Last year Kevin Smith announced his retirement from writing and directing movies following the completion of Clerks III, bringing his career full circle. However, this no longer seems to be the case with Smith recently announcing via his Facebook page that Tusk, a film based on a Gumtree listing. Tusk will go into production in September in LA through Blumhouse Productions, with the intention of having it ready for Sundance 2014.
When Paramount announced a few weeks back that a film was being made based on the Johnny Knoxville grandpa skit in the Jackass series, the question everyone was asking was, could the gag last for a full feature-length film? While that’s still to be seen, I can say that after a two and half-minute trailer, I can’t wait to see more. Borat-esque in its format, the film follows Irving Zisman, who is the grandpa played by Johnny Knoxville, on a cross-country trip through what looks to be a partially scripted, but mostly hidden camera type film. Directed by Jeff Tremaine (Jackass Trilogy), if you liked the previous iterations in the franchise, I think you’ll like it here, check out the trailer.
I gotta say, besides for the ending that is a hidden cam take on the classic Little Miss Sunshine scene, I think this could be a guilty pleasure to most. The kid, played by Jackson Nicholl, looks to fit in perfectly with Knoxville’s shenanigans, and is reminiscent of what Andy Milonakis used to do. Again, the ending scene seemed really scripted, and since it’s been done, I don’t find it funny, but the rest looked pretty damn hilarious. Hopefully, the latter is more telling of the actual film.
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa is due out October 25, which could be good counter programming to Ridley Scott’s dark thriller The Counselor, releasing on the same day. Check out the trailer for that right here.
That sound you heard was that of Leslie Knope wailing in grief at the thought of Ann Perkins leaving Pawnee. That’s right folks, Ann Perkins and Chris Traeger are making plans to leave the best city in America for parts unknown. It was announced yesterday that Rob Lowe and Rashida Jones would be leaving the NBC sitcom after episode 13 of the upcoming season.
Because plenty of people can not fathom why on earth the actors would leave the show, speculation immediately began that they were being forced out due to budget cuts. Mike Schur took to the press to assure everyone that this was not the case.
[box_light]Every network comes to you and says, ‘Cut costs,’ all the time. A reality of the network television game is they’ll always tell you to do impossible things with less and less money. But it wasn’t like, ‘Uh oh, we’ve got to hack away our cast.’[/box_light]
Schur is currently in New York at the Television Critics Association press event for his upcoming Brooklyn Nine-Nine starring Andy Samberg, but understandably, people want to know more about this departure. Mainly because it was so unexpected. Most of the time when an actor leaves a show there are rumblings and rumors swirling about for weeks, if not months. Contract disputes, rehab stints, scandal or discord of various other fashions. This time however, there was nothing.
Schur has been assuring people that this is truly a creative move with Jones and Lowe’s story line coming to an inevitable and obvious close. The two characters spent the latter parts of last season discussing having a child together so one has to assume they will be successful, and something will then take them away from Pawnee.
Mike Schur and NBC can try to calmly and rationally explain the reasons till they are blue in the face. Parks and Recreation fans are mourning. At times quite loudly. Granted I am a proud member of the NBC fandom, but my entire dashboard is filled with pictures like these.
It’s been a rough couple of months for the NBC fandom. Jason Sudeikis finally announced he was leaving. Bill Hader is leaving. Seth Meyers is leaving Weekend Update/SNL. John Mulaney’s show appears as if it might be going to Fox. 30 Rock is no more. Andy Samberg went to Fox… And now this news?
Recently the Rockstar Mayhem Festival made it’s way to Clarkston, Michigan and we here at Grizzly bomb had the great pleasure of sitting down with one of it’s headlining performers, John 5. Legendary guitarist for Rob Zombie, (formerly with Marilyn Manson), John has made a career out of constantly pushing the envelope on guitar. He is a living rock icon and guitar virtuoso, who carries with him an impressive list of musicians that he has collaborated with, including Rod Stewart, David Lee Roth, and Alice Cooper.
During the Arrow Comic-Con panel, we found out some of the guest stars coming to the show, like Bronze Tiger and Brother Blood, but today the big name was announced. It is none other than Barry Allen himself, The Flash!
At their Television Critics Association presentation, The CW president Mark Pedowitz made public the plans to bring Flash to the small screen starting with an appearance on the already hugely popular Arrow. There were quite a few mentions of Coast City during the first season so there were many, including myself, who thought that perhaps the next “big” name to come to Starling City would be Green Lantern.
Well, we were wrong. Just like we were wrong when we assumed there would be no Flash until the Flash feature film came about in 2016.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Barry Allen will roll into Starling City for three episodes before embarking on his own series. He will be introduced in episode 8, then appear in episodes 9 and 20, and then will go off and do his own thing. Writing the Flash episodes will be the crack team of executive producers Andrew Kreisberg and Greg Berlanti, along with DC author and now frequent Arrow writer Geoff Johns. Episode 20 will be directed by David Nutter, who directed the series pilot last year.
The odd part about all of this is Warner Bros. and DC are not planning on having the already somewhat established TV universe have anything to do with the proposed and hopefully successful cinematic universe. I understood that decision when it was just Stephen Amell’s Green Arrow because the show does have the “no superpowers and/or metahumans” stance, but now that Flash is coming along? Granted they are saying that when Barry Allen and Oliver Queen meet up Allen won’t be Flash but still, the show about the Fastest Man Alive is getting a soft launch from one without any superpowers. Unless they cast Usain Bolt as Barry Allen, I’m calling bull. Actually, they are beginning the casting process this week so maybe it is Usain Bolt.
Another thing we (okay, maybe this was just me) were wrong about? Holding out any hope for the Wonder Woman series to ever make it to air. CW President, Mark Pedowitz, announced yesterday during the same presentation that the Wonder Woman project, Amazon, was on pause.
Excuse me as I roll my eyes in epic fashion. It’s on pause? Did anyone ever press play? Even when we last spoke about the Wonder Woman television series, it was all still speculation and rumor. This whole “pause” business is just irritating. Rip off the Band-Aid Mark, just do it already.
I get that Wonder Woman is a difficult character to try and build a franchise around. Almost every Wonder Woman fan will agree to that. The invisible jet, the different planet, the Lasso of Truth… it’s all a bit fantastic and might be too fantastic to make a TV series out of, outside of the campy 70s. However, either do it or don’t, but stop stringing us along.
Speaking of stringing along… What happened to Booster Gold? When Arrow premiered, Andrew Kriesberg was still talking up the Booster Gold series. I got my hopes up. Thought that for sure one of the men behind this great new show would want to do every thing in his power to bring one of his favorite characters to life in a live action setting. Instead we’ve heard nothing about Booster Gold and when Greg Berlanti was asked why Flash was getting a series, he said it was because Flash was one of his favorite characters growing up! Ugh, I just can’t win.
The last bit of Arrow news coming out of TCA, we now know who Caity Lotz is playing. We saw her in the Arrow season two sizzle reel, but there was no indication who her character was beyond “the origin story for Black Canary”. Well get this, Sarah Lance is still alive and she’s returning to Starling City thanks to Caity Lotz. If the Tommy/Laurel/Oliver love triangle was messy, I can’t even imagine how dysfunctional Ollie stuck between two sisters is going to be.
Despite my irritation, this is exciting news. As a DC fan it’s easy to look at the Marvel cinematic success and be jealous, but Arrow andthe new Flash show (and Booster Gold and Wonder Women if they ever get made) are all part of a long and storied history of DC characters on the small screen. They are doing well, so here’s hoping they continue to do well…
Today Warner Bros. Montreal revealed their new multiplayer mode for Batman: Arkham Origins, ‘Invisible Predator’. A brand new addition to the series which until now has been a single-player only affair.
Competitive multiplayer sounds like a bad fit for a franchise like Batman, who may be the world’s most famous solitarian. But keep in mind that more recent games like Assassin’s Creed and The Last of Us have, with varying success, managed to tweak the typical online experience with gameplay mechanics unique to their respective series. Check out the trailer below:
Origins is trying something a little more ambitious than team deathmatch; in the new ‘Invisible Predator’ mode, players are divided into two teams of opposing thugs – three working for Joker, and three working for Bane – who will fight over territory in what is more or less a conventional King of the Hill type of match. However at the same time two players will take the role of Batman and Robin and silently try to pick off members of both teams.
This 3-v-3-v-2 style competition should change things up nicely. It sounds like the result will be something like a mash-up of conventional CoD style run-and-gun fare and The Last of Us‘s constant, on-your-toes tension. That is, only if it works of course, and Destructoid‘s Casey Baker has played a few minutes of ‘Invisible Predator’ and says it works quite well:
[box_dark]”…it only took a short matter of time before I was leaping from ledge to ledge, observing rival gangs at war, and swooping down to pick off members before their buddies were alerted. Even though I didn’t get nearly as much time with the multiplayer in general as I would have liked, the time I did have with it was thoroughly enthralling and I could already imagine the intense matches with players who have had enough practice playing both sides […] My overall impressions of the Invisible Predator mode for Batman: Arkham Origins are quite high after only a couple hours of hands-on time, and it’s something I’m looking forward to now.”[/box_dark]
I’m not much of a multiplayer guy. I prefer to play video games the way Batman does everything: Alone and in the dark. But this may be an interesting spin on things to try for a week or two. Hopefully it’s replacing the Challenge Mode from the previous Arkham games, which I found incredibly frustrating and monotonous. I only have two concerns about this new feature:
1. Dying as Batman has got to be the worst: The World’s Greatest Detective was taken out by a nameless grunt with a shotgun? What a n00b!
2. Voice chat: The only way this will work is if player mics get muted as soon as Bats or Robin takes down an enemy. Otherwise the downed player will just immediately reveal their position. But it wouldn’t just even out the playing field – It would also be one of the most immersive ways to feel like Batman. Imagine a squad of teammates talking over chat and all of a sudden mid-sentence a guy gets cut off – OH NO. THE BATMAN. Makes me giddy just thinking about it.
How do you feel about multiplayer in a Batman game? Sound off in the comments section below!
Grizzly Bomb 