Back From the Dead, Vin Diesel Day, Burnt Beef

And what have we missed? Sadly not too much. With the looming threat of actors taking to the picket line there really hasn't been as many projects taking off as there could be.

But for what we did miss, it was pretty significant.

Obviously there "The Dark Knight". It was impressive, bold, and amazing, but not without its own issues. Performances were both epic and mundane at the same time, notably from different people. You had the well deserving of the hype performances from Ledger, the outstanding performance from Oldman, with Caine and Freeman doing what you'd expect in their limited rolls as well. Then you had Eckhart and Gyllenhall, who, in my opinion, really didn't do as well as they could have. Maybe it was the characters, but Eckhart especially didn't feel as good as it could have been... especially when paired against Ledger. But whatever. The movie is now at $500 box office, the #2 all time in the US, and still moving forward. Who knows what it'll close at.

If I don't mention a movie at this point from late July to now, its not worth seeing (in my opinion). That being said, for the love of God, go see Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder. Both are well deserving of their attention. Class acts, quality flicks. Gogogogogogo.

Okay, so there's the catch up. :P

Now is where we dread or prance about gleefully over what is on the horizon.

I'll start with some dreading. With the "success" of DC/Warner Bros side-story that came out just prior to The Dark Knight's release called "Batman: Gotham Knight"... an anime... created by actual talent behind TDK though... Marvel apparently had a stroke of genius and has announced that they intend to recreate four of their infamous heroes in anime styling for a world debut in 2010. All I can really ask is "why"...

This weekend there's a new sci-fi flick from Vin Diesel coming out called Babylon A.D., and while I was kinda thinking it might be worth checking out, I've been turned off of it pretty damn quickly by some of the latest news.

So yeah. Probably worth avoid that flick.

On the topic of Vin Diesel though, attached to the movie Death Race was a new trailer for "Fast and Furious"... the 4th movie in "The Fast and the Furious" series. Yes, the 4th is literally the 1st title, just lacking "the" in it. Title oddness aside, its bringing back the original group of people who "acted" in the first so it can't be too terribad. Here's the trailer link:

http://movies.ign.com/dor/objects/95...r1_082508.html

...and still while on the topic on Vin Diesel, he confirmed within the past couple of days that a 3rd and 4th part to the "Pitch Black" series are in the scripting process. I kinda liked those flicks, so more power to him.

Despite lots of movies being reluctant to take off, Transformers 2 has been in the works for a while and has been the subject of much observation since its seeming to be much more massive than the first was. For those who despise Shia, here's a happy image that just leaked from the set today.



I think I'll close today on noting that, if you're in the movie biz and feel like screening a movie to someone and expect them to keep a secret... don't make that person Kevin Smith... especially if that new movie happens to be the new Star Trek.

The story here starts with Kevin Smith being interviewed by an LA radio station... it starts off with him confirming that he's seen The Watchment... and moves along to something more unexpected.