The Wachowski Brothers’ tale of cyber-messiah Neo and his head trip down the alternate-reality rabbit hole introduced cutting-edge technology that sent ancient martial arts (and movie effects) into the 21st century. Reeves trained for four months with choreographer Yuen Wo Ping, and the awesome finale between Reeves and Hugo Weaving set the standard by which all action scenes would be judged for years to come.

I mean seriously guys.  Think about it.   Just think about action scenes today and the ways in which characters fight, move, and even shoot weapons.   This extra “nudge” that we say was in large part due to the technology that The Matrix introduced.   And we even see it in comedies that make fun of action films.

Personally I thought it was hilarious in the movie Deuce Bigalow when Deuce fights a prostitute.   I can’t believe the Matrix is nearly 15 years old.

When I first heard Transformers, one of my most beloved childhood franchises, was going to be made into a big screen blockbuster, I was apprehensive, but undeniably excited. And how could I not be?  The prospect of those giant robots on the big screen was enough to make even the most closeted fanboy squeal with delight. Then when I heard that Peter Cullen, who provided the seminal voice for Optimus Prime in the cartoons, was on board, all the stars seemed lined up for this film to be pitch perfect.

Oh, except for that one nagging problem, Michael Bay and his directorial approach, which ofcourse boils down to making everything juvenile, shiny and explosive. BUT The Transformers were juvenile, shiny and explosive (in the most awesome ways possible), so still, this could have worked out. If it weren’t for the terrible  casting, the weak script which took too many liberties with the story, and the thinly veiled racism disguised as humor. Oh, and the gaping plot holes. But I will be DAMNED before I will let Michael Bay do to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles what he did to the Transformers, which is, ruin them forever. The following is my open letter to Michael Bay, pleading for him to stop the insanity before it is too late and he becomes the bane of every nerds existence.

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I believe I’ve mentioned this movie before on this site.   In fact I know I have.   It was mentioned both in a William Zabka article I did a few years back but was recently mentioned in an underappreciated movies piece we did.   While it wasn’t one of the recommendations I decided that Just One of the Guys needed its own space on this site.

Here’s a really funny short bio of the movie.  Terry believes her teachers don’t take her seriously, just because she’s a pretty girl. When she fails to win a journalism contest, she decides to switch schools – and gender so that her same submission for the contest gets equal praise as a guy.  She plays her role well and is accepted as one of the guys.  However then she meets Rick, likes him, and her whole world is switched upside down.

That description does no justice by the way.   You’ll find that this movie is one of the classic 80s comedies of our time.  It’s got William Zabka, which alone kicks ass.  It was a 3 second nudity part which is hilarious.   It’s got lame high school antics.   It has lame high school romance.  It has a funny little brother.  It’s got it all.  Trust me.  You need to see this movie.

Trailer after the jump….

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“It is a period of civil war.”

No movie series has ever had such a contentious relationship with its fanbase as Star Wars. The internet/nerd community has fought against its creator ever since he tainted the series with those wretched prequels –

Wait, what? The Prequels are awesome. Those are three of the most underrated movies of the past twenty years. Moreover, in its six-film format Star Wars is better than it ever was as a single trilogy. No, really.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about (harmless) junk like the recent Kinect debacle. Why? Let’s let Lucas explain:

“I am the father of our movie world… Then we have the licensing group… the games, toys and books… I call that the son… Then we have the third group, the holy ghost, which is the bloggers and fans. They have created their own world. I worry about the father’s world. The son and holy ghost can go their own way.”

So there you have that. Before I get in full swing here, I’d just like to say that I’m going against the grain of the site here (btw, thanks Paul!), and it goes without saying that the views contained herein do not necessarily represent the views of Mr. Tassi or Unrealitymag.com.

Ready your torches and pitchforks. Continue Reading »

This is one of the first times I’ve done a “That Guy Actor of the Week” and have barely found anything on the actor.   Today we’re focusing on Jack Conley.   If you’ll notice neither IMDB or Wikipedia gives much information on the guy.   What’s even weirder is that I don’t even see a birthdate for the guy.

Maybe the sites are just glitchy today.   Anyway, Conley’s been around long enough that he has 92 titles to his name.  He’s one of those guys that seems to play “filler” roles that are necessary in film and TV but that you don’t really remember him for.

You might recognize him from Fast and Furious or even L.A. Confidential.  These days Conley mostly does television and seems to have found a niche playing cops.      P.S. I couldn’t find a single clip involving Conley so his picture up to will have to do.

[$9 Trailers is a feature that examines movie trailers, and judges how well (or poorly) they execute their job of making me want to shell out nine bucks to see them.]

Of all the different categories movie trailers may fall into, none is more divisive then whether an audience’s first look at an anticipated new film is satisfactory. In some cases, failure is seemingly impossible because fans are so eager to see footage. A good example would be the later Harry Potter films, or the new Star Trek reboot. In both cases, the precedent of past installments made these trailers guaranteed gold. We knew the characters (at least to some extent), and had a working basis for our expectations.

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There seems to be some sort of quiet rule in society against men being able to show any emotion other then anger. In many ways, it is expected for a man to be as stoic as a robot. An unfeeling machine who just functions, performs his daily duties, but is not allowed to really feel or exhibit emotion. But video game designers know better, because a good deal of them are men, and men known that men cry.

Some of us may not cry often, but when we do, there better be a damn good reason for it. Like your horse dying. When a man’s horse dies, a part of that man dies, too. That being said, here are five moments that seemed to be created with the sole purpose of making men weep like children. Travel on with hesitation though, weary reader, for there are some definite spoilers in here.

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Words can’t quite explain how excited I am that Prometheus is coming out this year. I’m hoping it’s both a return to form for Ridley Scott and the blockbuster sci-fi genre as a whole, which needs to keep growing as technology gets more and more powerful and the stories get more involved.

I got to thinking about the films that have been released recently that would be considered actual sci-fi “classics” the way Scott’s Alien and Blade Runner were. The same goes for Star Wars, ET, Predator, Terminator, you know the list.

So I went ahead and made some picks of what will and will not be considered classic sci-fi in the future. No superheroes, and nothing over ten years old, so no Matrix and Gattaca here. Check out the list for yourself below: Continue Reading »

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Technically this isn’t the first Apple commercial to ever hit the  airwaves.  However, anyone who was around in 1984 would probably remember this commercial.

It was the one.  The one that really put Apple into the stratosphere.   Remember a few years back when GoDaddy did their first Superbowl commercial?   Hell I didn’t know who they were and I’m sure millions of people didn’t either.  But you can be sure everyone went to their site the next day.

And now?  Now Godaddy is one of the biggest domain and website providers in the world.  I guess there’s something to be said about Superbowl advertising if it’s done correctly.   Not saying that Apple needed the Superbowl but hell it sure didn’t hurt right?

What better avenue to explore creative license than attempting to visualize God in a comic book? Imagine the fun it would be to try to illustrate the concept. Yes, that is what God is, ultimately. A concept. No one has actually seen this God everyone speaks of, so we can only conceptualize what God may look like by our own terms. The great thing about comic books is, they do what they want. They put things to visuals in THEIR OWN terms, and then show us the end result.

Though some believe in God, and others do not, comic book creators have no fear of treading on the taboo and showing you what their version of God is, in terms of their story. Here are six wildly varying versions of God, as seen through the eyes of comic book creators and illustrators. Beware, if you believe in God, these could be considered potential life spoilers.

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