Radio Show Launches Wednesday

Hey everyone!

This Wednesday will be my first official radio show in my new time slot.

Every Wednesday night from 9pm-12am tune your radio to 91.3 FM WTSR, or head over to WTSR.org and click on listen live, to hear my show.

The show will consist of the rock of the 90's and early 00's, as well a bit of entertainment discussion.

Feel free to call in the request line at 609.771.2554, or send me an IM at WTSRDJ on AIM with a comment or request.

You can always leave a comment on this site as well, about my radio show, on my radio show posts. I plan on having a few posts on here about show updates, as well as the usual music, TV, and movie news.

Here's to a great show and I hope everyone enjoys it.

Thanks,
DP

No Spiderman 4, instead Spiderman Begins!

Well here is something that no Spider-man fan expected. As of today, director Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire, and Kirsten Dunst are out of the Spidey franchise.

Also, say goodbye to Spider-man 4, as Sony has canned that production as well.

The hype around Spider-man 4, included everything from script disputes, to difficult villain choices, to problems with the reception of Spidey 3. Raimi decided to walk away and chose not to deal with the direction that the Spider-man franchise was heading in.

Reports can be found all over the web that Raimi insisted on The Vulture as the next villain in the franchise, who the studio rejected as old and non-popular. The series had already screwed up with Venom, the most important villain in the franchise, and I had a large feeling it was dead in the water.

Spidey on the big screen is not dead for good. Sony plans to reboot the franchise with a new

director, new actors, and a new production crew. This time, it will be centered around Spider-man's angsty high school years....

Wait, this sounds all too familiar...

Noooooooooooooooo!

Sony is pitching it as dark and "gritty." They say it will be akin to Batman Begins.

The real problem here is that isn't who Spider-man is. Anyone who read the comics, or even saw the first two movies knows that Spidey has always been a funnier, comedic superhero who still

kicks major ass. To turn him into a sad Batman copy with some dark teen-angst plot line would be a severe injustice to his character.

In my mind, Tobey Maguire will always be Spider-man and unfortunatly his role attached to the terrible Spider-man 3 script. I would suggest anyone watch the first 2 Spider-man movies to see what brought superhero movies back into the mainstream.

An Interesting Take On Machines and The Essence Of Life: 9 Review

Recently, the animated movie 9 has been released on DVD. I saw the trailer for this movie last summer and I wanted to see it.

Unfortunately, it was released in what I like to call, the college grace period. I am referring to that time when we, as students, just move back into school and have a lot of other things to do besides take a trip to the movie theater.

This movie, released on 9.9.09 (ha) was right in the middle of that early September grace period.

Moving on, I really wish I would have seen this movie in the theater, as the visuals in this movie are absolutely stunning. The last animated movie that impressed me this much was Wall-E, and this movie deserves to be viewed on a huge screen to get the feel of things.

9, is the story of a scientist who creates an animatronic "brain" sometime in what looks to be the 1930's, in order to speed production of the age of machinery. Unfortunately, the military takes the brain and puts it to use making weapons. Eventually the brain decides to turn against humanity and exterminate all humans.

The scientist who created it, splits his soul into 9 different parts, and implants a piece into little dolls which now hold the key to life surviving. The dolls must now fight against what is left of these machines to preserve the soul and human life as it is known then.

Each of the 9 dolls has its own distinct personality that helps to make the movie that much more enjoyable. For example, Doll 1 is the oldest and presumed wisest of them, attempting to save the others by hiding, while Doll 7 is female, and a rouge assassin who takes down machines while wearing a bird skull as battle armor.

Doll 9 is the main character in the film, a curious doll, who finds out why they were created and what they were meant to do, all while getting into his own battles against the machines.

The cast, including actors like Elijah Wood and John C. Reilly performs great and makes the movie fun to watch.

Although the film is a little darker than most animated movies, it has to be in order to work. Some scenes show the damage of the machine apocalypse and people dead in the streets, something not found in 3D animation as we know it today.

The darker feel was executed well with help from Tim Burton, who is a producer of this film. The machine/creatures that the brain creates to attempt to destroy the 9 dolls have a very creepy feel to them. They encompass everything from a snake-like creature with a baby doll's head, to a large bird machine with a harpoon-gun tail.

This DVD gets a B+ from me, as it has a very good storyline, but does not translate well to DVD due to the need for the large effects that go with most of the action sequences.

I wish I could have caught this in theaters.

Vampires seem more human than ever: Daybreakers Review

This movie wasn't the greatest vampire film of all time, but it did some justice to this genre, which has taken many hits in this era of film.

Daybreakers set in 2019 is a film that makes vampires seem more human than ever.

In most movies featuring the undead, vampires are immortal, untouchable creatures that run into relatively no problems, besides the occasional sunlight and holy water.

In Daybreakers the vampire outbreak has created a world overpopulated by vampires and the number of humans left is running thin. Basically, the vampires are running out of blood and need to find a solution fast.

In this film, when vampires do not feed on human blood, they become primitive and more bat-like creatures (see photo left). These primal vampires are mostly the poor who cannot afford blood, as it is bought and sold like food in the movie, even in coffee shops in the subway.

The main character Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke),thankfully not a Twilight reference, is a hematologist at the leading vampire blood research facility who is charged with finding an alternative to human blood.

Edward does not like being a vampire and feels sympathy for the humans, which his boss Bromley (Sam Neill) sees as weakness.

Bromley is the head of the blood research corporation and is basically the vampire equivalent of Lex Luthor, evil businessman character.

While trying to find an alternative to human blood, Edward eventually stumbles upon Elvis (Willem Dafoe) who has cured himself of his own vampirism and leads a band of humans attempting to spread the cure and stay alive.

From there the movie leads down the path of Edward dealing with this newfound cure while the vampires deal with the lack of blood as most, like Bromley, do not believe in a cure.

Edward is left with the fate of the human race within him and now must face a world full of vampires with the single cure that can end the darkness forever.

The vampires in this movie outcast their lesser, blood deprived vampires showing an almost elitist human quality. The vampires were afraid that their source of life was running out and made decisions to preserve their race, never before in a movie have vampires had to make decisions like this and seeing it was very enjoyable and interesting.

The special effects in the movie were done very well and put a primal spin on the vampire. There are also a few cool takes on vampire transportation in daylight, like cars that have cameras on the roof and sunblocks on the windshield so they can drive in the day and see where they are going.

Acting wise, Sam Neill was very convincing as the big bad business boss vampire. Ethan Hawke's performance was good as well, although I felt like he was channeling some Christian Bale in this film. Willem Dafoe's southern-like character is downright hilarious and adds some comic relief to all the gore and neck-biting vampirism.

I'm going to give this film a B.

The film's ending could have been better done and it feels like a little more could have been explained about the initial vampire outbreak. Other than that and a little overuse of ridiculous, less-than-realistic gore in some scenes (arms being ripped off, heads rolling around) this film did the, sometimes difficult, vampire genre justice.

Michael Cera's Best Performance Yet: Youth In Revolt Review

This movie had everything a smart teen comedy should. When I say smart, I mean this film has nothing in common with the endless spinoffs of American Pie being passed off as "teen comedies" today.

Michael Cera has defined his young career with this movie.

His ability to portray the split personality between the main character, Nick, and his alter-ego, Francois, is a staple in teen comedy history. Nick creates Francois while meeting the girl of his dreams, in order to be the bad-boy that she wants.

Through Francois, Nick is able to do things he would never dream of doing, like stealing his fathers' car and talking back to police officers.

Cera pulls off constant laughs as Nick, doing what he does best as the awkward, love struck loser. But, in the scenes where Francois Dillinger is on the screen, Cera transforms into an equally hilarious bad-boy with an attitude that keeps the laughs coming.

The cast of this film worked great around Cera and made this film extremely enjoyable and clever. It is arguably the best cast in a teen comedy since the original American Pie.

Portia Doubleday plays a great role as Nick's love-interest Sheeni. She is everything from mysterious to artsy and is a great character to watch while she pushes Nick to be bad.

With a touch of Zach Galifianakis as Nick's mother's deadbeat boyfriend, a sprinkle of Justin Long as Nick's love interest's stoner brother, a few scenes of Ray Liotta as a smarmy cop, a little of Steve Buschemi as Nick's father, and finally Fred Willard as the creepy neighbor makes this movie one of the best comedies of the year.

In the film, Cera's character Nick goes from being a vinyl listening virgin to burning down half of his town to get the girl of his dreams to love him, and along the way takes viewers on a hilarious ride full of awkward teen moments and great interactions with those adults around him.

I'm going to give this film an A-. The only real place I found problematic was the speed of the movie. There were a lot of crazy things going on in a relatively short film, compared to others out now like Sherlock Holmes and Avatar.

It is a great comedy that is extremely clever with its split-personality plot line and is 100% worth going to the movies to see.

Daybreakers and Youth In Revolt Reviews This Weekend

Two movies with great hype in two different genres are coming out this weekend and I plan on seeing both of them.

First, Youth In Revolt looks to be a hilarious teen comedy that combines great comedic actors Michael Cera, Justin Long, and Zach Galifianakis.

Cera is known for his awkward teenage characters in movies like Superbad and Juno, while Long does some of his best work in Waiting. Galifianakis is fresh off the second buzz of The Hangover which stemmed from its DVD release in the recent past.

The movie's plot sounds extremely promising with Cera playing both his usual awkward teen character as well as an alter ego which is more badass.

The second movie, Daybreakers, looks just as promising, but in the horror genre.

Daybreakers looks like it will bring prominence back to the vampire horror genre which has been absolutely made a mockery of by mainstream popular culture.

The cast of this movie looks great with Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill. The storyline about vampires running out of human to harvest for blood sounds creepy enough to get most people interested in the film.

From the looks of the trailer, the vampires look promising as they are represented as these mutant-like creatures. The special effects on the vampires themselves look like they will scare most people.

I am interested to see how the few humans left on the planet avoid capture in a world filled with vampires. It is a very interesting concept, which reminds me a bit of I am Legend. If it's anything like that movie, while being original, I will enjoy it.

I am looking forward to reviewing both of these movies when this weekend.

Freddy Isn't Dead: A Nightmare On Elm Street Preview

Well, it seems that 2010 will be, yet again, a year of horror remakes.

The originality in Hollywood's horror department has really been lacking, and nothing orignial has really drawn massive hype since the first Saw film. So, we are left with remakes and revamping of classic horror films.

Michael Bay, the producer of this film, was able to somewhat successfully remake with Friday the 13th. On the popular movie critic site RottenTomatoes.com, the movie is summed up as well-constructed but unoriginal.

I see this movie going in the same direction as Friday the 13th as there is little that can be done with a franchise so ingraned in our mind as the Elm Street series is. Robert Englund, who IS the definitive Krueger will not be portraying the killer in this version, which leaves die-hard fans stunned.

Instead, Jackie Earle Haley, known for his performance as Rorschach in Watchmen will be taking over as the glove wielding psychopath. Haley's performance in the trailer looks convincing, but fans of the series will always miss the sadistic sarcasm of Englund's original Freddy.

Bay's input behind this remake makes it sure to have plenty of action, with some meaningless dialogue. After all that is what slasher films are known for and he followed suit with his remake of Friday the 13th.

The problem with Bay's horror style is that Freddy is no ordinary slasher killer. He talks, unlike Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees, and has his own wit and dark humor. Wether or not Haley will be able to recreate this element of Freddy will reveal itself within the movie.

If this movie is done well I could see a complete rehashing of the entire series. Just please, no Freddy vs. Jason remake.