Hi all…

Yes, I went gaga over the 3D effects in James Cameron’s Avatar. And I loved the 3D world of Coraline. But does everything need to be 3D?

Last weekend I went to see the new Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movie starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover, Michael Sheen, Mia Wasikowska, and many more. And yes, I liked the movie. I think it has a great message for girls and boys alike to have the courage to follow your dreams and not bow to the whims of the pressures of parents, peers, or society at large.

Depp was great as the truly mad Mad Hatter. Stephen Fry’s voice for the Cheshire Cat was spot on and I think Alan Rickman as the voice of the perpetually stoned Blue Caterpillar was divine casting. Add to that the fact that Carter and Hathaway as the Red and White Queens seemed to really dig into their roles and the unknown quantity of Wasikowska who did a great job through the movie as an older Alice finding her way in the world and you have a great movie that should hold up to repeated viewings.

Rating: 3 out of 4 stars

That said, I don’t understand why the heck it needed to be in 3D. Did Disney really need the extra $3 per ticket for 3D glasses?

And somehow it’s managed to make $400 million worldwide in two weeks at the box office. According to Box Office Mojo, $208.6 million of that is domestic, meaning a whole lot of people have sprung for $3 disposable 3D glasses.

But why? Watching the film, really only one scene (the one in the trailer where the Hatter rolls two bolts of cloth towards the audience) stood out as being 3D. That really wasn’t worth an extra $3 for the ticket for me.

Add to that the bizarre looking animation every time Stayne got on or off his horse and I was left really scratching my head.

Honestly I think I might have enjoyed it more without the film being in 3D. I guess that’s what I’m getting at.

And the fact that there are so many more movies coming out this summer in 3D for no apparent reason just makes it seem like a gimmick to get more people spending more money at the box office, which kind of skews all the box office $$ for me since you’re paying more for a ticket from the start. How to Train Your Dragon, Clash of the Titans, Shrek Forever After, Toy Story 3, and Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore are on the 3D bandwagon for the next few months… Most of them are for kids and they’ll like the gimmick, but why Clash of the Titans?

Do we really need all this 3D? I don’t think so. I hope the fad wears off soon and we get to watch some good movies and not wear those dang glasses!

What do you think?

–Fitz

p.s. Look for Avatar to find its way to DVD soon:

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As a nature documentary junkie, I’m attracted to shiny objects like the ones shown in the Discovery Channel’s upcoming series – LIFE. This 11-part series premieres on Sunday, March 21st at 8PM ET/PT featuring stunning video and Oprah Winfrey providing the narration.

Here’s an amazing clip of some flying fish!

LIFE comes to us from the makers of Planet Earth, which was amazing.

According to a recent Discovery Channel press release:

Narrated by global media leader and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey and more than four years in the making, the 11-part series LIFE is the definitive exploration of the adaptability and diversity of life on earth, revealing the most spectacular, bizarre and fascinating behaviors that living things have devised to thrive. The premiere episode of LIFE, Challenges of Life, provides an overview and sets the stage for the ambitious series. A special Making Of episode caps the series and tells the incredible stories of the dozens of men and women who spent days, weeks and months patiently waiting for a perfect shot. Other episodes showcase Birds, deep sea marine invertebrates (Creatures of the Deep), Fish, hunting mammals (Hunters and Hunted), Insects, Mammals, Plants, Primates and Reptiles & Amphibians.

Following its premiere across the seven Discovery U.S. networks, LIFE will air in two-episode installments each Sunday on Discovery Channel and Discovery Channel HD from 8-10PM ET, culminating with The Making of LIFE at 10PM ET on April 18.

Tune in to watch these amazing spectacles of nature caught on video. I know I’ll be watching!

–Fitz

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Over the summer, I became addicted to the most recent entry in the Stargate series from Syfy – Stargate Universe. On Friday, April 2nd, it returns with the 2nd half of season 1.

ComingSoon.net has a great trailer:

For the rest of the details, check out their site here:
Stargate Universe Season 1.5 Trailer & Photos – ComingSoon.net.

–Fitz

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I won’t pretend I’m not a Ridley Scott fanboy. Ever since Alien, Blade Runner, and Legend, he kicked off a grand series of movies that have kept me entertained for years. Gladiator was really the one that solidified things for me though. That movie rocks.

And on May 14, 2010, we see Ridley rock Robin Hood with Russell Crowe. All the trailers have made this movie look awesome. And here’s another one for the books…

Here’s the synopsis:

Oscar® winner Russell Crowe stars as the legendary figure known by generations as “Robin Hood,” whose exploits have endured in popular mythology and ignited the imagination of those who share his spirit of adventure and righteousness. In 13th century England, Robin and his band of marauders confront corruption in a local village and lead an uprising against the crown that will forever alter the balance of world power. And whether thief or hero, one man from humble beginnings will become an eternal symbol of freedom for his people.

The untitled Robin Hood adventure chronicles the life of an expert archer, previously interested only in self-preservation, from his service in King Richard’s army against the French. Upon Richard’s death, Robin travels to Nottingham, a town suffering from the corruption of a despotic sheriff and crippling taxation, where he falls for the spirited widow Lady Marion (Oscar® winner Cate Blanchett), a woman skeptical of the identity and motivations of this crusader from the forest. Hoping to earn the hand of Maid Marion and salvage the village, Robin assembles a gang whose lethal mercenary skills are matched only by its appetite for life. Together, they begin preying on the indulgent upper class to correct injustices under the sheriff.

With their country weakened from decades of war, embattled from the ineffective rule of the new king and vulnerable to insurgencies from within and threats from afar, Robin and his men heed a call to ever greater adventure. This unlikeliest of heroes and his allies set off to protect their country from slipping into bloody civil war and return glory to England once more.

This should be another awesome summer for movies, with Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, and KICK-ASS paving the way. Bring on the Sherwood revolution!!

–Fitz

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Last year, I had the pleasure of reading Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry, which took the concept of a zombie plague and put it in the hands of a group of terrorists. Joe Ledger was the hero recruited to take on the shambling, infected dead and find a way to stop them as part of the Department of Military Sciences (DMS) – a super-secret group of highly-trained and resourceful individuals tasked to take out the threats the normal police or military forces of the United States can’t handle.

Now Maberry has managed to take evil to a whole new level with The Dragon Factory. Not only does the terror fit in a timebox of one week, it merges cutting-edge genetics and biological science with the eugenics goal of the Nazis of World War II as they strived to create a “master race”.

Consider what would happen if the cloning experiments described in Ira Levin’s The Boys from Brazil had the technological tools and expertise of today. Now multiply that by a factor of 1000. As the novel progresses, the depths of depravity and layers of pure evil reveal themselves to be imaginative, inspiring, and horrific all at the same time.

On one side you have the beautiful Jakoby Twins – brilliant, elusive, perfect albino twins engaged in creating genetic mash-ups of existing creatures to form monsters and mercenaries capable of wanton destruction at the drop of a hat. On the other side, you have their father – Cyrus Jakoby – striving to not only create the Nazi Master Race, but rid the world of impurities as Adolph Hitler began to do during his reign of terror.

Between those two factions we find a race against a doomsday clock (called the “Extinction Clock”) nobody knows about until it’s almost too late and Joe Ledger and his friends fight against the odds to save the world from the depths of depravity and madness. Ledger fights the evil on his own terms – but is the sacrifice too high this time?

Honestly, I love it when novels manage to work in not only artifacts of the present, but the echoes of history that are far too often forgotten. Maberry does both in spades while putting you on a heck of a rollercoaster ride. And don’t worry – there’s lots of gunfire, knife fights, and grenades to go around.

Though there is some serious science embedded in the pages of The Dragon Factory, I never found myself bogged down anywhere. His explanations were simple enough to keep the plot moving and the action hardly ever let up. Even the occasional love scene rarely slowed the novel’s pace. Merging the dangers of genetic and biological manipulation with the unfathomable evil of the plans for the Nazi Master Race was a brilliant yet terrifying reminder that humankind is capable of truly beautiful and horrible things.

Maberry has written multiple novels, magazine articles, and plays while also teaching writing. I don’t know where he finds all the time. His novels include Ghost Road Blues, which won the Stoker Award for Best First Novel in 2006, Dead Man’s Song, Bad Moon Rising, and Patient Zero, which was recently optioned for television. And when he’s not writing novels, he writes for several Marvel comics, including The Black Panther and other heroes including Wolverine, Spider-Man, The Punisher, and others.

If you like fast, intelligent action thrillers, I can highly recommend Jonathan Maberry’s The Dragon Factory to be on your list of books to read. And if you haven’t read Patient Zero, I’d encourage you to pick that up as well. They’re both fast reads with some serious crunch. I can hardly wait to see what’s next for Joe Ledger – and I’d love to see Patient Zero done well on television!

–Fitz

p.s. Pick up The Dragon Factory and other Jonathan Maberry books at Amazon:

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Saw this today courtesy of Geeks of Doom and thought I’d share with you. There’s a sneak peak of the new Predators movie from Robert Rodriguez up at Predators-Movie.com that looks like this could actually be… fun.

Any time a series is reimagined or reborn, you have to wonder at the quality. Why is it being redone? Who will do it? Will it hold up to the original?

The original Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger is a classic. That was an era of big, bold action movies where you could cheer for the good guys or the bad guys and still come out on top.

We can only hope that Rodriguez’ vision holds up.

It looks like it stars Topher Grace, Adrien Brody, Danny Trejo, and Laurence Fishburne among others. So we’ll see what happens come July 9, 2010.

What do you think?

–Fitz

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I’m a little late to the party, but I thought I’d pass along news that Death Race 2 started filming in South America in February and March 2010. Evidently this film will be a prequel to explain the rise of insane driver Frankenstein on the Death Race circuit.

It actually seems to have a pretty good cast – with Luke Goss (Hellboy 2: The Golden Army), Ving Rhames (Con Air, Pulp Fiction), Sean Bean (National Treasure, Lord of the Rings trilogy), Danny Trejo (Planet Terror, USA Network’s Burn Notice), and Lauren Cohan (The CW’s Supernatural). Let’s hope director Roel Reiné (The Marine 2, The Lost Tribe) can do justice to the Death Race circuit.

I enjoyed the remake of Death Race back in 2008 starring Jason Statham. So we’ll see if the prequel can hold up.

Here’s the synopsis:

Death Race 2 takes place in the very near future, as the United States economy begins to decline and violent crime starts to spiral out of control. To contain the growing criminal population, a vast network of for-profit, private prisons springs up, creating a lawless subculture ruled by gangs, cold-blooded killers and sociopaths. The worst of these prisons is Terminal Island. Convicted cop-killer Carl Lucas arrives on the Island to serve his life sentence just as ruthlessly ambitious television personality September Jones launches the ultimate reality show, Death Race. A brutal prison yard demolition derby that pits prisoners against each other in steel reinforced, heavily armed vehicles, Death Race offers the winner the ultimate prize: freedom — if he can survive to enjoy it. When Lucas signs up to be a driver, the stage is set for the birth of a legendary racer.

Let’s see what happens with this one – might even be a direct to DVD release. No release date yet, but due out sometime in 2011.

–Fitz

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Kevin Reilly, President, Entertainment for Fox announced the news Monday.

“FRINGE tapped into a deep creative mine this year that built momentum throughout the season and helped give us our first real foothold on TV’s most competitive night,” said Reilly. “The entire FRINGE team – from the producers and writers to the cast and crew – has taken smart storytelling and top production quality to a whole new level. The rest of this season is mind-blowing, and we can’t wait to get started on the third installment of this amazing journey.”

As a dedicated viewer, I have to say I’m excited to see what’s in store for Walter, Peter, and Olivia. Each new episode provides humor, bizarre science, and more pieces to the puzzle of how two worlds could possibly collide.

Evidently in season 2, Fringe caught the attention of more viewers in their time slot – with Bones (another of our favorite shows) as a lead in. The show’s average Thursday rating among adults 18-49 was up by more than 50%. Amazing results.

So stay tuned for the continuing saga… The next episode airs on Thursday, April 1st on FOX. I know I’ll be watching.

–Fitz

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Sad news to report. Corey Haim passed away today, perhaps due to an accidental drug overdose. The actor was in numerous movies through the 1980s and ’90s, including Lost Boys, License to Drive, Dream a Little Dream, Blown Away, and others. You rarely saw him in a movie without his friend Corey Feldman and now the Two Coreys will just be One.

I think the fame went to his head in the 1980s and a repeated cycle of drugs and alcohol wasted far too much of his life. It’s rumored that he was clean and working on revitalizing his acting career, so his untimely death comes as a shock to everyone.

Condolences to his family and friends. Guess we’ll never know what new movies he might have find his way into…

–Fitz

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Back in May, I had a chance to review LeapFrog Letter Factory with my youngest daughter who will be starting kindergarten in the Fall. We enjoyed exploring the alphabet with Tad on his musical journey. And we were on the lookout for more fun educational videos to help give her a head start and the LeapFrog brand has always provided.

Now we have seen the LeapFrog Math Adventure to the Moon, which focuses on counting, sorting, patterns, and simple addition. This time we have Tad and Lilly learning about counting for a school project. They have to come up with a collection of ten things, but they are having a hard time counting that high or figuring out what to collect.

For the next 30 minutes, the viewer, Tad, and Lilly are led on a long trip by their good friend Edison, the firefly. Edison has a few tricks up his sleeve to help the kids learn how to count by 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s, and so on as well as other math-related skills. Where does Edison take the pair? To the moon of course! What would be more cool than to show a collection of ten moon rocks in class?

The LeapFrog team has once again put together a great lesson integrating fun songs, activities, and comic elements as well as a bit of suspense. The suspense part surprised me a bit, as it seemed a bit dark and destructive for a kindergarten-age audience. In this case, it was a space storm threatening to either suck everything in or blow everything away. Everything worked out alright in the end and the trio managed to save the day for some space aliens along the way.

I was impressed with the seamless integration of patterns into the story. The characters had to unlock the launch code to take off in their spaceship. And to do that they needed to figure out the pattern of shapes and colors and enter the right pattern to start the ship. It was a great way to introduce the pattern concept while also introducing the idea of a password or “launch code” to start something up.

My only complaint with this adventure was that it seemed too short. That however may have been because we were enjoying ourselves and didn’t want it to end. At 36 minutes long, it’s about the same length as LeapFrog Letter Factory so I shouldn’t have been surprised.

In addition to the main adventure, the DVD includes a few special features including a Sorting Game you can play with the DVD remote, a few sing-along songs, and the Alphabet Song from Let’s Go to School (another LeapFrog adventure).

If you’re looking for a good math-based educational adventure for your kindergarten-aged youngsters, LeapFrog Math Adventure to the Moon should be a great fit. I know we’re looking forward to finding other LeapFrog adventures to enjoy!

–Fitz

p.s. Click below to find this and other LeapFrog adventures at Amazon!

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