Olympus Has Fallen... How many of you have seen the trailer for this flick? Olympus Has Fallen looks pretty interesting...if you overlook how shoddy the visual effects appeared on the big screen (I saw the preview when I watched A Good Day to Die Hard last weekend; no, I don't intend to review that flick here) and the fact Gerard Butler will apparently channel Jack Bauer (from the now-defunct FOX TV show, 24) in this movie. I wonder if there'll even be a scene or two where Butler utters Bauer's signature line "Damn it!" in this flick. We'll see.

Post-Oscars Image of the Day... Don't worry Leo— With a little patience, you'll eventually win that gold statue. Just look at Jim Carrey following the release of The Truman Show in 1998. No wait...

85th Annual Academy Awards... Ben Affleck received vindication tonight as his political thriller Argo took home the Oscar for Best Picture. Life of Pi's Ang Lee pulled off an upset on Steven Spielberg (Lincoln) and David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) by winning the trophy for Best Director, Quentin Tarantino won Best Original Screenplay for Django Unchained while Argo also got the nod for Best Adapted Screenplay. Catwoman—err, Anne Hathaway won Best Supporting Actress for Les Misérables, Christoph Waltz won another Best Supporting Actor trophy (as expected) for being in a Tarantino film (Django Unchained this year, Inglourious Basterds in 2010), Daniel Day-Lewis was crowned as Best Actor for his portrayal of the 16th U.S. president in Lincoln, and Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook. I was rooting for Jessica Chastain to get props for her portrayal as Maya in Zero Dark Thirty...up until I watched Lawrence hold her own against the likes of Robert De Niro in Playbook. You still cool in my book, Jessica.



Anyways— With the dry recap of who took home the gold this year now out of the way, just thought I'd mention that the 85th Annual Academy Awards were quite—interesting. Seth MacFarlane didn't disappoint in delivering gasp-inducing jokes such as the one about John Wilkes Booth being "the only actor to get inside Lincoln's head" ("150 years...and it's still too soon?"), the fact that Django Unchained was considered a "date movie" for violence-prone music artists Chris Brown and Rihanna, and singing a song about all the actresses who went topless on-screen [looks like Naomi Watts and (I think) Charlize Theron weren't so amused when their names were mentioned in this music number]. On another amusing note, I found it hilarious that the cast of The Avengers (Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Chris Evans and Samuel L. Jackson) was invited to present the award for Best Visual Effects...only to name Life of Pi as the winner and not Joss Whedon's hugely-successful comic book flick. Ditto with Norah Jones—who sang the Oscar-nominated tune for Seth MacFarlane's Ted (which Jones had a cameo in)...only to have the trophy (rightly) go to Adele for Skyfall (which had the rare accomplishment of sharing the Best Sound Editing award with Zero Dark Thirty). And lastly, imagine if the orchestra played the Jaws theme (to signify when a winner's speech went on one second too long during the ceremony) during Michelle Obama's presentation of Best Picture. Needless to say, the wrath of the White House against the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would be much greater than the one heaped upon Zero Dark Thirty by Senator John McCain and his fellow congressmen. Then again, maybe not.

Courtesy of CapMoreno's deviantART page

Ninja Turtles... Just found out earlier today that Megan Fox will be teaming up once more with Michael Bay on his reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie franchise. First and foremost, let me make the obligatory puns: Will Shia LaBeouf play Casey Jones or Splinter in the 2014 film? Will Josh Duhamel portray Shredder...with Hugo Weaving providing the villain's voice? Will Tyrese Gibson play a Foot Soldier? Will Peter Cullen narrate the movie? And lastly, will Steve Jablonsky compose the music score for Ninja Turtles? That last question was actually serious. Because it would be cool if he does.

All jokes aside (except for the music score part), it's amusing that Bay is working with Fox again after that 'Hitler' remark she made prior to the start of filming for Transformers: Dark of the Moon (TF3) in 2010. Comes to show you that Bay doesn't really give a rat's ass what people think about him (which is both a good and bad thing)...and that the story of Sam Witwicky and Mikaela would've properly wrapped up in TF3 had Steven Spielberg not taken issue with Fox's comment. Oh well. At least Fox realizes that it was Bay who brought her down the path to stardom when Transformers was released in 2007...and that she won't get very far in her career when she's doing obscure $15 million films that only made $4,000 at the box office (Passion Play) and uninteresting Apatow flicks (This Is 40... I'll briefly contradict myself by saying that that scene where Leslie Mann cops a feel on Fox is—great). Just sayin'.

Iron Man 3... The image above (which is from Iron Man 3's Facebook page) gives me an excuse to post about this May's highly-anticipated comic book flick this morning. Well, that— And the awesome teaser poster featuring Iron Patriot (formerly War Machine of Iron Man 2) below.

Transformers 4... Why I'm looking forward to next year's installment in Michael Bay's Giant Ass-Kicking Alien Robots saga... Who will be the next Decepticon to get b*tch-slapped by Optimus Prime?

Star Wars Spin-Offs Are On The Way! A few weeks after Lucasfilm indefinitely postponed the 3-D theatrical re-releases of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith so the company could focus on the production of Episode VII, Disney announced that a few Star Wars spin-offs will also be in the works while J.J. Abrams prepares to develop the first installment in the sequel trilogy. The standalone flicks will supposedly center on Yoda, a young Han Solo and Boba Fett. Seeing Yoda go all Sonic the Hedgehog with his lightsaber in his own film would be cool...though his backward talk may be a bit much for 90-plus minutes (maybe even bordering on the torture moviegoers had to endure with Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace). Rumor has it that the Han Solo flick would have an Ocean's Eleven-type plot to show what kind of "scoundrel" Solo was prior to meeting Luke, Obi-Wan and Greedo in the Mos Eisley cantina in A New Hope, while it remains to be seen how Boba Fett's own feature film will play out. Needless to say, it's gonna be an action flick. And in case you're wondering why the majority of the pics posted with this entry centers on the mysterious bounty hunter (well...mysterious before Attack of the Clones came out in theaters, that is), just look at all of those bad-ass artwork that I found online! I also Googled some kick-ass illustrations of Yoda welding his lightsaber, but nothing beats the Fett-meister—except a well-placed push into the Sarlacc Pit.






Courtesy of Kai Lim




Courtesy of Dan LuVisi's deviantART page

Beautiful Creatures... I have no intention of watching this movie [or maybe I will...after paying to see A Good Day to Die Hard, which gets released in theaters the same day as Beautiful Creatures (on February 14)], but I was just looking for an excuse to post these production stills of Alice Englert as the main character from the romance flick. What a difference dark eyeliner on a cute actress makes... Pretend I didn't just say that.