For nearly 50 years Doctor Who has captured the imaginations of countless minds, from the very young, to the very young at heart. The internet age has allowed that active fan base to accomplish some pretty incredible things, including the ambitious Doctor Who Fan Orchestra which takes individual YouTube submissions of each instrument and re-builds themes from the show.

From the video’s description:

The Doctor Who Fan Orchestra invites musical fans of Doctor Who to take part in an online collaborative celebration of Murray Gold’s music. Participants submitted recordings for this work from November 2011 to January 2012.

This final mix includes a total of 177 submissions from 154 individual participants, ranging in age from 11 to 57, and who are located in at least 18 different countries across the world, including: United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Spain, France, Russia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Israel, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland.

The end result is incredible, a near flawless performance of two classic early run Murray Gold themes. The video itself is a collage of individual performances that is almost as interesting as the music they are playing. To see the pieces fit together in an intricate, 21st century weave of YouTube videos highlights this magnificent piece.

Continue Reading →

Monty Python is the gold standard for which all modern comedy troupes tend to be judged on. In the ’70s and ’80s the Pythons perfected TV sketch comedy and transitioned into films with excellent results. So many of the bits and several of their feature films are bona fide classics.

Unfortunately the untimely passing of Graham Chapman marked the end of a legendary era, with most of the remaining members gaining success in other areas of entertainment during the next two decades. Now, according to Variety, Terry Jones has managed to get the guys back together for a new film he is directing.

Plans are for filming to begin in the U.K. this spring, with the Pythons voicing key roles as a a group of aliens who endow an earthling with the power to do “absolutely anything” to see what a mess he’ll make of things — which is precisely what happens. There’s also a talking dog named Dennis who seems to understand more about the mayhem that ensues than anyone else does. Robin Williams will voice the character.

“It’s not a Monty Python picture, but it certainly has that sensibility,” Jones told Variety.

Continue Reading →

With Twilight coming to an end and with Harry Potter already over, the world of young adult fiction franchises is looking pretty thin. The next series to take a stab at filling the void left by sexy vampires and teen wizards is The Hunger Games. The books are widely popular and the upcoming films are headlined by hot and talented young actors who could carry a series for a few years, so it behooves the studio to hedge their bets and begin working on the sequel as soon as possible.

TheWrap.com recently revealed that the studio has brought on writer Simon Beaufoy, whose credits include The Full Monty and Slumdog Millionaire, to begin work on adapting the second novel in the series. This isn’t exactly a huge surprise as a November 2013 release date has already been penciled in for the second film.

Director Gary Ross is supervising the script writing process as he plans on jumping into the sequel as soon as he is done with his work on the first film. Beaufoy is a very interesting choice who has had great success with recent adaptations winning an Oscar for his adaptation of Slumdog Millionaire and receiving another nomination for his work on 127 Hours. You can say what you want about a film that is aiming for the Twilight audience, but you have to give them props for using quality, talented people.

This past weekend we saw the release of Beauty and the Beast in 3D, the most recent in a string of classic films getting a 3D face lift.  The next big re-release is only a few weeks away with the first of the Star Wars 3D updates. Lucas is starting with Episode One, and is moving on through the franchise with a new re-release every year.

Even though the prequel trilogy lives in infamy among most film fans, the impending arrival of a Star Wars film on the big screen still holds some weight. In advance of the February launch a new set of five posters has hit the web, each with a wildy different design and most of them actually pretty cool.

It is gratifying that the posters excise the existence of Jar Jar Binks completely, although it would have been nice had Jake Lloyd received the same treatment. The upcoming 3D versions of these films represents the greatest perk of the 3D post conversion era we live in.

To have an opportunity to watch classic films on the big screen again in new and exciting ways is an exciting proposition. Hopefully lesser films like the prequel trilogy don’t ruin it before we get back to the original trilogy.

You can see the whole set of new posters after the jump.

Continue Reading →

Timur Bekmambetov is a visionary. Most people in America don’t register that name, but in his home land of Russia he is responsible for two of the most successful and visually stunning movies ever made in that country. He made the leap to American cinema with the fantastic adaptation of Wanted, and is currently in post on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Bekmambetov’s visual flair is his hallmark and anything he decides is worth his or his production company’s time promises to be pretty to look at in the very least. Variety is reporting that he has picked up the novel “One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy.” For those unfamiliar with the book, here is a synopsis:

Set 2000 years in the future, novel’s protag is 16-year-old Hieronymus Rexaphin, who lives on the now-colonized moon, where he meets a girl from Earth who is inexplicably drawn to him because of his special — some say dangerous — condition, which gives him the ability to see the future path of time and matter. 

It is unknown if Bekmambetov plans on directing, or if he will just produce. All we do know at this time is that the rights have been secured and a writer has been brought on to adapt. Either way this project sounds right up his alley, and should provide cinema goers with a visually exciting adventure film in the near future.

There are 50 scripts out there somewhere, 50 episodes of a TV series that most fan boys can’t wait to see. The Star Wars live action show has been discussed for years, Lucas has the scripts ready but is waiting for technology to be cost effective enough to make a show that looks like the prequel trilogy every single week.

That is a daunting goal, and requires a bit of a waiting period while the world of digital effects catches up. In the mean time small tidbits about the show keep getting dropped like bread crumbs leading us through the forest. In a recent sit down with IGN, Rick McCallum let slip that the working title of the show is Star Wars: Underworld.

What we know so far about the show, is that it takes place in the twenty year gap between Episode III and Episode IV and will revolve around bounty hunters. This is a very intriguing concept for a show, showing the rise of the Galactic Empire from the perspective of the criminals who thrive under it’s rule. It is also very encouraging to hear McCallum discuss the darker nature of the scripts.

Continue Reading →

2011 might go down as the year Hollywood finally figured out how to make a great prequel. Between the “X-cellent” X-Men: First Class and Rise of the Planet of the Apes we have seen two high profile franchises recieve a much needed quality boost back into the lime light.

The most impressive part of this movie is the performance of Andy Serkis as Caesar the ape. Millions of words have been written on the subject of his brilliant digital performance, and every single one of them speaks the truth. We are seeing the line between animation and performance blends so much that it is almost impossible to tell the difference.

This Blu-Ray presents the film, and a whole bunch of features that help you understand what exactly went into the astonishing effects work on the film. Of all the films that have come out in the last few years, this is one of the most worthy of a great set of features.

Continue Reading →

Since Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica went off the air a few years ago, there have been plenty of fans with a critical response as to the way the storylines got wrapped up and had a less-than impressive ending.

Now, through the genius of College Humor, they have managed to sum up all 4 seasons of the epic sci-fi series into a simple RPG circa the mid 1990s. With all of the wonderful text-based options to boot.

So if you were a fan of the series, or not so much, you will thoroughly enjoy this video game satire. If only it were real…Take a look after the jump.

Continue Reading →

Welcome to the future, a world where it is news that a feature film is being shot on 35mm film instead of digital or in 3D. We now know that the new Star Trek film will be one of those such films, although that doesn’t mean we will be spared the 3-D post conversion.

MTV recently talked with J.J. Abrams about the 2013 film:

“I’m sure, like many people, you see what you do and you go, ‘I really could have done that one better, I should have done that, that was a mistake, more of this, less of that.’ You always do that… I’m hoping that as we do the next one, all the mistakes that I’ve made that I’ve hopefully learned from, I can bring to this one and hope make it better.

We’re shooting on film, 2-D, and then we’ll do a good high-end conversion like the ‘Harry Potter’ movie and all that. Luckily, with our release date now we have the months needed to do it right because if you rush it, it never looks good.

We were talking about [shooting in IMAX] and I would love to do it. IMAX is my favorite format; I’m a huge fan,”

While it is nice that J.J. is looking to get into the IMAX business, post conversion 3D has a rocky history. He sited the most recent Harry Potter film as the standard he expects, but even then shooting for 2D and converting it after the fact never looks as good.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home remains one of the most popular Star Trek films, and is often considered the biggest hit of the original crew’s cinematic run. The movie is certainly the oddest of the bunch and adding to the goofier tone of the film is Leonard Rosenman’s score.

The score is usually sited as one of the weaker elements of the film, but that is an opinion born mostly from one or two very unfortunate cues that made it into the movie. The score as a whole is very good and the movie features one of the best main theme’s written for any of the films.

The wonderful folks at Intrada thankfully see it that way too because they have just announced the release of the complete score for Star Trek IV.

“Intrada ends 2011 with one last major release – the complete Leonard Rosenman score to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The second film in the series under the helm of director Leonard Nimoy, Nimoy choose a lighter approach to this outing and injected liberal amounts of well-placed humor.  For this fourth entry, Nimoy introduced another element he had wanted to bring on board earlier in the series: the music of Leonard Rosenman. Rosenman’s Star Trek IV music bears the hallmarks of the composer’s distinctive style: vaulting brass figures, complex textural passages, thumping suspense motives. The main theme—and also Kirk’s theme—is upbeat, heraldic and heroic, its optimistic flavor cutting a different path than the other scores in the series.”

Continue Reading →

The Men In Black franchise is much like the Transformers franchise. The first films were sci-fi, popcorn cinema classics that struck a perfect blend of action, heart and humor, then the sequels came out and were cinematic abominations. While the giant robot movies kept chugging forward, the Men in Black series seemed like it couldn’t survive the blight that was Men In Black 2.

Thankfully, the franchise received a pardon and the third Men In Black film is fast approaching. The first teaser for next summer’s blockbuster-to-be has just hit the web and it actually looks pretty great. In case you are unaware of what the next Men in Black film is about here is a synopsis:

In Men in Black 3, Agents J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) are back… in time. J has seen some inexplicable things in his 15 years with the Men in Black, but nothing, not even aliens, perplexes him as much as his wry, reticent partner. But when K’s life and the fate of the planet are put at stake, Agent J will have to travel back in time to put things right. J discovers that there are secrets to the universe that K never told him — secrets that will reveal themselves as he teams up with the young Agent K (Josh Brolin) to save his partner, the agency, and the future of humankind.

Check out the teaser after the jump.

Continue Reading →

That’s right folks it’s Friday again and you know what that means. Well, maybe you don’t Anyway, for us it means, among other things, previews of new NBC shows.

So, to follow that trend we’ve got some stuff for you about Grimm and Chuck, both of which have new episodes tonight. I don’t want to spoil anything for you here so I won’t get into too much detail about the previews or the new episodes.

Suffice it to say they both look pretty great with Grimm really shaping up to be a pretty interesting show and Chuck ending its run this season with some great episodes. It all begins tonight at 8/7C on NBC.

Now click through and watch these previews before they disappear. Actually, we’re just kidding, they won’t.

Continue Reading →