Summer 2008 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The arrival of snow in the mountains in my neck of the woods means that summer really is on the way out. It seems like it was only yesterday that we were discussing what would be the hits and misses of the season. Now the talk is going to turn to Oscar buzz and Halloween horror. Are you freaked by how quickly time has flown by yet?

Anyway, seeing as school is already in session, I've decided to pay homage to my Geek Beat predecessor, Mark Beall, and do a list of things we learned during the summer season. For no good numerical reason, I stopped at 15. From there, it's your turn to share what important lessons you will carry from your time in the multiplex. (And a special thanks goes out to Jarrette and Matt, who bantered back and forth with me in this study session.)

1. You can use a snake as a rope and its fragile skeletal system won't pull apart. They won't even bite you if it does! (Indiana Jones)

2. All it really takes to be Batman? A really strong jaw, and nice lips.

3. When faced with Tony Stark, all your hard-hitting journalism training goes out the window. (Iron Man)

4. You can get a custom Joker suit made and no one will ever connect you or its purchase to the psychopath terrorizing Gotham. (The Dark Knight)

5. Fridges preserve not only food, but life. In the event of a nuclear blast or poisonous air, they will save humans and plants alike. Who knew? Not I. My watercress goes bad after a week. (Wall-E and Indiana Jones)

It is the wee hours of the morning here in the Colorado Rockies -- and when they said the teaser trailer was to debut Friday, they weren't kidding. They wanted you all to wake up to it. How nice of them!

It is up courtesy of Yahoo! Movies (along with a bunch of new photos), so unfortunately we can't embed it. While it looks better than I expected it would, there isn't much to inspire a lot of excitement for me. I thought the one thing this movie would have in its favor was a new location. But despite being located in China, it manages to boast as many desert battles as the previous two installments. Now, I know there are deserts in China, but that isn't exactly the geography the country is most famous for. Wouldn't you take advantage of the beautiful mountains and bamboo forests? Unless, of course, you were banking on using those dissolving sand effects again, already evident on the poster. (They do venture into the Himalayas at some point from the looks of things. Dissolving snow effects?)

Still, it looks like there are some impressive action sequences. Those terracotta soldiers have always given me the creeps, so bonus points for managing to play on one of my archeological fears. And its nice to see Brendan Fraser again -- like Johnny Depp, he must have a portrait of himself aging in an attic somewhere. His movie son looks older than he does.

The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor will be released August 1st. What do you think -- a good way to spend the end of the summer, or are you just going to buy another ticket to Indiana Jones?

(In addition to the trailer, Universal released a slew of new Mummy images. Check those out in the gallery below.)

Isn't it pretty? I'm still alarmed by the squareness of Obi-Wan's beard though, even the Clone Trooper helmets have more softness. The poster has been released to herald the debut of the trailer, which will air May 8th simultaneously on Cartoon Network, TNT, TBS, CNN and Boomerang. It will air at 7:58 in all U.S. time zones. According to the official Star Wars site (where the poster can be purchased and press release can be found), Amidala will be on the front lines alongside Anakin and Obi Wan, and we'll also be introduced to Anakin's Padawan, Ahsoka. Does it surprise anyone else they let him have a Padawan? Way to go, Jedi Academy.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars comes to the big screen on August 15th, with the premiere of Cartoon Network's weekly series debuting sometime after. With all the big summer movies this year, it's really hard to remember this is coming out too. What a geeky year.

We wanted a trailer, not another poster! Oh well. It is the new banner advertisement for The Dark Knight -- and drat the shape, I had to shrink it ridiculously small to fit our width. You can see a full-sized one over here, courtesy of JoBlo.

Batman is just on a path of destruction in the poster art -- flaming buildings, shattered windows. The geek in me is wondering if this poster is actually a prequel to this one -- and that's how he made the flaming bat. I know, I really should get out more.

Sunday will be here before we know it. We'll have something new to talk about other than posters and complaining that we didn't make it to a Joker drop fast enough.