Many can debate that modern alien invasion films can’t hold a candle to classics like The Day The Earth Stood Still or War of the Worlds, but one thing that we have today that sets us apart is viral marketing. That’s exactly what’s starting up for the upcoming “military vs. alien” film Battle: Los Angeles.

Over the weekend, a 4 second long YouTube video was released, showing a brigade of alien spacecrafts hovering over the 110 freeway. If submitting a 4 second video to YouTube and getting upwards of 100,000 views in less than a week isn’t considered viral, then we don’t know what is.

For those who want to stay in touch with all things Battle: Los Angeles, they can report to the fictional site that allows citizens to report alien threats at reportthreats.com, like them on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter.

Check out the mysterious viral video after the jump. Battle: Los Angeles is set to hit theaters on March 11th.

Continue Reading →

Say what you will about reality TV, but SyFy has managed to find the happy medium between the world of trashy television and the geek culture with their newest competition show, Face Off.

The show takes a group of up and coming effects makeup artists trying to make it in the business and pits them against one another in difficult, and ultimately cool-looking makeup tasks. Here’s the rundown for this week’s show.

In the next all-new episode of Face Off, Gage and Sam decide to take a major risk with the task of creating old-age makeup pieces.  They both re-assure each other that based on the last challenge, you can’t play it safe.  They’re both trying to come up with two full-face renderings in just two days which other contestants practically claim the feat as an impossibility.

We’ve got a brand new clip from this week’s show, in which the ancient art of “boob crafting” is practiced, and some of the contestants worry about going too far with their art. Check it out after the jump, and be sure to catch Face Off this Wednesday at 10/9pm Central on Syfy.

Continue Reading →

Now that Henry Cavill has been selected to play Superman in Zack Snyder’s next film, we’re going to be seeing more and more of him. Case in point are these latest picks from the upcoming film Immortals.

In them, Cavill and Twilight alum Kellan Lutz take care of business and often do it without shirts. Yes ladies, this post is pretty much mostly for you.

In case you’re not familiar with Immortals, it concerns the ruthless King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) who “leads his bloodthirsty army on a murderous rampage across Greece to find a deadly weapon that will destroy humanity. A mortal chosen by Zeus named Theseus (Cavill) must lead the fight against Hyperion and his evil army with the fate of mankind and the Gods at stake.”

Check out all the pics after the jump. Look for Immortals, which is directed by Tarsem Singh and also features John Hurt, Isabel Lucas and Stephen Dorff, to hit theaters on November 11th (in 3D) and even more from Henry Cavill starting today and for the rest of our natural lives.

Continue Reading →

Liam Neeson continues to enjoy his new status as an action star as his new film Unknown won the box office this weekend. It was just over a year that Taken became an unlikely box office hit, earning over $144 M during its theatrical run. The 58 year-old actor is off to another solid start; Unknown made $21.7 M over the weekend.

Warner Brothers have to be pleased with that, because the film has a modest budget of around $30 M, the film is sure to be profitable. Boding well for the film is the fact that audiences seemed to enjoy the film more than critics.  Warner Brothers reported something highly unusual: over 54% of film goers were over the age of 50.

That seems to point directly to the appeal of Neeson, because typically that age group does not seek out this type of film. Good for him, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Coming in at number two was I Am Number Four (insert your own joke here).  Though the movie was critically panned, audiences seemed largely pleased by the film giving it a solid B+. The film earned $19.5, M which was below expectations. Since the target audience (tweens and young adults) usually gets to the theater on opening weekend, this film will have to rely on a lot of repeat business to recoup its estimated $60 M budget.

I Am Number Four is in a virtual tie with Gnomeo and Juliet, which made $19.4 M.  That total is likely to climb when President’s Day numbers are factored in. Lots of moms will be taking their kids to the theater during their day off of school. Gnomeo and Juliet only dropped 23% from last weekend.

Continue Reading →

The best way I can describe I Am Number 4 is a sort of contemporary update of Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) for the Twilight set. If that sounds appealing, you’ll like the movie. If it doesn’t, skip it.  I have fond memories of Escape to Witch Mountain, so I didn’t mind the shameful ripoff of the the storyline as much as some.

Based on the popular book by Pittacus Lore (actually a pen name for James Fry), the film tells the story of Number Four, one of nine extraterrestrials who live on earth and are being pursued by the Mogadorians, who destroyed their planet. Number Four and his guardian Henri are constantly on the run, barely staying one step ahead of their would-be assassins. The first three have already been killed, and  Number Four is the next one up.

Number Four has been creatively named John Smith by his guardian/protector Henri played by Timothy Olyphant. This moniker is used so that John may blend in and be inconspicuous when he attends high school. Never mind the fact that nowadays anyone actually named John Smith is immediately regarded with suspicion because it is such a cliche.

Continue Reading →

A few days ago, we bought you the new poster for the upcoming Sci-Fi film Apollo 18. Now, we can bring you the brand new trailer for the film which should help even more to peak your interest in this film.

However, in case you’re not familiar with Apollo 18, it deals with two American astronauts who travel to the moon on a secret government mission one year after the last “official” moon landing. Why they went and what happened to them once they arrived has been a secret. . . until now.

The film, which is made up of “actual footage shot by the astronauts while on their mission,” shows what happened. The trailer looks pretty cool so can’t wait to check out more and eventually the full movie.

In the meantime, take a look at the trailer after the jump. Apollo 18, produced by Timur Bekmambetov and directed by Gonzalo López-Gallego, comes to theaters on April 22nd from Dimension Films.

Continue Reading →

Unknown, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, has some interesting elements going for it. Set in Berlin and armed with an attractive and sturdy cast, Unknown is swimming in themes of mistaken identity, murder and espionage – arguably very exciting and entertaining things. Unfortunately those elements are combined with implausibly pat coincidences, clunky dialogue and a few too many plot-lines.

Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) and his wife Liz (January Jones) arrive in Berlin to attend A Very Important Science Conference, at which Martin is a noted guest of some sort. While checking into the hotel,  Martin realizes that he has left his briefcase (which contains, among other things, his passport) at the airport - so without so much as a word to his wife, he  jumps into a cab to retrieve it. The cab gets into an accident culminating with it running off of a bridge and into a river, rendering Martin comatose.

When Martin wakes from his coma he has no (or at least very little) memory of his own identity. During his stay in the hospital, he gradually begins to recollect certain things – his marriage to Liz and his purpose for being in Berlin. When he remembers where the conference is being held, Martin leaves the hospital to find his wife – who, when he does locate her, fails recognize him. Intrigue ensues.*

Continue Reading →

Yes fans, the show that most believe was canceled way too early is coming back to TV once again. That show is, of course, Joss Whedon’s Firefly. Sadly, it won’t be for brand new episodes or anything like that.

Instead, the Science Channel will air the series in its entirety, plus some new and pretty cool extras. The channel will wrap each episode of the show with interstitial segments starring renowned physicist Dr. Michio Kaku (who you might remember form the days of Leo Laporte’s Screen Savers show on Tech TV), who will discuss the science behind the show’s sci-fi concepts.

According to 20th Century Fox, the studio that originally produced the show and also killed it early, this will be the first time Firefly has aired on basic cable channel since 2008, when it ran on USA Network. Firefly premieres on Science Channel on March 6 at 8 p.m., with the two hour pilot, followed by the first episode at 10 p.m.

Following that, Firefly episodes will air every Sunday. Don’t worry, they will be their original intended order and upgraded to high definition. At least they got that part right.

I don’t think I’m alone in wondering where Adam Scott’s Ben Wyatt fits into Parks and Recreation. Scott’s a fine straight man (Party Down) and a good sleaze-ball (Piranha 3-D), but as Wyatt he didn’t seem to have much to work with other than being a possible romantic foible for Leslie. And even then there didn’t appear to be much potential for their relationship, since, as Anne Perkins constantly brings up regarding her relationship with Chris, he’s heading back to Indianapolis soon. (Though given Scott and Lowe’s inclusion in the main cast, that may not be too soon.)

So it was nice to see the show focus on Ben and explore some of the clean-cut accountant’s weaknesses. In particular Ben’s reluctance to address his disastrous tenure as the former teenage governor of a small Minnesota town, which he bankrupted after sinking all its money into the failed skating rink “Ice Town.”

The show’s brought up Ben’s shadowy past before but never made much use of it until now, when, during the Parks’ media blitz for the upcoming harvest festival, it’s dredged up by Pawnee’s horrendously obnoxious (and completely spot-on) morning show “Crazy Ira and The Douche.” (And I’d really like to know who discovered that you can get away with “douche” on network television, because every show in existence has reveled in it.

Continue Reading →

In a recent support article, Apple detailed the differences between the GSM and CDMA iPhone when it comes to voice calling and other associated features. Among other things revealed that may be disturbing to Verizon iPhone users, the document confirms the Verizon iPhone is not capable of handling a conference call with more than two people.

In addition, the CDMA iPhone is unable to put calls on hold due to the way the network works. In the less negative category, the Verizon iPhone can use a manual method to toggle call forwarding, call waiting and caller ID instead of using the settings found in iOS itself.

If you’ve ever used a CDMA device,  you’re probably already familiar with these features and/or limitations. For potential AT&T switchers, these differences may or may not be any kind of deal breaker. Still, more info is always good when making decisions and it’s nice that Apple took the time to do this.

It’s nice to see that among the bevy of Michael send-offs, that The Office took a slight detour to give thanks to the rest of its fantastic cast. “Threat Level Midnight” is a self-indulgent love-letter to the cast that’s very generous with its humor and divvies up the best lines evenly among the current cast and even takes time to fondly remember some of the former performers, including a great cameo from Jan and creepily carnal lines from Pam’s mom and Karen (though the most disturbing one is Goldenface’s “I’m going to dig up Scarn’s dead wife and have sex all over her”).

Michael’s screenplay was first introduced wayyyy back in season 2, when the gang discovered it in Michael’s office and shut down work for the day to hold a reading in the conference room (the episode also had one of the best Michael-defining jokes of the series when it was discovered that Scarn’s bumbling sidekick was originally named “Dwight” until Michael did a search-and-replace to rename the character.

Unfortunately for the real Dwight, it didn’t pick up Michael’s misspelled “Dwigt”–it loses something in the explanation, but trust me, it was funny). I didn’t think there’d ever be more than a passing reference to it, if were ever brought up again, and that it’d go down as one of those things best left to the imagination, kind of like The Office’s own “Rules of Calvinball,” but run with it they did.

Continue Reading →

We’ve had rumors, of course, as we always do. First it was Jon Favreau who was going to come back for Iron Man 3. Then, he officially stepped away. After that, other directors were supposedly in the running.

But now, it seems, the decision has been made and the man in charge of Iron Man 3 is writer/director Shane Black. According to reports, Black is currently in those “final negotiations” but, of course, everyone in and around Marvel is not letting anything out just yet.

I know what you might be thinking: why Shane Black? The writer of Lethal Weapon 1 and 2? What does he know about comic book action movies? However, Black directing Iron Man 3 isn’t as crazy an idea as it might seem to some.

He’s had a long relationship with Robert Downey, Jr. after working with him in the underrated Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang which, among other things, helped to revitalized Downey, Jr.’s career. He’s also been around and worked with many of the biggest action directions of all time such as Richard Donner, Renny Harlin and Tony Scott, so some of that has got to rub off.

Besides, what did Favreau really know about big budget comic book action movies when he took on the original Iron Man? Not that much but it seemed to turn out pretty well. I, for one, am going to give Shane Black a chance. Maybe you should too.