Last year, John Boyega became a household name simply by starring in a little film called Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Everyone in the film gave a standout performance, which is sure to carry over to the next two films, but the young actor isn’t pigeonholing himself to just one franchise or genre. In these past few months, he has already signed on to appear in James Pansoldt’s The Circle, which stars Emma Watson and Tom Hanks. In April, it was announced that he would lend his voice to the Netflix-BBC’s telling of Watership Down, where he can be heard alongside James McAvoy and Ben Kingsley. And just a couple of weeks ago, it was confirmed that he’ll play Idris Elba’s on-screen son in Pacific Rim 2.

But he isn’t stopping there. In fact, he may be gearing up for some Oscar gold as he is the latest addition to Kathryn Bigelow’s film about the 1967 Detroit Riots.

More on the story below.

Greetings, true believers. BAADASSSSS! is here with the fifth exciting issue of my ongoing series of articles The Ten Best Unproduced Comic Book Movie Scripts. I apologize for the lengthy delay between installments; apparently I have worse trouble than Kevin Smith and Dan Harmon when it comes to meeting deadlines.

If you haven’t checked out my bloated, unwieldy nerdgasm of an introduction to the series as well as a complete week-by-week breakdown of clues to each entry on this list you may do so here.

Subscribe to the Podcast: RSS | iTunes | Zune | Stitcher
Follow us on Twitter: @SkullFaceIsland
Like us on Facebook: Skull-Face Island
E-mail us at
Call Us: 980-272-0111

Hello There! This is Adam Frazier and you are listening to Skull-Face Island, the official movie podcast of Geeks of Doom! As always I’m joined by the Carrie Matheson to my Saul Berenson, David Allen… and a man prone to restless leg syndrome AND genre blindness, producer Tim Grant.

Today on the Show: We’ll discuss Kathryn Bigelow’s latest film, Zero Dark Thirty, and boot-up the Geek-O-Matic TeleFax for all the latest news on MGM’s Ben-Hur remake, a Star Wars spin-off film inspired by Akira Kurosawa‘s Seven Samurai, and Brad Bird’s 1952.

We also kick off a four-part series of “BEST OF THE YEAR” lists with special guest Sean O’Connell of Fandango, Movies.Com, CinemaBlend, and The Washington Post. On this week’s installment we’ll cover the best performances of 2012 for both supporting actors and actresses. You’ll definitely want to tune in for the insanity that ensues.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Zero Dark Thirty
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Written by Mark Boal
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Mark Strong, Chris Pratt, Kyle Chandler, Mark Duplass
Columbia Pictures
Rated R | 160 Minutes
Release Date: January 11, 2013

“I’m the motherfucker who found this place.” – Maya (Jessica Chastain)

For over a decade, an elite team of intelligence and military operatives, working in secret across the globe, devoted themselves to a single goal: to find and eliminate Osama bin Laden.

Zero Dark Thirty reunites the Academy Award-winning team of director-producer Kathryn Bigelow and writer-producer Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) for
the story of history’s greatest manhunt for the world’s most dangerous man.

As I’m sure you’re aware, Zero Dark Thirty features graphic scenes of enhanced interrogation tactics that were implemented by the Bush administration after 9-11, techniques like waterboarding and sexual humiliation that are illegal under international law.

It seems like many political commentators and CIA officials are worried that, by including the dark side of the government’s hunt for Al Qaeda, Bigelow’s film may give viewers the wrong impression: that the brutal interrogation methods are the reason we located Bin Laden’s compound.

That’s simply not the case and anyone who walks out of Zero Dark Thirty with the impression that it takes a pro-torture stance didn’t pay attention to the intricacies of the narrative. Depiction is not endorsement, and if it was, no artist could ever portray inhuman practices; no author could ever write about them; and no filmmaker could ever explore them.

Electronic Arts gets bashed quite often in the world of video games, usually due to the reputation they’ve gained as an ultra-greedy company who charges for everything and forces players into doing things like buying their games brand new at the full $59.99 price tag in order to play online…even if you’re not sure it’s a game you’ll even like.

Issues such as these recently scored them the title of Worst Company in America, as voted by consumers, beating out Bank of America for the damaging crown.

EA clearly doesn’t like the title that has been bestowed upon them, and they’ve set out to show that they can step outside of the white collared corporate world they thrive in and be noble as well by committing to donate at least $1 million to America’s veterans.

The eighteenth episode of The Geeks Of Doom Round Up is here, and this week, Andy plays an unreal heavy metal version of some Daft Punk tunes as played by Eric Calderone aka Erock. Meanwhile, Greg puts on his tin foil hat and rants about the new trailer for Zero Dark Thirty, the movie about the Bin Laden assassination, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and starrng Jessica Chastain.

Later in the show, we take a look at the announcement that Galaxy Quest director Dean Parisot will be helming the third Bill & Ted movie; and also at the rumors surrounding Ben Affleck possibly being groomed by Warner Brothers to be the director for a Justice League movie.

Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Zero Dark Thirty has been kept in the dark for a very long time. None of the cast or crew were able to speak about it and no one really knew what we would expect from the film, other than that it was about the manhunt that led to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. Now we got our first trailer for the film. Check it out below.

Zero Dark Thirty is the follow up to Kathryn Bigelow’s Academy Award-winning film The Hurt Locker. As mentioned above, the film follows the events that led up to Bin Laden’s death. We only get to see a few glimpses of the characters involved in the process, but the tone is what you would come to expect when watching an intense military film. The trailer doesn’t shed too much light on what we will see in Zero Dark Thirty, even though most of us know what’s going to happen to the terrorist.

On the week of the original’s 20th anniversary, Alcon Entertainment co–founders Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove acquired the rights to remake the hit 1991 action flick, Point Break. Now the duo have officially announced their plans to fast–track a remake of the property for release by Warner Brothers.

Not a whole lot is known about the planned remake, but it is said that it will once again revolve around an undercover FBI agent infiltrating a criminal ring, and that it will be set in the world of international extreme sports. The original, which was directed by Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and starred Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, involved surfing, which is generally considered an extreme sport. In this case, however, it’s unclear which sport(s) will be used.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly recently, Avatar director James Cameron spoke about his ex-wife and fellow Academy Award-nominee for Best Picture and Best Director, Kathryn Bigelow. Cameron talked about competing (and eventually losing) against her at the Oscars and also his thoughts on 3D being used in a smaller movie like Bigelow’s Best Picture-winner, The Hurt Locker.

It’s no secret that Cameron is the godfather of the 3D revolution, working to prove how incredible it can be when done correctly, and how he hopes that one day the technology’s usage will be a given with each film. When talking about The Hurt Locker, and whether it could have been better with 3D, here’s what the director had to say:

The Hurt Locker
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Evangeline Lilly
Rated R
Released date: June 26, 2009

“When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle.”
— Captain Benjamin L. Willard from Apocalypse Now

“Life sure has a sick sense of humor, doesn’t it?”
— Bodhi from Point Break

The Hurt Locker: The Ultimate Adrenaline Junkie

The ecstasy of war is at the heart of Kathryn Bigelow’s brilliant new action thriller, The Hurt Locker. We only need to read the now famous quote from journalist and author Chris Hedges that precedes the film, “War is a drug”, to realize that Ms. Bigelow is the right person to bring Mark Boal’s screenplay to life. If anyone knows about an addiction to violence and an addiction to the rush of pure adrenaline, it is Kathryn Bigelow. Her previous films such as Near Dark, Blue Steel, Strange Days, K-19: The Widowmaker, and most importantly Point Break deal with adrenaline junkies of one sort or another. She has a natural ability to strip away the fat from subcultures to provide us with a crystal clear acumen of her fascination with them. Her examination of the Army’s elite Explosive Ordinance Squad (EOD) is an exercise in exhilarating and harrowing tension.

The film possesses a level of intensity that few films can match. The Hurt Locker is the thinking person’s action film. Ms. Bigelow has won the pissing contest of 2009, everyone else can go home. She has a natural ability to take all the elements to create a potent and thrilling portrait. Her money shots put the competition to shame this year. She is a master at staging suspenseful and harrowing action sequences. The Hurt Locker has some of the best in recent memory. The Hurt Locker is the epitome of cinematic suspense.