It’s time once again for another installment of The Big Movie Mouth Off, starring Jeff Vice from MSN and Jimmy Martin from SLUG Magazine (and both are regular panelists on The Geek Show Podcast)

You can friend the show on Facebook here.

These are available on Comcast On Demand in Utah, online, and will be available elsewhere soon.  They are produced and directed by Bryan Young (myself) and Elias Pate both from Big Shiny Robot! and ShineBox Media Productions.

The Big Movie Mouth-Off podcast launched yesterday as well!  You can listen to it here.  Be sure to subscribe to it in iTunes and rate it as positively as you can.

Without further delay, let’s get to the reviews:

First up today is: Black Swan:

Then we have The Fighter:

And finally: Tron: Legacy!

Big Shiny Robot! has a weekly column in the Salt Lake City alt-weekly IN Magazine and every week we bring it to you on the site.

If you live in the greater Salt Lake area, you can pick up a copy of IN Magazine up from one of their ubiquitous newsstands, and we would highly suggest that you do.

You can read the online version of the story here.

This week, we tell you about The ForceCast’s method of celebrating the new year with the destruction of the first Death Star. You can check out their website here.

Click on the image below for a larger version of how it appears in print.

Those of you who have been following The Big Movie Mouth-Off know that we’ve been talking about a podcast for some time and here we have our first episode in concert with Big Shiny Robot!

The Podcast runs about thirty minutes and we’ll try to have an episode each week to talk about all the biggest movie news and rumours.  Each episode features the stars and producers of the Big Movie Mouth-Off.  Jeff Vice and Jimmy Martin are obviously featured and representing Big Shiny Robot! are myself (Bryan Young) and Elias Pate, who put together the back end of the Mouth-Off.

For our first episode we talked about:

• Golden Globes nominations: Where’s True Grit?
• The Miramax/Weinstein Company sequel deal: Did we really need a Shakespeare in Love sequel?
• Conservative Groups against Thor?
• RIP: Blake Edwards

To listen, click this direct link.  You can subscribe on iTunes to the Big Shiny Robot! podcast feed and get every episode of the show!

And be sure to rate !

(I understand there’s a glitch with this first episode that makes it download as a video, but we’re working on that, and it won’t be like that in the future.)

Zombie-tron and I got a chance to go see the new Green Hornet picture, written by and starring Seth Rogen. It tells the tale of a spoiled socialite’s rise to power as a costumed vigilante with his genius of a sidekick, Kato.

I’ll let Zombie-tron go first:

Zombie-Tron: After close to 2 hours of blasting rock, exploding stuff and Seth Rogen trying to do karate. I walked out of a theatre wondering exactly what had just happened. The Green Hornet has Seth Rogen playing himself, or the awkward party animal who says awkward/funny stuff while trying to be serious and deep. Kato played by Jay Chou is a martial arts experts that doesn’t speak english well, he builds cars, punches people, and drives real fast.

I guess the tough part of the movie for me was that even with a pretty stellar cast I found myself checking my watch a few times, when the action heated up the brainless side of me was able to lock in and just watch stuff explode, when stuff wasn’t exploding the story was dragging me a long. I could almost hear Seth Rogen saying, “don’t worry, we’ll be blowing stuff up soon, just hold tight.”

I will say that I was impressed with the cast that seemed to erupt out of some of my favorite movies, into a campy super-hero film. The main villain, Chudnofsky is played by Christoph Waltz, or the “Jew Hunter” for fans of Inglorious Basterds. Edward Furlong from Terminator 2 makes an appearance as a meth lab owner. Tom Wilkinson plays Britt Reids father, Cameron Diaz plays the replacement secretary and comical love interest. But even putting this big of a cast together, parts of the Hornet lacked interest and left my mind wandering.

As a mindless hat tip to super hero and action movies I’d say this is a good watch, they didn’t set any records, or recreate any technology for the film, but it was still something you can turn on, switch your mind off, and watch stuff blow up. I’d give the movie a B-, or like 2 bigshinyrobots…. or a filet of fish or something.

Swank-mo-tron: There’s so much to love and so much to hate in this movie it’s bizarre, but it comes to a bizarre middle ground where I didn’t love it and I didn’t hate it. Let’s start with what’s to love:

Michel Gondry’s direction is flawless. The transitions in this film are incredible and the action sequences are amazing. I wasn’t sure if Gondry could pull off action, but now I’m not sure if I want anyone else to.   There’s a sequence, too, where the screen is dividing up as the word on the street is being put out that the Green Hornet needs to be killed that literally blew my mind.  Gondry is a deft director and I’d love to see him filming much more competent scripts.

The supporting cast in this film is fantastic. Christoph Waltz is fun to watch and makes a great villain, but Jay Chou steals the show as Kato. He’s fun to watch and is completely charming. And let us not forget Tom Wilkinson, who is always a great asset in a film.  And who could forget cameos by James Franco and Edward James Olmos?

The last thing I want to mention is the design of the film.  It looks great.  The Green Hornet’s Los Angeles was a cool place populated by really cool cars and characters.

As far as what there is to hate?  I think the list is a little bit longer, but at the root of it is really Seth Rogen.  I think he’s kind of funny, I really liked him in Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Knocked Up was pretty good despite being way too long.  Rogen wrote the script and starred in the film.  And instead of writing a kick-ass Green Hornet movie, he wrote a kick-ass Apatow comedy with a superhero in it.   This movie is about Seth Rogen being a slacker and deciding to kick ass as a superhero.  I’m not trying to hold on to the TV show or any preconceived notions of the character, but I just didn’t like this take at all.  Britt Reid is supposed to be related to the Lone Ranger and here he is this Animal House-level party animal.  Maybe it will play well with the kids but I found the self-obssessed nature of the character to be completely obnoxious and got tired of it after about 5 minutes.  I thought it was leading to somewhere that would change his character quickly to bring a gravitas to the movie, but it really didn’t.

And I think that right there (aside from Cameron Diaz) is the biggest problem of the film: there is a complete lack of gravitas to the character of The Green Hornet and his mission.

And I have to concur with Zombie-tron, I checked my watch a bunch.  Kato and Britt have a prolonged fight that was boring emotionally in the story and to watch in general and there were other low points in the movie that had me checking out frequently.

And did I mention how much I dislike Cameron Diaz in this movie?  I didn’t know she was in the film and the second she came on screen I literally said, “Oh, shit.  Why is she here?”

And another minor complaint, I missed the theme music throughout the film.  It’s the same problem I’ve had with the last couple of James Bond movies.  You have such iconic pieces of music to help set the tone of the character and you don’t use them until the ending credits?  It’s a mistake.

Actually, the more I write this review, the more ambivalent I am.  I enjoyed watching this movie, but so much of it didn’t make sense and it was at least 30 minutes too long.  Go see it if you want.

It’s the superhero equivalent of a stoner comedy with an excellent director at the helm of a train wreck of a script.

Today’s column is a bit seasonal, and oddly enough it doesn’t feature the origin of a character. It does have an origin of sorts, though. Around this time of year, there is a lot of talk about this guy that wears red, and has a place up in the Arctic. Yes, of course I’m talking about Superman, but did you know there’s another denizen of the frigid north? You may not have thought about him in years, but that doesn’t mean he’s not there. So grab some eggnog, kick back by the fire, as I tell you… The Secret Origin of the Superman/Santa team!

Our story starts, as most Superman tales do, in Metropolis. A Salvation Army Santa is being held up by a youngster with a dart gun. Superman arrives on the scene and finds out the lad has been hypnotized, so he decides to wrap the kid in his cape and fly him to the Fortress of Solitude in the arctic, for “study”. He brings the boy, named Timmy Dickens, of all things, out of hypnosis where he grills the kid about what’s happened. Superman asks Tim where he got this dart gun that hypnotized him (comics!), and Timmy tells his tale about he snuck into his parents room to scope out presents. He mentions that he’s too old to believe in Santa, which is what compelled him to be a little d-bag and ruin his Christmas surprises. He doesn’t remember anything after he picked up the gun though. Superman then suggests something, that regardless of the context, is just plain creepy.

"It'll only hurt at first." *shudder*

Anyway, Superman does his hypno-whammy and finds out that none other than Winslow Schott, the Toyman is behind these shenanigans. Before you can say “Jack Frost roasting on an open fire” Superman and Timmy are flying back home when some random toy boat Timmy was holding shoots Superman with a weird ray that causes him to plummet from the sky. He barely has time to twist his body so Timmy lands on him and not vice versa. In the middle of the frozen north, Timmy is pleading for Superman to wake up, otherwise they’ll both die out there. It seems hopeless, but all of a sudden, little men come to help out. and they team up to carry the Man of Steel to safety.

"Quit complaining, the more meat on his bones, the longer he'll provide us with sweet sustinence!"

As this cheerful scene is happening, we cut to the Toyman, who somehow was watching the entire scene. He’s a bit miffed that he can’t see what happened after Superman fell from the sky, but he’s pretty confident that big blue is dead. You see, he somehow got his hand on white dwarf matter, and instead of shrinking him like the Atom, he used it as “heavy gravity energy” which not only made Superman plummet, but saps his powers also. Science! Toyman takes a break from his revelry though, suspecting if Kal-El isn’t dead, he’ll be coming to settle the score. The Toyman wants to be prepared so he starts tinkering, and we leave this scene for another.

We find ourselves back in what is now described to us as the north pole! Superman is slowly coming to, and he see his stout benefactors along with their boss, as it truly is a sight to behold:

Not a dream! Not an Imaginary Story! (well, aren't they all?)

Superman is all like, “yeah, right”, proclaiming if there were a secret workshop at the North Pole, he would know about it. Santa explains no one can see it unless he wills it to be so. Pleasantries are exchanged, and Superman explains that he has to stop the Toyman. Santa, being a right jolly old elf, already knows. Mr. Schott is definitely on the naughty list. Santa takes Superman to his monitor room which totally looks like Nasa’s mission central. For me, it kind of takes some of the magic out of the Santa myth, that he has to keep track of the world with technology rather than say, magic, but I’ll let it go, seeing as this is DCU Santa.

I guess Santa/Superman don’t consider Toyman to be too much of a threat, because they spend some time chit-chatting about the good old days, and how toys aren’t as good as they used to be back in the day. For Santa, this means wooden horses and the like, but for Superman, he pines for a holographic projector he had as an infant on Krypton. You see, good old Superman liked to watch Kryptonian Masters of the Universe on it:

Seriously, tell me that's not Battle Cat from He-Man.

With that seemingly unimportant plot element out of the way, Santa explains it’s time to get things done, it being Christmas Eve and all. It seems that Toyman has sold booby-trapped toys all over the place. Santa offers to take Superman with him on his yearly sojourn, killing two birds with one stone, as it were. Also, Superman is still weakened by the gravity ray, so he’s not really 100%. Superman insists he’s fine, and Santa and Superman fly off separately. quickly though, we learn that Santa is indeed wise. Superman can’t stay airborne! Luckily, Santa uses his famed sleigh to catch him, and they’re off like a “Schott”.

Wanting to get on with his own stuff, Santa decrees the first stop is the Big Schott toy store. The doors are locked, so Santa suggest they take his traditional form of breaking and entering and use the chimney.  For some reason, the chimney is completely bricked up, but Superman takes care of that by totally just busting through, like a Kryptonian Kool-Aid Man.

"Oh Yeah!"

Like I said previously, Toyman is prepared for this eventuality, and sics a bunch of pre-programmed toys on Superman! You’d think Superman would make short work of them, but not only is he still weakened, it seems some of these diabolical toys have trace amounts of Kryptonite! Things looks dire for the Man of Steel, but Santa is on the scene! He and the elves use the ‘ol Christmas magic and counter Toyman’s toys with his own private toy army, and what ensues is the toy battle of this or any other century!

I'd like to see Buzz and Woody do this!

The fray goes on for a bit, with Santa not getting his hands dirty, possibly to keep his existence a secret. With the help of his toy soldiers, the battle seems to be turning in favor of the good guys. Just when the battle seems won, Toyman turns a gun on Superman, while Kal-El is busy confronting a Cylon. Santa has it covered though, in his own special way:

"This one's for all the marbles, Superman!"

With Toyman underfoot, Superman has things well in hand and gives the baddie over to the authorities who have been summoned thanks to Super-Ventriloquism.  Superman is finally feeling the effects of the gravity ray wearing off, and just in time, too! He has discovered a receipt list of where all of the tainted toys are located, and raids the houses of good boys and girls in the wink of an eye! Santa, satisfied with a job well done, wishes Superman a Merry Christmas, and asks him to return little Timmy home. Superman is just about to do just that when the toy ship that zapped Superman earlier in the story does it yet again! It seems Timmy may be a bit of a liability, but before that can be discussed, we find Superman and Timmy back in the arctic cold. It seems it indeed was all a dream, or was it? You see, Timmy now suddenly believe in Santa Claus, among other things. Superman shakes it off and takes Timmy home. Finally rid of the troublesome child, Superman returns to Clark Kent’s apartment, and grabs his street clothes out of his secret cape pocket, where he finds his own Christmas miracle.

Yes Superman, there is a Santa Claus!

Heartwarming, isn’t it? Well, I’m sure you’ll agree, while this wasn’t a traditional Secret Origin, it was still quite entertaining! So from me to you, dear reader, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good flight!

“Fear above all else seems to be the great motivator” – Joe Quesada

Marvel held a press conference today to announce their summer event for 2011.   Joe Quesada started off the conference talking about times being tough with the economy, divides in belief, and other things to be afraid of. This led to the announcement of “Fear Itself,” a seven issue mini series starting in April written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Stuart Immonen.  There is also a prologue issue in March written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Scott Eaton. The Marvel Universe will refelct what is happening in the real world and what happens when despair becomes the norm. Will heroes fall to fear? Or will they rise up? The story will follow the Marvel Heroes against the God of Fear. The best we have to offer against the worst of the gods.

They showed a teaser video followed up with some words from Matt Fraction about the event.

We were then asked, “Who will be the 8 most worthy on the planet?” But were left at just that tease.

We were told “There is a concealed act at the heart of the Marvel Universe that once revealed will change everything,” which I believe will be revealed in the “Fear Itself” prologue which is set in World War II and involves Captain America, Namor, and the Invaders. The dominoes for this event have been in motion and setting up for almost 2 years. Some will be obvious and some won’t.  This will involve the entire Marvel Universe. From the X-Men to Dracula and the Hulk.

The price point will be 3.99 for the mini series, with a 45 page first issue. If you want the core story all you will have to read is the mini series. However it will be spilling over into the rest of the MU with tie-ins, one shots, and ancillary mini series. None of the required to get the story, but will enhance the experience telling you what is happening with the characters you choose to follow. Tom Brevoort said  “We’re trying to build each tie-in to tell a solid story in and of itself that feeds into the larger story.” Overall it will have about the same amount of tie-ins as Secret Invasion.

The  floor was opened to questions from the press in attendance and twitter. These were taken from Marvel.com’s live blog of the event.

Q: How much political and societal stuff is going into the story?

A: You will absolutely see the real world interject itself. It’s undeniable that there’s a certain something in the air right now. Tapping into that is what we do at Marvel and it brings out the best in our creators. But it’s all through the eyes of our heroes.

Q from Twitter: What characters will be involved? Captain Britain? Phobos?

A: Secret Warriors might be a good bet for Phobos. Captain Britan and Nightmare–a little early, but we’re getting closer, so information will be coming out.

Q: How does this tie into the first arc Avengers with the map of time? (Seen in Avengers #5)

A: Go back to that map and you will already see some portents; you’ll see more once Fear Itself starts.

Q: Is this already the end of the Heroic Age?

A: Our characters have always battled the darkness around us. The threats they’ve faced have never been a game of Tiddly Winks. This is a major challenge our characters will face. It’s not a movement back to darkness and death, though there will certainly be some of that.

Q: How much politics will we see in this story?

A: If we do our job right, we will see a lot of ourselves and our humanity in this story, and Matt Fraction is the right guy here who is very in tune with politics, social issues and morality, and every creator also has their own views, which makes it fun.

Q: Will what’s going on with FF tie in to Fear Itself?

A: Whatever’s left of the Fantastic Four will be involved

Q: How long have you been seeding Fear Itself?

A: Around 18 months to two years. It will become more clear.

Q: Will this affect any of Fraction or Immonen’s other books?

A: Matt will continue on Thor and Iron Man, Kieron Gillen is helping him out on Uncanny X-Men. Stuart is coming off New Avengers to do Fear Itself.

Q: Will Steve Rogers be back as Cap ala the teaser image?

A: Right now Bucky is involved in a trial. This image could mean anything. Don’t count Bucky out too quick.

Early last week subscribers to the PS3’s premium service, Playstation Plus, got full access to the beta for Sony Online Entertainments upcoming MMO DC Universe Online. I’ve been excited for this game since they announced it a couple of years ago and have been patiently waiting for it to come out. So what does this diehard DC fan think of the game so far? I like it!

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As the video shows the story of the game starts off in the future with all the heroes fighting all the villains. Everyone ends up killing each other and Brainiac invades earth. We come to learn that Brainiac had been stealing powers from all the powered people in the DCU which caused both sides to lose. Jump to the “present” and you see Lex Luthor from the future talking Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman into helping him stop that future from happening. He then infects the world with nanobots that give normal people like you and me powers. That is where your character comes in. You play your own character that fights with the heroes or villains. When making your character you have your choice of 6 mentors. This choice determines where you start and what your opening line of quests are. For heroes you have your choice of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. And for Villains you choose between Lex Luthor, Joker, and Circe. After that you choose your main attacks. This ranges from energy hand blasts to dual pistols, to melee weapons. Next up is what kind of power set would you like to have. Do you want to wield the powers of Fire or Ice? Do you prefer Gadgets? Or how about Telekinesis? For my character I chose Ice as my power and a Staff as my weapon. I would say the combat in the game is a mixture of Phantasy Star Online and WoW. Your skills and powers are  hotlinked to certain keys (Holding L2 or R2 while pushing one of the 4 main buttons), while your weapon attacks are done mainly with the square button. As you progress you get new combos you can do with your weapon that are based on the timing of how you hit square.

I started off in Metropolis getting mission assignments from my mentor, Wonder Woman. The first quest line revolved around saving Zatanna from Felix Faust, then tracking down Faust and teaming with Zatanna to fight him. Most of the quest lines follow that loose guide. You save or assist a character, then you team up with that character to fight the bad guy. Eventually you can go up to the JLA Watchtower, which is also how you travel between Metropolis and Gotham. There are lots of side missions to do. My favorites are the “Wanted” or “Bounty” missions. When you hit certain levels bounties become available in the form of really strong characters that you usually have to be in a group to take on. I’ve faced Bizarro and Solomon Grundy. But the toughest one became available during my favorite quest line that I’ve played so far. I got to team up with the Green Lantern Corps against the Sinestro Corp in downtown Metropolis. The bounty came in the form of Arkillo, one of the stronger members of the Sinestro Corp.  For a comic geek like me, getting to do something like that was so much fun!

The level cap on the full game is going to be 30. Although for the beta it caps out at 20. While that may seem low for an MMO I have heard that a lot of the content in the game is “End Level” content. I am ok with this. Past MMO’s I have played, like WoW, I would get bored and lose interest in the game once I got to around level 30.

Now is that to say it is without fault? No, it isn’t. However it is a beta test, this is the phase of a game meant to work out all the little bugs. On the PS3 the biggest problem for me has been freezing issues where the whole console locks up. This issue is getting better though. On Thursday when I started playing the game it froze more times than I could keep track of, but by Saturday it only froze on me a couple of times. SOE seems to be getting a bunch of the problems worked through which gives me hope. Past that I haven’t had any big issues other than  some minor bugs, and most of those all seem to have been fixed already. An example would be checkpoints for quests not showing up, or areas for a quest being inaccessible to some people but not all.

Overall I think this is a fun and enjoyable game. Will this game be for everyone? No it won’t. Do you have to be well versed in DC continuity to enjoy it? No, you don’t. My roommate is not well versed in DC past knowing who the iconic characters are and he has had a good time. Its has also made him curious about other characters that he isn’t that familiar with. With the low level cap I don’t know how much “end game” content there actually will be, but  expect a report when I get the full game in January.  I’ve been excited for this game since it was announced two years ago and I’m even more pumped now.

When the full game does come out I’m thinking of starting a BSR “League” (DCUO’s equivalent of a guild) on the PS3. Is there anyone out there also planning on getting the game? And if so would you be interested in joining. Go to my forum post here to continue this discussion.

ShowbizSpy is reporting this as a rumour, and we’re also reiterating that it’s just a rumour, but Harrison Ford is talking about wanting the death of Indiana Jones in the fifth installment of the franchise.

Sources say the Hollywood star has told creator George Lucas and directorStephen Spielberg that he wants the whipcracking adventurer to meet his maker in a fifth and final adventure.

“Harrison thinks it would be good for Indy to die and pass on his hat to his son in the next one,” reveals an insider.

“George especially is resisting the notion but Steven is considering it. Funnily enough Harrison wanted the same for Han Solo in the final Star Wars but George put an end to it. This time he doesn’t have all the say though.”

I’ve never heard of ShowBizSpy and they have no names or sources in their report, but this wouldn’t surprise me, and I’m not even resistant to it.  I’ve long held the belief that Han Solo should have died in Return of the Jedi (you can read my piece about it here) but tying up the Indiana Jones saga with the death of the man himself seems fitting.  And I don’t even mind having him pass on the mantle to Mutt Williams, his son.

I know a lot of people hated the last Indiana Jones picture, Mutt in particular, but I think an adventure with him on his own would be a blast…  You know?  Years on, following in the footsteps with his old man.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could see a team up with Mutt and Short Round?  Wouldn’t it be cool if we only thought Indy died and Mutt and Short Round head out to seek him out, only to find him alive?

That would be a fun movie.

I really don’t care what they do for the next Indiana Jones film as long as there really is a next Indiana Jones film.  (Early reports have this next one involving the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, but that could be bunk.)

What do you guys think?  Would you go see this knowing Indy would head off into the great unknown mystery?

UPDATE: Harrison Ford’s reps have nixed the report. But that in no way discounts the great conversations we’ve been having across various social media platforms about the idea and the franchise itself.

What do the thirty-something geeks who loved Tron and are travelling in droves to see the new film need in order to complete their desire for Tron material?

A Playboy pictorial.

And can you blame us? After having seen the film and how oddly attractive girls on the grid seem to be, could you blame us for wanting such a thing?  In fact, I wonder what it is about the world of Tron that seems to make all of the females inhabiting it more attractive…

I’m hoping we get lots of Tron girls at Halloween parties in 2011.  That’s really all there is to it.

Back to this story, though: not only has Playboy put the spread together, they were also kind enough to provide video. So, without further ado, here it is:

Welcome back to Convention Sketches!

We feature a convention sketch here every week.  We’ve got a whole pile of our own, but we want to see yours, too. Email us convention sketches you want to show off and let us know what website you’d like credited for it.  (bigshinyrobot(at)gmail.com)

Todd Nauck is back with a Captain Marvel from the “Sins of Youth” story.  This is from Shazbots personal collection.  (I am beginning to see a pattern in his sketches…)