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Tag: robocop

  • RoboCop Gets A Crowdsourced Movie Remake

    RoboCop Gets A Crowdsourced Movie Remake

    Are you disappointed in the new RoboCop movie? Don’t like how they managed to ruin your childhood with a PG-13 rating and a very unfamiliar and overtly “modern” looking Robocop and unfaithful storyline?

    How about something more absurd?

    Our RoboCop Remake  is a crowdsourced remake of the original 1987 version of RoboCop that smushes the work of 60 scenes made by 50 amateur and professional filmmakers. The movie not only has direct shot-by-shot remakes but includes scenes of puppetry, baby actors, hand-drawn and 3D animation, drag, two musical numbers, modern dance, and a ton of re-scripting. Ten actors play the main role as the seemingly bumbling cyborg conflicted with the dealings of his humanity and the dystopian futuristic world around him.

    Despite its extreme absurdity, filmmakers followed a small outline that doesn’t completely derail from the story of the original movie.

    “Filmmakers were told which plot points to make sure they hit,” producer David Seger said.

    The following is a clip from the movie… and I warn you, it might be one of the hardest scenes you will ever watch. For those that would rather read than watch (and I don’t blame you), Robocop encounters a crime in progress: two sketchy hoodlums attempting to rape a curly haired blonde in the middle of the night. The rapists hold the woman hostage, but Robocop uses his advanced targeting technology to shoot through her dress and hit the groin of the perpetrator. It mirrors the original scene in the first RoboCop (1987) movie, but with a twist: two more damsels in distress show up along with a plethora of rapists with their danglers dangling out of their trousers; Robocop goes on a penile blasting shooting spree. It’s extremely graphic and not safe for life (NSFL):

    The movie is free to watch.

    Image via David Buceta

     

  • Samuel L. Jackson is Not Laurence Fishburne

    Samuel L. Jackson is not Laurence Fishburne and he wants to make sure everyone knows it–especially a news reporter who interviewed him and confused him with the Matrix star. The interview was taking place via satellite and was intended to promote Jackson’s role in the upcoming RoboCop remake. Reporter Sam Rubin’s mistake came when he asked the actor about his Super Bowl commercial.

    “What Super Bowl commercial?” he asked, clearly understanding that the reporter had him confused with Fishburne.

    “See, you’re as crazy as the people on Twitter – I’m not Laurence Fishburne!” he added.

    Laurence Fishburne appeared in a Super Bowl commercial for Kia.

    Sam Rubin, of course, was mortified.

    “It’s my fault, I know that, that was my fault, my mistake,” he said following the embarrassing interview.

    “We don’t all look alike. We may be all black and famous but we don’t all look alike,” added Jackson.

    Oh, dear–can you imagine how Rubin felt then? Samuel L. Jackson basically accused him of thinking all black people look just the same.

    Jackson went on to name a number of black actors and the products and services they promote in TV ads. By this point Sam Rubin must have wanted to throw himself on the floor and slither away like a snake.

    The two went on with the interview–very gingerly on Rubin’s behalf–and chatted about RoboCop and the film’s cast which includes Michael Keaton and Gary Oldman. Following the interview Sam Rubin apologized profusely to his viewers as well.

    “I really pride myself on the fact that unlike a lot of people who do this kind of work, more often than not I really do know what I’m talking about,” he said. “But I didn’t 30 minutes ago and I’m really embarrassed about it, and I very much apologize to Samuel L Jackson and anyone else who was offended for what was a very amateur mistake.”

    Do you think Samuel L. Jackson came down a bit hard on Sam Rubin? Couldn’t he have laughed it off and explained the reporter’s mistake in more polite terms? Of course Jackson is known for speaking his mind–loudly and not so politely at times–so it really isn’t all that surprising to hear how he reacted.

    What would you have done following that interview if you were Sam Rubin?

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Samuel L. Jackson Furious At News Anchor’s Mistake

    Samuel L. Jackson has been a Jedi Knight named Mace Windu, he’s been comic book hero and spy Nick Fury, and he’s been…well Samuel L. Jackson. But there is one role that he has not taken on and it’s left one news anchor’s ears ringing and face quite red. KTLA’s Sam Rubin found himself “in the dog house” after an on air interview made it seem he mistook the actor for Laurence Fishbourne.

    It all started Monday morning when the Los Angeles entertainment anchor greeted Jackson excitingly discussing his recent work. Jackson was on hand to do a short interview in promotion of the upcoming “RoboCop”. During the process of gushing Rubin asked about any response to a recent Super Bowl commercial he featured in.

    The response was confused silence and then Jackson asked what commercial he was referring to. Jackson has appeared a commercial for Capital One, but this wasn’t the commercial that Rubin had in mind. Unfortunately for the dumbfounded anchor, Jackson assumed he was referencing the Kia Super Bowl commercial. The ad featured actor Laurence Fishburne reprising his role as the Matrix’s Morpheus, his most known character role to date.

    Jackson then proceeded to let the flustered anchor have it with both barrels.

    “You’re as crazy as the people on Twitter! I am NOT Laurence Fishburne!”

    Jackson felt that there was the possibility that Rubin’s inability to distinguish between himself and Fishbourne was race-related.

    “We don’t all look alike! We may be all black and famous, but we don’t all look alike!”

    To be fair, if the mistaken identity accusation were true, maybe it wasn’t the fact that both actors were black that threw Rubin; it could have been the baldness. Of course, that doesn’t explain why Rubin didn’t ask Jackson about what he was going to do with himself now that “Breaking Bad” is over.

    All joking aside, Sam Rubin actually offered up a somewhat valid explanation for what happened after the verbal lashing was over. As it turns out, Jackson did feature in a major Super Bowl commercial—the latest trailer for the upcoming “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” In fact, it was what Rubin had brought up right before asking about a commercial.

    If this is the case, perhaps Rubin won’t have to live down the occasion to the level that many anticipated.

    Image via iREELintheFILM

  • RoboCop Gets an Honest Trailer (The Original, Not the Unnecessary Remake)

    The only remake that’s more unnecessary than Spike Lee’s completely pointless box-office-bomb rehash of Oldboy is the upcoming remake of Paul Verhoeven’s violent classic RoboCop. Nothing against the new RoboCop’s director José Padilha, but he’s basically opening up a collector’s edition RoboCop DVD (you know, that cool metal one), pooping directly on the disc, closing it back up, and mailing it to Peter Weller.

    Like many great sci-fi films, RoboCop asks us to think about what it means to be human. It just accomplishes this with some of the most extraordinarily over-the-top, blood-soaked violence in cinema history – and that’s part of what makes it so endearing.

    It’s exactly what’s going to be absent from the 2014 remake, which has been given a PG-13 rating. You can’t make a RoboCop movie suitable for young kids. A RoboCop movie that your 11-year-old daughter wants to see is a shitty RoboCop movie. End of argument.

    So, instead of taking your kids to see the most disheartening remake of 2014, have them watch this honest trailer. If they don’t want to watch the 1987 RoboCop after this, well, it’s time to think about adoption.

    Image via YouTube

  • Robocop Statue Looking For A Home In Detroit

    Just in time for the remake’s release, a group of artists are creating an homage to “Robocop” that will stand 10-feet tall, and they want to try and find a home for it in Detroit.

    The city, which is reportedly in dire financial straits and considered selling off works from its Institute of Arts in order to raise money to get out of bankruptcy, doesn’t have a spot for the statue yet. However, the group responsible for the work of art says they want to secure a location this spring for a fall installation.

    Giorgio Gikas of Venus Bronze Works is overseeing the project, which is being funded by a Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $60,000. And if you think building a detailed sculpture of a man-machine out of bronze is easy, think again. The team responsible for creating it says that each section may require several different molds in order to capture details like teeth and the many grooves in Robocop’s armor.

    Check out the video below, which goes into detail about the 7-year long project.

    Image via Vimeo

  • The “RoboCop” (2014) Official Trailer

    The “RoboCop” (2014) Official Trailer

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INmtQXUXez8

    It seems to be a Hollywood trend now-a-days to resurrect and remake 80’s movies. Heck, even Judge Dredd and Total Recall were remade no more than a year ago.

    Now RoboCop is the one that’s going to get the modern-era Hollywood makeover, and will be hitting theaters on February 7, 2014.

    The story follows Alex Murphy, a Detroit police officer who practically dies at the hands of a group of cruel criminals, and is resurrected by the ominous corporation OmniCorp. Originally in the 1987 version he’s killed by a gang lead by Red (Kurtwood Smith) from That 70’s Show. The murder scene back then was so graphic that it had to be cut down and edited in order to avoid a potential X-rating. In the new movie, Murphy is blown up by a car bomb, and lives. The blast leaves him suffering from permanent paralysis from the waist down, and he is given an option to undergo a taboo operation that would make him completely mobile, but turns him into, you guessed it, a cyborg police officer.

    Part of the appeal of RoboCop back then was not seeing a killer cyborg dish out street justice by executing criminals every two seconds, but the fact that he was still a human. The man that was Alex Murphy had a wife and kids, and every now and then we would get to see his emotional traumas materialized in angry expressions as he goes romping around remembering important life moments from his past.

    After the first RoboCop movie in 1987, the world changed forever.

    RoboCop was so cool and popular back then that he got two movie sequels (RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3), seven video games (RoboCop vs. Terminator, anyone?), a cartoon adaptation, multiple comic books, bed-sheets, a TV series, toys, coffee mugs; RoboCop was so marketable that he’s still selling big time almost three decades later – and the movie is testimony to that.

    I mean, did you ever see the Terminator eating fried chicken and lifting refrigerators in Korea?


    (image)

    Or how about that time when he rescued World Wrestling Entertainment star Sting from a cage during a live match?


    (image)

    Hell, RoboCop is so culturally significant that Kick Starter managed to raise the funds to erect a $50,000 statue in Detroit:

    (image) (Credit: AV Club)

    As for the reboot, fans reactions have been mixed after seeing the trailer.

    Here’s hoping that RoboCop never dies, and that the new movie further complements the franchise without Hollywood messing it up.

    (image)

  • “RoboCop” Reboot: Trailer Gets Very Mixed Reviews

    “RoboCop” was a marvel when it came out; for those of us who were kids when it was released, it was the movie we snuck to watch on HBO because it was gory and full of violence and, of course, ED209. A cop who was part tragic human, part robot who rescued ladies in distress and delivered great one-liners? There was never a doubt that it would be awesome.

    The reboot, however, is getting some very mixed reviews. It seems that in Twitter-land, those young’uns who haven’t seen the original yet are excited by the trailer, but lovers of the original range from unsure to downright irate about the new version. Despite a cast that includes such stellar choices as Gary Oldman and Samuel L. Jackson, the choice for Robocop himself–“The Killing” actor Joel Kinnaman–is still up in the air, and the redesign of Robo’s gear is getting some (negative) comparisons to Batman.

    Of course, with any reboot there will be changes, and that is usually a good thing; otherwise, we’d just be watching a frame-by-frame remake of a movie that probably didn’t need to be remade. But one issue some fans have (ahem, me) is that Murphy is taken out by a car bomb rather than the thugs that have been plaguing the police force, which seems a bit impersonal. One great aspect of the original movie is that RoboCop becomes a tragic figure that we can empathize with through flashbacks and memories of his own horrific murder.

    At any rate, here’s what the people of Twitter are saying about it. “RoboCop” hits theaters February 7, 2014.


    Image: YouTube

  • ‘Sons of Anarchy’: Robocop Joins For Sixth Ride

    Sons of Anarchy is one of those television shows you just can’t look away from. Writer, producer, and creator Kurt Sutter was a writer for FX’s hit cop drama The Shield, which effectively cleaned house each year at the Emmy’s, so it was hardly surprising when the retiring of Michael Chiklis’ anti-cop Vic Mackey brought a new series of twisted characters to traverse our televisions in search of fortune and glory. Sons has certainly done that over the years, and while the season five ratings were strong enough in the target demographic, season six is shaping up to knock it out of the park.

    Peter Weller, known for his iconic voice and portrayal of Robocop in the late ’80s, will be joining the fray as a former cop who works at the Stockton port, the Hollywood Reporter says. Already a featured director of several episodes in the series as well as episodes of Monk and Hawaii Five-O, Weller makes the opposite journey of Adam Arkin, who joined the cast as a white supremacist character and eventually became a featured director.

    AMENDED: As to where the plot of the new season might take the enigmatic motorcycle gang, we can expect the story to center around Jax solidifying political control within the club for his presidency, Tara’s experiences after being imprisoned by the police for Gemma’s manipulation, the expected fallback from Bobby’s resignation as vice-president, and possibly a final end to Clay Morrow. The recently released season six promo video seem to hint at an excessively violent season, and Sutter himself has been quoted as saying upcoming episodes will be some of the “most violent” in the history of the show, a bold claim indeed.

    If you’re interested in watching the latest episode of Sons of Anarchy as soon as it airs, season six will premiere on September 10 at 10 P.M. EST on FX.

  • Scarface Actor Who Died Was Also The Anchor In Robocop [Video]

    Mario Machado, a broadcast news reporter, who also played the part of a reporter in Scarface, Robocop, Rocky III, and Brian’s song, died on Saturday at a convalescent facility in West Hills, Los Angeles.

    Machado was an eight-time Emmy award winner, and in 1970, became the first Chinese-American on-air TV news reporter and anchor in LA, an possibly in the U.S.

    He was so good at his job that the movie industry couldn’t get enough of using him as a reporter. He appeared in all three Robocop films as anchor Casey Wong. Here’s a compilation of Robocop news reports:

    Machado was seventy-eight years old. According to a statement from his daughter, he died from complications of pneumonia, and had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

    He was born in Shanghai in 1935, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1956. He became a U.S. citizen in 1965.

    He got is start in the reporting business at local Los Angeles news stations like KCBS and KNXT. He also hosted medical investigation show Medix.

    In addition to his Emmy awards, he won the Howard Blakeslee Award, San Francisco’s Interceptor Award, and was even named honorary mayor of Granada Hills for eight years. He was also named LA Commissioner of Cultural Affairs. In 1983, Mayor Benjamin Norton proclaimed December 4, Mario Machado Day.

  • Scarface Actor Dies; Mario Machado Was 78

    Scarface Actor Dies; Mario Machado Was 78

    Mario Machado, a Los Angeles TV reporter famous for portraying reporters in movies, has died at the age of 78.

    According to a Los Angeles Times report, Machado died at a convalescent facility in the West Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. His daughter stated that he had died from complications of pneumonia, and that he had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

    Machado was born in Shanghai in 1935 and was educated in the U.S. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1956 and became a U.S. citizen in 1965. Machado made an name for himself as a TV reporter for local Los Angeles news stations such as KCBS and KNXT in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. He was one of the first Chinese-American on-air news reporters in the U.S. Machado was also the host of Medix, a medical investigation show for which he recieved Emmy Award nominations.

    Machado also became famous for playing news reporters in movies. He played the role of Casey Wong in the RoboCop movies, the co-host of the fictional call-in news program Mediabreak. Machado also played the role of a reporter in the movies Brian’s Song, Rocky III, and Scarface. He continued his on-screen appearances into the 90s, when he appeared in an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 as an awards host.

  • Taser Aims To Create Robocop With Google Glass

    Taser has been accepted into the Google Glass Explorer program, TheNextWeb reports, which could help it make devices for police officers that build on technology the company is already using.

    Check out this video for Taser’s AXON Flex:

    And this one from TheVerge:

    TheNextWeb spoke with Taser CEO Rick Smith:

    Talking to us earlier this week, Smith suggested that automated vehicle number plate recognition and driving license recognition were obvious quick wins, with face recognition of wanted criminals and missing persons a possibility further down the road. “We see this shifting to more real-time applications over the next decade,” he said, adding that Taser is working towards a future in which police records are gathered in real-time, using technology like voice-to-text conversion to capture statements and other spoken evidence. The company plans to roll such tech into Evidence.com.

    While using a third-party cloud solution may seem like an odd step for police forces to take with such sensitive data, Smith says that it allows the technology to be introduced much more easily, quickly and cheaply than if it had to be integrated on-site with existing IT systems at each force’s HQ. He says that 90-95% of the police forces using AXON Flex opt for using Evidence.com over integrating the cameras with their own systems. Data is protected with two-factor authentication logins (using Google Authenticator, SMS or email) and 256-bit SSL encryption.

    Google has been conjuring up images of Terminator ever since it introduced Glass, but Robocop capabilities are starting to sound a lot more plausible. Of course, they’re still talking about using living people at this point (rather than corpses, as in the movie), so that’s comforting.

    Robocop

    Maybe they should hold off on that Robocop remake a little longer, so it doesn’t seem dated immediately.

  • Robocop Remake: Fans Find Robo’s Suit A Little Too Batman-Like

    New set photos from the Robocop remake have emerged, showing off the titular character’s new suit. Fans have obviously taken to Twitter to share their reactions, and from what I’ve seen, they tend to lean toward the negative, or at least skeptical.

    Many are finding a striking similarity to Batman’s suit from the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight films. That may have been fine for Batman, but I don’t get the impression that everybody’s sold on such a look for their favorite crime fighting cyborg.

    Here’s a sampling of what the Twitterverse has to offer on the subject:

    Not everybody thinks Robocop looks like Batman, however:

  • Hugh Laurie Role: House Actor May Join Robocop Remake

    Hugh Laurie’s latest role may be in Jose Padilha’s upcoming remake of director Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 action-packed satire “Robocop”. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the British actor/comedian and former “House” star is slated to portray the villainous CEO of Omnicorp, the company responsible for bankrolling the robotic police officer’s creation. The role was originally made famous by “St. Elsewhere” alumni Ronny Cox.

    If Laurie joins up, he will accompany a number of high-profile actors that have already signed on to star in the picture. Samuel L. Jackson is already on-board, as is veteran actor Gary Oldman, who is slated to play the scientist who brings the fallen officer back from the dead. Rumors are also swirling that “Sucker Punch” cutie Abbie Cornish is being tapped to play Murphy’s wife, though nothing has been confirmed thus far.

    The coveted role of Alex Murphy, the man who will ultimately become Robocop, belongs to Joel Kinnaman, co-star of the American version of the Danish drama “The Killing”, which is currently in the process of wrapping up its second season.

    This isn’t the only Verhoeven film that’s getting the remake treatment. This August, Len Wiseman’s version of “Total Recall” will hit theaters in America, a motion picture which, oddly enough, also featured Ronny Cox as the villain.

    For those who haven’t seen the original “Robocop”, here’s the setup: Alex Murphy, an officer on the Detroit police force, is brutally murdered by a savage gang of drug dealers at the opening of the film. In an effort to bring a new form of law enforcement to the crime-laden city, Omnicorp uses Murphy’s remains to fashion Robocop, who, as the tagline suggests, is part man, part machine, and all cop. It doesn’t take very long for revenge to ensue.

    The film would later spawn two sequels and an ill-fated television miniseries entitled “Robocop: Prime Directives”, the latter of which featured Page Fletcher in the titular role.