Arrested Development movie happening this year

Or so says Jeffrey Tambor, otherwise know as George Bluth Senior.

The Arrested Development movie has been on the mouths (or fingertips) of movie bloggers for a while, and the reason why I haven't been posting updates is that the whole thing is so full of "he says, she says" that it seemed everything was hypothetical and it was just giving us AD fans false hopes.
Now, there still is no official confirmation as to the movie actually being MADE, but Jeffrey Tambor went on record to say that Michael Cera, the final cast member holding out, was in for the ride, and that being the case the movie is set to go forward. Except that there is no script yet or anything, but those are minor details. Head over to /film for more details on the whole thing.

I really hope the movie gets made, and that it is good. Even if I've been trying not to get my hopes up, I can't help but feel excited for it - Arrested Development was hilariously brilliant and I'd definitely want to see the whole disfunctional Bluth family together again. What are your feelings about the AD movie?

Current Readings

You may, or may not (depending on how well you know me or how long you've been reading this blog) know that, as well as a movie fan, I am a huge book fan. I love to read, I think it's wonderful to immerse yourself in a book and let your imagination run wild and your feelings be touched for a few days.
When I was younger, I used to juggle a lot of books at the same time, since I had a lot of time to read and got my hands on every new book I could. Nowadays, with less time, more responsibilities, and more ways to spend money, I don't read as much anymore. But recently, thanks to December being the month of gifts and thanks to my wonderful Cosmic who lends me so many books, I've been building a respectable stack of books on my bedside table.
And now you ask, what have I been reading? And what am I about to read? Well, don't go away, 'cause I'll tell you right now.

Comics-wise, this week started off awesome, as I read volume 2 of Scott Pilgrim, "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" and volume 6 of Invincible's trade paperbacks, "A Different World". Scott Pilgrim is still great, I enjoy the writing and the art so, so much, and one of the things I love the most about this book is the underlying nerdiness of it. A lot of things play out like it's a game - catching items, leveling up, learning skills, and it's pretty fresh and awesome. Invincible is one of my favorite books, I just wish I had more money because everytime I'm finished with one TPB I want to move on to the next one. Volume 6 had more of the usual twists and turns, hooking you even more into the story - Robert Kirkman sure know how to write - and more of the brilliant art Ryan Ottley got us used to. One of my favorite things about these TPB is the few pages of sketches and layouts at the end of the story, and this volume is no exception. Great stuff.

On other books, I'm almost finished with a wonderful book I'm reading courtesy of Cosmic. It's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer. This has to be one of my favorite books of the last few years, and I haven't even finished it yet. I just know that this book is making me feel so much, and I think it takes a brilliant writer to press the emotion buttons like that. I think the last book that touched me in a similar way was Blankets (that is, by the way, perfection in the shape of a graphic novel), although the book's subjects are very different. In this one, we follow Oskar, a 9-year old depressed inventor, astrophysicist, scientist and all around brilliant kid, on a quest to feel closer to his father, who died in the Twin Towers on 9/11. Oskar's journey makes his path intertwine with a lot other people, and brings us stories of joy, sadness, failure, hope, making for a heartbreaking but very sweet and moving book. Foer's writing is excellent, and I love his little experiments with images and typography. I'm close to finishing, but I really didn't want to - it's one of those books that's so great you just don't want it to end.

Fortunatelly, once I finish Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I have more reading material to pay attention to.

Also courtesy of Cosmic, I have Chuck Palahniuk's Choke. I'm pretty curious to read this one because I think that after Fight Club, it's Mr. Palahniuk's most famous work, and as such I'm eager to see what awaits me on those pages - besides, the movie's coming up and I want to be an informed reviewer when I see it.

One of my good friends also lent me Nightwatch, by russian writer Sergei Lukyanenko. I enjoyed the movie (I didn't see Daywatch, which I heard was pretty ridiculous), and books are almost always better than movies, so I'm bound to like this one (plus, the cover I have is not nearly this cheesy).

Last but not least, I have what was a birthday gift from some of my friends that I still couldn't find the time to start: A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin. The first of a series of 7 books, I'm also very curious to start reading this one. Seems to be in the same fantasy vein as Lord of the Rings (that I loved, back when I read it, a good bunch of years ago), and I miss reading quality literature of that kind (last books of the sort I read were Eragon and Eldest, and honestly I didn't think they were that good).

Did you read any of these books? What did you think of them?

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World fills up its cast

For those of you who don't know, Scott Pilgrim is a comic book series by canadian author Bryan Lee O'Malley, that revolves around the character of the same name.

"The series is about 23-year-old Canadian Scott Pilgrim, a slacker, hero, wannabe-rockstar, who is living in Toronto and playing bass in the band "Sex Bob-Omb." He falls in love with American delivery girl Ramona V. Flowers, but must defeat her seven "evil ex-boyfriends" in order to date her."

I just recently finished the first volume of the series and found it to be a very well-balanced mix of coolness, nerdyness, and wittiness. It was great and I can't wait to read more volumes. Now that I read some Scott Pilgrim, I feel a little more excited to see a movie about it - especially directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz).

As fas as casting goes, Michael Cera ("Juno", "Arrested Development") has been attached to play Scott for a while, and I don't really see him as such. He's really gonna have to break out of his awkward-kid shell to be Scott, because Scott Pilgrim is geeky, yes - but cool, self-assured and a rocker at that. We'll see.
Kieran Culkin will be Wallace Wells (Scott's roommate) Mary Elizabeth Winstead will play Ramona Flowers (Scott's love interest); Ellen Wong will be Knives Chau (Scott's girlfriend at the time he met Ramona Flowers) plus Chris Evans and Brandon Routh will both play two of Ramona's evil ex-boyfriends.

It's a diverse casting, and I hope it works so we'll see a great movie later on this year.
While we're at it, I recommend you read the comic... the art is great, and the writing is very clever and witty. Give it a chance!

Chocolate

No, not the one with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche.

Chocolate is a movie directed by Prachya Pinkaew (the same guy we have to thank for making Ong Bak) about an autistic girl with a penchant for martial arts. It may sound ridiculous, but look at the trailer. Just look, I tell you!

It's all mellow, and lifetimey, till about 1:15 minutes in, and then she starts kicking and elbowing anything that moves and letting the bodies it the floor.

And even if it wasn't awesome, I think the publicity lines alone would make me want to see it: "A special needs girl with a special need to kick ass"? If that isn't poetry, I don't know what is.

Portuguese only - Fantasporto

O Fantasporto está quase aí, e, se forem como eu, hão-de querer saber que filmes catitas vão passar por lá este ano. Pois bem, a programação provisória dos Auditórios do Rivoli já está online e podem vê-la aqui (para o Grande) e aqui (para o pequeno).
Ainda tenho de as investigar com mais atenção, mas posso já dizer que me saltaram de imediato dois filmes para ver: Choke... e Tokyo Gore Police. A sério, olhem para este trailer.

Espero que seja tudo o que o badalado Machine Girl não foi.

Crank (2006)

After watching the trailer for Crank 2 and nearly cracking up with the ridiculous concept of the movie and the gratuitous violence and cussing it promised, I realized it was a huge flaw on my bad movie fan resumée that I never watched the first Crank. I've always heard a lot about it, so why had I not seen it yet? It was time to finally give Crank a chance, so last night me and Cosmic prepared ourselves for some brainless fun and popped in Crank.

The makers of Crank found the golden ticket for being able to inject a movie full of senseless violence and thrills, and at the same time have no one question what happens. The story revolves aound a hitman called Chev Chelios, who finds out he's been injected with some crazy Chinese poison that slows his heartrate and will ultimately kill him... unless he keeps his adrenaline pumping at extremely high levels. That explains all that needs to be explained in his movie: why is Chelios driving high-speed through a mall? Why, he can't stop the adrenaline. Why is Chelios standing bare-assed on top of a moving police motorcycle? Obviously, to keep his heart rate has high as possible. There's a lot of crazy stuff going on in this movie, but that's all the explaining you need: Chelios is trying to stop death.

Jason Statham does what he does best, which his punch guys in the mouth/shooting guys in the head while looking crazy as all hell and swearing his mouth off. He does pratically the same part in all of his movies, but no one expects him to be Daniel Day-Lewis. As long as he's punching dudes, it's alright. The pace of the movie is as fast as Chelios needs his heart to be - it never slows down. The story is pretty unexistant, but who would see Crank for the story anyway? The editing was actually pretty nifty, superior to what one would expect to see on such a brainless action flick.

All in all, Crank is like GTA embodied in a movie: fast-paced, violent, insane and hilarious. I was laughing for the most part of the movie at how crazy and ridiculous everything was - but entertaining at the same time. It was a cool action movie, and a great pick for a brainless Friday night.

Also, since I already knew about Crank 2, the ending failed to surprise me. But I wasn't in it for the story anyway.

Keanu Reeves to be Spike Spiegel

And because the world isn't made of good news, I came to know this morning that Keanu Reeves will be playing Spike on FOX's live action adaptation of the anime Cowboy Bebop. The same FOX who is doing such a lovely work with the Dragon Ball adaptation. The same cardboard Keanu Reeves we're used to.

Now, while I think the anime is a little easier to adapt to live action than Dragon Ball, and thus less prone to ridiculous cheesy dialogue (especially because the anime was richer story-wise than DB) and wire-fights, I don't really believe they'll do a good job (I mean, FOX has such a record of ruining stuff that's good, it's hard to trust them anymore). Plus, I think Keanu Reeves as Spike is just downright bad casting. Bad news, overall - I think they should leave Cowboy Bebop well enough alone.

"Watchmen" is safe!

Fellow geeks, its time for us to release a collective sigh of relief, because our main movie for 2009 is safe and sound. Fox and Warner reached an agreement over the Watchmen case yesterday, which means that the release date of March 6th is secured. It's only a couple of months away and I can't express my joy - now if you'll escuse me, I'll be jumping up and down in my bed, squeaking "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" for a few hours.

Sex Panther now for sale!

Not specific movie news, but it's something movie related. And related to one of my favorite comedies, of all things!

Good news for all you Anchorman fans and bad news for anyone with a sharp olfactory sense: there's a real Sex Panther cologne now for sale! If you want to wave 30 bucks out of your wallet, go here to purchase. But be warned: Sex Panther is a manly cologne, and you must not dare wear it if you're not manly, or don't have a moustache.

Those of you who've seen Anchorman clealy know what I'm talking about, but to those of you who don't I say: boooo. You should see Anchorman. But, kind as I am, I leave you with a video of Sex Panther in action. Enjoy!

(hopefully the subject of today's post will get a lot of hits on this blog muahaha)

Steven Seagal + Vampires = Awesome (or maybe not)

Just in case you were wondering what straight-to-DVD flick is Steven Seagal starring in these days, I've got the answer for you. It's called Against the Dark and it is, of all things, a vampire movie - imagine that! Steven Seagal trying to emulate Wesley Snipes and approaching the subject of vampire killing. The plot goes like this:

"Katana master Tao (Steven Seagal) leads a special ops squad of ex-military vigilantes on a massacre mission, their target: vampires. On the post apocalyptic globe, sucked dry by bloodthirsty vampires, a few remaining survivors are trapped in an infected hospital. Tao is their only hope and he knows the only cure is execution. Now it's time for the last stand against the flesh-eating vampires and there's nothing left to lose but the last of humanity. "

Flesh-eating vampires? Aren't vampires only supposed to drink blood? Or is this some weird zombie-vampire mash-up?
Anyway, call me old-fashioned, but I'm not that much into vampire movies where people are shooting bazookas or something like that at the vampires (I prefer the old "stake through the heart" thing), but this has Steven Seagal, the greatest actor alive, and I definitely want to see him portray his long range of emotions while offing some bloodsuckers. I'm going to get my hands on this puppy, because it's going to be cheeseballin' awesome .

Yep, you guessed it - another Watchmen Post

My computer is back, and consequently I am back to blogging. I apologize for not even wishing you guys a Happy New Year, but I really just wanted to post that featurette quickly and before I forgot to do it, because I wasn't even on my computer. That being said, I hope you had a lot of fun and didn't throw up (too much).

Also, sorry about the flop that was my Christmas-songs-a-palooza thing, but I failed to find most of the songs available to embed. You didn't want to listen to them anyway, but who knows, maybe next year I'll get more than two songs in here.

Now! Time for a new post. And about what could it be? Watchmen, of course. And what could be geekier than anything Watchmen related? Well, if it's JAPAN related as well! Huzza! Well, here you have the Watchmen japanese trailer, that has some new footage, so make sure your geek friends don't get too ahead of you and watch this already.

Quick post - Watchmen Featurette

My computer is, once again, momentarily absent, but I couldn't resist sharing this with you.



I just hope the recent lawsuit deal doesn't hold back the opening too much... I want to see this movie so bad. Don't screw with us, FOX!