Did you see Blue Ruin? If not then you better check that shit out right away as it was one of the best indie thrillers of the last few years! Now we’ve finally got a full trailer for the upcoming ‘Green Room’ from ‘Blue Ruin’ director Jeremy Saulnier and boy does it look like a tense one. This flick is one I’ve been waiting for quite some time and one of my picks for 2016 movies I’m most excited about.
It follows an Washington punk rock band who play a show out in a rural Oregon roadhouse that turns deadly when a gang of white supremacist skin heads show up to spoil the party and then some. Better yet it stars Patrick Stewart as the gang’s leader / club owner and Anton “Chekov” Yelchin as one of the members of the band who’ve gotta fight their way through the night to survive. Due out April 15th, Check out this trailer, this one is sure to deliver quite a punch!
Well, well, well, so William Shatner came out in the news this week stating that he’d be open to playing an aged Captain Kirk in an upcoming Star Trek film. Now we all know that Kirk supposedly bit the dust in ‘Star Trek: Generations’ back in 1994 in the most un-epic way possible. Yep he fell basically off a rock. Well maybe, just maybe, they need to give Shatner’s version of Kirk some redemption and let’s face it there’s plenty of ways he could come back or be found alive somehwere, somehow- I mean it’s Star Trek for cryin’ out loud!
I think if Shatner is down for it there’s no question let’s get him in one last movie before it’s too late. Better yet, how about the next movie follows not a reincarnated older Kirk, or a Kirk “Prime” character but perhaps just a leap in the future for Chris Pines Kirk? Now people may immediately say no one is gonna watch a new Star Trek movie without Chris Pine and Crew and I’d have to simply remind them that we’re talking another Trek flick with…..um….William Shatner! He’s everything that IS legendary about Star Trek. The people will come trust me. The 1995 Book series Star Trek: The Ashes of Eden had featured his character brought back to life in the Next Generation era. How great would that be to see that crew on the big screen again?
Here’s what Bill had to say about it all:
“I would play an old Captain Kirk, absolutely. You would have [to have] an interesting character, not a cameo, like ‘Here I am, aren’t I interesting?’ It’s the ongoing world, it’s the world within science-fiction. Yes, you age within the universe. Time goes on, but time bends, as well. There’s so many things you could do.”
He went on to state “How would they handle it, in science-fiction terms?” Shatner said on a podcast, which is produced by The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m older, I’m heavier, I’m — all the problems of age. So what did Captain Kirk do? Die and age? Doesn’t sound science-fictiony enough. Or maybe you make him really old. I don’t know. It seems to have beggared Abrams’ imagination.”
Let me also clarify this here as well, the upcoming “Star Trek Beyond”, helmed by The Fast & Furious’ Justin Lin looks like an atrocious insult to any longtime fan of Star Trek. The trailer is an embarrassment to the franchise name. It bears no resemblance to anything Star Trek related. It’s simply dumbed down Star Trek for the ADD generation. I’m hesitantly willing to give it a chance as it just might be the ploy of Hollywood to make the series ultra hip, totally sexy and overly action packed in the trailer. It’s like a lame ass Xtreme Star Trek Red Bull commercial.
But what the fuck do I know…Star Trek Beyond could be end up being “like the best thing ever, man”. But one thing I do know for certain is that something is seriously missing from today’s version of Star Trek. Star Trek used to set trends, not fall prey to conforming to the trends. We used to get cool cerebral sci fi tales with the action sprinkled in just the right places. I think getting Shatner involved just might be what the franchise needs to bring some of that old magic back and set the course of the Enterprise in a different direction that all of us Star Trek fans can appreciate….
Let’s face the facts folks, right now at the major theaters the pickins’ are damn slim for anything super tantalizing. So yesterday feeling the urge to go to the movies with a Fandango gift card I received for Christmas, I decided to take a chance on the latest in “freaky” doll flicks (which I always welcome with open arms) with “The Boy”. I gotta say the bar was set were pretty freaking low here and I was expecting the worse from a major Hollywood horror flick released in January. However to my delight The Boy was actually a pretty solid little thriller! For the most part…
That’s not to say it broke much in the way of new ground but still it was the perfect little matinee movie for a rainy day. This one isn’t going to give Chucky a run for his money and in all honesty it’s a completely different kind of freaky doll movie altogether. If you’re looking for a crazy killer doll flick then you’re in the wrong part of town with The Boy. Most of it’s charm really comes from the setting, which takes place in a huge old mansion in the English countryside. A woman named Greta travels there from the USA taking a nanny job watching over a life sized porcelain boy doll. Yeah at first her reaction is exactly what you might expect but the money is good enough so she agrees. Of course when “the boy’s” parents decide to go on vacation things quickly get really creepy.
Greta of course when left alone does what any of us might do in the situation, toss the freaky ass doll in it’s room, drink some damn wine and pass the hell out. However “the boy” clearly isn’t into being ignored and soon begins to seriously creep Greta the fuck out. Yep the doll pulls all kinds of weird pranks, soon she’s convinced the doll is indeed alive and is haunted by the spirit of the family’s real deceased child. So she suddenly decides to do her damn job and begin’s treating the doll like a real kid. Yon know like she agreed to in the first place! You’d think then the story might have a happy ending though right? Wrong! I forgot to mention that Greta is also on the run from her super douchebag, stalker ex boyfriend.
This makes matters worse and what happens soon leads to a few relatively unexpected twists and turns. Overall the movie was a cool little old school thriller with not a speck of bad CG anywhere. A solid ghost story and to only be spoiled for me by the fact (Now here’s a bit of a SPOILER) that I’d already seen an incredible indie movie from 2015 called “Housebound”. Yep “The Boy” borrows largely from that movie, which is a far superior movie. However if you’ve never seen Housebound “The Boy” will most certainly please anyone in search of a simple, creepy tale that’s perfect when there’s not much else on the tube.
I’ve been doing little movie nights at my shop Hollywood Babylon here in Portland, Oregon quite regularly now and I thought it’d be cool to start doing reviews of the flicks that we watch. I’ve gotta say investing in a projector is really one of the best things you can do if you’re a movie buff! The shop transforms into a mini theater and we can get as rowdy as we want! Often we try to pair an old and new movie together in hopes of ultimate cinematic bliss which is a hard task when you’re often trying to view something that’s new to everyone there. So last night seemed promising as we started off with a rare french flick from 1989 called:
“3615 CODE PERE NOEL” aka DEADLY GAMES, GAME OVER
What a treat this one was, I had meant to get this one this year for Christmas but it’s a hard one to track down at least with English subtitles or in real physical form. I don’t do the whole online downloading very often so I went to Ioffer.com which is your best bet for finding really rare movies “on DVD” unfortunately it didn’t arrive quite in time for Christmas this year.
3615 code Pere Noel or as it’s also known as “Deadly Games” is a total gem of a basically lost and forgotten 1980’s french holiday horror movie. The movies plot is simple and awesome. There’s a poor weird bearded guy who’s wandering the streets looking for children to “play” with during Christmas time and he lands himself a job at big time department store as their Santa Claus. Bad move because this dude is bat shit crazy and it’s not long before some little kid sitting on his lap tells him him she “doesn’t like his face”.
This sends him into an abusive rage which ends up getting the weird dude fired and sets him on course to our protagonist’s giant castle mansion. Yep the hero of this film is one cool ass nine year old kid who lives in a crazy mansion that’d make Ricky Schroder from Silver Spoons jealous! (more…)
Man oh man how I love a good comic book cover! So much that I dedicate blog posts as often as possible focusing on my favorite comic book covers of all time. Well I’m not sure if you remember way back in the 1980’s but they had a string of issues where there was no cover artist. Instead they decided that they’d give us some live action superhero action! Now this sounds like a wonderful idea today, but back then it was a bit more difficult to really get the superhero look down on film. However these issues were ones as a kid I never forgot so let’s take another quick look at those legendary Marvel “photo” covers!
It’s Christmas eve! We’re all set tonight for Christmas to get cozy and wait for Santa to come squeeze down our chimney, but what to watch tonight while we wait? Do we choose the usual classics?
If you’re like me you might be looking at adding a few different selections to the agenda tonight here’s some suggestions!!
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Christmas Pudding
The Twilight Zone: Night of the Meek (This isn’t the full episode)
That Tales From The Dark Side Christmas Episode: Seasons of Belief!!(more…)
Back in the day Star Wars was all the rage….wait it STILL is! So all these companies were using Star Wars to sell the shit out of anything and everything!! So let’s take a look at some of the best vintage Star Wars ads of yesteryear, they’ll never make ads this cool again that I guarantee…
So what happens when Danzig & Rollins celebrate Christmas together? Check out this cool little cartoon from a few years back that shows best these buddies hanging out in their apartment celebrating Anti-Christmas together, because well we all know Glenn worships the devil right?!
Based off the comic book series by Tom Neely this one gives us a glimpse of these punk rock legends lives together around the holiday season!! Oh and let’s not forget their next door neighbors Hall & Oates!
I’ve been trying to find some cool different movies this week for a Christmas horror movie night this weekend and I’ve gotta tell ya’ aside from the go to standards like (Black Christmas, Rare Exports, Silent Night Deadly Night, etc.) the pickin’s are pretty dang slim! There’s a serious shortage of cool weird ass fun Holiday flicks out there (however there are quite few unwatchable messes) but doing the research I’ve found two that I need to see, hopefully before Christmas is upon us this year!
First up is an odd movie way back from 1984 called “Tales of the Third Dimension”. This anthology was apparently released originally in 3-D & from what I gather the third and final story “Visions of Sugar Plums” which just happens to be the Christmas story is the only segment that’s well worth watching.
It involves two kids being dropped off at their Grandma’s house during Christmas the bad news is that Granny’s almost out of meds! So Granny loses her mind and then all sorts of crazy shit goes down, I could only find one clip on Youtube but it’s a damn good one. I’d like to get my hands on this full episode I’ve only seen it for sale on Amazon but it’s got a cool ass movie poster as well. This one could be worth the trouble of hunting down if you’re looking for something new this year!
Second I found a french movie from 1989 that looks pretty amazing called “Deadly Games” or “Game Over” or “3615 Hide and Freak” or it’s original title “3615 code Pere Noel”. This one looks pretty incredible and I actually tracked down a copy online and I’m hoping it gets here before Christmas.
This movie’s pretty unknown here in the USA but many see it as a darker version of “Home Alone” even though this one was filmed and released before. It’s described as a mix between Home Alone and Rambo boasting some dynamic action sequences.
The main character is rich kid who’s mansion home is invaded by an incredibly creepy down on his luck psycho in a Santa costume. The kid gets suited up in his army duds and paints his face all camo as he sets up deadly traps all over and tries to protect his Grandpa from the attacker.
It looks like quite an adventure and I’m always game for a cool 80’s flick done in that old school Amblin style. You can watch the whole thing on You Tube, but unfortunately it’s all in German. Check out this rad trailer!
I really don’t like to be negative here at Universal Dork but having seen the new X-men: Age of Apocalypse trailer, the one character I was most stoked on seeing in this movie has suddenly become the biggest disappointment of the first trailer.
Archangel is hands down one of my favorite characters in the Marvel universe, when Angel made the transformation into this character in the 80’s he became one of the most deadly X-men of all time. One who could suddenly go toe to toe with the likes of Wolverine and Sabretooth. Warren Worthington had such a cool look too that really separated him from the cute, cuddly, handsome look of the classic Angel.
Well it seems that Bryan Singer decided to keep Warren looking like the beautiful blonde Angel (with a bad hair cut to boot) in the role of Acrhangel rather than the dark deadly blue skinned killing machine he’s been portrayed as in the comic books. He looked even more sinister when he joined the ranks of X-Force not too long ago.
This is a minor gripe, if you’re not a huge fan of the character but Archangel’s story is quite compelling too and goes hand in hand with Apocalypse. His physical transformation is incredibly important to the potency of the characters emotionally dark & heavy backstory.
Warren was transformed into freaky looking killing machine and had to come to terms with his odd appearance, he was no longer the handsome angelic superhero everyone had always been so fond of.
So yeah, I’m a bit disappointed with this movie version of Archangel, I like his wings and his suit is decent, but once again Hollywood for some reason has tried to fix something that was never broken. It seems we’ve just got to keep the sex appeal of the star in a Hollywood movie rather than stay true to his comic origins. I’ve still got high hopes for this movie however the excitement around Archangel has died..
Universal Dork 