Egads! It’s The Indiana Jones IV Trailer!

The Hat! The Whip! The Soundtrack! What else is there to say?!

Clone Wars Makes It To Cinemas! w00t!

(Pic from USA Today, link below)

Arguably, the best thing to come out of the new Star Wars trilogy was a cartoon. The Genndy Tartakovsky-directed Clone Wars mini-series was everything the new trilogy was not–plenty of kick-ass action, minimal dialogue, and an engaging storyline. Well, the fanboys have been heard, and news is that the a 100-minute Clone Wars full-length movie will be hitting the cinemas this 15 August.

Great news? Maybe not–George Lucas is executive producer, and the first screenshot printed by USA Today shows that it’s nothing like the animated series. It still looks mean, though. Story from Firstshowing.net:

You might have thought that no Star Wars movie would ever show in theaters again, at least not until Lucas re-releases them in 3D sometime after 2010. Good news – that’s no longer the case, as we have received confirmation that the animated movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be playing in theaters on August 15th later this year! The movie is a full-length feature developed from the 25-episode animated Clone Wars series that played on Cartoon Network a few years back. Lucasfilm is launching this new movie in theaters where it will later play on Cartoon Network again before the launch of yet another new animated series. Star Wars is back in theaters again in 2008, baby!

Warner Brothers decided to kick off the series with this theatrical release after they were shown the first footage from the series. Star Wars: The Clone Wars will run around 100 minutes in length and will take place between Episodes II and III. Anakin is not Darth Vader yet and the story will be focused around the ensuing Clone Wars that began in Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Warner Brothers and Lucasfilm seem as excited about this release as we are, saying “I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t want it” and taking a risk by “trying to do something unprecedented — marrying TV series and theatrical release.”

In this film, Anakin and Obi-Wan are trying to hold together the galactic republic, split apart by war between a separatist robot army and the good-guy white-armored clones. The Jedi apprentice you see above is actually Anakin’s padawan, a change from the story that we’ve been familiar with throughout the movies. However, they’re not changing up the Star Wars lore without the help of the man in charge. “George is our guide. He’s the creator of the Star Wars universe, so we couldn’t have a better mentor,” asserts director Dave Filoni.

For those who missed out on the original Clone Wars series, here’s a clip to see what you’ll miss out on in the movie:

I Love Paris!

Though Sandeep would beg to differ–”Screw the French!” is one of his more toned down opinions about them–I have to say that after watching Paris Je T’aime, I am totally in love with love again. It’s a collection of 18 short films by 21 directors, including Alfonso Cuaron, Joel & Ethan Coen, Alexander Payne, Gus Van Sant, and Wes Craven, and it so kicks the butt of any other short movie ensemble I’ve seen. If you want to know how great–and hard–short stories on film can be, there’s no better movie to watch.

I’ve gleamed off a couple of the shorts from YouTube, the first, Faubourg Saint-Denis, directed by Tom Tykwer and starring Natalie Portman, and the second, Parc Monceau, is one of my favourites, and stars Nick Nolte and Ludivine Sagnier. The latter is the only film I know where the line “My love, you are a Zeppelin” can be said by a man without the woman slapping him back.

And Nick Nolte’s voice has never been so romantically exploited by a director before–it kinda breaks your heart a little.

Seriously folks, just go out and find it at your nearest DVD retailer now.

And yeah, those buff bodies? They’re real.

Check it out. Those bodies are REAL. Dammit. According to Josh Hillis, the way to achieving what those Spartans had in 300 involves something like this:

The average celebrity trainer would have trained the actors to look like Spartan Warriors – Mark Twight put the actors in 300 through workouts that would create the kind of strength and power they would need to be Spartan Warriors.

Mark is a world class extreme alpinist. He climbs mountains that no one else in the world has ever climbed before. Mark believes that there is something that happens on a mountain – when you are totally exhausted and when your life is on the line – that strips away all of the pretense of our modern existance and all that is left is your humanity. That only through pushing yourself to the absolute limit do you truly find out who you are. He strives to create workouts that have that same kind of impact. Hence the Gym Jones tagline: “Power, Speed, Endurance, Suffering and Salvation”.

The workout involves: 25 pullups, 50 deadlifts with 135 pounds, 50 pushups, 50 jumps on a 24-inch box, 50 floor wipers, 50 single-arm clean-and-presses using a 36-pound kettlebell, and 25 more pullups.

Grindhouse Final Trailer

“Girls with guns,” said U-Wei Hj Saari to me once. “People love movies with girls holding guns.” And what’s better than that? Well, Rose McGowan with a gun for a leg, that’s what. This movie is gonna rock.

Clip from 300

Well, considering that the movie is currently screening at the cinemas, I don’t really see a point to posting this up. But hey, it’s Frank Miller. And there are soldiers. And it kinda reminds me of God Of War. Gwwwaaarrrh!

Big Movie News! JJ Abrams to direct Star Trek, James Cameron says Jesus is fake, and JLA: The Movie

For some strange reason or other, today I found out that this blog has a total of 16 (!) hits a couple of days back, and none of them came from me. So apparently at least someone must be reading it. Although I hope it’s more than one person because if it is, then I have to apologise to what must be a most disappointed blog-stalker.

Anyways. To those of you who do read it, you’re probably in the geek community, so you’ll be pleased to know that there was a crap load of movie news over the past couple of days that didn’t involve the Oscars. Most of them involves women in tights/female nudity of some sort, so here goes the movie roundup.

1) Star Trek is still alive, or so says JJ Abrams, who will be directing Star Trek XI. According to Firstshowing.net, “The reports say that the deal with Abrams was officially signed just last Friday. Also part of the rumor mill for this film is that Matt Damon was supposedly going to play Captain Kirk, but that rumor has since been debunked and just about every other male actor has been rumored to be in the talks for either Kirk or Spock as well.” My suggestion for Captain Kirk? Steve Carrell. Now that would be awesome.

2) James Cameron, the director of such fantasies such as Titanic, plans to debunk Christianity is his next documentary. According to Time, this documentary will see Cameron as producer, with director Simcha Jacobovici examining the claim “that Jesus wasn’t resurrected –the cornerstone of Christian faith– and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene.” Sounds like a publicity generating documentary that won’t have much conclusive evidence. Watch the trailer and have your fill.

3) Justice League of America: The Movie. Dude. Wonder. Woman. Batman. Superman. AWESSSOOMMME!

4) Hostel Part 2 movie poster that was banned. I’m not a particularly big fan of this hack-n-slash film, but I do like the movie poster. Gruesome and sexist. FYI, the storyline for the sequel involves three women who stumble upon the Slovakian hostel. One of the women is Bijou Philips (pictured below).

5) Random screen cap from Blades of Glory where Jenna Fischer (the secretary from the US version of The Office) plays a prostitute. Always had a thing for Jenna. She’s hot. So there.