On the off chance that IGN’s embed code has somehow managed to not embed the trailer like it’s supposed to you can also see it here If you really want to, but all you really need to know is that the truly awful 1994 Street Fighter: The Movie staring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Col. Guile and Raul Julia—in the last role he would play before his death—as M. Bison looked more like the video game than this movie does. The guy they’ve got playing M. Bison this time around, Neal McDonough, doesn’t even come close to looking like the character and Chun-Li, played by Kristin Kreuk, must have been reading Thin Thighs in 30 Days because her greatest asset, if you’ll pardon the pun, is missing from her body in this version.

Not that I’ve ever understood why the movie studies keep trying to turn fighting games into movies. Mortal Kombat had at least some background story to it that you could work into a film, but Street Fighter has never had much of a story in any of the iterations of the game. It was people beating the shit out of each other in random locations for no apparent reason. You’d think that whoever decided to make a movie focused on one of the more popular characters would at least try to pick an actress who has the same physique as the character in the game so that horny gamer dudes would have some rationalization for going to see the movie. Angelina Joelie as Laura Croft was an inspired choice as she at least looked the part. Kristin Kreuk, not so much.

And the chances of that are improving as things heat up in Michigan’s new film industry. Early last year our state legislators passed a bunch of laws and tax breaks designed to make Michigan much more attractive to film and television productions and it’s already worked quite well. There’s a whole bunch of movies filming in Michigan with more on the way and now word comes down that we may end up with some full fledged production studios too:

State film officials say they are on the verge of sealing an $80 million development deal that would create three film and television production studios in southeast Michigan, boosting one of the state’s few fast-growing industries.

Two of the potential locations for the permanent studios — including one in Detroit — haven’t been used in years, while the third site would have to be built. One of the facilities would be a multi-studio complex that would occupy up to 130 acres, state officials confirmed. Another facility would be geared toward post-production work, such as audio and editing.

The Detroit facility, if the deal is finalized, could be in operation by the end of the year.

[...] “It’s a game-changer,” said Anthony Wenson, CEO of the Michigan Film Office, the agency that promotes the local film industry. “We truly (will) have a year-round industry. We can see a television series shot here. We can provide space for filmmakers to build large-scale sets. We can greatly expand our offerings to the video and digital media community.”

The state film agency has been working on the deal for months and contends it would create the infrastructure to support what has become a $100 million industry in the nine months since Michigan passed the most aggressive film industry tax incentives in the nation.

That would be wonderful if it does grow that big as Michigan is in desperate need of a shot to its economy. Plus, who knows, maybe I’ll finally get a chance to live out that youthful dream.

Found via the Michigan Messenger.

I think it’s safe to say that Marvel made the right decision to finally set up their own movie production division as it seems to be doing pretty well in putting out halfway decent adaptations of their various comic series. I even thought The Incredible Hulk was pretty decent even though a lot of folks weren’t excited by it. Iron Man was just a boat load of fun all the way around and largely due to Robert Downey Jr. This new Wolverine movie looks like it might continue the streak.

Now, having seen the following trailer, I think that lack of enthusiasm is justified. This was so bad I just had to share it with you to ease my pain:

I actually feel kind of bad for fans of the anime series as I’m sure even they are going to be disappointed by this production. Bad enough it’s Dragonball, but it was produced by Americans who probably did it for the easy money it’s likely to generate which means it’ll suck hard like a black hole trapping anything that might have been decent about the original anime into a swirling vortex of suckitude never to escape.

Found over at /Flim where they also think it looks stupid.

So it goes without saying that I was intrigued to find a trailer for the remake titled Race to Witch Mountain:

I know you can’t judge a movie by its trailer, but I’d be lying if I didn’t mention that my inner-7 and 10 year-olds are totally geeking out over that trailer.

With Halloween mere days away, it was a nice surprise when Neil Gaiman dropped by the MTV offices to discuss his latest project, “The Graveyard Book” — now number one on its respective New York Times list. Given the intense interest in Hollywood to adapt it before it ever came out, we had to ask: Will there be a movie version?

Yes, according to Gaiman.

“I don’t know if I can talk about this, but seeing that you’ve asked me, and seeing that I haven’t been told by anybody that I can’t talk about it,” Neil revealed, “but yes.”

[...] “They want to start making films, and start producing their own films,” Gaiman said. “And they read it, and they loved it, and I spoke to them, and they said all the right things, and they seem to listen. So I don’t think it’s going to be transported to a graveyard in Los Angeles where they’ve been burying bathing beauties or anything. I think we’re actual going to stick with where the book is written and film that. And I think part of the idea is that they know they can also do the special effects cheaply.”

That will be a big issue for this film, considering most of the characters are “dead, or werewolves, or ghouls, or something else mysterious,” Gaiman said.

Exactly how that will be achieved — what levels of transparency are the ghosts? How corporeal can they get? — is “part of the fun of making the film,” he said. “There’s probably going to be an awful lot of screen tests to figure how you can pull it off in the subtlest, coolest, and most convincing way, and that will be a job for next year.”

The fact that Gaiman is producing the film fills me with hope that it’ll be a good adaptation.

Best part of all? No Jar Jar.

The thing that makes this so cool to me is I can remember desperately wanting a film, and later a video, camera as a kid so I could make my own movies. My brother actually had a silent Super 8MM film camera that I used a couple of times to make small movies with, one of which was my own episode of the Mr. Bill Show of which I was a big fan*. I spent hours trying to figure out cheap ways of doing the special effects I’d need for my up and coming Space Epic, building ships out of Styrofoam, putting together model kits and so on, all for naught as in the end I didn’t have access to a camera with enough running time to do what I wanted to do. Nothing I did manage to put together comes close to what these kids have got up on YouTube. It’s a testament to how far technology has come in both ease of use and price that these kids put together a complete film that’s easily as entertaining as anything on prime time American television, if not more so.  The fact that millions of people around the world are also able to view it, whereas most of my attempts were barely watched by my own family, is also pretty amazing. Wish we had had this kind of stuff when I was a kid.

Found over at Boing Boing.

^{*I actually dressed up as Mr. Bill for Halloween one year. No one had a clue who the fuck I was supposed to be.}

“yes, columbia is developing a script for GB3 with my year one writing partners, gene stupnitsky and lee eisenberg.  judd apatow is co-producing year one and has made several other films for sony, so of course the studio is hoping to tap into some of the same acting talent. aykroyd, ivan reitman and i are consulting at this point, and according to dan, bill murray is willing to be involved on some level.  he did record his dialogue for the new ghostbusters video game, as did danny and i, and ernie hudson.  the concept is that the old ghostbusters would appear in the film in some mentor capacity.  not much else to say at this point.  everyone is confident a decent script can be written and i guess we’ll take it from there.
best,
harold

Oh that doesn’t sound good to me at all. Mentor capacity implies they’re handing it off to a new bunch of people and I’m not terribly impressed with the movies Judd Apatow has put out so far. Again maybe it’s a sign I’m getting old, but I’d rather see a third film created and starring the original people. If it holds up the release of the video game, which was billed as an unofficial “third movie” by Ramis, then there’s even more reason to be annoyed.

Diesel emphasizes the movie’s theme of smuggling people across national borders. “This whole thing that’s happening in Georgia right now is so fresh that no one has even asked about it yet,” he says. “We’re coming into an age where borders are closing, and I think that our society will be numb to it because of our freedom in the virtual world, our freedom in the Internet.”

But according to Kassovitz, Babylon A.D. fails to deliver any of these messages. “It’s pure violence and stupidity,” he admits. “The movie is supposed to teach us that the education of our children will mean the future of our planet. All the action scenes had a goal: They were supposed to be driven by either a metaphysical point of view or experience for the characters… instead parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24.”

Yeah, that’ll be a rental from Netflix.