Tonight we had a lot of fun at a live show of RiffTrax at our local cinema. The stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 made fun at some hilarious Christmas shorts. Fathom Events organizes these special broadcasts that are streamed live to cinemas across the country. It’s a pretty cool thing.
We also went to the first Rifftrax in August, when they riffed Plan 9 From Outer Space. The Christmas shorts they picked for tonight’s show were SO funny … weird stuff! It was fun that special guest “Weird Al” Yankovic was there too, but I expected him to sing a song or two at least. We had a blast and I hope they’re going to do more of these.
For some weeks there have been rumours about a fifth Indiana Jones movie and today The Insider is reporting that Harrison Ford will indeed play the famous archaeologist one more time. Shooting will not begin until next year for a release in 2011.
This is great news. Despite all the negative criticism that Crystal Skull received I still liked that film a lot. Here’s hoping that the last one with Ford will be even better and that he’ll pass on the fedora to Shia to continue the Indiana Jones franchise.
I also just found out at TheRaider.net that LucasArts is reviving their classic adventure games by making them available for the first time ever as digital downloads. The first round of releases will take place on July 8th (on Steam) and will include Indiana Jones the the Last Crusade (1989), Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992), Loom (1990) and The Dig (1995). I have fond memories of playing all four of these games and it’s great that they’re finally re-releasing them.
Also, there’s a brand-new Monkey Island game on the way! Tales of Monkey Island (PC and WiiWare) is the latest adventure of Guybrush Threepwood which will be released in five monthly episodes starting tomorrow! I did not know about this until just now .. how exciting! Here’s a trailer:
And that’s not all … There’s also an enhanced re-make of the first Monkey Island from 1990 on the way: The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition (PC and XBox Live) will be released on July 15th and will feature completely new art in the style of the original game presented in 1080i widescreen, a re-mastered score and a new streamlined interface. And what’s cool is that at any time during the game you can switch between the old 256 color version and the enhanced version. Wow!
We’ve been subscribed to Netflix since November last year and we still like it a lot. We have the cheapest plan, called “1 at-a-time”, which allows us to have one DVD at a time, but we are able to watch about two movies per week this way, which is a pretty good deal for $8.99 per month. And the best thing is that we don’t even have to leave the house for it. Each DVD we receive in the mail comes in its own return envelope, which we can put back in the mailbox so the next day the mailman will take it back. It’s pretty neat. More »
At the end of the St Patrick’s Day Parade in Chicago last Saturday, they had three DeLorean cars! As a fan of the Back to the Future movies and someone who had never seen an actual DeLorean before, I thought this was very cool. Only approximately 9,000 of these gull-winged cars were made in 1981 and 1982 by the Delorean Motor Company in a factory in Northern Ireland, hence these Irish cars were in the parade. Only about 6,500 DeLorean DMC-12s are believed to still exist today.
Posted on February 1st 2009 by Arthur in Illinois, Movies
(continued from part 1) So we were waiting outside the Opera House for the tour of the filming sites in Woodstock and at 1:25pm we were still the only ones there. A police officer of the WPD confirmed that we were in the right place for the tour, but where was everybody? Then all of a sudden people poured out of the Opera House, where they had been for a Chili Cookoff, as they do in Punxutawney. There were about 50 people in the tour, which was led by Bob Hutchins, the location manager of Groundhog Day. He gave us a great insight in the filming of the movie and all the different filming locations in Woodstock. First off he explained how they chose the town of Woodstock.
Posted on February 1st 2009 by Arthur in Illinois, Movies
Today we went to Woodstock for Groundhog Days. Since the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray was filmed in Woodstock, the town has been celebrating the days leading up to the February 2nd holiday with events inspired by the movie. We participated in an awesome walking tour of the filming sites with Bob Hutchins, who was location manager for the movie, and at 10:00 this morning we saw a free show of the movie Groundhog Day at Woodstock Theater.
Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment announced today that principal production has begun in Los Angeles on the first installment of a Tintin feature film, which will be directed by Steven Spielberg. The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn will be a 3D Motion Capture film to be released in 2011. I’m not a big fan of these motion capture films (I think The Polar Express with Tom Hanks looks just creepy) but maybe a comic book universe like that of Tintin should be animated. In any case I am very curious to see what Spielberg comes up with. They are already talking about a second (to be directed by Peter Jackson) and possibly a third film.
Posted on January 7th 2009 by Arthur in Illinois, Movies
The movie Groundhog Day (1993) with Bill Murray is one of my favorite movies. It was filmed in the town of Woodstock IL, just a half hour from where we’re living. Groundhog Day is an annual holiday celebrated in the United States and Canada on February 2nd in which a groundhog, also known as a woodchuck or marmot, emerges from its burrow to predict the weather. If the groundhog sees its shadow it will retreat into its burrow and winter will continue for 6 more weeks. This traditional event takes place in several towns across the USA and Canada, but the most famous groundhog is of course Punxsutawney Phil. The movie takes place in the town of Punxsutawney in Pennsylvania, but was actually filmed in Woodstock.
This is my favorite picture of the week. Woody from Toy Story watches Space Shuttle Discovery lifting off on May 31st with Buzz Lightyear onboard, finally fulfilling the toy’s dream of going into space. The 12-inch action figure is visiting the International Space Station this week along on mission STS-124 as part of a new educational partnership between NASA and the Walt Disney Company and to commemorate the opening of Toy Story Mania! at Walt Disney World and Disneyland.
For some weeks there have been rumours about a fifth Indiana Jones movie and today 
