Photo of the Day... Look at what Obi-Wan Kenobi has done.

Ralph McQuarrie (1929 – 2012)... Rest In Peace to this extraordinary conceptual designer, whose wonderful artwork of the world of Star Wars, before the film was green-lit for production by Twentieth Century Fox, helped convinced the studio to bring George Lucas' science-fantasy vision to the big screen. Posted with this entry are McQuarrie-painted illustrations from all three movies of the original Star Wars trilogy.

Ralph McQuarrie passed away yesterday. He was 82.

The Amazing Spider-Man... Check out the latest trailer to this July's reboot of the popular comic book film franchise. Shown above is Spidey's (Andrew Garfield) nemesis in the new flick, The Lizard, a.k.a. Dr. Curt Connors, who is played by Welsh actor and musician Rhys Ifans.

The Amazing Spider-Man will be released in movie theaters nationwide on July 3 (a little more than two weeks before The Dark Knight Rises storms the cinemas).

The Avengers... Check out the newest trailer to this summer's highly-anticipated blockbuster. The Avengers gets released in movie theaters nationwide on May 4.

84th Annual Academy Awards... It was a night for the French as French-themed films or movies consisting of French filmmakers and cast members received the most kudos at the Oscars. The Artist took home the gold in three of the top categories: Best Picture, Best Actor (Jean Dujardin) and Best Director (Michel Hazanavicius). Martin Scorsese's Paris-themed 3-D flick Hugo mostly dominated in the technical categories...having won statues for Art Direction and Cinematography, respectively. And at the expense of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which was also nominated in these fields, Hugo won for Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects. Word has it that Michael Bay will helm Transformers 4, so he has yet another shot at officially being recognized for having awesome special effects in a critically-panned movie.



In terms of the rest of tonight's telecast, it was awesome to see Christopher Plummer—who was in such notable flicks as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the 2006 Spike Lee film, Inside Man—win Best Supporting Actor for Beginners. It would've been cool (and probably frustrating in the eyes of fellow buddies Michael Cera and Seth Rogen) if Jonah Hill won the award for Moneyball, but oh well. Meryl Streep won as Best Actress...obtaining her third overall Oscar portraying Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. Johnny Depp's Rango, which I partially slept through despite the fact I was really stoked to watched this movie after seeing its teaser trailer at the theater in 2010, won for Best Animated Feature.



All-in-all, the 84th Annual Academy Awards were pretty much unpredictable. The indie film dominated the major categories, while the success of Hugo will encourage the 3-D fad to go on. Billie Crystal for the most part was funny in his umpteenth stint as Oscar host (Chapter 11 Theatre sounds like a perfect replacement name for the Kodak Theatre), while the ceremony itself didn't seem as self-indulgent as usual. But if there's one positive thing I must acknowledge about tonight's awards show, it's that almost all of the speeches were short and to the point. Good job, Oscar winners... The orchestra must have been quite grateful that they didn't have to play music to get your arses off the stage at any point during the evening.

Sorry for the lack of updates on this Blog... Still recovering from a really crappy case of bronchitis (plus a couple of bites from friggin' dust mites, or I may have broken out in stress-induced hives; don't ask) that I've had for the past two weeks. Just to provide some random comments on recent/kinda recent news events:

- I still want to see Star Wars: The Phantom Menace in 3-D.

- I need to catch up on other films like The Grey and Man on a Ledge. Is that flick still playing in theaters?

- Yes, The Avengers Super Bowl ad was awesome! Though it's too bad that a teaser for The Dark Knight Rises wasn't shown during the Big Game. Oh well.

Hopefully I'll be all well and healthy by the time the Academy Awards air on February 26. That is all.

*Crosses fingers*

Dark Trooper... Just thought I'd end this month with yet another Star Wars-related post...this time showing the image that immediately got me hooked on Star Wars back during my first year in high school. This illustration was part of an advertisement that was published in an early 1995 issue of Cinescape magazine (which has long been out of print). It promoted the newest Star War video game, Dark Forces, that was gonna be released on PC consoles later that year. I myself didn't play Dark Forces till 1997—when one of my brothers bought it for his Playstation 1 (oh yea) console, but this rendition of a so-called Dark Trooper got me pretty darn excited for the Star Wars prequels (which Lucas announced in the summer of 1994 and got theatrically released in...well, you know the rest of the story).

I immediately thought the Dark Trooper was gonna be a character in the then-untitled Episode 1 (the Super Battle Droid introduced in Attack of the Clones kinda reminds me of the stormtrooper-on-steroids). Boy, was I wrong. Anyways... To defeat this Imperial monstrosity when you confront him in the final level of Dark Forces (um, 17 year-old SPOILER ALERT), you need to do three things to beat this guy:

1.) Make sure all your weapons are available and full of ammunition...and your health level is at 100%. (Duh.)

2.) Madly fire your guns at the Dark Trooper while simultaneously running around the chamber the Trooper trapped you and himself in. He unleashes a swarm of missiles that will follow you around the room.

And

3.) Possibly use cheat codes.

That is all.

Duality... Check out this awesome Star Wars fan-film that was posted online more than 10 years ago. The music was changed for this Youtube version (the original video borrowed its score from The Phantom Menace), but the awesome lightsaber battle with its visual and sound effects remain unchanged. As mentioned in this earlier entry, Duality is a perfect example of Star Wars fans treating this science fantasy franchise with the utmost respect...

84th Annual Academy Award Nominations... Not surprisingly, Jonah Hill got a Best Supporting Actor nod for his role as an Oakland Athletics numbers-cruncher in Moneyball. Former co-stars Michael Cera and Seth Rogen are either happy for him or fuming right now. As for Moneyball (which landed Brad Pitt another Best Actor nomination), it turns out this baseball biopic is the only film out of the nine Best Picture nominees that I saw at the theater. I'll possibly watch War Horse, The Descendants and/or Hugo at the cineplex before the Oscars air on TV next month. Other highlights from today's announcement include Rooney Mara getting a Best Actress nomination for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (which was as disturbing as The Social Network was insightful about Facebook's creation... Kudos, David Fincher) and Gary Oldman a Best Actor nod for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. If Gary Oldman ends up winning the gold, this would be the second time in two years a major cast member from Christopher Nolan's Batman films takes home the statue from the Academy Awards. Christian Bale was recognized as Best Supporting Actor last year for his role in 2010's The Fighter.



In terms of the technical categories, Transformers: Dark of the Moon earned the same amount of nominations that the first Transformers film received in 2008, and two more than what Revenge of the Fallen received in 2010. Like TF1, Dark of the Moon earned nods in Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects. (Revenge of the Fallen was only recognized for Visual Effects, which was eventually awarded to James Cameron's Avatar.) Of course, if it's anything like TF1 at the 2008 Oscars, Dark of the Moon will lose out in all three categories...most likely to Hugo or War Horse for Sound Editing and Design, and maybe Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 2 or Hugo for Visual Effects. Since Hugo is leading all 2012 contenders with 11 nominations, I say that this Martin Scorsese flick will be the one that usurps Dark of the Moon at the Kodak Theatre on February 26...thus completing the trifecta of disappointment for the Transformers movie franchise at the Academy Awards, and becoming the second 3-D film since Avatar to dominate the Oscars (despite the fact The Hurt Locker won Best Picture instead of James Cameron's sci-fi epic in 2010). For those of you who'd wish this 3-D fad would just go away, Hugo probably made that even unlikelier. Carry on.

Red Tails... I saw the film earlier today, and it was pretty entertaining. Overlooking the historic racial aspects of its storyline, Red Tails is what 2001's Pearl Harbor should've been if it wasn't deliberately treated as Titanic set during World War II (and if you briefly set aside the obvious calamity that took place at the U.S. naval base). The movie, produced by George Lucas (who also directed some scenes during reshoots) and Rick McCallum (who produced the Star Wars prequels for Lucas), definitely wasn't perfect... The red-colored font (and even the design of the title itself) for the opening credits made it look like they were typed using Final Cut Pro (not that I have anything against FCP—I love this editing program), and it was pretty noticeable that Red Tails was shot with a digital camera. I'm a celluloid-lover, FYI. Leave the digital camera to TV sitcoms, thanks.



In terms of casting, Academy Award winner Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Oscar nominee Terrence Howard were respectable in Red Tails, and it was amusing to see Bryan Cranston (of TV's Malcolm in the Middle and Breaking Bad) play a racist U.S. Army brass in this flick. Never heard of Daniela Ruah until today, but she looked gorgeous playing the Italian love interest of hotshot pilot Joe "Lightning" Little (David Oyelowo). Ne-Yo, who I remember from last year's sci-fi film Battle: Los Angeles, played Andrew "Smoky" Salem. As for the rest of the cast, some of them look familiar but not familiar enough for me to mention in this review. Not to be rude or anything.



One last issue that I want to point out about Red Tails was the ending. Not to spoil it for those of you planning to see this flick, but I found it clunky: The Tuskegee Airmen were mourning the loss of one of their best pilots after a major sortie over Berlin, but suddenly cheered when another pilot—who had to bail from his damaged aircraft and was taken prisoner by Germans on the ground earlier in the film, and later presumed dead—abruptly showed up at the airbase to celebrate and declare a new random nickname for himself. Apparently, this guy didn't get the memo that a memorial for a fallen flyboy was taking place at the time. (This moment may have happened in real life, but still, it was clunky.) Anyways... Other than that, if you want to see awesome World War II aerial combat, then Red Tails is the movie for you. Industrial Light & Magic worked on the visual effects, so you can be sure that you'll be watching a lot of cool (computer-generated) dogfights in this action flick. Carry on.