropped my iPhone one too many times as my Otter Box was starting to get pretty beat up and most of the little trap doors that cover the headphone jack and such had snapped off.  The hope is to save my pennies and when my cellphone contract is up this fall, I'll upgrade my 4S to a shiny new 6.  Or, since Apple seems to announce the new iPhones in the fall, maybe by the time my money is saved up and my contract is done, they'll have unleashed the 6B or whatever on the world. 

And, of course, one of my gift cards was for Best Buy, so it was time for new Blu-Rays.  I picked up the latest movie version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Yeah, the movie sucked, but I love TMNT.   As many other critics pointed out, about the only thing they got right in the film was the Turtles themselves.  Well, at least their personalities.  Still not crazy about their hulking new design.

And that was it.  Headed straight home after that.  After slip-sliding around one too many street corners in the city, I was thoroughly and completely done.  Bring on the new year!

CanCon Movie Time!

So if you're ever looking to waste some time, one of the most interesting places to do it is at the National Film Board of Canada website.  If you've never visited their website, or downloaded their award-winning app, the National Film Board has spent the past few years digitizing literally thousands of their films and making them available streaming online for free.  It's great if you ever have fond memories of some of their cartoons, or feel nostalgic for Grade 3 movie day.

When I'm feeling nostalgic, I start looking up some of their Vignettes.  Remember these?  They seemed to dominate TV throughout the 1980s.  These short films, between 1-5 minutes in length, always highlighted a unique aspect of Canadian history or culture, and ran on TV in between the programs.  They were very much the forefathers of the beloved Heritage Minutes.  Of course, the most famous and most beloved one is the Log Driver's Waltz.  But in my last bout of nostalgia, I looked up the one detailing the history of the Bluenose.

Canada Vignettes: Bluenose 1921-1946 by Richard Todd, National Film Board of Canada

The way it's all in black and white, with a doom and gloom narrator, it almost seems like a 1940s newsreel.  And I always found the end so sad, seeing the wreckage of the once-mighty ship, just sitting and rotting off the coast of some island.

Now it's really interesting to compare this to the Heritage Minute about the Bluenose, which takes half the time to construct a tale of high seas adventure.




It's an interesting contrast.  How do you want to remember the ship...as a wreck rotting on a reef, or as the legendary racing and fishing schooner?

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Many many years ago, I blogged that most museums and interpretive centres seem to have a little theatre that shows a short film about the history of whatever it is the museum or interpretive centre is dedicated to.  "Why don't they sell that film on DVD in the gift shop?" I mused in my blog.

The last real vacation I took was about five years ago.  I went to an old college friend's wedding in Calgary, and took a few days to head out to Banff National Park.  One of the sights I saw was the Cave and Basin Hot Spring.  Once a bustling swimming pool and health spa, it is now an interpretive centre and historical site, detailing how the discovery of the hot spring, and the formation of a government department to look after and administer it, led to the creation of Canada's national park system.  Being an interpretive centre, they have a little theatre that shows a little film about the history of Banff.  And, of course, the film wasn't available on DVD in the gift shop.

So imagine my surprise when I searched for "Banff" on the National Film Board's website, and discovered that the Cave and Basin film was an official National Film Board production, and available for multiple repeat viewings on their website.  And if I really still want to buy it on DVD, I can do so from the National Film Board's online store.

So here's the little film you'll see if you ever find yourself at the Cave and Basin in Banff:  Steam, Schemes, and National Dreams: The Story of Banff National Park.

Steam, Schemes and National Dreams by ONFB, National Film Board of Canada

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And now we conclude our broadcast day.  Customary to do so with the playing of the national anthem.  In their "recently added" section, the National Film Board had a music video for the national anthem that looked quite familiar.  And then it dawned on me.  When I was kid and just got cable, one of the channels was the PBS station out of Detroit.  To acknowledge their Canadian viewers, when PBS concluded their broadcast day, they would run this film for O Canada!  I thought it was something those PBS producers whipped up, but no, it's an official National Film Board production.

And as the National Film Board website points out, the recording of O Canada was the one made for the 1976 Olympics.  So every time Canada one a medal, this was the recording of O Canada that played.

O Canada #1: National Anthem: 'With Glowing Hearts' by Ted Remerowski, National Film Board of Canada

Fishing in the Discount Bin - Sleepy Hollow

Here we are again with Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly watching and viewing of one of the many films I own.  The time, we peek in on one of my favourite directors, Tim Burton, and his 1999 film Sleepy Hollow.  This shows up in my notes at February 17, 2014.

News from Markworld: December 2014

 As always, I'm blogging my Christmas card letter, so folks whom I may have drifted away from who may be googling my name one night can also know how I'm doing.

Good day,

‘Tis I, Mark Cappis, once again including a nice little form letter in this Christmas card to let you know what’s been going in my life, especially in this year, 2014.

As always, writing this letter is difficult for me, as I can’t figure out enough ways to say “nothing.”  My life is still rather quiet and uneventful.  I get up, go to work, come home, watch a lot of TV.  That’s it.  My apartment doesn’t allow pets, so I can’t even get “crazy cat guy” on the go.

Work is still going fine.  As you may recall from last year’s letter, I am the afternoon show host and music director for 97.9 the Range in Westlock, Alberta.  (“Music director” at a radio station is the guy who actually picks the music the station plays, for those not in the biz.)  Well, there has been a notable addition to my duties.  In my little cluster of radio stations, 93.5 Prairie-FM in High Prairie switched to country music.  So the Company said, “Since we’ve already got a perfectly good music director for country music, let’s have him do both stations!”  So I do the music for both 97.9 the Range and 93.5 Prairie-FM now. 

Not much else of note happened.  I won a contest and got to be on TV.  CTV Edmonton was having a contest to give away tickets to the Indiana Jones exhibit at the Telus World of Science.  For the heck of it, I entered, and for the heck of it, I won.  Part of the prize was I got to go sit in the studio audience for CTV Edmonton Morning Live’s special Indiana Jones show.  That was a lot of fun!  Haven’t used my free tickets to go see the exhibit yet, but I’ll probably do that first thing in January.

And I’m still quite active on the social networks, if you ever want or crave more frequent updates as to the nothing that goes on in my life.  I finally brought back my podcast, too.  That ran last year from January until June, when things started getting busy at work.  Looks like things will be getting quiet again in January, so I’ll be able to launch the 2015 series really soon.

As always, my social media map:

Main site:  www.chaosinabox.com

Blog:  chaosinabox.blogspot.com

Facebook:  facebook.com/officialchaosinabox

Twitter:  @chaosinabox

YouTube:  youtube.com/mcappis911

Instagram:  instagram.com/chaosinabox

Google+:  google.com/+MarkCappis

I’m on LinkedIn, too, but I’m still new to that and figuring it out.  And I got my Ello invite the other day, but I’m not there yet.

Oh, and I got a new printer, too.  Which is why you’ll see this card has a nice printed label instead of being addressed by hand.  I may have lost some of that hand-made quality, but my wrists are thanking me.
And that’s all from my tiny apartment in Westlock, Alberta.  Have yourself a Merry Christmas, and all the best in 2015.

Hail Hydra!


Mark Cappis

Fishing in the Discount Bin - That Thing You Do!

Here we are again with Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly viewing of some movie I own, only for me to sit and blog and rant about it.  This time out, we're doing Tom Hanks' writer and directorial debut, the 1996 comedy That Thing You Do!.  This is in my notes at February 16, 2014.

Sunday Morning Movie Stuff

Well, yesterday, it was off to the city to do some Christmas shopping.  I won't tell you my usual tales of big city adventure, though, as it mostly involves stressed out Christmas shopping, and you are no doubt currently living your own version of that tale.  I hope, though, that you are finding time in the stress to take a moment for yourself, as I did when I wandered into a movie theatre to finally see Interstellar.

Christopher Nolan, the man behind the last trilogy of Batman movies and Inception is back with a science fiction epic about wormholes and distant alien planets.  How awesome does that sound?  As it turns out, it's very awesome.  Much like Gravity last year, this is a sci-fi epic that sought to root itself in real physics and the real science of what may be residing out in the vastness of space.  And much like Gravity, I was in awe at how they managed to capture the vastness of it all.  I almost regret not paying the extra to see it in IMAX, because if I got that overwhelming sense in just a regular theatre, I'm sure IMAX would have melted my brain.

In the not-too-distant future, humanity is dying out.  Planet-wide plagues have left food scarce.  Cooper was once one of NASA's best and brightest pilots, but when NASA was dismantled so its resources could be used feeding the world, Cooper became a farmer.  But a mysterious presence in his daughter's bedroom leads him to the secret bunker where the remnants of NASA continues working.  Out near Saturn, a wormhole has been discovered, leading to life-supporting planets in another galaxy.  Cooper is soon implored to lead the expedition through the wormhole, find the astronauts who've been sent ahead to survey the planets, and begin laying the groundwork for a colony.  Perhaps humanity can be saved by moving it to another planet.  Will Cooper survive the mission and return home to his family?  Or will his daughter be forced to continue his work?

In a way, Interstellar tries really hard to be this generation's 2001, only with a more linear plot.  The vastness of space...the big science ideas...and for the most part, it works.  It's incredibly tense and exciting when you see what can really happen out there.

The only thing that I really didn't buy was the ending.  After all the real science, the ending got a little too "wibbley wobbley timey wimey" for my tastes.  But, you'd come this far, you may as well see it to the end.

I enjoyed it quite a bit.  3.5 out of 4 nibs.  The full review is over on my ol' website.

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Well, with all the trailer goodness we've had over the past few weeks, what with Star Wars and Jurassic World and all, it only made sense that eventually one would come along that I'd great with a resounding "meh."  And that trailer is for Terminator Genisys, the big reboot to the Terminator franchise.

I've never been too crazy on the idea of all these Terminator sequels.  The first one and T2 form this wonderful 2-part story, full of awesome action and just enough weighty sci-fi concepts to push it over the top.  I went to the theatre to see Terminator 3 back in the day, and while it was enjoyable, it really didn't bring anything new to the table.  I was excited about Terminator Salvation because a prequel about the future war is something I'd craved for ages, but again, I walked away thinking that it really didn't offer up anything new.

And sadly, in this first trailer for the reboot, I'm not seeing anything new.  Kyle Reese is once again sent back in time to protect young Sarah Connor from a Terminator, sent back in time by Skynet in a last-ditch effort to win the war against humanity.  But when Reese arrives in the past, it's not the past he was told about.  Rather than a meek waitress, Sarah Connor is already a hardened soldier, and her adopted father...is a Terminator.  Reese must get to the bottom as to how and why the past has already changed, while staying true to his mission of protecting Sarah Connor.

Alan Taylor, the director of Thor: The Dark World is directing it.  Emilia Clarke is the new Sarah Connor, Jai Courtney is the new Kyle Reese, and Arnold Schwarznegger is back as the Terminator.  I was pleasantly surprised to see Lee Byung-Hun as the new T-1000, as I thought he was pretty cool as Storm Shadow in the live-action G.I. Joe movies.  Oh, and the Doctor himself, Matt Smith, is in it as well.




Terminator Genisys, in what's hoped to be the start of a new trilogy, hits theatres July 1.

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And of course, there was the big James Bond announcement.  We have the title of the next James Bond film!  In November 2015, James Bond will return in...

Spectre.

This makes me very happy.  At the end of Skyfall, I said I felt like that the James Bond reboot that began with Casino Royale was finally complete.  We had a new M, Q was back, Moneypenny was back....everything was back.  If only they could bring back James Bond's arch-enemy Blofeld and his terrorist organization known as SPECTRE.

Long story short:  due to some legal wrangling over ownership, the James Bond producers actually lost the rights to Blofeld and SPECTRE.  But, last year, after years of negotiations (and with all the involved parties who took it personally having finally died off), they were able to reacquire the rights.  So, for the first time since 1971, it looks as though James Bond will finally be doing battle against his arch-nemesis.

Along with the poster and the title, this official plot synopsis was revealed:

A cryptic message from an unlikely source sets James Bond navigating the layers of a sinister organisation known as SPECTRE. As M continues fighting political pressures that threaten the future of MI6, Bond draws closer to uncovering a hidden truth that threatens to destroy everything he has fought to protect. 

The cast was revealed, too.  Alongside Daniel Craig back as Bond, our villain is known as Franz Oberhauser, played by Christoph Waltz.  His henchman is Mr. Hinx, played by Dave Bautista.  For our new Bond girls, we've got Monica Bellucci as Lucia Sciarra and Lea Seydoux as Madeleine Swann. 

Filming begins on Monday for a November 6, 2015 release. 

Fishing in the Discount Bin - Alien Resurrection

Time for Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly blog about some movie I own.  We finish our voyage through the Alien franchise with Alien Resurrection.  This shows up in my notes on January 26, 2014.

Netflix Nonsense - Rocky Balboa

Well, we're at the end of my journey through the Rocky franchise as we get to the only Rocky movie that I've seen in the theatre, Rocky Balboa.

The Peanuts Movie Trailer

While I`ve had a lot of fun blogging about the new crop of trailers over the past week, there's one that's been going by with not much notice that I've wanted to talk about, and that's for The Peanuts Movie.

Charlie Brown in animation is a subject that's always fascinated me.  Almost 50 prime time animated specials, 4 theatrically released features films, an 8-episode mini-series, and a Saturday morning cartoon.  Can you think of any other comic strip that's had as successful a career in animation?  I'm pretty certain, thanks to the cartoons, I was fully aware of Charlie Brown and Snoopy long before I knew it was a comic strip.

When I was a kid, Fisher Price made this toy.  You'd get these 1-minute long movies on these big yellow cartridges.  You'd plug the cartridge into the special movie viewer, turn the crank, and watch the movie.  I got it for Christmas when I was 4 or 5 years old, and it was my favourite toy, and no doubt started my path to movie geekdom.  And one of the cartridges I had was a Snoopy one.  Woodstock was on a raft in stormy seas, but it was eventually revealed he was just daydreaming in his bird bath.  Snoopy pulls him out and dries him off with a blow dryer.  That was it.  My first exposure to Charlie Brown in animation.

And then there were the TV specials, which I'd watch occasionally.  It wasn't until college that I really started appreciating the pathos in A Charlie Brown Christmas.  And when I was a kid, I did have a friend who had A Boy Named Charlie Brown on VHS, and wound up watching it a lot over at his place.  I caught a bit of it on TV a few months ago.  Since it was made in the 1960s, I forgot how the animation got a little...psychedelic in places.  

So, as you can see, nothing but heaping waves of nostalgia when I learned that this new, CGI movie is in development.

Apparently, Charles Schutlz's son and grandson came up with the story idea back in 2006 and began shopping it around Hollywood.  They eventually found a home at Blue Sky Studios, the animation studio responsible for the Ice Age and Rio franchises.  Steve Martino directs, and he gave us the Blue Sky films Ice Age: Continental Drift (aka the fourth one) and their adaptation of Horton Hears a Who.  In fact, it was Martino's adaptation of Horton Hears a Who that won him the gig, as the Schultz estate was impressed with his faithfulness to the original book.  I should mention that the Schultz estate does have complete creative control over the project, to maintain faithfulness to the characters.

And faithfulness does seem to be a key word in the production.  The producers have also acquired the rights to Vince Guaraldi legendary jazz scores to the various TV specials to be used in the film.  Bill Melendez, who directed the vast majority of TV specials and original animated films until his death in 2006, will once again be voicing Snoopy and Woodstock thanks to archival recordings.  And the voice cast was announced last week, too.  Following the tradition of the franchise, all the voice actor are age-appropriate kids. 

I just can't get over the animation in this trailer.  Even though it's modern-day, 3D, computer animation, the pains they've gone through to make it look like Charles Schultz's original 2D art is astounding.  The music, the voices of Snoopy and Woodstock, everything works great to successfully pull on the nostalgic heart strings.

Then the present day pop song strikes up and we get some 3D Snoopy vs. the Red Baron action and something about it starts feeling a little bit off. 

But it leaves me feeling cautiously optimistic.






The Peanuts Movie hits theaters on November 6, 2015. 

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer

Upon the announcement that we'd be getting our first trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens by the week's end, I couldn't help but flash back to an earlier time in my life when I was counting down to a Star Wars trailer.  It was another wintery November, but back in 1998.  I was still going to college, and lucky for me, the dorms had been wired into the campus computer network over the summer...and it's high speed Internet.  Thanks to that, it was absolutely no problem to download the first teaser for Episode I.




One of the main lecture halls had even been outfitted with a projector that summer, so I politely asked one of my professors if we could use it after class one day to see that trailer on the big screen.  It still stands as an excellent trailer...which made the resulting film and the entire prequel trilogy just the tad more disappointing.

I've been saying for a few years now that I couldn't help but feel burnt out on Star Wars.  After watching the abysmal Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie, I just threw up my hands and said, "I'm done!"  I've been told that the resulting series gets better than the movie, and even though I tried to binge watch it on Netflix, I got bored and wandered off about halfway through the third season.  It just seemed like Star Wars had nothing new to offer me.

And yet, when Disney bought Lucasfilm two years ago, and announced Episode VII for 2015, you couldn't help but feel a twinge of excitement.  George Lucas had long been declared the scapegoat for how poorly the prequels turned out.  Would new creative talent really be the answer? 

From what I gather, a lot of directors actually turned down the job, fearing the pressure that would come with doing a new Star Wars films.  One of my favourite directors, Brad Bird, was an early contender, but Bird's official reason for declining the offer was to finish up his new film Tomorrowland.  The one who finally rose to the challenge was J.J. Abrams, whom many felt would be a good choice, as his Star Trek reboot had long been branded a Star Wars ripoff anyway.

Very little about the plot and characters has been revealed at this point.  We know that Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford are all back as much older and wiser versions of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo.  With five confirmed actresses in key roles, it already has more female characters than the entire original trilogy.  Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi back in the day, is back, co-writing alongside Abrams.

Many are praising the look of the trailer for focusing on the new characters and not nostalgia, but I disagree.  The nostalgia is there in spades.  The familiar sight of X-Wing fighters, skimming across the surface of a lake.  An R2-droid, but he has what looks like a soccer ball for a body.  And many online are describing a swell of emotion upon seeing the Millennium Falcon fly again, taking on two TIE fighters, but this time over a desert instead of in the depths of space. 

Much fuss is being made over the new lightsaber, and how it has two smaller blades shooting out the bottom, forming a hilt.  Many question its practicality.  But then, how practical was Darth Maul's double-bladed lightsaber?  Would you not accidentally cut off your own arm if weren't careful with that?

So the nostalgia's in the trailer.  It's taking the very familiar, and presenting it in new contexts and a new light.  Unlike the prequels, which emphasized the new.  This is saying, "Hey.  This is everything you loved, but in a new light."

Yeah, I've watched this trailer a dozen times now.  Am as I excited as I was on that wintery November night in 1998, when I was the Episode I teaser for the first time?  No...I don't think anything will ever top the excitement I felt back then.

This feels new, and different, yet familiar.  There's not so much excitment, but cautious optimism.  I've been down this road before, so I'm trying to avoid heartbreak once again.

But seeing X-Wings in flight again just looks amazing.




Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theatres December 18, 2015. 

Fishing in the Discount Bin - Alien 3

Fishing in the Discount Bin once again, where I watch a movie I own and blog about it.  Way back, last January, I picked up the Alien franchise from a discount bin, and I've been re-establishing my nerd cred by watching them.  Today, we get to the third in the franchise, Alien³.  This was originally watched and blogged about on January 25, 2014.

Jurassic World Trailer! Oh, and Strange Magic, too.

With my main focus for the summer blockbusters of 2015 being on Avengers: Age of Ultron, and a new Star Wars and a new James Bond, I keep forgetting that we're also returning to Jurassic Park.

Even though the third one kind of underwhelmed way back in 2001, rumours of a fourth film have persisted for years.  And, a couple years ago, Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and Universal Studios finally got their stuff together to make it happen.  Spielberg's just producing, though.  For our director, we have relative newcomer Colin Trevorrow, who gave us the 2012 indie time travel film Safety Not Guaranteed.

Back on Sunday night, we got a 15-second preview of the trailer.  I don't know why, but that 15 second preview gave me goosebumps.  I've never been able to put my finger on why, but I just love the Jurassic Park franchise.  It's dinosaurs!  Who doesn't love dinosaurs?  And in that 15-second clip, to hear the classic Jurassic Park theme played slowly and hauntingly on a piano...beautiful.

The trailer was supposed to come out on Thursday, but got bumped up to Tuesday.  I think the move-up in the time table had to do with the announcement that we're getting our first Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer on Friday, and that'll soon be the new king of Trailer Town.

Well, without further ado, are you ready to return to Jurassic Park?




First up, I totally geeked out at the end when we saw our hero riding the dirt bike in the middle of the herd of velociraptors.  I read Michael Crichton's literary sequel, The Lost World, as soon as it came out back in the mid-1990s.  There was a motorcycle/velociraptor chase in the book's climax, and I was upset it didn't make it to the movie.  So it looks like we're finally seeing that on the big screen!

And I also liked the bit with feeding the great white shark to the giant aquatic dinosaur.  No doubt a tip of the hat to Spielberg's legendary hit Jaws.

The trailer kind of confirms the plot that's been circulating online for a while now.  It's 22 years since the original incident at Jurassic Park.  InGen, the company that actually cloned the dinosaurs, was bought out, and under new management, John Hammond's dream finally became a reality.  But, tickets sales are starting to slump, and the novelty of actual, living dinosaurs is wearing off.  So, to create a bigger star attraction, those wacky geneticists start combining dinosaur DNA to create a bigger, badder, Franken-saurus.  And, because it's a Jurassic Park movie, it escapes and starts eating people.  

Chris Pratt, fresh from saving the universe as Star Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy, is here as Owen, the game warden at the park who gets nervous at the thought of this Franken-saurus.  Bryce Dallas Howard is Claire, the park's manager.  The only returning character from the earlier films is B.D. Wong as Dr. Henry Wu, the geneticist who actually clones the dinosaurs.

My only complaint is that some of the CGI of the park itself looks a little too generic "future city."  But that being said, I'm actually kind of jazzed.

Jurassic World hits theatres on June 12.

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And while I'm talking trailers, here's one that came out about a week ago that wasn't on a lot of people's radars, but it caught my eye.  It might very well be George Lucas's final movie.  And that's Strange Magic.

About 5 or 6 years ago, I read a blurb that Lucas was developing an animated film about fairies.  At the time, the rumoured director was Kevin Murnoe, fresh off directing the CGI TMNT film (which, IMHO, is the best Ninja Turtles movie).  And that was all I heard, until the trailer came out last week.

The director, in the end, is Gary Rydstrom, who'd been circling directing an animated feature for some time.  Rydstrom started his career as a legendary sound designer at Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic, where he won Oscars for creating the sound effects for Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Titanic and Saving Private Ryan.  He started getting involved in animation when he did the sound design for Pixar's first crop of films, including the first two Toy Stories and Monsters, Inc.  From there, he directed the Pixar shorts Lifted and Toy Story Toons: Hawaiian Vacation.  He also directed the English dubs of the last crop of Studio Ghibli films, including The Secret World of Arietty and Miyazaki's swan song The Wind Rises.

The official plot description is a little strange, describing it as a jukebox musical (that means it's a musical where all the songs are familiar pop songs) loosely based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, as various fairies, goblins, elves and imps do battle over a magic potion.  George Lucas himself gets a "story by..." credit, and that's why I'm saying this could very well be his final film, as now that he's sold Lucasfilm to Disney, he's probably chillin' on a pile of money and not doing much filmmaking anymore.

The voice cast includes Alan Cumming, Evan Rachel Wood, Kristen Chenowith, and Maya Rudolph.  The animation studio that actually did the animation was Lucas's Lucasfilm Animation Singapore (which Lucas formed to do the animation for Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Lucas's legendary special effects house Industrial Light and Magic (whose only other animated film is 2011's Rango).  So while the voice cast sounds great, and the animation looks gorgeous, the entire trailer has me going, "I don't know about this...."

I just may go when it comes out, because I am mildly curious.  Strange Magic hits theatres on January 23.

Netflix Nonsense - Rocky V

Continuing my voyage through the Rocky franchise, we come to the one I'd been dreading to watch, Rocky V.