To See: The Fabulous World of Jules Verne

Take a bunch of Jules Verne stories and mix them together with special effects based on illustrations from old editions of Verne novels and you get The Fabulous World of Jules Verne.

It's an English-dubbed Czech film about a scientist and his assistant who are on the verge of discovering a new energy source. They're kidnapped by pirates who work for an evil buisnessman, but he's a cool evil businessman because he has a submarine and a secret volcano hideout.

Found via Brass Goggles.

The Film Crew

Mourn for Mystery Science Theater 3000 no longer. The Film Crew is here.

Mike Nelson (Mike), Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robot), and Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo) have formed The Film Crew in an endeavor to do exactly what they did on MST3K: comment on bad movies as you watch them.

The first DVD will be released in April 2007, but which movie will be on it is determined by a vote on the Film Crew's website. Nominees are The Giant of Marathon, Hollywood After Dark, Killers from Space, and The Wild Women of Wongo. You can check out a couple of minutes of each film (complete with commentary, though sadly lacking silhouettes of the commentators at the bottom of the screen) on the site to help you decide, but why anyone would vote for something besides The Wild Women of Wongo is beyond my capacity to comprehend. Still, the world is full of freaks...

To See: My Name is Bruce

I'm sometimes the last to know these things, but just in case you haven't heard either: adventure hero extraordinaire Bruce Campbell is directing a movie called My Name is Bruce in which he plays himself, the real Bruce Campbell. When he's mistaken for his Ash character from the Evil Dead movies, some folks ask him to help fight a monster in rural Oregon. Details are sketchy, but it looks like most folks anticipate a direct-to-DVD release.

In other Bruce news, looks like Bubba Nosferatu and the Curse of the She Vampires may be more than just a gag in the credits of Bubba Ho-Tep. Okay, that's more rumor than news, but here's hoping.

To See: Bridge to Terabithia

Like Arthur and the Invisibles, here's another kids-go-to-fantasy-realm movie. As cool as Arthur looks, there's no getting around that the CGI is very cartoony. Sort of a cross between Pixar and The Dark Crystal. Bridge to Terabithia, on the other hand, is going for a realistic, Narnia -- if not Lord of the Rings -- feel.

Looks amazing.

To See: The Holiday

For all the fun, actiony, spooky stuff that I talk about on this blog, there's really nothing I like better than a good romantic comedy. That's why I dig shows like The Gilmore Girls, Grey's Anatomy, and Men in Trees.

Anyway, The Holiday looks like it could be a good romantic comedy. There's a shot of Jack Black laughing in the trailer that looks really contrived and forced, but it's out of context and the rest of it features people I like falling in love with each other in great, picturesque settings, so my fingers are crossed.

To See: 300

I've intended on seeing 300 for as long as I knew it was being adapted to movie form, but that's more out of my interest in the actual historical event than the fact that it's based on a Frank Miller graphic novel. The half of Miller's stuff that I like (Sin City, Batman: Year One, Dark Knight Returns, etc.), I really like. The half that I don't care so much for (Spawn, Dark Knight Strikes Again, All-Star Batman and Robin, etc.), makes me not automatically assume that I'm going to like something just because it's got his name on it.

My anticipation of 300 has been pretty low-key until lately, because all the promotional imagery I saw for it was just a bunch of folks standing around in front of blue screens. What's changed and made me full-on excited for this movie, is that the trailer has come out. 300 is going to be a stunningly beautiful film.

To See: Arthur and the Invisibles

I said before that I'm a sucker for stories about kids that get transported into magical worlds. Arthur and the Invisibles looks like a great example of that kind of story done perfectly as a movie. Arthur inhabits a beautifully photographed, live-action world until he enters the world of the Invisibles where he's converted to the same, stunningly detailed CGI that they are. The trailer's got a fantastic, storybook quality to it.

And David Bowie voices the bad guy.

To See: Time of the Apes (MST3K Version)

A local cartoonist wrote on his blog recently that there's a Japanese version of Planet of the Apes called Time of the Apes. I shouldn't be surprised, but I was. Unfortunately, it sounds like as big a turd as Frankenstein Conquers the World.

According to the Amazon plot summary: "Three bumbling morons accidentally stumble into a cryogenic freezer and end up in the future, where monkeys populate the Earth" and "are ruled themselves by a supercomputer named 'UECOM,' which is a malevolent artificial being created by humans."

It sounds unwatchable, except that Mystery Science Theater 3000 did an episode on it and that would be worth seeing. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, that episode hasn't been released on DVD yet. Someday though. Someday...