Fan art is fast becoming one of the quickest ways for lovers of all things fandom to express their nerdy tastes. Heck you can’t jump onto the internet without something popping up, whether it be gifs, mash-up t-shirt designs, or just interpretation of old characters in a new light. With the hot news on the net of Affleck’s casting as Batman, it seems appropriate to look at a new re-imagining of the Caped Crusaders foes (thanks to Buzz Feed).
This 1920’s inspired series of mug shots comes from the mind of J.E. Mark (whose website can be found here) and they perfectly sum up the prohibition era. Check out his versions of Mr Freeze, The Joker, Two-Face and company below to see what I mean.
It is always fun to see a new take on an old characters and Mark has given us some incredibly life-like pieces of art here. The detail is incredible and the harder edge to the characters makes this a world this reviewer would love to visit again. Batman has had adventures in this era many times before in the comic books (mostly through the Elsewhere series of books), but still Mark’s work shows a freshness to it that makes these images a joy to behold. I especially love the Riddler who reminded me of an older version of the Adam West Batman foe The Riddler (played by Frank Gorshin) and the bloodied faces of both The Penguin and The Joker. Here is hoping he gives us some more takes on popular comic creations very soon.
[Editor’s Note – My favorite is actually Ivy, who just seems to fit with that flapper look… – BK]
Fans of the fiery redhead Christina Hendricks will not be disappointed with one of her newest acting choices. This buxom beauty will be playing the role of Krissi Cates in Dark Places. In the novel that this film will be adapted from, Krissi is a stripper who is down on her luck.
So even though the Fright Night remake never managed to blow away audiences at the box office, it obviously made enough to get a sequel made (even if said sequel is a direct to DVD version). Now for most readers straight to DVD will set off quite a few alarms (most of them are dire), but before you judge here is the films synopsis (thanks to Slash Film).
By day Gerri Dandridge (Jaime Murray) is a sexy professor, but by night she transforms into a real-life vampire with an unquenchable thirst for human blood. So when a group of high school students travel abroad to study in Romania, they find themselves ensnared in Gerri’s chilling web of lust and terror. Charley and “Evil” Ed must stop Gerri from drinking and bathing in the blood of a “new moon virgin,” which just so happens to be Charley’s ex-girlfriend, Amy. They enlist help from Peter Vincent, the vampire hunting host of a reality show called “Fright Night,” to drive a stake through Gerri’s plan and save Amy from a fate far worse than death.
Okay so this is obviously following the laws of the sequel (laid out in the Scream movies) as it will have more blood and sex in it as well as even more annoying teenagers. However it will not have most of the old cast in it. Replacing Peter Vincent, Evil Ed and Amy is Sean Power (Cowboys and Angels), Chris Waller (Inbred) and Sacha Parkinson (A Boy Called Dad) respectively. Will Payne (Elfie Hopkins) plays Charlie. So gone are Colin Farrell (fair enough he is dead in the first film), Anton Yelchin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Imogen Poots and my personal favorite Peter Vincent himself – David Tennant. So I admit it is not looking promising, especially with a cast of relatively unknown actors and actresses.
Here is the trailer for the new movie (directed by Eduardo Rodriguez in case you wanted to know who to blame).
Now not to sound too sexist about this, but it appears the only reason to actually watch this sequel is to see the very easy on the eye actress Jaime Murray (Dexter, Spartacus) in various stages of undress. I have also just learnt Jaime is Bill Murray’s daughter. I only mention this because this is the only interesting thing to come out of the researching of this release. Unfortunately it looks very much like a very generic cash in on the moderate success of the original with only one stand out scene (the car hitting Gerri). Now this is a real shame because they did have another route they could have used.
Fans of the original 1985 movie will no doubt know the surname Dandridge. It was the name of Jerry Dandrige (spelled slightly differently) the lead vampire played amazingly by Chris Sarandon. Now casual viewers may not know that this film actually had a sequel itself in 1988. Starring most of the original cast (well at least Charlie and Peter Vincent) it basically had the same story line but had Charlie getting seduced by a vampire and the crew having to rescue him from the clutches of Regine Dandridge, Jerry’s sister who wants revenge and plans on turning Charlie into a vampire to torture him forever. It was also cheesy fun with a great selection of henchmen Regine used to help her with her goal (the scene in the bowling alley is great fun).
Now it’s unclear if the sequel to the remake is going to do this or not, but it seems that they are at least going to go with the brother sister angle because otherwise why use the surname? Alas it looks like there will be no henchmen involved which is a loss in my eyes. The final problem this reviewer had while watching the trailer is that because it is a whole new set of actors and actresses playing the roles I found it hard to know who is who. I found it even harder to care. At least with other direct to DVD sequels they managed to incorporate at least one star from the previous movies (look at the Lost Boys and American Pie sequels for evidence of this). If anyone is interested in how this film will play out then it is scheduled for release October 1st of this year.
This reviewer will indeed be checking it out just to see if my predictions on its shoddy nature come true. Hopefully they will not.
It’s always a good day when Arrested Development updates are abound on the internet and today’s tidbit is a great one. According to Rolling Stone, via Warming Glow, it looks like Arrested Development will get a movie. THEN a season 5 series order. Yep, that’s right, I just blue myself.
In 1997 relatively new director Paul W.S.Anderson made an interesting little movie called Event Horizon. Coming across as a mix between Hellraiser and Star Trek – The Motion Picture, it starred Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, and Kathleen Quinlan. The movie revolved around investigating a spaceship that had years prior disappeared into a black hole and only to now return again with something different now on board. The film was chopped to bits upon its release, but even with the trimming it came across as a very weird and disturbing trip into the unknown. Say what you want about Anderson’s work since, but at least once, he did this right.
Adding to the almost overflowing list of young adult book adaptations that are trying to capitalize on The Hunger Games and Twilight success, comes another contender in Divergent.
Directed by Neil Burger (Limitless), and written by two on the rise screenwriters, Evan Daugherty (Snow White and the Huntsman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and Vanessa Taylor (Hope Springs), this has the potential to be a major franchise.
Grizzly Bomb 