• Home
  • Category Archives: Movie News
Temptress of 1000 Faces

Cookie Monster is a super spy in The Spy Who Loved Cookies!

I was not joking when I said I was looking for excuses to talk about Cookie Monster.

The nefarious Lady Finger has stolen the Crown Cookies! Only Agent Double-Stuffed Seven, aka Cookie Monster, can save the day…if he bothers to listen to directions! Featuring computer effects, Bond song riffs, and Cookie Monster running into doors.

A funny parody that has a lesson to be learned about following instructions. Helped by Cookie’s boss telling him the directions in such a complicated way! Good grief, be more direct, please. The skit was longer than I thought it would be, I am guessing because they were so happy to cram as much as possible that they could.

Cookie Monster has been in increasing visibility as the new season of Sesame Street starts. The scandal with Elmo/Kevin Clash is probably the main reason, Cookie Monster is another visible monster alternative that adults and children love. No offense to Zoey or Abby Cadabby, but I didn’t grow up with them and have less emotional attachment. My children will, and I would expect them to gain some prominence this season and possibly used in some of the promotional material going into next year (and maybe the new Elmo, but I’ve never been 100% fond of Elmo!) Other monsters have various problems: Grover is rather intense and was eclipsed by Elmo far too much. Two-Headed Monster is mainly about cooperation and speaks mostly gibberish. Harry is rarely used despite him being a favorite of mine as a kid. Telly is too Telly to be in many ads. Oscar would be cool, but his attitude limits the scope of the parodies. And some of the classic Sesame Street performers must be getting up there in years.

Now, with all the vampires in the media, why isn’t The Count more prominent? I demand more Count! Also Oscar’s pet worm Slimey. He’s a worm named Slimey, people!

Sorry, here are a bunch of stills I took from the video because it’s too awesome not to take many stills from:

Cookie Monster Spy who loved Cookies

Cookie Monster Spy who loved Cookies

Cookie Monster Spy who loved Cookies

Cookie Monster Spy who loved Cookies

Cookie Monster Spy who loved Cookies

Cookie Monster Spy who loved Cookies

Temptress of 1000 Faces

Atlas Shrugged mooches its way to a third installment!

Disco Stu trends

If there is one group of people who demonstrate time and time again they have no concept of the Free Market, it is libertarians. Despite lack of banking regulation destroying the world’s economy, they call for less regulation. Glorious Libertopia would feature for-profit schools, for-profit police, for-profit military, and for-profit everyone having nukes. And, yet, none of this libertarian heroes bothered to move to Somalia when there was no government there. I wonder why…

The Free Market has told the film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged to go take a hike not once, but twice! Both times, the films bombed, obviously due to Obama and the liberal media spreading lies about Atlas Shrugged. It certainly isn’t because the films are ridiculous, the story God-awful, and the ideology bankrupt and disgusting.

So doing what any good fighters against beggars and parasites would do, Atlas Shrugged has turned to Kickstarter to get Part III in theaters in time to lose money before the 2014 election.

The producers are quick to point out that they aren’t asking for the full amount, no! They only want $250,000 to supplement the $10 million budget. First of all, $10 million my foot! Someone is skimming off the top or inflating the budget (probably both!) Secondly, the $250,000 goal is stated to just be for the free publicity that Kickstarter provides. Now, Kickstarter provides no free publicity, but blog posts making fun of this action do. So in a small way, I am helping Atlas Shrugged Part III out. But in a realistic way, I’m not, because most people who drop by TarsTarkas.NET aren’t Libertarians who would be unaware that the Atlas Shrugged Kickstarter is underway. The news of the third film will have been promoted all over Wingnut websites across the WWW, in between the latest stories of how Obama did 9-11 because he’s an Illegal Communist Nazi Muslim and screaming diatribes to shut down the government, except for that Social Security money we all rely on.

Wingnut Welfare is a real phenomenon, and the producers of Atlas Shrugged must be exceptionally bad at it to require a final dose of free money directly from the rubes. Heck, even Joe the Plumber somehow has managed to make a nice existence off of free money from billionaires. This means the producers burned some very powerful bridges either through incompetence or just terrible interpersonal skills. Again, probably both.

Atlas Shrugged: Who is John Galt?
(the official title) has no announced cast despite a fall 2013 filming date. People looking at your calendars might note that it is currently fall 2013. As the original film had almost the entire main cast replaced for the first sequel, I think we shall see a repeat of that phenomenon.

Atlas Shrugged Part I made $4.6 million on a $20 million budget. Atlas Shrugged Part II made $3.3 million on a $10 million budget. If these trends continue, I suggest investing your money in disco record sales like Disco Stu says!

Producer Harmon Kaslow says “The day we launch the Kickstarter campaign, haters are going to come alive. They’re going to come after us in droves, attacking us everywhere online.”

To Mr. Kaslow I say “Hi!”

Kickstarter intentionally not linked.

Via HollywoodReporter

Surely you can't want to visit Wisconsin!

Airplane Wisconsin tourism

I do want to visit Wisconsin, and don’t call me Shirley! Thus Airplane! is back in the news thanks to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Robert Hays agreeing to star in a video for the Wisconsin Department of Tourism. And never fear, inflatable pilot Otto has returned as well (this is a brand new Otto, as the original has long disintegrated. RIP Otto.) Otto now has a cheesehead hat, because this is Wisconsin. Airplane! creators Jerry Zucker, David Zucker, and Jim Abrahams are all from Wisconsin, thus explaining things.

I grew up in Illinois, so I am familiar with Wisconsin travel commercials, and this will be an improvement! Will they mention the Dells? A mystery to be solved once the commercial airs.

So far the video isn’t online yet, but expect it to make the round on all the blogs that copy content from reddit once it does!

via Today

Robot Star Zangga jjanga

Grave Halloween and Zombie Night spook out SyFy!

Our good friends at SyFy (SciFi Channel for all you retronauts!) are bringing us some more original movie premieres that will blow. Your mind. Maybe.

Saturday October 19th brings us Grave Halloween!

An American college student studying in Japan risks her own life to save the spirit of her dead mother who killed herself in the notorious real-life Suicide Forest. Grave Halloween stars Cassie Thomson (Big Love) and Graham Wardle (Supernatural).

Grave Halloween was originally known as The Last Halloween, but not any more! Check out the IMDB for proof. This synopsis is all we know so far about Grave Halloween. I do notice they didn’t mention Kaitlyn Leeb, aka the three-breasted hooker from the remake of Total Recall. I wonder why… There is a large Asian cast, unusual for a SyFy flick, but welcome, even though the main characters don’t seem to be Asian.

Next up is Zombie Night on Saturday, October 26th.

Two families in a small American town face off against zombies in a long night of horror, torn between helping each other and saving themselves. Zombie Night stars Darryl Hannah (Kill Bill), Anthony Michael Hall (The Breakfast Club) and Shirley Jones (The Partridge Family).

Why does that press release not mention Alan Ruck is also in Zombie Night? He’s Cameron, for crying out loud! More info on the IMDB, where you can see the amazing cast for this film. The director is John Gulager, director of Piranha 3DD.

Both films are part of the “31 Days of Halloween” Scare-a-Thon, so be scared or some SyFy exec will get fired.

There are no images to go along with this press release, so enjoy this photo of a Sexy Sea Turtle costume from Yandy.com, guaranteed to be culturally more terrifying than either of these films!

Sexy Sea Turtle Costume

Robot Star Zangga jjanga

Taken: The Search for Sophie Parker is Lifetime channeling Liam Neeson!

Taken search Sophie Parker Lifetime

Taken: The Search for Sophie Parker is literally the same plot as Taken, except Liam Neeson is now Julie Benz! Holy Dexter, Batman!

18 year-old Sophie Parker goes on spring break to Moscow with her friend Janie Hillman, daughter of the American Ambassador to Russia. When a reluctant Sophie is convinced by boy-crazy Janie to sneak out of the U.S. Embassy and go to a nightclub, the two girls are drugged and abducted by a Russian sexual slavery ring operating in the heart of Moscow. Sophie’s widowed mother, Stevie, is a tough NYPD detective. When she gets an alarming and mysterious call from Sophie’s cell-phone, Stevie takes the next plane to Russia, where she moves heaven and earth, and the Moscow police, on her frantic and action-packed quest to save her baby girl.

See, I do not lie, it’s the same movie, except with a butt kicking woman instead of a butt kicking man. From the director of Who’s Your Caddy?, Taken: The Search for Sophie Parker will be sure to get him back to directing theatrical films. Certainly.

Taken: The Search for Sophie Parker premieres Saturday, September 21st and stars Julie Benz, Naomi Battrick, Amy Bailey, and Jeffrey Meek. Check out the trailer on Lifetime.com

And just in case you need to be bribed, Taken: The Search for Sophie Parker is part of Lifetime’s Watch & Win Saturday Sweepstakes

Scarecrow haunts SyFy Saturday!

Scarecrow SyFy

Fine, we’ll read Twilight! Just call off the Scarecrow..


Saturday, October 5th brings the premier of the SyFy original Scarecrow! And it’s more than just a previously used horror title, it’s also got Robin Dunn! And Lacey Chabert, but she’s not a SyFY master like Robin Dunn (Species III, Beyond Sherwood Forest) Let’s also welcome back Nicole Muñoz of Chupacabra vs. The Alamo fame!

For generations, it was an urban legend that lived in the nightmares of children. Now, the season to rejuvenate the tale will revive a town’s darkest fears. With the Scarecrow Festival on the horizon, school teacher Aaron Harris is doling out punishment for six students serving detention, including the moody Tyler, Goth girl Nikki, wrestling team captain Daevon, and straight-A student Jun. Their task: help Aaron’s girlfriend Amanda fix her family farm before it’s sold. But the cornfields circling the farm come with a legend-and Tyler takes macabre delight in recounting the tale: It never sleeps, it never dies, it can’t be stopped, hear their cries. The Scarecrow lives to kill us all. Keep it buried in the fall… When the kids play a terrifying game of cat and mouse in the cornfield with what they believe is a wild animal, Amanda tries to convince them that the Scarecrow is a very real creature of fierce strength and power, rejuvenated by the blood of its prey-and proof comes all too soon. As darkness falls over the rustling fields, the last survivors must fend off the flesh-ripping terrors of the Scarecrow. For the terrified prisoners of Miller Farm, surviving the night seems a distant prayer-especially in light of the tale’s final, desperate warning: “Beware the mark, the end is near, your death is certain, run in fear…” This fall, there’s a chill in air that can freeze the blood. Scarecrow is coming.

Scarecrow Festival? Here’s hoping the mayor refuses to cancel the Scarecrow Festival despite the rash of Scarecrow murders because we must be absurd and strict in our Jaws lifting! Of that Breakfast Club group of kids, don’t expect Jun to last long, he doesn’t even rate an IMDB cast listing!

Scarecrow is another film with a generic description, but the magic will be in the execution. Will it be an amazing achievement with lots of subtextual messaging and good clean fun? Or will it just be generic and boring, angering the masses and leading to SyFy revolution? We shall see on October 5th!