Keith du Cros.com

Based on the popular Japanese manga created by Akira Toriyama, whose work spawned best selling graphic novels, video games and a phenomenally successful television series, Dragonball centers on the heroic Goku, a powerful warrior who protects the Earth from an endless stream of rogues bent on dominating the Universe and controlling the mystical objects from which the film takes its name.

Yes thats right. If your brain hasn’t exploded just yet.. Go here. Now. Look. There is a real life Dragon Ball Z movie in the works. It actually looks really nasty - but the insanity behind it being done is still just too much to bear.

Newest trailer to The Dark Knight is out… and I’ve already forgotten about Iron Man.. Easy to notice two-face and someone even noticed on Digg that scarecrow makes another appearance.

M. Night Shyamalan is about to release another unpredictable movie of awesomeness in the form of “The Happening”. Yep, after the boxoffice and review killing Lady in the Water received, he’s back at it again. I’m not really sure where to begin on this one.

First off, I can say that the new trailer does at first look passable and, at least, attention grabbing. The scope and theme of the movie reminds me alot of “I am Legend” with its worldwide epidemic… but theres also the classic Shyamalan ‘twist’ factor mixed in with it. *insert sad face right about here*

I can admit that I did enjoy The Sixth Sense. Not a bad movie at all - even the twist was ok! But things have just gone downhill ever since. I think the description “one-trick pony” suits quite well actually, and it seems that everything since has just been riding off his previous success (and the same formula), and I think people are noticing.

Everybody probably just knows the name M. Night from his movie posters and trailers. Its all over the place. When looking back on his movie history, I actually noticed a pattern. There seems to be a correlation between how bad a movie is going to be and the size and marketing push of “M. Night Shyamalan” on promotional material. Check out the following posters of movies since the Sixth Sense (which, might I add, didn’t try to sell his name on the poster at all).

There is a clear link between the quality of the movie and the marketing of the director. Therefore I propose the following scientific formula:

A = (D * S) + I

Where:

A = How awful a movie by M. Night Shyamalan is going to be.
D = Distance between name “M. Night Shyamalan” and other text on promotional material
S = Size of said name in comparison to the movie title.
I = Non-marketing related problems.

Joking aside, I could of just said A = Time since the Sixth Sense, but i actually didn’t mind Signs too much. It was just very simple minded and, well, it felt like much of the same. Overall, the above seems to be a solid formula. Will it continue to be applicable in the future? I hope not. If it is, we’re in for an interesting couple of hours! See below.

Is it advertising The Happening or M. Night Shyamalan? I can’t tell!

I’ve been watching the tomatometer for iron man, and it looks pretty damn impressive at 94% Fresh. In fact, just last year, Rotten Tomatoes actually did a compilation of all Comic Book movies from worst to best, and Spider Man 2, rated number 1 at the time, had a rating of 93%.

I have to admit I was expecting high 80’s at best. I loved the trailers but there was just something very “Fantastic Four” about them…

Will be checking this one out today, hopefully.

I don’t know how I’ve missed this over the past few weeks. Out of the loop again. Anyway, I picked this up from a wired story this morning. Seems theres a bit of a ‘little’ revolt going on across the internets. All stemming from a petition to “Stop Dr. Uwe Boll” (almost 230,000 signatures so far). The director of such videogame-movie classics as Bloodrayne, Dungeon Siege, and more.

I can’t say I’ve ever seen any of the films (seems I’ve gotten away lucky on that one - particularly as I can admit I was a fairly big fan of the original Dungeon Siege)… and I’m not always trusting of the tomatometer, but when a director cant push any of his movies past 20%… its ‘revealing’ to say the least.

Lets just hope that the petition gets something done before its too late.

Like practically everybody else whose seen Heath Ledger’s take on the Joker from the newest trailer, I’m eagerly looking forward to The Dark Knight.

Got to say I thought Batman Begins was a pretty decent film but nothing hugely special. That is, until I saw this disaster. Batman and Robin was released in 1997. I’ll do the sums for you - more than a decade ago. Being young and generally not being able to choose a decent movie from a bad one, I didn’t actually notice how damn awful it was. Actually, I don’t think being young alone can account for not noticing this… thing.

I have a newfound appreciation for where the series has been taken and where its going. I’ve got no doubts that The Dark Knight will continue the trend.

Edit: Should note I originally picked this up from a cracked article on some of the worst comic book moments.