Episode 8: “Yeah, I can’t believe it’s me either.”No, sadly this isn’t a video with The Muscles from Brussels and Mr Ponytail together, but if we’re lucky enough (and the actors are dumb enough willing) we just might well expect such a movie coming soon. Moviehole reports: 

“Van Damme vs. Seagal” is a spoof comedy making fun of action heroes Van Damme and Seagal, both living in the Hollywood hills jealously trying to make each others’ life miserable – until a real nuclear threat arises and forces them to combine their action hero powers. 

He continues though with: 

Alas – I’m guessing, but I think it’s pretty safe to say I’d be correct with my supposition – it won’t feature the real ‘Muscles for Brussels’ or the true Ponytailed Cook, but the film still sounds like it’ll be worth a look. 

I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that both actors might consider taking up these roles. Seriously, what better way to kick-start their already dead careers? And, it’s not as if they’ve never made fun of themselves before, right? Here, take a look at these commercials. The first is Steven Seagal for Mountain Dew, the second is JCVD for World of Warcraft. 

Last week it was confirmed that McG is officially signed on to direct the fourth Terminator, horribly named Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. I honestly don’t think McG is a good choice for this movie. Although I’ve only seen his Charlies Angels movies, I’m not sure his style would fit with this type of action movie (the last thing the Terminator franchise needs is more cheesiness).

I’m trying to figure out how this movie will fit in the storyline of the previous Terminator films and more importantly the Sarah Connor Chronicles (SCC) tv-series. SCC will already have trouble with the whole time travel conundrum, but <SPOILER ALERT> they’re kind of resetting it by jumping into the future </SPOILER ALERT>. So how will T4 deal with this? FirstShowing reports that the movie will be about this:

The story will focus on John Connor organizing the surviving humans to resist Skynet’s army of robots. It will take place after the apocalypse (the end of Terminator 3) and likely feature the “origin” story of terminators – “the first time a human looking robot is used to infiltrate the ranks of people.”

I love the premise of the movie; finally a future was ravaged Terminator world! But it still doesn’t clarify exactly how SCC will relate to this.

What’s really got me psyched about T4 (I should actually call it TS:TFB, but I adamantly refuse, it’s a horrid, horrid name) is the following news/rumour from Ain’t It Cool News:

Hey folk Harry here. Just got off the phone with an extremely trusted source who has never been wrong before. he revealed exclusively to AICN that in the upcoming McG reboot, TERMINATOR SALVATION: The Future Begins, that they have cast CHRISTIAN BALE as none other than JOHN CONNER. you folks know what that means…THIS IS GOING TO KICK ASS!!!

Wow! Christian Bale as John Connor? That could actually work! If this is true, then somehow in my mind this movie has no possibility of failing. The writing can be sucky, the directing can be crap, but as long as it’s got Christian Bale in it…swoon. I’m hoping though that it will be more than just a Christian Bale swoonfest; with all the right ingredients and preperation this could be a deliciously enjoyable movie.

Looking at the plot, I’m also wondering which other characters will be in the movie. Reese, perhaps? You know, the best friend of John Connor, who was sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor and ended up being his father? And, oh yeah, dies? That would give some great emotional conflict to the movie: “He’s my father! But he doesn’t know it yet! I have to send him back into time, otherwise I won’t exist! But I’m sending him to his doom! What to do! What to do!”

Here’s fingers crossed that McG won’t screw it up completely and that Christian Bale really has been cast in this!

When I was in highschool, Dragonball Z was immensely popular, especially under the “cool” non-geeky kids. In part, that is one of the reasons I never got into it; why bother myself with something everybody was already a fan of? It’s way geekier to like and know things about the things nobody else likes, right? Besides I’ve never really gotten the whole shifting hair colour thing anyway.

Skip forward to the present day where rumours about a Dragonball Z live action movie are slowly spreading. So what’s the scoop? Apparently Stephen Chow from Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer fame is producing the DBZ movie and James Wong (Final Destination) is directing it based on a script he wrote. Meaning cool writer/director/actor guy is this time only providing the money (=no real creative input) and the “genius” (please don’t overlook my sarcasm here) behind a teen horror movie with Death as the slice&dicer has all the reins of control.

Add to that mix, Justin Chatwin as Goku and James Marsters as the villain Piccolo and I’m not sure what to expect. To be honest, I’ve only seen Chatwin as Tom Cruise’s son in War of the Worlds and that entire movie was quite forgettable. Judging on looks only, he could pass for a Goku, I guess. James Marsters as Piccolo though worries me. Are they going to keep the white turban? As much as I love Spike, I’m not really sure how they are going to pull this off. Hell, I’m not even sure how they’re going to pull this entire movie off!

(Side note: Wouldn’t James Marsters and David Anders (Sark in Alias, Takeshi Kitano in Heroes) just be perfect as brothers? They both have that same bad-guy-you-hate-to-love-love-to-hate-have-to-have attitude.)

I haven’t seen much of the tv show, so I can’t really determine the wowness/bleghness of it all. To me though, Dragonball Z just doesn’t seem one of those cartoons that would be easily translated to the big screen. Any old fans out there?

The last week has brought a flurry of reports and rumours over the new JJ Abrams Star Trek remake, exciting and disgusting Trekkies everywhere. Although I’m not very confident this film will actually work, the amount of info leaking out of the set is worth reporting. You’d almost think it was deliberately orchestrated this way and knowing Abrams, it most probably is.

Firstly, there’s a casting call for extras, which will get the most enthusiastic Trekkies reaching for their costumes. They’re looking for:

Thin, regal talent who have BROWN or BLACK hair AND are OK with their eyebrows being shaved from the arch outward to portray a “Vulcan type” eyebrow shape.

Then, next to that, they’re looking for this:

Especially seeking talent with interesting and unique facial features, such as: long necks, small heads, extremely large heads, wide-set eyes, bug eyes, close-set eyes, large forehead, short upper lip, pronounced cheekbones, over or under sized ears and/or nose, facial deformities, ultra plain looking people, ultra perfect looking people, pure wholesome looks, twins, triplets, emaciated talent in addition to regally poised and postured talent.

Eh, so you have to look weird or completely perfect? By the way, I’ve never heard a casting call before looking for “emaciated talent”; they want people that are freakishly skinny? Or does “emaciated talent” mean “not that much talent”?

Next up, is the report that the role of Captain Pike has gone to Bruce Greenwood, an actor that has been in a LOT of movies, but in normal unmemorable roles. You know what I mean, right? It’s one of those guys that always plays the father figure or the senator/president or the husband, those roles that are needed in the movie, but won’t really impress anyone. This only strengthens my idea that Captain Pike will have a very limited part in the movie.

Now the rest of the news is at the moment still a bit fuzzy. For starters, Rachel Nichols, former Alias wannabe, has reported that she’s been cast in the remake, but doesn’t even know who her character is.

Rumours are that she’ll play Janice Rand, the other Star Trek girl, but there’s also some “evidence” that another actress has been cast in that role. /Film says that:

IESB received photos from the set (mostly extras outside of a warehouse studio covered up in parkas, nothing all too interesting), and one of the photos shows an actress who looks a lot like House star Jennifer Morrison. Is this Morrison (see IESB’s photo above), and if so, is she the new Janice Rand? We’re waiting on a confirmation.

Hmm, the photo does look a lot like her and we know that she now has blond hair in House.

Last but not least, comes the report that Winona Ryder will play Amanda Grayson, Spock’s human mother. But exactly what does this mean for the plot? i can’t believe that they would cast an actress for the mother almost just as old as the son. It somehow seems to me that there will be even more time travel in it then we originally thought, what with Leonard Nimoy also being cast Spock. My idea is that Spock travels at least twice back into the past, once when he’s a kid and once when he’s just graduated from the Academy. Or will it just be boring flashbacks? Either way, wanna bet they’re going to cast a young Spock now?

I was really gutted after Veronica Mars was canceled last year. I understand why though: the second and third season both failed to live up to the quality of that first season. Although the one liners and smart ass remarks from Veronica were always right on target, the storyline seemed to getter weaker per episode.

In a final attempt to convince the network of giving VM a new season, series creator Rob Thomas tried a complete different angle. The new season would skip a couple of years into the future, focusing on Veronica Mars as FBI agent. It sounded like it could work and after seeing the videos below, I’m really disappointed they didn’t give it a go. So take a look at Agent Mars:

By now you might have heard that JJ Abrams, the “mastermind” (/me rolls eyes) behind Alias, Lost and MI:3, is working on a remake of Star Trek and by now you might have realised that I don’t particularly like JJ Abrams. Yes, he does a pretty good job in creating interesting series (Alias, Lost), but his status as “mastermind” has launched a fervent following, blindly going to anything JJ has created (even though it sucks), and causing JJ to think he can do anything, which he can’t (MI:3 was okay, but not great). Instead of sticking with his creations, after a while he seems to get bored with them and jumps to another project, while those creations completely go under the moment he leaves.

Okay, so I’m not that big of a JJ Abrams fan, but the casting of Star Trek has got me more and more intrigued. First, it was reported a couple of months ago that Zachary Quinto (serial-killer power stealing Sylar in Heroes) would play Spock, but that Leonard Nimoy would aslo be coming back for that role. A couple weeks later Anton Yelchin was cast as the Russian Chekhov. Then it was announced that Zoe Saldana would play Uhura. Since then it remained remarkably silent, until two days ago. It was then revealed that Chris Pine would fill the gigantic shoes of William Shatner, taking on the role of Captain Kirk.

Apart from the Zachary Quinto casting, most of that news just left me cold (I don’t even know those actors). But looking at the pictures I understand why they where cast; all of them seem to have that same air as their predecessors.

Now with this next little bit of casting news that I heard this morning, my interest has really piqued: Simon Pegg has been cast as Scotty. Hmm, interesting and potentially brilliant. The thought of casting Pegg (Shaun of The Dead, Hot Fuzz) hadn’t even crossed my mind and I find it surprising that they even considered this. Wait a minute, I just realized I forgot Pegg was in MI:3, which (drumroll please!)… was directed by JJ Abrams. Okay, now the casting makes a bit more sense.

I’m still not sure how this movie is going to turn out, but casting-wise it’s seems on the right track. I’m hoping it’s not going to be the complete disaster my mind thinks it’s going to be. [Via FirstShowing and AICN]

Update: AICN just reported that John Cho from Harold and Kumar, Kitchen Confidential of Off Centre has been cast as Mr Sulu. I loved him in Kitchen Confidential!

Maybe you’ve already heard about this, but yesterday AICN reported that Shia LaBeouf disclosed the name of the fourth Indiana Jones movie: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Soon thereafter the official IndyIV website also confirmed it, so it’s not some weird rumour just floating about, but the real deal.

Now the title kindles some pretty nice speculation about the plot of the movie. I remember reading about the discovery of a crystal skull which was supposedly thousands and thousands years old and not carved with metal tools, but I’m not sure what part is just Big Foot-loving-Elvis-is-alive-believing-Alien-worshipping-paranormal bullshit and what part was actually real. It does fit right up the alley of the previous Indy films.

But what about the “Kingdom” part? Here’s my prediction: the Kingdom will be Atantis. It would fit, right? Indy searching for an advanced ancient civilization, because of a crystal skull he found with clues indicating to where it leads. Better yet: let’s also use some of the “original” story! The “real Indy” took his 17-year old daughter exploring some temple and she discovered the skull. So for the movie let’s have Indy’s son discover the skull!

But then I read this on FirstShowing.net:

The crystal skulls turn out to be alien skulls, underneath a Mayan or Aztec pyramid that takes off and thus reveals itself to be a mothership of sorts.

I hope this is not true; aliens will make it just too corny. Little grey men and flying saucers?!? Okay, for some movies it can work, but I don’t think IndyIV would be one of them. It could be just a internet rumour and I’ll continue to believe my only little prediction until I hear actual confirmation from the studio.

Ooh, just heard that this was just reported:

Joseph Fiennes, Stuart Townsend and Naomi Watts are the latest addition to the 6th Harry Potter movie “Half-Blood Prince”.

It isn’t known yet what roles they’ll be playing, but my new plaid pants has some good ideas about it. I can easily see Naomi Watts playing Narcissa Malfoy; she was the only suitable actress I could think of that would pull Narcissa off (kind of drawing a blank on young blond English actresses, some help people?). Joseph Fiennes, being the brother of Ralph Fiennes who plays dark and twisty Voldemort, should definitely get the part of one of Voldeemorg’s relatives (grandfather, father, uncle? how old were they all supposed to be?). I think Tom Riddle Sr. (his father); didn’t Voldemort look like him?

But Stuart Townsend? Who’s he supposed to be playing? I looked up which (male) characters appear in book 6 and haven’t made an appearance yet in any of the films:

Fenrir Greyback
Marvolo Gaunt
Morfin Gaunt
The Muggle Prime Minister
Tom Riddle Sr.
Rufus Scrimgeour
Horace Slughorn
Bill Weasley

My guess for Townsend is Bill Weasley; I can easily picture him with red hair and I’d think he’d fit in the Weasley family. There are still some big parts that haven’t been cast yet (namely professor Slughorn). So, who do you want to see cast in the movie?

After the successful Battlestar Galactica webisodes from last summer, the SciFi channel announced they are coming with two new sets of webisodes. The first will be a Farscape revival , which “will revive and expand the beloved “Farscape” universe”. I think this means that we shouldn’t expect any of the original characters reappearing, but I’m curious to see what they will come up with.

The second set of webisodes will be Battlestar Galactica related, focusing on William (Bill) Adama in his younger years as a pilot. Quite some time ago there were rumours about Caprica, a prequel to Battlestar Galactica, which would be “television’s first science fiction family saga”.

Now this was more then a year ago and due to the lack of further developments it’s likely that Caprica was shelved. However, these webisodes might be an adaption of those original ideas. If they turn out to be any good, they might consider looking into the Caprica series again.

I just watched Jonathan Ross (BBC interview show) and this time Bob Hoskins and JK Rowling were two of his guests. During his interview with Bob Hoskins, Jonathan mentioned it was weird Bob had never starred in any of the Harry Potter films. Bob then told about a previous encounter with JK Rowling, where she had promised to write a character for him. Cut to: JK Rowling who kind of cringed, clearly having forgotten that she had ever promised that. She did, however, say that there will be a new character in book 7: a older male wizard, which could be played by Bob Hoskins. This could be only useless interview prattle, but it might turn out to be an actual casting.

Update: I sent this same bit of info to AICN and they’ve actually posted it!