If you're any kind of martial art flick fan, chances are you enjoyed the hell out of Tony Jaa's debut flick Ong-Bak, since like Jackie Chan, Jaa does all his own stunts. It was pretty cool... but it did not involve wild animals. In Ong-Bak 2, not only does Jaa appear to fight a crocodile, but he runs over a herd of stampeding elepphants, and even leaps backwards off one to deliver some poor thug a shin to head. It is, clinically speaking, fucking awesome. In Ong-Bak 3 I hear Jaa is going to deliver an atomic elbow from a launching space shuttle. (Via Twitchfilm)
It's only a second, but yeah -- here's "The Doctor" in all his non-glory, thanks to a new Japanese trailer full of much of the same shit we've seen in the other trailers. He's chilling with Destro, wearing his monocle and his odd-little Plo Koon mask, and his oddly '90s hair. Really, that's it. Nothing else new. It's just kind of awkward and sad, especially when you remember the Doctor's name is actually the ominous "Rex Lewis." Sigh. Let's just move on. (Via The Terror Drome)
Kane says Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci ("Fringe," Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Star Trek) are behind the film and that it will be "like the old 80's Amblin movies: Goonies, Young Sherlock... In that vein."
Oh. My Fucking. God. Now I have always believed in the potential greatest of movies based on '80s franchises, albeit those with cartoons and mythologies more than just toylines. And after Pirates of the Caribbean, I can understand how movies based on board games -- and there are many of them in the works -- could be doable, like Clue being a murder mystery and Battleship being a naval battle flick. But.
But the Viewmaster is a fucking hunk of plastic. It's a device to look at slides. There's no rich mythology about the Viewmaster, no potential characters, no nothing. It's like making a movie based on a Lite Brite or a rubber bouncy ball. This is fucking insanity.
Also, I think Kurtzman and Orci need to officially be stopped. Yes, they wrote the great Star Trek reboot movie and are responsible for the sharply improved Fringe TV series. But they also wrote both Transformers movie script and are now indirectly involved in this. I don't believe the good they're doing is justifying the evil they're generating. It's not worth it any more.
If you just started reading Topless Robot in the past few weeks, you'd be forgiven for thinking I have a policy to pre-hate all upcoming nerd-based movies. This isn't true; I just hate stupid ideas, and they seem to be coming fast and furious these days. So I'm glad to report two rumors/spoilers that cast the upcoming Spidey 4 and Iron Man 2 flicks in a more positive light. Spoilers ahoy, so be warned.
First up, if you were concerned about Mickey Rourke's Lord Humungus-esque Whiplash harness/outfit that got revealed a few months ago, Comic Book Resources says that's for an early scene in IM2, and Rourke will be wearing a more imposing, armored Whiplash/Crimson Dynamo-type outfit before the end. Now, I think that's a good thing. It's hard to take Rourke as a credible threat for Iron Man when his nipples are exposed.
The second rumor is very much a rumor, because I can't track down where it started, but i concerns Michael Papajohn's appearance in Spidey 4 which gave me a small nerd rage-aneurysm the other day. I just assumed that Raimi was going to re-re-retcon Uncle Ben's death, but someone somewhere has suggested that this might actually be Spidey villain the Chameleon in one of his disguises. I certainly hope that's the case, since it both fucks with Spidey and doesn't muck up the already murky waters of movie Uncle Ben's murder.
So yes. Two things thaat make me look forward to two comic-based movies, although admittedly they're not confirmed. It is possible, people. It's just not very often.
Seeing that "Ghost Buster" short got me wanting a Ghostbusters entry for Geek Apparel of the Week, and it wasn't hard to find my choice. I'm not generally a huge fan of the costumes-as-t-shirts thing, but I feel like the Ghostbusters' understated brown jumpsuit is a nice exception to the rule. Plus, Stantz, Spengler and Zeddemore all get screwed this time, since on Venkman gets a shirt -- equality for everybody but Bill Murray! It's $25 over at My Tee Spot.
I normally don't do this, but with the announcement that Universal won the rights to make a feature film based on the classic videogame Asteroids -- and by classic I mean impossibly shallow -- in a goddamn bidding war with three other studios (!), I'm just going to quote FilmDrunk, because he said it better than I could.
A F*CKING BIDDING WAR. For a movie based on three dots that shoot one
dot at other small clusters of dots. If you can think of anything
stupider than this... someone in Hollywood will pay you a lot of money.
GREAT NEWS, EVERYONE, TOM CRUISE JUST SIGNED ON TO PLAY BLINKING LIGHT NUMBER FOUR! SOMEONE FINGER MY ASSHOLE SO I KNOW I'M NOT DREAMING!
These are the end times, my friends. It's all downhill from here. By which I mean someone's eventually going to make a movie of Oink!.
The Ghostbusters trailer re-edited to make Winston Zeddemore the star? Yes, please. This trailer has been paid for by the Committee to Remind You that Ernie Hudson Is Pretty Awesome, Man. (Via I Heart Chaos)
(Warning: Trailer is probably not safe for work due to a number of lady-corpse nipples.) I don't mean they fight literally. Chances are that the stunningly armed Robogeisha would beat a zombie girl tied to a bed pretty easily. But what I'm wondering is if Deadgirl -- the movie about a pair of teens who find an attractive zombie girl in an abandoned hospital and decide to keep her for a great many unpleasant reasons, most of them as obvious as they are unsettling -- is more or less disturbing than Robogeisha, which involves schoolgirls getting visibly stabbed in the ass with a katana. Obviously, Robogeisha is far more extreme, but it's also far sillier in tone, while Deadgirl seems played utterly seriously. I admit, I'm far more freaked out about Deadgirl, although I plan on seeing both. What about you guys? Thanks to Jess for the tip. (Via Bloody-Disgusting)
What you're looking at are four Slurpee straws promoting the G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra movie. Now, I know other movies have done this exact same promotion before, so I really can't say that Paramount and Hasbro are trying to subtly get the general populace ready for the movie to suck. (Straws? Sucking? Get it? Hee hee hee!) But, if you examine the straws closely, you'll see that the straws might be more indicative of the movie than you'd think. Notice the characters include Snake Eyes, Duke, Storm Shadow and the Baroness. Well, please take a closer look at these magnificent toys:
Yes. Unless the movie itself somehow rocks my world, I believe this image will be the entirety of my G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra review.
It doesn't quite reach the majesty of Lego's incredible Death Star set, but I knew you guys would want to see Lego's Indiana Jones Temple of Doom set, which just got added to Entertainment Earth. Obviously, it's got a sizable mine-cart rail, two carts, a rock trap, and the human sacrifice stage where Mola Ram takes out the still-beating hearts of his sacrifices. It's tough to tell from the pic, but the set also includes Indy, Willie, Short Round, two Thuggee thugs and Mola Ram, who might just be the new greatest Lego figure of all time. If he comes with a little flaming Lego heart he can hold, change "might be" to "definitely is." You can pre-order the set here.
I just know, somewhere in the deep, dark pit of despair I have in the place where I used to have a heart that this utterly batshit insane clip of an inexpicable He-Man-themed dance routine from some batshit insane Bollywood movie is going to be better than whatever Hollywood eventually does to my beloved Masters of the Universe. At very least, it won't have that awesome mustachioed man calmly gazing upon He-Man and the dancing skeletons and huge statue of Skeletor, calmly smoking a cigarette and occasionally nodding, as if to give the whole fucking nightmare his approval. Thanks to everyone who sent this magic in -- now if you'll excuse me, I need to hire a midget to wear an Orko costume and dance for me for the next several hours. It's the only thing that makes sense to me anymore.
P.S.: Mattel -- I want an MOTUC figure of the mustachioed man, stat.
2009 is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' 25th anniversary, and it's being celebrated in all the normal ways. Playmates is re-issuing the old '80s figures, the live-action movies are coming to Blu-ray, and 4Kids is making a direct-to-DVD movie where the 2003 cartoon Ninja Turtles somehow meet the Ninja Turtles from the 1987. So you can see-- the hell?
Seriously, 4Kids is making a cartoon Ninja Turtle crossover cartoon movie for reasons I cannot understand. 4Kids is teasing the project with "intercepted" images like of old-school April O'Neil above; and you can see a tiny clip of the movie somewhere in this otherwise boring promo video. I don't even think the two groups of Turtles are different enough to actually generate any conflict, although if you check out this pic of old-school Rocksteady and Bebop, which is you click on it gives you an MP3 of new Shredder getting kind of irked that another Shredder is running around his turf, which could be interesting.
Still, I don't get it. Now, if they had paired up the cartoon Turtles with their original comic brethern? That would be something. Something violent, probably, and thus I would have been very interested. anyways, 4Kids is supposedly debuting this thing at SDCC, so if I can attend the panel, I'll let you guys know what's up. Thanks to Mark P. for the tip.
Holy. Fucking. Fuck. Just when you think Japan has reached the pinnacle of crazy, they bring out something like Robogeisha -- the new movie from the maniac behind The Machine Girl. Please be warned this is not safe for work, thanks to a pretty intense amount of violence including a section where a man's eyes get stabbed with fried shrimp. Also be warned that this is not safe for most people, because of a certain shot where a girl gets stabbed in the ass and blood shoots out (it is... not undisturbing). Also be warned I have no idea what's going on with the narrator and his weird-ass voice. But otherwise, every second of this trailer is the greatest second of film of all time -- with the exception of the rectal bleeding. That's was just weird. Thanks to Rob Knox for the tip (Via AICN)
I liked Spider-man1 and 2. They weren't masterpieces but they were fun, and Willem Dafoe classed up the entire project as the Green Goblin. As we all know, Spider-man 3 was a mess, partially by cramming in too many villains, that ridiculous evil Peter Parker dance scene, and -- although I might be the only one who thought -- trying to ret-con Peter's Uncle Ben's death from the first movie so that Flint Marko (somehow) did it and no one knew until just that moment. I absolutely hate when movies and TV series do that. It works when you plan for it ahead of time, but it's just pathetic and forced when you don't, and clearly, Sam Raimi and crew hadn't planned for it when generally unknown actor Michael Papajohn (love his pizza!) played the thug who offed the kindly uncle/rice magnate. Worst of all, this sloppy, shoddy ret-con could not possibly have been necessary to introduce Sandman as a character or a villain, making it even more needless and maddening.
So guess how excited I am about this (from Superhero Hype):
Last week, we received word that actor Michael Papajohn might be back for Spider-Man 4. Scooper 'Wolf' tried to follow up with him on Saturday and here's the result:
I was over at the weekly comic book show Frank & Son over in
Industry, CA, and while I was walking around with my uncle we suddenly
ran into Michael Papajohn. I wouldn't have noticed him except for the
pictures he had all over his signing desk. ... Anyways, I asked him about Spider Man 4
because of the rumor I read that he was going to be in it. He said "I
can't talk about it, but who says I died in the first one?" My uncle
asked him again and he quipped "if I tell you I'll have to shoot you."
Jokingly, of course. That's all I got.
You have got to be shitting me, Raimi. Are you retconning Uncle Ben's death again? Is the dude who shot Uncle Ben and died then became the guy who didn't shoot Uncle Ben and died now becoming the dude who possibly shot Uncle Ben but didn't die? Goddamn it, get a new idea. This one isn't even that interesting, and you're making the entire franchise retroactively stupider evert time you mess with this shit. Mean-spirited comics nerds, please compare/contrast the movie to the spidey comics in the comments. Thank you.
