What I’m reading and will hopefully be watching… eventually

I’m having a real attention problem when it comes to reading just lately so Hellboy and the Dragon King are sitting there only three quarters read.  What I have picked up and am reading again is the Citizen Kane of comic books.

Watchmen.

The hype around the book is thankfully fully deserved and the story holds up even today.  I’m going to finish it, digest it again and may post my thoughts on this amazing book.  I got the hankering to read it again since I saw the trailer for the upcoming film which looks brilliant:

Now if only I could convince Tracey to read Watchmen.

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Next Avengers

I’m actually really enjoying what I’ve seen of the Marvel animated movies, I mean they certainly aren’t going to change the world but they’ve got some interesting bits in them and it’s a good way for them to dip their toes into the water and see what works on DVD.  I assume they’ve worked out that no one really needs a Dr Strange movie at this stage.

After reading Young Avengers I’m not entirely anti the idea of a younger version of the team and of course this particular version has a wise old Tony Stark who has protected the children of the Avengers (he is a good guy, he really is).

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The other comic book film that is currently floating my boat

I’m a huge Hellboy fan. Love him, love the BPRD, love Abe, love Johann, love Liz, love Kate and I suspect I’m going to love Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Actually I know I’m going to love the new film. With all the excitement over Iron Man coming I must say that I haven’t even been able to catch my breath over the awesomeness of Hellboy and you have no idea how happy I am there is a sequel!

There are some really great concept art that I’ve seen on the official Hellboy website and I know this film is going to be a strong ‘true to Hellboy’ movie.  LOL I don’t even know when this comes out!  I’m off to go find out.

Ahhhhh through the magic of the interwebs I’ve discovered it is due to be released in July!

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The Incredible Hulk - thoughts about the film and the trailer

I was asked about the new Incredible Hulk trailer the other day and had been meaning to write something up about it because it certainly falls under the type of thing I write about. Here is the Incredible Hulk trailer in HD or you can watch it here:

Cool. But I’ll get back to the trailer in a minute.

You see there is very little joy I take in the whole Incredible Hulk character, I often find him boring, limited and uninspired. I get the whole ‘rage within’ thing, it’s very clever and watching Hulk smash things is always going to be entertaining, not entertaining enough to subscribe to, but entertaining enough that if I see one his comics I’ll pick it up and have a flick through. The whole world war hulk series left me very ‘pfft, whatever’.

It didn’t help further when the first Hulk film was, how shall we say…? ummm crap. Well crap is maybe too harsh a word but I certainly wouldn’t buy it on DVD, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone and I didn’t force Tracey to sit through it.

Of course Marvel currently has a very exciting (for me anyway) franchise beginning in Iron Man and I think that Hulk is their second tent pole for 2008 (there may be others but certainly not in this half of the year). So my attention has really been focused on Iron Man and anything I’ve heard about Hulk I’ve filed away in my ‘I think you’re supposed to be interested in that’ folder.

Edward Norton is a Hulk fan and they managed to sign him up to play Banner, well that’s good, he is a solid actor and it doesn’t hurt having someone actually interested in the source material. I read that he took to the script with a very vicious red pen and rewrote it. I heard him speak about the new movie and his role and he really knows his stuff and dug the series which gives me hope.

So Norton being on board was enough to get my interest enough to have some small hope that a Hulk film may prove interesting.

A few days ago I was left awe inspired as I watched the latest Iron Man trailer and thought to myself have awesome that they were treating it so well. Now after watching the Hulk trailer I’m feeling some of the same things about this upcoming film also. Not all of them I have to say and that is simply because I’ve been an Iron Man fan for nearly twenty years… oh god that makes me feel old.

Trailer is awesome, exactly what I wanted to see, Norton is doing something interesting with Banner and it has Liv Tyler to boot. The casting seems to be really good, whoever is doing the casting for Marvel is doing a bang up job. I saw the producers talking about the film and in answer to a special effects question spoke a lot about how it is driven by the characters and the Hunchback of Notre Dame themes behind it.

There is only one thing that has me feeling a little cold on the whole thing and is beside the whole character driven thing is that green skinned behemoths are hard to CGI in life like detail.

Extraordinarily hard.

And that whole scene with Hulk going to smash that steroid dude looks awesome but is going to draw a shit load of criticism from the internet faithful. Me? I can live with it, hell I love Farscape and it is the story telling and great acting that makes me forget that I’m dealing with Muppets. I can only hope that Hulk can do this for me this time.

I want it to.

I would like nothing else to say that there were four big, huge, awesome comic book movies that made me weep with joy in the darkened cinema.

Hulk has got everything going for it right now, no baggage from the old one or my apathy towards the comic. I’ll go see this thing with enthusiasm, popcorn and maybe a diet Pepsi.

So what do you all think?

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New Iron Man trailer and poster!

I think the makers of Iron Man are just trying to make my brain burst out of the side of my head in a ‘I can’t wait for this freaking movie because it looks dang awesome‘ seizure. Maybe I should start a support group? Maybe you should stop reading this drivel and behold the best trailer so far and an awesome poster!!!

I’m a little jittery with joy because it looks like his house is like the one in the late 90s from the comic book.

“How about we throw in a little hot rod red” Um dude! AWESOME.

Begin expressing your joy now - leave a comment and use the words ‘freaking and awesome’ freely!!!

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Please don’t transplant my eyes

I was just saying to Tracey this evening when I saw the trailer for Jessica Alba’s new film ‘The Eye‘ on television.

Me: If I go blind don’t let them transplant new eyes in.
Tracey: What are you talking about?
Me: Nothing good happens when they transplant eyes into your skull.
Tracey: I don’t think they do that anyway.
Me: I don’t care, if they invent the technology I don’t want it.
Tracey: You would rather be blind than embrace new eyeballs?
Me: Ummm yeah.  Have you ever seen a film that covers someone getting an eye transplant and then just enjoying their lives and seeing the sun and stuff?
Tracey: Honestly I have no idea what you are talking about.
Me: I don’t want to see ghosts or aliens or fish man with transplanted eyes!
Tracey: Is fish man an actual character?
Me: Fine.  Gill Man.
Tracey: Who the hell is Gill Man?
Me: Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Tracey: Why did he get his eye balls transplanted?
Me: What?
Tracey: When did the creature from the black lagoon go blind and get new eyeballs.
Me: Oh.  No he didn’t I just wouldn’t want to see him.
Tracey: With the new eyeballs?
Me: Right.

Whole portions of that conversation didn’t take place.  Also Geordie’s eyes grow back in Star Trek Insurrection and really you couldn’t say good things happened there.

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Indiana Jones trailer released

Since I talked this up now I have to offer up the proof:

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Just got a sneak peek at the Indiana Jones trailer

Everything is good.

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Star Trek update - cause we haven’t had a trek post for five minutes

The high definition trailer has been released on the official Star Trek film site and it looks amazing, the detail in that CGI is just awesome.

Now the thing though is that J.J. Abrams likes a little viral marketing and so has set up the site ncc-1701.com which shows monitors watching the progress of the Enterprise being built. Someone suggested that this is the time travelling Romulans spying on the event I am inclined to agree.

The thing which is cool on this site is that if you wait long enough the forth screen that was flickering comes good and shows us our very first internal shot of the Enterprise:

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OMFG The Star Trek trailer

I’m basically almost in tears it’s so awesome.  I know it is only a couple of days early and blurry and probably going to be taken down but see the Star Trek trailer while you have the chance!

[youtube lhZePr-R-PU nolink]

An unbelievable huge thanks goes to Allen for giving me the heads up!!  You rock.

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