Modern superhero movies are officially old enough to be rebooted now. That thought makes me feel old. I was a sophomore in High School when the first Spider-Man movie came out, and I loved it. I was an awkward geek, like Peter Parker but minus the academic abilities, and even though I thought Tobey Maguire looked way older than me, I connected with him. Looking back through the lens of more recent superhero movies though, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films seem a little silly. Spider-Man 2 is still a great film, and I never saw the third movie, but when I heard that Sony was planning to reboot the franchise, I understood. I was ready for a new take on Spider-Man.

And boy is it dividing fans. I saw it on opening day at my local IMAX theater, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot, trying to figure out what I thought. Rather than writing an in-depth review, I thought I would just round up my likes and dislikes and see if we could get a discussion going.
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Did you know there is going to be a LEGO movie? You didn’t? Well, there is, and it’s being made by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the duo behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street. The big news today is that LEGO versions of Batman and Superman will appear in that film, but I extracted a much more awesome headline out of that story.

Will Arnett is going to voice LEGO Batman. If this isn’t the best idea in the history of pretty great ideas I don’t know what is. If you’re a fan of Arrested Development or just Will Arnett in general, chances are you’re a fan of Batman and LEGO too, and if not, hearing Arnett voice LEGO Batman on the big screen will surely change your mind.

I’m pumped for this movie. Variety has a quick description of the plot, which revolves arond a generic LEGO character (well, it worked for The Muppets), voiced by Chris Pratt.

Pratt will play Emmet, an ordinary, law-abiding, rules-following, perfectly average Lego mini-figure who is mistakenly identified as the most extraordinary MasterBuilder. He’s drafted into a fellowship of strangers on an epic quest to stop an evil tyrant from gluing the universe together, a journey for which he is hopelessly and hilariously underprepared.

Count me in. I’m sure since this is a WB production we’ll only see the DC superheroes, but I’m fine with that. The working title is LEGO: The Piece of Resistance, but I wouldn’t put too much money on that not changing before the release date in 2014.

Check out the article on SlashFilm for more details.

A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of seeing Indie Game: The Movie at the Indianapolis Museum of Art thanks to our favorite gaming site, HorribleNight.com and a little help from the Canadian Consulate. Justin from Horrible Night helped get this movie shown in Indianapolis, and I’m very glad he did. It’s not only a fantastic documentary for people who love video games, it’s just a great film. My wife didn’t know what to expect at all, and she loved it.

The movie follows the creators of Super Meat Boy and Fez, two super awesome and popular indie games, as they struggle getting their games done in time with just one or two people handling all the work. The film has interviews from a lot of people in the gaming community, and is just a lot of fun to watch. The passion these guys have for their work takes center stage here and makes for a very personal and fascinating documentary.

I’ve been wondering when I could own the film after seeing it, and soon after our screening they announced that digital copies can be bought through VHX for a very reasonable $9.99. You don’t get all the special features the physical copies have, but you still get:

• HD 1080p
• HD 720p
• Mobile
• English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Traditional Chinese, English Subtitles
• Clean (Swear-free) versions available

I’ve already pre-ordered my copy, and I can’t wait to add it to my media center. I’ll probably end up buying a Blu-ray once their released too, because I’d love to see the bonus content and support the filmmakers even more.

You can pre-order the digital copy here for $9.99.

Ok, I’m officially pumped about this movie guys. We talked about Wreck-it Ralph way back on the second episode of Bubble Pipe Theater, and now we finally have a trailer for the film, which opens November 2nd. I would be on board with an animated movie about an 8-bit villain trying to reinvent himself by diving into some other video games even if it didn’t have actual video game characters in it.

If you watch the trailer, you’ll see Bowser, Dr. Robotnik, Zangief, a Pac-Man Ghost, Q-Bert, M. Bison, Kano from Mortal Kombat, and a lot more. Ralph is voiced by John C. Reilly, and the character design looks great. I’m so glad this film looks fun even without the retro game cameos. It looks like Ralph makes his way to a Candyland-inspired game, featuring Sarah Silverman as a cute and annoying little girl, and then into a Halo-inspired shooter with Jane Lynch as a soldier. Perfect casting.

What did you think of the trailer?

Via SlashFilm

The Avengers has been out for quite a while now, but Tim, Rob, and myself just had a chance to sit down and talk about it on the latest episode of Bubble Pipe Theater over on our podcast network. We discuss the movie and geek out about the next phase in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and you should have a listen.

Avengers Mini-Review

I usually forget or don’t get around to typing up my official thoughts on geek movies on here until it’s too late, but The Avengers could very well be the geek movie of the decade so I wanted to go ahead and get my thoughts down.

I didn’t get a chance to see The Avengers at midnight on May 4th but I went the next morning with my wife to a packed IMAX theater, filled to the brim with geeks of all ages. We didn’t really want to see it in 3D, but for this film I knew I wanted to see it on as big of a screen as possible, so I made an exception. My wife was just as excited as me, having loved Thor and Captain America last summer, and having watched Iron Man for the first time that week. We were ready to see them all team up on the big screen.
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