Fall Movie Preview
The fall movie season is a bit of an oddity these days. Ever since the movie studios found out they could make billions off of superheroes and Star Wars, first the spring movie season started filling up with movies that would feel more at home during the summer, then the winter season as well. But the fall season has been relatively untouched with these kinds of movies as that was always the time of year that films were released with higher expectations than making wheelbarrows full of money, these were Oscar hopeful movies. While there are still a lot of movies due out that have Academy Awards on their minds this fall, there’s quite a few as well that feel more like summer blockbusters than award winners.
The Predator – September, 14
What was originally due out this summer before being pushed to the fall, the third film in the Predator franchise, unless you count those awful Aliens vs Predator movies of a few years ago and who wants to do that!? The Predator marks the return of Shane Black (Iron Man 3, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) to the sci-fi genera. Black co-starred as Hawkins and did some on-set rewriting on the first film. The Predator looks to move the action from the jungles of Central America in Predator and Los Angeles in Predator 2 to a rain-soaked little town where the only thing standing between the population and total destruction are a rag-tag team of special forces soldiers being carted off to prison.
Venom – October, 5
There’s some confusion with this one. Starring Tom Hardy, technically Venom takes place in the same film universe as the fan-favorite Spider-Man: Homecoming movie, except if reports are to be believed out of the San Diego Comic-Con your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man won’t be making an appearance in this one. And it almost seems as if Sony is positioning Venom, who’s been the nemesis of Spider-Man in the comics for 30 years now and even appeared in Spider-Man 3, to be more an anti-hero than a villain. Think Punisher rather than Ultron and that sounds more in-line with this new movie version of the character.
Halloween – October, 19
This latest version of Halloween will be the TENTH sequel to the original film and will bring back Jamie Lee Curtis in the Laurie Strode role she originated in the first film and has reprised on and off the last 40 years. This new Halloween reportedly ignores everything after Halloween II (1981) — though how can anyone ignore that ear-worm of a song “ten more days ’til Halloween” from Halloween III: Season of the Witch?
The Girl in the Spider’s Web – November, 9
The 2011 film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was supposed to be the first of a series of movies taken from the novels of Stieg Larsson directed by David Fincher and starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig. But for whatever reason it was decided to cast aside that creative team and start anew this time with director Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe) and co-stars Claire Foy and Sverrir Gudnason in the Mara/Daniel roles respectively.
Maybe Fincher’s vision for the Dragon Tattoo sequels was too intense since the movie did decently enough at the box office for something not starring super-heroes?
Alita: Battle Angel trailer
TV
Freaks and Geeks
Recently, I caught a documentary about the TV series Freaks and Geeks and had some memories of my own to share of this gem of a show.
- I remember when Freaks and Geeks premiered it was difficult to see new episodes. NBC seemed to either air a lot of repeats or they moved the show around a lot to different timeslots.
- I remember that the episode “Kim Kelly is My Friend” was controversial for its time and didn’t run in my area during the series original run.
- In fact, I didn’t see all of the episodes of Freaks and Geeks until Fox Family reran the series in 2000 as there were a few episodes including “Kim Kelly is My Friend” that never aired on NBC.
- When Fox Family began rerunning Freaks and Geeks and premiering unaired episodes I started recording the show on my EyeTV which was a device that allowed you to record a cable signal to your computer and save shows as MPGs. While I’m pretty sure I recorded the entire run this way, I’m also pretty sure I never watched them other than maybe the one time since the files it produced them were small and SD cable grainy too.
- In 2003 or 2004 Shout! Factory promoted a DVD set of the entire series, urging people to preorder the set since this might be their only chance to own this, then, forgotten series on home media. Of course I ponied up something like $120 for the set.
The Reading & Watch List
- Atomic Bomb Effects on an Aircraft in Flight
- Big tech warns of ‘Japan’s millennium bug’ ahead of Akihito’s abdication
Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week
