Fuck I love Halloween

And I love just watching random shit around Halloween that can otherwise not be justified as a solid investment of time. Case in point: It's 12:30AM, I just finished my night shift at work. I flip on the TV and cruise my movie package for something, anything in a horror variety that happens to be starting at 12:30AM. Only one movie fits the description, so I watch it... Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight. Cool. I had seen Bordello Of Blood, but never Demon Knight, and its the perfect excuse to take in a trivial horror release from the '90's but it's cool in a completionist sense because I am a big fan of the series and had seen the only other Tales From The Crypt feature film. Afterwards I'm finishing a beer and smoking a little, knowing I'll pass out soon so no big investment on starting a movie I don't plan to finish, and the first horror flick I see On Demand, for free, and in HD is Bride Of Chucky. I appreciate the first three but never liked the later sequels much, as I remembered from when the originally released. But the first 15 minutes of this shit is pretty cool to be randomly watching on Halloween night. We learn about Chucky's psycho girlfriend from pre-doll/serial murderer era and she does some voodoo shit to resurrect him, he pulls the lipring out of some goth dudes face and blood starts pouring out the dude's face. Solid stuff and I feel obligation-free as far as voiding the rest of the movie and going to sleep 30 minutes in with no plans to finish or restart later. Halloween is badass.

Tomorrow my real shit will be more selective. We'll wake up early and go see the screening of Rosemary's Baby at theater. Then we'll carve pumpkins, grab some lunch, and then in the afternoon start my Cale-selected night of Halloween programming. I'll replay holiday favorites from our childhood like It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (as I missed the recent network presentation due to work) and the Garfield halloween special I used to love as a kid. The one where Garfield goes as a pirate and there's that creepy ghost. I also plan to screen the unaired Munsters pilot, and a still-TBA horror film, and a Greg Nicotero FX featurette or two leading up to the 90-minute debut of Frank Darabont & Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead on AMC (with FX provided of course by Greg Nicotero and KNB).

I'm pretty big on Halloween. Shout out to Modern Family for having a tight halloween episode this year.

The Dark Knight Rises

Yes, Chris Nolan has confirmed the name of Summer 2012's Batman 3. He also eliminated Edward Nigma from the possible villians list. I'm placing all bets on a 2-villian storyline with Two-Face returning (people who feel he is plainly dead at the end of TDK really confuse me. We see no body, just a casket being lowered. And Dent's final coin toss lands heads-up. Even in the theater I took it as Batman and Gordon deciding the city would benefit from BELIEVING their hero to be dead... instead of transformed into a monster) and a second villian played by the recently-cast Tom Hardy. Judging from his build and the revealed shooting location of New Orleans I am betting on Killer Croc. That would be fucking awesome, because it would be the first instance in the entire trilogy to veer Nolan's take on Batman from a dedicated realism into more actually COMIC BOOK territory. That one thing is what could seal the deal for me. He won't get another Ledger performance from anyone, he won't find another villian as iconic to the canon as Joker, so the one thing he can provide to us is to finally give us a taste of pure comic book unreality. Go with the Return Of The Jedi approach and just make it funner. Also announced is it will be shot in IMAX and not 3D, which is the best choice on many levels, as it will be filmed the same way as the first two installments for the sake of consistency when watching the trilogy, and also the sharper image quality better suits Nolan's photo-centric directorial style (this is the same reason I wouldn't want to see a Mike Bay movie shot in 3D.)

So, yeah, fuck... Batman 3.

COME OONNNNNNNNNN TWO-FACE AND KILLER CROC, god I hope I'm right.

Brock Lesnar fight

Finally got around to watching that...daaaaaaamn. Valesquez was incredible, but I'll be rooting for Lesnar to come back in a big way. Despite his gigantic size I always feel like I'm rooting for the underdog with him, as he's no expert at anything. His NFL career is a prime example of how little of a difference size can make against expert skill and experience. When you think about it like that, and believe me UFC has become extremely sophisticated in its mechanics since its inception, it is pretty incredible that he has fought so well. He's no expert yet, but he has certainly been holding his own. Last week he just had the misfortune of going head to head with a fighter whose skill and experience were too much to compete with. He'll get better and better over time.

Darren Aronofsky + Tron Legacy

I don't know if it's a trailer or a music video, but I fuckin' love it. It's like the music video that Daft Punk couldn't afford to make. I wish this shit was 1080p so bad, I bet it's just awe-inspiring (particularly through a decent sound system). I couldn't see this particular Daft Punk track taking off as a single, but as the soundtrack to what you're looking at here it couldn't be more top notch. As a fun comparison, watch The Strokes' 12:51 video to wrap your head around music video production values, then watch this immediately afterward. Quality, baby.

And I have not brought up the Darren Aronofsky thing in this blog (which I only I read) because he is constantly attached to sweet-sounding projects that never come to fruition, but holy fuck it seems like Aronofsky really is going to direct Wolverine 2. How many times have you seen that in the history of a franchise... where the first movie is absolute shit, and then the second is a genre masterpiece before it even hits film? I can't think of a comparison. I still would prefer the now-cancelled Arofsky Robocop reboot, but I'll be fuckin' damned if this isn't some pretty damn good consolation material.

It's funny, I had stopped caring about Wolverine. The Chris Claremont/Jim Lee X-Men #1 was the comic that got started as a kid, and of course Wolverine was my favorite character at the time... Mark Texiera on the Wolverine solo book at the time really sealed the deal. Overtime, and especially after Bryan Singer's Wolverine-heavy X-Men films, I got Wolverine'd out. But I have to say, his incorporation into The Avengers (along with Spider-Man) is incredible. I love him in that book, because in the comic book equivalent of the 1992 USA Olympic Men's Basketball team...he just plays brilliantly as an equal character among the best of the best fan favorites. This Aronofsky movie is a great start to wooing me back.

Minority Report

It's funny, I caught this movie on HBO in an uncut 720p presentation tonight and I was enthralled. A movie I had seen originally as a pretentious 22-year-old, working at Hollywood Video the week it came out, and absolutely deplored it. Everything about it. Tom Cruise, Colin Farrel, 90's Spielberg (which I still mostly detest)... the whole package. Now, as a veteran couch potato whose earned his stripes watching movie after movie after movie day in and day out for the past few years, I find myself of the complete opposite opinion. The film is stunning to look out, expertly acted, terrific sci-fi narrative from one of the true masters of the genre... a pitch-perfect example of mature Hollywood cinema. It is in every way superior to both A.I. and War Of The Worlds... watching this movie I find it hard to believe The Beard coughed up the dreck that was Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. THAT Spielberg is lost to us, forever a part of the 80's... the Michael Jackson of cinema.

Fuck an R5

Shitty ass telecine transfers with cam audio tracks. No substition for a theatrical or DVD/Blu Ray... this is NOT how the filmmakers intended their films to be seen

Cars 2 Teaser

is up on apple.com/trailers in pitch-perfect 1080p. It shows next to nothing, but as far as microscopic teaser trailers for a movie almost an entire year away, I sure am happy about it.

In my mind it would be nigh impossible to top their opus Toy Stor 3, which for my money is the single best film released this year to date and has a 99% likelihood of remaining so. That being said, it is a smart move to follow up with this movie.

#1 - It continues their momentum of shifting back toward the Disney-styled family films that the company was originally known and loved for. Honestly, with Disney no longer making 2D family masterpieces (though I did love Princess And The Frog, but feat it was a one-off), Pixar is our best and only source of truly AFI quality animated family film.

#2 - This sets the expectations initially a little lower, as Cars remains one of Pixar's least-beloved films among adults (I personally love the film as it reminds me of my hometown... I believe many were turned off by the casting of Larry The Cable Guy, who does just fine). Therefore if they pull off an A+ film everyone will be pleasantly suprised

and...

#3 - This time they are in Eurasia and, although I've only seen concept art of an F1 car, I can only assume we will finally see those McLaren, Maybach, Lamborghini, Bugatti-calibur cars the end of the first film hinted at. Honestly, if you're making a beautifully animated film all about cars, SHOW US THE GOOD SHIT

I hope there are many other great movies to look forward to next summer, but I believe the big one will be 2012 with Joss Whedon's The Avengers and Chris Nolan's Batman 3 with also an obligatory Pixar offering to look forward to I'm betting... (Incredibles 2, Monsters Inc. 2, or Finding Nemo 2... I'll take ANY OF THE ABOVE)