Archive for the ‘nazis’ Category
Filed Under aliens, battlestar galactica, buck rogers, dinosaurs, giant monsters, giant robots, nazis, spacemen, star wars
Primeval
Dinosaurs invade the modern world. Coming soon to BBCAmerica.
Dust
Axis and Allies, if there had been giant robots and other alien tech available during WWII.
Speaking of boardgames…
Topless Robot rates the five best and worst boardgames based on movies. They forgot Star Wars: Escape from the Death Star though. Definitely should’ve been in the Best list.
Gigantic
Rick Remender and Eric Nguyen are coming out with a comic about giant robots, monsters, and consumer culture.
More giant robots vs. giant monsters
Robert Hood’s got the dope on G. It features one of the coolest giant robot designs I’ve ever seen. And a giant monster using a couple of train cars as nunchuks.
Additional Laws of Robotics
Something Awful has discovered 27 more, less-famous Laws that Asimov came up with. Like this one:
23. A robot must shut up around girls and let me, Isaac Asimov, do the talking; however, a robot may bail me out if things start to go haywire.
Pulp Sci Fi work safety posters
I wish my work was cool enough to hang these around.
Buck Rogers Doll
It’s a great-looking doll. I just don’t know if it’s $175 worth of great-looking.
Caprica trailer
Eric Stoltz almost makes me want to watch the otherwise lame-looking soap opera Caprica. Think I’ll just pop in Some Kind of Wonderful again instead.
And as long as we’re talking about Battlestar Galactica spin-offs I’m not interested in
TokyoPop’s got a BSG manga anthology coming out.
Okay, back to the Awesome…
Whatever eFx Collectibles is asking for this Ralph McQuarrie version Vader helmet, it’ll be worth it.
You baked that? You’re braver than I thought.
I’m hungry now.
Filed Under batgirl, creature from the black lagoon, dinosaurs, giant robots, incredibles, nazis, sea adventures
Paul Allan Ballard
I met artist Paul Allan Ballard at Wizard World. He’s pals with Jess and Grant and those guys, so we ran into each other off and on the whole weekend. At one point Paul mentioned that he thought he knew me from somewhere else, but couldn’t remember where. Turns out, he reads this blog for the pulp covers. Check out his stuff, he’s got a lot of cool work, including designs for that unmade Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls film I keep talking about.
The Drums of Tapajos
Speaking of pulp covers…
By Leo Morey.
Creature from the Black Lagoon
By Tom Whalen. (Thanks, Slashfilm!)
Mr. Incredible vs. the Omnidroid!
By Eric Tan. (Thanks to Slashfilm for this one too!)
Batgirl
I liked Michele Legendre’s Wonder Woman piece so much I went looking for more.
Filed Under bond, captain america, dinosaurs, doctor doom, elemental, flying saucers, hercules, hulk, ian fleming, iron sky, manhunter, nazis, runaways, scrubs, sea adventures, spies, steranko, thing
Runaways: The Movie
I quit reading Runaways when Brian K. Vaughan quit writing it. News of a Runaways movie makes me realize how much I miss those characters. Especially Molly (pictured above).
Night at the Museum 2
I’m not quite as thrilled about a possible sequel to Night at the Museum as I am a Runaways movie, but the first one didn’t suck and I’m all for any movie with the potential for more dinosaurs chasing security guards down hallowed halls.
Iron Sky
“In 1945 the Nazis fled to the moon. In 2018 they are coming back.” I want this on DVD right now.
Manhunter interview
Like all lovers of excellent superhero comics, I’m way looking forward to the return from hiatus of DC’s Manhunter. Comic Book Resources has a talk with series writer Marc Andreyko that’s got me even more pumped up.
Andreyko said he has the next six to eight arcs for “Manhunter” in various stages of planning but his goal is to hit the century mark with the title. “My dream is to get to #100,” he said. “So please, buy this book.”
Sea Freak
If that panel doesn’t make you want to check out Sea Freak, nothing will. (Thanks, JK!)
Steranko’s Radical covers
Comic Book Resources has another great conversation up, this time with the Awesome Jim Steranko on his cover (and possible, future interior) work for Radical Comics.
…we felt the traditional action approach would be a cliche. The Radical version is different from all other comics’ versions and I felt my cover should underscore that quality. So, instead of casting it in spine-cracking action, I did the opposite: I visualized a silently inert, fearsomely intense Hercules, a Hercules just before the storm, a moment crackling with tension!
Hulk (and friends) Mighty Muggs
These Marvel Mighty Muggs are all great, but look at that Hulk one. Mike Want!
Scrubs creator dishes on NBC
I just watched the NBC Scrubs “finale” the other night. As fun as it was, what a crappy way to end an even crappier relationship between the show and the network that’s screwed it over for the last seven years. Here’s to an excellent final season on ABC.
…when we first did the show, it was a drama with elements of comedy and lots of stupid sound effects. But some of the strongest episodes in the second and third year had character comedy. You can still do things like kill Brendan Fraser and have the lady that loved musical theater die and then sing a song at the end. This became a very Simpsons-esque show with incredibly broad, unrealistic moments and fantasies that were both in reality and not in reality. When you’ve been writing this show for seven years, it’s so easy to get into these patterns of writing the same jokes over and over: J.D. loves Turk, J.D. wants Dr. Cox’s approval, Elliot’s whiny and neurotic. But this year the stuff is really f–king good. I think our old stand-by fans are really going to dig these shows.
Fleming: The Movie
Leonardo DiCaprio’s bought the rights to make a fictionalized biopic (à la Shakespeare in Love or Finding Neverland) about Ian Fleming, presumably with lots of extra spy stuff thrown in.
Elemental
Rufus Sewell’s new show has a new name. Cannot wait for this one.
Filed Under bond, chuck, george sanders, historical, nazis, robert ludlum
James Bond will return
Lots of Bond news lately.
Penguin Books has a whole site devoted to the various Bond novels they’re releasing and re-releasing this year for Ian Fleming’s 100th birthday.
London’s Imperial War Museum is currently running an Ian Fleming exhibit.
USA Today did a feature on Quantum of Solace that I’m not going to read for fear of spoilers. There are a lot of cool pictures there though.
And there are even more cool Quantum pics at Slashfilm.
I didn’t even know there’d been an alternate theme song to Never Say Never Again considered, but Christopher Mills has the link to prove it. I have to respectfully disagree with Chris though: I think I prefer the version that made it into the movie. It’s definitely not one of my favorite Bond themes, but it’s grown on me.
Chuck will return too
When Chuck returns in the fall, it’ll be part of a three-hour genre block on Monday nights with Heroes and Medium. Not that I’ll be watching Heroes or Medium.
And if you don’t want to wait that long (I sure don’t), there will be some short webisodes in July.
Codex 632
Bookgasm has the skinny on a novel about a history professor/cryptographer who begins to investigate a murder and ends up learning some secrets about Christopher Columbus. It sounds very Da Vinci Codey, but the Columbus angle intrigues me.
Man Hunt DVD
Fritz Lang’s WWII spy movie Man Hunt is coming to DVD. Just knowing it’s a WWII spy movie is enough to catch my interest, but having George Sanders in it makes it a Must See.
More Ludlum movies
Denzel Washington is all set to play the spy in the next Robert Ludlum series to hit the screen, starting with The Matarese Circle.
Filed Under dinosaurs, giant monsters, indiana jones, island adventure, king kong, nazis, treasure hunters, vikings, zeppelins
Land of Kong
Man, I wish this place was still open.
War Eagles story can finally be told
Robert Hood has the history of Merian C. Cooper’s War Eagles concept (essentially giant eagles, dinosaurs, vikings, Nazis, and zeppelins in an aerial fight over NY). There’ve been a couple of movies planned and a comic series, but it looks like the first medium the story will be told in will be novelization.
Pterodactyl Hunt
As Palaeoblog says, “If only…”
Brad Pitt: Treasure Hunter?
He’s apparently interested in making a movie about a guy searching for a lost Amazon city. Sounds pretty cool to me.
Indiana Jones novels
Bookgasm’s got the skinny on the reissues of some Indiana Jones novels.
Indy YTMND
Indy can’t stop the rock.
Indy finds Waldo.
Hula Girl
Lilo & Stitch’s Chris Anders is designing The Perfect Dashboard Hula Girl.
Dinosaurs Attack!
Via Giant Monsters Attack:
Normally, I consider dinosaurs to be outside of the realm of giant monsters since they’re not technically “monsters”, but just really big, extinct animals- however, the content and paleontological inaccuracy of the creatures depicted in the series is much more akin to a rampaging daikaiju movie than something you’d ever come across on the Discovery Channel.
Indiana Jones makes everything better, part one
Even M&Ms. There’s a fun temple-exploration game in there, so you should check out the site.
Filed Under aliens, flash gordon, frazetta, galaxyquest, giant monsters, giant robots, knight rider, larklight, nazis, robots, star wars, steampunk, thundercats, vikings
Star Wars 1942
This idea is really long overdue when you think about it.
Out with Flash Gordon; in with Knight Rider
Really neither Flash Gordon’s cancellation nor Knight Rider’s being picked up as a series should come as a surprise.
GalaxyQuest comics
I don’t know if this can capture the Awesomeness of the movie, but I’m sure gonna find out.
Larklight
For those of us who like the steampunk movies but were a tad disappointed in The Golden Compass, here’s our second chance.
Frank Frazetta’s Savage World
More here.
Not too incredible Shrinking Man
Enough with the comedy remakes of cool scifi properties. It’s not attractive on Land of the Lost and it doesn’t make me want to see The Incredible Shrinking Man either. I mean, Eddie Murphy? Honestly.
Robot McGee explains fine art
Is fine art a mystery to you? Never fear. Now there’s a robot who will explain famous paintings to you. Sort of.
Steampunk Star Wars action figures
Somebody give this man a job designing these things so they can be mass-produced and I can buy them.
Steampunk anthology
This sounds like a must-have and Bookgasm’s interview with the editors is a must-read if only for the numerous recommendations of other steampunk books.
Giant Styrobot
Pretty self-explanatory actually.
Giant monster attacks inevitable
Why oh why will no one listen to the scientists?
We can say with certainty that there will be a giant monster attack on Washington DC within the next twenty years, and that this monster will probably pee on the Jefferson Memorial…
Wake up, people!
Giant robot imprisons cars
And it’s not like we can rely on our giant robots. They’re already turning against us!
Stupid scientists plan giant, buzz-saw-wielding, “fire fighter” robot.
This is going to go horribly, horribly wrong.
Kim Jong Il unfolds into giant robot
We’re all doomed.
Outlander poster
On a lighter note, the alien vs. Vikings vs. giant monster movie Outlander now has a poster.
Super Robot Red Baron
“Red Baron is a show that’s all about chunky-looking giant robots fighting each other and thrashing lots of model buildings, which is a formula that’s pretty hard to find fault with.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Thundercats, Ho!
I guess Thundercats Season 2 is available in the UK now or something.
Filed Under atomic robo, dinosaurs, frankenstein, giant monsters, godzilla, indiana jones, lone ranger, nazis, neozoic, pulp, robots, scifi, star wars, superheroes, tiki, vikings, x-files
Something’s been bugging me since I turned over the Awesome List to Newsarama and that’s that I know some of you reading this are interested in those news bits but aren’t going to start reading the whole Newsarama blog for them. So rather than just drop the feature here completely, I think I’m going to start doing a recap, not only of the Newsarama Awesome List, but any other items from that blog that especially catch my attention. You’ll be getting the items a day later than Newsarama readers will, but you’ll be getting them.
For the sake of completeness I’m going to go back to when I stopped doing the feature here, so some of this will be old news until I get caught up.
Pulp-inspired DC superhero covers
Space Devil and Frankenstein
Star Wars mash-up toys; vikings vs. Nazis vs. dinosaurs
Jonah Hex joins the JLA?
Red 5’s Afterburn heads to Hollywood. It’s a cool comic – at least as far as I can tell so far – but the real exciting part about this news is that it makes an Atomic Robo movie that much more possible.
X-Files 2 has a poster.
American Godzilla ‘94: The Webcomic.
Madagascar 2; why the Bionic Woman remake failed.
New Lone Ranger movie
Indy TV ad, Tikiware, John Hughes, Paleo-Future, and Calling All Robots
Red 5 Comics in June, Fantasy Classics (featuring Frankenstein), and some nonsense about Mr. T.
That catches us up through the end of March.
Filed Under alpha flight, jj abrams, mystery, nazis, wonder woman
Daniel Craig versus the Nazis
Check out the trailer for Defiance starring Daniel Craig.
JJ Abrams on Mystery
Nice talk from JJ Abrams on the beauty and potential of mysteries.
Alpha Flight Classic, Volume 2 finally here
Alpha Flight was the series that made me a hardcore comics fan and this is the run that’s responsible. If you don’t like Alpha Flight, it’s because you’ve never read this stuff.
Wonder Woman balloon art
The folks over at Balloon HQ don’t want me showing you their Wonder Woman balloon art on my page and I’ll honor that. It’s pretty cool though, so go peek.
Filed Under fantasy, golden compass, horror, keira knightley, monsters vs aliens, national treasure, nazis, predator, scifi
Last Week
The Golden Compass: Early reviews haven’t been awesome, but I still want to see the talking polar bear fight the giant robot polar bear. Also: James Bond, Vesper, Sam Elliott, and Nicole Kidman.
Atonement: Ah, Keira. If only it also had giant polar bears.
Revolver: (limited release) Guy Ritchie returns to his roots with a new gangster film starring Jason Statham. Also, Ray Liotta. Unfortunately, it’s taken two years to get it to the US from Britain, there’s been absolutely zero publicity about it, and it’s in limited release. That doesn’t make it sound like a worthy successor to Snatch.
This Weekend
I Am Legend: I’m pretty much scared of how this is going to compare to the original story, but the trailers look good enough that I’m willing to give it a shot. At best though, I’m expecting my usual, enjoyable-but-forgettable experience with Will Smith movies.
Youth Without Youth: (LA/NY) Don’t let the fancy mcschmancy roses on the poster fool you. It’s really a story about Nazis trying to capture a scientist they think has discovered the secret to immortality. The movie’s just going to look really, really pretty while it’s telling it to you.
December 21st
National Treasure: Book of Secrets: The first one was everything that The Da Vinci Code should’ve been. I’m up for more.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story: It’s probably the Johnny Cash references, but I think the trailer for this is hilarious.
P.S. I Love You: I know, I know. I’m just a little in love with Hilary Swank right now.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: (limited release) And Johnny Depp.
Charlie Wilson’s War: I’m lukewarm about Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, but Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mike Nichols are always draws. And the trailer is funny and interesting.
December 25th
The Bucket List: It’s telling that the poster realizes it doesn’t have to say anything about what the movie’s actually about. All it has to do is show Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman enjoying each other (and tell me that Rob Reiner’s involved) and I know I want to see it.
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem: I sorta liked this. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna like this too.
December 28th
The Orphanage: (limited release) Guillermo del Toro produced this horror movie and is bringing it to the US. And it’s apparently wildly popular in Spain. That’s enough for me.
Persepolis: (limited release) I’ve been hearing about how good the graphic novel for this is for a couple of years, so I’m interested in seeing what the fuss is about for myself. Especially since the animation is all done in the style of the graphic novel.
Filed Under hitchcock, nazis, spies
Foreign Correspondent is always duking it out with Psycho for the top spot in my list of favorite Hitchcock films. Psycho is a great horror movie with a twisting plot and some unbelievable performances, but Foreign Correspondent has windmills, clipper planes, spies, Nazis, and George Sanders. All it really needs is George Sanders, but the rest of that stuff is cool too.
Joel McCrea plays an American crime reporter named Johnny Jones who’s recruited by his newspaper to travel to Europe and report on the impending war. The paper’s publisher is tired of his current European staff’s just re-writing press releases and turning them in as news. He wants real, investigative journalism and he thinks Jones is the guy to do it.
Jones’ first assignment is to cover a peacemaking alliance and he’s on the scene when one of the most influential voices for peace in Europe is assassinated. Jones joins the chase for the killer and quickly learns that there’s more to the murder than first appears. With the help of a British peace-leader named Carol Fisher (Laraine Day) and her platonic chum Scott ffolliott (George Sanders), Jones begins trying to unravel the mystery and expose the people working to start World War II.
McCrea is a charming lead and Day is a convincing and beautiful actress, but Sanders is the main attraction in this movie. I’ve been in love with his voice ever since I heard him as Shere Khan in Disney’s version of The Jungle Book and I’ve tracked down a lot of his work since then. He was always a charming actor and he had a great range, but my favorite characters of his were the unmitigated cads and that’s what Scott ffolliott (yeah, with two, lower-case “f”s) is. Watching Foreign Correspondent, you get the definite feeling that Scott is in love with Carol, but that as much as she likes him, she knows he’s too privileged and irresponsible to make serious husband potential. And by the time he starts to overcome his flaws, she’s already in love with Jones. What makes Scott ffolliott wonderful though is that he never exhibits the slightest sign of jealousy or desire to betray Carol and Jones. He’s not only a loyal friend, but also a loyal patriot, though I’d be surprised to learn that he ever thought much about politics or foreign affairs before meeting Jones. Though he starts out a sort of scoundrel, he end up being the most heroic, selfless character in the movie and it’s an inspiring transition to watch.
Jones and Carol are heroic characters too, but they’re pretty much expected to be and their motives are less complex than Scott’s. Carol, we’re told, is just a Good Person. Her father is involved with the peace initiative and she’s just sort of unquestioningly joined him in that work.
Jones is a little more complicated, but his heroism begins as journalistic curiosity and eventually becomes concern for Carol’s safety. By the end of the movie, he’s a man with a cause, but the transitions between these stages are too abrupt for me to completely buy and invest myself in them. He and Carol go from curiously interested in each other to “Let’s get married” pretty much between scenes, and his impassioned plea at the end for the US to get involved in Europe sort of comes out of nowhere. Actually, it may not come from nowhere if you read it merely as an extension of his love for Carol, but that still makes him far less noble than Scott.
Aside from the commentary on heroism, Foreign Correspondent also has interesting things to say about patriotism in general as well as America’s isolationist policy prior to 1941. Regarding patriotism, there’s a very nice bit in which the leader behind the assassination scheme explains his actions in a way that makes him almost sympathetic. The script never takes seriously the idea that he may have a valid point-of-view (nor should it probably; the guy’s a Nazi after all), but it raises some good questions about patriotism and blindly following whatever direction the current government of your homeland may be traveling.
Regarding America’s isolationism, the film is very clearly a call for the US to get involved in Europe. When Jones makes his impassioned speech, it’s so heavy handed (including swelling music in the background) that Hitchcock himself might have just as well stepped in front of the camera to directly address the audience. Seen with almost 70 years of distance, it’s an unfortunate, clunky way to end an otherwise amazing spy thriller, but when the movie originally came out in 1940, I imagine that it was quite powerful. And its being nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, pretty much supports that theory.
