Image of the Day... I recently stumbled upon the illustration above at an art store inside my local mall. Cool artwork...though I'm wondering why it features the Batsuit from The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises but uses the monorail and stylized architecture of Gotham City from Batman Begins in the background. I guess the artist obviously wanted to combine elements from all three Christopher Nolan films in this piece. Makes sense.

Dredd 3D... I saw the reboot of the 1995 Sylvester Stallone sci-fi action film yesterday, and one thing I need to ask is, was Stallone this badass in the original Judge Dredd? Dredd 3D has Karl Urban (from 2009's Star Trek) as the one-man judge, jury and executioner...but unlike Stallone in the original flick, Urban's identity is concealed by the large, Boba Fett-like helmet for the entire film. And while Stallone's version of "I am the law" sounded funny enough for co-star Rob Schneider to ridicule onscreen in Judge Dredd, Urban's utterance of that line is not to be taken lightly in this new film—especially when he already has his multipurpose automatic rifle in hand. As for Dredd 3D's main villain, Lena Headey (from 300 and the defunct FOX TV show, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) is interesting as the scarred, drugged-out gang leader, Ma-Ma. In fact, Headey is so relentless as Ma-Ma that the final scene between her and Dredd is rewarding because he hands her the verdict and punishment that she so thoroughly deserves. Urban's co-star Olivia Thirlby, who plays the telepathic judge named Anderson, kicks ass once things really start to heat up inside the Peach Trees apartment structure where she and Dredd are trapped by Ma-Ma's gang. I'd say more about this but I don't want to spoil the movie for y'all.



All-in-all, Dredd 3D is an entertaining flick. The 3-D itself is pretty awesome...especially during scenes where Ma-Ma and/or her gang inhale a drug, called Slo-Mo, that gives off the effect of (you guessed it) time slowing down. In one particular scene, Ma-Ma's thugs force a couple of victims to inhale Slo-Mo just before they're thrown off a balcony dozens of stories above the ground. The 3-D plays well as we get a P.O.V. shot from one of the victims as he slowly falls to his death. This is a horrible way to bite the dust in real life, but onscreen, it looked really cool. In terms of Dredd being a reboot, I hope that next year's version of RoboCop and even Starship Troopers will be as interesting as Dredd is. I never saw the new Total Recall, but based on how it fared at the box office this summer, it's safe to say that it didn't live up to Ah-nold's original 1990 flick. Carry on.

© 2012 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey... Check out the newest trailer to the first installment of The Lord of the Rings' prequel trilogy. Originally, there were only supposed to be two films for The Hobbit, with There and Back Again being released in cinemas on December 13, 2013. With the recent addition of a third flick, however, There and Back Again will be shown at theaters in 2014, while The Desolation of Smaug will be released next year.

It's not a surprise that Peter Jackson is going back to the movies that made him the Oscar-winning director he is today. George Lucas obviously returned to the Star Wars saga 16 years after the release of Return of the Jedi with The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith...while Michael Bay will be back to helm a fourth Transformers flick after his first three films did stellar business at the box office in 2007, 2009 and 2011, respectively. And of course, Steven Spielberg and Lucas returned to the Indiana Jones series with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and an upcoming fifth installment. Along with the first two Star Wars prequels, however, I don't think the new Indy flicks are very good examples of why filmmakers should go back to the movie franchises that help boost their careers. Oh well.

The Iron Dark Knight... Ironically, this is probably how Azrael-Batman would look if Christopher Nolan actually featured him in any of the Dark Knight movies. Much more ironic is the fact that if the person who created the cool illustration below didn't tamper with Iron Man's red and gold color, the Iron Dark Knight would look even more similar to the Bat Who Broke The Man Who Broke The Bat (that would be Azrael defeating Bane, who in turn broke Bruce Wayne's— You know the story if you watched The Dark Knight Rises) in the Knightfall, Knightquest and KnightsEnd comic book series. That is all.

Lawless... I saw the gangster drama two days ago, and I must say, Tom Hardy has nine lives! (I'll resist the urge to lamely joke that he should've played Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises because of this.) Lawless is based on a true story, but I think it's safe to point out that the filmmaker (John Hillcoat) embellished the moments where the outlaw named Forrest Bondurant, who's played by Hardy, came so close to death in the movie. Shia LaBeouf, who plays Jack, Forrest's brother, did a good job portraying the young naive sibling who strives for greatness—even if it's as a bootlegging criminal during the Prohibition Era—after he witnesses a mob hit committed by the ruthless gangster Floyd Banner, portrayed by Gary Oldman. Kinda weird to see Oldman in a villainous role once again after playing Commissioner James Gordon in The Dark Knight trilogy, but it was awesome (though seldom) to see him weld a Tommy Gun as he nonchalantly laid waste to enemies in nondescript Virginia locales. Guy Pearce was cool as special agent Charlie Rakes, who kicks ass before taking names...even if he does wear a bow tie while trying to lay down the law. Mia Wasikowska, who played Alice in Tim Burton's 2010 version of Alice in Wonderland, was constrained (appropriately so) but lovely as the preacher's daughter named Bertha Minnix. Jessica Chastain, in contrast, was all-out seductive as Maggie Beauford, a dancer from Chicago who wants to find some peace and quiet in a small forest town. Just ask Forrest Bondurant.



Film critics have pointed out that cinematography-wise, Lawless is visually bland. And I agree with them. From the looks of it, the movie was shot digitally, since it looks nowhere near as crisp as another mob flick like say, 2007's American Gangster (directed by Ridley Scott and featuring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe). Or The Godfather. Definitely not like The Godfather. Or even Scarface. But you get the idea... Carry on.

Michael Clarke Duncan (1957-2012)... I admit that I never saw Green Mile, but I did see Armageddon, Daredevil, 2001's Planet of the Apes, The Scorpion King, The Island, Sin City and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby at the theater. It was Green Mile that Mr. Duncan received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor back in 1999, but he was cool, hilarious and/or intimidating (as intended) in the movies mentioned above. May Duncan Rest In Peace.

Courtesy of Unreality Magazine

$1 Billion... That's how much The Dark Knight Rises has made worldwide as of today. The actual box office gross is $1.005 billion...which is attributed to TDKR making $574 million internationally and $431.2 million domestically at the cinemas. TDKR is only the 13th flick in history to reach the 10-figure dollar mark. The Dark Knight made $533 million domestically and $469.7 million internationally back in 2008...giving Christopher Nolan's second Batman film a worldwide gross of $1.003 billion.

Speaking of The Dark Knight, here are three extremely cool pieces of artwork of the Joker that I found online. These illustrations are amazing...but it angers me that when I looked up 'The Joker' on Google, photos of the S.O.B. who shot up that Aurora, Colorado movie theater on July 20 shows up next to awesome pics of Heath Ledger in the role that won him a posthumous Oscar back in 2009. Pretty frustrating.


Courtesy of Iricolor's deviantART page


DC Comics - Lee Bermejo

Star Wars (3-D) Update... In case you haven't heard yet, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith will be theatrically re-released within 3 weeks of each other next year. Star Wars: Episode II will open in 3-D at cinemas nationwide on September 20, 2013, while Episode III will come out in 3rd dimension shortly thereafter on October 11, respectively.



Personally speaking, I'm not surprised that Lucasfilm is re-releasing the last two Star Wars prequels back-to-back on the same year (like what was done for the 1997 Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition). The Phantom Menace, whose visual effects were totally awesome to see on the big-screen again, in 3-D, last February, grossed only $43.5 million at the box office more than 6 months ago (while Disney's The Lion King made $94 million when it was re-released in 3-D last year)...and that can be attributed to the fact that Jar Jar Binks and the performances of most of the actors (specifically Jake Lloyd and unfortunately, Natalie Portman) in Episode I are as painful to watch now as they were back in 1999. And it doesn't help that Attack of the Clones is even more excruciating to watch than The Phantom Menace because of the bad romantic dialogue Lucas had Portman and Hayden Christensen say in the movie. It's almost safe to say that Attack of the Clones would've most decisively been a 3-D flop next year if Revenge of the Sith wasn't scheduled to immediately be re-released after it.



I'm definitely looking forward to seeing Episode III in 3rd dimension next year. The opening space battle above Coruscant... General Grievous confronting Obi-Wan Kenobi with 4 friggin' lightsabers, simultaneously, on Utapau... The Battle of Kashyyyk sequence... Darth Sidious and Yoda dukin' it out in the Galactic Senate chamber on Coruscant, while the epic lightsaber duel between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan takes place on Mustafar... Revenge of the Sith should hopefully be more welcomed than Episode I was when it returns to the big screen in 2013. Sith is, after all, the best film in the prequel trilogy. That's not saying much, but it's all good.

Image of the Day... I'm sure that some of you have already seen this meme (at least the version where Tony Stark is a bit more um, profane, in his proclamation as Iron Man) if you're a Facebook user— It just comes to show you how much of a bad-ass Stark is. Though the Hulk was also awesome in the movie, Iron Man is the superhero who really made The Avengers worth watching last May.

The Rocketeer...Remake? Last week, one of my friends posted a comment on Facebook about Walt Disney Studios planning to reboot The Rocketeer. There haven't been much details as to who Disney would tap to play the jetpack-strapped hero played by Billy Campbell (unless Campbell himself returns to the role of Cliff Secord, the film's protagonist), but I did read that Joe Johnston (who directed The Rocketeer and last year's Captain America: The First Avenger) wouldn't mind helming a sequel to the 1991 flop-turned-cult classic. Even though The Rocketeer didn't do well at the box office when it originally came out in theaters 21 years ago, I totally enjoyed the movie (I just finished 5th grade when it was released in June of '91... Not to show how old I am).



The sight of a red and gold-clad hero flying around Los Angeles on a jetpack is cool (though one might think that I'm talking about Iron Man here as well), and so is Timothy Dalton as the villainous Nazi agent (I'm aware that 'villainous Nazi' is an oxymoron, hah) Neville Sinclair. And Jennifer Connelly? Let's put it this say: I had a HUGE crush on Kim Basinger back when Tim Burton's first Batman movie was released in 1989. Basinger was promptly replaced as my dream girl when Connelly made her first appearance on-screen as Jenny when I watched The Rocketeer. Would I mind Connelly returning in the reboot, you ask? Of course not. Would be cool if she had a scene that was close to something you'd see in say, The Hot Spot, but this is a Disney film...so that's highly unlikely. One last thing I'd like to point out is that James Horner's film score for The Rocketeer is awesome. Seeing as how this is a reboot though, I wouldn't be surprised if Hans Zimmer composed the music for the would-be remake. Or Danny Elfman. Carry on.