Paweł "Sariel" Kmiec's goal was to create a LEGO Batmobile Tumbler with realistic steering and suspension. Not only did he succeed with that, he did an impressive job with the details of the vehicle. The only issue he ran into was that after doing numerous body rolls during turns that the body would end up coming apart.  

Here are the stats from his website:

Power: electric (RC unit / battery box)
Dimensions: length 56 studs / width 34 studs / height 19 studs (not including antennae)
Weight: 2.344 kg
Suspension: front – full independent / rear – live axle
Propulsion: 2 x RC motor geared 1:3
Motors: 2 x RC motor, 1 x PF Medium

Check out this badass vehicle in action:

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In anticipation of the the release of the new trailer for G.I. Joe: Retaliation next week, Paramount Pictures has released a new UK poster for the Jon Chu-directed film featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum, Adrianne Palicki, Byung-hun Lee, Elodie Yung and Ray Park. 

I'm really hoping this movie turns out to be as exciting as it looks. It definitely looks better than the first film. Interest has died down on the sequel since it was delayed due to reshoots and a 3D conversion. I'm wondering if the studio will be able to spark up that interest in audiences again, because I'm afraid that the long pause on the film may have killed it at the box office. 

The new trailer is set to hit on Yahoo! on December 12th, and the movie will finally be released in theaters on March 29th, 2013. 

Synopsis:

A follow-up to the 2009 release of G.I. JOE: RISE OF THE COBRA, which grossed over $300M worldwide, Paramount Pictures, MGM and Skydance Productions, in association with HASBRO and di Bonaventura Pictures, commences production on G.I. JOE: RETALIATION. In this sequel, the G.I. Joes are not only fighting their mortal enemy Cobra; they are forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize their very existence. The film stars D.J. Cotrona, Byung-hun Lee, Ray Park, Adrianne Palicki, Jonathan Pryce, RZA, Ray Stevenson, Channing Tatum with Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson. Directed by Jon M. Chu, and produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Brian Goldner, from a screenplay by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick based on Hasbro's G.I. Joe(R) characters

As a fan of both of these franchises I absolutely love what Andrew Ryan did with his "Dragon Effect" piece. He updated their looks and weapons yet maintained the soul of both games. Andrew has been working on this piece for a good minute, and you can see closer hi res looks at the various pieces on his Deviant Art page. 

As for the art itself, it's gorgeous -- lots of small details in the armor as well as the faces, and I love the coloring here too, including the vibrant glow effects used on the various powers and weapons throughout. Really well done, and am I the only one who would love to see this used in a game someday? Might be a cool little side DLC one day. A little Bioware version of Quantum Leap. Who knows, but if you like what you see here make sure to check out Andrew's gallery for more.

Here's a wonderfully made comedy short film called Eugene. The story follows an awkward gentlemen on his trip to Washington DC where he receives a mysterious gift at his hotel room. It's a laptop computer that he quickly learns will grant all of his wishes. We get to see how he wields his new found powers and where it takes him. This is a very fun and surreal short with a fantastic unexpected ending! 

The film was directed by Spencer Susser (Hesher), written by Adam Blampied and stars Michael Govier. I'm sure many of you will enjoy this one so check it out!

Eugene, directed by Spencer Susser (feat. Michael Govier and Karolina Wydra) from Intel & W Hotels on Vimeo.

I have heard of crazy things happening but this bit of crazy takes the cake. Blastr reports that a woman named Lauren Adkins wants to marry a cardboard cut-out of Edward Cullen from The Twilight Saga. This plan has gone a bit farther than just whimsical wishes, the woman has created an IndiGoGo page to raise money to fulfill her wish.  

Here is what Adkins had to say:

This work focuses on the female escapist fantasy in its most popular forms-primarily finding "true love"-and the extent to which it seeps into our real lives. I've looked at this fantasy primarily through a pop cultural lens; that is I've used film & television's representations of the love story and female characters in general in an attempt to understand my own expectations of romantic love. Because of personal attachment to and experience with this fantasy or quest, which took a particularly strong hold of me when I discovered the intensely popular Twilight Saga, my thesis exhibition will touch on romantic expectation primarily through the main love interest, Edward Cullen.

The money she has raised will help to fund everything from a wedding dress, rings, minister fees and dinner for the bride and groom. I am actually at a loss for words, and will throw it to you, my fellow Tyrants, in the comments below.

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November and the Movember awareness movement is now over, but that does not mean that these superheroes with mustaches are any less cool. Wes Montgomery designed this sweet set of art called Superstaches. Included are Iron Man, Superman, Batman, the Flash and Yoda. 

If you like Montgomery's work, you can buy it at Society6.

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Director Bryan Singer tweeted out a photo of him holding up the script for X-Men: Days of Future Past and on the front is a quote from Charles Darwin called "Origin of the Species." This could very well be the quote that opens up the movie. Here's what it says,

"As new species are formed through natural evolution, others will become rarer and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most."

Singer's X-Men movies have always opened up with a voiceover from Charles Xavier. Maybe he'll be quoting Darwin this time around. The image came with the folioing tweet:

Settling down for my 14 hour flight with #Xmen Days of Future Past. Let's hope I don't leave it in the plane. twitter.com/BryanSinger/st…

— Bryan Singer (@BryanSinger) December 4, 2012

This is going to be such a cool movie! The fact that we will see all the original X-Men and First Class X-Men coexisting in the same movie is pretty mind blowing. As of right now it looks like Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Nicholas Hault will all be returning for the sequel. 

The film is based on 1981 issue of Uncanny X-Men which came from writer Chris Claremont and artists John Byrne and Terry Austin. The story is set in an alternate future where surviving mutants have been thrown in concentration camps, Sentinels are patrolling America, and most of the X-Men have been hunted down and killed. The present day X-Men are forced to stop a key event from unfolding in order to keep that future from occurring. 

The movie will be released in theaters on July 18th, 2014.

When it comes to Call of Duty games there is an expectation that it will be an action filled romp with a story that serves only to move you from place to place in an interesting fashion. Lots of explosions, double crosses, and of course shooting, are tent poles of the COD games. Black Ops II doesn't disappoint in any of those categories. What separates BLOPS II though is its genuinely compelling narrative that kept pushing me to play just one more mission, and in a market filled with generic knock offs that's not something to be dismissed.

Of all the changes Treyarch has made, the one most beneficial is the new setting. While there are several missions that take place in the 1980s, they are spread evenly throughout the campaign. The majority of the game takes place in the year 2025, and the new setting allows Treyarch to introduce some cool tech as well as some new gameplay types. Just like the first Modern Warfare injected some life into the series with modern weapons, Black Ops II can be looked upon in the same way. The series needed a fresh direction, and I believe Treyarch has accomplished that.

So what's different? Well for starters the enemy types; flying drones, ground robots, and the CLAW (the mech like tank) all require different methods of dispatching. You can't just run out and unload a clip at them, unless you like respawning a ton. The weapons aren't completely over the top, but they do offer some enhanced features such as red dot displays that allow you to see through walls and cover, and even a sniper rifle that will go through objects and structures depending on how long you hold the trigger -- not mind bending by any means, but enough to keep things interesting. Also new to COD are the Strike Force missions. These missions put you in command of several units, and task you to fulfill a certain objective in a given time frame. Depending on the mission you are able to take control of soldiers, drones, turrets, and even the CLAW tank to accomplish your goal. The units you have at your disposal change with each one, and every mission is only available for a certain amount of time. These are optional btw, but they can affect which ending you get. Zapping from unit to unit is easy enough, and after a mission or two it feels pretty comfortable. While a nice distraction from the main story, I would like to see more variety in the missions themselves. Aside from two of them, they basically amounted to "shoot everybody until the timer runs out," and that can get old quickly.

As for the narrative (and don't worry, no spoilers here),  I loved how they used Frank Woods and Alex Mason from the previous entry, and at the same time passed the baton to a new cast of characters that can take the story and the franchise forward. It was a bit odd to hear Merle's voice (of Walking Dead fame) coming from Mike Harper, but after a mission or two I got used to it. I enjoyed the story a great deal, but there is always room for improvement. There are some confusing parts to the narrative, and it would've helped the flow if these were more clearly explained. There was also a sense of deja-vu when it came to certain events and plot twists, but all in all I enjoyed it.

While I did play the multiplayer, my time with it wasn't extensive. I also didn't have time to dive into Zombie mode 2.0, so I decided to just focus on the single player here. That said, I would happily revisit these characters and the world they inhabit, and kudos to Treyarch for making that happen. I'm not a devout Call of Duty fan by any means, but this was a truly fantastic entry in the franchise, and one that I think can be a great foundation for future entries. Some would say the series truly changed hands with Black Ops, but it wasn't until Black Ops II that Treyarch truly took the baton. I'm looking forward to seeing where they go next.

DreamWorks Animation has released a new full trailer for the prehistoric animated adventure The Croods, which stars the voices of Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, Clark Duke, Catherine Keener and Cloris Leachman. This being the first full trailer for the film, there's a ton of new footage. It also gives us a better understanding of what the story is.

The movie was written and directed by Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders, (Lilo & Stitch, How To Train Your Dragon). The movie looks like it will be entertaining, I know the kids will enjoy it for sure!

Synopsis:

The Croods is a prehistoric comedy adventure that follows the world’s first family as they embark on a journey of a lifetime when the cave that has always shielded them from danger is destroyed. Traveling across a spectacular landscape, the Croods discover an incredible new world filled with fantastic creatures -- and their outlook is changed forever.

The movie is set to be released on March 22nd, 2013. 

I wonder how many other TV spots Warner Bros. will release for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Should we start taking bets? This is the tenth TV spot for the film, and I'm going to say we'll end up seeing 17 total. I just don't know how they could release more than 17. But, the studio may surprise me. 

The new spot does contain some really cool new footage for the film featuring Thorin, so I guess it's hard to complain, especially if you're insanely excited for the movie! It comes out on December 14th! 

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" follows title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Sorcerers. 

Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain, first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever...Gollum. 

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of ingenuity and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum's "precious" ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities... A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

Johnny Depp is set to produce a big screen modern day re-imagining of Don Quixote for Disney. The studio closed a deal on the pitch which will be written by Steve Pink and Jeff Morris. Depp has always been fascinated with this character and was at one point attached to the doomed Don Quixote film that Terry Gilliam has been trying to make for years -- a version I'd still like to see happen!

Pink has written a couple of great films in his career, such as Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity; as well as directing the comedies Hot Tub Time Machine and Accepted. He also just finished directing a film called Sexual Perversity In Chicago, an adaptation of the David Mamet play that was previously turned into the film About Last Night. He's will most likely end up directing  the movie Contractors, which follows "two out-of-work contractors who hit the jackpot getting hired to build the dream home of a billionaire. Only when they get there does one of the guys learn that the rich guy is going to marry one of his ex-girlfriends."

I guess there's a possibility of Pink directing this film as well, but as of right now no director is attached to it. Depp just wrapped up production on The Lone Ranger, and maybe he'll end up starring in this new film as well. I love the story of Don Quixote, and I hope this new film ends up being a great representation of the classic story. 

One of the big questions about the ending of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises is… How in the hell did Batman escape being killed by that massive explosion over the water at the end of the movie?! Well, there's a toy for that! 

This a a toy for The Bat featuring some kind of ejector pack that shoots Batman out of the vehicle. I guess if the Batpod fit inside the Tumbler, it's possible he could have built in some kind of ejector in The Bat that would shoot him out and away from the explosion. Either that, or as CBM jokingly suggests, Superman flew in to rescue him. What's your favorite escape theory?

Here's an awesome series of poster art created by David O’Daniel featuring several classic sci-fi and horror films. I think the surreal and trippy poster designs are really cool. Some of the movies included are Metropolis, Jaws, Evil Dead, Rosemary's Baby, The Shining, The Exorcist, The Birds, Psycho, Nosferatu, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Donnie Darko and more.

Here's a fun film clip from the horror comedy Bad Kids Go To Hell. If John Hughes' Breakfast Club was a horror film, it'd look something like this. Breakfast Club star Judd Nelson even plays the head schoolmaster! The film was directed by Matthew Spradlin, based off of his own graphic novel that follows six private school students locked away in Saturday detention with a killer on the loose. The clip shows us how awkwardly fun this movie will be.

Synopsis:

Six private school high school kids find themselves stuck in detention on a frightfully dark and stormy Saturday afternoon. During their 8 hour incarceration, each of the six kids falls victim to a horrible “accident” until only one of them remains.

And as each of these spoiled rich kids bites the dust, the story takes on a series of humorous and frantic twists and turns.

Is one of the kids secretly evening the school’s social playing field? Or have the ghosts of prestigious Crestview Academy finally come to punish the school’s worst (and seemingly untouchable) brats?
One thing is for sure… Daddy’s money can’t save them now.

The movie also stars Ben Browder, Cameron Deane Stewart, Ali Faulkner, Roger Edwards, Marc Donato, Augie Duke, Amanda Alch, Jeffrey Schmidt and Chanel Ryan. It's set to get a limited theatrical release on on December 7th, and it looks like a movie I would enjoy watching! Click here to watch the trailer!

So scaring the hell out of people on an elevator is the latest and greatest horror prank. Last week we showed you a terrifying little ghost girl scaring people into tears. Today we bring you a new elevator prank from the same Brazilian show that brought us ghost girl, but this one features a freaky living corpse. You might not think this would be as effective or scary, but the people in the elevator would beg to differ. It looks like some of these people will be scarred for life. In the end it's still extremely funny! Enjoy!

Usually I’m not one for writing somewhat super-serious posts like this, but this topic has come up far too often in my personal life recently. So now I wish to ask you, the readers, how young is too young to start playing games like Call of Duty?

Yeah, yeah, I know… this debate has been covered in various ways before. But what I just posted above is a plain and simple question. Keep in mind, I’m not talking about video games in general, but rather the intense fighting games that include either a) guns/explosives or b) copious amounts of gore.

You may be wondering where this question might have sparked from. You see, my girlfriend works with children on a daily basis. Recently she told me how her co-worker’s children were very upset because their Call of Duty: Black Ops II disc was scratched up and couldn’t be used anymore. I then ask her, “Well… how old are these kids?” To which she tells me that they are 9 years old. Instantly I had a shocked face and simply replied, “Well they shouldn’t be playing that game anyway.” But it’s the very next thing that she tells me that really shocks me. She then goes on to say, “But they play it with their father.”

Now I don’t have any children of my own, so I can’t really comment on how it is to raise a child. All I can simply do is tell you how I wish to raise my own children, once that moment arrives. The fact that someone would let a 9 year old play a game like that (who is at most in what… the 3^rd  grade?) just seems reckless. Shouldn’t we all think that intense games like this will affect the way a child turns out? Hell, around that age I think I was playing games like Donkey Kong Country or something like that. Yes, I do acknowledge that we had games like Mortal Kombat back in the day. That game also got many parents up in arms. But still, how young is too young?

To me, I think a the youngest one should play violent games like that, would be around the 13-14 year old mark at the earliest. Throwing the development concerns aside, how many times have you been in a game lobby only to find out one of your fellow players is 6-9 years old? (Then of course quickly throwing on the mute button to not hear them anymore!) Also please keep in mind that I am not saying that video games alone are bad for kids of that age. The same can be said for TV shows, music, and even movies. If you are letting your 5 year old watch AMC’s The Walking Dead, there may be a problem.

I may get flamed on this post. Hell, I kind of expect it to happen. But I’m not trying to come off as some person on a high pedestal or something, like a lot of these anti-video game movement leaders do. Just simply trying to spark a debate, and see what you readers think about the matter. So go ahead and sound off in the comments.

"I'll get you Batz for taking up all the machines at once!"

Here's an funny illustration by Deviant Art artist zillabean called "Gotham Laundry", featuring Batman and Joker having some issues at the Laundromat.

For those of you wondering what is going on with Ghostbusters 3, Dan Aykroyd gives us an update on the film in an interview with Esquire. The last major thing we heard is that the movie was going to move forward without Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman, which is really sad. I'd rather them not even make the movie. The movie has been slowly chugging forward for years, and when asked about the delays he said,

I'm as deeply inside Ghostbusters 3 as anyone involved in the project — that includes the executives at Sony, who have to go to sleep at night and have to decide to do it. Ivan Reitman, the director, who travels from Santa Barbara to L.A., and has for the last three years, working with writers to put it together. [The Office writers] Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, who worked on one of the drafts. 

Aykroyd is definitely one of the main guys trying to keep the movie moving forward and spends a lot of time trying to get it to where it needs to be before it starts shooting and it looks like they finally have a script he's excited about moving forward with.

I read every draft that's been turned in. When Gene and Lee, and Etan [Cohen, writer of Men in Black 3, hired last summer], and Ivan — when they've turned in drafts, I hand drafts right back. And at this point, we have a script that we like. And I'm hoping for it. 

That would have to be the one written by Etan Cohen. It didn't look like Murray waited around for the latest script to say no either. All of the lead actors had to give their blessing on the project if they ever wanted to get a third film made, and according to Aykroyd, since Murray has passed on the sequel several times over the years, his vote doesn't really count. When asked about Murray's stake in the franchise he said,

I'm not sure Billy does anymore, since he abrogated his rights by sort of, by saying, two years ago he said, "I don't want to be involved," and the picture company I think had some clause in there that if he actually passed on the third of fourth offer, he no longer has a view of the franchise. So, that's for the lawyers to decide. Of course, I'd love to have Billy call me tomorrow and say, "Let's go to work and start writing."

At this point it's safe to say that that's not going to happen. The movie still has yet to be officially greenlit, and when asked about when he might expect that to happen he said,

Now, this would add quite a bump to Sony's bottom line, quite a bump. If they make this movie, in its current shape, they would be looking at a pretty hefty, nine-figure return. And so I'm hoping they get on to move it, but if they don't, I have multiple trains. I've got tracks six, seven, and nine, and that's four. I'll be moving on to other things, as will Ivan, by the way. We can't wait forever. And now's the time to tell the picture company, and I'd say this quite publically, it's time now to sit down and make this movie, or you will lose your main principals, and you won't be able to make it without us, because we have rights, and now is time to make the movie.

Things take an interesting turn in the conversation when they start talking about the plot of the film. What we previously heard was this...

My character, Ray, is now blind in one eye and can't drive the Cadillac. He's got a bad knee and can't carry the packs... Egon is too large to get into the harness. We need young blood and that's the promise. We're gonna hand it to a new generation.

Near the end of the interview he's asked about an old plot that's been referred to as "Man-hell-ttan" in which the Ghostbusters go to hell. It's here that he reveals that he envisioned that for a fifth film in the franchise,

Man-hell-ttan, and the Ghostbusters in hell, would be so solid, but we gotta get maybe one or two made before that. But, oh, wow... I wrote that with Tom Davis, my writing partner, recently deceased, who wrote Coneheads with me and stuff on Saturday Night Live. There's classic Tom Davis lines and funny stuff in there, really it's probably the most humorous of all the Ghostbusters scripts that have generated in that last little while. But we'll put the humor into this next one. It's gotta be funny, or it's not worth doing. 

It would be pretty cool if they actually got to a fifth film, but it all depends on if they are able to get a third one made, and if it's even going to be any good! As for the fourth film he says that Cohen's script would lead into that, and reveals his role would be more limited at that point as an actor, as the torch will have been passed to a younger generation. He would still stay on as a writer and producer though.

I'm a huge Ghostbusters fan, I love the franchise, and I'm sad that Murray has decided not to be invloved. But, since they are still going to move forward with it, I hope they have a great and funny story to tell. Would you be interested in seeing a fourth and fifth Ghostbusters movie?

Justified star Timothy Olyphant has been cast in the cannibal western thriller Bone Tomahawk. Olyphant is an awesome actor, and he will fit in perfectly with this movie. He will star along side Kurt Russell, Peter Sarsgaard (Green Lantern), Richard Jenkins (The Cabin in the Woods) and Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter). As you can see the movie has an awesome cast. 

The movie will apparently be brutally violent and character-driven. The story follows four men, and their "attempt to rescue a group of captives from a band of cannibalistic troglodytes that live beyond the edge of civilization." Russell will play the sheriff and gunslinger, Jenkins will play an old cowboy, Sarsgaard will play a younger cowboy, and Carpenter play one of the captives. As for Olyphant, he'll play John Brooder, "an eloquent sharpshooter who moved to the frontier in order to satisfy the dark impulses that lie beneath his polished exterior."

As a fan of the western film genre, and many of the actors attached to this film project, I'm truly excited to see how it turns out! It definitely has the potential to be awesome! And while we're on the subject of Mr. Olyphant... I can't wait for the new season of Justified to start!

Screenwriter S. Craig Zahler (The Brigands of Rattleborge) will direct the horror-western from a script that he also wrote.

When Peter Jackson announced that The Hobbit would become a trilogy I was extremely excited! I was hoping that would happen, there's enough awesome material and background story in Middle Earth to turn that wonderful story into a film trilogy. I just figured everyone was excited about it! I guess I was wrong, there's apparently a lot of people who aren't on board with the idea. Why? Because they just don't have the vision of the full Tolkien universe. In a recent interview with THR Jackson defended his vision of the story and how he plans on making it happen.

The book is written in a very brisk pace, so pretty major events in the story are covered in only two or three pages. So once you start to develop the scenes and plus you wanted to do a little bit more character development, plus the fact that we could also adapt the appendices of Return of the King, which is 100-odd pages of material that sort of takes place around the time of The Hobbit, so we wanted to expand the story of The Hobbit a little bit more, as did Tolkien himself. So all those factors combined gave us the material to do it.

Now that really can't be that hard to grasp can it? Not sure how anyone can't get behind that simple logic. But in case you're one of the doubters, Sir Ian McKellen added his two cents to the conversation saying,

Anyone who thinks Peter Jackson would fall for market forces around him rather than artistic integrity doesn't know the guy or the body of his work. If we just made one movie, The Hobbit, the fact is that all the fans, the eight-, nine- and 10-year-old boys, they would watch it 1000 times. Now, they've got three films they can watch 1,000 times.

It's so true. Then there's Richard Armitage who plays Thorin in the movie explaining that three films allow the story to breathe and characters to develop more,

It does warrant three films. These films are underlaid and textured and layered with incredible detail. And the dwarf characters for example, in Tolkien's book they're very thinly sketched, actually a bit of an amorphous group, whereas every single dwarf you will get to know throughout the course of this journey. They are all very developed parts. You will care for and get to know them, and see how they function in the world. And I love that also, because these films, The Hobbit isn't a separate universe. It's entirely as you saw in the first films, the broader themes are built into the texture of it, and this allows each character to have their moments and play their parts in those themes, that's certainly three films. Condensing it into two films seems almost impossible.

Amen. So seriously, what's the problem with turning The Hobbit into three movies? There isn't one.