From Anime News Network, we have news about the premiere of the Trigun movie:

Sakura-Con has announced that it will hold the world premiere of the Trigun: Badlands Rumble film during the April 2-4 convention in Seattle, Washington. The convention is three weeks before the April 24 opening of the film in Japan.

Like the television anime series that came before it, the anime studio MADHOUSE is basing the film on Yasuhiro Nightow’s popular Trigun manga. Director Satoshi Nishimura, character designer Takahiro Yoshimatsu, mechanical designer Noriyuki Jinguji, and musical composer Tsuneo Imahori are returning to the franchise after having worked on the television series. Nightow and Nishimura conceived of the story concepts which Yasuko Kobayashi (Claymore, Shakugan no Shana, Witchblade anime) turned into a shooting script. Masaya Onosaka, Sho Hayami, Hiromi Tsuru, and Satsuki Yukino are reprising their roles of Vash the Stampede, Nicolas D. Wolfwood, Meryl Stryfe, and Milly Thompson, respectively.

Nishimura and Yoshimatsu are appearing as guests of this year’s Sakura-Con. In addition to Trigun, Nishimura directed Hajime no Ippo (Fighting Spirit) and Shin Cho Bakumatsu Shonen Seiki Takamaru, and he storyboarded episodes of Black Lagoon, Card Captor Sakura, Monster, Paradise Kiss, and Revolutionary Girl Utena. Yoshimatsu designed the characters in several Slayers and Future GPX Cyber Formula projects, Basquash!, Kiba, Desert Punk, and the two Jubei-chan – Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch television series.

Sakura-Con has always been the premiere anime convention in the country, and it seems this year, they won’t disappoint. For more info, or to register if you plan to make the trip from Salt Lake City, visit their main page here.

Warner Bros. has been doing a pretty good job on their DC original movies, bringing to life stories from the comics that wouldn’t fit into a regular series or with the standard continuity of anything else that has come before it.

Sometimes, they score a hit, like Superman: Doomsday, sometimes they catch a piece of the ball and knock it to the back of the park but in foul territory, like Batman/Superman: Public Enemies, and sometimes they knock it out of the park, like with Crisis on Two Earths.

After watching the preview of this film on the Public Enemies DVD, I’ll admit that I was skeptical. I’ve always been of the opinion that most of DCs “Crisis” story lines were too convoluted for me to follow and too dense with characters I couldn’t remember for me to care, but Crisis on Two Earths, despite its awkward title, really boiled down a Crisis story to its essence and nailed it.

It made me excited over Crisis stories and wish that this is how they were told in the DC Universe, proper. This film opens up with Earth-2’s Lex Luthor and Jester (a pretty generic Joker ripoff) stealing some manner of technology and escaping from the Crime Syndicate, which consists of a Superman riff called Ultraman, a Batman riff called Owlman, a Wonder Woman riff called Superwoman and so on. These guys are evil and on their Earth they’ve completely subverted the people into making them rich gangsters.

Lex Luthor is the leader of this Earth’s iteration of the Justice League and develops a way to get to our Earth, wherein he asks the Justice League for help. The entire league, sans Batman, agree to go back to Earth-2 to help Lex Luthor. Batman stays behind, insisting that The Justice League is tasked with saving only their own Earth from criminals and intergalactic threats and the like, but his attitude soon changes when the Crime Syndicate hatch a plan to blow up Earth-Prime, which would cause a chain reaction that would destroy every Earth in the multiverse.

I really liked this movie, the voice acting was good even though Kevin Conroy wasn’t Batman. I mean, seriously, Kevin Conroy should ALWAYS be Batman. James Woods was excellent as the creepy and psychopathic Owlman and Mark Harmon filled Superman’s shoes quite capably. The animation was top-notch and the action sequences had an incredible kinetic energy to them. They were exciting and fit in with the story to the point where each and every one of them meant something. They were all very, very cool to watch.

On a side note, I can see the Italian American community upset about Ultraman. He’s a greezy goomba and, though it worked for me, they seem to get upset about any iteration of Italian American as a mobster, and that’s pretty much all Ultraman is.

Having said how much I liked this movie, there is a major problem I had with the film and I need to preface this with a MAJOR Spoiler warning.

There, you’ve been warned.

At the end of the film, and Owlman has set the QED device to blow up and destroy Earth prime, Batman changes the coordinates of the bomb, batarangs Owlman to it, and then leaves him to explode. It seems incredibly out of character for Batman to specifically tie a villain to a bomb and send him off to who knows where for him to die. It was very un-Batman. I understand the stakes were high, and this guy would probably try it again, etc, but that’s Batman’s one unwavering rule: The Bat does NOT kill.

So, that was my biggest gripe.

Aside from that, they decoded the film version of a Crisis story perfectly.

As for the Spectre short… Wow… On the disc there is an 11 minute short film that was written by Steve Niles featuring the Spectre. It had the look and feel of a 70s exploitational cop procedural on 16mm and though it was incredibly short, the first rate animation and story concentrated into such a tight time frame worked so well that I’d almost like to see more of these instead of more feature length films. A disc of these would be to die for. I must have watched this five times and shown it to twice as many people, I couldn’t believe how excellent it was.

The last thing on the disc I’d like to mention is the preview for the next DCU Animated film, “Under the Red Hood.” The good news is that we’ll be seeing portions of my favorite Batman story, A Death in the Family, animated. The bad news is that they are basing this off of Judd Winicks lackluster run, taking Jason Todd out of the grave and under the hood. We’ll see how it plays out, but this was my least favorite Batman arc in the last 20 years.

Overall, this disc was worth the price of admission and it has hours of bonus content that will occupy your time for…well…hours…

To order it on Amazon, simply click the link.

Oliver Stone is a tremendous filmmaker, though over the last 10 years or so he’s become a little hit or miss. When I heard he was making a sequel to “Wall Street”, which is easily one of his best and certainly an excellent film, I was incredibly wary.

A trailer for the sequel, starring Shia LaBeouf and Michael Douglas, reprising his role as Gordon Gekko, actually looks fantastic. It looks like it could, indeed, rival the quality and intensity of the original. And I, for one, am hoping that Oliver Stone can pull it off. Throw Josh Brolin into the mix (who made me sympathize with George Bush and knocked my socks off in No Country For Old Men), and a cameo by Charlie Sheen and I’m officially excited.

So check out the trailer:

Swank-mo-tron: Wow. That might be one of the best words to describe this movie. This movie was unsettling to me in all of the right ways right off the bat. It was haunting and beautiful and I even shed a few tears. I think a lesser filmmaker would have botched this story rather badly, but the fact that Martin Scorsese has such an even hand was greatly to this films benefit. The construction of Shutter Island was flawless and I want to see it again, just to confirm that statement. What do you think, Doctor?

Doctor Cyborg Robot M.D. Attorney at Law -5: I couldn’t disagree with Swank-mo-tron more. The film was hard to sit through. I was constantly fighting the urge to get up and walk out of the theatre. The only good things about the film were the directors control of the information, the story itself, the acting, the score, the best use of flashbacks and dreams that I’ve seen in a film for a good long while, and well pretty much the whole thing was really good. Shutter Island literally reignited my faith in cinema. Although as I started off saying it is hard to sit through. It isn’t the feel good movie of the year, so if your one of those idiots that needs to feel good, go get yourself a foot massage.

So I guess Smank-mo-tron and I actually agree on this one, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still wrong. I think he is understating this movies greatness. Whereas he isn’t likely to throw out phrases like, “best film of the year!” and “Thrilltacular roller coaster ride!” I am. And that’s what separates us from the humans…

Swank-mo-tron: Ummm… I’m a bit lost, Doctor, but I will agree that the construction of the film and the language of cinema it used were second-to-none. And It’s been fun debating the ending with you in person… It’s really open-ended and I appreciate the fact that we are left to make up our own minds about the film and the nature of the ending.

And I would also like to point out how much I loved the scene between the Warden of the Shutter Island facility and Leonardo DiCaprio’s character. I think that scene stood out among an entire film’s worth of stand out scenes.

And I loved Scorsese’s use of incredible actors for even the most bit parts, like Jackie Earle Haley, Patricia Clarkson, Emily Mortimer and Elias Koteas. They all stood out in a film with lead performances so strong they made my head spin. Literally, my stomach was turning over in knots.

This is one I’m going to have to go back and see again and again.

Scorsese did it again.

Last week the bio-pic Amelia, starring Hilary Swank and Richard Gere, came to DVD and Blu-ray. Fox Home Entertainment was kind enough to send us a review copy and last night I finally got around to watching this film.

I must admit, I had next to no interest in seeing Amelia. I am a bit tired of all these cookie-cutter “biographical” films that jump and skip around an infamous historical figure’s life, hitting all the major plot-points but lacking in the heart and realism that was present when said historical events actually occurred. I was less than surprised to find that Amelia was just another addition in a long line of these films.

Amelia is so blatantly aiming straight down the barrel at an Academy Award it’s actually laughable at times. Director Mira Nair has ditched her relatively low-key style for a grand classic period feel in this attempt at an Oscar and brought along with her writer Ronald Bass who is probably best known for penning Rain Man back in ’88 and then going on to write a lot of popular romantic-type movies (I’ll refrain from the term “chick flick” here). Of course though, as with any good bio-pic, you need some big names to back it up. Filling the lead role of Amelia Earhart is Hilary Swank trying her hardest to do what seems to be an impression of Amy Adams playing Earhart in Night at the Museum 2. Seemingly trying to aim low for a “Best Supporting Actor” golden statue is Richard Gere as Earhart’s husband, reporter and publicist George Putnam.

The main issue I take up with Amelia is that it just feels like any other biographical film I have ever seen. Nair has made a point to hit very particular historical points in an attempt to bring us into the appropriate period – even going as far as to add news reel clips, which unfortunately do nothing but bring you right out of the world Nair has set up; which is too bad because she has created a world featuring painstaking period-appropriate detail. Surprisingly enough though, the film moves at a decent pace despite being pretty dull. The aerial scenes were actually pretty dynamic – until they cut to a scene of Swank in the cockpit in which the fact that she is just in front of a green screen is painfully obvious, frankly, I was shocked at the “cheapness” of these effects in a film this large. I’ll refrain from commenting too much at the overall predictability of Amelia because going into any biographical film the audience already has a certain level of knowledge on the subject, however, I just feel like there had to have been some way to tell this story in a more dynamic way, especially since they had a completely open-ended way to conclude the film.

I didn’t expect much in the way of story going in to Amelia, but what really surprised me was the acting. Hilary Swank usually turns in a pretty solid performance no matter how good or bad a script is, but Swank as Earhart felt like a very odd caricature of a historical figure. Gere, who has been struggling to stay relevant over the years, just kind of meanders his way through the role of male supporting lead. Frankly, the only person who did a good job with the role they were given was Ewan McGregor – who manages to be a welcome highlight in a film full of sub-par performances.

The video and audio transfer of Amelia is very crisp and clean, I will say despite my lack of enthusiasm over the film it’s at least a very “pretty” film to look at. Special features are about what you’d expect. There are ten deleted scenes featured here and while I feel like they actually would have added some good character development to Swank’s Earhart they still didn’t add much more depth to the film. Of course we have the obligatory “Making of” featurette, and it’s about what you’d expect it to be. A few historical featurettes quickly detailing the life of Amelia Earhart and her final plane, “Electra”, round out the featurettes and are mildly entertaining, but are quick and generic. A collection of eight Fox Movietone news reels round out the special features.

I honestly for the life of me can’t think of much positive to say about Amelia. If I were to really dig down deep I would applaud the film in not over-romanticizing Amelia Earhart as a person as she participated in more than one affair as a married woman – but good intentions don’t make a great film. There was no excitement during the course of the film and the phoned-in acting made Earhart’s tragic disappearance completely mute. Ultimately, the cast and crew of Amelia just make it too easy to not even think twice in recommending passing on this film.

Special Features Include:

Deleted scenes
“The Power of Amelia Earhart” featurette
“Making Amelia” featurette
“Movietone News” featurette
“The Plane Behind the Legend” featurette**
“Re-constructing the Planes of Amelia” featurette**
Digital copy of the film**

**Blu-ray only

You can purchase Amelia at Amazon.com

Anthony Hopkins took time out of his busy schedule filming the role of Odin in Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming Thor film to talk to the Los Angeles Times.

You can read the whole article here, but here’s a nice excerpt:

He said he has high hopes for “Thor” ( “Kenneth Branagh is such a terrific director and a wonderful guy to work with”) especially because he finds a personal resonance in the Odin role.

“He’s a stern man. He’s a man with purpose. I play the god who banishes his son from the kingdom of Asgard because he screwed up. He’s a hot-headed, temperamental young man — probably a chip off of the old block — but I decide he’s not really ready to rule the future kingdom, so I banish him. I’m harsh and my wife complains and I say, ‘That is why I’m king.’ He’s ruthless, take-it-or-leave-it. Women are much more forgiving; men are not so forgiving. I know in my life, my karma is, ‘If you don’t like it, tough, move on.’ And I move on. I’m a little like Odin myself.”

Thor is set for release next summer.

What happens when medical students decide to go on vacation to their friends cabin in the mountains? Well besides awkward outhouse sex and kick-ass snowmobile machine gunning?! When these goofy drunk students find buried spanish gold under the floor boards, the undead Nazi Horde is awakened to reclaim their prize.

I happen to be a Zombie movie junkie, and nothing pleases me more than Nazi Zombies. Thankfully this wasn’t poorly made Nazi zombies or this bot would have been pissed. The makers behind Dead Snow really had the feel of what a decent zombie movie should be. People get eaten/torn apart, teens get murdered while attempting to go to the bathroom, and almost everyone gets their intestines ripped out (I’m pretty sure the makeup crew got a killer deal on fake intestines for production). The acting is medium as most independent films are. I found myself believing that the students were terrified of their situation. And the Zombies looked really good… Goofy half alive Nazi’s chasing down the horrified medical students.

The special features are something I find to be super cool for movie junkies, or Salt Lake Locals. The small featurettes on creating the making, and how they pulled off the special effects are incredibly interesting. Also the cast and crew at the Sundance film festival, is something I find interesting. If you live in SLC it’s neat to see other peoples experience around the area.

Overall I give this movie 3.5/5, it’s a fun-filled gore-fest with : Nazi Zombie’s, Outhouse sex, Outhouse disembowelment, multiple intestine removals, intestine bungie jumping, and a fairly interesting twist to wrap it up. This is a must have for your Zombie collection, and a good addition to anyone’s horror stash. Order from Amazon here

Final Score: 3.5/5

Special Features Include:

• “Behind Dead Snow” featurette
• “Special Make-Up Effects of Dead Snow” featurette
• “VFX” featurette
• “The Sounds of Dead Snow” featurette
• “Burning the Cabin” featurette
• Outtakes
• Trailers

Want to win a copy of Dead Snow? Then click here…

It was recently announced that the adaptation of “Akira” would be handled by Allen and Albert Hughes for Warner Brother’s take on the now legendary manga by Katsuhiro Otomo about a post apocalyptic Tokyo.

The new film will be based in Manhattan in a similar setting, with the leader of a bike gang attempting to save his friend from a medical testing facility. No other set news has been revealed, but rumors abound of Leonardo DeCaprio playing the role of Kanada have yet to be confirmed. This news comes after this movie has been floating around since Legendary Pictures acquired the rights in 2007 from Kodansha Publishing.

The Hughes brothers are attached after finishing work on “The Book of Eli’ and of course, when any other info comes out, we’ll make sure to have it to you. So, what’s your opinion on this? Should we really have a live-action Akira?

HELL-o all you FABULOUS, SHINY robots! The Flaming-Gynoid here, back from Broadway tour. Oh, for those of you who didn’t know, I sometimes fill in for Ms. Liza when she’s down, out, or just plain beat to a pulp.  Any-who, I have missed all you Clanks, Cranks, Droids, Tron’s and Voids…and I hope you missed me too.

Moving right along…there’s this fantastic movie, just released on Blu-ray after a DVD re-re-release in 2004 (first in 99, re-released 2002), which I saw AGES AGO . Let me define “AGES”: I originally watched it on VHS. Can you all say VID-EO TAPE, you daft cows! (Side note; I’m shocked at the number of people who have never seen, nor heard of this film when asked about it.) SERIOUSLY!! Like me, you all have those BIG, soft, pink, veiny, wet organs that I call BRAINS. Its helps us think and make choices and for those Robots who use it, must know that this film is probably one of the greatest Sci-fi /Action films of the 80’s….Ok, probably not the greatest, BUT it’s certainly worth watching at least one time in your life. Don’t give me that look BITCH! I said it, and I meant it.

The film is “Running Man”. It’s based on an early story by Stephen King (writing as “Richard Bachman“).  Set in Los Angeles, the year is 2017, & the country has pretty much gone to hell. Can’t wait…7 more years for us kiddies!! The government controls everything with an iron fist, including all television programming. The “Must See TV” of the future, is the reality game show The Running Man, produced in conjunction with the Department of Justice, where a group of colorful, diverse, murderous hunters, called “Stalkers” pursues convicted criminals across a 400 city block radius, all the while being filmed and televised. It’s a game comparable to the Roman Gladiators at the Coliseum. If a criminal can complete the course, he’ll have a full pardon and a place of his own in Hawaii… but I’m sure we have all heard that famous saying, “the bad guy never wins”…or do they?

(Now let us take a moment and think about this…here’s a film made long before the reality crap on television was produced, aired and has now taken over our screens. I loathe and despise reality TV, but wouldn’t we all enjoy watching this sort of reality TV? Or better yet, be able to play as a Stalker and destroy the scum of the earth in an all out obstacle course, rather than air a bunch of Wanna-be Flaming Gynoids on that filthy, trashy show called American “Loser”, well except for Adam…I do feel a warm sensory overload when I see him gyrate on stage. Mmm-Hmm…..GYRATE ADAM!!)

The err…eh….loveable? Richard Dawson (you remember..he’s that famous old pervert who loved to molest his female contestants on Family Feud) plays the role of Damon Killian, the slimy, ruthless game show host of “T.R.M”, who will stop at nothing to get high ratings. It’s not much of a stretch for Dawson, seeing as how he’s really just playing himself, Dirty old pig!…but he does a good job of entertaining throughout the film.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the star, the hero, the sexy one in the show…although I do think Jesse Ventura (a Stalker aka Captain Freedom) could give Arnie a run for his money when it comes to being sexy…Such big muscles you have Mr. Ventura, *giggling to myself*…he was one fine HUNK with a lot of JUNK, back in the day. HELL-O!!

Oh yes, so our leading man, Ben Richards (Arnie) is falsely accused of some horrible massacre of innocent civilians, when in reality he tried to prevent it from ever happening, and has now found himself a contestant on T.R.M. He’s joined by his two military buddies, William Laughlin (Yaphet Kotto) and Harold Weiss (Marvin J. McIntyre) who were promised that they would not have to compete if Richards would go on in their place…Richards accepts, but SURPRISE!!! Tricked you! You still have to compete…Oh, you silly boys. When will you learn? Why do you fall for such lame promises? You never change…Now, more than 20 years later and you’re still falling for it. Hahahaha…*sigh*

It’s pretty easy to guess what direction this film takes next, and therefore I’m not going to go any further into the storyline, but I will say this…The film is a product of its time/generation. Its sets/design/costumes/special effects are cheesy, and the script is what you would expect a movie like this to be. The film is filled with corny, funny puns, mostly delivered by Arnie, which you can’t help but roll your eyes at, while sporting a huge grimacing grin. There’s a fair share of blood, guts, and glory, and let’s not forget a tag-a-long, bombshell beauty named Amber Mendez(Maria Conchita Alonso) who worked for the game show network, but found herself on the other side when she questioned the truth behind Ben Richards past. So throw all these things together in a giant, stainless steel mixing bowl from Pottery Barn, mix it up, throw it in the oven @375 temp. and what you get is a delicious helping of entertainment. Sheer entertainment in fact.  Or at least for the truly devoted Arnie fans. I give Running Man, 8 out of 10 Ventura Biceps!

The Blu-ray is cheap if you buy @ Amazon.com. Only $11.99!! Its single disc and nothing fancy as far as extras…just clean, crisp imagery.

Super Hero Hype! – who is naming their source as ‘Sony Pictures Entertainment’ posted this bit of news earlier today:

Spider-Man will swing into theaters worldwide in 3D beginning July 3, 2012, it was announced today by Jeff Blake, Chairman of Sony Pictures Worldwide Marketing & Distribution. The new film which is still untitled, will begin production later this year directed by Marc Webb from a screenplay by James Vanderbilt. Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin will produce the film from Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios.

Commenting on the announcement, Blake said, “Spider-Man is the ultimate summer movie-going experience, and we’re thrilled the filmmakers are presenting the next installment in 3D. Spider-Man is one of the most popular characters in the world, and we know audiences are eager and excited to discover Marc’s fantastic vision for Peter Parker and the franchise.”

Of course, release dates -especially for movies of this caliber- are always subject to change, but it looks like it’s going to be about 2 1/2 years before we see Spidey back on the big screen, and in 3D apparently.