Brett Ratner’s bid to doom the franchise!
Ok, maybe not. Take away what I know about the movie from spy reports and this actually looks good. Not as killer as that first X2 teaser with Holst’s “Mars” playing over the footage of the army invading the masion all with Magneto’s voice-over… but its still decent. Nerd note: Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut in Magneto’s army doesn’t make sense since he isn’t a mutant. But if we got organic webshooters, we’ll get this and no-one will probably care too much.
The Xverse has some nice caps of the trailer if you can’t watch it for whatever reason. I already made myself a new desktop celebrating the infamous Magneto quote from the X-Men Arcade game: Welcome To Die!

New Game Informer magazine (Splinter Cell cover) has a 6 page story about the X3 game from Activision. 3 playable characters: Wolverine (obviously), Iceman (cool!), and Nightcrawler (huh?).
The game itself bridges the gap between 2 and 3, and will feature missions returning to Alkali lake to salvage bits from Stryker’s Cerebro to fix the one damaged during the assault on the mansion. Wolvie also meets up with Deathstryke who’s survived, and will go to Japan (Silver Samurai?). His levels will be brawlers, taking on many enemies and taking cover only long enough to heal before pounding through more enemies.
Iceman gets very fast paced levels as he’ll race around using that ice surfing trick I loved so much from the old Spiderman show. Looks like his levels will use some Sonic the Hedgehog type stuff. one of the screen shots show him using an ice blast against a fire engulfing a nuclear plant (likely Pyro’s handywork).
Nightcrawler’s levels will supposedly set his story out away from the action of X3, hopefully explaining away why he’s not in the movie. He gets *bamf* around people, kicking them in the back and also sneak around.

Movie games are SO hit and miss these days, which is better than they used to be, which was all miss. Though I know I should prepare for another ass game linked to what may very well be an ass movie, x2 was too kind to me to just abandon it now. I still saw Batman Forever after all, but learned my lesson by Batman & Robin.

VS
AP and MTV report that in Baltimore on Thanksgiving night, former Creed and current butthole singer Scott Stapp got into a fight with the surprisingly still popular 311.
The whole things sounds pretty cool how Stapp was being a shit and threw the first punch but the 311 knocked him back. Its a shame they couldn’t be met with arms wide open and he had to be taken down and things got all mixed up. Stapp won’t serve any jail time, but he’s got his own prison. 311 have sent a message loud and clear to him: dont tread on me. It sounds like a beautiful disaster happened in that bar, but thats his sacrifice.

Ultimate Avengers is a new Direct-to-DVD release funded by Marvel. With Daredevil, Punisher, Blade, Hulk, F4, and even the X-men franchise heading for disaster, animated movies are the way to go. They still got Spider-Man I guess, but these little animated features have great potential for Marvel since they don’t have to comprimise the source material at all with odd effects or casting.
I’d still pay to see a sweet World War 2 era Captain America movie. Toss in a Hugh Jackman/Logan cameo for fun…

The original King Kong is finally available on DVD, and was also run on TCM this past week.
Having never seen this movie with the appreciation I have for cult cinema and special effects as an adult, I was shocked. I mean, this was pretty graphic, and once the action started rolling with Kong’s introduction it really didn’t stop. I have no idea whether Peter Jackson’s fondness for storytelling or fondness for Kong fights will win out in the remake, but even in 1933 with stop motion effects, its all giant ape attacks until the very end, and its all great to watch.
I was astounded by how many people were crushed, eaten, or just chewed up and let go. Between Kong and all the dinosaurs, this had to be the biggest body count of any film of that era.
Performances were good for their time, and certainly the concept carried the picture, but this movie is quite a bit like The Wizard of Oz. Its a classic that can’t really be improved upon or modernized in any fashion without losing something. PJ’s remake really has more to fear from stepping out of Kong’s shadow than the Rings trilogy.

Never buy your DVDs at a supermarket.

I didn’t realize that there was a third installment of this series until the week before it was scheduled to be released. This volume focuses mainly on newer artists, particulary in the south and the midwest. It features Bone vs Twista, Nelly vs Chingy, TI vs Lil Flip, Game vs 50 cent, and more. THis volume is somewhat lacking compared to the other two, but there are a bit more extras, including a featurette on Armored cars, commentaries from Stat QUo and David Banner, and a second disc featuring an interview from Lil Flip and the Clover Street Gees. I hope they follow this up with more volumes, becuase there have been several major beefs left out of all 3 volumes such as Snoop and Dre vs Death Row, Mc Eiht vs DJ Quik, and No Limit vs Cash Money. Pick this up, and if you haven’t already, grab th eother 2 versions.

Superman Returns teaser trailer is finally available. But is this really a teaser for the new movie? It uses music from the original movie as well as Marlon Brando’s voice for Jor-El. The clips are clearly the new movie, but its a kinda confusing deal.
For the first time I’m wondering if Singer’s boyish love of the Donner original might be more detrimental than helpful. Bah, nothing can keep me away from this movie…

There’s a point about a half hour into Walk The Line where Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Johnny Cash crosses over and becomes fully convincing. And for me, it was the exact moment between him stepping up to the microphone and saying “hello, I’m Johnny Cash”, which didn’t quite ring true to my ears, and him beginning to sing “Get Rhythm” in a near perfect Cash tone. And through the whole movie, my suspension of belief came and went, and for every shot where he struck the right pose and his voice had the right pitch, there were two where I just saw Joaquin Phoenix playing a role not unlike several he’s played before. But that third of the time that he hits the mark really is something.

These days, we get glossy but lovingly detailed biopics about pop culture icons of the 20th century at least once or twice a year, and even if they’re all amazing stories about incredible people, they’re not all well told. Walk The Line just about does the job, but is carried far more by the acting than the storytelling. The direction of James Mangold, whose resume includes the middling mystery Identity and fucking Kate & Leopold, tells us about Cash’s unique and eventful life in a fairly dull way, but it lets Phoenix’s occasionally brilliant depiction of Cash lead the way and keep it interesting.

Phoenix’s world class Cash is occasionally cheapened by the number of scenes featuring lesser impressions of other musical legends, like Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. Jerry Lee Lewis aside, none of Cash’s tourmates were depicted convincingly or had any memorable scenes. And having them in every other scene for a large chunk of the movie dragged it down and made it feel a little like those horrible made for TV movies about Jimi Hendrix or The Temptations that they rerun on VH1 all the time. Even the stunt casted Shooter Jennings barely resembled Waylon Jennings.

I’m alright with the fact that they had to Hollywood up the plot a little bit for the movie to work, but I was pretty annoyed with how they reduced Cash’s life story to a love story. June Carter was, of course, a huge part of Johnny Cash’s live, but I’m sure he did and said things that weren’t 100% motivated by their relationship, though you wouldn’t know it from watching Walk The Line. Reese Witherspoon had nearly as much screen time as Joaquin Phoenix. And as soon as she agreed to marry him and their conflicts were resolved, the damn movie was over. I do respect that choice, though, because I’m glad they didn’t bother to do a heavy make-up job on Phoenix for him to portray Cash in his later years, collecting awards and recording alt-rock cover albums with Rick Rubin.

Anytime an actor portrays a singer, the question arises: let them sing or dub the original voice? Ray played it safe and let Jamie Foxx lip sync to the voice of the real Ray Charles, but in retrospect, especially after his uncanny Ray impression on Kanye West’s “Gold Digger”, I wish they’d let him give it a try. And I’m glad Walk The Line let Phoenix give it a try. It’s clear he doesn’t possess Cash’s deep range naturally, but he does an admirable job anyway, and I’m sure it would’ve taken me out of the movie a lot more for the voice and the face not to match up than for the voice not to match up with my memory of the real Cash. And I stayed with the movie just enough to feel like I really got a feel for his life that I wouldn’t have gotten from just watching the A&E Biography.