The Great Geek Manual

Hot on the heels of Esquire calling The Road “the most important film of 2009,” its trailer has hit the web. By the looks of things, the film is going to do the book credit, unlike the Children of Men, the last big budget post-apocalyptic thriller to be based on a major literary work, which utterly twisted the story of the novel it was based upon.

The film is an adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer winning book that stars Charlize Theron, Viggo Mortensen, Guy Pearce, and Robert Duvall. In it, a father and son journey across a desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape over the course of years following an unexplained global cataclysm. The trailer plays up the action angles of the story, but it’s hard to tell if that’s creative license on the writer’s part or just the fact that it’s a trailer. Either way, I’m pretty sure this is going to be one of the small hand full of must-see movies this year, and I’ll be counting the days to its release.

The Road hits big screens October 16, 2009.

Movie: “Star Trek”

Rating: Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence, and brief sexual content.
Release: May 8, 2009
Running Time: 2 hrs 6 mins
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana… IMDB listing

Verdict:
Still baring vivid scars from the horrendous disappoint dealt to me in my adolescence by Lucas’ rape of my favorite film franchise, I approached Abrams’ reboot of my second favorite franchise tentatively, afraid I would once again be burned by my own naive optimism.

I went into the theater expecting – maybe even hoping – to hate this film. Two hours later, I walked out, wondering what the hell had happened. Somewhere in the course of the film, I had stopped noticing the film’s many plot holes and inconsistencies, forgotten my animosity, and been swept up into a bright, exciting story.

It wasn’t the Star Trek I knew and obsessed over. It didn’t carry the weight of a cultural icon. It wasn’t thought-provoking. It was just two hours of light-hearted escapism that I really enjoyed.

I recommend seeing this one on the big screen, where it was meant to be seen, and bringing a friend. Star Trek isn’t going to score high in terms of rewatch-ability, so make the most of it the first time out.

Synopsis:
The greatest adventure of all time begins with Star Trek, the incredible story of a young crew’s maiden voyage onboard the most advanced starship ever created: the U.S.S. Enterprise. On a journey filled with action, comedy and cosmic peril, the new recruits must find a way to stop an evil being whose mission of vengeance threatens all of mankind.

The fate of the galaxy rests in the hands of bitter rivals. One, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), is a delinquent, thrill-seeking Iowa farm boy. The other, Spock (Zachary Quinto), was raised in a logic-based society that rejects all emotion. As fiery instinct clashes with calm reason, their unlikely but powerful partnership is the only thing capable of leading their crew through unimaginable danger, boldly going where no one has gone before!
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This ridiculously awesome forty minute Lord Of The Rings fan film, The Hunt For Gollum, was created “by fans for fans,” but it’s not your average amateur production. It’s “adapted from elements of the appendices,” and it boasts a set of jaw-dropping production values.

The world will be able to watch it for free online beginning May 3rd, after it’s been screened at the Sci-Fi London convention. You can still check out the first and second film trailers now, though, at the official fan site.

Another clip of Tim Burton’s upcoming film 9 has hit the web, and it still looks pretty bad-ass. I had been figuring that the first clip had contained all the best action sequences, but this may end up being one of those uber-rare cartoons that holds your attention from beginning to end.

9 hits the theaters this September.

The official trailer for the upcoming film Moon has hit the web, and it looks like the film is going to be a seriously suspenseful psychological thriller. From the few brief clips shown in the trailer, the film appears to bear a striking similarity to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris and Sunshine. I’m not sure that it’ll be one to see in theaters, but I love the desolate space thrillers.

The posters for this film kind of kick ass, too.

Movie: “Knowing”

Rating: Rated PG-13 for disturbing images and brief strong language.
Release: March 20
Running Time: 2 hrs 1 min
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne… IMDB listing

Verdict:
Knowing is a larger than life film that ultimately falls flat in its ending. It’s similar in atmosphere and quality to both the 2002 film The Mothman Prophecies and the 2004 film The Forgotten, but it fails to achieve the eerie quality of the former or to pack the punch of the later. While Knowing is packed with thrilling high-end special effects that were made for the big screen, its failure to deliver thrills at the climax of its slowly ratcheted suspense and its cliche ending make this film one that most people will enjoy far better on a late night at home than on the big screen.

Synopsis:
Recently-widowed MIT astrophysicist John Koestler believes in a deterministic universe in which “shit happens.” When his son, Caleb, is given a mysterious sheet of scribblings out of a fifty-year old time capsule, however, he’s soon caught up in a series of events that leads him to believe otherwise.

The letter, unlike other sunny crayon pictures held by the capsule, is a series of seemingly meaningless numbers. Caleb, intrigued by the letter, brings it home, where, in the grip of a late night epiphany, he begins to suspect that the letter may hide a deeper meaning. His revelation is sparked by recognition of the date of the September 11th attacks on the Twin Towers pairs with the exact number of casualties.

Growing increasingly obsessed with the enigmatic letter, Koestler probes deeper into its meaning, quickly discovering its connection to countless disasters through recent history. As he races to prove the authenticity of the letter and determine whether the disasters it predicts are preventable, tensions mount, and he comes to fear that the fate of the world may be inevitable.
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Movie: Watchmen

Taglines: Justice is coming to all of us. No matter what we do.

Rating: Rated R for… being the Watchmen
Release: March 6, 2009
Running Time: 163 minutes
Starring: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, & Patrick Wilson… IMDB listing

Verdict:
Loyal Watchmen fans will not be disappointed. Director Zack Snyder has beautifully translated Alan Moore’s masterpiece into one hell of a movie. Despite having trimmed some of the tongue-in-cheek subplots, the compacted but largely undiluted storyline retains all of its punch, sacrificing only length and a little of the characters’ grit.

Audience:
Moore fans will love this film, either because it’s so true to the comics… orrr because they’ll have such a good time picking apart all the subtle ways it differs from the comics. Action fans will also love this film for the the excessive violence and rivers of gore it retained from the original story, even though most Bruce Willis/Steven Segul loyalists will likely find themselves checking their watches about halfway through due to the amount of backstory the film packs.

Ladies, if you haven’t read the comic and you don’t count yourself a geek, you’re in for a royal snore fest. This is one hardcore guy movie.

NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN. Buckets of blood and a glowing blue penis make this a very adult film.

Synopsis:
Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 in which masked vigilantes have fought on the streets alongside the police and brought the Vietnam war to a stop, only to be reviled by the public and outlawed by the government. The world stands on the brink of nuclear annihilation as tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Russia escalate, and one of the world’s best known and most morally ambivalent heroes, the Comedian, is murdered in his apartment. While the rest of the world dismisses the death, Rorschach, the Comedian’s former teammate is determined to exact vengeance for the death, and, convinced that the death is only the first in an attempt to exterminate the masked heroes of the past, he doggedly pursues leads in order to find the mysterious killer, only to uncover a larger plot.
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I had my doubts about the upcoming Termainator Salvation film, but this trailer has totally sold me. Now, it looks like it’s going to blow Terminator 3 out of the water and cement the franchise’s place in the action genre. Not to mention that it’s going to have some of the best movie posters seen in years.

Also, don’t miss the new posters and still from the film, posted in the Yahoo! Movies Photo Galleries. They’ve really gone whole hog on this film’s special effects.

Source: Yahoo! Movies