By Gregg Beever

I’m back, baby! Before I get started, how about a big round of applause for Mr. Jay Runham who filled in brilliantly for me last month.

Are you done clapping yet?

Okay, good.

So, has everyone watched the Battleship trailer? Somehow I missed Liam Neeson being cast as Admiral E5. Did he lose a bet? Maybe he’s having a “Who can be in the shittiest alien invasion flick?” competition with Aaron Eckhart.

That brings us to the $200 million dollar question (yes, that is the budget), what does the board game, Battleship, have to do with aliens? What the frack is the tie-in there? Wait. Aliens are nebulously destroying battleships from the heavens, just like players of the board game. Right? Is director Peter Berg trying to say that we are the true aliens?

I don’t get it.

All I know is when I’m watching this film in the theater and Liam Neeson utters the line “You sunk my battleship.” I’m going to stand up and slow clap.

But Battleship doesn’t premiere until May of next year and we’re concerned with movies coming out now. What can we look forward to in the month of August with Thor, Transformers, Captain America, Harry Potter and the end of Jim Carrey’s career passing us by?

Two words: Spy Kids! But maybe you don’t have kids, or a desire to have Jessica Alba and Jeremy Piven mercilessly irritate your visual and auditory senses. Maybe you are looking for something more adult, in which case check out Colombiana, opening August 26th. Zoe Saldana may be a terrible Uhura, but she was fantastic as the double-crossing badass, Aisha, in the completely under-appreciated The Losers. Colombiana finds Saldana once again in the ass-kicking roll as a young women who witnessed her parents’ murder and ironically grows up to be an assassin. Sold!

James Franco is back on the big screen this month, his career still reeling from hosting the Oscars with Anne Hathaway. Rise of the Planet of the Apes opens this Friday, teaching us what can happen when a can of super-smartening gas is opened in the presence of damn dirty apes. It also teaches us what hundreds of CGI apes look like. Shitty.

Back for his 10th movie in the last year; it’s Ryan Reynolds! In The Change-Up he teams up with Jason Bateman for a body switching comedy. Yay! That’s not a tired plot. Oh my god, Reynolds is a womanizer stuck in family man Bateman’s body. Now he has to change diapers and and do boring dad stuff. Let the laugh riot begin!

I’m being hard on this movie but, admittedly, the trailer is full of laughs. It could be decent.

Rounding out the August releases are Conan the Barbarian (Aug. 19th), which looks like a good time; Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (Aug. 26th), a horror I’m on the fence about; and finally Our Idiot Brother (Aug. 26th), which features the lovely Zooey Deschanel. I don’t need to say anything more.

That’s August folks. Enjoy your time at the movies, and remember to always punch the teenager texting next to you in the mouth.

When he’s not punching teenagers in the mouth, Gregg Beever is on the Internet. He’s usually hanging around here, but has recently been found in the company of hipsters.

Friend of the website (and sometimes movie-reviewer) Jay Runham has teamed up with another J – Jordan Blackburn – to talk movies in your earbuds.

The second episode of Jay n’ J. is out now, with guest Paul Matwychuk. Paul is an Edmonton movie-genius, who you may know from his work on CBC Radio and the DVD Afternoon podcast he does with The Videodrome’s Heather Noel. (Side note on Paul: You want this guy on your trivia team.)

(Side note on the second episode: Metro Cinema is settling into its new home at the Garneau Theatre, and will begin showing movies at the end of the first week in August.)

The first episode of Jay n’ J. featured another friend of the website, and movie-guy, Gregg Beever.

The podcast (so far) focuses on one movie – Super 8 and Harry Potter in episodes 1 and 2. And the hosts jump into conversations that make sense for their guests, which will likely lead to a diverse entertainment podcast. Basically, the Js are two for two on guests, and are going to add to the great movie discussions happening online and in podcasts in Edmonton.

“Wait… this is a cartoon?”

I feel like this was a reaction a lot of people had the other night as a small theatre full of us sat down to watch Green Lantern: Emerald Knights (GL: EK). No, this is not the Ryan Reynolds live action Summer Blockbuster, it is a collection of shorts as narrated by Nathan Fillion (Edmonton born and raised). Fillion plays Hal Jordan (the character Ryan Reynolds will also be portraying) as he teaches a new Green Lantern about the beginnings of the Green Lantern Corps.

Lost yet? I’m sure a couple people at the theatre were too. Emerald Knights gives the viewer some backstory into the events about to unfold in it’s live-action counterpart. The difference between the two being that GL:EK serves as both a prequel AND a sequel. Furthermore, it is animated and shows a lot of the stories that couldn’t fit into the live action film.

There exists great voice acting talent in the film. As mentioned above, Nathan Fillion plays Hal Jordan and does an excellent job of narrating the separate stories. Elisabeth Moss seems like she is having fun playing the new recruit, and does a great job providing a gateway to the tales of the Green Lantern’s past. The tough as nails Sinestro is voiced by Jason Isaacs, who is best known for his evil role in the Harry Potter Franchise.

This film is definitely worth the rent if you’re jonesing to go see the live-action adaptation. But if you haven’t read the comics or aren’t familiar with the Green Lantern lore, you may want to wait until after seeing Ryan Reynolds in his CGI jump suit.

Renter beware and Geeks geek-out.

3.5/5

Jay Runham is a movie reviewer, hourly tweeter, and lover of Nonja Turtles. More from him at J-Run.ca/Blog and @MondoJay.

Hold on to your mutant pantaloons, this weekend the X-Men are back, and  Brett “Rush Hour” Ratner has been expelled from Professor Xavier’s school.

After two successful films, a forgettable third installment and one abysmal spin-off, 20th Century Fox turned to Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) to breath life back into its super-hero ensemble. Strong leads in James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender were cast, while writers Ashley Miller and Zach Stentz (from the under-appreciated Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) round out a screenplay team that also includes Jane Goldman, who co-wrote Kick-Ass with Vaughn.

With that level of talent it is not surprising X-Men: First Class is being met with stellar reviews, likely handing Marvel two hit movies in as many months. Should Captain America also set boxes offices a blaze it will be an unprecedented blockbuster hat-trick for the comic book publisher. 

The Green CG Suit

But Marvel isn’t the only studio releasing a comic book property this month, DC’s The Green Lantern hits theaters June 17th. Since trailers started to appear online, reaction to director Martin Campbell’s (Casino Royal, No Escape) green hero have been largely negative. Concerns have mostly centered on the films special effects because, in many of the films trailers, the effects have looked decidedly not-so-special. Numerous reports claim effects teams have been having an extremely difficult time with Ryan Reynolds’ fully CG suit.

The decision to create the suit entirely in post production may haunt Campbell. CG heavy movies can live or die on the quality of the animation. Since the days of Jurassic Park audiences have been spoiled with beautiful and believable computer effects, meaning we can spot poor graphics quite easily and they can rip us right out of the film. Having your audience laugh their way through every effects shot, as we did during Wolverine, is not ideal. At this point Green Lantern looks to be on very shaky ground.

Touch Yourself

There is one more reason to have a nerdgasm in the month of June, as Michael Bay rolls out the last of his Transformer films in Dark of the Moon (June 29th). The early buzz is that TF3 has greatly improved on the previous sequel, which is kind of like saying “our new and improved mountain bikes now include a chain and pedals.” Still, the 8-year-old in me is full of hope that this time Bay and Shia LaDouche (bet I’m the first one to make that joke!) get it right.

The logic center of my brain, however, knows better. While TF3 may be a better film than either of its predecessors, that does not mean it will be a better “Transformers” movie. Let me explain.

This is “The Touch,” recorded by Stan Bush, a wicked 80′s power ballad featured in the original Transformers animated movie back in 1986. When word broke there was going to be a live action Transformers film there were two things we nerds really wanted. First, we wanted Peter Cullen to reprise the roll of Optimus Prime, which we got. Second, nerds really wanted to hear “The Touch” again, which we did not get.

By the second film someone somewhere at Paramount had recognized the fans love for the song. A decision was made not only to re-record the original tune, but get the man himself, Stan Bush, to record it. Awesome, right? Finally, a signal that someone at corporate understood Transformer fans.

Well, not exactly.

What could have been a love letter to fans turned out to be a sloppy, forgettable shit burger of a rap-rock song. Michael Bay has such a boner to Linkin Park I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he spearheaded the “let’s turn that 80’s song into a Linkin Park song, but way shittier!” movement.

So while both Bay and Paramount may have recognized the nostalgic value of “The Touch,” they completely misunderstood what nerds loved about it. It was the synthesizers, the cheesy feel-good lyrics and the powerfully over-the-top way Stan sang them.

The Touch remake is a microcosm of the Transformer movies themselves. Everyone involved with the films, from Señor Spielbergo on down, completely misunderstood what made Transformers cool and interesting. The movies are about a teenager’s first car, military secrets, and sweaty hot chicks leaning over Camaro hoods. And not at all about transforming robots. In fact, Optimus Prime isn’t even a main character. He’s a secondary, or tertiary character at best, who, through two full feature-length films, has barely been on screen.

So while the buzz is that Transformers 3 is a better film, I highly doubt the focus will be on the correct characters and we will get a better “Transformers” film.

And the rest…

I’ve covered three science fiction films so far, but if you aren’t into sci-fi, don’t worry, because Super 8 premieres on June 10th. In Super 8 a group of kids are filming a homemade movie when a train containing a captured extra-terrestrial derails and…oh, wait, nevermind. Well, you could alway go see Bad Teacher (June 24th) or Cars 2 (June 24th), I guess.

I’ve heard many comparisons of Super 8 to Goonies, so I’m very excited for J.J. Abrams latest lens-flaretastic sci-fi romp!

And finally, Jim Carrey is still doing movies. Mr. Popper’s Penguins opens June 17th, for those of you who like over-acting and computer animated dancing penguins.

And with that, I’m off. Have a good weekend Edmonton!