Transformers 4 AND 5 shooting back to back..Shia and Michael Bay not involved? There is hope!

The rumours for the Transformers series have been kicking around for awhile. Who is in? Who is out? Who do we not want? (I'm looking at both you Micheal Bay and your buddy Shia LaBeouf).

The good folks at Empire have recently reported that indeed Paramount Pictures will be bringing us more in the much-maligned, yet still potentially awesome Transformers Franchise. Seems that they will be going the Matrix route and shooting both Transformers 4 AND 5 back to back.

Here is the best news of all.

Michael Bay went on his blog to let the world know that he is not going to be involved with the movies. Furthermore, it seems that Shia LaBeouf has officially indicated that he is out.

THANK GOD for both pieces of news.

And a nice little nugget to leave you with. There is a rumour swirling around that Jason Statham is the next guy.

Let that be true and have Neill Blomkamp as its' director and I am all the way in.

Now excuse me while I give a sacrifice to the movie-making gods to make this happen.

source: Empire.

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Transformers 4 AND 5 shooting back to back..Shia and Michael Bay not involved? There is hope!

The rumours for the Transformers series have been kicking around for awhile. Who is in? Who is out? Who do we not want? (I'm looking at both you Micheal Bay and your buddy Shia LaBeouf).

The good folks at Empire have recently reported that indeed Paramount Pictures will be bringing us more in the much-aligned, yet still potentially awesome Transformers Franchise. Seems that they will be going the Matrix route and shooting both Transformers 4 AND 5 back to back.

Here is the best news of all.

Michael Bay went on his blog to let the world know that he is not going to be involved with the movies. Furthermore, it seems that Shia LaBeouf has officially indicated that he is out.

THANK GOD for both pieces of news.

And a nice little nugget to leave you with. There is a rumour swirling around that Jason Statham is the next guy.

Let that be true and have Neill Blomkamp as its' director and I am all the way in.

Now excuse me while I give a sacrifice to the movie-making gods to make this happen.

source: Empire.

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Really dope fan-made Title Sequence for Tin-Tin with stuff from each of the Books


Steven Spielberg's Tin Tin is coming out soon and while that would usually be a huge deal for me, I am pretty certain that I am going to pass on it as it is done in that weird almost real-life animation method. It's just too creepy for me that they are meant to be life-like but are still computer-generated.

One very cool saving grace for me is this fan-made title sequence for the film. It features elements from each of the 24 books of the iconic character.

I am really impressed by this as it is ridiculously well done. It reminds me very much of the title sequences from the 60's and 70's. Spielberg would not lose out at all if used this.

What say you?

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Shah Rukh Khan in Toronto on Oct 26th for RA One Premiere...You Betcha!

Hey Indian Cinema fans, do we have a scoop for you. Looks like King Khan himself, Shah Rukh Khan will be in Toronto to attend the premiere of his upcoming movie Ra One.

I've got a press relase on its way, once I get a chance to look at it, I will post more details.

In the meantime, if the recent IIFA awards was any indication, folks should start warming up their vocal cords now.

Filed under  //  film   nerdiness   pop-culture   tumblrize   xavierpop  
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American Reunion Red Band Trailer ..and it's pretty much what you'd expect

I was going to give this a pass. I mean how many of these movies can you make. The first couple were funny and made huge stars out of the cast. But I am getting old and this stuff shouldn't be funny anymore right?

Right?!?!

Alright, I have to admit that I laughed out loud during this trailer, much to my chagrin, and that earned this trailer a spot here. The whole gang is back and if the the movie is like the trailer, then it will definitely worth the watch.

What say you?

source  -  Empire.

Filed under  //  film   nerdiness   pop-culture   tumblrize   xavierpop  
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Chickens Singing Cee-Lo's F@#K You can only mean one thing..The Last Epic Muppets Trailer

Those long-time readers of this site know that the most anticipated movie for me this year is the Muppets. They have had quite the brilliant marketing campaign and I, along many of you who have reached out to me on le Twitter and Facebook are just as giddy to see the likes of Miss Piggy, Kermit and Animal grace the big screen.

The opening is around the corner, however the good folks at Disney have dropped one last trailer and man it is awesome!

Behold the greatness that is The Muppets:


About  the Movie
James Bobin ("Flight of the Conchords") is at the helm of this new Muppets movie, which follows Walter and Gary (Segel), two die-hard Muppet fans and roommates who must save Muppet Theater by reuniting Kermit, Piggy, and the entire troupe to stage an "old-fashioned extravaganza." The cast is full of all kinds of celebrity cameos and other great random appearances, including Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Rashida Jones, Zach Galifianakis, Ricky Gervais, Alan Arkin and Billy Crystal. Shooting is already finished, and Disney will be bringing The Muppets to theaters everywhere on November 23rd, Thanksgiving week.

source: FirstShowing.net.

Filed under  //  Amy Adams   Chris Cooper   Facebook   Jason Segel   Miss Piggy   Muppet   Twitter   film   nerdiness   pop-culture   tumblrize   xavierpop  
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Xavierpop and Pixar says goodbye to Steve Jobs

Recently we lost one of the greatest minds of this generation. Our version of Henry Ford succumbed to his long battle with pancreatic cancer on October 5th, 2011.

Steve Jobs defined entrepreneurship for this modern age. He was hands down one of the few men I, like millions of others, looked up to. His tenacity and never wavering quest for perfection was the perfect blueprint for those of us looking to carve a niche in whatever area of business we were looking to take on.

He was inspiration to me not only in the products that he created but moreso in his leadership style that truly made him a vanguard.

There has been plenty said about him already and I imagine that there will be plenty more said in the annals of history.

For now, I will simply say..

Thank you.

For the inspiration..
And showing us that the impossible is possible.

With this being a film blog, the best tribute I would like to show is from Pixar, the company he created that with no surprise, changed how we view films.

 

Filed under  //  Apple   Arts   Edwin Catmull   Henry Ford   John Lasseter   Pixar   Steve Jobs   Walt Disney Company   film   nerdiness   pop-culture   tumblrize   xavierpop  
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@MovieJay's Review of Restless

It's to the credit of director Gus Van Sant that Restless ultimately rises above conventionality and formula into the touching romantic drama that it is. You've seen this material before from Dying Young to Untamed Heart about the complexities involved with young people and dying. There are plenty of slice-of-life flicks to be had, but nary has there been a film that I have been able to call a slice-of-death picture. Restless  is a movie that engages us every ste p of the way with it's two quirky misfits, a young terminally ill woman and the fragile young man she shares her last romance with. Together, their love is fueled by their fascination with mortality in how we see them worshipping at the shrine of death.

Annabel is dying of cancer who after a long fight with cancer has been informed by her doctor that she has roughly three months to live. She lives in a house with her older sister Elizabeth, a woman in her mid-30's, who on the ride home back from the hospital stifles Annabel's attempt at humor almost as if to repress her own dread about the fact of having to eventually lose her baby sister. Elizabeth would rather not have to think about dealing with it while Annabel greets this news with uncommon wisdom and acceptance which immediately draws us to her.

Enoch is a young man, scrawny, awkward and shy, whose at times furtive movements with his head and eyes remind us of a bird. He lost his parents tragically in his boyhood and it appears that's where his zest and wonder for the living world was lost as well.

Traditionally in movies, characters meet in train stations and airports, libraries and shopping malls, bars and clubs. Generic places with predispositions for wacky behavior that often involve misunderstandings. Not so in Restless where the early courtship scenes take place in or outside of funeral homes and at cemeteries.

Annabel and Enoch become aware of each other as mourners at a funeral where a man employed by the funeral home begins to sniff out Enoch as an all-too-regular mourner when Annabel comes in and covers for Enoch, saving them both from further embarrassment and trouble. Outside the funeral home is where their dance begins. What is said between them in these scenes is not as important as the feeling of them. Annabel's winning heart and openness attract Enoch from the land of the dead, a place where his closest confidante is a ghost in the form of a former Japanese WWII pilot named Hiroshi.

Is Hiroshi an imaginary friend or is he a re-incarnation in Enoch's mind of someone else close to him? The movie doesn't care too much to explain this, but that's fine since we simply accept Hiroshi the way he is and the way Enoch sees him. And besides, like Annabel's older sister Elizabeth (who looks down on Enoch as a troubled slacker) Hiroshi is a character who serves as a clear-eyed counter-balance to the two young lovers and their naive hearts which have promised to put cancer and dying on the back-burner while their romance develops.

We feel like we're in good hands with Van Sant here who invests us deeply in all four major characters. From Annabel, played by Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre) with touches of sweetness and mysticism to Enoch played with tenderness in his first major film performance by Henry Hopper, son of the late Dennis Hopper, to Elizabeth and Hiroshi, the two older characters who bring weariness and realism to their roles.

I'm doubtful that Restless will find a large audience in these days where younger adult movie-goers tend to run from complexity towards the easy gratification of stuff blowing up real good. That's too bad, because this is a movie worth spending time with even if it is one of Gus Van Sant's "minor" films compared to previous titles like My Own Private Idaho, Elephant, Good Will Hunting, or Last Days. It may be "minor" Van Sant, but it is unique nonetheless in how it not only gathers our sympathy for Annabel and Enoch, but transcends it's story into a meditative experience where we are allowed as an audience to consider our own mortality. Not simply from the perspective o f "what would you do given three months to live?" but something more thoughtful having to do with how we would feel about it and whether we could come to terms with it with as much grace as young Annabel.

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@MovieJay's Review of Machine Gun Preacher



Machine Gun Preacher
details the improbable but true evolution of Sam Childers, a Pennsylvania ex-con and drug addict who is born again as a missionary and eventually finds himself a mercenary in war-ravaged Sudan. Yes, you read that correctly; it's a mouthful of plot and boy does this movie have a lot of plot. If indeed there is a greater power unknown to us until after we perish, they truly do move in mysterious ways in the case of Childers who in the opening scene is being released from prison.

Back home with his wife Lynn and their daughter, Sam is infuriated to find the fridge empty of beer and that Lynn has given up her gig as a stripper at the local night-club in favor of a day job that gives her benefits and self-respect. "Better that you lost her to the Lord than to the milkman", notes Sam's best friend Donnie (Michael Shannon). Together, Sam and Donnie pick up their rock 'n roll ways, wreaking havoc, boozing and drugging all leading to one terrifying sequence where they cheat a murder rap that appears to hang over them after an episode with a hitchhiker they've picked up turns brutally violent. Lynn awakens in the middle of the night to find Sam in the bathroom washing blood from his clothes. Ashamed, Sam joins Lynn and their daughter to Sunday mass where Sam starts the process of being born again.

Things start to look up for Sam.  He fits well into his new life and starts growing into the role of father and provider through a new job on a construction site. In his spare time, he drafts up a plan to construct a church near their home designed particularly for bad-ass sinners of his ilk; strippers, addicts, etc. With a week to go on the contract, the sermon that Sunday at church is given by a Christian missionary preacher who has worked in the Sudan. "I reckon they could use some help", admits Sam at the dinner table that evening as he announces to his family his intention or rather, his calling to work in the African country.

His first trip to Sudan is an eye-opener as he learns about Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, a terror-based outfit that has forced young boys to take up arms, used girls as sex slaves, raped women, killed hundreds of thousands and burned entire villages out of existence. He dives eagerly into his new calling while on a ride north with freedom fighters and visits a make-shift hospital filled with wounded victims of the LRA. In another scene, Sam runs to the rescue of a boy whose legs have been blown off by a landmine.

Undeterred, Sam flies  back to the U.S. to raise more capital for his plan to buy some land in the Sudan and continue on with his project to help children there. He begins to deliver the sermons at his church in PA and the speeches begin to take on an angry, self-righteous tone. He invokes the Lord as a God who wishes not for peaceful lambs who follow his every word, but for wolves with sharp teeth who are willing to carry out his work.

Back in Africa, in a harrowing late-night scene where the LRA is setting fires and attacking the small safe-haven Sam has helped to build at which point the teachings of his former life comes in hand as he picks up arms and starts fighting back. In fact, since that time, Sam Childers has continued to fight back despite criticism of local freedom fighters who have since dismissed him from their movement altogether. He's played by that most dependable of recent physical actors, Gerard Butler (300, the Bounty Hunter) in a high-octane, headstrong performance that goes for broke. Michael Shannon is in top-form as usual as his heroine-addicted pal Donnie, and Michelle Monaghan equals Butler's intensity with her sharp and knowing performance as his wife Lynn.

But the performances don't make or break Machine Gun Preacher, it's the way the movie sees it's protagonist that matters and on that note, Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Monster's Ball, Quantum of Solace) renders a misfire here in a movie that at every step isn't sure about what it's trying to say. Todd Hertz, film critic at Christianity Today wrote, "Provocative, faith-affirming, and challenging, it models what Christian-made films could be. Childers' Christianity is shown as the dynamic and intricate force that it is." I couldn't disagree with him more. This film is not faith-affirming, in fact it is the opposite as it is a perversion of the tenets of Christianity by showing a man whose religious conversion is questionable at best. It is the nature of his spirituality that is called into question and that we simply can't ignore in this movie. It's problematic and troubling because Childers seems governed more by his own rage than by following God's words in th is narcissistic misadventure that leaves us with far more troubling questions than it ever wanted to deliver.

Machine Gun Preacher is a very confused and conflicted movie about a man who does not deserve to be celebrated or mythologized as a real-life Rambo.

**1/2 out of 4

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@MovieJay's Review of Ides of March

The Ides of March, George Clooney's fourth outing as a director, brings the Beau Willimon 2008 play "Farragut North" to the big screen with sharp performances and taut, classic Hollywood storytelling. Too bad the subject matter, stuff that would have been more relevant in the Clinton-era scandal-plagued late 90's, doesn't have the same sheen as every other facet of the film, but it's a small inconvenience in a movie that provides real thrills and real honesty for it's entire 98-minute running time.

The set-up: A week out from the highly contested Democratic primary of Ohio, Governor Mike Morris (Clooney) is the more liberal candidate running neck-in-neck with the more centrist candidate Senator Pullman, played by Michael Mantell. In a small but pivotal role, Jeffrey Wright plays Senator Thompson, a contender who is no longer in play to win the nomination but carries with him enough delegates to play kingmaker to either of the front-runners.

The Morris team's campaign manager is Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), while the other side is headed by Paul Giamatti as Tom Duffy. Those characters alone could make an effective political drama, however the movie centers around Stephen Meyers, Morris' campaign's press secretary in a sharply-observed performance by Ryan Gosling that transforms this behind-the-scenes drama into a potboiler driven by tension generated from its characters and the way their chess-like po litical wars are played out.

Gosling plays Meyers as an idealist among cold-hearted realists who are all weary of the game of hardball politics they have been playing for far too long. He's 30 years old, focused, concentrated, and almost always appears to be in-thought. It is through his interaction with a reporter, played with brash intelligence by Marisa Tomei, that he  has played an active role in more election cycles than most political activists a decade older which might explain the maturity.

Political campaigns are a grind, and the fallout from the stress of campaigns such as a presidential one like this is that staffers get close and sometimes sexual intimacy is understandable, even if it's wrong. Enter Molly, played by the luminous Evan Rachel Wood, a young intern on the campaign, who gets herself noticed by Meyers in a scene that is deftly acted and teeming with furtive-eroticism in just the right moments as we say the intern flirt with and then picks up Meyers. They have important, time-consuming jobs, and the urgency of the sexual tension between them is palpable later on over drinks on a visit to the hotel where Molly is staying.Eventually this coupling leads to complications that rock the Morris campaign, but I will let you dear reader, discover those for yourself.

In a parallel narrative, Stephen is having to stave off Tomei's reporter on a leak she's picked up from an anonymous source that says he took an interview with the opposing side's campaign, in a move that could indicate that the Morris campaign is losing. He did meet with Tom Duffy from the opposing side, but who told? Or is she making it up? Later, in the film's best sequence, the "loyalty" scene, Stephen is taught the hardest of political lessons as he gets torn to shreds by Zara. Philip Seymour Hoffman is so good in this scene, it's a toss-up between this role and his baseball manager of the A's in last month's Moneyball that'll see him earn yet another well-deserved Oscar nomination. Paul Giamatti could be in line for another nomination as well, in a performance that mirrors Hoffman's in it's cold, hard precision.

What we know for sure is that nowadays it's impossible for a presidential candidate to campaign that long and that hard and not come out of it with some form of exhaustion, but the greater point of the film is how it sees the compromises that are made by candidates and their campaigns and that it's equally impossible for them to stay true to all of their values.

There are stronger films in this genre with similar subject matter, such as Mike Nichols' wonderful Primary Colors built from events during the Clinton campaign for President, as well as The Contender just a few short years later focusing on Joan Allen's past as she is nominated mid-term to the VeeP slot. Those were great films, that snapped, crackled and popped with the urgency of the topics of their day. Perhaps Ides of March would be more in league with those had it been made a decade ago, but it's still a worthwhile exercise in league with the very good The Candidate, that early 70's film with Robert Redford as a last-minute entry into the senatorial race in California, who upon his surprising come-from-behind victory can be heard to say, "What do we do now?"

George Clooney's direction is flawless as usual. Along with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night & Good Luck, and the football comedy Leatherheads, he appears to have the same gift for efficient, economical storytelling that Clint Eastwood has mastered in the last act of his career. Both of them actors' directors and in Ides of March the actors here turn this from a conventional film into an observant, tense and always honest one. Good movie.

*** out of 4

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