Rewind: The Pope As Movie Reviewer

Pope Benedict was in the news recently and it made me think of this BNFOS post from January 13, 2010.

The Pope as Movie Reviewer 

According to this article brought to my attention by Friend of the Blog JW, the Vatican is weighing in on James Cameron’s billion dollar grossing film Avatar.

Due to its pro-nature stance the Holy See views it as “neo-paganism” and believes it dangerous in that it turns “nature into a ‘new divinity.’”

Now that the Pope is in the movie review business, I think he should go whole hog. With that in mind I present: “Ebert and Pope Benedict XVI and The Movies.”

Here are some fun factoids gleaned from the first several episodes screened for reporters:

-They end their movie reviews with a Thumbs Up and a Papal Blessing, or a Thumbs Down and a Contemno ex Skeletorus (Condemn This Movie to Hell).

-The Pope, unlike Roger, claims to possess the ability of Filmitus Inerrantum or Movie Infallibility (in other words, his movie reviews are NEVER wrong).

-Roger Ebert has his “Great Movies,” the Pope has “Pontiff’s Picks.”

-When they review the occasional drive-in movie, Benedict insists they use the Popemobile as it has a bitchin' 7.1 sound system.

-The Pope's mitre doubles as a popcorn bucket.

-The Pope's staff can be used to yank noisy patrons from their seats.

-The Pope’s favorite movie snack is Holy Grail Gummis.

-The Pope sits squarely with Team Jacob.

-Roger Ebert is The Answer Man. Pope Benedict XVI is The Answer Man of the Almighty Eternal One Who is Most High (the Church loves its titles).

-When Pope Benedict gets up and walks across a row of seats to head to the restroom, his robes make absolutely no sound thanks to fine Italian silk from blessed worms.

-The Pope has been known to “heal” a broken film strip with a wave of his hand.

-The Pope hosts "Movies with a Mass" - a retrospective of films featuring the mass. (Not to be confused with "Movies and a Mass" on Sundays when you have a film preceding a mass.)

-In addition to the Popemobile, the “Pontiff of the Projector” has been known to arrive at movie premieres in the Popecycle, the Popeboat, the Popecopter and, occasionally, the Liturgical Limo.

-The Pope closes each show with, “That’s it for this week’s edition. Until next week, the Basilica is closed.”

-Jealous rivals refer to the show as the "one with the Pulitzer Prize Winner and the Old Guy with the Big Pointy Hat."

-Every summer, St. Peter's Basilica projects a Led Zeppelin Lazer Show. (This last one has nothing to do with movie reviews, His Holiness simply likes to rock it to Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven, of course.)

Ikea Monkey To Make Film Debut

Sources who must remain anonymous have confirmed to this reporter that the world famous "Ikea Monkey" will be appearing in the upcoming, eagerly-anticipated film Star Trek Into Darkness.

The following screen grab confirms that Ikea Monkey has been updated, slightly, for the movie.  The good news is his impeccable fashion sense appears to make it intact to the 23rd century.

STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark and Copyright 2012 by CBS Studios, Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended with this parody.  Screencap from TREKCORE.COM.

Chuck Norris vs Frankenstein!

Quick, what's the name of the only horror movie that chop-socky legend Chuck Norris has ever done?

If you answered Silent Rage, then you were correct.  You were probably also one of the other nine people in the theater to see this horror/scifi turkey upon its release (some might say "escape") in 1982.

In it Big Chuck plays a small town sheriff (is there any other kind in movies - Arnold Schwarzenegger also plays a small town sheriff in his first flick since leaving the Governator role behind), who runs into some tall gangly weirdo killer who is shot fulla lead, and then while knockin' on death's door, subsequently experimented on by a couple of weirdo CSI/scientist types who basically turn him into an unstoppable (read, unkillable) zombie killing machine. 

Chuck don't take too kindly to unstoppable low-rent Terminator-types killing up his small town, so his boots get a good workout, what with about 175 spin kicks in the movie.

Why did Chuck Norris do a horror movie, you ax (get it - horror movie - ax)?  Well, this was a Chuck-before-the-beard flick, so we can forgive him for this lapse in judgment/good taste/grooming just once.

Here's the trailer for this nonsense.

U.F.O. T.H.E.M.E.

Do you remember a tv series called UFO?  It was produced by the great Gerry Anderson of Thunderbirds and Space: 1999 fame.

UFO followed the adventures of the secret organization called S.H.A.D.O. (ten quatloos if you can recall what that acronym stands for) as it monitored and defended earth from alien attackers.

UFO featured nifty future fashions, and tons of cool miniature effects courtesy of the late, great Derek Meddings and modelmaker extraordinare Martin Bower.  There was the Moonbase and their Interceptor spacecraft (they look a bit like early versions of BSG's Viper fighters), the orbiting S.I.D. (Space Intruder Detector), the mighty Mobiles and lest we forget, the incredible SkyDiver submarine with detachable Sky 1 fighter.

Oh, this shit rocked.

UFO also had one of the snazziest theme songs out there, composed by Barry Gray.  So put on your go-go boots (and purple wigs) and lets go hunt aliens.  I'll fire up the Interceptors.

Trekking Into Darkness

After for-freaking-ever it seemed, we finally have some new stuff regarding the 2013 Star Trek Into Darkness film.

Namely a poster that looks like it rips off The Dark Knight Rises, which isn't such a bad thing except that TDKR just came out this summer!  (poster from Collider.com)

And more that just the poster, we have a pair of teaser trailers uploaded to YouTube, one for North Am auds:

And a Japanese version with some interesting extra footage at the end:

The teasers don't really hint at much of a story - they are just teasers, after all, but they definitely have me interested.  When STID comes out in May it will have been four long years since they relaunched the franchise with 2009's Star Trek.  See you opening weekend.

When Classic TV Shows Collide

Ain't It Cool News correspondent Quint has posted a really cool photo in his ongoing Behind The Scenes feature.

This time around the space time continuum was seriously messed with because a comic book icon meets a couple of scifi TV stars.  We're talking none other than Batman's Robin the Boy Wonder (Burt Ward) and Lost In Space's Will and Penny Robinson (Billy Mumy and Angela Cartwright).

It's truly awesome that all three are in their costumes (too bad the Batmobile and the Robot aren't also in the shot).  It's also funny that they are obviously on some studio backlot as there is a building behind them but a giant boulder is on the street in the shot with them.

Hollywood magic at its best. (from AintItCool.com)

Incredible Star Trek TOS Artwork

Animator and artist extraordinaire Dusty Abell has uploaded a Star Trek: TOS poster to his Deviant Art page that is nothing short of phenomenal.

The idea according to Abell was to feature some element from each of the original 79 episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series.  There's simply so much to love about this piece: the Enterprise has never looked better, the likenesses of the actors/characters - while being caricatures - is amazing, the setting itself (check out the Triskelion flooring!).  Also, Abell stated he put Lazarus on top of Vaal figuring he'd be falling off something sooner or later.  Priceless.

A poster seems too small for this artwork.  I wish I had a projector to shine this image up on a wall to stare at it all day!  (originally found on the John Byrne Forum)

Tolkien To Trek

It was just announced that if you go to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in IMAX when it opens in December as a treat you will also get to see the first nine minutes of next summer's Star Trek Into Darkness.

Just as Christopher Nolan did with the last two Dark Knight films and Brad Bird did with Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Star Trek director JJ Abrams lensed his new film's major action scenes in the ginormous IMAX format.

It will be four years since the ST reboot/reimagining/rejiggering when the full movie finally bows in May, and the hype sure to come from the IMAX sneak peeks will get those dilithium crystals glowing white hot, which can only be a good thing.  (from The Wrap.com)

Even Zombies Have A Heart

The instant classic Shaun of the Dead was advertised as a Rom-Zom-Com, ("Romantic Zombie Comedy").  The titular character had to go through the normal travails of a romantic comedy to save his sweetie during a zombie outbreak.

Warm Bodies is a new film from Jonathan Levine, the director of a great little movie called 50/50 (the comedy where Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character finds out he has cancer).  Unlike Shaun this is a true Rom-Zom-Com - a zombie actually falls in love with a human!

The zombie is played by talented Nicholas Hoult (last seen by me as Beast in X-Men: First Class; Hoult also did great work in About A Boy), and the girl is played by the lovely Teresa Palmer.

The first trailer for Warm Bodies is here, and it looks very promising. (Trailer found at Collider.com)

First Trailer for World War Z

World War Z. It was a best-selling book chronicling the aftermath of a worldwide zombie war.  Now it's a movie starring Brad Pitt and directed by Marc (Monster's Ball, Quantum of Solace) Forster.

This first trailer for World War Z looks...interesting.  For years we had the slow, shambling zombies popularized by George A. Romero's trilogy of Dead films, and continued in the current Walking Dead TV series.  After Danny Boyle's terrific 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead, we also have the fast moving zombies.  Forster now gives us a third wrinkle, the zombie swarm: like a horde of ants or school of fish, with hundreds, even thousands, of zombies moving extremely fast.  (What's next, parkour zombies?)

I wonder if this is going to be a problem with the movie, as the human eye can quickly detect when something is not right with another human figure, which is a huge issue with CGI people in movies today.  CGI figures often come off as creepy, as in the Polar Express or Beowulf, or the too-quick movements of Spidey in the first Spider-Man film reading as false.

Another big issue is that the movie, at least from the trailer, does not appear to follow the novel.  The book was a thoughtful series of anecdotes that painted a picture of the devastating worldwide zombie epidemic done ten years after the war ended. The movie looks to be Brad Pitt Vs. The Zombies (and that's a title that would read better if it were Bruce Campbell Vs.The Zombies).

Guess we'll find out next summer.  (from IndieWire.com's The Playlist blog)

A KISS (Concert) Is Still A KISS (Concert)

STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark and Copyright 2012 by CBS Studios Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended with this parody. Screencaps from Trekcore.com.

Mickey Mousea, Meesa Am Your Papa!

Holy F------ S---!

The Force was certainly strong for the Walt Disney Company as they just bought Lucasfilm Ltd from George Lucas for $4.05 Billion (from The Hollywood Reporter.com).  The Mouse House now owns not only Star Wars but Indiana Jones as well.

This news is shocking.  Just shocking.  I don't know how to feel about it.  What do we have to look forward to, new shorts with Mickey Mouse AND Jar Jar Binks?

Star Wars is a huge part of my scifi DNA.  Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back are PERFECT movies.  You can have your Ewoks and your Jar Jar and your Prequels.

Disney says to expect a NEW Star Wars movie in three years. One suggestion: get Steven Spielberg to direct it.

Noah Puts His Flood Pants On

Seriously, were pants even invented in the time of Noah (of the Ark fame).  The pic is from Collider.com.

Is this Darren Aronofsky film, "Noah," a futuristic "biblepunk" version of the Flood myth?

"The Most Interesting Man In The World" Was In Star Trek

One of my favorite commercials of the last several years has been Dos Equis' "Most Interesting Man In The World" series.

The commercials feature a distinguished looking man in his 70s, always smartly dressed, and always surrounded by beautiful young women and excited people.  The narrator lists his many accomplishments, feats and achievements, such as "he is the only man to ace a Rorschach test," "his legend precedes him the way lightning precedes thunder," "if he were to mail a letter without postage, it would still get there," and "he once punched a magician...that's right, you heard me."

The man is actually actor Jonathan Goldsmith, and blog io9.com points out that Goldsmith appeared in Star Trek: The Original Series, in the episode"The Corbomite Maneuver."

Knowing the Most Interesting Man In The World appeared on the Most Interesting SciFi Show In The World, we humbly offer the following:

His beard can make the Vulcan hand salute.

His personal magnetism is often mistaken for a tractor beam.

Capt. Kirk got to be the ladies man he is by reading merely the index of his little black book.

He can speak Klingon in Romulan.

His phaser is set to "stunning."

His beard always transports ahead of him, just in case there's trouble.

His wink has been known to stun a charging Gorn.

He can recharge dilithium crystals with just his smile.

The galactic library Memory Alpha calls him for fact-checking.

His beard is worshipped by Tribbles.

His hailing frequencies are always open...for adventure!

He is...The Most Interesting Man In The Star Trek World.  

"Stay Trekkie, my friends."

Bill and Ted's Not-At-All-Excellent Cyber Adventure

Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

This was an incredibly dull movie. And a stoopid one, at that; Johnny Moronic some have called it.

Keanu Reeves plays our hero, data courier Johnny who smuggles information in his noggin in the world of 2021.  He dumped a chunk of memory (e.g. his childhood) to enable the illegal extra data storage capacity in his melon.  Reeves has to get the info downloaded before his head explodes or the audience loses its patience with the movie.

Reeves is in full Bill and Ted mode in this flick; his expressions have that blank deer-in-headlights feel.  All that was missing was Alex Winter as his traveling buddy and Reeve's trademark phrase, "Whoa!"

Reeves has to get the data from exotic Beijing (Panda Express looks more exotic than the film's production design of China) to Newark, New Jersey.  When did Newark become an important destination in cyberspace or real life for that matter?

This is a Bad Movie, through and through. The casting across the board was goofy: Ice T in a fright wig as a resistance fighter, weird Udo Kier as another weird Udo Kier character, Dolph Lundgren - seemingly on some bad mescaline - as a strung out street preacher/assassin?  To top it all, the actor playing the chief Yakuza assassin had eyebrows that were at least one inch thick!  It was so distracting, like watching an Asian Groucho Marx.

The resistance fighters, or Lo-Teks (get it, "low tech?") are HQ'd underneath an old bridge.  I didn't say below an old bridge, which would make sense if you want to keep out of sight of the cops and the corporations out to press delete on your ass.  No, this dumb movie puts the Lo-Tek's hideout UNDERNEATH a bridge: they networked together old containers and other scraps of metal and junk, and viola, it's the Hilton 2021.  Except you'd have to use cranes to get that shit up underneath the bridge and weld it all together.  How the hell did they hide all that from prying eyes?

Of course the Lo-Teks like to drop flaming cars (hey, "car bombs," everyone!) from the bridge onto trespassers below.  This once again raises the question of how you get old cars UNDERNEATH a bridge to be able to bomb unsuspecting snoops.  I imagine this image was the thing that led them to create the Lo-Tek's silly headquarters in the first place.

This movie looks and plays like an extremely cheap knockoff of the Max Headroom TV show, but instead of that show's inventiveness, creativity and smart satire, we got a B-movie plot, embarrassing cyber-tech double talk, cliched scifi punk fashions, a generic soundtrack, dull fight scenes, and a finale in one of Roger Ebert's trademarked "Steam and Flame Factory" settings.

And the scenes "in" cyberspace itself (one where Reeves is gloved up and helmeted to do, what, make a couple phone calls?) simply looked like someone's CGI effects reel after watching Tron.

Read an old issue of Omni magazine for a better, more exciting, and stimulating use of an hour and a half.

Comic Book Movie Casting, Meteors and More

WhatCulture.com has a new piece up about unusual, or oddball, casting choices for comic book movies. Michael Keaton's casting as Batman was likely the first oddball casting for a comic book movie that really worked; the most recent may be Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man.  Let's keep that up, Hollywood.  We need more of that kind of "out of the box" (though that's such an overused phrase) stuff and less of the Nick Cage as Ghost Rider or Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern business.

In sadder news, noted director of photography Harris Savides passed away recently.  Mr. Savides worked with directors as varied as Sofia Coppola, Ridley Scott and David Fincher; his work on the period thriller "Zodiac" for Fincher was especially notable.  Indiewire.com's The Playlist takes a look at his amazing work.

To end the week on a high note, Space: 1970 has a post up with the press kit photos from the scifi disaster pic "Meteor," starring none other than James Bond himself, Sean Connery, the late Natalie Wood and some really bad special effects (the space platform with the missiles looks about two feet long and made from cheap plastic - which it probably was!).

I watched the first 15 minutes of "Meteor" not too long ago, and all I remember was that Connery wore an overcoat that was this thick, massive, leather number that looked to have been made from an entire cow (see the first pic in that post).  That and he brought the thing with him into every scene he was in.  (Connery was a millionaire by the time this movie was made, so maybe he told the producers, "I don't need any money, but I would like a really nice warm coat for those Scottish nights I could keep afterward.").  To stop the meteor they should have just thrown Connery's coat over it.

A Turkish Movie and A Gimp Walk Into a Target Store

I came upon these two bits while perusing Gawker.com this a.m.

One is that my favorite department store Target is setting a "Gimp" costume from American Horror Story.  I'd recommend trying this one on in the story before purchasing it.  Maybe walk around a bit to see how it feels.

The second bit is from our Turkish filmmaking friends (or should that be "fiends?"), with the "Worst Movie Death Scene."  Some chick is shooting some dude sporting what I call a "split-level" mustache.

Firefly Anniversary

Firefly - the amazing "space western" series created by Joss Whedon - first aired on September 20, 2002.

Whichever idiot in charge of the Fox Network at that time axed the series after airing just 11 episodes.  They even ran the episodes out of order (plus, they didn't bother to air the pilot until just as the show was canceled).

I grew up on re-runs of Star Trek: TOS, so that is my favorite tv show.  Firefly is a close second.

Series executive producer Tim Minear shares some memories of the final moments of production in this piece from MTV's Splashpage.

Gornam Style

Screencaps from Trekcore. Star Trek is Copyright 2012 and a Registered Trademark of CBS Studios, Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended with this parody.

Little-seen 1980s Series to Transform Into Little-seen Feature Film

Okay, who the frak is responsible for this?

Is it you?

Manimal is coming back from the dead. (This according to io9.com.)  That's right that little seen Glen A. Larson "gem" from the early 80s is apparently being brought out of mothballs - or in this case, the taxidermist - to star in a feature film.  And instead of Stan Winston's man-to-animal makeup transformations, we will get CGI morphing instead. Whoopee.

Here is the premise of the show: "a wealthy doctor with a mysterious past, who morphed into animals in order to help the police fight crime."

If Ben Stiller is tapped for the lead, I am so there.

Psy Fi

The viral video "Gangnam Style" by Korean popstar Psy is so wacky, that it classifies as sci-fi, or perhaps just fantasy, with its Mini-Me kid dancer, F5 tornado winds and the truly odd fashion sense of the singer (K-Pop meets The Hunger Games' Effie Trinket).

Regardless, it's a fun, bouncy number that's taken the interwebs by storm (and by horsey dance).

Flotsam and Jetsam for a September Friday

This week's Award For Best Headline is found at io9.com: Resident Evil: Retribution: Your Punishment for Loving Action Movies.

Inventive Australian director Neil Harvey created ROBBIE, a touching short film about a robot in the far future, using only NASA archival footage. From USA Today's popcandy. 

Stan Lee's Comikaze  multimedia convention is this weekend at the L.A. Convention Center.  Awesome guests include Adam West and Burt Ward (forever to be Batman and Robin to those who grew up in the 1960s and 70s), the beautiful and talented Internet goddess Felicia Day, and if he can take the Toronado down off blocks to get there, Joe Bob Briggs.  

And, get this, there is even a Zombie Apocalypse maze to run through! Maybe we'll see fellow convention guest and The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus dodging the walkers (maybe not).

Impressions of Thrones

Just now getting into HBO's Game of Thrones via the magic of DVD, and the LA Public Library.

This group of impressions of many of the main male cast of the show, by a young lad named Steve Love, are spot on.

China is here, Mr. Burton

"What does that mean?  I don't even know what the hell that means!"

Find a girl with green eyes, order some spicy kung pao to go along with the dazzling kung fu, and watch Big Trouble in Little China, one of the best, and funniest, cult movies around.  A true gem from director John Carpenter.

Most Cheese You Can Get Without A Cow

Because this NEVER gets old, it's Mike Nelson, Crow and Servo from MST3K and their many, many nicknames for Reb Brown's character in the you-gotta-see-it-to-believe-it "Space Mutiny."

Retro Robots

A Medley of Riffs Past

Star Trek is Copyright 2012 and a Registered Trademark of CBS Studios Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended with this parody. Screencaps from Trekcore.com

Hellboy Comes To Life For One Little Boy

Ron Perlman is the MAN.

Perlman is no stranger to genre tv/movies, having appeared in such fare as Quest For Fire, Beauty and the Beast, City of Lost Children, Blade 2 and Alien Resurrection in his long career. He also brought to big-screen life in two cult films the unconventional comic book hero Hellboy.

Now Perlman has brought Hellboy from the big-screen and into the life of a little boy for the Make a Wish Foundation. He underwent the four-hour makeup and costume process to visit six year old Zachary who is being treated for leukemia. Here is the Hollywood Reporter story.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find some tissues.

Xenu Gets The House, The Starship And Three Moons In This Split

Star Trek is Copyright 2012 and a Registered Trademark of CBS Studios Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended with this parody. Screencaps from Trekcore.com.

Today Show Host Jumps Ship

Star Trek is Copyright 2012 and a Registered Trademark of CBS Studios Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended with this parody. Screencaps from Trekcore.com