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Blind Ferret Entertainment recently posted their latest animated short online, "Slaughter the World". The animated short features Richard, an Undead Warlock, singing a parody of Disney's "Part of Your World" song while ganking townsfolk and animals as the title implies. At the end of the video, Blind Ferret Entertainment teases that a "Looking for Group" animated film is in development with a late 2008 release date.
On July 3rd, 2007, Dreamworks Pictures and Paramount Pictures released the live-action Transformers movie. Directed by Michael Bay and produced by Don Murphy, Transformers is a movie loosely based upon the ongoing Hasbro toyline since the early 1980s. Despite the stigma surrounding Michael Bay, Transformers is surprisingly an excellent movie with character development, humor in appropriate places, and filled with explosive action scattered throughout the movie.
In Transformers, a young Sam Witwicky learns that an ancestor discovered the Allspark – a life-giving object to electronic equipment – and Megatron in stasis lock in Antarctica. Early in the movie, Sam’s father purchases a Chevrolet Camaro whom Sam later discovers is really the technological alien, Bumblebee. Sam learns that two cybernetic races, the Autobots and Decepticons, have traveled to Earth to recover the Allspark as it will help bolster their ranks for ultimate control of their home world, Cybertron. Sam unknowingly has information to the whereabouts of the location of the Allspark in which he is pulled into the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons.
Casting Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky was an excellent movie as his acting was spot-on and likeable. Starring in an earlier summer movie, Disturbia, Shia Labeouf definitely has a bright future ahead of him as he is proving movie after movie his acting talents. Megan Fox was cast as the beau, Mikaela Banes, who quickly developed into a tolerable character despite appearing flaky early in the movie. A majority of the movie focuses on human character development rather than developing the Transformers further which was unfortunate. While the human characters were likeable as a whole and much emphasis were placed on fleshing out the Autobots’ personalities, the Decepticons were left with the short end of the stick. Aside from a few lines and plenty of action scenes, the Decepticons were relatively bland in personality with little to no speaking role. Additionally, it would have benefitted the movie to have further developed the conflict between the Autobots and Decepticons to fill in the back story.
Overall, Transformers has a wide appeal to many audiences as it contains much humor, an intriguing character story with Shia LaBeouf’s character, and all out robot mayhem. The movie is definitely worthwhile to watch repeatedly to encourage a sequel – which is already under pre-development.
Strengths:
In Transformers, a young Sam Witwicky learns that an ancestor discovered the Allspark – a life-giving object to electronic equipment – and Megatron in stasis lock in Antarctica. Early in the movie, Sam’s father purchases a Chevrolet Camaro whom Sam later discovers is really the technological alien, Bumblebee. Sam learns that two cybernetic races, the Autobots and Decepticons, have traveled to Earth to recover the Allspark as it will help bolster their ranks for ultimate control of their home world, Cybertron. Sam unknowingly has information to the whereabouts of the location of the Allspark in which he is pulled into the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons.
Casting Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky was an excellent movie as his acting was spot-on and likeable. Starring in an earlier summer movie, Disturbia, Shia Labeouf definitely has a bright future ahead of him as he is proving movie after movie his acting talents. Megan Fox was cast as the beau, Mikaela Banes, who quickly developed into a tolerable character despite appearing flaky early in the movie. A majority of the movie focuses on human character development rather than developing the Transformers further which was unfortunate. While the human characters were likeable as a whole and much emphasis were placed on fleshing out the Autobots’ personalities, the Decepticons were left with the short end of the stick. Aside from a few lines and plenty of action scenes, the Decepticons were relatively bland in personality with little to no speaking role. Additionally, it would have benefitted the movie to have further developed the conflict between the Autobots and Decepticons to fill in the back story.
Overall, Transformers has a wide appeal to many audiences as it contains much humor, an intriguing character story with Shia LaBeouf’s character, and all out robot mayhem. The movie is definitely worthwhile to watch repeatedly to encourage a sequel – which is already under pre-development.
Strengths:
- Hands down the best summer blockbuster movie this year thus far.
- High quality and believable CGI.
- Characters typically behave similarly to their Generation 1 counterparts.
- The Decepticons needed more introduction and character development.
- Partially contradicts the original Generation 1 continuity.
Yahoo! Movies has a new trailer online for the upcoming Transformers live-action movie. The trailer is 2 1/2 minutes long containing a mix of new and old footage. Also, during the middle of the trailer when Optimus Prime transformers into robot mode, an updated version of the classic transformation sound can be heard. It is definitely a nice homage to the original series and it will be interesting to see if the live-action movie retains the sound clip during transformation.
On March 23rd, 2007, Warner Bros. and Imagi Animation Studios released their latest CGI film in theaters, TMNT. Despite what the commercials may indicate, TMNT is an action-oriented film bolstering far more violence than previously depicted in the animated series and movies. While the movie does indeed contain humor, it is a much more dark entry in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series than previous installments. Raphael is much more of a badass than depicted in the first movie and the Turtles actually use their weapons for combat unlike the second movie.
If you are an adult who was formerly a hardcore Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, then this movie is for you. TMNT is the fourth movie in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series of movie -- it is not intended to be a restart targeted towards minors. As far as TMNT is concerned, the events of the previous movies occurred including the death of Shredder outside of the Vanilla Ice concert. Yes, you read that correctly.
TMNT begins with a quick recap to the events of the first two Ninja Turtles movies, and afterwards setup the back story to the new villain, Max Winters. The movie is reminiscent of Ghostbusters II as the Turtles have gone their separate ways after the defeat of Shredder and the fall of the Foot Clan. With a new mutant threat rising and the uprising of a newly reformed Foot Clan, the Turtles must reform their team once again to take on this new threat and save New York.
Overall, the writing, animation, and plot are strong and definitely worth the price of the movie ticket. The only glaring flaw is that fact that not enough back story is provided to the movie's new villain, Max Winters. While the audience is presented with a limited amount of back story, not enough is available to fully understand his history or current plans, nor care enough about his fate at the end of the movie. The Turtles themselves, Master Splinter, April O'Neil, and Casey Jones are depicted better than ever in this movie sequel.
If you are an adult who was formerly a hardcore Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, then this movie is for you. TMNT is the fourth movie in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series of movie -- it is not intended to be a restart targeted towards minors. As far as TMNT is concerned, the events of the previous movies occurred including the death of Shredder outside of the Vanilla Ice concert. Yes, you read that correctly.
TMNT begins with a quick recap to the events of the first two Ninja Turtles movies, and afterwards setup the back story to the new villain, Max Winters. The movie is reminiscent of Ghostbusters II as the Turtles have gone their separate ways after the defeat of Shredder and the fall of the Foot Clan. With a new mutant threat rising and the uprising of a newly reformed Foot Clan, the Turtles must reform their team once again to take on this new threat and save New York.
Overall, the writing, animation, and plot are strong and definitely worth the price of the movie ticket. The only glaring flaw is that fact that not enough back story is provided to the movie's new villain, Max Winters. While the audience is presented with a limited amount of back story, not enough is available to fully understand his history or current plans, nor care enough about his fate at the end of the movie. The Turtles themselves, Master Splinter, April O'Neil, and Casey Jones are depicted better than ever in this movie sequel.
This evening I watched Sandra Bullock's latest movie, Premonition, at the Metro Pointe theater. Without delving into spoilers, the commercials mislead the audience into believing this movie has potential rather than the logic trainwreck that it is. While the movie was not terrible, it is heavily unlikely anybody will be walking away from this movie satisfied. Unfortunately, the movie contains numerous yet easily predictable "twists", logic errors, and paradoxes that would make Doc Brown cry.
In Premonition, the lead character, Linda Hanson discovers on Thursday that her husband died. Throughout entire the movie, the week occurs out of order as Linda attempts to piece her husband's death and various events together. Unfortunately, the movie never explains the aftermath of Saturday's events as the audience is left with a half-baked epilogue, and the "twist" ending to the revelation behind her husband's death is easily predictable and creates the movie's primary paradox.
I heavily recommend 300 to anybody interested in watching a movie in theaters this weekend. If you feel you must see Premonition, please be forewarned that you may be more satisfied by providing $10 to a crack addict.
In Premonition, the lead character, Linda Hanson discovers on Thursday that her husband died. Throughout entire the movie, the week occurs out of order as Linda attempts to piece her husband's death and various events together. Unfortunately, the movie never explains the aftermath of Saturday's events as the audience is left with a half-baked epilogue, and the "twist" ending to the revelation behind her husband's death is easily predictable and creates the movie's primary paradox.
I heavily recommend 300 to anybody interested in watching a movie in theaters this weekend. If you feel you must see Premonition, please be forewarned that you may be more satisfied by providing $10 to a crack addict.
It has been a while since I have made a last news update, has it not? Coming Soon has a brief article that reveals some of the characters that will be in next year's The Transformers movie. Apparently, there will be ten Tranformers characters total in that movie. Some of the characters that will be in the movie include: Optimus Prime, Megatron, Soundwave, Shockwave, Starscream, and Jazz. I am curious as to Soundwave's character model since he turned into a stereo in the 80s.
"'Transformers' is very tricky, because it's a movie based on a toy line," Kurtzman told us, when asked about how hard it might be to turn the Hasbro toys into a feature film. "The first question you have to ask yourself is what's the movie? We sat down with Steven Spielberg, and we said that the action scenes in this movie are a given, but he said that that it's the story of a boy and his car and that he wants to bring back the old Amblin movies. It's 'Back to the Future'…great! We're in! It's a real challenge, because the key to making those movies work--and I totally think it's why 'War of the Worlds' works so well--is to be so invested in the people and to maintain the subjectivity of the humans. If you start 'Transformers' with giant robots sitting in a spaceship flying through space, your movie is dead in the water. It's all about keeping it at a human level, and seeing the amazing things that are going on through the eyes of the characters." The Transformers legacy is so vast and full of characters, we just had to know who they may be including in the story. "The staple characters: Optimus Prime, Megatron, Soundwave, Shockwave, Starscream, Jazz," Kurtzman replied. "There's going to be a lot of them. You're going to have ten Transformers in that movie, and if that's not enough, you can go see 2, 3, 4 or 5."