Oh my, this looks fun...Iron Man

Iron Man Exclusive Trailer

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DVD REVIEW: Justice League: The New Frontier

As a big fan of DC Comics and it's characters I always look forward to any new movies, toons, or comics that might offer me something new. Having not heard of Darwin Cook's graphic series, New Frontier aside from seeing the action figures at the comic shop I was anxious to see this new take on the Justice League series. I grew up loving the Justice League comics and TV shows as a kid. Loved the tension between Batman and Superman in the league. To me the best incarnation of the JLA was not too long ago on the Cartoon network's Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. It really had a cool edge to it, that the old Super Friends show did not. Don't get me wrong I'm not knocking the old Super Friends show, but it was for kiddos and once you got into the comics you realize how much they really missed on that old show. Cutting to the chase, several years ago, Darwin Cook wrote this version of the JLA that takes place in the 50's/60's that shows our heroes dealing with the issues of the day ala JFK, MLK and other relevant social issues. It's a more realistic world and the violence that happens is not fantastic it's real. Which brings us to the DC Direct to DVD movie...In the first scene, Hal Jordon (AKA Green Lantern) is shot down by a communist jet and lands in an enemy trench, he struggles with a commie, until finally shooting him in the head with blood splattered on his face after he pulls the trigger. Like I said this is not Super Friends.



The animation is stripped down and very 50/60's style. It is stylized but in a good way. The characters seem fresh this time around. Many of their origins are shown here, like Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern. A lot of this movie takes place around the time of the Space Race, so The Green Lantern is more or less the main character of this one. However he does not become the Lantern till almost the end of the movie. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Flash are the main characters. They recently disbanded the Justice Society because of disagreements on how to handle situations. This disagreement is somewhat of an analogy for the situation that America is in with racism and communism trials. Its a really brilliant idea, and one can only hope that the current in production live action Justice League can muster a tenth of this story's significance.



Reading comics and especially The Justice League made you feel as kid that if you work as a team with others you can make a difference in the world no matter how large the problems may be. It gave me hope as a kid. And this film represents that hope once again that we need heroes, we need hope. The animation and voice work here is really good. I missed some of the voices from the recently canceled JLA Unlimited, but the new voices are still very good, just takes getting used to. There are also several documentaries on the disc including a long one chronicling the history of every era of the JL in the comics. There is also a great documentary on the evolution of the Legion of Doom.

So if you love Superman, Batman, or any of the Justice League heroes check this movie out. It's rated PG-13 and it means it. To see the official website click HERE. The trailer is down below, and a great review can be found HERE.

Equilateral on Atombomb.tv !

My good buddy, Jon Keeyes was nice to let my short film site, Atombomb.tv show his short film, Equilateral. It's a comedy spoof of the Christian Bale movie Equilibrium from a few years back. It's very well crafted and directed by Mr. Keeyes. Lot's of local talent from Ft. Worth involved in this short. Also check the behind the scenes video produced exclusively for Atombomb.tv.

Equilateral: In a futuristic world, comic books have been outlawed. To destroy the rebels, a militant faction called The Shredders has sprung up. Now, one of the Shredders will have to decide between the law he enforces and the world of free thought and expression.

Hope everyone enjoys the film, I hope to up production on these shorts soon, so there will be more! Again, check back and enjoy the other shorts on the site, send them to your friends, embed them on your sites, blogs, and myspace pages.

DVD Review: Highlander: The Source

I reviewed this earlier on the blog back in the summer I think when it came out on the Sci-Fi Channel. As an avid Highlander fan I was underwhelmed to say the very least. Well now its out on DVD, and I decided to give it another chance, if anything for the extra features. On the sci-fi broadcast it was very hazy and cropped to hell. Well at least on this nice new dvd, you can see it in the proper anamorphic aspect ratio and the special effects don't look as bad. However, the movie itself is still a total mess. (This is Highlander part 5 for those of you counting)If you are a strict and completest Highlander fan, then there is a terrific tribute to Highlander producer Bill Panzer who passed away before this movie came out. He had produced all the movies and the long running Highlander TV series. Also there is documentary of the making of The Source that is really cool. For one its tons of B-Roll from pre-production to the end of production and is really interesting to see the Highlander team do their thing. The documentary is actually longer than the movie itself! Too bad the movie itself is such rubbish. Still if your a Highlander fan, a dvd you must put on your shelf. It will make a nice bookend with Highlander 2:The Quickening! There can be only five. The dvd comes out on Tuesday, Feb. 26th.

Do the Mavs really need this...again

Review: There Will Be Blood

Daniel Day Lewis is a BADASS. He owns this movie. At no point did I ever say to myself, I'm watching Daniel Day Lewis. The guy just transforms himself into his character of Daniel Plainview an oilman of the early 1900's oil boom in America. A story about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century prospector in the early days of the business.

This film besides King of Kong is one of my favs for 07. PT Anderson is a favorite director of mine ever since Hard Eight and Boogie Nights. Here he continues his growth as a storyteller and a director. The supporting cast is nothing short of great. This movie feels real. The photography and the music are spot on. The score by Jonny Greenwood is much like the Shining. Yes the score is almost anti-score, like shrieks and howls. Very moving. I would put this movie in the all time classic category if not for the very predictable ending, which is sad considering the build up of the last 2 hours. Although I enjoyed seeing what happened to these characters in the future I didn't like leaving them in the present. I didn't like being ripped from that world and thrown into the future.

And my favorite part of the film was Dillon Freasier's portrail of Plainview's son, HW Plainview. HW is only about 6 or 7 years old but goes everywhere with his dad, even to meetings. And once you see this movie you will want HW to be in every meeting you;ve ever had. He is that cool.



A truly great film that belongs in the upper tier of classics. A true film in every respect, the kind that people discuss for years. This is truly one film experience you will never forget on the big screen.

Seventy-8 will be Unleashed!

Seventy-8 trailer from Atombomb.tv on Vimeo.

Great news on the Seventy-8 front! Director Uwe Boll's company Boll World Sales picked up Seventy-8 for Worldwide distribution. They plan on releasing the film in several territories including Australia, New Zealand, and Germany among others. They also plan on taking it to the film market at Cannes in May '08 to try and sell it in more territories. So keep your fingers crossed. There is no U.S. release yet... We are working with Brightlight Entertainment in Vancouver on the dvd stuff now. We will keep you updated on any new information as it develops. Thanks again to all of you who worked so hard on the film, this kind of stuff does not happen without all of you.

As a token of my thanks, I'm gonna leak the gag reel... and a fresh version of the trailer.

Thanks
e.


78 gag reel from Atombomb.tv on Vimeo.

My Rambo Review

GDMF on Atombomb.tv

Finally! There is a new short film on Atombomb.tv. Sorry for the delay, but after "Death by Powerpoint" in September my day job producing commercials got hectic yo. So after a nice Holiday break we got back on track with this great short from Fort Worth filmmaker and master vegan chief James M. Johnston. I saw GDMF a year ago at the Dallas Video Festival and became a fan of James style. GDMF is a film that challenges you and makes you pay attention. I've always been a big fan of improv filmmaking. If its done bad, it comes off as pretentious, but GDMF works. James worked to give the actors a story and the crew a sense of the scene, paying attention to all the details while letting the story shape on its own through its characters.

I hate to compare films to each other but I can't help to compare this to John Cassavetes films. When I first walked out of the screening last year Cassavetes and "Buffalo '66" popped into my mind. Sometimes a writer can't capture a moment in time. Good dialog is great and all, but does not always work in certain situations. I think James film is great example of improv filmmaking and I look forward to his next film, "Merrily, Merrily".

So head on back over to the Atombomb.tv site HERE and check out GDMF. Be warned that the film is for adults, so prolly not a good idea to watch it at work. Oh and check out all the extra bonus features below on the film page. James did commentary, articles, and all sorts of fun stuff. New film next month I promise!!!!

Diary of the Dead trailer!

Diary of the Dead - Exclusive Trailer

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R.I.P. HD-DVD... January 4th, 2008

Just when I was having fun buying cheap hd-dvd's. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. HD-DVD: The Look and Sound of "Almost" Perfect is hanging by a thread. All hail the mighty BLU.

Click HERE to read the sad news for HD-DVD devotees.

The Possibility of Hope

I finally got the chance to see "Children of Men", and enjoyed it very much. There is a documentary on the hd-dvd called "The Possibility of Hope" which kind of gives you an overview of our world and how we F it up and continue to do so. I found it to be very scary yet fascinating. Check it out in 3 parts:

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

This makes me smile...

When Hitchcock Meets Scorsese...

Yummy Japanese Pizza!

Mayonnaise and Shrimp filled crust. Awesome.

The Forbiddon Kingdom trailer

If this had come out about 10 or 15 years ago I would spoiled my pants. Jackie Chan and Jet Li in the same kung-fu epic! Still this looks fun.

Rambo 4 trailer

It's on bitches...



nostalgia goosebumps!

The Format War Rages On !

Hola. It has been a while since I have been blogging. Work has been quite steady at the old Immotion Studios. I finished my two rough cuts this week on our two big videos this month, go great feedback and high praise for the work, and today I find myself completely burned to a crisp creatively... Hopefully over the next month or so I should be blogging about more crazy films, and even some good news from the filmmaking front here in Funkytown.

I have seen a few films recently... 28 Weeks Later was a lot of fun to watch. I really hope they make one more to complete a really sweet trilogy. Also watched Mr. Brooks, a serial killer movie with Kevin Costner. I thought it was decent, but could have explored the inner self more than getting caught up in the procedural side of things.

I have been really into the high def dvd market for a while now. It has been almost 2 years now since both hd-dvd and blu-ray came out, and blu-ray still is kicking arse it seems. However as much as I am a supporter of the Blu, a funny thing happened on the way to Wal Mart the other day. It seems that Toshiba (the only manufacturer of HD-DVD players) got super desperate the other week and decided to offer the old HD-DVD A2 player for 98 bux at Walmart and Best Buy. Granted there are many wonderful films that are only on HD-DVD that I am dying to peep in HD, that I can't get my blu-ray hands on, so i took the plunge, and picked one up and got 5 free hd-dvds to boot. So actually the player was free in one sense.

So now after reading all the articles about which one is better and so on, I had the chance to check it out with my own eyes. And the truth is, the difference is minimal as expected, but what i found on some heavy extras discs, there is not enough storage capicity to but everything on a single platter, so again like in normal dvd we are back to the flipper disc, or the double disc set. The image itself looks great on films, though this 98 buck player only outputs 1080i not p like the blu's do. But unless you have a highly trained eye, it won't matter too much to the average movie lover. Now the one thing I am totally digging about hd-dvd at the moment, is the "In Movie Experience" on some discs. What it is, is that you start your flick, and turn on this feature and boom while you are watching the movie, a little PIP window pops p and gives you insight into the making of the film. Wheter it be an interview with crew or cast, its really cool. Now this dvd player also has a ethernet pot to where you can take that experience even further and say you see a sweet ass car in Miami Vice and want to know more about that particular car, you can scroll over the car and it hooks up to the web during the movie and gives you info on that car as you are watching it. Pretty sweet! Apparantly blu-ray will have this next year.

So am i traitor for this act of home video treason? Nah, I just wanted to see Batman Begins in HD! If you really stand back and look at this current format war, its kind of sad that Toshiba is having to basically give players away to stay in the game, but hey for home entertainment geeks like myself it gives me the chance to get a few movies i really love and see them in a better light. And after its all said and done, thats what its really all about, is seeing movies the best way possible and to enjoy them the best way you can. In the immortal words of the Highlander, there can be only one. I think that will be Blu-ray when the holiday wars settle. It's a more robust and advanced technology that came out too quick to try and get in there before hd-dvd took over. And by the way, "2001" on blu-ray is un freaking real.

I'll try and write up some hd-dvd/blu-ray reviews on vacation. There are a bunch of titles waiting for me at home to spin, like Close Encounters, Oldboy, Children of Men, etc. To keep up with the mighty small war, i would go to this site called HighDef Digest. Click HERE

Slso a good article on the war is over at dvdfile.com:

Click HERE for that one.

D-Harp

Was watching the pre-game show for the Mavs/Blazers game on Saturday night. Found this to be most interesting....

Congrats to the Draganic's!!!

My partner in crime at Immotion Studios, Marjia had her baby this Monday in the front seat of a car on the way to the hospital. (and if you know her, this makes total sense) Fox 4 was there!

Darth Vader Fun Time!

Blood on the Highway trailer

Good friend, Barak has a trailer up for his new feature, "Blood on the Highway". Check the website HERE or peep the trailer below.

The Season begins again...

Well the basketball gods were quite cruel to the Mavs and the Rockets last May. Only the Spares (I mean Spurs) were lucky enough to win the prize. With the new season on the horizon on Halloween, here are some HSO's on both the Mavs and Rockets...

The Dallas Mavericks:

This is without a doubt the best team in the NBA. Even with the fizzle in the Finals and last years total breakdown in Round 1, they still have better chemistry and talent than any other team in the league. They can beat the Spurs without even thinking about it. The problem is the one team out of every other team in the NBA that the Mavs can't beat is the Warriors. Hopefully the tweaks of Eddie Jones, Trenton Hassell, and Brandon Bass will be enough to knock that little problem child off this year. They looked great in Pre-Season when all the starters played. Devin looks improved as a leader much like Tony Parker did earlier in his career. The question marks are in the Center position. With Damp still hurt till December, and his usual long comebacks, will the Mavs have any depth at all in the center position. Diop can't play the entire game, and putting Dirk in there, only hurts our offense in stretches. The other big question mark for me is the starting shooting guard. It looks as if the greatness of JET will be on the bench this season. And a rotating starter of Stack, Jones, and maybe even Hassell will be back court with Devin. The Mavs need to concentrate on winning but not winning every game they can to the point of exhaustion by the end of the year. The Spurs will remain the lurking snake in the grass they always are. Other than them and the Rockets and Warriors, it seems pretty smooth sailing. PHX could always be a problem, but as the Spurs did so wonderfully last year in the playoffs, and expose them as the one-trick pony show they really are, i don't fear them in a series much, just on a per game basis.

The Houston Rockets



Many people say this could be the year for the Rockets. So was last year and the year before that. However this is the most loaded this team has been in a while. New couch Rick Adelman will cast out a lot of van gundy's defensive mind numbing play style for a more up tempo old school Kings offense. McGrady now has plenty of ball handlers, which frees him to be T-Mac and not a point guard. The Spurs may have made the biggest blunder in the draft by giving Luis Scolia to the Rockets for Jackie Butler? Scolia went on to be the MVP of the FIBA games this year and is impressive. He will prolly end up being a starting forward once he adjusts to the NBA. He's a rookie, but has played for along time overseas and has kicked many a NBA player ass int he Olympics. He's tough minded with no fear and is a younger stronger Ginobli. Spurs, what were you thinking? I would have waived Finley for him. The other thing that concerns me is Yao in Adelman's offense. Can he keep pace up and down running. We all know this is Yao's weakest spot. He gets winded and is always last one down the floor. I only saw on pre-season game so I don't know how this will play out but ESPN has them in front of the Mavs and Spurs for the year in terms of records. And finally Mike James and my beloved Stevie Francis is back on the team. Great to see those guys back. Especially since both have played with Yao before and know where he likes the ball sent to in the post. Looking forward to wearing my old Francis jerseys to a Rockets game!

And finally I leave with this piece of uncomfortable journalism. A young reporter who may be dead now, tries to interview one of my fav players of all time, Sam Cassell. Sam is the point guard for the LA Clippers, and this is one of the most cringe inducing interviews of all time.

My Wife's Dreams are like this....

Is This Necessary? And Will I Watch? Of Course.

Zu:The Cat Warrior from Magic Mountain ?

One of my co-workers today found this cat with 4 legs and only 3 paws. We are taking him in for a while.

I have named him Zu.

The Jacques Tati Experience

Well I must admit that this weekend I did get on a bit of a foreign film fetish. My former boss and close friend, Bobbie introduced to me the works of French auteur Jacques Tati. I was not all that familiar with his work until Bobbie had a screening at the Modern of one of his films, called Mr. Hulot's Holiday. I really enjoyed the film and set out to see some of his other films, particularly those featuring his alter ego Mr. Hulot. Tati stars and directs his films that are at times on par with Chaplin and Keaton. His alter ego Hulot is a bit of a mix of Seller's Clouseau and a tad of Mr Bean for those looking for something to describe him as. He's a French klutz that means well but usually his honesty and good nature bring him nothing but trouble. Tati started as a mime and his films continue this theme as the films work on a silent level, with pretty much minimal dialog and lotsa sound/fx for all the sight gags. He wears his trademark raincoat, umbrella as a cane, and pipe. In Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1953) he takes a vacation to a resort that results in a series of misunderstandings and physical gags that have such genuine charm it makes you love the character of Mr. Hulot so much, you hate to see him leave.



I started my new Tati journeys with the follow-up to "Mr. Hulot's Holiday", "Mon Oncle" (1958). In Oncle Hulot lives in a small town near his nephew whom he seems to be closer to in age than the adults in the town. His sister and husband live in a super-duper state of the art home with automatic gates, robot kitchens and the best gag of all the Fish statue that spits water out whenever someone comes in the gate. Although the funny thing about that particular gag is that it's Hulot's sister that has to turn the fountain on b4 anyone can come into the gate of the home. This theme is what is at the heart of Mon Oncle to me. Tati has a series of failed attempts at working in a factory, and a disastrous attempt at a romantic hookup at a dinner party by his sister, but alas the theme of this movie all goes back to that Fish. Tati to me at least is saying look at how silly we are that we worship gadgets, technology, and appearances. Tati does a good job here in balancing the comedy with satire. My only complaint was that it felt maybe about 20-30 minutes too long. Other than that I had a lot of fun with Mon Oncle, and I would welcome another view sometime.



The next one I popped in was called Playtime from 1967. It took Tati 3 or 4 years to film it, and after watching it you can see why. It's attention to detail is amazing. most scenes are played all in long shots with tons of extras and gags all going on at once. The film takes place in Paris mainly in a modern state of the art skyscraper as Tati's Mr' Hulot attempts to track down a busy executive to finish running an erand. the scenes with Hulot are great, but tend to drag at points. And where the film lost me is Tati's obsession with technology. Like a bad hangover from Mon Oncle's house he dwells on this for way too long. There are points where Hulot disappears from stretches of the film for what seems like half an hour. At over two hours the film is overlong. The best genius in this film is that as Hulot is tracking this guy down there is a secondary story of a female tourist dying to see Paris, when all she does is tour this crazy skyscraper. Whenever she opens a door in this building there is a reflection of the Eiffel Tower and other great Paris locations. I thought that was a genius visual move on Tati's part and I think it gets his point across better than anything else in the film. What I loved about Hulot's holiday and even mostly in Oncle is Hulot's humanity in this crazy world. In Playtime the character of Hulot gets lost in Tati's huge message canvas. It's technically a sight to behold as a filmmaker you can feel him growing as you go along, but at the same time I felt I signed up for a Hulot film, and although I was enlightened I was somewhat disappointed.

There is one more Hulot adventure I have not seen called Trafic, where Hulot plays a automobile inventor on his way to an auto show in a tech loaded RV. That sounds really fun, and I can't wait to see it. i did some more research on Tati, and on the Playtime DVD from Criterion, there is a second disc of documentaries and interviews that shed some more light on this really genius and incredible influential comedian that has influenced Mr. Bean, Monty Python, Peter Sellers, and countless others. For first timers I would recommend Mr. Hulot's Holiday and Mon Oncle. And yes Amy there are dogs in outfits.

Here is a the official Tati website. Be warned its design is more complicated and confusing as Tati could have ever imagined! Also look below for the trailer to Mon Oncle..

Click HERE to enter Tativille.com

DVD Review: Born to Fight

This weekend I watched one of the most insane movies ever. It's a kung-fu flick called "Born to Fight" from Thailand that defies explanation. It's not a good movie per se, its just that the fighting scenes are so bizarre and over the top that you can't help but have a good time. The plot is simple, a rogue terrorist group takes over a small country village in Thailand and sets up a nuclear missile aimed at a big city, and unless the government hands over some $ the prisoners get it. And boy do they. This movie is harsh with its violence, but then a crazy dude with one leg shows up and kicks a gord off a tree and into the head of a terrorist with a gun. Then soccer balls are used to knock off a few dudes in tree houses. That one had me rolling.

This film stars Dan Chupong and amazingly he survived this insanity directed by the equally insane Prachya Pinkaew. Mr. Pinkaew made a few of the Tony Jaa Films, like Ong bak and The Protector (aka Tom Yum Goong) Then there are the stunts which are all totally real and not CG. I mean some of them are downright painful to watch. In fact I've seen every Jackie Chan movie ever made and there were stunts in this movie that i have never even imagined were possible. Jackie would never be insane enough to do some of these. I'll be honest with you the mid section of the movie is a little drawn out, but then the ending action sequence happens. It's at least 45 mins long, and is the most insane thing you have ever seen. It really is almost too much to take in one viewing. I wanted to explain it to my wife, but I didn't know where to start. ( a dude gets toasted at short range with a missile launcher!) Like I said, this is not fine cinema, its not even a good movie, but the action is so over the top it ascends to some other form of cinema greatness of which I have not seen since the 80's films of JC.

But more than anything this film brings back the lost 80's art of Gymkata. Oh yes, the greatness! This film is without logic, and it could care less. Go rent it now!!!

Check out a fight megamix video that someone made:

Lone Star International Film Festival trailer

Howdy yo. Have a somewhat kind of premiere blog movie here. Sorta. See, my friend Barak Epstein directed a Grindhouse-esque trailer http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giffor the Grindhouse movie earlier this year which I greatly admired and showed here on the blog. I was approached by the Lone Star Film Society to do a trailer for the 1st Lone Star Film Festival in Fort Worth on November 7-11.

I didn't really have time or money to shoot anything totally original, but one morning I thought about Barak's trailer if re-cut would be perfect for what they were looking for. So I hit up the Barak, and he said cool, so I cut a demo for them. They bit on it hard, and here we are. Barak and I re-cut the original a few weeks back, and this whack ass trailer should be hitting Rave Theater cinema chains, local bars, schools, and T.V. screens near you real soon...

Download it in Quicktime HERE.




Local hommie, James M Johnston also did a trailer featuring my favorite horror movie characters, Zombies. Check it here: