March 05 2008
10,000 BC and other links
posted by Steven Shaw at 2:47 pm
Pyramids under construction: from Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 BC, in cinemas this week
Does Roland Emmerich stay up late watching old Raquel Welch movies? Not only is he behind the epic CGI-boosted 10,000 BC, which seems like a sneaky way to remake and update One Million Years B.C.… but Emmerich is set to remake Fantastic Voyage, which had a crew of scientists (including Welch) miniaturised inside a submarine and voyaging their way around the body of a very important scientist to sort out a blood clot. (It’s already been remade in one sense, as the comedy Inner Space starring Dennis Quaid and Martin Short.) Anyway, 10,000 B.C. is out this week, and it has some visual treats in store, like the building of ancient pyramids, herds of mammoths and a big old sabre-tooth tiger. Check out the HD trailer here or visit the promotional site here…
KITT 3000
Knight Rider is back: The pilot for a new series screened a couple of weeks back in the US. KITT is no longer a TransAm — they don’t make ‘em any more — instead, the car is now a black 550-horsepower Ford Shelby GT500KR Mustang, voiced by Val Kilmer.
Original star David Hasselhoff made a cameo appearance, but the series isn’t a strict remake; the new protagonist, Mike Traceur (Justin Bruening), plays the son of Michael Knight. Ratings were good but the critics had a field day, with the LA Times calling it a “two-hour (!) movie/pilot/extended Ford commercial” and saying “As with “Bionic Woman,” technology has out-stripped what was once science fiction.”…
The Sex Pistols are in tour mode, with dates set for Europe and now Japan, where they will play in August at the Summer Sonic festival in Osaka and Tokyo. This follows their “one-off” gig at London’s Brixton Academy last November and raises the possibility of them touring through Australia and hopefully, NZ. And at Sex Pistols TV, there’s the full news conference from late 2007 with John Lydon explaining why they re-recorded tracks for the game Rock Star III. And cursing a whole lot…
Christmas? Already?: Jimmy Christmas from The D4 is back with a new band. Called Luger Boa, they’re playing at Auckland’s Rising Sun on 20th March. Check out the new tunes from their forthcoming album at Luger Boa’s MySpace page…
Video: For those who went to bed too early on Monday here’s Liam Finn on Letterman:
The Happening: M. Night Shyamalan borrows a nice hippie phrase and uses it for his latest fright-film. See the trailer here. Expect a trumped-up commentary on the terrors of modern life with the usual unseen menace. Would rather watch a few hippies “go with the flow” and kidnap a retired Mafia kingpin, as in this 1967 film of the same name…
Format Wars: Blu-ray may have won the battle, but the format war still rages, according to this Variety article, which points out that other obstacles include the incumbent format of DVD and the arrival of upconverting DVD players…
Video: Trailer for Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise, a documentary film about Meat Loaf’s 2007 Bat Out of Hell III tour (official selection of the 2007 Montreal World Film Festival, opens in 25 US cities on March 12, 2008):