Bad Movie Challenge: Conan the Barbarian (2011)!

Conan tries to deflect bad reviews with his sword.

Earlier last week my buddy and fellow blogger Bill (of Bill's Beta Ray Blog fame) saw the new "Conan the Barbarian" and was raving about it. He really enjoyed it. Thinking that perhaps I was too harsh in my earlier assessment of the film's trailers, I decided to look up "Conan" on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes and discovered that not only did the majority of film critics and reviewers hate it, but so did quite a few fans. (Enough "Average Joes" enjoyed it enough to give it a, currently, 5.4 over at IMDB.)

I taunted Bill with excerpts from various reviews that spewed venomous comments about the film. He became agitated and fought back against me, saying I couldn't really judge the movie unless I had seen it for myself. And thusly, a challenge was (seemingly) inadvertently laid before me. I told Bill I'd go see the film this weekend but NOT in 3D, and would follow it up with a review. The former I'm doing to appease my friend because quite frankly, I don't really want to give ANY money to this movie: I'm pretty sure it is going to suck. (Sure the critics hated it but the box office numbers never lie: This flick is a bomb!) The latter I'm doing because I need to get back to writing, plus bashing this film will provide me with some catharsis for the pain I'll most likely endure.

So in a few short hours, I will be sitting (by myself because no one will share the pain with me) in a theater and watching the CGI exploits of Momoan the Barbarian. Will I end up hating the film? Will I kinda-sorta like it? Will I have a huge change of heart and praise it as one of the best movies of the year? Well if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you'll know later tonight. Otherwise, stay tuned for my capsule review!

Vault Empire Updates + Underbelly goes to OTAKON!

The Summer is coming to a close and soon the members of the Vault Empire will all be huddled indoors with nothing more to do than watch movies, read comics, play games, and write about it. Until then, updates will continue to be sporadic for most of us. And speaking of updates....

GENRE WATCH 

• Genre Watch: August 2011 (Week of 07/31 - 08/06)


• Genre Watch: July 2011 (Week of 07/24 - 07/30)


• Press Release: Closed for the Season coming to DVD August 23rd!


• Press Release: The Green Monster and Hunted coming to DVD October 25th!

MMA ADDICT 

• UFC 133 (Preview)

 RADIATION-SCARRED REVIEWS

• Nukie (1987? 1988? 1989? 1993?)


• Jason and the Argonauts (1963)


• Kung-Fu Punch of Death (Fang Shi Yu, 1974)

 There's some new Genre Watch goodness hitting the web tomorrow with a roster of released for this week PLUS a special post on three upcoming Blu-ray releases that will make your mouth water and won't break the bank! Amazon has some amazing deals coming up so don't miss out!

That's it for myself and my fellow Vault Empire bloggers so I will now leave you with the latest episode of Underbelly, where the crew heads to OTAKON to check out the cosplay fun!

FOUR NEW FRIGHT-RAGS TEES REVEALED! GET 'EM WHILE THEY'RE HOT!

The awesome team at Fright-Rags, just unveiled FOUR NEW T-SHIRT DESIGNS that are guaranteed to make your mouth water. Check 'em out:

Blood Diner

Dog Soldiers!

Jordy Verill from CREEPSHOW!

THRILLER - A Cruel Picture.

As always, each shirt comes in a variety of sizes (Small to XXXL) and each one runs at $19.95 and is totally worth it! Also, Fright-Rags has gotten three of their most asked for shirts back in stock. If none of the shirts above are your thing (which I highly doubt) then maybe you'd like their amazing CRITTERS shirt, or their Nightmare On Elm St. "You're All My Kittens Now" parody tee, or maybe even their amazing Jeff Zornow drawn, BOGUS tee, which features the heroes and villains of "Night of the Creeps" and "The Monster Squad!" 

Also also, don't forget to check out the two awesome "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" posters they have for sale! Get your limited edition poster before they are GONE!

Superhero Pic Mania! Judge Dredd, Ghost Rider, and The Avengers!

Next year is shaping up to be another excellent year for superhero cinema, and lucky for you, I scour the web (mainly  CHUD.com because they are 100% awesome!) for new movie news daily. Tonight I came across some images from three of next year's biggest superhero films. Or well... images from next year's biggest superhero event film and two lesser comic book films that may please their respective fans and hopefully make up for past cinematic transgressions against said heroes. Anyway, here's the good stuff:

 THE AVENGERS

Some Assembly Required!

A CLOSER LOOK:

The Voluptuous Black Widow.

"I Am IR-ON MAN!"

HULK SMASH!

CAP-TAIN AM-ER-I-CA!

Ride the Lightning with THOR!

HAWKEYE! Where's the goofy purple costume?

 

NICK FURY gets the motherf*ckin' Avengers motherf*ckin' assembled!

So there's the good news. Now onto the bad. Here are some photos for the upcoming JUDGE DREDD and GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE. Behold the awfulness of Karl Urban in a majorly stripped-down Judge uniform:

Thousands of Dredd fans have that same look on their face...

Lastly here's a few pics from the next Ghost Rider, starring Nicholas Cage and Idris Elba:

Meh.

Cool! Heimdall's in this movie!

The shot of Ghost Rider is OK; I'm sure he'll look much cooler in action. As for Idris Elba being in this movie... I'm all for it. Regardless of how the hardcore Norse-lovin' fanboys felt about him play Heimdall in THOR, even they had to admit that he was great as the all-seeing gatekeeper of Asgard. I'm not sure who Idris will be playing, but I'm pretty positive he'll be totally bad ass!

A big thanks to CHUD.com for posting all of these pics; you guys rock! Be sure to visit them DAILY for news, reviews, and articles about film, comics, TV, and video games!

More blog posts and other goodies are coming soon so stay tuned b-movie fans!

Vault Empire Updates + New Underbelly episodes + Mortal Kombat Legacy: Episode 9!

I have yet to get my lazy ass in gear and type up some new content for The Casual Gaming Blog, Genre Watch, or The Vault itself, but that will be changing soon. In the meantime, here's some stuff to read from some of my fellow pop culture bloggers:

Beta Ray Blog

•  Avengers Trailer!
• The New DC: Where do We Go From Here?

 MMA Addict

• The rise of the UFC.
• The UFC depth chart. (MMA Mount.com)
• Finding the right man for the job.
•  Tito Ortiz Answered the Critics as well as Dana White's prayers.

Radiation-Scarred Reviews

• Forbidden Adventure (1935)

In Underbelly news: They are focusing heavily on Final Fantasy this month and have been out and about at the latest Wizard World con. Check out all their new videos below:








Lastly (for now), Machinima finally released the latest webisode of Mortal Kombat: Legacy onto Youtube. Wether you've seen the rest or not, it doesn't matter, because CYRAX and SEKTOR turn into bad-ass robo-ninjas in this episode. Prior eps have gone through brief intros (and backstories) for Mileena, Kitana, Johnny Cage, Raiden, Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Jax, Kano, and Sonya Blade, and they are pretty impressive to say the least. (Actual martial artists AND Hollywood actors?!) Check it out for yourself:



That's all I've got to share for now. Enjoy the vids, reviews, and articles, and prepare for new stuff very soon! Blog ya later b-movie fans!

B-Movie Film Vault Empire Updates!

Here's the latest batch of posts, articles, reviews, etc. from the small conglomerate of blogs that makes up the Vault Empire:

THE CASUAL GAMING BLOG

• Press Release: Make Life a Rollercoaster with Tagplay's Funpark Friends.
• Top 5 NES Games That Should Be Made into Movies: #5 METROID

THE MMA ADDICT

• Recent UFC 132 Card Changes
• The ethics of number one contendership status.

The Genre Watch blog will be gearing up for weekly updates again soon; there will be a new review for "Godzilla: Goliaths and Gangsters #1" at the Beta Ray Blog within the next few days; Bill from Radiation-Scarred Reviews is on sabbatical from writing for a little while as he enjoys the Summer and spends some quality time with his lady.

Stay tuned for more bloggage; enjoy your weekend!

Back to the grindstone + Vault now on Twitter!

Hello all. Sorry I haven't posted ANYTHING new in a few weeks. I came down with a bad cold and it held on for nearly two weeks, plus I've just been busy enjoying the Summer sun. However, I've been bitten by the writing bug again and plan on adding a lot of new content to all of my sites and blogs. Here's what I've got going on so far:

Genre Watch - I'll be getting back on track with this very soon! I've gotten the format down to something extremely simple now, so it doesn't take as long as it used to to write up each post. The problem is that I can't seem to stick to the weekly posting schedule for more than a month.... maybe I should simplify it even more?

Casual Gaming Blog - I'll be posting a new, five-part article entitled FIVE NES GAMES THAT SHOULD BE MADE INTO MOVIES! After that, I'll be tackling a list of films based on games that NEED to be remade! I also plan on jumping back into posting weekly (perhaps monthly) updates on new game releases as well.

The Vault - New reviews! I freakin' promise! I nearly finished by review of "Super 8" but got too distracted to complete it. I'm still more than open to having guest writers add content to the site. If you want to write for the Vault, drop me an e-mail at vault_master[at]bmoviefilmvault[dot]com!

Bill's Beta Ray Blog - I'm going to be doing a review for issue one of "Godzilla: Gangsters and Goliaths." This five issue series is off to a helluva start and I can't wait to read the next one! I'm still awaiting my issue of Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #3, but I managed to get my paws on #4 and I'm really digging it. Oh, and as always, the Zornow cover art is phenomenal. The Eric Powell cover art... stills sucks balls.

The B-Movie Film Vault Blog - I plan on trying to match the number of posts from last month. It felt good to update almost daily and really helped get me in the mood to write again. Expect a buttload of bloggery in the future!

The B-Movie Film Vault Forum - Still making some posts in there and always trying to generate interest in it. Needless to say, out of all the things I've tried with my site, the Forum was always the biggest failure. If you have a heart (and some free time) start an account and get posting!

Finally, before I venture off to do a bit o' writing before bed, I would like to announce that The Vault is now on Twitter. I'm not quite accustomed to it yet, and I'm not a hardcore "tweeter" at the moment, but I'm sure I'll be abusing it thoroughly in the coming weeks. To follow me just click on the button below!

Follow @BMovieFilmVault

Check back soon for new stuff!