While it sounds like I may be describing Avatar, that’s actually the plot of a different movie mentioned more than a time or two on our sister site, InfoAddict. The smaller independent film I am referring to is Black Dynamite and it had so limited a release for such a short span of time that I never could find it playing anywhere close at a time where I could make it.

Well Black Dynamite was finally released on DVD this week and I can say without reservation that it was worth the wait. I rented it from my local Blockbuster early and have watched it several times already. Not because I am trying to squeeze every penny I can out of the rental fee, but because their are new things I notice every watch-through and some parts keep getting funnier. To put it on the t on the same level as “This Is Spinal Tap” would be a little blasphemous, but it would be accurate to say that it succeeds well at delivering the same kind of layered, deadpan, seemingly unintentional comedy that really grows on you.

If I go to return it at Blockbuster today it will only be because I plan on stopping somewhere else on the way home to buy a copy of my own.

“I can’t say anything about the other moons and the Polyphemus system because that’s top secret because they are going to appear in the sequel.“

The quote appears in the video below:

Michael Bay, one of the world’s worst directors, is already yapping his useless mouth about Transformers 3.  However, it appears Michael Bay, one of the world’s worst directors, is going to make a futile attempt to channel his inner-auteur. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Micahel Bay, one of the world’s worst directors, said that Transformers 3 won’t be as “robot heavy”. I mean, why would you want a movie about giant robots to be robot heavy?

Michael Bay, one of the world’s worst directors, is also promising less explosions: “There will be a nice crescendo ending,” Bay said. “It gets much more into the robot character. The last time you kind of met a few of the robots; this time you’re gonna get a much cooler landscape.”

So expect something between Ingmar Bergman and Stanley Kubrick. Or, expect the same pile of cinematic garbage to extricate itself from Michael Bay’s asshole because the man has proven time and time again that he is incapable of anything approaching quality.

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Frank Miller revitalized Batman in graphic novel form when he unleashed The Dark Knight, which told the tale of an aging Batman reluctantly coming out of retirement. According to an interview with the Hughes Brothers, who are set to open their latest movie The Book of Eli, Warner Bros studio approached the team about possibly making Miller’s version of Batman starring none other than Clint Eastwood.

“I remember how dark the comic book was. Batman was old. He had to rely more on his tools and other sh*t, and he was a decrepit, 60- or 70-year-old man in this comic book,” said Albert Hughes. “I remember saying to them back then, ‘We want to do this, and you should get somebody like Clint Eastwood to do it’.”

Even though the studio offered the project to the brothers several times, the feeling was that “The Dark Knight Returns” would be the end of Batman movies. “We were never going to do that. We were telling them it was the death of their franchise,” Albert laughed. “Looking back now, we definitely would’ve killed that franchise.“

With the release and success of the last Metal Gear game on the PlayStation 3, clamor rose to new levels for a big-budget movie about Solid Snake. How could it go wrong? Built-in fan base, world-wide recognition; just keep the budget acceptable and the movie makes money. Unfortunately for Metal Gear fans, a movie now appears all but dead, according to a recent interview with Hollywood producer Mike De Luca.

I don’t think it’s going to move forward because I got the sense that there may not be enough of a coordinated will at this point on the side of certain parties to see a movie get made. And I get it because the problem with a lot of these adaptations is it’s such a huge franchise for the video game company. A movie can only hurt. If the movie’s great, you’re probably not going to sell more games. It’s such a separate thing. The franchise being as big as it kind of helps the movie…I’m not sure the movie does the same thing for the game.

I think there’s some things…the video game companies are very protective of their property and there are certain things a studio requires freedom-wise to market and distribute a movie effectively in a global marketplace and sometimes getting those two things to match up is really hard. And in the case of Metal Gear Solid, the agendas just….not because the parties weren’t amicable, it was just kind of impossible to get the agendas to match up.

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With the Consumer Electronics Show in full-swing, one thing has become crystal clear: the electronics industry is hell-bent on making consumers look like complete tools by the end of the year. By “tool” I mean, “Who is that dork sitting on the sofa wearing the nerdy 3D glasses?”

3D TVs are all the rage. Every major television manufacturer, and a few minor ones, are jumping on the bandwagon without hesitation. ESPN and DirecTV have both announced imminent, full-time 3D channels. Sony has finalized their specifications for 3D Blu-Ray and the industry will have the home version of Avatar to use as consumer-bait.

But…we’re still going to look like complete tools with our 3D glasses.

Is this really what the consumers wants? Probably not. I think it is safe to say we want 3D without the frickin’ glasses. It’s not just the aesthetic-hit your once macho appearance will take, but the real, cold hard facts of reality that will take its toll. WTF am I talking about?

I’m talking about your dog munching on your beloved pair of 3D glasses while you are at work. I am talking about your rug-rat kids bending, throwing, playing and breaking your 3D glasses. I am talking about your 3D glasses disappearing under the sofa or between the cushions. I am talking about your big, fast ass sitting down hard on that pair of 3D glasses.

3D glasses only work in theory and the safety of an IMAX theater. All other locations will spell constant hassle and small-scale disasters.

Hence, this brave new world they want us so desperately to enter will only work sans glasses.

Beyond the hurdles of every-day life we have the tech itself. Everything on display at CES is first-generation technology without a unified standard. Early-adopters will undoubtedly be screwed by the time the second generation is greatly improved and enhanced.  The 3D TV you buy today could be tomorrow’s HD-DVD.

So wait. Be patient. What is available now will be considered garbage by CES 2011, a date that will hopefully see a whole new generation of 3D that can be attained without glasses and the punishing hit to your fashion sense.

A little-known comic from Studio 407 called Night & Fog has been purchased for a movie deal with producers Gil Adler and Shane McCarthy heading the project. Want to feel any good will towards this project evaporate? These are the producers behind the forgettable Superman Returns and the awful Constantine. Perhaps they’ll figure out how to make a good movie on the 3rd attempt.

Night & Fog sounds like its really stretching the boundaries: “…revolves around an infectious mist unleashed on a military base that transforms its victims into preternatural creatures of the night. But when the survivors try to kill them, they adapt and change into something even more horrific and unstoppable.”

Yawn.

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Fandango has revealed some interesting statistics in regards to Avatar. All data is based upon customer surveys completed by ticket buyers for Cameron’s 3D epic:

* 76% consider themselves fans of James Cameron
* 45% say that “James Cameron’s return as a director” was the main draw
* 75% say it’s important for them to see the movie in IMAX 3D
* 72% say the positive advance reviews have increased their interest in the movie
* 70% say they do not care about the film’s budget
* 72% had seen STAR TREK in theaters
* 62% had seen TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN in theaters
* 48% had seen TERMINATOR SALVATION in theaters
* 68% of ticket-buyers are male
* 15% are ages 18-24
* 37% are ages 25-34
* 33% are ages 35-49

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Mel Gibson, one-time Hollywood darling until his drunken anti-Semitic outburst cost him social standing, followed by his rather un-Christian-like affair and divorce, appears ready to return as a filmmaker. According to reports, Mel Gibson will be tackling a film about Vikings, which falls right into his strengths as a director. I can see it now: lots of glinting swords, lots of flying heads, lots of fog banks, boats and muscle-bound guys rousing their troops with a big speech.

Leonardo DiCaprio has apparently been cast in the film.

“This will be an awe-inspiring story, created with some of the industry’s finest cinematic talent and I am just over the moon to be making this film with Mel, Leo and Bill,” King said in a statement after the principals confirmed the project to Daily Variety.

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After legal wrangling, issues of cinematic rights, back payments for the original trilogy resolved, it appears The Hobbit is finally ready to go before cameras…soon. Director Guillermo del Toro hit up the fan forums at The One Ring and offered the following:

“We may say what we want but until there are two scripts delivered and budgets and schedules to support them we will be all under a yellow light of development. THAT we have not stopped.

“As I have reported in the past, we are scouting, designing (my last 3 hour meeting with Weta was this morning) and will not stop. BUT the greenlight and thus commencement can only be granted by the studio. Pete as producer and me as director will do everything we can in the meantime.”

“Is there any trouble brewing with WB? Not at all. All I can say is that they reacted to our delivered script with great delight and we have been receiving strong support in our development.”

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Major movie critics were allowed to see James Cameron’s Avatar in England yesterday with orders not to publish their reviews until next Monday. Funny thing about embargoes: once one site breaks it, the rest fall in line, and we can thank the Hollywood Reporter for jumping the gun and opening the floodgates.

So what’s the word? Is Avatar a $400-million piece of crap? The second coming of cinema?

Variety:

The King of the World sets his sights on creating another world entirely in “Avatar,” and it’s very much a place worth visiting.  Cameron delivers again with a film of universal appeal that just about everyone who ever goes to the movies will need to see.

Hollywood Reporter:

A dozen years later, James Cameron has proven his point: He is king of the world. … he brings science-fiction movies into the 21st century with the jaw-dropping wonder that is “Avatar.” … The movie is 161 minutes and flies by in a rush. Repeat business? You bet.

Times UK:

Avatar is an overwhelming, immersive spectacle. The state-of-the-art 3D technology draws us in, but it is the vivid weirdness of Cameron’s luridly imagined tropical otherworld that keeps us fascinated.

Screen International:

An epic film born entirely of Cameron’s imagination, Avatar uses tailor-made technology to create the most astonishing visual effects yet seen on screen and blends them seamlessly into a mythical sci-fi story.

Total Film:

Game-changing – yes. Spectacular – absolutely. Occasional dodgy dialogue and dramatic imperfections – of course. But still – wait for it – a titanic achievement.

Zombies are everywhere, enjoying a resurgence in popularity that ultimately spells an imminent collapse, the Zombie Bubble, if you will. Can’t happen a moment too soon. Between endless videogames and movies, I think the zombie concept has run its course. But what is this? Yet one more attempt to include zombies in pop culture? Indeed. Zombies meet Star Wars posters…

See all the posters here.

With Avatar opening in a month, many Hollywood analysts and journalists are preparing and publishing stories that focus on the bloated budget, the troubled history of 3D movies, and the likelihood that Avatar has the potential to be the biggest bomb in cinema history. Now, all of this sounds very familiar, as I heard and read all these stories when the subject was instead Titanic, which proved itself the most successful movie ever made.

Having seen the exclusive 15-minute 3D preview several months ago, I can safely say that whatever experience you’ve had with 3D in the past has no bearing on what you are about to witness on the big-screen. Judging the visual quality of the movie based on 2D trailers is futile.

Related: My 16-Minutes of Avatar: Did Cameron Deliver or Crash and Burn?

Now we have Kim Masters of The Daily Beast droning on about Hollywood concerns, going the extra mile to say that because Robert Zemeckis’ latest 3D movie, A Christmas Carol, tanked at the box office that there is great cause for concern when it comes to Avatar. How these two movies relate is beyond me. The only thing they have in common is “3D” and even there they use two completely different processes. That, and very few people give a crap about Charles Dickens or A Christmas Carol, or Robert Zemeckis’ sloppy version of a classic tale.

From The Daily Beast:

Still, she describes Avatar as “iffy.” And that may not be the adjective that executives at Fox and their partners on the film want to hear. Given that it’s taken 12 years for Cameron to produce a follow up to Titanic, and considering the immense cost of the technology, the industry and the media have been guessing at Avatar’s budget, with the Los Angeles Times recently putting it at $310 million with additional marketing costs of about $150 million. Other estimates are even higher. (Fox co-chairman Jim Gianopulos told Reuters earlier this week that rumors the movie will cost $500 million are “ridiculous,” acknowledging nonetheless that it was “quite expensive.”)

Ever wonder why a hack like Michael Bay continues to helm awful movies? Because there is apparently no shortage of easily-pleased people with disposable income, as evidenced by the latest sales figures for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on DVD and Blu-Ray. In the first week alone, it managed to sell an amazing 7.5 million in its first week of availability. Previously, the vampire flick Twilight was the best-selling DVD of the year at 8-million copies, but it has had since March 21st to attain that number, whereas Transformers nearly surpasses it in a single week. And that, dear reader, is why Michael Bay is allowed to create more crap.

Source: Home Media Magazine

If you’re a science-fiction fan than you are most-likely a fanboy of Ridley Scott. As the director of the original Alien and Blade Runner, Mr. Scott treats science-fiction with respect and integrity. So when it was recently announced that Ridley would be directing a new Alien movie, there was much cause for celebration. Would it be a sequel? A prequel? A remake?

It will be a prequel.

In the words of Ridley Scott, who was at the London Film Festival yesterday, “It’s a brand new box of tricks. We know what the road map is, and the screenplay is now being put on paper. The prequel will be a while ago. It’s very difficult to put a year on Alien, but if Alien was towards the end of this century, then the prequel story will take place thirty years prior. I never thought I’d look forward to a sequel, but a prequel is kind of interesting. I’m looking forward to doing that.”

Source: Empire Online