Check out the trailer for the new movie ROUGHRIDER!  This is awesome!

Remember my friend Rand Shuler, AKA Rando Calrissian (to my Sean Solo)?  This is my friend who got married in October and brought me down to MC and perform at the wedding in Austin, Texas. I got to party with pretty much everyone he worked on this movie with, including the film’s star/writer/producer/director Will Martin.

We need your help! Vote this thing up on Reddit to build heat in advance of the January 10 world premiere!

“Tintin and Snowy go Hollywood”

I remember the Tintin books from my elementary school days.  The teachers tried to pretend like different standards applied and the Tintin books didn’t belong in the same pile of reading material as Batman, Spider-Man, or any of my other favorite characters.  But I knew better.  These were comic books, same as the rest of them.  They were just much more artfully crafted and elegantly presented.

I loved these books when I was a kid, and I hated the cartoon show because it was a quickly produced throwaway thing.  It did not convey the elegance and grandeur of the source material.

I was fortunate enough to see a 10-minute preview of the new movie The Adventures of Tintin during TIFF this past season and this movie looks like the most ground-breaking animation since people started knowing who the eff Pixar is.  It totally looks like it’s going to take the newly-developing art of comics-to-screen adaptations to a whole new level.  And if this is successful, we’re one step closer to a Pixar Spider-Man movie.

I’m dying to see this movie and thanks to my very good friends at Paramount Pictures, I’m going to see it almost a month early…

…and I want to take you with me to see Toronto’s first look at the new Tintin movie tomorrow night (November 30) at AMC Dundas Square.

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To enter, just leave a comment below telling me which was your favorite Tintin book and why.

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I’ll draw five winners late tonight who will each receive a double pass to the advance screening of The Adventures of Tintin, Nov. 30 at AMC Dundas Square.

This giveaway is sponsored by Harth TV and Paramount Pictures.

EDIT: Winners have been announced! Check for your name here (click)

Holy shit, this is going to be amazing.  No Direction Home, Scorsese’s documentary about Bob Dylan, was rewatchably good to the tune of dozens of viewings and new meanings revealed each time.

I’ve heard about Scorsese working on this for years now so I can only dream about the kinds of people he was able to reach about appearing in the movie and talking about George Harrison and The Beatles.

If you hear anything about it coming out or a release date, make sure you tell me first!!!

And check out full details on the website georgeharrison.com

X-Men: First Class stacked the deck in my favor: I am an enthusiast of all things sixties. I love superhero movies when they’re grounded and stay focused on the characters. I love historical fiction that cooks up an outlandish and crazy explanation for events that actually happened without re-writing history.

X-Men: First Class is the bomb. It’s not good enough to crack my personal all-time top five like Spider-Man 2 did, but it’s definitely the best superhero movie since The Dark Knight.

There were two major things wrong with it, but those two things don’t take away from the enjoyment of it. First, January Jones is way out of her depth here. She seems too much like she’s having fun and impressed with herself over hanging out with Kevin Bacon to actually get down to the business of acting. That said, I didn’t really think about this until after I got home, but that could just be a testament to how good a job the wardrobe department did on Ms. Jones’ Emma Frost costume.  Yowza!

The other problem ended up not being a problem at all. The X-Men who are assembled for the team’s first roster are a collection of characters so lame and with such shitty powers that I had to wonder if they’re really out of cool characters to include in these movies.  But thinking about it later I realized that using crappy B & C-tier characters was a brilliant way to keep the focus squarely on Professor X and Magneto.

The standout performances in this movie are Kevin Bacon as lead villain Sebastian Shaw and Michael Fassbender as Magneto. Bacon is so fun to watch, you get the feeling that he hasn’t enjoyed making a movie this much in a long time. Even saddled with a bunch of lames for a crew, he is a menacing villain and he’s an important part of all of the most satisfying moments of the movie. Fassbender gives the movie its dramatic oomph. His Magneto is the most realistic and committed performance of the film. Watching him on his revenge quest is the main thing that keeps this movie feeling like a real movie and not just some junk to give the fanboys something to natter about (like Marvel movies have a tendency to do lately in the run-up to the Avengers movie).

X-Men: First Class is one of those movies where the more I thought about it later, the more I liked it. It’s a good example of how these kinds of movies can take risks and be proper cinema but still be satisfying as summer entertainment. Watching it, I was afraid that it’s going to be too highbrow for the general audiences coming to it from Thor, but I hope it’s a big hit because I really want to see the next one.

Special thanks to the two people behind the scenes who were why I was able to catch the advance screening!

Katy Perry has been cast as Wonder Woman in the upcoming Hollywood movie.

Our anonymous tipster submitted this photo.  Apparently this is the first official photo from the set of the Wonder Woman movie starring Katy Perry.  Although we fully believe it’s legit, we cannot verify its authenticity.

What do you think?

What up to my contest winners: Aleks, Reado, Shaun Hawaii, Aaron Broverman ★ Gail Gabrielle, 40deuce, Dave Coleman, and props to Jon (the Big Thinker)

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Want to come see the WORLD PREMIERE of The Striking Truth with me? I’ve got five tickets, and I want take you with me!

Giving away one ticket per day, Feb. 14 through 17

WINNERS:

FEB. 14 – Shaun Hawaii

FEB. 15 – Aaron Broverman

FEB. 16 – Aleksandra Stalmach

FEB. 17 – Matt Read

Comment this post to be entered in the draw.  We’ll draw the winner tonight on Nat & Marie!! Thanks to everyone who entered!

The Striking Truth is a new documentary feature film following four years in the life of UFC champion Georges St-Pierre and dynamic MMA fighter David “The Crow” Loiseau.

Watch the official trailer:

I’ll be giving away 4 tickets to join me for the  World Premiere of The Striking Truth, one every day between Monday February 14th through Thursday the 17th.

Follow me on Twitter and join my Facebook Page for your chance to win!

For more info on The Striking Truth world premiere:

Friday February 25th
Sony Centre for the Performing Arts (Front & Yonge in Toronto)
9PM

Official Website

Official Facebook Page

Official Twitter
(hashtag: #TSTTO)

Click here to buy tickets to the World Premiere of The Striking Truth – February 25th at The Sony Centre in Toronto!

Last night I got to take a bunch of people to an advance screening of Nowhere Boy, the movie about John Lennon’s teenage years and the origin of The Beatles.

Here is the video of the excursion:

My friends at Maple Pictures sent me ten double passes to the screening:

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And a 45RPM record featuring two songs from the movie – Autographed by Aaron Johnson (who plays John Lennon and played Kick-Ass) and Sam-Taylor Wood (who directed the movie)!!

You know me, I am a huge Beatles fan.

So much so that the other night, I started a new blog.

Check out my new Beatles blog at beatles-covers.tumblr.com

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As you saw in recent posts, I was visiting with my buddy Dwayne (drummer for Wildlife) this weekend. While I was there, he asked me if I had seen a film called Into the Wild. I hadn’t even heard of it. Dwayne was very insistent that I take his copy of the DVD home with me and now, moments after it’s ended, I have to wonder if he just thought it was a good movie that I might like or if he knew that he was handing me a mirror.

Into the Wild tells the true life story of Chris McCandless who, right after graduating from university in 1990, set out on a two-year spiritual journey that took him west to California, south to Mexico, and finally north to Alaska where he would pit himself against nature.  He didn’t tell anyone he was going.  He didn’t even take a map or compass.  He destroyed his ID, donated the remainder of his college fund to Oxfam, abandoned his car, and split.

I was left in a very emotional state when the movie was over because the exact same youthful exuberance and yearning for experience & adventure that led Chris to Alaska was the same as what made me quit my job to go be an artist and sell comic books on the street.  I spent the whole movie waiting for the triumphant ending that would reaffirm my belief in ‘buying the ticket and taking the ride’, to paraphrase Dr. Thompson.  I was wholly unprepared for it when it was revealed to have been a true-life cautionary tale, with a photograph of the real Chris McCandless (a self-portrait left undeveloped inside his camera amongst his belongings in his make-shift Alaskan home) the final image of the movie.

A movie couldn’t be as intense as this based on the subject matter alone.  It’s the treatment of the subject matter that is everything.  And in Into the Wild, screenwriter/director Sean Penn has crafted one of the most beautiful, poetic, and graceful movies I have ever seen.  Whether it’s the sweeping grace of the start of Chris’ journey or the jarring unease as his fate slowly reveals itself to him, this movie completely nails the feel of every stage of the journey.  It’s so good because you can tell that Sean Penn was as affected and moved by McCandless’ story as I was, and inspired to do it justice.

One of the most skillful things to have pulled off was to make it so that this is not a sad movie.  This is an inspirational movie.  I want people who see this movie to think about what’s deep down in young men that drives them to want to abandon the world around them and uncover something that’s never been seen before.  Chris did it by going to Alaska.  Other people have done it by becoming writers, starting businesses, or finding a cause worth fighting for.  I hope that you’ll do it your way.

“There’s what you think and then there’s reality” -a wise woman once told me this.