forbidden planet

Brusimm Cinema Static TV NewsWith October, comes Halloween 2011.  And with Halloween, comes the ghostly movie collection on TV that we can all enjoy filled with fright, fret and fears, especially from Syfy, AMC and TMC. [Updated 10-13-11 with programming from FEARnet]

Of course, a lot of TV shows will have Halloween themed episodes.  I’ll leave the descriptors of that mess to other places.  But a few networks are having their annual bit of fun with the holiday.

I’ve listed a few things, but I ended up focusing on the Syfy channel, AMC‘s annual Fear Fest and Turner Classic Movies (TCM).  And in the listing are some good movies… well, movies I have been known to enjoy, like Lake Placid and the all-time sci-fi classic, Forbidden Planet.  And if you look carefully, we even have some Nathan Fillion, some Godzilla, and other fun or “fun” movies!

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Halloween bat

Horror Movies on AMAZON

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Cartoon Network will be be having special episodes on Saturday and Sunday during October of shows like Johnny Test, The Amazing World of Gumball, Adventure Time and Regular Show.  Not to mention the Scooby Doo movies and  other shows like Ed, Edd n Eddy’s Boo-Haw Haw, Billy & Mandy: Wrath of the Spider Queen. (CN Press)

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Spike:  Don’t forget about the Scream 2011 awards on Spike TV, where everything frightful in comic books, fantasy, sci-fi and horror.  This takes place on Spike, Oct. 18 at 9pm ET/PT.. (Spike TV Press)

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ABC Family will have their 13 Nights of Halloween and you can catch such movies as Beetlejuice, Van Helsing, The Addams Family, Casper and more.  Alongside the movies will be premieres of Coraline (Oct. 23, 8pm ET/PT) and the network premiere of Bewitched (Oct. 24, 6:30pm ET/PT). (ABC Press)

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The Hallmark channel will be having a ten-hour Munster marathon on Halloween.  On Oct. 29 at 9pm ET/PT. Catherine Bell return’s in the fourth The Good Witch’s Family movie installment.  Bell plays Cassandra “Cassie” Nightingale. As Cassie is trying to settle into her new marriage, a long-lost cousin shows up and she brings some evil with her.  (As it looks right now, Catherine Bell is also set for a fifth movie of the Good Witch movie franchise, set for next year) (THC Press)

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But alas, let’s check out what Syfy, AMC and TCM have in store for us!

Now admittedly, I was only going to focus on AMC, and such, the other two networks lose out on this list where they started airing movies starting October 1st.  With that said, oh well!  Sorry gang!

Syfy Channel

Syfy channel LogoAs anyone can probably attest to, the Syfy channel has started their 31 Days of Halloween scheduling, as they fill the month of October up with nightly frightful movies.

Ghost Hunters Halloween Live – Syfy, Oct. 31 at 7pm ET, Live. The TAPS team has its annual live, six-hour investigation.  This year they’ll be at the Pennhurst Asylum in Pennsylvania, which is an hour outside of Philly.  The regular cast will be on hand, as well as some from Ghost Hunters International.

On Saturday, October 29th, Syfy will be airing the movie called Zombie Apocalypse.  In this movie starring  Ving Rhames, (Stop me if this sounds familiar… LOL), a zombie plague has wiped out 90% of the American population and a small group of survivors struggle across the country to get to a rumored refuge from this plague, located on the island of Catalina.

Syfy TV Shows and Movies on AMAZON

A complete list of their scheduled movies for the Halloween 2011 TV season is listed later on in this article.

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Halloween Ghouls and Ghosts

Full network schedules after the break….

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New DVD and Blu-ray Releases from Cinema Static

OK, these aren’t new releases, but these prices right now, are awesome and you might just have new movies in your home within the week!  Right now Amazon has a couple of pretty good deals on boxed collections for The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Forbidden Planet.  Amazon is cutting prices up to 60% off the boxed Blu-ray & DVD set prices.  Crikey!  Up for grabs we have

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The Ultimate Matrix Collection [Blu-ray] (2008)

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The Ultimate Matrix on Blu-ray$46

The package includes

Written Introduction by the Wachowski Brothers
Commentaries by:
- Philosophers: Dr. Cornel West and Ken Wilber
- Critics: Todd McCarthy, John Powers and David Thomson
- Cast/Crew: Carrie-Anne Moss, Zach Staenberg and John Gaeta
for The Matrix
Feature-Length Documentary The Matrix Revisited
Behind The Matrix Documentary Gallery: 83 Featurettes with The MTV Movie Awards Reloaded and 3-D Evolutions Stills Gallery
The Music Revisited: 41-Track Audio Selection of Nearly 3 Hours of Music
Music Videos: Marilyn Manson’s Rock Is Dead and P.O.D.’s Sleeping Wake
Enter The Matrix: The Game Documentary
Enter The Matrix: View 23 Live-Action Scenes Shot for the Video Game That Plug into the Action of The Matrix Reloaded
4 Director Commentaries and 8 Documentaries on The Animatrix, Including Scrolls to Screen: The History and Culture of Anime
The Burly Man Chronicles: Probe the Society of Actors, Craftspeople and Filmmakers Who Shaped the Movie Trilogy and the Enter The
Matrix
Console Game in 21 Featurettes and a Feature-Length Documentary
The Roots of The Matrix: Historical, Philosophical and Technological Inspirations Are Explored in Insightful Documentaries
The Zion Archive: Production Assets Developed for The Matrix Universe, Including Concert Art Storyboards, Drawings, Music Videos,
Music Rave Reel and The Matrix Online
Theatrical Trailers and TV Spots

The Ultimate Matrix Collection [Blu-ray]

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FORBIDDEN PLANET with Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis

FORBIDDEN PLANET with Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis

I’ve been patiently waiting for more news on the classic sci fi movie remake of Forbidden Planet from J. Michael Straczynski (JMS).  It’s been pretty quiet on that front but I found an update of late on the project.

JMS noted that with James Cameron withdrawing from the project to focus on Avatar 2, Warner Bros had to start looking for a new director.  The hard part with the search is that they’re trying to find someone with the right amount of hard-core EFX background who also has an eye for characterization.

These two facets of the director, are what JMS says, will be what makes his remake script work.

JMS sets my mind at ease a bit and adds that Warner Bros does want to get the movie made and they consider it a tentpole movie for their house.  They just want to do it with the right director.

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New DVD and Blu-ray Releases from Cinema Static

With over 240 new DVD releases coming out on September 7th, we have what I expect to be some highly anticipated TV series titles.  In fact, this week seems pretty heavy on TV based titles.

Supernatural‘s 5th season, The Office‘s 6th season, Smallville‘s 9th season & Criminal Minds 5th season are all coming out this week.  Plus we get a few Doctor Who stories hit the DVD disc for your collections.  On the movie side of things, Killers with Ashton Kutcher and the Blu-ray edition of Forbidden Planet are being released this week.

Believe it or not, Poltergeist finally made it to Blu-ray!

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"Forbidden Planet" from MGM

To me, Forbidden Planet is one of the greatest science fiction movies put together. I rank it such by a combination of when it was made, how it was made and the story it tells.  It tells a tale of scientific achievement and the flaws that can come from an overly enthusiastic use of science. It has a compelling story of what space exploration could do for humanity with a fantastic sense of the future and yet, reminds us that no matter the time, human flaws can still thwart technology.  It was based loosely on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

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Forbidden Planet takes place in the 22nd Century, and the cruiser C57D has been in flight from Earth for a year, on their way to the planet Altair.  Their purpose is to try and locate survivors from a an earlier foray into this sector of space some 20 years prior, known as the Bellerophon expedition.

Upon entering orbit, they are contacted by one of the original crew members from the expedition and the ship is told that the survivors on the planet do not need anything and are given a gentle warning that they cannot be guaranteed any safety if they land on the planet.

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Forbidden Planet ID Monster

I’ve been waiting for the Forbidden Planet remake to finally git here! At first, we heard that J. Michael Straczynksi (JMS) had written a script, but then some “wonderful” folk leaked the details of the script, ticking off JMS. And rightfully so. Hence, he scrapped the first version we had heard about and rewrote it.

Then we’ve been waiting.

And waiting some more.

And waiting even longer.

The latest tidbit about the Forbidden Planet movie remake comes from Movies Online, where during an interview for the sci fi movie Splice, they asked Joel Silver about the remake project.

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The latest bit on J. Michael Straczynski and any new Babylon 5 project indicates that despite offerings to do a direct-to-DVD project, he’s standing tall for doing it properly and he’s indicated that Warner Bros has actually gone so far as to ask how much he thinks he’ll need.  That doesn’t promise much, but it’s something.

The Mystery Pilot & Science Fiction on TV

His unnamed pilot that he was pitching to Fox Networks wasn’t picked up.  JMS says that we’re seeing some of the best television we’ve seen in a long time, though some of the best shows are on cable itself, being that network TV has a lot of restrictions.

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J. Michael Straczynksi is a busy guy.  He has a lot of paddles in the water and the boat is hauling a**!  Here’s what’s up with JMS:

He’s working on the Shattered Union, Lensman projects right now.  He’s finishing up scripts for The Twelve and Midnight Nation.  With Midnight Nation, he says one of the biggest producers in town wants him to direct it.

Next March or April he’ll have some news about The Flickering Light while They Marched Into Sunlight is on hold until they find a new director.

In regards to the unnamed Fox pilot, he’s turned in the final draft of the script and things “appear” good.

Forbidden Planet ID Monster

FINALLY:  JMS has turned in the next draft for Forbidden Planet.  (Oh yea… I’m drooling waiting for that one, big time!)

source: JMS News

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About a year ago an unconfirmed statement was floating about that James Cameron was involved possibly with the Forbidden Planet remake.

J. Michael Straczynski said about how he’s approaching writing it, he tormented the interviewer at MTV:

“It’s not a remake. It’s not a reimagining. It’s not exactly a prequel,” he explained at the time. “You’ll have to see it. It’s something that no one has thought of when it comes to this storyline.”

And like that isn’t awesome news already…  but when MTV (http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/12/15/exclusive-a-forbidden-planet-update-from-james-cameron/) got a chance to talk to James Cameron, they asked him directly about the Forbidden Planet remake and Cameron told the reporter that he’s actively involved in the project and he loves Forbidden Planet.

For the record, Forbidden Planet is one of my seriously favorite movies of all time.  It’s story, affects and the girl!  But in those days, they added affects to a story.  I love older movies because of that.

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Back in November of 2008 I read where Joel Silver and J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Ninja Assassin, upcoming Silver Surfer) were getting together to do a remake of Forbidden Planet… my absolute favorite classic science fiction movie.  After that, we then heard that possibly James Cameron, though busy on the once shrouded in mystery project Avatar, might be interested in helming the project.

Then the news was that there would be a trilogy of sorts got out in the wild and details of the storyline started to make their way into the verse of the internet.

Then I heard news that the project was tossed out and a rewrite was in order because of the leak of the script info.  In fact, Straczynski himself had this to say:

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