As a huge fan of the Underworld series of movies, I took in it’s latest instalment, Underworld Awakening, this week. I generally enjoyed this movie, and while it’s tone was a bit of a departure from the films that came before it, it still works quite well with the rest of the franchise. Kate Beckinsale seems like a vampire herself, as she is still as lovely as she was years ago when this series began.

The film takes place 12 years after Underworld Evolution, after a human cleansing of Vampires and Lycans leaves both species struggling to fight extinction. With the plot centering around fighting powerful companies, engineered creatures and general ass kicking, the movie is reminiscent of a Resident Evil film, though still unique in it’s own way.

My main complaint about the movie would be it’s length. With a total run time of only 88 minutes, and long credits that are probably about 10 of those, the film itself wraps up after about an hour and twenty minutes. With the first film weighing in at over two hours, 133 minutes for the director’s cut, this is a bit disappointing.

Keep reading for more thoughts which will include some spoilers.
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Actor Robert Hegyes, best known for portraying Epstein in the hit comedy Welcome Back Kotter, died of a heart attack early this morning.

Robert’s character, Juan Luis Pedro Philippo DeHuevos Epstein, was the tough guy on the show, often cracking jokes, and often being the subject of them. After Welcome Back Kotter Robert went on to do other TV work and ultimately retired from acting. Robert Hegyes will be missed, and his contribution to comedy will not soon be forgotten.

Source: The Huffington Post

Today is John Carpenter’s 64th birthday. To celebrate, here’s a remake of his 1982 hit film “The Thing” done entirely in claymation in the style of Pingu.

As of this post being published the film has been seen by 885,887 people, which may be more people than watched the 2011 remake…

Check out more videos like this at leehardcastle.com, which also has these storyboards of Pingu’s The Thing.

Also check out John Carpenter’s The Thing in Stop Motion with GI Joes from a few years ago.

Tonight Fox premiered the first two episodes of the new Napoleon Dynamite TV series. Is this a new hit for Fox’s Animation Domination block or will it go the way of Allen Gregory?

I’m a huge fan of the Napoleon Dynamite movie, so I was both worried and excited at the prospect of a show. Despite the excitement of an animated version of a favourite movie of mine, there’s always the concern that this would turn out to be a piece of garbage that’s an insult to the film, like other animated series based on great movies such as Spaceballs and Strange Brew.

It’s still a bit early to make any final judgements, but I found the show to be pretty funny. Though not as consistently funny as the film, each episode included some pretty solid jokes which made me laugh, which really is all you can ask for from a comedy. The show was reminiscent of the movie, and although some dialogue seemed unnaturally repetitive from what we’ve heard, the general tone seemed pretty consistent, while adding a certain level of cartoon silliness as we can only expect from such a show.

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The Star Wars Expanded Universe is really lame … except of course when it involves the greatest species in the Star Wars universe, the Ewoks! This June Dark Horse will be releasing a trade paperback collecting all the issues of the Droids and Ewoks comics.

Originally published from 1985 to 1987 the Droids and Ewoks comics, released by Marvel’s Star Comics, were based on the animated series of the same names. Droids is an 8 issue story following R2-D2 and C-3PO, the gay robots of Star Wars, in their adventures that predate the original film. Ewoks is a 14 issue story featuring the Ewoks as seen in Return of the Jedi, having great adventures on the Forest Moon of Endor. Retailing at $25, this 528 page book is quite a bargain.

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Here’s a review of the extended edition of Hanna, which shows that Hanna is actually a prequel to the Hannah Montana TV series.

Allen Gregory, a hilarious show that everyone hated, the best thing in Fox’s animation domination block, has been canceled.

Where did Fox go wrong? Fox went wrong in cancelling this show! You, the audience went wrong in not embracing its brilliance! This hilarious comedy is the greatest new one in years, which means absolutely nothing, because all the comedies on TV right now suck because you idiots can’t tell a good one if it takes a shit between two piece of garbage Fox animated shows that all you mouth breathers are supporting!

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Wizards of Waverly Place has come to an end after four excellent seasons. With the finale came the long anticipated Wizard Competition, and with that an answer to the question that fans have been asking themselves for the past four years, “Who will be the Russo Family Wizard”? As is the case in all Wizard families, only one of the siblings is able to keep their Wizard powers and become a more powerful full Wizard, and this decision is made by way of a Wizard Competition. For the sake of spoilers, I will hold off on the reveal until later in the article.

The details of the Wizard Competition have always been a mystery. We do get an idea of what one might be like in “Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie” as Alex and Justin faced off against each other in an emergency competition. In that setting, they had to compete in a battle to reach a sphere using only the four elements. In this case, Alex won the Wizard Competition, and could easily have kept her full powers, but instead decided to return things to what they were to avoid having their family be torn apart.