Tagged: trilogy
Movie Melt Podcast: The ONE Movie That Surely Inspired The MAGIC MIKE Trilogy!
Oh boy! Happy Valentine’s Day to all the lovers out there! Today we have a REAL treat for those looking for some spicy sexy action! I went back on the MOVIE MELT Podcast to record this special episode, ‘The Life and Loves of a Male Stripper’! Yeah this wild sexy musical “comedy” from 1987 is jam packed with beefcakes galore, bad acting, bad dancing, good dancing, babes, banana hammocks, 80s songs that should have been top 10 mega-hits, bad dancing, more bad dancing & then guess what? Yep even MORE BAD DANCING!
The male stripper here is quite a special guy, he can sorta dance and sorta sing and is irresistible to any woman (and likely any man) who sets eyes upon his “Adonis” like bod. The movie plays out more like a Playgirl male nude dance review than an actual cohesive film.
It features one of my new favorite pop songs-‘TAKE IT OFF’! If you’re in the mood for a good laugh, some ridiculous male dancing, 80s fashion galore and some forgotten retro pop songs that sound like a perfect mix of The Smiths & Oingo Boingo then The Life and Loves of a Male Stripper is going to seriously quench your Valentine’s Day thirst.
Plus we talk about more movies you’ve just gotta check out, a sexy lover’s edition of Battle of the Bands! So much useless cinematic information to fill your brain and most important, complete coverage of the movie that likely inspired the ENTIRE Magic Mike trilogy!! CHECK OUT THE EPISODE RIGHT HERE!! IF you’re feeling real frisky you can also watch ‘The Life and Loves of a Male Stripper’ right here on YouTube:
Movie Review: Richard Stanley Returns with ‘Color Out of Space’!!!
We all know that H.P. Lovecraft stories can be hard to translate to the big screen, but when I heard Richard Stanley was making his cinematic return with ‘Color Out of Space’ I was pretty damn excited to say the least. Stanley may not have the longest resume when it come to feature film but what he has done is pretty damn amazing. Both Hardware (1990) & DustDevil (1992) are lesser known horror gems & with ‘Color Out of Space’ it’s a complete and total return to form. Stanley also brings Nicolas Cage along for the ride, which after his fan fave performance in ‘Mandy’ has kinda given Cage his second coming as an even more beloved cinematic presence. Much like ‘Mandy’ there’s plenty of bizarre psychedelic imagery here to go around and a ton of visceral horror sequences that I guarantee will shock you.
Stanley seems to love a slow burn horror story and brings that approach once again, leaving us all with a twisted but beautiful spectacle to behold by the film’s final act. The story here is simple, one quiet evening an eerie glowing meteorite lands in the front yard of Nathan Gardner and his family’s Alpaca farm. They soon find themselves baffled by it’s effect on the plants & wildlife on property as well as their own suddenly strange behaviors. Soon it’s clear, a mutant extraterrestrial organism that infects their minds and bodies is roaming the woods at night & transforms their quiet rural life into the ultimate technicolor nightmare. Continue reading
Game Of Thrones Season 8: From the Writer of ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’!
So people seem quite up in arms about the latest season of Game of Thrones to put it lightly, it’s been pretty much everywhere online, more drama online than this season of the show could churn out! I’ve been thinking about it all for a few days now since watching Episode 5 and I think there’s really is something to all the anger towards the show writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Now that they’ve got no more writing from George R. R. Martin’s final book (which he still hasn’t finished) to base this season on, we get to finally see the writing chops of these two dudes in action. I’ve got a few major problems with what went down so far in the final season, most it being the execution of plot points by these guys, but some it of it indeed revolves around some shoddy ass writing.
One thing that now makes perfect sense is that David Benioff was actually a writer of easily one of the WORST movies in recent Hollywood history, 2009’s ‘X-men Origins: Wolverine’. If you’ve seen it, most unanimously agree, it’s one of the most pathetic movies to reach the major cinemas in recent times. Single handedly ruining Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, Deadpool and Sabretooth all in one horribly executed, terribly written mess of a movie. It makes ‘X-Men 3’ feel like a god damn cinematic masterpiece. His buddy D.B. Weiss hasn’t written or directed much outside of GOT either. So it’s not all that surprising that this season feels a bit like a shit-storm to many today. SPOILERS AHEAD!
So I wanna point out a few things I think totally sucked about this final season so far, I realize that the internet is filled with GOT opinions right now so I’ll keep it all short. One of the BIGGEST problems for me is the handling the The Night King & the whitewalkers, seven damn seasons of fantastic mystery brewing around this incredibly intriguing and terrifying villain, then in one episode mid season it’s all over and nearly forgotten by the next episode. One of the things so many were most invested in was his true motivations. Would we see things from their perspective? Learn what fuels their rage towards the living? Find out what they really wanted from Bran? Actually hear The Night King speak his case with some real dialogue? Nope! The major supernatural threat of seven seasons was wiped from the plot in one murky battle and by the next episode everyone was back to acting like a bunch of spoiled babies after just surviving a possibly world ending event. Cersei wasn’t even affected by them in the least, but how awesome would it have been if The Night King and the Whitewalkers had shown up on her doorstep first and she had to flee to Jon Snow & Daenerys for help? Imagine the drama…Whatever the case the whitewalkers turned out to be a big ass nothing burger to say the least, a huge missed opportunity in my opinion. It actually felt as if the writers just wanted to quickly erase them from the last season for some reason.
The largely controversial Daenerys “mad queen” plot would have been fine with me, but the execution of it was seriously lacking the character development needed to add any real believability to her actions. She was majorly bummed off that most people seemed to love Jon Snow so much, but she’d just arrived on the scene, so I don’t know, maybe try and socialize a bit with everyone after the damn battle against the walkers?!! Geezus!! I’m sure this all must have been what George R. R. Martin had in mind ultimately (?) but if the writers expect me to believe Daenerys is then gonna go completely bonkers, exterminating a whole population of innocent, poor villagers, many of them children (who’ve already suffered under the rule of Sersei) you better have a lot more character development to occur to sell it. It all felt rushed & carelessly forced. I think it’d made a hell of a lot more sense if she’d went for Sersei directly in the battle with her rage, killed her personally or even better, captured her and viciously tortured her among the rest of her current crew. Reigning dragon’s fire upon the poor villagers who’ve already been punished for most of their existence was just not believable at this point. It felt like shock for pure shock value. The end of Sersei also felt anti-climactic, she never even shared any real dialogue with Daenerys & it felt for the most part like she was trying to commit certain suicide by her horrific slaying of Missandei. Whatever the case, this whole debacle mades perfect sense when I discovered that one tidbit of info that’d slipped through the cracks for me, David Benioff wrote the cinematic turd, ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’…nuff said.
Casting the ‘Star Wars: Heir to the Empire’ Live Action Movie!
After the last two installments of the “Skywalker Saga” sequel trilogy ‘The Force Awakens & The Last Jedi’ from Disney I’ve decided to look elsewhere for a good fix of the iconic series til ‘Episode IX’ drops. There’s definitely not a better spot to start than with Timothy Zahn’s iconic “Thrawn” Trilogy!! There’s a lot of Star Wars fans out there, like myself, who’ve never really seriously delved into the EU (expanded universe) stuff, I’d been recommended this trilogy of books, ‘Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising & The Last Command’ for a long time as they’re considered by many fans the real Episodes 7, 8 & 9. I can firmly say I’d wished they’d have drawn from this storyline for the current trilogy as it’s not a direct “retelling” that mirrors the original trilogy. It has incredible villains at it’s core as well, that bury characters like Snoke, Kylo Ren & Phasma. The current trilogy is actually more of a reboot, borrowing major plot points from previous movies, even Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi” while supposedly attempting to subvert audience expectations still follows very similar beats with the original trilogy.
Heir to the Empire is set five years after the events of Return of the Jedi, the Rebellion, which is now known as the New Republic, is still fighting the final remnants of the Imperial resistance and trying to set up a strong new government. But in outer reaches of the galaxy, the most cunning of all the hand picked Grand Admirals is quickly gaining power and preparing to launch a series of deadly attacks on the New Republic. After convincing a crazed Dark Jedi to join his side, Grand Admiral ‘Thrawn’ is scheming his ultimate victory. I’ve been listening to the audio books, narrated by Marc Thomson and damn does that guy nail the voices of almost all character to perfection, as I listened I could picture it all unfolding on screen with the original actors, so if you’re a bit late to the party (it came out in 1991!) & wanna check this out most definitely check out this version of the story, it’s a ton of fun.
So obviously I began to think about how much I’d like to see this basic story on the big screen & while it is true, that because of the newest trilogy they’d have to change a few of the plot points I think they could still manage to tell a decent version of the original story. Fore instance Leia is newly pregnant with twins at the time in the book, that’d have to change, it’d have to be baby Kylo and it could take place a bit later than 5 years after Return of the Jedi. Still though, this story could indeed be brought to the big screen as many of the major characters required for this adventure have actually already been recast in ‘Solo’ and ‘Rogue One’. I have my doubts however this movie would happen at this point in time, as ‘Solo’ was a bit of a flop and perhaps Disney wouldn’t want to take a chance recasting the original trilogy characters again. If they ever do bring this to life though, I’ve got the actors right here cast that’d likely please hardcore fans- let’s take a look at some choices for major characters in the story that I think would be great for the movie version of the epic trilogy….
Han Solo: Alden Ehrenreich
Obviously we’ve got to to cast Alden again as Han right? To keep with continuity of the new ‘Solo’ film it makes perfect sense he’d be up for the role again. I of course wish they’d have given Anthony Ingruber a shot as he’s a spitting image and mastered the general vibe of Harrison Ford. But in this case we’ve already got our new Han so we might as well roll with it right? That’s the good thing here, some of the casting is already complete. Phew!
Lando Calrissian: Donald Glover
Another no brainer, as Glover did an excellent job as portraying Lando in ‘Solo’. He had it down and obviously did his homework on mastering a similar swagger of icon Billie Dee Williams. There’s a lot of Lando here in this Star Wars adventure and it further cements him and Han’s friendship after the events of ROTJ. It’d be amazing to see Glover back again and cement his legacy as a younger Lando once again as this story has a good deal of trouble for him and Han to get into!
Princess Leia: Billie Lourd
To me Billie Lourd is the only real option for Leia. She’s the perfect age to play the role, she’s totally beautiful like Carrie and she’s Carrie’s daughter!! She’s also looks a lot like her and has already expressed interest in playing a young version of the character. How truly sweet would it be to have her play her mother’s iconic character? Check this out as she states how she wishes she could play a young Leia:
I know she’s got a small role in the latest trilogy but this would be a whole new timeline. I’d love to see Billie as Leia learning to use a lightsaber as well as tapping into the Force like she did in the book. How could you turn her down for the role? You’d have to have no damn soul!
‘The Last Jedi’ Gets a Professional Makeover?!
I’ve recently discovered a cool project going on right now that’s producing a brand new cut of the The Last Jedi, a film that’s aggressively divided the Star Wars fan base into two camps. People either love it or hate it seems. I’m honestly not a fan of The Last Jedi, I really tried my best to like it, I really wanted to as I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Force Awakens’ despite it being a bit on the derivative side of the galaxy. Well without wasting any more time ripping on Rian Johnson’s movie, there’s a movie editor out there who’s decided to tackle The Last Jedi giving it a full on makeover.
Yeah I know there’s a lot of people out there that try stuff like this, but Ivan Ortega has some real experience editing movies and tv shows under his belt. It appears with his new Youtube channel that he himself was pretty disappointed with the movie and decided to use his skills to entirely re-edit the movie changing many of it’s major plot points, trimming out the fat and even attempting to add in entirely new scenes altogether.
At first I had my doubts about the execution of these things and wondered about how cheesy it might end up, but after watching a few of his videos about the progress he’s already made on the project, I’m really now quite intrigued with seeing his version of the movie. You wanted a real Luke Skywalker/Kylo Ren lightsaber duel? You didn’t like the Cantobite casino planet sub plot? Perhaps you were disappointed in the way Admiral Ackbar was killed off screen like it was no big deal? Totally bummed they killed of Luke? Hey maybe you thought Holdo was acting a little off when she could’ve revealed that she had a real plan to Poe? Well then I think you’re gonna wanna check this out.
This new cut just might piece things together in a much more cohesive way and even give many fans a better vision of just what could have been for the last of the Skywalker saga. If you’ve had a hard time digesting ‘The Last Jedi’ you should really check this out, it looks like a ton of fun and so far I think this new edit just might end up pleasing a lot of disgruntled Star Wars fans. The movie will utilize deleted scenes as well that might’ve given the original a bit more heart & emotion plus give the fans of the old characters a bit more satisfaction, rather than “killing the past” this version is looking to add some balance to the old vs new character narrative. Check it out!!
The full scoop:
Star Wars: Episode 9 – Will Luke Skywalker Return in the Flesh?!
After expressing my disappointment in The Last Jedi I’ve been thinking a lot about what to expect next in Episode 9. We’ll have JJ Abrams back in the writer/directors chair to complete the story he started. It felt to me like, Rian Johnson wasn’t a fan of the plot points JJ set up and maybe wished that he himself would have wrote & directed The Force Awakens. The problem I think is that it just didn’t feel like a cohesive story was being planned by these two directors and as we now know there never was a real solid story for this trilogy. JJ wrote the first installment and Rian Johnson took over the second, literally writing whatever his heart desired to continue the story. Sadly it really shows when watching both movies in succession. The trilogy should have had a planned story, instead they’re seriously making shit up as they go. So it leads me to a legit question of Episode 9: Is Luke Skywalker REALLY dead?
Of course, everyone has come to the logical conclusion that Luke Skywalker died at the end of TLJ and that he will return in the next installment as a good ol’ trusty Force ghost. BUT, I think that there’s a damn good chance we could indeed see Luke in the flesh again. First, let’s consider the backlash TLJ has gotten, there’s a large portion of that backlash that’s incredibly upset with the handling of Luke. So taking the fan backlash about this character into consideration, I think JJ could indeed tastefully retcon his “supposed” death. Let’s face it, if Luke returning in the flesh for Episode 9 will elate the fans and make some seriously big bucks, it as a possibility, is totally, 100% on the table. I think these movies are way more about the money these days than the actual story telling. So Luke returning in human form is most definitely a very serious possibility even if you think it’d be bad storytelling and wanna call me some crazy ass fan who needs to let go of the past. You need to realize 99.9% of this is, at the very end of the day about MONEY. Continue reading
Let’s Make ‘Hellboy 3’ Happen!!
I’m super happy that Ron Perlman is taking matters into his own hands recently with Hellboy 3!! To me it’s absoutely ridiculous that this franchise remains with out it’s final chapter! I’m a HUGE fan of the movies and HUGE fan of the Hellboy/BPRD Mignolaverse and while the movie took a bit of a different take on the character in many ways I still think Del Toro nailed the look and vibe of the whole comic book world they exist in. I don’t think it was humanly possible to cast a better Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and all of the FX work was 100%! I mean how amazing was Doug Jones as Abe Sapien too?!
Well apparently not quite amazing enough for the masses as we never got the third chapter of Guillermo’s planned trilogy. Perhaps the Hellboy universe is just too dang bizarre for the people who yearn for ultra chiseled male models in costume? But for some odd reason we are getting a sequel to the rather unimpressive forgettable Pacific Rim? What gives? Well Perlman and the rest of the cast are pretty damn excited to finish the story. Good ol’ Ron has been speaking out about getting the third film made saying:
“I don’t have any news for you, but there’s always a chance, I’m getting to that age where, if I waited much longer, ‘Hellboy 3’ will be performed out of a wheelchair. So I was basically trying to say, if there’s going to be this thing, it should be sooner rather than later. I wouldn’t want to be involved in a crowdfunding. I don’t think it’s the fans’ job to fund a movie; I think it’s up to the people who do it professionally. I think it’s the fans’ job to sit back and buy popcorn and Coke and watch a movie and enjoy it.”
So here at Universal Dork I wanna use my voice (what little one it may be) to get more of the word out about making Hellboy 3 finally happen! Let’s not get a rebooted Hellboy just yet, let’s finish the story we started and see what Hellboy’s fate really is. Will he bring about the destruction of mankind bringing Hell on earth? Or will he somehow fight the creatures from deep down in the firey pits? Imagine some of the other BPRD agents added to the cast like Panya, Roger the homunculus, Benjamin Daimio, Howards or how’s about Lobster Johnson?!
And also how about a B.P.R.D. movie?! Or a Netflix series? Give us something dammit! I have honestly been slowly becoming totally burnt out on The Avengers movies, I think that Ant-man looks like a bland 2008 Marvel movie with another boring villain and the same tired formula as most Marvel flicks being churned out. Highly forgettable shit in the end. I really believe the Hellboy movie universe holds a lot more intrigue, horror and mystery at the moment. To me Marvel movies are starting to feel like a bit like a shiny boring Pepsi commercial. But in this day and age that’s what most people seem to dig, and if a film isn’t going to make massive amounts of cash then Hollywood just ain’t interested. The first two films didn’t make an obscene amount of money, so the idea of a third movie being made today I guess is kinda unfathomable.
To me the movies always seemed a little too unique and smart for the mainstream. Crowdfunding may indeed be the only way to get this one off the ground at this point. Or perhaps they could re-cast some male supermodels in the roles of Abe Sapien and Hellboy and make them all sexy? Ugghhh…Despite all of that I still think Ron Perlman’s Hellboy could be the guy who saves the superhero flick….let’s get the word out there!
Was ‘Dumb and Dumber To’ Dumb Enough?!!
I am a big fan of much of Jim Carrey’s 90’s comedic roles, I love the Ace Ventura franchise, Liar Liar was brilliant and of course Dumb and Dumber is one of my favorite comedies of all time. I was thrilled to hear that a real sequel was finally going to happen for Dumb and Dumber, let’s try and forget that there was a low profile prequel back in 2003 called “Dumb and Dumberer” (great title though) which did not star Jim Carrey or Jeff Daniels and it was pretty terrible. So now we’ve got a reunion of sorts nearly 20 years later with the new movie. It’s always a tough call on whether or not they can recreate the magic of previous works, whether it be a band reforming or team of actors and directors targeting our nostalgia. 
So did Carrey, Daniels and The Farrelly brothers give us a worthy sequel? I’d have to say they gave it a decent shot, and there were some genuinely funny moments but in the end I think the movie tried a bit too hard with a much too complicated, almost carbon copy of the first, weak ass plot. This like the first in many ways, takes our two favorite aging numbskulls on yet another road trip. It places them in a completely ridiculous story that seems almost as unnecessary and dumb as the leads. I like stupid, but I love it more when Harry and Lloyd are placed in a more believable world and they interact with people who aren’t necessarily in on the joke as well. Just seeing what the two of them are up to these days would have been good enough for me without involving a ridiculous murder plot with characters that are equally as stupid, but not nearly as funny as and Harry & Lloyd. That being said there’s no shortage of the crude humor of the first and in many ways it goes even further down the truly “dumb” route. Exactly what you might expect from these two morons who appear to have aged quite a bit but remain the same mentally as they were 20 years ago. 
Now don’t get me wrong I totally think Carrey & Daniels still have the chemistry and had the plot and writing been more solid the movie would have been a real winner. It’s great seeing Carrey back at what really made him shine, ridiculously stupid characters, because no one can do it quite like him. The two of them are clearly having a great time onscreen together. That being said I feel perhaps the real problem here is maybe the Farrelly Brothers, I mean think about it, what was their last genuinely funny movie? I’d say they have three, Dumb & Dumber, Kingpin and There’s Something About Mary- were all excellent and those were also their first three movies. I hope that this spawns a third film for the real Harry and Lloyd, I’d honestly like to see these two get another shot with different directors and writers, because even though this one missed the mark their still two of my favorite movie idiots of all time. I’d say this one is worth a view but don’t expect the riot of the first flick!
Universal Dork 