I am a Stub and so are you.

For the better part of a decade, I have been doing movie reviews, news reporting and blog punditry revolving around the movie and tv news circuits. The last site I had the privilege to work for was The Movie Blog and after 6 years of writing for them, I decided to branch out on my own. In TV terms, I am the spinoff.

So when deciding on a name for my new home, I turned to John Campea, friend of over 16 years to see if he had any ideas. The only thing he had to suggest was that I not include “Movie” or “film” in my name because that is so overdone. So he set me off on a different line of thinking I would have tried for and then one night while watching TV it struck me.

I was watching Bryan Fuller’s Pushing Daisies episode titled Circus Circus, where the following scene takes place:

So inspired by this line There are two types of people in this world -
Those that take all the risk and make you feel something besides the dull thudding of your own heart,

and Those that pay to watch…. …with a ticket stub in their pocket…

So I am a Stub. I pay to watch, and like you and your friends you discuss it and share what you have paid to watch.

You are a Stub too.

Batman is the master of 9 martial arts, a chemist, a biologist and the World’s Greatest Detective. Dedicating yourself to so many fields you could just imagine how many other skills fell to the wayside.

So with the release of DC Vs Mortal Kombat it is no surprise that Bats would want to get his hands on this and play his own character in the game. We have a video showing just how well that went.

I also hear he cannot knit, and though Alfred explained it a number of times he still doesn’t get Backgammon.

Emily Blunt was set to star as the sexy Russian spy Black Widow (an eventual member of the Avengers) in Iron Man 2, but since Fox found it so much fun to remind other studios of their legal holdings, so they are calling in a marker on Blunt’s option to star in a movie with Jason Segel and Jack Black - Gulliver’s Travels.

According to the trades, Twentieth Century Fox is negotiating with Emily Blunt and Jason Segel to join Jack Black in “Gulliver’s Travels,” the Rob Letterman-directed reimagining of the classic Jonathan Swift tale.

Blunt had already been offered the role of Black Widow in “Iron Man 2,” but that may not be an option because of “Gulliver’s Travels.” Fox holds an option on the actress that was part of her deal when she co-starred in “The Devil Wears Prada,” and the studio may invoke it to see that she takes part in the giant tale.

Frankly I would sooner see Blunt take on the Black Widow role so I do hope she manages to find it in her schedule to handle both commitments.

And Fox already had a tough time proving they were not the badguys in the whole Watchmen debacle, and now they might rob Blunt of her opportunity at a key role in Marvel’s interwoven attempts at a crossover tying their products together.

If Blunt was giving up this opportunity for a bigger role, I might forgive the situation, but in a Jack Black comedy? I don’t want to sound insensitive but I think the Marvel films role has more potential. Black Widow role will likely lead to a role in Avengers and Avengers 2 or a spinoff Black Widow movie?

What does Gulliver’s Travels have to offer her?

A while back I talked about a short film simply called 9 that was being developed into a feature length film.

The look and feel of it is like a darker grittier version of the Playstation 3 game Little Big Planet, and I love the style.

A blogspot page seemingly just about this trailer shares:

9 is an upcoming sci-fi CGI animated movie created and directed by Shane Acker. It is co-produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov and animated by Attitude Studio (in Luxembourg) and by Starz Animation (in Toronto), with a few sequences done by Duncan Studios in LA. The film can boast a nice voice cast with: Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly and Crispin Glover. 9 will be released on September 9, 2009, yes; that’s 9.9.9!

This looks like it will capture all the wonder and fascination of the original short and bring it to a deserving full feature. I can hardly wait.

Shane Acker’s original film may have spoilers for the overall plot, but you can see it here

Fanboys has been on my radar so long I was starting to wonder if it was just a mark on the screen, but in all its glory Fanboys is here.

I am surprised that Kristen Bell wasn’t featured more in the trailer, but also that the Cancer storyline wasn’t even hinted at (which we are promised will be their motivation). They are really pitching this as the edited version and saving the heart of the story for those who actually see it.

This looked far funnier than I could have hoped. I couldn’t have imagined being more excited about a movie but this has me so hyped.

Nic Cage has signed on to star in the sequel to Ghost Rider. I was not surprised to hear they hadn’t made a sequel despite its modest success at the boxoffice. But now a year and a half later, they are moving ahead with another movie based on the biker from hell.

Bloody Disgusting offers:

It’s pretty shocking that it has taken this long for a sequel to get a move on, but finally Columbia Pictures is gearing up for GHOST RIDER 2, the sequel to the smash-hit comic book adaptation from 2007 that saw Nicolas Cage as a stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze who gives up his soul to become a hellblazing vigilante

Now I understand that this is purely a numbers game when they say “smash hit” since it did have a $45m opening weekend and a $229m worldwide gross compared to its $110m budget.

But critically this movie stunk it up. 28% on Rotten Tomatoes and blogs everywhere ripped this a new one.

So I can only presume that this is a financial decision to offer up another Ghost Rider and perhaps with the low expectation of the first one they can only do better right? Ok, I can just HOPE they do better.

I used to be a huge Cage fan, but he has more misses than hits now. At least we might hope to see more of Eva Mendez strutting angry in a slinky dress. That was worth the admission alone.

When Joaquin Phoenix quit acting I was disappointed. I enjoyed pretty much everything he has been in, so it was upsetting that he would be stepping away from the camera. I wonder what he has been up to lately?

Well it looks like we will have a chance to see what he has been doing. His career change is going to be the subject of Casey Affleck’s personal project.

Screen Rant offers up:

After Phoenix announced his retirement from acting people assumed it might have been a joke. Then he took the stage in Las Vegas and performed his act in front of a crowd. It was a stumbling, bumbling lackluster performance to say the least. And once it was over Phoenix fell off the sage and into the crowd.

Now it appears his apparent decent into madness might actually be a huge hoax or as I like to look at it, true method acting. Especially now that we know Joaquin’s brother-in-law, actor/filmmaker Casey Affleck is making a film documenting Phoenix’s career change.

Phoenix appears to be having a breakdown of Britney proportions but with only himself to embarass he isn’t getting a lot of attention for it. Check out that picture above. Clearly he wrote this on his fists without thinking about how that was going to work out. Positively brilliant.

I really hope that he sees this as a learning experience and actually focuses on succeeding at something other than fist decorating (that still needs work) but hopefully he will get back to acting.

Do anything you want Joaquin, just do it right.

With the economy scaring the pants off of everyone, even the studios are hedging their bets. Even the Chronicles of Narnia series faced inevitable obscurity as Disney announced that they didn’t think Voyage of the Dawn Treader would be worth the financial risk and cut it from their prospects.

However, fear not Naria fans! It seems that Fox has picked up the baton and intends to carry on the franchise without Disney.

When Walt Disney Pictures left the project, Fox got the first chance to make The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of The Dawn Treader due to the shared Fox Walden marketing and distribution label. The label made the promise to make the project. The plan is for a 2010 release via the Fox Walden label.

Currently, there is a no budget and work is still being done on the script but the plan is for a 2010 release around the holidays. It will come out via the Fox Walden banner.

Fox and Walden plan to go halves on production and P&A costs for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of The Dawn Treader. The budget is currently in the $140 million budget range.

I liked the first two movies and I was a little disappointed to find that they were not going to finish out the franchise. There was still more Narnia books to adapt and the stories are wonderful.

So maybe in hindsight Disney will kick themselves for letting this option go, or the movie will not cash in as much as the first two and they will have a quiet “I told you so” look on their collective faces.

Time will tell!

With the triumphant return of Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, years after their prime it was only a matter of time before we saw Stallone in an action role again. And we will see him in The Expendables but soon after that we could see him tying on the red bandana and tearing it up as Rambo again.

ComingSoon says:

Sylvester Stallone, who is preparing to shoot action-adventure The Expendables, told Extra that he’s planning to play John Rambo again.

“Yeah, we are doing another ‘Rambo,’ but the conflict is whether to do it in America or a foreign country,” said Stallone.

Personally, I think the Rambo story doesn’t need another chapter. I don’t mind seeing Stallone returning to his combat roots. Heck, I wouldn’t mind seeing him in a comedy again.

But why bleed Rambo dry?

Astroboy has gone from classic animation to kitchy fashion icon accessory and now thanks to Imagi Animation, he will be returning to media in the form of a feature film.

I have been anticipating this nostalgic piece of my younger days for a while now, hoping to see a teaser trailer, or stills or something. But it seems that someone forgot to pay the staff, so they had to lay off a bunch of people until the cheques clear. Its coming, but right now they can’t pay their staff, so they are getting an involuntary holiday.

Deadline Hollywood shares:

So the financially squeezed Hong Kong-based studio responsible for TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) realized Friday night that it couldn’t make its Los Angeles payroll, called everyone on Saturday and laid off almost 80 union animators out of the 120 staff in the LA office, and halted production on the upcoming CGI-animated feature film Astro Boy for Summit Entertainment. Behind the scenes, the company is privately assuring Summit that this won’t affect the pic’s release this year.

So…. why did you have those animators on the job to begin with if laying them off for a couple months would not affect your release date?

Perhaps they had a few months of room before the deadline that this layoff will eat up?

I hope nothing else goes wrong. I really want to see more about this film, but if they are not working on it, it will be a while before we have news!

Michael Bay listens to the fans, and with the next installment of Transformers right around the bend, we are picking up information from all sorts of places. Mostly toys.

Speculation exists that Megatron will still be in it because he has a toy, and we now know that Bumblebee will get some bling to his Camero mode. Also, we get our first peek at Soundwave in his new incarnation as an alien Jet via his toy.

Soundwave is something of a fan favourite and he has made it in this time around ,with something of an upgrade. The logical progression would have been to turn him into an MP3 player, but Bay and his team have instead turned Soundwave into a jet. A supersonic one, we’re guessing.

I liked the fan art Soundwave Jeep that hit the net a while back, but I guess making him into a Jet is not the end of the world.

I would sooner see him as a jet than a walkman. The movie seems to have presumed mass actually means something so if they did make him into a portable music device, he would be wee tiny and that might just insult poor Soundwave. Imagine the fans that were itching to see him in the first movie finally get introduced to him and he is 4 inches high!

Megatron first hit the scene as a Jet, it makes sense that Soundwave, to still be an effective warrior, would also be a Jet - and much like Megatron he is unlikely to have an Earth form. No word on wether small bots will emerge from him like the old cassette. The strangely blade wing aircraft does give Soundwave a little bit of that alien look.

But it also makes him look like he is wearing a cape or coat and tails! Maybe Soundwave is an orchestra conductor?

The guys behind He’s Just Not That Into You promise us a romantic comedy chick flick that is different from all the rest. But honestly, don’t you think they all say something like that? But now we get wind of this little clip that illustrates exactly what they mean. They have 10 Chick Flick Cliches that are NOT in their film.

I was waiting to see if they would hit up the “Guy loves Girl but she is already dating a Jerk” thing. Why do they always have to be a jerk? Wouldn’t it be a grander conflict if the guy was in love with a girl but her boyfriend was a great guy too? Do you break them up and be selfish, or are you just happy that she’s happy?

But at least we now know that these guys considered the cliche’s before diving into a romantic comedy chick flick - and they told us so in a funny manner!

I have to give them props for that.

Via

The new trailer for the 3d stop motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline is on the net.

Latino Review describes it:

Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) is bored in her new home until she finds a secret door and discovers an alternate version of her life on the other side. On the surface, this parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life and the people in it – only much better. But when this seemingly perfect world turns dangerous, and her other parents (including her Other Mother voiced by Teri Hatcher) try to trap her forever, Coraline must count on her resourcefulness, determination and bravery to escape this increasingly perilous world – and save her family.

I think the trailer looks wonderful. I am already a Neil Gaiman fan anyways but I wasn’t fully sold on this when I saw the first teaser. However it is a good fit with director Henry Selick on board giving this a whimisical Nightmare Before Christmas feel to it and it works pretty well.

This trailer has me more interested, that is for sure.

With Megatron making appearances all over toy packages and even with his own figure, speculation is abound that Megatron could in fact be in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. This is just a glimmer of hope that we might see the short lived Decepticon leader on screen again.

/Film rants:

Michael Bay should tell the company that designs the packaging for all the Transformers sequel toys that Megatron isn’t in the new movie, or else they might have to recall all these misprinted boxes. Wow, and to think that they spent a lot of extra time redesigning a character who clearly doesn’t even appear on screen in the sequel

Obiously the writer at /Film offers up this bit with a degree of snark and sarcasm so I am not going to attempt to challenge their statement in that regard.

However, the idea that Megatron is showing up on all the packaging for the toys might hint that he is supposed to be in this movie, however Bay, and all involved are saying that including Megatron on the toy line was just to sell toys.

There were a LOT of Movie Version toys that never appeared in the film. They just wanted to envision some popular characters in the movie style - and sell toys.

If Megatron is in the film, I actually hope that it will be part of some stinger at the end of the credits teasing us to a new film. I don’t want to see Megatron at all in Revenge of the Fallen. With a predominate baddie like The Fallen already front and center, we run the risk of Megatron not being as big of a part.

I would sooner see something that hints to Megatron’s return in Revenge of the Fallen and then have him come back big and proper as the main badass in Transformers 3!

So put him on the toy boxes all you want, but don’t waste the character trying to bring him into this film just to have him there. Make his return triumphant (and have him hand Starscream his ass in the process for taking up leadership without him)

We just mentioned a few days ago that Green Hornet would not be filming in 2009 and now Seth Rogen has come forward to reassure that this movie is still happening as planned.

FirstShowing says:

“[The studio heads] have every intention on making it, and assuming we’re able to hire a new director in the upcoming weeks, which seems like a distinct possibility, it should still hit the release date,” Rogen told HitFix. Not only is he starring in the film and co-writing it, but he’s also producing, which means he has more than just a strong say in what happens.

I am still undecided about seeing Rogen as the Green Hornet. And with Stephen Chow pulling out on directing but still staring it in, I couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing either. If he walked altogether, I would think he gave up on the project, but he is still on the job, just not in the comfy chair.

So provided they get themselves a new director, which shouldn’t be hard to find, the movie will be going on as intended with this as one small speed bump in their plans.

Tomb Raider looks to be getting another feature film treatment on its way, but not with the actress rumoured over the last few days. However one thing is clear; It will be a relaunch.

Yesterday I wrote about the wild speculation that Megan Fox could be taking up the khaki hotpants and dual pistols, but Fox’s management denies she was ever considered. Fair enough, I didn’t like the idea to begin with.

Latino Review says:

Warners Bros. and producer Dan Lin are in early development on a a reboot of “Tomb Raider,” the popular video game action franchise.

“Tomb Raider,” which was published in 1996 by a London-based video game company called Eidos, was a wildly popular game that involved the daredevil archaeologist Lara Croft on a series of global missions. Several spinoff games have been published since, with a 10th-anniversary edition of the game released in 2006.

With the Tomb Raider chapters being pretty isolated on their own, I don’t know why they are relaunching the series. They could just put a new actress in the role and tell a new adventure. There is no subplot weaving through the franchise, its just another adventure.

So who should be the new Tomb Raider. They are tossing the “reboot” word around which means they are unlikely to approach Jolie for the role again (which I thought she did very well) and someone mentioned Rhona Mitra could do the gig considering she was once a Lara Croft model and coming hot off her role in Underworld Rise of the Lycans.

My vote would be Evangeline Lilly. She’s a fine actress, very attractive and physically fit.

Who would you pick?

The rumour that an A-Team movie would join the leagues of other 80s shows adapted to the big screen has finally come to pass.

Fox has given the green light and hired on some writers, directors and producers.

Latino Review says:

Studio has set Joe Carnahan to direct and Ridley Scott to produce, with Tony Scott exec producing through their Scott Free banner.

Also producing are Jules Daly and Stephen J. Cannell, the latter of whom created the original TV series.

Carnahan will team with Brian Bloom to polish a script by Skip Woods. The intention is to start production by June for a June 11, 2010, release.

Fox has struggled to find a way to exploit the branded TV show while avoiding the series’ campy tone

I think it would be a clear choice to have someone like Michael Clarke Duncan to take on the role of B.A. Barakus, and since they are avoiding the cheese he wont have to step on B.A’s trademarked “Fool” but still have that in-your-face attitude (and fear of flying)

I think the A-Team has some great potential to be translated to a more realistic team of characters while still being fun and perhaps even landing a bullet. For such an elite team of special forces commandos, they sure managed to miss a lot when shooting.

My Dream A-Team would be as follows.

Hannibal - Mel Gibson or Bruce Willis. They can both swagger and charm while still exuding leadership.
Face - Brad Pitt. Who else can play the conman, ladies man and look sharp in a suit.
Murdock - Matt Frewer. Still alive and well on Eureka. He can be crazy and zany and Murdock always had one schtick or another in every episode. For the movie I vote for the talking tennis ball.
BA Barakus - Michael Duncan Clarke.

So do you think this movie will be better played straight avoiding that “it was only funny in the 80s” cheese factor? And who do you think could play the A-Team?

Check out the new teaser posters for G.I. Joe.

I like how the style of these cuts off the face just to show the body designs of each character. The characters were always codenamed by what they did, and they were always defined by it, so in a sharp style they show off the body, and their gear with most of their identity stripped away. Much like the special operatives of G.I. Joe and Cobra were.

I have high hopes for this film. I know its become the cool thing to cuss out this movie, but I haven’t seen anything that makes me think this will be bad at all. This might change after I see the teaser trailer on this weekend’s Superbowl, but so far I am eager to see this.

Latino Review has 5 more to check out on their site.

Liam Neeson is returning with a can of vengeful kickassery in what looks to be a great action film called Taken in theaters this week.

I have to say that Neeson has that fatherly charm that reminds you how deeply he cares for his daughter but he also has a VERY imposing physical presence. His talk on the phone with the would be captors of his daughter is bold and scary. If I had been scooping up young girls in Paris, that inspiring talk alone would make me reconsider my occupation in a heartbeat.

Via