Monthly Archives: May 2012

Movie News & Opinions

Elijah Wood Set to Star in Indie Thriller “Grand Piano”

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Looks like Frodo is finally growing up. Directed by Eugenio Mira and written by Damien Chazelle, Green Street Hooligans star Elijah Wood is set to star in Grand Piano, an independent thriller produced by Adrian Guerra and Rodrigo Cortes, two of the men behind the claustrophobic-Ryan Reynold’s thriller Buried.

This is what The Hollywood Reporter has to say about the film’s plot:

“The story concerns a once-great concert pianist who suffers from stage fright and comes back to perform after a five-year hiatus. Just when he’s about to play the first bar, he notices somebody has written a threatening note on his music sheet. He’s now forced to play his best concert ever to save his life as well as his wife’s. Think Speed at a piano.”

At first glance, this might seem like an absolutely horrid idea for a film, but considering Buried made quality entertainment out of a man in a coffin, I’m sure Grand Piano has some tricks up its sleeve to keep the audience guessing. Also, the film’s exotic location (Ciudad de la Luz in Alicante) promises some excellent scenery shots and hopefully a little bit of a cultural bite.

Wood has had a very busy schedule these past couple of years. With a leading role in the upcoming Disney XD show “TRON: Uprising” and the upcoming second season of the FX hit “Wilfred”, Wood’s got a lot on his plate. He’ll also be reprising the role of Frodo in the upcoming film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Also, his other major project, Maniac, which was co-written by Piranha 3D director Alexandre Aja, will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival later this month.

Grand Piano is slated to begin production later this summer.

MOVIES

Grizzly Review: God Bless America

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The most recent generation of human beings, and more specifically American human beings, is known as the “generation of entitlement”. We’ve been given the most technology, the most variety, and most of all more career options than any generation before us. We can do, or not do, anything we want. Yet, as time goes on, it seems like all we want to do is nothing or everything. We’re either changing the world, or watching the world change right before our eyes.

Everyone over the age of 30, and a lot of people under, have had thoughts of killing the idiots who are supposedly educating the young minds of our great country. On the conservative side, it’s the Barack Obama’s and the Bill Maher’s and the Rachel Maddow’s of the world who are ruining the world. But on the liberal side it’s the Rush Limbaugh’s and the Bill O’Reilly’s and Michael Savage’s and Mitt Romney’s who are damning the United States to the deepest layer of Dante’s Inferno.

Meet Frank (Joel Murray), a middle aged, overworked, underpaid, and depressed man who decides to literally live the dream. After wrongly being fired for sexual harassment and being told that he has a brain tumor, Frank gives the ultimate middle finger to the world and starts killing our nation’s most repellent and atrocious citizens. He gets the idea after seeing a copy-cat “My Super Sweet 16” on TV. Completely disgusted by the state of our nation’s youth, he adopts the mentality of “If you can’t change ’em, kill ’em”. And that’s exactly what he does.

After his first, sloppy assassination, he picks up Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), a 16 year old sociopath ADD child who wants nothing more than to take the life of guilty filth. Reluctantly allowing her to come along, the two form a strong bond and become something of a “Mickey and Mallory” for the YouTube age. From state to state, target to target, Roxy and Frank witness firsthand the ins and outs of America’s worst personalities.

When I was going to rent God Bless America from iTunes, I saw a comment that said: “…my wife started playing ‘Words with Friends’ 5 minutes in.” That beautifully worded sentence is, in a nutshell, what God Bless America is essentially about. We’re a society that revolves around technology. We victimize the weak and exploit them for our own entertainment. We’re consumed by technology and all that is has to offer. In fact, if you’d like to hear me rant more about the product of a generation of inept children, read this right here.

At times heartwarming, at times extremely violent, and at times overly preachy, God Bless America is one hell of a film that doesn’t really know what it wants to be. Uneven as a see-saw, God Bless America is good, but not great. While I agree with almost everything the film had to say, its method of saying it was rather amateur, especially considering how gifted writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait is when it comes to screenplays.

The central performance by Joel Murray is one of the best I’ve seen all year, and he definitely elevates the sometimes unrealistically long winded monologues. Tara Lynne Barr is also excellent as a blood-thirsty high school student out for revenge against her generation.

Is God Bless America quality entertainment? Probably not, no. But is it entertaining as all hell with a good message to move it along? You bet your ass it is. If God Bless America isn’t great, it is one thing; original. And in a world of sequels and remakes, that in itself is something to be thankful for. And for that, I say not God bless America, but God bless Bobcat Goldthwait. For having a voice that isn’t conventional in the least.

3.5/5 Bears

GAMING

Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Announced! Where My Nazi Zombies at?

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November 13th, 2012 – You will probably not see Dr. Kronner and I for a week after that date. Via Gamespot, the announcement that came to the surprise of exactly no one was released and it is that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is announced to come out in November, just in the usual CoD launch window that Activision always delivers on to make sure their Q4 numbers are spiked.

So what can we expect from this game? Probably more of the same. Let’s be honest, Call of Duty is becoming the Madden of first person shooters. The differences are pretty miniscule between each individual series. By that, I mean the Modern Warfare series and the Black Ops/World at War series. Both are developed by Infinity Ward and Treyarch respectively, and I honestly prefer the single player of the MW series over Black Ops. However, I will say the multiplayer of Black Ops and the Treyarch team is superior. That and it has nazi zombies which is simply the best party game amongst our group of friends since Goldeneye and WCW/NWO Revenge or Smash Bros or Mario Kart. So with this game, what I’m looking forward to is seeing what improvements they have done to multiplayer, new modes, guns, all that jazz. Of course the maps. As long as I don’t get more maps like Cracked or Hanoi, I will be a happy dude. I almost said happy camper, but that would just make me be a dick.

Anyways, on CallofDuty.com, the reveal shows that it will be tonight on TNT for the NBA Playoffs so I’m sure I’ll update this article tonight once the trailers hit YouTube and the such. Activision in the UK actually jumped the gun before taking down the splash page for the new game by apparently showing the Los Angeles in ruin, not unlike NYC in the last MW game. Other places like China, Japan, and Afghanistan were shown too so like always, this will be a global affair. Again, we await more details to come out so stay tuned to this post once we get more info.

So it’s basically Terminator and Skynet. That’s cool. Maybe some Cowboys and Aliens. Maybe not that cool. Am I playing it? Child please.

Movie News & Opinions

Do You Think “The Amazing Spider-Man” Is Going To Suck? Well, Sony Does.

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When the preview for The Amazing Spider-Man was released a couple of months back, many people were both confused and disappointed by the trailer’s apparent lack of excitement and promise. That skepticism has followed the film up until now and many fans of the original trilogy are crying for the touch of Sam Raimi once again.

But it seems like moviegoers aren’t the only ones who aren’t thrilled by the film’s trailer. The rumor mill has recently churned out the opinions of execs over at Sony. “Inside sources” claim they despise this film. Gammasquad.uproxx.com reports:

“Of course, regardless of what they think of Amazing Spider-Man, Sony is already moving ahead on a sequel, because come on, it’s Spider-Man, but tellingly the sequel will have an all-new writing team (Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, of Star Trek and the Transformers movies). I wouldn’t be surprised to see director Marc Webb also end up on the trash heap if Amazing isn’t received well.”

Personally, I think this is another instance of studios thinking quantity over quality. The previews that I saw for the film impressed me simply because of how true it stayed to the comics. From the story of Peter Parker’s parents, to the devices he has to use to correctly shoot his webs, I feel like The Amazing Spider-Man is going to be for all the fans of the comics who felt cheated when Raimi’s trilogy refused to acknowledge some of the finer plot points in the comic (cough, cough, Gwen Stacy came before Mary-Jane Parker, cough, cough).

Granted, this reboot is coming fairly soon after Spider-Man 3, but I’m interested to see how (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb handles such a high-risk production. And when I say high-risk, I do so for two different reasons. On the financial side of things, he needs to make enough money to not only break even for the budget, but for the marketing and all that good stuff. It’s no secret that this is a pretty big chunk o’change. But, on the critical side, he’s got to not only make up for Spider-Man 3, he has to convince fans to like his version just as much, if not more than the original Raimi Spidey, something that is near impossible.

My hat is off to him. Here’s to the shred of hope that remains for The Amazing Spider-Man, who is up against The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, two films that are trying very hard to take the title of highest gross of 2012.

Movie Trailers

Prometheus Delivers a New Trailer; Spoiler Alert: It’s Awesome.

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I cannot tell if I am getting lazier with my posts, or if any sort of exposition from myself just does not do what I am covering any justice. So we will go straight to the new trailer and then I will deliver my thoughts:

This looks goooooooooddd…..I have to say, this is going to be one helluva summer. With all the trailers and the kick-off being Avengers this weekend for the summer movie season, I am just pumped. I mean, you get Charlize here, creepy Fassbender, the dude from the Wire, the dude from 24, and a friggin’ Alien prequel. And it has a freakin’ Cobra/Alien hybrid. I hate snakes due to two things:

1.) Watching Indiana Jones as a kid. Completely screwed me up from childhood.
2.) Watching Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure when he runs out of the pet shop with all those small snakes. I saw that AFTER Indiana Jones. That effin’ ruined me for life.

So yeah, this movie will creep the bejesus out of me and it’s about damn time. Now watch the trailer again to figure out if the foreign Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is going to hack her way out of this mess.