Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen
Directed by Michael Bay
Starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel
Rated PG-13
Release Date: June 24, 2009

When Transformers came out in 2007 and was a huge hit, you had to have known that a sequel was waiting in the wings. While it was an entertaining movie, it was far from perfect, due to the fact that it had to set up a lot of the origin story. Now with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the sequel can hit the ground running, but does it deliver like its predecessor?

It has been two years since our main protagonist Sam (Shia LaBeouf) has encountered the Transformers and life has moved on. He is going to college and trying to maintain a long distant relationship with his girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox). He has all but put the Transformers behind him but unfortunately, the Decepticons have other ideas. Apparently remains of the All Spark, the cube that brought all electronic machines to life, are still on Earth and hold the key to giving the Decepticons the upper hand in the destruction of the Autobots. This puts Sam smack dab in the middle of the war between the Transformers once again.

Now, just so no one gets the wrong idea, if you have seen the first movie or have seen trailers of this movie, I am already assuming that you are not paying money to see Revolutionary Road. Revenge of the Fallen is about as big a popcorn flick as can be. The explosions are bigger, the action sequences are more eye-popping, and the overall story and dialogue are virtually non-existent. This is one movie that is all about eye candy folks, but that is not to say that that is a bad thing.

Kyle Ward, who wrote the script for the Kane & Lynch movie, and was just reported to be writing the sequel to Hitman, has now been given a third video game movie writing job: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

The popular Playstation 3 game from Sony Computer Entertainment is being developed into a movie by Columbia Pictures, with Marvel Studios founder Avi Arad and his brother Ari Arad‘s Arad Productions producing the movie. Also producing will be Charles Roven and Alex Gartner of Atlas Entertainment.

Drake’s Fortune tells the story of Nathan Drake, an adventurer and descendant of actual explorer Sir Francis Drake, who discovers a diary by his late ancestor that leads the way to the fabled city of gold: El Dorado. As usual, when trying to discover some of the universe’s greatest treasures, things don’t go so well; between rival seekers of the gold city and mutated descendants of Spaniards and Nazis trying to stop him, Nathan Drake is obviously in for a challenge and a kick-ass adventure.

Squidbillies
Vol. 2 DVD
Created by Dave Willis and Jim Fortier
Written by Dave Willis
Turner Home Entertainment
Release date: April 21, 2009

So Adult Swim has come up with some odd cartoons in their time, but I think Squidbillies takes the cake. Squidbillies, created by Dave Willis (Aqua Teen Hunger Force) and Jim Fortier (Brak Show), follows the story of the Cuyler family, a clan of hillbilly squids that happen to live in a town in Georgia. The Culyers’ penchant for violence and racism are always getting them in trouble but their bacon is usually saved by the town sheriff, thanks to a previous federal law passed that makes them an endangered species.

If you are even a bit familiar with Willis and Fortier’s previous work, you should like this series. The episodes are short and concise, and always really have no continuity whatsoever. Characters from the cartoon are often shot, brunt to a crisp, and eaten in every episode, but show up unscathed later on, sometimes even in the same episode. The storylines are also outrageous and over the top. One of the episodes involves Grandma Cuyler getting into a botched tanning accident and rather than have plastic surgery, the Cuyler family kill various animals and sew the animal skins onto her. Though be warned: A lot of the comedy is broad, with jokes ending with the death or dismemberment of another character, and might not be for all viewers, even for yours truly who happens to like Aqua Teen and Brak.

Vampires. These bitey little rascals have always been popular sources of entertainment — a fact that remains strong today with multiple movies and TV shows. Some are immensely popular like HBO’s True Blood and foreign film Let the Right One In; others are maybe not so good — depending on who you are, of course — such as Twilight and 30 Days of Night.

Whether you adore these creatures of the night, or if they’re really not your thing, the fact of it all is that they’re just not going anywhere. And with that assessment, here’s presenting the trailer for a brand new vampire tale that is well on its way: Daybreakers.

Daybreakers looks pretty interesting. It has a creepy Dark City with a touch of Guillermo del Toro’s Blade II look to it and deals with the vampire race trying to discover a way to survive when it becomes apparent that the human race is endangered and blood is running out. The movie stars Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, and Willem Dafoe. It is directed by Peter Spierig and Michael Spierig, who have also directed Undead.

Click over to the other side for the trailer and official plot synopsis.

It has been multiple years now that we’ve been aware of James Cameron and his revolutionary juggernaut of a movie, Avatar. As these years have passed, we’ve seen concept and behind-the-scenes images, but still not too much beyond that. Recently though, a small crowd of special peoples had the Willy Wonka-like opportunity to see 24-minutes of footage from the movie at CinemaExpo in Amsterdam.

Among this disgustingly lucky group of people, a handful of them offered up a description of what they saw, and it’s one of those situations where the words are really difficult to put together, and even harder for someone like myself to even attempt to recycle and be useful to you. In this matter, /Film gathered up a collection of clips of these descriptions and put them in one spot — you can go there to read them all, and you can follow the links provided to go to each site and read the full descriptions. Of the many that offered up a description of what they saw, I’ve picked a couple of bits to include below.

We all knew that Avatar was setting up to be a really special event and something that we’ve never seen, but after reading these recaps, you can’t help but put this movie at the very top of your must-see list. It’s really shaping up to be more of a Universal Studios movie ride instead of just heading off to the theater.

Click over to read the exciting recaps and to check out a second image. Both images were taken at an after party, compliments of UCSNord.