Spandex Movie Review

In the recent years I have noticed an influx in the production of comic-book adaptation movies (Superhero movies) or what I would like to call spandex movies. The reason behind the popularity of this genre in the recent years is the improvement of the movie special effects and computer generated images which this genre heavely relies on (at least that is what I think). Do you remember how lame superhero movies were in the 70s, 80s and early 90s were CGI wasn't that good which failed to manifest how superhero story should be presented as close as how comics are drawn?

In this post I will list the most important superhero movies produced in the past, the upcoming movies and the comic-books that are likely be adapted into movies in the near future. I will not talk about Radio and TV adaptations.

Page to screen, the history of most important comic-book adaptations:

1978: Christopher Reeves Immortalises Clark Kent in the first Superman movie

1982: Austrian body builder Arnold Schwarzeneger flexes in the film version of Conan The Barbarian

1984: Superman's cousin Kara flies high in Supergirl. Film falls to earth with a bump at the box ofice

1989: Michael Keaton is Burton's caped crusader in Batman alongside Nicolson's Joker

1992: Michelle Pefifer razor-sharp cheekbones and claws bring another iconic bat to life in Tim Burton's sequel Batman Returns. Flop sequels to come in 1995 and 1997

1995: Sly Stallone casts his authority in Judge Dredd

1997: Todd McFarlan's Spawn rages into cinemas

1998: Wesley Snipes helps to develop an 18-rated big screen adaptation of Marvel's half human, half vampire badass Blade

2000: First X-Men movie released with two sequels to come in 2003 and 2006

2002: First of Spiderman movies sees light and two sequels to come in 2004 and 2007

2003: Industrial Light and Magic spend over 2.5 hours to create the Hulk.

2003: Daredevil gets his own self titled movie with Ben Afflek playing blind superhero

2004: Ron Perlman makes a devlishly good Hellboy in Guillermo del Toro's film take with a sequel in 2008

2005: Sin City movie debuts with Tarantino as a guest director

2005: In a spin off Daredevil, ninja warrior Elektra gets her own film

2005: Batman reboots with a dark more realistic look in Batman Begins.The Joker returns in sequel movie The Dark Knight which hits screen in 2008

2005: Vertigo's comic book Hellblazer is turned into a movie and is named after the lead character Constantine

2006: Superman continues where he left off in Superman Returns.

2006: Alan Moore's work is adopted for the first time, his graphic novel V For Vendetta is turned into a movie

2006: Gerard Butler gets ripped for an adaptation of Frank Miller's 300

2007: Comic book superfan Nicolas Cage ironically has to cover his Ghost Rider tattoo to play antihero Johnny Blaze on screen

2007: superhero sequel Fantastic 4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer receives mixed reviews, but still receives $288m worldwide. I know I didn't post the first movie

2008: Speed Racer underwhelms at the box office

2008: Edward Norton reboots The Incredible Hulk after the failure of Eric Banna's movie

2008: Robert Downey Jr. is cast as playboy superhero in Iron Man with a 2010 sequel

2009: The story of Wolverine is told in X men Origins: Wolverine

2009: Alan Moore's other graphic novel Watchmen is adapted  to the big screen

2010: Josh Brolin drools throgh his cheek as a scarred gunslinger in flop Jonah Hex

2010: Another DC Vertigo comic book is adopted: The Losers

2010: First DC comic book movie adaptation not produced by Warner Bros. RED which stands for Retired, Extremly Dangerous

2011: The much anticipated Captain America: The first Avenger hits screens

2011: Ryan Reynolds dons the skintight superhero suit for the Green Lantern movie

2011: Second Avenger Thor hits screen

2011: X Men go back to origins in X Men: First Class

You can clearly see that over the years the gap narrows between superhero movie debuts, from one movie debut every few years to several movies in the same year.

Spandex movies coming soon, under production or under post production:

2011: Steven Spielberg uses performance capture to bring the Belgian boy detective to life in Tintin.

2012: Andrew Garfield will star as Peter Parker in franchise reboot: The Amazing Spiderman

2012: Hugh Jackman hits the screen again as The Wolverine which is the movie title

2012: Christian Bale is the first actor to done the bat suit for 3 times in the 3rd installment of the new look batman The Dark Knight Rises

2012: Nicolas Cage returns as Johnny Blaze once again after the crappy 2007 movie in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Nic kindly requests you to not call this movie a sequel

2012: The Avengers Director says that he is making the sequel to five of the last decade's biggest movies at the same time.

2013: Superman ditches the red briefs in the reboot movie Man Of Steel.

Spandex movies under pre-production and rumored future projects:

• Gravel
• The Boys
• Afro Samurai
• The Flash
• Akira
• Luke Cage
• SGT Rock
• The Goon
• Daredevil (reboot)
• Dan Dare
• The Crow (reboot)
• The Red Star
• Blood of The Innocent
• Shrapnel
• Bone
• Damaged
• Random Acts of Violence
• The Darkness
• Ant Man
• Sin City 2
• Holy Terror (Frank Miller's new graphic novel that talks about modern terrorism)
• Nemesis
• Battle Angel
• EARP: Saints for Sinners
• The Last Days Of American Crime
• Supercrooks
• Dana Valentine
• 300: Battle Of Artemisia
• Iron Fist
• Oblivion
• Black Panther
• Strike Force: Morituri
• Inhumans
• Iron Man3
• Deadpool
• Captain Planet
• Voltron
• Thor 2
• Justice League
• Batman (reboot since Christophar Nolan is leaving Batman after The Dark Knight Rises)
• Preacher

What the hell happened to?:

• Kick Ass 2
• Wonder Woman
• Wanted 2
• Aquaman
• Hawkman

Sources: Total Film Magazine and IMDB.com

Don't forget to follow me on twitter @bo_hamad82


33 things you propably didn't know about Toy Story

1. Toy Story 3 is the only Toy Story film not to receive a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It still however received a relatively high score of 99%.



2. The Pizza Planet delivery truck, which has appeared in every Pixar film except The Incredibles, also appeared in all three Toy Story films.
Toy Story


3. Pizza Planet was originally supposed to be called Pizza Putt, a combination pizzeria/mini-golf course.

4. In their most productive week during production, Pixar completed 3.5 minutes of animation.

5. Tim Allen and Pixar originally wanted Jim Carrey to voice Buzz Lightyear, but they couldn't due to the low budget they were given for the film.

6. Billy Crystal was originally offered the chance to voice Buzz Lightyear, but declined. After seeing the finished film, he said the decision was the biggest mistake of his career.

7. The movie was originally supposed to be called “You Are A Toy.”

8. Originally, the main character was going to be Tinny, the title character in Tin Toy (1988). In the movie he would have gotten lost during a family trip and joined up with a sarcastic ventriloquist dummy in a search of a home.

9. Buzz Lightyear's original name was Lunar Larry.

10. Mattel originally didn't want Barbie in the film because they thought the film would be a failure. They also didn't want Barbie to have a defined personality, preferring to let children imagine Barbie's personality traits on their own. When the film proved a huge success, Mattel allowed Barbie to appear in Toy Story 2.

11. Hasbro denied Pixar the use of the name GI Joe when it was informed that a GI Joe doll was going to be blown up by Sid. Pixar used army men instead.

12. For the original Toy Story, Tom Hanks recorded his dialog during the breaks of Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and A League of Their Own (1992). He didn't want to record his dialog during the breaks of Philadelphia (1993) or Forrest Gump (1994) because he felt he shouldn't do comedic roles in between minutes of playing serious roles.

13. The number “95” appears frequently throughout all 3 films. This is in reference to the year the original Toy Story was released, 1995.

14. Toy Story 2 was initially planned as an hour long sequel that would have premiered on home video.

15. The only Toy Story film to have full opening credits is Toy Story 1.

16. Many of the books on the shelf in Andy's room are names of Pixar's short films (Adventures of Andre and Wally B., Knick Knack, etc.) and some of the book author's are named after Pixar staff.

17. Pixar presented an early draft of the film to Disney on November 19, 1993. The result was disastrous. The film was deemed unwatchable. It presented Woody as a “sarcastic jerk” who was constantly insulting the other toys. Disney immediately shut down production pending a new script. The story team spent a week on a new script to make Woody a more likable character, instead of the “sarcastic jerk” he had been.

18. Little Bo Peep was originally supposed to be a Barbie doll.

19. The character of Andy is named for Andries “Andy” Van Dam, a Brown University Professor and computer science and animation pioneer who taught many of makers of this film.

20. Toy Story 3 is the first sequel to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar without any of its predecessors being nominated.

21. Toy Story 3 is also the first animated movie to make over $1 billion at the box office worldwide. It's the #5 highest grossing movie of all-time.

22. The license plate on Andy's mother's car reads “A 111” on the front and “A 113” on the rear. A111 and A113 are two rooms used by the animation department at CalArts - alma mater of a large number of Pixarians.

23. Toy Story was completed on a $30 million budget using a staff of 110. In comparison, The Lion King, released in 1994, required a budget of $45 million and a staff of 800.

24. Toy Story 2 was the first sequel for Tom Hanks and Tim Allen.

25. Toy Story 2 is the best reviewed movie of all time on Rotten Tomatoes. Toy Story 1 is number 4.

26. Toy Story 2 is one of three Disney movies to win a Golden Globe for Best Picture. The other two are Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.

27. The green three eyed aliens have a circled pizza (pepperoni and mushroom) on their fronts.

28. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen both confessed to crying at the part of Jessie's flashback sequence that shows her being rejected, and abandoned by her owner, set to “When She Loved Me” by Sarah McLachlan.

29. Barbie's blue workout outfit from Toy Story 3 is based on the 1984 “Great Shape” Barbie Doll. The Ken doll in the movie is modeled after “Animal Lovin” Ken from 1988.


30. The entire animation team shaved their heads prior to working on Toy Story 3.

31. The plot of the Toy Story 3 is loosely based on the original treatment for Toy Story, which had Tinny getting lost at a rest stop and being found by a junk man, who throws him into back of his truck. Tinny meets a ventriloquist dummy and they both decide to stick together. But in the end they end up in a preschool where they'll never get lost or outgrown. Tinny can be seen on the cover of a magazine in one scene in Toy Story 3.

32. Blake Clark became the new voice of Slinky Dog, replacing Jim Varney, who died in 2000. Clark was good friends with Varney prior to his death.

33. The original Toy Story is the first fully computer-generated full-length feature film.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The Social Network

(Spoiler alert: if you haven't watched the movie and intended to, don't read this blog now)

Last night I watched The Social Network movie and I was impressed how an asshole Mark Zuckerberg is and how he basically stole an idea from a couple of his Harvard coleagues and then back stabbed the co-founder of his website.

It is amazing how succesful a product is when it touches a human psychology. Human beings are social creatures and what Mark has created satisfys this instict.

I never rely on movies with true stories as a source of information so I did little digging on the accuracy of the movie and here is what I found on wikipedia:

Disputed accuracy

Author Jeff Jarvis, of the forthcoming book Public Parts, interviewed Zuckerberg and believes Sorkin has made too much of the story up. He states, "That's what the internet is accused of doing, making stuff up, not caring about the facts."^[62]
According to David Kirkpatrick, former technology editor at Fortune magazine and author of The Facebook Effect:The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World, (2011),^[63] "the film is only "40% true. . . he is not snide and sarcastic in a cruel way, the way Zuckerberg is played in the movie." He says that "a lot of the factual incidents are accurate, but many are distorted and the overall impression is false," and concludes that primarily "his motivations were to try and come up with a new way to share information on the internet."^[62]
Although the film portrays Zuckerberg's creation of Facebook in order to elevate his stature after not getting into any of the elite final clubs at Harvard, Zuckerberg himself said he had no interest in joining the final clubs.^[1] Kirkpatrick agrees that the impression implied by the film is "false."^[62]
Karel Baloun, a former senior engineer at Facebook, notes that the "image of Zuckerberg as a socially inept nerd is overstated . . .It is fiction. . ." He likewise dismisses the film's assertion that he "would deliberately betray a friend."^[62]

So the fact that Mark has an asshole type persona is disputed.

When I knew that Mark is a jew, I instantly linked the color theme of facebook with the israeli flag which is the white and blue. The same blue in the falg.

Watch the movie, it's worth it.

The Cliches of 24

After watching 8 seasons of 24, the show has become so predictable thanks to the cliches that the very "creative" writers seem can't avoid. The cliches in no particular order are:

1- The terrorist threat is always detected, handled and defused in exactly 24 hours, ALWAYS. I know that's what the show is all about but come on, it's getting old. Why not 36 hours? or 48 hours. The events happen so fast that so many people die and so much development happen in so little time.

2- There is only one who can defeat the terrorists and it is no other than Jack Bauer who is always relectant to get involved. Nevertheless he gets involved anyways.

3- The terrorists always have some traitor within CTU to help them out.

4- CTU always come under attack but they rise after the fall.

5- Any terrorist who get caught alive is willing to co-operate in exchange with a signed immunity from the President of The United States of America (POTUS).

6- The POTUS is always directly involved with the events from square one.

7- The POTUS always has one of the staff who will oppose the POTUS decesions and betray him/her.

8- Jack Bauer will eventually turn rogue and gets hunted by CTU.

9- At every 59th minute and 57th second of the hour something terrible happens.

10- Just when the terrorist threat gets illuminated, a master mind appears who was playing behind the scenes all along.

11- So many people die in the 24 hours.

12- Just when CTU arrest a lead for interrogation, they die.

13- The bad guys for most of the seasons are arabs or muslims who are led by russians behind the scenes.

14- The director of CTU always gets replaced by someone else during the day.

15- Everyone involved stays up for a whole day without any signes of fatigue, hunger, thirst or even going to the toilet for a piss.

The show is getting old and very much predictable so my suggestion is to stop it while it is still popular.

Brostitute with Tim Roth

Brostitute with Tim Roth
This documentary takes a closer look at the seedy world of brostitution and brostitutes. This film digs deeper than any other film has when it comes to this secret world of bro-on-bro non-sexual love for profit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpNG2LVEuuI

Superman has a new look

It's a new 'Look!' for Superman
By DAREH GREGORIAN
Last Updated: 8:33 AM, October 25, 2010

Look, up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's . . . Superhunk!
Seventy-two-year-old Superman is getting a face-lift this week in a new book that reimagines the iconic character as more of a brooding heartthrob than a muscle-bound Boy Scout.
In "Superman: Earth One," the Man of Steel is a conflicted 20-year-old who's trying to find his way in the world, bearing more of a resemblance to Robert Pattinson from the "Twilight" movies than Christopher Reeve from the Superman films.
He wears hoodies, has smoldering eyes and, as a lanky Clark Kent, wears low-cut pants and hipster skinny ties. Artist Shane Davis also made him less physically imposing -- shorter and less beefy -- than he has traditionally been depicted.
The new look and new attitude are being used to kick off DC Comics' "Earth One" line of graphic novels, which puts their classic characters in today's world. The $19.95 hardcover, out in comic shops on Wednesday and book stores Nov. 2, is aimed directly at the youth market.
"We wanted to tell a story that's hip, sexy and moody," said DC Comics' co-publisher Dan DiDio.
"We wanted to show a younger Superman at the early stages of his career, struggling with his identity and his place. He realizes he doesn't belong anywhere and doesn't fit in."
Source: the newyork post