If the epic conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise isn’t the most anticipated movie on your list (after The Avengers, of course), then you have brain damage and I urge you to visit a physician.
Here is the third and final theatrical trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. Though it mostly moves slowly through the beginning and middle, it manages to pack in tons of never-before-scene footage including multiple full body shots of Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman, even more of Tom Hardy’s villainous Bane (you can actually understand him here!), and glimpses of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard’s characters. And how bad-ass is that flying Tumbler? I mean COME ON!
Christian Bale returns as the Caped Crusader once more this July 20. You can catch this trailer on the big screen starting this Friday when it plays in front of Marvel’s The Avengers.
BBC America has whipped up a promo for their series “Planet Earth” starring the cutest 4 to 7 year old kids auditioning for the role of narrator. Who needs regular series narrator David Attenborough when you’ve got this! I can’t figure out what’s more hysterical: the kids trying to pronounce Attenborough’s name or that 6 year old girl trying her darndest to apply headphones to her ears.
Happy Sunday! Here are a couple YouTube channels that caught my eye recently that are worth checking out. First up is “Don’t Be That Guy,” a comedy troupe that makes fun of the way certain people out there act in all kinds of situations. My favorite is the one embedded above called “Don’t Be That Guy at The Gym.” In it the guys nail nearly every kind of person that you might spot at the gym with scary accuracy. Head over to their YouTube channel for more vids like this one.
Shortly after flaunting its record financial results, Apple announced the dates for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC): June 11 through June 15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West. During the conference Apple will host over 100 technical sessions and showcase apps that went above and beyond over the past year. Says Apple’s Phil Schiller: “We have a great WWDC planned this year and can’t wait to share the latest news about iOS and OS X Mountain Lion with developers. The iOS platform has created an entirely new industry with fantastic opportunities for developers across the country and around the world.”
In addition to the developer events, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook will likely lead a keynote that will likely harp on Mountain Lion and iOS, and it may even perhaps set the stage for the next iPhone and iPad. There’s nothing concrete yet, but I highly recommend you stick it here when WWDC rolls around in June; we’re less than two months away! In the meantime, take a good hard look at the key art for the event that hangs above; what could it mean?
On Tuesday Apple reported record March quarter results and they go like this. Apple posted a $11.6 billion profit on $39.2 billion in revenue. Compare this to one year ago, that’s up from a profit of $6.0 billion on $24.7 billion in revenue. Says CEO Tim Cook: “We’re thrilled with sales of over 35 million iPhones and almost 12 million iPads in the March quarter. The new iPad is off to a great start, and across the year you’re going to see a lot more of the kind of innovation that only Apple can deliver.”
Now let’s break it down by product category. Apple sold 4 million Macs during the quarter (representing a 7 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter); 35.1 million iPhones (representing an 88 percent unit growth); an impressive 11.8 million iPads (representing a 151 percent unit growth); and 7.7 million iPods (representing an 15 percent unit decline).
Following this announcement, Apple stock (AAPL) jumped significantly to $610 (a +50 increase), just surpassing Google’s stock that was at $609 that day. Today APPL has cooled down a bit and rests at $603 and Google has taken the lead once more and holds steady at $614.98.
Looking ahead to the third quarter, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer expects revenue of about $34 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $8.68.
This week Google introduced their very own cloud service appropriately titled Google Drive. The search giant says Drive is “a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff.” It’s acts just like competitor Dropbox, but what differentiates it significantly is that it takes advantage of Google’s other services like Google Docs, Search, and Google+. Also incorporated is the ability to search for keywords embedded inside scanned documents. Your free Drive account can be accessed in a browser and apps made specifically for the PC, Mac, and Android (an iOS app is in the works). Google gives users 5GB for free at the start, and you have the option to upgrade storage capacity if you’re willing to pay: 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month, 1TB for $49.99/month. Google notes that if you upgrade to a paid account, your Gmail storage will automatically expand to 25GB, so there’s a cool perk.
Google says that “this is just the beginning for Google Drive,” so you can expect this new service to evolve over the coming months with tighter integration with all that Google has to offer, as well as bug fixes and more streamlined interfaces across devices. Learn more about Drive and see if the gradual rollout has hit you yet right here. Video sits after the break.
There are Nintendo fanboys and there are PlayStation fanboys. (And girls, of course.) Each side in the video game universe has its pros and cons, but there’s one major advantage Team Ninty has been able to hold onto for quite some time: the SuperSmash Bros. series. Since 1999, Nintendo gamers have been able to take control of their favorite characters and duke it out in the middle of classic scenes from various console games. Mario versus Star Fox, Jiggly Puff versus Kid Icarus; Super Smash Bros. made this possible. Now it’s Sony’s turn to let their gamers get in on all the combative fun.
The makers of PlayStation and a developer named SuperBot Entertainment have taken a page out of Nintendo’s playbook to create a Smash Bros. competitor. PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale will bring together popular characters from PS games including Kratos (God of War), Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal), Sly Cooper, Mael Radec (Killzone 2), Fat Princess, and PaRappa the Rapper and pit them against each other on battlegrounds from well-known franchises like Little Big Planet (Dreamscape), God of War (Hades), Jak and Daxter (Sandover Village), Ratchet & Clank (Metropolis), and the trivia game Buzz!. Gameplay is simple; X button is jump, and the others serve as attack buttons. To ensure a win players must collect Action Points and fill up their Super Meter. Each character has three levels of special powers, and more destruction can be achieved based on the level you’re at and good timing.
As we approach E3 this summer, more details will surely leak surrounding this anticipated button-masher. For now, check out the announcement trailer after the break and prepare your new arguments for the Nintendo fanboys.
In January Nintendo revealed that their upcoming new console the Wii U will ship with Near Field Communication (NFC) functionality. “By installing this functionality, it will become possible to create cards and figurines that can electronically read and write data via noncontact NFC and to expand the new play format in the video game world,” said Ninty president Satoru Iwata Iwata. This week a video surfaced on the ‘Net that previews what gamers can expect with NFC paired with the Wii successor. Developer Ubisoft is developing Rayman Legends to take advantage of NFC by giving players the ability to place physical figurines atop the Wii U’s touchscreen controller to instantly teleport the physical object into the game. See how it works in the video embedded above.
After lengthy negotiations, the network (FOX) and the studio (Warner Bros. TV) have come to a decision that will make TV sci-fi junkies around the world explode in excitement: the low-rated but fan-acclaimed Fringe has been granted another season. FOX will air a shortened 13-episode fifth season, and it will mark the series’ last.
FOX president Kevin Reilly–a vocally staunch supporter of Fringe–released this brief statement: “Fringe is a remarkably creative series that has set the bar as one of television’s most imaginative dramas. Bringing it back for a final 13 allows us to provide the climactic conclusion that its passionate and loyal fans deserve. The amazing work the producers, writers and the incredibly talented cast and crew have delivered the last four seasons has literally been out of this world. Although the end is bittersweet, it’s going to be a very exciting final chapter.”
Co-creator and executive producer J.J. Abrams shared his thoughts on the renewal, too: “We are thrilled and beyond grateful that Fox – and our fans – have made the impossible possible: Fringe will continue into a fifth season that will allow the series to conclude in a wild and thrilling way. All of us at Bad Robot are forever indebted to our viewers and the amazingly supportive Fox network for allowing the adventures of Fringe Division to not only continue, but to resolve in a way that perfectly fits the show.”
And so did showrunners J.H. Wyman and Jeff Pinkner: “This pickup means the world (both of them) to us, because we love sharing these stories with our enthusiastic fans. On behalf of the cast and crew, we applaud our fans and Fox for allowing us to imagine the impossibilities together for so long. Season Five is going to be a conclusive thrill ride for all of us.”
Though an additional 13 episodes is significantly shorter than a typical 23 episode order, this deserved extension gives the creative team a larger canvas to paint a proper ending for the show. Instead of getting abruptly cancelled, Fringe will now have a chance to ease fans toward the light at the end of the tunnel. With rather dismal ratings (and the fact that the show “is los[ing] a lot of money” for FOX according to Reilly), Fringe fanatics can’t really ask for anything more than this.
Recently it was reported that Wyman and Pinkner imagined two separate endings for the current season; one would serve as a series finale, and the other a cliffhanger to lead into a now official fifth season. With the latter course being taken, what can we expect in season five? Under a week ago Josh Jackson hinted, “The door to the fifth season is opened in Episode 19. If you watch that, you’ll have an understanding of where they want to take the series.” As you should already know, “Letters of Transit” teleported Fringe Division to the year 2036, a time when The Observers have taken over our world. Will the final season mostly take place in this not-so-distant future? Clues are planted in the clip embedded above… next season we shall “witness Fringe Division’s final stand; and Peter hints that “everything we’ve been through has just been preparation for what we face here, now.” Also, notice that the art for “FRINGE: THE FINAL SEASON” is all blocky and metallic, just like it was in the alternate “future” title sequence in Episode 19.
Watch said Fringe season 5 announcement trailer the network whipped up, get your speculation on, and don’t forget… rejoice!
The next movie from Sony Pictures Animation is Hotel Transylvania, and Adam Sandler is Dracula. Here’s a nice and tidy synopsis:
Welcome to the Hotel Transylvania, Dracula’s lavish five-stake resort, where monsters and their families can live it up, free to be the monsters they are without humans to bother them. On one special weekend, Dracula has invited some of the world’s most famous monsters — Frankenstein and his bride, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, a family of werewolves, and more — to celebrate his daughter Mavis’s 118th birthday. For Drac, catering to all of these legendary monsters is no problem — but his world could come crashing down when one ordinary guy stumbles on the hotel and takes a shine to Mavis.
The talented voice cast includes Sandler, Selena Gomez, Andy Samberg, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, David Koechner, Cee Lo Green, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, and David Spade. Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of popular animated TV series like Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, and most recently Star Wars: The Clone Wars, is directing. Hotel Transylvania hits theatres in 3D on September 28.
