Texas Chainsaw 3D was released on Blu-Ray and dvd, yesterday (it’s already been available to dl via iTunes for 2 weeks.) Just watched it again, and wanted to recommend it to horror fans. Copious amounts of shit were lost over Cabin in the Woods, last year. I liked Cabin in the Woods, but thought it wildly oversold as a transformative, genre-redefining event. Found Texas Chainsaw to be more aggressive in radically altering genre conventions, and appreciated its audacity in assuming audiences would just go along with it.

The downside? By altering the series’ timeline, they’ve retconned Tobe Hooper’s brilliant original sequel, and perhaps the funniest black comedy ever filmed, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 out of existence (not really, though. It’s not like the blu-rays of it evaporated, or anything.)  In doing so, however, they have opened up the possibility of one of my childhood theories becoming cannon:

Leatherface drifted out of Texas for awhile, dazed and alone, after his home and family were burned down, ultimately ending up in coastal Oregon. Chained up in a basement, he served as a human garbage/evidence disposal for the criminal family that imprisoned him, until befriending a group of outsider children.

After an epic and heart-warming adventure with them, leading to the discovery of a massive pirate treasure, he ultimately reverted to form; killing and eating all the children. Leatherface then returned to Texas with all the gold he could carry (which totally explains the Addams Family-esque mansion upgrade in the new film.)

There’s a very theatrical flash of cape (i think we’re looking at the back of Kryptonian Faora, in her black, Giger-ian armor) at the 00:20 mark of the newest Man of Steel teevee spot. If i knew nothing else about the film, that image would have been enough to sell me.

Also, at the 00:30 mark, Henry Cavill turns into Bill Schulz:

New Robin alt-y pic set is up in the bonus content section. Not really cosplay at all, but i very much like some of these. Wanted to get them up now as i thought there’s a bit of a Lana Del Rey vibe in a few, Lana Del Rey is all over the soundtrack for The Great Gatsby, and The Great Gatsby is out today.

Barring any acts of God, by this time tomorrow, i’ll have seen Gatsby 3 times. That’s OCD verging on The Dark Knight Rises-severity.

11 years ago, George Clooney starred in Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris, where he played a space traveler. It has consistently remained in my top 2 all-time favorite films, ever since.

I don’t know that Gravity could possibly live up to that, but it’s nice to see Clooney in a spacesuit, again. Alfonso Cuarón does tend to direct good stuff, so my hopes are high. Gravity is scheduled for release this October.

Following the playbook from last year’s with The Dark Knight Rises, Warners has released an advance preview of all the tracks from Hans Zimmer’s score for Man of Steel. 17 minutes worth of excerpts from each track, it is concentrated bliss.

While it may come as no surprise that i’m a massive fan of Zimmer’s work on the Nolan Batman films, would have to say his best piece is Time, from the Inception score (embedded after the jump, in case you need to hear it again.

And you do.)

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Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor’s 2009 film Gamer is getting a new blu-ray release today, featuring a 3D post-conversion. Kind of an odd choice, given Neveldine/Taylor’s frenetic camera work vs. the time required for the brain to register depth of field in a 3D shot…but i’m oh-so-downsey for anything that might bring more attention to their work. Also, the 2D on the disc apparently offers a better transfer than the original blu release.

Is Gamer as good as Neveldine/Taylor’s masterworks, the Crank series? Not even close. But it’s pretty entertaining, is crammed full of ideas, has Gerard Butler in walking testosterone-mode and Michael C. Hall doing a fascinatingly weird Ted Turner impression, and features the scene embedded above, which plays like a non-dress rehearsal for the greatest Batman/Riddler showdown never shot.

Was asked why how come no Star Wars-inspired cosplays for May 4th? I don’t know…other stuff going on this weekend, and wasn’t thinking about Star Wars? There are a couple characters from the series i’d like to take a shot at, and will get around to them. But for now, had these sort-of Padme / Leia -ish shots leftover from a Jessica shoot last year.

Wrapping up the expanded Post-Human Pin-Up this week, and working to find the best solution to make it available as fast and problem-free as possible. Also, one of my favorite pic sets is going up later this week. All of this will be capped off by excessive repeat viewings of The Great Gatsby, and testing just how many energy drink cans and bottles of faux absinthe can be smuggled past tight theater security. Busy week.

More pics after the jump. Some nudes, so if that’s an issue, or you’re sub-18, don’t click through. Go here and learn a truly valuable lesson, instead.

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New teevee spot for Man of Steel. Only 34 seconds, but it’s far better than most full-length films i’ve seen.

I would trade a kidney, a foot, and my car to see this now.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” We currently are, and it’s simultaneously chaotic and overwhelming and amazing. The few remaining fixed constants can offer some precious solace, as this announcement most certainly does.

Interstellar is scheduled for release on November 7, 2014.

Liked Iron Man 3. I went into it after just seeing the absolute best episode of Hannibal, so far (and by extension, the best hour of teevee this year), and having watched Southern California burn all day on teevee/internets/out my windows. The theater’s decision not to run the new Man of Steel trailer didn’t help, either…but despite being distracted and soured on multiple fronts, i still liked it. Will see it again soon, with a clearer head.

What is bothering me is the pervasive meme making its way across nerd sites that how they handled The Mandarin was the only workable approach to the character. This is so depressingly PC. I don’t have a strong grounding in Iron Man comics of any era, so i can’t argue the notion that the original character was rooted in stereotypes…but i would ask you to point to the most recent comic-based film that faithfully adapted characters exactly as they originally appeared, without significant updating and re-imagining.

Think you’d have to go back to Russell Mulcahy’s wildly under-appreciated, 1994 masterwork: The Shadow…coincidentally so, as that film happened to feature Shiwan Khan, a brilliant Asian warlord bent on global conquest (as any good descendant of Genghis might be), with formidable supernatural powers. If loving John Lone’s performance in that film makes me racist, then fit me for a pointy hood and send me off to reeducation camp.

(If you’ve never seen The Shadow, do yourself a favor. It’s fucking amazing, has one of my all-time favorite cinematic visuals, and i defy you to watch it and not come away believing one, or both, of the Nolan brothers and/or David Goyer were fans, as some combination thereof basically borrowed the story structure for Batman Begins.)

Would love to have seen Sir Ben go full-megalo in that kind of role, but as i have no connection to the comic character, i’m pretty happy with what we got. Just really don’t want the potential for hurt feelings amongst some to become the arbiter of what kind of villains we’re allowed to see in these films, or i guess my longstanding desire for a non-camp, full-on anti-human ecoterrorist Poison Ivy is a pipe-dream.