Um..It's Like...Did Anyone See the Movie 'TRON'? We're Getting a Sequel?

Disney released at test footage of their sequel of their groundbreaking 1982 film TRON at Comic-Con in 3D. This footage is actually over a year old, as it was screened but not released to the public. Now you can see it online in glorious HD. The film will be called TRON: Legacy.

TRON: Legacy test footage

Alice in Wonderland Trailer Teases US

I haven't posted in awhile, I've got much to catch up on. Anyways, we see our first peak at Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, fresh from Comic-Con:

Alice in Wonderland Teaser:

Remembering the King of Pop

Bidding farewell to Michael Jackson, I reflect upon my memories I have of the Hoosier pop star. I don't think I truly appreciate his music until much older, but what I remember most growing up was his videos. No one has, or probably will, gain the status that he did to produce music videos (or short films) with that much production value. His films/videos were collaborated by the likes of Martin Scorsese, John Landis, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Stephen King, Stan Winston, and Rick Baker.

There are so many that are memorable, I've decided to include a few of the lengthy and possibly less visible ones - Enjoy

Captain EO (1986) - High production film that became a 3D Disney attraction for a number of years

*If you have 3D (red/cyan) glasses lying around, here's the original 3D video*




Moonwalker(1988) - 93 min feature length film with its most notable song Smooth Criminal. (features film split in 11 parts, ignore last video)


Ghosts(1997) - Co-written by Stephen King and played before his film Thinner



Bad (1987) - Classic song, classic video


Thriller (1983) - Video speaks for itself


Still not enough MJ? This link contains 81 videos (music videos, some redundant)

When Tim Burton Gets His Hands on Wonderland

Some images of Tim Burton's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland were released today from USA Today. It's usual Burton we all know and love - whimsically creepy imagery. He's got the usual suspects featured in his film - Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, his wife Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar, and Christopher Lee as the Jabberwock. Mia Wasikowska is Alice, with Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. This film is slated to release (and conjure up nightmares in all of us) March 5, 2010.

Great Moments in Film: Enter The Dragon

Sadly, two icons of the martial arts genre passed away yesterday. David Carradine was found dead yesterday in his hotel in Thailand at the age of 72. He is most well known for starring in the hit 1970's show Kung Fu, which was supposedly originally created by Bruce Lee. Carradine was also recently the lead villain Bill in Kill Bill. Cantonese actor Shih Kien also passed away Wednesday from kidney failure at the age of 96. He will forever be known to the American audience as the clawed villain Han from the film Enter the Dragon.

The iconic fight been Bruce Lee and Han from Enter the Dragon:

This Summer's Silver Screened Hearing Aid Hero

I haven't seen it yet, but I can't wait to see this last weekend's #1 film at the box office, Pixar's Up. The film's main character is an elderly man named Carl Fredrickson, voiced by Ed Asner. Carl sports an ITE hearing aid in his right ear. The film actually contains hearing aid feedback, check out the clip below! Since millions have already gone out to see this flick, I wonder if folks will ask their audiologist to be fit with what Carl's got or will it detract those from getting fit for fear of being stereotyped as the animated senior citizen.

Pixar's Up, now with hearing aid feedback!

Stan Bush's 'The Touch' Transformed

With Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen releasing in a month, a song has been redone for the upcoming soundtrack - the infamous song 'The Touch' by Stan Bush. Featured in the soundtrack for the original Transformers movie in 1986 (the one where Optimus dies), the song has become a cult classic and so much so that it was also sung by Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights. Let's hope Weird Al doesn't try to remake 'Dare to be Stupid.'

'09 'The Touch' or Sam's Theme:


'86 'The Touch':


Dirk Diggler's 'The Touch' from Boogie Nights:

Sherlock Holmes, Action Hero

Here's the trailer for Guy Ritchie's take on the pipe smoking gumshoe. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law play Holmes and Watson. It's slated to come out this Christmas.

Sherlock Holmes Trailer

Happy Birthday George!

Kinda almost the end of the day, but Mr. George Lucas turns 65 today. I just saw Star Trek today, and his special effects signature is written all over it like a kid with a crayon and a wall. Here's the classic short film George Lucas in Love, a humorous look at what may have inspired George at USC.

George Lucas in Love

Backlash at the New Star Trek Film.

This is a news short about the backlash from Trekkies that the new Star Trek is 'watchable and fun.' This is hilarious! Oh, by the way, this is from The Onion.

Trekkies Bash Film as 'Watchable and Fun':

Spinal Tap: Unwigged and Unplugged?!

I'm really bummed out I just found out about this, because this tour just passed through Seattle on Monday. Unwigged and Unplugged features Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer performing acoustical sets as well as Q & A sessions. I didn't like A Mighty Wind a whole lot, but there's no denying this trio is quite funny and musically talented. No Marty DiBergi here, but it looks like a great tour.

A Preview of Unwigged and Unplugged:


View the Spinal Tap Reunion from 1992

Stonehenge!



Big Bottom

Michael Bay Feeds Us Some Transformers 2 Footage

Michael Bay posted online footage from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that was shown at ShoWest this year, a motion picture industry convention where production companies advertise their films to theater owners. We get to see some fighting in the woods, more dialog that's embarrassing to listen to, and more robots. The most notable is the first footage of Devastator as well as Jetfire.

UPDATE 4/20/09: Bay had the video pulled, but I'm sure you can find it somewhere. He said to wait till Wolverine and Star Trek for more footage

Here's the footage in all explosive glory:



Jetfire, also known as Skyfire, has had a huge image overhaul for this film. He's made the transformation from a white Macross-like being to a senior citizen with a cane and metallic beard that transforms to an SR-71 Blackbird.

Compare the two looks:

80's Jetfire:
















'09 Jetfire:



80's commercial for the Jetfire toy:


Jetfire from the cartoon:

Great Moments in Film: Glengarry Glen Ross

The 1992 film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play about desperate real estate agents fighting for their jobs features one of the most powerful motivational speeches on celluloid. The all-star performance garnered an Best Supporting Actor nomination for Al Pacino and a Venice Film Festival Best Actor for the late Jack Lemmon.

Alec Baldwin provides electric rhetoric during this scene in what I believe is his best performance: Warning! Strong & Explicit Language


For you fans of 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,' here's a video of Artemis performing an excerpt of this speech for an audition. Hilarious!

Everyone Poops: The Movie Trailer

With the buzz for Where the Wild Things Are coming to theaters later this year, a new book adaptation has arisen - Taro Gomi's 'Everyone Poops'. The timeless classic about one of the essential parts of life is now coming to a theater near you. How will they turn a such a short piece of literature into a feature film? In all seriousness if they ever made this movie, it would be the end of that production company.


I remember this book as a kid, but my parents taught me with Alona Frankel's 'Once Upon a Potty.' I remember the book even came with my very own thrown. Here's a video adaptation of the book:


Parents.com has listed its 14 Favorite Potty Training Books

Last but not least, if you haven't seen this potty training video from Japan, it's a classic:

What Might Have Been Where the Wild Things Are

The trailer for Spike Jonze's live adaptation of the children's book Where the Wild Things Are recently was released. I stumbled upon a bit of info about Disney's attempt at adapting this film into an animated feature in the 80's. At this time, Tron had recently been made and the use of computer graphics were being toyed around with to create a complete animated feature film. The characters were going to be 2D traditionally hand drawn with the backgrounds being rendered in 3D. John Lasseter directed this test shot below. I'm not sure if Disney was actually going to make this into a film, but I know Lasseter wanted this demo to be a means to an ends to create The Brave Little Toaster to look like this. Disney animators apparently didn't like it, Lasseter got fired, and The Brave Little Toaster ended up completely 2D. It's crazy that all this was part of the history that led Lasseter to create Pixar.

Here's the Disney test shot, the Max character looks like one of the Lost Boys from Peter Pan:


If you forgot the story, here's a reading w/ animations of the books pictures:


Here's the trailer for Jonze's film, not sure how a 20 page book turns into a feature film:

AFI's #1 Movie.....Anchorman?

The American Film Institute is constantly creating top 10's and 100 lists full of great American films, primarily looking back at the 20th century. Someone created this great video of AFI's #1 movie as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

Let the Madness Begin....

The NCAA Tourney starts today, the biggest basketball event of the year. Below I've posted the '94 documentary Hoop Dreams, following 2 kids from inner city Chicago and their path to collegiate basketball in hopes of one day making it to the NBA. In my mind this is the best sports documentary I've seen. Although the film's almost 3 hours long, it's quite extensive.

Great Moments in Film: Hard Boiled

News has recently come out that Hard Boiled (English Title), one of my favorite films and one of the best Hong Kong films of all time, has a sequel in the works. John Woo's production company will be behind the development, but American writers will be working on screenplay based on the video game Stranglehold. I'm afraid this film may end up like the inferior The Replacement Killers.

Anyways, here's one of the greatest action movie scenes of all time, from Hard Boiled. Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung shoot their way through a hospital full of hoodlums. The video shows a 2:45 action scene done in one shot. Not all those multiple shot angles that's so popular these days:

A Love/Hate Relationship/Obsession

It seems Star Wars obsession has reached its point to where a film is coming out about the downfall of George Lucas since the prequel trilogy came out. Nerd rants galore about childhoods ruined and a proliferating money-making machine continue to litter the internet since 1999. The documentary, The People vs. George Lucas, is set to release this year and is currently looking for fan interviews on the status of Star Wars and Lucas the last decade. I've been disappointed about it all but seriously, get over it! Change out of that robe and collapse your plastic lightsaber, there's other things to do in life.

The Simpsons poked fun at The Phantom Menace with Randall Curtis' Cosmic Wars: The Gathering Shadow.

The People vs. George Lucas Trailer:

Great Moments in Film: 5 Easy Pieces

So I noticed that SIFF is going to show 5 Easy Pieces in March. I just recently saw this film as it was next on the Netflix queue. Interestingly enough, this film about a former piano prodigy fleeing his pedigree of the upper class takes partly in western Washington - unknown where, but it's mentioned and he's on a ferry. Nicholson got his second Oscar nomination for this film.

Here's the iconic scene that's one of Nicholson's best: