What can be scarier than being in a strange house and finding out that there are unseen little creatures lurking about that are planning to take a kid away into their world as one of their own? These little creatures are at the center of what happens in the movie Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a remake from a made-for-television original back in the 1970s. Back then, the creatures were played by little actors in scary suits and makeup. It was a scary classic. In this new movie, the creatures, called homunculi, are computer-generated and are smaller and more goblin-like.

The new movie is supposedly so scary that it was given a Restricted rating. The producers didn’t want that and were targeting a more broad audience. When they consulted about possible edits for a PG-13 rating, they were told, “Why ruin a perfectly scary movie?” And that was that. This movie must really be good and scary for the review board to recommend that the rating stay as is. So, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is for mature audiences, but it’s really about a kid who’s in danger of getting dragged into the world of the homunculi—at least in this updated version.


In the original movie (left), Kim Darby plays Sally Farnham, the housewife targeted by the creepy little men that speak in whispers and hide behind a basement fireplace. In the end, they drag Sally down with them. She disappears, leaving her husband to wonder about what happened, getting only the consolation of knowing the secret of the house from the old handyman. The movie suggests in the end that Sally has become one of the creatures as her voice is heard whispering among theirs. It's a scary thought, to think that such a nice woman can be changed into a little, ugly creature, but that's horror! Sometimes, it's what you think and imagine that makes for a very scary movie.

The creators of the new Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, which is by the way, produced by Guillermo del Toro, has taken liberty in changing a few things. First-time director Troy Nixey, who is also a protégé of del Toro, had aimed to make it scarier, and opting to have a child in the shoes of the character played by Darby in the original. This may make parents who watch more terrified at the thought of their own child being watched and picked to be corrupted and changed into a creature that lurks in the shadows of a house. It’s a fear rooted in reality in a world filled with evil people who have no qualms about kidnapping abusing children, and that makes the new movie even more terrifying.

Ever wonder why people usually see ghosts while either half asleep or half awake?

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Stephen Hawking supposedly warned that the earth may not fare too well in case aliens come knocking on the door. He said it would be like when Columbus came to the New World. In other words, their arrival may not turn out the way humans would prefer. The movie Skyline capitalizes on this idea and has used and hyped Hawking’s words in the script enough to insert terror in the hearts of people and audiences, letting them know that non-benevolent aliens can indeed visit Earth and cause mayhem. What would you do in such a scenario?

Skyline is science-fiction, but it is more like a horror film in that it makes good use of people’s fear of what could happen in case aliens arrive. In Skyline, people will get sucked into what may be likened to giant vacuum cleaners of spaceships. If the movie Independence Day had giant spaceships that spurted destructive rays that wiped out entire cities, Skyline has giant spaceships that send out light that draws people like moths to a flame, after which they are sucked inside the belly of the ships with what may be wide-area tractor beams.

It’s all fiction of course, but the thought of the entire human race being siphoned off by aliens is chilling enough to give children nightmares. It’s the kind of idea that will give us sweats if we know that it can happen even if the chances are astronomical. But if Steven Hawking, one of the most brilliant minds of this age, says a future encounter with aliens might not be pleasant, then our logical minds may give in a little and accept what can be possible. But don't worry, astronomer Carl Sagan had a different vision of visiting aliens. His aliens were friendly and wanted mutual understanding.


The teaser of Skyline shows cityscapes of Los Angeles being pummeled by alien light meteors and a couple of witnesses awed the onslaught. There are also television news clips where the reporters talk about alien invasions and Hawking’s dire predictions. Near the end, scenes of screaming people getting sucked into giant spaceships are shown. Most of the scenes are obviously rendered with computers and feel like they were plucked out of a 3D video game like The SIMS, but the newscasters are definitely real people. The images are great and look real. It just goes to show how technology is now so advanced that you can make realistic big scenes from the small screen of the computer.

The survivors, or our band of people leftover from the “Great Sucking,” do what they can to make sense of what’s happening around them and fight for their lives. Skyline is directed by the Strause brothers, Colin and Greg Strause—special effects (sfx) veterans who were already into film making as teenagers. The screenplay is by Joshua Cordes and Liam O'Donnell.

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Have you ever watched those 1960s Marvel cel cartoons on television? Yeah, it’s the ones where the characters hardly move at all and just slide in the frame most of the time. If there’s any movement, it would just be the mouth, or an arm or two, moving. It appears crude, but there’s genius behind it. It’s actually Marvel translating the comic book experience for viewing on television. Fifty years later, Marvel is at it again using the latest in computer animation technology and software. It’s called Marvel Motion Comics and it gives you Marvel comics in animation—just like the good old days of cartoon!

Marvel Motion Comics feature full comic book stories of your favorite Marvel superheroes like Iron Man and Spider-Woman. They have the look and feel of comic books panels and have a painted appearance, like it’s been rendered on paper. And just like those old cartoons of Marvel from the 1960s, the movements are limited—like you’re presenting a story board in motion. But it’s not at all bad because the story still comes through in a dramatic way and doesn’t lose a beat. It's like you're in a dream or how you would imagine things happening when you read a comic book.

Each story has its own soundtrack and character voices with sound effects that are awesome enough to impress even the jaded movie fan. Marvel has emphasized the stylized art of the comic books in these animations. If you pause the video, it would seem like you are looking at a frame of a comic book drawn by your favorite artist, like Adi Granov and John Cassaday, sans the talk and narration balloons. Watching these Marvel Motion Comics is the new way to experience comics without having to read anything. You simply watch and listen.

Marvel Motion Comics trailers and descriptions may be viewed in the Marvel website Really Long Link The trailers, such as the one for Iron Man: Extremis, are viewable for free, but in order to watch the episodes, you will have to make a purchase for each one. These are downloadable and viewable on iTunes and Zune. They are also available on Xbox Live and the PlayStation network.

These Marvel Motion Comics cartoons serve to promote Marvel movies like The Avengers, and are perfect for the Marvel collector and may become valuable pieces of animation history, just like the Marvel cartoons from the 1960s. Other titles available (with more to come) are Spider-Woman and Astonishing X-Men (left picture; production). They may not be feature length movies, but they’re still good old-fashioned-style entertainment that complement the related productions that are shown in theaters! If you're a real fan of Marvel and comic book art, you would want to own them.

The following are stills from some of the classic Marvel cartoons many fans have watched as kids.


The images here are from Marvel..

i-Doser will take you into dreamy landscape trips of your imagination. Hear the binaural sounds of i-Doser here!

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There’s a movie that captures everything that suckers for anime and Heavy Metal would want in a 3D semi computer-generated movie. The title of the movie is Sucker Punch and it’s written and directed by Zack Snyder with screenwriter Steve Shibuya.Snyder debuted in directing with the remake of Dawn of the Dead in 2004. But he's now well known for his masterpiece blockbuster 300. You will see much of the hard-hitting action from 300 in Sucker Punch. Only this time, it's babes doing all the damage! With the imaginary sequences in the movie, it will be a thrill to watch, like a grand demo film of computer special effects!

In Drive Angry, Nicolas Cage comes out as a very angry man after bad guys killed his daughter and took her baby. Now he’s going to go after the people who did this to him and he’ll make sure they pay dearly with their life. So it’s a revenge film and our antihero is going to do his dirty deeds with the help of a vintage car. Actually, two cars are featured in this 3D film, a 1969 Dodge Charger and a 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle.

Here’s a movie with a story that moves around about a bunch of young guys (there’s four of them) making fun of one of their friends who’s out to lose his virginity. The Virginity Hit is marketed just like other teen "virginity" films, but it’s unlike others of the topic because it plays out like a reality show, and this is emphasized by the gang’s use of a video camera to document their adventures—at the expense of their poor bespectacled friend. But don't be fooled by the marketing, there's really more to the movie and what it's really all about.

Vampires are getting younger and younger in movies. In the Twilight series, they are teens, but in this movie called Let Me In, the primary vampire is a kid, and a girl at that. Like in the first Twilight, the girl vampire enters the life of a neighbor kid who’s the target of bullies in school. With a “vampirelet” on the boy’s side, the bullies get what’s coming and end up dead.

The Green Hornet, created by George W. Trendle, has been around since the 1930s, first as a radio show, then as a series of movies and television shows in the 1940s and 1960s, respectively. It’s a classic from the early days of superheroes, so you would expect the 21st century movie version to be made with definite haste. But that did not happen. Talks of a new Green Hornet movie were going on as early as the 1990s, but for reasons that followed one after the other, production was shelved. But, finally, after pre-production delays and casting changes, the film was finally made for release as early as December 2010 (or January, 2011).

What would a couple with grand ambitions do in order to make lots of money? Open a laundry service? Sell shoes? They could, but for a couple in the nineteen seventies in Nevada, it’s opening the first legal brothel in the state. What’s it like for them to go into this business, you might ask. The movie Love Ranch answers that question.

“There was a time when dragons and humans were one.” This statement is from the trailer of Tales from Earthsea, an anime film from Ghibli Films and Goro Miyazaki. From this statement alone, you can deduce that in the movie, dragons and humans are no longer together and there’s a brooding conflict about this where our lead character is immersed. In the classic Oriental world portrayed in the movie, the dragons and people live separately in different realms. But something isn’t right. People are beginning to see dragons when they’re not supposed to. Is the wall between the two worlds now broken?