John Carter hits the big screen

John Carter hits theaters March 9 (this Friday) and looks like a promising action adventure film. It is based on a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars. Burroughs is most known for creating the Tarzan character, but he also wrote many science fiction and fantasy stories some of which have been made into movies. John Carter was another popular character that he created. Another film based on the same novel which kept the original name, Princess of Mars, was recently released directly to DVD in 2009 and starred Antonio Sabato Jr. as the hero. The new film by Disney looks like it will be very entertaining, and I'm going to check my local library for the original books. Willem Dafoe stated in an interview recently that there would have been no Star Wars or Avatar had it not been for the John Carter stories. I am interested to read a series that apparently is one of the grandfathers of modern science fiction, so I'll have to check it out.




John Carter has appeared in several books by Burroughs, as well as short stories, comic books, and comic strips. The film's producers have released a sneak peek of the film on the Internet Movie Database, and a making of video which you can get to here.




While some aspects of this movie remind me a little of Star Wars Episode II and the mediocre Conan remake from last summer, I recognize that it comes from rich original source material by a master of science fiction. Still, that arena scene looks like the second bout on the fight card in Star Wars land. I can imagine the dialogue. "Hey after they kill the Jedi's, there killing a Conan look alike and a green thing, we should stick around man." The special effects look superb so far, so maybe the same masters of digital magic created them. Sadly, this film will not feature Jar-Jar's death in any way that I am aware of. Yeah, I know it's cheap to take a stab at Jar-Jar but after the release of Star Wars Episode One in theaters again, I can't help it. I can say John Carter looks like an entertaining flick drawn from great source material, and I'm planning on seeing it. Still high on my list is The Grey, an interesting film about Liam Neeson taking on a pack of wolves. I think a double feature might be in order my next day off. Yeah, I'll see Episode One in theaters again if it's still out there.

The Novel A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the last film version Princess of Mars are available for purchase at Amazon.com. Below I have included a sneak peak of the film made available by Disney. Enjoy!

Hobbit, Expendables 2 and Jack the Giant Killer

It's here; the official trailer for The Hobbit which comes out this December. For everyone who was not paying attention to movies for the last decade, The Hobbit is the prequel to the Lord of the Rings films. The novel by J.R.R. Tolkien leads into the next three books, each of which where made into films. Ian Mckellen is back as Gandolf, and Peter Jackson is back in the director's chair. I don't have much to say about this one other than the fans can't wait. For the rest of you rolling your eyes; go away! It's a million dollar movie franchise, so deal with it! I will commit the cardinal sin of internet marketing and say take your hits and explorations with you (only computer uber-geeks get that joke).




Do I call them, or do I call them? Last summer I speculated if Arnold Schwarzenegger would return to movies after the end of his political carrier and ugly divorce with his former wife Maria Shriver. Well, after the success of the high octane Expendables, in which Arnold had a cameo, he will return for possibly a bigger role in the film's sequel Expendables 2. The next film will feature an even longer list of action adventure legends and new stars including Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Jean Claude Van Damme, Randy Couture (a surprisingly good actor), Jason Statham, Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren. Strangely, Yu Nan will join the crew as the first female expendable over the obvious choice, the pseudo famous Maggie Q of the fourth Die Hard movie, Naked Weapon, Priest and Balls of Fury. Yu's character will, interestingly enough, be named Maggie. I wonder if Miss Q backed out of a contract? Enjoy the trailer below.



So, on to an interesting new version of Jack and The Beanstalk. Yes, it does look good just watch the trailer below. Jack the Giant Killer is the name of a film coming out soon directed by Bryan Singer of the X-Men films. A relatively unknown film named Jack the Giant Killer was made in 1962, and it's unclear if this seeks to be both a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk and a remake of that film, or to capitalize on a cult following of that movie with the title. The original Jack the Giant Killer featured then impressive stop motion effects, and seemed to copy the style of the legendary fantasy films of Ray Harryhausen. The original film starred Kerwin Matthews as Jack, whom had played Sinbad in Harryhausen's hit The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.




Expendables is available for purchase at Amazon.com, as is the original Jack the Giant Killer. Jack the Giant Killer in it's day was clearly made to capitalize on the success of The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. While that film is clearly superior, Jack is not a bad vintage movie with some clear downfalls. Some versions of it on television have really hammy songs cut into it though, making it a sadly laughable movie. I rented a DVD of it years ago from the public library sans crappy music years ago. As far as I know, The film that is available on DVD has no songs in it, so the film is left alone in it's slightly respectable integrity. The ironic thing is that with The Lord of the Rings franchise, Hollywood has turned to fantasy to increase it's bank account, and ended up with Jack the Giant Killer as they run out of ideas (eh, we remade Clash of the Titans and Conan, Tolkien stuff is gone what's next)?

Also as a reminder, please no concerned phone calls from friends and family about me blogging about Jack the Giant Killer. You all know I am happy and well beyond help.