Summer movie preview.

May:

The Amazing Spider-Man - In this movie, Spider-Man faces off against Electro and the Green Goblin and the Rhino and...okay, isn't this just what cut the legs out from under the Raimi franchise?!

Walk of Shame - The night before a life-changing interview, reporter Elizabeth Banks ends up in one of those madcap, After Hours-style situations.

Neighbors - A young couple's peaceful life gets a jolt when a fraternity moves in next door. Not a remake of the Belushi/Aykroyd comedy, but it looks pretty damn funny.

Godzilla - Hollywood tries again with everyone's favorite giant lizard. Looks like the human stories are getting just as much attention (if not more) as the destruction.

Million Dollar Arm - Talent scout Jon Hamm travels to India to recruit baseball prospects. Not really my cup of tea, but looks likable enough.

Blended - First, Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore brought us The Wedding Singer. Then came 50 First Dates. Given the utterly putrid trailer for this movie, the third time will not be the charm.

X-Men: Days of Future Past - To prevent a future war, Wolverine is sent into the past to unite Xavier and Magneto's factions against a common enemy. Bryan Singer returns to the franchise.

Maleficent - Apparently, there's more to Sleeping Beauty than we thought. Angelina Jolie looks to be having fun as the Mistress of All Evil.

A Million Ways to Die in the West - Cowardly farmer Seth MacFarlane gets help from gunslinger Charlize Theron in facing her outlaw husband, Liam Neeson. Interesting choice for a second feature, though I doubt it'll unseat Blazing Saddles in the annals of great Western comedies.

June:

Edge of Tomorrow - A soldier (Tom Cruise) in an intergalactic war finds himself reliving the same unfortunate day. Kind of a wonder that there haven't been more variations on Groundhog Day.

Chef - In an (possible) allegory for his career, writer/director Jon Favreau plays a chef who walks away from a successful if creatively stifling restaurant to get back to his roots.

The Fault in Our Stars - A pair of sickly teens fall in love. I guess it's nice to have an adaptation of a YA book not set in some dystopian future...or making a mockery of horror tropes.

22 Jump Street - The boys are back and heading to college. Hopefully, there will be some lampshading of the film's Hangover Part II-style pilfering of the first film's plot.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 - Vikings and dragons band together. I dare say this looks better than the first movie.

Think Like a Man Too - The whole gang returns and they're headed to Vegas.

Jersey Boys - Apparently an adaptation of a hit Broadway musical, but wait. Co-starring Christopher Walken and directed by Clint Eastwood. Yes, that Clint Eastwood.

Transformers: Age of Extinction - A new leading man (Mark Wahlberg) + Michael Bay's claim that this film will lack the goofiness of the first three = ...we'll see.

July:

Tammy - Melissa McCarthy rebuilds her life with the help of grandmother (!) Susan Sarandon.

Deliver Us from Evil - A cop who doesn't believe in the supernatural finds himself menaced by it. (Go figure.) From the director of Sinister.

Earth to Echo - A bunch of kids stumble onto an alien lifeform and try to help it get back home. E.T. for the found footage generation.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - Apparently, not all the humans were wiped out by that virus that made the apes intelligent.

Sex Tape - Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz put the spark back in their marriage by making a sex tape, and - wouldn't you know it - the darn thing gets loose. Promising reunion of the stars and director of Bad Teacher.

Planes: Fire and Rescue - Okay, Planes got a sequel. You tell me why. (Still, I did laugh at that 'pick-up trucks' line.)

Jupiter Ascending - I have no idea what the hell is going on in this trailer. Something about Mila Kunis as a princess and Channing Tatum as her protector and his pointy ears are a distraction. Oh, hell, I'll just wait for the Abridged Script.

The Purge: Anarchy - A couple's car breaks down at the worst possible time. The main complaint about the first movie was that it threw away a neat premise on a home invasion movie. From the looks of this one, the filmmakers got the message.

Step Up: All In - I have nothing to say about this.

Hercules - The second of the year's Hercules films stars Dwayne Johnson and is directed by Brett Ratner. If this one also stinks, at least there's the Disney version.

August:

Guardians of the Galaxy - One of the more obscure branches of Marvel Comics gets a film adaptation. Written and directed by James Gunn, who's pretty trustworthy, for the most part. To this film's composer, Tyler Bates, I beg you: Do. Not. Fuck. This. Up.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The latest rendition of the comic looks to be little more than a Transformers sequel, but with CGI turtles. If this one stinks, at least there's the original movies...I guess.

Get On Up - Apparently cornering the market on African-American luminaries, Chadwick Boseman (42) now takes on the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. From the writer/director of The Help.

Lucy - Drug mule Scarlett Johansson's life changes dramatically when the product gets loose in her system. What I wouldn't give to spend a night in Luc Besson's mind to know how he comes up with this stuff.

The Hundred-Foot Journey - The kid from Bad Words becomes an assistant to a chef, upsetting his father. Produced by Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey. (Clearly, big things are expected from this.)

Let's Be Cops - Damon Wayans Jr. and Jake Johnson are best friends who decide to go to a costume party as cops...and are soon mistaken for the real thing. The trailer made me laugh so hard.

Into the Storm - From the director of the surprisingly entertaining Final Destination 5 comes a found footage movie about tornado chasers.

The Expendables 3 - Here's hoping that there's more action and less in-joking this time around. (Seriously, if I hear lines about tossed salads and scrambled eggs, how it's not being the years, but the mileage and the villain referred to as a lethal weapon, I'm gonna demand a refund. I never do that!)

The Giver - A young boy learns from the titular Giver (Jeff Bridges, of all people) that his idyllic world isn't so perfect. Yet another adaptation of a YA novel.

Sin City: a Dame to Kill For - It's about damn time. Another marvelous cast bringing Frank Miller's comics to life.

Jessabelle - A young woman discovers a lot of weirdness in her new home. Trailer was a bit too cliched. Weird to think it was scripted by The State's Robert Ben Garant.

The Loft - A group of friends share a secret loft with which to commit marital indiscretions, but when a woman's corpse is found in bed, one of them may be responsible. Looks better than I expected.

I'm sure that we're all familiar with 1978's Piranha, a gruesome, yet amusing goof on Jaws. But what if the film didn't seem so lighthearted? What if the film was promoted as a straight thriller cut from the exact cloth of its predecessor? Well, you'd have this:



The funny thing is that this isn't some recent fan edit trailer. New World themselves (or, perhaps, their foreign equivalent) put this together for international release. I can only assume that this was done as overseas audiences wouldn't get the nuances of the film's sardonic dialogue and decided to focus on plain ol' thrills.

Not even the cheesiness of the last couple seconds can diminish the effectiveness of the ad.

Well, the gentleman has agreed to send back the surplus of the money. Nice way to start my birthday.

A few days ago, I decided to make a few soundtrack purchases. Whilst scanning ebay, I stumbled upon the complete soundtrack of Escape from L.A. that La La Land released a few weeks back. The initial price was $9.95. Sounded like a good deal to me, as I've found the score to be 'all right'.

The auction was started by a European gentleman, which basically meant that the auction would end at around 4:30am EST on Sunday morning. I got up and made my way to ebay. As the clock ticked away, the price had jumped a few dollars. My desire to win held firm, so I entered my bid, only to find that someone else had outbid my initial bid. I tried again. I was the highest bidder. Awesome. The clock ran out and I had won. The price? $16.50 plus $3.00 shipping (at least, that's what it said at the top of the page, but more on that later). My thinking at the time was that a discount was a discount, even by a few bucks. (The list price for the item is $19.99 plus anywhere from $3.50 to $4.50, depending on the soundtrack retailer.)

Cut to about half an hour ago. I'm checking my e-mail. One message catches my eye: 'Your PayPal transaction has been refunded'. I click on it. It tells me that the shipping price was $12.00, not $3.00. Turns out, in revisiting the page, the '12 dollars shipping' notice was buried at the bottom of the page and not, say, advertised at the top next to the item where it said $3.00.

That, on its own, wouldn't be so bad. Here's where things get unpleasant. In addition to the auction price and re-adjusted shipping, I have to pay, on top of that, the original price I had assumed I'd be paying. All in all, a grand total of $48.00 for a score I consider 'all right'. This kind of situation (paying more than I probably ought for a CD, not getting outright conned by an ebay vendor) is not foreign to me. Jerry Goldsmith's Link and Max Steiner's Those Calloways cost a pretty penny, but I find myself enjoying those scores. Also, they were out of print.

I'm certainly going to be contesting this. And if this guy thinks that this is going to result in positive feedback on his page, he's obviously fucking high.

As I sit at my computer contemplating one of the two scripts I'm working on to potentially sell, I think to myself 'Why have I not updated my blog?'. Of course, the answer is laziness. However, I have set in motion events that belie such laziness. I complain about my crappy job, but what if I were to tell you that, by the fall, I won't be working there anymore? Not sure what job I'll have, but I'm definitely getting a new job.

And all it took was a trip to Toronto.

It'll all make sense by Labor Day...I hope.

Oh, and Happy Easter.

My own MTV Movie Awards.

The actual show airs this Sunday night. I won't be watching (between "Drop Dead Diva" and the return of "Mad Men", my schedule is booked solid), so here goes.

best on-screen duo:
Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Escape Plan
Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer, The Lone Ranger
Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds, R.I.P.D.
Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, 2 Guns
Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, White House Down

best action sequence:
the destruction of the space shuttle, Gravity
saving Air Force One, Iron Man 3
the runaway train, The Lone Ranger
the bullet train fight, The Wolverine
the WHO infiltration, World War Z

best comedic performance:
Jim Carrey, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
Danny McBride, This is the End 
Ron Perlman, Pacific Rim

best villain:
Benedict Cumberbatch, Star Trek Into Darkness
William Fichtner, The Lone Ranger
Mel Gibson, Machete Kills
Ben Kingsley, Iron Man 3
Michael Shannon, Man of Steel

best breakthrough performance:
Domnhall Gleeson, About Time
Margot Robbie, The Wolf of Wall Street
Eleanor Tomlinson, Jack the Giant Slayer
Antje Traue, Man of Steel
Ruth Wilson, Saving Mr. Banks

best male performance:
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street
Tom Hanks, Saving Mr. Banks
Hugh Jackman, The Wolverine
Ben Stiller, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Forest Whitaker, Lee Daniels' The Butler

best female performance:
Amy Adams, American Hustle
Rachel McAdams, About Time
Chloe Grace Moretz, Carrie
Mary Steenburgen, Last Vegas
Emma Thompson, Saving Mr. Banks

best fight:
Chloe Grace Moretz vs. the kidnappers, Kick-Ass 2
Amber Heard vs. Michelle Rodriguez, Machete Kills
Gipsy Danger vs. level five kaiju, Pacific Rim
Channing Tatum vs. Jason Clarke, White House Down
the gang vs. the teenagers, The World's End

best kiss:
Domnhall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams, About Time
Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
Armie Hammer and Ruth Wilson, The Lone Ranger
Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman, Thor: the Dark World
Will Poulter and Emma Roberts, We're the Millers

best movie:
American Hustle
Iron Man 3
This is the End
White House Down
The Wolf of Wall Street

There's an island off the coast of Japan. It's become something of a tourist attraction because of all the rabbits running around.

This, in a nutshell, is why Night of the Lepus failed: swarms of rabbits aren't terrifying. They're adorable.

I'd really like to go to there someday.