Links With Cat Ears!

Rina Takeda Battlecats
[adrotate banner=”1″]It’s that time again where I throw a bunch of links at you and you must click them all, Pokemon! Also some news bits that didn’t make the cut into getting their own posts dues to lazines— I mean, because I was busy. Yeah, that’s the ticket! So let’s get on with it!!!

**Monster Island Resort Podcast #95: The History of Mexploitation Cinema with Aaron Soto

**Like a Horrible Dream: Thoughts on the Mighty Kong

**Filmi Geek on Filmi Geek

**Film Dick battles The Slayer!

**FourDK goes on The Savage Hunt of King Stakh!

**Pre-Code takes a Hot Saturday!

**The Cultural Gutter ponders Catharsis Denied: when fiery doom is an anti-climax!

**Xsmarkthespot clues us in to Notable Canadian films of the 1970’s!

**Turban Decay discusses The Visitor!

**Pulp Curry turns the pages of Wake in Fright!

**Permission To Kill discusses Lee – the man (Lee Marvin) and the anthology that he inspired!

**Goodbye Like A Bullet tells us The Way of the Yakuza!

**100 years of Indian cinema: How Bombay became Bollywood – the silent era

**Why is The Adventures of Mighty Bug not playing anywhere near me???!?!

**Names are attached to the big screen version of Divergent, yet another Young Adult Dystopian Future novel turned film. Shailene Woodley is already attached to star, and now Maggie Q, Zoe Kravitz and Ansel Elgort are attached. In this Young Adult Dystopian Future, society is divided into factions based on traits like bravery. Basically the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter became Evil Overlord. So, of course, there is a love story between factions and rebellions and all that junk. Neil Burger is directing.

**Horrible Bosses 2 is on the way. Perhaps this go-around will have something funny beyond Motherfucker Jones? Speaking of which, Motherfucker Jones is not yet confirmed as returning, but he better be!

**Here is a 12 minute proof of concept short for Land of Giants, a steampunk martial arts film starring Mathis Landwehr. It’s another “make a short film to get funding to make a real film” film:

After the storm reduced our world to ruins, the Giants came to us, to punish those who would ever again lay their hands on the magic called “Electricity”.

A long time ago Crutch (Mathis Landwehr) challenged the Giants’ anger. His destroyed knee won’t let him forget the day, they took everything from him. So he ventured out to hunt and kill them.

**Debug is a future-set scifi thriller where six computer hackers sent to debug old computers on an abandoned space freighter must battle an AI that’s gone loopy. Killer loopy. Jeananne Goossen, Jason Momoa, Adam Butcher, Kjartan Hewitt, Sidney Leeder, Jaydn Wong, and Adrian Holmes. David Hewlett directs and Debug is due out in 2014.

**If you want to see some production photos of Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel, click away!

**People in China are freaking out because former Category III star Diana Pang Dan (Erotic Ghost Story – Perfect Match and Rape Trap) is going to become a politician. Of course, America would freak out as well.

**If you thought Jack the Giant Slayer sucked, maybe you will like Asylum’s Jack the Giant Killer, where the giants are actual monsters! Jane March and Ben Cross star. Mark Atkins writes and directs.

**Wreck-It Ralph presents “Garlan Hulse: Where Potential Lives”

**Disney thinks the world needs yet another live-action Beauty and the Beast movie. Right, Beastly?

Disney is calling this film The Beast, and considering the subject matter of Trance–an art auctioneer is pummeled so badly by his criminal cohorts that a hypnotherapist is needed to coax out the memories of where he hid a priceless painting–indicates that this revisionist take on Beauty and the Beast could be a bit on the dark side.

No word on who will play Hank McCoy.

**Actress Charlie Yeung Choi-Nei has moved into writing/directing with the upcoming film Christmas Rose (聖誕玫瑰). Yeung spent five years writing the legal thriller, the film is about a sexual harassment case that quickly balloons out of control. Aaron Kwok is a former defense attorney turned prosecutor who helps handicapped piano teacher Jing (Kwai Lun Mei) sue her doctor Zhou (Chang Chen) for harassing her during a checkup. But Zhou is a respected physician and his defense attorney is Aaron Kwok’s replacement at his old firm. The trailer is here

paracamelus
**Giant camel bones belonging to a species of Paracamelus have been found in Northern Canada, the bones being identified due to collagen fingerprinting the collagen on the bones. The size of the bones show the species was 30% bigger than modern camels. Paracamelus is a type of ancient dromedary (one hump.) This is the first evidence of a High Arctic camel, though scientists have long suspected that camels had trades associated with arctic adaptation.
Via here and here
Image via

**bridezilla Charlie Powell
via Charlie Powell

Until next time!!!

Morlocks (Review)

Morlocks


2011
Written by Adam J. Karp and Royal McGraw
“Based” on The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Directed by Matt Codd

Welcome to Florida!

SciFi Channel (now known as SyFy for years despite that name sucking) goes all H.G. Wells on us again to give us Morlocks, a SciFi Original Movie version of the classic time travel tale, that dumps the entire story in favor of having people trapped in time with crazy killer Morlocks. Though I applaud them taking familiar elements and doing something original with them, the original thing they do is just the same old basic creature feature plot where a team of people are killed off bit by bit until they kill all the monsters. And if you stop to think about it, little that happens makes any sense. But there are a few moments of goofy WTF that will get some praise.

The Budweiser Frogs, 2020 A.D.

Director Matt Codd also helmed the SciFi classic Dragon Dynasty. The keyboard theme blaring out reminds me of the Space Mutiny theme, which is always great.

Sure we’re untextured enough that you can’t tell what we look like, but you can’t see our cool CGI shading until THE FUTURE!

Dr. James Radnor (David Hewlett) – Former time travel project head, who quit his top secret job and wrote a book called Time Travels’s Strife that is pretty much a description of what he did in the top secret lab. No one cares. David Hewlett is also in the SciFi Channel classic Boa vs. Python
Dr. Angela Kelley (Christina Cole) – Angela still works for the secret government project, and is James’s exwife. Figures out what Colonel Wichita is up too, but a bit too late to not get tossed into THE FUTURE!
Colonel Wichita (Robert Picardo) – Military man in charge of the time travel project, his son John has cancer so he goes nuts in pursuit of Morlock DNA in the belief that it will cure his son. The time travel works sort of like Stargate, which is good that Stargate alums Picardo and Hewlett are starring.
Tyrell (???) – Thanks to squashed credits and an awful IMDB page, I have no clue who played Tyrell, one of the main soldiers sent with Radnor into THE FUTURE. Starts out as a stereotype but becomes a full-fledged character kicking Morlock butt.
Vera Cortez (Marem Hassler) – One of the prior team members who was lost in THE FUTURE, she helps Radnor and his team get back to the present. My favorite character.
Dr. Felix Watkins (Jim Fyfe) – Holy crap, Jim Fyfe from Encyclopedia! That show was awesome, Jim Fyfe is awesome, and I hope he pops up in more SyFy films! This time, he’s the rival scientist to Radnor who takes over after he quit, and every time the two are on the screen together they argue argue argue. Which is pretty funny.
Morlocks (CGI) – Green jerks from the future who are almost invincible unless the plot demands they be easily killed by a slight breeze.
Dinobirds (CGI) – For some reason there are dinobirds in THE FUTURE. Why? They never explain why. It makes no damn sense. It’s completely crazy. Just go with it, dudes! Dinobirds! I guess the CG house had an extra model lying around.
The most unreal tournament of them all!

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Boa vs. Python (Review)

Boa vs. Python


2004
Starring
David Hewlett as Emmett
Jaime Bergman as Monica Bond
Kirk B.R. Woller as Agent Sharpe
Adam Kendrick as Broddick
Angel Boris as Eve
Jeff Rank as Kent Humphries

The undisputed KING of made for Sci-Fi Channel movies. Combiner of franchises, giver of the ultimate battle no one was craving, Boa vs. Python is the answer to everyone’s prayers. No mention is made of the Boa franchise, but the Python movies get a quick mention. That is all we need, this stands alone. For what it is, it delivers the goods, we have giant monsters running amok, a cast of dispensable “cool” characters hunting it and becoming cannon fodder, nudity, and a hot babe scientist (combined with a dorky guy) who help to save the day. These giant snake movies all seem to take place in some alternate universe where giant snakes are 50 feet long, four feet around, and movie with lightning fast speed. Not only are these movies guilty, the older Anaconda does the same thing. In real life, a Boa vs. Python battle would probably just have the snakes sitting there doing nothing. That’s all they do in the zoo. Big snakes are boring. Fantasy big snakes are ultimate killing machines.
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