The end of 2015 is almost here. There are just a few weeks left, so everyone is kind of drawing their annual conclusions, while getting ready for what is yet to come. CLS Videos are doing almost the same thing but this time in movies. They are marking the end of the year in a five-part film montage. It collects scenes from productions such as Star Wars, Magic Mike XXL, The Final Girls, Minions, and many others, and highlights them with some catchy music.

Check out the phenomenal video below that pays tribute to 255 movies in total. It is worth it.

Source: Laughingsquid

Jarvis isn’t really a big fan of Los Angeles. Marvel released a new clip from the Agent Carter in which Jarvis goes off on Peggy about all of the things that he can’t stand about the sunny west coast. Regardless of his dislike for L.A., he is still eager and ready to work with Peggy again. It’s actually a delightful clip that displays some of the charming things that I enjoy about this series so much.

Marvel’s Agent Carter returns for a second season of adventure and intrigue, starring Hayley Atwell in the titular role of the unstoppable secret agent for the SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve). Dedicated to the fight against new atomic age threats in the wake of World War II, Peggy must now journey from New York City to Los Angeles for her most dangerous assignment yet. But even as she discovers new friends, a new home–and perhaps even a new love–she’s about to find out that the bright lights of the post-war Hollywood mask a more sinister threat to everyone she is sworn to protect.

The cast for season two will includes Haley Attwell, James D’Arcy as Edwin Jarvis, Chad Michael Murray as Agent Jack Thompson, Enver Gjokaj as Chief Daniel Sousa, Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, Bridget Regan as Dottie Underwood, Wynn Everett as Whitney Frost, Reggie Austin as Dr. Jason Wilkes, Currie Graham as Calvin Chadwick, Lotte Verbeek as Ana Jarvis, Lesley Boone as Rose, Ken Marino as mob boss Joseph Manfredi, and Kurtwood Smith as Vernon Masters.

Agent Carter will be premiere on ABC on January 19th.

Super-spy #AgentCarter returns for season 2! Here's an exclusive sneak peak. @AgentCarterTV https://t.co/l2SLLp9nRN https://t.co/gBt0OeBn1a

— iTunes TV (@iTunesTV) December 8, 2015

One of the things that I love most about the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that it's all connected. One of elements that used to get that point across are the post-credits scenes at the end of every movie. It all started with Nick Fury showing up at the end of Iron Man, and then continued with Tony Stark showing up at the very end of The Incredible Hulk. It was at that point that audiences realized Marvel was going to promise audiences something huge with this world they were creating and they sure did deliver on that promise!

This new feature that was released examines the post-credits scene and how Marvel is interlocking all of the films they are making. This featurette was included as a special feature in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase Two Collection, which is available on Amazon. It also includes some fun never-before-seen behind-the-scenes footage from several of their movies. 

Shadow of the Colossus, when released in 2006, helped further establish that video games were not simply a mindless time-wasting activity with zero depth or substance, but could be a powerfully effective medium for artistic... View Full Post GameTyrant

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Have you ever thought about what the most disturbing aspect of the Star Wars saga might be… other than the prequel trilogy? To be honest, I’ve never really thought about that until now. In an interview with EW, director J.J. Abrams he revealed what he thinks is one of the most jaw-dropping-moments in the movie.

“The most jaw-dropping-est thing to me, in retrospect, is that moment in Episode IV when Leia is being held and Vader goes in to torture her for information... When you think of it later, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, that’s his daughter.’ He’s going to torture his own daughter. At the time, it’s just scary. Then it gets just really creepy when you think about it. Oh my god, that's the worst. It’s horrible.”

Yeah, that is pretty damn insane. Darth Vader sure was a sinister asshole. How can anyone torture their own daughter!? The question is, did Vader know Leia was his daughter? I always assumed that he would have had to know somewhere deep down inside of him. But maybe he didn’t, but that doesn’t make it ok to torture anyone, especially a young woman. 

This act really shows how evil of a villain Vader really was. Well, that, and blowing up an entire planet full of innocent people. 

The Fine Brothers have released a new episode of Elders React, and in this one they have a group of older individuals watch the full trailer to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. These people were obviously a lot younger when the first Star Wars films were released, and as you'll see, some of them are still hardcore fans who are excited for the upcoming movie. My favorite guy in the video is Rock. He's definitely the most pumped up out of everyone in the video, and how can you not like a guy named Rock!? He also has the best reaction to the trailer. Check it out!

Man this Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot just keeps looking up! In addition to adding Patton Oswalt and other celebrities, AV Club says the project has scored another two geek celebrities in Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon. Of course, the two are the brilliant minds behind Rick and Morty, which, in my opinion, has become one of the best animated comedies in the past decade. Add the fact that it's heavily science fiction based, and I think we are going to see a fresh take on the MST3K formula. Does this mean we will hear Tom Servo and Crow belching between lines? Probably not, but I would not at all object to Rick and Morty sitting in on an episode!

Gremlins has been one of my favorite Christmas movies to watch during the holidays for years. In fact, we'll be having a family movie night this weekend to watch it! In celebration of the fantastic Joe Dante-directed film, Mondo has released a print that they will sell created by Jessica Seamans. This is such a cool illustration, and it features the scene where the mischievous group of Gremlins are watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Here’s what Seamans had to say about her Gremlins illustration:

“Naturally, I was thrilled to be asked to do a poster for Gremlins – who wouldn’t be? And then, when I actually started working on it, my excitement transformed into intimidation and dread. I knew I wanted to show the great movie theater scene, but how to fill the page with what is is essentially the same face over and over without being totally monotonous and boring? Also, the lighting was really complex, as here I am trying to convey a dark room lit from both the front and the back. Yikes! But, ultimately it was a really fun challenge and I learned some things that I think will make me a better illustrator and printer. Too bad my brain fell out of my head four or five times in the process.”

If you want to add this piece to your geek culture art collection, follow Mondo on Twitter. It goes on sale at a random time today, Friday, December 11th. It comes in an edition of 225, and will cost you $40.

I've got a hilarious trailer for you to watch for a film that is called Gingerbread: The Motion Picture, and it's a sci-fi comedy about killer Gingerbread men from outer space. The film is described as having "a dash of Alien, a pinch of Gremlins, and lots of explosions and killer robots!"

The movie has completed shooting, and is currently in the post-production process. The filmmakers started a Kickstarter campaign to get the funding so that they can finish their film. They are looking for help to finish the final animation, rendering, sound effects, and mixing.

10+ years in the making, this indie project has already been shot and edited. All we need now is finishing funds to complete the special effects. Gingerbreed is destined to become a cult classic. (we hope!) 

Gingerbreed is created by Szymon Weglarski and Jonathan Dorfman. Emmy award winning VFX artists and owners of HiFi 3D, an animation studio in Brooklyn NY.

What motivated us to make Gingerbreed was our shared love for all things sci-fi, comedy and special effects. And we've been working on it for over 10 years, which might seem a little nuts. But it's just something we're so passionate about, that we've kept it going for so long. We love our cast and the craft of film-making and special effects.

After watching this insane trailer for the film, I hope they finish their film so I can watch it. This movie looks like it will be a ton of fun. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan Miguel Díaz-Rivera wanted to pay homage to the original TMNT comic book series created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. So for his thesis project at the Academy of Art University, he created short film offering a realistic approach to the classic characters that didn't involve them being teenagers. 

40 years after the war against the Foot, a Japanese ninja clan. Four mysterious veterans are preparing themselves for the fight of their life.

The short turn out freakin' awesome, and it actually looks a lot more interesting than the Michael Bay-produced sequel coming out next year. This offers fans a more hardcore and gritty take on the Ninja Turtles, which is how they were originally portrayed in the comics. 

Díaz-Rivera served as the director, writer, editor, VFX supervisor, 3D environment & prop modeler, texture, lighter, match mover, and compositor on the film. It's a pretty impressive feat that I'm sure fans will enjoy.

Looks like the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler comedy Sisters won't be the only thing to go head to head with Star Wars: The Force Awakens this year. On December 18th, Netflix is releasing every episode of Making a Murderer, the streaming service's first original true crime documentary series. With the popularity of the Serial podcast (Season 2 just began yesterday) and the incredible Andrew Jarecki docu-series The Jinx on HBO, the true crime genre seems to be en vogue right now, and the network has released a captivating first trailer for the show, along with an official synopsis. Check it out below, and let me know if this looks like something you're interested in.

Inspired by a newspaper article from 2005, directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos have spent the last decade documenting an unprecedented real-life thriller that spans more than thirty years. Set in America’s Heartland, Making a Murderer follows the harrowing story of Steven Avery, an outsider from the wrong side of the tracks, convicted and later exonerated of a brutal assault. His release triggered major criminal justice reform legislation, and he filed a lawsuit that threatened to expose corruption in local law enforcement and award him millions of dollars. But in the midst of his very public civil case, he suddenly finds himself the prime suspect in a grisly new crime.

The series takes viewers inside a riveting, high-stakes criminal case where reputation is everything and things are never as they appear. The filmmakers have documented every angle of the story, following the second investigation and ensuing trial of the accused, petitioning the court to avoid having to turn over their footage, gathering archival materials, and interviewing those closest to the case.

Via: ScreenCrush

As many have come to know, the Final Fantasy VII Remake is going to be split into multiple parts. I did a write up earlier this week regarding my speculation of what exactly that would entail. On the official Square Enix blog, returning... View Full Post on GameTyrant

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This week, The 5Cast honors one of the comic book greats: Mr. Jacob Kurtzberg...better known as Jack Kirby! We draw up our favorite Kirby works have a pretty cosmic time doing it.

For more episodes of The 5Cast Podcast on GeekTyrant, click here, and click here for our entire back catalog of episodes. Be sure to e-mail us at 5castpodcast@gmail.com with your feedback and suggestions for future Top 5 lists we should discuss.

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Rian Johnson's Brick is one of my favorite films because of the way the writer/director so deftly created a throwback film noir movie set in a modern day high school. It looks like directors Adam and Aaron Nee have done something similar with Band of Robbers, a comedy that imagines the famous Mark Twain characters of Huckleberry Finn (Kyle Gallner) and Tom Sawyer (Adam Nee) as modern day criminals. If that premise doesn't whet your appetite enough, Supergirl star Melissa Benoist co-stars as Becky Thatcher, and actors like The Office's Creed Bratton, comedian Hannibal Buress, and Avatar's Stephen Lang also have roles here.

The Playlist points us to a new red-band trailer for the film, and this definitely looks like it's worth checking out. Band of Robbers hits select theaters and VOD on January 15th, 2016.

A modern-day retelling of Mark Twain’s iconic books, Band of Robbers is a comedic adventure that reimagines the characters as grown men, and small-time crooks.  When Huck Finn is released from prison, he hopes to leave his criminal life behind, but his lifelong friend, and corrupt cop, Tom Sawyer, has other plans. Not ready to give up on his childhood fantasies, Tom forms the Band of Robbers, recruiting their misfit friends, Joe Harper and Ben Rogers, to join them for an elaborate plan to find a fabled treasure. But the plan soon unravels, thrusting the guys on a wild journey with dangerous consequences…

A vintage 1981 Kenner AT-AT Walker from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back has been awesomely converted to be remotely controlled with the help of an Xbox controller. The toy was converted by Star Wars enthusiast Dave Stein, who had the engineering skills bring it to life. You can watch the AT-AT in action in the video below.

Combine an Arduino Uno, an Adafruit Servo Shield, Xbox 360 Controller, and a beat-up 1981 Kenner At-At Walker and the result is the toy I always wanted when I was a kid. If you played with this toy growing up you will probably remember how clumsy it was and difficult to move around.

The goal of this project was to take my old beat up AT-AT Walker and make it walk. There were many different obstacles I had to overcome to complete the project such as quadrupedal movement, learning how to use an Arduino microcontroller, basic electronics and breadboarding, not damaging the plastic components of the toy during fabrication, configuring an Xbox controller to make the AT-AT move, etc...

If you want a behind-the-scenes look at the process of the build, click here. 

Via: Kotaku

In 2012, a graphic novel called Romeo and Juliet: The War, which reimagined Shakespeare's classic play in a futuristic dystopian society, somehow became a New York Times bestseller. Now, Variety reports that Stan Lee's POW! Entertainment and 1821 Media are teaming up with Lionsgate to create a feature film adaptation. With this and the Romeo and Juliet sequel series in the works at ABC (yes, you read that correctly), not to mention further film adaptations of works like the Michael Fassbender-starring Macbeth, it seems like Hollywood is cashing in on Billy Shakespeare in a big way right now.

Here's the official description of the graphic novel:

THIS IS THE STORY OF...

Two groups of superhuman soldiers who turned the Empire of Verona into the most powerful territory on earth. The MONTAGUES, powerful cyborgs made of artificial DNA, and the CAPULETS, genetically enhanced humans known for their speed and agility, worked in tandem to destroy all threats to the city. With no one left to fight, the Montagues and Capulets found themselves a new enemy: each other.

THIS IS THE STORY OF...

A young Montague boy and Capulet girl who fall in love. They secretly plan to marry, hoping their union can be what brings peace between the warring factions. But forces beyond their control begin to conspire against them, threatening their love, their lives... and the entire Empire of Verona.

THIS IS THE STORY OF....

A tragedy that spans all of space and time.

THIS IS THE STORY OF...

Romeo and Juliet: The War

The comic was created by Stan Lee and Terry Dougas and written by Max Work, with art by Skan Srisuwan. John J. Griffin is writing the screenplay, but no director is in place yet.

When people complain about the seemingly never-ending cycle of remakes that churn through Hollywood, one of the big counterpoints that always comes up is that there can be some value in stories being told multiple times and reinterpreted in different ways, and iterations of Shakespeare's plays are often name-dropped as examples. Can I largely agree with that mentality but still think Romeo and Juliet: The War sounds incredibly stupid? Good, because that's what I think.

I'm all for interesting riffs on classic works (this morning's new trailer for Band of Robbers is a good example), but Romeo and Juliet: The War sounds like it's being made solely to capitalize on the young adult dystopian craze that's happening right now. What do you all think? Is there any chance that this ends up being watchable?

Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation was one of the year's best spy thrillers, thanks in part to the awesome stunt work done by star Tom Cruise. This is an incredibly minor spoiler, but that now-famous airplane sequence with him strapped to the side as it takes off? That's the opening scene of the movie, and while I don't think the rest of the film ever quite topped the breathtaking audacity of that sequence, it's still an incredible accomplishment and one of the coolest scenes of the year.

Paramount has just sent over two behind-the-scenes videos from the film (which is out on Digital HD now and hits Blu-ray on December 15th), one of which takes another look at that plane scene, and the other shows Cruise dangerously driving co-star Simon Pegg around and putting both of their lives in his hands. And after you watch those clips, head to this official Tumblr page that has an interactive infographic of all of the stunts Cruise has done himself over the course of this franchise so far.

Thanks to Paramount for sending these over.

Kubo and the Two Strings is the latest film project from the stop-motion animation company Laika. They've previously given us films such as Coraline, ParaNorman, and The Boxtrolls, but Kubo and the Two Strings looks like it will be their best film yet! We have the first trailer for you to watch today, and it's breathtakingly stunning. The movie is set in an ancient fantastical world involving samurai, and I'm so freakin' excited to watch it! 

The movie has an awesome voice cast that includes Matthew McConaughey, Charlize Theron, Rooney Mara, Ralph Fiennes, and George Takei. Here's the official synopsis:

An epic action-adventure from acclaimed animation studio LAIKA. Clever, kindhearted Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson of “Game of Thrones”) ekes out a humble living, telling fantastical stories to the people of his seaside town. But his relatively quiet existence is shattered when he accidentally summons a mythical spirit from his past which storms down from the heavens to enforce an age-old vendetta. Now on the run, Kubo joins forces with Monkey (Academy Award winner Charlize Theron) and Beetle (Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey), and sets out on a thrilling quest to save his family and solve the mystery of his fallen father, the greatest samurai warrior the world has ever known. With the help of his shamisen – a magical musical instrument – Kubo must battle gods and monsters, including the vengeful Moon King (Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes) and the evil twin Sisters (Academy Award nominee Rooney Mara), to unlock the secret of his legacy, reunite his family and his heroic destiny. The all-star cast also includes George Takei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, and Brenda Vaccaro.

The movie is being directed by Travis Knight, and it opens in theaters on August 19th, 2016. I can’t wait to see the first full trailer, which is coming on Friday, December 11th.

Source: Fandango

It's become increasingly difficult to avoid spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and with the movie only one week away from release, fans are finally in the home stretch. With TV spots and international trailers flying left and right, I'm happy to find a little piece of The Force Awakens-related content that doesn't give away anything visual or any lines of dialogue, and today that comes from an unlikely source. The CBS show 60 Minutes has a little teaser of composer John Williams conducting a scoring session for the film in Hollywood, so we get to hear a little bit of his new music for the movie. There's also a quick interview with writer/director J.J. Abrams, and we see him fanboying out a little as he attends the scoring session.

The show has a full interview with Abrams scheduled to air this Sunday night, but check out the clip in the meantime and enjoy the sonic landscape of The Force Awakens spoiler-free.

Most of the movie-watching public's attention is laser focused on Star Wars: The Force Awakens right now, but some reporters are looking beyond this film's release and thinking about the future of the franchise. Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the guys behind 21 Jump Street and The LEGO Movie, are going to direct a Han Solo prequel film, but there's one man who sounds like he wants nothing to do with that project whatsoever: Han Solo himself, Harrison Ford.

In an interview with Reuters, Ford was asked who he thought should be cast in the Solo prequel, and he replied:

"I don't think it's about being like me, it's about us being like Han Solo. So I'm sure whoever is responsible for that film — and I'm not — will think through the issues and problems of doing such a thing...Let's make them responsible for those questions you might think to ask me [about that movie] because I'm not involved."

Then, even more tellingly, the reporter asked if he'd offer any advice to the person who does eventually get cast in the role on how to play Han Solo, and he said:

"I'm not going to do that. No."

So I guess that counts out the chance of Ford appearing in the prequel in a bookend where he opens and closes the movie, possibly telling a story of his youth to his potential kids...at least for now. Maybe Lord and Miller simply haven't reached out to him yet. The movie isn't set to come out until 2018, so there's still plenty of time to figure things out.

But Ford's outlook is a little surprising, considering how excited he seems to be about being involved with the Star Wars franchise again. But what if that excitement is only because he appears in The Force Awakens and then his character dies, making this the last brush with Star Wars of Ford's career? That's pure speculation on my part, but it's something to consider. We know Lucasfilm is on the hunt for an actor to play that role right now, but it sounds like whoever it is won't have much luck getting any pointers from the OG Han Solo. 

Oh well. At least Ford knows he won't be recast as Indiana Jones.