Screenhead

I like this featurette because it tells about the human side of  Avatar.  The movie keeps getting better and better.

Patty (101) won the movie and her kids will love it.

I really recommend getting this DVD for your kids. My daughter and her four friends watched Aliens in the Attic  and they loved it all. Even the bloopers were awesome.

The movie takes place during summer vacation, but the Pearson family kids are stuck at a boring lake house with their nerdy parents. That is until feisty, little, green aliens crash-land on the roof, with plans to conquer the house AND Earth! Using only their wits, courage and video game-playing skills, the youngsters must band together to defeat the aliens and save the world — but the toughest part might be keeping the whole thing a secret from their parents!

The scene most talked about was when the adults were being controlled by the kids via remote controls. The kids had the two adults fighting each other with the kids flipping them, getting the parents to do anything they wanted them to do.

The cast includes Doris Roberts (“Everybody Loves Raymond”), Andy Richter (“The Conan O’Brien Show”), Kevin Nealon (“Weeds”), Tim Meadows (Mean Girls) and Gillian Vigman (The Hangover), as well as rising young star Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical).

After my daughter’s friends left, she asked if she could watch the movie, again, and did with just as much enjoyment.

Well, despite a whole lot of stops and starts, and the arrest of the original series’ writer, it seems that Silent Hill 2 may not be completely dead.  In fact, it’s so alive that they’re projecting a release date…in 2010.

Dig the word from the series’ designer:

“I was working on storyboards for that around the same time last year…It’s going to be pretty crazy. There’s a lot of cool stuff in there. Roger (Avary) has some awesome ideas and hopefully we’re going to bring that to fruition sometime next year.”

Yeah…too bad Roger (Avary)’s in lockdown, buddy.  But hey, if Roman Polanski can engineer his movie from prison then maybe Roger Avary can drop some notes down or something.  Stranger things have happened, and many of them have happened to us.

I have to admit, I’d kind of like to see where they go with it.  After the miserable ending the last one had, I have no idea what they’re planning to do.  There’s not even much of anything they CAN do.  I mean, two of the three mains are ghosts of some kind and the third is sort of, well, still around.

So what can they do?  I don’t know. And that intrigues me.

I missed this shot when I watched JJ Abrams’ Star Trek.  With all the explosions and sheer death at every turned, I just couldn’t keep my wits to spot R2-D2’s cameo.

But GIZMODO confirmed the droid we were all looking for in Star Trek. In this frame you can clearly see R2-D2’s cameo appearance in Star Trek.  The sighting is confirmed by ILM.

There are times when you watch a movie that it feels like it was handled by somebody in particular.  Most George Romero or Steven Spielberg or even Michael Bay movies have that certain feel about them, and you can tell, even as you watch them, that this movie was handled by that person.

2012 feels EXACTLY like a Roland Emmerich movie because, let’s face it, we’ve all been here before.  It’s just gotten a LOT bigger since the last time.

This time, as it turns out, the Mayan calendar that’s gotten so much press over the last few months or so was exactly right and the end of the world as we know it starts up on December 21, 2012.  And for a writer and father, who’s been somewhat estranged from his family of late, the whole world will quite literally never be the same again.

If you saw The Day After Tomorrow, ironically, you’ll have about a thirty percent head start into 2012 because it’s almost the EXACT SAME MOVIE.  Both will feature scientists who catch on to things way ahead of the rest of the curve, but no one will believe them for a while until it’s almost too late, then there will be a whole lot of horrendous things happening that are far, far, more outlandish than anybody’s worst case scenarios.  Sprinkle in some bad science, top it off with some schmaltzy family drama, and boom!  You’ve got yet another half baked Roland Emmerich disaster movie that will probably make its shooting budget back if for no other reason that people LOVE to see stuff go boom.

Idiocracy fans, take note–at this rate Ass will be in theaters summer 2015.

Seriously though, this isn’t really a BAD movie.  It’s a bit overlong, sure, and don’t even try to find this movie’s science on a map because it just plain old DON’T EXIST, and don’t even get me started on Roland’s big middle finger to greedheads everywhere who think they can buy their way out of disaster.

But there is plenty going on here.  You’re almost certain to be entertained.  Even I was entertained.  There’s no long term value in a movie like this, but for a pleasant way to kill off two and a half hours with explosions and drama and a number of car jumps so large as to make Bo and Luke themselves have car envy (the first time I saw John Cusack JUMP A LIMO all I could think was “Well sir, right about then the Duke boys knew they was in a heap o’ trouble”.  Try it; it’s fun!), there’s not much better.  And by the way–it’s AWESOME that Woody Harrelson’s in this.  I’ve got a whole new respect for this man.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, shakes its head with a sardonic grin and hands this low-brow disaster epic a six out of ten for its sheer fun factor, even if its plot is a load of steaming garbage that’s about a third of a ripoff and its science so lousy even a fourth grader could knock it into a cocked hat.

With Paranormal Activity due to make $100 million in the US this week (and expect another hunk of change to be spent by worldwide audiences), details of director Oren Peli’s follow-up are beginning to emerge. It’s not clear whether Peli will helm Paranormal Activity 2, but his next film will be Area 51.

The film is another fake documentary, this time dealing with aliens rather than peeved-off spirits. Over at Latino Review, they managed to get a look at the 40-page plot treatment that will act as a basis for the cast’s dialogue improvisations. However, while Paranormal Activity was mostly believable (although who in their right minds would leave the door open every night?), Area 51’s outline already has contrivances. The story involves a young geek named Chris who seems obsessed with extraterrestrial activities. Convincing his two best friends to gon on a road trip to Las Vegas, as well as obligatory girl (who believes her father was abducted), Chris hooks up with an ex-employee of the military zone known as Area 51, and is told of government-alien relations and the provision of human test-subjects. Needless to say Chris and co decide to break into the grounds and uncover the truth.

It sounds like a mix between PA and the X-Files. And just as unpallateable. No alien-obsessed geek has friends. Nor would he be allowed to put a telescope on some girl’s house to record the night sky. And Area 51, which actully exists, isn’t exactly an easy place to approach, especially when you have three people who haven’t exactly boned up on military camoflague tactics. Now, most horror films get by without ever having to appear realistic, but the effectiveness of this new subgenre called “reality horror” entirely depends on whether you believe it’s real or not. And if Peli isn’t careful with his characterisation and plotting, he may well create a disaster.

The film’s budget is five million dollars (a big leap from PA’s $15,000), so expect some special effects, and even some CGI if we’re lucky. But let’s hope that Peli’s film will be as creepy as Paranormal Activity was.

Twitch found this trailer at Apple and brought it to my attention.  It’s worth a look and has an interesting premise. I am not sure if LOVE is just a flow of consciousness or a steady take on the horrific situation an astronaut is confronted with — his space station has become stranded. He’s lost in orbit and slowly the life support system of the space stations dwindles down as he loses his sanity.   I dig the music by Angels and Airwaves.

The third TV Spot for Avatar looks like playing in the perfect paradise.  I want to move to Pandora and find my avatar!

So it may well prove to be the weirdest idea ever, but World War II classic action figure and Marvel dud Sgt. Rock (who actually started getting published around the Vietnam War) is getting a movie.  But here’s the problem–it’s not set in either time period.

No, no Nazis or NVA for Sgt. Rock to kill mercilessly–Sgt. Rock will be set in the FUTURE, where he’ll likely be tackling aliens or robots or just alien robots.

Well, it’s not like anyone was really, you know, EXPECTING much out of this one.  I mean, come on.  it’s Sgt. Rock.  Who actually READS Sgt. Rock, anyway?  I asked a buddy of mine who’s a comic buff and he about laughed me out of the room. So I guess it really doesn’t make a difference if Sgt. Rock fights Nazis or NVA or Iraqis or even demons from hell because no one’s heard of the guy anyway and no one’s got any real expectations.

No word on release dates, but Joel Silver’s been trying to get this project going for the last twenty years, so you can probably expect it to show up about the same time hell freezes over.

No, seriously–aliens.  Yes, I find myself just as horrified to pass on this newsy bit to you, but apparently the film remake of the Hasbro board game will actively involve ALIENS.

Now, there’s no real word in what SENSE aliens are involved in this one, whether they come down to earth to join in some naval warfare or the whole thing’s suddenly a science fiction movie (which, admittedly, is at least kind of cool–we don’t get a whole lot of movies that feature space opera elements), but that’s the last word–that aliens were involved.

On the one hand, it’s not like I was expecting all that much out of the Battleship movie to begin with.  It’s a movie about a board game.  How much COULD it do?  But I do have some high hopes–we could get something really impressive out of this.  Think Wing Commander, only, you know, good.

We’ll have a long wait to find out, though, and hopefully when we do, it’ll turn out for the best.