King of the Nerds!!!

The Hobbit movies now officially have a director and the choice couldn’t have been more perfect: Guillermo del Toro. I can’t wait to see what he does with the series. His previous movies have shown a perfect combination of whimsy and psychosis and modeling The Hobbit in his trademark style could make it something truly disturbing (and awesome). I look forward to a very disturbing portrayal of Gollum.

Update from Mike:

I’m pretty excited.  I love the practical effects from Hellboy from the Hand of Doom design, the Samaritans and especially the work done on Kroenen.  I don’t know how much input del Toro had with the prop design but the thought of Jackson, del Toro, and Weta putting their heads together is a pleasing image.  The Balrog was amazing, I will have dreams of Smaug until the movie(s) are released (and will do my best to ignore any pre-release leaks/design shots).

Thoughts on who might play a young Bilbo?  I love Ian Holm’s performance from LotR; hopefully they’ll get someone of his caliber.

Some del Toro links:

Aintitcool post on the announcment.

Variety’s announcement.

del Toro’s IMDB page.

Solid del Toro fansite with pre-official annoucement coverage.

It’s been a big week on the evolution front. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is looming on the horizon, threatening to again paint our country as a bunch of backwards yokels who don’t understand a) the distinction between faith and science (and why one can’t substitute for the other), b) what a scientific theory is and why it’s different than a theory in everyday language, and c) that not all scientists are atheists but rather all scientists have to ignore faith in their experiments because it’s not a valid part of the scientific method. For those that don’t know what the movie is about, let me give you the tl;dr summary: “The Man” (referring to scientists here) is keeping creationists down and blackballing them. Plus evolution brought us Social Darwinism and the Holocaust, therefore it’s bad.

You might be tempted to think I was using hyperbole here to mock the film. Nope. They actually went so far as to edit Darwin’s writings to make it look like he approved of eugenics, despite the unedited paragraphs saying exactly the opposite. Expelled is just now filtering out to audiences that can actually analyze the movie’s content instead of just test audiences from the uber-right and the reviews have been predictably bad. Watch the movie (preferably by finding yourself a copy on BitTorrent) and understand that we live in a country where the teaching of evolution is threatened in numerous states, including right here in PA.

But it hasn’t been all bad for Darwin and his theory. He got his complete works put up online for all to see at no cost. There’s some great stuff on there, including original sketches from his time on the H.M.S. Beagle. Plus Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania just announced 2009 to be the Year of Evolution. Philadelphia is frequently mocked (sadly with good cause) for being low brow and a second-tier city, so it’s good to see the city take an active role on the front lines of an intellectual battle.

Well, Abrams and crew might have their first, and likely best, “soundbyte” on Cloverfield:

Like SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, but instead of Nazis it’s a giant monster.

Read the rest of the review here:
Harry knows what CLOVERFIELD is — Aint It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

Just watched one of my favorite movies, Volcano High, tonight.  If you’ve ever been a fan of anime, or even kinda sorta enjoyed and episode of Dragonball Z than you should probably watch this movie. Read more »

OK, if you have any interest at in seeing the Rodriguez/Tarrentino double-feature Grindhouse than you need to read this review. I promise it isn’t nearly as disturbing as my previously posted link to Harry Knowle’s opinion about the cheerleader.

Watching one of the greatest achievments of cinematic perfection ever….Transformers: The Movie. So many awesome moments, such a great soundtrack. Optimus as he arrives back on earth “Megatron must be stopped…no matter the cost,” that line never fails to send chills down my spine.

“Coronation Starscream!? This is bad comedy.” -Galvatron

“When do we start bustin’ deceptachops!” -Ironhide

“Who you callin’ unchrasimatic!” -Rumble

“Such heroic nonsense!” -Megatron

The amount of violence in the film is surprising as well. The slaughter of the autobots on the shuttle is particularly vicious. The heaped bodies during the siege of Autobot City. i know they’re robots but a film with a as much human destruction would never have squeaked by with a PG rating. Anyhoo if you remember Transformers with any fondness, or are just lookin’ for a fun summer sci-fi flick pop over to your local video store, or check out netflix, for TFTM.

Apparently the crew is keeping a video journal of the film making process check ‘em out over at http://www.clerks2.com/