Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas. I hope you got everything you asked for. Now, next year, I have a recommendation for your wishlist. That right, from TheOneRing.net is this news that LEGO has landed ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit. Lego has the official site, up but it's devoid of anything other than this teasing image.

And can't believe I forgot to blog The Hobbit trailer. If you haven't seen it five times already, you can watch it in HD below.

The Dark Knight Rises Trailer

There is nothing else to say, but that this looks awesome.

G.I. Joe has flying ninjas!

Here's the trailer for G.I. Joe: Retribution. It's the sequel to one of my favorite bad movies, it's directed by the guy that gave us the Justin Bieber movie, and uses a voiceover from The Rock for the trailer, and yet despite all this, it somehow looks totally awesome. I think it's the not-actually-flying-but-close-enough ninjas. Also, Bruce Willis.

Week Links: Posters, rumors, trailers

This week, we have more Star Trek rumors, because those just don't get old. Also, more casting for Ender's Game, and then some teaser posters, including the one pictured right here. Then there's a trailer for Battleship, a film from the school of thought that says a) You can make a movie based on anything, and 2) Absolutely anyone can act. Or at least get some attention, and that's the whole point of filmmaking isn't it? There should also be a trailer for G.I. Joe 2 released later today, so I'll post that when I get a chance. Anyway, Happy Monday, your links are below.

Week Links: Ender, Star Trek, Troopers, Thor

Okay, I was day late with this week's collection of links, hopefully it won't happen again. However, it's been an exciting week, especially if you're into probably unsubstantiated Star Trek rumors. Also random remakes, and problems for the God of Thunder. Meanwhile, I'm reading Micro, Michael Crichton's final work completed by Richard Preston. So far, it seems like a classic return to Crichton's great works.

How Marvel's "Ultimate Comics" relaunch did the things that DC should have

The only way you haven't heard about the DC Comics relaunch is if you've been living in the wilderness or you don't care about superhero comics. Either way, all you need to know is that DC restarted all 52 of their comic lines with the new #1 issues and varying changes to the characters and universe (Tor.com did a full look at the line, which can be found here). Similarly, you probably heard about the new Spider-man, who (stop the presses!) wasn't white. This new Spider-man appears in Marvel's Ultimate Universe as part of another reboot, where previous stories can be ignored and all the issues start over at #1.

Marvel launched the Ultimate universe in 2000 as an alternate continuity where they could retell familiar characters and storylines with a new spin. This reached its zenith with Mark Millar's take on the Avengers in The Ultimates 1 and 2 before crashing down with the Ultimatum storyline that killed half the characters. The line continued as Ultimate Comics for a few years, but sales were down and only Ultimate Comics Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis continued to do well, though Mark Millar's return the universe with Ultimate Comics Avengers is worth the read in my book. So Marvel decided to reboot the entire line again, but this time they didn't kill twenty famous characters, they just killed one. It was a gutsy move, killing the character that kept the line running for ten years, but apart from generating some free publicity, it highlighted the true strength of the Ultimate universe: Characters can die, and they'll stay dead.

Muppets and this week's links

With the previous week being the wonderful combination of Thanksgiving and Black Friday, it wasn't a particularly busy time for news. However, I did go see The Muppets, after suffering childhood flashbacks from watching Muppet Treasure Island. I'm not totally sure how they did it, but the movie just works. It's a freakishly perfect combination of nostalgia and humor and genuine love. I rank it a #8 for the year. There are some excellent cameos, with the best probably being Jim Parsons from Big Bang Theory.

Week Links: Reviews and streaming and stuff

Here are the links of the week. It's been another busy week, with work and writing taking up most of my time, but I still managed to find a few minutes to blog.

New "Avengers" banners look familiar

 

There's a pair of banners out for The Avengers featuring the individual team members (and Loki) against the "A" logo. I get the feeling the'll look better on their own, but it does look to be new shots of all the characters. Quick thoughts: Why is Cap's face covered? I like that Ruffalo is green-lit, but why not just show us the Hulk? Is it strange that even though the first poster features the main stars, it's the people on the second poster that really make me excited for this movie? I want to see a S.H.I.E.L.D. movie where Samuel Jackson and Jeremy Renner beat things up. Also, doesn't this look a lot like this poster campaign for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek? Is "AA" really the best look for a banner?

Week Links: Lego, Hunger Games, Trailers, and Oscars

Hey, so this week, there's news about a LEGO movie. I'm torn between thinking it's awesome and thinking it signals the end of the world as I know it (because LEGO is an essential part of my world view). Also, there's a trailer for The Hunger Games. Then there's a couple of other things, but I'm NaNoWriMoing so that's more important than blogging this month. It's after the jump, so go for the clicky.

Week Links: Hobbit 3D and more

This week, you can learn all about the 3D filming process being used for The Hobbit. Plus, you can be a part of the The Dark Knight Rises, and as usual, there're some rumors about various upcoming productions. Also, I saw In Time, Tower Heist and Puss in Boots. Dang, it's movie season again.

Week Links: Dark Tower, Dinosaurs, Whedon

So, have you picked up the Blu-ray release of Jurassic Park and spent time wondering if you could outrun a Tyrannosaurus Rex? Science just may have the answer for you. Meanwhile, Joss Whedon has a very unusual idea of a vacation and Stephen King's The Dark Tower adaptation still hasn't died. In fact, it's found new life. It's all ahead on this week's links.

New "Ghost Protocol" Trailer

Here's the second trailer for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. As I mentioned last week, it will be opening a week early in IMAX and will feature 6 minutes of The Dark Knight Rises in certain locations. Now quickly, here's what I want from this movie:
1. At some point, a character will be talking on the phone and be greeted by a Brad Bird voice cameo.
2. Jeremy Renner reveals that his secret is that he is actually Hawkeye.
3. Plenty of screen time for Simon Pegg, Renner, and Josh Holloway, who's been mostly left out of these first trailers.
4. (Least likely) The trailers don't give away all the best parts of the movie.

Week Links: All sorts of awesome stuff

There's so much stuff to cover and I have so little time to do it. Seriously, I've actually had some work over the last week, which makes a nice change from the state of relative unemployment I've occupied since graduation. But in other news, I did make it to The Three Musketeers this weekend. I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, I aware the movie basically terrible, but it was also pretty darn fun. Only time will tell, but it could find itself with G.I. Joe on the list of terrible movies that I watch when I want to have fun without needing to pay much attention. Anyway, I'm putting Musketeers at #9 for the year. I'll probably comes to my senses later. We'll see. Anyway, this weeks links are after the jump.

Week Links: Thor 2, Phantom Menace, and more

Today's link collection sees some news about the Thor sequel, information on that Phantom Menace re-release you were hoping wouldn't happen, some good news about Netflix, and a really pretty awesome scene from one of my favorite sitcoms. And it's been a busy week, so I'll keep this short.

"Avengers" awesomeness

The first real trailer for The Avengers was released today on iTunes. Other than Loki, it doesn't show much of this threat that the Avengers are meant to be fighting, but villains are only part of a good Avengers story, and this trailer suggests that the team's dysfunction will be as important as the foe they battle. I've grabbed a few screenshots. They are after the jump.

Week Links: Dog cosplay, a virus and more Marvel

I had a super busy weekend, so today's links will be brief, with a teaser for a trailer and possibly the saddest--yet most awesome--dog alive. Also, I saw Real Steel. It wasn't bad for a robot boxing movie, though it lacked much of a second act, basically jumping from first to third. Still Hugh "Wolverine" Jackman turned in a solid performance and the movie ranks at #14 for the year.

Week Links: Arrested Development and more!

So, here's the secret to the "Week Links" posts: They are compiled over the weekend from the items I've saved in my Google Reader feed, plus any particularly awesome links that I've been emailed over the week. Then every now and again there's some breaking news at the last minute. That's what happened this week as the interwebs provided me with the following.

Flashback: Star Trek (2009)

Time to add another entry to my flashback series, and I'm going with J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot of Star Trek I've seen every episode of The Next Generation, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine, every movie and decent amount of the Original Series (though I haven't actually sat down and watched every episode, yet), but even though it's blasphemous to die-hard fans, the newest film is my personal favorite. The biggest reason for that is the amount of storytelling that takes place in this film. True, it lacks much of the socio-political and cultural commentary that made Star Trek what it is, but unlike the other series that had years to develop their characters and find a mix that worked (goodbye Tasha Yar, hello Seven of Nine), the new film had two hours and 122 pages to do the same amount of work. True, it had some audience recognition on its side, but a quick look at the box office numbers will show just how far this film outstripped the previous entries in the franchise. There're good reasons for that, and I'll take a look at them after the break.

Week Links: Jetpacks, Raptors, Blu-ray

Time for another batch of Monday links. I'm working on getting another Flashback post up soon, but for now, you get this collection of news from the internet.

Week Links: Nerds, Spielberg and Abrams

Following up on last week's resolution to post links weekly, here's some things that stood out to me. Click ahead to see them.

Another movie roundup

It looks like I have another bunch of unexplained films on my 2011 ranking list, and since one of those films was really good, while another was quite a disappointment, I feel like explaining why I've ranked them the way I did.

Also, certain films have undergone a considerable shift from their original rankings, and deserve to have their fall pointed out in excruciating detail. Click ahead for more.

Another collection of links

Pandas and Airships and movie stuff. These are some interesting things from the interwebs, that I think that you should probably be aware of. I have a new goal to make this a weekly feature, we'll see how that goes.

A reading recap for August

So, in the joy of getting out of school, I limited my reading strictly to comic books for June and July (okay, that wasn't actually the reason, but let's go with it anyway). I was kicked back into gear around the start of August, and that helped lead to this post. Now I still fully intend to read 1984, but my local library isn't cooperating, so I'm going to start with Dune instead. I'm currently a few chapters in, and I'll have a post about my impressions soon. In the meantime, here's what I read over the course of August.

Review: Ultimate Comics Hawkeye #1

I don't buy many new comics. I generally wait for the collected editions so I can read through four-to-six issues without advertisements or a long wait between issues, but a new limited series about one the best characters in Marvel's Ultimate Universe was too intriguing for me to pass up, and I tracked down Ultimate Comics Hawkeye #1 at my closest comic store. The Ultimate version of Hawkeye, unlike Marvel's mainstream version of the character, has a lot more in common with Bullseye and the Punisher, he also happens to be Ultimate Nick Fury's right-hand man on the Avengers and Ultimates, the Ultimates being the Ultimate Universe version of the Avengers, with the Ultimate Avengers being the equivalent to the Secret Avengers in the mainstream continuity. So far, I've used the word Ultimate nine times in this post, and if you understood the previous sentance, you win nerd points.

Spoilers to follow.

"Avengers" videos and Marvel's first short

It's been longer than I'd like since my last post, but I'm writing that off to a busy week and rectifying the situation with some stuff about The Avengers. First off, there's some sweat promo art featuring the entire team and Loki. You can look at them here, here, and here (Spidermedia via /Film). Next, the first Marvel short film, titled "The Consultant" has been released. It features the estimable Agent Coulson and ties The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man to The Avengers. The full short is embedded after the jump, and there's a couple of other videos too, so click ahead.

Quick links to awesome

It's been a while, so here's a few randomly cool movie and movie-related things I've been meaning to post for a while. It's The Dark Knight Rises, The Dark Tower, G.I. Joe 2, and Marvel's continuing plans for world domination, if you're interested. And why wouldn't you be? Click ahead to read all about it.

"Red Tails" promises awesome air battles

Get More: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

If you ask me what my absoulute favorite thing about the original Star Wars film was, I'd say it's the dogfight when the Rebels attack the Death Star. I grew up on that. Of course your average Star Wars fan knows that George Lucas based those fights on footage from WWI and WWII dogfights, and now it looks like Lucas has decided to make a movie about those dogfights. Red Tails is based on the true story of the African American pilots of the Tuskegee training program, and stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard. This may or may not be a good film, but the plane on plane action already looks awesome.

I need to read more

The lack of reading updates on this blog is due to the fact that I haven't read any books worth mentioning (read: anything that wasn't a comic book) in the last couple of months. Yesterday, NPR released the results of survey of the top 100 science fiction and fantasy books of all time, and I realized that as an author, there's a lot of books I need to catch up on. My rough count is that I've read about a third of the list, counting a series like Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth, which I've only read a part of (but also The Wheel of Time which I've read completely). Now some of the omissions are so legitimately embarrassing that I wouldn't mention it if it didn't present such an opportunity.

Catwoman, Dwarves and Superman

Here are three images from upcoming films that I believe warrant a closer look. First--and possibly the most exciting--is this hi-resolution look at Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises. I like the practical look of Hathaway's costume. Unlike some versions of Catwoman, it doesn't look ridiculous. I'm also glad to see the return of the Batpod, and I wonder if Bruce Wayne will be sharing the technology or whether Catwoman will be "borrowing" it from Wayne Enterprises.

A look at "In Time" from Comic-con

Comic-con also revealed this sizzle reel from Gattaca director Andrew Niccol's upcoming science fiction film In Time, starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, and most of the other Hollywood actors in their twenties. The film was originally titled Now, and came it as my eleventh most anticipated film for this year. Finally have seen the trailer, it looks like it will meet my expectations.

Cool bits from the interwebs

Comic-con has come and gone since my last post of links, and as expected, there were some exciting pieces of news and great reveals over the last couple of weeks. I'm not going to try to cover everything that came out of the con, but here's a few of things that particularly stood out to me.

"Captain America" is summer's superhero

Captain America was my most anticipated film of this year, and I was seriously worried that it would fail to meet my expectations. However, after seeing the film, I think I have to say that this is the most satisfied I have been with a film since The Two Towers, and this movie was everything I hoped it would be.

Much of my excitement sprang from trailers that showed the film would be a combination of war film and superhero movie. Fortunately, director Joe Johnson pulled this off perfectly, incorporating classic war film elements (a mission behind enemy lines, a squad of elite commandos) with the superhero origin story in a way that felt natural.

So happily, this passes X-Men: First Class and Thor to become my #1 movie of the year and I can only say that if you are a fan of any of these movies, than don't forget to stay through the credits, because that's something you won't want to miss.

Teaser shows off "Amazing Spider-man"

Here's the first teaser for next summer's Spider-man reboot, which sees Social Network actor Andrew Garfield fill out Tobey Maguire's old spandex. The inclusion of Peter Parker's parents is certainly an interesting addition, and it looks like Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy will be more than just Parker's high school crush. All in all, a nice trailer, though I'm not sold on the Spider-vision POV. My guess is it's supposed to look awesome in the 3D. Whether it will or not is a different story.

Harry Potter goes out with a bang

I went to a midnight showing of the final Harry Potter film. It was last-minute decision, but I felt like I was missing out on something important, and it turns out a lot of people felt the same. It's been almost ten years since the release of the first film, I've seen everyone on the opening weekend and picked up the last two books at midnight, so I won't pretend I'm objective.

However, I was disappointed at the pacing of the previous film, and since I'd loved the conclusion to the books, I was concerned as to how it would play out on film. I wasn't thrilled with the way director David Yates directed the action in Order of the Phoenix or Half-Blood Prince, with his style leaning toward the frenetic, confusing style that adds realism to The Bourne Identity but made Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen a jumbled mess.

However, I wasn't disappointed as the film started with action and never let up. Unfortunately, it came at the expense of the characters, and there's no way Part II can stand alone as a piece of story-telling. So this is possibly the best Harry Potter film, but if you aren't serious Harry Potter fan, you're going to be left scratching your head. Heck, even I was confused a few times, and it'd only been six months since I'd seen the previous film. That's one of the reasons that makes this my #3 film of the year. There were some great parts, and few disappointing ones that I'll mention ahead, but they are spoilers, so you've been warned.

Dwarves, heroes, and other stuff

The dwarves from The Hobbit are revealed in all their bearded glory, news from Marvel on bringing their heroes to the screen, cool commentary by io9 on a TV show that shouldn't be good, awesome LEGO, and some steps toward becoming Iron Man or Captain America. That right, it's time for another collection of links from around the interwebs.

The Fourth of July

I was going to post about appropriate movies for the Fourth. My personal favorite is probably Independence Day, because setting aside details like the lack of alien firewalls, it's incredibly fun. Also, as this is a day dedicated to making things explode, anything from Michael Bay and most Jerry Bruckheimer films are suitable. However, this morning /Film referred me to this:

I'm probably overexposed to advertising, but this sounds like America. Alan Silverstri's score nails the patriotic tone that dozens of shows, movies, video games have created. Oh, and CBM points out the Australian trailer for Captain America has switched out "Heroes are made in America" for "When evil rises, a hero will stand." But today's the Fourth of July, so we're allowed to be patriotic.

New "Transformers" gets enough right

A quick disclaimer, I really liked the first Transformers despite its obvious flaws, and even though Revenge of the Fallen was a major disappointment, I was still looking forward to seeing the third film, Dark of the Moon. Well, I've seen it now, and I was not disappointed. Even after lowering my expectations considerably, I still found this comparable to the first film. From what I've seen around the internet, people seem fairly split over this film, and I've found that I agree with the points other reviewers are making, even if I don't agree with their final assessment. There are things is this movie that work, some things that almost work, and some things that don't. As far as I can tell, the reaction the film depends on whether or not you find the good outweighs the bad. For me it does, and Dark of the Moon comes in as my #4 for the year.

I'll break down the pros and cons after the break, and there will be spoilers, so consider yourself warned.