Category Archives: MOVIES

Movie News & Opinions

Ed Helms as Rusty Griswold Rebooting ‘Vacation’?

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As we approach the 2012 Comic-Con, we must remember that there is other news out there that impacts the world that might not be reported. However, since I do not have the interest nor intelligence to write anything political or serious in nature, we will settle for some movie casting news. Perhaps the return of National Lampoon’s Vacation?

The Hollywood Reporter is…uhh…reporting, that Ed Helms is in negotiations to star in the reboot (Hollywood loves originality) for the Vacation series but with an added twist: he would not be Clark Griswold but he would take over as Rusty Griswold as he brings his family in the mix of shenanigans and mishaps and, let’s face it, awesomeness that comes from these movies.

The writers involved are none other than hot duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein of Horrible Bosses fame (although Daley will always be Sam Weir from Freaks and Geeks) but no director as of yet but I am sure if Helms does sign up, that will be no issue at all. Obviously the idea may not be totally original but I dig the idea of Rusty taking over and Helms can definitely hold attention on the big screen as long as he has good support around him to play off of (see: The Office or The Hangover). As long as Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo shows up then sign me up. Although 10 bucks says that Kate Upton is involved as random fantasized object of affection if they play by the same formula. I’m calling it right now.

I had to find a picture of her with a Tigers hat, don’t worry I’ll make it up at the end

On a sidenote, Ed Helms is apparently working on the Office, shooting a movie with Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd right now, filming the Hangover III in September, and supposed to do this movie in the spring? Anyone want to venture a guess that maybe he won’t be full time on the Office at this rate? Something to chew on because Lions Gate is on the Rudd/Poehler movie, Warner Bros (New Line specifically) is behind the Hangover and the Vacation series but we know that NBC show is produced by Universal who typically will not loan out stars in the middle of the television shooting season. I know the article says that they will shoot the movie after the Office wraps its latest season but I wanted to throw it out there. Stir the pot if you will.

Now, for the rest of you pervs, here’s your obligatory Kate Upton awesome pic. And no, she will not ruin Justin Verlander. That’s just stupid.

Movie News & Opinions

Need for Speed Movie Set For 2014

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Video-game-to-movie adaptations started in the early 90’s, with Super Mario Bros. Until recently, those movies had an uncanny tendency to flop, hard. However, with Tomb Raider and Resident Evil movies garnering much success, film studios decided it’s a good idea to invest in adaptations again. Hell, Ubisoft set up an entire studio just to produce movies based on their own games.

And of course, they’re never popular with the critics, but as long as they make money, and are remotely entertaining, who really cares?

Unless they’re directed by this guy. I hope he isn’t up to anything lately. Wait, he is.

EA also thought this was a good idea, and decided to sell the movie rights to Need for Speed. DreamWorks execs, perhaps high on coke and feeling overconfident, bought the property. Now, they have announced a release date.

On February 7, 2014, we will get a chance to watch a movie about cars with zero storyline (which in itself is a major understatement). Trust me, I know my Need for Speed games. When you talk about NFS, you don’t talk about their storylines. There was no plot in the first place. If there was any, it mainly revolves around you being a racer, and your need to win money and earn recognition so you can race against an asshole (Underground, Underground 2, Most Wanted, Carbon, Pro Street), who probably screwed you over earlier in the game (Underground 2, Most Wanted, Carbon).  There are also hot female sidekicks solely for the sake of making teenage boys horny. It’s guilty pleasure when the horrible storyline is in a racing game, not so much when it’s in a movie.

In case you didn’t know how bad the acting and writing were.

There were a couple of times where EA decided to go with different plots. In Undercover, you play as an undercover officer who is trying to infiltrate a gang, or something. It doesn’t really matter. You race, and then your boss (played by Maggie Q) orders you to take some people out. After a while, you find out that your boss is actually a mole, and you take her down. Wow, that took stupidity to a whole different level.

I never quite understood EA’s logic. Why bother shooting live-action scenes when nobody really cares about the storyline? All that waste of money should have went to my bank account. You know, someone who actually needs the money.

And The Run. How can I possibly forget about this atrocity? This game actually has a negative value of plots. I didn’t know that was even possible until this game was released. Basically, you play this guy Jack, who is in a lot of debt. Jack’s ex-girlfriend (portrayed by Christina Hendricks) tells him that there’s this cross-country race which can net him a whole lot of money. Jack races to pay off debt. Jack pays off debt by winning the race. Seriously, that is it. It’s not a joke. How EA managed to get Christina freaking Hendricks involved is just mind-baffling. I swear to god someone must be holding her husband, or her dog, hostage. No amount of money can convince anyone to be involved in the project. It’s that bad. Don’t believe me? I dare you to watch an entire playthrough of the game and tell me that there is a plot.

Yes, this Christina Hendricks. THE Christina Hendricks who is on Mad Men.

We don’t need any more street racing movies. We have The Fast & The Furious for that purpose. Please for the love of god, don’t do this. Don’t make me suffer through an hour and half of torture.

*gun cocks*
Not Dr Kronner: Jason, you will watch the movie, and you will write a review for us.
Jason: How the hell did you even…
Not Dr Kronner: Shhhhhhhh. If you don’t follow my orders word for word, you will be swimming with the fishes.
Jason: You maybe able to kill this body of flesh, but you can never kill my soul.
Not Dr Kronner: …
Jason: Ha!!! Now you have no leverage over me!!!
Not Dr Kronner: I shall kill this kitty instead.


Jason: What? You don’t kill no kitties. YOU’RE A MONSTER!!!!
Not Dr Kronner: You’re gonna do it now?
Jason: *in tears* Do what?
Not Dr Kronner: Watch the movie and write a review for us.
Jason: Yes. *sniffs* Just don’t kill the kitty.

When the movie is released, you may return to Grizzly Bomb for a full-length review, even though I have no idea how to write a movie review. I’m not the one with the gun. Dr Kronner did not, in any way, force me to do this. I am doing it voluntarily, for you guys and gals, so you won’t have to suffer through the movie.

Sorry, I just had to.

Movie News & Opinions

Michael Fassbender Will Star In “Assassin’s Creed”

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Assassin’s Creed is one of those magnificent games that manages to pack together a high concept, dense, and intricately woven story, with heavy mythology and symbolism, and still manages to be a commercial success. I suppose the difference between games and other mediums, is that with a game, you can skip the story if you like, and focus solely on the killing and whatnot. You’d be doing yourself a huge disservice, as the AC storyline is one of the better science fiction stories being told in gaming, or any media today.

The first game is initially about you being the descendant of an ancient league of assassins, reliving your genetic memories via a virtual reality machine that can access historical details otherwise obscured or lost to time. The repercussions of your discoveries, and the true intent of the scientists putting you through these experiments is what soon becomes captivating, along with the seemingly anachronistic parallels between the past and the present. Eventually the back story becomes the main story, and in the games sequels it’s expanded greatly, and really makes you wonder just what the hell is going on.

So with much optimism, I’m glad to say that Michael Fassbender, who some of you might recognize as David from Prometheus, or Magneto from X-Men: First Class, has been cast in the lead role for the film. It’s not confirmed if he’ll actually be playing Desmond Miles, the lead from the game, but one could presume so. Speaking briefly on the casting of Fassbender is Ubisoft Motion Pictures CEO Jean-Julien Baronnet, via Coming Soon:

“Michael Fassbender was our first choice. Michael (Fassbender) is an extremely smart, talented, versatile and committed actor.” 

For me, even though the game is a lot of fun, I’d rather just watch the brilliant story play out, which is why a movie is such a great idea. Historical fiction is fairly popular right now, and even though The Da Vinci Code, National Treasure and films of that ilk are gaining years in age, all it would take is something like Assassin’s Creedto blow up and get everybody excited about how awesome history is again. I can’t wait to see this thing, and I should really get around to finishing the last 2 games in the series, before 3 comes out, and so should you!

Movie News & Opinions

Christopher Nolan Declines ‘Justice League’ Movie

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Christopher Nolan has been a busy man. He has got the conclusion of the best comic book movie trilogy coming to an end next week. He just got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He is also serving as producer to Man of Steel, the new Superman movie due out next year, which is also getting its big unveiling at Comic-Con later this week. Obviously in doing press, his future plans have been asked along with his producing role on Man of Steel and the enormous success of The Avengers, and his involvement with the Justice League movie. His response?

Nope, I’m good.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Nolan says he has zero plans for the Justice League movie.

“No, none at all. We’re finished with all we’re doing with Batman. This is the end of our take on this character.” He also goes on to say he has no intention to be involved with any future Batman movie projects. “Batman will outlive us all, and our interpretation was ours. Obviously, we consider it definitive and kind of finished. The great thing about Batman is he lives on for future generations to reinterpret, and obviously, Warners will have to decide in the future what they’re going to do with him,” Nolan said. “We’ve had our say on the character. I’ve got no plans to do anything more, and certainly, no involvement with any Justice League project.”

Obviously this news is disappointing but at least he is sticking to his guns. I think trilogies are pretty much the way to go because you do not want movies to overstay their welcome and characters to become stagnant. Especially superhero movies where you get origin story, defining moment that results in epiphany on their responsibilities to the world, then the final test that validates their existence… and past that? It’s just retread. There needs to be a beginning, a middle, and an end. The idea of reboots annoys me, but we see it in comic books all the time where people have their take on the characters. It may disrupt what we know but you cannot help but acknowledge that the expansion on the character due to different writing perspectives reinvigorates the genre and the game plan (see: The Amazing Spider-Man movie). You never want to wear out the welcome or be the one getting kicked out of the party. You want to leave while everyone screams how epic that was.

That is how Nolan wants to leave it and while I would love for his take Justice League, it would not make sense for his Batman perspective, something that is rooted in reality, to be mixed with Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern. It is just not in the same universe of his thinking. Plus any original material from Nolan would be gold. Like I said, good job sticking to his guns and Warner Bros. embracing the trilogy idea instead of shoving the same drivel down our throats repeatedly.

Movie News & Opinions

‘Amazing Spider-Man’ Does Well, Also the Sky Is Blue

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In the least surprising story from over 4th of July weekend, The Amazing Spider-Man decided to destroy everyone in its path on its way to a $140 million dollar tally in North America, and a total worldwide tally of $341 million dollars according to EW and various other sources. Obviously the chatter is high on this movie about the future because  possible sequels, and that ending. In fact, no one will shut up about theories on the ending. We will obviously leave that last because it will be spoilerish if you have not seen the movie yet so let us tackle the movie future of Spidey.

Trilogies are the thing these days and you know that the new Spider-Man will follow in the same footsteps as Tobey and Sam Raimi. According to GammaSquad and FilmDrunk, looks like we are heading that way. It was already thrown on the official Facebook page that the movie would be the first in the trilogy, and obviously I believe everything on Facebook (seriously, that bitch should dump that asshole for posting that status about her), but even the producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach are definitely in the mood to raise the bar. 

Sinister Six? I mean if The Avengers can do the hero version, why can’t Sony just throw the villain version their one Marvel property that does not star Will Smith (MiB for those that forgot about the Malibu/Marvel buyout)? But a trilogy that leads to six villains who will not (and should not because of the title of the movie) get the same setup that Avengers did with Iron Man, Thor, Captain America might be a bit ambitious. Don’t get me wrong, if you can throw Doc Ock, Vulture, Mysterio, Kraven, Sandman, Rhino, Electro, Hydro, or whoever they want to fill their lineup, that will make for some damn good action sequences. But Spider-man against the six seems almost overkill. I am still smarting from seeing Franco, Spidey, Venom, and Sandman battling out on the silver screen, and having a bored and unimpressed taste in my mouth. Then again, Avengers pulled it off so that’s the reasoning in Hollywood. If they did it, we can too! Hence 80% of the productions in Hollywood being sequels or reboots.

Regardless, check those links out above for the full interviews but Avi Arad reeks of movie producer and looks sleazy so I am more entertained by that image of him being part of the Sinister Six. The part of him being the one that exploits Spider-man and bleeds him of any financial profits and culture importance until they are forced to reboot six years later because ‘Venom played by Eric Forman’ was a shitty idea. Speaking of, Venom is happening and shockingly, it will be tied into the Spider-man universe. Again, obviously nothing to do with the success of The Avengers and the producers swimming in a vault of gold coins. Please do not mess Venom up. A great character, but if Garfield struts down the street as the evil Fonzie then I will scream for a reboot. Again. For the 3rd time.

Okay, now that is out of the way, let us jump into the ending. First off, stop if you have not seen the movie. If you go further, you suck as a human being because you are depriving yourself of a good movie. Actually, no you are not. The spoiler ending is pretty much telling you exactly nothing and let us be honest, who here thought Spider-man would lose to the dude from Notting Hill posing for paparazzi in his skivvies? Anyways, when Dr. Connors is locked in his cell, we see a shadowy figure appear out of nowhere with Dr. Connors trying to make sure Peter Parker remains out of the grand scheme of plans that Oscorp may be up to. But who is it has been burning up the intraweb lately. We can ask Dr. Connors himself thanks to GammaSquad via AICN, although whether he’s a credible source remains to be seen.

Capone: Okay, what do you think about that ending?

Rhys Ifans: Well, Connors is basically locked up in a very high-security mental institution.

Capone: We were debating whether it was a prison or a mental institute.

RI: It’s not a zoo. [laughs] I kept seeing it as maybe a mixture of both. Then a representative from OsCorp appears miraculously in the room. How he gets in there and how he leaves, we don’t know. Maybe we will find out. But it’s not Norman Osborn.

Capone: It’s not? You can say that?

RI: Yeah. But it is someone who is in the employ of Norman Osborn without question.

Capone: Someone we’re familiar with, who we don’t know is employed by Osborn?

RI: Yeah.

So supposedly, it is not Norman Osborn. Of course not, that would imply he got better from whatever debilitating illness he had been suffering. So it is someone of his own employ. We can all speculate and I did myself before seeing that part of the interview. I was thinking Vulture because he was an older man and it would seem to fit that path. Although if it is not Malkovich doing the Vulture, I am not interested at all. Regardless, we shall see. We will see a Green Goblin appearance later down the line whoever that may be in the same prison cell because…well…Gwen Stacy is involved. And we all know what happens there. Or at least the cool people do…