I’ve been re-watching my complete collection DVD set of The Real Ghostbusters in the last few days. It looks brilliant on my HDTV. I’m hoping for a release of the late nineties series Extreme Ghostbusters on DVD sometime soon. It was one cartoon that didn’t get a fair shake, potentially because of the much darker subject matter of the series. The Real Ghostbusters rarely delved as deeply into dark topics. When it did, the good guys weren’t the ones doing it. Extreme Ghostbusters is fundamentally flawed in that regard, but in favor of a complete collection, I’d love to have it. Especially because the two parter Back in the Saddle brings all of the original Ghostbusters back for an adventure. Which leads me to the topic of this article.
Movies
A New Ghostbusters Cartoon – Coming Soon?
Monday, February 8th, 2010Turles Forever: A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Team-Up Dream Come True
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
Turtles Forever – The mere premise of it was mind-blowing. A feature length adventure featuring a team up of the TMNT team of the 80′s-early 90′s cartoon as well as the 90′s-early 00′s cartoon versions of the heroes. When I first heard about it, I couldn’t believe what I was reading was actually coming. Not only that, but I was surprised by just how soon it was going to be released! It was originally going to receive a theatrical screening, but plans for that fell through. Instead, it premiered on TV one Saturday morning.
There is no word of a DVD release yet, but the studio is working on it. It was created as a direct-to-DVD feature film, but since the rights to the TMNT have been sold to Nickelodeon, there are issues that need to be tied up.
Star Wars Prequel Reboot: Blog #1 – Foundations of Stone
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
This is the first of a series that I have not planned out, about an idea that I have had for some time, for how the Prequel Trilogy should have been formatted. This is something that I know that many people have their own ideas for, and I am curious to see what others think of my own ideas, as well as hopefully foster something positive with regard to the often hated and much maligned Star Wars prequels.
I should start by saying that I really like the prequels. In fact, I love those movies. I grew up watching the original trilogy and was absolutely beside myself when the prequels were announced and watched each film as they came out, ignoring as much as I could, the general public’s reaction to the films. I should also say that I have a very high tolerance for movies of varying degrees of quality. If you continue reading my blog, you’ll see that in what I write about. Especially if you look at the contents of my DVD collection, or my flixster movies list.
Ghostbusters 3: Ivan Reitman to Direct, and in 3-D?
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
Since I last wrote about Ghostbusters 3, there has been some major progress. First is that Ivan Reitman is going to return to the directors chair. This is a positive, in my book, even though his latest string of films has been somewhat of a string of horrible movies. A franchise like Ghostbusters is something that he won’t mess up. It’s not something that Sony would risk damaging, nor would anyone that wants to make it. Everyone is invested in making it right, and not forcing things just for the sake of making it. So, putting Reitman back in that position is the right move for the franchise. That way, the whole gang is back together for the last hurrah from the original team, and a young director isn’t going out of his way to prove himself to a fandom that has grown up.
The second piece of great information is that there is a complete first draft of the script for Ghostbusters 3. They’re now working on the second draft, and things are falling into place very well, according to Reitman. This is very promising, and I’m really hoping that it keeps moving forward. Seems pretty steady now, though. Sigourney Weaver said on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon that she was excited to read the script, and thinks it’ll be great fun!
The third big news is that there is some information that they’ll be filming Ghostbusters 3 in 3-D! The fact that the rumor even exists means that they’re definitely looking into it in a more serious fashion than just a “maybe.” That’s exciting. But what about the 3-D idea? Instead of talking about the advantages or disadvantages of everything coming in 3-D, what about the implications of a GHOSTBUSTERS film in 3-D? I can already see Slimer coming straight at the viewer and sliming the screen. The proton streams also would come at the screen, and likely the trap. These thoughts don’t really excite me. I’d rather they make the film as written, no 3-D gags that don’t translate to 2-D, and then make it artificially 3-D if they still feel it has value. This news came by way of MarketSaw: “Yes – I have word from one of my top sources that a friend of his at a certain well known effects house (I can’t say who it is, but their initials are ILM) said that GHOSTBUSTERS 3 is proceeding as planned – but – with the added benefit of stereoscopic 3D!”
All in all, very exciting news from the land of Ghostbusters
Michael Bay on Transformers 3, Haiti
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
Michael Bay is hard at work on Transformers 3, which is scheduled to go into active production this summer. I’m excited for it, although I have some hopes that after Michael Bay’s Transformers 3, Hasbro pulls a Spider-Man and reboots the series. I have a feeling that someone like J.J. Abrams would do a great job with it, though two of his writers were the primary writers of Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
The third film is written by the third part of the writing team from the second film. Alone. So who knows… Michael Bay fills us in on both the feel of the script for the third film, as well as his work to help out Haiti:
Hello everyone,
Busy scouting – Chicago, Detroit, and Washington D.C. for Transformers last week. Things are going well. The script is feeling very different from the other two. I ended my scout down in Miami this weekend to load my plane with 14 Florida Surgeons, specialists in various fields and flew them down to Haiti. We then returned with a planeload of a team of exhausted Miami Fire rescue. It is proving very difficult for these volunteers to get back home.
They say the news hardly gives the true scope of what really happened. They really feel about 500,000 probably died. One of the worst stories I heard from people down there – because of the huge lack of education in Haiti – when the earthquake struck – everyone ran inside buildings most likely to their graves. The state of Florida is really pulling their weight in this massive effort.
Michael
So, he’s scouted for locations in Chicago, Detroit and Washington D.C. Nice. I live about 3 1/2 hours from both Chicago and Detroit, so even though I don’t think I’ll have time, I’d love to try to be an extra in the film, if he settles on it. He did shoot in Detroit on the first film, and I think Washington D.C. Not sure about Chicago, though.
One thing that I really loved about it, though: “The script is feeling very different from the other two.” I hope this is different in a positive direction. For example: focus more on the robots. It’s called “Transformers.” Not “Humans, with special guests, the Transformers!” I have heard that they’re cutting it back to a movie about a boy and his robot, which is fine with me, so long as Bumblebee can speak this time around. I’m also hoping that they take the time to actually build up the Autobot characters as well as the Decepticons.
I’d also appreciate a less vulgar film than the second one. It’s based on toys for kids, it should be MARKETABLE toward kids. A film that full of innuendo, cursing and all that is not.
I have to hand it to Michael Bay for helping with Haiti, though, regardless of his sense of humor and swearing habits.
Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 Cancelled, Sony to Reboot Franchise: Boo!
Monday, January 11th, 2010
There are good ideas… there are plain, non-consequential ideas… then and then there are bad ideas. This doesn’t fall on that chart. This is off the charts. And I don’t mean that in a positive light. Sony has decided to dump the series that brought the superhero genre into the mainstream, and start from scratch. It’s not like Raimi failed at his job. He had the old gang getting back together for Spider-Man 4, and even John Malkovich was getting ready to join the cast. It seemed to be returning to the more simple formula of Spider-Man 2 (my favorite of the franchise). But here comes Sony, dashing those hopes with a single jesture, and causing tons of negative feedback all over the place.
Just look at the response to the story at comingsoon.net to see what I’m talking about. At the time of this writing, it was already 4 pages of Sony hate.
I have one question for Sony: was Ken Kutaragi really as crazy as the lines he said, or is everyone at Sony just as bad?
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My Most Anticipated Movies of December 2009: Avatar, Alvin and the Chipmunks 2, The Princess and the Frog, Sherlock Holmes
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009This month features the release of the long awaited James Cameron film, Avatar. I hope that it’s worth the wait, in the end. I’ve been telling my friends the only things I know about it for a long time: that James Cameron is inventing a new filming technique for it, and it’ll be like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 is more or less a possibility, whereas The Princess and the Frog is a new Disney Must-See! I’ve selected Sherlock Holmes based on the creative team alone.
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My Most Anticipated Movie of November 2009: A Christmas Carol
Sunday, November 1st, 2009This month has a movie that I selected on the creative team alone. A Christmas Carol. It’s going to be a long month, if it doesn’t pan out.
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Oswald the Lucky Rabbit returns in Epic Mickey!
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
I’ve been following whatever news I can about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit since the character was brought back to Disney for the first time since Walt Disney lost the character. You see, before Mickey Mouse existed, he had created the character of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and when he was fired from the animation studio that produced the cartoons, he left for California where he created Mickey Mouse. What happened next? Well, Mickey is one of the most recognizable characters in the world, and Oswald is not.
But now he’s making his return in a very inventive way.
My Most Anticipated Movies of October 2009: Toy Story (3D), Where the Wild Things Are
Thursday, October 1st, 2009This month, Pixar is finally re-releasing Toy Story in 3D. It’s the first wave in the re-introduction of the characters in a new format, as well as the promotional push for Toy Story 3, which comes out in 2010. Where the Wild Things Are also releases this month. Not looking forward to this one as much, but we’ll see!
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