Weekly Weblinks: Conventions and Cyborgs

This week’s dose of the Weekly Weblinks is coming a day later than normal, due to yesterday being Friday the 13th and thus having a film that demanded to be seen and reviewed. Fortunately for me, I didn’t title this series with a particular day in mind. Hooray for thinking ahead!

San Diego Comic-Con 2012 is in full swing as I write this, and various tidbits are just starting to come out of the convention. Chances are there will be quite a few items for next week’s entry, but there are already some pretty significant announcements in today’s edition. And on the blogging side of things, there’s a lot of talk about comic book movies, and a few cult classic films. So read on for the Weekly Weblinks!

Blog Posts:

Stevee Taylor the Film Junkie takes a look at 8 lame cliches that you always see in romantic comedy trailers. It’s a perceptive look at a genre that, at least as far as its trailers are concerned, isn’t very inventive.

Did you get the memo? Fogs Movie Reviews says Office Space is a movie everyone should see. I happen to agree; this is perhaps the ultimate comedy for wage slaves.

I normally like to space out my links to a blogger so as to keep things fair, but right now I think Fogs is earning a bit of extra linkage. He’s at San Diego Comic-Con right now, and he’s doing his best to share the highlights of the show. Click here for his list of posts including some panel coverage and image galleries, and follow him on Twitter @Fogsmoviereview for photos throughout the weekend.

With even the people praising The Amazing Spider-Man asking if it might have been too soon, Bubbawheat at Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights wants to know if comic book movie reboots should be more forgivable?

R.R. Climber at 3 Guys, 1 Movie takes a look at the 1984 cult classic Repo Man. Read his review to see what he thinks, and learn a little about this quirky little film.

P.G. Cooper wraps up his Batman movie reviews with his review of The Dark Knight. He has some solid insights into this film, and with the conclusion of the trilogy coming soon, now is a great time to check it out.

News Blurbs:

In the news, we start out with a couple of videos. The 2013 reboot of Robocop is moving forward, and they’ve released a viral video trailer from Omnicorp. There’s just a tease of Robocop at the end, but it’s enough to see he’s not going to look the same as in the Peter Weller cult classic. Joel Kinnaman is slotted to star as Robocop this time around, and Gary Oldman and Samuel L. Jackson both have supporting roles. Sharp-eyed viewers will note that they’ve updated the Omnicorp logo, but that the ED-209 still looks pretty much the same. Personally, I’m still sold on this reboot yet, but we’ll see what happens when we have more than a teaser.

Hot off the web’s presses this morning (does that make sense? Probably not, but I’m going with it anyway), is a new trailer for the Judge Dredd reboot, Dredd, starring Karl Urban. A little more of the storyline is made clear, and a fan-favorite line makes its appearance.

Ernest Borgnine, who starred in Marty and the television series McHale’s Navy and Airwolf, has passed away at the age of 95.

Sage Stallone, son of action movie star Sylvester Stallone, has died at the age of 36. Cause of death is as yet undetermined and is awaiting a toxicology report. Sage Stallone was the co-founder of Grindhouse Releasing, a company dedicated to restoring and re-releasing B-movies of the 1970s and 1980s.

The Griswolds are going on vacation one more time. Ed Helms is in talks to star as Rusty Griswold in the fifth film in the Vacation franchise (which the Hollywood Reporter seems confused about whether its a sequel or reboot. Hint: if the son is an adult, it’s a sequel.) The premise of the film, to be directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, has been rumored elsewhere to consist of an adult Rusty trying to get his own family to Wallyworld to relive his childhood memories in the last summer before the theme park closes for good. Chevy Chase has been rumored to be reprising his role as Clark, but it is not yet confirmed. And frankly, if he’s not involved, I don’t know if there’s much point in doing it, so we’ll see what happens.

Christopher Nolan, director of the massively successful Dark Knight Batman trilogy, will not be participating in Warner Brothers’ plan to make a Justice League movie. Personally, while I think Nolan’s films are great, I am not concerned about his absence in this project; his Batman was more of a solo player, and the overall aesthetic of his Batman films wouldn’t fit the League. Nevertheless, I hope that whoever they do tap for it is every bit as skilled and dedicated to the project as Nolan was to Batman.

Finally, Superherohype has some 20th Century Fox comic book movie news out of Comic-Con. Josh Trank, director of Chronicle, is confirmed to be directing the reboot of Fantastic Four, which is slated to start production after the next two X-Men movies are finished. Joe Cornish, director of Attack the Block, is directing the movie adaptation of the graphic novel Rust, about a young man with a rocket pack being chased by a giant war robot in a post-apocalyptic future. What’s interesting about both of these directors is that each has only one feature film to their credit, but both are films that have achieved a fair amount of underground praise, if not mainstream success.

In the same article comes another interesting piece of news, and one that is not so fortunate for Fox. Director David Slade has dropped out of directing the new Daredevil movie, as he has commitments to NBC he has to make. This puts Fox in a tough position, as while they have a script they like, they’re running out of time — it is believed that if Fox doesn’t get the film into production by this fall, their license to produce it may revert back to Marvel, who are no longer in the habit of licensing their properties to other studios. What do you think? Do you want to see Fox take another shot at Daredevil, possibly learning from their mistakes, or would you like to see what Marvel Studios can do with the character?

Just For Fun:

Trailer Mash is a site which exhibits movie trailers… which have been recut and sometimes mashed together with other movies for comedic effect. Here you can see Goonies of the Caribbean, or 10 Things I Hate About Commandments. As with any fan-content site, the quality of the work and the humor varies, but at the very least you need to check out the trailer of The Shining recut as a romantic comedy.